Perhaps a thumbs up button would help with reducing "clutter" of this sort?
Users are used to thumbs up and thumbs down for voicing their opinions on something. It's quick, easy and familiar to us already. Currently if you want to show your support for a post, you have two options.
- upvote
- comment
If you upvote you give a reward and reduce your voting power. An upvote is too strong and does too much extraneous stuff if you are simply wanting to give someone a pat on the back. A vote is precious and not to be given away freely. A simple thumbs up button is all that is needed to show some level of approval for what the poster has done. An upvote can be reserved for when the voter feels the post is worth a reward and the voting penalty to themselves.
It seems like a win-win for all involved. The voter can feel like they are showing support, the poster can feel like they are being heard and rewarded. It's not money, but just like in real life, even getting acknowledged for a job well done goes a long way.
And one by-product is that the comments section will be free of some amount of "fluff" comments such as "Good job" and the like.
Whenever I bring up this idea in Steemit.chat I get enthusiastic responses. It seems like something that must have already been considered, so I'm curious if there is some hidden pitfall that mucks the current system up?
Cheers
the funny part, is actually you want to support a post but you don't want to give any money because you are afraid to... get less ? (you understand that if everybody does like you, you might not get anything either... ) so between "less" and "nothing", I advise you to chose wisely.
I initially wrote a very long response, that I might turn in to a post, so I'll give you the TL;DR instead.
Yes, we get less reward when we don't vote judiciously and discerningly. Use my suggested thumbs up/like whenever you wish. Use the upvote when you feel it is worth doing so.
There is a pool of rewards for the day that we share when we reward users posts. It's like deciding how much everyone gets paid at the end of the day based on what everyone has done and that pie is fixed (more or less). The money isn't coming from your pocket it comes from the pools pocket and depending on how everyone feels about contributions for the day, everyone gets varying percentages of that pie. You don't get it when someone votes, you get it once everyone is done voting and the percentages are finally decided. Yes, it's a bit more complicated than that, but hopefully that gets the point across.
When most users vote for the top trending 10k post and inflate it, they are getting practically nothing in curation. If they were to instead use that vote on a much earlier post before it gets voted up by whales they will get a much higher curation reward. So my suggestion is actually between "nothing" and "potentially something".
Cheers
Your upvote is your thumbs up. It costs you nothing.
As far as I understand it, that isn't the case.
It costs everyone something. The pool is a shared reward. So giving to one user reduces what all other users get from the pool. Obviously it's extremely small in the case of one user, but when hundreds of users are piling on the top trending posts they are reducing potential rewards for everyone else.
My vote is reduced in strength the more I use it. So that is another cost.
I could have spent my time finding posts that are new and still have potential to give a curation reward as opposed to an old post that I'm piling on.
If I were to use my upvotes on content and comments, in the way I think we all should, I would have practically no voting power left. There are many users that don't get any recognition because people are concerned about using their upvotes on something that will not give them any reward and will only end up hurting their voting power. Many minnows would love to see more recognition considering they are getting very little in rewards. Not everyone here has dreams of getting rich quick by blogging or will quit their day job etc. We want to have a great environment to see interesting content without the typical trolling and with the potential for being able to make some extra money if people like what we say and do. Therefore giving us the option of a simple pat on the back to more users would go a long way in improving the culture of the community here.
Your upvote is more like your employer paying you, and a thumbs up is more like your employer saying you did a good job today, keep it up. And just like your employer giving you a pat on the back, it isn't as valuable as your wage, but its cost to benefit ratio is very low. It would be easy to add, users on both sides of the interaction would appreciate it and it would have extraneous benefits of reducing clutter in the comment section as users could just click thumbs up instead of posting "Nice post".
What's not to like?
I read your articles on the subject of where the money comes from, by the way. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Cheers
Dude!
Your vote is worth less than mine!
I don't think you need to worry about its distribution. And this is a seriously unhealthy way for the steemit community to view the value of their contribution.
The whole point of curation rewards is to encourage you to USE your vote (apart from arbritrarily), not to hold it back as if it's valuable for you to do so. I wonder if @dantheman can verify this for us as I'm disappointed to see that you have support for a 'thumbs up' idea that would discourage people from using their upvote instead of encouraging them.
The whole point is to DISTRIBUTE the rewards, which is why some whales even allow their votes to be diluted by going over 100 votes per day. It isn't easy to go over 100 votes per day without actually hiring curators to help with this so you should NOT be worrying about this!
If we all became conservative with our votes then people would be less engaged, the platform would lose interest and therefore steem would lose value. This is why you should not view your vote in this way.
Your upvote is your thumbs-up
or your voice of approval!
Must you yell?
I've responded to your other comment:
And you can read my response there, if you care to. It addresses your response here as well.
There is confusion among most users about how the system of rewards and their distribution works. In fact, it appears that the only users that have a firm grasp are some very early adopters (maybe) and of course dan, similarly knowledgable users and the witnesses.
What happens when you upvote and leave a comment? Good/Bad? Doesn't matter or more valuable??
For the network, a lot more valuable. Many people read the comment section for additional dicussions and clarifications, so leaving a constructive or critical comment will enrich the content and other users.
It's also a good way to get your feet wet and get some initial author rewards as a new blogger :)
The comment section does nothing as far as Steem rewards for anyone concerned.
Interesting point. I think that it would be good to force everyone who votes (up or down) to add min 100 letter comment with every vote in separate section (or same as comments section).That would force everyone to give coherent reason for their vote and force them to actually read the post. Bots and spam should still be blocked.