TIL the best strategy for reducing rewards disparity (in defense of the flag, part I)
I never actually crunched the numbers on this.... but since its come up in a couple discussions, i decided to finally do it.
To understand why this works the way it does, you have to understand rshares and Vshares.
Rshares are awarded to a post when you vote on it. The number of Rshares awarded varies linearly with the amount of steem power you have. For example, someone with 10,000SP will award twice as many rshares with their upvote as someone with 5000 SP, and ten times as many rsahres as someone with 1000 SP.
A post's vshares is the square of the rshares. Because vshares are an exponential function of rshares, they vary exponentially, not linearly in relation to SP and rsahres. Vshares and reward vary linearly. For example, if my post has half as many vshares as yours does, it will get half the rewards.
So, for example, if your vote awards worth 10 rshares, and you vote on a brand new post, you bring it from 0-100 rshares. 100 squared is 10000, so your upvote awarded 10,000 vshares. Now, Imagine if a post already had 1000 rshares when you voted on it . That would mean it started with 1 million vshares (1000 times 1000). If you used your 100 rshares to vote on that post it would go from 1000 rshares to 1100 rshares. Its vshares would be 1100 *1100 =1,210,000, or 21 times as much. If you have ever voted on a high paying post and noticed your vote awarding more than you're used to seeing, that is why.
With that in mind, i am going to explain to you the most effective way to use your vote to decrease the disparity in blogging rewards, and give everyone a fair share of posting rewards. Am i saying that this is something you should do? No, i don't care what you do, i don't even care enough to do it myself. However, I hear everyone complaining about the feast for a few but famine for most environment here, and speculating about different solutions to the problem. I don't think they believe me when i tell them that there is a far more effective method built into the system already.
Note that when we talk about making it so that most posts pay better, we are, by definition, talking about decreasing disparity. Because the rewards pool is fixed, the money to pay very low or non-paying posts must come from the very high paying posts which get most of the reward. Even Robin Hood had to rob from the rich to give to the poor.
imgagine that post 1 was voted on by big whale like @dantheman who has around 2.5 million steem.
post 2 was voted on a small whale like @liondani who has around 250K steem. post 3 and 4 got some big dolphin support. 5-1114 just got minnows and minidolphins. (total of 10KSP for 5-14, 3Ksp for 15-114 and 1Ksp for 115-1114
FOr the sake of easy math, lets assume a 10K reward fund for blogging. I think its actually a bit more than this. The reward fund says 53k, but that goes for mining, witnesses, blogging and curation... Also for the sake of easy math, I am making up a baseline for R shares. The actual total number of vshares is a 31 digit number, and all the real numbers are in all very big. This is apparently necessary for the system to work properly, but not really relevant to the example.
| post | SP | rshares | mvshares | total mvshares | mvshares/totalmvshares | payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.5M | 1M | 1m | 1,013,164 | .987 | 9870 steem |
| 2 | 250k | 100k | 10k | 1013164 | .00987 | 98.7 steem |
| 3 | 125k | 50k | 2,500 | 1013164 | .002467 | 24.67 steem |
| 4 | 25k | 10k | 100 | 1013164 | .000098 | .98 steem |
| 5-14 (ea) | 10k | 4000 | 16 | 1013164 | .000016 | .16 steem |
| 5-14 (tot) | 100k | 40k | 160 | 1013164 | .00016 | 1.6 steem |
| 15-114 (ea) | 3k | 1200 | 1.44 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .019 steem |
| 15-114 (tot) | 300k | 120k | 144 | 1013164 | .0987547 | 1.9 steem |
| 115-1114(ea) | 1k | 400 | .16 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .0016 steem |
| 115-1114(tot) | 1m | 400000 | 160 | 1013164 | .0987547 | 1.6 steem |
Its worth while to note that in this model, the bottom 1100 actually get paid nothing (i think), because their payout is less than 2 cents... i have no idea what happens to the 3.5 steem or so that they earned. I assume it gets distributed to the higher paid bloggers.
