SBI - Refund Policy Redux

[steembasicincome]

Steem Basic Income

Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemians as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.

Material Changes

Our original refund policy makes reference to 'material changes' as being a justification to request a refund under that policy. We acknowledge that the changes we made when we released our automated system are material, especially with respect to the upvoting bonuses.
We would like to reaffirm here our original refund policy, but also offer a second framework that is significantly less work for us to deliver refunds through. In most cases, the second framework is much more generous than the initial refund policy.

This will effectively 'open' a refund window, accessible to all members. You can only use the refund window once, and only for your entire enrollment (unit levels). There will be two ways of claiming a refund (one under the original policy, and one under a new modified policy). Requesting a refund under either framework officially acknowledges that Steem Basic Income will deliver all remaining subscription value to you through the framework of your choice. Your unit subscription will be effectively deleted and you will not receive any additional benefits from SBI membership unless you choose to enroll again.

If you enroll again after your refund (or your initial enrollment is after this announcement), your post-refund subscription will again be subject to the 'material changes' requirement until we (potentially) tokenize.

Original Refund Policy - Sourced from our latest FAQ

Members that are terminated for plagiarism or other illegal activity will still receive a partial refund of any enrollment fee they have paid (enrollments paid by the member, not enrollments where the member was sponsored). We calculate the total STEEM value of upvotes received (assuming 50/50 distribution and using STEEM/SBD ratio from the date of each payout and refund any enrollment value not returned through upvotes. (In effect, members terminated for plagiarism are not entitled to any profit.)

If there is a material change to the program, we will offer a partial refund to members that disagree with the new terms of the program. (For example, there will be material changes when we finish the automation project, and an official announcement will be published before the changes go into effect).
This refund option is only valid for enrollments received before the official announcement of the new terms. In this case, the member is entitled to 200% of the enrollment fees they paid, minus the total STEEM value of upvotes received, but curation earned by @steembasicincome would be removed from the total.
In effect, members refunded through this method are entitled to upvotes worth 200% of their initial subscription payment. If the member has already received upvotes worth more than 200% of their enrollment fees, they would not be entitled to any refund. There may be a delay in processing refunds of this type if there is a high volume of requests, and members requesting refunds will not receive upvotes while their refund is pending.

We do not accept refund requests from members for any reason other than a material change to the program. If you want to stop receiving upvotes, you can request your subscription value (shares) to be reassigned to somebody else, but you will not receive any refund.

Clarifications

There are a few key things to note in the original refund policy. First, a clear division is made between units that somebody sponsors you for (sponsored units) versus units that you receive when you sponsor somebody else (enrolled units). Enrolled units have a subscription value of 1 STEEM (you enroll for 1 STEEM per unit), and and sponsored units are treated as a bonus and have a subscription value of 0 STEEM.

Under this policy, only the subscription value is subject to refund. If you are a blacklisted member, this policy will be the only policy available to you, which means you will not be entitled to any value for sponsored units. If you are not a blacklisted member, this policy entitles you to a liquid (STEEM) refund of 2 STEEM for each enrolled unit. Sponsored units still have a refund value of 0 (the sponsored unit is covered by the 200% ROI on the enrolled unit

Second, since your SBI membership is a subscription we net the received value from the total subscription amount paid (or 2x amount paid for non blacklisted members) before processing your subscription, assuming 50/50 distribution. This means that we will determine the total SP and SBD that you have already received from SBI upvotes, calculate the STEEM value using the mid-point coinmarketcap prices for each post payout date, and subtract the total you have already received from the subscription value and then refund the rest. No account may receive in refund a greater value than total STEEM they have enrolled into the program. (All potential earnings are delivered by upvoting, not by use/abuse of refund calculations.)

Since there was a substantial SBD premium over most of our program life, we believe that many older members will have already achieved 200% ROI and not be entitled to any refund balance. If you request a refund under this method, your full unit subscription will still be removed, even if it turns out that you are not entitled to any refund balance.

New Refund Framework

Refunds under the original policy involve substantial calculations to determine the STEEM value of SBD received based on post payout dates and coinmarketcap price history. In addition, they require us to pay out liquid funds that we would much prefer to keep in the program, growing the SP base.

