.

bashadow (65) · 7 years ago

Thank you for the analysis. I see in the comments that there may be a little bit of confusion on @dustsweeper, and what it does. There really is no "Fee" to use @dustsweeper. In fact you receive a benefit from @dustsweeper. You put in 1 steem, and they put in 1 steem into your piggy bank so to speak, so when dustsweeper comes around and upvotes two of the dust level votes you received you can sort of look at it as one self upvote, and a @dustsweeper upvote.

So the person that gave the vote gets a reward, you get the reward the person wanted to give you, and dustsweeper gets a reward for helping both of you. Half of all the dustsweeper votes you receive are from your steem invested, and the other half is from steem dustsweeper invested in you. No fees involved just a deposit to your dust bank, you get all the money back.

Steem price hopefully will go back up, I do miss being able to cast a lot of votes that count. In the meantime I will continue to try and earn and power up Steem to SP.

$1.67

Vote for Utopian Witness!

utopian-io (71) · 7 years ago

Hey @bashadow
Here's a tip for your valuable feedback! @Utopian-io loves and incentivises informative comments.

Contributing on Utopian
Learn how to contribute on our website.

Want to chat? Join us on Discord https://discord.gg/h52nFrV.

$0.02

bashadow (65) · 7 years ago

That was quite unexpected. Thank you. I just happen to like dustsweeper and am a supporter of what they are trying to do, again thank you very much. Looks like I really owe you, your vote was enough to push me to 59.007 rep from a 58.9something when I went to bed.

$0.00

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your remark, @bashadow, you are of course right. The term "fee" was indeed misleading here. I've updated the post and linked to your comment for details. Thanks! :)

$0.02

bashadow (65) · 7 years ago

I just hope that the rise in steem price is not to far around the corner. needing to use 75% for a pay-out level vote is not easy on the vote bank, so fewer comment votes, slightly lower content votes so I can vote the occasional comment. Adjustments we all need to make them every now and then.

$0.00

revisesociology (73) · 7 years ago

Great analysis as always, tying in nicely with the last post.

I thought the threshold was $0.028.. or am i just plain wrong?

You'd think it'd be in the FAQs wouldn't you!

It now takes me a 25% upvote to raise a comment above with 3.2 active sp, talk about a decline!

I don't actually find the findings that alarming given the small numbers.

Posted using Partiko Android

$0.07

3 votes

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks @revisesociology! No, the constant is really $0.020. But going for slightly more is certainly a good idea, because the value is evaluated at payout and not at the time of the vote, and with the current trend...

Good point about the FAQ, it could be worth a try to get this aspect in and possibly raise awareness!

Edit: I came across the $0.028 in the @dustsweeper posts - the additional 0.008 is what they chose to assure that the final payout is definitely above 0.02.

$0.08

3 votes

paulag (73) · 7 years ago

great post, and you are so correct, many people, including me get vote dust threshold and payout threshold mixed up.

@dustsweeper is an awesome tool, yes there is a small fee, but when you have a lot of redfish following you then the votes dont amount to much its really worth having paid the small fee.

$0.07

3 votes

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thanks, @paulag! Yes, the topic is rather confusing, and the distinction between STU before payout and SBD/STEEM/SP afterward doesn't make it easier.
I haven't used @dustsweeper myself, but I'm glad to hear positive feedback from your experience!

$0.07

paulag (73) · 7 years ago

you should give it a try, you only need to send 1 steem to get start and you get it back via votes

$0.00

julianhorack (69) · 6 years ago

Hi @crokkon many thanks for the statistical info on steemit and the voting and earning system. As a noob there is a lot to learn and it almost seems to get more complicated the more I learn. I've been told the learning curve is steep, but I'm getting fitter the further I climb.

And thanks to @paulag for directing me here to find out these details.

$0.06

crokkon (68) · 6 years ago

Hi @julianhorack, glad you found here! Yes, the learning curve is indeed pretty steep and there are a lot of things that happen in the background. But inner workings of Steem are a super fascinating topic - keep climbing :)

$0.00

espoem (67) · 7 years ago

It is an impressive piece of work. I was not aware of the minimum threshold. Is it a fixed threshold that you can point to the line of code in the blockchain? Does it also mean that the percentage of the posts and comments can increase if the price of STEEM and SBD decrease, which would indicate that only small portion of posts by influential people or posts backed by a large group of people could reach any payout?

