Dolphins and whales need not apply.
After hanging around the @minnowsupport project's help channel in the P.A.L. Discord group, as well as the #help channel in steemit.chat, it is clear that many new minnows are unable to use transact on the steem blockchain. This is due to a lack of bandwidth caused by heavy use on the Steem network.
I want to help as much as I can, so, instead of telling every new user to "be patient", I've decided to run a contest for all of you who are currently unable to transact due to their low bandwidth.
The goal of the contest will be to select a few new users who I will delegate Steem Power to in order for them to be able to once again have enough bandwidth to interact on Steem. I would love to delegate to all new users, but I unfortunately do not have that kind of Steem Power.
What is up with the bandwidth?
In order to send transaction on a cryptocurrency - like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero - the user sending the coins has to pay a transaction fee. This ensures that their transaction makes it into the next blog that gets mined. In the example of Bitcoin, this can take literal hours if the set fee is too small.
On the steem blockchain, we do not have transaction fees. This is great since every post, comment, and upvote is basically a transaction. If we had to pay for every single action, we all would quickly go broke. Luckily Steem has what is know as "Dynamic Fractional Reserves" (DFR). DFR is basically a fancy way to say that every user gets a slice of the bandwidth based on their total Steem Power.
This gets measured on a weekly basis to find the user's average bandwidth usage. Every time a user makes a transaction (post, comment, upvote, downvote, sends STEEM or SDB) it gets factored into their own "moving average". In my case, the Steem transactions I make each day get averaged together over a weeks time. If I create more transactions than my average my bandwidth would dry up.
This is where it gets iffy for new users. The version of the STEEM white paper that was published August 2017 states the following:
It is possible for a low-balance account created during a time of low usage to become inaccessible if the network usage picks up.
While this does not tell us about Steem Power's relation in our allotted bandwidth, it does tell us that, when the network picks up, some users may find it impossible to use the STEEM network. This is exactly what we are experiencing with new accounts lately, especially when the United States wakes up and begins using the Steem platform.
The STEEM Blue Paper sheds light on Steem Power's role in the amount of bandwidth a user has:
Bandwidth limits adjust based on network use, so users have a higher bandwidth allowance when the network usage is low. The amount of bandwidth that an account is allowed is directly proportional to the amount of Steem Power a user has, so users can always increase their bandwidth allowance by getting additional Steem Power.
This can be a real deterrent to any new Steemian eager to create on this amazing platform. However, this does help mitigate spam transactions from new accounts created solely for spamming.
There are ideas to combat this issue floating around that we unfortunately do not have the time to get into in this post, but, the idea here is to help new users understand that they are not getting punished.
The best way to make sure we have enough bandwidth in order to create during high usage peaks is to have more Steem Power. This begs the question, though, how can we get more Steem Power if we are unable to transact?
Quite the chicken and the egg problem we have here.
One way would be to find a time when the network is not bogged down so those with low Steem Power can interact.
Unfortunately, when we are used to signing up on centralized platforms and instantly create, comment, and upvote, waiting seems a weak solution. It also already builds on top of the long wait new users have to go through in order to get an account in the first place. But I digress...
The Contest
So I want to help three new Steemians by delegating enough Steem Power to them for a couple weeks or so. This will allow them to build up their own Steem Power so they will no longer need my assistance. I will run this contest every so often in order to give new users the chance to use the Steem platform on their time.
It is a bit of a shame that I need to run this as a contest, but I am not a whale with a crazy amount of Steem Power so I can only do so much. Hopefully, the users I delegate to will be able to earn enough Steem Power in a week or two to where I can run this delegation as close to twice a week as possible.
The Rules:
- If you are able please comment below that you would like to enter. If you are not able to comment (because of bandwidth) please send a private message to
jrswab#3431on Discord orjrswabon steemit.chat. - After twenty four hours, I will look over the candidates who entered and determine who to delegate Steem Power to.
