Introducing the Daily Tribune: Most Undervalued Posts of Nov 04 - Part I

What if every voter had an equal say no matter their Steem Power? The Daily Tribune finds out and highlights those posts that would have been rewarded most but weren't. In ancient Rome, the Tribune of the Plebs was the voice of the people, serving as an important balance to the power of the ruling class. With your help, we hope the Daily Tribune will serve a similar purpose for the Steemit community.

In order to allow highlighted posts to benefit from greater visibility before the first payout, we plan to post twice a day, each covering the prior 12 hours of posts that have had at least 3 hours for votes to come in. Each post will rank the top 80 most undervalued posts for that period.

Please note that this isn't necessarily a direct criticism of Steemit's reward algorithms. An automatic reward system needs to be resilient against more potential abuses than a community driven effort such as this one, in which humans remain in the loop to reward deserving posts with more votes or flag undeserving ones.

In the next section, you can read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details. Or if you'd like, you can scroll down to skip to today's rankings.

Methodology

For each 12 hour period's posts, we set every eligible voter's voting power to be equal and divide their voting power among each post they voted for, with a maximum of 10% for any given vote. This part is somewhat similar to Steemit's own voting power algorithm, though with our method, every vote for a given voter is counted equally and the particular timing is not relevant. An eligible voter is one with a reputation score of at least 30.

We then add up the total voting power and total pending payout across all posts in that period. Each post gets assigned a share of the total pending payout proportional to its votes' voting power.

Now so far, posts that have had more time to collect votes will have an unfair advantage over others that were posted more recently. To see how we might control for that, we began by analyzing how a week's worth of posts acquired votes over time. For each integer percentage, we computed the average amount of time for a post to reach that percentage of their eventual payout. So, we obtain the nice-looking curve below.

We can see, for instance, that it takes a post around 3.5 hours on average to reach 50% of its eventual payout. And to reach 90%, it takes posts about 7 hours on average.

This data seemed pretty interesting but also struck us as counterintuitive. We remember seeing plenty of posts that acquired votes and pending payout much more quickly. One possibility that came to mind is that popular posts' payouts might grow more quickly than the average post. In that case, we would want to use that data to control for some posts having more time to acquire votes than others or else we'd risk overcompensating.

We were also curious to try the converse measure where, for each minute, we calculate the average percentage of their eventual payout posts had reached at that time. So, we tried again using just the top posts and this converse measure to obtain the two curves below.

The curves are less smooth because we are now filtering down to just the top 150 most undervalued posts a day, so we're not averaging over as many data points. We also changed the x axis to minutes on a logarithmic scale instead of hours on a linear scale to focus better on the interesting parts. The large ticks count 1, 10, 100, 1000 and the smaller ticks count first 2,3,...; then 20,30,...; next 200,300,...; and finally, 2000, 3000, and 4000.

The orange curve, which is the equivalent to the first chart's curve, actually didn't change as much as we thought it would, though it does show some initial acceleration. However, the blue curve, the converse measure, behaved much more like the way we initially expected. By 30 minutes, we can see that posts had on average reached 25% of their eventual payout. At a little over 40 minutes, they reach 50% and at around 3 hours (180 min), it's 90%.

Now, we could have just taken the average of these two curves, but seeing such a large discrepancy indicated to us that we must be missing something. Eventually, we figured that using the arithmetic mean to calculate averages was giving undue influence to a few outliers with large values. If a few posts took a very large number of minutes to reach significant percentages, it would drag up the average number of minutes to reach a percentage out of proportion to its actual signficance.

So, we changed the means to medians and reran the data to obtain the chart below.

We now see that there is much closer agreement between the orange and blue curves. Interestingly, it seems it is mostly the orange curve that has shifted much closer to the blue curve. Although the means could have distorted both measures, perhaps the orange curve was affected more because the large values there did not have a natural cap at 100%.

We have also added the average of the two curves in green. At this stage, we feel pretty comfortable about using the green curve to control for some posts having had more time to acquire votes than others. So, on a first pass, posts are ranked by the difference between their actual pending payout and the payout they would have received if voters had equal power. But now, we use our data to project how big the value difference would be if posts had equal time to collect votes and payout. Finally, posts are ranked by this projected value difference. For instance, a 3-hour-old post that currently has a value difference that is 88% of that of a 15-hour-old post would be ranked about equal to it.

Rankings

Below each post title, we list some important stats, which take the following form:

# Votes | Equal Voter Payout - Actual Pending Payout = Difference in Value + Time Bonus (# Hours Old) = Projected Difference in Value

If you'd like to see Steemit's rewards be more democratic, please consider following us as well as browsing the rankings and upvoting posts you agree are undervalued.

