I’d like to the chance to answer everyone’s questions here, I think we started a valuable discussion here today. Although I am a little hurt and offended by the way it came out, but I am generally a bit hypersensitive so it’s probably just me. Over the entire history of Stax all the decisions along the way have had input and discussion from the community and discussion is always welcome. We have had votes and always worked together along the way.
I will start by saying operating and running Stax, is a lot of work at times and there are fees associated with hosting the server that she’s runs on. It took a lot to learn just how the programming runs and how to balance everything. The constant struggle to monitor power and weights, and make sure the nodes are operational takes a lot of ongoing effort. As well as traveling with my laptop at all times or rushing home when there are issues, as well and the ongoing DM’s and messages I receive. In this past it was proposed that @phelimint (I) received the 100% vote as compensation, but that was in fact long ago, when gold members were also receiving much higher votes. I do agree that with the requirement to lower the ongoing tiers that should have likely been reassessed as it’s likely much too high now, I admit this was an oversight and nothing more and for that I will apologize. I am happy to forgo any bonus and receive the appropriate tier for my own contribution to the project.
There is also discussion regarding Stax’s wallet, I realize now that, that has never been expressly discussed and I always just assumed that was property of the bot owner, which is certainly the standard across steemit. I understand everyone contributes with their votes, but everyone also receives votes in return. I can assure you all, that she will not be powering down and that power will be used as ongoing rewards to everyone much like any other steemit account. Everyone is certainly being well compensated for their votes and contributions along the way and Stax is by far the most lucrative community/subscription bot currently operating on the steem blockchain. With that being said, the wallet and curation rewards are accumulating, and likely adequate compensation for any work @phelimint(I) am doing on a regular basis (as per the above discussion and discontinuation of bonus votes)
I also want to discuss the self-vote and @qurator vote trade that is currently ongoing. I know it has also been discussed extensively. I would like to say that I think it would be very short-sighted to discontinue these things and they do fund a vast majority of our ongoing leases. It will give back slightly higher vote for the rest of the month, but next month voting power will drop significantly and everyone’s vote will fall drastically. I will work through the math here and then it’s open for discussion how to proceed, if it’s the will of everyone to stop, then we most certainly will.
This math is all based on current steem/sbd prices. It might get confusing, it often catches me up as well, but hopefully it will help.
Let’s say Stax’s daily post rewards are $60, 20 comes from the self-vote, 20 comes for the quartor vote trade, and 20 comes from the vote from the community. I know curation loss is quoted at 25%, but it`s usually quite a bit less, so around $5-8, that leaves a liquid reward daily of 20SBD or, if steem stays 1:1, that’s 600Steem at the end of the month. It is all contributed to the delegations. Let’s also be conservative with this number and say that buys approx. 30 000SP for the next month. This also reduced the burden for people to donate to Stax, which I have always suggested against since ROI’s can’t be guaranteed.
I’ll work through some more numbers with this assumption for the Gold tier and use a 35% weight.
30 000SP at a 35% vote(example gold tier) is $1.74. Currently Stax has 94members getting votes and the balanced amount is 1100%/day. 200% of that is towards the self-vote and vote trade. If we add it to everyone’s vote in the tiers, that’s about 2%/member, or course for gold it would be higher so let’s say an extra 5%. A vote at 35% with the current power of 117 000SP is $6.80, if she loses 30 000SP and now has 87 000SP but casts a higher vote of 40%, that vote is now worth $5.78. This is a difference of $1.02. Thus a gold tier member will get a higher vote of $0.72 if we continue the vote trade and self-vote. These are also using conservative numbers, we lose less curation and likely lease a bit more SP. Of course there is also significant variation based on steem/sbd prices, but this is fundamentally the reason for the vote trade and self-votes. It might be a bit “circle-jerky” and people don’t feel right about it, once again we can totally stop it.
