Leading By Example: A New Approach To Curation Guilds

in #curation8 years ago (edited)


Having read @ats-david's post about curation guilds last night, I feel that he raised a number of important issues. However, I'm not entirely sure whether the post was in fact an elaborate trolling effort, because 90% of the questions raised were also applicable to himself.

Troll or not, some important issues have been raised-- ones that I too myself have been pondering in the recent weeks. We must consider what message we are promoting to outsiders looking in, wondering whether they would want to be a part of the community we are building here.

I believe there is a place for curation guilds. At least during this initial phase of Steemit's development. Without @curie and the support it was able to offer me, I wonder if I would still be here. Nonetheless, I feel it evident that there are negative implications to some of these guilds that are in desperate need of addressing.

The trending page is often full of guild member's posts. It was only a few weeks that I learned of who the guild members were, and since I have not once looked at the trending page and not seen at least one or two of them in the top five.

The content is not necessarily unworthy of rewards-- but the question is; is it worthy of the most rewards?

We have to keep in mind that to someone checking out Steemit for the first time, the trending page is going to be a significant message which speaks to the type of content, and the quality of content that earns the most rewards here. For this reason, we should be making absolutely sure that the top five trending posts are of exceptional quality.

Meaning no offence here, but I don't think, based on my own personal observations, that that's what we are seeing here. It's certainly not the best content that Steemit has to offer. We could and should do better.

Now, I have read over a number of debates about the issue with curation guilds, and it seems that the justification most often cited for this is that guild members should be compensated for their time. "People should be rewarded for working 10 hour days,"- or something to that effect, is a passage I have seen a number of times.

Is this true though?

I can definitely understand the desire to be paid for time spent. But, I do not believe that this type of mentality is suited for the task at hand.

There are millions of people in the world who work ten hours without monetary compensation. It is called volunteer work. If one cares enough about a cause, they commit their time towards it.

Does this mean that they are not compensated? No. They receive payment for their work through the knowledge that they have done good, the feeling of being able to help, and the spectacle of seeing what they care about improve.

With this in mind, I can't sit around and watch this continue whilst remaining silent on the issue. I have grown to care deeply about Steemit and about its success. A mantra that has been replaying through my mind in the recent days is;

If you want to see people doing better, then set a better example.

Curation guilds are hurting Steemit as much as they are helping it at the moment. I think the only way for us to move passed this is to create a guild that only helps, and does not hurt the community or the platform in any way.

I have given quite some thought to how this could be achieved, and I believe I have come up with the answer.

What we need is a curation guild who's members seek only the compensation of being able to see users adequately rewarded, and having Steemit succeed.

Guild members would never vote their own posts with the voting power bestowed upon them.

Rather than people working ten hours a day, there would be a number of people committing one or two hours a day towards searching out exceptional content, and suggesting it to the guild.

Members of the community would be encouraged to put forth suggestions of very high quality content-- not because they would like a finder's fee, but because they think the post in question merits a reward.

All posts upvoted by the guild would be at 100% voting power.

What good is it upvoting a post a hundred times to give it $0.50? This is useless. Let's consider the user retention issue.

Do you think that rewarding 100 users per day with 100 votes and $1 dollar payout it going to make them stay? Whilst upvoting yourself to the tending page?

Or will they look at those who have similar votes but 10 or 20 times higher payout and feel disheartened?

It is my opinion that guilds would be of better service by aiming to assist others at getting on the trending page.

Give a new member who has produced something of great value a boost onto the trending page, as well as rewards that are deserving of their efforts, and they will stick around as long as it takes to get that feeling again.

Beyond that, boosting them to the trending page will give them the visibility necessary to amass some followers and quicken their progression. Thus, enriching their experience.

Giving them 100 or 200 upvotes and a small payout will do nothing to increase their visibility, nor their motivation.

How this could be achieved

Having discussed this with @stellabelle, we have decided to officially give this go. We have also reached out to a few a dolphins and one whale who have shown great interest in the idea and offered support should it live up to their expectations. They also understand that they will not be compensated for their efforts, and are happy about this.

Obviously we are reaching out to even more in the hope of support, but we will be needing a lot of it if this is going to be successful. I write this post with the hope that it will serve as an invitation to any in the community who want to be a part of setting a better example.

To be a part of a guild that is founded not upon self-serving desires to gain monetary rewards or a sense of empowerment, but on the principal that the best, and only the best content should be reaching the trending page.

There will also be a keen eye in search of posts which attract a lot of user engagement. If your post has 100 comments or more, you should really be getting rewarded for that. I have heard it said so many times that Steemit is an attention economy, so to draw so much comments equates to garnering a lot of attention, and consequently such a feat should be rewarded.

To summarise how this guild would be different to other ones;

  • No guild members would receive votes from those who have gifted their power-- unless that person or persons does so manually.

  • There will be no monetary rewards of any kind of guild members. There will be no account for the guild, so it will extract no money from the reward pool. This will be strictly voluntary work from anyone who wants to help for the benefit of Steemit.

  • The guild's voting power will never be used to downvote a post, nor a comment. Not in individual disputes. Not because a post has too high of a reward. Not even for spam, plagiarism or abuse. There is already mechanisms in place for this type of thing, such as @cheetah.

  • All guild votes will be at 100%, with the intent of making at least one exceptional post hit the top five every day.

  • Whilst the guild will aim to reward the newest of users to make their posts get more visibility so that they can attain more followers, there will be no restrictions on what author's posts are eligible. Only guild members will be excluded. We want to see the best content promoted and rewarded, so if that content happens to be produced by a level 68, we will not exclude them from our consideration.

  • Controversial posts will not be excluded from consideration. Be it political, religious, conspiracy-based or otherwise, we feel that to disallow any type of content is to the send the message that some people are not welcome here on Steemit. We will be looking for quality, regardless of content.

These are the foundations upon which we intend to build this guild, but this is still in the earliest stages of development, so we are open to ideas on how it can be improved.

It will be a little while before this gets up and running, but if you would like to assist in any way, then please make your desire to do so known in the comments. There will be a channel on steemitchat created soon for discussion.

Ways in which you can help

  • Volunteer some of your time(your choice on how much) to finding the very best of content available for suggestion.

  • Sharing your ideas on how to improve the efficacy of the guild.

  • Offer your voting power for when the time comes that the guild launches.

  • Share your technical abilities for better functionality.

Reminder: You will not be rewarded for this in anyway other than seeing Steemit improve, and perhaps your account value increasing should the improvements lead to more people making use of the platform.


When first thinking of this, I thought it would be better to just share the idea and keep my name out of it. There have been a few instances in the past where I have spoken up about my concerns and as a result of this, I thought it would limit our chances of gaining some support from influential members of the community.

I have since been persuaded that the fact that I was willing to speak out at the risk of having my account's reputation ruined, is the reason why I should attach my name to this project. The community and the prosperity of Steemit has always and will always come first with me. I feel transparency is another issue that prevents me from remaining a silent partner on this project, so I have decided to be open about my involvement.


There has been enough debate, enough complaining, and enough arguing among ourselves. If we want to see change, then we need only be the change we want to see. If you would like to offer your support. Let it be known in the comments.

Please resteem this post to raise awareness and hopefully get more people, and more minds involved.

Sort:  

Good points. It is easy to complain about others but that doesn't provide a solution. We should all be working on making things better for each other. There are so many little ways we can all contribute to growing the platform! Simply sharing good posts on other social media would make a big difference.

My sentiments exactly. There has been enough words. It's time for action.

Thanks for the share. You just reminded me that I have a twitter now. Lol.

@son-of-satire I maybe almost a day late to comment but I wonder .. how about we start putting "guidelines / standards?c/ criteria ?" I don't know which word to use to not offend anybody here to encourage good quality posting. I guess, unless we do so we will still be seeing posts that some whales here call "poor quality posting" getting supported.

