What Should Be The Goal Of Curation?
I have seen a lot of discussion on the nature of curation and how different mechanisms within the Steem blockchain and built on top of the blockchain have been used to optimize particular aspects of curation. I have not seen a lot of positive response around these mechanisms but many view them as a necessary evil. But before we get to that, we need to ask ourselves an important question: What should be the goal of curation?
The definition of curation in our context is to select, organize, and present different posts to the users of the platform. Essentially, with our upvotes, we act as a filter to separate some content from the rest of the content. Filtering information is important as it allows people not to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that is out there. Some filtering is done through topics, but the majority is done through curation.
One of the problems with curation is that it takes effort to perform this filtering manually and sometimes curation seems more like a chore than an interesting activity in itself. So, Steem incentivized curation by offering rewards for curating which seems like a good idea. But we return back to our question: What should be the goal of curation?
One could argue that the goal of curation is to separate quality content from the rest of the content. To separate the best from the rest and showcase the best content creators on the site. Another could argue that the goal of curation is to generate the biggest amount of profit from the process and showcase the best profit generating content on the site. In the case of Steem, I would argue that goal of curation should be both. But if I was forced to choose one over another, I would pick the first goal over the second goal.
Why should we support the first goal? By showcasing the best content, we make the Steem ecosystem a good location for consumers. In many cases, these consumers will be people looking to read blogs and watch vlogs. By encouraging an environment where the best content is promoted, it allows creators to hone their craft and rewards effort that is put into their posts. By achieving the first goal, we create a fair merit-based system. Those who work hardest get rewarded the most.
Why should we support the second goal? Curation take times and effort. Those who curate deserve to be rewarded and those who invest the most into the site through holding and investing into Steem Power should be rewarded for their efforts. Thus, those who have more skin in the game deserve to have their content showcased and displayed as they have already invested large portions of their time and money into the system. By achieving the second goal, we create a fair stake-based system. Those who take the highest risk should be rewarded the most.
If we take a step back and try to look at things objectively, we can see that both goals are attractive in what they offer and both provide different ways of looking at the curation issue. Ideally, Steem would incentivize the user base to use both goals to curate. Unfortunately, it only incentivizes users to do the second. There are some users that see both goals and should be commended for their pursuit of finding and promoting quality content. But currently there is no incentive to find quality, only incentive to find profit.
But I would argue that merit-based curation is better than stake-based curation. Why? Because it drives more attention to the site. It allows the site to grow. It allows new users to get a foothold, while still leaving those who were there first an advantage for being first. It also allows consumers a place to consume quality rather than to see who holds the most influence in the community. In a stake-based system, capital and social status are king. Why? Because old creators are the most profitable due to their heavier stake in the system.
To summarize the above point: a merit-based system encourages new users while a stake-based system ignores them unless they put some stake in themselves.
Which begs the question? Why should I care about new users and consumers and their well-being before mine? This comes to the whole short-term view versus long-term view debate. In the short term, power users and whales have little incentive to promote the merit-base view of curation because it forces them to compete to earn their rewards. They seek to maximize profit because they want to make a lot of money fast. In the long-term, if we do create an environment that promotes quality, then the user base will grow, more attention will be put on the site, network effects begin to kick in and your stake becomes more valuable.
Unfortunately, taking a short term view of curation harms the potential benefits of having a longer term vision. But people shouldn't have to be convinced of a long-term vision. They should be incentivized to behave such a way. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the mechanisms promote the short term profit and a stake-based approach to curation. But such a view slows the growth of the platform and turns new users away and encourages them to look some place else where their efforts are more valued.
So what should be the goal of curation? Well it should be to promote quality AND reward stake-holders. And by doing the first, over time we do the second. But the allure of easy money and quick cash distract us from such considerations. We are tempted to choose the second goal and are not incentivized to do the first. You think you can make more Steem by using mechanisms to maximize profits? You certainly will make more Steem. Unfortunately, it won't be worth as much as you think but maybe that doesn't matter.
