It will vastly trim down features. There will be no in-app market creation. There will be a single toggle at the top right of the screen that switches between sweeps and play, showing only questions that have a sweeps-counterpart. The current app/site will be Manifold Pro and the new app will be the new default Manifold app, so features that you love currently shouldn't go away.
@SG thinks this is the ticket to onboarding more users. Will his plan work?
This market will resolve 6 months after the new app is made available on the app store.
N/A if we don't create it, but I think it is >85% likely we do create it.
1,000
1.00@ian Will this resolve on September 1st? Will you wait for 6 months if the app hits the store in August? What if in August you decide you'll start with the new app "sometime in 2027"? As loans aren't back (yet?), I'm trying to find out how long Mana will be locked up here.
@Primer it’ll resolve 6 months after the app lands, which I estimate will arrive on the store in January. So I was estimating 6 months from then with wiggle room. I’ll set it ambitiously to July
@FranklinBaldo This actually used to be a feature a while ago, as far as I remember! Didn't stick apperantly
@FranklinBaldo May not have worked for nerds, but could be good for the Skibidi-filled minds of mass-market users.
I feel like I deserve a bounty for the normies UI idea 😂 jk but I'm not sure about the toggle though, keep in minds normies will 100% open a ticket every time they mess up and select the wrong market because of the switch, some platforms do the live/paper selection on the login screen (not saying which is the correct way, just mentioning you need to keep this in mind, also you'll need a proper ticket/support system)
@WilliamGunn This is a legal non-starter. Legally, sweepstakes are a promotional offering on top of our play money product.
Other sweepstakes apps have made the toggle work successfully, e.g. Fliff.
@SG Ok, but it's not like you're making the whole product sweeps-only, just an alternative view of the product. I trust you have good legal advice on all this and I wish you good luck!
Yeah, that’ll probably do it.
The sweeps-only element is key. That filters out the meme-y, in-group questions and only pushes the genuine/accessible stuff.
That said, I think a simplified version of asking your own question could be fun, and it’s fairly integral to the Manifold identity. The resolution aspect is burdensome though, so could account for that with a supermajority community vote mechanism, and mod overruling. Maybe present them in a third tab ‘community’?
I think the interface is fine (though I use browser). The main blockers to accessibility I would say are documentation and general platform stability. A lot of info is not explained anywhere (or exclusive to discord/mailing lists), and the site still has a lot of quirks. Too much hassle for an average user.
@ian Lots of different ideas here, so nothing's set in stone yet but it captures the general direction: https://www.figma.com/design/i9G6lWBLZE9Q7rKDdNFSCh/Manifold-For-The-Masses?node-id=79-2119
It won't replace the existing site or any existing functionality. (This is one of the major things that annoyed users about Swipe.)
It won't have swiping — probably.
It will be built using native mobile components (instead of a wrapped web browser) so the experience will be more polished and less janky.
It's more than just a feature — it's a reimagined experience built with mass-market audiences in mind.
Also worth bearing in mind that of all the products we deprecated, Swipe was one of the most successful, and had a high watermark of 400+ DAUs and a small but vocal fanbase.
@ian this is interesting. FWIW, seeing the mock-up makes me more sympathetic to your take that Manifold probably doesn't yet have "the right type of markets" (vs @SG "just need to surface them", IIUC).
for an app like what's shown in that figma, i think that consistency/repeatability is key. manifold covers most sports, in some sense. but every market is a bit different. that's how UGC works, and it's fine if people are willing to browse a bit (there are very real upsides to that approach). but for an app like this, i think it's important to pick some niches where users know exactly what to expect, and it's always there for them. e.g. every NFL sunday, they login and see the exact same set of markets covering each game. manifold has tons of NFL markets, but they're all a bit different/unique—i just can't picture this sort of diversity being what drives a mass market app.
@Ziddletwix My view is more that content follows form. When you have the right design, it's obvious what content you need, as is the case here.
The design of the current site is a result of asking the question of how to organize user-created markets on all possible topics. The design of the new app is a result of asking how to show content tailored to mass-market audiences that are more interested in cash prizes than play money.
@SG I think you would have to take a much more aggressive approach with curating markets and building dashboards like you had for the election for this to have any chance of succeeding. Just letting markets algorithmically rise to the top won't make a more accessible app succeed quick enough. I.e. Don't be afraid to basically make complete duplicates of existing markets by random users that are more organized, polished, and consistent and can be arranged in such a way that basically makes the app experience like that of a sportsbook, which is unfortunately in my view the only way prediction market products can survive in the current market.
@ian Why all this complex math though? Percentages is not something a regular person has any grasp of.
Wouldn't it be simpler to show the odds as a decimal?
@skibidist I don't understand this, how are decimal odds simpler then percentages? This is a genuine question, I have been stumped by this for quite a while.
@ScipioFabius Looking at the decimals, you see you win $2.03 by betting $1. Looking at the Manifold screenshot, you win... different amount depending on whether you bet yes or no (I would get rid of the 'no' option), and you need to understand the advanced mathematical notation % and decimal fractions to even begin to calculate. Few people can do it.
You are probably thinking that the percentage notation gives a simple scalar indicator of probability. Probability as a concept is beyond most people's grasp, let alone at an intuitive level that would make these figures useful. Traditional betting sites do not show them.
This thread is interesting:
Multiple feedback forms stating things like “the percentages were hard to understand, could you make it say x in x chance instead?”
I don’t think 1/10 is more clear than 10%. In my experience the part about percentages/ratios that are confusing to players is the concept of.
Looking at the decimals, you see you win $2.03 by betting $1
Clear and concise, thank you. Looking at it like this, I understand what you mean, I guess the reason this seems bad for me is from the point of EV - you can't intuitively tell if you think the bet is + or - EV looking at the decimal, or at least I can't, but if a person doesn't have an intuitive grasp for probability, they definitely won't have one of EV either. I'm just a little sad that this feels like a slight slide from Manifolds roots to just mindless gambling, but eh.
Probability as a concept is beyond most people's grasp, let alone at an intuitive level that would make these figures useful.
This still is baffling to me. Reading the thread, I guess I agree with the people who say this is an American thing? And seeing how Manifold Sweepstakes is US first and foremost, it would be correct to do the decimal notation, from a business perspective.
I'm just a little sad that this feels like a slight slide from Manifolds roots to just mindless gambling, but eh.
@ScipioFabius It sure does .. I can't even conceive a mass-market betting platform that is nice (prove me wrong, Manifold)
I guess I agree with the people who say this is an American thing?
I am not even American (yet!) .. my view on this comes from my experience designing enterprise software and explaining things in an academic setting. People often say that I make really clear interfaces and that I explain things well. I believe that's because I have a good idea of how other people think (as opposed to how they feel). And when I think of how most people think, it's grim.