As a minnow myself, I can speak to this site(currently) being somewhat like a lottery. I can spend a whole day on a post and receive pennies, repeatedly
You are "receiving pennies, repeatedly" because too much of the rewards are going to posts repeatedly and consistently overrewarded and upvoted by whales including both @ozchartart and @krnel. (FWIW, until recently I do not believe I have voted for either.)
How hard has this author been working to produce content for Steemit?
Respectfully I disagree on this point. I evaluate the value that the content brings or demonstrates. "Effort" alone (whether it is digging holes and filling them up or writing long posts that won't attract a large user base to read or compete with) is not evidence of value, only cost.
I'm glad this post managed to find you.
I'm not complaining about my pennies, just making a point that there are tons out there who are receiving next to nothing on most posts, so when they finally have a successful one that then gets flagged, it can be quite a blow.
Also, I haven't a problem with good content being rewarded, even if it is at my own expense. I don't attribute my low payouts to the success of others, but rather to an undervalued price in STEEM that limits the amount of people that can currently achieve success. The undervalued price of STEEM, I attribute to the less than desirable atmosphere which is repelling new users. If we can work on that, then we may see more people adopting the platform, and a rise in the value of STEEM. With a larger pot size, we can all--that are deserving of it--get paid for our work.
On that note, I respectfully ask that if you are ever considering downvoting a post that you feel is overvalued so that I might get the opportunity to receive a payout, please do not. I think downvotes should be reserved for plagiarism, spam, and hate speech. Opinion based flagging is ruining this environment.
I think you have influence and you should have a right to utilise it, but if you try to be more positive in your use of it, by rewarding good content rather than punishing content you don't approve of, we will see the fear in this community subside and the bad vibes felt towards whales negated.
You appear to have misinterpreted me. I was not stating that all effort should be rewarded. I meant that, someone who you downvote, may have posted ten great posts that were very valuable to the site in the past week, but because of the small reward pool and large competition, received no reward. The payout on the post you are thinking of downvoting, could be deserved for previous posts that were valuable but underpaid.
Think of it this way.. If someone has been working hard on here, putting in a lot of effort to no avail, they reach a point where they're thinking, "I'm only going to have one or two more goes at this, and if I don't make something, then I'm out of here." This is an understandable position, if someone is putting in the time, as if it were a job, and not being rewarded, then obviously they're going to think about leaving.
Then on that last post when they're feeling disheartened, they finally get some results. This restores their faith in Steemit and they plan to make more and more content to get that feeling again. However, a whale comes a long, and despite that person posting content in the previous week that the whale may have upvoted had they seen it, this whale decides that this particular post is undeserving, and so they flag it.
That enthusiasm takes a blow and the user leaves the site. This is not a far fetched, nor a non-existent instance on this site. I myself was feeling disheartened before @curie showed up to give me a much needed kick up the arse. The point I was attempting to portray is that when considering a downvote we should, at least while the pot is limited, not look at the value of an author on a post by post basis, but on their value to the community as a whole and whether they will serve to produce content that will in future be of value to new comers.
Am I making any sense to you at all?
I'd suggest debating that with Dan. He's far more influential when it comes to Steem/it than I am. He and others believe that downvoting based on value and rewards is essential. Perhaps you can change his mind. If there is a general shift on this, or possibly design changes in the system to address the issues another way, then I would be happy to adjust. But for now I do think it is needed.
I recognize and to some extent agree with what you wrote about not disheartening brand new users who finally have a successful post, but frankly I don't see that as even happening. Certainly neither @ozchartart nor @krnel fit that description.
Well, I have seen it happening. My memory is not the best, but I'm sure in one recent instance the username was something like @tim. It is happening, and it's disheartening not only the ones who suffer it, but people who will in turn put less effort into their posts because they think, why put so much effort into this when it might get flagged anyway..
I want to take a moment to thank you for being able to converse in a mature manner. In responding to other messages, your adult demeanor becomes more evident.
I'm pretty sure that it happened to me back in the week of August 7th, unless there's another explanation for how my reputation reached 55.59 that week and was down to 40.24 by the next week (data pulled from steemwhales.com).
I can see that you still haven't regained your lost reputation as of yet.
I feel you should have responded to @smooth's comment with this rather than mine, because I know this is happening. It is he/she that seems to be unaware of it.
I will give you a follow and resteem anything you post that I enjoy so that you might get back some of your lost rep at a quicker rate.
EDIT: It appears I'm already following you. You must have impressed me prior to this post.
I think you both make good points here. I wouldn't ever suggest rewarding "effort" or "hours" put in on any job if it was unproductive. But I can also agree that there are productive users who get rewarded essentially nothing. That's why I proposed the "hindsight average rewards" for early voters on the posts of users who go on to become succefull in a later stage.
I also want to say that while I respect krnel and a lot of his work, I also disagree on how much he should get rewarded because I think the information he puts out is often faulty or at least not of the same value to Steem as such as many other posts. @ozchartart I've defended to some extent because of how his content has been argued against, but I also don't think it ought to be valued very highly.
I still think that the flag icon should be removed ASAP and downvotes should be reformed in order to curb some of the soft "censorship" imposed by a single or a few large whiles, usually just because of a disagreement on rewards. These issues should not have to be discussed as a single topic called "flagging", but there should ultimately be either only a downvote button, or both a downvote and a flag available for different purposes.
I think you have a lot of good ideas from what I have been reading. Perhaps you should make a post compiling them all together?
Was too confusing wasn't it? ; ) haha, but thanks! I'll try to make a post about the more important issues if I can fit it into the overall agenda for my blog.
My blog is all over the place. My username is son-of-satire and I haven't written a satirical piece in months. I think i produce too much diverse content on the one blog, I should probably look into have multiple accounts with different types of content, so that people will more easily be able to decide whether or not to follow me.
I look forward to reading the refined proposals of your ideas.