What Are Your Thoughts On Curie? (A Community Survey)
Recently I've been spending plenty of time drafting out articles which in my opinion, could help bolster confidence in Steem, while at the same time giving better shape to Steemit as a truly next-gen social platform. The pending titles of my write-ups include:-
- Three Key Steps to Global Abundance.
- Are You Worth It? (An Essay on The Perception of Value)
- Why Fear Artificial Intelligence When You Can (And Should) Embrace It?
- The End of Nations: On Identity, Diversity, and Civilisation.
- Revelations From Playing Sim City 2000 (And Other City Simulators).
- The Perfect Format - A Study on Best Formatting Practices on Steemit.
- Selling Art and Poem on Steemit - Is It Sustainable?
- The Cost of Diversity & Decentralisation (An Analysis for Market Speculators).
It has been a long, difficult task trying to research and writing up these articles, and I'm certainly taking my time trying to produce quality materials that are substantive. Especially when I want to earn my keep on Steemit. It's difficult getting myself to hit that Post button without getting it right.
Having spent night after night endlessly revising my stuff, I came to the conclusion that I'm lacking something to close off the loop - your thoughts about Curie!
Why your thoughts on Curie matters to me?
Curie is, and still, organically forming as a porous organisation. A bunch of us from different corners of the world have successfully built a pretty cohesive company, specifically for curation - much like proposed in https://colony.io/. We do incur operational costs - it's the search cost of any firm, with Curie being much like a mini VC seeding potential Black Swans with its simple goal of diversification.
If you don't know what Curie is about, please check out @curie, and our first intro post: https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/announcing-project-curie-bringing-rewards-and-recognition-to-steemit-s-undiscovered-and-emerging-authors
For some background on the potentials of Curie and Steemit, please read my post that was written a few months ago: https://steemit.com/steemit-ideas/@kevinwong/surfing-the-singularity-with-steemit
Note: The article is purely my own opinion. Curie wasn't even on the horizon when I wrote that article. It is with the coming together of minds in the current Curie team that it happened. And personally, I think it's exciting to see certain structures already cropping up as roughly detailed in that article.
So truth be said, if it wasn't for the acceptance of diversity on Steemit, I wouldn't have my first good upvotes being on Steemit during the early days. Curie is a way to provide opportunities to the next generation of Steem adopters. The only way to do it is through diversity, while keeping check on honest and good-willed actors.
Most of my draft write-ups do revolve around Curie to a certain degree. I've been thinking about it mainly with just my own point of view. So it's really important for me to find out about your thoughts on Curie and its place in the Steemit ecosystem. It doesn't matter who you are - whether if we're in close contact or not - I want to know your thoughts! Spill your thoughts. Be honest, and be as constructive as possible. Criticisms are welcome.
For this, I want to give out 30 SBDs each for the two (2) best comments made by non-Curie members (subjectively judged by me, of course). I will consider giving more if this post somehow ends up with a big payout.
As it stands, Steemit's curation rewards system is a complete misnomer. It heavily disincentives actual curation, instead encouraging users to pile vote on votes for the same people over and over again. (Unless you're a whale) This means we saw the same authors on the Trending page everyday. On the other hand, a ton of great content was being paid out with less than a dollar. It was a complete killer for diversity, which ultimately is what any social network thrives on.
The Steem ecosystem being decentralized is what makes Curie possible. The community recognised the issue, and worked on a solution. Our process may resemble more a Band-Aid than a well-oiled machine at this point, but it works. Curie has voted on 3,500 posts, and brought over 500 authors into prominence. A vast majority of these posts and authors would have been ignored otherwise.
Before Curie, a lot of authors were discouraged into leaving the platform, or worse still, descend into writing shitposts or posts about Steemit. Curie has given many authors the encouragement to keep going and persevere. Some have become much more confident and greatly increased the quality of their content as a result.
Looking forward, I'm eager to find out more about the Delegated Curation Guilds feature. I hope that will encourage more curation groups to form.