There are many groups / guilds that take care of newbies now but these days, I have noticed that there are those who have stopped for a while for whatever reasons they have - work, they got disappointed, got busy etc... but are trying to come back. I think it is also important to have them supported, too. IMHO it is important that we support the newbies, the ones who are consistently doing their best to put out good quality posts and those who are in between - like the ones who are trying to come back. If we want to grow we can't just grow by just welcoming newbies and ignoring the oldies can we? IMHO it is important to find balance on everything. I'm a minnow and my voice may not matter much but IMHO it is perhaps but time to put up standards on "quality posts." It is absolutely awesome to exercise freedom and an extreme welcoming feel to reward newbie's posts but it would also be a great push and incentive if oldies would not be ignored, more so - those who are doing their best putting out posts that reflect efforts - not just complacency - it's just my humble opinion and suggestion. What kind of post do we really want to thrive here? Unless it is defined - IMHO no matter what guild / group support is put up there would always be a complain when one "poor quality post" gets supported.

Please don't get me wrong but I also think that - there's a line between good and poor quality post - whether value is subjective or not - it would still be obvious which post offers value and which one does not - so where do we draw the line? Would the guild that you will be starting be having defined criteria of posts you guys will be supporting?

It actually states within the post that this guild will be about rewarding the best content, regardless of reputation. We want to see the best that Steemit has to offer, receiving the best rewards-- whether it be coming from a level 25 who joined on that very day, or a level 75 who has been here since its inception.

As for quality, yes it's subjective. But, as you said, it is noticeable when something is particularly well written, well presented and clearly a lot of time has gone into it. It's even more noticeable when something is lazy, badly formatted, and clearly rushed. So, whilst there will always be an element of subjectivity, I feel that it won't be difficult to ensure that everything we vote on(which will likely be only 10 or so a day), will be of indisputably excellent quality.

We have also decided that there will be an account made for the guild, which will have a daily post containing what we have determined to be the top ten posts of the day. This will give the posts even more visibility and encourage user engagement on them. We may also include a few runners up that will not receive the rewards but will receive the extra visibility from the post. And- all posts from the guild account will be made with the "decline payout" option selected.

@son-of-satire yes, I saw that part but I still wanted to clarify and sorry if it is a bit insistent but I really wanted to be sure.

Thank you and will be looking forward to you guys in action.

EDIT : replying on your nested comment

I still wonder if you guys would give a defined criteria for voting - if I may put it that way but like you said - it's just starting so I'd just wait and hope for the best.

I can't speak with certainty on, but including content from all users for possible rewards is something that is not going to change.

Yes, I understand this part - it's out of our control.

It's a not problem at all. If you have anymore questions just let me know. But keep in mind that this is still a rough idea that will be getting developed further over the next few days, so there is some things I can't speak with certainty on, but including content from all users for possible rewards is something that is not going to change.

yes, you're a great example to follow. I often go to your twitter feed to find the gems. Thanks.

If everyone just did the same it would be a lot of free promotion for Steemit:)

it appears that most crypto people don't like to use twitter. That's what I have been noticing. Twitter is one of the best tools ever invented. An entire world at your fingertips.

It seems to be the people on here. Most of the people I know in crypto use twitter more than anything but I suppose that is confirmation bias!

Very cool! Resteemed :)

One question - is there a good way for members of the community to send the guild posts to review, similar to how it is done for Curie?

I have been discussing this with one of the interested dolphins and it's something we will have to decide on when we know everyone that is involved. We could perhaps vote on what we think is best.

But, we recognise the problems that we are faced with.

Whilst there will be less of a chance of spamming with us offering no finder's fees, there might still be a lot of people suggesting their own posts or that of their alternate accounts.

If we get enough volunteers who are willing to spare as little as an hour a week towards looking for exceptional work, we may not need others to make suggestions. If not though, we may limit the suggestions to one per day per user. But, yes, it would most likely be through a channel on steemitchat or discord should we go down that route.

I hope this answers your question sufficiently.

good answer. While we'd want to avoid the spamming of a channel, I think it's good to have a channel named something like Engagement Channel. People can put links to posts that contain a lot of views + comments since none of us will be able to find those on our own. I mentioned wanting to get that data from the Steemit website. I'd still be interested in getting such a tool. Then, we can have manual curators go through those high engagement posts to determine if they are being gamed by bots or not. The posts that are being gamed would be shunned, thereby not receiving rewards. I think eventually the behavior would cease since it wouldn't be rewarded. We may even choose to flag it if it is obviously filled with bot comments......??? thoughts?
Let's see what people think about this.

I was thinking it would be good for each guild member to have a specific category for which they find the best content. Using the new page and the tags utility should offer a way to achieve this.

I'm with you. I have twice spent a couple of hours searching through available block chain tool attempting to find a way to display a list of most commented active posts, to no avail.

This would be very useful for finding out which posts are engaging the community the most. If course, the post would have to be checked to make sure it isn't merely spam, but genuine conversation.

This is why I included in the how you can help category offering technical ability. If someone was able to develop a simple tool that can extract an up-to-date list of the most commented active posts, it would be so easy to find which posts are inciting the most discussion.

As I am not developer, I am not sure how much of a task that would be, but it seems to me that for someone with the know-how it should not be all that difficult.

As for flags, I really think we should avoid using them at any time. If people are going to delegate their voting power to us, then they will predominantly be doing so with the belief that we will be using it to reward great content. So let's do that, and that alone.

If someone does try to game the guild, knowing that it is there for the good of the whole community, then I feel that person should be blacklisted and not eligible for future support from the guild. I don't think there should be second chances given either... But, this is obviously something we will talk about among ourselves.

I'm thinking if we give this post 24 hours to allow people the opportunity to find it, by that time we should know who is wanting to help and we can invite everyone to a channel on discord and get some real discussion about how we are going to proceed.

as a perfect example: this post that was just published has 42 views, 33 comments.
One of the highest trending articles from yesterday, which is in the top 5 highest rewards has only 46 total views.....

nest limit...

You're absolutely right:

What about a level 25-55 user that has less than 10 followers that releases a excellent post that would have engaged the community had more people got the opportunity to see it?

We are not defined by one set of criteria. I think it could be beneficial like you said for some of to focus on certain areas of interest. For me, I am not good at sorting through new posts. That certainly takes a very patient sort of person. I would like to specialize in finding high engagement posts, 4KHQ, satire, humor

Yes that would be great. Then if we can find an avid reader among the community that frequently reads all the fiction on here, they would be best to suggest the outstanding fiction pieces-- and they wouldn't really be doing anything they didn't do anyway.

I would personally like to tackle the art, as I love viewing art and would not even consider it to be work. It would likely be more of a therapeutic experience.

@abit, @personz, @clayop and @ned. Any help with getting a tool programmed to locate the posts with the most engagement (comments and eyeball views) would be very helpful for our guild to be optimal and successful.

"Sort by number of views" can only be done by Steemit. "Sort by number of comments" can be done by many 3rd devs, E.G. steemdb.com, steemdata.com, Streemian and etc.

ill point out the same thing i did in the SG post -- it simpply isnt that labor intensive to do it with like normal reading... probably the issue that most requires a tool is the division of labor... that is to say, if the X number of guild members spend a couple hours a day reading and noting the level of engagement, provided there's some way to make sure they are covering different ground from one another, that should be sufficient to see most things.

It would be cool to see more feed options than the ones we have now, such as this, or even more complex kinds of filtering.

I'd consider making this as a standalone tool in the mean time.

While @abit is right, it doesn't make it any more accessible to the average Jo. I'd also disagree with @sigmajin, there's a lot of things we can do manually but there's no reason we shouldn't leverage the available technology to make the process better. The labour intensity scales with the platform and could potentially be prohibitively intensive soon.

yeah, sure, that works too. Since curie and SG don't allow controversial subjects (religion, politics, etc.) maybe we need to niche down a little and give controversial posts a boost? This is not going to be easy. The idea of this guild is to live by the expression, "Anything goes." If it gets reads and engagement, well then it should be rewarded. This could also help people become more authentic instead of just voting for mediocre stuff that happens to trend. I think that would be the big goal of this guild.....Engagement Guild? Is that the name?

