Hey everyone, in the last months I have been thinking a lot about the future of Steem/Steemit and I've noticed a lot of problems with the fairness in rewards distribution and I also noticed that there is a huge discordance going through Steem resulting in Flag-wars and people insulting each other and similarly ugly things.
What is the problem?
This is happening since while some people spend hours working on their posts, others post a Poem and a "Merry Christmas" and get 400$ out of it.
While some people get rich with a few Bikini photos others post photos of amazing trips around the world and get $3.
There are even tons of people out there who don't get anything for their hard work and would be happy to get $3 per post.
But, while a lot of people think the problem are the people who vote for others I think that's not completely accurate.
A short case study:
Let's say, someone I follow posts something I like, I will leave him a like, and I most probably won't consider how many rewards he already got for it and if his post was really worth all of it.
And, to be completely honest that's also not the question the current voting mechanisms asks the users.
How the System works right now you are asked:
How much of the rewards YOU can give does this person deserve?
While the question it should really be asking:
How much is this post worth in TOTAL?
But, how do we get from the question a) to b)?
How I would solve it:
That's why I propose the following:
When upvoting in my "ideal future" you would be asked how much of your rewards you want to be used at max AND what you think is the max value you think the post deserves.
Let's say, my friend posts a merry Christmas post with a small Christmas video he found, I obviously want to upvote it but I also will restrict the reward I want him to receive, to 10$ since he spent no effort at all writing the text and posting the video.
When I read an immensely interesting post, on the other hand, I'll definitely upvote it and will want it to deserve as much as possible.
I believe implementing this system can result in a fairer reward distribution and can also help the people to decide how much a post is worth for them.
Definitely, this will change how voting works right now, this means that your vote power would not be removed already, it would be reserved and slightly paid back as soon as the value reaches or overcomes the value you think it is worth.
This way you will still be able to vote for something you like, but, make sure that the reward of the post won't be more than what YOU think it is actually worth.
Additionally, following the nudge theory (read more about it: here) the initial total value bar value should start off at the average value of the category and not at 100% to make sure users have to think before assigning a high value or assign automatically the average value.
But how exactly would that change the rewards?
The result would be the following, let's imagine someone made a post and 3 people upvoted it:
| Upvoter 1 | Upvoter 2 | Upvoter 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 50$ max 75$ | 50$ max 200$ | 50$ max 90$ |
In the current system that would result in 150$ rewards which is higher than what Upvoter 1 and Upvoter 3 had planned.
The new System would work as follows:
| Event | Post value | Secondary result |
|---|---|---|
| Upvoter 1 upvotes the post with 50$ | 50$ | - |
| Upvoter 2 upvotes the post with 50$ | 75$ | Upvoter 1 receives a return of VP in the value of 25$ |
| Upvoter 3 upvotes the post with 50$ | 90$ | Upvoter 1 receives a return of VP in the value of 25$ & Upvoter 3 receives a return of VP in the value of 10$ |
This way the payout value is way closer to what the majority of the voters thought it should be than it is currently the case.
I think this would be a way to balance rewards on Steem and to distribute them more fairly among the users.
This way a whale still can upvote a post with 100$ because he thinks other people should start noticing it, but he if he thinks the max value should be 100$ as well, he will start getting VP back while others appreciate it.
Concluding
This addition can help to balance the rewards on Steem and also help people to really think about how to distribute their rewards to create a fair competition without having to regulate anything.
Sounds Interesting :)
I agree with u again haha :D
I like this in theory, but more thought needs to be put behind how the vote is refunded. If I'm reading/understanding correctly it looks like voter 1 receives 100% of his vote back?
Maybe this is more meant for whales and not necessarily dolphins/minnows, but if I get a good vote on a low-value post, but lose all my curation rewards due to it exceeding my post limit what's the point of my curating?
Once again, I think this is a great idea, but I feel like some thought still needs to be put in the refund/curration side, but that's just my opinion.
Yeah, definitely still deserves some thought regarding the curations.
That's why I put my Model up for discussion to get some interesting input to improve it.
