Dust threshold: still learning about the Steem ecosystem!
Yesterday I did read a post from @timcliff with a solution to fight Spam on the Steem blockchain! You read his post here It is worth a read and for sure the comment section!
While I don’t support the proposed solution, Tim at least is trying to come up a solution. It is always harder to shoot down a proposed solution than to come up with one!
There was a lot of interaction going on in the comment section! This interaction learned me that there are different views on the Steem ecosystem. It is obvious that the bigger Steemains have a different view on it, than the newcomers!
Both are trying to do, their utmost best to make it a success, but still all groups have a different viewpoint. It will be difficult to find a solution which works for all groups on the Steem ecosystem, from whales to plankton, from investors to clients!
But there was also an eye opening for me. Things I did not yet knew about how the Steem ecosystem works and this all has to do with the value of the posts/comment.
Dust
Apparently there is some kind of dust threshold feature! I did always wonder why a value of $0.01 suddenly disappeared when the pay-out date was reached.
No I know the truth behind this. The system is designed to this. As long as the pay-out of a post or comment is below SBD 0.02 the pay-out will be set to zero!
This dust threshold was implemented as a countermeasure to spam postings! The idea behind it, is that it should have been temporarily, there were plans to remove it in Hardfolk 20. But the code is still life!
Correct me if I am wrong!
How does this impact us, small red fishes?
Well it does and it doesn’t!
With this new knowledge at my hand I need to change some strategies, and maybe you also should do this.
I will keep on upvoting posts like always, I will just make sure that if I’m the first to upvote that my upvote at least will be $0.02, which should be enough so that the Dust threshold wouldn’t kick in!
I will need to change the way I upvotes comments. Normally I always reward genuine comments on my blog with a $0.01 upvote. Well now I do know that this is wasting voting power! So, from now on if I will upvote a comment, I will make sure that it will surpass the dust threshold test! So, that it is a real reward and not just a token of appreciation!
Also, maybe we should take care of each other! If you do see a comment or post which is worth it, we should make sure that it would surpass the dust threshold.
If you do see, such a post, with a payout of $0.01, and the post/comment deserves some reward give it a little help with an upvote!
Fighting SPAM
It is good to see that more and more articles are popping up to fight the rape of the pool, bidbots, whale wars, scammers and SPAM. Measure have to be taken! Just like the interaction on the steem ecosystem has to increase!
It will be hard to find solution which actually solve the problem without cutting into good and healthy flesh!
Not every proposed solution will be a good one, but it can be an accelerator for other to think of a better one!
SPAM will be one of the most difficult ones to tackle. Take a look at your mailbox and see how many spam of flowing in! Lots of countermeasures are already taken here but still the spammers do find new way to get around it.
It is just like the war against doping in sports. When the doping fighters are finally capable of finding ways to discover new ways of doping, the next one already pops up!
My 2 cents!
Just my 2 cents, suddenly has a complete different meaning on the Steem blockchain! It is not only an expression but also some code!
What are you thinking about this (new) knowledge I did present to you? Will you change your behavior? Or will you change the way you are going to upvote some posts/comments?
Did you already knew it, of was it really new?
Do you have some solutions to fight spam?
Keep the faith,
Peter
Only read this now while going trough some of the backlog af articles.
I've been on Steemit for over 8 months and never came across this info. I have wasted a lot of upvotes this was because I always upvote every entry in my weekly contest as a way to confirm and often do just a 0.01$ comment upvote to make sure I've read it.
While I have nothing against the rule itself, the fact that it's so poorly communicated really bothers me. There should be a warning sign each time someone wants to upvote something that stays below the dust threshold imo.
Thanks for the info, will change my voting habbits from now own.
Resteemed for the newbies in the community.
Thx
Thx
Honestly I haven't been around the steemit blockchain for all that long (Dec. 2017) but I still find myself learning new things about it every day. The Dust rule does make sense as some of my earlier beginning articles would earn very small rewards and then I'd see them disappear at the time of payout. I always just figured this was because the price of STEEM/SBD must have gone down at the time, which rendered my post payout to be worthless. Its funny how one tends to draw connections between events even if this correlation does not really exist! Lol Thanks for shedding some light onto the real reason why some of the rewards seem to drop off at the last minute.
I had the same thoughts but I am glad that I do know the real reason behind it! And glad that I can share this knowledge!
Wow! I've been wondering the same thing about the $0.01 rewards. Paranoia even kicked in at some point, which got me thinking maybe someone downvoted me. Now I know that wasn't the case, so thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll keep this in mind and make sure I always upvote someone beyond the dust threshold. (We'll just have to wait for a bit cause my upvotes are not worth much at the moment. Lol!)
As for the suggestion in the post about increasing the dust threshold, I honestly think that this will just discourage the red fishes and small accounts and not so much the spammers. I mean, what's to stop a spammer from self-voting (assuming he can get his SP high enough) or get his other spammer friends to vote, to meet the new dust threshold? Or worse, what's going to prevent the red fishes (who are already not very visible to begin with) from getting frustrated and leaving the platform because steemit has made it impossible to get rewards? I think, this might be a case where the cure is worse than the disease.