Ultimately, we can hope this leads to a diverse community of blogging and discussion on Steemit, which is absolutely crucial for its continued success. If a decade down the line Steemit has X million users and $X bn market cap, we'll know it wouldn't have possible without these curation groups.
Needless to say, all of this is simply my personal opinion.
I wonder why we have the same authors at the trending page everyday. Possibility is that they only like these authors and they dont like the rest of us minnows. Could it be?
I cant blame the whales if they use bots to vote because they also have a life out there and they could not just spend time watching every posts in the platform. Besides these whales are rich people and would we think rich people would let themselves stay for long in front of their stations and roam around the platform, no there not, 1 to 2 hrs is enough for them not unless they are working for the platform, but even so, thats why they use bots to handle the voting for them.
So the drive of every minnows in the community is to hope that we will be included in their bots vote list. That's all there is to it, because without them we cant expect to receive high value votes.
It's just how the curation rewards are designed. If a minnow votes on a post that no one else will vote, they will get no reward. If a minnow votes on a post that many larger accounts are voting on, they stand to gain something. So, if a whale chooses to reward an author consistently - which is absolutely fair - minnows, dolphins and even smaller whales see the pattern and front run the whales to cash in on curation rewards. Over time, these accounts get infested by hundreds of bots, and are basically a guarantee for the Trending post.
I don't blame anyone here - it's just that the curation rewards system does not achieve it's goal of "curation", rather disincentives it. Why vote on a good lost post (actual curation) when you can save your voting power and cash in on a post that you know is going to trend?
exactly!
Absolutely this. This has been a major focus on my part in the last couple of weeks and being able to scale my votes and distribute them more evenly among deserving contributors.
I am glad I ran into this thread and notice more users are doing something to prevent this going on the same way and that its making it harder for newcomers to really get into the Steemit Experience because some authors with same-ish content get voted up to trending several times per day.
scroll to bottom for TLDR
Wow, YES, thank you, exactly! I just joined Steemit recently with high expectations...so it's not surprising to be disappointed, but I think there's still incredible (maybe unprecedented since youtube) potential for this platform to really procure the best original content online. But as of now, thoughtless, lazy, subpart and simply pointless posts are on top, CONSISTENTLY.
But, the potential is still there and can be realized, because the basic idea of steemit HAS succeeded in getting the right attention from content creators. So the potential comes from the people who actually have remarkable skill, insight, or vision, AND the people who loved the concept of steemit and were dedicated to supporting it. So yea, it's awesome to see when these people get recognized--sincere thanks to curie.
I think some of the higher-ups are MISTAKEN when they assume people leave because they are DISCOURAGED that their content isn't upvoted--I mean, yea I'm sure that is the case with some--but I think more than that, when users see undeserving content consistently make it up there, they lose faith in the system and reevaluate whether steemit will be the one to execute the idea properly and go critical.
The solution is obvious, because the whole thing is pretty simple (just look at how quickly and how many people have identified the same specific issue). At the most fundamental level, the problem is the misallocation of resources, which, due to visibility of upvotes/$, is instantly evident to the talent who come for those resources. The reason this misallocation is possible, is because there's no cost for upvoting. So why wouldn't you upvote a friendly's post--let's say, of his cat doing something he thinks is funny but it's really really not--when there's no cost, and it'll make them feel good! I mean, you'd have to be an asshole NOT to. The problem is, it's not the same as laughing at your buddy's bad joke, because no one else is competing for your free laughs.
