It has been suggested by some stakeholders that the rewards currently being paid out are excessive, relative to the size of the community and the value being added, and are so large as to be contributing more to incentivizing abuse than adding value to the platform.
This post offers an alternative. By voting for this post you are voting that rewards be reduced by the amount allocated to this post. Any rewards received by this post will be burned (sent to @null) as described below. If the belief that excess rewards are not adding value is correct, then the reduced money supply accomplished by burning should increase the value of STEEM/SP.
Burn procedure:
SP: equivalent amount of STEEM sent to @null
SBD: sent to @null if SBD is trading for no more than 1 USD. Otherwise, traded on internal market for STEEM, which is sent to @null
This procedure is being used rather than setting beneficiary to @null in order to avoid reducing SBD supply when SBD is overvalued. Therefore some trust is required that I will actually burn the rewards. Vote accordingly.
Proof of burn will be posted as a reply after payout.
If there is positive stakeholder response in terms of votes, I will continue to make more such posts as a series.
I support your approach because it is a possibility for larger stakeholders to address the issue of excessive rewards without changing the platform mechanics, and thus doesn´t require Steemit Inc. endorsement.
However, in case Steemit Inc. considers this an issue too, I would propose the following changes for consideration (I´m careful here , since I might well miss some technical or game theoretical obstacles).
The main benefit I see with this approach is that it would foster the coherence of our community. No reason anymore to envy trending authors, since every user (with SP holdings) benefits from their success. The reward pool remains the same, yet an excessive allocation towards individual users would be prevented. Also, it would add a further incentive to hold SP.
I´m glad to see you contributing again.
"introducing a cap on reward disbursement, e.g. 250 USD per post."
Caps are arbitrary, and generally only supported by Marxists SJWs who think "they know better." They also utterly fail in concept. The idea of applying the same cap to someone in the US and someone in Venezuela is so fucking laughable that it's hard to believe any thought even went into the suggestion.
"The main benefit I see with this approach is that it would
foster the coherence of our community.further my communist SJW ends"FTFY.
First of all, I had to look up what SJW means. Hope this counts as proof that I'm not a SJW :) Also, just for the records, the ideas of Communism and Marxism have zero appeal to me.
I do understand though that alone the word "cap" is like waving a red flag to free market believers (I consider myself being one). Therefore, I was somewhat prepared to get a response like the one from you.
What I would like to emphasise though, I'm not suggesting to cap rewards but to cap the amount that a single account can extract from the reward pool per post. The reward finding process would remain untouched and payouts beyond the cap would not be showered on the community in order to further social justice (something I anyway consider an illusion) but distributed in a stake-weighted manner to SP holders. I'm quite convinced that Marx would not have supported this idea.
Why shouldn't somebody in Venezuela get the same reward as someone in the US if they deliver the same quality and worth to the platform?
I submit flagging based on rewards being too high for a post to be just as Marxist as putting a cap on the post earnings. You can take an extreme situation where the user posts "Horay It's Saturday" and is obviously upvoting himself through bots but often I read about flagging when clearly that is not at all the case.
I agree with your view. Having the possibility to self-vote in the system is indefensible, I cannot think of a single good reason why it's useful. And I try to explain here how flagging based on rewards could do more harm than good.
sorin.cristescu: "the possibility to self-vote in the system is indefensable"
The comment then voted up $0.77 by a voting bot. Do you expect me to believe you didn't pay that voting bot to update your comment? This makes me smile. I'll vote it up too.
This is how @gentlebot works. It randomly upvotes people. One cannot buy a vote from it.
Well, believe it or not, I didn't pay that bot and have no idea who paid it. I don't know anything about @gentlebot. Shouldn't you be able to see on the blockchain if I paid for it ? Or maybe, by looking at timestamp, even what other account paid for it ?
I do use self-votes myself when I deem that the effort I've put into writing a comment deserves a payout, even small, and am not sure anyone else will upvote my comment. I've also used minnowbooster to indirectly pay random user to upvote my comments. Overall you may say that I'm experimenting with the Steemit system, taking it out for a ride.
The fact that I've tested features and decided to use some because it's how the system, in its current state, is supposed to be used, doesn't imply that I believe all its features to be good. :-)
Yes, so taking the money and burning it is much, much better because it's not "Marxist."
There's definitely no good content out there being missed because everyone's chasing whales in hopes of big payouts.
This is an interesting approach. I don't like protocol changes for anything that can be resolved without.
Creating a whale account to downvote at 6.5 days any posts with rewards in excess of 250 USD would have a very similar impact, except that the overage is redistributed by Rshares instead of by stake, and could be implemented without a protocol change... and that's what flagging does, but the unfortunate decision to use the 'flagging' iconography and terminology instead of calling it downvoting or redistribution makes it seem much more aggressive.
Thanks for your reply!
I think the impact of such a modality would be very different and quite problematic. As you say, one difference is a psychological one which is that it would be perceived as a negation of rewards in contrast to the distribution of rewards to the benefit of all stake-holders. True, Rshares would be freed-up for re-allocation, yet only authors with posts in pending payout would benefit. Non-publishing stakeholders or authors with no active post would remain empty-handed.
However, the main concern I have with this measure is that it would impair the reward finding process for posts above the reward cap and thus eliminate reward levels as a needed ranking parameter. If it is certain that every post will be trimmed down to a certain reward cap shortly before payout, then there is no incentive to vote on posts that are already performing above the cap. Because all curation rewards of those votes would be nullified with that downvote at 6.5 d. The result would be a big cluster of unranked posts with a payout level at the cap.
