For most up-to-date version of Curie Whitepaper: http://curiesteem.com/#whitepaper
Overview
Curie is a community witness and a meritocratic community curation project. Following are Curie’s main goals:
- To discover and reward undiscovered but exceptional content by persistent creators with limited success.
- To empower quality curators.
- To develop a curation community on Steem.
- To build communities.
- To serve as a community witness.
All of this with an absolute commitment to meritocracy and transparency with an aspiration towards zero corruption.
The primary challenge of operating an open curation guild is obvious -- people are going to overwhelm submissions with thousands of low quality posts. The Curie system is thus designed around principles of quality, while at the same time remaining decentralized and transparent.
Curie has two tiers of curation and quality assurance -- Curators and Reviewers. Curators find posts, reviewers verify and vote on the posts. Curators receive a Curation Score. Curators with a high Curation Score can submit more posts, while curators with low Curation Scores are restricted or disqualified from curation. This ensures only quality content is submitted to Curie, leading to a great degree of efficiency and streamlining of curation operations.
Curators with sustained high curation scores over six months are promoted to being Reviewers, as per demand. Through excellent quality curation, anyone can be a top curator, and anyone can be a reviewer. All thresholds are predetermined, so there’s a great degree of objectivity and meritocracy.
Previously, Curie had completely open submissions. However, this proved to be unsustainable due to unmanageable volumes, so currently new curators need to be mentored and recommended by existing curators. Existing curators are offered a generous reward for recommending new curators, to incentivize on-boarding new curators.
By voting on the best undiscovered content on Steem, Curie hopes to keep curators who choose not to collaborate with Curie interested. Curie typically does not upvote a post within the first 150 minutes. This provides a window in which non-Curie curators and curation guilds can vote on quality content by undiscovered authors, with a fair chance that Curie will follow up with a larger vote, thus making their curation rewards worthwhile.
Curie uses streemian.com for main Curie activities of post submission-review process. Curie post submission page can be reached at curiesteem.com or at streemian.com under Curie Guild (only open to Curie curators).
Curie is currently working on developing a front end tool for curators. This front end for Steem is being designed specifically to make curating more efficient with filtering and search feature. Upon completion of this project, new goals will be set to move Curie submission/review process to Curie’s own website.
Curie’s ownership and governance is decentralized, as expected of a community project. Curie earns revenues largely from curation rewards, with author rewards, witness rewards and donations accounting from trace amounts. 100% of all revenues are distributed back to Curie’s contributors.
Curie runs and maintains a community witness under Curie’s official account name @curie. Witness is maintained by a designated witness operator with 24/7 coverage. Major decision making regarding hardforks and parameter changes are made in democratic manner by top curators, reviewers, and operations contributors.
In addition, Curie also supports specific communities and direct curators with smaller votes. This is a developing aspect of Curie, that will be fully implemented once Steemit releases the Communities feature.
Curation Score and Approval Rate
Curation Score makes Curie possible.
After a curator submits a post to Curie, a reviewer verifies its quality before voting on it. For some posts, the reviewer may seek second or third opinion from fellow reviewers. Poor quality submissions are disapproved by reviewers.
Each week, curators receive curation scores based on their performance. Curation Score is number of posts approved multiplied by approval rate squared. Approval rate is the percentage of total submissions made by each curator which are approved. There’s an emphasis on quality, while at the same time incentivizing regular submissions.
Approval Rate = (Number of posts approved) / (Number of posts submitted)
Curation Score = (Number of posts approved) * (Approval Rate * Approval Rate)
Based on their Curation Score, each curator is set a certain submission limit for the following week in a tiered submission limit structure. Top curators have unlimited submissions available, while poor curators are restricted and ultimately disqualified from submitting to Curie.
The criteria for each tier are predetermined by reviewers, depending on Curie’s voting power budget.
Reviewers
Long term top curators qualify for becoming reviewers. As with Curation Scores, there’s a predetermined qualification criteria for reviewer qualification. Currently, this is 200 Curation Score and 95% Approval Rate over a period of 6 months.
