Manual Curation vs Automatic Curation
Hey everyone, I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you today about curation on the platform.
First off,
Automatic Curation
I'm guessing most of you users on the platform are already aware of auto votes, either through Steemvoter.com, own custom bots or following curators through Streemian.com.
For those new followers who are not aware, what this means is basically; your votes will be cast on posts without you needing to do it yourself or be present at all.
There are quite a few scenarios how people use Auto votes.
The Patreon style
If you are aware of Patreon.com, its a platform where people can donate to their favorite content creators in a monthly basis with $ to support them. This is one aspect how I view autovotes especially through Steemvoter.com, there you can set up your favorite authors you want to vote on and at which post age your vote should be cast on. The age of the post is important because of the curation penalty the blockchain has, if you want to read more about that, I've written a post about it some time ago that explains it. But there is also another aspect of it why it is important:
Front-running autovoters with autovotes
You get more curation rewards if you were one of the earliest to vote on a post that will become popular. Even if you take, say a 50% curation reward penalty (which goes to the author as posting rewards instead) you might make more rewards if you were infront of the other autovoters that will be voting a while after you. Say you notice a popular author gets x amount of autovotes at 15 mins post age, you would set your autovotes to be cast at 14 mins.
In one way this is good, because it brings up competition, those autovoters at 15 mins might notice after a while (if they care enough) that the curation rewards from those authors aren't as big as they used to be, and if they dig the blockchain for the reason to it, they might decide to front-run your 14 min votes by placing them to 13 minutes. If this keeps going on like that its good for the author cause he will be receiving more and more posting rewards from the same votes but there might be a limit to where the curators think that its not worth it anymore and instead switch to another author.
If the front-running was that competitive as you, you'd have a healthy amount of auto-vote switchers from authors to authors leading to more unique authors getting these autovotes over time, but say some autovoters maybe don't care that much about the results, they are often lazy and don't switch.
There are of course a lot of other factors involved, but I want to discuss some of the problems this may cause while comparing it to manual voting.
Manual Curation
Some advantages of manual curation:
- You read a post, vote on it and often add a comment to it - increases interactivity
- You might stumbled upon posts from underrated new authors which other manual curators after you might reward thus increase your curation rewards
- You can spread your distribution of rewards to a more unique author base, be it followers from your feed, authors someone has sent you links to - making the voting on the platform more diverse, if we were all manually curating we wouldn't have as much of the same authors trending weekly
- You can vote on good posts that many other curators might have missed, increasing the rewards of that author who might have gotten disappointed seeing no rewards for the amount of effort and time he has put into his posts - increasing the satisfaction of authors contributing to the platform
Some disadvantages of manual curation:
- You might not have time every day to read 10+ posts a day and curate them
- You might miss some favorite authors you usually vote on that day
- Your curation rewards are according to Jerry Banfield around 3x lower than from autovotes so you lose out on your investements ROI
- You might vote on posts that turn out to be plagiarism/abuse/etc making you lose curation rewards after steemcleaners flag them
What would be a good solution to this?
Mixing automatic curation with manual curation. You would be able to support your favorite authors, while at the same time finding new ones when you have the time to curate posts.
This is a bit of a philosophical problem, cause as an investor who wants to earn as much as possible, you might choose to go full auto votes for those increased rewards while spending little time on the platform.
Is voting on the same authors time after time again the correct path to take for the platform to succeed in the long run?
Is voting on the same authors time after time again fair to all the new authors joining the platform and putting the same if not more effort and quality into their posts?
Do autovotes make authors lazy in the long run, knowing their votes and rewards are just waiting for them to press "post"?
Since curation rewards is something no other platform offers, wouldn't it be great if we didn't focus on maximizing rewards but instead focused on where our limited daily votes are going?
Let me know in the comments your thoughts on this! Thanks for reading!
No! Therefore I have suggested the idea of diminishing returns again: after each vote on a specific account (including ones own account) each further vote on the same account should lead to significantly less curation reward for the voter and less profit for the upvoted account. Thus, when upvoting an account which I had already upvoted before, my voting power would be smaller than in case I upvote an account which I didn't upvote before.