Yes, but we ought to reward more than just high engagement posts.

What about a level 25-55 user that has less than 10 followers that releases an excellent post that would have engaged the community had more people got the opportunity to see it?

Then it would fall on us to reward this post, hopefully get it into twenty trending posts so that it might increase its visibility, resulting in the engagement that was previously not there.

As for a name though, I haven't a clue right now. It sounds like another thing we ought to give some serious thought and discussion, because we want the name to promote the correct message. Perhaps I may even offer a bounty to the community to come up with a name, which will maybe provide us with hundreds of options to choose from.

As for a name though, I haven't a clue right now. It sounds like another thing we ought to give some serious thought and discussion, because we want the name to promote the correct message. Perhaps I may even offer a bounty to the community to come up with a name, which will maybe provide us with hundreds of options to choose from.

Here's my nomination: Combustor.

Get it

Because youre looking for a better solution than steem currently provides.

Also nominate "Incension"

Sort have a fire thing going i guess

@ervin-lemark, have any ideas for programming such a tool?

you realize that this will be very difficult to do right?
My thought was that this guild fills in the gaps of the other guilds. The other guilds so far are not supporting controversial, humor, high engagement, people with high rep, etc......part of me thinks that if we focus our attention on certain areas we will have more success in filling in the gaps. What you're describing, with each person focused on different subject areas is starting to sound exactly like what SG does. I don't think recreating the entire wheel will be a good idea. It all depends on how much people really get on board. Do you understand my concerns?
Curie supports new authors. I think we should let Curie do that, and focus more specifically on things that neither Guild will even touch.
But with that, no post is "off limits" unless it's illegal...

the reason to re-invent the wheel (so to speak) is that the wheel currently charges the reward pool thousands of dollars a week to turn.

Oh. Lol. After all we discussed I could not have been clear enough about my idea. I don't want to fill the gaps. I want to improve on the current system that is damaging the site, and eventually negate the need for them to exist- or at the very least get them to follow a better model, or join us if their intentions are really to make steemit better and to reward the best content.

If we have something that works better and doesn't afflict the platform with any negative side-effects, then if those in guilds that are damaging the platform do not get on board, their true colours and their true motivations will be exposed.

I am optimistic enough to hope that they will be excited to see something better out there, and will try to help.

I have twice spent a couple of hours searching through available block chain tool attempting to find a way to display a list of most commented active posts, to no avail.

So you think there's a need for this kind of tool? 🤔 I'm collecting interesting ideas for devs to work on (so far it's just me)

Just saw @stellabelle 's comment, I guess there is!

I was searching for it because I wanted to start doing posts like, "10 most active discussions on Steemit for you to get involved in right now" for people that like discussions as much as I do.

I had no luck finding a way to filter post results by comments though. I was a little surprised. You can do so much with some of these tools, and arranging posts by comments sounds like a much more simple thing than all the complex analytical tools available.

I created an idea ticket for this at the Steem FOSSbot org, will do it if I can get to it, or any other dev is welcome to try! bump for @stellabelle

https://github.com/Steem-FOSSbot/Steem-FOSSbot.github.io/issues/10

Yes, thanks for your response :) The one post per day limit sounds like a good idea. If your team is able to curate and find enough posts without outside input though, then I agree it might not be needed.

The hope is that it can be avoided, and I'm willing to personally allocate two hours a day to seeking out the best that Steemit has to offer.

But, if we don't have enough people willing to provide a little of their time, then we will have to make use of suggestions. I'm an optimist though, and I have seen the passion with which a lot of the members of the community speak about the platform. I think we will get the support we need.

Your thinking is much in line with my own. So I will fully support you! You have those 2 hours from me.

PS
Already spent them on here :D , so more again tomorrow :D

Tomorrow, once enough people have been had the opportunity to view this post and offer their support, I shall invite all who did into a channel on discord.

In the mean time, can you consider a particular category of content that you find to be a favourite? Each person will have a particular genre in which they seek out the very best content.

This way, those who are committing time will not feel like it is a chore, if they enjoy the subject matter that they are reviewing.

Thanks a lot for your help, and I will speak to you tomorrow on discord!

Here's the link for the discussion. Will start in two hours.

https://discord.gg/hx5Pn

Guild should try to measure which content posted on steemit is well appreciated outside the steemit. Those articles should be taken on consideration, whether they are worth to support.

This is an excellent idea. It has the added benefit that the traffic arriving from elsewhere will take note of the higher payout awarded to the post and consider coming to the platform themselves.

We will definitely include this as a goal of the guild.

Thanks a lot for sharing the idea, and good night.

This exactly!

Very good observation. I decided that I don't want to participate​ in any guild what so ever. If they​ include my posts, I'm Ok with that. I'm better off alone.

This was my thoughts, because on close observation I didn;t agree with the way they were operating.

I wanted to give my power, little though it may be, to someone though. Because I am spending a lot of time creating content and don't always have the time to find the best posts.

I realised the only way I can be a part of a guild that I agree with 100% is if I create a guild I agree with 100%. Even if that means allocating a couple of hours a day towards searching for the best content, I'm willing to do that when I think about the effect it will have on individual authors and the community as a whole.

It's okay if you don't have time to find the best posts, that's y there's supposed to be other people on this platform reading other posts, not just you and bots. You don't have to vote on every good post. I see this belief that "I don't have time to sit and read through all the posts." Then one does not value enough what that person has to say on that post to take the time to read it. Going through content is not meant to be "skimmed" through, It's meant to be viewed and read.

I could just be in a guild and vote this post and "skim" through your post, but I value in what you have on your post to do that. Reading what you wrote and the comments is worth taking the time to read, even if I don't get to other great posts. There are other great curators that can catch the others. That does not mean we can catch them all but we don't need to believe that we have to vote on all great posts ourselves.

I just upvote good content that I like, I don't have to be in a guild to do that. I only join a few days ago, didn't take long for a guild to upvote my post, it was my 2nd one. I don't mind, to me guilds will be a double edge blade in this platform, usually they bring a community together, but it's doing so in both a positive and negative way it seems to most.

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I love the idea of finding and promoting top jewels to the front-page.
If there are 100 suggestions, we should narrow it down to top 10 or top 5 for max efficiency. How would the guild reach consensus on what the top X that deserve the upvote are?

Yes for sure. The plan is to reward a few number of exceptional posts with as much as we can, rather than reward a ton of average posts with a mediocre payout. We will have to find the right balance, because we would like to use 100% voting power for every single upvote, but we do not plan on depleting the entirety of the voting power delegated to us. We want those who help us to also be able to have the power to reward posts they come across manually with a significant amount of their power. I was thinking 10-15 posts suggested per day, but the decision will be made between us all in the discussion tonight.

I like that you seem to be on the page as I so it would be good to have you on board to share your ideas and help us get this right.

Here's a link to the discussion we will be having in a couple of hours is you would like to participate and share more ideas. https://discord.gg/hx5Pn

Good stuff. I agree with pretty much everything except the end:

There has been enough debate, enough complaining, and enough arguing among ourselves. If we want to see change, then we need only be the change we want to see.

Absolutely, set another better example, but why is it when people bring up issues that need to be dealt with it's presented as a negative like complaining or arguing? Can you clear that up? What were you referring to? The people bringing up the issue, or something else? If something is to stop, then the reason why needs to be understood in order for it to stop. Apparently this still needs to be done, even if you start a better version. Thanks.

Absolutely, set another better example, but why is it when people bring up issues that need to be dealt with it's presented as a negative like complaining or arguing? Can you clear that up? What were you referring to? The people bringing up the issue, or something else?

