Steem - Reward distribution Proposal
Hey everyone, in the last months I have been thinking a lot about the future of Steem/Steemit and I've noticed a lot of problems with the fairness in rewards distribution and I also noticed that there is a huge discordance going through Steem resulting in Flag-wars and people insulting each other and similarly ugly things.
What is the problem?
This is happening since while some people spend hours working on their posts, others post a Poem and a "Merry Christmas" and get 400$ out of it.
While some people get rich with a few Bikini photos others post photos of amazing trips around the world and get $3.
There are even tons of people out there who don't get anything for their hard work and would be happy to get $3 per post.
But, while a lot of people think the problem are the people who vote for others I think that's not completely accurate.
A short case study:
Let's say, someone I follow posts something I like, I will leave him a like, and I most probably won't consider how many rewards he already got for it and if his post was really worth all of it.
And, to be completely honest that's also not the question the current voting mechanisms asks the users.
How the System works right now you are asked:
How much of the rewards YOU can give does this person deserve?
While the question it should really be asking:
How much is this post worth in TOTAL?
But, how do we get from the question a) to b)?
How I would solve it:
That's why I propose the following:
When upvoting in my "ideal future" you would be asked how much of your rewards you want to be used at max AND what you think is the max value you think the post deserves.
Let's say, my friend posts a merry Christmas post with a small Christmas video he found, I obviously want to upvote it but I also will restrict the reward I want him to receive, to 10$ since he spent no effort at all writing the text and posting the video.
When I read an immensely interesting post, on the other hand, I'll definitely upvote it and will want it to deserve as much as possible.
I believe implementing this system can result in a fairer reward distribution and can also help the people to decide how much a post is worth for them.
Definitely, this will change how voting works right now, this means that your vote power would not be removed already, it would be reserved and slightly paid back as soon as the value reaches or overcomes the value you think it is worth.
This way you will still be able to vote for something you like, but, make sure that the reward of the post won't be more than what YOU think it is actually worth.
Additionally, following the nudge theory (read more about it: here) the initial total value bar value should start off at the average value of the category and not at 100% to make sure users have to think before assigning a high value or assign automatically the average value.
But how exactly would that change the rewards?
The result would be the following, let's imagine someone made a post and 3 people upvoted it:
| Upvoter 1 | Upvoter 2 | Upvoter 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 50$ max 75$ | 50$ max 200$ | 50$ max 90$ |
In the current system that would result in 150$ rewards which is higher than what Upvoter 1 and Upvoter 3 had planned.
The new System would work as follows:
| Event | Post value | Secondary result |
|---|---|---|
| Upvoter 1 upvotes the post with 50$ | 50$ | - |
| Upvoter 2 upvotes the post with 50$ | 75$ | Upvoter 1 receives a return of VP in the value of 25$ |
| Upvoter 3 upvotes the post with 50$ | 90$ | Upvoter 1 receives a return of VP in the value of 25$ & Upvoter 3 receives a return of VP in the value of 10$ |
This way the payout value is way closer to what the majority of the voters thought it should be than it is currently the case.
I think this would be a way to balance rewards on Steem and to distribute them more fairly among the users.
This way a whale still can upvote a post with 100$ because he thinks other people should start noticing it, but he if he thinks the max value should be 100$ as well, he will start getting VP back while others appreciate it.
Concluding
This addition can help to balance the rewards on Steem and also help people to really think about how to distribute their rewards to create a fair competition without having to regulate anything.
Sounds Interesting :)
I agree with u again haha :D
I like this in theory, but more thought needs to be put behind how the vote is refunded. If I'm reading/understanding correctly it looks like voter 1 receives 100% of his vote back?
Maybe this is more meant for whales and not necessarily dolphins/minnows, but if I get a good vote on a low-value post, but lose all my curation rewards due to it exceeding my post limit what's the point of my curating?
Once again, I think this is a great idea, but I feel like some thought still needs to be put in the refund/curration side, but that's just my opinion.
Yeah, definitely still deserves some thought regarding the curations.
That's why I put my Model up for discussion to get some interesting input to improve it.
I agree on that since someone will try to abuse it anyways!
I think it's a pretty darn cool idea and this also increases the power of the people with less SP - everyones vote will matter
Exactly, that's what I am thinking
cool mate
It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that capping the rewards is something that should be left to the voters (if you think flag wars are bad...).
I still believe that the easiest solution is to limit your ability to upvote a specific account to 2 times per week: Upvote work as before (possibly with the two upvote options I mention below: a "upvote for money+rep" or "upvote for rep"), but you can't upvote a specific user name more than twice a week.
That means people who write posts or comments can be guaranteed some form of payment (through self-vote) without being allowed to spam the pool, while also limiting the power of people who run bots or circle voting schemes. (But still allows people the flexibility to up-vote posts in their interest/friend group ).
Also, steemit needs to get a lot clearer about how that reward pool works.
The problem is that people would just distribute their steem to different accounts and upvote them with these.
It still increases the effort required at very little cost to other users: an easy fix that should at least remove the low-level vote spamming.
People are always going to try and vote-spam: low effort=high payoff. The only way to fix it is to increase the effort (without discouraging others), or lowering the payoff.
The problem with giving users the power to lower payoffs is the flame-wars (or the current run of downvotes). Potentially a fix that is less likely to be abused is to simply cap the amount of the reward pool an individual can claim in a day/week/monthly period.
I completely agree with you! I appreciate your strategy how posts should be upvoted, in a way that nobody gets rich with ridiculous posts.
Really nice post, @raycoms!
Your proposed way of curation would be a much better reflection of the actual value of a post!
wow very good article sandiers got +500$ per post only writting FK GAEJIN or what they make there soo not fair
thx for share this great article
I think no matter how the system works, in the end the rewards will never be equal to the effort.
Most people when upvoting think about what they gonna get from it, this is life :)
I'm 100% sure it's not going to be perfect whatever we do, but there is room for improvement =P
The best way to manage..however the feasibilty and success is nil....
If you could explain why you think that and tell me where the possible weakpoints are, we can try to find them and improve the system.
well for one thing it would definitely be a macro downward pressure on rewards from steemit, which is still young. This might be good later on but right now do you really want people thinking steemit just made it harder to get rewards and is paying out less to us. Even if that isnt true overall that is the vibe this limit gives out, its like steem austerity for no real reason other than this guy doesnt like bikini posters earning money.
Actually, it's not a limit of steemit itself, It's a limit each user can decide he can think a post is worth. If everyone thinks that the Bikini post is worth 400$ it will still be 400$ nothing changes, the idea behind this is to nudge the people to think about if it is really worth all of that.