Some additional thoughts on after the announcement

in #curation2 years ago

I've had some time to think more about since all the comments and discussion in the announcement post recently. Honestly I was a bit surprised that there weren't as many negative comments about it than I was expecting. Some of those seemed to kind of ignore the pros and how they'd outweigh the cons and then there were a few comments that just sidetracked the issue we're trying to tackle completely and brought up a whole other spectrum of issues we can't even really do anything about. Anyway, I wanted to discuss some things in this post and bring forth a few more ideas I had about the portion that we can control (meaning the curation rewards that go through us that we then distribute extra to the authors. It's also really great that there were so many comments and even a few interesting suggestions of new additions such as being able to blacklist certain authors you don't want to share the curation rewards with and instead want them to go to the rest of the curators - although I don't see a big usecase for it now it can be something that can be added down the line for certain situations.


One reply I received some time ago on a comment talking about the current curation activity was something that pushed me further to give this experiment a try. A user said that he really disliked being on an autovote front-runners list because it was driving away other curators from voting on his posts afterwards and that he usually wrote long form content that took a lot of time and only seeing that one curator and trail vote early for max ROI and then everyone avoid it discouraged him from continuing posting similarly. Now of course rewards aren't everything but even if you act upon it or not it can still discourage someone over a longer period of time. That's what really made me realize how backwards some curation activity has gotten where the focus is not the content or content discovery but just the highest rewards for the least amount of effort from the curator.

As a manual curator I've always despised autovoting, not just because of them getting often times 2-4x more rewards than manual curators but also because it takes no effort - or similarly to autoposts it's just a one time thing that you get rewarded for continually afterwards. The effects it has on authors is also not great in the long run. I have nothing against autovoting working similarly to patreon (although I think could use some more gamification and following the steps of patreon a little bit - been meaning to talk to @mahdiyari about it but have had a lot on my plate lately) and at the same time be more susceptible to downvotes and disagreement of rewards, even though that usually brings a lot of drama forward because autovotes are in one way very similar to pending author rewards - authors get used to them and no one likes losing autovotes the same way they don't like "losing" author rewards through downvotes. There's very few accounts that over time have not in one way abused autovotes to generate more and more low effort content or start posting more because they know the votes are just waiting on them thus they feel like they're missing out on rewards if they don't. This psychology exists outside of Hive as well, Twitter influencers having to tweet x times per day to remain consistent and grow that magical follower number that most of the time means nothing, youtubers having to create x amount of videos per week to keep growing in subscribers and adrevenue, etc. Like I get it, no one likes seeing numbers go down once they go up.

Without side-tracking too much as there's obviously a lot that can be discussed about the paragraph above I wanna get back to some things could fix or at least balance out a little bit with usage and experimentation. Of course everything has a cost, giving curators a bigger share of the rewards means that some other authors out there not giving curators a bigger share of the rewards might lose out on curation themselves even if the author who does give curation a bigger cut ends up with the same author rewards in the end anyway. The inflation pool gives out the same number weekly to all accounts and it is declining in Hive every day. We need to be careful with how this is used, for one, I think there will be a lot more downvotes happening depending on the content posted while giving curation a higher cut so both authors and the curators will have an incentive to judge the content before casting their votes on it. Of course there will also be front-runners, maximizing attempts here too but since we have a lot of "centralized" control over the extra share that goes to curators there are a lot of new things that could be done with said share.

One idea I had just today was to add additional curation formula's. Right now the default one is to give the extra curation rewards to voters in a linear fashion depending on the stake and vote weight, meaning it wouldn't count the early curation penalty or the late curation penalty. Another one that's gonna be made available is to keep it the same as the rules of the chain. So knowing that we can alter the extra rewards how we want in a way, I was thinking about different ones and one that came to mind was post length, even though I realize this could also be automated in the long run to attempt to maximize rewards but since @peakd already shows the "for example: 15 min read - 3000 words" why not make use of that to disincentivize front-running, etc. Say the curation penalty would first start at 12 minutes and gradually deplete until 14 minutes to leave some room for fast readers but anyone who voted before 12 minutes would not receive any extra curation. Or it could add some RNG to it as well, maybe a curve that goes up and down, the post would show a captcha of the best minutes to cast your vote on. I realize this last example would still encourage manual "maximization" but manual curators are already getting rekt in terms of ROI by front-runners for the usual 50%. This is also why I mentioned in a comment yesterday that this experiment would've possibly worked way better with the EIP but not 50/50 and instead 25/75 or 30/70 to give the service a bit more breathing room.