I quickly want to further discuss @qurator and why @phelimint gets a vote from it since that was also brought up. @qurator is a subscription vote bot/ steemit community. Anyone is welcome to join, @phelimint(I) have been a part of it since the very start and @scrooger and some other members of their team are blockchain friends of mine. For the most part it runs very similar to Stax, you vote it daily and/or donate/delegate and you get a vote in return, although it has around 1000 members and the same SP as Stax, so your rewards are of course much less. I do all off those things in return for my vote, the same as any member. I don’t get anything extra due to the vote trade with Stax. I do think it’s a great service and suggest everyone here consider being part of it.
That was a lot of Math phil, and not very many answers... if you believe the $7,000+ in the account is yours alone, then i’d say $1,000 a month (which will increase going forward) should be ample reward for your efforts, or at least most of the way there...
And dude, upvoting this post with 100 was a little ignorant of the present situation, don’t cha’ think?
Further, no one is stopping You from voting on curator for your own benefit, but it just isn’t assisting membership — the math is all there P.
Moreover, if you maintain that @steemsilvergold is owned by @phelimint, then the additional stax 100 selfie is just too much of a conflict of interest.
I kinda though that answers most of the questions, I declined to post with @phelimint tonight since I though that 100% was the biggest issue. I though the self vote to Stax, was previously approved, but of course it will stop till we are able to have a further discussion. I worry this is quickly getting out of hand
Heya Phil, why don’t we just all chill out for the night. It’ll give a chance for all of us to review the info and decide on the best course of action. I am sorry if my post came as a surprise — but bro, those two boots in the ass didn’t feel very good either. I went public for ultimate fairness, and because everybody should always be held accountable for their actions.
You know i am a HEAVY supporter of Stax, and you too! But dude, this has to be equitable and profitable for all involved — or the center will not hold.
Let’s just take a night, let the membership speak they’re/our mind, and revisit this tomorrow.
Cheers Man!
Probably for the best man, I'm still in a state of confusion and shock to be honest.
Thanks
Well i am sorry about that... but try looking at it from my pov and i’ll try looking at it from yours.
😎👍
That's the Spirit! :-)
This post was just voted 100% by staxx. Phil and what exactly do you mean about you are the owner of staxx. I think this is getting way out of hand and I don't really think to many answers where given with this post. So we or you are going to keep giving qurtar 100% votes?
I agree this is certainly getting out of hand I think we definitely need to have a further discussion. I though this answered the questions, but I think I'm missing something.
I think one of the core issues here is over who owns the bot. Many were of the opinion that Staxx was a community owned bot and so they donated generously with that understanding. To now find out that it is a privately owned bot is a shock to some.
I thought the same thing, but I doubled checked, it is on the Stax @silvergoldbotty account. Not a Stax upvote on the @phelimint account. Maybe U knew that...
As far as the Self Votes, it pays the bot account back, as does the Vote Trades w/Qurator. The numbers seem to be correct, and we can check the outgoing wallet. If we stop these vote trades and selfies, it costs us all almost $1 per vote in the long run. At gold level. I showed some graphs up above, were are netting $6 gains every time we trade votes w/Qurator
This is a great informational post, on the vote trade and self voting. BOTH are benefiting the community.
Phil voluntarily dropping to Gold would more than make up the current differences, but I believe if we would just do exactly what Phil laid out in the last post that has all the uproar in the comments section, it will recover and we could basically go back with what we had YESTERDAY... By the end of the week at the latest. Even I glazed over the words TEMPORARY until I re-read the post. Another thing that everyone is going to have to come to grips with, no matter how big the SP becomes, we will
ALL HAVE TO TAKE A SMALLER % VOTE AS MEMBERSHIP RISES.
This is due to the Steemit Voting Power Model. But a bigger SP gives a bigger pool, and a smaller % can be more $ with a bigger SP... More DELEGATING MEMBERS is what we need! IMO the 1% folks should have to put up a 5 SP DELI and if that means the next level up has to go to 10, then so be it. With a different community/bid bot model, we have people CLAMORING to scrape up DELI! Might not work for Stax, I have seen some of her post payouts, it seems they (STINC) are capping the SBD on the larger posts... Prolly a Haejin thing :(
Also gotta add this,
I have looked everywhere else, high and low, there is no other place at this time I can park my 2500 SP Deli and get anywhere near the returns I am getting from Stax... Not even with the New Generation Bid Bot or Community Bot models we are now running. Nothing else comes Close!
