RE: Reflections on the Benefits and Growing Pains of Project Curie, Steem Guild, and Other Curation Projects on Steemit
We're all trying the achieve the same goals and there is nothing artificial about using real people to curate. Curie has a Tier 1 focus for the highest quality posts, which get more focused rewards. Curie and Steem Guild have helped build several focus areas already which are free to set their own guidelines, so there is no top down control of any sort. Spanish, science, and photo areas all have been thriving this way.
As for your criticism that these two projects suck up voting power, there is a ton of available whale voting power still that is not being used on Steemit - go out and get some. More whales should vote. I hope some of that gets dedicated to other worthy projects also. Steemtrails is a neat idea and I love the concept of targeting different tags, as long as the curator can provide some assurances that posts are screened for originality, so that this burden does not fall on other community projects like Steemcleaners. As the platform grows, we all will need to move more into the tag direction. In fact, my lifelong ambition is to train in more people to manage these projects so that I can spend my time curating a tag or two. :)
Thanks for the response. By top down I mean a few people highlighting post strategically instead of what they actually want to read. Curie seems focused on these medium type post.i can't imagine all the voters there like to sit around and read most of that stuff. I think they do it because they are imagining they are signing up good general content producers. Unfortunately it's not sustainable as marketing to get people in. You want the audience first then the content in my opinion. Still lots of time to fix this, it's just my diagnosis of the issue.
Yes, it's Medium-type content, because that is what voters have been rewarding for the last 5 months since Steemit was launched. Reddit-style links and shorter posts have not been well favored. Curie did not start that preference; voters did, and it seems to be supported by the design of the rewards on Steemit. Should we be focusing rewards on lesser quality posts instead? Actually, I have talked to several whales about experimenting with that type of curation, intensively curating in tags to reward good comments with small amounts, etc. Maybe that will work on here someday and I'd love to experiment with it myself if I had the time. I hope there will be enough support to try many different things and see what it takes to build up some communities. At the moment, I think we're supporting the growth of some really good ones and it's only a start.
Well I think the voters who "voted for it " are ultimately the whales. It's not what wins the most votes. They are trying to predict what content will make the platform do well. I am just saying they are wrong about what market the platform serves. Serving out of work authors by overpaying is not the right market. I think there is a much bigger market for short 1-2 page post (not links) and comments and being paid to vote. That's what's new about steemit. Paying someone to write a long article has been done for a hundred years. And even the professionals are exiting that market. No one has tried paying someone to curate before. Not until steemit. Plenty of time to fix though. I have been powering up lately because now it finally makes sense for an occasional non posting user to power up (now = vest under 90% of virtual steem supply)
Keep pitching this. You have one whale nibbling at your bait (if not entirely hooked). I have a feeling more are hungry.
(Maybe saying "they are wrong" is not the most politically effective, nor the most accurate way to put it. We try things, see what works, and most people, even whales, are open minded enough to change and evolve. Maybe not all, but most. Perhaps it is more useful to suggest that it is time to try a different approach. At least, that's how I would try to sell it, and I may indeed be trying to sell it.)
This is very likely wrong mathematically. Yes there is more voting power unused, but the reward pool is fixed and divided up according to how much of (and how) the power is used. If hardly any voting power were being used, then significant changes would be possible by bringing in more, but once the denominator is large enough, further significant shifts are unlikely (putting aside something extreme like using the 'steemit' account).