This is going to be YUUGE! Listen up, I'm going to drop a lot of facts down that will be different than what you believe to be true.
If you been on Steemit longer than I have been awake today, you know authors get 75% of what a post makes and curators get 25%. Is that really what happens though?
Let's see check it out and see for ourselves. One thing I love about Steem/Steemit is that is an immutable (can't be changed) public (everything can be proven and researched) blockchain (cool shit, just add that to your business name and the stock will go up 300%!).
The first thing I am curious about is how often people self-vote their posts. So I looked into /hot and took the top 10 posts to see how many are self-voted.
Ok, with that out of the way, we need to find a good sample of posts that have been paid out and calculate actual curation rewards. So we know there will be some skew from the 25%, but you also have to factor in the 30-minute reverse auction.
A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the roles of buyer and seller are reversed. In an ordinary auction (also known as a 'forward auction'), buyers compete to obtain goods or services by offering increasingly higher prices. In a reverse auction, the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers underbid each other.
Wikipedia
I won't get into the self-voting argument, but I will state there is a UI element on Steemit for immediately self-voting, and it is checked by default.
I refused to self-vote my posts and comments for 4 months of being here, but in the last week, I have been wondering if I am doing it wrong. Then I also think about what my mother used to tell me about bridges and friends. So 
So let's look at some fantastic posts rewards from whales, minnows, and whatever else you want to call them. I'm going to grab posts from all ends of the spectrum.
Let's start with a @sweetsssj post.
The math we will be using is simple, we simply want to find posts that are post-payout and take the actual curation rewards and divide into the post total payout.
For this post, this means we do 72.05 / 395.37 which gets us 0.1822 which is 18.22%.
Let's grab another, this is fun.
Here's a post from @papa-pepper:
Math: 7.09/57.38 = 12.36%
Let's find someone that's not a whale.
A post from @mikepm74
Math: 0.59/2.87 = 20.6% Ok, now we are getting far closer to the 25% claimed, but still 17.6% from what is stated on the package.
One of my own posts that went nuclear. My first time breaking $100.
Math: 42.48/295.53 = 14.37% (I donated over half my post rewards to @patrice of @steemcleaners)
A post from @acidyo, one of the biggest curators on Steemit, going out of his way to reward as much curation rewards to curators as he can.
Math: 24.26/178.95 = 13.6% I'm starting to see a pattern, popular posts and big whales generally have far less than 25% curation rewards. Even minnows who have a post go viral will see a much smaller curation reward to curators.
Let's try a few more before we come to any conclusion.
A good friend of mine @makerhacks is fairly new to the platform but has been struggling to get views and rewards. He was picked up by @curie and @ocd a few times, but most posts are $0.10 - $0.20. This is one of his better-rewarded posts.
Math: 0.08/0.43 = 18.6%
The last one I'm going to grab is from @intelliguy
Math: 0.81/5.30 = 15.28%
Conclusion
So after looking at 7 different ones (I looked it more like 100, but I didn't want to bore you) we see the actual curation rewards range from 12.36% to 20.6% but never even close to 25%. In fact I've found some that are in the 6% range with lots of votes.
We can assume larger whales and popular posts curation rewards will be less than smaller authors with fewer votes. We can also assume most people self-vote their post at some point before payout.
Although there is no clear answer what the number is, if we just average the min/max we will get 16.48% average curation rewards per post.
Skip all the math, and just look at SteemDB and you can see the average is actually 14.9%. Pretty close to my number.
Thanks @whd for pointing that out, forgot about it being listed there
Hopefully, this helps shed some light on what curation rewards really look like. Please resteem and share to get the message out. If you want to do the math yourself, just keep in mind many services like Dmania, Uptopian, and others take a % beneficiary rewards, these will show up as curation rewards and skew your numbers. Make sure you factor that in, or avoid calculating posts with beneficiaries.
Got something to say about it? Hit me up in the comments, I read every comment.
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You better vote on a stupid comment with no votes and after 30 min, i guess that will give the expected 25%?
Wrong. You earn far more by upvoting a post with close to no upvotes at 30min, and then have a whale or a large number of people upvoting that post after you, than voting on a random comment that gets no more upvotes afterwards.
"You earn far more by upvoting a post with close to no upvotes at 30min"
Yeah, and while we're at it, seen any good unicorns lately?
