Very interesting indeed!

First off, this sounds like a headache for the developers - I would not fancy this task, but everything is possible with code.

I suppose curators could ignore quality, and still drive for profit?

Have you seen this recent post:

https://steemit.com/steem/@snowflake/enter-a-whale-s-mind

And my response:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@abh12345/steemit-abit-v-s-snowflake-180k-steem-power-battle

I think your idea worth a more detailed look for sure - lets see if any devs or super brains have more to contribute.

Cheers

Asher

- Resteeming because i do have a fair few folks on my list interested in the curation game :)

Interesting idea Taraz. I have been thinking about similar issues for awhile. There is also the fact that a lot of people upvote what they know will be worth a bunch to try to get the maximum curation, without actually reading the content. 

This could cause something to start trendig that is completely false just because someone usually gets a huge payout. This seems like a huge issue to me.

Interesting concept. I'd say a Maybe.

Whenever I link a post for free curation (like with ocd-resteem) or whether I bid, I try to do it with posts that will bring the most value. I know that my gaming stuff is more niche, so I'll promote something that is outside of that, because it could help more people.

I think the idea needs ripening, but definitely worth bringing to the attention of devs.

There are people who can stop the selling of votes, they just have to care enough to do so.  Simply a flagging bot made by someone like @ned who has the steem power that auto flags "buy a vote" bot votes once they are placed, erasing the upvote? Easy enough to do but will it be done?

chainBB has a very nice implementation of this, even including how much VP your upvote will cost.

https://i.imgur.com/Bxg2CSs.png

Dear @tarazkp You are doing a great job and a lot of appreciation for you for sharing a long but impressive informative description

nice my friend

This will definitely nudge the curators towards reading the content.
The reason I don't spend a chunk of my time on curating is: reading takes time and time is money, it's logical to lean toward the task that yields more reward at the end.
I would prefer a vote that takes the majority of the reward if I know the user did actually read my post.

Wow wow, this issue of vote selling has really got me thinking. Fact is, this would really discourage many original writers because it becomes clearer that your content isn't useful to the full house .

If a whale decides to sell off his votes, he or she should be aware that his name can be seen on posts which on a normal day, he wouldn't go near. Not that they care, as long as hey get their money's worth.

I still believe that we have some different thinking 🐋 's .... @stellabelle

Long story cut short, the slider is a fantastic idea, but who is to say that it wouldn't be exploited too. 

People come to steemit to find solace in being themselves and benefiting from it. 

So my point? Let's preach STEEMIT as we all found it, and as it all found us . That way, we all will enjoy all that this blessed community has to offer. 



@klynic
**#concernedsteemian**

You have certainly identified one of several inconsistent ~glitches~ within the Steemit system that causes me great pause in becoming more involved.  Inconsistent in terms of what is in chiefly expressed in the Steemit mantra of engaging in 'the goodwill for the community'. . . .thank you for pointing this out and, most importantly, taking the  time to put forth a thoughtful solution.   My greatest fear in "crypto" as a whole is that when it blows up, as the bitcoin bubble inevitably will - those at the top who profited on the back of the little people  / worker bees will cut and run beforehand near the top, CA$H in hand, and  with a smile all the way to the bank . . .
https://steemitimages.com/DQmS2myMLnYTUsZZeCwmMijh8irZSrmojVQytio5qe54wBG/LMAN.GIF

Hello @tarazkp

I really support and say yes to this idea. No matter how good a content/post is, without curation, the author will be discouraged. Curation reward need to be review in order to curb selling of vote and to keep the community growing.
Thanks for this insight

@maintain4real-eu

Hello there @tarazkp . I believe you are not the only one who is trying to come up with a way to make this work for us, and that is good news. I couple of days ago I even wrote this long piece on the ethics of using bots, even thought my subject was focused on a different element, we are kind of talking about the same problem. Or least identifying it.

My take is that the big accounts on Steemit, the whales who are currently participating on the upvote sells, should have even more interest in changing the way content is being curated and upvoted on the platform.

The logic is not that complicated, if we were to slowly drift towards lesser quality content creation with a casino upvote betting approach without a doubt after a while the price of Steem would drop as its users decide to leave the platform tired of not being compensated for their work.

Granted this problem has multiple dimensions and any kind of implementation of a possible solution should be debated with the goal of fine tuning any change if would be required, via fork or otherwise.

I'm not necessarily ready to throw in the towel, for what its worth I've been sharing original music for over a decade and I've never gotten paid  like I have on Steemit, but we can't assume that everyone's experience is the same as yours or mine.

There is a post somewhere on this blockchain that I've been told about,  the user posted some lyrics of a Jay-Z song or something of the sort and by buying upvotes got it to trend past a $100 payout.  If that doesn't speak volumes, then I don't know what does. 

In any case, I think your idea is pretty good, it might be the best compromise I've seen so far, since I keep on hearing from other people that we are not going back to the none-linear voting days. 

cheers
@meno

I have to admit your cause is noble and your offer is very tempting..

