RE: A call for delegation

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RE: A call for delegation

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dj123 (60)in #curie • 7 years ago (edited)

This is a good initiative, but I have a few problems with @curie and will just raise a few of the issues here,

The 1 day / 24hour rule

This is a Very Restrictive Rule

Curie does not need to earn Curation by Upvoting Early
Curie already earn heaps from being a Witness >100,000 Steem

I can go on & on, if only they will change this ~~stupid~~ curation self-defeating rule.....some curators will take 2, 3, 4, 5....hell maybe 6 days to get a post found, nominated, and curie approved.

Additionally, there needs to be significantly increased curation submission by more curators, get the list of curators and the criteria to be less strict, open the gate for new-blood curators at least by 200%. The number of curators, motivated, hungry and looking for post has not kept up to pace with the user base growth.

Number of users and posts have increase by >400% 15K/day to 65K/day since I joined, has the number of active curation submission and approval increased that much?

If it has, show a graph of the steady increase of curation approval in the last 6 months, should be an up and up graph naturally.

Even if the number of curators have doubled, so 200% but if 150% have done less submission over time fearing a submission rejection, that's like a zero change in the last 6 months. Now I'm sure it's not that bad, but I would like to know if feedback will be included to support improving curie.

New curators also cannot be found only by nomination by other curators, there needs to be some queue and open vet process.

This recruitment strategy breeds:

friendship-nepotism
bias towards networking skills vs. curations skills
carry favors given to curators
special treatment for curators
wars and conflict between talent and curators

I can go on and on, curator referrals are fine, it can be the plurality of methods, but it cannot be the only nor the majority method for recruitment.

Examples of other ways:

community nomination
leadership nomination

etc, etc.

System needs to be updated and adapted to Steem growth.

I'm also a Supporter, Nevertheless I Hope to See Things Improve:

Self-Upvoted For Visibility

7 years ago in #curie by dj123 (60)

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carlgnash (69) 7 years ago (edited)

Hi @dj123, thanks for being a supporter and a critical thinker. This is probably obvious but I should point out that any ideas brought forward as suggestions for improvements of Curie operations are considered on their merits and not because of a promised reward for implementing them :) Not that the reward you are promising is major enough that I think anyone would suspect that was the case, of course. Your suggestions reflect fundamental misunderstandings of current Curie operations. The case of the 24 hour submission rule is a little different in some respects, and I will address that separately at the end. But RE curator recommendations, loosening guidelines, etc., there are some misunderstandings that I would like to (hopefully) clear up:

Curie is operating with limited resources (vote power / reviewer time). All current Curie regulations are indeed (as you point out, but this is an intended feature and not a flaw) restrictive in nature and designed to restrict submissions to a manageable level to allow thorough review of submissions and upvote of a # of posts necessary to keep vote power in the target range of 80%+ daily (but not to ever hit 100%).
The maximum # of posts that can be upvoted is already being upvoted weekly, given current restraints of vote power, post payout and curator/reviewer operations. A minimum vote % of 19% is the current lowest vote that a "borderline" approval would get through the Curie curator/reviewer system. This keeps the author payout at a level appropriate to the curator and reviewer fees (see below for more on this).
Finders fee paid out to curators and vote % given to approved posts are adjusted dynamically to meet guidelines to include that finder's fee will not exceed 25% of average author post payout. Finders fee has been reduced by 60% to stay under the 25% of post payout threshold in the time I have been curating (past 6 months) in response to loss of a major delegation and reduced post payout because of increased saturation of reward pool (I think we both know why the reward pool is saturated with a much larger % of total vote power being cast weekly now but as a Curie representative commenting on a Curie post I am not going to say anything more about vote selling here).
Reviewers are (for obvious reason) paid per review and not per approval. Reviewer's time is also a limited resource. Reviewers pay scale depends on at least 50% of submitted posts (on monthly total) being high enough quality to be approved. Curator submission limits and monthly scoring requirements to continue as Curie curator are adjusted dynamically to keep submissions within this range. If incoming submissions are lower quality and resulting in > 50% rejections, the weekly submission limits are adjusted such that the best curators have more submissions and lower scoring curators from the previous week have less submissions. Likewise the thresholds for disqualification from Curie and the curator recommendation guidelines are adjusted dynamically to stay in this sweet spot - if current curator membership is not producing enough quality submissions, curator recommendation guidelines can and in fact are adjusted. As recently as past few months top curators could recommend in 3 curators weekly (3 times more incoming curators every week than current guidelines).
There is already a very strong and effective incentive in place for top curators to recommend in the best possible curators. This is a reward system with two tiers that pays top curators if recommended curators perform up to certain standards. This incentivizes top curators to both select curators who will do well, and also incentivizes top curators to spend the time necessary to train incoming curators. There is obviously no one better suited to understanding what it takes to succeed as a Curie curator than a top curator (who has by definition proven ability to succeed as a curator). I think it should be obvious that allowing other sources of incoming curator recommendations, be it from community recommendations or any other way that you outline, would result in an influx of curators ill-suited to succeed, would result in an influx of lower quality submissions, and would unbalance the requirements outlined above that have been put in place to manage the restricted resources.
I personally oversaw the creation of the #curation_links channel and prospective curator role to make this process more transparent, to create a true community of curators and a true training grounds where anyone interested in curation can learn from curie curators and demonstrate ability. > 75% of new curator recommendations from past month have gone to "graduates" of that channel. You are welcome to investigate farther but I feel very confident in saying you will not find evidence of nepotism in curator recommendations.