Now, imagine that another dan sized whale comes along. He decides that he wants to decrease this terrible disparity in rewards. Just to start out, he would like to use only one vote. He can vote multiple times at decreased power, but his total vote strength must add up to one 100% vote.
He can pick a post he likes from the bottom 1105 and give it a full power vote. This is what the distribution would look like:
| post | SP | rshares | mvshares | total mvshares | mvshares/totalmvshares | payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 978 | 2.5M | 1M | 1m | 2,013,164 | .4967 | 4967steem |
| 1 | 2.5M | 1M | 1m | 2,013,164 | .4967 | 4967 steem |
| 2 | 250k | 100k | 10,000 | 2013164 | .00496 | 49.6 steem |
| 3 | 125k | 50k | 2,500 | 2013164 | .00124 | 12.4 steem |
| 4 | 25k | 10000 | 100 | 2013164 | .000098 | .49 steem |
| 5-14ea | 10k | 4000 | 16 | 2013164 | .000016 | .08 steem |
| 5-14tot | 100k | 40k | 160 | 2013164 | .00016 | .8 steem |
| 15-114ea | 3k | 1200 | 1.44 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .005 steem |
| 15-114tot | 300k | 120k | 144 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .5 steem |
| 115-1114ea) | 1k | 400 | .16 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .008 steem |
| 115-1114tot | 1m | 400k | 160 | 1013164 | .0987547 | .8 steem |
Poster 978 is happy, but everyone else is sad. Notice how the whale backed posts now earn individually less, but more as a cohort. In fact, it looks like we pushed the 5-14 cohort below the 2 cent threshold.
The reality of distribution on steem is that there are never 1 or 2 posts that take up 99.9 percent of rewards, but maybe a dozen posts that of posts like 1 and 978 that split up the top tier (preventing insane outliers like the post).
Well,he has a million rshares.. what would happen if he gave them out equally to everyone in the bottom 1000? (lets say he buys an extra 111000 to give them out to 5-114 too, because i messed up and did the math that way), this isnt exactly what curie and other delegated curation guilds to. but its similar. And It doesnt work: CHeck out how little difference it makes:
| post | SP | rshares | mvshares | total mvshares | mvshares/totalmvshares | payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.50M | 1M | 1m | 1,015294 | .9846 | 9846 steem |
| 2 | 250k | 100,000 | 10k | 1,015294 | .00984 | 98.4 steem |
| 3 | 125k | 50000 | 2,500 | 1,015294 | .002467 | 24.62 steem |
| 4 | 25k | 10000 | 100 | 1,015294 | .000098 | .98 steem |
| 5-14 (each) | 11k | 5000 | 25 | 1,015294 | .000024 | .24 steem |
| 5-14 (total) | 110k | 50000 | 250 | 1,015294 | .00024 | 2.4 steem |
| 15-114 (ea) | 5.5k | 2200 | 4.84 | 1,015294 | .000048 | .048 steem |
| 15-114 (tot) | 550k | 220000 | 484 | 1,015294 | .0048 | 4.8 steem |
| 115-1114(ea) | 3.5k | 1400 | 1.96 | 1,015294 | .0987547 | .0196 steem |
| 115-1114(tot) | 3.5m | 1400000 | 1960 | 1,015294 | .0987547 | 19.6 steem |
He has not increased any of the bottom 1111 significantly in real terms, though they were quite high in relative terms (the bottom 1k got almost 10x as much, but its still less than a penny).
Notice that our whale has far less effect on the payouts when splitting his vote up. His first vote, for post 978, distributed about 5000 steem to the post he voted on. When he broke his vote up and spent it all in small pieces, he only ended up distributing 20 or 30 steem to the bottom 1000.
There are many compromise solutions between splitting his vote 1000 ways and spending it all at once, but they all have the same opposing factors working against them. Dividing his vote makes it weaker in terms of the amount of steem it can distribute, but using his vote all in one place doesn't change the payout for enough people to really make a difference. What he really wants to do is give the 5K he was able to award in the first scenario out to the whole community, not just one person, but there's no way to do that.
