RE: Elimination of Curation Rewards
To a large extent, we are going to get what we curate. If the stakeholders are allocating a significant amount of rewards to photography, we will attract more photographers. As more photographers are attracted to the rewards, competition will drive higher quality photography. (That's the idea..)
I try. I have original work. One time, one got above $100, getting visibility, setting an example of quality to get rewarded. Then it got flagged for "too high payout" and "not being valuable to Steemit" or some such nonsense... That's while another post that same day by me, was not my original higher quality content, got close to $200, for cannabis.
Next, another time a post on quality important truth, morality, got above $100, that was too much again, knocked down with a flag. Other posts don't get this treatment. I have pulls from the blockchain to prove it.
Then again, another quality post on morality, this time it was at $70, so flag it down to $40. Hehe.
Visibility goes down, and attracting people to do the same is diminished.
I agree with how things should work based on how companies who produce things do succeed, and that is with a recognition of the importance of quality. But some people work against quality, because they don't think there is "quality", or that the content is "not valuable to the platform to attract new users", and other excuses.
So rather than spend time, effort, and creating higher quality original content, why would someone do that when it gets "punished" each time?Other posts, not original, less high quality that I make, can go to those payouts and they don't get flagged. Funny isn't it...
Curation can be free. If you care about the platform, you do it, for whatever content you want to promote. That's how I have done it. I don't look at curation rewards, although at some point I tried to do the 20minute mark thing. Vote for it early, later, whenever you want.
Early helps the author more, but so what if you're later? It shouldn't be about your curation rewards, but about valuing content for content. That's what needs to get into many people's understanding. Bots cant evaluate content for content. Consciousness is required. So what if you only do it at 9pm once a day for everything that day and don't get the curation rewards. Bots can be used to vote for trusted authors, then unvote manually on review once a day, etc. There are indeed better ways to use bots, but I'm still for consciousness being what drives actual social media.
I'm with you with everything you said about curation/voting. Flagging is a separate issue on it's own, which warrants it's own discussion.
The social contract is quite flexible round these parts you know?
The examples you've given are very much determined upon your lens or perception of the world. You say cannabis is less important but a 'quality post on morality' is...
Who's supposed to judge that and give it context?
an expert on morality, ldo (though i do believe krnel is one of the best posters that lives on the front page_
Well that's what I mean. A post written about cannabis and one written about 'quality important truth, morality'.
The whales are mainly dudes that mine crypto currencies.
One likes smoking weed another thinks posts that are more like academic articles are less valuable to mass adoption.
In the same way they make their preferences known through their lens. Krnel makes his perceptions known in this response.
Hows a whale that enjoys smoking a bit of weed going to conform to such highly individualised and personal standards?
I'm not a fan of the 'weed' stuff, but my personal views are that we should find a way to encourage all types of content that are going to bring active and engaged users to the platform.
I don't think the issue is cannabis posts being good or bad.
I think it's that someone actively punished @KrNel by taking away some of his reward for a post that he highly valued. If it had happened to his lower quality post too, there would be less issue, but instead, people are deliberately trying to influence him to post things they want to see, and the form of influence isn't just carrots.
They include a stick, by removing rewards, and the biggest issue is that @KrNel is upset because his most favorite post he wrote got punished, while the lesser post he wrote got rewarded.
This truly irritates a writer, because instead of getting "commission" type influence, where he can choose to either write about his favorite topic, OR a topic he knows will make lots of money, he's instead forced to only write for the money, because people will actively ruin his profits by flagging what he just wants to share with people, despite any potential popularity payout.
I mean, we all know that some types of content won't make much money, but we publish it anyways, just to share the idea. It's fine if it doesn't make lots of money, but when it DOES make money, but someone else feels the need to remove that money, it's just a heartbreaking feeling.
Not of "oh no, I'm sad I don't get money", but a feeling of "This community is broken. Why am I punished for work that people liked and upvoted just because some rich person didn't like it? I deserve the money that people give me via votes."
It's the same as someone ordering food at a restaurant.
If it's good, people will pay for it and tip.
If it's bad, people want their money back. That's fair.
But what's unacceptable is for people to take more money than they spent, robbing the restaurant of money they collected from other patrons.
Same with flagging for these frivolous reasons.
With the current system, there's a big advantage to voting early so as an optimisation problem, this is not going to be the best way and so will not "naturally" attract people. And it's not just about curation rewards, voting early draws more attention to good posts, so helping it snowball. For posts you believe in this is desired.
I'm coming round to this way of thinking and trying to think how bots can fit in better. The argument I make above is not necessarily the best way that Steemit can be, but it makes the most sense with the way it is. A change, probably a fairly core one, is needed to encourage more conscious engagement. That is if it's agreed there's an engagement problem. Some prominent witnesses I spoke to did not think it was 😕