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RE: Elimination of Curation Rewards
But wait, shouldn't curators get paid for their work?
If they do their job well - they will.
The value of SP will come if we can build a platform that attracts and retains billions of users, in a way that keeps them actively engaged in the site. With a large and engaged audience, that gives us the ability to build a revenue model (such as advertisements) on top of those users. That revenue can be turned into passive earnings for all SP holders.
How did these curators get the SP without the curation rewards?
it is not so difficult to write a comment and be rewarded for that.
That's true. Worst case scenario.... People would then seek out those bloggers with enough SP to be able to reward these comments, and the new members would experience an awkward silence. Back to the drawing the board.
buy them. thats how we increase demand. duh.
How do you sell this idea?
Hi there, would you like to purchase some advertisements today? The value of your advertisements will increase over time. Technically, you won't need to participate in curating, other people will, probably, so you can buy this today and hope for the best! What do you say?
exactly.
I guess through the other means of acquiring SP... through content creation or by purchasing Steem, presumably.
Even today with curation rewards, anyone who is earning them is doing so based on a large existing investment in SP. You either have to buy or earn SP first in order to earn anything meaningful from curation rewards.
Many people are earning from these curation rewards. Every member here who has earned rewards for their content did so because there was an incentive for curators to hit the "like" button.
I left this comment on another post and I'll leave it here so people can see what the new plan looks like in the real world.
I've already seen the plan in action. I'm not sure it's a good idea to remove these rewards.
This has been completely lost in the entire debate. Just as there are incentives for posting, there are incentives to vote on posts. The existence of both is what makes the platform work for both groups of users: content creators and content consumers. The elimination of curation rewards tells the consumers that they are not necessary...or that they at least don't deserve to be rewarded for their work on the platform. Instead, they are expected to buy more "influence" so that only the content creators can benefit.
It's just a bad idea that is not based on any actual economic behavior.
One percent of the earnings seen in my wallet have come to me by way of curation rewards. It's not much, but as I climb by creating content, I'm earning the ability to pay back those who have voted for me by voting for their content. New users today also benefit from those of us who have stuck it out trying to make something of this.
There's an incentive in existence that helped push me to succeed. I know the more I put in, the more I'll get out. I viewed my ability to earn higher curation rewards down the road as a way to make up for low creation rewards at the start. A time investment(like any other investment) that finds a way to balance itself out. Without that, should I power down? I'd like to be able to help people with strong voting power. Without curation rewards in the future, it'll take me even longer to get there. They talk about this mountain being steep...now I'm facing a wall.
"Every". I curate. I vote on things I like. Just like I up vote youtube videos, and I up vote reddit posts. What is the incentive there? Oh yeah, it is that thing called telling the content creator you like it an want more. If they make more then that is great.
I don't suddenly think I should magically be paid in currency because I told that person I wanted them to make more content.
The content curation thing here is really alien. It has created an environment where people think they should be financially rewarding for saying they like something.
If not for the fact some people spent a lot of money buying steem power and this really the only way they interact with steemit I'd be fine with seeing curation rewards completely gone.
Why?
You are rewarded the same as anywhere else that hopefully the content creator will make more content.
What the curation rewards DO offer is a way for people who do not feel they are good at making content, or participating in that way some way to still earn from interaction with steemit. THIS is a good reason for curation rewards to exist. Yet are they worth as much as 25% of the work it takes to make the content? Someone who spent steem power to power up so they can do that would likely say "yes, me clicking up vote and potentially awarding you should be worth the hours your spent making your content" especially if that is the only way they interact with steemit/busy.org. Does that mean they are correct? Subjectively yes. Objectively maybe not. I personally think 25% may be a bit higher than it should be, but I'm also okay with leaving it there. I do think the algorithm now encourages dog piling rather than actually voting on the merit of each piece on a case by case basis. Throw in the bots that are designed to maximize the curation reward by predicting authors who always do well, and following dog piles actually dilutes the reward pool. In other words, due to the automatic voting, or voting without reading over simply wanting curation rewards the rewards that can be given out to content and perhaps to new content authors is very much diluted.
This might be addressable by rethinking the curation rewards algorithm.
From the user side, curation rewards are about the only thing that sets Steemit apart from the competition (average users don't "experience decentralization", nor care about it). The other established platforms are better than Steemit, in some cases by light-years, at what sets them apart from the crowd.
