RE: Announcing Steem 0.14.0 Release Candidate
I strongly oppose the "5 votes a day" target.
I thought one of the greatest changes to be implemented so far was when that target INCREASED. People have not been so stressed in the last month or two about curation rewards; they just vote for what they like and have fun.
I don't think Steemit will be FUN anymore if there is an expected target of 5 votes per day. People will spend much less time on the site. They will vote for predictably popular content. And we will be right back where we were a couple of months ago.
No, it will be worse than that. Because 20 votes a day used to stress people out. 5 votes a day? NO ONE can do any real curation under that scheme.
As an individual and an established author, the 5 votes a day could be great for me. If we go back to the days when everybody upvoted the same posts, then maybe I'd get all those votes again. I could quit my job and write for Steemit full time.
And we'd go back to the days when emerging authors and artists got far fewer votes and rewards.
As far as curation and voting bots, they are being used for very good purposes also. Rather than turning our tails and running away from them, why don't we use them for the greater good? I think the mega-whales' curation teams are doing a far better job than ever before at redistributing rewards; I make nothing from being involved in that effort, but I think it is working quite well. Give the vote sliders and the voting bots more time; Steemit's front page is finally diversifying and newer people are getting rewards like never before.
One more thing: Redistribution of Steemit's resources from big whale accounts to the masses MUST be one of our top priorities. How does this help? I understand that big whale accounts may make less on curation rewards, but I think few of them are concerned with this anymore; they're trying to channel their votes to worthy posters. They have recognized that their big stakes will be worth nothing unless we make this thing succeed.
Under this scheme, the big whales will need to sell the max on exchanges every week and other people buy their Steem for any real redistribution to occur. That will hold down the price and our competitors will zoom right by us.
Steem Team, I understand you are trying to solve real problems with these tweaks. I don't normally comment on them because I feel that Steemit is good enough that there is some margin for error with these back-end decisions. But this is far, far too severe a change for the platform to absorb.
Well, it looks like I'm late to the party again. The 40->5 vote change is needed and I'm disappointed that your comment appears first, because it will give the community the idea that it's not the right move.
People need to stop getting all panicky when new updates are proposed, understand where they're coming from and what they attempt to solve. When disagreeing, try to bring up a potential solution to address that problem instead of outright opposing any change. This is how we will progress effectively.
In this case, the goal is to increase organic voting power vs bot power. I think everyone will agree that this is positive. Now, how do we improve the implementation?
The solution is simple.
All we need is this:
This way, new users don't get confused. Serious curators can get the most out of their daily upvotes. Bots have less influence on the network. Everyone is happy.
In the future, we could add the option to "Opt in" to have a voting slider. I think this would be a plus, but isn't 100% needed. In the same way, I think we should allow everyone to vote with full power on a single post per day if they want (comes down to the same as limiting # of votes/day to 1 and allowing full range to vote weight)
I'm all for decreasing bot power, but not at the cost of human curators who make the Steemit community thrive with diversity. As I mentioned elsewhere, there are at least 50-100 posts worthy of upvotes every single day.
Targeting 5 votes per day is a slap in the face to every serious curator on Steemit. It's clear from the comments that a vast majority of regular curators are heavily opposed to this - we're simply being encouraged to stop curating content.
The hidden gems which can only be found by looking at each and every post round the clock incoming through the "New" feed will be lost forever. No casual curator who's only voting 5 times a day or under will ever bother with full time deep curation.
It's not 5 votes per day. It's 5 votes at 100%. Just reduce the slider to less and vote more and you keep your power within the 20% recharge range. Otherwise, if you want to vote for 50, the vote for 50 and deplete your power quicker. Manage the power and responsibility to upvote.
5 votes will get your voting power down to the same area as 40 votes do today. That is unsustainable when there are 50-100 posts worth voting on every day.
I disagree, I'm open to discuss this further on the chat. Limited by reply depth here.
How can new authors (like me) ever hope to be noticed and upvoted by whales, if the target becomes 5 instead of 40?
It's already damn near impossible at 40. I don't see how lowering it to 5 will help.
The idea behind this is to make people buy steem power.
create your audience, build notoriety, it will come.
but it takes times, work, and luck
Yes! A settings tab for each account to set the default voting power would be very helpful! A separate setting for comments and posts would be nice too.