-- I will be choosing users who create good content. It is my goal to improve the overall quality on the Steem network as much as possible, so I will not be delegating to accounts that show little or no effort to create the best work they can. (Yes, this is subjective.) - If selected, the user must agree to my coaching aimed to help them move their blog to the "next level". Not everyone may need this, so if I want to help you improve, I will let you know.
- The selected users must use the 50/50 payout option in order to exchange the earned SBD the following week into STEEM.
- The selected users have to show a willingness to improve both their content, and the Steem ecosystem as a whole.
I wish I could help every new user out, but I am only so "powerful" (that sounds weird). I plan to run this twice a week as long as bandwidth for new users is still an issue, and the first round of users earned Steem Power can support them! This is an experiment for both me and the new minnows so we should expect the rules and time frames to change next round.
All images came from royalty and attribution free sources unless specified.
Join us over at the Creators' Guild Discord group!
We are here to encourage, support and increase the creation of quality content.
Like what you see?! You can vote me as witness!
If you have any questions about the future of Steem or my witness please feel free to message jrswab#3431 on Discord.
Go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Type "jrswab" into the box.
Click "Vote" once.
Refresh & check.
This post has been resteemed from MSP3K courtesy of @jrswab from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).
Bots Information:
Join the P.A.L. Discord | Check out MSPSteem | Listen to MSP-Waves
great work helping people 😊
You are promoting an amazing service that will help a lot of users thanks
That is the goal! <3
Wow its good to know some people are willing to help us here. As for me im not that good in content and willing to be train or improve my skills. So that i can share it also to others like me.
We have a small family also that has lots of talented steemians but are not notice. If you have some time try to check @steemitfamilyph.
God bless you..
@khenbee
Thank you for the kind words <3
Youre always welcome sir. I know more redfish and minnows are waiting for this kind of contest for them to grow and help other steemians too. Great iniative even thought you have high reputation you didnt forget where you begin with. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 I hope more and more like you will share their blessings to others.
I had to work hard to get to this point and I understand the struggle that is out there.
hmm can i join on your contest sir?
Fortunately for you, you have enough Steem Power giving you ample bandwidth so I have to say no. If you know anyone who is unable to us steemit due to having zero bandwidth then they could join.
Yes, this is an annoyance to new users because they don't understand why (i didn't have a clue when i started either). I recently replied to two newbies letting them know. Kind of a bottleneck/annoyance /-:
I have been on steemit.chat and the MSP PAL discord help channels repeating myself over and over lol
Yes yes and yes. I am trying to make quality content through my motivation series and health education posts. I am also conducting my own contest to help out fellow minnows grow as contests have made it easier for me here. I fully support @steemiteducation for their great educational posts, @thealliance as they push me better to make quality content and @air-clinic as I want health care to be made available for all. I want to better support these groups through my steem power as I am trying to gain more influence here.
I really feel your empathy towards minnows. I have such high respect for you for helping others grow. Hope to be someone like you someday. Its really great to be an agent of change for others. I may not get the delegation but I know either way you are helping a lot of people here.
I salute you and your work and I will continue with my contests to make the steemit community better for everyone
I did message you on discord as I didn't want to post links here. Thanks
Hi @jrswab, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Join us on Thursdays for Pimp Your Post Thursday at 11am EST or 7PM EST in the Steemit Ramble Discord or:
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Thank you for this amazing giveaway @jrswab.
I think steemit power delegation is the best way to reward good content.
I create really quality and original content on how newbies can use steemit and steemit tools.
You can check it out on my blog.
I really hope to win to support my immediate steemit community of original bloggers.
Thanks for this amazing post. I feel like I understand bandwidth a whole lot better. I only have one question, does bandwidth recover by itself over time, or can you get completely locked out?
So this is one thing I should have made more clear. Let's say that the steem network has a 100GB bandwidth and 100 users. Those 100 users get a portion of the 100GBs allotted to them based on the amount of SP they all have. If everyone is on at the same time the user with the lowest SP and in turn the lowest bandwidth may find themselves 'locked out'. This especially happens when the account is new and has a zero bandwidth average from the past week.
