On Steemit's economic change proposal: Measure thrice, cut once

in #blog5 years ago (edited)

Before deciding on economic changes, we should create a proposal process


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As you are likely aware, Steemit recently announced their support for a 3-pronged economic proposal: Changing the reward split to 50/50; Changing the reward curve to n2/(n+1); and creating a separate downvote pool.

Now, intuitively, at least two of these changes make sense to me. In fact, I have thought for a while that 50/50 would be a better split, because the increase it would bring to Steem's value would more than compensate authors for the lost percentage. I do think, however, that with innovative use of auction theory, the separate downvote pool might be unnecessary. As I wrote the other day in Simulating a Steem curation rewards distribution that is modeled after a 2nd price auction, I think that modeling voting after a second price auction might create a natural incentive for voters to appraise posts accurately (i.e. avoid overvaluing them), and thereby reduce the need for downvotes. Personally, I'm not a fan of downvotes or dislike buttons, and a separate pool is not going to change that. Yes, I suppose the downvote may be a necessary evil, but if there's a way to reduce the need for it, then we should find it.

Few would argue that the current economic rules are optimal, but there's a whole universe of possibilities out there. I find myself wondering, how is it that we're somehow deciding between just two possibilities, and with nothing but our intuitions to guide that decision? What if we implement this change and nothing gets better? Or worse -- things go horribly wrong?

Are we going to have to wait through a week of lost productivity while we wait for the rewards pool to reach equilibrium and find out if anything got better? And still another lost week if the change needs to be reverted? I think we should have more than our intuitions to guide a decision like this, and a more mature approach is needed before tampering with blockchain economics.

Specifically, I think there are at least three things that should be done before imposing a change like this on the Steem ecosystem:

  1. Study the academic literature for the current knowledge about curation, and generate a research-backed improvement proposal.
  2. Complete a game theory analysis something like this one for the current rules and any proposed changes.
  3. A software system should be created and used to simulate the proposal off-chain.

Only then, with evidence in hand, should the community and witnesses consider adopting a change.

To fulfill those needs in a transparent fashion, I would suggest the creation of an on-blockchain working group that would borrow the concepts of "double-links" and "circles", from self-organizing "social technologies" like holacracy or sociocracy, and self-organize to perform research on the topic, propose alternatives, analyze the proposals, and simulate the change.

Off the top of my head, some of the circles the working group might need could include:

  • organizing / steering
  • research
  • analysis
  • coding
  • communications

And, of course, it would be nice if some whale or whales back the working group with votes or delegations.

Now the objection is going to be that this is will slow things down, and that's certainly true, but like they told me when I was a kid, Measure thrice, cut once.


Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".




Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

Steve is also a co-founder of the Steem's Best Classical Music Facebook page, and the @classical-music steemit curation account.

Follow in RSS: @remlaps, @remlaps-lite

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There was 50/50 curation before steem became public, it was changed for publicly unspecified reasons.
At this point, i am against changing it back based solely on stinc favoring it.

With a 500mv cap on influence we solve most of our reward pool issues.
I like the n2 because buying stake needs to have rewards.

These parameters change the rewards from 10 votes giving ten posts 30% of the pool daily to several hundred accounts giving significant rewards to many more authors.

Like vs Upvote?

Steem should have three main buttons, Like, Dislike, and Upvote.

No Flags:

So, in other words, no Flag or Downvote.

Numbers

I would have Like and Dislike that simply has a number of how many people likes and dislikes posts and comments get. But I would have no money involved. And I would have an Upvote button where money is involved as it is now.

View Count

I would have a view count. I would even try to separate likes from bots and likes from personal accounts, if that's possible.

Like & Upvote

But regardless of that, I would prefer to keep upvoting separate from liking. For example, sometimes, I want to like something on Steemit. But I may be low on Resource Credit (RC) Manna points.

Running Low

So, I end up not liking posts when I'm low on HP or I mean RC. So, then I don't. Now, the upvoting pool might be ok.

Tipping

Now, other websites, other blockchain systems, may have a way to tip posts.

Minds.com

I think Minds.com has something like that. Well, Minds banned me. Well, anyways, tipping would be an alternative to the Steem upvoting pool system.

Both

I would prefer to have both. I would include a normal upvote button and a donate or gift or wiring or sending money button that will allow people to send their own money or whatever to the authors of the posts and comments at hand as opposed to only being able to get the money from the pool.