And who knows, maybe we'll find some really great balance that would showcase that 50/50 is not the best default split but starting at a lower curation cut and letting authors decide it themselves could be more popular (as was discussed a year or so ago) and maybe it might be implemented in a future hardfork. That's what is so great about the experiment that we can try our way through and explore if there are any better balances and as I mentioned this service is something that was inevitable. Anyone could've started it at any time.

Anyway, looking forward to see how this develops and continues forward, if you guys have any more ideas you'd want to explore with feel free to let us know and we'll see if it's worth pursuing at some point down the line.

Thanks for reading, and in case there's already some bots attempting to maximize curation rewards on this post, I'll let you humans know that I set the extra curation rewards of it to image.png



I like your thinking.

My suggestion is to allow the author to increase an individuals(or multiple individuals) curation reward anytime throughout the seven day period.

This would allow me to reward those better that take the time to create great comments with many other possible usecases as well.

This could further incentivize interaction.

Another awesome idea to be honest.

Few people know that in Steem's very early days (before payouts of posts had started) there was designated comment rewards that went automatically to commenters. Authors could for instance choose to set aside part of the extra curation rewards to go to comments based on some sort of whitelist so bots or spammers don't get a cut. Could be combined with the #posh and ENGAGE token idea I was talking about earlier this week.

Nice one, will definitely have to put this on the list of future experiments. :)


I signed up in 2016, but the site was too clunky for a novice like me at the time, so I didn't start posting until late 2017. I did not know of this voting feature.

Was it being gamed?

I still vote manually, a lot of the content I vote on I actually look at or read, (not all, just a lot of it), so the use of the time to read is nice if I happen to catch a post right at posting, but most stuff I vote on has been out for at least several hours, or in some cases days. Giving options to the Author as to how they want the curation paid out on their post is a nice idea.

  • Curation based on read time
  • curation based on random linear start time
  • curation based on a linear backward time
  • curation start point day three to 7, then add day one and two.

Just a couple things that likely can not be done but some food for thought. It is the authors post, and if they want to set when curation begins they should be allowed.

I think there is room on Hive for many types of post, and for many reward/ROI systems. Change and new systems is just something people have become wary of.

I have been following this with great interest and I'd like to make a couple of comments or observations. I generally do long content. Seldom less than 1,000 words. Often more than 2,500. That is a significant investment of time. An 8 minute read is often more than 8 hours in the making. The rewards return, unless I bag a big vote, are often paltry. This is an observation as opposed to a gripe, but I make it because I have to weigh up how much time on creation versus curation. Something has to give. For me, it's the curation. If I could be on Hive 24/7...but who can?

This brings me to my final point: the posts that get the biggest rewards are often those that have Hive and Hive-related content. Even content that's not novel or doesn't have a new angle. We need these posts and people need the information, but for those who produce other content and who are not posting as you say, X times a day/week, etc., are penalised. It's the squeaky wheel thing.

This is why I am so in favour of "catholic" curation guilds and initiatives that teach redfish the system. I have been on the blockchain for three years this month. I am still learning, but I am not as gung ho as I used to be and it's why, other than for initiatives like #HivePUD, I make use of @Steempress and eschew communities. This last is a different conversation.

Not sure how helpful this is, but I have am very interested in how this will unfold.

You bring up an excellent observation and points .

I’ll have to check out the rewards app thing. I think I saw something about it recently but weren’t entirely sure what it was. Looks like I’ll have to take a look at it to understand it.

The vote trails have kind of hurt me as well. Most, not all, of my content is a lot longer than many peoples. I’ve been very grateful to get a good amount of support from groups like Curie and Curangel but once they visit my posts, that’s basically it for rewards on them. Occasionally I will get a couple votes but most often it’s not much, if anything.

It’s tough because I really appreciate the support I get but I feel like it’s kind of limited once the projects vote on it, there’s nothing else after. Too much focus on curation rewards and maximizing it. I’ve been doing strictly manual voting, regardless of the time the post was made and I’m getting 9.4% APR. Some are obsessed with 15%+ but it’s kind of silly, I think.

