Operation: We are The Open Mic

in #openmic6 years ago (edited)
Hello my dear openmic-ers, as you might know already our fierceless leader @luzcypher made an announcement yesterday regarding the current financial situation of the @openmic, and the temporary changes he will have to implement in order to keep this musical train of ours on its rails.

The inspiration

I'm browsing through the comments section of @luzcypher's public annoucement, I saw the following comment, a simple yet powerful questioned asked with honest concern.

What else can we do to help?

I say this not because I don't love and respect @luzcypher, quite the opposite, but I refuse to sit on my hands and chug this whole thing to the old "such is life". I started to think, well, the truth is that this community has been supported by @pfunk almost since the beginning, but this does not mean that he would not appreciate us being creative about this whole thing, coming up with different ways to supplement his weekly donations. I've never spoken to @pfunk, but reading his interactions on this blockchain and knowing that he is a scammer hunter (many don't know this side of him, he does not sell himself well, and I say this with respect and love), I'm sure that his sense of merit and ethics would align with my own.

I reached out to @ausbitbank, who is not only one of the main supporters of the #openmic and the brains behind the development of the @openmic bot that supports our amazing creative community. Since I trust his judgement quite a bit, I wanted to make sure I had someone poke holes in my idea, he raised some concerns and I hope that I can address them in this little proposal of mine. This post, this idea is an invitation to brainstorm this whole thing with me, because I know that together(hence the graphic), we can fine tune this to be something that can work for everyone.

Without further delays, I present to you:





So lets break this down

Are you using Steemplus Already?


There is a possibility you are staring at my little graphic wondering how on earth do you set a beneficiary on a post. Fear not, that is what this first application is going to allow you to do. SteemPlus is my favorite Chrome extension for Steem and honestly I don't know if my smiles would be as intense without it. As you might guess from the name, it adds features to the platform that are not available to us otherwise.

To download it, you simply have to add the extension to your google chrome, authorize it safely via Steemconnect and your days of Steeming will receive a much needed improvement. I wont go into all the details and features of Steemplus because I would like for this post to not scare those who subscribe to the TLDR.

Step 1 - Making a post


This would be done in the exact way you have always done it. You simply write a post, it does not have to be @openmic related, it simply has to be one you would like to donate some funds to the @openmic with. For example, I tend to write a lot about #philosophy, I could simply select one or more of my weekly posts (I write a lot) to be posted with the @openmic account as a beneficiary. For the sake of of my little graph, I've written 10% donation to the @openmic , but the number could really be anything you feel comfortable doing.



As you can see this feature will be a new option right above the familiar POST button you nervously click every single day. By default when you use this option, 5% of the post gets donated to the @steem-plus team, and this if of course how they keep on developing this amazing application for us Steemians to use(I find this more than reasonable). The current post I'm writing will be set this way, to set an example of course, but also to show you how easy doing this is.

Step 2 - Add the right tag: #ilovetheopenmic


This would make it easier to for me and others who practitioners of gratitude to find your posts and give you some extra upvotes for being awesome. I would hope that many others would join me setting up their @ginabot to listen for this tag and join me rewarding the people who are willing to help us keep this community running at full steem(no typo here).

Because I want to be perfectly clear on this particular detail, this whole thing is voluntary. I'm not expecting anyone to do this if they don't feel comfortable with it or be upset with me if I happen not to find a post they have made with the #ilovetheopenmic. All I can say is that I will try my best to reward those who help us help people. I hope this makes perfect sense, but if for some reason it doesn't please let me know.

I will be checking the posts who add the tag #ilovetheopenmic to make sure that they actually have set the 10% donations on the post. I would be taking on this task, because I'm sure there will be a scammer or two who believes he/she can win some free upvotes pretending to be about the community and I simply won't let them trick people who mean well.

I will be leaving comments on the #ilovetheopenmic posts who have been verified to actually love the openmic so, if you feel uncomfortable not knowing if someone is being genuine. Look for the posts that I've vetted.

Step 3,4,5 - Collection and Payout


The posts with @openmic as a beneficiary would be collected and administrated by the team with all the checks and balances needed. The liquid SBD's would be used to purchase STEEM, and these funds would be paid out to the contestants in the very same way we have been running the contest for #85 weeks as of the writing of this post.

