What STEEM Really Needs Is A Dolphin-Booster Program As Evidenced By @fulltimegeek!!!
One of the wonderful aspect of the STEEM blockchain is that there are many accounts on here that seek to help the newer people. Many of us are well aware that the success of STEEM depends upon the success of many who become part of this ecosystem. When a person signs up, tries the site for a while, then leaves discouraged, this harms us all. One of the unique aspects of an ecosystem is that we are all tied together in our impact. The success of one (whether it is an individual or application) helps the entire blockchain.
We see programs such as @minnowbooster target those accounts with lower Steem Power. These bots are wonderful in that they allow people to delegate SP to them which, in turns, increases the Voting Power @minnowbooster has. Over the course of a day, hundreds of upvotes are given to Red Fish and Minnows in an effort to help increase their accounts.
There are also a lot of individuals who focus a great deal of attention on these same people. Dolphins are well aware of the same basic idea, that we are all tied together. Our success depends upon bringing newer people onto the blockchain and getting them to participate. 60K daily active users is sensational yet 200K is better. This is why so many focus upon the smaller accounts.
That said, there is a challenge with this. Every economic system that has thrived, historically, had a robust middle class. Regardless of the political and economic environment, a strong middle class means a wide reach. Part of the problem is many economies today, according to experts (for what they are worth), is that the middle class is disappearing. Hence, the wealth inequality continues to grow.
On STEEM, the class of people who are considered the middle class are the Dolphins. These are the people with enough Steem Power to make a difference, especially to smaller accounts yet they are not so large they are the main "players". One advantage of STEEM is that the inequality, as a percentage of the total holding, diminished in the past year. Over the past month I monitored the situation each week and this trend is still holding. More of the STEEM created, as a percentage, is going into the hands of the those other than Whales and Orcas.
@fulltimegeek started the Stewards of Gondor a few months back by delegating SP to a number of individuals. He did this free of charge in an effort to create a wider concentration of the wealth. This was a groundbreaking decision which, based upon the weekly stats produced by @abh12345, is having an effect.
This is a situation where a Whale took it upon himself to help create a thriving "middle class".
Since that time, many of the individuals who received delegation, including myself, started to delegate to others.
At the head of this class is @wwf. He started the Stewards of Terra Mater which is identical to the program @fulltimegeek laid out. @wwf is delegating the SP he has to others free of charge, those who exemplify the ideals and beliefs about the STEEM blockchain that he holds dear.
The challenge I see with @wwf doing this, along with all the others who were delegated SP by @fulltimegeek, is that we are Dolphins. We believe in the pay it forward idea and are happy to do this. However, as an economic system, this is akin to taxing the middle class. When this group of people has their pockets picked by governments, it weakens the entire system. Not only are individual returns lowered, but the entire system weakened because that money is directed towards the upper classes, either directly or through the lower classes who end up spending it at entities owned by the wealthy.
Delegation is a loan. Obviously, loans are necessary for any economic system to grow. What @fulltimegeek and @wwf are doing is providing interest free loans. That is the idea of the pay it forward mindset. The SP is still owned by the original individual. Yet, we see many renting out delegation for payment. Naturally, I agree with one's right to do this. However, this is what banks do and, over time, we saw how that worked out. When one rents out delegation, he or she is creating a ROI. There is nothing wrong with this. What I see as a challenge is that these large accounts are getting bigger at a disproportionate rate. From an ecosystem perspective, we possibly run the risk of re-creating the banking system. Is this what is the best for the STEEM blockchain?
Another interesting observation is that of those who grew their accounts via purchasing delegation, I have yet to see many who gave any to others to help out. It appears that when one operates with a "business" mindset, and renting out delegation is a business decision, this carries forward. Hence every decision will be looked at from such a perspective. It is simply a "what is in it for me" mindset.