Or is there?
the following scenario shows our whale downvoting the top paying post at 100%
| post | SP | rshares | mvshares | total mvshares | mvshares/totalmvshares | payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13064 | .0 | 0 |
| 2 | 250k | 100,000 | 10,000 | 13064 | .00987 | 7654 steem |
| 3 | 125k | 50000 | 2,500 | 13064 | .002467 | 1913 steem |
| 4 | 25k | 10000 | 100 | 13064 | .000098 | 76.54 |
| 5-14 (each) | 10k | 4000 | 16 | 13064 | .000016 | 12.2 |
| 5-14 (total) | 100k | 40000 | 160 | 13064 | .00016 | 122 |
| 15-114 (each) | 3k | 1200 | 1.44 | 13064 | .0987547 | 1.2 |
| 15-114 (total) | 300k | 120000 | 144 | 13064 | .0987547 | 120 |
| 115-1114(each) | 1k | 400 | .16 | 13064 | .0987547 | .122 steem |
| 115-1114(total) | 1m | 400000 | 160 | 13064 | .0987547 | 122 |
Aside from the payouts, also notice that this has made everyone's vote far more powerful. A 25KSP vote that would have awarded around 1 steem as a vote on a new post in the first scenario will now award 76 steem. In total, hes given out 9800 steem.
Of course, as i indicated before, nothing is free. He had to take that steem from somewhere. Its a fixed reward pool. In this case, he took it frompost 1. But any steem he distributes must come from a post, regardless of whether he upvotes or downvotes. For example, when he voted for post 978, he distributed 4967 steem to that post, and nearly all of it came from the same post 1.
If our whale were to flag post 1 at 50%, it would take just as much money away as upvoting post 978 100%, the only difference is that that money would go to everyone, not just that one guy. And that he would spend about 50% of his vote instead of 100%. But we stigmatize doing it that way.
We can actually do better than this for distribution. As we've learned, the effect of your SP is maximized when youre voting on the highest paying posts. This is true of downvotes as well as upvotes. (in most cases, the exception is when youre upvoting on a post that already has an overwhelming share of the reward pool) We start by subtracting post 1 rshares -post 2 rshares.
(p1-p2) , if that is more shares than we have, then we just downvote p1 at 100%
if not, we take the difference between p2 and p3, then multiply by2, we keep going like that until we get to a number thats bigger than our rshares.
(p1-p2)=900000
(p1-p2)+2(p2-p3)
900000+2(50,000)=1M, which is exactly how many rshares we have. Because its exact, we are going to downvote everything down to the level of P3 (50000). we'll downvote post 1 with -950,000 rshares and post 2 with -50,000 rshares. this is what payouts will look like.
| post | SP | rshares | mvshares | total mvshares | mvshares/totalmvshares | payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 125k | 50000 | 2,500 | 8064 | .3100 | 3100 |
| 2 | 125k | 50000 | 2,500 | 8064 | .3100 | 3100 |
| 3 | 125k | 50000 | 2,500 | 8064 | .3100 | 3100 |
| 4 | 25k | 10000 | 100 | 8064 | .000098 | 124 |
| 5-14 (each) | 10k | 4000 | 16 | 13064 | .000016 | 19.8 |
| 5-14 (total) | 100k | 40000 | 160 | 13064 | .00016 | 198 |
| 15-114 (each) | 3k | 1200 | 1.44 | 13064 | .0987547 | 1.7 |
| 15-114 (total) | 300k | 120000 | 144 | 13064 | .0987547 | 179 |
| 115-1114(each) | 1k | 400 | .16 | 13064 | .0987547 | .198 steem |
| 115-1114(total) | 1m | 400000 | 160 | 13064 | .0987547 | 198 |
had there been a remainder, we would have split it equally among all of the posts we were flagging. In this scenario, the number of vsahres is as low as we can possibly get it, and as a result, the rewards distributed by each additional vote are also higher. The 25K SP vote that was worth 1 steem on a new post in our original example is now worth about 124.
Also note that this is not only true for whales. If some guy came along with 1000 steem power, he wouldnt be able to have much impact on the system at all, but his impact would be far greater if he used it downvoting overvalued posts than if he used it on upvoting undervalued posts.