Are you suggesting that Steemit stands up to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Medium, YouTube, based only on its content being saved into a block-chain?
Let's not forget, YouTube pays content creators, so Steemit doesn't really set itself apart by rewarding bloggers in Steem. In fact, YouTube's payment system gets the nod from the average user since it pays in fiat, something people generally understand and trust.
Edit
I read the rest of your post to discover that you aren't suggesting to ban curation rewards altogether.
My bad for reacting before I read through your entire post.
Thanks for the edit. I do see some benefits to the idea of curation. I simply think the algorithm doesn't tend to lead to what I believe was the outcome intended. So I do think it needs some adjusting.
As you saw I was only mentioning those other social medias as an explanation that we are PAID for our vote also by hopefully the content creators we like making more content. That may not interest people enough to justify them using Steemit over another platform, but it was me illustrating that there are other factors in the scheme of "payment" or "reward" beyond the pure crypto currency aspect.
I can see you understood this though.
Brutal nesting!
People shouldn't have to change their blogging habits to accommodate a rewards system. These photographers spent hours taking and processing photos. I produce digital art and I often do include some sort of story to go along with the art, but not always. The images take many hours to produce. I see many artists who post a few images of their latest creations and give a few details of their thought process. These people can't be limited or suffer because those seeking rewards are forced to stare at nothing. All this does is create downtime. Steemit isn't about long essays. Even these poets would take a hit. Some of the most popular videos of all time on youtube are seven seconds long. People want creative freedom.
Brutal Nesting 3
Alright, if the curator spends time writing a comment, that helps.
Also, I do have a soft place in my heart for those who use bots for legitimate purposes. Some of my oldest supporters have me on auto, which I appreciate, because they appreciate my work and want to support me. They come back later and read. Some live on the other side of the world. I actually encourage people to do this, whereas I used to be against it. I need to make money, and I don't mind them making money from my product because that's what pays me. I'm back to square one. I don't know what to do or say. If people just voted responsibly, supporting the creators they enjoy and not going for the easy rewards, there wouldn't be a problem. I don't know what to say anymore.
"Every" as in: Not all votes come by way of someone seeking to maximize their reward potential, but anyone who has seen a substantial reward has been struck by those who are seeking curation rewards. That's why views are far lower than votes, every time.
I'm another voter who votes for what they like. My incentive to build up my SP by producing content is so I can give more to the other authors out there. I don't mind at all when some seeking rewards give me a boost, because it all goes back to the community. I can then take my work and get views somewhere else for added exposure and feel comfortable knowing the work was not a waste of time.
Would I prefer to see my rewards for creating increase? Yes. Is the curation reward percentage too high? I'm not sure, so let's talk about something else.
Would more people come to my restaurant for coffee if I offered free refills? Yes. That's an incentive to go there for coffee. Would free refills increase the chances of a customer purchasing a bite to eat... yes. I'm making money, by giving customers a piece of the pie. Soon, more people hear about this free coffee and my restuarant is full. I leave a sign up by the door that says, "Free dessert with the purchase of any meal." Then I find myself making even more money by giving more away. To top that off, the service is getting tipped well because I've created a friendly, giving atmosphere(the comment section after party).
If I received 1000 votes for a dollar each, I'd be fine with taking home $750. I produced something and gave back all at the same time. It feels honest. Maybe the voter voted because they like my stuff. Do the math, they didn't get much if everyone got an equal cut, but it's still something, and it adds up.
I say, leave the curation rewards and remove the methods that cause the problems and kill the audience. My show runs all day, why are people being penalized for showing up early or coming late? There's no time to enjoy the show if you're already late for the next one down the street. Allow curators to relax and enjoy their stay. I'm sure there's a way.
Yes, I'm sorry about my irrational choices of where to respond :(
Simple solution: make the time limit 10 seconds. It should never take less than 10 seconds to look at a photo, especially one that we enjoy to look at, and if it does we only have to suffer mere seconds to put in our 100% vote.
What does this accomplish?
First of all, manual curators are now forced to at least BE where they are voting -- as in, actually looking at the content that they're voting on (no votes without views -- another problem many people have been mentioning). Can you "thumbs-up" a youtube video without opening its link? As far as I can tell, the answer is no, and I think Steemit would benefit by setting up a similar condition to voting for content.
