The justification of Kings and Queens: Advice for the minnows

in #steemit7 years ago

Many seem to complain about the trending section yet on the random times I go there, the content has lots of votes. Of course, the majority of vote value comes from a very small minority but why so many votes by small accounts? If the content is worthy content, I understand but then, why would people be complaining since technically, the numbers of voters do make it popular content.

I figure that the reason there are so many votes is that people are trying to increase their curation returns. As far as I can tell, most are doing it wrong. Now, I am not a curation optimiser myself but I thought I would just bring up a few basic things that people seem to have missed somehow.

Firstly, the first 30 mins.

All things remaining equal, voting after 30 minutes with no other voters, the curation return is 25%. But, voting in the first thirty minutes incurs a penalty. If the vote is at zero minutes, it is a 100% penalty with a straight line drop to 0% penalty at 30 minutes and after. So voting at 15 minutes will get a penalty of 50% applied to it. If hypothetically, the curation return would be 1 Steem, but it was voted at 15 minutes, the 50% penalty makes it 0.5 Steem paid. The other 0.5 goes to the author.

So why vote early?

Well, if the post is going to have big voters come in after, the chance of getting a multiplier affect for discovery increases so even with the 50% penalty the overall return will be higher. However, this depends on who has voted before also.

Now, this is what is quite strange in the Trending section. A lot of the content is voted to trending by the posters themselves, bidbots or whales relatively early which means all of the following votes will stack on top of very large votes and from a curation return perspective, it will actually be less than if you went into the new section and randomly selected an unvoted post after 30 minutes and upvoted that.

The difference however is that your 1 cent or 10 cents will go to a non-trending author instead of one that already gets high reward or, has bought the position through bidbot. 1000 x 10c votes is still $100 of value from the pool that could be spread further.

There is of course no problem voting on trending authors but complaining about trending is difficult as a minnow if minnows themselves are the majority of voters on trending authors, and the majority by a long way. I was looking at the current top post in trending which is a dlive post.

(There is nothing wrong with the post, this is not a judgement of quality etc, it is just for demonstration since it is number one in Trending)

There are about 1060 votes and $974 but, if you look at the votes themselves through a site like Steemworld you will see that only about the first 20 votes are over 1 dollar in value. The largest vote is from @dlive itself (649.35 @80%) and was cast at 15 minutes after posting. Now, the penalty doesn't affect the poster as it goes to the author anyway remember.

All of the votes that come after however are going to be affected by the large vote in front of them. Again, there is no problem in voting on these, it is all good but from a curation return standpoint, the return will not be the 25% that many think it will be.

What I am trying to say is, for those voting on popular content because it is popular content and somehow thinks it gets them some magical higher value, I suggest looking into how curation actually works as you are most likely better off voting on good content that has not already been voted into the trending sections.

As I said, I am not a curation return optimiser and have a very simple strategy that anyone can follow if they want. Ready for the list?

1. Vote on content you like.

Phew... I know, pretty challenging with all of those steps.

Some of this content really might be trending material but some of it may be the recipe from that person in your home country or your friend who just poured their heart and soul onto the paper because their beloved dog died. In the long run, the value gained from voting on content you like will far outstrip voting on content aiming for curation return as it is what builds the community and shares the wealth.

Minnows do not seem to understand the power they hold here and they think that because of the whales upvoting themselves, the platform will fail. Most likely, it will be death by a million tiny cuts as people are trying to maximise tiny amounts of curation and pushing it to the very few, instead of sharing larger amounts of it with the community.

Sure, the few whales consistently upvoting nothing content isn't great, but all of the small voters trying to frontrun them for curation is justifying their trending position by adding a lot of small votes. It would be a lonely trending section indeed without the minnows.

If you still want to earn from curation, there are curation projects like @ocd who post about 20 posts a day from original authors who don't appear in trending. They have a process of waiting until many small voters have voted before the whales come in to add value. This maximises the returns for the many small voters by minimizing the return for the whales. It costs them curation value to do this as a community service but, they see it as sharing reward wider. Take advantage of it.