Long term dedicated curators are some of the most trustworthy people, who will never risk any abuse. However, other reviewers and top curators are free to question reviewers’ actions.
Reviewers can continue submitting to Curie. However, their submissions must be reviewed by a different reviewer.
Direct curators
Likewise, long term top curators qualify for a direct follow. Direct follow curators have their voting budget and follow % restricted in a tiered manner, based on their historical performance.
Direct curation is more efficient and streamlined as for excellent curators a review is mostly unnecessary, and thus reviewers don’t need to review or be paid.
Direct curators can continue submitting to Curie, as their votes are limited.
Curator Recommendations
As part of Curie’s primary goals, discovering and empowering promising curators is essential for the continuation of Curie. An open submission platform has proven to be unsustainable with Steem’s growth. As a result Curie has developed a Curator Recommendation program.
Under the Curator Recommendation Program top curators, reviewers and curators with direct follow can recommend new curators. Recommended new curators must be bonafide and engaged members of the Steem community (no sock-puppets, nepotism, etc). Recommenders may develop their own process for selection and mentoring and can use #curie channel to solicit applications for curators. Once the new curator is verified by a reviewer, they’ll be added to the platform. If a reviewer recommends a new curator, another reviewer must verify the recommendation.
New curators are required to maintain a minimum Curation Score based on guidelines. Successful recommendations will earn the recommender a reward. Recommender may earn higher reward if the new curator becomes a top curator and maintains top curator status for consecutive weeks as stated in the guidelines. Detailed guidelines for new curator recommendations are posted in Discord chat #curie channel. In the occasion of updates and changes to the curator recommendation guidelines, relevant information in #curie channel is updated as well.
Community Operations
All Curie contributors participate on voluntary basis. Majority of community relations, discussions, and communications happen in Discord chat #curie channel and via @curie blog posts. Every Sunday @curie publishes a Curie Weekly Update post with detailed updates. Also, #curie channel is utilized to post most up-to-date information regarding Curie operations.
Top curators and operations team discuss, develop and implement necessary changes and various projects in private channel. Any other projects besides regular Curie activities that are rewarded are shared proportionately by contributors according to their contributions. Various members are designated to certain duties such as community representatives, general curation, accounts, witness operator, and sub-community curations.
Community curation is an independent wing of Curie. Curie extends support to regional communities such as Malaysian, Italian, Brazilian, Nigerian, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos communities. Although these communities are supported by Curie they operate independently.
Curie also supports independent sub-community curators based on categories such as Gaming, Education, Homesteading, Science, and Music categories.
Community Witness
The team here at Curie is continually expanding in order to provide one of the best Curation services for new and upcoming authors on Steem and an important part of this expansion is the upkeep of the witness and seed node. @curie witness will be run in terms of supporting hardforks and witness parameter changes as following.
Voting for hardforks and parameter changes:
Whenever a new hardfork is proposed or a parameter change is suggested, a new voting process will begin. Witness operator (@Locikll) will take informed votes from top curators, reviewers and operators for whether or not they support the hardfork or parameter changes. These will be totaled and result of which will be the action of our witness node. This action, once taken, will then be posted on the weekly update post following the changes. Curie is here to support the community and being a witness is something we take very seriously as it is the foundation and continuity of the Steem blockchain.
Specs and Servers:
Curie has two servers running our witness nodes and voting/reward tracking scripts.
- Main Node: Running on a 4 core, 8 thread processor, 32gb Ram, 2x 500gb SSDs @ 6 Gb/s with a 1Gbit/s port guaranteed.
- Backup Node: Running on a 4 core, 8 thread processor, 32gb Ram, 2x 250gb SSDs @ 6Gb/s with a 1Gbit/s port guaranteed.
