This is a follow up of my article from yesterday (Trending posts finally made me realize the main problem with SteemIt and how to solve it!).
Current situation
- 1 person with 1 million STEEM POWER has 1 million times more power than 1000 people with 1 STEEM POWER combined
- STEEM POWER influences your rewards exponentially (10 STEEM POWER gives you 100 times more power than having 1 STEEM POWER)
- Curators can use 0.5% of their remaining voting power per vote
- Users with almost no STEEM POWER are completely powerless
- The system promotes going after quantity rather than quality
- The system doesn't penalize incorrect curation
- The system forces everyone to curate out of fear, rather than rationality
- The system completely ignores curation quality
After hard fork 19
- 1 person with 1 million STEEM POWER has 1000 times more power than 1000 people with 1 STEEM POWER combined
- STEEM POWER influences your rewards linearly (10 STEEM POWER gives you 10 times more power than having 1 STEEM POWER)
- Curators can use 2% of their remaining voting power per vote
- Users with almost no STEEM POWER are almost completely powerless
- The system promotes going after quantity rather than quality
- The system doesn't penalize incorrect curation
- The system forces everyone to curate out of fear, rather than rationality
- The system completely ignores curation quality
Unresolved problems
- Users with large amounts of STEEM POWER have more power than dozens or even hundreds of people, regardless of their curation skill
- Users with little STEEM POWER can't gain a (noticeable) advantage over others by consistently curating properly
- The system doesn't penalize (in fact even promotes) going after quantity rather than quality
- The system forces everyone to curate out of fear, rather than rationality
Conclusion
If the system doesn't recognize and keep track of the user's curation skill, it's possible for bad actors with a lot of money to abuse the system. Users that curate properly also aren't sufficiently compensated, so there is absolutely no incentive to curate accurately!
The second main problem is that people are forced to vote out of fear, because they simply aren't given any time to curate properly. You can read my explanation in my article from yesterday.
The third main problem is that holding STEEM POWER gives you power and control rather than a long-term investment opportunity. The beautiful goal of decentralization is that power isn't centralized, right now on SteemIt we experience exactly the same problem with the power of the rich as the old system we're so desperately trying to leave.
As long as these problems aren't solved, linear rewards will change almost nothing. I have nothing against people having more money than others when others have voluntarily given their money to the them. I'm just tired of injustice in the world, aren't you?
Don't forget to follow, resteem and browse my channel for more information!
Steem is not based at all on user having free money or more power than the amount of SP they hold. If it was the case it would always end up being abused by sybil attacks.
There is absolutely no problem with quantity over quality when the UIs can manage large amount of content efficiently.
Your title point out Steemit's problem,,, Steemit problem are steemit problem HF19 is about Steem.
Steem problem is that steemit is confused with steem and that it's UI can't handle a lot more than a trending page with a few page of links.
Linear reward is key to allowing smaller niche communities to not be as diluted by one large trending page.
I don't understand what you mean by curating out of fear ... I like to think that I curate as rationally as I can and don't feel threaten not doing so or doing it wrong.
What is your solution ?
First things first: SteemIt is the first application running on the STEEM blockchain. Linear rewards have everything to do with SteemIt so of course HF19 is about SteemIt, even though it's being implemented on the STEEM blockchain indeed.
With curating out of fear i mean that people are forced to vote as early as possible (while ideally taking into account how fast the rewards are growing on that post). They are scared of missing out and many times they have no time to even read the first line of content before they have to vote.
I have described one possible solution in my referenced article at the very beginning of this article. I personally think it would solve so many problems already. In the end i just want SteemIt to be a fair environment for 100% of the users.
If you still have any concerns, let me know.
Curation reward is a reverse auction that give the full 25% reward after 30 min, So the optimal time to vote is 30 min, enough time to go through most of the posts.
I'll look into your article, Thanks
Nope, if you vote too late a large percentage of the curation rewards are already gone. I believe 75% of the curation rewards go to the first 6 people or something and 99% of the curation rewards go to the first 40. Many posts have 10, 20 or 30 votes within a few minutes.
That's not what I understood of it. Would you mind checking ?
@transisto I wrote a huge article about curation rewards to finally clear up all confusion about curation rewards for everyone. It's a long read but it's a complicated concept :)
There are 2 mechanisms working at the same time. 1 of them is the reversed-auction you mentioned, which means that the first 1800 seconds after publication every second your potential curation reward grows by 1/1800th.
