Steemit Needs to Change its Reward System to Better Incentivize Intelligent Discourse in Blogs: The Comment Section Should Be the Lifeblood of Steemit, Pledge 50% of my rewards to top Commenters
Thanks to everyone for the support on my opening post: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@daut44/introduction-and-ama-ask-me-anything-about-being-a-professional-poker-and-daily-fantasy-sports-player-cross-post-from-poker
I read a blog by @lorddominik007 detailing suggestions for improving Steemit. I echo his sentiments and I wanted to post my own. Read his here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@lorddominik007/improving-steemit-my-ideas
I’ve been a member of various forums over the past 18 years, with topics ranging from Starcraft to poker to philosophy to astrophysics. And in the few days I’ve spent devouring Steemit I’ve realized there are some fundamental issues which prevent it from improving.
I love the concept of Steemit. I have been writing thoughtful posts and contributing to forums for years without compensation, and in much worse cases writers for billion dollar websites like the Huffington Post don’t get paid. However, for this website to reach its potential, the distribution of Steemit rewards must change.
"It’s not your fault"
When scrolling through the newest additions, I often see a complaint post about why someone’s body of hard work producing content hasn’t received more upvotes. I mean no offense by this, but most of the content on this website is terrible. Steemit is littered with spam, plagiarism, third-rate descriptions of concepts that could be better explained by linking an article/video or doing a google search, with little thoughtful discussion or back and forth going on in the comment section.
Don’t get me wrong, fantastic original content does exist here. Example from @steemrollin: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemrollin/steem-where-does-the-money-come-from
It’s just few and far between and when it happens the comment discussion is not an ongoing insightful discussion of concepts and ideas, it’s just a quick comment saying “upvoted” and/or quick praise.
But it’s not your fault your content is bad.
It’s just game theory. Having nuanced and interesting discussion in the comment section has little to no monetary reward, but producing a blog post that goes viral does or upvoting a post early does, so people spend little time reading and participating in thriving topics/discussions, but lots of time trying to be one of the first to like something or pumping out content. The only way to change this is to change the opportunity cost of content production
“There is no Nobel Prize for Fact Checking"
The problem Steemit faces reminds me of a recent episode of Last Week Tonight where John Oliver describes issues with scientific studies:
There is no reward system for replication studies in the scientific world. Similarly success on this website depends on publishing new content, not doing followup discussion in the comments section of an interesting topic.
I’m going to post two threads I chose quickly from lesswrong and quora to illustrate the point.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jcj/an_ethical_puzzle_about_brain_emulation/
The opening post of this thread poses a unique, intelligent, and philosophical question. The comments have thoughtful, intelligent answers.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-objects-traveling-at-faster-and-faster-speeds-become-more-and-more-massive
The top answers to this question are thoughtful and educated responses which do not pay the authors more than the satisfaction of helping others. I do not see this level of education on Steemit yet.
Imagine how thorough these answers and discussions would be if everyone was compensated for their time financially instead of just fulfilling intellectual curiousity?
Pay the Commenters More and the Authors Less
I'm not exactly sure the best way to enact this, but people shouldn't feel their time is being wasted writing their best content in the comment section of a post they did not write. My best solution would be for the pay graph for popular upvoted comments to increase at a much faster rate than that for authors. All I know is that a change needs to happen. The comment section of blogs should be the lifeblood of Steemit
Post your thoughts below, I'll respond to them, you'll re-respond and let's start having a nuanced discussion in one place.
Pledge to Give 50% of rewards for this post to top commenters
I'm still new to steemit, but is there a convenient way to pay others on this site with Steem other than just upvoting? Either way, I pledge to give 50% of the money this blog brings in to the commenters. I don't fully understand everything, but push and prod me in the right direction so we can get this train moving
I am a big fan of Quora. If there was any monetory award associated with comments on Quora I would have been rich by now :)
I see Steemit as a marathon race.
The over enthusiastic runners have taken a good start. Without thinking that they need to finish the race and they would need to manage energy well. They are just putting it all there too early. This will lead to exhaustion. Of those kind of writers. And those kind of readers.