A large part of a user's post visibility is due to their network. So when you have a user with a large network, and there is no cost to upvoting, even a small percentage of friendly--and really, just rational self-interested people that understand that more upvotes given to their network will be reciprocated eventually--WILL INEVITABLY introduces HUGE DISTORTIONS when attempting to determine value. I mean, if you ran a high quality sushi place or steakhouse, you couldn't expect even your best friends to blow $1000 a week with you, EVEN IF you were offering the undisputed best for miles around (unless your restaurant also happens to offer the finest hookers and blow). There's a reason REAL capitalism is by far the most efficient system available for the purpose of directing resources into the most productive hands.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who can glance at a post's quality, upvotes, and then the author's network size, and very quickly work out where this is headed. So I do believe this issue is actually crucial in determining whether steemit will live up to its potential and needs to be handled ASAP--before awareness reaches the point when "slower-adopters" start asking their early-adopter friends whether steemit is just hype. It could be happening now, as I wouldn't really consider myself an early-adopter.
TLDR:
1. there cannot be ZERO cost for upvotes; there will be no effective and true measure of value; and eventually there will be no value offered by the system (no value greater than anything else that offers the same functions and has a larger/faster growing network), unless you had a 24/7/365 fully-staffed, well-compensated division doing nothing but going through and handpicking posts (value has to be added somewhere, it's not spontaneously generated from nothing). determining value requires the evaluation of costs/benefits versus alternatives. So...
NO COST -> NO VALUE -> NO POINT.
2. If curie's not an official steemit division, they should be, and also be given near the highest priority, until the network reaches the threshold (i mean, ideally it would be permanent since the best original content should always be the primary objective)
3. to offer the highest value to steemit, curie's highest priority (up there with gaining more influence within steemit, will probably have enough leverage soon) should be the identification of talent and the most effective distribution of incentives that results in retaining and attracting the best. I'd recommend stripping out or altering particular guideline submissions that are not geared towards that purpose. Also, the vetting process should establish criteria for identifying potentially outstanding contributors to follow up on (if not already in place), rather than solely focusing on only the submitted post. If a user is capable of producing a single post that displays the desired qualities, it's safe to assume they'll be able to produce at that level given sufficient incentives. Again, this is vital in the early stages when it's too easy for large networks to facilitate, and unfortunately incentivize, publishing bad content.
anyway, goodluck to you guys at curie, take pride in doing good work :)
I wish there was no Project Curie.
But I am so happy there is, and I know hundreds of others do too.
I want steemit to work out the issues so that Curie becomes obsolete. That posts are rewarded on the quality of the article that the community thinks it deserves. That everyone involved in Curie can focus on their own pieces, and add value that way. That they can proudly say that they kept the dream of thousands alive until steemit could stand on its own two feet.
I hope that Project Curie becomes like the Pony Express. A much needed effort to unite people across a vast distance, delivering the worthy messages of the people to the people. Until it became obsolete.
Thanks for the response @getonthetrain, your handle goes very well with your Pony Express comment :)
With this in mind, I think it's important that we also start considering curating accounts which seem to be long-term and forward-thinking. Personally I'd prefer rewarding those who are powering up more often than cashing out, but of course weighted with quality and frequency of posts.. just to make the curation more worthwhile for the ecosystem. For now we're generally rewarding without taking into consideration many factors, but moving forward, we are definitely considering the criteria mentioned especially when the population on Steemit grows much larger.
These things always evolve. You go ahead with the initial plan, and time comes that you find better ways to do things. So naturally, in your quest to become better, you add in these new ideas.
Eventually the initial concept has moved so far past what it was that, while the core motive is there, so much had changed for the better that someone just looking at it for the first time would have difficulty seeing the two things as related.
Thank you for replying to my comment. I do enjoy writing about history. :D
I think current rules on curie is a bit high and its almost the same with RHW. The 3000 steempower, only few minnows has that power, which only means that lots of minnows like me will still not be heard because we dont have the 3k steem power.
Below 60 reputation. There are many minnows who has already reach the 60 reputation but still remains in being a minnows. That would also mean that they could not expect help from curie? If they are persistent enough thats good but mostly they will stop and choose to go out (well i dont think somebody would care if they choose to leave steemit).
Also, I read your comment regarding cashing out. I admit I'm cashing out because I wanted to buy a laptop so I can steem at home because currently when Im at home (like im doing right now) I just use my android phone. I can use a pc when I'm at my workplace. Until now what I have still not enough because laptop here in the philippines worths a lot and few of my earnings were use to buy food for my family.