That would be an added set of "nice to have" features and provide more flexibility. Does it solve whatever issue they are trying to address with the proposed change? I'm not sure it does, just like I'm not sure their main proposal solves very much without some cost. I thank you for some good ideas, which the community should consider. I also hope people see @liberosist 's short comment that is buried somewhere deep below this post, which suggests a couple of simple ways they might be able to thwart bots without causing such an unneeded overhaul as the one they propose.
Ultimately, the main issue is giving the community time to consider and debate these proposed changes and discuss them before having them magically take effect with the assent of witnesses who do not seem to have vocal opinions themselves.
Won't this result in the botmasters making more bots? 8x more in fact.
No, because they'd have to split their stake and that voting rewards are stake based with slight incentive towards having it all in one account.
I do believe that 40 upvotes/day is a high target to reach for most organic voters. Much easier to achieve with bots.
Just did and replied to both, thanks for pointing out their comments.
Totally agree. I do feel like announcements are mostly made here when they're close to final, which is unfortunate. It leaves little time for discussion. That said, I do trust the better judgement of the smart people who spend time discussing them directly on github as soon they're proposed. In technical/innovative fields like the one we're in, I'm not sure that relying on popular opinion is always the best decision.
What about thinking of it differently? I think boring was just marketed poorlywhy 5 votes are good but marketed poorly
I included your idea in the latest edition of the Steemit Wish List.
I must say I agree with @donkeypong on this, it just feels like we have turned a corner with the diversity of content on the site, and this tweak threatens that. I can't see how reducing the influence of whale votes whilst hardly increasing the influence of mass-minnow votes, gets to the root of the problem.
Surely we should be looking at increasing the voting influence of new users who have proven themselves as reputable accounts.
Hopefully this change won't set us back to vote bandwagoning and a top heavy trending page.
Cg
I also for the most part agree with @donkeyong
On top of that one of the main problems we have is that there are a small group of people who get A LOT For their posts because people bet on the post making money. Most people are using their vote to get curation reward and don't even read the posts....Lame.
What's even potentially worse isn't hat there is a already little incentive for UPvoting comments and this would make it even less...
So now there is MORE incentive to just UPvote the big boys posts to get curation rewards and LESS incentive to UPvote quality posts that might not be big earners and even less incentive to UPvote comment so.
We need NEW users to be valued to grow the platform and we need comments to bring depth to already wuality posts.
If there is little to no value for making in depth comment Then they willll be les and less. Then we have a shallow and fickle platform with bots and money hogs...
But @quinneaker, I think what people are missing here is that you can still vote all you want. And your votes still count. It simply gives you the option of using your voting influence how you choose--so you can use up all your daily voting influence in 5 votes, or you can spread your influence over more votes. This is GOOD news, especially for whale votes, which could use some diluting. IMHO. So, don't fret. Keep curating like mad. And if you want to keep one particular vote worth something, THEN you can preserve. But just keep doing what you are doing. It is designed to ward off the power of the bots so WE can have more organic say around here. I think this could be a good thing. Too soon to tell.
@littlescribe
Yes I see. Gives more control and also variables to how we vote. I can also see how it can impede bots a bit.
Well we shall see how it goes!
Thanks for the comment!
Agree with you very much about increasing new user reputable voting, and happy to hear it is something wanted. Has seemed a lot like a game lately.... Really can vote for almost anything without reading it and be assured it will trend of by a certain author.
yes if people are limited to just 5 votes a day, they will only vote on authors that i think by now we all know the names in a swarming to the best possible curation rewards. So this will infact i feel further damage the chances of most importantly new unknown authors and certainly us authors who just dont seem to be able to be seen at all and get little support. I would say we need more votes but reduce the power of the votes to allow people to take a risk on " unpopular " posts and so this would encourage the spreading of wealth to all and not just focus still more the power of steem to the fastest horses on the track ! For me this could be a serious problem personally as i have already explained above. But for new hopeful users..... well they just won't i feel get in the game and just sit on the sidelines as the Steemit stars take even more money from their posts .............
I 100% agree!!
