Experiment: Reply to [A possible cure for STEEM?]
A few days ago @happyme wrote an interesing article: A Possible Cure For Steem?
Where he addresses a concern many minnows have about the fairness of payouts in #steemit and the discouragement the current system might create in new comers.
He used very interesting analogies and this opened a very and interesting discussions about growing the network while encouraging organically other's participation.
Even thou i don't fully agree with his proposal, (mainly because is skewed by the bitcoin price and behavior analogy), that very post has in the replies a very good example of the real issue we should be trying to address.
source image Google: money / Boing Boing
Let me explain:
Thou many people replied to him and opened the discussion and he took the time and effort to reply and is open to new ideas, most of those comments went ignored by up-voters, but for the conversation with @lexiconical (where he points out the flaw of his comparison with BTC) and while i agree with him in that. The discussion derives then, to inflation gold BTC behavior, and stops discussing how to make STEEMit fairer and better for the newcomers and simply defends the status quo of a society where the rich get richer.
Note from self: I have nothing against the richer getting richer, but also find it is important for the richer to leave part of the market to new comers so everyone can be richer)
Back to the point:
@happyme post returned to him in up-votes 4.83$ (less curation fees)
The discussion with everyone else had a payout in the cents range.
The discussion with @lexiconical (which thou interesting went off-topic) had a pay out of:
$8.80 for @happyme and $39.18 for @lexiconical
I stopped the addition exercise in this one.
and also realized they go back on topic but since is hidden it is proof that the indentation harms the discussion.
**Proposal for better User experience:** Inspire on facebook only one nesting level of indentation
And as i explain in this comment: If we want to encourage discussion instead of posting we need to provide an incentive for doing so.
Resumed would be: What we are missing is the incentive and help from the powerful to maintain this long discussions and be encouraged to spend the time needed to help shape not only steemit but change today's society's paradigm about wealth growth.
The experiment i wanted to do is to put my comment in a post.
Because i think there is an interesting proposal and want to give it more visibility and the reply system with the indenting is making very difficult to achieve that
So i want to invite you, to read my idea and tell me how can i make it better, so find below my last reply in there.
I think a real solution is hidden in: the SP that is delegated to you by the system.
When you are minnow you tend to be very careful with your little votes and for example discussions like the one on this post (not only the post itself but the comments and replies contain a huge amount of rich and interesting information).
If we want to encourage discussion instead of posting we need to provide an incentive for doing so.
Very few people votes comments to keep their VP .
Now imagine that:
the SP delegated to you by the system to give you some voting power increases as your reputation increases (just until you have enough Steem or VP of your own).
your VP when voting in rich and long comments that encourage the discussion doesn't drains as much.
This would make more minnows interested in investing the time in commenting and voting comments.
Now of we add a machine algorithm to evaluate a rich discussion.
Today is possible to make this automatically with the API
Word count + long word count replies
(Like this post and all its comments for example)
long good post, and attracts a lot of long good replies
Lots of minnows votes in that discussion
Then scan the contents of the comments to identify copy/paste attempts to game the system.
We obtain a list of posts containing many long comments with lots of author's and other user's replies.
That must mean a quality discussion is going on
The subject of the discussion and value of interventions are subjective, because what might be brilliant to me might be uninteresting to others.
Finally one of those Whale-bots up-votes these kind of comments with a heavy pay out to encourage people to have rich discussions.
There are quite a few of the whales that are trying to help
And the list of posts is written in a report that anyone can read and check and possible denounce (using a reply) if an abuse to "game the system" is going on.
This addresses many issues:
- Incentive to vote on replies and to actually spend time writing good replies.
- Empowerment of the masses to encourage active participation.
I am not complaining, but see this post, it returned about 4.83$ to you.
Just your exchange with @lexiconical returned to you: 8.80$ (double than your post)
But to him the payout was: 39.18$
I even thou i find he points some holes in your original argument i don't think the répartition of the return is fair, but he got "better" up-votes because what he said attracted the money.
You put as much effort to originally write this post from what is your reality and explained your point of view. Then you took the time and replied to him and to many of us.
A Whale willing to do good might be interested in helping you and encourage you to keep the effort to open discussions and find solutions to the system together.
Another example: I'm sure that this same reply i have spent 30 minutes writing, if it was a post and not a comment would get much better return that what will get here.
(I'm going to make the experiment)
I have a series of posts where i explain how i want to appeal to the greedy human nature to actually encourage human exchanges (sadly they are in spanish).
I get to put myself to the task to translate them but time is not my friend at the moment.
PS: by reading your reply to @leotrap (who i respect and enjoy discussing with) Made me realize a mistake many of us make:
We spend our time chatting in Discord about what to do in #steem, when the principle of the system should be to spend our time here in #steemit replying to each other and enriching the conversation in here where :
a) Is public and many benefit from our exchanges.
b) There is the possibility of being retributed in good old dollars :)
I can make the nuts and bolts for evaluating and making a GoodBOT that spiders steemit in search for quality discussions, but to make change happen it would need either to be backed by all the minnows votes or by a few whale/tunas/ dolphins to actually make a difference.
I also found this interesting article: Ask not what STEEM can do for you!
This is a great idea and I am all for it. If you can create such an algorithm or bot, I'm sure that when some whales see it in action, they would jump on board.
The one thing I noticed in this page is that there are few up-votes for the number of contributions to the discussion. I am attempting to encourage people to do more towards up-voting those who actually do contribute to discussions by giving votes to all those who contribute to my own posts and hope that others will do the same to encourage more involvement by appreciating those who post to their own pages. It is a mentality of GIFTING that several others and I am trying to spread.