Yes, I have few earnings coming from good authors who featured new authors but currently all of them decided to stop due to the changes in the steemit system. This makes me worry a lot on how Im going to earn rewards for my project.
So much to say, well this is my problem and I dont need to drag people to it because its not only me had this problem of getting notice and be rewarded. Current proportion is around 95%/5%, where 95 are those who wish to get noticed and earn rewards, and 5 are those who are already gaining traction. Included in that 5 are whales.
Again, this is not the problem of the steemit admin, this is the problem of minnows. Hope we can find our way around.
About three or four weeks ago I heard about Steemit, signed up and started posting. I was doing my thing and waiting to get noticed. Of course, nobody noticed and I was getting pretty disheartened. So I stopped posting and started reading. I had that internal struggle, was my time and effort worth the return? It was not the money that I was after, it was the views. Honestly, I was pretty down about it.
So I started looking for help and found it through a new project for beginners, the person who coached me was impressed enough that she nominated me for Curie. I should say I have eSteem installed on my phone and it uses a "chain" sound to tell me when I get an upvote on Steemit. When Curie hit my post it was like listening to a slot machine hitting the jackpot. Ding! Ding! Ding!
I will tell you while I did receive a "pay out," what was really cool is I went from 2 to 5 upvotes per post to 65 on that specific post, now that was cool. My followers increased and I believe followers equal more upvotes in the future. So even after Curie, my numbers were up and that was huge.
Curie reinvigorated me and I know it has encouraged me not only to put out higher quality posts, but to encourage others. The fun of hearing the slot machine is not one I will forget. Now I follow how Curie votes so I can join the "horde" and give someone else that same experience. I am very appreciative of all the programs that encourage new members (Curie, Steemprentice, and Robin Hood Whale). I have directly benefited and am always looking for that worthy post to nominate so someone else "wins!"
Thanks Kevin for your efforts and the rest of the Curie team. It means a lot.
I dig what curie's doing. With things so lopsided on the voting right now, helping put more voting weight behind noobs. While some of the whales seem to put effort into promoting new talent, others are not. It's not "right" or "wrong". It just is what it is. The former is appreciated, but the later is understandable.
If all the whales were the latter, then Steemit would die. There's be no reason for the small dogs to keep coming if they didn't get a bone to help them along, at least until they get enough voting authority to start leveling the field more organically.
Curie offers a good solution. Ideally it wouldn't be needed. But, right now, their concerted effort helps to move talented minnows to dolphins more quickly. Failure to do so, whether it's by design or organic, is myopic and self-destructive, IMO.
Other similar efforts, such as RHW, minnowsunite and steemsquad help as well. Curie really seems to have gained traction and had the greatest impact though. Ideally more whales will get involved with trying to help the guppies grow.
@kevinwong you & @curie have assumed the difficult role to listen to a million frogs at the same time and reward those who could potentially become the next lion. Well, if you do discover this person and he/she becomes a lion and his/her work's excellence spills over in the everyday life then Steem will become a reference point of value and curie the ultimate guarantor. Without @curie and @robinhoodwhale members would lose their incentive sooner than later. Of course earnings should not be the reason to share your voice with the world. But I fear quality requires hard work and when people have hardwired in their brains that Steemit pays them to post, then in the sad case where their posts earn 0 they will go back to the social media, where they will have no hope to lose. However, I am a believer! I believe there are lions to be found and when you do we will all become richer in many ways. So long...(not that I have any hopes that this comment falls into your top 2, but if it does please give the 30 sbd to @curie)
I re-read your comment and wow and really like your response :)
Btw have you ever considered selling your art pieces on Steemit in exchange for the Steem currency? I had a weird dream the other day, being in an art gallery.. and the art pieces were electronically framed. And you can press the upvote button on the art-piece lol. I got it after looking at @lgm-1's stuff - have you checked that account out?