Secondly, bots will be forced into more difficult prioritizing habits, assuming they can cheat the system into detecting an account as viewing a post (this might be a problem if the bot owner also wants to be viewing content on his/her own), they can't lead vote on a post simultaneously with lead voting another post as they can only be accumulating viewing time on one post at a time.
Good response. I do think the biggest problem at the moment is the algorithm. You know what would be really funny is if there was a captcha generated from content actually in the article and you had to answer the captcha to vote. :P
I know that wouldn't go over too well and would add a barrier that would discourage more people from voting, so let's NOT do that. Yet I do think it is amusing and it does show I was thinking a bit outside of the box.
Imagine a tiered curation reward.
A simple upvote click on the feed yields a small reward to the curator. An upvote click after opening the article yields a larger reward. Then, to top it off, a responsible blogger who cares about their readers could give a few worthwhile votes to worthy comments. Triple whammy! Rewarded for actually viewing and expressing their thoughts!
The content creators could create. The curators could curate... and finally, the creators can curate the curators. Everyone wins and it's a perfect world again!
Hooray!
Yes as long as the algorithm does not encourage doing all of those things simply based upon the order you did it in.
Yes, user engagement is so important and something that's sorely lacking throughout most of Steemit. Community is built around fluid communication not by reading static pages and especially not by clicking on an upvote button without taking the time to even open the post.
I've got you on auto-vote, myself. I believe I've been auto-voting you for about 2 weeks now (at 100%) and will likely continue to do so for many months (years?) to come. I really enjoy your stuff, but I must admit that I mostly treat curating like playing the stock market -- "performers" stay in the portfolio...and it kind of pains me to say that because I want to keep supporting the people whom I appreciate and respect, but, I don't know, I guess my greed weighs heavy on me.
I suppose you can't be a top curator without playing along with these type of games, though.
Silence speaks the loudest ;)
...and, suddenly, it seems that I've hijacked this post with the most brutal nesting that's ever been accomplished in all of Steemit's history. As unlikely as it may seem, this was not intentional and I apologize for it... I mean this honestly.
If I'm a performer, I view my curators as investors. I require these investors so I can perform consistently. I like the fact that I'm giving back by producing content...and at the same time, I like to give votes in return. Many who follow get a follow back, so that's who I'm seeing, that's who I'm voting for. You take your piece of the pie, I get it back when I vote. This all seems so damn fair to me. People working together towards a common goal and everyone wins, slowly, but surely.
I started out at the bottom like anyone else starting today. I didn't invest my money, only my time. This mountain isn't that steep, one just needs the proper climbing gear. If you don't have the right tools for the job, it's going to be harder and that's life.
Many of the people who vote for me, majority, they vote because they like my stuff. It's not about rewards but I'm damn happy they get them. That's where I stand on this whole thing. Everyone needs to put their heads together and find ways to fix the abuse, not allow the abusers to ruin it for everyone else.
Peace!
The people who do not 'like' do so because it serves no purpose not because they are not paid to do it.. If a like gave author a few cents a lot more people would use it.
You don't see many people with umbrellas on a sunny day right, now bring in some rain and people will use umbrellas because suddently it has a purpose.
Would more people use umbrellas on a sunny day if you paid them to? I am not sure.. and if they did it would look fake as fuck much like the voting system here.
Exactly. That's why I'm saying if people had an incentive to like or upvote something, they'd do it. Most people on youtube simply forget to hit the button. Would you consistently forget your change at the cash register?
Using an umbrella on a sunny day is stupid, because it's not raining nickels, nor dimes.
My point was that you don't need incentives for people to do thing that have a purpose.
I think my analogy was incorrect which created the confusion.
I should have said : People will use umbrellas on a rainy day regardless if you paid them or not to do it, because it serves a purpose.
If the like button served a purpose there would be no need to pay people to use it.
Snowflake. If people who sit on their butts all day in front of the computer were paid to enjoy their form on entertainment, more people could afford umbrellas.(Just having fun!)
Did you read my restaurant analogy? It's around here somewhere. Those incentives are a proven business model. You're trying to tell me that coupon for a free turkey after purchasing $100 worth of groceries doesn't lure people to the store to spend $100 they may have spent elsewhere or not at all. Incentives work. Yes, people will still buy food, even on rainy days without an umbrella and if that's the case, they may choose the store with the closest parking spot as their incentive to shop there.