Also note that downvotes are not inherently stronger than upvotes. In general, it seems like the the more even the distribution of rewards is, the weaker the downvote is in relation to the upvote. DOwnvotes are stronger than upvotes on steem right now because distribution is so uneven.
That said, this example was deliberately simplified and constructed to demonstrate this fact. One of the reasons we were able to get so much money to give away by downvoting poster 1 is that he already had 99.9% of the reward pool (which doesnt happen in reality). In reality, post 1 will actually be a small cohort of posts that and we would have to devide our downvote power (Even though we could vote more than once, it still wouldnt have the same effect as voting once on a super-mega post like that.)
This is a good detailed analysis of the system and I think it demonstrates that positive side of down voting: it is the most effective way of keeping the playing field level.
I suspect that someone could even come up with a formal proof of why an upvote-only system is impossible.
What was the rational behind changing the down vote to the flag? If it was to disincentivise use of the down vote, then surely the cost of a curation reward should do that... The flag seems to signify that it is not for redistribution but rather for subjective abuse.
I think it was because "downvotes" were also perceived poorly and we want to discourage their use. The problem with discouraging their use is that people take it far more personally when it does happen.
I agree. This is a lot for regular people like me to take in LOL but I muddle along and do my best even with the discouragement I feel here some days. I also appreciate you taking time to engage with your people Dan. I really do.
Have a great 2017. #FreeRoss
Thank you. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to engage with the community. We all have much to learn.
After I replied here and put the #FreeRoss part in to encourage you, I thought maybe I should send you this in case you did not see it today when I put it up sir. -- https://steemit.com/life/@barrydutton/breaking-free-ross-ulbricht-campaign-donations-hijacked-family-advises-everyone-to-sit-tight-on-donations-for-the-moment
Did you see that he posted the third part/solution?
Resteemed. When you do part II please link it in a reply to me to remind me to resteem the next one.
will do, im probably posting it this afternoon.
I have to reply here due to nesting :) Ahh, okay, I'm trying to follow, but interest on what exactly? I wasn't making money on posts at the time, maybe a little on one or two. The only way I was bringing money in was through curation, so the interest was on the curation? Or just any money being brought in period? And I can't see what's in my rewards past the last five days, but my husband was keeping track for awhile and he noticed a huge drop.
The interest was just for any SP in your wallet. So the more SP you had the more interest you made. You still make interest but the amount is tiny now. I think it went from 90% of the pool all the way down to 5% (not sure but that steemitblog post I linked should say it)
Okay, so...it kind of amounts to the same thing lol. Unless you don't care about sp and your focused on steem dollars. But to invest yourself in this platform sp is really the more important of the two overall...., especially since having more sp will increase your steem income over time anyway. Guess I wouldn't have voted for those changes haha!
The focus has really shifted from having long term large stake holders to having more content creators and speculators. Content is king, and although it took me a while to come around to the dramatic changes to the economics, I do think we're headed in the right direction now. STEEM is to be the cryptocurrency we bootstrap to the masses. SP is a use that gives steem use value. Steem Dollars are more of a smart contract to trade with steem. It's incredibly valuable in my eyes to bringing non-crypto people into the crypto world, as a liquid currency can be scary to people who are new to it.
"Smart Contracts cannot fix Dumb People"
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@dan/is-the-dao-going-to-be-doa
"The theory of jointly deciding to fund efforts will face the reality of individual self interest, politics, and economics. There will be rapid defecting (splitting) as people realize there is little to be gained "
The biggest problem I see then, is can we get this running smoothly, can we bring up the value of steem before a new site comes along with the same premise but using bit coin instead? That could crush us because if there's any crypto that the masses are coming around to it's bit coin-it's not only been around the longest but it's proven its value. In just a short period of time I have really come to love steemit, I would hate for it to go the way of myspace. I feel a bit of urgency right now, that's why I am dropping in on these posts despite my difficulty comprehending anything technical or math based. If I can wrap my brain around it then I can break it down in layman's terms even further than it's being broken down, or put it in a way that others like me will understand. We need people to care, a lot of people to care, to push this forward and face the inevitable obstacles. People can't be naive about this, right now there's a site being developed called yours.org, and it is a similar platform, and it is based on bitcoin. And there are others, though that one is the closest to launch.
