If yes, please consider answering 'why'.

dantheman (73) · 8 years ago

I think it is safe to say that this is a divisive issue with no objective answer. Here is some perspective:

Prediction Markets (auger) are worth as much as STEEM
Steem has the potential to offer more accessible form of prediction markets than auger
The current implementation is dangerously close to a cleverly disguised vote-buying strategy which @bitcoindoom recently outlined the potential consequences of an upvote only system.
I have previously stated that if @steemsports has significant value, then it should be baked into the protocol, made provably fair, and have the overhead slashed.

At the very least, I think steemit.com needs to organize content and display it in ways that are optimized for the use case.

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krnel (78) · 8 years ago

This is a divisive issue, as many things are. There is a problem that needs to be resolved. Pick-to-win from the reward pool is not ok or good for platform. Pay-to-win, well that's actually someone putting in something of their own for the potential to win. There is a real risk-reward to mitigate the involvement based on what people are willing to lose. With no risk, of course people want to jump in on it, no loss, you end up just getting more and more of it. It's motivated behavior. So make it real betting, yes.

Thanks for the feedback. I will be posting more on this, as it is a real issue that needs to be resolved. Isn't that what you want? For people to come to a consensus for what to do? So this needs to be dealt with. People need to be aware so the problem can be resolved. I disagree that there is no objective answer. I will try to make my case in forthcoming posts.

I had "vote-buying" in my title originally, but that can be argued against since not everyone wins... but it's still vote-buying even if you're not guaranteed to win, you're guaranteed not to lose, which is itself the motivator to participate in a free lunch. All they see is short term gains, and upvote to win, which is buying people's votes. Even if they don't realize it, that is the underpinning psychological motivational factor.

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dantheman (73) · 8 years ago

Any given post isn't vote buying, but if outcome is perfectly random then over multiple rounds it is as if everyone was vote buying. Even without being perfectly random, a simple strategy of "voting with the herd" or creating two accounts with reputation and "voting both sides" will turn it into vote buying.

I think the real innovation would be to have a different algorithm for allocating the "community rewards" to these games. I would base it on the total amount of private funds placed into which ever side has the least bet.

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krnel (78) · 8 years ago (edited)

That's something I have thought of and have some things written, on allocation of rewards for certain content types. For example, art, photos, fiction, non-fiction, etc.? Since you're considering it for "pick games" for the reward pool, then it has a measure to apply and a rule to code to apply a measurement, meaning it would have an objective valuation. The same could be done for others content types, where they each had their own reward pool? This would make "over fishing", shall we say, less of an issue, but problematic to evaluate how to divide the rewards per content type. Thanks.

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fyrstikken (75) · 8 years ago

@dantheman You are so right - Supporting all 4 points and agree that steemit.com needs to organize content and display it in ways optimized for the use case.

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alkafir (35) · 8 years ago

In all seriousness, I'd say NO. I believe porn/gambling should be treated differently because they are different "animals" to all other content. I think they bring with them unique issues and potential legal hazards to the platform. I see "pick games" as the tip of the iceberg and next we'll be having the same conversation about whether "tic tac toe" is gambling or not and there will be no resolution.
I would propose that 2 separate entities/sites/browsers whatever are created instead. These would be offshoots like "Steembets" and "Steemporn" sites. I agree that there is a lot of potential profit in this type of thing that should go towards developing this community. I would say Steemit should do this ASAP before somebody else does.

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noisy (67) · 8 years ago

No, because it discourage real bloggers, which do not want to buy votes, and they just want to write good article. Good content is what brings new users to the platform, because good article can save me hundreds of dollars if it will teach me something.

Also, few cents will not convince any serious adult to join steemit, because he can easily earn 100 hundreds times more in an hour, and thanks to that he can easily invest in STEEM as serious person.

Since SteemSports is constantly on trending page, I have a problem to bring new talented users on the platform, as I did with @zuch.media, @cwbrooch, @kambrysia or @lukmarcus, and many others. They are just seeing, that this place right now encouraging more bribing your readers , rather than real work and time spent on preparing and writing great article.

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krnel (78) · 8 years ago (edited)

E.X.A.C.T.L.Y. Thank you for chiming in with great feedback. Steemit will not do well if we let this continue. @dantheman knows it. I have in depth analyses int he works, so hopefully more people will come to understand the issue with clarity instead of personal blinders blinding them.

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mallorcaman (66) · 8 years ago

Yes, to fast track followers and reputation

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8 votes

nikflossus (66) · 8 years ago (edited)

No, because I've seen how dishonest some of them are.