Notice the difference that @fulltimegeek created. Of the people who received delegation from him, many have already delegated SP to others free of charge. The mindset is completely different. While all of us have an eye on our account value and would like to succeed financially as much as possible, trying to claw each SP out of another is not at the top of the agenda. We realize that there is a much bigger movement going on here and this is a means to an end. SP is simply a vehicle especially since I hold the belief anyone holding even a few hundred SP are going to be well off in a couple years.
For STEEM to truly flourish, from an economic perspective, requires having a vast amount of people with between 35K-50K SP. This is the sweet spot where a robust middle class is having an impact. At that level, upvotes are worth 10-15 STU. People in this realm can lay votes worth a couple dollars many times a day. They have the ability to keep growing their accounts at a fast rate while also turning around and helping others. Following the cycle that is always present on STEEM, increasing one's account ends up helping everyone else.
I know @fulltimegeek isn't the only one who did this. @stellabelle also delegated a vast amount of SP to others gratis. Since I am not part of that movement, I can only hypothesize what is happening, but I am sure her actions are having a significant impact. I believe I read @v4Vapid also did some delegating.
That said, there needs to be more if we are going to see STEEM truly thrive. Even though this is a social media blockchain, there is a monetary element to it which means we also operate as an economic model. How we structure it is up to us.
Focusing upon the Red Fish and Minnows should be done with all the earnestness we can muster. However, I think it imperative that we not overlook the ones who will truly make this economic model success, the middle class of STEEM. Concentrating upon the smaller accounts to the detriment of the Dolphins (STEEM's middle class), especially with so few at this time, is not sound.
Whatever the number is, STEEM needs a 10 fold increase in those accounts with between 35K and 50K SP. These are the ones who really can have a major impact, especially with the pay it forward mindset.
After all, we have hundreds of economic systems which show us how they fare when there is little to no middle class.
Perhaps there is a lesson or two we should learn from them.
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There are so many high quality posts that just get skipped on Steemit due to the meritocratic nature of the website. I came up with a way to improve this on the blockchain level by incentivising whales and dolphins to actively seek minnows to upvote and support through a tiered curation rewards system, where you gain more curation rewards the larger the difference in rep is between the upvoter and the upvotee. This would incentivise the higher reps from voting for accounts with lower rep, if the rewards are high enough, like x2 SP from curation or even more!
Like, +2.5% per reputation difference, starting from 25. Let 25 = 0 and reputation be a modulus, therefore rep 10 = rep 40 in terms of curation rewards for the upvoter.
The rewards don't have to be a linear 2.5%, it could be another formula instead of just y = 1.025x, to come up with a good/perfect formula there would need to be experimentation, then changes at the blockchain level, which my uneducated self no idea who can do this/if it's possible!
If it's possible, I would see a massive influx of support for newer users!!
This certainly makes a lot of sense.
I mentioned the idea one's vote counts less the higher the rep of the one being voted upon.
For example, voting on someone over 70 at 100% only gives that person a 10% vote in STU while a 100% vote on a person with a rep under 40 might count for 100% of the worth.
Obviously the scale could be adjusted for lower voting percentages.
I might make a post about this later with more in-depth formulas and stuff, would you be interested to help me promote it if I do?? I've made 3-4 posts about this when I first got onto Steemit and all of them were vastly ignored as I didn't have much influence back then (and now)! However, everyone who did see it thought it was a great idea!
If this idea came into fruition, I think it would be amazing for the community and Steemit! I'd also like visibility for people to debate my ideas and look for possible downfalls, and if the community agrees with it, perhaps it might be implemented in the blockchain (somehow)!
Sure @cryptoeater.
After you write it just post the link in the comment section of one of my most recent posts. I will read it and if it makes a ton of sense, which I am sure it will, I will resteem it for you....and leave a good comment to try to get a discussion going.
"Thanks! That'd be greatly appreciated :)"
posting for cryptoeater cus his internet died and he wants to sleep
can confirm I said this LOL
:)
(internet back up but I'll be sleeping haha)
LOL that is okay...Always willing to help out my friend.
Any good idea is an idea worthy of sharing on here....