- Full Node: TBA
- Backup Full Node: TBA
- Seed node: Running on a 2 core 4 thread processor, 12gb Ram, 250gb SSD and 5TB Traffic. This is currently used for supplementing our full node and can be connected to at seed.curiesteem.com:2001
Resource Management and Guidelines
In the world of Curie, there are two precious resources - voting power and money. All of Curie’s decision are taken to get the best out of available voting power. This means Guidelines are set to narrow our focus, and reward the best posts within the guidelines. Guidelines also change with the state of the Steem ecosystem, number of quality posts submitted, etc. Beyond the guidelines, reviewers must constantly adjust their “bar for quality” given the number and quality of submissions and voting power available.
List of the current guidelines can be found in Discord chat #curie channel and always kept up-to-date.
Money is simpler - Curie simply pays out all revenue to contributors. If revenues are low, contributors are paid less. If there’s a sudden increase in revenue, Curie will offer high rewards, operating at a loss till the balance sheet is, well, balanced. As mentioned previously, Curie’s revenues largely come from curation rewards, but also trace amounts of witness rewards, author rewards and donations.
Manifesto
Curie believes in absolute meritocracy with no compromises or scope for bias and corruption. To this end:
- Curie is a community project operated and owned entirely by the community. 100% of all revenues and holdings will be distributed back to Curie contributors.
- Curie will remain apolitical and unbiased.
- Curie will never vote for its own posts.
- Curie will never solicit anything from any contributor or beneficiary. (E.g. Curie will never ask authors to buy votes, Curie will never ask curators to pay for submissions, Curie will never ask reviewers to follow its trail, etc. All votes given and all curation will be purely on merit.)
- All Curie contributors follow the same rules, no one is beyond reproach.
Governance
Curie operates with a tiered decentralized governance system.
- The Curie community at large can offer feedback, suggestions or file grievances in the #curie channel or reply to the @curie Steem account.
- Regular top curators can discuss all matters, and come to a consensus on strategic decisions in a private channel for top curators. Witness decisions are also taken by regular top curators. Final implementation by witness operator (currently @locikll).
- Importantly, all contributors can be replaced with consensus from top curators without friction.
- Reviewers discuss operational matters, with implementation by the top reviewer (currently @alcibiades).
- All financial transactions are handled by an accountant (currently @liberosist).
- Community curation is an independent wing of Curie (currently operated by @donkeypong and @kevinwong).
Achievements
Curators paid - ~1,000
*There were other accounts used for Curie before the @curie account.
Posts Upvoted by previous accounts: +/- 800
Author Payout on posts upvoted by previous accounts: +/- 30,000
Unique Authors Upvoted by previous accounts is the low end of estimated 1,000 - 1,500 range
The above data was pulled from SteemSQL 12/23/2017 9:00 AM
Post payout figures marked “SBD” are the USD equivalent of the post at the time of payout; assuming SBD = ~USD 1
Platforms thrive on content and rewarding quality curators is important.
This sounds like a novel idea, I'm certainly interested in seeing what comes of it. I love finding new posts from people who don't have much exposure and that I wouldn't other wise be exposed to. This sounds to be a great tool for me to find such things.
But I wish that there was also a system in place that found exceptional comments. I've found that it tends to be a chore to find those golden comments on posts, the ones who invite interesting conversation.
I think that one of the things that's lacking in the comment sections is, first of all, the sheer lack of content. The comment sections are often completely barren, even on popular posts. And secondly, a lack of quality. Too many comments seem to just be emply platitudes that consist of some generic "Great job!" or "Great story". They rarely even address the post's content or envite discussion.
As a many years-long redditor it's obvious to me that much of the interest in a post is seeing what others truly think about what's been posted and the conversations that then branch out into even more educational, entertaining, and just plain fun exchanges.
As a person who rarely posts and is always looking for conversation in Steemit, this has been a real frustrating thing. I think that there are plenty who are starving for that dimension to the Steemit community to be broadened somehow. And I think that having some sort of more robust incintive may hold the key. Right now I only get a very small reward for my comments.
And I think that this will draw more people from reddit (like myself) who have become tired of all the negativity there. I myself went far and wide looking for an alternative. Over the years there have benn droves of peoole asking around about where else one might go to get away form the many frustrations and negative factors there.