I mucked up the nesting... there's a response waiting near by.
Ok so what are you trying to achieve with curation rewards, people curating or people earning more reward? Because your analogy works only for the latter. The free turkey only forces them to buy a specific product ( upvoting a specific post) but it doesn't incentivize them to go to the store to buy food( something they would have done regardless)
I'm suggesting people earn reward by curating and removing the problems that encourage simple upvoting for the sake of reward. I'm suggesting an incentive for people to actually come and see this great community and content within and be rewarded, like everyone else, for taking part.
When I first started here, a culture was brewing. As automation took over, the culture slowly started to die. The incentive should be there. Reward the authors, pay them with this simple click that also pays you! Read what @seablue had to say here. I wholeheartedly agree with what was said there.
How do you remove these problems while keeping curation rewards ? In other words how to incentivize people to vote for quality content instead of high paid content when you have curation rewards?
By being an all around fun person who people want to know and be with.
Also, people should learn to vote responsibly. We can't blame the vehicle for hitting the tree when the driver put it there. You seem to want to cut down all of the trees, instead of educating the masses about the dangers they pose.
It doesn't work like that, if there is an incentive to vote in a specific manner people are going to vote this way.
Those trees you speak of bring nothing positive to the platform so why not cut them all down?
Educating the masses? Ok so there is this feature that you can earn money with if you upvote stuff but be careful, only use it to make little money do not abuse it. Yeah right :)
Majority of the people who vote for me, whether it's automated or manually, enjoy my work. I did something right to get their attention. Now they can't wait to see what I'll do next. I appreciate their efforts. They come to my comment section and we all have a blast. It's a nice yard with a lot of shade. Why do you want to come to my yard and make it ugly? I enjoy giving back to these people.
If there is a specific manner that allows people to vote in a fashion that doesn't seem like it's good for business, make adjustments. If I have a leaky roof, I'll fix it. Replacing a leaky roof before testing to see if it can be fixed is counterproductive.
You keep saying there is specific problem, and I can agree. So why not address that issue? You can see it, you know what it is. If you can pinpoint the problem, a solution shouldn't be too far away.
If incentives don't work, why are saying people are voting in a certain way because there is an incentive to do so. Why not change what is so appealing into something else which is also appealing, while learning from the mistakes in the past...
This is my quote
I am not trying to replace the roof, else I wouldn't have asked you how to repair it...
I've thought about improving curation reward but it's very difficult to incentivize people to vote for what they like instead of what the post will earn.
I don't really see how to improve the current curation rewards system because it is already very good at what its doing and every abuse problem has been thought out, but it is still a burden because the incentives are bad.
At this point the best would just be to give a fixed curation rewards to active voters ( say 30+ vote per day) in proportion to their steem power.
EDIT : Actually even a fixed reward is stupid as it would incentivize bots to vote which means a lot of the stake will be used by bots.
What we want like @timcliff said is a system where real active users are rewarded by having a bigger influence. ( since no more bots will be voting)
What are these rewards worth if everything is set up to vote for a handful of successful creators. One thousand auto voters distributing 40000 votes to the chosen ones based on previous success dictated by the previous round of auto votes. Ignoring the newcomers because there's no profit today while slowing but surely watching their investment diminish and not understanding why. If those abusing the reward system found out they are actually doing more harm to their investment than good, do you think they would change?
They got the memo about easy curation rewards. I don't think they saw the one about where it leads.
Find a way to boost curation rewards on lower reputation accounts as an incentive to change things up from time to time. Make them hunt. As reputation rises, so does SP for that user, curation rewards slowly diminish on high reputation accounts, but those users make up for the losses by being able to earn higher curation rewards due to being well established. People will still vote for higher rep accounts even if the curation rewards are slightly lower. Finding a promising noob is a curation reward in itself, for everyone, right?
That would be one problem with it, aside from the coding end, of course (can it even be accomplished -- I don't know).
One solution, from the content creator's end, is to adapt to the system. In the case of sharing photos, the author could write a few paragraphs detailing a bit of the story around how the picture(s) came to be and/or what the picture(s) means to them, etc. As to the comic, well, maybe this isn't the platform for that, if money is the main incentive? But, again, they could add in other things to lengthen viewing time.