Comments you can see 25% because usually, they have only one voter. But posts, it is almost never the case.
you can see actual average curration % on steemdb here is photo
also check out following
curation calculator https://s3.amazonaws.com/yabapmatt/bottracker/curation_calculator.html
and ilustrated guide how curation works
https://steemit.com/curation/@miniature-tiger/an-illustrated-guide-to-curation-from-the-simple-to-the-complex-with-real-examples-from-past-posts-part-1
Useful information ;)
I think there needs to be an adjustment to the curation / author split in order to attract investors who would buy STEEM, power it up and hold it, and earn that way (thru curation). If steemit was also advertised as a platform that pays good dividends to "investors" it might attract some curators willing to invest instead of people who are given the idea that they can just write a crap post and earn a bunch of money (that's how you attract spammers and scammers and people who post crap that clogs the "new" feed).
Maybe I'm missing something but I think in order for STEEM to appreciate in value significantly curators need to get bigger rewards. Otherwise the author / curator balance will remain tilted and authors will keep cashing out continuously and keep driving the price down.
I'm not suggesting a huge change, maybe make it 67/33 or 60/40 or something. IDK. Just one guy's opinion.
Check @blocktrade's recent post for his view, along your lines I think.
I’ll definitely be interested to see what @blocktrades has to say on the matter. They see the stats of how much steem is bought vs sold. Thanks for the reference
no worries :)
Why would you need that when I read that over 70% of STEEM is held in SP?
If that is the case, a large percentage of the existing STEEM falls under your category.
Increasing the proportion for curation might cause an issue because of the possibility that the rich are going to monopolize it.
There is definitely that aspect of it. But it could attract more investors (the rich) who could drive up the price of steem which would benefit everyone holding STEEM, even the minnows (bigger payouts, etc). I can understand where you're coming from though. The rich already kind of own the system right now anyway and it seems like no matter what is done they'll find a way to stay on top. That's just the way it works...iMO
the golden rule: He who owns the gold rules
whatever we do, the rich will never give up their power over us. There's more of us but they have the upper hand, they pay us to kill, steal, slave for them and that's what they call community.
A new system is needed where the rich slave for the poor :) If you're rich it should be that you're curating/writing etc and actually bringing in something here. But as it is, the poor produce everything and the rich just reap the rewards.
There are some poor reaping some rewards. Carrots? to draw the other poor in.
Steemit is just a small version of reality. Hopefully we'll all learn from one another and help each other as much as we can.
You painted a clear picture. No matter what we do, no matter our efforts input, the rich always find a way to stay on top the poor
That is the ugly part of reality
Marxism. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
Yeah right, there's always this difference between rich and the poor :)
OK, but why its not 25%? Because of self voting?
Only because of votes in the first 30 minutes, self-votes are typically inside of the first 30 minutes, but a lot of other people vote earlier as well so they can get first in line for curation rewards.
It's funny how that's enough already for such big effects. @themarkymark what's your take on whether that's a good or a bad thing?
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right up my ally, love this post, the approach, the questions you asked of the data. We need witnesses like you !
Steemit on
That's really interesting.
Thanks for doing it.
I know some people are reluctant to re-embrace the 50/50 author/curator split, but it looks like it would be closer to a 65/45 split in practice, which I think many would find more palatable.
I wonder how this would work for folks leasing to bid-bots? Do you think they would be more inclined to pull SP back out to curate with?
I went into detail here although I didn't touch on bidbots at the time.
We can't stop self upvoting, so we have to offer a better use for that voting power.
Curation is and always has been the answer. It's no surprise, based on Markymark's observations here, that careful, considered curation isn't a priority.
I can see a real shift of appetite here, which is fantastic to see :)
Cheers Matt, just read that post, a fine effort (so take my reward here retrospectively)
Yes indeed, if only the ones with the appetite held the SP to feed the hungry. It's happening though, slowly..
This is an extremely important point. @blocktrades, take note of this
well, 65/35 @mattclarke ;)
Lol. I meant 65/35.
Derp! I read it as 65/35 anyway, so we good ;)
65/45 would be 110 percent - Sounds good but would lead to more inflation.
Ah yes down here others have noticed as well ;)
I can't edit either, as he's screen grabbed it :p
You can edit it and should, just add a little note saying you edited it, that's what I always do.
