Your steem rewards might be TAXED! We need to talk about the huge penalties for posting more than 4 times in 24 hours.

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

"Each account can post up to 4 top-level posts per day before a new algorithm... will start taxing any rewards you earn on additional posts in the same day." - @steemitblog

We all want great, spam-free content on steemit, and punishing people for posting more than 4 times per day is not how we are going to get it. I argue that steemit will miss out on tons of great content because of this strict rule.

I Need You, Steem!

During my first 3 days using steemit, I created 16 total posts of my original photography. At some point I exceeded 4 posts in 24 hours, and behind-the-scenes penalties began. I posted some of my favorite work while my rewards were being significantly penalized and I didn't even know it.

I've been so impressed with steem and steemit for motivating me to climb out of my hole and put myself out there. It's hard to make yourself vulnerable and let your work be judged, and steemit pushed me to take the risk!

But now steemit is telling me to get back in my hole again.

If the goal of this limit is to prevent spam, I hope there is another method that doesn't also limit the creative expression of original content producers. And even if the only solution to stopping spam is post-count-per-time-period, surely the community would prefer a higher limit than 4 per day!

If the intent is to make people post less often in hopes they post better content, I think that's a bad idea from the get-go. How can we assume it's impossible to have more than 4 really great ideas in one day? And what about steem's voting system? Isn't that why we're here - to let the crowd sort out the good content from the bad? Does the voting system really fall apart without an arbitrary post-count limitation?

The User Experience

Another notable issue is the limit is not clearly disclosed to the author before posting. I think a 4 post limit per 24 hours will turn a lot of people off no matter what, but they will be steaming (but unfortunately not steeming) if they aren't told about it up-front!

It's not made clear when the penalties begin or when they end, either. I waited for 3 days to post because my "post bandwidth" number on steemd was still above the 40k threshold. Then I learned that number can get stuck sometimes, and that I actually could post.

Can I Post Without Penalty Right Now?

You might wonder if you will be taxed when you make your next post. Check out this awesome resource: http://steemdollar.com/limitstatus.php?name=steemit (change the username at the end of the URL to yours or use the box in the lower left corner of the page. Tremendous thank you to @mauricemikkers for creating this incredible resource. It does depend on steemd, which can be inaccurate at times.)

Some relevant discussion on the topic with some important voices: https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/176

tl:dr

There's a little-known limit of 4 posts per 24 hour period. When you exceed the limit, you start losing huge percentages of your rewards. I think this limit is incredibly restrictive, reduces original content on steemit, and makes for a bad user experience that will turn off newbies. Please change it!

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Hmm. So that's why I've earned $0.00 so far lol

You said you need more post for your photos? Why not just include them all into one big post?

Why not include everything you would ever want to publish in your next post? ;)

Does anyone know if comments count against your posts number? I mean they are listed as posts on the profile page I really hope comments aren't included in that 4 count.

Does leaving comments count as a post? Or is this restriction only towards actual submitted blog posts? If commenting is included in the 4 per day total then I am in trouble. I like to have conversations with people!

It's only for top-level posts, aka blog posts. Comments do not count against you.

I see your point, but at the same time I see the other side, and it's that having someone, and you know they will, churn out hundreds of post each day in a misguided attempt to increase the odds of one of them being lucrative, will also degrade the system. Maybe the solution is to change the limit from 4 to 10, or some other agreeable number. Just a thought...

Or even a warning. I would have held off and staggered the posts over the first few days but I wasn't aware of this when I signed up.

Yeah, a bit more clarity would certainly help. That said, how many of us really read all the How-Tos, FAQs, Disclaimers and everything else presented to us when we purchase a product or sign up to something? I know I don't. It may have been on one of the pages I clicked Agree or Next on when I joined.

Maybe there's not be a better way to stop spammers than a post limit. But yeah, I think a bump up to 10 posts per day would impact real creators much less . I think 4 is just crazy low.

And at the very least, a warning should be given when posting a post that would push you over the limit. Then you'd have the choice of doing it anyway or not.

I was aware of this but now that you said "Each account can post up to 4 top-level posts per day" what does TOP LEVEL mean? It may be shitty but its effective and good for the network.

Top level just means full posts, not comments and replies.

Oh, gotcha, thanks, you should note that an edit counts as a post in the case you didn't write it.

Side note: I recognize that this kind of "taxation" is fundamentally different from government taxation. Participation in steem and steemit are voluntary, whereas government is coercive. But official steemit material called the rewards reduction a tax, so that's what I'm calling it.

Government taxation is voluntary also. if you dont work more than 4 days in a year, you wont be taxed.

So this is what happened to me as well... I got so excited yesterday after finding this that I posted a number of my original works from the past year. That sucks... Perhaps some kind of notice upon sign-up could prevent those of us who aren't spammers from getting treated like ones right out of the gate?

Can we re-post them at a later date? Or are there consequences to that as well?

That sucks! Yeah, I'm worried this is going to happen to a lot of people.

I'm not sure about reposting later. Good question. I would like to think tasteful reposting is ok, especially considering that right now no one can even upvote our stuff if they find it after 30 days! But I'm not sure what the etiquette is yet.

A lot of users are not aware of that supposedly encouraging higher quality content policy on steemit, I myself was not aware of it up until a few days ago. I've seen a lot of users posting way more than 4 posts per day apparently not knowing about the reward penalties for more than 4 posts as they are usually trying to get at least some of their posts noticed and to get some reward. Then they figure out that even if that happens they do not get 100% of the reward of their post and then that what they get is further split in SP and SBD...

Yeah, and it's no fun when you get a lower chunk of the rewards than you were expecting. Newcomers won't like steemit!

I had this exact experience here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@contentjunkie/are-steemit-rewards-payouts-broken I was even warned by someone while making the posts but had no idea it would have such drastic results. I didn't even get a tenth of what was in the payout indicator.

Ugh! I really hope this rule isn't in place when people really start coming to see what steemit is all about!

Very informative, especially for newbies like me :)

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