We all need to figure out ways to improve things...whether it is with our own behavior or by putting forth ideas for the community to discuss.
I've actually been emailing other academics personally behind the scenes, those who study commons systems or networks, to what they think about different rewards rules, participation rules, etc. Linear versus exponential for consensus, reputation distributions, stake distributions, etc.
Most amazingly enough haven't heard about steem, despite steem having the most transactions of any blockchain and being the only large consensus economy.
I've been collecting comments like this, analyzing. It's not obvious what is the best rule, because structured systems are not intuitive. Caffeine blocks receptors, inhibits parts of the brain . . . which inhibit other parts of the brain . . . so it ends up activating, stimulating.
The scaling for vote percentages would be the key. F(x1, x2, ..., xN ; k) = x is dominated by k if the x vector is monotonic improvement related to F, and k is not.
I think this is a really cool idea!
Lack of support for minnows is definitely a problem in the community and it sometimes feels unfair when you see memes on trending with huge $$$ yet yours barely gets noticed.
I'm not sure if reputation score is potentially the answer though, a lot of people like myself have tried to build up a reputation but still don't necessarily have much SP at all in the grand scheme of things.
It could also encourage up-voting people that are actually not contributing to the community positively if the formula wasn't tweaked so that up-voting people with a rep score of below 25 didn't equate to even more rewards.
People below gets counted as higher than 25, like rep 20 = 30 and rep 0 = 50! This way it discourages people from making an account to flag just to get higher curation!
In my original idea i forgot to mention, your rewards are multiplied for each upvote after yours!! Like if you upvote someone, and 20 people upvote after you, you get 20x(rep difference)*y, where x and y are constants or variables yet to be decided. This way it discourages from randomly voting for rep 25 people.
Your point about actively building rep is a good point though. But rep (actual rep, not the level) is proportional to the amount of steem you've earned from posts, so I think with my proposed changes it would discourage the use of voting bots as that would increase your rep for no reason and encourage creating genuine good content for upvotes from genuine users!
Ahhhh I see that's interesting, yes I think that would work quite well and solve many issues. That one formulaic implementation would help to solve 3 problems at once, like you said.
Pretty good really :)
I'm glad you like the idea! I'll make a post about it tomorrow with more in-depth formulas and ideas regarding it! If you're interested, I can link u the post via memo!
Yeah sure man, I'll look forward to giving it a read :)
Made post here It's a bit messy and hard to understand but it's basically a summary of all my ideas + a bit of explanation!
Time is often a huge factor in Reputation numbers here. Other than some people who sign up here who already have large numbers of followers on some other platform like YouTube, few jump to 65-70 overnight. In my experience, getting to 50 or so is relatively easy, but the climb gets a lot harder after that.
From what I understand, it is a doubling scale....each interval is twice as large as the one ahead of it.
So to go from 50 to 51 is easier than going from 60-61.
Since much of Steemit is based on powers of ten, I would guess that making it to 65 is 10x as difficult as making it to 55.
FWIW, I had a fairly easy rise up to about 53 and then hit a brick wall. Slow going since then.
Maybe the Peter Principle came into play.
What is arctan? I keep seeing it buying delegation leases on mb.
Hi! I'm arctan. I'm am investor on steemit. I'm like a private up vote bot, except I'm my a bot. My friends pay me with crypto and fiat for up votes and I reinvest my earnings into leasing more steem power. Hope this clears things up!
I see... that sort of clears things up. How is that profitable? I thought delegations yielded negative returns even if used to self-vote 100%.
Yeah honestly it isn't very profitable. Back when SBD was super high it was a lot more profitable but since SBD and Steem both went down in price, I'm in the red, I'm operating in the red. However, with Steem and SBD prices going up I'm hoping to become more profitable again soon!
That's a totally new way of thinking @cryptoeater, haven't seen this idea pitched before on Steemit. I'm really interested in your 'to be written' article. Thanks!
Hi! Here's my article! It's a bit long and messy but gets a lot of the main points across!