Otherwise, I fully agree with you that the "flagging" terminology is highly unfavourable. Calling it a downvote is just marginally better. In contrast, redistribution, yes, that would be something!
E.g. like
🔼: Allocate rewards
🔄: Redistribute rewards
instead of upvote/downvote...
I love the idea of calling it a redistribution!
I agree with you for the most part. Some changes or improvements to content discovery are needed.
At the present juncture my main position is to wait until we see how the upcoming changes to curation rewards actually impact the ecosystem.
lol Yes, I made a whole topic on an alternative to "flagging" for inexperienced users, it's kind of like a warning instead of a down-vote LOL
redistribution is pretty much a commie term in political circles, but used in a free to join, free to leave "vote with your feet" place like this it could work, and likely work well. More like "dividend sharing" actually, and I like that idea better ;)
Agree, "dividend sharing" is a much better term. Cheers!
Thank YOU! :D
I support the idea of calling it Redistribution... Though all of this seems too technical for me. I'll try to leave leading the ship to people who are capable of that.
It's just that it's hard to know who qualifies to save the situation.
It´s every single member of our community that qualifies to make proposals how to resolve any issue that arises.
If the technical aspects of Steemit are a source of negativity for you, then simply ignore them. Just focus on your content and engagement with the community (like you just did). Everything else is of lesser importance. So stay onboard, don´t leave the ship!
Cheers
I credit @josephsavage for having the idea of relabelling downvotes as (reward) redistribution. Let´s see whether we can create some momentum for a #proposal.
You look at post like this
https://steemit.com/seoul/@shinhan/32pqgo-seoul
Is that worth 16 SBD?
I personally would say no, but something like a fair valuation of content simply doesn´t exist.
Wow, that's a good idea. I see so many people arguing/complaining about the reward pool rape and/or unequal SP distribution, but no one suggested a good systematic solution except you (as far as I know). I think that you should make a post about it. Cheers! : )
Yes, I think we should act now rather than wait for it to get worse by the day. But I ask of you to change it slowly but steadily, rather than making an abrupt change cause it may affect the big ones, leaving them dissatified. But we need stability for long term benifits; I support your campaign!
I second that!
dear @smooth thanks for your poste becous your poste is very helpfull for me so me flow up vote restime my poste https://steemit.com/allah/@thawfiqur/islam-is-our-religion-so-who-love-islam-please-up-vote-becous-all-muslim-love-allah
Yes! I have favored the idea of a cap since day one, but have had zero traction whenever I bring it up!
If you introduce a $250 USD per post, you won’t find any posts that are worth more than that on this platform. In other words, writers who value their time more than $250 USD per post won’t write here. I don’t believe that’s the best strategy for the future of Steemit.
I have a different propossal, sometime ago i created the account @delega, inspired in cultivating and promoting the right attitude.
I made this post a few weeks ago, sadly it went mostly ignored,
https://steemit.com/speakyourmind/@nnnarvaez/lets-make-minnows-curate-delega
What i prpose is to use those rewards to power up and delegate 100% to new comers, there you are about to burn 826 $ at current Steem price it is about 800 SP that will make 4 minnows who actually believe in the platform to start curating.
My post to delegate to cultivators received 15$ ...
I think there is something wrong with our priorities if that is what we really want to do.
Proof of burn
Author reward 352.107 SBD, and 74.806 STEEM POWER for smooth/steem-experiment-burn-post-1
Sold 352.107 SBD for 522.854 STEEM on internal market
https://steemd.com/tx/0378dcff18a9689d908d0092f071c5a4dd23c0d2
Total burn of 74.806+522.854 = 597.660 STEEM
https://steemd.com/tx/1ddc2d0ab6407797e93a9b2d12ee4f7d9289c06c
What are your thoughts on the $225 in curation rewards on this post for those who support this project? Does that incentivize people to be involved, even if it ends up being worse in the long run for the platform?
During the witness forum yesterday there was some discussion about the rewards pool and STEEM distribution. Some feel there's a problem with not enough distribution of STEEM and those who have the most of it get too much control around here in terms of flag wars, reward distribution, self-voting, etc. If the rewards pool is decreased via burning, won't that further entrench those who already have a disproportionate amount of STEEM either by increasing the price of STEEM and/or decreasing the rewards pool which might distribute STEEM more broadly?
I guess in the end, anyone can upvote or downvote whatever they want. I currently want my voting power to go towards valuable content and authors I want to support, so downvoting something like this (and with only the Steem Power I have, not even full whale status) doesn't make much sense.
I think curation rewards mostly just incentivize people to participate in voting at all (which may be good or bad, depending on your point of view, but I think mostly good). You can vote on one thing and get curation rewards or vote on another thing and get curation rewards, so with respect to the content itself, they're mostly neutral. It doesn't make a lot of sense to argue that people vote for post A over post B 'for the curation rewards' when curation rewards are available from either (or countless other posts too).
Which is why declined-reward posts, and downvoting, can be disadvantaged: in that case it is not neutral, since they don't pay curation rewards it requires the voter choosing to deploy a vote in that manner to incur an opportunity cost. This is really a poor design choice, though I don't know of a good way to address it for downvotes (in the case of payment-declined posts, I think voters should get the normal curation rewards for their contribution in helping establish the visibility of the post, and also to restore content neutrality to the voting).
First of all, let's make clear that the reward pool is currently inflated by about 3-6x (depending on rapidly-fluctuating market prices) due the actions of SBD speculators (and deficiencies in the SBD pegging mechanism). We would have to reduce rewards through burning by at least 65-85% just to restore the system to its original design parameters on how much stake should be distributed via rewards. That is highly unlikely, and with far less being burned, this is hardly entrenches anything, it just distributes at a less artificially accelerated rate.