Well, you see that's the thing with you @kevinwong ; you are a visionary... one day maybe the art it self will be electronic or laser projected and will say thank you when you press the upvote button! :) Well I got a note from @anwenbaumeister about Peerhub where you can sell for SBD, so I made a post ther to start helping the steem community. The problem is art is not my main profession, so I only produce limited number of artworks which are sold almost right away during my exhibitions... so I don't have many pieces left. Also, I am not sure how to set a price in a market where I am practically starting from scratch? I post a painting that was sold few months ago for a four digit euro amount and get votes of 0,5 SBD and the only thing that comes to my mind is "thank God I sold this already!" :) But jokes aside, sure it's something I think about all the time. How can I contribute to Steem value, after all I do invest my time and effort in here, and it is in best interest. Right now I am trying to convince my mother (sculptor) and a few other friends of mine (artists and photographers) to sign up and participate in view of selling too at some point.
Are you on Steemit.chat a lot? Kinda weird chatting up in the comments as there are no notifications here -_- lol. I can't believe that you're not doing art as your main, I'd buy them all in an instant if I have the monies! :)
I'm still trying to wrap myself around adding value to Steem as a currency, and it kinda hurts my head. Recently I've discussed about Steemit post formatting with @fairytalelife and she came up with this today: https://steemit.com/art/@fairytalelife/a-steemian-s-guide-to-submitting-art-posts
I believe there's a place for artists to "open-source" their process.. just like what you did with your recent post too.. actually.
I hate that this may come off negative, but my thoughts on Curie (or any groups like this) is it comes down to people. These aren't positions that are voted on as would be witnesses, or elected to.
Self-Designated would be one thing, but these groups do ask for support from the community, and really it boils down to support from a small % of users, the whales.
They have the potential of becoming "policing" organizations, where it doesn't matter if 1000 users agree if the right 10 disagree.
Curie specifically, I like the intent and the work done. I admit I get perturbed when I hear talk of operating expenses and compensated for our time as in my eyes it crosses a murky line between noble intent and a job paid to do. I agree it is needed currently, but it is needed as a result of a platform flaw that would otherwise be fatal, new user retention and recognition.
I know there is monetary accountability, but I am not sure there is personal accountability. A portion of these groups post regularly in order to meet an "operating budget" or grow their power to achieve their stated goals. I completely accept this at face value, but what happens if the day comes when one of these accounts decides to do something else? There is no recourse, it is their account, and not one they have had access to, but is ultimately not under their control.
While their is the provided financial accountability, there is little to no personal accountability.
Firstly, Curie is a democratic group. Posts are seen by at least three people before one is approved for curation. We are constantly listening to the community for feedback, and if ever there was a complaint regarding our curation choices, we would take it very seriously. We have made mistakes, and work on rectifying them quickly.
Curie is not a charity. We work 24x7, screen 2,000+ posts and upvote 150 posts every day. There are 5 people who work full-time or nearly full-time on this project. This is an organisation like any other, which does a lot of work and needs revenue to sustain it. A lot of the management and operations work is currently done where group members donate their time for free, but in the future we'd like to reward them financially too, as is fair. It's pretty much as simple as that. It's absolutely a job to do. Whether it is a job with noble intent, is up to you.
Once the DCG feature goes live, the revenue generation will be built directly into the system.
Look... I understand they are doing a job. I also understand the job is one that is necessary as a result of a flaw in the system your addressing (new user retention).
I very much dislike that there is no way to address or bring up issues or concerns similar to this without the concern being addressed as if it were an attack. Additionally, when it is stated very clearly this is a job for some, it makes me wonder if the root cause for the need will ever be addressed.
As an organization, there has been work done to be transparent in the details. I understand it, but what about personal accountability for it's members? Should a member who's account has directly grown in power as a result of contribution decide to go rogue for any reason, what then? They benefit from effort given to a group, and can take it from that group.