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4 votes

anotherjoe (66) · 8 years ago

I like it, though don't really pursue participating vigorously. Some of the topics are, IMO, nonsensical. But folks have a right to be frivolous, nonsensical, silly or whatever else tickles their fancy.
I participate in SteemSports and once in awhile some of the others, when I see them. But I'm often too pressed to spend time on them too, so just skip over.
I see some negativity folks are pressing on some of these efforts. IMO, it's silly. There's no real objective reason I can perceive to attack them. There are different ways to bring value to Steemit. If it's getting a lot of attention, then (unless it's objectively disruptive or destructive) it seems like the community has already spoken. Steemit Inc can put their foot down if they want. Otherwise, the market has spoken.

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ats-david (74) · 8 years ago

If you're an investor who actually buys STEEM, does the popularity of "pick games" attract you?

If I'm an investor, I don't care if the games are "popular" or not. I don't make investment decisions based on my social media content preferences. I look at valuation, potential ROI, and other key fundamentals of investing. What you're asking isn't really a question for "investors."

However, as an investor, I will gauge sentiment about the general product I'm investing in. If I see a bunch of negativity emanating from long-term stake-holders/users and see that their behavior can dampen new user or potential user enthusiasm for the platform by continually attacking popular content or successful users, I might take that into consideration. Enthusiasm and expectations play a big role in creating, developing, and marketing a product. If those are being skewed due to a lack of forethought or understanding of the actual product, then that's a problem - and it will likely cause investors to at least hesitate, or possibly refrain from investing at all.

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remlaps (75) · 8 years ago

does the popularity of "pick games" attract you?

Yes. I don't see "pick games," I see emerging prediction markets. It's a short-term kludge to have those games mixed in with bloggers, but for the time being, it's necessary. In the long term I imagine that someone will develop a home that's more suitable for them.

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4 votes

stellabelle (75) · 8 years ago (edited)

Steemit turned me into an investor and my answer is No. Here's why:
When my friends who are not on Steemit look at the current trending page, they think to themselves, "Make up a cheap, exploitative game and get paid". This degrades any potential growth of it being a "blogging" platform. It attracts the most base-level humans that are not even interested in reading.....
If we look back at Steemit's marketing, it describes itself as a "blogging site". The network effect of these vote buying schemes makes content creators irrelevant because they illustrate that you don't need to think, write or create to make a quick buck. All you need to do is create some cheap, exploitative scheme to make bank. This kind of influence cheapens this entire site. My friends, many of whom are professional writers, won't even touch this place because it's reputation is in the gutter. These games just push it down further.

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4 votes

bluehorseshoe (61) · 8 years ago

Spot on in my humble opinion.

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bambam808 (70) · 8 years ago

Personally no. But I am here to try and build the platform with the community. In my opinion it depends on the person themselves. Are they someone who wants to build a solid core community which in turns builds backing ( a more solid backing/support if you ask me) or just "cash-out" with little regard to other Steemians presenting (possibly) better content who dont have the funds to promote and vote-buy. Just my view though.
UPVOTED AND RESTEEMED

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3 votes

beanz (68) · 8 years ago

No. Because it completely undermines the curation incentivisation system in place. There is no need to seek out quality content if you can just sell your vote instead. In my opinion, if we were to fork off and leave their "prediction markets" on a different blockchain while the bloggers continued without them, their model would fail, because @thecryptodrive himself told me they are failing to bring non-steem users on-board because the free bet idea is such a hard sell.

It adds no value to the platform. Their games could very easily continue off site, while keeping the post rewards to themselves.

Another example of an option is to seek sponsorship from one of their supporting whales and create a similar model to #openmic ran by @luzcypher and sponsored by @pfunk.

They could donate a set amount of steem so that the post does not need to be voted on to play the game and those who do vote on the post would be doing so for no added monetary incentive, making its value more accurate.

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screenname (66) · 8 years ago

This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 30. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $10.88 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.

See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 30 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.

If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.

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brianphobos (70) · 8 years ago

There are so many different levels of investment on this platform. Someone could just be on an exchange buying and selling Steem and never even have a Steemit account. Others could buy it and place it in an account so they get the interest but also have upward appreciation potential if the Steem token increases. Some of those people could care less what is posted and what is upvoted on really. They might not even know that they could earn additional Steem by curating passively with a bot.
Others have no clue what Steem Dollars are and that they could use that to earn interest while hedging against downside risk.
The only people who care about the drama on here are the people who are really engaged in this platform. It is seriously like 500 of us max.

To so many people that are going to see this in passing it kind of doesn't matter. They see it and probably think oh cool. That token has some blogging platform associated with it. Kind of like how there are so many people invested in Bitcoin who don't know the relationship between the private keys and public keys. A lot of them don't even know about the existence of alt coins....etc.

I think it is an interesting question but I feel like there are 300 people on here that really understand the economy on here and the different strategies to make money. Then there are probably like 50 people who REALLY know a lot and have a deep understanding of the code.

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