I am sure time will come when these people here will get fed up of same thing appearing again and again and again.
After all, how many times can one watch Scary Movie 5 or any such low rated movie?
Later will rise a group. A group who has some art. A group who appreciates good art.
I hope that phase starts soon. I would like to read some good content here. Some good discussions too.
I am not saying it is not happening now on Steemit. I just hope it starts on a scale where it is recognizable and enjoyable.
I want the reading here to make my coffee delicious. Not the other way around.
You raised a valid point. I support your opinion.
Note : Also I am a victim of a bot called "Clamps" here. If anyone reading this knows how to get rid of such stupidity please help.
The only true way to engage discussion is to make the reward of discussion equal to that of producing original content. Otherwise people are incentivized to do just as I did in this post, to reply to a previous post (apologies @lorddominik007 for doing just that with my own thread, but it was sufficiently different that a new thread be warranted) with their own blog and the discussion becomes quickly difficult to follow when people have to sift through link after link to discuss a topic they find interesting. But people reserve their likes for blog posts, not comments, and refuse to like blogs that already have a lot of likes, and that needs to change.
I agree. I hold a view that interesting content will itself start a chain of good discussions. As you rightly pointed out that interesting content is hard to find.
Reward for a good comment exists here. Only that the person with good steem power needs to upvote the comment which is also the case with blog post. I have seen comments getting awarded $300 to $700.
Upvoting is also a strategy here. One who upvotes at the right time earns more. If they start upvoting left right and center they lose the potential reward.
I agree with you on this problem. Somehow this needs to change to promote healthy discussions.
The book "Built to Last" covers this in detail. The great companies who stand test of time do so only because of higher objectives. If they just think of reward and profit they would end up like other 95% of companies which get closed down within 5 years.
Steemit is built now. Whether it is "Built To Last", that is an interesting question? Time will tell. I hope it succeeds. I am rooting for it.
Good to know some comments get upvoted that much. But it still pales in comparison to the top blogs, and I assume the comments were more well thought out and had better ideas than the blogs themselves.
I too hope Steemit succeeds. I just think there needs to be an incentivization shift to motivate people monetarily rather than just hope they do it for intellectual curiosity or because it's right. Need some people to make sacrifices, and I'm trying to do that now with the payouts.
As of right now this blog is getting $0.77, of which I'd pay you $0.39 for being the sole commenter. How would be the best way to do that? Also how long do blogs/comments continue getting money?
I have not see old posts getting recognized often. The best bet is within 12 to 24 hours. Also that amount you see will get lowered by the time payout is done. Unless, if you get more upvotes (I hope you do).
Thank you for your wish to share your reward with me. I would advise you no to do so.
It was my pleasure to interact with you. I have a better option. Remember my account name which is also one of my nick names in real life.
When I post something and you discover it and like it, upvote it and comment on it. When I discover something brilliant from you I will do the same. I followed you now.
You can manage some stats by visiting www.steemstats.com
You can see who followed you and who you are following and their activity.
Just remember a Steemit fried from India called Dev. It was nice talking to you Ryan.
To send someone money, go to the Wallet tab on your home screen, then click the currency you'd like to send, and choose Transfer from the drop-down menu. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory.
Replying here because steemit caps responses at depth 4 for some unknown reason.
Seems like I can just convert some to steem and transfer it over. Already pledged it and I truly believe promoting good comments is the best way to improve this site so I will follow through.
Also, as the post I linked early in my article states, the follow button doesn't actually do anything at this point. It doesn't show when posts from a person pop up. But I have followed you as well
That is why I mentioned about
https://steemstats.com/
For now it does serve some purpose if one is interested to pursue in that direction.
In regards to your attack from a downvote bot, I'm too new here to have any solution, but it seems a problem of decentralization. No moderators, no banning. The best proposed solution if banning isn't an option would be for each successive downvote to be less bad than previous downvotes, reducing the efficacy of a spambot hurting your account.
