Some changes of how I steem until the next hardfork
Hey everyone!
Some of you may be aware of some personal ways I've been trying to make the platform more fair to curators and other users while many of you may not know since it's more on a blockchain level and hard to notice.
Thought I'd go over a few of those things for the newcomers out there.
Curation Rewards
Ever since I joined Steem over 21 moons ago I have only voted manually on posts. You may think that this is nothing special and that many others do it to, but given the amount of rewards you miss out through voting manually instead of setting up autovotes and voting on the correct times on popular authors, you probably lose about 2-3 times curation rewards doing it manually.
To this day I am at 44,615 manual votes, which means that I've read the majority of those posts before voting on them.
Okay, but instead I could just have been chasing max rewards by sitting in front of my feed all day and catching the posts at a good time, right? Well, no. Ever since I started the @ocd curation project I've been sacrificing my curation rewards "on purpose" so that other manual curators can front-run me on the ocd nominations and gain more rewards that way. For the longest time when prices were lower and the ocd nominations covered most of my daily voting power I've been earning a lot lower curation rewards than I could've, but I was fine with it cause I knew it would improve the greater good of the platform.
I also have a curation trail on Streemian that I've been running for a long time which automatically increases my curation rewards on the posts I vote on, but since the majority has been ocd nominations which most of the time are over 1 day old, this meant that the curation trail didn't follow on my votes there too.
Posting rewards
Oh well, you're an early adopter - you don't care much about rewards cause you were posting a lot back in the day when Steem price was hovering around 10 cents, right?
That would be true, except that when the price of Steem was the lowest I was too busy trying to get more people onto the platform and raising interactivity through comments, here is a graph of my post rewards that I could catch from steemwhales.com (it hasn't been updated in some time and I couldn't go further back than these dates)
If I recall correctly I only had around 250 posts written by the end of that time and over 8000 comments, the UI here on Steemit doesn't differentiate between them but you can find them on steemitboard.com if you enter your username there. Now I am at 628 posts and 9991 comments which of 99% of them are not self-voted on and as many oldtimers here can tell you in the past no one used to reward comments.
I never voted on comments cause I didn't like the idea of voting on your own comments unless it was something important that required me to have that comment on the top order of a post. It was always a lot more fun to receive votes on comments than to vote them up yourself and hog all the attention. I have noticed lately though that it indirectly has made me a lot more lazy to comment as I don't vote on them and I've been meaning to comment a lot more on posts that I curate but there's been so much going on lately that I've barely had the time to use Steemit in the same way I used to. Hoping that will change soon.
I've always wanted to focus on curating and commentating for engagement, seeing as how much higher the post rewards are though and that they made it possible for me to raise my stake to be able to curate more efficiently I forced myself to post more, especially now with the weird SBD surge that we have been having. I'm thankful that the community has supported my mediocre posts and I'm glad I was able to increase my SP that way to both support the price of Steem and the curation I will be doing in the future on the platform.
Something that has bugged me for quite some time and I notice happening on the platform but doesn't really surprise me is votetrading. A lot of people do it because they know this way they can maximize their posts rewards. There's a lot of people who are not aware of all the work some Steemians do outside the platform and around it and they don't receive a lot of rewards for their contributions unless they are posting at the same time. I like one of the recent posts by @transisto that mentions that we have to reward contributions more than just posting activity and I'm hoping with communities and the beneficiaries that arrive with them things will change for those involved. I am sure that SMT's will also play a huge role in that and I can't wait to see what they have to offer and all the unique ones people will come up with, some really exciting times ahead of us!
Lastly some other ways I've been trying to help other curators on the platform is that for many months now I've refrained from voting my own posts at the same time I post them and instead done it after 30 minutes. It just felt wrong and there are some others out there who feel the same way and want to reward their voters more by offering them more curation rewards. Yet the majority of authors want to just maximize rewards and self-vote instantly which has resulted in a much lower percentage of rewards going to curators than to authors and is a reason the next hardfork will change how that works by making early votes go back to the reward-pool instead of the author. I like that change of course as I've tried my best to help that percentage out with my own posts in the past, but I thought I'd try and be a bit more selfish until the hardfork is in effect.
That's why I thought I'd ask my followers what they think about it, so let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!
What do you think about generic comments, made without reading the article? They are very common and nothing less than spam I would say. I see some authors do flag them. What's your take, flag them or ignore them?