@dreemit
If I'm not mistaken, this is just another tipping platform - a model that as been tried and failed a hundred times now. I have no idea if bitcoin could implement something more similar to steemit, but even if they could here's why I think they will still fail.
Unless they have a complete change of development team, because of those who are petrified of making any changes to the blockchain
Also I'm personally uncomfortable holding bitcoin at the moment because of the MMM ponzi scheme going on in Nigeria and on the bitcoin blockchain at the moment. That has the potential to dramatically collapse the bitcoin rise...
That's just my personal speculation though
Oh I'm not saying another platform based on bitcoin would definitely take over, not by any means or I wouldn't be here working so hard. But it could because people in general would trust it,not those who are highly educated in crypto maybe, but I'm talking about the masses. And it especially could if steem is weak when it launches. Just look at the sign in page for steemit, it's awful. In a post I compared it to a white building with a steel door. Now when you open the door there's lots of cool things inside, tons of color and music and culture. But while judging a book by its cover might be advised against it unfortunately happens all the time and people just aren't opening the door. God, I've been working on my brother for weeks now, granted he just had a new baby, but that wouldn't have stopped him from making a facebook account. steemit is daunting to people. Another friend of mine was curious and I explained it as easily as possible, totally talking it up. She's not here. I've pitched it on fb and nothing. Seriously, I got a whole bunch of likes and not a single comment or question. I don't think all of the introductory videos on youtube about it are helping either, the one I watched before getting on here made my head hurt it was so complicated. I pushed forward anyway, but look around, there is a certain caliber of people here for the most part---which admittedly I like. A lot. In fact a large part of me would hate to see that change. But if it doesn't, than a yours.org will come along and eclipse it. Just for having better marketing and a friendly sign up page.
We only stand a chance if we stand together. If people are willing to work to keep it going. Have you been to the introduceyourself page lately? You know that older woman who commented on your post today? Well I saw her introductory post and there was only one person who greeted her and they were a total dick, attacking her ideas of social reform and basically her as a person. It's a miracle she didn't get turned off! I clicked on several more and it was lucky if there was one or two people saying a generic Welcome and that's it. The craziest part of this, I A: am not a crusader, B: am not technically/mathmatically minded and C: hate the idea of downvoting people. I also hate politics and would much rather be working on my stories right now than thinking about any of this. But...I want this place to succeed. I really do. And that I would be willing to work for it hopefully means that others who aren't generally the working for it type will feel the same. Convincing them is a task I'll take on, but I need to know what it is we're going to do first LOL Just talking the issues and problems to death, speculating on viability etc. is worthless, action is needed.
You make really great points!! The onboarding is a serious issue. I've also had friends who just haven't bought into the idea but are always asking me how I'm getting on with it. I think it is daunting. And I'm going to resteem that introduce yourself post now that you brought it to my attention!
Really what we need to do is talk to the people who have the power to change these things but need to know what the problems are first. It would be great to know for example what developer is behind the design of the front end of the site. @sneak is a part of the development team and often encourages people to get in contact with him about problems they are having. He might be a good person to approach and he's on steemit.chat.
Could you link the youtube video that you watched so I could get an idea of the problem you had? I'm thinking about doing my own introduction video but I agree, they only add to the problem if they are not exceptionally user friendly.
The road map is due out tomorrow and will probably be posted on @steemitblog so keep an eye out for that and make sure to voice your concerns there the moment it is posted. That's the best way to give them feedback at the moment... (as far as I know)
We are definitely one of the most active crypto communities there is which is what gives me so much confidence. If we want this to hurry along we just have to be very clear about what we need to do to move forward - outlining potential issues and hopefully matching them with resolutions. I'm also trying to figure out how to navigate github.com at the moment just so I can keep an eye on what's being worked on but I'm a total technophobe! I should read that post on the trending page in case it could help lol
Okay it's funny because now that I've been on steemit for a month this is all pretty basic stuff, but at the time there were segments that were not, which means a lot of other people will feel the same. Not to mention the title is How to get started fast on steemit and the video is 47 minutes long. 47 minutes far exceeds a large majority of people's attention span. This type of video is more for someone who already wants to join steemit and is interested in everything about it. What is needed is something catchy and simple. I think my elf meme would be more effective haha! Because you lose people at "blockchain" which will change, it will become commonplace, but it isn't yet.