As you might know already, everything that happens on the blockchain is completely transparent thus making the usage of the funds collected public knowledge for anyone who would wish to audit payouts. I might be imposing more work for @ausbitbank but him being the witness who created the @openmic account and operates/devs for the community's benefit, he would probably be the one to make sure the funds are being converted and sent to @luzcypher so that they can be paid out to our weekly contestants.

Questions - Concerns - Closing Thoughts


I've given this quite a bit of thought since @luzcypher announced the payout reduction on his blog. Now I'm not saying that this is the only thing we can do, I'm saying that securing more support for the #openmic from benevolent whales, and attempting this little judo/ninja move is not mutually exclusive.

I would like to thank @aggroed for allowing me to address the audience last night on the Minnow Mayor Town Hall show and for donating 50 SBD to the @openmic. As someone who understands the value of community, he has been a long supporter of the musicians who participate of this blockchain through plenty of radio show's hosted by @msp-waves.

Am I worried we could have an increase in spam? Not really, since the process won't be automated, it will be Steemians rewarding Steemians for thinking of the community, any spammy scammy account will probably give up pretending to be good after noticing a lack in results.

In any case my friends, I'm putting this out there because I believe that even though our long time patron @pfunk is out of the top 20 for now, this does not mean we can't carry some of the weight ourselves while we wait for him to get back up there. It certainly does not mean we need to slow down, or even consider stopping. As I like to say quite often!!

LONG LIVE THE OPEN MIC

Let me know what you think...


Brainstorm this with me, if I'm missing something, if it can be improved or the whole idea should be scratched tell me all the reasons why you think so. I will be coming back to this post all day to have these conversations with you all.

Much love


Other posts by yours truly

• No need to be anxious
• Open Mic Week 85 - Meno - Top 5 picks and Honorable Mentions
• New to Steem - Tip 5 - Steem or SBD's ?
• Went to a Theater last night, yes, my mind was blown
• sleepy qualie

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WOW! This community never ceases to amaze me!

Thanks, @meno for starting this initiative and for all the people who followed your lead and made similar posts. All the rewards collected go back to the community.

One thing some people may not realize is the @openmic trail that people follow does not upvote the posts I make for Open Mic which is where the bulk of rewards come from to pay out the winners. It only auto-votes the people who enter.

I also don't upvote my own posts. So, even if they are following the Open Mic trail they could also upvote the main contest posts I make from my account and that would go a long way to supporting the community.

It is one of the rules for entering but not everyone does it. I guess they figure if they are following the trail it auto-votes those posts but it does not. I purposely excluded those posts so no one thinks I'm trying to game the system.

My portion of the rewards (100 Steem/week) comes from those posts and it sometimes falls short. However, I think if everyone who enters upvoted those posts we should be self-sustaining by now.

Thanks again for all you do to make Open Mic work so smoothly.

Let's get everyone to add Openmic to their Fanbase.

Screen Shot 2018-05-29 at 11.42.50.png

  • Click on settings and make sure you have it set to 100%.

Screen Shot 2018-05-29 at 11.44.25.png

  • If you leave the delay as 0 then all rewards will go to openmic but I think it's a fair trade off for people to get a little something theirselves so 20 minutes is a fair number?

Screen Shot 2018-05-29 at 11.46.05.png

Done and now supporting the supporters \m/

Great idea, have set it up!

done that, good idea :)

Cool I am down for that too!

I changed my auto vote for your account to 100% and 2 times a day so I wont miss it! Keep up the great work!

I have been on Steemit for about a grand total of two weeks, so keep in mind that my opinion may be worthless...HOWEVER, I do know a little something about growing something for scratch.
I believe growth is the key need here. Whatever whale may or may not take notice of what we are trying to do, or whatever economic jerryrigging may help, for sure. But growth is what it needs.
SO, we have to grow, and grow the whole pie. Every person who is making creative content has to grow their audience so that their re-posts and tags matter more.
Any social media platform I've been on so far, that means interaction and seeking people out. If we are all, often, looking through posts hashtagged comedy, or comics, or funny, or comedians, and finding new people interested in it and interacting/bringing them on board, this will count for considerable growth. This isn't the easiest platform for new people to find like minded users, we'll need to go find them.
Also, it may be time to start dragging new people onto this platform from the old ones ( instagram, FB, youtube, ect). Maybe even a timed attempt at this, like we pick a day next week and all on that day start posting about Steemit and bringing them here. A crowd attracts a crowd. Steemit is a small lake right now, we need to find every fish here that would be interested AND grow the lake (...you can't really grow a lake, it's a bad analogy but you get the point). If we all grow, everything we do for this will grow as well. The money will come, and there's better chance for the whales to take notice. That's my thoughts.