I often flag them as sometimes my stake can take down their reputation by a lot, but when I do have time to check their comment history and if they have been way too spammy then I do flag them with a small percentage as well. They need to learn how to behave.
Generic comments is the major problem I am facing here. I do upvote generously if a comment furthers the conversation. But unfortunately very few are worth it. But I never flag anyone. I just ignore them. And actually that has indeed helped rehabilitate some of the so called spammers, who have reached out to me to help them improve their activities on the platform.
There seems to be a lot of generic gifs that relate to some general concept, like food. Then people will post that gif on every single post that has anything to do with food.
I usually flag them and write them a comment saying why I did and if they comment back apologizing I will upvote their apology but leave the flag. I think the flag (downvote) is way under-utilized right now because everyone's afraid of it. But it is an import part of helping to distribute the reward pool effectively and self-governing ourselves.
Sometimes its ignorance that's why I think users who are new should be put on tutorial mode, do as to be able to learn a lot, well some other times it depends on the individuals who are natural spammers
My take is let's orientate them first, then crucify them when they refuse to adhere,
That really depends on the Author. There are fast readers out there. Some people don't have all time to read such long articles but some just enjoy browsing picture like browsing the internet.
I wouldn't flag such comments.. First of all, how one should know was this general comment made with or without reading the article? Maybe a person just has no personal opinion on a certain post, for example. I have some authors who I know from loong time ago an Steemit who write on some scientific stuff which is quite hard to understand. At the same time I don't vote on posts I don't read [except a very few authors I upvote automatically from a long time ago]. So I read a scientific post, understand not so much, but to support an author I upvote a post and leave some kind of a generic comment.
Or another situation. As I have not so many comments under my posts - I always read them and then check the profile of the author. If there's a post at least to some extent worth voting, I vote for it and usually leave a comment. And sometimes it's hard to leave a specific comment because the article itself was kind of not so thought-provoking.
Just my thoughts, your comment was provoking. :D
I think a pointless comment saying you liked it or whatever is usually better left unsaid with just an upvote. Unless maybe it's an article that doesn't have any comments yet, everyone appreciates a comment. Though usually I get excited that someone commented and then I see that it is just something like "nice post!" or "Thanks for sharing" or something pointless and I am just annoyed. haha. I always try to add something to the discussion or just leave it at an upvote
Okay, not so generic comments :D :D I leave such comments only as a reply on generic comments to my posts. 😕
Otherwise I also try to add to the discussion.
It's difficult though to add something to breathtaking photos, still. 😊 No words will help.
great post here! thanks a lot for sharing.
I'm pretty new here on steemit, kindly check out my introductory post if you're pleased
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@rosebarbieumoh/xaiv5-rosebarbie-on-steemit
There you go :D
Talk of the devil and the devils shows up LOL
@rosebarbieumoh my dear, did you even read the article and the comment that you responded to? Please do read it, and then you'll know what your comment actually means.
I bet there is also a big language barrier as Steem is spreading among the whole world, people try their luck with something they have translated to attempt to earn a few $ and hoping the author didn't read the comment properly or there just aren't enough curators in their own language.
I'm sure it's something that will improve over time, though.
@acidyo you are right on the money. I think that's a major problem when i read a post that does not bring out any sense in the use of language. It is because its somebody whose mother tongue is not English and Google translation just messes it up.
Dear @acidyo although your post is too lengthy but once I started believe me I finished it in 20 mins (As I'm not native Englishman) after that I came to comment section and here I found some discussion on flags. I do agree that there is a big problem of Language Barrier. People from backward areas can't understand latest things yet. So it should b a lenient hand on them. But if someone is habitual then its upto authors and they should decide what to do.
True, Steemit is growing rapidly and also the promotion of Steemit is going on YouTube, Facebook and references, so the new user registration rate is increasing, but people who don't know English at all they can face some initial problems.
I've been wondering that same thing. How can we self govern when we can't all understand each other. What if a huge spammer comes in only speaking chinese? It would be difficult for any non-chinese people to shut it down... Maybe steemit should be english only and there should just be other forks for different languages like golos. I'm thinking maybe SMT's could solve this problem too.
Hey @rahemanali I am upvoting you for a very relevant comment that "furthers the conversation" with a witty comment. But I am also upvoting @rosebarbleumoh, not to encourage her spam, but since she is new here and deserves a chance to realize that a self-serving generic comment like her's is a spam that she should be staying away from in the future. I believe not in castigating, but rehabilitating the wrong-doer. If I can use my influence to reward a good author, I can also use it to incentivize future good behavior.