Steamit could easily become a new home for many many redditors. But they will get bored with these empty and unengaging comments. Not to mention being sparsley compensated relative to posts.
And, not to toot my own horn, but I easily become part of the century club(having over 100k upvotes (downvotes facored in) without playing any of the games that people use to mass karma. it was just by commenting wherever I felt like it and when I felt like it. And I've said that to say this. With my considerable esperience in the matter I know that an interesting comment section can prove to be at least as nearly attractive of an incentive to frequent a place like Steemit as the posts are.
I think that commenters just need a more fair recognition to their efforts and talents. Already there doesn't seem to be much incentive to waste an upvote on a comment because it profits few. IMO, this is a no brainer.
Sorry for the wall of text. Old reddit habbits die hard, lol.
I agree completely! Comment curation is woefully underrepresented on Steem.
And as much as that is a problem, the lack of comments and people engaging in those who comment on their posts/comments is a far larger problem. The whole place feels like a gathering of exhibitionists who interact for no reason than to get more eyes on them.
Yeah the comments and interaction are the glue of the community. Sadly, it's something we don't see more of. Part of it is the lack of incentive and obsession with post creation for rewards. That explains the lack of comments on posts in general.
But on posts with a lot of comments, it's hard to get a discussion going. Comments tend to get lost and drowned out with the current format. The ChainBB interface does help with that imo and it's something i recommend for anyone looking to start a discussion.
It took me a minute to wrap my head around ChainBB. My initial response was "Ugh, what an ugly ui." Which, as I recall, was my first response to 4chan, (many many shameful ages ago), and subsequently reddit.
But dat functionality, doe! @jesta makes some ugly babies on the outside, but he(?) knows how to make shit work. Color me convinced.
I couldn't agree more with what you are saying here. Many times as a @curie curator I have seen a phenomenal post, fully worthy of the large upvote received from @curie, with no comments at all or maybe just one comment from the curator that found the post. It is a real shame. The economic incentives do not align with commenting so I have a lot of respect for those people who do spend a portion of their SP upvoting comments because it is a labor of love at this point.
Happy to follow you after reading such a great comment :)
Much love - Carl
I'll have to follow you as well, and make my to @curie.
Tiene mucha razón, lograr una interacción sería lo realmente valioso que se pudiera generar a través de steemit la web del tesoro. veces solo respondemos a los post sin profundizar o aportar a la temática. Una tarea por hacer. me sumo.
I used google translate for your comment, which doesn't really translate very well.
But, I think that you were saying that the real value in Steemit is in the interaction, not The Steem. Which I couldn't agree with more. I hope that more and more people come to value Steemit for the community and the interaction. Maybe people will come for the Steem, but they will more likely stay for the community.
Thanks for your comments and perspectives coming from Reddit.
No problem. Steemit could really benefit from emulating the success of reddit. As long as they avoid those horrible failures as well.
The more you know.... :P
And knowing is half the battle
Simply brilliant! 😎
I just wanna be part of this. I want to help others whose quality works are not in the light especially in Africa. I have seen a couple of good content writers in Africa.
Will learn the compliances and policies. Ooo yeah I wanna help help help!!
Thank you for all this great initiative; thinking about the mass
Thank you so much @curie for the wonderful work you are doing in the Steemit community. For authors of quality but low earning posts, getting nominated and selected for a curie 'touch of favor' can be a very life changing moment. I know people who spend zillions of hours studying and researching on a single topic just so they can write on Steen, only for them to get frustrated for their low payouts.
And if you are a newbie, you can easily fizzle out.
I believe that with the high standards and transparency level built into curie selection process, the onus now lies squarely on writers to strive hard for excellence and originality, because in the end, hard work will always pay.
Good work there once again, @curie
For me, this comment sums up everything that @curie strives for in just a few sentences and I feel truly honoured to be a part of it.
You are saying the exact truth. I know how it feels to study, even brainstorm, sometimes you will even be confused on the subject matter to write on. Finally when you have wriiten this content only for you to see nothing.