Well, your thoughts are not worthless in the slightest... this is exactly what we are trying to do. I'm biased of course, very biased, but I think the #openmic might be the most recognizable element of steem. If you've never heard of it, you've been living under the proverbial rock.

How do we project outwards? Well... I post on Twitter, and I encourage others to do the same (i share i mean) the truth is that we have grown in giant leaps in just a few months. When I first started (play melancholic music) we had maybe 30, 40 entries, less than 10k users.. I mean... we've come a long way.

I appreciate your input brother!

Cheers

"You can't grow a lake"
Hah, all I've got to say is Damn...!
Hah. jk. (like dam...)

Beneficiaries are paid out in SP rather than 50/50, which is a problem, both because it reduces the value of the post and because it leaves you without liquid rewards to give out as prizes. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but from this conversation it seems like that's how it works right now. Apparently @timcliff wants to change that so I'll tag him in here.

Its a rare situation when I have to say someone who I'm friendly with... I really hope you are wrong... There would be a work around if this is the case, to power down constantly, but it would kind be a pain in the rear.

Yeah I really hope I'm wrong too, but it looks like we might have to wait for HF20 for that to happen.

A better workaround is to do it the old-fashioned way and just have the users send some of the SBDs from their payout.

There is a psychological barrier there that would be hard for many to jump over. Its the old...

"Freedom is awesome, but I caught the bird" conundrum.

Most, not all obviously, not you... Would look at their SBD's in their wallet and say... but... i only have X amount.... and suffer from paralysis by analysis.

unfortunately @tcpolymath is correct. Beneficiary rewards are paid out in SP only and this definitely reduces the overall payout on a post (assuming SBD is over $1 at time of post payout). I experimented around with beneficiary rewards when doing collaborative music posts with other musicians but in the end it was better to just split the liquid SBD. Which is probably the best solution here - I understand what you are saying about decision paralysis when it comes to actually sending SBD, but I am pretty sure anyone who would set a beneficiary for Open Mic in the first place would also send some SBD. Same difference really, except for one reduces the value of the post :(

hrmmm... I see, thank you carl for showing up and answering our doubts, as always you rock...

Another question, if you dont mind... Is this built into the code?

Or could this be changed through a different front end?

First, in the case of just a 10% (+5% to SteemPlus) beneficiary, the total difference in post payout isn't going to be that huge so maybe this is just making a mountain out of a molehill. There isn't anything wrong with what you have suggested.

The beneficiary bit is coded in, and that distribution happens before the rewards ever reach the post author. E.g. if you set a 50% beneficiary on a post that paid out $12, $3 goes to curators (assuming 25%) and of the remaining $9, 50% would go to the beneficiary in the form of SP... so $4.50 USD worth of SP at current prices. That would leave $4.50 value for the author, which would be split in half per normal, $2.25 USD value of SP and 2.25 SBD. That reduced amount of SP and SBD is all the author would see in their wallet when it came time to claim rewards.

But there isn't any reason a front end couldn't distribute rewards to multiple people at the stage of claiming rewards. So for instance if it were an Open Mic front end, when you claim rewards it could give an option of something like this: Claim 100% of your rewards for yourself; Tip 10% to Open Mic and claim 90%; Tip 25% to Open Mic and claim 75%; etc. This would basically just be a transfer function done behind the scenes - best way would probably be to prompt for active key permission if one of the "tip" options is chosen (vs. storing active key permission which is problematic).

Cheers

The main issue is reduced value right cuz openmic can still grow its vote this way and pay through votes 🤷‍♀️

Per my promise to donate 50% of the SBD payout (actually I rounded up so a little more than 50%):

Thanks for the inspiration and the resteem brother :)

you the man Carl, i don't care what people are saying about you shaving your beard and all... you the man!!

I see that it worked we got @pfunk back in the top 20! Yay!
Yeeeehooo!
Has that changed his stance with open Mic?
Personally, I'd like to see him get higher up in the numbers so that his position is more secure, rather than teetering on the number 20...
But at least he's still in there for now.. Phew!

good stuff, yes... but as you said, we can do even better.

regarding the open mic stance, if he's up there for a week, he will have the funds to do the normal donation, its the way he's always done it.

Ok sweet. Game on then.

Personally, I'd like to see him get higher up in the numbers so that his position is more secure, rather than teetering on the number 20...