But it will only work  on paper because is going to be met with users greed.

This is exactly what's wrong with this community..

I've tried to pursue several initiatives and report bad behavior, without success... So now I am a little sceptical about this kind of "project".

Good Luck!

This is a tricky problem. If we are trying to compete with the likes of FB and twitter then we have to accept a certain amount of so called 'low quality' content like cat photos for example. This was identified clearly in the white paper.
As a long time content creator you know the difficulty of competing with this kind of content.
Kim Kardasians butt! Is that good content? It gets curated to the moon (excuse the pun) but that is what we are competing with.
Getting people to curate content is a subjective issue.
Everyone not just whales want to curate content that gets eyeballs.
Because more eyeballs means more potential rewards. The existing slider effects curation rewards already as the level of upvote determines your slice of the posts eventual rewards.

I'm afraid that as long as there is a substantial group of big wallets who are interested in short-term rewards only, and who set up their voting accordingly without considering the long-term prospects of Steemit and Steem, no amount of tweaking the percentages will make them vote for content "because they like it". They will just game the system in a different way.

So, I don't think setting the percentages back to 50/50 or making them variable will make much difference in the voting behaviour of said part of the "rich" group.

That said: this is just the scenario I see before me, a hypothesis of what would happen. The only way to find out is to do the experiment.

Below is a comment I wrote elsewhere on going back to 50/50. I would be interested in your opinion.

*Given the current goings-on on Steemit, I think the most likely scenario will be that:*

* *blind voting-for-profit will go up, and stay well within the existing voting patterns, some of which are circle jerks;*
* *voting-because-one-likes-content will go down;*
* *average Steemians rewards from voting will move from negligable to twice negligable;*
* *their rewards for posting content will go down.*

*I don't think increasing the curator's cut will increase proper curating, it will just increase the rewards for those who vote for rewards only rather than for rewarding content they like.*

*I suspect all it would do is make the in-crowds and short-term ROI-seekers work slightly differently, while at the same time increasing the income of those who vote for profit and decreasing the rewards for content creators.*

*The long-term/short-term outlook of those with the big wallets is key here, not the percentages.*

*There's only one way to find out what would happen, so we could just try it, as long as it can be reversed when it doesn't work as intended. Nothing wrong with experimenting as long as you say beforehand what you will do with the outcome of the experiment.*

I wonder whether anyone has spoken with the Reddit team about what they learnt when they explored monetising upvotes? I'm sure they have a lot of wisdom to share about what does and doesn't work when money enters the equation.

Definitely a sad Truth on here today. Great contents lie in waste without anyone reading it or at least upvoting it. Frustrating the efforts of the newbies who put in the hours to make a valuable post. If not curbed, it ultimately would plague the system in the long run.

I'm not so tech savvy, but if anything, restrictions should be put in place to solve this problem. 
Also, I'd commend already existing caution teams on here such as @curie and @ocd, etc.. And as well call for more citation teams to reach out... All hopes shouldn't be lost. At least a curation team could go back to check posts already 4 days old just in case it was simply overlooked because it's newbie or the author doesn't belong to some Circle. 


Overall, this post was apt! Thank you for writing @tarazkp

This seems to be an interesting idea. Maybe my mind is tired but I cannot fully visualize how it'll work. Perhaps you could include a short example of how this might work? :c)

Other than this, I quite know the pain that you speak of. Its quite annoying not having a vote slider native to Steemit Inc. before 500SP. Its also really sad that content is no longer rewarded following 7 days (it works for the top 1% - but for the rest of us... not so much.

Looking forward to a further exposition on the matter. And thank you for thinking about the issue @tarazkp :c)

I believe it was HF 18 (or perhaps 19) where people's votes were cut. Prior to the hardfork you could vote 40 times at 100% before losing your power- now it's 10. This may work well for the whales, but it seems to be hurting everyone else... particularly people like me that depend on Steemit for a living.

I love this idea ..
If 50/50 give and take idea  implies , the rate at which  whales  sell thier votes will reduce

Interesting, I've been here for 4 months and believe it or not it's my first time reading such thing about vote buying. Thanks for the great insight and made us aware about it. Hope this would work to lessen or even prevent vote buying in the future. Thanks.

Maybe

I wholeheartedly agree. I curate A LOT. Even with power delegated to me (by a wonderful supporter of the platform), I rarely rise over 30% voting power. Why do I do this? Because I care more about the community than I do about the money.
Another important thing about vote selling and buying - I am working with the amazing guys over at minnowbooster to create a whitelist to give more exposure to high quality authors. In addition, there is an anti-abuse policy in place, to try and prevent usage of the MB service to generate profits and game the system. Another thing to do - steemcleaners. I report A LOT of those users trying to game the system with upvote farms with 100s of users. They need to be purged. ASAP.
So while I am not sure a curation reward slider is the right solution, I think @ned and friends need to give thought to the right processes and rewards to ensure people curate more and benefit from it without gaming the system.