Man, I just love how you dive into deep topics!
It's a very good question and highlights the fundamental tension between financial incentives and the health of the community/network. When in balance, the community will just feel right: good people and good content will find one another.
I also agree that the financial incentives tend to win out over quality content. While I love Steemit, I currently value the community, while the content lags far behind -- most of my reading is done elsewhere. I rarely find posts that interest me on the main trending page. Then again, no site or network can be all things to all people all the time. So I'm extremely happy with the community aspect.
I tend to believe that if more and more people join Steemit, the pie simply will grow bigger and the old timers will grow more and more irrelevant. Will all the newcomers care about the same things the old timers care about? Maybe, but probably not. More likely the old timers will bemoan all the new folks who have different interests and values.
And if the old timers do have an unfair advantage, Steemit will simply become and artifact and people will spend their time where they're appreciated.
But I don't think that will happen. I think that the community and network will evolve together and the necessary tweaks will happen along the way. If we iterate on the current model, I think we'll discover how far we can get in balancing the tension of $$$ and quality.
It will be interesting to see what emerges as quality, since so much of it is in the eye of the beholder. I know a lot of people who prefer sensationalist news to truth.
Can't wait to find out!
Yeah, I agree the community plays an important role. It's a huge reason Steemit is still around and is the reason the future is still bright.
I think by doing curration, we can learn a lot and it is a good way to improve our self in posting, besides it feels good when we can help others to improve and give them supports even though just a little bit.
That's very true but I think there's two other reasons:
On the first, I'm always seeing authors, artists, vloggers, etc., frustrated by the apparently unbalanced rewards, as the old guard with more skin the game controlling things and rewarding themselves and their friends over actually doing the work of curation.
On the second, it doesn't just matter to people on the outside what the community looks like here, it matters to the people here to. It fosters a sense of pride in membership and a willingness to promote it organically. I won't promote Steemit to my friends and family if it looks scammy, even if I know it's not, because I just don't want to have to justify that.
Great post as always 😁
I agree with your two other reasons. If curation did work to promote quality, we would see less frustration with new users and a product we could all be proud of. If we could just figure out a good short term incentive to curating for quality, I think that would fix a lot of our problems and give the platform more legitimacy.
Interesting!
As in real life, here we face the classic dilemma between short term results and long term benefits.These are my first steps in steemit, but so far it's seems to be a very smart design.
Good post again @greer184!
First off, welcome to Steemit!
I will say for the most part a lot of the design choices made on the Steem blockchain are smart and encourage people to behave and participate in certain ways. It's a really clever way of distributing rewards while maintaining the value of the rewards that are distributed out.
The issue is that those rewards come in the form of cryptocurrency. Thus the rewards are only as valuable as the system that distributes them. The problem with short term results is that you stunt the potential growth of the site. As @personz mentioned in his comment, the way a site is perceived is an important factor in the promotion of the site. We have to add value to make our tokens more valuable rather than focusing on accumulating as many tokens as possible.
Hope you enjoy your time on the site and be patient. Those who are the most patient tend to reap the largest rewards.
Thank you @greer184!
As I only have been 2 days in here, maybe I can't see clearly your point, but it sounds reasonable.
Which alternatives could be developed? Maybe a combined rewarding scheme? Or nothing to do with rewards? What can be taken from similar blogging/curation platforms?
You have to incentivize quality rather than going for profit. But since that may be tough if not impossible to accomplish, you might need to find a way to incentivize quality with profit which require adjustments from the current curation model.
I have seen this number in parenthesis besides our usernames (starts in 25 when we just register here), and it is used to "weigh" our contributions and content generation.
Maybe it could be redefined so it can be as "relevant"as profit. On the other hand, here we define quality by this voting and rewarding system. "Low quality" (maybe I would prefer to say "relevance for not so many people") simply won't get higher visibility. Should that contents or users receive another treatment? Hard to define.