I actually like that idea a lot! But as @kenhudoy said, it should build back up to 100% strength with time. I guess kind of like our VP percentage builds back up. Isn't that great? The code's already there to copy!
Yes, sure, voting power should recover while not upvoting a certain account.
Interesting idea, I like it. funny I never thought of that idea
@jaki01
I agree but there should be a timeline to it...say upvoting same author or self more than 2 or 3 times a week...👌
Actually I would allow as many upvotes as one like, but every upvote is getting significantly weaker than the previous one in case it is for an account one has recently upvoted before already (similar like voting power decreases anyway if we upvote often - this decrease of voting power just should be faster for upvotes for accounts one has already upvoted ...).
And concerning a time frame: yes voting power of upvotes for accounts one has already voted for should recover over time, too.
The same would have to be for downvotes as well (because they have to work in equal measure) which means this could also be an anti-bullying method! I hope @ned and @sneak will consider it. I completely agree that it could be a great solution to the current issues of imbalance between self interest and the interest of the wider community.
The only problem that I see with it is that it may encourage people to use sock puppet accounts. The average user probably wouldn't go to the effort of creating 100+ accounts but those who are currently invested with only their self interest in mind would definitely take advantage any way that they can.... The only thing I can think of that would discourage that would be the cost of creating the account, and so it really depends on how much SP is held by the sock puppeteer to make it worth their while. Take the badger accounts for example... There are 70 badger### accounts all belonging to one user with combined power of around 60 million SP... They could take turns forever upvoting each other. Sock puppet account would need to be disincentivised in order for it to work...
good point... nice one...
lets keep steeming hot...
regards
Then what is the point of building up a following if your fanbase can't appreciate you? Some people only read two magazine others read dozens. Do we punish the two magazines because the customer doesn't want to read others? I don't think I follow the logic.
you making a good point... so what do you suggest is best option for such issue?
Perhaps the open voting system and curation model is imperfect to start with (with large numbers of participants for this reason) and with this pressure of it being devalued a new app on top will evolve, and this issue is us seeing the evolution in action. So I don't think tinkering with the base mechanics there will solve it; let it fail, and something better will come out and if it's working for the creators, then maybe that's the best curators out there...the bots.. and human curators were needed just to get steemit the push it needed to get started...are human curators chasing a dying industry?
Options? Ok. I would think that people will always pay for quality and stay away from spammy things. So first, I agree, I like the Patreon style for a high value curator.
An idea: Or maybe there's a way for a human curator to create a 'magazine' (lack of a better word, but you get the idea) or pay-wall hidden application that curates older well-written posts. For example, maybe I write 20 awesome posts over the year, and I made some money on them, but they're effectively disappeared from my feed now, so I can pay your magazine a fee to include them in your upcoming release of your next 'digest' so I get exposure to my personal profile. Or maybe I just buy advertising in it.
The issue I have with steemit, is that it's designed to always be now, now, now and no rewards for a great post later (unlike Youtube that continues to reward for views). So perhaps an older good-quality post can be included in a 'magazine' to bring me attention now.
my two cents.
(sorry for the duplicate post below, that was Steemit, not me.)
Then what is the point of building up a following if your fanbase can't appreciate you? Some people only read two magazine others read dozens. Do we punish the two magazines because the customer doesn't want to read others? I don't think I follow the logic.
Hmmm that is in the pity in the end, because often you still end up reading posts of the same writers, usually because the actually write material that intrigues you.
Self voting should be banned I think, absolutely no point in that
el articulo es interesante pero estoy mas deacuerdo a votos manuales solo hay que tener mas cuidado con quien votas el automatico da mas desventajas que beneficio
Both autovotes and bots are detrimental to the Steemit ecosystem.
