I will consistently say that any changes of Steem and/or Steemit needs to relate specifically to adding incentives to encourage behavior as opposed to adding disincentives to discourage behavior.
Here's a potential solution I wrote the other day that requires minimal coding (and could probably be done now with the right bots programmed): Steemit Guilds
I didn't know about that change... though I knew it was 50/50 at one point but when it became 75/25, I never even thought about the change hah.
I'm a big fan of content creation control -- basically giving content creators control over their payouts through baked-in smart contracts. I argue that this will expedite the markets movements towards new models and use cases that we can't envision yet.
It should solve any issues that come from the curation vs creation number battles.
I have no clearcut opinion as to whether what we see is good or bad. Cynically speaking, I feel that this is BOUND to happen in a gamified social experiment such as Steemit. In a way, the onset of real -world income maximizing strategies, syndicates, etc, are just a demonstration that the Steemit ecosystem "works" and has a chance to grow real big..
As usual you have good points @claudiop63. However, it still seems that the rules of SteemIt.com are "in flux" - even items in the whitepaper such as the time-to-first-payout (which is ~24 hours in the whitepaper, but was shorter when I joined ~12?, and is now back to ~24 hours). See also @dantheman's recent posts - just saying things are not set in stone so the discussion seems worth having :)
Anywhere where capital gain is an idea, marketing deals will be concocted and made with those who are willing to sell. Is it good, is it bad? Eh, just the nature of "the game." Next thing you know, we'll have different #SteemIt zine companies, heh.
Sure, but ... to me making my own posts feels like being an "independent publisher" while the thought of doing a "featured article" feels like working for someone else.
In a space that is already crowded, this sort of promotion is really a good way for unknown authors to reach a larger audience and receive reward for something they otherwise would likely not be able to get with out taking the time to build a following (which does not happen over night!) Is it good? I don't know. Is it bad? I don't really think so.
Couldn't the whale just agree to upvote the user's post, and then ask all of their whale friends to jump on board - and then they all get a nice fat curation reward? Or, the whale could post a summary with recommendations of five articles - they'd get some SP for that article, and likely the articles they link to would be rewarded as well.
Some people may have a great story or some clever ideas but may not be web savvy. Perhaps their English is broken. I think there's a number of ways people can help each other on this site making it a win win and showcasing a guest writer is imo one of those ways.
Thanks and good points. What do you think about the "whale" posting an introduction of the author and the first few lines of the article, and then linking to the author's post? The whale will still get upvotes, they can still coordinate with the author and be ready to upvote at the best time so as to get the best curation awards, etc. They might even do better but the big difference is that now the small author's own post gets upvoted, which means they get to keep more SP and that their reputation goes up. Plus, they can feel like they "own" their content, because they do.
I think whales carry a lot of responsibility to the health and growth of steemit. While some are here to speculate on and trade steem, a whale intent on the exponential growth of steemit needs to empower others. Many are through app. development, security, guides etc. Those that can't help in those ways can help in ways like you mention.
I think it's potentially a very bad direction to go in. Over the next few days, I'm going to try and run some numbers (using the principles outlined in this post) to see whether the "building an audience" argument holds water. My suspicion is that it doesn't help much compared to building an audience organically and that, in the long term, this kind of practice will lead to greater centralization and higher attrition rates.
Under the current system, the only way to stop it is for other big accounts to flag that kind of post, so really you need evidence that it's harming the network/users before people will take action.
Hi @sunjata and thanks for the thoughtful reply. I was a bit concerned that people would think I'm being anti-SteemIt but I'm not. Like you, I'm concerned about the direction this is going. See, it's not just "minnows" - we're talking about SteemIt users with $4k plus of SP with 100+ followers who are thinking about doing a featured article on someone else's blog because that seems like the best choice. That shouldn't be necessary (and no, I'm not just talking about me ;) ).