I'm trying to find the time for actually making it, but i'm spreading my self very thin with trying to also make the agora for Venezuela and the upvotable in spanish as well and networking and enjoying the discussions here.
Then there is real life. But it will be done! I have had time to play a little with the API and it is possible!
I stopped trying to teach myself python and i'm back to good old PHP (Sad because i wanted to understand how to make neuronal networks in python but that's another matter)
I too have the bad habit of spreading myself too thin.
I'm quite happy and surprised by the results of the post, yet it is still less than what that guy got for the comments in yours... I invite you to do the same I did, because this conversation needs to keep going on and cannot get lost in a nest of replies.
Sorry I never really took the time to come back and nurture it, but It has been a very hectic week with the launching of my Votable-Curable
I leave the ball in your camp and await for your post to continue the #discussion (I suggest that tag because rich discussions is what we need in steemit)
Wow, yes! That post did very well indeed.
Unfortunately I could not understand what the votable-curable was about (looks like some sort of curation trail to me).
I have been overwhelmed lately myself and still have far too many outstanding chores to take care of. I have had another post idea in my head for many days but just have not had the opportunity to actually write and post it. It will be linked to the old post as a continuation and will use the #discussion tag.
Thanks for keeping me updated on this effort.
I'll take the time to explain in English and i'm sure our friend @por500bolos will chip in with his usual truth enrrobed in black humor
Yes, our friend @por500bolos calls himself grumpy, yet it seems to me he is actually quite a humorous fellow.
I agree with you (if I understood you correct), that write comments (really good one) is very important things. Sometimes, comments can be more interesting than post itself.
And for minnows (like me), commenting good post of famous author's can bring more money and attention than post in own blog.
Thank you for your post ☺
Thanks @zavz9t
I want to give value to those comments, for that i invested what little i could in steem to empower myself and with my new 500SP i try to give 100% upvotes in comments on my posts. I know is not much but i wanted to lead by example and those are my financial limits.
Not necessary, what you get form that strategy; is reputation and raise people's interest in what you have to say and they will start following you.
Not much sense in posting with no followers as will be very difficult to raise interest and get a pay-outBut in general posts pay better than comments, so minnows don't have the incentive (sometimes is just a matter of prioritizing the time spent in steemit) so once again the proposal to make a tool for the ** Whales to help them encourage the use of commenting to add quality to the content on the network** becomes very valid, and minnows will embrace the commenting strategy to build their follower base and can start to make their own posts which will get fair return.
Sounds good. I believe that your strategy is right ☺
Thank you for a reply, and upvote )
Nice post. Agree that discussion should be encouraged and rewarded. I also think the WHALES should do more for the newcomers.
Just think if 1 whale gave a serious upvote to every new minnow that writes a good article.
They would stick around and not feel so discouraged and would likely leave minnow status rather quickly. This is the hardest part of steemit to get right. So many variables its hard to find that line of fairness.
An idea could be a type of "tax"
Where once you reach a certain level of whale status, maybe you can only upvote yourself once a day. Its definitely a tricky one that needs more discussion. However we all started from 0. So do we want to make our newcomers be rewarded on lazier terms?
I just started 44 days ago and im no where near whale i am thriving. So maybe the system is good they just need to put forth more effort.
We do need to reward more discussion as you bring up. Keep up the hard work!!!
But actually there are many whales already delegating SP from the pool to us and also others that are asking people to help them find upvotable content they even pay a finder's fee to whoever recommends a post...
So instead of trying to force a Tax on them my proposal is to call their attention and try to find a way to make helping us an easier task for them.
Great thought. I never really like the idea of any tax. And i have had a cpl whales truly show me love so no complaints here. I would agree. Whales are likely whales because they been here a while and provide good content and have earned their status. If minnows followed their lead instead of rushing to post garbage for a penny they could grow bigger faster. But, how do we get their attention?
That is the hardest task. The feed runs quickly sometimes making it near impossible to be found. And new users tend to clinch to upvoting the highest earning post for any rewards they can. Its not perfect but what is?
If it ain't broke dont fix it!!
@jnjmarketing I reply here to avoid the indentation of the nested replies.
That is exactly what i tough, if you read the original article, it proposes a "cure" for steem, and i dont think a cure is needed, a little responsible development and some automation for good would tip the scales on the fair side.
The fact that lots of users here are struggling to find their niche and try every possible thing to get a vote, tells you that they didn't understood the spirit of steemit and are here to make a quick dollar.
Those and the BOT-gold diggers will always be around. But is we find a way to use the power available to drive the economic encouragement required to make change happen, we might start by shaping steemit in to a fairer place...
What would next step be?
Use what we learn about working together to drive change in a social network to shape our society for the better!
I know, it is utopic... But hey, I have a dream!
👏👏👏
🖒
Yes. A good way to reward those that add good and needed development to steemit.
Im not a coder but i could only imagine what goes into creating some of the "add-on" projects that steem users adopt. Thats why many make bots i think. If i spent 1k hours creating something that everyone on steemit uses i would like to at least break even on my time. I think that might play a role in the development side of things. Not sure. Im to new to have to heavy of an opinion. Still lots to learn!
You will be surprised how easy it is to code nodaways!
I am a coder but didn't knew steemit two months ago, i dont know Python which seems to be the language of preference, but we have simplified so much it these days that suffice to understand the worflow and inspire yourself with code snippets found in google to develop bots and the such
I was just reading some old posts on that type of stuff. I did a little html close to 20 years ago... lol. Might get inspired to dab a little...
Thanks
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@nnnarvaez Really excellent post.
Thanks my friend i hope it can reach the desired attention and gets us some support.