Steem Power Delegation Contest! (With An Intro To Steem Bandwidth)

in #education7 years ago (edited)

Steem-Power-Delegation-Contest-steemit-bandwidth.png

Dolphins and whales need not apply.

After hanging around the @minnowsupport project's help channel in the P.A.L. Discord group, as well as the #help channel in steemit.chat, it is clear that many new minnows are unable to use transact on the steem blockchain. This is due to a lack of bandwidth caused by heavy use on the Steem network.

I want to help as much as I can, so, instead of telling every new user to "be patient", I've decided to run a contest for all of you who are currently unable to transact due to their low bandwidth.

The goal of the contest will be to select a few new users who I will delegate Steem Power to in order for them to be able to once again have enough bandwidth to interact on Steem. I would love to delegate to all new users, but I unfortunately do not have that kind of Steem Power.

What is up with the bandwidth?

In order to send transaction on a cryptocurrency - like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero - the user sending the coins has to pay a transaction fee. This ensures that their transaction makes it into the next blog that gets mined. In the example of Bitcoin, this can take literal hours if the set fee is too small.

On the steem blockchain, we do not have transaction fees. This is great since every post, comment, and upvote is basically a transaction. If we had to pay for every single action, we all would quickly go broke. Luckily Steem has what is know as "Dynamic Fractional Reserves" (DFR). DFR is basically a fancy way to say that every user gets a slice of the bandwidth based on their total Steem Power.

This gets measured on a weekly basis to find the user's average bandwidth usage. Every time a user makes a transaction (post, comment, upvote, downvote, sends STEEM or SDB) it gets factored into their own "moving average". In my case, the Steem transactions I make each day get averaged together over a weeks time. If I create more transactions than my average my bandwidth would dry up.

steem-bandwidth-contest.png

This is where it gets iffy for new users. The version of the STEEM white paper that was published August 2017 states the following:

It is possible for a low-balance account created during a time of low usage to become inaccessible if the network usage picks up.

While this does not tell us about Steem Power's relation in our allotted bandwidth, it does tell us that, when the network picks up, some users may find it impossible to use the STEEM network. This is exactly what we are experiencing with new accounts lately, especially when the United States wakes up and begins using the Steem platform.

The STEEM Blue Paper sheds light on Steem Power's role in the amount of bandwidth a user has:

Bandwidth limits adjust based on network use, so users have a higher bandwidth allowance when the network usage is low. The amount of bandwidth that an account is allowed is directly proportional to the amount of Steem Power a user has, so users can always increase their bandwidth allowance by getting additional Steem Power.

This can be a real deterrent to any new Steemian eager to create on this amazing platform. However, this does help mitigate spam transactions from new accounts created solely for spamming.

There are ideas to combat this issue floating around that we unfortunately do not have the time to get into in this post, but, the idea here is to help new users understand that they are not getting punished.

The best way to make sure we have enough bandwidth in order to create during high usage peaks is to have more Steem Power. This begs the question, though, how can we get more Steem Power if we are unable to transact?

Quite the chicken and the egg problem we have here.

One way would be to find a time when the network is not bogged down so those with low Steem Power can interact.

Unfortunately, when we are used to signing up on centralized platforms and instantly create, comment, and upvote, waiting seems a weak solution. It also already builds on top of the long wait new users have to go through in order to get an account in the first place. But I digress...

steem-bandwidth-contest-how-to-enter.png

The Contest

So I want to help three new Steemians by delegating enough Steem Power to them for a couple weeks or so. This will allow them to build up their own Steem Power so they will no longer need my assistance. I will run this contest every so often in order to give new users the chance to use the Steem platform on their time.

It is a bit of a shame that I need to run this as a contest, but I am not a whale with a crazy amount of Steem Power so I can only do so much. Hopefully, the users I delegate to will be able to earn enough Steem Power in a week or two to where I can run this delegation as close to twice a week as possible.

The Rules:

  1. If you are able please comment below that you would like to enter. If you are not able to comment (because of bandwidth) please send a private message to jrswab#3431 on Discord or jrswab on steemit.chat.
  2. After twenty four hours, I will look over the candidates who entered and determine who to delegate Steem Power to.
    -- I will be choosing users who create good content. It is my goal to improve the overall quality on the Steem network as much as possible, so I will not be delegating to accounts that show little or no effort to create the best work they can. (Yes, this is subjective.)
  3. If selected, the user must agree to my coaching aimed to help them move their blog to the "next level". Not everyone may need this, so if I want to help you improve, I will let you know.
  4. The selected users must use the 50/50 payout option in order to exchange the earned SBD the following week into STEEM.
  5. The selected users have to show a willingness to improve both their content, and the Steem ecosystem as a whole.

I wish I could help every new user out, but I am only so "powerful" (that sounds weird). I plan to run this twice a week as long as bandwidth for new users is still an issue, and the first round of users earned Steem Power can support them! This is an experiment for both me and the new minnows so we should expect the rules and time frames to change next round.