The point is, it is already difficult for a lot of people to earn rewards. Making it even more difficult is just like sacrificing the red fishes to solve the spam problem.
We have patience with you upvotes :)
To make things clear I am the same page and don't want an increase of the dust threshold. It was the solution presented by the author of the article I was referring to!
I do know how hard it is to get noticed! It takes lots of time and effort! Both by writing own post and by commenting on others!
I also fear that such a change would kill the platform! Leaving only whales behind who will be upvoting each others posts! This would also vaporize the current value of Steem and the Steem backed dollar!
My thoughts exactly. I think whatever solution people come up with to address spam, it should always begin by asking how its going to affect the legitimate users. I mean if you get rid of spam, but the majority of users who are minnows go with them, what's the point?
My vote is worth $0.01, and it would be worth a lot less if it weren't for the SP delegation I've received from @costanza, so I have no choice but to do as always. Upvote with $0.01 and hopefully, some other steemian will join in and put it over the threshold.
Fighting spam requires effective policing.
I know of no platform that hasn't got the problem with spam. The tech behind the steemit.com presents certain challenges the other platforms haven't got, but the solutions they are employing could be adopted here as well.
All the "tweak the code a bit" solutions will not prevent a competent spammer to do his/her job. They'll adapt to the changes by the end of the day on which the code is updated.
It was like when people learned to build bridges. The earliest bridges did collapse sometime but we rarely see bridges collapsing now!
The Steem ecosystem for sure has its problems, and action have to be taken but this has to be done with extreme precaution, so a solution will not harm certain groups within the eco system!
And as long as money is involved they will always be people how to can gain money without doing to much effort or by ripping off others!
I made also a post recently about this kind of proposals. It's like we talked to each other before :-)
I didn't know about the 0.02 threshold for upvotes, but I don't agree with the proposal of having one of around $1.
It's too much for beginners and it's not in the decentralized way Steemit works.
My proposal is to set a limit of daily posts. Something around three or four posts.
This way we won't have that spam anymore although it wouldn't eradicate it.
It's hard to make rules that suit for everyone, but some measures need to be taken in order to improve the platform which we all know is not perfect.
I do think that there is more spam in the comments section than post related!
I could life with limiting the number of posts a day to max 4 or 5!
They claim that a post or comment is only worth something to the blockchain when the value should be high enough. Like always I strongly disagree to this. A post with a payout below the threshold level but with lots of interaction has more value than some meme, which gets upvoted to the moon or by selfvoting!
The system is clearly broken then. It seems the solution is to not follow many people and limit it to 5 or something, and only vote those posts and no-one elses. And don't bother voting anyones comments either because it's a waste of time.
For a system that supposedly encourages people to post, interact and curate, it's a bit of a joke.
It all depends on the voting power you have! The 0.02 threshold was new for me, but was already here before I did enter the steem ecosystem!
I would not like to call it broken but it really could use some improvements!
Now I do have this knowledge I just need to change the upvotes on the comments I receive!
I would just increase the people I am following, as long as they write good content! And still reward them with upvotes. Cause I now understand that every vote counts!
all my votes are only worth a maximum of $0.01, so not much point using them. As I said, it seems a little stupid to design a system that encourages people to reward others, but make that reward worth nothing :-(
Not according to my viewpoint! You vote has value. Even when it stand alone, you could still increase the rep of the person. But value wise you are correct an upvote below .02 on its own, will not result in a payout!
I know that I rep too much... I like to upvote comments that I've read and like, but have nothing to add in the way of words, just so the person knows I read it. Maybe I just need to be more selective but I'm only doing this for the social, not money anyway.
We are on the same page!
I don't want to say its broken, as well. The words I always use, at least for Steemit, is growing pains. The platform is just over 2 years old and the user base has ballooned recently. Perhaps the system is just adjusting? Plus, as already mentioned, spam is everywhere, not just on steemit.
There's a lot fundamentally wrong with the way the platform works, they didn't account for 'greed' for one thing. If you're not a whale by now it's likely you never will be as they've all reached critical mass, way up the exponential curve. Too difficult for any of us proletariat to ever catch them.
The basic premise is flawed anyway, people aren't incentivised to reward you, because it decreases the whole reward pool and hence less money for them. It's like the game shows where contestants rate each other and the highest wins, if would be madness to rate someone else highly.
Keep yourself motivated by the interaction! That’s all we can do and to make sure that we vote for the correct witnesses. Because they have the real influence!
I agree that there are problems with the platform. And if you take into account SP, small accounts really have no way of getting curation rewards, so you have a point there too. And it's also extremely difficult (maybe almost impossible) to reach whale status these days.