The second mechanism i mentioned makes sure that not everyone can just wait for 30 minutes to get maximum rewards.
I'm 99% certain this is the current implementation. If you have any proof to the contrary i would love to see it :)
summoning @pfunk @timcliff
There could be a 5 - 10 minute timer that gives people time to read it so the vote at end gets counted to when 1st opened Doesn't the fear come from having to upvote straight away? Needs to be some space to concentrate.
Some good points here, especially in relation to curation history/reputation. However, it sounds like you're complaining b/c the "rich" have more "power". This is just the reality of the world in which we live and no blockchain, technology, or socialist ideological hope is going to ever change that.
The world, the universe, is build on the principle of give and take, equilibriums just do not exist.
To put this in perspective; If everyone's vote was the same, where would the demand to purchase more STEEM come? Altruism? I think you're leaving out one of the most important and genius aspects of STEEM, the economics.
Read this article i wrote today. It's not as bad as you would think.
Lol, someone has the steem power powerfully.And he voted my comments. Then his curation reward given to me is more than the reward of my post. How sad the truth is steem power is the most powerful within steemit.
The heart of steemit is SP. It is an influence token... It should be rewarded to have and hold it, otherwise the price of Steem will plummet.
Right now that might be true, but that doesn't mean that there aren't numerous improvements possible, right? :)
Also, the article is focusing on the curation quality problem as well....
All your points are very valid. I would say 100% valid :)
I agree with you on almost all conclusions. Except for:
I am not sure that those with a lot of Steem Power are really trying to leave the old system. I think that they are trying to hold to this power and use it. Yes, they invested in it, somehow. They won't just give it away...
The two major pitfalls of the platform remain untouched:
No, I don't have solutions to those two. Linear rewards might be a very small step towards fixing the first issue without actually hurting the major power holders.
I wasn't talking about large SP holders wanting to leave the old system, i mean that we're all trying to leave the old money system and centralization of power.
The "invisibility of posts from majority of authors" problem shouldn't and can't be fixed by the blockchain. Marketing is the task of the author, not the protocol ;)
Thanks for the feedback.
You are welcome :)
I used your post as a reference here.
I am talking about the old system copy pasted to the blockchain - power distribution and stuff :)
Blockchain in itself won't solve the invisibility issue, I agree. The front end usage of blockchain data might solve it ...
Yup there are small improvements in the clients that could get us in the right direction. And of course there is "promoted posts" already!
I think the promoted posts system is leading exactly in the wrong direction - if I understood it correctly. It enable people who have a lot of steem already to make even more., while someone without funds is screwed. But that just as a side note.
The problem with invisibility of posts (minnow posts in particular) I see as a major issue, especially if - as we all hope - Steemit grows to a size like YT or Facebook or so.
With numbers of new submission like those have, your post has less chances to last long enough in the visible region like a snow flake in hell.
I admit, a perfect solution for that escapes me as well. The only thing I can imagine is a kind of splitting into fields of interest, time spaces or whatever.
A good (silly) example is a live stream on YT with 10.000 viewers, that has a open chat running. Everybody is posting, but you basically cannot read anything, because it just rushes along.
If rhat happens here, people will start to leave again, rewards or not.
It's already a huge problem, even without 100s of millions of users. It's caused by curators not having incentive to find quality posts. And whales are even more problematic, they make money regardless of what they do (even by potentially adding low quality to the platform on a regular basis). The fact that all whales have 1000s of followers and some of them almost never post any content says enough about people slimeballing whales all day and the protocol allowing quantity over quality.
Yes, its impossible to look at every post, even briefly. And the curation thing, IDK... Whats quality and what isn't is a very subjective thing. Being too strikt will scare many people away and will take some of the fun factor of it all.
To the voting power thing... it might be worth concidering a equal power for all system, with a vote limit per day or something. The way it is now, is incredibly complicated. But I guess such a suggestion would meet a lot of resistance.
The quality of a post is almost entirely a matter of opinion of the people who are reading the post. Of course, it doesn't matter how high the quality of a post is if no one sees it because of the volume of posts on the feeds. I don't look at the trending or promoted post feeds, and I seldom look at the new feeds. It takes most of my time here just to look at the new posts from the people I'm following. That's pretty much the best I can do.
This post received a 8% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @calamus056! For more information, click here!
Followed! I couldn't agree more but what can be done?!
