Background

Public leagues are weekly-generated sets of users ranked against each other based on similar activity. They’re a type of leaderboard that instead of being sitewide, groups random subsets of users. In duologino they have 10 gem leagues: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Amethyst, Pearl, Obsidian, Diamond. So per cohort (set of all leagues) you have 30 x number of leagues, in this case 300 users. Each week users are shuffled into a new league with another 30 users based on their performance that week. If they’re at the top of their league, they proceed to the next level league. If you’re at the bottom of your league, you may get demoted to the league below.

Advantages over global leaderboards

Duolingo uses them, so they’re likely effective.

1. Global leaderboards can be intimidating for beginners that may feel discouraged by the high scores of more experienced users. Public leagues, on the other hand, group users based on their activity, so users are competing with others who are at a similar level to them.
2. Public leagues are updated on a weekly basis, which keeps the competition fresh and exciting. Users have a chance to improve their ranking each week and can see their progress over time. Global leaderboards, on the other hand, can become stagnant and unchanging over time.
3. Public leagues allow users to compete against a smaller pool of users than they would on a global leaderboard. This provides a greater sense of community and encourages users to interact with each other.
4. You could show fun little gems next to peoples’ names to show what league they’re in, which 1. gives you an idea of how much to take them seriously, and 2. if they’re in your league it might foster community

[J] Leagues should first be based on portfolio value! https://manifold.markets/MartinRandall/manifold-will-have-leaderboard-leag

Splitting people by portfolio size is very natural. We might want to add a factor for recent activity so that inactive accounts get in leagues with other inactive accounts. Then we can rank users within a league by profit each week, and you'll have a real idea of whether your performance is good or bad.

With enough profit, then of course you will move up to a higher-level league with a larger portfolio value.

• We could create 10 different ranges of portfolio value, e.g.
  • Bronze: < 1100
  • Silver: 1100 to 2000
  • Gold: 2000 to 5000
  • …
  • Diamond: 1M+
• Then users would be split into groups of 30 with a weekly rank based on absolute profit
• Home page showcases your Portfolio value instead of balance. Shows League name underneath.

Why portfolio value?

• It’s your net-worth. A measure of your absolute influence
• It’s friendlier than profit
  • You can accumulate portfolio value by betting every day to collect streak bonuses
  • It doesn’t go negative (99%+ of the time)
  • Usually is a more steady march up for long time users
• Encourages buying Mana 👀