Accordingly, we have established a secondary refund framework that has a much lower cognitive load, but would be paid out through upvotes. Since upvotes cannot be delivered to blacklisted accounts, they are only eligible under the initial refund policy.

For eligible accounts, the new refund framework will keep enrolled units at a 2 STEEM potential value, but will grant a 0.50 STEEM potential to all sponsored units. In effect the total potential ROI under this framework is 250% for each 1 STEEM enrolllment. Refunds would be delivered through an accelerated upvote schedule:
Since our system tracks pending upvote values using rshares, we will deliver the accelerated upvotes through our normal delivery system, by manually removing your units from record and increasing your rshares_balance with any surplus value you are due.

Identifying Surplus Value

We will select the highest value paid post that we can from the same block as your refund request. If there are no paid posts in that block, we will move to the next block after your request and look again, one block at a time, until we find a paid post. The rshares to SP/STEEM ratio from that paid post will be treated as a reference price. If the post is a 100% post, then the total rshares delivered to the post, divided by the SP paid on that post, will be the reference price. If the post is a 50/50 post, we will use the SP * 2 (ignoring any potential haircuts, SBD premium/discount, etc.)

Using the reference price and the total STEEM subscription value of your membership (at 2 per enrolled and 0.5 per sponsored) we will calculate an rshares total for your membership. That rshares total will be compared to the actual rshares you have already received. If there is a surplus, your units will be removed and your pending upvote balance will be set to that surplus value. If there is no surplus, your subscription will be considered fulfilled and your units will still be removed.

This rshares balance will be delivered through upvotes following our normal delivery (20% of remaining balance on each post) until the remaining rshares balance is below the level required to surpass our minimum upvote threshold. When an account with 0 units is found to have fewer rshares remaining than 5x the minimum upvote threshold, the member record will be removed and the remaining rshares balance (~0.05 value) will be lost.

If the user enrolls again before that point is reached, it will not be a 0 unit account, will not be removed, and the ~0.05 residual value will not be lost.

Request Syntax

To request a liquid refund under the original policy, please send 0.003 STEEM to @steembasicincome with Liquid refund request in transaction memo.

To request an accelerated upvote refund under the new refund framework, please send 0.003 STEEM to @steembasicincome with Upvote refund request.

Refunds requests with incorrect syntax or invalid transaction amounts will not be processed. We consider those to be indications that the user does not understand how our refund policies work, and may not realize that their refund request would result in full termination of their existing subscription (no more upvote value accrual from any of our value streams) after delivery of their refund is processed.

Each account can only request a refund one time, under one method, and the method chosen cannot be changed if the user finds that the calculated outcome is different than they expected.

Unit Transfers

In most cases, members that have been with us for an extended period would do better to find somebody willing to pay for a transfer of their subscription units than they will under either refund framework. Unit transfers were never an officially announced feature of our program until now, but something we allowed on a case by case basis.

The minimum transfer request will be 25 units, and transferred units will be treated as 'sponsored' units with respect to all future refund requests under either framework. Units cannot be transferred to account they were sponsored from, and units cannot be transferred from black-listed accounts. Any pre-transfer upvote value will also be calculated for the transferred units for all refund calculations (transferring units does not 'reset' the clock. We do maintain a history of when/how those units originated.

Enrollment

If you want to get involved in Steem Basic Income, or to increase the level of upvotes that you receive, enrollment is pretty straightforward:

Just send 1 STEEM to @steembasicincome. Include the name of a Steemian to sponsor in the transaction memo (preceded by @). You and the person you sponsor will each receive 1 unit in the program. You can sponsor any active Steemian (except for yourself), it does not have to be a current member.

If you're unclear, please check out our full transaction memo guidelines and then let us know if you have any questions.
https://steemit.com/busy/@steembasicincome/steem-basic-income-updated-transaction-memo-guidelines

The official currency for enrollment is STEEM. If we choose to accept SBD without refunding it, you do not receive extra value for it.

