This is reaction and proposal to
https://steemit.com/steem/@dantheman/negative-voting-and-steem and other posts (mine included) where current reward system issues were often criticized.

Issues of current model

First, address current issues:

• people vote based on authors SP because it's more rewarding
• whales votes for whales because it's more rewarding
• downvoting / flagging is questionable and it's hard to judge if it was used fairly or not
• voting system doesn't motivate people to vote (in most cases) for best articles, people mostly vote just for the best articles in terms of possible curation reward (regardless if they are great or poor)

Basic principles of my simple and transparent proposal (SaT)

• Voting of each voter has the same value (exceptions described below)
• Author rewards are based on SP (but ten times higher SP brings only 2times higher reward)

Not take a look at this approach closely

From voters (curators) view

Your reward from upvoting will be equal no matter who you are - if you're a whale or someone with SP 100. Your reward will be the same if you're voting for popular posts or marginal posts.

From authors (or commentators) point of view

Your author's reward will be based on votes you get and SP you hold but SP ten times higher will make you "only" TWICE stronger in terms of possible author's rewards

Examples from author point of view (Author's reward based on (applicable) votes)

Note: numbers are for illustration, they are not precise but show reward distribution

Author: 1,000,000,000 SP (there is currently no-one with such a SP)

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 12.8$
• Post with 10 upvotes => 128$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 1280$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 12800$ reward

Author: 100,000,000 SP (there is currently one user with similar SP)

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 6.4$
• Post with 10 upvotes => 64$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 640$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 6400$ reward

Author: 10,000,000 SP (there is currently no-one with similar SP)

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 3.2$
• Post with 10 upvotes => 32$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 320$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 3200$ reward

Author: 1,000,000 SP (there are currently about 10 users with simiar SP)

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 1.6$
• Post with 10 upvotes => 16$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 160$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 1600$ reward

Author: 100,000 SP (there are tens of users with similar SP)

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.8$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 8$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 80$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 800$ reward

Author: 10,000 SP

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.4$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 4$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 40$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 400$ reward

Author: 1,000 SP

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.2$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 2$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 20$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 200$ reward

Author: 100 SP

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.1$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 1$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 10$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 100$ reward

Author: 10 SP

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.05$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 0.5$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 50$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 50$ reward

Author: 1 SP

• Post with no upvotes => 0 reward
• Post with 1 upvote => 0.025$ reward
• Post with 10 upvotes => 0.25$ reward
• Post with 100 upvotes => 2.5$ reward
• Post with 1000 upvotes => 25$ reward

NOTE: Numbers are just for orientation, examples should show distribution based on SP in terms of given votes. To avoid spamming, votes from the author himself/herself don't count here! (in other case you could create funded bot to generate articles and receive multiple micro rewards)

Curation rewards (based on (applicable) voting users)

Curation will go proportionately to all voters from global curation budget to each voter .

MAX_24H_APPLICABLE_VOTE_COUNT = 100;

DAILY_24_BASE_VOTE_COUNT = 10;

It's desirable for the system that will upvote more than once per day. Max 24h voting is protection from voting spamming. You can vote more but there is no more reward (decreasing reward mechanism is also possible). If you vote less than 10 votes per day, there is on the other hand only proportion of optimal reward you can get.

Again:
For 10 votes you'll receive full daily voting reward
If you vote up to 100, you will receive up-to double reward, NOT 100x reward
If you give more than 100 votes per day, you will receive double reward, nothing more
If you give just 1 vote per 24 hours, you'll receive 1/10 of full daily-reward

Comments

Comments will be taken as articles with value 1/10 of possible reward potential and people can vote for it and you can get rewards.

Curation rewards examples

Same for all (example)

• Budget for 24 hours curation budget ~100,000$
• Total voting user count in 24 hours = 1,000
• One user reward (whale or anyone else) = 0 votes = 0$, 5 votes = 0.5$, 10 votes = 1$ , 50 votes = 1.5$ 100 votes = 2$, 200 votes = 2$
• Users with SP < 100(1000) SP will be cut proportionally (antispam protection against bots)
• Author's reward from voters with less than 1000 SP will be cut proportionally (antispam protection against bots)

Downvoting

In this schema, downvoting is not necessary at all. When you like it, you vote. When you don't, you just don't.

• Ignoring = DOWNVOTING
  Articles which are not good are just ignored. If you wish to downvote something, just ignore it.

Benefits and summary

• fair and transparent system
• system ready for larger growth
• positive
• motivational
• both investment and participation are equally rewarded
• system can scale and it's ready for growth

Basic principles summary

• voting (curation) rewards are equal (you need some basic account funding to provide antispam protection)
• authoring rewards are based on quality in terms of given (applicable) votes
• voter SP doesn't matter (in case he has some required minimum)
• author SP matters but doesn't limit (you can start with 1SP but more SP better reward per vote you get BUT it's degressive, not linear (or even exponential))

Additional risks and more advanced abuse mechanisms

People are often very inventive in terms of finding system vulnerabilities and use it fo profit. There might be some more advanced automated scenarios. For example when someone creates two well-funded bots to generate articles and gather rewards. System must and I believe it can be adjusted to eliminate profitability of such a behavior. If not there must be built-in anti hostile-bot protection.

What will happen if applied

• many articles currently with 3 votes can have 100 votes
• many articles currently with 150 votes can have 10 votes
• some articles currently with 100 votes can have 100 votes again
  BUT many people will vote for what they like, not where the reward lies

Disclaimer

This model provides just basic ideas, numbers and details can be adjusted and calculations will be based on available budget, Steem price, etc. and will be recalculated based on market and user base. Anyway, I believe this proposal brings fair and transparent model with some fundamental principles which are much better than the current one and could bring Steem(it) forward to mainstream and to much more users with keeping and motivating the existing users.