I'm referring to myself for the most part here. I have ended up arguing with others who's actions I have found distasteful. But, it is time for me to stop arguing and expecting that to lead to them changing their ways. Better that, as stated in the conclusion of this post, I be the change that I have been hoping to see for quite some time now.

I won't be able to do it alone however. There are already a few people on board but, this is going to take a lot more than a few.

Thanks for the clarification. I've been trying to develop this for anyone to do with SteemKURE. Resteemed.

Thanks for the share, and for your interest in what we're trying to do here. I will give SteemKure a look before the night is through.

me too. I will study what your SteemKure project entails. I think i did read it once but I didn't study it well enough. Thanks for your willingness to help nurture this...

I'm not sure I possess the technical knowledge to understand what SteemKURE is.

Is it a tool for which voting trails can be set up, similar to Streemian? I had a look but, I'm not certain of its primary function.

This video shows how to work it before the recent update.

Here are updated screeenshots of what there is: https://steemit.com/steemkure/@krnel/steemkure-v0-2-update-member-functionality-to-network-content-curation

And the About page has info on what you can do, did you look at that?

The idea is a place where you can add posts to lists for your curation group/project/guild/community, for now only to select them, but it would have been to develop into review or approval, where you set your own rules for a list/group/whtever, and then review and curate that way, eventually notification of posts added at end of day email or something, following lists, and other stuff.

Eventually there could be trail voting on approved posts, differentiated from submitted posts, who knows. But I've been into posting more the developing steemkure.

Can you post me a link to where I can find you on discord?

Thing is, I feel the same way as you. Identical. Fear of commitment has plagued my life. I've been wanting to have a guild run in the exact way as you stated, but I was afraid of getting support. It's a job in itself to get support for an idea in a consistent way. Now that you've stepped up for the right things, I'm ready to join you. There's every reason to try to make things better in a 100% transparent way. And I have no illusions, either. Some people won't like it when a Pizzagate post trends, myself included. But if we are going to build actual communities that represent real people's interests we have to be more tolerant while we're allowing them to build.

For me, I am glad that people continue to bring up things that they feel are problematic. If it weren't for people speaking their mind honestly, including complaints and critiques, and pointing out flaws, nothing would improve. Some people are better critics than solution creators. Others create good solutions...

If you want to talk solutions, let me know. I was already working on SteemKURE.com as the solution for everyone to create their own curation groups/guilds/projects/lists/communities, according to their own criteria. I just haven't developed the idea enough to make it full blown awesome for people to use. I don't see much use since the Steemit Communities are coming, but I had the idea in September, just saying.

[email protected], let me know the chat, please use discord, not steemit.chat, please, just go make your own server, please. I say again, please, don't make me use steemit.chat. I might have to opt out of the guild if you do. LOL.

ok, i won't make you use steemit.chat.

I know people use gifs in a snarky way usually. I am not being snarky here. Just wanted to clarify that.

Party tooting celebration? Hehe

yeah, i think so.

Not even sure how to use discord. @stellabelle will have to handle that one. But, would definitely love you on board so we will make it happen.

i know how to use discord. yeah, having @krnel support will be great.

Discord, easiest app to use :D , install then join other servers, copy paste a link and that's it. There are rooms inside # whatever topic, voice chat, markdown support.

Curie seems to do a great job with their room, I joined in a few weeks ago for the extra promotion channel.

You should check it out.

I have a made channel on there. I will send you an invite later tonight.

An easy way this could work out, on top of my head:-

  • No delegation of voting power, just a channel / subscription of highly-moderated list of posts. Everybody, including whales will decide to vote from looking at this list.

  • Only one submission per person per day, along with commentary / reasoning why the post deserves top spot of the day. If nothing particularly noteworthy, don't submit.

  • I'd suggest all volunteers to make use of already paid-for curation guilds like Curie, Steem Guild, Steem Trails, and indie curators like @shadowspub. And other guilds / initiatives catering to other stuff, of course. Basically just follow and read from these as they've already spent daily energy preparing a filtered view according to their own missions. So this will be the filter on top of filters.

  • Invite limited number of submitters and moderators first to control spam. Up to supporters to decide if the list generated is awesome or not.

Extra comment:

While high pageviews and comments are something that could be noteworthy, I personally don't think it's the most important metric in the world. There's no correlation between great content and immediate engagement. Some of the best musicians, philosophers, scientists etc have their works ONLY recognised decades, even centuries after their death lol, simply because people were engaged with other stuff. Also by definition, highly engaged contents already have the attention of others, including whales. Unless the whole point is to generate more immediate engagement.

Btw, just to mess with you - this should've been denied payment to truly "lead by example" lol

You should mention this at the discussion later again, but my initial worries with it are that it would just end up like the whalevote channel on steemitchat. What happens if the guild volunteers spend a few hours each in a day finding the best content and then for whatever reason, no whale is able to make it to the channel to offer support on that day? A lot of time would have been somewhat wasted if we are not able to reward those posts adequately.

I'd suggest all volunteers to make use of already paid-for curation guilds like Curie, Steem Guild, Steem Trails, and indie curators like @shadowspub. And other guilds / initiatives catering to other stuff, of course. Basically just follow and read from these as they've already spent daily energy preparing a filtered view according to their own missions. So this will be the filter on top of filters.

Yes I think this is an excellent idea that could help us find the cream of the crop a lot quicker. Though, our searches will certainly not be limited to posts that have already been selected by guilds.

Invite limited number of submitters and moderators first to control spam. Up to supporters to decide if the list generated is awesome or not.

We are still not certain if their will be a way for non-guild members to submit entries. It depends on the support we are able to get and the number of volunteers willing to offer an hour or two a week. But, each guild member will have a specific genre, or perhaps two if they are knowledgeable, to wit they will be required to sift out the very best of content on which ever day the commit their time.

While high pageviews and comments are something that could be noteworthy, I personally don't think it's the most important metric in the world. There's no correlation between great content and immediate engagement. Some of the best musicians, philosophers, scientists etc have their works ONLY recognised decades, even centuries after their death lol, simply because people were engaged with other stuff. Also by definition, highly engaged contents already have the attention of others, including whales. Unless the whole point is to generate more immediate engagement.

I get what you're saying but this is an attention economy after all. If we are not rewarding posts that successfully get a lot of attention then what is the point really?

Btw, just to mess with you - this should've been denied payment to truly "lead by example" lol

You're not wrong. That was my intent before writing it but after revising it, it slipped my mind. I was going to come back and edit it to explain this but, I thought it would just look like bullshit so I didn't bother. I spoke to @stellabelle about it last night and said that whatever payout becomes available from this post will go towards a bounty to come up for a name for the guild.

I think I have thought of a winner already, but I won't know for sure until I discuss with you guys later and share it.

If so, then the generated payout can go towards a logo creating bounty. I have the skills to do it myself, but I feel we could get a much better one if we offer a bounty to the community.

https://discord.gg/hx5Pn

Discussion starts in two hours if you're around.

@son-of-satire echoes my exact thoughts and solutions and when we discussed this, I felt like he was reading my mind. That's why I realized I have to get behind this solution 100%. I can vouch personally for @son-of-satire's integrity. I would add that anyone who is interested in either helping or advising this project should contact either me or son-of-satire in Steemit chat so we can develop this further. People who love transparency are encouraged to work with us.

I hate to be That Guy, but, just know this; people will still find a way to complain about this guild. Give it time. Someone who doesn't put enough effort into their posts will still wonder why they are not being included.

Many approve of these things when they start up because they think they will finally get their piece of the pie. For some, this will be another guild that rejects their content. Hopefully, then, they can realize, it's time to stop complaining, and step up their game.

Good luck with this. The more the merrier.

this is a ridiculous mischaracterization of most people's problem with current guilds. Most people have a problem with the guild operators lining their own pockets with money theyre supposed to be distributing. The straw man argument youre making is the same one thats been made again and again. Its an ad hominem agrument, completely irrelevant, and entirely invalid.

