But...what if you could not self-promote with this feature? If it was used as a tipping/promotion option, wouldn't that limit large accounts from promoting themselves?
And if the transfers were visible, then anyone would be able to see them and judge for themselves whether they want to vote on the post. So, a user could promote a post for $1000, but if the post isn't clearing enough of a reward to make the full $1000 back because others are not voting on it, it'll actually be a loss for the promoter (assuming that self-tipping on the post was allowed).
There is no way to prevent self promote. People would just use sock puppets.
I'm not sure where the loss would be coming from. Wouldn't they get whatever they spent back in the end?
Not with the payouts being split between authors and curators. Unless other people are upvoting their posts to cover all of the curator payout, they would just be taking a loss.
So, say you put $100 into your own post reward. The curation rewards would be ~25% of that. Unless the post makes enough to cover that ~25% loss to curators, you won't be getting that $100 back.
And if your own tip was visible to everyone, curators would know if you were simply trying to game your own reward and they could choose to not vote on your post. So, this would make self-tipping a lot more risky. Even if the tip is coming from a third party, there's no guarantee that the post will cover the curation loss. And if it does, and the tipper is also the owner of the tipped account, then they're just transferring money to another account. They aren't gaining anything that they haven't gained from other users voting on the post, just like normal rewards are distributed.
On the sock puppet issue - it really wouldn't be any different than creating multiple accounts right now and voting on your own post. It's still your own money and voting power that you're putting into it, right?
If you threw $100 at the post right in the first second, then the curation rewards would go to the author..
IDK, the idea itself is very cool, but unfortunately (IMO) it opens up way to ways for users to game the system. The amount of complexity that would need to go into a formula that could not be abused would make it very difficult.
I really like the pure tipping idea that is being discussed, with a separate balance that only needs your posting key to use.
Well, if it can't be done, so be it. But a tipping option should still be on the post, even if not added to the payout. I can't think if any reason why it shouldn't be.
That is the plan, based on the discussions that I have seen in GitHub.
If half of the self promotion gets SP... I think it is not so bad for the economy of steem...
That's something I had overlooked. The post payout is split between SP and liquid rewards as well, so getting back the tipping amount isn't so easy in that regard either.