How is fair financial compensation determined? Should a member of one of these teams decide to leave, the account they have used and has grown in power to do the work of the group... does it leave with them? It is stated if a complaint is made for curation choices it is taken very seriously, how about member choices? In MY experience, because of the structure, lack of multi-sig features used means a member that acts poorly on behalf of, or perhaps acts out against members, is still either very vital to the work of the project, or more raising of funds is needed to build up another account.
I don't question at all it is done with noble intent, I do wonder if the organizational structure is done responsibly. Democratic implies leaders are chosen by voting, that has not happened. A select group designated themselves... the content they vote for is an internal democratic process, is that what you mean? @kevinwong acknowledges in his reply that there is in fact a trust of the people required... as a group, I do trust the motives and intent currently. That being said, I have already seen one run in with these groups result in a "we do not approve of his actions, but he is vital" response. Does that get easier to address the further along it is left unchanged, or do they simply become more and more vital?
No worries about it @clevecross - your concerns are not baseless. While most of us still have bills to pay etc, it's not an entirely cost-free job (however, there are some members of the team that are not taking anything for their effort). To echo some of @liberosist's comments, the whales supporting the initiative don't have much say over our curation other than their preferred genres, but most of them pretty much approve of the general curation that we're doing. And you're absolutely right about personal accountability - there's absolutely nothing standing in the way of some of use getting away with the account like @curie - we're pretty much operating entirely based on trust, built through the everyday grind of curation and (pretty open) communication. We could have relied on multi-sig features, but we're not doing that at the moment. The intents and motives of the core curie team is at least, resonating with each other on the individual level. Thanks for your input @clevecross - I really appreciate it!
Thanks for the great reply. It is not a concern about you or any particular group. I only worry about long term organizational accountability. A multi sig feature could make it more of an electable position and put responsibilities on the members as well.
My perspective on Curie is that it is one of those evolutionary steps that this new lifeform needs to take, it not pretty but and essential one.
What i mean by that is its helping bring users from a non-crypto background up to a level where they can start to curate meaningfully in there own area of interest.
Creating more evolved diverse sealife from the primordial minnow soup. I see this being most evident in the art/photography community on steemit. The internet is a tough playground for artist to make a buck through expressing themselfs via their art.
Curie is one of those things where its own success will make it obsolete.
But it will have bridged a vital step on steemit and earned the appreciation of all.
Being noticed by curie certainly helped me reach a wider audience and was very encouraging, feeding my belief in Steemits' potential. More exciting, was the exposure to other great authors, the connections it fostered and the support extended between us. I believe curie, and initiatives like it, should be expanded and supported, and I'm open to contributing to its cause. I follow curie and in the footsteps of its curation, by weaving content of good authors into relevant points in my own posts. You've set a good example of community support and engagement we should all emulate.
I am in favor of any organizations that attempt to proactively make steemit a better place without causing undue side effects to other people. Getting out of the trenches can be a trial for everyone. Were you lucky and someone with power happened to notice your post? Once you gain some momentum it becomes easier. Yet getting that initial momentum can be the killing blow for many a talented person that comes to steemit. Groups like Project Curie are perfect for helping people over the hump and out of the trenches. As long as Project Curie remains diverse and does not single out the same authors time and time again it is much like the saying "Teach someone to fish, rather than simply giving them fish."
I would think that using the new resteem ability could make project curie even more effective. I would also encourage others to consider other groups along these lines. Such groups being different people would likely result in very different choices. This can only help improve the diversity.
Instead of shouting out against the negatives with the platform that we perceive and demanding some technological solution, this shows that as a community we can make such requirements often unnecessary.
I will be in favor of groups like Curie as long as they embrace only the positive. I would not be a fan of similar groups if they formed with the intent of down voting things they deemed should be down voted. The down vote when misused is the path of aggression and war. It should be used sparingly and preferably not at all. Yet, if we approach things as positives we can accomplish much.
Keep up the good work.