Will all bets on Manifold be public by the end of next week?

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Ṁ4135

resolved May 21

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Context: https://github.com/manifoldmarkets/manifold/pull/170 This is a change we've been considering for quite a while. The biggest reason not to do it, IMO, is that our UI made an implicit promise that your trades would be anonymized when it said "A trader bought..." instead of "Eva bought..." I think this UI was a bad idea, in retrospect, because the bettor identity wasn't truly private -- it's possible to derive their identity through the API or through a web scraper. But it's a really tricky technical problem to keep the identity private; and note that public/pseudonymous cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin/Ethereum are much much more widely used than private ones like Zcash/Monero. But this is the world we live in now, where we need to balance respecting the implied promises in our UI against what functionality would be good for the continued growth of Manifold. I'm leaning towards an opt-out period (basically, starting now) where we do an account deletion/reset for anyone who prefers privacy; and then afterwards, all trades (both historically and moving forward) will have the trader identity attached. But I'm open to other proposals as well, and open to changing my mind! May 10, 1:44pm: FWIW, I'd be looking to submit this change within this week, but I put the market resolution date a bit later in case we find strong reasons not to do so.

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predicted NO

Vote in my poll on whether to make all bets public! https://manifold.markets/SG/poll-do-you-want-all-betting-to-be

Haha will do! Wasn't going to scrape it with a bot, anyways, it's all just me managing the migration (such as it were)

I'd also to either have my previous bets hidden or if not possible have my bet history wiped.

"I'd like to hide all my previous bets"

Gah, @austin "I'd like to hide all my previous bets"

Let's bet on whether this change will increase engagement — I'd bet no. It's like on Linkedin how no one really likes clicking around because people can see that you were looking at them. Bad idea.

The thing is -- even if you can still technically see bets via the API -- that's enough friction in using that it makes a big difference and bets are effectively private to and for most people. I agree with @colorednoise. If the reason Maniford is thinking of making bets public is because they're all technically public via the API (and it'd be hard to change that), I think that's a bad reason. In practice, even a little friction makes a big difference, and people aren't going to like every bet being very public IMO.

On reconsideration, I would also like to either hide bets made before today or clear my betting history. You never know what someone will dig through in twenty years to use to smear you, and there are a lot of carefully-considered betting positions that could be misconstrued by a malicious actor.

So ... how do I opt out? Or ... better still... how do I delete my account?

I'd like to reset all my previous bets, but what will happen to my markets?

It looks like [people @] Manifold doesn't believe in preference falsification or believes it can counter it with money incentives. It outs you when you comment, and it plans to share your positions. I'd like to know what's Manifold expectation for prediction quality when all bets are public vs when they're all private.

I'd like to hide all my previous bets. (Just out of principle, don't think there is anything weird but way too many NBA bets.)

predicted NO

It's not quite clear from discussion so far, but if it's possible to keep my previous bets private WITHOUT resetting my account - I would like to do that as a matter of principle (just to make it extra clear: I DO NOT want my account to be reset).

@vlad I'm somewhat (60%) sure that won't be possible technically - not from an API/Next level, anyways. Maybe the compromise is that in the UI, we filter out client-side any bets made before 06-01? But it's pretty hacky, and again only a client-side fix.

Count me out.

I don't want it. I don't like it. No thank you.

you should show a dismissable "look out, bets are becoming visible" message at the top of every page, not just in https://manifold.markets/myusername/bets

Alright, so I've pushed back my proposed rollout date to 2022-06-01 to give people more time to opt out, and indicated the upcoming change in our UI. This market will resolve to its original question! Wish I could easily spin up a secondary question on "will all bets be public by 2022-06-02" though, keeping all this comment history.

predicted NO

@Austin (I only voted no because I anticipated something like this, I would have voted yes on a market that was a month or two out, at pretty high odds)

One thing that I think should be public is when a market creator has an investment in a market. As an extreme example, which if the creator of this market held a "NO" position? https://manifold.markets/Nu%C3%B1oSempere/this-question-will-resolve-positive-273301020824

predicted YES

Yes - feel free to reach out to me privately at austin@manifold.markets if you'd prefer to state your preferences privately. Once again, you can ask "I'd like to hide all my previous bets" and I'll put in an override on your profile, or you can say "I'd like to reset all my previous bets" and I may implement that for your account. @TANSTAAFL - I don't agree that we need to default to resetting, with an opt-out. I think defaulting to not resetting, with an opt out, is reasonable enough (and in fact what 95+% of the populace would prefer)

predicted NO

@Austin I think @TANSTAAFL 's argument is not that hiding/resetting would be a preferred option for most people, but that it's the option that preserves trust (which makes sense to me)

@vlad Exactly!

predicted YES

@TANSTAAFL I think that's plausible for maximizing trust in privacy, but that trust is not the only variable in this equation. There's also utility of our system (ledger of transactions is useful for people keeping track of their bets), and trust in not wiping data in the future whenever we feel like it.

predicted NO

Probably shouldn't ask users to make a public comment to ask for their bets to be private.

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