Ditto.

I have another idea. As a producer when I am mixing music it is always what we cut out that brings to the forefront what we want to hear the most.
So an alternative solution of getting PFunk back into the top 20 so that he can afford to retain and maintain his support of open mic would be for us to unvote other top 20 witnesses. If enough of us do this then space will be made for him to slip back into the top 20. This would be the fastest way to make that change happen.
Of all the witnesses that I vote for Pfunk is by far the most generous upvoter of my content. In fact, all the other witnesses when they support my posts only give a tiny fraction towards my posts in comparison, whereas PFunk has usually upvoted extremely highly on my posts. I owe him a lot of thanks for that so I really want to see him get securely within the top 20.
I’m not saying upvotes are the only measure of a witnesses worth, but it’s a great indication of them putting their money where their mouth is.

Hrmmm I submit to you the possibility that it might not be the best measure of what a good witness is, to reduce him or her to... "how many upvotes I get". But, I understand what you mean otherwise. To be honest with you there is one particular top 20 witness that I wish I could remove, but my SP is nothing but a spit in the ocean.

By all means, if you have voted for a witness that you believe does not deserve your vote, unvote that witness without remorse. I'm revising my votes and I particularly don't have one I would currently remove.

I was driving whilst using voice recognition and amended my comment.
You know me well enough to know that the upvote isn’t what I’d consider the most important measure of a witnesses worth, yet it’s not unimportant either.

Let’s not get distracted from my actual suggestion though, as it is an option that will garner fast results. Just like cutting out frequencies of other instruments that interfere with hearing the vocals, we could help make space for PFunk.

I don’t think I personally have any top 20 witnesses that I currently vote for that I don’t think deserve my vote.
That being said, there may be plenty of people who read this comment and notice that there maybe some witnesses they’ve voted for that don’t require their immediate support in place of getting PFunk back in the top 20.
It could even just be a temporary measure to get him back in.

100% with you there my friend... 100%

Back onto your idea. I think it’s an awesome idea indeed.

Having said that, even the amended lower prize payouts are very very generous.
Nobody should really be fussed nor less inspired about receiving that kind of money.

My other suggestion would be to make first prize less higher in reward $$ so that the difference between first, second and third places aren’t so starkly different.

Hi @meno!
I really appreciate all your doing to support the Steemit Openmic and have been inspired to also join in supporting and keeping it alive 😏
I recently wrote a post on this topic, but I'm worried that when I added openmic as a beneficiary that it didn't go through. I did download the Steemplus and think I did everything correctly and followed the instructions in this post, but is there anyway that you can check to see if openmic was in fact a beneficiary from the post?
The post can be accessed by clicking here.

Please let me know since I am new to using Steemplus and am still learning how it all works! 😊

hey there.. I was just over at your post (im faster than you) hahahah well, the beneficiary did not go thru, but if you wish to donate some liquid funds to the @openmic when this pays out, that would also be welcomed.

once again, thank you for thinking about the community.

You commented fast haha.
I'll see what I can do to resolve that issue becaue I honestly don't know what went wrong? Hmmm, I'll look into it some more!

And I'm glad to help out as a part of the community! 😏

Damnit! I wrote a post right before you wrote this so I missed the hashtag opportunity, but I still hopped on the steemplus beneficiary train.

It's a little different than my typical music posts:

https://steemit.com/blog/@lillywilton/terrible-snacks-i-made-while-high-and-alone-a-culinary-chronicle

oooh but thank you my dear Lilly... i will do muh part.. and updoot!!

<3

Thank you for putting this whole thing together <3 You're amazing.

But, Lilly dearest – you can edit and ADD the tag. It is only the first tag which cannot be changed. The other 4 are fair game. ;) just sos ya knows.

Oh yay! Thanks for the help @zipporah!! <3

Hello,
Thanks for standing up for music. In the real world I travel from state to state and find openmics. If you are aware most openmic type situations are obscure to say the least. Most are held on a off day and are not promoted. It seems that mainly it is a form of marketing and or self esteem about what you are producing.
Here comes steemit, a whole new way for a "artist" to convey and project there need to tell a story or a melody. In turn the "artist" is duly compensated, Or is that a false truth.
This is where the digital openmic is a blessing and a curse. You see it is not enough that you put your name on your writing and or video, you have to also pretty much give up your rights to get an audience. I am ok with pretty much all the rules except for the last one. That one took me for a loop. You see, I was under the impression that we want to promote Dtube and Dlive and IPFS. What we have on the last rule is a nail in the coffin of holding on to rights of a original thought.
I just submitted a video to the open mic sessions. Here I thought I did everything right to the T. Then I see the last rule......Must have a Youtube or Vimeo link!
I gave up all social media outside of blockchain. I am back to being a unknown, I guess.
I was reminded that out of 1 million users there are only 50,000 active. So, those active most all be in FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE, VIMEO, GOOGLE
Bullshit I say!
I love open mic! I love open mic! I love open mic! I hate openmic! Let me openmic!