It's all good :) we're all friends here.
Besides, I noticed before anyone else.
That's gotta count for something.
That totally counts!
This is good news and means that using Bid-bots will in fact lead to a greater financial reward than stated.
That's good news?
For Bot users, yes?
I guess so :). I'm not a bot fan any more.
how come?
Are the reasons financial, ethical, political? :)
Its mainly around upvote bots - i feel that genuine manual curators will be turned away from up-voting posts that have a large number of bot-generated upvotes on them. It could be that im misunderstanding the whole way that curation works however.....
Yes I think they are, and do turn away from bot voted posts.
You could stick a vote on the post a few days in when the interested has faded though?
Could it be because people voted before 30 minutes and the rewards went to the author ? Also if the author self voted, then he takes maximum of curation rewards, is that right and could influence this calculation ?
All upvote rewards in the first minute go almost completely to the author. With only at minute 30 all 100% of the upvote rewards are shared along the 75/25 maxim.
Given that more popular authors/whales usually benefit a voting trail they tend to get more of the share which otherwise would have been distributed 75/25 because many autovotes are before the 30th minute, those with more SP often even taking a higher penalty because their weight in the curation matrix is higher and they will still come out on top.
So if a whale self-votes within first two or three minutes, barely anything of their upvote is shared with the curators.
It is all the votes that happen within the first 29 minutes 59 seconds that change the actual curation rewards percentage. Self-voting is the other factor, especially when done in the first 15-20 minutes.
Then may be we should find a statistics based on that, to get the clear picture.
great post.. I also use that button "upvote post" while writing.. and this is not the first post I read about the voting and rewards situation on steemit... I think it should be changed!
excellent research ...everyone here believe that author will get 75% and curators will get 25% . I read many blog every one saying the same..Thanks for this information ...it i really helpful for newbie like me
nice post!
Very interesting. The numbers speak for themselves. I love when people dig into the numbers and pull out the facts. It makes life so much easier.
The question is what is more important, authorship or curation? I understand the need for curators. However, when you look at the task if issuing an upvote, even if the person did actually read the article which we know is rare, how long does that take? Compare that with the 30-60 minutes required to put together a good post. Is not the writing of the article more important. Besides, if no article written, nothing to vote on.
Since we know most upvotes are either bots or people voting their friends, I am not sure the quality of content is ever considered.
I totally agree with you! It's not like curators shouldn't be rewarded at all, no! But in my opinion, authors are doing most of the job and trying hard to write a good quality content. It is nothing that can be done in a minute. (Well, depending on the quality of course)
And the fact about most people don't even read the posts is quite sad .... It's like the author is writing everything only for himself.
The more you know...
Thanks for sharing! A link to your post was included in the Steem.center wiki article about Curation. Thanks and good luck again!
Very interesting despite maybe we all are little bit more confused now than before your investigation... :-)
tl;dr or mithfi
the reality is more like 84% author / 16% curators.
Sungguh luar biasa @themarkymark. Saya baru saja mengetahui dari posting anda yang sungguh sangat mengejutkan. Ternyata benar menurut hitungan matematika bahwa kurasi slama ini tidak seperti yang telah dipersentasikan. Trimakasih telah berbagi. Sukses selalu untuk anda.
You know what, some sort of post analytics feature would be awesome for end users to see what is going on.
Buildawhale still 'doin the U' ;)
Upvoted and Followed you. Pls help me resteem this for the victims of ISIS/Maute in the Marawi.
https://steemit.com/bitcon/@rashley01/let-s-help-people-of-marawi-this-christmas-click-here-to-know-how
Good observations - I hadn't thought to check this!
Because the steemdb seems to show only the vests rewarded, whereas authors also receive SBDs, the actual curation percentage depends on the proportion of people using the 50/50% versus 100% power up I think.
It looks like the split is between 10.8% and 21.5% to curation anyway, certainly not 25%.
I wonder how this would work for folks leasing to bid-bots? Do you think they would be more inclined to pull SP back out to curate with
I knew it!!! Atleast now we have a bit of a proof. Maybe we need to have a 100% check on this. One person upvotes a user at 100% and no one else upvotes him. Than we have a clear picture.
@themarkymark you should try it out. 🏧
So is this stated somewhere in the white paper or is this just false information that is being spread to minnows?