$0.05

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thanks @espoem, the corresponding value in the code is STEEM_MIN_PAYOUT_SBD and is used in is_comment_payout_dust() in reward.hpp.
@timcliff made a post a few months ago following this constant across the code.

While it is possible that the percentage of posts and comment that fall below this threshold can change, it surprisingly barely did in the analyzed time frame (see the 2nd figure), despite a ~30% change of the vote value in STU.

$0.06

espoem (67) · 7 years ago

Thank you for the link. I could just imagine that lots of people are discouraged when the price drops, which means fewer people engaged in voting. I suppose it only supports the idea that new and tiny SP holders have it hard unless they join a community or they are recognised by a minnow or dolphin at least.

I think that 30% is quite a lot. Is there a way to see what kind of posts they are? I suppose you made some similar analyses in the past focusing on the content types and length.

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

I also think communities are key for new accounts. Getting recognized is certainly possible but hard...

30% is indeed quite a lot. There are ways to see what kind of posts these are. I didn't want to make this post even longer, but maybe it's worth a follow-up investigation. I wouldn't be too much surprised if the fraction of "human" posts and comments among them isn't too high, so that could be one thing to look into.You mentioned already type and length. Other metrics could be self-votes vs. votes from others, or reputation. Many ideas, little time :)

$0.00

practicalthought (65) · 7 years ago

Just curious, but I was debating with a friend over the curation trails and the very minimal votes many in the trail get. Using Steemworld it appears ot me most of them get nothing for their minuscule votes, but the leaders of the trail don't believe me. Steemworld shows out three places to the right of the decimal 0 payout. What is your take on it?

Thanks for the breakdown on the payout math.

$0.05

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Well, following a curation trail (e.g. voting after a leader-vote that is typically larger than yours) is very unlikely to give you curation rewards, unless the really big hitters come after you. You should follow a trail if you support the type of content that is curated, not for curation rewards. If you want curation rewards, you should vote these posts before others. Curation trails increase the curation rewards of the account leading the trail, but usually not for those following it. Does that answer your question? If you're interested in the math behind curation rewards, see here.

$0.10

4 votes

ecoinstant (68) · 7 years ago

Its funny I too have seen this faulty logic before by people who run trails, following curation trails benefits those you follow ;p

$0.05

rose98734 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

Regarding this comment:

Around 30% of all posts and 10% of all comments receive votes but are not paid out because their value is below 0.02 STU at payout. I was actually a bit surprised that the number for posts is that high. I think, however, this could benefit from a more detailed look to see how many of these posts are actually "human"-made before jumping on any conclusions.

I'd say most of them were human. If you trawl through the noob posts there are literally thousands that have a few votes and no payout.

For a start, they get completely ignored by the established steemians, so their only votes are from fellow noobs.

Do the math: they start with 15 SP delegated from steemit. To get to the payout they need a 100% vote at 100% voting power from at least 23 other noobs with 15 SP (to get about 350 SP in upvotes).

In practice, they might get 10 votes, and those are NOT at 100% voting power, because the voters are voting away at everything (they are too new to grasp their voting power is draining).

After a week or so of getting votes and no payout no matter what they write, they give up, which is why Steemit has such a high abandonment of users.

This will get worse after HF20 - there won't be any starting delegation from Steemit for noobs, and they will be allowed to vote even when their voting power is completely gone...

It would be nice if established steemians sought out new people and delivered a few votes to them every day - but I see a lot of talk about engagement, but then people stick to their existing circles.

$0.04

7 votes

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thanks for you comment, @rose98734! I can't tell if you're right that most of them are actually human from the data I've shown here - I think I should really look into the posts without payout more closely :)

You raised a very important aspect which I completely ignored in this post: HF20!

there won't be any starting delegation from Steemit for noobs

Do you have a source for that? While it will be possible to create accounts without delegation, I haven't seen an announcement that the Steemit signup will do this?