Enrollments are processed automatically every 144 minutes. Confirmation transactions are still manual and typically are sent within 2-3 days. Even if you have not received a welcome transaction, you can check your status using !sbi status.

With the new minimum upvote thresholds, it may take time for an initial enrollment to accrue enough value to start receiving upvotes.

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Questions?

Please read our FAQ. Most questions are addressed in our FAQ or in the ‘Helpful Reading’ listed below. If you still have questions, ask in the comments section or join us in our discord channel.

You can look up your current membership levels by using !sbi status in a comment or post, or by using our newly modified member lookup tool.

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Helpful Reading	📖
A Complete Overview	Frequently Asked Questions
Managing Voting Power	Pulling Back the Screen
Steem Basic Income, rShares, and Automation	New SBI Member Lookup Tool
Vote Values in Steem Basic Income - Part One: Blockchain	Vote Values in Steem Basic Income - Part Two: The Way We Were
Vote Values in Steem Basic Income - Part Three: Where Are We Going?	SBI 1.0 - Initial Automation Release
Vote Values in Steem Basic Income: Part Four - Value Balances and Upvote Delivery	Responsible Voting and Following

---

Foreign Language Resources	📖
[VN] Phân tích rủi ro và ước lượng xác suất cho SBI.	[Traduction] Steem Basic Income - FAQ
[PT] Steem Basic Income - Questões Frequentes	Steem基本收入 (Steem Basic Income) - 常见问题 FAQ
Filipino Translation: Steem Basic Income - Frequently Asked Questions	Filipino Translation: Steem Basic Income - A Complete Overview
Indonesia translation: Steem Basic Income - Frequently Asked Questions

Comments

[calluna]

I am sorry, i have read all the posts I can find and i am still not sure I understand how the refund works at all.

If someone is not able to post for a period of time or is thinking about leaving the platform, and doesn't want their SBI shares to expire, how are they able to get the refund if they don't have any posts to be upvoted at the accelerated value? How much is one share worth when refunded in terms of upvote value? And surely the person would lose a proportion of the refund to the curation? I don't think I have understood this right at all.

Is it possible for someone to sell their shares instead of getting an upvote? And if so, does @steembasicincome buy them, or would they need to sell them to another user?

Thank you

[sbi-booster]

This post covers these questions:
https://steemit.com/busy/@steembasicincome/sbi-refund-policy-redux

Incidentally, SBI subscription does not expire. Pending upvote value continues growing until you return. We do have some plans to eventually cap that at 100 days of value, but that is not currently under development.

[calluna]

I am sure it does but I had read it and still didn't understand, I appreciate that is just me and sorry for bothering you. I think I have misunderstood what steembasicincome is at its core and for some reason thought it was an actual share in a community version of universal basic. Its sad about early supporters being seen as having taken too much already, I didn't realise there was that feeling here. I will get someone else to read these posts and see if they can help me figure it out the material change aspect. I suspect rereading it, it doesn't matter how you would refund hypothetically because when it comes to the calculation people have had the initial value back in upvotes, and cos it was never a share that had its own value, requesting a refund is just requesting not to be part of the system, but I will find someone to help me figure it out. I had seen a spreadsheet of upvotes where people were removed after 30 days no posting and suspect I have just confused myself by only catching posts here and there and not getting the full picture, but I will figure it out. Thank you for the link.

[sbi-booster]

The spreadsheet with people removed after 30 days was part of our old system, and they weren't actually removed, just paused (and reinstated after a couple of posts). That was because of a limitation in manual processing, and that limitation was removed with the release of our new system in December. We don't 'pause' anybody now. Pending vote value keeps growing until they post.

We don't think that early supporters took too much. It's intended to be a lifetime basic support, and early versus late shouldn't make a difference. In fact, when we deployed our new system, we calculated what everyone's value would have been with the new calculations and started everyone that had under-performed projections with catch-up balances.

The issues with the refund policy are around liquidity. Everything we receive from enrollments, author rewards, curation rewards, etc. is used to attain target SP levels that allow for a lifetime of sustainable support. That means we can't just refund everyone on demand - the STEEM is either locked up in SP or spent on delegations.
Enrollment is a commitment, so the refund policy is intentionally strict. The best way to manage that is to factor in upvotes already received when considering what refund potentially could/should be delivered.