Rank		Author	Post Title and Stats
1		@timcliff	Update on @the.masses - Reputation Shattered - Thoughts on Flagging and Censorship 236 | $24.93 - $2.89 = $22.04 + 0.3% (13.6) = $22.10
2		@timcliff	The Official 'Welcome to Steemit' Landing Page Has Been Submitted to GitHub as a Pull Request! 226 | $22.76 - $0.99 = $21.77 + 0.9% (10.6) = $21.96
3		@l0k1	Starting to feel a bit more settled 154 | $17.05 - $0.70 = $16.35 + 3.2% (6.4) = $16.87
4		@exploretraveler	Tasty Snacks of Taiwan 140 | $14.81 - $0.34 = $14.47 + 1.0% (9.9) = $14.62
5		@l0k1	Cryptocurrency Issuance Rates - What is the best way to regulate it? 129 | $13.76 - $0.15 = $13.61 + 7.2% (4.4) = $14.59
6		@eneismijmich	America + Canon = Photostory to share (part 3 – Chicago) 243 | $26.40 - $11.93 = $14.47 + 0.3% (13.4) = $14.52
7		@dumar022	Protect your environment and invest in Steem 123 | $13.73 - $0.34 = $13.39 + 5.0% (5.2) = $14.07
8		@iamviv	Bill Gates's Top Four Priorities for the Next Political Leader 182 | $18.42 - $5.04 = $13.39 + 4.9% (5.3) = $14.04
9		@pollux.one	Steemit Photo Challenge #16 Entry 1: Black Truffel - Pasta 119 | $13.20 - $0.10 = $13.11 + 4.4% (5.6) = $13.68
10		@steemitrecipes	Steemitrecipes Daily Picks - Entry 030 207 | $19.56 - $6.25 = $13.31 + 2.7% (6.9) = $13.67
11		@inertia	Doctor's Office Aquarium 171 | $13.41 - $0.17 = $13.23 + 0.9% (10.6) = $13.35
12		@good-karma	SteemFest mobile application v1 released! 218 | $24.13 - $11.89 = $12.25 + 4.2% (5.7) = $12.76
13		@exploretraveler	Photo of the day ~ Enjoying the City View on top of Westerkerk Bell Tower in Amsterdam 131 | $13.47 - $0.94 = $12.52 + 0.3% (13.7) = $12.56
14		@rusteemitblog	📰 SteemMag – Еженедельный Стимит-дайджест #16/2 (перевод статьи @infovore) 124 | $10.56 - $0.38 = $10.18 + 0.4% (13.0) = $10.22
15		@virtualgrowth	Announce of eSports SteemBets 002: Cards Against Humanity and Prize Pool Builder 104 | $9.68 - $0.49 = $9.19 + 0.5% (12.2) = $9.24
16		@runridefly	BernieSanders has a lot of steempower and fyrstikken is a dollarvigilante. BlockTrades took a shortcut. Steemit 67 | $7.82 - $0.20 = $7.62 + 12.9% (3.0) = $8.60
17		@contentjunkie	Monthly Steemit Top 100 POWER UP List: October 2016 197 | $10.95 - $2.60 = $8.36 + 0.9% (10.4) = $8.43
18		@gardenofeden	A Catalog of Treasures, Just in Time for the Gift Giving Season! Consider Doing All Your Holiday Shopping On Peerhub with the Free Steem$ You Have Earned Here on Steemit, and Support a Worthy Cause! 168 | $13.24 - $5.09 = $8.15 + 0.6% (12.0) = $8.20
19		@contentjunkie	Bitcoin Price Drops 5% as New China Rumors Stoke Trading 169 | $8.58 - $1.30 = $7.27 + 0.1% (14.3) = $7.28
20		@fabio	Der Zitate-Detektiv: Wer hat's gesagt? Folge 3 60 | $7.75 - $1.79 = $5.95 + 12.1% (3.2) = $6.67
21		@engineercampus	Starting on Youtube - My Channel Trailer 137 | $7.10 - $0.50 = $6.60 + 0.9% (10.7) = $6.66
22		@merej99	November Challenge - Day 2 - WriMo, Leadership, Building Community, and Setting Goals 63 | $6.59 - $0.29 = $6.29 + 1.7% (8.5) = $6.40
23		@bola	Sentence Unscrambler #54 64 | $6.23 - $0.02 = $6.21 + 1.8% (8.1) = $6.32
24		@craig-grant	Jaxx zcash wallet and genesis mining zcash holders 183 | $8.83 - $2.70 = $6.13 + 0.7% (11.5) = $6.17