The problem with this is that while you might be getting increased STEEM rewards, that doesn't mean higher rewards if the value of that steem keep decreasing. Not to say that these auto-votes are the sole reason for the price crashing, but certainly we can all agree that increased interactivity and engagement is good for the satisfaction of the userbase, and with this as the ultimate goal we would see the value of our steem increase.
I've battled with this topic the entire time I have been on steemit. When steemvoter came out, I toyed with it because it sounded like a great idea at the time, however, I was not happy with the results. Yes, it voted on some of my favorite authors, but not always. I will say that it is a great option for when you are traveling, for example, I will probably engage it while I travel to London and then to steemfest. But, the 85% of the time, I prefer manual curation, it just feels that I have more power to engage and try to reward up and coming authors. The debate in my head goes on.
I re-read your post from 5 months ago. It appears to me some things changed a bit since HF 19 on the timing of curation, but I can't scientifically prove it. I'd love to know if did change or is it just me?
Its good that sometimes whales vote others who are also posting good quality content than voting the same person over and over again.
totally agree with you
I totally agree. Unfortunately what you see in Steemit is a certain "monopoly" of privileged people who always receive votes from the whales, while many new and old platform users even producing extremely valuable content are forgotten on the platform.
If they could only randomly distribute their votes to the masses, what a wonderful world it would be. What happens is aside from voting their own peers, others are selling it for a price. That's what money can do, it can change human perspective.
A year ago, I heard from a huge person in the platform that Steemit were created to provide financial stability to its members but that's not what we see right now. The same people over and over again are gaining and controlling the market.
Just an observation.
If they could only randomly distribute their votes to the masses, what a wonderful world it would be. What happens is aside from voting their own peers, others are selling it for a price. That's what money can do, it can change human perspective.
A year ago, I heard from a huge person in the platform that Steemit were created to provide financial stability to its members but that's not what we see right now. The same people over and over again are gaining and controlling the market.
Just an observation.
I totally agree. Unfortunately what you see in Steemit is a certain "monopoly" of privileged people who always receive votes from the whales, while many new and old platform users even producing extremely valuable content are forgotten on the platform.
Only the reward curve changed, not the penalty as far as I know. Back then being a small account and voting early on something that would payout thousands of $ would give you a lot more SP in rewards than it does now.
That's good to know. Thank you for giving me some clarification
Ah. I see. Thanks for that tip.
I user steemvoter for my favorite authors but do most of my curating manually too. Engaging with the community is the real value on Steemit and creating good content.
i vouch this :_
This seems like a solid approach. You are right...after all, did people join just to make money, or for engagement and quality content as well? Seems like being able to enjoy all three is the ideal.
It's all a battle with curation isn't it? This is well said. and thank you for voicing this.
I too played with SteemVoter a bit when I joined, I also was manually voting, and thus my VP ended up super low and I had no idea what was going on.
Since then I have stuck to mostly all manual voting so as to keep myself engaged, and to not reward crappy content. People who know they have autovotes can (and sometimes do) get lazy and post crap. I don't want to automatically vote on their crap just because I like them. I don't automatically give anyone an upvote, even the people I consider myself closest to on the platform have to earn the vote.
Maybe when I get more established and can't keep up with my feed as well that could change, but for now, I don't worry so much about the curation reward, and more just vote the things I like!
I'd like to earn your vote mike. Check out my page when you get a chance - I like to write up articles about real estate investing. It's tough growing an audience - autovotes are nice , but as you said it's better to earn the votes from real people who actually took the time to read or at least skim the article.
Everything has its points of interest and inconveniences same runs with way of voting. Yet, in the event that I were to ask, I'd favor that some way or another whale voters change their voting propensities after some time and let others pick up fulfillment in the stage and abstain from seeing similar names again and again on drifting page.
Personally, I like to rely on manual curation. Because valuing people’s work and actually read them makes the other person feel happy and valued. It also makes friends and you can both grow together which is better for the long term. I think this platform is here to stay, so why not make friends who make good content and grow together for the long term 😁.
Agree with you. What is social platform if majority are just sleeping. Interaction is needed in a social community.