I agree.... 5 a day without significant recharge boost..... Seems it will hurt. Even just hearing 5 a day will cause some not to do more, even at 40 would see in comments "I would upvote but....."
This is insane! 5 Votes is nothing...
wow there goes my reason for having bought a lot of steem pwer and to be able to profit from my curation rewards !! I am not really a writer but i love reading the stuff. This gives me little reason if i can read but no longer vote after five votes !! Tell me this is not happening.?? Was not informed at all of this !!
I think you just were informed by this post :) I agree, it is frustrating.
Ok well i have returned to say what my reaction to the new control on curation power to each vote after my day of curation voting . ! i love it !!!! You decide now on each vote what pressure in Steem power you wish to hand over as opposed to the steady more linear decline in voting power of before. For say a comment I can choose to give say 15 or 20 percent depending on my reasoning, reasoning being the key word here !! For the posts where there maybe be hopefully much more input and work iinvolved i can updose to say 50 or 60 percent vote when major but perhaps a smaller reward to a new user that shows say more promise but not quite to the top of their art !! So all in all I am convinced this new pressure dial on my Steem station of curation is a great improvement actually and in many ways by carefully reasoned decisions which are say more heart attached i can spread the love in a more dosed and effective way now !!And here i make a two percent vote to myself to help push my comment up to a more visible spot hopefully of the author. Can be useful no ?? So all cool by me !! Great work developers of Steemit !! Steem Up and On !!
The dev have been really quick to revert the payout from 12h back to 24 hours so I don't see any reasons why it would be different with this change if they notice an negative effect from this change.
I'd say let's see. I agree that 40 is way too much right now. I was able to do 40 semi-meaningful votes per day when steemwatch was up but now I'm not even trying even if I could use other tools to achieve similar results.
Why start with such a drastic change? Why not cut it in half to start and see if there is a positive effect? Deincentivizing engagement on the platform is not a good way to handle bots.
I think too often with steemit the users are tossed out with the bathwater in an effort to curb bots.
Edit: Here is my full post on the 5 votes https://steemit.com/steemit/@contentjunkie/5-votes-is-not-enough
Yes, that's absurd idea is limited our votes by 5 votes. This is not democracy economic anymore. That's okay, we have limited vote but....... for 5 votes...... Good bye steemit. :)
Not only that, but it will decrease payouts, meaning fewer people will be focused on quality content. This seems like a bad idea. For such a libertarian platform, this feels pretty damn draconian.
I'm undecided about the vote power change, but I wanted to respond to this;
This is absolutely what is needed. There is no substitute for redistributing the stake if you want a fairer system with less concentration of power. Even if every whale did this (and they aren't) and even if it were at the maximum rate in all cases and completely uninterrupted (which it isn't), it would still take a full year to redistribute half of the whale stake.
This maybe isn't what people want to hear in terms of trying to drive up the market price but this is the bitter medicine that Steem/it needs to thrive more than anything else.
FWIW, I happen to believe that the path to higher market prices comes from increasing demand by creating a better system -- including a better distribution of stake as soon as possible (which as as said above, still isn't particularly soon) -- and not from trying to reduce supply by holding back redistribution. If the path to a successful outcome is clear, the market will reward that with higher prices, regardless of the amount of whale selling going on (or indeed because of it).
"There is no substitute for redistributing the stake if you want a fairer system with less concentration of power", i strongly agree with this. From the outside, people see the platform as a clssic MLM strategy disguised in a a social media platform. The see it as a scam. For us who trade at polo, its really hard to sell the idea... i think this platform is revolutionary, and the only thing that makes people to hate it is becuse of its distribution. Its a caste system rulled by whales. Which reminds me of NXT which had all the fundamentals to succeed but did not, because of how it was distributed from the start.
@tjpezlo
Bam!
Smooth, good point and I mostly agree with you. It's a fact that selling is the main way to redistribute, since voting simply generates more curation rewards for whales. But I've worked with a number of large whale accounts on curation lately and I've admired what you are doing with your own curation also. If there's no reason to vote much and stick around, then I think it would be a loss for Steemit to have the large accounts staying dormant and simply selling the max when they could be actively using their scale for good work.