25		@steemitfaucet	Resteem and receive 0.07 STEEM #9 35 | $6.04 - $0.04 = $5.99 + 0.6% (11.8) = $6.03
26		@mallorca	Impressions from Mallorca - #23 - Cala Serena 125 | $7.57 - $1.84 = $5.73 + 0.2% (14.0) = $5.75
27		@profitgenerator	Steem Dollar has met it's End! [100% SteemPower] 130 | $8.00 - $2.28 = $5.72 + 0.2% (13.8) = $5.74
28		@boddhisattva	First snow - continuation (own photo) 204 | $19.00 - $13.63 = $5.37 + 5.0% (5.3) = $5.64
29		@norbu	The Butterflies in my Garden. 49 | $5.63 - $0.10 = $5.53 + 0.2% (13.8) = $5.54
30		@norbu	New and Exciting New Archaeological Discovery Places Human Settlement at 49,000 years old! 49 | $5.84 - $0.58 = $5.26 + 1.8% (8.2) = $5.35
31		@blinova	Night. Streetlamp. Street.. 44 | $5.27 - $0.28 = $4.99 + 2.1% (7.7) = $5.09
32		@mindhunter	@mindhunter's sweet tooth returns: COCONUT AND DATE FUDGE! Hell yeah! 50 | $4.81 - $0.30 = $4.52 + 8.4% (3.9) = $4.90
33		@poeticsnake	Update on the blanket I am making with crochet. 91 | $4.75 - $0.24 = $4.52 + 8.2% (4.0) = $4.89
34		@mindhunter	"Hey! @mindhunter I love you comments!" Time For A Comments Competition Of My Own Now - 'The Dogs Bollocks (Best) Comment' Gets 50 Steem Winged To Their Wallet! 44 | $4.59 - $0.08 = $4.51 + 6.8% (4.5) = $4.82
35		@robotev	Status Update for Day 65 of My Life as a Bot on Steemit 130 | $6.20 - $1.55 = $4.65 + 0.1% (14.4) = $4.66
36		@awesomenyl	Floral Quilling Art 99 | $5.86 - $1.31 = $4.55 + 0.8% (11.0) = $4.58
37		@jlufer	La foto del día Murales de mi tierra- Holiday Photo Murals my land 43 | $4.68 - $0.14 = $4.54 + 0.8% (11.0) = $4.58
38		@daveks	Banff National Park p7 81 | $4.59 - $0.11 = $4.48 + 0.6% (11.8) = $4.50
39		@ballinconscious	Steem Battles #3 - Alien Vs Predator - Mini SP Distribution Game! 42 | $4.21 - $0.10 = $4.11 + 9.0% (3.7) = $4.48
40		@ace108	STEEMIT 烹饪挑战 # 2 : 超好三文治🍔 （@ace108 翻译） 52 | $5.42 - $1.16 = $4.26 + 4.9% (5.3) = $4.47
41		@cehuneke	Recipe: Fall Quinoa and Butternut Squash Salad 203 | $17.87 - $13.55 = $4.32 + 0.5% (12.5) = $4.34
42		@allmonitors	A face that tells a difficult life (Philippines) 44 | $4.32 - $0.18 = $4.15 + 1.0% (9.8) = $4.19
43		@gammagooblin	Swiss Railways Company Sells Bitcoins at her ATM's as 2 Years Pilot Project over 1000 new ATMs realized!!! 70 | $4.26 - $0.08 = $4.18 + 0.2% (13.8) = $4.19
44		@steevc	Steem is down to 10c, so what? 51 | $4.00 - $0.09 = $3.91 + 6.2% (4.8) = $4.16
45		@fishingvideos	My Virgin Forest Life - The Delicious Fish (Original) 52 | $5.24 - $1.53 = $3.71 + 8.0% (4.1) = $4.00
46		@mindhunter	It Is Time For Philosophy To Become The King Of All Our Sciences? 38 | $3.68 - $0.13 = $3.55 + 7.4% (4.3) = $3.81
47		@thegame	Now Taking Bets for eSports SteemBets 002: Cards Against Humanity 40 | $3.86 - $0.15 = $3.71 + 0.3% (13.3) = $3.72
48		@danilamarilu	Self portrait - Autoretrato - Photography 32 | $3.46 - $0.10 = $3.36 + 9.3% (3.6) = $3.67
49		@tee-em	1.5 Steem Power Curation Daily Effortlessly 78 | $3.76 - $0.18 = $3.58 + 1.0% (9.9) = $3.61
50		@daveks	the Daily Pic #40 68 | $3.66 - $0.15 = $3.51 + 1.7% (8.5) = $3.57
51		@leesunmoo	스팀에 대한 내 생각 38 | $4.23 - $0.69 = $3.54 + 0.1% (14.7) = $3.54
