Life In 19x19

Coming back to Go after an absence. Taking it slowly and playing for enjoyment.

Created a new account 'cos I wanted to start afresh with a "casual" account. I've played 3 bots but I still have a question mark by my rank. Thought it was a bit strange because I'm pretty sure the old way was to play bots and get a rank estimate so that real people would have an idea of strength. Has anything changed? Do I need to play a real person in order to change from a question mark to a rank with a question mark?

E.g. change from this: ?
to this: 10k?

Bots are okay, but you need to accumulate enough wins and losses for the algorithm to have confidence.

You need to give the server upper and lower bounds to your strength in rated games, so it can calculate a solid rank. It's usually two wins and two losses in rated games, against solidly ranked players of about the same level (allowing for handicap). Rated games have "R" beside them in the list, and are 19x19---not small boards.

It can be done with bots, but it's better to switch to humans as soon as possible afterwards.