It's tricky but the short answer is no. Bandwidth will not recover as long as there are a lot of users online. As other users hop off the network more bandwidth is freed and the then 'locked out' users will find that they are able to transact agian.
I hope I answered your question. I am still studying the white paper myself and it's not as easy as it seems.
Hey! This is so amazing... just found my way to your page thanks to @wandrnose7 after losing all my bandwidth in the first day!
You might say I 'Steemed on in there' and got a bit excited with my follows, comments and upvotes without knowing what I was doing!
I'm a travelling poet and spoken word performance artist and am here on Earth to make it a better place.
I'm SOOO Excited to have come across Steemit and have this beautiful platform to be inspired, to share my art and to connect with other like-minded souls - it feels like such a blessing!
Anyway - I digress.
I would love to enter the contest and agree to all the rules - and am especially interested in any coaching you could offer me!
I keep my fingers crossed :)
Thank you so much for this amazing and generous idea @jrswab to help clueless N00Bs like me from total failure! I have a lot of great quality content to bring this site.. I hope I can get a chance to do so!
--> Keep up the amazing work my friend.
With love
Hart Floe
<3
Awesome! She has said good things about your work. I checked out your blog and can tell you work hard. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!
Thank you bro I really appreciate the support! I actually have a millions questions but I don't know where to start haha! I'm sure I'll figure it all out eventually! Do you have any amazing resources or top tips for newbies?
Thanks again for the kind words!
If you are on discord you can message
jrswab#3134and I'll be happy to answer your questions.I was also facing the bandwith problem and contacted @jrswab at discord channel. He helped me out and answered all my questions. So thank you very much for this post and helping me.
You are welcome! Please feel free to ask me anything anytime!
Wow! nice post.. Thanks for giving the news.. I like your post very much.. Keep it up.. Stay blessed be happy.. Thank you..
@banjo
@cleverbot
I don't know. You tell me.
Mine started yesterday, a friend explained to me why my bandwidth had finished and all. I was able to make a post earlier on today, but since then I can barely do a thing. I'm would like to join. Thanks man.
It probably has to do with the US waking up and getting on Steem.
This is great, thanks for helping others! I have ran out of bandwidth myself & it is no fun. #bandwidth #steempower #powerup #future #blockchain
I'll check out you page and let you know if you are chosen. If not do not worry! I will be running this until the bandwidth issues are resolved.
I have only ran out twice. I am sure there are others more deserving! I was not asking to be considered, my apologies.
No problems! Thanks for being honest. I guess you never said you wanted to enter in the first place :D
Would still be great if you checked out my content :D
Sure thing mate! <3
I desperately need more bandwidth, it's a struggle every day...
I will consider this your entry :D
Spot on @jrswab, the rules of engagement are fair enough. And thanks for coming up with this idea. More contests directed towards making Steemit a go-to place for authentic information are needed.
The Steem blockchain changed the blogging game for me after 14 years. The last thing I want is for people to leave due to network growing pains.
I would like to be considered if it is still possible
It is! I have not pick the winners just yet.
Cool. I would like to be entered, as I feel I create quality content and am trying to stay original. I'm considering a post on network fundamentals for those that are interested.
Oh.. And any coaching tips to becoming a better Steemian I'd gladly take. 😀
Feel free to message me on discord anytime!
How much does a person need to not run into the bandwidth problem?
It seems like 100SP is a good number at this time and that is what I plan to delegate to the three winners this week.
Thank you!! Good to know!
I've noticed that my bandwidth gets crazy low in the mornings and takes most of the day to come back up.
I only upvote 10 quality post a day to help the community and I believe you are doing a great service with your endeavor so I now start following you too. Thank you, you've enlighten me about bandwidth with this fabulous post.
I'll check out your blog now :D
Yesterday I was really upset when I discovered I exceeded my bandwidth. I spent the whole morning trying to figure it out. I am brand new here, and I thought I was being punished somehow. I was able to post again last night but then I had the same problem this morning. I helped sign up 5 friends this week and I am going to explain the bandwidth issue to them so they don’t have a heart attack like I did 😂
Yeah it can be a bit scary. I'll check out your blog and consider this you entry into the contest.