Arguing? Who's arguing?

Clearly, I wasn't speaking about most people, just the ones who will find a way to complain. They exist, and that's fine. I'm aware of the other concerns people have... but I wasn't talking about those. I wasn't even presenting an argument. I think you may have misinterpreted what I said.

I think it's a good idea to ask these important questions, because they give us the opportunity to preempt potential problems and ensure we have a mechanism in place to deal with them. I don't consider his comment to be hostile in nature.

I have no doubt about that, and in truth, it's likely we will overlook some content. There is a lot out there. But, if we miss someone one day, that doesn;t mean we won;t pick them up on another one.

As for complainers-- we don't intend to reward sub-par content, or even average content. Only exceptional content. So they will just have to keep complaining.

That's a good start. Being upfront and honest about having high standards. So then people will respond with, "quality is subjective," then that fun argument ensues. The circle of guild life.

My question today is: If one guild supports an author, and your guild enjoyed the article as well, will your guild also support that article, or, will it be ignored because someone got there first?
(I see a turf war on the horizon.)

For the first part, I would tell them that if they want to be the judge then come and help us.

The question you pose is a good one. I think it would depend greatly on the current payout, the quality, and the potential for attracting user engagement.

By no means would there be a "definitely do not vote for something that already has been voted by a guild."

A lot of curie posts end up on around 12 dollars. If we see one that is very, very good, I see no reason not to reward it with more. As I said in the post, it would be great if we could help to get the best content trending, so for that to happen, it may(at least the beginning) require votes from two guilds.

I don't know all the details yet. I have shared in the post what I want and what the plan is. The discussion where we build on the initial concept will take place tomorrow, and you need only say so if you want to be a part of.

There is only a few things that are not up for debate. And that's that there will be no payment or rewards for any members. It's strictly volunteer work, so there will never be a reason for anyone to question the integrity of the guild.

There will be no excluded types of content, controversial or not.

And there will never be any flagging done with the delegated voting power.

A few more hard pressed questions.

Since controversial posts will be included. How will the guild respond to accusations of being racist after supporting one of our members latest, greatest, pro-nazi hits, "Hitler: The Man, The Myth, The legend"(for example)? I've a strange feeling something like that would be overlooked. How will you then respond to the author of such controversial material when they've realized your guild is anything goes, but their material is never included? At that point will the guild then have to amend their rules?
Disclaimer: I am not a racist. These were used as examples of a worst case scenario that should not be overlooked.

I hope you don't mind that I am going to answer these tomorrow. I have been chatting away looking at a bright screen for hours and it is 2AM, so I'm going to retire. If I forget to answer, just send me a little comment to remind me.

I love that you're posing questions though. This is exactly what we need to ensure that we have all angles covered. It forces us to improve the concept.

Speak tomorrow--

Okay. So, to answer your Hitler question. I guess this guild is already tainted, because if you check my history, you will see that I once realeased a post named Dictatorship VS Democracy where i asked the question, "Was Hitler really a bad guy?"

This doesn't mean that I believe Hitler was a good guy. Just that we shouldn't always believe history because the victors write the history books.

This is certainly controversial, but, I do not consider it hate speech. And it resulted me having some interesting, but respectable conversations with some Jewish Steemit users.

So, if it is something that is asking questions and not doing so with the intent of causing harm, then a decision will have to be made on that. But, obviously we will not be rewarding hate speech that is written with intent of belittling, ridiculing, or insulting other groups.

I have no desire to promote intolerance, but, I certainly don't have a problem with promoting controversial discussions that ask important questions. The decision will never be solely my own anyway.

I think guild members will need to have some thick skin, as there is bound to be this type of thing-- as there is with everything. I know mine is thick, and Stella's too. So, if we can get more of the same on board, we will be fine.

As for people moaning that their work wasn't picked. In all honesty I think we will just ignore it. If their post is one of the gems we find in a day, and it doesn't promote hate speech, we will pick it. If we don't, and they want to cry about.. Then we haven't got time to baby everyone who feels they have been neglected.

Our goal is to make Steemit a lot better, not to breast feed whiny bitches.

That's a good answer. You certainly have a knack for public relations and no desire to be politically correct. That alone could be enough to deter most attitude problems and pointless shouting matches about what's where and why.

I'd encourage you to add the fine print about what will never, under any circumstances, be included. You cannot say nothing will be excluded when you've already explained how low quality and hate speech will be excluded(and I'm sure there are a few more things that should be added to the list).

Also, about ignoring certain complaints, I get it, I really do, I'd probably be the same damn way... but... history proves when it comes to guilds, people will eventually come along demanding answers. Just putting that one out there. That's another reason why it's a good idea to have certain rules or standards set in stone so everyone remains on the same page.

Finally, correct, I'm not being hostile or trying to stir shit up(I see your comment below this and to the left). It's normal during promotional phases for everyone to be focused on all of the positive stuff, picnics, rainbows and flashy lights. It's support you want, that's life. It's hard to ignore the hiccups though.

Again, I wish you all the best of luck. I'd almost be interested in helping, but unfortunately, my heart is still set on offering the thing a guild requires to exist in the first place. A blog.

Yeah you're right. There will be very clear indicators of what we will be looking to support, and what we will not. Whilst we have an idea at the moment of what these things will be, until we have the discussion tonight, we won't know all of them.

In regards to ignoring complaints; The goal is to create a guild that is so transparent that there will be no justification for complaints. Though, I have been thinking today, and in spite of the guild being composed of strictly volunteers that receive no monetary rewards for their efforts, there is still at least one susceptibility to abuse that I have considered.

Members of the guild could collude with potential rewardees(I know that's not a word lol). That is to say that a guild member could conspire with a Steemit user and say something like;

"I will suggest your posts if you do this in return for me."

I plan to address this vulnerability by removing outright autonomy from all members, and having any suggestions further vetted by the rest of the members to ensure it is of the best quality.

In addition, we want the community to serve as oversight and point out any abuses that they might bear witness to, and if those allegations prove true, the guilty member would be excommunicated from the guild with no opportunity to redeem themself. In my experience, second chances only invite further corruption, because they feel they have gotten away with it. I don't really adhere to the justification of morally grey areas. You have integrity-- or you do not. That's my opinion at least. We will talk more on this tonight too.

Ones who are complaining about us not upvoting their posts, however, will simply be ignored. We won't throw fuel on the fire. Though, if after a look at their blog after complaining, we find that their content truly is of the best quality, we will keep a close eye on them in future. We will just not inform them of it.

I would like to see you especially in the discussion, asking tough questions so that we can think of solutions then and there.

It will take place here in two hours;

https://discord.gg/hx5Pn

Agreed so much, all should work together in favour of the community, all curators and guilds to work for the unique single goal. Enough said, like your approach. Sharing not only on the usual FB, Twitter is also key - go where the potential key steemians - that provide HQ content - are around.

the community, all curators and guilds to work for the unique single goal.

This is what I want to see. At the moment there are problems and we all know that. If we can work together to provide a better alternative then who can justify not following that better example?

Thanks for the share.

Sure - it is always the same, people defend what they own / achieved (no matter how) as they fear uprising others that might take away their share or "whatever they do not wanna lose" - it was the same on every other platform i saw as long as financial reward is included -) - happy to help

Well, I'm think that in the long run this will benefit even those who may feel that they're losing from it. If we make Steemit a more desirable platform then we will invite a larger user base and a higher value, thus increasing the account value of every person on the site.

Let us hope - what I am not 100% is when the platform grows the value increases for the users - we need quality content and when the real marketing will start I am sure there will be a lot new users but also a lot spammers - we need to get around that phase then.

When that happens there will be no need for this anymore and it will be dissolved.