You have a brilliant idea in here. It would be a very productive system if it will be implemented in STEEM blockchain. Looking forward for it.
@cryptoeater
Hi! Here's my article! It's a bit long and messy but gets my main points across!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I will find time to read it and will give feedback later.
Really amazing, I did not know him before thank you brother @cryptoeater for all this wonderful and useful information. I wish you all the best. I hope to see everyone help each other
Hi! Here's my article! It's a bit long and messy but gets my main points across!
Nice post @taskmaster4450. As I have several months of experience delegating nearly 100% of my steem away, I can say confidently that I was well rewarded for that gesture, even though I did not charge interest for it. I do not believe that usury should be used in any form and that is why I refuse to charge interest in order to gain a ROI.
My reward as given to me through an avenue that I least expected. The Stewards of Terra Mater became my most loyal followers and upvoted all my content as an expression of gratitude and appreciation. Friendships flourished! The publicity of being a member of the Stewards of Gondor also brought a following as well, which attracted more followers to my own blog. As a result, I was able to rocket to dolphin status in 112 days.
I have @fulltimegeeks delegation to reward people who interact and engage with me, while the Stewards of Terra Mater have mine to do the same. As a result, I am gaining on average 40 steem a day and I am now gaining nearly 10 new followers a day. I write high quality and heavily researched content which also accounts for the rewards that I am receiving.
With that said, I also live off grid and have little need for steem right now. Between my wife and I, we cashed out about 150steem over the last two months to pay the one bill we do have. We literally are living off of the proceeds of steem right now and continue to build our accounts and influence here on this platform at the same time.
The economics of delegating steem rewards me heavily. It may seem counter intuitive as I don't have 5000 steem to use, but giving it away results in 5000 steem upvoting me and interacting with me. It is like me upvoting my own content through a proxy. As I receive 75% of the upvote, it rewards me more than doing my own voting and receiving a fraction of that through curation.
The economics are up-side-down in comparison to the banking world we are used to interacting with. In my view, people who charge for an upvote are double dipping as they system is already compensating them for the vote. People who charge for the use of steem are engage in usury and missing the whole point of a gifting economy.
Old habits are hard to break. I've been very well rewarded for paying it forward and gifting 5000 steem to others while being blessed to use 15000 from @fulltimegeek.
By shifting the wealth down the food chain, the dolphins and whales are rewarded and continue to grow. The value of steem increases which is also a reward for them.
I don't see delegations as loans but rather anti-loans. They are gifts. The gift I received from @fulltimegeek is through my capacity to earn more steem by using his steem. I get to keep the proceeds as a result of my own curation through upvotes. I am rewarded and gain benefit from his gift. He receives benefit through increase success of the platform which drives up the price of steem.
If people charge usury, then that is a loan. But if no usury is in play, it is a gift and everyone is rewarded as a result.
It may seem counter intuitive, but I believe we are growing the middle class quickly through this gifting paradigm. I see it working well and accelerating peoples rise in wealth. The graphs that I show regarding the growth of the Stewards of Terra Mater demonstrate the acceleration of their growth as a result of the gifts that were payed forward. It happened every single time. The more we give, the quicker the growth.
WTG seems like a win win
Again an interesting topic.
Supporting the minnows is great, cause it is utmost important that they get to know steem, keep using it and spreading the word.
The middle layer is also important, but just like in the real world it is the most forgotten group. But in the world of Steem, these are users which are here to stay. They spread the word and invest in it!
So yes both groups should be supported. The minnows because this is important for the growth of the system, the middle layer because they are the life line of the system.
The question is how to support them.
For the minnows. Giving out a free loan isn't a good idea. It would feed the idea that Steemit is about free money. For this group knowledge about Steem is much more important.
Supporting the middle class is great. Because this power will drop down to the minnows.
But let's be honest. If you do want to make something of your Steem account there are 2 ways to do it. 1. Buy steem and really invest money in it. 2. The hard way, put a lot of time and effort into it.
