I'm curious if we could improve curation by making upvoting more difficult for users. I can hear the reactions already:

Blasphemy! Why would we want to degrade user experience?

I'm not suggesting we reduce user experience. Instead I think we could better align the user experience with what we are hoping to achieve with steemit - original, creative content!

Wouldn't everyone leave for sites with easier upvoting?

I doubt it. Why? Steemit pays users for their time and effort.

Ideas for the upvoting algorithm

Here is some food for thought. If nothing else, I hope to bring this discussion to the forefront as I believe incentive alignment around voting will be one of the primary drivers of steemit's success.

(1) Require users to click on a story before upvoting.

Why is this a good idea?

It is too easy to look at the current upvotes/payout on a story and immediately upvote without reviewing the content. I'm guilty of doing this myself, especially if I have extra voting power available and am strapped for time.

How would this work?

Remove the upvote button from the home page. User will still see the upvote option after they click on the story.

But doesn't a high # of upvotes suggest good content?

Absolutely, but we should still expect users to provide a minimum level of content review before blindly upvoting. There has been a lot of discussion about whales dictating content lately. Our current upvote approach exacerbates this concern since smaller users are encouraged to simply follow the whales and latch on to their preferred content.

Wouldn't this reduce # of upvotes and overall payouts since it takes longer to upvote?

Number of upvotes - yes, payout - no. I would expect fewer upvotes per user, but a higher payout per upvote if we implemented this approach. I think we would also get a more realistic view on each user's interests since they have to spend additional effort to curate content.

(2) Pay less for upvotes based solely on story title / payout.

Why is this a good idea?

No change in user experience, but we provide incentives for users to click on a story before upvoting.

How would this work?

Leave the upvote button on the home page, but only pay a fractional reward for clicking it.

(3) Pay less after a whale upvotes

Why is this a good idea?

Users are no longer encouraged to follow whales for payout alone. Some users will still follow whales based on interest, which is great!

Note: I believe the current algorithm already incorporates this to some extent.

How would this work?

I may get 100% reward prior to a whale vote or a reward bonus for early content identification. I receive very little after the content reaches the trending page.

(4) Pay for time spent reading story

Why is this a good idea?

Encourages users to read and think about a story instead of just chasing curation rewards. I think this could also help increase comment count and overall discussion per story.

How would this work?

I may get 100% of reward for >5 minutes on a page with a sliding scale down to 10% reward for less than 30 seconds

Summary

I think we could improve content curation by encouraging users to spend more time reading and thinking about each story before upvoting. What do you think? Let me know your comments below...