But they work so hard on their posts...apparently harder than everyone else... So voting their own posts is saying everyone in the guild and the community wants their post on the trending page... Isn't there something wrong there?

Oh and they vote their own posts at the end of the 24 hr period now. So we are seeing trending posts from yesterday and 2 days ago if you haven't noticed. What irks me the most, is that's a shady tactic and shows the morality and intentions of the guild does not have the betterment of the platform and others in mind.

Oh and they vote their own posts at the end of the 24 hr period now.

This is something I have not noticed myself. If it is happening, however, it's just more reason why this volunteer-run guild has to happen.

Be your own guild ;)

That is pretty much the point of this post. I have seen it done wrong and now I want it to do right.

it won't be easy, but it's worth a shot.

As I was saying to @thecryptofiend earlier; It is not often that I commit to something, but when I do, I make sure to follow it through. This will happen.

The only thing yet to be ascertained is whether there will be reistance. I feel that there are plenty who stand to lose from the creation of this guild, but I just hope that they are able to remember why they got into curating in the first place and see this is a good thing and get on board with it too.

It will benefit them a lot more if it results in a better steemit, with more users, and a much higher value of their holdings.

It falls on us to ensure that we create is indisputably better. If it is, then no one will have any excuse to continue doing something that is worse under the pretense of achieving the same goal.

Thank you guys @son-of-satire and @stellabelle. I have never been wrong with my first impression on you. You are all kindhearted people that I always appreciate. In more than a month of staying here, I have been reading some of steemian's discussions be it good or bad. As a newbie, I have encountered the problem that you have discussed but I didn't regret joining in this community. I just thought of the things that I have learned from this platform as a lesson. Hoping and praying that those in a position will see and understand your good intentions for this community. Inspite of that, I did post my work in twitter and facebook to promote steemit. I know there are many kindhearted people out here in steemit who can lead by example.

I just remember @hopehuggs, maybe she can help you in poetry category. She used to have a competition but had stopped for weeks for personal reason but she promised to come back.

Thanks for the message. I too believe that Steemit is predominately composed of kindhearted and generous people. I have seen. I do not even feel that all of those who are currently abusing the system are necessarily bad people. They are merely exploiting a vulnerability that is there to be exploited.

It is not my intent to declare was against any and all who are treating the system in a way that I disagree with. I simply want to show everyone that there is a better option, and should we as a community decide to choose it, the benefits will be for all in the community, rather than a mere few.

I do not know of @hopehuggs, but anyone who wants to help and feels they have the passion and the expertise in any particular subject to do so, is more than welcome to offer a little of their time towards assisting us, and in turn, themselves.

well, that's the idea down the road. These guilds attempt to add some balance to an imbalanced situation. I think there could be a time when they are not even necessary.

That's my point, There is no need for guilds. It all starts with us. If we allow these guilds to form then they will form. I keep hearing that it creates competition and it's good. When we have something like money involved, the agnostic behavior tends to jump out of some people. It does not require to fight fire with fire. We need to fight fire with water.

Good point, I can't say I fully agree with you tho, people are bound to look for groups or communities, security trust equity and so on are on the board after all.

But you are bringing legitimate concerns just as @freebornangel

Yes @j3dy we can always choose to not follow the sheep herd. We are naturally drawn to groups but we have intelligence that evolved past that. Otherwise we're just doing the same thing we're doing in the real world with fiat. The banks are the guilds in the real world. Whales colluding as a guild are the banks on steemit.

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Thank you for this. I feel that there is a much more balanced discussion around content and the battle against 'Game Theory' which is counter-productive to the long-term health of steemit. I wrote this a couple of days ago. (Guilds Post)
I am delighted to see your replies are more numerous. I think that many of the powers that be found my suggestions, though, well-intended, a little too close to the bone!

Is the daily tribune a guild? I thought it was just a calculator of sorts. A what if..

Yes, agreed but it a repository of posts of the day and a place where people look for authors to follow - the point is that it has an influence. You are right, though, strictly it is not a guild. The writers guild is a popularity guild. The only one of note is @curie which used to be awful but is now doing an amazing job.
The 'Game Theory' and vote structure is something which I discussed with a witness last night for a long time. The powers that be have driven steem down. It should be worth about 4cents from a valuation perspective!

I really am seeing a need for the "old dogs" to gather together and share with the newer fish fries :D, What has been going on, I've only reached back to 5 months, but there seems to be a disconnect between the people up top and the ones down below. As in the real world, many believe things are going just as planned, going great and all, while the other side is cursing the "rulers" and scrounging for scraps.

Anyway back to steem, how did it go from 1.5$ 4-5 months ago to .15$ per piece now. WHY? and what would you say about it being worth 4 cents?

The value of steem is really solely based upon the value of steemit.com; there are all sorts of whacky techo voices who rail against this but it is just true. Where else does the currency give you any more than a sympathetic smile?
Businesses like steemit.com are valued upon several metrics. These include: number of active accounts (not bots, not alter-egos, not dormant accounts), the 'stickability of a subscriber' (retention), the potential revenue of the platform on a per subscriber basis, the growth potential of the platform, the spin-off opportunities' revenue potential and vertical and lateral expansion. Now, steemit.com has a huge amount of negativity in the digital comms world. There are people out there who have sussed the game out, as have I. They left in disgust at the structure, nothing else.
As a fan of the steemit concept I am here. I believe that the platform will not grow meaningfully with the structure as it is. Being in Beta is like being in a safety zone in a game of tag. If the structure goes live with its present system, it will be eaten alive. It is usurping of workers at its most cynical. It is not Social Media - it is Game Theory being played by a very few bigwigs. The reason that the value has gone down so much is that the world can see the extent to which the whales have usurped us all.
Would you invest in a currency which is 80% held by less than 100 people? And they behave as they do? No. So, to me upon all valuation criteria, it is worth a generous 4 cents/steem or $8million, certainly nowhere near the $40million because the whales have driven the enterprise value down through sheer greed. Not all of them but there are many.
So, there is a cure but it is a dangerous step. The whales were rich in July 2016. They are not because of their own mypoia. Mr Zuckerberg will be watching with interest and will have moles all through steemia. Such a shame. The Darwin Awards beckon if there is not a serious look in the mirror by some very unpleasant people.

Makes sense, thanks for sharing, I, however, am way past my bedtime and have stayed up a bit too long :D, thank you very much for the elaboration. I for one have seen how the community formed and then dissolved. There was much talk, huge payouts, huge supporters, lots of interactions between the community and then, silence, lots and lots of posts, people seem to have their brains wiped, nobody knows. Everybody is just going along with what is on the table.

For me personally, that isn't enough and having less people and less of that jives that let me not care for months about whether I was making money off this platform because back then I had people to look up to, a new platform to explore and experiment on. Now I've moved past the "welcome" page and since I've dived head first into creating and so on, just to get my power from .60$ Acc value(wondering where my rewards were for 2 months of upvotes :D, if only somebody told me I was being stupid :D ).

And what do I see, politics again, power plays, as you've said, Game Theory on a large scale, people playing the field, Curation mining, good ideas getting left out and the usual repetitive and unoriginal content going top trending.

Is it just me or am I seeing what isn't there :D, it used to be I didn't have to care about pizzagate making top trending, then it was steemsports, now it's flag wars and polarized "groups" people staying in their corner. Repeating their "mantras". Seems like the dream of what Steemit can be and the ideology aren't living up to the expectations.

It seems like Steemit already had it's moment, the 5 seconds of fame, and now it's old news and a broken platform.

It's not all bad, but there is much around here I'm not sure should stay past Beta, I for one, would call this Alpha still, hope developers don't rush and return to the past form. The platform seemed different back them. It had breathed new hope into social medias for me, gave a place where everyone was free to share and money weren't the only thing that was important, people were, not things.