I agree on that since someone will try to abuse it anyways!
Sounds interesting and I very much appreciate your thoughts, but I don't think that the solution would be very user-friendly. There are already many questionmarks for new users when using STEEMIT.
And for STEEM(IT) to go mainstream - it has to be as simple as possible.
Also - this won't help with cycle-jerk votes from users who upvotes each other - most of the time with a huge stake.
To be honest - the biggest problem right now are our human flaws. On the one hand we want fairness and give people what they deserve, but on the other hand we want to support our friends, colleagues and family.
And why would I want to cap the amount that my family-member can make on STEEM? Wouldn't make any sense for me. Even if it were just a simple post.
STEEMIT has to decide what it wants to be: social network? Medium alternative? Reddit alternative?
All those things have different priorities when upvoting something.
Yeah, we won't be able to save the system from abusive users who do things on purpose, the idea of my system would be to make people think about the rewards they give. Like I mentioned to another user, if we can reach 10% of the users with that, that'd be a huge success already.
About the usability, I agree that we have to make it as easy to use as possible for new users. It wouldn't be much of a problem to hide this bar for users with less than x VP and enable it with a explanation as soon as they reach it.
I totaly agree with you.
Upvoted
I think it's a pretty darn cool idea and this also increases the power of the people with less SP - everyones vote will matter
Exactly, that's what I am thinking
cool mate
It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that capping the rewards is something that should be left to the voters (if you think flag wars are bad...).
I still believe that the easiest solution is to limit your ability to upvote a specific account to 2 times per week: Upvote work as before (possibly with the two upvote options I mention below: a "upvote for money+rep" or "upvote for rep"), but you can't upvote a specific user name more than twice a week.
That means people who write posts or comments can be guaranteed some form of payment (through self-vote) without being allowed to spam the pool, while also limiting the power of people who run bots or circle voting schemes. (But still allows people the flexibility to up-vote posts in their interest/friend group ).
Also, steemit needs to get a lot clearer about how that reward pool works.
The problem is that people would just distribute their steem to different accounts and upvote them with these.
It still increases the effort required at very little cost to other users: an easy fix that should at least remove the low-level vote spamming.
People are always going to try and vote-spam: low effort=high payoff. The only way to fix it is to increase the effort (without discouraging others), or lowering the payoff.
The problem with giving users the power to lower payoffs is the flame-wars (or the current run of downvotes). Potentially a fix that is less likely to be abused is to simply cap the amount of the reward pool an individual can claim in a day/week/monthly period.
I completely agree with you! I appreciate your strategy how posts should be upvoted, in a way that nobody gets rich with ridiculous posts.
Really nice post, @raycoms!
Your proposed way of curation would be a much better reflection of the actual value of a post!
wow very good article sandiers got +500$ per post only writting FK GAEJIN or what they make there soo not fair
thx for share this great article
I think no matter how the system works, in the end the rewards will never be equal to the effort.
Most people when upvoting think about what they gonna get from it, this is life :)
I'm 100% sure it's not going to be perfect whatever we do, but there is room for improvement =P
The best way to manage..however the feasibilty and success is nil....
If you could explain why you think that and tell me where the possible weakpoints are, we can try to find them and improve the system.
well for one thing it would definitely be a macro downward pressure on rewards from steemit, which is still young. This might be good later on but right now do you really want people thinking steemit just made it harder to get rewards and is paying out less to us. Even if that isnt true overall that is the vibe this limit gives out, its like steem austerity for no real reason other than this guy doesnt like bikini posters earning money.
Actually, it's not a limit of steemit itself, It's a limit each user can decide he can think a post is worth. If everyone thinks that the Bikini post is worth 400$ it will still be 400$ nothing changes, the idea behind this is to nudge the people to think about if it is really worth all of that.
