Case study: I do API trades only on unranked markets. All my ranked activity happens through UI bets. I don't want to split since I like my bot working with my full balance.

I don't think I should be marked as a bot user, since this doesn't impact leagues.

Also, please give a toggle to hide API bets (and unmatched limit orders?) from the trades view and a toggle to hide API comments. Just give us the choice to see what we wanna see.

@Yuna ^^^^^ this is the one the people actually want

@Gen As the reigning Manifest 2025 Bot Award holder (I think - self-shoulder-tap), I'm very much in favor of doing away with the bot tag, and simply give each account an entry in both human and bot leagues (silent/dormant in bot leagues since lots/most will never place an API bet). API bets count towards bot league(s), manual bets to human leauges.

I pitched this a ~year ago on Discord and on Monday to @SG, and it sounded like this would be fairly low effort to implement.

@Yuna Probably needs some caveats, for example: If someone generates positive profit via UI bets and a negative profit via API bets on the same market, we probably shouldn't reward the positive side for the full amount.

@Eliza Good point. Maybe they could just cancel each other out.

Having rewards in silicon is pretty good incentive to mark accounts as bots. What’s exactly the problem with having some api trades in regular league?

@Mochi I get that fully automated stuff like dagonet strategies should move to bot league only, but copying odds from other platform strategies take tons of human decisions and require constant human monitoring. Also it’s probably the most common human strategy already!

@Mochi

No one copies from other platforms. I put up favourable limit orders to people that copy and no bites.

• Users who create new accounts and do not verify now receive M50 by default

Good to hear this suggestion was taken onboard :)

• automatic assignment of bot status after some trigger (e.g., a certain amount of API trades)
  

this seems fine but not sure on the need

adding rewards to silicon league

nice

• should we assign bot status to anyone who combines bot trades with their normal trading, until they separate all automated trades onto a bot account?

The main marginal case for me would be API based tooling for normal traders. Someone who uses a tool to e.g. "sell off my position over the next month at the best available price" via API is not best considered a bot IMO.

1. I'm assuming this is largely prompted by users being annoyed at many low-signal bot comments or unfilled limit orders in the trades tab. I'm fine with the status quo, I've not been bothered by too many markets or comments or trades yet.

   1. My first suggestion would be to give the users more ability to filter out the things they don't want to see, e.g. a toggle for "hide bot comments" and similar filters for the trades tab.

   2. If you do decide to impose fees/penalties on bot comments I think it's important to note the difference between a new top-level comment and a reply to a thread they're already involved in. I would be more supportive of rate limits on top-level comments than replies (but broadly against either).

   3. Bot-run markets gets a little trickier, but I think in the same way people learn not to bet on markets made by obviously-inexperienced users they will also learn not to bet on bot markets if there are red flags.

2. Steps to make it easier for bots without degrading the human experience:

   1. I am highly in favor of rewards in Silicon league, this seems like a no-brainer to encourage more intelligent bot behavior. Then you also have a potential punishment for poorly-behaving bots: remove them from leagues.

   2. Allow email+password signup, or some form that's not tied to an Apple/Google account, to allow people to more easily make bots. This should be even simpler now that there is an "unverified" state.

   3. Implement a slow auction (even just at one second intervals) to prevent simple HFT bots from eating profit from ones with slightly worse infrastructure.

   4. If you felt so inclined you could have a requirement to link a real human user to each bot to reach out to if they go off the rails.

3. Response to discussion

   1. Now that it is easy to mark yourself a bot (or be marked by a mod) I do not think automatically marking someone as a bot based on API trades is warranted. The only version I can think of that I would agree with is a large number of API trades and zero manual/UI trades.

   2. I think the bot tag should be reserved for accounts exclusively acting autonomously. If you want more granularity than that maybe add a "LLM" tag for openclaw-style bots. I don't think human users who use scripts should be disqualified from e.g. leagues (and have their comments hidden, if that goes through).

   3. If the concern is that people who run automated trading strategies on their account are doing too good at leagues, and bot writing isn't the same skill as raw prediction skill, I would rebut that leagues already encompass many things. Market creation skill, news trading skill, raw prediction skill, market making skill, and now bot writing skill are all part of the reward mechanism.

   4. I am not in favor of silencing API comments, partially because there are some extremely useful bots commenting via the API (like FairlyRandom) but also because I am genuinely interested in how LLM bots reason and interpret the markets. At the very least there should be a toggle, and if the toggle is currently hiding any comments it should tell you how many, and it should remember its state so I don't have to turn it on for every market.

@wasabipesto I totally agree with adding punishment for poorly performing bots. To make leagues more interesting for bots, there can be league demotion in Silicon league. So if a bot performs badly, then it is demoted out of leagues and would have to perform good in the next month to come back. (at least 1,000 mana positive profit or 10% of its last profitable league season, whichever is higher.)

@wasabipesto I was going to make a high effort post like this but yours is so good I have nothing else to say (at this moment). Thank you.

@Gen I think the third suggestion can be combined into the sixth one. Anyone who bought trades on their account can have the bought trades in silicon and the normal trades in regular leagues. That way, users can participate in both leagues at once. Also, silicon league should have more than just rewards. It should feel more competitive. Maybe bot owners should have notifications on their bot's leak progress and potentially more information on how their bot is doing.

@100Anonymous Why should the Silicon league feel more competitive? Explain it to me like I’m an intelligent eight year old.

@JohnSmithb9be Silicon league right now has only 19 bots, and so it's not that hard to win. And bot owners are not involved in Silicon League, as there is nothing rewarding or of meaning to win. So if we made the Silicon League more competitive, bot owners would actually be interested to test out new strategies and improve bots, and the Silicon League wouldn't feel like a punishment for being classified as a bot.

@100Anonymous ah, that does make sense. Initially I thought you meant “more competitive than a standard league”.