Nevetheless, i will have to keep pushing till the light shines.
For @curie you are really doing a great job. Without second thought I have already voted you..
Thanks for the piece
I was about to say something, but this comment hits all the spots.
Congratulations for this wonderful project!
I don't know who exactly came up with the concept and who(s) has worked out all the detail, but you guys are genius!! More power @curie.
I hear what's said here about comments and responses too. A very important factor.
How do we make it more attratctive to comment and reply? I know there are one or two innitiatives rewarding comments and replies but it's probably clear by the sounds of it that they're not having enough of a desired affect?
curie has been a great leader in curation and provided many great examples of outstanding steemit posts. the continual focus on communities is outstanding and I'm especially looking forward to steemit's pending format upgrade to emphasize communities/pods for topics/issues to further strengthen and connect the diverse audience here.
I'm thankful that you are performing a great service to sustain the Steemit community on meritocratic terms. Too often, there are just too many events that are related to power plays and reward pool plunder. Looking forward to Steemit reaching a steady state based on fair principles with upcoming changes.
Yes there is something wrong in the "State" of Steemit and your initiative is the adequate concept to clean this platform and to polish the content which will be the future of Steemit.
curie has been a great leader in curation and provided many great examples of outstanding steemit posts. the continual focus on communities is outstanding and I'm especially looking forward to steemit's pending format upgrade to emphasize communities/pods for topics/issues to further strengthen and connect the diverse audience here.
sir pleae vote
Very useful information about @curie witeness. I strongly support the development of tools for curators. During this time, many useful posts, many quality articles, get a low response because the Steemian concerned has no major influence in the community, or just a newbie.
Supposedly, the quality of rewards is not seen from who the person is, but the quality of the content. It's great that I can read articles like this and get new information. Thanks a lot @kevingwong.
I couldn't agree with you more RE the importance of better search tools for curation. I am really excited about the front end that Curie is working on :)
This is a pretty lofty goal; but, noteworthy.
Great concept; and, would possibly eradicate some of the nonsense that gains thousands of dollars worth of attention.
The mentorship should be interesting; and, I look forward to learning more details.
Does this infer that @curie would offer competition to sites such as Steemit and Busy? This is certainly interesting.
Overall, this is a great idea. The beauty of this decentralized platform is that there’s a little something for every user. Having the feed really helps corral high-quality niche posts.
Best regards on the future of your app.
Peace.
Well you could consider it competing, but really I think the more diversity on blockchain the better. But yes, Curie is working on a web front end, similar to steemit.com or busy.org or any of the dozens of other web front ends for the Steem blockchain - the Curie front end will have a focus on curation and advanced search capability.
Well, we wait for the development of the @curie tool that you say looks like steemit.com or busy.org. I'm sure it will be more interesting with more choices for us. Thank you for your response @carlgnash.
bg ayi tulong cukeh long sigee,nyoe teungeuh musibah.
lon di nisam antara.
Yes, it keeps the platform-designs competitive, non-stagnant.
The variances allow developers to create platforms best suited for the interests of bloggers.
Ultimately, bloggers are looking for the platform that gives them all the pluses of the various platforms under one umbrella.
As Curie continues to grow, the central attraction for the average user will be the "quality-selection" criteria; highlighting posts that have been reviewed as work worth ‘clicking on’.
Most know how frustrating it can be to click on a 5-star title, only to see a poorly tagged meme.
Best regards.
Peace.
The @curie community is formidable and exceptional in curation project. I must commend everyone for their hard work to ensure steemit users are curated.
From me I say thank you and keep it on.
Congratulations @curie, this post is the most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superhero or Legend account holder (accounts hold greater than 100 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superhero and Legend account holders during this period was 47 and the total pending payments to posts in these categories was $5651.34. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
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Hey @curie! Thanks for all the hard work you are doing to keep the platform rich!