It's definitely not anti-Steemit to raise concerns about things that could derail a project that you care about or are invested in. I've been "pro" bitcoin for at least 3 years and I still think there's 100 things that could go wrong with it. And, although I thought the DAO was a cool idea, the groupthink around it was a huge red flag and I ended up staying well away from it. Friendly criticism is vital :)
So, yes, I agree with you that fairly wealthy accounts thinking about federating articles is a bad sign. The reason I had the idea to run the numbers on curation etc was, in fact, that I'd seen some federated fiction and considered whether I should do this myself. But when I looked at the author in question's stats, despite getting onto the front page and having a much longer posting history, they only had a third more followers than I did. Followers, and visibility in a particular community, are the key for anyone playing a long game, so that one-off payment in SBD seems to have a pretty limited value (although it would still be nice).
New users joining Steem(it) have an uphill battle with lack of name recognition. I dunno if this is the direction that Steem(it) will go, but it's clearly both a gamification and a free market solution to the current issues.
Agreed, it'll be difficult for new users unless they have a compelling story. But ... it's starting to seem like even that might not cut it anymore... Especially if larger account holders know they can "hold out" on upvoting great new authors until they give up on trying to make it on their own and strike up some kind of deal with the larger account holder.
If larger account holders wait, they're own stake is suffering dilution. And if they all are holding out, then that means the reward pool grows and is divvied out to other posts voted by dolphins more evenly.
So it is in the interest of a larger stake holder to actively participate in the platform.
Other whales could potentially downvote him / her if it was known that a deal was struck, in which case, loss to both parties.
I will consistently say that any changes of Steem and/or Steemit needs to relate specifically to adding incentives to encourage behavior as opposed to adding disincentives to discourage behavior.
Here's a potential solution I wrote the other day that requires minimal coding (and could probably be done now with the right bots programmed): Steemit Guilds
Hi @blakemiles84 and thanks, I'll check out the Guilds article. Regarding changes adding incentives, what do you think abut past changes that may be affecting incentives now: Was the "Featured Author" Trend Caused by the Reduction of Curation Awards in July?
I didn't know about that change... though I knew it was 50/50 at one point but when it became 75/25, I never even thought about the change hah.
I'm a big fan of content creation control -- basically giving content creators control over their payouts through baked-in smart contracts. I argue that this will expedite the markets movements towards new models and use cases that we can't envision yet.
It should solve any issues that come from the curation vs creation number battles.
I have no clearcut opinion as to whether what we see is good or bad. Cynically speaking, I feel that this is BOUND to happen in a gamified social experiment such as Steemit. In a way, the onset of real -world income maximizing strategies, syndicates, etc, are just a demonstration that the Steemit ecosystem "works" and has a chance to grow real big..
As usual you have good points @claudiop63. However, it still seems that the rules of SteemIt.com are "in flux" - even items in the whitepaper such as the time-to-first-payout (which is ~24 hours in the whitepaper, but was shorter when I joined ~12?, and is now back to ~24 hours). See also @dantheman's recent posts - just saying things are not set in stone so the discussion seems worth having :)
Anywhere where capital gain is an idea, marketing deals will be concocted and made with those who are willing to sell. Is it good, is it bad? Eh, just the nature of "the game." Next thing you know, we'll have different #SteemIt zine companies, heh.
Sure, but ... to me making my own posts feels like being an "independent publisher" while the thought of doing a "featured article" feels like working for someone else.
I wholly agree.
I clicked the upvote button. Because you agreed with me. :p
Im not sure about the longevity of this trend.
In a space that is already crowded, this sort of promotion is really a good way for unknown authors to reach a larger audience and receive reward for something they otherwise would likely not be able to get with out taking the time to build a following (which does not happen over night!) Is it good? I don't know. Is it bad? I don't really think so.
Couldn't the whale just agree to upvote the user's post, and then ask all of their whale friends to jump on board - and then they all get a nice fat curation reward? Or, the whale could post a summary with recommendations of five articles - they'd get some SP for that article, and likely the articles they link to would be rewarded as well.