But another aspect is the vote value downshift by 1.2 SP. While you currently and ideally need around 23 15SP votes, you'll then need at least 25 of them or more with "realistic" VP values.

$0.00

https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/proposing-hardfork-0-20-0-velocity

rose98734 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

My source was the following from steemitblog:

Which said the following:

The current system also incentivizes attackers creating multiple accounts in order to acquire free STEEM, which again increases the overall cost of maintaining the protocol. To solve this problem, we propose a new method of burning STEEM (i.e. destroying the tokens and removing them from the token supply) on each account creation and crediting the account with permanent minimum bandwidth instead of providing Steem Power to the new account.

As always, the steemit team is so focused on the abusers they haven't thought through why the abuses are happening in the first place. It's because it's pretty much impossible for a noob to go from 0.1 SP to 50 SP legitimately. They either give up, or figure how to game the system by opening multiple accounts. The option of writing and getting discovered is blocked to them because it's now too difficult to even earn $0.02 which will give them around 0.017 SP. They'd have to toil for aeons with thousands of $0.00 posts and a few $0.02 posts before they even break into three figures of steempower.

$0.04

7 votes

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Indeed, this sounds like they might use the new account creation mechanism for the Steemit faucet - let's see once HF20 is active!
I think for new users it is key to join one of the existing communities and engage with established users. I remember that I "sold myself" for any kind of contests back then to get some SBD/STEEM, lol...
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it is quite some effort to build up SP without own invest.

Speaking of, I've sometimes felt an attitude among users that they "expect" to have a Steemit-funded vote that is worth "something". Let's not forget that Steemit gives out these accounts for free, you can post, vote, comment, and eventually build up your own STEEM/SP from nothing. Yes, the vote is worth close to nothing, but the "social network" or "blog" aspects are fully usable without own invest. You typically don't get monetary gains from other social networks or blogging platforms.
I've signed up for Golos a few month ago to see how that works and their free account had so little SP that I couldn't even vote. I had to buy some tokens in order to be able to vote at all.

$0.00

rose98734 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

P.S. Here is the account of the type of noob I mean:

@highlandwalker

He takes photographs of the Highlands of Scotland on his walks. He's trying hard to engage - voting for people, resteeming, leaving comments. But despite being a member since May 2016, and writing 134 posts, he has managed to go from the 0.1 SP starting steempower to 0.913 SP.

My vote is only a cent, so sometimes I am able to tip him into the $0.02 payout level, but as the price falls it gets harder and harder.

$0.00

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago

"If you don't have enough SP, a vote on a comment isn't necessarily wasted but can also be seen as a sign of appreciation - also without monetary value."

Dear God, Save all minnows from this manner of thinking. DON'T vote dust, my friends. No one cares about appreciation in this internet world. It is cold, hard cash that is appreciated. Go in the curation league of @abh12345 and see how others are making this work.

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will follow :)

abh12345 (76) · 7 years ago

If all you can vote is dust, except if you add 0.005 to a post value, why not vote and add a nice reply to a comment? The 'cold hard cash' of half a cent isn't going to help anyone yes, but may get you a 10 cent vote in return.

$0.00

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago

Nope - not buying that one. Until your vote "means something" don't waste your time voting comments is my idea.

No one cares for your .001. Just comment and take your chances. Yes, vote for posts down to 90% power each day and get yourself up to a 3 cent votes asap.

Maybe vote on comments that already have 3 cents, but I would not even bother with that.

"add a nice reply to a comment" <<< Yes, do that all day long. The good comment is what will get your the 10 cents, not your .005.

If you want to do the dust sweeper thing, that is a different story, I think, but I have never looked into that plan to know enough about it.

$0.00

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

hey @fitinfun, thanks for your comment, but I agree with @abh12345. If Steem is only about "cold hard cash", then we should better all vote for ourselves 10 times a day. Yes, a couple of users are actively practicing this, but a lot of users - including you as far as I can tell - disagree with that and (also) use the social aspects of Steem. Asher's league is a perfect example of that. I personally appreciate a dust vote on my comments from accounts that aren't able to exceed the threshold. And they have a good chance to get back a vote above the threshold for a meaningful comment. They didn't lose anything with that vote, they used their stake, only it benefits all authors and not the single voted author. It's a different story, though, if you can exceed the threshold but still make your vote go dust...