MORE: Here is the vote OUTGOING to Qurator:
Here is the INCOMING vote from Qurator:
That was a total of 5 traded votes, and #TEAM-SSG made $30 MORE than we put out. ALSO made more than a Self-Vote, which is also beneficial. Like I said, Phil getting these kinds of gains is like Trump turning the entire Trade Deficit into a TRADE SURPLUS :D lol
This is great to hear! Thanks! Now just wait til we get ‘er properly tuned!
😎👍
First off, I'm kind of shocked that anyone has any kind of problem with the way @phelimint is running STAX. He deserves every 100% upvote EVERY time. He's put in the work and earned it. As for @qurator, eh...for now it's viable.
And what's this liquidating the SP nonsense? We want STAX to be a TOTAL badass or just ya know, almost-a-badass-but-not-quite-because-we're-whining-about-the-rewards-and-how-they're-distributed? The rewards anyone gets from STAX is because they upvote her and delegate. That's what we all signed up for and should be more than enough. That's where my vote goes. Why in the heck would you want to concede to relying on delegation from anywhere else but within the organization? Seems to devalue what has been and is being built. Self-reliance, am I right guys? Where is the stacker attitude I love??? Buying delegations may make her more powerful, but there is no guarantee that bought delegation will be there a week later. Building STAX does guarantee that she continues to grow and support everyone with a stronger arm in the long run.
I do like the split rewards notion. I would most assuredly delegate more if that were an option. And it doesn't even need to be 50/50. Hell Phil, keep 75% or even 80%. Far as I'm concerned, that would be a badass bonus ON TOP OF THE ALREADY SWEET VOTES WE ARE ALL GETTING.
-Witty
STAX @silvergoldbotty I am going to be just like Switzerland right now and see how the Allies and Axis Powers go at it. In the mean time I will be happy to hold any of your STEEM in my SWISS VAULT.............
I’ll have the truffled fondue please!
LOL now that is a TASTY Request !
Bahahahahahahaa... :D
Personally, I think you've done a fantastic job, and that goes for the rest of the community here at #steemsilvergold who got @silvergoldbotty where she is today. I can attest to how busy running a bot account can get, especially when things go wrong, or when it comes to managing donations, delegations, tiers, SP leases etc to make sure the ROI is a good as possible for everyone.
I wasn't here in the early days, but have known @phelimint since before @silvergoldbotty got up and running, and he is an upstanding Steemian, who would never intentionally wrong someone else. Perhaps there were some grey areas not discussed at the start, but historically all the bot owners are the ones doing the hard yards, and so "own" the SP rewards. Investors, be it through delegation, or paid subscriptions in STEEM or SBD work their ROI based on upvotes.
I do however think that @phelimint should be on the correct tier, based on the same criteria as everyone else. To me that is a fair solution, given that the SP rewards should be enough to cover the running costs with some extra for @phelimint's hard work.
If you're not happy with your ROI on your investment through upvotes, then there is not reason for you not to pull your delegation and invest elsewhere. I don't see any other project with a higher ROI than right here, even at a lower level of investment.
If there were any initial "donations" made to help get up and running which were meant as "investment in shares" of the bot, perhaps there should be a power down and refund, or let bygones be bygones and move on with the positive ROI we are already getting, which may have already eclipsed your initial investments by now.
As for voting on non-#steemsilvergold posts: A lot of us post on a variety of topics, which may not fit into the tag, and so it is not always used. If we had to use the tag to get a vote, that would contaminate the feed and make the tag useless to the community. Does that mean we shouldn't get a return vote on our investment? I don't think that's how it should work, as long as we are contributing something to the community, and supporting each other outside of the realms of the bot.
#steemsilvergold isn't the bot, and the bot isn't #steemsilvergold.
At the end of this I'd like to see all sides come to an amicable solution, and put this one to bed knowing and accepting where everyone stands. Resolve the issues, accept the outcome and move on. Just don't let money get in the way of a good solid community, and sour the whole experience.