Beyond that point on magnitude, it depends how much of the reward pool you believe is currently being allocated in a wasteful manner that doesn't really help the distribution (such as the self voting your mentioned as well as various ways that reward distribution). IMO if that is a large portion then we are better off taking a 'pause' on paying out maximum (inflated) rewards inefficiently and instead return some of that value to the STEEM price (and SBD peg health) until those problems are being better addressed either via the community or platform changes.
As much one might wish for some outcome such as 'better distribution', the mere act of paying rewards doesn't necessarily do that unless it is being done effectively. If a lot is being siphoned off by relatively well off whales and scammers, it is conceivable it could be making the distribution worse, and even if it isn't quite that bad, distribution is only one consideration. If value isn't being added then the rewards are wasteful and making both the platform and its stakeholders worse off.
I liked this post from @transisto on the matter of what rewards are supposed to accomplish: https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/my-version-of-steem-is-not-content-based-it-is-contribution-based
Let's ask ourselves whether it is even possible, or likely, for the community given its current size and activity level to be making contributions that are adding value of $500K-1M per day, or if the gap between what is being paid out and what is feasible to really effectively use is too large (leading to a proportionately larger share of self-serving schemes and other waste). In that context, a little tapping on the brakes is warranted. I respect that you may disagree and want to vote elsewhere.
While you can vote on one thing or another thing, voting on things you have a pretty good expectation of being valuable does increase the curation reward. In that sense, this experiment does create an incentive for people to participate purely for the curation rewards, but I guess the same can be said for voting up any other popular author with a history of high value posts.
I wonder if the inflated price of SBD is being done specifically to inflate the rewards pool for the advantage of those earning through the rewards pool. In a way, inflating the SBD price may push the opposite experiment of what is happening with this post by giving more value out as a way to fix lopsided initial distribution concerns. I'm personally not too concerned about it because all of that SBD is still only convertible to STEEM at the $1 price and because few would do that now anyway. You make a good point that a larger rewards pool doesn't automatically mean it will be distributed fairly. It could, as you said, cause even more unequal distribution.
Maybe more visibility via tools like this may be helpful: https://steemdb.com/labs/author
Exactly. There is another effect too. The more of these posts there are, the less each one is worth, meaning smaller "windfall" curation rewards to those few voters who are in early, and more opportunities to be early on reliable posts (which in turn tends to spread out curation rewards more widely). There are a lot of zero-sum (in the short term) aspects of the reward pool that end up being self-balancing.
Interesting possibility. I personally doubt it and think it is just speculation on a token that, to the extent it is already well above $1 becomes somewhat free-floating ($1 is too far away to matter). But I don't rule out other possibilities.
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote! I just ask for a Follow in return!
Flagging for comment spam.
You say people have their head in the sand because they won't flag things and then you go on irrational flag retaliations if someone even talks about flagging you. On top of that, you won't even have a civil discussion about it.
This flagging aspect of Steem is very divisive and negative. Look how it ends up with you two fighting each other and making noise which makes Steem look bad to readers.
There’s a much better way which would convert differing perspectives into more degrees-of-freedom rather than force everyone into the same basket where they’re induced to battle. It will be known as algorithmic decentralized curation and my project will be the first to bring that to the market, not Steem and not EOS.
This plan wasn't very well thought out.
Short term reward manipulation aside this plan is actually going to increase the problem it is attempting to address even though that problem might not even exist to begin with.
For some reason the premise here is that rewards are too high in value and that this is incentivizing abuse. On face value that premise is absurd and no analysis supporting it has been shown but I will continue to use the premise to highlight how bad the plan is.
The solution to reduce the immediate payouts is to lower the current amount of funds going out and also burns them thereby taking them out of circulation and limiting the supply.
You are now burning supply which will increase prices as long as demand remains steady. If the prices go up then the value of rewards goes up and you've accomplished absolutely nothing. The incentive to abuse remains according to the premise.
You are in effect trying to hobble the market differentiating value proposition that you see as incentivizing abuse but is also the biggest reason for success, new user signups, user engagement and market demand. It is what incentivizes the whole platform.
This is a perfect example of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
This is simply mathematically wrong as I've addressed elsewhere. Hypothetically if voters decided to allocate the entire reward pool to burning, then the value of rewards would not go up. Now would they go up at 99%? At 90%? I'm pretty sure the answer at these levels is no, and it may well be no at every level.
What I believe is that there is a certain amount of rewards that are useful for that purpose. The system design is for about 9% per year of market cap to be getting paid in the form of rewards, which might well be reasonably balanced in terms of new value being added vs. expense (and if it isn't then the system is poorly designed). But what is actually happening given the overvaluation of SBD is that something like 50% of market cap is being paid out per year. It isn't plausible in my view that so much new value is being added by the rewarding process, meaning this excess is just being wasted.
Returning a portion of that excess to stakeholders hardly 'hobbles' anything, in fact with any reasonable expectation of how much might be burned, the reward pool will still likely be much larger than it is supposed to be, just a little less so, with a bit of that windfall directed to helping the price of STEEM (which, let's be frank, has horribly underperformed the cryptocurrency market during one of the biggest bull markets the world has ever seen in any asset category).
Secondarily this should have at least a small effect on reducing the overvaluation of SBD, which helps get at the problem of absurd rewards from the other direction as well.
" then the value of rewards would not go up."