The short answer to expanding Curie operations to meet the growth of the platform is, that is exactly why we are seeking major delegation. We would LOVE to expand operations. Without major delegation Curie is currently operating at a small deficit (yes, including witness pay), dipping into "savings" (in the form of a weekly power down of the SP accumulated when Curie had major delegation - I should note that ~ 50% of the SP you will see in the Curie wallet is not in fact Curie's but was earmarked for a specific purpose related to eventual release of communities, this was a requirement of the major delegator who allowed Curie to keep curation rewards in exchange for this future use of half the proceeds) to maintain current level of operations. This is obviously not sustainable in the long run and without major delegation finders fee will be reduced farther, guidelines will be made MORE restrictive, etc., until a balance is attained with a smaller # of submissions, reviews and approvals such that operations are sustainable long term.

Finally to address the 24 hour thing as this is actually a multi-part answer. The 24 hour guideline is not put in place to maximize Curie curation rewards, and in fact has very little impact on curation rewards at all. The vast majority of Curie curation rewards (without running the query I can confidently say this is in the 99%+ range) come from the auto-trailing votes that will come regardless of how old post is at upvote. I.e., Curie would make ~ the same curation reward by upvoting a post > 24 hours old as it does by upvoting a post < 24 hours old. There are a couple of reasons why the guideline is still in place:

First as a long term user you may already be aware of this, but it used to be the case that there were two payout periods for a post on Steem blockchain. A post paid out at 24 hours, and again at 1 month for payout accumulated between 1 day and 1 month. This guideline was put in place when posts paid out at 24 hours. There is a technical reason it cannot be changed now. Curie's back end infrastructure for submissions / reviews is hosted on Streemian website (https://streemian.com/guild/curie). When the submission system was set up, the 24 hour payout period was in effect and a max age of 24 hours was hard coded into the Streemian submission page. The development team from Streemian that Curie worked with has not been available for a long time. We literally do not have access to change the way the submission platform works. We are currently developing our own alternative platform for Curie submissions, but in the mean time we are stuck with Streemian.
Secondly, even once we have finished the replacement for Streemian, this guideline would stay in place unless major delegation is secured as just one of many ways to restrict incoming submissions to manageable levels. The primary reason is that upvoting a post on its first day gives maximum exposure to the authors, which is a primary mission of Curie. As an example, Curie publishes a twice weekly author showcase. This curation effort not only requests and receives author approval, but provides a platform for authors who wish to make a statement about themselves or their posting (I could be mistaken but I believe Curie's curation posting here is the only regular curation posting effort on platform that not only secures author approval before featuring but provides a chance for authors to provide their own statement). Attaining author approval and giving authors time to compose statements necessarily takes a few days. Upvoting only posts that are in the first day of life means that all posts featured in the twice weekly Author Showcase posting still have at least one day in payout when they are featured. A post upvoted on the first day covered by one of the weekly showcase posting is still only in payout for one full day when featured under current system, and if it was upvoted on second day would in fact not be in payout anymore by the time the showcase was published.
That all being said, if major delegation was secured and total number of posts submitted/reviewed could be increased, this guideline would be one of the first to be relaxed (once the Streemian replacement is up of course, until then it is a moot point).

