Curation Survey -- Necessary or Not?
Obviously, there has been a lot of talk on Steemit recently about ‘The Experiment” and the issues that underlie it. However, what many of you may have missed (because it doesn’t have a direct effect on our day-to-day Steemit experiences and interactions yet) is that there has been a lot of talk about curation recently as well.
Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Does it actually bring quality content to the forefront of Steemit by placing it on the Trending Page? Has it contributed to the voting behavior that some would say have created the problems “The Experiment” is trying to correct?
Can the current curation process be fixed by adjusting the formula it is based on? If so, how should it be adjusted?
Is curation even necessary? Should we just do away with it?
These are some of the questions regarding curation that are being discussed by witnesses and other big contributors on this platform. If you aren’t familiar with the arguments being made and the solutions being proposed, please take a minute to read the articles and, most importantly, their comments.
Of course there are many other well-written posts and arguments to be read about this issue, but for the time being, reading these posts and their comments ought to give you an idea of the positions that can be held in regard to curation and the proposals that are being put forth to possibly change/fix the current curation process.
I, myself, tend to think that curation isn’t necessary for Steemit to be succesful and that it doesn’t actually incentivize people to participate in the platform more productively than they would if they didn’t have access to its rewards. That said, I am very open to considering the value and importance of the curation process and I am trying to better understand the arguments for it.
If you don't mind - this was my take on it last month. I absolutely think that, not only is there a place for it, but that it's the best way to maximize participation/investment into STEEM. Readers/Voters of content vastly outnumber content creators and commenters.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/on-curation-rewards-and-their-necessity
Thank you for your reply and adding a link to your post. I haven't read it yet, but I will. I can definitely see there being a place for curation. As I've said though, I do wonder if it is necessary or if it really is the best motivator.
With the power of SP increasing for many users during the recent "Experiment", I've wondered if curating couldn't be replaced with commenting. Being able to reward comments through voting seems like a much better way to motivate people to read and interact with content than curation.
I've read a lot of your comments on the "Experiment" and I agree with the points you've expressed. I also really appreciate you turning the "entitlement" argument on its head.
I don't really know how I feel about the "Experiment" myself, but seeing the power of my vote increase has been very satisfying for me, more so than losing rewards on my posts (and I was hit pretty hard by the loss of consistent whale votes and down votes).
At any rate, I know there are a variety of users here with different needs, and I thought it might be valuable to try to collect opinions in a way that could easily be put on a spreadsheet and considered when thinking about changes such as rewards curves and distribution and, in this case, curation.
If you have any other reading you can add to the list I suggested above, beside the post you have already linked to, please feel free to do so.
Thanks!
Other than the link above, there was a lot of discussion about curves and curation on this post. Not sure if you've already seen it.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/make-steemit-great-again-fork-this-place
The comment section had several discussions about the issues with curation as it is now and what could be changed in order to achieve better results/more intuitiveness for voting. Options for the reverse auction, the author/curator split, piling on, etc.
Thanks again! I'm going to try to respond in the not too distant future.
/ Other (Curation is immensely valuable, and competition for curation rewards will improve voting quality, but the rewards formula may need improvement.) /
I also favor letting the authors adjust the curation percentage when they post, so that new content creators can use it as a competitive tool to help get noticed. The "correct" percentage is probably not the same for every post.
By way of explanation, this is from a comment I wrote yesterday, on another post.
Here's a post I wrote on the topic about a week ago, Steem Voting from a Different Point of View.
And lastly, I think maybe we should defer talk of all ad-hoc community ideas to improve the platform until we can agree on a process for decentralized decision making. I posted about that in 7 Videos about Holacracy: A Social Technology for Human Self-Organization. Our first priority should be establishing a method for decentralized decision making within the community.
Thank you for your great response. I find the idea of being able to adjust curation percentage interesting and I also really like that you have pointed out the necessity of having a decentralized decision-making process. That does seem like it would be very important. I have been doing a lot of thinking and don't have the time right now to respond properly, so I will try to follow your comment up after I get back from vacation. Thanks again!
I hope you have a great vacation!
/ Curation isn’t necessary / Curation leads me to vote without reading the material I vote on because I want to get rewards /
I think that users choosing to curate without reading the material is acceptable, and even beneficial to the platform. What sets Steemit apart for me, from other platforms, is the incentivization.
The people who enjoy my posts read them, comment on them, and curate them. Those who just want to reap rewards from the success of this or that post are free to do so without reading.
Ultimately, users are smart enough to know that if they upvote shit, the platform won't succeed.
@timcliff mentions that curators often decide whether or not to upvote something based on the potential curation rewards. While this is most certainly a factor, I think it sells most Steem users short. I vote on what I love, and try to get even unknown and low-vote good, quality content up to the top of the hot and trending pages because I want Steemit as a platform to succeed, with success being defined as "a unique and valuable blockchain-backed social media space with exceptionally (compared to other social media sites) high-quality content."
It seems to me that most avid users of the platform vote in this fashion.
My vote, for now, is:
/ No problem with the current curation system /
I really straddle the fence on this one. I can see value in having a curation system and I don't have any particular problems with the one that is currently in place, but I also wonder how productive it actually is and if it is necessary. Unfortunately, I don't have time to respond in full, so let's talk later.
/ Curation leads me to vote without reading the material I vote on because I want to get rewards / Other.
Curation is a good attempt to reward people for time spent on Steemit, but it doesn't work how it's done now.
The 0.1% of accounts (different from users) takes 90% of curation rewards. The 1% takes almost everything.