As times shift, Trending content will shift with it as the waters fill with more large and diverse groups of voters. Again, this is not a criticism of the authors and content in Trending at all but popularity is based on the support of the masses. One can get into trending by buying a big vote but, that doesn't make it popular. What makes it popular is the mentality that if it is in trending, it must be popular and have hundreds and thousands of voters come in because it appears popular. It is herd mentality and how crap singers get so much airtime on radio stations, their publicity team boost them artificially to 'radio trending' and repeat it often enough until people think it is good.

So, trending has nothing to do with quality but much of it for many people is quality content, but for many others, it is not. If you think it is not quality enough, do not vote on it and instead vote on someone you like. Even from a growth of account perspective, in the long-run you will get more value from building relationships with normal users than adding a tiny vote or random comment on a popular author where there are already 400 comments from like minds.

On top of this, your little vote that was lost among the masses may instead brighten someone's day who works hard to create good content but gets no traction. Your vote and comment on their article may mean the world to them and motivate them to continue developing.

My advice for the majority of the minnows I see here is the same, stop trying to optimise curation returns and instead use your vote to reward the content you really enjoy and encourage the authors who create it. It really is the way to build a strong community.

Of course, for the whales who don't give minnows a chance to front-run their votes on their own posts or those of friends, perhaps rethink the strategy, wait a little longer and reward the little supporters who you know will come in. You will still hit trending and be seen but the small costs to you will be large gains for the community in time.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]

For precise curation numbers and figures, there are plenty of posts out there by much more number orientated people. This is just a basic reminder for the minnows that they hold a lot of power over this platform but most do not actually realise how much. This is all meant for consideration, not as a comment on or criticism of trending authors or their supporters.

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The problem I have is that it's so hard to find GOOD content.

Whenever I do, I check out that author's recent blogs, and follow them if they seem like they regularly produce content I'd like - and that's how I probably find the majority.

But if my few followed authors have been quiet, then I head on over to Trending to see what the major articles are, or to "hot" to see what else is getting a bit of traction. But as you say, it's mostly people voted by a whale or two, or buying votes.

If I'm getting desperate, I'll hit up "new" and trawl through pages and pages of shit. I like to find people with very low ratings (ie. me a couple of months ago) that have put effort into their blogs, and write well, etc.

To me, while you're a minno, I don't see curation rewards as a big deal - it's a fairly small percentage in the grand scheme of things. I think of my votes more of an interaction with somebody, on the off chance that they see my name, and decide to click, and read my work, and maybe I'll get a follower that might end up with a lot more upvotes in future.

I also like to think that content is also in the comments - so not only do I make sure to upvote good comments, but also contribute in that way as well.

There's also the factor that I don't think you mentioned - that the earlier voters (first 5 as I understand it) get a higher return on curation than the rest.. it's like a diminishing order scale.. and then it gets confusing when you combine that with the first 30 minute penalty...

I think of my votes more of an interaction with somebody, on the off chance that they see my name, and decide to click, and read my work, and maybe I'll get a follower that might end up with a lot more upvotes in future.

I also like to think that content is also in the comments - so not only do I make sure to upvote good comments, but also contribute in that way as well.

More people should be using their votes in this way

most people have a short term view....

Try the "hot " pages, not trending

It would be nice if there was an official mention in the FAQ about how curation rewards scale with early vs late voting. It's not something you would intuitively realize unless you came across a post like this.

The other thing is I wish they would start the curation penalty at 50% and scale down over 30 min. I'm really confused as to what Steem wants us to do. Are we supposed to get in early for undiscovered posts? Or are we supposed to vote later when we're locked out of a curation reward? For most new members, almost all of your votes are not returning any curation rewards, so while you should be promoting work that you like, it's also a bit frustrating that mostly don't get to participate in curation. I get the reasoning for structuring each of these individually, however it seems like they are pushing opposing behaviors.

supposedly in the next Hardfork they will adjust it again to see if they can encourage better practices. I am unsure what the final decision will be though.

