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RE: Steem Witness Forum: @jesta, @good-karma, @roelandp, @aggroed, @anyx, @ausbitbank, @lukestokes, @someguy123, @followbtcnews

in #steem7 years ago

It is great that you have all these high level witnesses coming together, when great minds collaborate a lot can happen. With that being said, there is a lot that needs to happen in order to secure the long term sustainability of the platform.

One thing I really want to see addressed is the reward pool abuse issue. There are lots of users who currently take advantage of it, and the numbers are only going to continue to grow until something is done. You have people like @haejin posting 9 times a day and taking several thousand dollars out of the reward pool. You have guys like @berniesanders attempting to address it, but his demeanor and ways of going about it are futile. We really need a solution for this, as no one user should be able to siphon this much out of the reward pool daily.

One potential solution was brought up by @ura-soul in his post about Generosity ranking. This is just one idea, but it is a good starting point on how we can address this issue.

When new users, or even long term minnows see how easily some people drain the rewards while they cannot get any visibility it is disheartening and slows the growth of the platform, one of the biggest obstacles we face going forward.

upvoted for visibility.

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There's a number of good options that would help to address the issues with reward pool inequalities:

  • Diminishing returns on repeat votes for the same user - EG your first upvote on a user is worth 100% of its regular value, the next upvote is 75%, and so on, with a slow recovery over time similar to how voting power works.
  • Diminishing returns on multiple posts per day - EG your first post in a day is worth 100% of the regular rewards, your second post in a day is worth 75% and so on. This discourages spam posting and encourages more high quality well-thought-out posts.

Both of the above could lead to other problems, such as people creating multiple accounts in order to get around the limitiations... But it's a decent starting point.

Other ideas?

  • Penalize bot usage somehow. A big part of the problem is the fact that many large votes are handed out via automated voting by bots rather than users actually curating and voting on worthwhile content.
  • Re-think post curation. The idea that a post's curation value is tied to the monetary value of the votes it receives is silly. Ideally it should be tied to the number of upvotes it receives relative to the number of views. EG a post with 5 upvotes and 15 views (33% upvoted) should be more visibile on the platform than a post with 1 upvote and 50 views (2% upvoted) regardless of the monetary value of those upvotes.

Your arbitrary attempts to control how people use their stake are pointless in the face of sock-puppets.

Reading your many replies into what appears to be the rotten underbelly of Steemit practices is acutely depressing. But thank you for getting to the gist of it.

Re-think post curation. The idea that a post's curation value is tied to the monetary value of the votes it receives is silly. Ideally it should be tied to the number of upvotes it receives relative to the number of views

Upvote count is vulnerable to a sybil attack and is a meaningless figure. Views are non-consensus and cannot be used to calculate rewards.

Penalize bot usage somehow. A big part of the problem is the fact that many large votes are handed out via automated voting by bots rather than users actually curating and voting on worthwhile content.

Bots are run by humans. Even if it were technically possible to distinguish bot actions (it's not), they are acting out the wishes of a human operator. This would be unfair.

Visibility of posts is one of the main issues currently. Right now you get visibility by either having thousands of followers, or by getting to the trending page. So pretty much the same group of people get most visibility (and hence most rewards). Both these ways of getting visibility are positive feedback loops - the more SP you have, the more easily you get to the trending page and the more SP this makes you. And the more following you have, the easier you get to the trending page and others resteeming your posts, so the more followers you make.

You can see how this leads to power/influence/rewards being concentrated into the hands of a limited group of people. The more you have, the easier it is to get more.

It's a problem with all cryptocurrencies (that I know of). There is lots of talk in the crypto world about the blockchain revolution being "the greatest redistribution of wealth". As I understand things, wealth will consolidate into a new limited group of people very quickly. So, the way to solve that problem is not by redistributing wealth, it's by designing a system that removes the problem.