May I make a suggestion? Come and join this group on Facebook. There are about 100 of us: Aspiring Whales and Dolphins
There were over 300 and I got rid of a bunch of people with no steemit account. There is a strong core and we help each other. @samstonehill started it and I am filling in after the birth of Luna, his daughter about a week ago.
I think you will find a friendly bunch of people who care about you, rather than votes!

@j3dy, Hyper Inflation. Producing too much Steem tokens and nobody spending them. Which is why there was the need to change the powerdown time from 2 years to 3 months. Don't know what this other guy is talking about the value of Steemit.com. Steemit, Inc is registered as a non-profit organization.

How about instead of slicing steemit into unrecognizable pieces we just ask the high sp accounts to control themselves for the good of the community?

If you need more eyes on your posts, get out and meet more people?
Move the minnowmath 3 decimal places to the left?
Stop teaming up and vote your own?
Why should loners get abused by lemmings?
Profits? Really?

Instead of changing a well thought out, intensely scrutinized idea we should give it a chance to change us?

I don't find the suggestions in your post to be clear enough.

Would you care to elaborate on what you're suggesting?

I'm suggesting that the people at the top stop taking rewards from those at the bottom until we get enough people in here to dilute the problem of giving one person rewards that cut scores or hundreds of minnows out of anything.
If the whale vote increased the pool it would be different, but when it simply redirects major portions to the favored few it is no wonder that those outside those favored have issues with it.
That looks too much like what we get in our daily lives, for me.

Changing the platform to fit the behavior is less desirable than changing the behavior to fit the current needs of the platform, to me it just makes more sense that we give the idea more than a few months to achieve widespread adoption before essentially gutting it to starting over.
Constant changes to the very basis that established us to this point is unlikely to prove a stable choice, imo.

@freebornangel, your suggestion of 10, 100, 1000 multipliers would have to be across the board. My vote, I am applalled to say, is worth $0.002. So, let's do the sums. Let's say a dolphin has a vote worth, for argument's sake $3.00. I, on a 100 multiple go to $0.2. The dolphin goes to $300. $299.98 more than me. Before it was ... I hope you get the problem! It is relative but it is absolute as well.

Is there some reason that you say it has to be across the board?
Can the algorithm not be adjusted in this manner?

It cannot really, how do you redress the balance? Where is the centre of the fulcrum? If a vote can be worth $30 or even more. A newbie vote is worth say $0.0001 - 300,000 Times 0r what I would call unjustifiable. We cannot go live like that - imagine the press!!The vote value is the key ingredient and it should be displayed in every post for all to see. Hence my call for the 80 most over-valued posts so we can see who what how and see the content. That will sort a lot out.
It will also show up shit content which, despite the noises, goes unchecked.
The horse has bolted. It bolted when the mining rewards were decided. Investor influence is one thing. Getting the influence the miners and intravoters have secured is the problem. The funny thing is that the behaviour has been counter-productive in that this is the root cause of the price of steem.

Perhaps the curve should be on a gradient?

I'm pretty sure they can make the math work however they want to program it.

Well, yes, exactly but, by definition, a curve cannot be a gradient. The two inputs are SP and reputation which is, essentially, the total of all the votes you have ever received but the bigger votes carry more, obviously.
I probably need to explain all the research I have done as it all interacts. The result of everything is that less than 100 people control 80% and less than 400 control 90% - distributed? I think not.
This is the power struggle which has led to steem being where it is. It should by the valuation models I use be at 4 cents

Ok, I get that.
Still I think the math can be made to up the minnows, and not necessarily down the whales, so that their votes can be seen to have some impact.
If we expect to attract people with .000001usd votes we are kidding ourselves.
1000 of them still don't show up on the ui.

Guess where the scrapings off the bottom go! Yes, it is a rort

I understand what you're saying now. But, I wouldn't consider this a change in the platform. More a refinement of a change that is already in existence.

The problems you speak of are valid. However, the whale votes do not always come from the whales manually. I am addressing the issue of whale power being used to redirect the rewards pool towards a select few repeatedly.

So, I feel we are in agreement on the problems that need to be fixed, but I don't think you are seeing how this guild will be able to make the changes that clearly you and I both want to see.

I also want to mention that this is not intended to be a permanent part of Steemit. I feel that once the trending posts start to represent the best that we have to offer, and once those who are deserving of it start getting rewarded for their work, the user retention problem will be solved and we will begin to draw in new users.

Think of this as stabilizers on a bicycle to help a kid learn to how to ride. Once Steemit has enough of a user base, there will be no need for the stabilizers anymore and we can put an end to the guild and revel in excitement at a newly improved and successful platform that each of us helped to build.

@son-of-satire, with all due and proper respect to you, in all earnest truth, when we get our Raleigh, the peleton will have rushed past on the latest carbon fibre racing bikes. What @freebornangel has said is absolutely right.
The rep score is understood to be a little irrelevant. What is relevant is the value of a vote. This is the building block system of steemit. Why is everyone so opposed to displaying the value of everyone's vote in a culture of transparency?
The answer to the question is that this will expose the exponential curve.
A system such as this should make it possible to reach the top. If it does not, as @freebornangel said, we might as well be on Google or Facebook because the whales are profiting from the minnows.
I have done the mathematics and it is an undeniable truth.
The leverage of investors is one thing (still unhealthy). The leverage of miners is a leverage which is unsustainable, irrational and unjustifiable.
As I said, I write these words with the greatest of respect to you!
As a sunote, please see this and see the responses: Guilds

the whales are profiting from the minnows.

This is a problem that is beyond my abilities or my power to change. I can't remove curation rewards or the likes.

However, what is within my power, is stopping a number of dolphins heading to become new whales unjustly, rather than allowing more minnows to become dolphins.

This will help to give minnows more power. And when they have enough, there will be no more need for any guilds at all.

No offence was taken at all. I'm not against people sharing their views.

I'd like to see the minnow math moved at least two decimals to the left.
If my vote is now worth x I'd like to see what happens with the math if that was increased to 10x, 100x, and 1000x.
Perhaps this simple change will give the dust reason to go ahead and get in the water, while not radically altering the seascape.

I'm not opposed to guilds, I contribute to @crowdfundedwhale, but I do disagree with some people pulling out exponentially more at the top and discouraging hope for future growth that is fed by rewards at the bottom.

I hope you that you are correct.
I hope that curation awards aren't taken away.
I hope the payout doesn't go to seven days.
I wish the power down would go to 10 months.
I don't want to make a set of rules for the whales and another for everybody else.
We are in a pond, no need to make some fish more equal than others, any more than already exists.
Behavior changes can rectify what folks are concerned about.
Imo.

I agree with your points. I don't want those things either. Though I'm not opposed to a three day fixed payout cycle with a three month secondary cycle to keep people sticking around.

Also, I think 30 weeks would be best for power downs, with 3% per week until the 30th week when the remaining 13% is released.

I have my reasons for this, but I shall save a long-winded explanation on this post, as it's not related to the subject matter.

I'm not strongly opposed to a three day and ninety day payouts, though I think changes should be made one at a time and not too close to each other so that they may be evaluated on their own merits.

Yes. I agree.

By the way, if you're interested in joining the discussion about this guild, and how we can improve the current model, I just made a server on discord for anyone to come and share their thoughts.

https://discord.gg/hx5Pn

I will certainly do that when I get an internet connection better suited to my needs.

Very good set of rules os ethics(behavior) and esthetics(good content) for guilds on Steemit.
Please give you opinion for the case where guild members working receive payments from outside the rewarding pool like a token from another coin?.
Expecting they put self-interest above collective interests

It is our intent that all guild members will receive no monetary rewards for their efforts, be it from the reward pool or otherwise. It is this sort of thing that can make a project that was started with good intentions turn into something else when people start getting a taste for rewards.

The main priority here is that all participants are volunteers, who are offering their help because they feel passionately about seeing Steemit improve.

payments to try and sway votes will not be accepted. Is that what you mean? If someone sends coins and says, "hey, vote for my post". Absolutely not.

