The only thing that matters for a curator min maxxer is value currently on post, and expected total value of post.
It's not expected total value of post, it's (expected total value of post * percent paid out as curation). People already do this: I've seen my curation autovoters move around or leave based on how many early votes I buy. But right now I don't care because the early votes give me so much value. In the new system it's to my advantage to get as many of those people onboard as possible, and when the votes come in doesn't matter to my payout, so I want as few early votes as I can get.
Ah, not according to my reading of the code. The vote penalty is done on the votes themselves.
Whatever the numerical value displayed on the post, 25% gets shaved off and sent to curator payout processing. The penalty applies to what a curator would have gotten.
So I don't think it changes your strategy, at least if I'm right (goes to read it again...)
Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. The total curation payout on a post now can be as low as 10% because of early votes; a lot of mine are in the 13% range. Right now the extra chunk goes to the author, and in the new system it will go to the pool. It would be better if it went to the curators.
It also leads to an amusing passive-aggressive thing where I can reduce the curation rewards on other people's posts by voting on them early, or reduce the expected curation rewards voters see on other people's posts by voting on them early and then unvoting in the last 12 hours. Still thinking about whether/how I want to deploy that one. My vote isn't very big, but it's big enough to skew the curation rewards significantly, especially if no one votes for 15 minutes after.
Even funnier, if you want to hurt the collective profitability of a big bot and its user, up to a certain point it will be more effective to minute-zero upvote the post you expect to get botted than to downvote.
Reducing curation on another's post for future voters already happens in that way though, so I'm still having trouble seeing the difference.
The only thing possibly different is the first passive aggressive thing you mentioned. By voting early and before the author, you'd prevent an author from getting more from their own curation reward. But that's not something I think should be going to the author anyway.
(The voting, then unvoting thing can be done today with the exact same effect, roughly)
or... If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying large early votes will deter later voters from coming, but that's already a thing that happens. Or maybe we are just talking about the effects on author's actions in this system.
On a final note-- going to curators sounds okay also, I can see how this would possibly still incentivize curators to come in even after early votes. (Though still, that sqrt reward curve....)
It's the next order up in the chain. Large early votes deter later voters from coming, now and later. But right now authors don't care because large early votes benefit them. This change means large early votes benefit no one, but still deter later voters from coming - so authors will want to discourage them.
It might help to think about it from the perspective of a new user who never knew that the current system existed. They just come in and are told that voting on a post in the first fifteen minutes will disadvantage everyone involved with the post, themselves, later voters, and the author. How do you explain that in a way that makes sense? "Well, the system used to be dumb, and we got rid of the part people were taking advantage of, but we left a big chunk of the part where it's dumb just to make it harder for you to understand."
It's like the people who designed this saw the problem as authors getting more rewards but not as voters getting fewer rewards. If one is true then presumably both of them should be.
About the new user perspective: Yeah, I see this as a problem with the early vote penalty in general. Whether it goes to author or pool is just confusing, no ways around that.
Actually since you mentioned it , I'm now thinking that getting rid of it entirely and making curation distribution not dependent on timing at all would certainly be better. But done in a way isn't stake-lopsided. (Sqrt(yourshares) / sqrt(shares)) seems like a pretty good equalizer. I'm sure large stake curators would rage against that but I think I like it.
But about the proposed system: I think authors can discourage all they want, but if they are a popular author, you know that large voters are fighting with each other for curation and will be early voting anyway.
I am 150% behind any proposal that makes curation less stake-weighted. I'd actually like to have a little fillip at the bottom of the curve so that the smallest votes don't get dusted even if it means they get more than their fair share. I think it would help new user acquisition if their votes were visibly making curation rewards even if it's 0.001 SP at a time.
The huge flaw with that proposition (and any attempting to decouple vote value with stake) is it incentivizes the creation of millions of accounts to game the system. Basically, you end up with a system that is still stake weighted, but instead of tokens supplying the value, it's actual accounts that you collect. Whoever controlled the maximum number of accounts would be able to game curation the hardest.
I'd imagine this will be a big issue with ONO and any other platform that attempts to use a more "socialistic" approach. The only solution I've thought of (which is presently impractical because the technology implementation is currently lacking) would be a DNA interface with technology that verified one's unique identity. That way anything from a purely stake-weighted to purely identity-weighted (even) scheme of voting would be possible to implement.
But this DNA recognition technology would have to be mass adopted, which would take a lot of time since so many would object on various grounds. I predict we will be heading that direction in the coming years, but whether it takes 20 years or 100 remains to be seen.
Also, on a personal level, I would greatly prefer if 100% of my stake rewards value always goes to someone other than Banfield. The returned-to-the-pool thing essentially takes away my right to specifically not vote on anyone. This is a much more philosophical objection but one that's emotionally real to me.
(It's also one that reduces my appetite for flagging, since a flag does the same thing.)
Hahaha, this I can sympathize 100% with.