STEEMIT SHOULD exclude automated curation. This thing easy to abuse for those who get apropriate level of trust. Because of those automated curation you sometimes exclaimed "Why this garbage gets so high payouts?".
Read, and only then upvote.
Steemit SHOULD but it CANNOT because of its core nature. How can software in a node verify a human when it doesn't already have the answer? If it does have an answer, a rogue node can say some user has passed the humanity test for voting but also lie about it.
Could it only allow a vote if you actually view the post? Or can a bot open a post as well?
Could it only allow a vote if you actually view the post? Or can a bot open a post as well?
I like manual curations too. I did not avoid auto upvoting though, but I do more of manual curations when I am in the platform because I like finding new stuffs and there are lots of interesting writers in SteemIt. The only problem is that I run out of VP very quickly and I might not be able to give a decent upvote on the good article that I find at the latter time of day. Ah, curator’s dilemma!
Agreed, though I would like to add that if you take the stance that you know you will support a given author regardless, auto voting and reading and commenting later has the same effect while maintaining engagement and maintaining the reward.
i am also agree with you
i am also agree with you
I think reading the post and adding an upvote than is more valueable because you actually take the time to read it and sort of engage
I agree, and then commenting on it proves even more that you read it and that engagement should be rewarded by more authors with votes.
It really grinds my gears sometimes when I see trending posts with many good comments and the author hasn't taken the time to neither reply nor reward the good ones. Ignoring or flagging the "spammy" ones also teaches them that that kind of activity won't be rewarded here.
Everything has its advantages and disadvantages same goes with manner of voting. But if I were to ask, I'd prefer that somehow whale voters change their voting habits over time and let others gain satisfaction in the platform and avoid seeing the same names over and over again on trending page.
follow me and I follow you :)
I think people get greedy and don't find the need to reply but I like the way you do it , you always reply and engage ! Thank you for that
Hi! please help gather more funds
I haven't used any auto voters, because I want to read and see posts for myself. ^^ I do have some favorites authors, so I tend to visit there page from time to time if there's something new with them... It takes time, but I personally want to stay hands on... ^^ There are also times when my favorite author posts something which isn't as great as his/her previous posts.. so I can vote according to what I like... in auto voters, you set up the time and percentage... so no matter what that author wrote, you can vote... but what if the content this time wasn't very relevant? lol... I'm so bad... X_X but I vote my friends and family members even though it's just very short.. lol.. Well, that's what I think...^^
Great post @acidyo
Well we know the problem here...which is affecting most of us minnows and who put a lot of time and effort to research and do great posts but alas...nothing...but we see hugs curation for just a lazy photo or someone at home watching TV and doing a selfie..
We need to look into it as most great content writer who were invited to steemit are discauraged...auto upvoting should stop and only manual upvote.. if we miss out a favorite author...let's look out for a good content and vote...this will ensure there is fair distribution of curation spreading to those who work hard and not for those who has already made their Mark here...this is a community...we all are like family...let us spread the love and look out for all...enough of auto upvote...which also shows in one line comments on posts...😫
Tks for this post allowing me to air my views while hoping something will be done in this regard...
Plase remove the "Rising Sun Flags"
Hakenkreuz, Svastica, Hook cross = rising sun flags.
'Rising sun flags' is really horrible..
I don't understand why @acidyo chooses this image.
It's a dilemma when you want to reward every post from all of the authors you like. I only have a couple on auto vote now as I prefer to engage, read and vote accordingly. Even your favourite authors put out something now and again you don't necessarily want to vote up 100%. I am going to add one or two on Steemvoter as they only post 4-5 times a week like myself. I found that my power was getting drained too quickly to Steemvoter as well due to some of those I follow posting 5-6 times a day or more.
I believe it shows it bit more respect to manually curate however I understand that some of those who use predominantly autovoting just don't have the time to manually curate everyone they follow.
A mix of both is more than likely the best way. At least that way you have the opportunity to come across mew adopters with lots to offer.
Great post buddy, thanks for the info.