Steem blockchain has a dynamic calculation about account bandwidths. If the network is under load, the bandwidth allocated per account decreases.
Amount of the SP of your account makes you allocate more. Delegations are also included. This is a limitation to prevent DDOS attacks and spams.
However, this limitation hits minnows generally since they don't have much SP. If you get bandwidth errors and can't interact with the chain, you might think that you're posting too much. However, this may happen if the network is under heavy load.
@reggaemuffin came up w/ the idea of showing the potential bandwidth of accounts if there was no load in the network. This can be a good indicator for the minnows to decide they post too much or not.
a new way to visualize it
| Bar | Red | Green | Blue |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Used BW | Current Available BW | - |
| #2 | - | Current Available BW | Potential Allocated BW if the network was not under load |
| #3 | Used BW | Current Allocated BW | Potential Allocated BW if the network was not under load |
How the "potential" is calculated?
Every block has a "reserve_ratio" property which directly effects the bandwidth calculation. In perfect state it's maximum value is 20000 * 10000
Based on the maximum and current value you can compare them and estimate what would happen if there is no load on the network.
This is a work in progress. So, it's not linked anywhere. However, if you want to see it you can access it directly via URLs like:
http://steem.rocks/ned/bandwidth
http://steem.rocks/photocontests4/bandwidth
Thanks to you both for watching our backs :)
I'm not sure if we need 3 bars, overall one would be enough for me.
That's a great usability suggestion. A little change that would yield a huge benefit to users. I hope someone at Steemit sees this and implements it. Although most probably a separate site called "steemit-bandwith.com" will come into existence.