I agree with you that the commenting rewards can be improved ...and also about the game theory of rewards and it probably will be at least tweaked down the road. If you do comment on popular threads early and get noticed there are often good rewards given out. There are other good reasons to comment. You can comment to engage with others in the community, especially the author. I will look at commenter's blog if they have something interesting to say in a comment on my blog posts. Your Quora & LessWrong links are great discussion threads. However I think there are various types of posts that illicit comments naturally and others that don't. Music, photos, essays, stories usually get minimal engagement. People just like reading posts.. I would end up commenting something like 'Great post!' but realize a bot like Wang can do that so I let the upvote & rewards indicate my enjoyment or support. Other controversial topics or questions do illicit comments naturally. If we were a link sharing site like Reddit, posts would illicit comments as well. However the platform is more like Medium & Tumblr. The community and posts feel real and authentic compared to other websites and I like that a lot. Rather than making changes to the blockchain we can probably just create alternative websites 'SteemQuora, or SteemReddit' .. specifically to focus on questions and link sharing. There will be a different culture on those platforms and I think you can achieve the desired effect.
BTW sidenote: You're flying under the radar especially with all the stories you have. I think you can create just one nicely formatted post with a lot of images about the drama of your poker tournament win experience.. or any other tourneys. You can explain the details, insights about what your thought process is, or just stories in the poker world.. You can also break out certain experiences into short blog posts ...there's probably a worthwhile story in every big pot game. Put a little drama in it. Make some money on posts and then worry about comments..lol! You'll have a bigger reputation and audience that will support any complaints you have.
Thanks for the advice, will make some posts like that in the future. But this was a more generic observation about the lack of intellectual discourse and low content introductory posts getting upvoted to 15k inspiring people to post every link and thing they can think of trying to make .02 at a time. I just picture exactly what you said, steemquora and steemreddit with deep thought and effort put into discussion because there is a tangible reward on top of pure intellectual pursuits
I hear you. Sounds good. ttyl!
Came over here because of your comment on my recent game theory article, thanks for pointing me to your post!
I completely agree with you, commenters are typically not compensated well for their efforts. But check out this post, which as of this writing has a $900 payout pending, but its top comment is currently worth over $1300.
I think that first and foremost, the low payouts received by comments are a major failure of reader engagement, rather than a failure of the algorithm. I'm intrigued by the possibility of committing a significant portion of a post's payout to commenters. It could be done like this: 25% of the article's payout goes to comments (regardless of number of votes), and is distributed quadratically to the highest-voted comments. With this system, you'd have a pretty dramatic front-runner bias, where the first comment to see upvotes would be the one that receives the most upvotes, since comments are displayed in order of pending payout. But it's an interesting idea and we should think about it more.
I originally upvoted my own comment to send it to the top of the list, but that's not very cool when you're offering to pay me for it. Upvote removed.
I upvoted it!!
Nice to see a comment receive more than the opening post. But it's rare, and as you said is a failure of reader engagement. People just like posts they think may go viral and provide low content replies.
As for the algorithm, it's tough to balance. The algorithm obviously has its positives, such as weeding out spam and rewarding those who sift through the endless content and like what is quality. But like you said, an additional payout algorithm that quadratically distributes payouts to commenters would help
Is there anything wrong with the long term goal of Steemit being an online blog center with the most upvoted blogs being pushed to the forefront?
also new to steem and I have not read the Steemit whitepaper.
I assume this thread is dead. Will give away a whopping .36 cents divided equally amongst @dev @steemrollin @biophil and @rainingtrips
Don't spend it all in one place guys.
Looks like it will take either a week to transfer over. I'll just deposit some BTC later and send. Cheers
It's probably too late now, but note that you can transfer "steem dollars" directly without waiting a week to convert them to "steem" first. You can even trade them on Poloniex (for about 90 cents each) without having to wait. Presumably the buyer will eventually do the conversion and have to wait 7 days, which is why he's paying less than a dollar each for them.
@daut44 I couldn't agree more. Often I find the comments section more intriguing than the actual post.