Um, where did my message go? Jeeze. What I said was that this video is basic stuff to me now that I've been on steemit, but before I joined there were segments that were not. And getting started fast when the video is 47 minutes long? 40 minutes longer than the average person's attention span. This is a video for people who already want to join steemit and are interested in everything about it. We need simple and catchy. Not to mention the first sentence on the screen already lost people. At some point blockchain will be common vernacular, but that day hasn't come quite yet.
Oh and my husband sent me this link. It doesn't appear to be that sophisticated and I don't see it as competition, but it is up and running and people are using it. I'm going to check it out after I send this. https://supload.com/
Oh god he used the words ponzi scheme hahaha
Yeah parts are really good, while other parts are scary. Could be better!
Hmmm... I noticed too that there is a message in my reply feed that's not showing, maybe try editing the comment and keep the video link away from the message...
That's okay, I basically covered it in the message below it.
I'm also looking forward to part two :) But I doubt anything can be accomplished without a community effort, though it'll be great if he has a clear cut path to do it. He could come up with one, I have no doubt.
Sorry, just trying to clarify. I took this out of the post you sent me to: "Author/curation rewards would be reduced in the short term though increased in the long term." And I wish I could find the post where there was a big discussion between several people who said they dropped from-this was the average amount during the discussion-1500 monthly in curation rewards to 300 monthly making it almost not worth their time to curate due to the hardfork- were they mistaken or was I misunderstanding the reason for it?Or is it as the hardfork post suggested, a short term reduction and people are just impatient? (You answered this, my reply is above, hope it's not getting confusing now)
different hardfork, i think. Curation rewards were reduced, months ago..... but beanz and smooth are correct, what you were seeing was SP "interest" in your balance... its very unlikely that you could even achieve 1% per week on 1000 SP even if you were an incredibly skillful curator.
Yes, I am clear on the entire scope of things now I believe. Well, as far as that's concerned. I think everyone is still waiting on your part two :) Happy New year.
coming in a minute ;-) happy new year
Oh good, this reminds me--I'm going to resteem it, I know beanz will too, and I had a question about that- should I do that right after you post it, or would it be better if I wait a few hours? It will turn up on the home page for my followers when I do, right? Sorry, day after New Year's Eve, brain is not working on optimum power right now. I was just wondering what would give it the most exposure.
I'm unsure to be honest. It could be speculative and depending on how things work out... But right now we are going through a transitional period I believe, where many power holders who were here for the interest are no longer incentivised to stay for that reason. So until those who hold power but don't want to be here have left there is a speculative chance of them gaming the system while they have the power...
That much I understand, I knew the money incentive had dropped significantly, I just thought it was curation rewards. I didn't know about the interest, I was too new at the time and numbers aren't my strong suit. Which is why I love how sigmajin breaks things down, starts way over my head then comes down to my level LOL. I think I already said this, possibly to you, but I discovered him a couple of weeks ago and attempted to flatter him into posting more :)
My husband speculated that Dan and Ned did this purposely to get rid of the corruption in the system. He's been watching them closely to make sure they're holding strong, and especially that they're not powering down a large amount themselves which would be bad. Sell out bad. But they're not, he believes they're a hundred percent in. Though that still might not be enough to keep it afloat if things don't change. If those gaming the system/here for the cash/not adding content or creativity to the platform do leave, that should take care of a pretty significant part of the problem I imagine.
That's a comprehensive and impressive analysis of voting strategy in the Steemit environment. A very impressive piece of work that no doubt took you ages to write. Hope the"Whales" appreciate your effort.
.
ColdMonkey mines Gridcoin through generating BOINC computations for science...
