By rewarding users to perform actions you end up with dishonest actions being performed just to earn the reward
I agree that this happens very frequently. I think they key is to align the actual easiest/best way to perform the desired behavior with the reward. That is to say, make it inefficient to cheat because doing it the right way is also doing it the best way.
In a way (if i understand correctly, which i probably don't) this is how bitcoin security works. Using your computer power honestly (mining) is more efficient than using it dishonestly (to crack private keys.)
In the case of steemit, the most efficient way to get curation rewards should be to find good content (its a debatable point whether 'good' is the same thing as 'other people will like it' but for the purposes of this reply, assume it is..) i would argue that it is not. RIght now, the besst way to get curation rewards it to front run a whale (or be one)
check my most recent blog post for my ideas on the subject of how to change things so that the best way to get curation rewards is gasp to curate.
Totally. I just don't know how it can be done, and I'm not sure if tweaking the distribution is going to "fix" it. It will most definitely improve the distribution problem, but the fact still remains that people are going to be casting votes simply because they earn a reward for it. The system encourages you to vote ~40 times a day to maximize your reward, without you caring what content it is you're actually voting on.
We don't have a system of discovery that's based on the wisdom of the crowd right now - we have a system that's based on the wisdom of profit.
Changing distribution method to
n
and removing curation game things will reduce bot activities as well. But yes I also agree that even though the distribution is fixed, giving financial incentive to "just upvote" will encourage bot running with simpler algorithm.Yep, exactly. I agree that the voting weight proposal (n^2 to n log(n) or something along those lines) is a good idea and solves another aspect of the problem. Curation is creating its own set of problems though, which a change to the voting weight is not going to solve. You very eloquently articulated the main issue that curation rewards created.
It is, by definition in a social system like this. The only way to measure whether "good" content is being rewarded is whether more people (stake-weighted in this case ) like it. There is no "right" opinion on what is actually good (other than mine of course).