Really a very nice article...usefull information ..i dont know this voting system of perecentage of vote untill you posted ..really a greate and usefull post thank you for sharing..@raycoms
great in theory, but people will just take advantage of it and find loopholes. While I believe the present plan is not the best, it is still more manageable. For those that are not getting the recognition and rewards they deserve, I hope one day they will.
steemit is still in its Beta stages and this is a very important topic that needs fixing. Authentic posts deserve to be viewed and credited accordingly. Thx
I think you post is very interesting. especially regarding the fairness of the reward, that some publish simple tricks wins an interesting reward, by cons some have a very good content but they have some upvote. but in my opinion, if you do serious work day after day, you will have a good reward
Definitely, it's all about effort, but I'm thinking about balancing the system a bit more to make people think when they reward someone and not give someone 500$ for a merry christmas with 0 effort
I agree with you, unfortunately some people do not even read the content and give their upvotes based on the profile score of people who publish, without realizing whether the content is good or not.👍
Yeah, but with the system I propose they at least have to think about the "value".
Like I mentioned above, there is no perfect system, since, like you said, a lot of people don't think at all when they vote. But, when this system balances the payout by 10% (Assuming that 10% of the people will start thinking) that would be a huge success already.
I think your proposal brings a significant change in the level of the reward in steemit platform.
But I think you confuse value with effort. Maybe it takes me an hour to write a post and you it takes only 10 minutes. That's not a sign that my post is inherently more valuable than yours.
And just because you think something is a cheap post, it may be the right thing at the right time for someone else. What your post makes me think though is that there should be two kinds of default upvotes: up-vote for money and rep, and up-vote just for rep (a 0% up-vote).
However, that does not solve the abuse problem, it just allows more fine-tuning of voting.
Sorry, If it seems this way. Value should be somewhere between Originality - Effort - Quality. But the value someone gains should be closer to the metrics than to what we have now.
Value is subjective when it comes to social media.
(But I do agree that non-original works are deeply problematic though and should get a $0 pay-out. )
Wow... Your post is going to make my dream come true... So....
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Totally agreed sir @raycoms
I've been thinking so deeply about this issue. Thanks a lot for putting it up here. Great work. I love it.
Upvoted and resteem
Kindly check out my art gallery
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@basonrich/africa-s-finest-work-of-art
I think for now reward are going ok people all the time will try to cheat and earn more without proper work that is real but we should work hard and make people to join steemit in this way all will win.hard work pays of.
In theory this sounds like a really good idea and for new people like me it will maybe help to reach a higher reward then 0.01 for a post. I do think tough that there are some people who just want to give votes to a person and dont really care so much what they write so it could be that a lot of people give max votes anyway.
Interesting idea, but I think two sliders are a bit too complicated, and I would prefer a simpler system like the current. The goal of steemit should not be to evenly distribute steem but to reward good content by upvotes. If you think a post does not deserve more steem wouldn't it be better to not upvote it in the first place?
But then we are again at the 2 questions, "Does the post deserve an upvote from me?" - yes, "Does it deserve 400$ in upvotes?" - maybe not.
I totaly agree with you, we need a change. @originalworks
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@raycoms i believe ot will create a disequilliberium amng author close pal.
If suppose this post of yours did not voted by one your friends by 100% hw u gonna react??? Wont it creaye a doubt in your mind?
Also do support the theory by uding the slider the user cn mk max use of the voting power....but how u gonna. Change the mindset of all
As a author dont it create a doibt if your close circle didn't give u 100% which further result in forking in your circle
A friend can still give you 100%, but he will be able to say, I want to give 100% and this post has a value of 200$, if it exceeds it, he will get a bit back
that in case when a post desrve to be appreciated.. take your example of wishing christmas and uploaded a single video...and no one gave u 100% vote...wat u assume?? that no one is interested in wishing you Christmas ?? or your close pals do not like your wishing idea???...
so basically it is all about creating a doubt among close pals....but yes...it is ok with the distant one.
Btw....i hv upvoted u with 100% :)
that in case when a post desrve to be appreciated.. take your example of wishing christmas and uploaded a single video...and no one gave u 100% vote...wat u assume?? that no one is interested in wishing you Christmas ?? or your close pals do not like your wishing idea???...
so basically it is all about creating a doubt among close pals....but yes...it is ok with the distant one.