Also, and I know this isn't ideal either, viewers (content curators) may decide to wait out the time limit on a post, out of respect to its quality.
Perhaps something like 1 minute, or even 30 seconds, would work better as the time limit. That way people aren't forced to sit idly on a short-post that they think deserves a 100% upvote and bots can't cast 30 100% upvotes in the span of 10 seconds.
EDIT:
Another possible solution is to set different time limits to different lead-tags. The limit could be set at something like 5 ~ 10 seconds for everything with "photography" as the first tag and vary anywhere from 5 seconds to perhaps several minutes, depending on the average length of other posts under those same tags. But talk about going as far north from K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) as possible! Plus, this type of system might lead to a new way to game -- focus on the small time limit tags.
@snowflake
A few months back I suggested considering "time account spends on X post" as part of the voting calculation.
So the voting calculation could be something like:
(SP of account, factoring in current voting power) * (time spent on X post) * (1/0: upvote or not?) * (voting slider value: this is where we would state whether the read was worth the time spent)
...and we can give every X time interval spent on a post some incremental value of 1, until the time limit is reached (we could settle on 5 minutes, or 300 seconds, as a 100% vote by time and split up the measurement in 5 second intervals, such that spending only 5 seconds viewing an article only casts a 5/300 {1/60} time weighted vote in the above calculation)
This way people are somewhat punished for voting on content that they don't like -- they would have to spend at least 5 minutes with their browser stuck on a post that they don't like (or 10 minutes, or whatever value we determine to be the time limit) in order to cast a 100% vote on it.
If we could somehow code accurate account viewing time per post where the first post opened is the ONLY post on which the time measurement happens (UNTIL that post is voted on or the post is closed out of), then I think we would make gaming curation through bot-voting much more difficult to achieve AND better incentivize voting on things that we like vs. on things that we believe will be popular with others.
So this would reward people based on the time they spent reading it? And you would calculate the average of all people who viewed the post to determine its popularity? Is this correct?
How does this work when a photographer or an artist shares a few images? A comic doesn't take long to read.
Pretty much; but SP value and voting power would still be factored into the total voting weight that each account provides with their viewing time and we get the choice to not upvote and/or vote with the voting slider; thus, everyone still has the choice to vote on that which they think deserves it, but they're punished for 100% voting on content that they don't like, since they're forced to stay on the post until the time limit is reached to give a 100% vote (this limit could be anything, from 1 second to an hour, but 5 minutes seems about right to me since this is the average time that it takes to read your average well-thought out, high effort, post, IMO).
I am still confused about some aspect of your idea. What would a curator have to do to earn the highest possible reward?
How will this prevent bot from gaming the system?
What about shorter post that are quality but take 1 min to read?
How do you even code this at the blockchain level?
Sorry for all the question. Im kind of intringued by your idea but don't fully grasp it .
This is entirely untrue. There are many users who hit the "like" button simply because they like the content and want it to receive rewards. If everyone who was currently clicking the button because of the financial incentive stopped - the same rewards would be distributed to the community. It would just be decided by a different set of users hitting the like button.
So I guess in that case the incentive to hit the like button was because the person liked the content. The rewards are an added incentive and there's nothing wrong with that.
Either way, nobody here gets paid without first giving someone the incentive to vote.
Sorry, but not true if I am understanding you correctly. If nobody was incentivized to vote through curation rewards - people would still vote. I vote all the time, and it has nothing to do with any potential curation rewards.
The amount that the rewards pool will pay out each day is the same regardless of how many people vote. Whoever votes that day are the ones that decide where it goes. It would still all get paid out absent curation rewards.
I vote as much as possible, for only the things I like, provided I see them. Have a look at youtube though, and you'll see how the upvote button gets neglected. Read much of what I said here already. No offense, and with all due respect, kind sir, but I do not feel like talking in circles.
I see how this system works. I see the abusive aspect, and I see the bright side. I'm down the middle. Where I stand, I feel it's best to tackle ways to avoid the wrong and encourage the right while giving curation rewards a chance to breathe and function as intended. Those rewards, if marketed properly and truthfully, could be a great incentive to draw people to the platform. Find a way to reward them for actually engaging, rather than playing the numbers game.
Let's agree to end on that. I agree :)