Thank you for pointing out some of these things... however, I'd like to add that we have a helpful solution to combat the quantity over quality idea:
Downvotes.By spreading this awareness we can downvote articles that are getting bot upvoted etc. A downvote doesn't necessarily mean you don't like the article, it just means you want to affect a redistribution of the rewards.
Downvote articles that are botvoted.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@showoff/the-solution-to-steemit-s-curation-problem-us
This is alot to think about as a new user. I have been trying to only put out decent to good original content. As I have been browsing I have noticed the something like what you are pointing out. It makes it so you cant grow and only the people with stocked assets can achieve proper numbers on their post because they already have the exposure and boost. It will eventually push all but the top tier user out. Or people willing to buy in off the bat for a boost.. Should I?
Good job, Very interesting.
Quality insight. Not many think critically towards steem as you do.
I just want the coming millions of people to get treated fairly. I'm a programmer too so i'm used to always strife for a perfect implementation. The developers seem to care less about it at the moment:)
The problem is complexity. The developers keep adding more.
I am wondering why steamit has such a simple GUI, comparing it to wordpress or other blogging website is just a joke. I hope they can work on the UI. The categories are also not well defined. There should be a suggested section based on user reading behaviour.
Simpel answer: because it's a beta, it's extremely complex technically and there are no true graphics designers on the team i believe, they're mostly programmers.
I think steam has got enough investment, they really need to start working on their UI and other features. Its not very reading friendly. Most of the people here are looking to earn money only.
Yeah they will, changes are coming before December.
I hope so, steem will be a game changer
I think you have good points. Definitely things that need to be on the table and talked about.
It’s all working progress. It’s at its infancy. Or like a great painting which is only being sketched out right now. Peace.
good analysis
This problem: "Users that curate properly also aren't sufficiently compensated, so there is absolutely no incentive to curate accurately!" is at the core of the issue.
Goooood)
well.. if you're using 2% on a single vote your vote strength drains a lot faster, so you would need to curate better to compensate for that assuming voting strength wasn't cut down to 25% to go back to the other way, but then people using their max vote on actual good content are going to get ahead on curation compared to you. being a good curator also has the potential of creating a curation trail when bots or other users pick up on your stats for good curation, so that helps too
Yup 4x max power is interesting, but that's different than the linear reward change. I'm excited about that change, personally i don't see any problem with increasing it even more (or even to 100% from 2%).
Currently there's no such thing as "stats for good curation", only profitability of curation (which currently has almost nothing to do with the quality of the content).
I think the problem with going too far above the 2% is it could become less about curation and more about a circle of friends blasting out 100% on each other
How is that any different from the current situation? lol
The only difference is that on 100% they can do one 100% vote every 5 days instead of having to do 100s of votes to spend 99%. It gives them a lot of responsibility.
I don't see a problem with giving everyone the power to spend 100% of their power on 1 piece of content, the consequence will be 5 days inactivity or 5 days of extremely limited power.
That makes sense.
Nice thoughts. I am not that familiar with Steemit that I'd have an opinion about this, but this is still a lot to think about.
This is a good one! I like it. Its always good to be skeptical & point out the downsides
Absolutely, especially since SteemIt has unbelievable potential to be worth many 100s of billions, so it's important to do it properly before we go to the mass adoption phase.
I didn't know that even curations are linearly rewarded. That explains why I get no curation rewards, other than once, but that was actually just a helpful hand I wanted to give, which ended up giving me a small curation reward.
You mean exponentially. Right now curators with 10 times more STEEM POWER receive 100 times more curation rewards.
Still doing more reading up on this. Starting to figure out a few more things. Thanks for helping out and posting great articles. Hopefully i'll be up to speed soon.
Hey here for the dash give away :) dash:Xw2uyqxfWMvyK84Uoz2PRzcRVXTYSfPDzY hope i made it in time.
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jun 14. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $30.85 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jun 14 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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I agree, I've only been here less than 48 hours, and it seems like there is definitely a pay to play aspect to Steemit, but at the same time, I feel like there is a pretty good opportunity for people who don't invest but rather focus on the actual curation of content. But I also recognize the power distribution is a struggle between users.
The other interesting thing about this article is the argument you bring up about people curating content due to the fear that people have about increasing and maintaining their reputation.
What's your advice to a new user like myself.
I'm not even sure how this works. Do I earn more steem for posting and commenting or liking?