So here are some potential solutions (or directions to look into):

  • The communities functionality: this will lead to the posts of more authors becoming more visible/findable. So the upvotes during a given day would be more evenly distributed across the posts created in that day (hint: use that or a variation of it as a metric).
  • Provide other ways of gaining visibility. Here are some ideas from me. You can also rework the trending page in various ways. State the problem in a scientific/engineering way and you will come up with solutions to make it easier for quality content to become visible.
  • Curation groups are currently saving Steemit's ass, in my opinion. Not sure if I would be here without them. So make things easier for them. Ask what they need and deliver. Brainstorm together. My post linked above has suggestions.
  • Change the rewards curve so that it makes little sense to hold ridiculous amounts of SP. Try to come up with a number (a few million SP, one million SP, less?) beyond which you don't get more influence on the platform. This can act as countermeasure for consolidation of influence into few individuals. If people try to hold millions of SP into multiple accounts, measures can be taken against that as well (like, every account with over 1 million SP has to prove its identity to the community when voting - it can be worked out, not too easily, but it can be, especially with the help of trustworthy communities).

I would not suggest Steemit, Inc. disposing of its massive SP stake yet. The platform is still too vulnerable to abuse, and someone could even overtake it. The platform has to show that it can solve its problems on its own before it's left solving its problems on its own.

Some good ideas here. We need more open discussions where the ideas can be brainstormed and the issue addressed because it is definitely plaguing the community

My post above is a perfect example of why the reward pool needs an overhaul.

That comment took me maybe 5 minutes, and somehow earned me $40+ in Steem Rewards. Why is it so valuable? What makes it a $40 idea? The ideas are good, but they're not that unique, and they're not well thought out.

Meanwhile I've written detailed posts on a number of subjects where I've spent literally hours and have been rewarded with pennies for my efforts.

I concur with your post and remind the Witnesses of what was warned in the Steem White Paper: "Any imbalance in the give and take within a community is unsustainable."

This imbalance is evident by the suppressed valuation of steem relative to numerous other blockchain projects which it had a multi-year head start on, as well as the flag wars that are now rampant throughout the platform, with some whales self-policing via arbitrarily defined rules that are not built into the very framework of Steemit itself; its systemic problems necessitate systemic solutions.

Yep. The unwritten rules, to the extent fair, need to be codified, so that we all know what game we are playing and all have notice of the rules that we should be abiding by!

It's evident that the written rules of the system are broken and a rework is needed. The fact that Steemit Inc is burying its head in the sand and not dealing with it is a shame. They can tout smart media tokens all they want, but the reality is that until SMTs are released, this platform is the primary proof of concept of the steem blockchain. As tainted as Steemit is, steem cannot grow out from underneath the mess that it is.

Everything is fixable, I wouldn't lose faith

According to Dan, the co-founder of this platform, Steemit is not fixable unless a pitch fork is done.

A fork is indeed a solution to most problems - as long as everybody agrees to it.

"When new users, or even long term minnows see how easily some people drain the rewards while they cannot get any visibility it is disheartening and slows the growth of the platform, one of the biggest obstacles we face going forward." - Precisely, this is a serious issue that needs to be sorted out and the sooner, the better. I am one of those long term minnows and I have noticed how difficult it is to gain the visibility I need in order to generate a decent reward for my efforts.

Abusing the platform and reward pool hurts us smaller accounts and we are here for the same reasons everyone else is, to grow a community, express ourselves and hopefully be rewarded. I do my best to promote the site but with this kind of activity ongoing it's going to be ever increasingly difficult for new people to truly become interested and if they do join, they'll leave when they don't see much coming from their investments.

We could use an Ethics Ranking as well but the problem is .... who gets to decide what is ethical and what is not. It is so subjective. The rewards pool issue is serious one and will not be an easy task to resolve.

I hope this is an issue tackled early in the Steemit beta. This abuse cannot go into what would be the final release of Steemit.

Very true been here awhile only ever get 6 upvotes and barely any comments on my article

Agreed my man!

Thank you for posting

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yeah it is definitely a subjective matter. I think a democratic vote among he witnesses would be a good solution. As the top witnesses have a lot of time and money invested in the success of the platform, I think they are in a good position to brainstorm and come up with a solution that benefits the large majority

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