Very good post.
To me the reward and curation system is very flawed. I think downvoting makes sense technically, but practically i would not want to downvote anyone, because this is a social system and people would notice.
I.e. if Dan would go around every day and downvote a bunch of overpaid post in his mind, he would create a lot of enemies and generate all kinds of hatred and negative emotions.
The exponential rewards are simply skewing how people expect fair rewards would work.
Naturally power and value gravitates to few. In steem SP alone ensures such concentration. This reward system enhances the natural effect. The result is many small users are feeling left out. What we need for growth is many new and small users coming in, joining the site and getting rewarded. This would be much easier to accomplish if whales could simply spread their votes and generate rewards that way.
Here's a possible solution I suggested.
https://steemit.com/smartvotes/@beanz/the-problem-with-flags-educational-post
Originally @demotruk 's idea
i saw it, and im going to cover some of the points in the post im putting up this morning, but two quick points generally:
indulging the "feeling of bitterness" is an error, and one of the reasons the myth persists.
As far as vote buying -- I do not object to vote buying on steemit per se. What i have a problem with is a post that has nothing in it but "i want to buy your vote for this empty post" or some pretext like "guess the number of jellybeans in this jar" or "which one of these people do you think is more attractive." or "guess if steem will go up or down".
that is to say -- a good quality post is a good quality post even if it offers incentives to voters. A poor quality post is a poor quality post regardless of whether it offers incentives.
The question is when does the game presented constitute actual content, and when is it merely a pretext to get votes for nothing at all. To me, its a somewhat subjective question. But subjective doesnt have to be a bad word.
Part of that is because of how the UI (mis)represents the downvote. As seperate from the aggregate.
Part of it is because many whales, especially ned and dan, have not, IMO, been as authoritative as they ought to have been regarding using and backing up the downvote as a valid option. I don't know how the MY situation was ultimately resolved, but i recall thinking at the time that Ned (who was flagging him) should have been far more emphatic about his reasons and about it being justified.
IIRC, MY actually had a post where he posited that the owners shoudnt be flagging at all. I actually have just the opposite view. Given where the platform is at right now regarding distribution, i would rather see ned and dan only flagging.
I think if ned and dan went around and downvoted posts that they felt were overpaid, explained their reasoning rationally, and said "look, this is how the system is set up to work. Its not personal its money" eventually people would come around.
I have seriously considered running a bot that would flag every post on Trending. As you say, it wouldn't be personal, it would be money, because it would apply equally to each post as a function of its reward.
One reason I haven't done it is that I am largely unconvinced that the shape of the payouts is objectively bad. Flagging those top posts would send nearly all of those reduced rewards to a slightly larger set of moderately voted posts. The posts at the bottom with no votes or minnow votes would still get nothing. So even if you believe that it is a good idea to reward unpopular posts merely for the act of posting, this doesn't do it.
And frankly many of those most rewarded posts are doing good things to help develop Steem. They are more talented posters, open source projects developing for the platform, curation guilds, highly participatory games (yes, I know this is controversial, but I believe they are a postitive), positive black swan posts from new/unknown posters who hit it big, etc. It is not at all clear to me at this early stage that spreading the rewards thinly in a largely blind manner on random content just to be "more fair" actually will help invest in and grow the ecosystem in a significant way.
I have run a bot which randomly votes on arbitrary posts and comments (with enough vote power to generate a payout). I did this in part instead of focusing on Trending even though I was well aware it was less effective in terms of dollars moved, specifically because I wanted to move (fewer) dollars all the way to the bottom (perhaps encouraging people who otherwise get nothing and be more discouraged) and not just take sides in the contest between the Steemit "millionaires" and "billionaires" (figuratively speaking of course).
Still, it was entirely speculation on my part whether sending dollars all the way to the bottom is actually a useful thing to do anyway. It is easy to look at someone developing a mobile app and receiving funding for development from highly-voted posts and see that it helps the platform. (I made similar comments about cutting witness rewards because I knew how many good projects clearly adding value to the platform were being funded that way.) It is less clear that sprinkling a small amount of rewards widely really is useful whether or not it is "fair". But that doesn't mean it necessarily isn't.