I'm trying option number 2. But I can assure you that it will be a long road for me to step out of the minnow group!
But all these actions is what is making steem great. Lots of people do think about the others!
Thank you for your comment @fullcoverbetting.
I agree the second way is a great way to do it. It takes work and effort but it can be done. Keep coming back and commenting here. You keep making comments like this and I will assure you that you will get upvotes from me.
Great post. Agreed that the Dolphins are a huge part of any economy/society thriving. I think we could consider "scholarships" by larger whales where promising minnows can apply and receive delegation for free or very low interest. I worry about not embracing minnows too much, given that we still need their growth to drive the industry. And I've struggled myself in the early going to gain traction so I very much understand the struggle. But to your point, I think having more Dolphins with SP to spread around allows for a stronger overall rising tide, as opposed to relying upon a few whales.
The whales simply cannot be in enough places at one time. There is too much going on here for them to adequately support those that need it.
Couple that with the fact many of the whales on here are developers by nature and are contributing a great deal (and spending most of their time) on that end of things. Posting, commenting, and upvoting arent necessarily their major focus.
Yes ... according to my personal experience here ... I received delegating from my brother @wwf .. and from @fulltimegeek ...this was a strong motivation for me and changed my life very much
The most important thing that I benefited from is that Steemit is a social and a strong solidarity website... is not a commercial website for profit ...
The thing I believe in is that my success is successfully linked around me here ...
My account is still weak in order to help others ... but I am trying to encourage them through positive words and comments ... like what you do with us here ...
thank you @taskmaster4450
Very much agree with needing many of those mid range voters. I think those type of delegations could go a long way when applied to the correct people who spread it around on good content. I had invested in steem before even posting on the steemit platform and am working hard to get to that range. I think the platform will be helped greatly when many of us get there.
Hi @taskmaster4450, you are always right on and ahead of the train! I know and see exactly what you are talking about. After 11 weeks I’m finally getting the picture of deli and when given it is totally given much more freely to others. I’ve seen those @wwf have and they upvote us babies freely. Sometimes the deli is used to pay rent, buy food, live with ease and this is a huge gift too. I am always appreciative of givers such as yourself. Also, @underground is working on a dolphin program but first we are attempting to continue your 1k initiative with Minnow Boot Camp.
You are as always an inspiration for many of us. Thank you for all you do! xx 🦅
Thank you for your comment @eaglespirit.
I am glad you find what I write helpful and motivating. There are many wonderful things going on here and I love how things are shaping up. That said, it is imperative we keep seeking out ways to improve the entire ecosystem. Over time, the opportunity will explode if we can get the SP moving around. Most of us are undertaking projects to help others...that is the spirit that is here.
Hopefully, as a community, we can take the next step.
Yeah, I guess you just have that effect on me. There truly are genuine and lovely people on Steemit. You carry that spirit like a beacon for all ... kind of like the underground railroad. Lead us out of slavery!
Yes, as a community we will carry on. Thank you. xx
This and the part about @fulltimegeek delegating for free is exactly why I launched the #asapers. I hand picked 6 others Steemians and delegated all my Steem Power to these people. Obviously, due to the opportunity I've been given by FTG.
The focus for the @asapers is to make a difference in young Steemians lives and to help them make a difference on Steemit. I strongly believe that this is the perfect way to improve the overall experience on Steemit and I also believe that this will change Steemit for the better. And with that, our own pockets in the end too. Long term is essential here.
Thanks for sharing!
The most important thing here, which I liked a lot about you is your wonderful cooperation, beautiful friendship and amazing subjects. I have never encountered a social position in which all these wonderful and amazing pros ... I think it will be the first social site in the world. And this is really great.thanks dear @taskmaster4450 and @wwf and @fulltimegeek
Thats really a very great project and is helping me a lot. It gave me more confidence as well. To create many new "Middle Class" people will change many things on this platform. And once I reach my goal very soon I will do the same :)