The displayed reward level may not increase but the market value for which those rewards would be trading on would indeed go up if you reduce the supply.
" But what is actually happening given the overvaluation of SBD is that something like 50% of market cap is being paid out per year"
On a blockchain level that is not true at all. That is uncontrollable free market prices that should come down over time with sustained sell pressure from an increasing SBD supply. You are fighting against that by burning supply. This burn project literally helps prop up the high price of SBD.
The formula for production of Steem and SBD is still printing at the intended rate. As long as people chase the high SBD price by buying up Steem and increasing it's price then the rate at which SBD is printed will increase.
Burning the supply doesn't help alleviate the free market over valuation of SBD.
"Returning a portion of that excess to stakeholders hardly 'hobbles' anything"
If that is true then it also achieves nothing. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say this is lowering payouts only for abusers, it lower payouts for everyone.
If your premise is that high paying posts attracts abuse you have also recognize it attracts legitimate use as well. High paying posts are a fantastic marketing tool and lowering them across the board would indeed be hobbling that.
"this should have at least a small effect on reducing the overvaluation of SBD"
Burning supply does not decrease market prices if demand remains static. I see nothing that addresses overall demand so this would increase the overvaluation of SBD.
Your goals aren't in question you seem to be trying to achieve something in a decentralized fashion that is completely fair. I just disagree on how it will work out.
You missed the point on this. If all rewards are being burned, then rewards paid out for self-voting schemes and other abuses is certainly not increased!
In order for rewards paid out (and not burned) to increase on net, the STEEM price would have to increase by proportionately more than the amount burned. For example, if 50% is burned then the STEEM price would have to double just to maintain the same payouts (much less increase). If 75% is burned then price would have to increase by 4x. I find all of this reasonably unlikely given that STEEM has a market cap of roughly a billion dollars and something less than one million dollars per day is being paid out. There will likely be an effect on price, but not disproportionate with the amount burned.
Also, since you mentioned market value, the market value of SBD plays a role and this initiative seeks to (most likely slightly) reduce SBD value by 1) dumping 100% of the SBD rewards directly onto the market, and 2) increasing the supply of SBD by increasing the STEEM price.
Remember, rewards are paid out both in SBD and STEEM/SP, so both market values matter. So if the initiative increases the STEEM price while decreasing the SBD price, that may have no (or very small) net effect on the overall market value of rewards.
My premise (and FWIW it isn't really mine but mostly originates with other stakeholders who have expressed it, though I mostly agree) is that the rewards are outsize from what added value the Steem community can actually, realistically contribute to the platform, in terms of attracting users, creating content that promote itself, building brand value, etc. There are other limiting factors besides money, notably time, community size, and good ideas. (To say this another way "throwing money at a problem" is often extremely wasteful.) By contrast, abuse has no such limiting factors and is easily scaleable to absorb whatever extra money speculators throw at it. This also has the negative secondary effect of making abuse more frequent and pervasive which actually damages community morale and brand value.
How much more sense such a post would make under n^2 ...
As it is now, the abusive voters will profit even more compared to me, when I vote for this post.
Sounds interesting. Would love to get a lease on Minnowbooster would love to be better able too predict prices that would be accepted.
One thing I think we need to work on are some tools for creating visibility to issues that require discussion.
We say we are decentralized and yes there is a vote and comment session on important issues, but it sure would help clarify this investment for many if we developed a way to ensure that stake-holders had a chance to weigh in on these issues. In order for this to get visibility for discussion it would need to be voted on, thus compromising your assumed "vote"
Tweeted on Twitter for potential discussion and visibility to prospective investors.
For the record, I laughed at "Rewards too High, and Creating Abuse. Based on WHAT?
Yes that is a great point! So do you imply that it would be helpful to have similar voting to the witness voting, but for relevant community topics and issues?
In addition, I think a better distribution is something we should strive for and with that in mind, I will be flagging as many rewards as I can from this post. (don't worry, not much) With no insult intended at the Author. Waiting until it will not harm visibility, for the sake of fairness and discussion.
No insult perceived nor offense taken. I respect disagreement and am a supporter of downvoting/flagging (though I hate that it is displayed as "flagging" which very much suggests something other than what it actually does) as a means to express it.
Appreciated.
I'd prefer the steemit account burned ...
Or at least put to some good use as a functional GUI or a person keeping people informed about the things done by our worldclass developer team who obviously finds no time to inform us what is happening. E.g. what will happen to the 71 mio Steem that are put on power down right this moment...
My theory on the power-down is that they have contracts with SMT investors that require @steemit to provide the STEEM needed by those investors at some contracted price, rather than the investors buying in the markets. (In thin markets, substantial power-ups can create massive price spikes.)
Since the contracts would be subject to non-disclosure agreements, @steemit is in a bind and can't announce or explain the reasons why they are powering down.
" they have contracts with SMT investors that require @steemit to provide the STEEM needed by those investors at some contracted price, "
In other words, they are fucking all of us over by selling at a below-market price to Steem newcomers, subsidized by fucking over those of us who already paid market price?
I don't care much for your explanation, frankly, though that is not an indictment of you.
However, framing this as anything but shady bullshit theft from the rest of us is STINC supporting propaganda.
The shady bullshit theft happened two years ago with the massive premine. That there are still consequences of that is not a surprise so much as an inevitability. I choose to be here because I see potential in spite of that.
@josephsavage is correct - the shady shit was the pre-mine.. Selling them at any price - giving them to friends, burning them, who the fuck knows - none of those actions hurt the community any more than the initial pre-mine did.