Yea well I don't think that is how the world works.
The net effect is that a downvote is a direct taking away of funds from someone. That is how this feels and how it will be perceived.
People are not going to put their emotions aside and say, well this is for technical reasons.
They will just be pissed. There has already been much uproar about downvotes. A downvote is a punishment and it takes away money.
If people make too much at the top, downvotes won't fix that. Its the reward model that is responsible for this. It works like a lottery where the top of the pyramid gets everything and the bottom nothing. This works exponentially. If you chop of the tip, there is just going to be a new tip. all that is needed is to reduce the exponential rewarding and steem will reward many instead of a handful. That would then give users a reasin to stay and to join instead of leaving like they do today.
Flagging anyone is not going to help anyone. It should be done in case of abuse and fraud or if you do not like something. But not to redistribute funds. It is simply not the tool for this.
Voting on steem is about distribution of funds. Upvote, downvote, inbetween vote, charm vote or strange vote, someone is going to have funds taken away.
They will put their emotions aside. Or steem will fail. Its as simple as that. An environment where money has emotional context is a fundamentally toxic environment. Somewhere like reddit or facebook, it could work, because money isnt involved. But here, trying to give emotional context to votes, will destroy the system sooner or later.
The reason little progress has been made in this area is that the people who should be leaders here have been far too willing to mollycoddle people who foolishly believe that downvoting should be proscribed except in certain circumstances.
It is absolutely the tool for this. It is the only tool. And as long as people with a problem with the way funds are being distributed, and are trying to fix that problem by using a saw to hammer in a nail, there are going to be bad feelings.
I think you have explained how it works technically very well.
However in order for steem to work, we must make it into something that is useful for many people.
The current structure is problematic because it centralizes the rewards to very few at the top. What is required for a successful reward system is a more evenly distributed payout algo. Cutting off the highest paid post with exponential rewards does not really help because it will simply give the rewards to the 2nd highest post, where you would have to re-do the same procedure.
We could simply just pay rewards according to how many votes weighted by SP authors receive and many more people would be paid and be happy. This would create greater retention and attract more users.
Downvoting the way you described as a tool for re-distributing funds looks to me like a workaround that does not work (i.e. like @smooth described).
I think so too... But it would be tough to adjust this late in the game. It should have been pushed long ago and now they will need help defending themselves if they try to change public perception.
This part is not correct really. Downvotes are not stronger than upvotes period. A downvote that reduces a post with a large payout seems to have a large effect, but that same vote power would have an even larger effect if applied to that post as an upvote. In reality downvotes and upvotes are just added together linearly. They have the same strength in that sense.
(Excluding the case where a downvote drives the post below zero, in which case some of the downvoting power is "wasted". Also excluding the case you mentioned where the post already has an overwheming share of the entire pool)
If you end up reading all of the additional comments, apologies for how something I said might have come across--when I mentioned the curation rewards being drastically reduced and you told me that they weren't, well technically you were right but you didn't explain that it was the interest to SP that got cut drastically which- as I was new at the time I wouldn't have distinguished the difference. I was only making money from curation because my posts hadn't been noticed yet and my focus was on SP because that's what I was told mattered most if I was in it for the long haul, and I was watching my SP increase daily and significantly, then suddenly that stopped. I do understand the whole scope of it now.
Yes, that's what I meant earlier, but I wasn't clear enough about it. I'm glad you were able to figure it out and gain a better understanding.
Yeah, rereading it, It was kind of a thought i started on but never followed through with.... that part was on the wrong track
There you are! :) I am resteeming this. Everyone should.
Be sure I try to understand... it seems very very interesting but my english is not good enough to understand everything.. I hope to find a translation in french of that to better understand Steemit and is system
It's a really interesting perspective!
Looking forward to part 2. I do like the way that someone steps up to the plate to explain the next level of complexity and starts to map out how to use the tolls strategically - just when my brain is ready to absorb the detail.
Let the purge begin... :-D Hahaha! I'd like to let loose with my down button.