Call me naive, but I don't think that means its hopeless for minnows and red fishes to achieve anything or earn rewards. As @fullcoverbetting has said, all votes have value. Every upvote, even if it falls below the dust threshold, can help others increase their reputation, even if it won't increase their wallet. Every comment, even if it doesn't receive an upvote, can help you forge relationships. These may not seem like much today, but it can grow into something big tomorrow.
And at the end of the day, even in that gameshow where fellow contestants rate each other to win, there is no guarantee that everyone will only do the "strategic" thing and rate himself high and other others low. Not everyone acts in a strategic manner all the time. Some, despite all odds, will do what they believe is right. Others will decide based on what they think is dutiful. Of course, there will always be those who do what is most advantageous to them. And there are those who will strive for a balancing act between doing the right thing, while seeking profits.
What I'm trying to say is that, while I am not disputing your points regarding the problems in Steemit, I'll have to believe and continue working based on that belief that Steemit's best days are still on the horizon. Yes, things are more difficult now, but that's only because we just started in the platform, while there are those who have been here for just over two years. Now, if after spending months on this platform and I'm still not getting any headway, then I'll have to rethink my position. But as of now, 23 days in, I'll keep working and hoping.
:)
@tradergurl and @cryptocopy
Yes it is hard to get noticed, yes it is hard to get some curation rewards, but let's see if I can give you some tips!
I have taken a look at both your blogs. And I know that it is hard, but you should try to post at least 3 or 4 times per week.
You both are great commenters but people will not start to follow you, when there is not enough activity on your blogs. The one cannot go without the other!
Try to invest in SteembasicIncome. If you do have around 5 shares (I assume) it will be enough to get each of your postings above the dust threshold. Encouraging you to post more and to get upvotes from others, even if their upvotes are below the dust threshold, because they all add up!
Both should also take part in the @abh12345 engagement contest. Not to win prices, but to see how it could be done. I am sponsoring the lucky 25 at the engagement league!
This way you will learn a lot of new people, not all related to the niches you both are aiming at! But most of these people do like to interact and will give a decent upvote on a genuine comment!
All these kinds of things will add up, and will make sure that your Steem Power will increase!
While I could use the steem for my next contest, I will sponsor you both a SBI share! Sponsor each other, or sponsor me one back and also this will all add up.
Remember that for each SBI share, you need to sponsor someone. So both the sponsor and the one which is sponsored will get a share!
Keep on interacting, because this is what the Steem ecosystem needs. Try not to ignore the whales, but see if they post and are active, to interact with them! Most of them do react on genuine replies!
Expand your circle of friends here! Not by asking to follow you, but to interact with them. I could result in a new follower or on an upvote on one of your comments!
Keep on going, don't give up!
Will post the evidence of the SBI shares, later today!
Wow! Thanks for the advice and the sponsorship to SBI. I didn't expect that at all. And yeah, my blog is pathetic at the moment. Lol! I'll be posting more starting next week, after I've been here for a month.
Just don't get your hopes up too much, Steemit is like becoming a professional football player, not impossible but highly unlikely. Like all things, the early adopters make the most out of it, two years in now... it's just ticking along. It's like buying Bitcoin and thinking it's going to increase 10,000% it's just not going to happen. Should have bought it 5 years ago, you've missed the boat now.
I'm not trying to discourage you at all, just trying to inject some realism. Everyone comes to Steemit now thinking they're going to strike it rich, become the next internet sensation but it's just not going to happen. I write because I like writing and only come here to chat to people, even now I earn about $0.30 on average per article, and I've written quite a few. And as I recently discovered my votes aren't worth a curation crap either.
Keep at it and you might get a large following and earn some spare change out of it, but the days of using Steemit to earn an income are long gone I think, everyone missed that train.
I get where you're coming from. It's always a good thing to be realistic about your expectations. Cautiously optimistic is the boat that I'm in right now. And until the time I spend on this platform becomes counterproductive, I'll just keep at it. At the very least, I get to practice writing and discover new people along the way.
that's the best way, completely forget about the money side and just concentrate on the social, hopefully in time things will work out in your favour.
As promised:
You will get a message in your wallet by steembasicincome if you are registered!
As promised:
You will get a message in your wallet by steembasicincome if you are registered!
I like my friend jan explanation the best:
Hey, finally made time to stop by. I also saw you made an updated post. Read the part on self-voting. I guess when it comes down it it, a newbie does have to self-vote to push themselves over that 0.02 threshold to get paid. Not always the best path to take, but it is one path.
Looks like we are on the same wavelength with this. I just learned out that the 0.02 threshold could fluctuate. It doesn't always pay if the feed price takes a dive. Like my coffee post, most of those 0.02 upvotes I gave didn't even pay out! Shame. I'll stick to 0.03 if I can afford it. That is a a big chunk of my VP too.
if you want to get into the tech details of the 0.02 threshold:
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@eonwarped/life-on-the-knife-s-edge
Do you know how much SP you need to make a vote of 1.2 SBD? Because I think that's what Hardfork 20 is bringing for everyone. I think it's just going to get worse.
You can take a look at steemworld.org. There you can simulate the SP you have and see how much worth your vote is then.