First let me just say to @phelimint you have done a great job at putting this all together for the benefit of the community. Secondly, you should be paid for all of your "hard work." I personally can absolutely see the benefits that STAX provides. I doubt that any of the questions are being raised by the regular membership that receives an upvote in exchange for the daily upvote of STAX more than a fair deal. I do not delegate but have leased a tier up for this month and last month. Last month was a winner, and even if the voting is reduced it looks like I have at least covered the lease at this point, mostly from STAX but not exclusively. This is really a discussion about the roi for the delegation? My two cents, literally the current value of my upvote, is that the goal is to increase the VP of Stax. We are experiencing here the sort of growing pains that are being exhibited across the entire platform in relation to rewards. Since this is all new, and STEEMIT is a great experiment, it would be my most sincere desire and hope that we could resolve this matter in a very gentlemanly fashion that would serve as a template for the entire STEEMIT community.
Ultimately, I believe we are all here for the long haul and with that in mind the issue to me is how do we grow STAX so that our community grows and prospers for years to come.
well said mate esp the last 2 lines :)
I can imagine it being hard work maintaining the bot, working out levels and keeping everyone happy, making sure people get a good return on an investment. I always assumed the person who created the bot and runs it day to day (phil) owns the bot and any spoils associated.
The bot was created to give everyone interested in precious metals an incentive to join steemit and make good posts with a little vote to give them a lift, grow the community and that will benefit us all if we are voting on each others posts. I wasn't sure if delegating steem to stax was good for the community as it takes away everyones power to upvote what they consider good content on their own merit.
But it has become an investment vehicle and anyone investing wants the maximum return and will be ruthless in wanting everything and will resent anyone else getting anything especially if they consider someone is getting something for nothing. Money will always suck the fun out of everything our sad species might have achieved. This is very important; when i joined steemit i read about what steemit was, it is a social media game, this is a game not a business! Stax is a level inside that game and the rules of playing with stax are laid out, if you want to play in the gold and silver tiers then have fun doing that but follow the guidelines set out by those that created and operate it and enjoy playing that part of the game and if you dont like the game then play a different one.
We all love Stax and have enjoyed seeing her grow up and without the investors at the top there would be no stax to support smaller players and those that put into it deserve the most out of it but should not be expected, investments go down, sometimes you loose but the founding principle of silvergoldbotty was to support good content about silver and gold related topics as that is the reward for the majority of us and not just to offer a guaranteed % return on any investment.
I always assumed extra cash generated with Stax would go to those who built her. I'm happy with how stax is voting, and the current setup.
Cheers
What about a token gesture to obtain a 1% membership upvote for being part of ssg.
Example delegation of 2sp as this most people can afford and maybe remove some self serving people who dont contribute any thoughts or posts about the silver or gold in the blogs. This would also add a few sp to stax which will help with the cause.
As a 1% part of this community I applaud your proposition but there is a problem: I have only 4SP. If I delegate 2SP this month and 2SP the next month, I will not have 2SP to delegate in the third month. So am I out of steemsilvergold ?
Delegation is a one off, and can be redeemed at any time. And was only my thoughts and not of staxs
I like this idea very much. I hope it will be noticed and implemented.
Don't worry... Head to my post and I'll surely give you a free up-vote...
Wow. I really have been out of the loop. You miss a week on steemit and a lot happens!
I think the Entire #steemsilvergold community would be much better off if you just turned the entire STAX Botty over to me... lol... Just kidding... But don't think I haven't noticed a big reduction in Up-Voting Power from all those who are paying for your up-votes... I realize it doesn't help that the price of Steem has taken a Giant Nose-Dive lately... I'm sure a lot of people may be a little edgy, thinking they may not be able to recover what they paid...
COIN MAN by @pocketechange ...A penny may cost you a dollar...
@silvergoldbotty Very helpful sir. hopefully better policy . thank you sir.
The way still and all critize will make us more stronger. But some people did not know how hard we are doing the best