Before deciding on economic changes, we should create a proposal process

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As you are likely aware, Steemit recently announced their support for a 3-pronged economic proposal: Changing the reward split to 50/50; Changing the reward curve to n²/(n+1); and creating a separate downvote pool.

Now, intuitively, at least two of these changes make sense to me. In fact, I have thought for a while that 50/50 would be a better split, because the increase it would bring to Steem's value would more than compensate authors for the lost percentage. I do think, however, that with innovative use of auction theory, the separate downvote pool might be unnecessary. As I wrote the other day in Simulating a Steem curation rewards distribution that is modeled after a 2nd price auction, I think that modeling voting after a second price auction might create a natural incentive for voters to appraise posts accurately (i.e. avoid overvaluing them), and thereby reduce the need for downvotes. Personally, I'm not a fan of downvotes or dislike buttons, and a separate pool is not going to change that. Yes, I suppose the downvote may be a necessary evil, but if there's a way to reduce the need for it, then we should find it.

Few would argue that the current economic rules are optimal, but there's a whole universe of possibilities out there. I find myself wondering, how is it that we're somehow deciding between just two possibilities, and with nothing but our intuitions to guide that decision? What if we implement this change and nothing gets better? Or worse -- things go horribly wrong?

Are we going to have to wait through a week of lost productivity while we wait for the rewards pool to reach equilibrium and find out if anything got better? And still another lost week if the change needs to be reverted? I think we should have more than our intuitions to guide a decision like this, and a more mature approach is needed before tampering with blockchain economics.

Specifically, I think there are at least three things that should be done before imposing a change like this on the Steem ecosystem:

1. Study the academic literature for the current knowledge about curation, and generate a research-backed improvement proposal.
2. Complete a game theory analysis something like this one for the current rules and any proposed changes.
3. A software system should be created and used to simulate the proposal off-chain.

Only then, with evidence in hand, should the community and witnesses consider adopting a change.

To fulfill those needs in a transparent fashion, I would suggest the creation of an on-blockchain working group that would borrow the concepts of "double-links" and "circles", from self-organizing "social technologies" like holacracy or sociocracy, and self-organize to perform research on the topic, propose alternatives, analyze the proposals, and simulate the change.

Off the top of my head, some of the circles the working group might need could include:

• organizing / steering
• research
• analysis
• coding
• communications

And, of course, it would be nice if some whale or whales back the working group with votes or delegations.

Now the objection is going to be that this is will slow things down, and that's certainly true, but like they told me when I was a kid, Measure thrice, cut once.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".

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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

Steve is also a co-founder of the Steem's Best Classical Music Facebook page, and the @classical-music steemit curation account.

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