Plus, if you really want this platform (and your stake in it) to succeed, then you have incentive to build it, and I would hope that you are spending some of your curation rewards to make it better for others. That has the same net effect on redistribution as selling does.
Every economic system has its rich and poor; Steemit at least gives the poor a chance to rise. Redistribution can occur at those middle levels, too. It would take so long to fully redistribute resources that I'd rather you guys just continue your good work and help the platform that way, while selling some of your gains. If there's no reason to vote and stick around to make it better, then the max selling is about the only activity we'll see.
Both are useful: Literal redistribution (by the largest stakeholders selling) and voting with an intent toward widening the base of rewarded posters. But rewards themselves themselves are relatively modest.
A total of about 20 million Steem will be given away in rewards over the next year (57600 STEEM per day x 365 days = 21024000 STEEM; for simplicity we can assume that curation rewards have been entirely eliminated and this all goes to posters), while 180 million is distributed to existing SP holders (mostly whales) in the form of antidilution payments. That will make the supply about 320 million, of which 20 million will have come in the form of rewards. Some (in fact a lot) of those posting rewards go back to current whales (think about this the next time you are voting up one of Dan's posts, or mine should I make any) or to established, successful posters.
Nearly all practical redistribution must come from selling.
I agree with everything you said about the improvements to curation that have already been happening. I very much disagree with the constant shifts in the rules just as people are starting to work within the existing rules and we haven't even seen the results of those efforts yet (for example the new Project Curie program). The constant tweaks create way too much uncertainty for those trying to build initiatives and business models that are reliant on the platform rule set. It is for this reason I have already curtailed some of my investments into curation-based initiatives. Not only this change, but potentially others that may be coming soon (see Ned's reply) make it an unattractive environment to try to operate.
I cannot agree enough. This was the same problem experienced with BitShares as projects that were building applications for BTS suddenly were informed that the rules/code had changed.
Moonstone is but one example. The abrupt changes from the onset, up until Dan chose to focus on Steemit, set them and others back and completely eliminated a few projects altogether. I think it's safe to say that a large portion of the BitShares Community was not pleased with what appeared to be an unhindered desire to make drastic changes to a system many felt was fine as it existed.
Whether or not the changes were ultimately the best decision for BitShares the platform, the Dev's or the Community is completely subjective and an entirely different discussion from how those changes affected the projects attempting to build upon the platform as it existed.
While I agree that changes need to be made to create the best system possible, I feel that those decisions should have been made prior to a public release and especially prior to allowing any third-party to begin building applications around the platform.
Slapping "Alpha" and "Beta" next to a logo, while still pumping the platform to the masses in the press is a bit spurious. On one hand it allows the Devlopers to say, "Well it's still in alpha/beta". On the other hand they are out there pushing this alpha/beta onto the masses inviting them in before the basic structure of how the platform will work has been settled.
Some may argue that they need that wider user base to determine what changes need to be made, and that may be the case. But at the same time the types of people that are being invited in (no offense to anyone) to this alpha/beta platform have no clue what they are getting themselves into most likely and I feel that the Developers are well aware of this fact. If they aren't, then that's ... well I'll just leave it at that.
And at the same time you have companies attempting to build their own business models around an ever changing set of rules and they are being invited to do so. Those companies are of course assuming all of the risk themselves and can choose not to build upon the platform until a more stringent set of rules are adhered to for longer periods of time, but there are no guarantees on that either, as we saw with BitShares.
I'm sorry to say that I don't have a solution. This field is not my expertise. I'm merely offering up my observations from the past/present and how I see things unfold, and how I see the same scenario playing out once again at Steemit. The good news is, it can only get better (I hope)!
You make a good point that selling is the most effective way to redistribute. The problem is, what is the incentive to buy if the curation rewards are restricted to 5 votes a day?
@smooth But surely the "meat" of the curation award is really in voting and then having a lot of people voting after you. If no-one is voting after you, you might as well use your five votes voting on your own stuff. Restricting the votes defeats the whole point about crowds discovering good stuff together by voting.
@alyssas it is 5 more powerful votes per day. Also you can vote more often if you voluntarily reduce power per-vote using the slider. 10%-power votes after the change will be about the same as regular votes now.
