RE: The "Whale No Vote" Experiment - Whale Participation Data
If you look at your account and compare it to a whale like @ned, you have 355 STEEM POWER. @ned has 4,877,165. Obviously @ned is a lot more powerful, and has a ton more influence - as he should. The problem though is how much more influence..
Ned has about 13,738 times as much STEEM POWER as you do. You would think that would mean that his vote is worth 13,738 times as much as yours. That is not how it works though.
The block-chain actually squares the votes, so if you vote with 355 SP, it is more along the lines of voting with 355*355 = 126,025 SP. When Ned votes with 4,877,165 SP, it is more along the lines of him voting with 4,877,165 * 4,877,165 = 23,786,738,437,225 SP. 13,738 times as much SP is 188,746,188 times as strong!
(The actual formula/numbers are a little different, but I simplified it to illustrate the point.)
Basically the whales votes are soo much stronger than the votes of non-whales, that it makes voting on posts pretty much pointless unless you are a whale.
That is the reason for the whale experiment. Whales are still allowed to vote, but they are only allowed to use a certain amount of voting power so they are not completely canceling out the votes of the 'regular' voters.
Hardfork 19 (scheduled for next Tuesday) is going to change the formula so 13,738 times as much SP means your vote is 13,738 times as strong. It is called changing to a linear voting curve. After this, the whale votes will not be as disproportionately strong, and the whales will be allowed to vote with full strength again.
So well explained, now I am getting the dynamic completely. So you have a 10th to the power hike up basically, more volume of SP the more extra is kicking in on a whales vote, limiting the smaller guys from having ultimately any say against the system spread around. Makes perfect sense now.
Now on this hard fork coming, is this a see-saw mechanism style of a voting curve coming? I ask this because it looks so close to what I seen when I was working in PIVX, almost so close when I seen the GitHub and the announcement about the HF that chart is side by side very similar to what I seen in our staking rewards payout scaling there. If so then great because to be honest I was thinking a flipping see-saw reward system might do Steemit great, balances a lot and did the trick for us at PIVX. I was in their marketing most of the year but moved on here full time for myself...long story.
Really appreciate that clear breakdown of it. So to me that encourages my love even more here, seems you guys are really about the whole of the community and glad to see the whales are taking that into account as well. Still hope in crypto after all after seeing all this. Plus that gives me down here a bit more incentive that the 16 hour days I push to grow myself won't be too in vain, there is hope for myself still in Steemit lol. Thanks so much for the education and so well taught out.
I'm not familiar with the see-saw mechanism, but it is getting converted into a very simple formula - linear. If you vote with 100 SP, you will add 100 times as much to the payout as someone who voted with 1 SP.
It is totally possible. When I joined, I knew nobody here and had no influence/followers. I posted like mad for 6+ months, making pretty much nothing money wise on my posts but gaining followers. Now I earn quite a bit from my posts and I'm even a top 20 witness. It is not easy by any means, but I am proof that it can be done :)
Got you, no that wouldn't be a a see-saw style. In see-saw what would happen is a shift of voting power from whale to lower investor, and back and forth. So in that algorithm, which is a staking more type one of just sitting and holding it probably wouldn't work well with actual voting now that I think about it lol...why I am no dev lol. A linear system makes more sense and wow that will be cool because I been looking forward to my rise and my votes actually benefiting others lol. I better let the voting power rise up for the 20th then.
I am with you about the hard work here, that I am game to do and just ride up with the efforts in place. Its good to see someone that has done it in that route so I commend you for that time well spent. I am about a month in as a very active user, up to almost 600 followers so doing okay. I think my clincher to grow will be this Steemit Blogger Central project, that is growing faster than I am so maybe with worth through that I can help new people and in turn grow myself with my writing here. Either way my passion for writing has rekindled and that is plenty reward enough right now. Thank you so much for the help. Definitely following you to keep up on the info and really appreciate you taking time out of your day to help me grasp this stuff...looking to me like the future is bright for all of us, just have to keep at it. Congrats by the way on your rise up....hard work always pays off
Thank you. Following you now as well :)
Awesome, look forward to more great conversations.