If someone just wants to say "great job" or something to that effect, well, that's fine. But tipping the curators will not influence their decisions on posts. Only the most incorruptible individuals will be entrusted. I will mention that I have seen @son-of-satire act with 100% integrity in a number of situations. I am confident that he's a trustworthy person. He has acted selflessly on many, many occasions.

Sorry, That was not what I meant.
If you are in a guild and receive rewards from outside steemit(and not steem) to curate and look for "good content"(subjective).
Maybe it is good for new users that don't feel rewarded if they could get involved to work with for example with the rules you propose and receive a complimentary reward.
I was asking not about your guild but just an opinion about it (can it be good or bad?).
Would it help to get another kind of reward besides Steem as motivation to participate?.
Nothing to do with using voting or get self-promotion.
And I was not addressing any person or actions here, just like the line of thought by the author about guilds. :)
At the same time, I'm collecting tips for my writings about guilds and group-dynamics in relation to rewards and non-competitive societies.
And I'm trying to understand the conditions how a dominant group can get control over a network.
Maybe this can't be avoided until the day we can live in a total non-competitive society, where dominance doesn't make sense.

Resteemed. Great ideas. I wouldn't be against a small reward for the time the guild members spend, but it would be fixed and it would be transparent.

Helping should be reward enough. I think incentivizing the task needing done will attract the wrong types of people to the guild. We just want people who feel passionately about the community and about providing the best content with the most rewards.

We won;t have the opportunity to pay anyone anyway, because the account will always decline payout so as not to subtract from the reward pool, and no curation trail power will be used on guild members.

I'm trying to eradicate the sentiment that guild members should be getting paid for their service, because if the motivations of the guild are truly to better the platform, then there should be plenty out there willing to donate an hour of their time a week to doing that, without the need for a monetary reward.

Thanks a lot for the resteem!

Well I certainly find that admirable! I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

How is the golos thing going, I can't keep up with any posts here I guess, so I have to ask :D

Going great. Fancy learning Russian and joining in?

You bet, but it won't be at the top of my "list" unless somebody helps out. I have yet to learn Steemit and make a buck to support my time spent here :|

Spacing it out might work, I'm not sure tho. I just need help with the starting steps, some basic forms, I've read your posts, but they are a bit lacking :D have to say I won't be speaking Russian just from that. So far I can read and listen, but I lack the typing and the dictionary to talk and write properly.

@j3dy I appreciate how hard it must be. I'm learning too. Remember my posts are not designed to teach you Russian but to show you how to teach yourself, and offer occasional snippets to keep you motivated. Reading and listening is a big step. How have you managed to learn that?

Information and comunication.
I like your post.
I'm upvote and resteem

Thanks for that. The more people who get a chance to put their name forth the better.

You're welcome

Does this mean that they are not compensated? No. They receive payment for their work through the knowledge that they have done good, the feeling of being able to help, and the spectacle of seeing what they care about improve.

I agree with you about volunteer work and compensation. Nice !

I think it will be best and will leave no room for doubt on our motivations. Thanks for the comment-

Question, so I have been posting on here for about a few weeks and I personally have not got into all the technical posting that some people do. But instead have used it as a personal share of information that I feel is entertaining and sometimes knowledgeable. This community isn't just dead set on having only geeky threads about tech and crypto currency right?

There are many different types of people here - this happens to be about a topic which tangents onto a huge topic - how people are rewarded. If you would like to have very friendly humans, please feel very welcome to join our FB group which has its own very human people. We are about 100 strong with a core of about 20 who are engaged with each other's progress. It would be great to be able to welcome you along Aspiring Whales and Dolphins You will get as much or as little advice as you like as well.

Your concern was my concern when I started. By looking at my blog, you'll see how I stopped caring about that long ago. You're free to do your own thing. If people like it, bonus.

I'm surprised that someone with the handle Nerdgasm would ask this question. Lol.

I am lacking in technical ability, other than perhaps photoshop. I still think Steemit is amazing, and whilst there is a lot of this type of content on Steemit, there is also a very diverse selection to choose from.

I think as the Steemit user base increases, the diversity will intensify and the subject matter you speak of will become a niche within an ocean of differing content types. Stick around. I'm certain things are going to get a lot better around here, especially after seeing how much of the community are in support of this proposal.

Oh, I wasnt saying that its boring I was just questioning if the type of content I post on here. Appropriate? So far, I think people appreciate it, but I mean, it's always just good to ask.

I wasn't implying that- don't worry.

I don't know, let me have a look and I shall get back to you.

Considering you have only made eight posts and have 94 followers, I don't really think you need to ask. Clearly there is plenty out there who like what you have to offer.

After eight posts, I think I had around eight followers. You're doing very, very well so far. Your posts seem to be making good payouts most times too, so I would just use your own success as an indicator of whether or not people are interested in the content that you are sharing.

OMG yeah shes hardcore like pussy stuff omg

Can you blame her? Sex sells in today's society.

Thank you so much, yeah, I kind of noticed, but then again I'm not sure how much other people are really making, because I don't have everyone added, is there any other girls out there that are pretty big on the site, if so, who are they I'd like to see their stuff?

@alexanova is the only other female I have noticed who shares NSFW content. I don't know if she is still here though. I haven't seen a post of hers in quite some time. Mind you, I'm not one of her followers, so she may still be active and I just haven't seen.

Excellent idea that you are considering, you have my support

All the best. I'm very eager to see different models of curation guilds pop up. I shall of course remain skeptical till I see some action.

This is the best mindset to have. We will do our best to make this the most transparent operation possible, and I expect, and I hope, that the community will provide oversight over myself and other guild members to ensure there is no one taking advantage.

This is very exciting. I would be happy to suggest a post if I stumble upon a gem. Mainly, I just want to create and then get feedback on my performance. For reasons stated in your post, ats-david, snowflake, and wadepaterson's posts too, I've been conflicted about Steemit lately. In the past couple days, seeing these posts in the top trending, has really eased my worry. I think if people look in from the outside and see these posts, revealing Steemit, warts and all, with pages of discussion about solutions, they would most likely see a group of people who care about the platform and work together to solve problems. What an awesome display of community it is. How inviting.

The feedback comment is of interest to me. Steemit introduced to me writing, and I often hope for constructive criticism on my work, but rarely get it. I don't know if it will be possible, but we will talk about adding a feedback aspect to the guild, for those who put their name forward requesting the service. IF, we have the necessary expertise to give good feedback to whatever the subject matter is, and if we are able to find the time. We will see.. Great idea though.

I know what you mean. If I receive any comments I consider that a success and useful feedback. It could be a service, either voluntary or for a small sbd fee, of proof reading and/or giving good feedback from a pro or amateur. I wonder if there is demand for something like that. Worth a try.

I'd rather do it for free if we're going to. Helping the community helps us all. Once it starts to look like a for-profit organisation, what we are trying to build here is lost.

That' s not to say that you could not get some people on board and offer the service yourself. In the spirit of being the change you want to see, why not offer the service that you are hoping for?

I agree 100%. If I were to, it would definitely be for free. Something to think about. I'll get in touch through chat.

Good idea. My opinion, to have been more views and comments must first change the principle of presenting information on the pages of home, hot, trending. Delete the award show and seemingly able to vote without reading the post.

I'd have to agree. The trending page should have the option of "Arrange by most commented." It's not something that will be within the power of this guild though, unfortunately.

OH WOW
What a lovely motivational point of view
"BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD"

I'm afraid I cannot take the credit for that quote. I believe I have heard it elsewhere before. But, it's certainly words to live by,and has applications well beyond that of the Steemit ecosystem.

Indeed, I also do not know who the quote belongs to, just meant that it is the same motivating principal that you portray in your post! Thank you so much for sharing your positive attitude!

You are most welcome. Have a lovely night!

The more guilds, the merrier, right? I wish you well.

Thank you for the perspective.