I think people are getting a little confused. Of course the changes are somewhat disruptive, but we have to remember that the 5 votes are really just 5 more influential votes per day, as @smooth reminds us. We can still vote all we want. It just becomes more diluted as we vote, which is not much different. The only difference is that our 5 votes we actually have some control over. Which I don't know. I think that's cool. It makes me feel dolphin-ish.
So are you saying that you feel increasing the supply of STEEM on the market will increase the number of new investors? IIRC, you've stated repeatedly for months that few new investors existed.
Do you now feel that a lower STEEM price will make new investors suddenly want to grab it up?
Personally, I don't see people saying, "If only the price of STEEM would go lower, then I'd get on board!".
Where were they when the price was at .30 cents? Although debatable, I feel that not that much has changed in the platform between now and then and generally people don't like catching falling knives.
IMHO, a lower priced STEEM will simply be grabbed up by the existing true believer whales at the lower price after selling off their STEEM at a higher price. I'm fairly certain that's what most of us that believe in the platform are doing. But I don't see many big new investors coming on board.
What may be considered "big investors" that are coming on board are simply posting for thousands of dollars per day and powering up or cashing out. I don't see those accounts buying STEEM. In fact, I see them basically defending themselves to anyone questioning them for being here by boasting about how they've put nothing into the system out of their own pocket.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you that the scenario you describe is what "should" happen, if others saw Steemit the way we do, but I am simply pointing out what "is" happening from what I can tell, and the perception of others is usually entirely different from those of us that have been here for a while.
Tuck your words continue to be wise and sharp. I will keep following your commentary wherever it may be~
Thanks~*~
I'm the village idiot. Be careful my friend. ;)
Every single trade has a buyer and a seller. Unless you think that whales are going to buy back their own or other whales' coins (IMO not a chance, and certainly the evidence with 95% of whales powering down doesn't suggest it, but I guess you disagree), any selling by whales can only improve the distribution. Mathematical certainty. It may (and perhaps probably will) happen at lower prices, but it will happen.
If it turns out that you are right and only existing whales want to own this coin, then we are dead. There is no way to improve the distribution it will simply collapse into one big circle jerk singularity. The last remaining whale can autoupvote his own posts all day long.
Also, yes I have said there aren't many new investors. This coin is unfriendly and unappealing to speculators, who are most (but not all) of the investors in the crypto space. Whether that is by design based on an anti-speculator philosophy or an unavoidable side-effect of other design requirements, I can't really say, but it is clear that many speculators pass it over (as they should IMO).
There are some long term investors who appear willing to buy in and power up. I guess we have to hope there are enough of them and they continue to find it attractive. No other practical method of redistribution exists. I debunked the notion of meaningful redistribution via rewards alone over a reasonable time period in another comment here.
Only a whale with little to no belief in the platform (or lacking the funds to do so) would not buy back his/others coins at a lower price. I believe (and again, this is simply my own perception of the current situation), most whales are overtly aware that the price was much higher than it deserved to be (as I've pointed out elsewhere on Steemit) at this early stage due to the FOMO effect combined with a well timed pump capitalizing, like every new coins shrewd investors do, on imprudent investors.
I would have to say, of course they are! Who wouldn't sell at .007-.002 if they perceived, through experience in this cryptocurrency ecosystem, that they could buy back at a fraction of that price in a short period of time? Obtaining the same amount or more coins, while also being able to gain more BTC or fiat currency, is a no-brainer for many.
I would have to surmise that most all of us with any experience in the cryptocurrency ecosystem would, and therefore think that most all of us are doing just that. And in that line of thinking, it ends up being a self-fulfilled prophesy.
If I assume it's going to happen, I must be assuming others are also considering the possibility, and as the number of people who notice the trend accumulate, it happens.
That being said, I would also not have been surprised to see STEEM rise to $10 during it's climb. The problem it encountered was the one you brought up back then and continued to do so for some time, the lack of new investors. And by you bringing up that concise fact, repeatedly, I feel it in itself contributed to many people realizing the time had come to begin selling off to buy lower or otherwise.