I love DTube, but we have that rule in place for a couple of reasons.

First, it doesn't always work. I have waited 10 minutes to hear a video posted to DTube and still didn't get to hear it no matter how many times I refreshed the page. Other times it would start and then stop every 3-seconds which makes it hard to get a feel for a song. Multiply that by 300 or more entries and it would be impossible to hear all of the songs or run this contest.

Secondly, to make the weekly post called See Who Played Open Mic we need an embedded video and DTube does not have that capability yet. You can see in my weekly post that some people who enter only show a link with no video. That is because they posted with DTube and did not add a YouTube link as well so their video is not shown. By adding a YouTube video as well it solves that problem and I can include them in the list of who played.

That's why the last Open Mic rule you mention says:

  • Even if you use DTube a YouTube or Video embedded link must be added to your post too

Once day DTube will solve these issues and when they do I will be very happy.

I support DTube and love what they are doing, but at this time we need a Youtube video (or Vimeo) included as well. Some people assume I have something against DTube but that is incorrect.

Here's me hanging with @heimindanger, the creator of DTube, at Steemfest 2 in Lisbon, Portugal

dtube_and_luzcypher.jpg

I share your disdain for the mainstream social media and also call bovine excrement on their tactics. Truth be told the only reason why we have that rule is because IPFS does not seem to work for everyone. Meaning that @luzcypher for example can't watch the videos. This may or not have something to do with the fact that he is a traveling soul currently getting baked by the sun's of Cancun, but the truth is that due to this simple fact we had to make this somewhat unusual rule.

the good news is


We do have a bit of a workaround. You might be familiar with the talented @silentscreamer she uses dtube for her entries but she also slaps a youtube link on them as well. The youtube video can be set to not public, meaning it cannot be found with a search, thus laying some of your worries to rest.

After the week is up, after the prizes have been announced and such, you could just as easily delete it and no one from the "overlord central" would be the wiser. You stuck it to the man twice sort of speak. Everyone wins, we all open cold beers and celebrate.

and.... #ilovetheopenmic

Well this is where we obviously differ in our stance when it comes to beating on the man. You see, I am well aware of what you have to do to get someone to stop playing your property. I went toe to toe with San Fran. They won, that battle...The person that took my property and capitalized on it...Still does it. On top of it all, it is ripe on the vine for all to take via downloadhelper. Isn't that nice.
So, yes...I could open a google account via youtube with the all in sign in to all of googles realm. The tracker is on as soon as you start with the first URL. I am not going to bore you with my heretical nonsense. Lets just say, that I am done with putting my "stuff" on private servers.
In a way that pretty much says the same with dtube. The memo says that they can not be viable with the current model with IPFS.
At least Dlive as been playing my videos. I just started putting my content on there for now. They have really been good with having my content stream at anytime.
Currently I am working on a full IPFS server, mind you I live out of a RV, I will be running the server 24-7 with my solar plant. We will see how this works.
I apologize for sticking my forked tongue out, I just have been really taking back by what it takes to get an audience on here. I do realize I am ultra new, but wow. It is not like I am retweeting or copying something directly from youtube. Or better yet, open a steemit account pruely to exploint people by saying they will promote you for x amount.

Long live music, long live run down flee bit bars that open there stages to all that want to release. I will raise a glass to the digital open mic, I just will not be there. Cheers

ilovetheopenmic

You know you're a part of a strong community when everyone's trying their best to help out eachother and have that community keep on running.

I'm still new to the Steemit community so my creativity is still not at its peak, but this is exactly the kind of option that I meant when I asked what else could we do to help out. I don't know about the math and if it would work 100% but I think it's a great idea, simple and efficient.

I hope we can all keep on coming up with new ideas that will work and will help keep the Open Mic contest going :)

your comment motivated me to think outside the box... <3

It makes me happy to read that :)

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