In fact, breaking up giant whale accounts and distributing them to new users will strengthen the community in the long term.
I remember a time when Bitcoin bagholders all started up Bitcoin faucets in order to distribute the coin into the community.. Were they fucking over those who had mined or bought BTC because they were not selling at market price?
That's my most probable version, too. Funny, I wrote about it like a minute ago...
Fucked up if true, means Stinc is fucking us all by selling to new investors at below market prices.
How does that hurt you?
It doesn't...
I have in the past given my Steem away for nothing.. Did that fuck you over because I didn't charge market price for them?
No.
FYI it is on power down.
That's what I've seen and that's what worries me. And thats what should worry every investor with half a brain, as long there is no further information. steemitblog is silent, ned is involved in his in his ex-marital disputes with dan and has even no time to wish a "happy new year" or "merry xmas" to his great community.
Sorry for the bitterness... I am all into positivity and actually DOING something good, but THIS is just some unneeded BS.
(Burning SBD would probably be a working patch for symptoms, but as long as some big whales are more interested in making even more bucks by selling their votes for short term gains instead of stabilizing the ecosystem, I don't see a chance for anyone imitating your efforts.)
Don't worry, he does have time to self-vote himself $6000 dollars while he argues with his ex-boyfriend:
LOOOOOOL, saw that
Imitation isn't needed, only votes. 10 burn posts per day can consume all or nearly all of the entire reward pool if they get enough votes, and I can certainly set up a bot to make 10 of these posts (and also to automatically burn the rewards). But as you say that is a drop in the bucket compared to the steemit account, so these aren't really the same issue at all.
Out-of-pocket-expenses... :-)
Could the same result plus a bit more not be accomplished by utilizing flags VS what someone views as too highly paid content? I feel as though the community under-utilizes the flagging mechanism out of fear, which needs to be overcome. @berniesanders and his plethora of monikers such as @nextgencrypto, @rewardpoolrape, @theyeti, @randowhale, etc. for instance, they could use more flagging against them. They're the definition of abuse of the platform. He always flags back out of revenge because he's a child, but ultimately, it helps the platform if he's wasting VP and people are negating his VP that he always allocates to himself out of greed.
At any rate, consider this 100% upvote to this post as a contribution from @agoric.systems :-). Burning stake is always good, but I feel as though negating abuse via flags is a better alternative as it prevents reward pool allocation being given to parties that do not deserve it.
This is a tiny, tiny, tiny dent in the issue, but hey, every penny counts, right?
Not exactly the same results as flagging (aka downvoting) just shifts rewards to other posts. If the problem is simply too many rewards being chased by too few truly valuable contributions then the shifting means other (less noticed) abuse and low value content being better rewarded, and an even higher incentive to post more of those.
I'm all in favor of flagging of garbage or anything that you think doesn't add value, and in this case we can set a baseline of add more value than burning.
Hm, is it platform with $1 266 466 951 capitalization? I think this method of fight will have a fail. I'm think steemit is a great idea but have to make some global changes.
For example, I'm don't understand why I can upvote myself comments and get some rewards from this action. It's a bad option if you build social network.
Because this is how DPOS works. Every other DPOS coin simply automatically gives you your share of the daily stake.
Only Steemit, the whale-commie-SJW paradise, has it setup so that whales take all their own rewards (generally) while browbeating all other users into donating theirs away.
It's a genius scam. Like televangelism.
https://steemit.com/steem/@lexiconical/code-is-law-only-when-i-want-otherwise-it-s-abuse-the-shaming-syndicate-of-steemit-our-own-brand-of-sjws-and-social-repression
I respect what you're trying to do but let the free market do its thing. That's the whole point of crypto, Steemit included. People wanna buy votes let them buy votes. The ecosystem will change, die, or prosper. Freedom baby.
This post is part of the free market. I was free to post it and you are free to vote for it or not vote for it.
I mentioned to sneak a while back that I thought posts that decline rewards should have the effect of burning those rewards (rather than excluding them from the pot).
While he found the idea interesting, he felt it was trumped by the need to distribute Steem as widely as possible.
Will be interesting to see how this experiment pans out...
This is an interesting experiment, and I'm all for trying new and interesting things before making consensus changes on the blockchain via hardforks. That said, I'm not clear which problem it's really solving.
Is the problem that all rewards taken together are excessive or just specific rewards to specific people are excessive while most other content receives very little reward?
Often the complaints I hear are more about the existing steem distribution, not the size of the rewards pool. If too much inflation is a problem, that can be handled in a number of ways including reducing witness pay and decreasing the amount of steemit going out as rewards. The distribution complaint, however, deals with a small number of individuals getting a disproportionate amount of influence over how rewards are directed. That, many say, is the problem. Burning more of the rewards, IMO, does not change that problem (if it is a problem). The distribution ratios would still be the same.
The rewards pool is one of the main mechanisms for non-investors to achieve steem power over time. If we reduce that amount, then we reduce the opportunity for minnows to become dolphins or whales in the future through content creation. Those who have the least amount of influence to vote on this experiment (the minnows) might be the most negatively impacted by it. Unfortunately, they often understand the least about the platform as well.
If this did increase the value of STEEM holdings while also making the onramp harder for people to earn steem through blogging and curating (decreased rewards pool), couldn't that make the distribution of steem even worse than it is today? Those holding the most STEEM would have their positions even more entrenched in terms of investment capital required to equal their levels of influence on the platform.
"reducing witness pay"
Jerry was attacked for having the audacity to suggest a discussion on this, and flagged by the very OP of this post...and he was even receiving witness rewards.