I'm not suggesting that you caused the price decline, I'm simply expressing that wise investors reading another wise investor voice that opinion simply reaffirmed their own feelings that the bubble was about to pop. And when that feeling happens, those wise enough tend to want to get out before the others. It's a completely natural cycle as I'm sure you are aware.
lulz, you've summed it up nicely there. Of course I hope that is not the end scenario, but currently I see no evidence to the contrary. There is plenty of time for that to change though. We are in the very early stages of Steemit. One change can at times whip up a frenzy in the masses and new investors come flocking, even if for a quick in-n-out.
Generally when that moment happens it leaves the price 10%-30% higher than it previously was and then the project either continues to build or it goes stagnant and ultimately dies from lack of continued innovation.
I don't think a lack of continued innovation will be the case with Steemit, as testified by my post concerning too many changes too quickly may be a problem. It's a balancing act that no Dev team has yet perfected, and how could they? No one is perfect and no one knows what the others are thinking at any given time. That's what makes this so much fun! :)
We're all just speculating. And at times, people are saying things to make others contemplate what's been said. Those reading others thoughts are left for themselves to judge why anyone is expressing a certain opinion at any given point in time and act accordingly. Gaining as much information as possible from others is never frowned upon. :)
@tuck-fheman
Most whales are highly overinvested. That is why 95% are powering down. They may, at some point after lightening their holdings, buy back at a lower price. That certainly possible. The best thing that can happen is to get that point as quickly as possible, not discourage or avoid the selling that is absolutely necessary to get there and in doing so suffer the many disadvantages of a horribly broken distribution any longer than necessary.
Selling when one is heavily overinvested in a single asset and not buying more is not indicative of having no faith in the platform. Nor does it indicate a desire to sell off ones entire position. Everything in moderation.
I agree with you that there is no lack of innovation, and there may well be a rapid and significant influx of new investors leading to significant price increases including when least expected.
OK. Then what is it indicative of? Do tell.
@donkeypong @smooth I'm against this new 5 vote rule. I think it won't solve the power concentration problem, only make it worse. I think trying to "patch" the current system won't do it either, a new solution with a fresh start to the power distribution must be sought or the platform will wither and die, and competitors will just fly past... I wrote an article that you may find interesting based on the anthropological approach of the disrtibution of power in a society/ecosystem https://steemit.com/steemit/@webosfritos/thoughts-on-steemit-power-distribution-and-steempower-an-anthropology-based-approach which at the end of the day is what's happening here, nothing new, this type of problem has cursed human societies and structures since the dawn of time.
The system is getting more complex every day. Now people need to think about how many times they already voted today, and instead of voting being a binary choice, it is a 100th degree choice.
Bots will just continue voting with 12.5% vote percentage, while regular users get hurt in UX.
Yes one big part of the fun for me is to just vote for whatever that tickles my fancy, even comments. 5 a day would sap the fun out of curating without being too calculative.
im already getting losing the fun with voting slider, getting annoying how it pops up evrytime i'm just voting on this post lol
Same here.
Sometimes I upvote 90% of the comments in a post, if they're all good!
As a strong proponent of this change, my thoughts are here.
Looks like your link is broken.
This link works:
https://steemit.com/steem/@theoretical/learning-to-love-the-voting-power-equilibrium-point-change
5 per day is the wrong way I think.....i like to upvote comments a lot to express agreement/approval or thanks or simply to help distribution of Steem to those who are engaging and making an effort with Steemit. in addition to normal curation of posts I like, that's a lot of votes. If this change is to go ahead, the issue of showing approval or enabling low SP holders the ability to distribute rewards or views is a must. Engagement and building community is everything....we need the tools to be able to communicate effectively with each other. For too many, the experience on Steemit can feel worse than Reddit and Facebook when the impact of their engagement is minimal or they get hardly anything for their content, (and we all know it's not always a question of quality) because they have higher expectations. Encourage more engagement, not less......though I appreciate you are trying to make it harder for bots.
Comments are one of the mot valuable parts of a good post. There is already WAY TO LITTLE incentive to UPvote comments because there is not much profit in the UPvoter, this only makes even LESS incentive for UPvoting comments. This is not good because it will reduce the motivation for people to make VALUABLE comments.
How do such smart people with such access to opinions make such decisions????
I'm not one to start any rumors, but..
Check out my analysis. I agree this is bad and doesn't seem to have much effect.