Your original enrollment is long enough ago that you qualify under the 'material change' clause for all of your enrollments before December 6, 2018. If you did not already attain 200% ROI over the duration of your enrollment, you could receive some refund of your enrollment amounts. In either case you might do better by finding somebody willing to pay you for units and request them to be transferred.

[funtraveller]

Hi, for how long would it take to recieve the "liquid steem refund"?

[sbi-booster]

Those are handled manually and would normally be processed within a few days.

[pennsif]

This post has been included in today's SOS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.

---

• Editor of the The State of Steem SoS Daily News.

• Promoter of The State of Steem SoS Weekly Forums.

• Editor of the weekly listing of steem radio shows, podcasts & social broadcasts.

• Founder of the A Dollar A Day charitable giving project.

---

[sbi-booster]

thanks, @pennsif!

[bucipuci]

Thanks for the important information.

[sbi-booster]

You're welcome!

[bucipuci]

;-)

[steemitboard]

Congratulations @steembasicincome! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published a post every day of the week

_{Click here to view your Board
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP}

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Support SteemitBoard's project! Vote for its witness and get one more award!

[sbi-booster]

That's a little embarrassing that we are a year in and finally got this achievement!

[steem-ua]

Hi @steembasicincome!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 5.633 which ranks you at #488 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 4 places in the last three days (old rank 484).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 199 contributions, your post is ranked at #23.

Evaluation of your UA score:

• You've built up a nice network.
• The readers appreciate your great work!
• Good user engagement!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

[arcange]

Congratulations @steembasicincome!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:

• Upvotes - Ranked 10 with 1089 upvotes
• Comments - Ranked 8 with 56 comments

[sbi-booster]

Wow, two rankings! First time ever, I think.

[arcange]

Well done ;)

[flugschwein]

!sbi status

[sbi9]

Hi @flugschwein!

• you have 5 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 367700306634 or 0.208 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.042 $

[steemengines]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko iOS

[sbi4]

Hi @steemengines!

• you have 16 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 801129746622 or 0.453 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.091 $

[bergamote]

!sbi status

[steembasicincome]

Hi @bergamote!

• you have 1 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 28964631916 or 0.016 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.003 $) is above 0.011 $

[bergamote]

j'ai plus que ça normalement merci de vérifier

[sbi-booster]

Vote Values in Steem Basic Income - Part Three: Where Are We Going?

[fitinfunfood]

!sbi status

[sbi5]

Hi @fitinfunfood!

• you have 31 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 81321859809 or 0.046 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.009 $) is above 0.011 $

[cryptojiang]

!sbi status

[steembasicincome]

Hi @cryptojiang!

• you have 20 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 89649629302 or 0.051 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.010 $) is above 0.011 $

[ronaldoavelino]

!sbi status

[sbi7]

Hi @ronaldoavelino!

• you have 196 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 404327361299 or 0.228 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.046 $

[steliosfan]

!sbi status

[steembasicincome]

Hi @steliosfan!

• you have 4 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 80794409152 or 0.046 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.009 $) is above 0.011 $

[aussieninja]

!sbi status

[sbi2]

Hi @aussieninja!

• you have 26 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 168786423656 or 0.095 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.019 $

[ketcom]

!sbi status

[sbi8]

Hi @ketcom!

• you have 20 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 93625249156 or 0.053 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[jalayn]

!sbi status

[sbi4]

Hi @jalayn!

• you have 9 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 1609925259097 or 0.908 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.182 $

[masterthematrix]

!sbi status

[sbi7]

Hi @masterthematrix!

• you have 3 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 85358968972 or 0.048 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.010 $) is above 0.011 $

[pibyk]

!sbi status

[sbi8]

Hi @pibyk!

• you have 2 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 64802344432 or 0.037 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.007 $) is above 0.011 $

[pibyk]

Nice bot 🙂

[amico]

!sbi status

[sbi7]

Hi @amico!