"we reduce the opportunity for minnows to become dolphins or whales"
Have you considered that this may be the very goal?
https://steemit.com/steem/@lexiconical/code-is-law-only-when-i-want-otherwise-it-s-abuse-the-shaming-syndicate-of-steemit-our-own-brand-of-sjws-and-social-repression
This is doing that, but it is doing it in a flexible way (via voting) rather than requiring a hard fork for each possible change.
And yes that could affect the ability of minnows to earn more SP but is that really what is happening? A very large portion is being paid out to not only some specific high earners (the value contribution of which is highly controversial at best) but also to a large number of dishonest 'minnow' accounts that are actually bot herders. To the extent those recipients are not really contributing to the growth of Steem/it that is simply value that is syphoned off and not helping the platform in any way.
There is no suggestion here that all rewards should be burned, but currently due to the SBD overvaluation the entire reward pool is increased by about 3x (the exact number changes constantly with the SBD price, and has been as high as 5x or possibly more). All of that increase is in the form of liquid SBD rewards which are least effective in distributing stake and most effective in attracting and being easily cashed out by abusers. Instead, this series of posts proposes to redirect some of that windfall to boosting the STEEM price (via a buy-and-burn process) which not only benefits all stakeholders large and small but: a) helps shift more of the reward value back to the SP form which is more attractive to actual community contributors and more effective in distributing stake; b) helps bring SBD value back in line by ensuring that the paid out SBD goes directly to the market (and also to the extent that the STEEM price increases, generating more of it); and c) helps increase the resources available to the STEEM community going forward by making everyone's stake (including even the @steemit stake) worth more.
I don't expect all stakeholder voters to find these posts to be a good use of rewards but I do encourage all stakeholder voters to at least compare this use of rewards to some of the others out there currently costing us a lot of money, and if they find those others to be worse for the platform then to either downvote those or upvote these.
BTW, I would add that your views on how this may not be a good thing are well thought out and you are welcome to express that via not voting or downvoting. Your input into that decision making process is as valuable as any other.
The only purpose here is to give stakeholders an additional option on how best to use the reward budget, an option that can be adjusted on a daily basis as conditions change. One thing to consider: Do you believe it is likely that every single day there is enough value being contributed in the form of posts and comments to justify spending the entire budget on that? Or is in fact the case that some days, under some conditions, the entire budget is not well spent that way? While subjective, this is in effect a numerical question because every STEEM/SBD paid out in excess of value contributed to the platform by posters and commenters makes Steem worth less and puts it in a weaker position to face the challenges ahead.
I love that point. That, to me, makes this worth it and could be emphasized in future versions of this experiment. If someone is going to go through the trouble of spending voting strength on something like this, why not flag some abuse instead? The main thing, I think, is visibility on abuse. If that was more obvious, maybe more stake holders would choose to downvote. That's why I'm supporting the work that @patrice is doing via @spaminator and @mack-bot because they seem to be actually doing something about the problems beyond just taking rewards for complaining about them, like so many others.
I also really like your point about a daily perspective on the rewards pool for that day and whether or not it's in alignment with our subjective understanding of rewards. The problem is, for many, they view the trending page and think that's the rewards going out that day when it's so much more. It's posts all over the place from all different communities and perspectives including comments and (yes) spam and abuse. The account farming is a big problem, for sure, and we all can treat that more seriously, but, again, most don't really know what's going on because it's well hidden or at least not obvious.
Also a great point that someone could choose to downvote this if they think too much of the rewards pool would be burned. I've chosen (at this point) just to comment and not vote. Even if there may be issues with it, I like new ideas and the conversations they start about what we as a community think about rewards pools and how they are maintained and distributed.
The funny thing is, other cryptocurrency projects have few conflicts over stuff like this. Sure some may complain about this mining farm or that mining pool, but there's a general acceptance that if someone obtains mining equipment, they can do with it whatever they want within the limitations of the protocol to maximize their investment. Things are different here because we all have a different expectation about what the rewards pool is for and how it should be best used. The funny thing is, under the hood, the cryptocurrency itself continues to be secured by the witnesses and function well, regardless of what happens on steemit or with the rewards pool. I plan on doing a post soon about the important distinction between STEEM and Steemit the site.
Thanks again as always for the intelligent and respectful dialogue.
Oh, another point I forgot to make earlier, this may be a nice way to get your reputation pumped if a lot of big whales with high reputations agree with it. :)
I plan to move this to a dedicated account if the project continues to get enough support. So while the dedicated account may end up with a high rep, I doubt e.g. 'burnmaster' will ever benefit much from that rep!
I disagree in burning steem. For minnows and red fishes we live on any earned steem we can get our hands on. The big whales are a minority of the group. For them to hoard and earn most rewards it is hurting the platform, but I believe in time the wealth distribution will trickle down to the little fishes. Steemit is still in its infancy and when people know what good content is they votes will pour in. Indeed this may take years to trickle down but everything takes time. Thanks.
Creating an option for whales to reduce the pool by burning STEEM lifts everyone else on the platform (smaller supply of STEEM creates more price movement when chased by new demand).
The early pre-mine and consolidation of STEEM among whale accounts is one of the reasons that STEEM has always been an undervalued coin for the amount of traffic on its blockchain.
Granted, delegating a similar amount of SP to upstart curation efforts would have a similar (or more beneficial) impact.
I doubt many whales would be willing to burn their steem even if they had a ton to spend. The price movement won't matter to them if they control majority of the steems.