$0.00

Your 2 Cent Vote is Worthless, The Real Deal on Dust Votes

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago (edited)

They did lose something. They lost the ability to get a curation reward for a vote they paced on a post. They wasted their already limited power.

I do not care about people who vote themselves all day long on short posts. They rarely get too big and then some whales usually come and kill them at that point. With a few notable exceptions I still don't care about.

Going in the curation league of @abh12345 is a great way to learn how to maximize your curation rewards and I recommend it constantly. I am pretty sure dust voting is not a recommended strategy over there, but I have not been paying attention recently.

It's not only about the cash but this lady is still at the front door for noobs making them think they have a chance.

get paid for your good content.PNG

I can't imagine why you appreciate a dust vote. Do you enjoy watching people rip up dollars bills and throw them to with wind as well? I hate dust votes and try to help the person see the error of their ways if I can. I send them this old post from @thedarkhorse:

I will "try" to upvote dust votes enough to get a payout on it, but my vote is not strong enough to do that often.

"And they have a good chance to get back a vote above the threshold for a meaningful comment." <<< EXACTLY - no dust votes required.

$0.00

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Ok, I guess we won't come to an agreement on the best practices, but I think we agree that people should be well aware of the threshold :)

Please take the linked post with a grain of salt because it contains some confusion about the different assets (STU/SBD/STEEM), it ignores the rounding of the frontend and contains some statements which are simply wrong.

$0.00

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago

But the theme of "Don't. Vote. Dust." stands lol.

$0.00

abh12345 (76) · 7 years ago (edited)

They lost the ability to get a curation reward for a vote they paced on a post.

Unless you are front-running bots, the curation rewards from a redfish account are likely to be way below 5/10 cents a week.

Forget about adding 0.001s together and go all in with an upvote combined with a comment, especially on a reply to a reply on a post where no-one has upvoted Any comments - this will push that comment to the top, even if the payout will be nothing.

Even a dust vote can make a huge difference to visibility of a comment in this case. And, if someone else the sees this comment a dust account has upvoted and votes it too, the curation reward here is likely to be far superior of one coming from a post.

$0.00

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago

Learning to front run bots is a good skill to learn for your future payouts. I still do this thanks to you. I have several places I can go to and vote before bots get to them and I do this daily. I realize this is small potatoes, but If I get 0.020 instead of 0.001 on many votes a week, it makes a difference over time.

Sadly, that 5-10 cents a week is more than noobs get on all their posts in many cases.

Upvoting comments, especially your own for visibility, is something many people here frown upon. I have been talking to several people who were doing that rampant comment voting for a while and since have stopped. The reason they stopped was that they kept getting bad remarks about it. I cannot believe you support this idea.

But I'm not someone trying to get whales to upvote my replies, so I do not know the ins and outs of what they vote for. I almost never even visit those posts and when I do, I retreat quickly. I am sure this is to my own detriment, but I cannot take the butt kissing up there.

I agree that if you get big votes on a comment after you voted it you can get money for it. This may have happened to me 10 times in a year and a half. I upvote good comments on my posts and others frequently and as far as I know this is charity on my part, even though small.

$0.00

abh12345 (76) · 7 years ago (edited)

Upvoting comments, especially your own for visibility, is something many people here frown upon. I have been talking to several people who were doing that rampant comment voting for a while and since have stopped. The reason they stopped was that they kept getting bad remarks about it. I cannot believe you support this idea.

You misunderstood.

Voting a comment made by another deemed to be the best comment on a post, that has not been voted on as yet, will:

Push it to the top - appreciated by post author and commentator
Get it seen by author, commentator, future visitors

More visibility, more chance of seeing this comment (and your awesome reply), more chance of future votes.

A 5 cent vote on top of a dust voted comment will earn the dust account holder more than voting on a post in most cases.