Cheers :)
Well, thanks for upvoting my comment and I see your point in giving this new Steemian a chance. :D
I think a better solution might be to tell them why you flagged and then if they apologize, upvote their apology. I don't think you should upvote their spam comment to "rehabilitate" her. You rehabilitate by rewarding good and not rewarding bad. They won't learn that self-serving generic comments are bad if they get upvoted for it.
@rosebaarbiemoh dear you are new here and may not be well versed the unwritten code of conduct. My vote is not support the violate of the code of conduct, but just to give you another chance to do better in the future. @adasq, please read my reply to @rahemeanali's comment why I gave @rosebarbieumoh a small upvote. It was not to negate your downvote, but to just give her a chance. My apologies if you feel otherwise.
Thank you so much Sir @sharonomics, I've learnt my lessons.
Haha, just as ordered!
I just joined steemit in mid-December and have been spending a lot of time reading others posts just to try and figure this whole thing out. I can totally understand your comment, "There's a lot of people who are not aware of all the work some Steemians do outside the platform and around it and they don't receive a lot of rewards for their contributions unless they are posting at the same time." I have wondered about this several times, thinking that there has to be a lot going on behind the scene. Also, I found you @acidyo because I stumbled across @OCD and am beyond thankful for people like you who are concerned with the greater good. You deserve the same or more "rewards" for all that you do inside or outside the platform. And finally, perusing your blog, your work is certainly not mediocre! Thanks for all you do!
For me you are included in good whales who never try to become greedy as many others do .
You keep doing this great work buddy so that every good content creator can feel positivity .
@acidyo your efforts are appreciated and you make some great points. Curation is one of the underappreciated (and under-rewarded) activities here. I personally think it should be policy here that self-upvotes can't be made until at least 15 minutes after a post has been made. Or if an author self-upvotes a post, it could be delayed, etc.
@acidyo, you are truly a beast bro! You are one of the most solid members in the Steemit community, hands down. Manually curating, reading every post and thinking about the greater good of the platform rather then your self is a rare quality in this world, let alone the Steemit platform. You have a huge heart and I am always glad to see people like you. Keep up the good work and I hope you continue to inspire others to follow your path and logic.
Well like you said, self upvoting by some authors after a few minutes of posts maximizes their reward.
I think its a personal things most people who their upvotes worth like $70 always upvote their post, because they came for the money, on the other hand, some people like to feel the community has to be considered, as much as this message is being preached it all boils down to these individuals and their mindset which I hope one day, they can change
When you said that some users use an "auto-vote" instead of manual vote when they get bigger, what do you mean by this? Some whales have something where it is automatically voting on different posts that will give them a big curation reward bonus?
And since there is obviously a huge benefit to the author for voting within the first 30 minutes of their own post (I didn't know this was a thing), do you think the "vote my post" checkbox should be removed when making posts? Just to at least not encourage it even though they could just go to their profile to do it anyway.
There's sites like steemvoter and gosteem that offer automatic curation, you just set which authors you want to autovote on and at which time and it does it for you, often getting in front of the rest of the votes and receiving big curation rewards.
I think the box will be unchecked automatically after the next hardfork at least.
Ah okay that makes sense to me. Its definitely so cool of you to have been doing this all manually, I had no idea other big users just automate.
I understand your point first engaging others and then take care of yourself. In the end I think you are going to succeed with this strategy. As you are an early adopter, you still have a massive fan-base. But for the newcomers I would suggest to almost try delivering content rather than creating a bot, writing something for you.
I also more focused on commenting and voting up and are sure to be the best solution for ME .. for the long run.. and that's what's is all about.
SO..keep up commenting
Though I'm still a newbie but I could sense a good measure of originality in your posts and sincerity in your conducts as outlined in this post.
What matters most is to see others grow with you and I'm glad you are not deviating from that.
Thanks.
There is nothing wrong with using the rules if that is what you want to do. We all make our own decisions in the end. Give a helping hand, or ask for a handout, it is upto the individual. No one controls our actions, and ultimately the only person you need to answer to is yourself.
deleted, as I missclicked the reply to the @acidio's post
Some of them are comments, like the one above, but still this is a hudge number...
Not a problem at all. I figured as much. have a good day.