Steemit Basics | Dust Threshold !
The Dust Threshold is a rule on Steemit to counter spam by turning every post or comments that has a payout between 0.00$ to 0.019$ to Dust (No Payout) at the moment it's supposed to be paid out.
Some of the post payouts that show 0.02$ will also reverted to dust since those numbers are rounded down or rounded up. For as far as I know both 0.016$ and 0.024$ actual values show 0.02$. One of them gets paid out, the other won't. To see the calculations on exact upvote worth check this post by @eonwarped. knowing your exact upvote is not always easy, even when using a brower plugin like @steem-plus (which I would recommend everyone to try!). The pending post earnings are also based on the average Steem price and can go up or down before payout time, sometimes making them end up below the minimum.
While I understand this rule has it's function, I also see some major problems with it...
Nobody Knows About It
I believe it is a very good thing that there is a rather steep learning curve on this platform without a step by step tutorial someone has to go through (which is one of the reasons why a video game like Minecraft became a big success). A rule like the Dust Threshold with major implications should never be that hidden to both new and longer term members. When browsing through comments it really omnipresent how few people actually know about this rule and see the upvotes they genuinely give or receive get turned into dust 7 days later without realising it.Against Real Rewards Idea
What makes Steemit one of the most enjoyable social networks, is that the rewards make for very little negativity or cancer in the comments. Given or received upvotes are real rewards and feel much more real than just getting a like. Giving or receiving these real rewards and seeing them turn into dust feels horrible and is worse than just getting a thumbs up.Limits Social Behavior in Comments
While this rule might work good for actual posts, comments really suffer hard from it for multiple reasons. Many people including myself enjoy getting social interaction on their posts and don't mind spending some of their daily voting power on rewarding comments just to say thanks or at least to let the one who took the time to make a comment know that it has been read and appreciated. This becomes impossible for many since most barely have a 0.01$ upvote which is limited to 10 each day, while the ones who do have some steem power are forced into a minimum 0.03$ upvote.Harsh Rule For Minnows
This rules makes it pretty much impossible for a minnow to ever upvote and reward a great comment they got on one of their posts. They also run the risk that the first posts after their introduction gets a 0.02$ reward which they than see turned into dust heavily discouraging them.
I do see this as an issue that does need some kind of solution because the way it is now is far from what it should and could be.
Warning Message
Anyone who is about to upvote something below the Dust Threshold limit should get a warning that their upvote might be turned into dust in case no other upvotes come in that bring the payout amount over 0.02$. this would instantly fix current awareness issue and make it very clear to everyone that this rule is in place and they willingly take the risk of losing their upvote.Comment Tipping Option
The entire issue that minnows are unable to upvote any of the comments they get could be fixed by simply adding a function to to tip SBD on comments. I know SBD can be send manually by through your wallet but this is rarely done. Knowing you can get or give a tip on a comment that can be seen by everyone and is guaranteed to be paid out even if it's only a little. This would be great and might even allow the Dust Threshold to be set a bit higher to fight Spam even better while at the same time giving SBD some kind of 'real life use case'.Comment Read Notification
Just a simple button below a comment that can be used to indicate that it has been seen or read without having to write a comment or waste an upvote that would otherwise be turned into dust would also make some difference.
I'm not a programmer and have no idea if these solutions would be possible to implement without bringing along too much of a load to the network, but it would be nice to see something being done about the current situation.
I do not think this is an effective way to fight against spam, as spam users might also use voting bots (actually I know a famous example making good money out of this strategy). My proposal is to have a separate pool of down-votes, that are not affecting the voting power...
Yes good idea, it should not be that hard for a bot to spot spam and downvote it.
I'm not sure how big of a % of all STeem the devs have, but if they had like 30%+ and used it all on different kind of projects that help steemit grow or to combat abuse a lot of the problems this platform has could be quickly fixed.
This rule is helpful in combating the low effort spam, that is making it more expensive for the spammers to profit. Now they have to invest a bit more effort in order to get the payment.
The question is whether it does more harm than good.
Since I'm one of those with $0.01 vote, I'm starting to upvote just the posts and only the comments that already have some upvotes. Sure, old habits die hard and I'll be the single voter on a comment, but I think that's the only rational way to act while the rule is in place.
Giving your 100% $0.01 vote to a comment that will not receive additional votes is both wasting your VP and fooling the recipient into thinking that he's got something.
It would require some deeper analysis and look at the data to see how much spam is prevented this way and how much small fish are losing because of it.
Out of the solution you propose, I really like the #2. The recipient gets the tip no matter how small, and I finally get to have my VP over 70% :-)
I am one of those that only became aware of the dust limit a few days ago. I won't change my voting behavior though. I will upvote a comment with my 1 cent vote if I am fairly confident that that comment will get another vote later on which would bring it over the dust limit.
I also like the #2 solution assuming the increase in transactions can be handled by the network. It should really add to to social aspect and give SBD more use. If you see how big tips are on a platform like twitch, imagine what it could be on here.
Interesting... i never knew there was a threshold for payouts. I'm not sure if there's any point to this dust rule to combat spam. Voting power total is limited so it doesn't make much of a difference whether spread out over 10 or 100 self upvotes.
I am not following the logic? Can't you flag a post if it is spam? This sounds like a rule the whales came up with to keep more Steem
within themselves.
This mean that if you upvote every single one of your own comments with 0.019$ or less, the payout will always be 0.00$ unless someone elso also upvotes your comment. So self-upvoting with 0.01$ pretty much the same as throwing your upvote away...
Is this rule new? because I have this problem, and I don't know how to fix. @contanza
The rule has been in place for a long time apperantly but few actually know about it. To start don't upvote anything that has a 0.00$ post payout (upvoting your own comments is useless)