It just seems really silly for me for us to guest blog on other people's accounts on a site where everyone is supposed to have their own blog / voice (and where Curation rewards were, it seems, designed to solve this very problem by rewarding people who upvote). See also https://steemit.com/steemit-future/@nonlinearone/was-the-featured-author-trend-caused-by-the-reduction-of-curation-awards-in-july
Some people may have a great story or some clever ideas but may not be web savvy. Perhaps their English is broken. I think there's a number of ways people can help each other on this site making it a win win and showcasing a guest writer is imo one of those ways.
Thanks and good points. What do you think about the "whale" posting an introduction of the author and the first few lines of the article, and then linking to the author's post? The whale will still get upvotes, they can still coordinate with the author and be ready to upvote at the best time so as to get the best curation awards, etc. They might even do better but the big difference is that now the small author's own post gets upvoted, which means they get to keep more SP and that their reputation goes up. Plus, they can feel like they "own" their content, because they do.
I think whales carry a lot of responsibility to the health and growth of steemit. While some are here to speculate on and trade steem, a whale intent on the exponential growth of steemit needs to empower others. Many are through app. development, security, guides etc. Those that can't help in those ways can help in ways like you mention.
I think it's potentially a very bad direction to go in. Over the next few days, I'm going to try and run some numbers (using the principles outlined in this post) to see whether the "building an audience" argument holds water. My suspicion is that it doesn't help much compared to building an audience organically and that, in the long term, this kind of practice will lead to greater centralization and higher attrition rates.
Under the current system, the only way to stop it is for other big accounts to flag that kind of post, so really you need evidence that it's harming the network/users before people will take action.
Hi @sunjata and thanks for the thoughtful reply. I was a bit concerned that people would think I'm being anti-SteemIt but I'm not. Like you, I'm concerned about the direction this is going. See, it's not just "minnows" - we're talking about SteemIt users with $4k plus of SP with 100+ followers who are thinking about doing a featured article on someone else's blog because that seems like the best choice. That shouldn't be necessary (and no, I'm not just talking about me ;) ).
It's definitely not anti-Steemit to raise concerns about things that could derail a project that you care about or are invested in. I've been "pro" bitcoin for at least 3 years and I still think there's 100 things that could go wrong with it. And, although I thought the DAO was a cool idea, the groupthink around it was a huge red flag and I ended up staying well away from it. Friendly criticism is vital :)
So, yes, I agree with you that fairly wealthy accounts thinking about federating articles is a bad sign. The reason I had the idea to run the numbers on curation etc was, in fact, that I'd seen some federated fiction and considered whether I should do this myself. But when I looked at the author in question's stats, despite getting onto the front page and having a much longer posting history, they only had a third more followers than I did. Followers, and visibility in a particular community, are the key for anyone playing a long game, so that one-off payment in SBD seems to have a pretty limited value (although it would still be nice).
New users joining Steem(it) have an uphill battle with lack of name recognition. I dunno if this is the direction that Steem(it) will go, but it's clearly both a gamification and a free market solution to the current issues.
Agreed, it'll be difficult for new users unless they have a compelling story. But ... it's starting to seem like even that might not cut it anymore... Especially if larger account holders know they can "hold out" on upvoting great new authors until they give up on trying to make it on their own and strike up some kind of deal with the larger account holder.
If larger account holders wait, they're own stake is suffering dilution. And if they all are holding out, then that means the reward pool grows and is divvied out to other posts voted by dolphins more evenly.
So it is in the interest of a larger stake holder to actively participate in the platform.
Other whales could potentially downvote him / her if it was known that a deal was struck, in which case, loss to both parties.
This Steemit experience is so new anything could happen.
Indeed :)
So ... a funny thing happened when I logged in this morning very relevant to this - please see my comment here https://steemit.com/steemit/@dragonslayer109/money-can-t-buy-me-love-inspiring-examples-of-spiritual-strength-featuring-new-author-poteshnik83#@nonlinearone/re-dragonslayer109-money-can-t-buy-me-love-inspiring-examples-of-spiritual-strength-featuring-new-author-poteshnik83-20160819t160210816z