Btw....i hv upvoted u with 100% :)
I understand what you want to say, but that's exactly the point of my proposal, you will appreciate the post of someone with a 100% vote, nevertheless, you can still restrict the post from getting more than 100$ since the post is not worth all of that basically.
In the end, if I'd post "merry christmas" and I'd get 400$ I would feel slightly abusive since I did nothing but wish merry christmas like everyone should. So if I get 50$ but I see all my friends gave 100% to appreciate it but, restricted it a max value of 50$ I'd be way happier.
If that user hv more expectation.......anyway expectation reduces joy :)
I think the change you're describing would only matter to middle to low level users. They might think that posts don't deserve as much of a reward as they're getting.
However, the major issue on the platform isn't the low and medium, it's the high. The power distribution is so that the amount of influence new people have will never ever match the influence of the old.
Meaning, the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Just like in real world capitalism!
The thing that would make sense is to make the amount of influence non-linear. But that won't work, because then people will simply split up their account to maintain the same amount of influence.
No amount of twiddling with the reward distribution would matter, as long as bots exist. This platform is supposed to have proof of brain, but you don't need a brain to use the system. A bot can do it better. Find a way to make sure the people using each account is real, and that each such person only has one account, is the only way this system will survive as anything other than a circlejerk.
Definitely, a proof of "author existence" would be a way to go, but in a real distributed world with a huge amount of different countries and legislations we would have to stop several countries from existing on steemit, because these countries make it too easy to create fake identities.
Pretty almost everyone I encounter believes that the rewards system is broken. Indeed you see a post that has 3-4 images and less than 500 words or even just a GIF and because the one who posted it has so many followers and has a high steem power it will garner upvotes and comments each jockeying for attention hoping to get their comment upvoted and capture the attention and maybe have a new follower there.
Then you see someone who has a lower reputation. Good content about 2k words on a topic they really feel passionate about and spent two - three hours writing, pasting images, proofreading and editing before finally posting it and it ends up with cents. Having a lower reputation often means lower number of followers. Their only chance would be if they are curated or a whale is interested in their topic.
Whales make or break the posting career of an individual here. Without significant votes from a whale or a dolphin the posting value of a person is usually in the cents.
Their is a chance that their work can be curated by the various curation groups and I have known some that got curated twice in one month but then it is stated in most curation groups that it gets harder and harder to be curated once a person has been curated twice or have reached a certain reputation level and then they are back to earning cents.
It can drive even the most persistent person away from Steemit because all their hardwork and time is for naught.
Your proposal has some merits but then our assessments are very subjective. What may be interesting and score high for one person may not look like it's good enough for another and may vote for a lower reward for it.
Who makes the decisions on what is worthy? How are we to quantify it so that it is fair and not subjected to the individuals likes or dislikes?
How will we calibrate each distinct person so that it becomes fair and how can we avoid abuse by certain groups to determine that a particular posts is only worth $1 if they do not like the poster or maximize it to ask for a favor?
I know I am not helping by presenting questions rather than helping by giving answers but to be honest until now I don't know how to fix it.
If you read my post carefully you could see that "stating" that a post is worth only 1$ won't decline rewards, it will only decline the rewards you can give to it.
In this manner it makes your vote less worth depending on the total value the post will earn.
Great post there, keep up good work !
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That would be sick. I really like the customization that goes into the thought. I think you would also see a more concentrated solid pool of information, rather so many people working their tails off to keep up with the five minute news cycle, financial quotes or whatever. I don't hold against them, this platform is here for people to do what they want, but you're right the photo community has the most solidarity on here. Pictures of a ham sandwich, albeit a great picture of a ham sandwich would land 25 votes and $40 worth of rewards in fifteen minutes after posting. Nice work out of them, but some of us that just isn't very satisfying. My thought was to have an active "queue" system with a limited number of posts per user (at any one given time)to pop up in the news feeds, but all posts by every user can be visited under their user name, just like now. Cool stuff, I do like to see so many people forward thinking on ways to make a stellar program even better!
this would be a nice concept for steemit inc to try out.