Anyways I’ll go check out that account. Thanks for the post and trying to get people to manually curate and talk to people!

Yeah, believe me when I say I put a lot of thought into this and if I wanted to go ahead with it or even have my name connected to it as I could've remained anonymous due to part of it's controversial nature. We have the best intentions of directing this so it is used as well as possible and this would also mean curating posts that go through us, by that I don't necessarily mean that we'd actively curate these posts just because they are using us with our own personal accounts but also downvoting content that is garbage that are using us just for the promotion effect of maximizers voting on it.

It's gonna be interesting to see how it gets used and develops further.

Really, by the time curie or curangel get to your post if curators haven't already got to it, they aren't going to anyway, because they've missed the early window. Any adding to it after that are doing so because they enjoyed the post or it was pertinent to the community, if it's a community curator.

Then everyone has a bit of a cut off as to whether they think you need more and that will depend on what they're used to seeing reward wise. For example, if I see a really good post and my initial instinct is 100%, but they have above $30 in rewards, then I will likely drop my vote considerably, because I know there will be other good posts with much lower rewards that can benefit more. I think we also base it around what we're used to earning on posts. If we only regularly earn a couple of dollars, then why would we want to reward someone who regularly earns more, unless it's to get in early and earn from curation? However, if we regularly earn higher rewards, then it's a no brainer to add more to anyone earning less. We also have a bit of a default where we want to reward the under rewarded to encourage them more. Curangel, for example, won't vote anything that already has rewards at $10+. Many of the curation projects focus on under rewarded or newer accounts.

It's actually really hard to not take that reward figure into account when it comes to voting habits. It would be interesting to see how posts actually get rewarded if we didn't see that figure until after the post paid out.

Thanks for the great comment! I know you help with Curangel and have helped one or two of my posts, I appreciate that.

I think it might be the communities or the content of the posts I’m doing that don’t get much. I love doing DIY things because it’s fun for me but the community isn’t there much to engage with people. I could be biased though because the natural medicine and eco train communities are such power houses for engagement lol. I wish some of them would engage with others more, we learn things for sure when we talk to others in things like DIY. I’m happy with getting to a few dollars for post payouts but sometimes a 10% vote (regardless of hive power) and a great comment go a long way on my opinion. I think what I’m rambling about is once a post gets to a certain dollar value people just breeze past it in search for more rewards elsewhere.

I too adjust my votes depending on the potential rewards. I’ll drop a 10-15% vote on things that have already been well rewarded unless it’s an author I like, them I’ll give more.

I don’t know if it’s a habit now but I don’t think I’ve really given out many 100% votes anymore because I’m trying to spread my votes to as many people as I can within my voting power limits.

Ecotrain and NM really do work to encourage engagement as much as possible. There are a couple of people who will pull us all up if posts get missed for engagement. 😉 It helps that there is a growing group of people who are really passionate in those areas.

DIY is one of those things that is great to have as a go to for a broad range of people, but often it's something that they look up when they need it rather than it being a regular passion. Hopefully as more passionate DIYers come along the community will get more active.

Since the EIP, we've seen huge changes for the better reward wise and it was great for a while, but I guess stagnation creeps in and we want to make improvement. As you say, we always want to an see increase in earnings/followers/interaction. You've touched on a few issues and I'm glad you've brought them up and are taking them into consideration. Whatever you do to try and improve things, it won't sort every issue, but that's okay. It will probably make the biggest changes initially, then people will form new habits which may bring out other issues. Perhaps it's a case of continually discussing and making changes that we need. An evolution, so to say.

I very much dislike the ratio of votes to comments on most of my posts. Votes are nice, but I would like to know that someone is actually reading my content, too. Vote trails and autovoting systems are a lazy substitute for real curation. Your proposal based on word count might have some merit.

Ditto. However I also realise that just because someone doesn't comment, it doesn't mean they didn't read it. I find it hard to comment anything meaningful if it's fiction or if they've covered all bases. Although sometimes I will just add a comment if there are no others just to say that the post was good/enjoyable and I believe it was well received.

True, and I certainly don't comment on everything I read. However, engagement via comments is what shows writers and readers alike that there is a real community here. We need more than dollar signs to get interest from quality content creators.