Do a shitload of research! When i started on SteemIt a year ago i hardly slept for 2 weeks haha. Look through the FAQ and help of the official sites and search for steemit articles with good keywords like "tips" or "beginners" or "curation" and so on.
As a new user commenting will give you the very best success rate. Liking doesn't earn you anything and posting articles makes almost nothing without having at least 100s of followers, unless you post about software or something else you did for SteemIt or you post something absolutely amazing and get lucky.
I'll follow that advise. Thanks!
It wasn't for you! Just kidding, no problemo ;)
I have no problem with more power being given to people who invest in the platform (i.e. via Steem Power). They deserve it in a way for allocating their resources to the platform.
The crux of the issue for me is that curators and content creators also invest resources in the platform and they often get a very slow start. An introduceyourself post may get a bit payout or if they know some whales they might get big votes for posts, but this is not always the case and curation rewards are very low. How can this situation be improved? or is it something that will become less of an issue with scale on the platform?
The slow start isn't even the problem. Building a following as a content creator always takes time.
Well said that curators and content creators also invest in the platform! At this moment the main problem lays with curating as i described in this and some of my previous articles.
I gave 1 solution to the problem in the referenced article i wrote before this one. That would be a great start, but many more small tweaks can be done, they probably just don't know how yet :)
what do you think the time frame is to resolve these issues?
Years, they seem to prioritize many other things currently than a waterproof technical and economical basis.
After reading your bog @calamus056, and went through the comments of some clarifications and point of views of what's happening here at Steemit, I'm glad that you care to towards our efforts(minnows) and how the rewards has been distributed. You have a great and compassionate heart. Thank you!
I will look forward on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 when the HF19 will come to its effect!
I think to solve the quality problem we would just need like a five star ranking system for the content the author created. You still would be able to vote whenever you like to do, maybe even before reading the article. But you also have the option to give the article a quality voting and then after 7 days this quality voting goes into the account of howmuch earnings the author and the curators are given.
yer i would agree with that, it will take me a long time to get to a reputation of 70. god knows how some people on here have done it
))..не в бровь,а в глаз !....)good
what builds the value of the currencies and the website more, out of the financial investment of traders and the valuable content and experience added by website users?
since facebook is said to be worth so much without any form of currency trading, therefore it is fair to say (unless steemit is hugely more profitable (per user) than facebook), that steemit's value may well be in it's userbase and wisdom-base; thus posters need to be rewarded more effectively just for posting quality content - rather than just for having the most money.
since the fiat currency system essentially allows it's controllers to print it in a virtually unlimited way, the door is left open for them to totally dictate the agenda of popular posts here.. Just as they already dictate mainstream media and a lot of alleged 'scientific investigations', for example. balance is necessary.
Couldn't agree more, giving someone with more money more power, without other factors taken into account, is really problematic. The only thing i am OK with in general is that people with a lot more money make more absolute profit, in other words we should all be given equal opportunities and be rewarded based on the same criteria (for example the quality of the content in SteemIt's case).
followed, btw ;)
thank you for good posting
Thanks for sharing. I didn't realise that it was currently so skewed towards people holding a lot of power. There's still time for fixes to be made though... I hope they find a way.
Upvoted this amazing post :)
What we know from this System is that ultimately Steemit going to promoting its users to buy Steem power for its uses. This is very intelligent business and its have very good effect also because it's wipe out unwanted people from Steemit community and make Steemit a reliable Stable platform for creativity and Intelligence based content writing platform rather than Facebook and other social platform.
Check out my views on story crypto https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@newmarket65/is-cryptocurrency-your-get-rich-quick-scheme
Thanks Follow me and i will follow You
nice topic man, check my last post i think its useful for most of you and upvote it if u like https://steemit.com/steemit/@bardhylsllamniku/smart-way-to-gain-fame-in-steemit-2-rp
Youtube ran into this problem recently, did it not? It had a bunch of questionable content from terrible creators that they had to choke out by removing ads.
Wow, thanks for the info. This change seems way better. You may be right, but as transisto points out, the exponent in power encourages people to use fewer accounts.
You have outlined some important issues.
Someone promoted your post. Promotions help every steemians.
Your reward is an upvote and 1.660 SBD extra promotion.
Good job, see you next time in
Promoted! ;)#steam4steem
Thank you very much for the gesture! The article was in the last 12 hours though, so nobody can upvote it anymore. So you basically wasted the money, that's something to remember next time :)