The white paper explains it all but you only see these percentages when all the rules come together in reality.
Got it. Just trying to figure out if someone just made up the 25% or it was based on something (figured the whitepaper).
It is 25%, the problem is that only works if no one votes in the first 30 minutes (which is another rule in the white paper) which never happens.
O yeah completely forgot about that.
You got a 100.00% upvote from @mjrcrypto courtesy of @yabapmatt!
Great Catch! This sheds a whole new light on the profitability of some bid-bots & low quality posts. A fix to this would help curb low quality spam content with less flag weight.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Malcolm Reynolds from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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You got a 4.77% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @themarkymark!
You got a 8.05% upvote from @upme courtesy of @themarkymark!
This post has received a 7.42 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @themarkymark
@boomerang distributes 100% of the SBD and up to 80% of the Curation Rewards to STEEM POWER Delegators. If you want to bid for votes or want to delegate SP please read the @boomerang whitepaper.
hmm..when I use steemdata, and 2017-12-04 as date, I get 731 posts with payout on that day.
Author rewards: 1455
Curation rewards: 322
-> 22%
So we are good within the 25% as curation reward.
Nothing to worry about:)
This post has received a 4.90 % upvote from @sneaky-ninja thanks to: @themarkymark.
I am not much of a "maths-guy".
Just a thought (that would possibly explain some things OR sum up your post in some lines):
Would the math be right (75/25) if you calculate the curation into the rewards of the author?
Payout author = 75% + author curation reward
Curation (others) = 25% - author curation
The opportunistic conclusion to this would be: Stop voting for selfvoted stuff + look for really good content + Selfvote only just before payout
The best solution for steem would be: Stop selfvoting (even with sock puppets AND boosters) + vote what you really like
Long term gain > short term gain
i like how you explain it all, simple and fun <3
we learn new things everyday!! is interesting to know that in fact steemit doesnt give the 25% of the pai
Any system of rewards that often allows many good or great posts to be relatively unrewarded while other posts get relatively huge rewards for not being that much better is deeply flawed and needs to be changed.
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STOPthanks for the info! really learning a lot from your posts
I've known this for awhile. There was a time where you could get a rando whale upvote, a minnow booster upvoter, and a ninjawhale upvote all in the first 5 minutes of your post and get 100% of the rewards because the 100+ votes from all the trails would kill all future curation.
Curation Isn't working the way it was meant to work. I think a return to 50/50 would help.
I still don't understand it yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. I do understand blockchain, and mining(to some degree). If "they" say 25%, then they need to come clean and clear about it if it is not true. If it is true then give us a lcear and concise blog on it, or a wiki(?) post.
However, I will Resteem this.
It should really say in a perfect example 25% will go to curation.
Hey @themarkymark,
I ran the numbers across November (excluding those with beneficiaries). I get 18.1% on average. So clearly not 25%, but higher than the SteemDB number (I'm not sure why this is so low).
Yes. For popular authors the ratio drops off quite a lot.
For posts with higher payouts there is also a drop off in ratio, but less marked. I guess high payout posts are a mix of popular author posts and surprise hidden gems coming to light (like with curie).
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@miniature-tiger/analysis-of-curation-percentage-by-post-payout-and-net-votes
18% has always been the number I've gone off. When I checked around 100 posts, I was around more like 16%, but if you took entire Steem probably closer to 18%.
Really good post. Greatly appreciate the insight! You have me calculating percentages now! It's addicting. :)
It is a mind-blowing. Let me bookmark it first then think it again.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi @themarkymark. I'm 3 months late, but am glad found your post. It's great that you have uncovered the lie, but there is no mention of how the problem can be corrected? What actions can we take as a community to address this issue? Why does the white paper claim 25% curation reward if the actual data only averages ~16%? I guess one good note is that those who are honestly producing good content earn a little more than the 75% author rewards.
There is no issue the formula is just complex and I think people fail to realize how average curation tends to be much lower than the stated 25%
Thanks for the useful posts. Voted you for witness. Keep up the good work!
Thanks,
Hi @themarkymark, so look at my recent post: https://steemit.com/steem/@intellihandling/steemit-is-right-investment
I've got tax curation of 22.7%, so who i am the hugly duck?
Actual curation % is typically closer to 16%