Thanks for taking the time to comment with your suggestions and please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers - Carl

$1.96

3 votes

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago (edited)

This is probably obvious but I should point out that any ideas brought forward as suggestions for improvements of Curie operations are considered on their merits and not because of a promised reward for implementing them :) Not that the reward you are promising is major enough that I think anyone would suspect that was the case, of course.

Absolutely not, my intended contribution is merely a drop in the bucket 1000 SP compared to someone like J-Files 1 Million SP. But the feedback is a refelection of intention and support to see things improve so it catches up with changes that Steem is growing or more like evolving towards.

I think it's important to note that it probably cost me more for my SP than most whales I've seen so far with more than 500K who acquired it back in 2016, so this is likely going to be the norm going forward from new blood investor and community minded delegators.

The last thing we both want to see is minnows with 10-30SBD savings all being drawn and sucked into bit-bots to mimic a Curie looking reward, and not stick to quality as the system driff towards a direction of pay-for-play Vs. rewarding outstanding contributor, because our systems and organization didn't keep up with the need.

Thank you for writing back and giving all of us a view into the inner workings on how Curie operates with internal cost and expense, and then some.

When I do have a little more time, I'll come back to address you other points, I just wanted to do a respond and give you an upvote for taking the time to elaborate a respond. Your leadership and effort is much appreciated Carl.

$0.26

3 votes

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carlgnash (69) 7 years ago (edited)

Yup I know that was not your intent. Relaxing 24 hour guideline and indeed all guidelines is an ongoing discussion amongst the voting stakeholders of Curie (top curators / reviewers / operators). The guidelines have been changed and relaxed quite a bit in past few months with elimination of upper REP cap, raising max pending post payout from $1 (to $10 for a while, currently $5), elimination of requirement of no other post in past week with > X payout (that number X had changed several times but has been eliminated entirely now). In short, the guidelines are continuing to evolve in recognition of the changing Steem platform, but guidelines that restrict submissions of some kind or another are absolutely and vitally important to Curie operations. Curie used to run as an open submission guild. It was not sustainable. Curie would not have been in operations since August of 2016 if common sense guidelines to keep submissions and related internal costs in balance with income were not implemented.

I am genuinely interested in outside input, and I am not alone within Curie in saying that. Unfortunately input of the "why don't you expand" variety is not really terribly productive commenting on a post calling for delegation and acknowledging that the current level of operations is already not sustainable! Original Poster: Current level of operations is unsustainable and without increased support from community, we will have to scale back. Commenter: Why don't you expand! More submissions! More curators!

LOL

$0.33

1 vote

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago (edited)

Sometimes it's the counter-intuitive solutions that helps create breakthrough and innovation

Belive it or not, splitting the rewards smaller say 1/3 or smaller, creating a large base of curators, and losening rules that does not reduce quality of submission like 24hours rule will open up more doors and opportunities, and produce greater results like delegation and even higher retention, glad you see you're keeping an open mind

I will elaborate a little later when I'm not in meetings the whole day....and not to worry, I did read everything you wrote ;)

$0.00

1 vote

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carlgnash (69) 7 years ago (edited)

that ignores the review cost and fact that # of reviewers is a limited resource that cannot increase quickly. We can certainly discuss but what you are proposing is not a possibility with current submission structure with curators / reviewers. Curie of course also supports curation teams with a follow e.g. SteemSTEM so not all outgoing votes go through curator / reviewer process. But the only way that something like you are proposing works is by eliminating the requirement of human review before large upvote. And the fact is, Curie has already implemented that, that is precisely what the curie follow of sub-communities is intended to do. The total # of votes that Curie casts through direct follow dwarfs the number of votes cast through curator/reviewer, it is literally the case that what you are suggesting is currently implemented. Those curation teams with the Curie direct follow are not beholden to Curie guidelines, they give smaller upvotes, they cast a ton of them. Curie sets the total vote % for the follow and each of the curation teams decides how to parse that out - some do give votes ~ 1/3 of a "big" Curie (SteemSteem, music subcommunity) while others split the votes out even farther.

Now that method comes with distinct risks, the quality control of a second layer of highly qualified human review is missing. We are conducting an audit currently on all vote trails and I can say that it would be a huge mistake to eliminate human review and increase outgoing votes past current level. If anything, I might be of the opinion that Curie should scale back support of other team's curation trails and spend more of available resources on the curator / reviewer model.