52		@generation.easy	So Many Sellouts - Am I the Only One Powering Up? 33 | $3.51 - $0.12 = $3.39 + 1.1% (9.7) = $3.42
53		@steemcultures	I love this Animated GIFs 100 | $3.99 - $0.87 = $3.12 + 9.8% (3.5) = $3.42
54		@kachinhenry	The folk-tales of Myanmar -02 ( Steemed by Henry Aung ) 122 | $4.71 - $1.41 = $3.30 + 0.5% (12.4) = $3.32
55		@me-tarzan	NEXT PRESIDENT S&P 500 UP CLINTON WIN -- S&P 500 DOWN TRUMP WIN 25 | $3.25 - $0.03 = $3.22 + 0.3% (13.3) = $3.23
56		@dragosroua	Zen Bits 35 | $3.22 - $0.06 = $3.17 + 1.9% (8.1) = $3.23
57		@littlescribe	WHY I VOTED TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA 42 | $3.33 - $0.34 = $2.99 + 2.6% (7.0) = $3.07
58		@elias15g	mis primeros dibujos hechos en el 2012 21 | $3.06 - $0.01 = $3.05 + 0.2% (14.1) = $3.06
59		@mindhunter	The Fabled Ellipsis Cometh To Steemit In Its Corrected Form .... 32 | $2.88 - $0.06 = $2.82 + 7.8% (4.1) = $3.04
60		@matrixdweller	Why cant we be consistent people 98 | $5.17 - $2.17 = $3.00 + 0.3% (13.5) = $3.01
61		@richardcrill	Flat Earth? Are You Serious? Please tell me all of you were just trolling me! 32 | $3.06 - $0.07 = $2.99 + 0.0% (14.8) = $2.99
62		@heroic15397	Poetry Dice Challenge 2 - My Entry 89 | $3.04 - $0.09 = $2.95 + 1.3% (9.2) = $2.99
63		@kyusho	Oh so "Special" 66 | $3.38 - $0.53 = $2.85 + 3.1% (6.5) = $2.94
64		@dubi	Coinhills 웹사이트에서 유용한 툴을 사용하며!! 38 | $3.15 - $0.39 = $2.76 + 5.3% (5.1) = $2.91
65		@aldentan	Here are some stupid pieces of advice you from successful people you need to stop following 38 | $2.94 - $0.23 = $2.72 + 5.5% (5.0) = $2.87
66		@mapesa	Gecko 26 | $2.85 - $0.04 = $2.81 + 1.8% (8.2) = $2.86
67		@vegascomic	The Giant Panda In A Tree - Original Sketch Renders With Polaroid Photo Effect 30 | $2.60 - $0.09 = $2.51 + 12.7% (3.1) = $2.83
68		@denn	Autumn Still Life photo. 25 | $2.54 - $0.01 = $2.53 + 11.4% (3.3) = $2.82
69		@honesty	Petition: List SBD on Polo's USDT Market 56 | $4.84 - $2.25 = $2.59 + 6.7% (4.5) = $2.76
70		@stephenkendal	Extract taken from UK Government Website on the EU Referendum..!! 25 | $2.74 - $0.01 = $2.72 + 0.4% (13.1) = $2.73
71		@ericvancewalton	SOUL'S BREATH (An Original Poem) 381 | $40.28 - $37.59 = $2.70 + 0.8% (11.1) = $2.72
72		@floridagypsy	Beautiful San Diego 104 | $4.90 - $2.23 = $2.67 + 1.7% (8.4) = $2.71
73		@quantumanomaly	I Cant Help It - I HAVE to Share This Track!!! 99 | $2.77 - $0.11 = $2.66 + 1.4% (9.1) = $2.70
74		@vannour	Trawl Landline 86 | $2.85 - $0.19 = $2.65 + 1.2% (9.4) = $2.69
75		@raymonjohnstone	Working on SteemStars! 36 | $2.71 - $0.06 = $2.66 + 0.0% (14.9) = $2.66
76		@riosparada	STEEMIT WORLD LOTTERY #12. Minimum Jackpot is now $105.79 (U.S. $ paid out in SBD) Next Drawing is 11/05/2016 @ 10:12 p.m. CT !!! 26 | $2.65 - $0.01 = $2.64 + 0.1% (14.3) = $2.65
77		@michelnilles	TGIF Americans Burger And Fries For Steemians 55 | $2.64 - $0.12 = $2.52 + 2.0% (7.8) = $2.57
78		@bluechoochoo	Resteem cliques, community discovery, Steem, and social platform mechanisms 98 | $4.31 - $1.83 = $2.48 + 2.1% (7.6) = $2.54
79		@lyndsaybowes	Regarding The Art of Fucking Off 25 | $2.53 - $0.02 = $2.52 + 0.6% (12.1) = $2.53
80		@better	The Daily Better - 4 November 2016 184 | $16.11 - $13.66 = $2.45 + 0.4% (13.2) = $2.45