I just encountered a post by @flamegirl that is sort of a 'find it' game with leopards in trees. The thing I like about it is the extreme rarity of these spottings (leopard mates together), while they are recorded with amateur equipment and put in a game as if everyday happenings. Sadly it's posted into the black hole of nothingness, so I thought about your project, perhaps you'd be interested.
Very cool!
I love the idea of working to encourage good behavior through the current system. Of course, that doesn't mean not changing the top down behavior of the system to try to prevent abuse at the same time.
Here is my curie whitepaper ;)
Thanks for share @curie
Your post on Curie Whitepaper is highly commendable. You have no doubt bring your expertise to bear as for as curation is consigned. I upvote you.
Good information for us...thanks @curie
ser pleae a vote i,am
great informative post, it sure does help to know how curie works so as to try and have maximum benefit of curie curation service.
Thanks for this white paper is so good of you giving back to this community @steemit.
Thanks a lot for this help.
LOL!, why din't you just used promotion instead of upvoting this post?
Good information...
Thanks for your sharing @curie....
Success is always for you....
I am very grateful for you @curie
Thank you for your beautiful work for Steemit, we all appreciate it very much! Keep the hard work going! @curie
Dear @curie ,
I think you would be interested on having a look to this project:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@runningproject/vote-your-running-author-of-the-week-the-steem-running-project
The aim of @runningproject is to promote the Runners community in steem, so as a Runner, I think it is a great and new idea
Keep working for the community.
glory of curie
glory glory
Well done @curie, this is a very useful whitepaper, thank you for posting this info.
Also congrats on all the hard work you guys have done and continue to do, you are changing lives and shaping steemit for the future.
tnx for shareing....
The work u are doing in the platform of steemit is extremely wonderful and admireable u are giving great blogs to raise the level of the community superb effort
Awesome work @curie! Thanks for the past votes on my content!
Excellent Post. Thanks for sharing the article.
Thank you so much for great writting
its a great innovation for all authors that post Unique contents,
would have loved to be a curator, spend more hours here on steemit than i do on my books,the process to follow in order to be selected as a curator is what i need to hear, i read alot and see so many good post not getting up there on the Trending page, i could be useful cause i scout football players and artiste for a living. could also here scout good contents.
Good
thanxs thanxs alot @cuire for ur wonderful work in this steemit family.us work is the art of an artist!love ur post
What a awesome project!
It should be more diverse by expanding to other language community!
welcome eve @curie,thank you for sharing,I will follow each of you share here
thanks.very cool!
I appreciate that you and your followers are one of the genuine contributors . And i need your support by re-steeming something that's the need of the hour.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@suria1903/today-i-write-my-own-crap-dedicated-to-all-those-who-think-copy-paste-will-earn-them-fortune-and-cheers-to-the-true-bloogers
Would be lovely to see @curie support the sport community as well. Thanks to this post, I have started to follow the curie curation trail :)
This is the first time I have heard about the project and what You do and reading more into it. You doing a lot of work for the community. Thank You so much for that and I hope You can keep doing a great job :D
I hope to one day be a professional curator.
Thanks for sharing @curie. I'm new in steemit and will follow you to learn more in this big families.😊
Let us know when yu'ns start supporting dissent/controversy, we will stop pointing at ya'll as the prime example of ganging up to rape the reward pool.
If ya'll have only voted 9400 authors, that is pathetic.
We have 50,000 daily users, and have had for months, we must have several hundred thousand authors that posted worthy material that ya'll missed.
We can pick our own gems, tyvm.
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote! I just ask for a Follow in return!
I haven't trolled them, on their page, until now, and I have been here since they were proposed as 'a way to reward free speech', which I called a lie quick as I seen 'no controversial content' in their rules.
They ONLY reward prettyspeek, and the squares that speek it.
They haven't voted any of my accounts, that I know about, despite having had several thousand chances to do that, a few even realistic.
If you disagree that ganging up, concentrating sp, and ignoring certain content doesn't equal reward pool rape then I don't know what to tell you.
Just downloded your app, its not clear
Congratulations @curie!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category: