Remembering the Whale Experiment - Thinking About Distribution
If you are fairly new around here you may have missed The Whale Experiment that was brought to us by @abit and @smooth. Due to our lopsided Distribution it has always been difficult to reward "high engagement content". There just aren't enough stakeholder to curate and be able to reward excellent content. It is strictly a math issue regardless of whether or not you like our whales. We have around 57 Whales, a couple of hundred Orcas, 1100ish Dolphins and the rest of the accounts are inactive, Redfish or Minnows. There just isn't time and enough stakeholders to curate it in any meaningful way. This has always been true on Steem. Here is a @timcliff explanation of the experiment, as he is a good communicator and had more information than I did at the time.
One fine day abit and smooth decided to see how the site would work with a better distribution. They managed via flags and negotiation with the other whales to create a time period where the Whales didn't vote and those who did were flagged away. The entire reward pool is awarded no matter who votes and the amount of Steem is static and remains the same regardless of price and who is voting. By removing the Whale Stake from the voting influence they achieved a false scenario which simulated how the site would work with a better distribution. Of course they did this without the community's consent and it was a huge drama. I also have to say it was likely very bad for the largest stakeholders and completely unfair to remove their ability to use their stake. HOWEVER, it gave a glimmer of what the site would be like when there is a more balanced pool of stakeholders to reward a lot of different content. I actually loved the site during the experiment even though it was grossly unfair to the stakeholders and I wouldn't suggest repeating the experiment, I was happy in the end that it took place. I have experienced what it felt like and from my perspective it was good.
Just think if we had a strong middle class of users who were engaging, reading, curating, handling abuse and actively involved in the site. The number one problem I get frustrated with is distribution.
How do we achieve a better distribution. I hate to say it but a hard fall in the price would probably be the most likely situation. Some would sell and others could gain a more meaningful stake by buying in. I certainly don't think anyone should give their stake away. I have been thinking lately that we should try to get more inactive stake voting.
Here is why:
If those who aren't actively using their stake delegated it to end users and that stake was active, we would have more users able to give meaningful votes and it would also pull stake away from the voting bots. The more Voting Power is actively voting the more it draws from the current voters. (including mine)
A fun thought experiment I like to play out, is if SteemIt, Inc. Delegated 10k-40k to MANY active curators for short periods of time - 6 months or less, we would have more active stake rewarding more content. Yes, some of them would be bad actors but the amount would be so little and for so short of a time that I don't think it would matter except to those who can't accept that the world isn't fair. As someone with that amount of stake, I could see some being upset, I mean it would dilute my voting power as well, and I have earned or purchased every Steem in my wallet, but I'm here for the long haul and distribution is going too slowly for my taste. I would take the sacrifice for a better end-user experience and possibly better retention of users.
In any case I think the odds of that happening are next to none so in the meantime, BUY and HOLD, so the price doesn't have crash too hard to speed up distribution. :)
Also, I guess there might be some rewards going out in the form of SMTs that could help, now there is a date, I feel like I can consider SMTs again in the big picture.
Anyway, just thinking outloud.
What do you think about distribution and how we can achieve a better middle class to support the sites?
@whatsup
This is a post I wrote some 6 months back along the same lines you might find interesting. or not.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@tarazkp/discussion-being-a-steem-business-owner-and-community-node-with-a-steemit-loan
I like that idea of Steemit Inc doing more delegations. Maybe they could delegate across the user base. I think it could potentially really help the platform.
Wow, that's an INTERESTING experiment and I'm glad you got to tell us the results of it!
" I have been thinking lately that we should try to get more inactive stake voting" <--- I've thought about that a lot as well, but I'm not sure how to make that happen. Haha I was being totally selfish, though. I totally wanted some delegation thrown my way haha. Although I do have a cool project I'd want to be able to do with it. I haven't started on it much yet, though.
We all want delegation thrown our way, but most who will delegate are of course renting it out, which I can't blame them.
I'd be like hey, throw it my way and I'll make it more worth your while than renting it out! Although , 1. that sounds dirty and 2. maybe that's the same as renting it out haha fail.
hahaha!
Wouldn't that be the dream. I certainly would not object to it personally....lol
I am here to agree with your daydream @empress-eremmy :D You have no idea how hard I and a team like @eye4art wouldn't mind being on that list. Best believe that!
Haha, I think it would be pretty interesting and very unlikely to happen.
This was an idea I talked about with some of my local communities before as we were talking about people that Steem InC delegated before like sweetsjjj, surpassinggoogle, and dapps like Dmania and Steempress.
The whole reputation thing of Steem is broken, I had one user who wrote how to have reputation 60 and 1k followers in a month which was about self voting, botting and doing 4-5 posts a day which is botted 5 SBD a piece before and he had about 65 rep at that time and people followed his advice and was generating posts copies from a Marvel Wiki.
Having a healthy middle class and an engaged community is key to the success of the platform while everyone else waits for the SMT Unicorn to start. I think SMT will do well once people see it successful but at this moment we need to spread out that SP.
We have a lot of new dapps that are getting delegation and is helpful i getting some votes out. So this trend is helpful.
Maybe Steem inc might listen to you about this.
I don't think SteemIt Inc knows I am alive. :) But it is fun to consider, I also suspect they wouldn't be the only ones to think it is a terrible idea.
Someone who has been here for a while has to be the one who convinces the witnesses to talk to steem inc to re-organize the delegated stake from steemit.. sweetsjjj might get people to this platform with her huge post payouts but those people never stay when they realize that is false advertisement.. her money comes from self votes and circle jerks and until we can figure out a new way to help minnows and redfish we will continue to loose more followers than we gain..
Steem is hard. It isn't for everyone. I do agree we will likely never have a great distribution.
Sweetsssj and some others received a lot of support from SteemIt Inc. They held too much for too long in my opinion and mostly used it for personal gains.
While it was annoying to watch it wasn't my stake.
I remember one game that Spiritual max did before when he was collecting Steem people to immortalize in his cards.
There was a comparison made between Surpassinggoogle and Sweetsjjj in terms of their voting behavior and in a week SG was doing over 1000 unique accounts votes as opposed to Sweets 75 unique account.
I remember this because I was still active in Asher's League of Engagement and I was doing over 300 unique accounts at that time.
She was at the time in the top 5 of the highest vote value in the platform.
It really made people think what was the basis of Steem Inc in choosing the people that they delegate to.
Yeah, I remember the "Whale Experiment." I even remember getting flagged by Smooth a couple of times... and actually being somewhat in agreement with the flags, within the confines of the experiment parameters.
"Fair" voting is a tough nut to crack. N^2 didn't work. Now we have linear. At the time, I remember suggesting a "reverse logarithmic" curve... tiny minnows start with n^2 voting power and then relative voting power gradually decreases as your SP increases till maybe 100,000SP and up, where it just becomes straight linear. That weighs votes in favor of smaller accounts... with large minnows and dolphins (typically the most active people on the site) also having the most benefit. That suggestion got shut down because it would "discourage investment."
At the time, I didn't pursue it, but in retrospect, the comeback would be "why are we so obsessed only with LARGE investors?" Why not have a system that favors thousands of people putting in a few $K each, rather than a handful each putting in a million?
For the moment? I simply choose to support the smaller manual curation organizations building here... I support the more "community based" witnesses... I encourage people to join initiatives like @abh12345's "Curation and Engagement Leagues," which are growing organically, and filled with highly "interactive" people.
Afterthought: I think a lot of the "slowness" in Developing Steemit is a result of "them" discovering that building a social media venue on a decentralized system like this? Getting all these people to go in the same direction by consensus? SLOW system. It's like city government with too many committees that have to be consulted. It takes forEVER. Or so it seems...
I was nodding with this whole reply. I also got flagged and who can forget @karenmckenzie's flag. :)
I also think many smaller investors would be the best case for this situation, but most either will not or can not buy. (How do we attract endusers with some money who want to invest?)
Mostly, I grinned at how slow we move and how many agendas there are on the platform.
OMG! Karen's flag... World War III almost started, right here on Steemit!
The irony of all the agendas is that I believe most people genuinely want this to "become something." I really doubt there are very many who are actively thinking "I want this place to go away and die!"
There is no way for better distribution the way things are at the moment. A good solution would be the one you proposed. Or Steemit inc could just use its stake and perform the way busy.org does. That way hundreds of upvotes would be distributed every day to content creators plus steemit would earn tons of curation rewards. Win win.
Well, I see the issues, it would be creating winners who didn't invest. That does hurt for those of us who did either by holding or buying or in my case both. Just because I would be okay with it, doesn't mean it would be fair to others who bought or earned their stake. It is just fun to think about.
It is so controversial...I have invested too and keep investing even though I entered the game kinda late. But can you blame whales for holding large stakes or because they want to maximize their profits by delegating to bots?...I think we can't....Platform is designed in a way that in order to climb the ladder you have to write masterpieces and also have major support, or....to invest.
Well, I know it isn't a popular view, but I would be okay with just admitting if you don't invest you are going to have a long lonely climb. I don't really like setting the expectation that you can come here with nothing, have average skills and get much money. I think that devalues the price of steem. Sigh. Who knows what the right answers are.
Thanks for writing this post.
There are many ways we change the distribution and have more middle class citizens are
Yep, good solutions.. Just so painfully slow. I guess I am just feeling impatient.
I like to assume the whales are dormant and it is us minnows working to become dolphins that are creating the most of the momentum. I am pretty sure this next generation will be supporting eachother and the next caretakers of the platform. The ruling class (most but not all) have become lazy and it is up to us to take over the kingdom in a peaceful uprising.
I agree we have to be the visionaries and provide engagement. It's just sad how small our votes are right now.
Tell me about it. I just graced you with a nice 0.01 100% upvote.
We will have our day! I am kicking dogs on the way to school because I am pissed I don't have spare fiat to buy STEEM!
This would be a great idea! Many of us could feel like a king for a while, and reward the content that is special to us. My blocktrades delegation ran out and now (considering the 200 some SP I'm delegating myself) I lost my slider. 😲
By the way, what's the difference between a minnow and a redfish?