I'd like to enter as well. I'm brand new, 2 days in, and one of the #Unfuckers.
I've tried to migrate over intelligents posts from farcebook, but I'm the perpetual student so would love to learn more about how to create meaningful, useful, and practical content specifically for STEEMIT users.
This little Minnow says THANKS
~A
Edit: Also voted you for Witness :)
Thanks for the resteem, entry, and witness vote! It's great to know I am able to make a difference one minnow at a time :D
This is a generous offer for minnows. I will refer anyone struggling over to apply.
Thank you!
Welcome <3
A wonderful initiative indeed! :)
Thanks rev <3
As soon as US wakes up the bandwidth issues become real. I was going through this bandwidth issue a lot myself. I was getting only 55kb and 75kb. Recently i got steem power delegated to me from a kind person. This solved my bandwidth problem. Now i am able to use Steemit during active Hours. He gave me this steem delegation because of my participation in his contest. I did good and he chose to reward me.
I am truly thankful to him for delegating me steempower and to you for helping the other new comers.
I wish best of luck to who ever is participating.
I just came here to thank you helping minnows.
Oh man!! this is an amazing initiative. Granted that my steemit blog is less than 2 weeks old, I still think I would be a good candidate for this delegation.
Not only am I dedicated to creating daily high-quality posts but also to commenting meaningfully to other users! Of course, that is quite difficult when you have limited bandwidth, and I have to limit my comments. In that sense, I am unable to respond to all those who reply to me, as well as being unable to comment/upvote content which I like. Thank you for doing this, and I am sure whoever you will choose will be (and probably already is) a great addition to the steem community!
I see you ;)
what a huge heart you've put in this to help minnows like us, not just for the contest you're planning but also heads up you given on the bandwidth, SBD and Steem. it's been very informative and for the contest i'm fuuly ready. i just hope to do my best to get selected. thank you
Thanks for reading! I'll be checking out you blog and will let you know!
During my time at Steemit I have learned a lot and this has changed the way I see things, everything comes at the time no matter the time or the place everything depends on the opportunities that may arise and the ability we have to take advantage of them 100% .
We can build a tower of ideas and turn them into reality, if we focus on what we want it sounds like something that only happens in movies but the truth is that in Steemit dreams can come true, with motivation and vision to the future to achieve what we want.
Within Steemit there are endless projects that have great ideas, others that are in full growth as well as some projects with more humanitarian purposes that really leave the name of steemit at the top of the world filling the entire community with pride . These projects generate enough energy in this platform to continue working on innovative projects. This brings a great responsibility, since our most loyal followers are waiting for good content and ideas that can help us grow as a group and we can share this knowledge with the other users that make up the Steemit family. @jrswab
Hi, this is truly a great service you're doing to support and give back to the community. The bandwidth thing just happened to me yesterday and it sucks. Anyway I hope you find the few posts I've made to be of quality. Thanks!
Thank for the kind words <3
This sounds like a great new way to help out new minnows! Kudos and a big thumbs up. I'm ready to take my Steemit blog to the next level.
Great to hear!
Ive been hearing from my friends that they could not interact anymore becuse of the issues on bandwith. I am as well is experiencing the same thing because I often interact with people. I will surely share this to them instead of joining in this competition.
Thank you for coming such an idea. This would help a number of newbies.
Thanks for reading and commenting <3
First of all i am really appreciate they way you're contributing at your end to make this community a place of love and harmony as a whole just like the @ned had a vision about this. Actually this community is always a WIN-WIN platform and everyone gets triumph in anyways. I am always a huge fan of great researched based articles to increase my knowledge because i am a Teacher by profession so it is really lovable thing for me to learn new things. It's been almost 35 days i joined this awesome platform that actually changed my life as a whole. For this i followed many Whales and Dolphins so that i might learn it deeply, after doing consecutive comments Band Width Issue occurred with me which actually stopped this amazing journey for a while. But i am so passionate about it and i never felt down :)
I am really impressed by this amazing effort you're putting @jrswab to help minnows like us those have potential to contribute at their own ends in the form of wonderful content.