Great post (again). New steemians coming from other platforms need an FAQ that not only covers above but other sttuff eg NOT using the default login password, but their posting one instead.

Is there a way new users can get a simple FAQ email at starting / sign on.
Maybe as an auto-reply to their intro post?

Maybe things have changed since I joined? But I'd rate the "on-boarding" back then as 0/10. Just my $0.02

I can't imagine it has improved any and fixing the initial steps in (something I have suggested) even in a basic way would go a long way to upstream solve some of the major issues here with spam and plagiarism.

Agreed.

Seems so simple to create the content, just need a way to pin somewhere or at least emailing a copy to new users.

Actually, this is all available in the welcome and FAQ in the Steemit menu. The landing page after you log in has some too. Whose fault is it if no-one reads this stuff? That's where I got all the information when I joined

I just saw it.... looks a little like finding trees in a forest to me.

I'm not looking to lay blame on anyone.
Just wanting to make it easier for new users, and therefore grow steem which helps all IMHO.

Have you seen the stats re how many sign up & then a month later leave?
To me that says those that find the FAQ and manage to read it are the minority. Maybe there is a better way / approach is all I'm saying.

It's more likely that they leave within a month because they don't make the money they were hoping for.

Agreed. That accounts for some, but that implies the steem concept was 'oversold & under delivered" ?
Which then leads to maybe they didn't know the processes & how steem differs to other platforms?
which leads me back to my 1st point re 'on boarding' needing some improvement.

But you may be correct re only people who are expecting an annual income from day 2 are signing up. And that is definitely possible, but that means steem need to change/modify the marketing msg IMHO otherwise it's a downwards slope, is it not?

Nowhere does Steemit inc. promise people that they will become independently wealthy. You may also notice that Steemit is in beta, meaning that it is a work in progress.
Personally, I doubt that anyone would read the welcome emails either, if they can't be bothered to poke around the site and figure it out before jumping in with their assumptions about how it all works.

The problem is that most rookies don't know how curation works and expect to gain more from upvoting high-value posts.

I tend to use my votes for developing personal relationships - as you pointed out, it is far more likely that someone who gets 10 upvotes on his average post will notice your upvote than someone who gets over 100. I also try to upvote everything that I comment, since I really dislike the practice of commenting (positively) without giving an upvote.

Cheers! : )

I'm on the way, don't worry. Once I get a slider, everyone I enjoy seeing will see healthy votes. Everyone'll have to just make do til then.

Thank you. I guess this system is quite bigger than I thought. Still a lot to understand. reminds me of the nursery school poem:

Little by little, said a thoughtful boy.....

You're right on target. I figured this out a long time ago. We're basically told that in order to get better curation rewards you should vote on posts that are going to go big.

People are voting on posts that are already big from which the posters themselves are getting all of the curation rewards though.

The best thing to do is to find someone that only has a few votes that you think is going to go big and vote on them after 30 minutes.

Thanks for these great informations. I had no clue about how curation reward system works. Well now i have information but still will depend on authors or whales as a minnow.
I think most of the minnows don't comment on trending posts to get rewards from curation, they are voting for high upvote reward potential. And trying to be first at comments because some authors upvote comments based on how fast they are written, not caring about what they wrote.
I agree with you with the idea of commenting or upvoting contents we like but when it comes to upvote rewards, it brings power and popularity to minnows as well as some money.

People shouldn't be trying to use the trending section as a means for profit. The trending section whether it be through bots still has the herd mentality behind it and that can not be denied. People love to flock to what's trending, it doesn't even have to be quality content. People should get into the mindset of voting on content they truly like, don't be a bandwagon!

I wasn't really aware of the multiplier of any sorts. All I knew about was the 30 minute rule kinda thing.

it is possible to get significantly higher percentage return for small voters but, still likely better in the long run to support authors you like.