All images came from royalty and attribution free sources unless specified.

Looking to take your Steem based creations to the next level?
Join us over at the Creators' Guild Discord group!
We are here to encourage, support and increase the creation of quality content.

Like what you see?! You can vote me as witness!
If you have any questions about the future of Steem or my witness please feel free to message jrswab#3431 on Discord.

vote-jrswab-for-steem-Witnesses—Steemit.gif

Go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Type "jrswab" into the box.
Click "Vote" once.
Refresh & check.

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This post has been resteemed from MSP3K courtesy of @jrswab from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).

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great work helping people 😊

You are promoting an amazing service that will help a lot of users thanks

That is the goal! <3

Wow its good to know some people are willing to help us here. As for me im not that good in content and willing to be train or improve my skills. So that i can share it also to others like me.

We have a small family also that has lots of talented steemians but are not notice. If you have some time try to check @steemitfamilyph.

God bless you..

@khenbee

Thank you for the kind words <3

Youre always welcome sir. I know more redfish and minnows are waiting for this kind of contest for them to grow and help other steemians too. Great iniative even thought you have high reputation you didnt forget where you begin with. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 I hope more and more like you will share their blessings to others.

even thought you have high reputation you didnt forget where you begin with.

I had to work hard to get to this point and I understand the struggle that is out there.

hmm can i join on your contest sir?

Fortunately for you, you have enough Steem Power giving you ample bandwidth so I have to say no. If you know anyone who is unable to us steemit due to having zero bandwidth then they could join.

Yes, this is an annoyance to new users because they don't understand why (i didn't have a clue when i started either). I recently replied to two newbies letting them know. Kind of a bottleneck/annoyance /-:

I have been on steemit.chat and the MSP PAL discord help channels repeating myself over and over lol

Yes yes and yes. I am trying to make quality content through my motivation series and health education posts. I am also conducting my own contest to help out fellow minnows grow as contests have made it easier for me here. I fully support @steemiteducation for their great educational posts, @thealliance as they push me better to make quality content and @air-clinic as I want health care to be made available for all. I want to better support these groups through my steem power as I am trying to gain more influence here.

I really feel your empathy towards minnows. I have such high respect for you for helping others grow. Hope to be someone like you someday. Its really great to be an agent of change for others. I may not get the delegation but I know either way you are helping a lot of people here.

I salute you and your work and I will continue with my contests to make the steemit community better for everyone

I did message you on discord as I didn't want to post links here. Thanks

Hi @jrswab, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.

Join us on Thursdays for Pimp Your Post Thursday at 11am EST or 7PM EST in the Steemit Ramble Discord or:

If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord

Thank you for this amazing giveaway @jrswab.
I think steemit power delegation is the best way to reward good content.
I create really quality and original content on how newbies can use steemit and steemit tools.
You can check it out on my blog.
I really hope to win to support my immediate steemit community of original bloggers.

Thanks for this amazing post. I feel like I understand bandwidth a whole lot better. I only have one question, does bandwidth recover by itself over time, or can you get completely locked out?

So this is one thing I should have made more clear. Let's say that the steem network has a 100GB bandwidth and 100 users. Those 100 users get a portion of the 100GBs allotted to them based on the amount of SP they all have. If everyone is on at the same time the user with the lowest SP and in turn the lowest bandwidth may find themselves 'locked out'. This especially happens when the account is new and has a zero bandwidth average from the past week.

It's tricky but the short answer is no. Bandwidth will not recover as long as there are a lot of users online. As other users hop off the network more bandwidth is freed and the then 'locked out' users will find that they are able to transact agian.

I hope I answered your question. I am still studying the white paper myself and it's not as easy as it seems.

Hey! This is so amazing... just found my way to your page thanks to @wandrnose7 after losing all my bandwidth in the first day!

You might say I 'Steemed on in there' and got a bit excited with my follows, comments and upvotes without knowing what I was doing!

I'm a travelling poet and spoken word performance artist and am here on Earth to make it a better place.

I'm SOOO Excited to have come across Steemit and have this beautiful platform to be inspired, to share my art and to connect with other like-minded souls - it feels like such a blessing!

Anyway - I digress.

I would love to enter the contest and agree to all the rules - and am especially interested in any coaching you could offer me!

I keep my fingers crossed :)

Thank you so much for this amazing and generous idea @jrswab to help clueless N00Bs like me from total failure! I have a lot of great quality content to bring this site.. I hope I can get a chance to do so!

--> Keep up the amazing work my friend.

With love
Hart Floe
<3

Awesome! She has said good things about your work. I checked out your blog and can tell you work hard. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

Thank you bro I really appreciate the support! I actually have a millions questions but I don't know where to start haha! I'm sure I'll figure it all out eventually! Do you have any amazing resources or top tips for newbies?

Thanks again for the kind words!

If you are on discord you can message jrswab#3134 and I'll be happy to answer your questions.