I am really looking forward to hear from you The Great Soul <3
Stay Blessed!
Just looked at your account. You make good income on your posts! All you need to do is save up you SBD this week and sell it on the internal market for STEEM, then power up that steem and you will be good to go!
Thank you so much for the advise @jrswab actually i have a few more months to just make my financial condition improved which is bad due to some debts. But i am very much confident that everything is gonna change soon in a very positive way My Friend ;)
So this was the contest, this is something that Steemit really needs, I'll bow out because I don't run out of Steem but the work you're doing is commendable.
Very honorable of you and yes this is the contest I was hyping lol
Thanks for the bandwidth explanation. I ran out yesterday and was doing to figure out what I did wrong!
You did nothing wrong. Steem on my friend!
You are very wise in action and with great care, with your concern I think you are very wise, thanks from us for the acquisition of witnesses for you.
Well Its so kind of you that you are helping the newbies so that can perform on this platform easily and get more peoples to join this platform :)
Yet, I'm posting my blog on this contest :)
I have run out of bandwidth frequently the last few days, so I would love to join in your contest ... Thanks for doing this. Great to see the support for minnows.
We salute you for what you are doing as we are getting more and more sign ups and just yesterday it was reported we 20K new sign ups!
Although we will have to address this because it will be really hard for redfish/planktons to grow if they can't even post or comment.
I hope that you can take a look at some of the members of our Ohana @steemitfamilyph
We have a lot of great authors there and two of who I can recommend are @valerie15 and @hundredlbsbeauty who post great articles but is limited due to the bandwidth issues.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you for the recommendations!
Excellent initiative @jrswab and a very generous way to give back to the community. I was tempted to make an entry for your contest, but seeing other entries here who need that delegation more than I do, I'll just keep my comment as an expression of appreciation for your work.
That is very kind of you but if you get stuck out of the steem network than you have nothing to loose with entering.
Thank you very much. I do need the coaching and mentorship you'll provide for the people you choose to take my blog to the next level. So, please consider this my entry. :)
Although I didn't run into this bandwidth issue (yet?), I am super interested to participate and get a chance of getting some coaching from you. (Can't blame a girl for trying ;))
If you would like coaching anyway please feel free to join the Steem Creators' Guild! We are here to encourage, support and increase the creation of quality content for all Steemians. I am the blogging coach and founder but we have coaches for other genres as well!
Although I have spent 60 days on steemit but I would like to enter because I still face this bandwidth problem some time. I am creating good content So I would like to use this steem for promoting my own and others work.
It's all about the amount of Steem Power a user has so don't feel bad!
Sign me up!!!
hahaha that is epic!
Just posted your link on my page so you can help more people.. thanks for your ability to make a difference in a minnows life! lol
I just joined Steemit yesterday so I don't have much content. But I will for sure start posting if I win.
@Edwardian I will like to enter
gotcha! <3
Terima kasih informasinya, dan saya akan mengikutinya,
Sama sama! Berharap untuk memiliki kemampuan untuk mengajar lebih seiring berjalannya waktu.
I ran out of bandwith and wish to join but I don't understand #4.
When you create a post there is the option to power up 100% or split the earnings into steem power and sbd.
I was replying to this comment when I lost bandwith again. Thank you for the clarification!
Excellent initiative. Its hard to convince new people to try the platform when the platform doesnt work for new users. We need things like this to help keep the quality up. Upvoted, resteemed, and i gave you one of my witness votes. Have a great day and keep up the good work!
Thank you so much! I am always free on Discord to chat when needed.
There are a few people in the steemit.chat help channel saying this all planned but I don't see that being the case. Steem has a lot of new users and with free transactions there has to be bandwidth limits.
Great attitude!
Thanks Del <3
Some strange coincidence!
tons of Hope & I have lack of Knowledges
I'm In :-|
I want to join
gotcha!