Early adopters are going to always benefit the most. So many examples of pennies on the dollar coins turned into double, triple, and even quadruple numbers. Steem is no different. Steem is unique because it can not be compared to POS or POW. Steem definitely has potential to rise, it is just seeing if people accept it for what it is and invest in it.
Totally agree with the delegating part. The steem will be used to better the platform. This is a positive if whales can spread the SP rather than hoard it. Thanks.
If you burn rewards, then doesn't that increase the rewards of the abusers in US Dollar terms? More scarcity means a higher price for steem, right?
It is unlikely that the price increase would be so large as to completely erase the reduction. As a thought exercise imagine that stakeholders voted ALL rewards to these burn posts (of course, I don't expect that to happen). In that case yes it could increase the STEEM price and reward pool but none of it would go to abusers. (Of course none of it would go to honest users either, so I'm not suggesting this, only pointing out that it is possible to reduce rewards enough to offset any price increase.) Perhaps with a more modest reduction there can be more scarcity in the reward pool and a bit more care how it is allocated rather than the free for all that seems to exist today.
Why not using the Steem and SBD to power up. This would also remove them from the market but you would do something useful with it
That is some forward thinking smooth. Do you suggest that everyone should vote for that or this is just a whales thingy?
Vote however you think is best
ok I will wait to see how this will play out after you get us some data about the effect it causes to the reward pool, I guess in some of your future posts and I will make chose whats best after reading some of that. I have the same concerns with @felixxx we might benefit them even more than they are as of now.
I re-steemed it though so people can see what is on stake here.
Definitely upvoted, and my experiment would thus be to see if you actually burn it. I look forward to you keeping your word!
Is there a possibility to use beneficiaries rewards with @null account? If yes, that would be better option for the future.
Yes but that would reduce the SBD supply not help put it into circulation, so less useful than the method I'm using here. It would also burn far less because each SBD is worth over $3 (recently over $10) while the beneficiary only receives about $1 worth of STEEM in its place.
It is also somewhat debatable whether just burning is as effective in increasing the market price as buying and burning. There is a degree of trust required that I will burn the rewards but on the other hand it is part of a series. If I ever don't burn the rewards people can stop supporting these posts, so the amount that could be stolen this way is limited.
If you send it to null, nobody gets it and it is gone forever or does the 'null' account get rich?
Anything sent to the null account is immediately destroyed. Gone forever.
In what case would it make sense to do that? It seems like it would be the equivalent of burning a dollar bill. STEEM and SBD are worth saving!
For every creative exploit (@haejin it seems, at the moment) there will require an equally creative counter-exploit.
I can't honestly say I understand what exactly is happening with some accounts like @haejin, but it looks like a small ponzi scheme within the ecosystem. If/when it collapses, how much toxicity it will spread is an unknown... assuming a ponzi-style collapse is the direction it will take.
Won't destroy the ecosystem, though I think @smooth has nailed an appropriate, measured response that limits damage to the broader ecosystem by offsetting the results of shrinking available supplies.
Kudos @smooth. I'll upvote these each day.
"but it looks like a small ponzi scheme within the ecosystem."
You seriously need to research what a ponzi scheme is, because you have no fucking clue.
Or, perhaps you can point us to where Haejin takes in investor money, promises unsustainable gains, and then pays out those gains to old investors from new investors?
Since all three of those will be impossible to show, you'll probably just end up looking foolish.
Do you know for a fact that he doesn't have multiple shell accounts operating under a scripted umbrella?
Please note my language --- "it LOOKS like a small ponzi scheme..."
Or maybe I do have "no fucking clue"... or you can promptly fuck off. Either way, I'm all out of cares to give.
I'm indifferent right now. On the one hand, I don't like rewards going to certain people, on the other hand, I do want rewards going to other people. So burning the rewards is not my preference, at the moment. But, I'm not going to discourage anyone who wants to exercise this option. The more options the better.
well, in my opinion, "excessive" rewards will simply increase the userbase, which will in turn drive down the rewards for each individual...
It's simply growing "pains"... also, when you are burning the post rewards... that deflates the currency, which only increases the value of the rewards pool, no?
Yes rewards can attract users but beyond a certain point it is unclear that the effect is further increased. If we give away $100K/day we attract users. If we give away $1M/day do we attract 10x as many users? That is far from clear.
As far as increasing the value of the reward pool, that is true to an extent, but if so it would only be by the mechanism of increasing the value of STEEM, which to me can't be viewed as a bad thing.
I have pointed this out many times, but I just find it amusing that people pretty much admit that Steemit sucks as a site so damn bad that it needs to bribe people to join.
People don't need to be bribed to join Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook...
I think this is a great experiment and hope the steemit account will follow your example. The initial distribution is way off and concerning to new investors. I am not a Litecoin holder but have huge respect for Charlie Lee who sold all of his Litecoin for the success of Litecoin.
Hi, I would lke to make a suggestion: Share half of your money with all accounts above a certain reputation level. You have more than you need to live so why not? If you don't like it I really would like to know why. Thanks and have a good day.
"You have more than you need to live so why not?"
Do you know what Communism is? I suggest you look it up, because people with your idiotic ideas have killed tens of millions.
In communism the people had to. Here it's om free will
By using the reward to buy up STEEM and burn it that will help support the price which benefits all account holders.
I support it.
To make big waves would help in growth. To achieve this we need automatic beneficiary settings (opt-in) so the system will send these monies to accounts wich apply for "UBI". With free transactions it's possible. I believe we would reach max imum capacity within months with this and save the planet.
