Hey, Mark. I just wanted to clarify something.

However, I strongly disagree with the belief that "piling on" is the true source of any problems.

I never stated that piling on was a source of any problem. If anything, it's just a consequence of voting habits, but it's not even a consequence of the curation rewards structure, in my opinion. I tend to think that a lot of the piling on is simply a result of what someone might call "lazy" curation. It likely happens because some voters simply curate the trending page or curate based on their list of trending authors that they have followed.

So, it's not necessarily a result of someone thinking, "If I vote for this person all the time, I'll at least get some rewards." Rather, it's probably something along the lines of, "This person seems popular, so I'll go ahead and vote for them because it's a safe vote...and I'll also get some kind of rewards."

In reality, the "piling on" from large stakeholders doesn't make much sense in terms of curation, particularly for those who are late to the party. Whales and most dolphins know this. It's much more lucrative to go out and vote for the content that hasn't been bombarded with votes already. Much of the piling on that we see is most likely due to these curators genuinely liking the content, thinking it deserves more rewards, or simply thinking that it's a safe vote for them to use.

My comments about piling on in my post had to do with the potential consequences of a revised algorithm that flattened rewards curves, which wouldn't necessarily prevent any sort of "lazy" curation, but would mitigate the effects of it by reducing the payouts as a result. It would force at least some of the curators to change their habits if their goals for curation were to receive a better return.