Possible Solutions For "Reward Pool Rape"
Individual users taking away so much of the reward pool can be seen as a problem or not. Fact is some do and some of the whales recently decided to take matters in their own hands and use their power to destroy those they accuse of this "crime" of taking out too much of the pot.
Be it justified or not, I thought I throw in my two cents for possible solutions of this situation, because the only thing I like less than being on the wrong side of this argument is the feeling of standing in the middle of the Wild West.
That's not good for me personally and that's not good for Steemits future because it stands directly against the principle of legal certainty.
So, here we go: Quick and simple Solutions for the "Reward Pool Rape"
- If a post has a payout of more than 100$ (maybe 50$), the amount above the threshold is only paid out as Steem Power, which is currently worth about one third of Steem Dollar.
- Alternatively, (1) could be extended to all posts by a user within 24 hours, either with the same threshold or with one that is maybe three times as high.
- The rewards ratio per post becomes 70/30 or more (currently it's 50/50). The idea behind it is the same as for the suggestions above.
- A hierarchy for the usable upvote power. Beyond a threshold (maybe 50$), no upvote for a post cannot be more than 5%. This would curb additional rewards for the specific post in the most cases and make it dominant to vote as soon as possible to get a relevant piece of the curation rewards cake. The time to use bots for upvotes in a relevant size would go down accordingly.
- The ratio of the reputation by all users who voted to the payout of the post must exceed a certain value (something around 20 seems appropriate). For example when 10 users vote with an average reputation of 50, their aggregated reputation is 500. If the post reaches 20$ the ratio is 25. That would be ok. If the same post comes out at 50$, the ratio goes down to 10 which would be too low and in that case the payout would be frozen at 25$. Maybe in this case too a threshold is necessary to protect small payouts.
I would also put self-upvoting on the list, but unfortunately, it is too easy to simply create another anonymous account and use that for hidden self-upvotes. Therefore it is pointless to abolish that possibility. The same goes for other things like limiting the number of posts or demanding a minimum length or any other quantity or quality requirement. They all can be bypassed by using multiple accounts.
That's why it is five suggestions I have and personally the fifth one is my favorite, but of course this would have to be thought through thoroughly first and I'm sure there are other and possibly better solutions out there. Finding them an implementing them is not up to me but to the witnesses.
What remains is that there are quick and simple solutions for this perceived problem and there is absolutely no reason to resort to Wild West ways of dealing with this flaw in the Steemit reward system.
Every problem has a solution but it doesn't mean that we solve the problem by force problem should be solved by discussion
I agree but we need to have discussion first or entice those that have nothing to gain from changing the way are to see things a bit differently.
yeah, that's how we solve problems. We shoot at everyone on sight. Manoman.
Yup, just mention a name and BANG!
No point in reading, just blindly down voting.
thx for the upvote, but I think you can remove it and save it for something else. I don't think this post will make it above the zero again..
I'll do it this way, then. ;)
Or...
My only solution, prevent use of upvoting/downvoting outside of STEEMit, so that bots can't be used for anything.
I've seen that too. It's to get the invested money back as soon as possible. I don't really think it's a big issue as long as the amount isn't extremely high. Maybe I'll do that too, because it's quite relevant if you compare the dividends.
jep, that's just Inflation. I think it's already too much. Before, it was kind of better when you were risking a minus with an upvote. Nowadays, you get 200%+..
They probably would - or upvote their comments. It's good that most bots don't upvote comments.
I still like my suggestion (5) with the ratio. In combination with a more extended limitation on writing posts that could effectively curb the extreme peaks and only allow them when someone has a really popular post.
I'm still in for bots. They do level the playing field. But considering that @bernieasshole got most of his voting power from upvote bots, I'm not a uncritical fan of them. Bots create power and power - as seen even here - is abused.
It's terrible that even the witnesses seem to be standing behind the flagging approach. I just had a discussion with @themarkymark in this post here and it was very disappointing. They seem not to get that they are harming Steemit by institutionalizing this lunatic amok approach to keep the upvotes in check. They just don't have an interest in creating a proper rule for it. In the long-run I believe this will be very problematic. You can't stay a pirates' nest forever.