Do you used They have some view statistics now on their site but of course it only counts the views made on peakd but it's at least something if you're interested in it. This is also why we'd want to grow the #posh activity of sharing your content all over twitter and later other platforms, one or two big influencers are nice to have but 100-500 authors that share and grow along side eachother on those platforms, use the right tags + seo will be a lot more powerful. So we want to continue incentivizing that with a token next and some additional votes.

I do use PeakD, but the Views tool page always just pops up a red warning box that says, "Error fetching analytics data."

Love it!

And just an idea, would it be possible to make a lottory out of the postrewards, saying like 50% or so of the postreward goes to a random curator.

Would love this :) maybe name it hahahaha

Can you explain to a “less savvy” person like me; how is this different from likwid? Except that ~4% default “curator” reward, which can be potentially modified. My main concern is abuse. Another simple way to get rewards out faster.

I'm pretty sure I'm as less savvy as you. :D

but the liquid post rewards are just an extra thing really, I mean if the community prefers to receive them the way they get them now that's doable as well, same goes for both authors and curators. For curators getting liquid rewards we think it could be a cool experiment as @cardboard mentioned in his post so they wouldn't need to power down if they would like to have some extra liquids around for tipping, investing in tokens/games/etc.

But if authors sets beneficiary, then sets the reward to curators to zero, it becomes likwid.... right?

Lower fee as far as I know but yes.

Should that be allowed as an option?

If the author rewards go out as liquid? Yeah we can give people options.


The inflation rate declines every day, but the reward pool doesn’t follow it in lockstep.

For instance, use the Internet Archive at*/
and compare
May 19 (4:10:16): (832,504 Hive reward pool)
May 26 (22:55:48): (835,562 Hive reward pool)

Not sure what you mean by inflation pool.

If I remember, as the rate is decreasing, the pool size will start to shrink around 2021/22 - but, I can't remember exactly where the point is.



This is taken from a very old Steem post and this will (i think) be affected by total supply, which fluctuates because of conversions.

Is functional now? Can I set it as beneficiary to my next post?

Have you thought about sending the reward as vested like current curation is instead of liquid?

We could add that option, yes, we didn't think that would be any issue really but were more interested as to how it would be used in term of content and curation.

This is a thought-provoking article. I love that so many spend their time striving to improve this blockchain. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for reading! :)

Golos had this years ago.
It hasn't helped them.

Nothing could help Golos ;)

yet you copy it... lol

Your name is funny now too.

Lol, I agree, once the bad whale opened his maw and sucked out all the value they were toast.

It's sad, really, they could've been a developmental asset, but,...greed.

any specifications of how it functioned?

Yes, it had a slider that you could pick whatever curation percentage you wanted from some low, I forget, to 100%.

I know curating is your thing, but without authors getting something, they won't be here.

Weren't you a witness on golos?

What it don't get is if 'hivets' claim this is web 3.0 and blockchain is elite and HIVE the future...
Why is the systems implemented so basic?
Why can't someone utilize algorithms that analyze full user activity
Follower (attentive or just numbers)
Follower to follower interaction..
Essentially what that other fellow with the engagement report is doing, (though report is all it is there) but using that data a real reward project based on the whole activity and driving bottom dweller engagement and their sense of actual value recognized.. and compensated would be the result.

It could even exist as an UBI.
HIVE - Rewarding The Human.

Doing so would reward the poor here who only really have their voice and ability to comment and critique as ability to earn.

This complete tunnel vision approach of author+curator(clicker) rewards is why 4 years on.
This still the same steeming crap.

I could elaborate on that last point but then I don't like to hurt whales (feelings).
Didn't mean you acidyo.
You're a cute stuffed toy.

I think that anything that could make people motivated to actually read and interact on the post would be very welcomed, aside to financial rewards. Of course people look at that too, but if it becomes the only reason to create/curate then there's not so much fun in it. Feeling that you will also get genuine human interaction on your posts next to the rewards would be the real cherry on the cake.

I see there is no curation trail for on Maybe this makes sense, as this isn't really a voting app, but it seems like it would make sense, as there is extra incentive for curators.

Dunno, we don't want people to use just for an extra vote if that makes sense. They can use it if they want to give curators more curation rewards or if they want liquid rewards for that particular post and people shouldn't focus on curating those posts just for the extra rewards.

Totally agree