$0.33

1 vote

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago (edited)

would never suggest removing human review entirely or even in any great measure, the whole idea of a review is a big part of proof of brain....sure beats blind streemian curation folllows that isn't reviewed after months.

consolidation of resources for a more focus goal of greater inclusion and casting a wider curie net might be a good call, also what is the reviewers being compensated currently per review?

some of my ideas are actually a little different to what curie is used to doing, so the more facts you can share the better I can prepare my respond and feeback to you for consideration

$0.17

2 votes

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carlgnash (69) 7 years ago (edited)

Cool looking forward to more discussion. I don't mean to be dismissive of what you are saying, btw. This is obviously a subject that I have spent a lot of time thinking about :)

$0.00

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago

Thank you for your time and consideration of the points I raised above. Although I continue to disagree with the implementation of the philosophy of curie, @kevinwong's reply and yours, above, have renewed my faith in the people that run @curie.

As a sign of good faith and belief that the leaders such as you and Kevin can change curie to be even better I will delegate 100 Steem to you personally. I hope this token delegation can help you your efforts.

nobyeni (59) 7 years ago

You're asking a lot of people... to understand that you can be critical & a supporter simultaneously...
As a philosopher, I see no other way but to upvote this comment of yours. To make people think about what they do, and why and how, is the only way to develop & grow.
_{And it's a sign of genius.}

$0.79

1 vote

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago

well, i sure hope i'm not proposing changes that won't make a big impact........ i acknowledge that I'm challenged and genuinely commended simultaneously..... As a Steem investor, i see no other way but to up my gambit and propose this to the curie's astute and erudite leadership. To help @curie evolve and excel, as i truly believe, these changes will be worth, and worth way more than 1000 SP, 5000 SP, heck even more than 10,000 SP Steem delegation to @curie.

give results of how many submissions vs how many approvals in the last 3 or 6 months, and a proposal of changes based on the issues above, and I'll delegate what @holoz0r did 100.032 SP (AKA 203,880.026 Vest)
Do 1 & increase the time duration beyond 24hours to say 3.5 days (like @grumpycat approves)
and publicly publicize the 'perspective curator' initiative to reward and recruit new-blood curators openly and aggressively, and I'll increase delegation to what @jodipamungkas did 250 SP
Do 1, 2, & remove the 24hour curation rule to until post can't be voted on by @curie any longer, and I'll increase delegation to what @abh12345 did 500 SP
Do 1, 2, 3, & fix all the issues I mention, and I'll increase delegation to what @ausbitbank,
@levycore, & @voronoi did 1000 SP, even though I don't control 211,895 SP, 34,306 SP & 25,915 SP like they do.

$0.16

2 votes

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nobyeni (59) 7 years ago (edited)

Good ideas, although I think the incentive to change things & to develop further should be internal, not external... although rewards like delegation are nice, obviously.

I'd also like to find a way to think about what 'quality' is. Obviously, that isn't an easy thing to define, and it's good that there is a broad domain. Yet after having trailed the curie-vote for a while, and seeing what was upvoted by curie, I was shocked about the wide range of things deemed 'quality'.

Which is not to say I don't like what Curie is doing, at its size and impact, it is one of a kind and I love it's ambition and aim. But being unique, it also makes their responsibility on this platform even greater.

$0.50

1 vote

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diebitch (62) 7 years ago (edited)

I think some criteria needs to change. Good content should be rewarded regardless of reputation. I do like Curie's approach to spread the rewards but a lot of great content is passed on for being too risky.

$0.78

5 votes

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dj123 (60) 7 years ago (edited)

Agreed, another great point and an easy one to be rectified.

Retaining talent in Steem blockchain is also about recognizing existing senior talent.

Those with high Rep, eg. >60 or >65 or >75 or some number can and should easily have a curie qualified, and upvotes can be capped at say <15% or some reasonable percentile (math can be worked out on bell-curve outlier basis for higher Reps, but nothing replaces the bragging rights of 1% upvote from @curie )

My observation is that High Quality Posters when they get Rep >65 And especially those >50,000 Steem Power, a large number just don't seem to care as much about producing amazing work like they used to.

Don't believe me....go see this post by @idikuci:

Rep70, 700K SP, Whale, Stops Posting and Self-Upvoting 98.7%

https://steemit.com/flagawhale/@idikuci/call-me-admiral-ahab

Keep Talent in the Game, Encourage It. It's not about the ~~Money~~ Steem anymore to them, but the Glory, Recognition, and The Participation In the Blockchain.

Win-Win

$0.61

7 votes