Why the fuck would investors pay money to buy a token so you can UBI a bunch of non-contributing losers who will immediately sell, depressing price?
The mammoth stupidity of this suggestion...I can't even...
I know a pretty good psychiatrist in Berlin if you ever are in the area. =D
Not ideal...Im strong believer that under current situation the only viable option is to use flags accordingly. Nevertheless Im gonna support this experiment:)
i vote, most rewards are outrightly ridiculous for the post they are being rewarded for, there should be a maximum amount a post can get votes for
"there should be a maximum amount a post can get votes for"
Yep, because arbitrary caps that represent communism are a great idea. Venezuelans and Americans should clearly have the same cap, that's totally fair.
Oh, wait, they're fucking dumb.
Exciting experiment, looking forward to following how it goes :)
I'm sorry smooth. But this is a horrible Idea. There are people in 3rd world countries that are working hard here on steem to earn enough to make a living. And here we go burning this money. Like it's nothing.
Now a more interesting idea would be to, not burn the money, but take the money, put it into an account as steem power. Then a project can be made where that SP is delegated to various groups on the platform that can help out those in places that need it.
That steem is power that can be used in a positive way to help people.
Let's not waste a chance to pay it forward.
"There are people in 3rd world countries that are working hard here on steem to earn enough to make a living."
This is not an argument, it's a SJW communist/socialist appeal for charity.
"it's a SJW communist/socialist appeal "
That is not an argument, that is an ad hominem appeal to emotion. Oddly in this case it's an appeal to lack of emotion or doucheiness some might say.
You can see it that way.
Or you can see it as an opportunity to help people that can in turn help others. They just need a push to get going.
I'm not really a fan of these projects that collect and manage SP/vote power (guilds, etc.). They just end up concentrating and centralizing power and influence, and have a history of leading to various forms of corruption, controversy and abuse. I would rather see individual people just voting their own vote power on whatever they feel adds the most value to the platform.
I certainly understand your concern.
But just burning money isn't the way to go. I feel as if that will hurt the little guy in the long run.
If you don't want this to be a guild. Why not make it a completely random as to who will get steem power delegated to for a short time? Where minnows can gain more influence and help the platform grow. Bring more people into the platform.
I just think that there's a better way to go about this. Where we can help people and not just burn the money.
This looks like buybacks...or I miss something?
Yes it is using some of the reward pool to buy back STEEM and destroy it, reducing the supply.
Quadratic voting was also quadratic downvoting.
Just sayin'
Solid point. Dan is clear on how we fucked things up by changing to linear voting.
Dan is right in the sense that linear voting has issues. But he's wrong in that quadratic voting also has issues. Neither is a very good but until someone comes up with a better idea we're stuck with one or the other and thus far the devs have chosen to continue supporting linear as the least bad (in their opinion) option.
BTW, @mattclarke the problem with downvoting is much the same now with linear as it was with quadratic: For the most part nobody does it, and therefore whenever anyone does, it becomes a Huge Big Deal, personal attack, starting a war, throwing old ladies down the stairs, etc. If downvoting were much more common and not a Huge Big Deal, a lot of things about this platform would work much better. I don't know how to get there.
We're still in beta.
What was done can be undone.
Dangerous experiment.
Will burnt steem show up as a reduction in supply for feeds like coin market cap used or will it just be effectively burned. If it’s removed from total supply I like the idea much better than if it’s just effectively burned by being sent somewhere with no private key.
great post.
"I haven't had a job since 2006."
Oh, well now that we have established your long-running, ancestral claim to this rewards pool based on your uselessness to the world economy, let me grab my check book.
What is that
Great idea in here. We'll go for it.
It is time to burn i think!
Is the experiment still live??
I need to talk to you @smooth regarding that.
I've not been focusing on it as long as SBD is at or below $1. I do restart the posts when it trades at a premium.
How about just not being allowed to upvote your own posts or comments? That should help with abuse of payment rewards.
Sure, because this can't be defeated in 3 fucking seconds by creating sock-puppets, which all abusers pretty much already do, resulting in punishing only legit users who don't make it a career to abuse.
How about thinking through a suggestion before vomiting it into the comments?
Welp...I guess limiting rewards is the way to go then. I like your writing style thanks for your response I appreciate it.
i have question .. why i cannot power up my steemit from dollar to steemit can you help me about that please.
If you have SBD you have to trade that for STEEM first then you can power it up. Click on the menu at the upper right and choose 'Currency market'. There you can trade your SBD for STEEM.
thank you ... i did that now and i am waiting
you think now steem get up sir ?
If you mean the price I have no idea. You will have to use your own judgment on that.
can you tell me please ... why my steem power is down every day ?
Here is my 16 cents. Nice idea.
But why would you create a post which is simply there for the reward to be burned - if you could have the same and even better effect by downvoting?
I personally don't like downvoting due to the negative effect - but if the reason that this post was created is to counter-act some abusers, why not simply downvote those abusers?
The effect is not the same. Downvoting shifts those rewards to other posts, but what if the total is just too high? Both have a role to play.
i tried it with small amounts but nothing turned. do you achive this?
voted, i agree. Continue making more post, this is the way to a better steemit!
Good initiative, we'll see how this thing unfolds.
There is a lot of this going on and it is especially frustrating for those of us that strive to create value.
A handful of us have decided to work together and get the @steemflagrewards going to help combat the problem. Even minnows can do their part. I think we owe it to ourselves to be responsible for the stake we invested. We owe it to ourselves and the larger community.
Thanks for working to address the problem from a different angle. Would appreciate if you looked us up sometime.
Good
Good