RE: What if I told you I've uncovered a top secret community, this community is so secretive that if you want to work your way up its ladder you are going to need some very heavy pockets? Would you want to be part of this community?
We should only allow the Steem Power to be part of the equation.
All new users start out with the same voting ability, influence. Will call this X, so X=1.
As X users participate they start to gain a more influence . X=2
Several other factors start to kick in after time, to increase influence. Reputation =R, length of time as a user= LT, time spent on site= TS, upvotes=U, downvotes=D, curation awards=CA, etc..
The amount of Steem you hold is only part of the equation. Steem Power= S=.05 and you level up because of the above other factors. They increase Steem's influence. Until your Steem is fully vested=V and equals 1:1, Steem Power S=1.
So in theory, someone can achieve the same influence without spending whale money on Steem. However, they are incentivized to invest, because at some point they will be fully vested. Once fully vested the factors shift more towards Steems power.
Someone who has hit all the right fac
tors, could have the same influence as a whale because of :
This is hypothetical so just assume these two equations work out to have the same influence.
Dedicated user vs Whale
DU= (S= 10+R=100+TS=20,000+CA=30,00+ V=10+Steem =1:1)
X=Influence =77
The whale
(S=1+R=10+CA=5,000+V=1+ Steem=.25)
X= Influcence = 77
So the Whale has top influence, but so does someone putting in the time and effort. Their votes have the same influence.
Like I said, once fully vested the equations start to shift because you've proven yourself. Now a lot of your future influence will be based on Steem Power. More and more as time goes by, to keep up though you would have to really contribute.
The problem is that many of these parameters are not directly in the code, reputation score for example is a website parameter it is not a blockchain paramater. But I like your idea, I definetely think that influence should not be based only on steem power.