• you have 19 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 98350540841 or 0.056 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[yelbosco]

!sbi status

[sbi6]

Hi @yelbosco!

• you have 3 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 34732050081 or 0.020 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.004 $) is above 0.011 $

[dreemsteem]

!sbi status

[sbi10]

Hi @dreemsteem!

• you have 446 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 1485933470881 or 0.840 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.168 $

[dreemsteem]

Thanks @steembasicincome
On the old system I had so many bonus shares... What happened to them?

Is there a link for that so I can read about it?

[sbi-booster]

Our old Member Lookup tool included the upvoting bonus in 'effective shares'. The way the upvoting bonus works has changed (you now receive an upvote multiplier instead of bonus 'effective shares'.

Vote Values in Steem Basic Income - Part Three: Where Are We Going?

Your upvote multiplier is added to your rshares balance, but not shown in your unit counts.

[sunravelme]

!sbi status

[sbi8]

Hi @sunravelme!

• you have 70 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 838417852909 or 0.474 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.095 $

[quotes-haven]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko Android

[sbi2]

Hi @quotes-haven!

• you have 26 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 94837281366 or 0.054 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[himalayannomad]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko Android

[sbi7]

Hi @himalayannomad!

• you have 12 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 96170843351 or 0.054 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[barton26]

!sbi status

[sbi8]

Hi @barton26!

• you have 3 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 1494286469576 or 0.848 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.170 $

[cardboard]

!sbi status

[sbi6]

Hi @cardboard!

• you have 1 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 29459590000 or 0.017 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.003 $) is above 0.023 $

[barge]

!sbi status

[sbi10]

Hi @barge!

• you have 7 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 134575683466 or 0.076 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.015 $

[hotbit]

!sbi status

[sbi2]

Hi @hotbit!

• you have 6 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 2960000000 or 0.002 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.000 $) is above 0.011 $

[amico]

!sbi status

[sbi10]

Hi @amico!

• you have 19 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 86380538436 or 0.049 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.010 $) is above 0.011 $

[shitsignals]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko Android

[sbi7]

Hi @shitsignals!

• you have 1 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 2400000000 or 0.001 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.000 $) is above 0.011 $

[dera123]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko Android

[sbi6]

Hi @dera123!

• you have 238 units and 750 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 14214175598710 or 7.946 $
• as you did not write a post within the last 7 days, your comments will be upvoted.
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 1.589 $

[niel96]

!sbi status

[sbi5]

Hi @niel96!

• you have 5 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 55600000000 or 0.031 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.006 $) is above 0.011 $

[robertoueti]

!sbi status

[sbi9]

Hi @robertoueti!

• you have 37 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 93215022443 or 0.053 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[robertoueti]

!sbi status

[sbi5]

Hi @robertoueti!

• you have 37 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 93215022443 or 0.053 $
• you need to wait until your upvote value (current value: 0.011 $) is above 0.011 $

[elsurtidor]

[felt.buzz]

!sbi status

Posted using Partiko Android

[sbi4]

Hi @felt.buzz!

• you have 295 units and 101 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 684964641422 or 0.384 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.077 $

[felt.buzz]

Thank you useful bot

Posted using Partiko Android

[fullcoverbetting]

!sbi status

[sbi5]

Hi @fullcoverbetting!

• you have 253 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 679975328040 or 0.381 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.076 $

[blanchy]

! sbi status

[yo-yo]

!sbi status

[sbi3]

Hi @yo-yo!

• you have 29 units and 50 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 2221897116368 or 1.223 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.245 $

[fionasfavourites]

!sbi status

[sbi3]

Hi @fionasfavourites!

• you have 41 units and 0 bonus units
• your rshares balance is 581507952351 or 0.188 $
• your next SBI upvote is predicted to be 0.063 $

Structure of your total SBI vote value:

• 88.37 % has come from your subscription level
• 0.00 % has come from your bonus units
• 6.61 % has come from upvoting rewards
• 5.02 % has come from new account bonus or extra value from pre-automation rewards
  
  
  Take Control! Include #sbi-skip in your text or tags to have us skip any post or comment.