$0.00

fitinfun (71) · 7 years ago

Hmm... I would love to see stats on how many dust votes end up getting A+ rewards. I still don't recommend dust voting, but if you know of someone making it work, please introduce me. I'm all about the minnow tips over here.

$0.00

erikklok (62) · 7 years ago

Awesome data analysis that also explains some of the core of the Steem blockchain. Thanks for the data digging and the interesting post you wrote about it!

allseeingewe (63) · 7 years ago

Thanks for this. I will need to re-read it tomorrow once I have achieved the necessary caffeine/blood ratio for proper comprehension.

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thank you, @allseeingewe, also for the resteem! Good luck with the caffeine/blood ratio :)

$0.00

crypto-econom1st (57) · 7 years ago

Not that I can add something interesting, but I wanted to let you know that you again wrote a brilliant investigation!

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Hi @crypto-econom1st, thanks for coming by :)

$0.00

curatorcat (67) · 7 years ago

Interesting analysis @crokkon, although the results are not entirely surprising. I'm glad you mention @dustsweeper, as it is one of the very few "countermeasures" those of us who are active posters and commenters have.

This does make me wonder about the efficacy of some curation trails; one can but hope that the many people who are getting a 6% upvote from a series of accounts with 87SP (or something like that) aren't just getting "a nice warm feeling" but getting NO actual rewards.

"Margin of error" matters too, here. Meaning that having a 0.020 value right off doesn't mean it will still be 0.020 seven days later... which is also where the DustSweeper "overvote" comes from

Thanks for "spelling this out," however!

=^..^=

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Thanks for you comment, @curatorcat!
I think curation trails are not much of a problem with regards to the payout threshold for the author. Once the post exceeds $0.02 in total value, even the tiny votes slightly increase the value and the post will be paid out. Curation rewards from trails for the voters were mentioned in another comment here - that's of course a different story.

The fluctuation (or unfortunately the decrease) of the vote value is indeed an important aspect. I also try to keep a margin on my "typical" comment upvote %, but with the current trend I might need to raise the percentage again a little. @dustsweeper is in a slightly better position there, because it usually votes between day 5 and 6, so "only" 1-2 days of unknown vote value trend until payout.

$0.00

gadrian (66) · 7 years ago

Hi @crokkon,

Great analysis, thank you for breaking it down to details!

I've been curious about something lately, but perhaps I don't have the insight to fully grasp it.

I've seen votes being cast quite, if not very early early after posting (sometimes immediately after, via a bot), but with an insignificant value (and usually at 1% or less weight). If checked, the worth of the upvote is 0.000, occasionally 0.001.

I was wondering if there's a reason for casting such a small votes (and so early). Do they get anything from curation this way?

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

Hi @gadrian, in many cases this is to get some curation rewards. The smaller the vote, the higher the relative return, the more votes they can cast, the higher the total curation rewards from all votes. This can go to a point where bots are voting only a few minutes after a post was created. The first voter on my post here is an example for one of the best curation-for-profit bots around currently.
A vote directly at or only seconds after post creation typically doesn't give curation rewards.

$0.00

gadrian (66) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks! Ok, it makes sense. But now I understand better why people use the term false curation. Plus I believe they discourage real curators, by placing themselves among the first to curate and voting "en masse".

flaxz (68) · 6 years ago (edited)

This is great info, thanks @crokkon.

$0.00

babyino (58) · 7 years ago

interesting information mate

$0.00

crokkon (68) · 7 years ago

well done @babyino, @zeroknowledge seems to like your short but concise comments, 10 per day - you should ask him to upvote them a bit earlier than day 5, so all others can benefit from your valuable contributions!

$0.00

verifyme (0) · 7 years ago

$0.00

Reveal Comment

trufflepig (66) · 7 years ago

Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 2 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.

I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 21 SBD worth and should receive 192 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.

I am TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!

Have a nice day and sincerely yours,

TrufflePig

$0.00

Vote for Utopian Witness!

utopian-io (71) · 7 years ago

Hey, @crokkon!

Thanks for contributing on Utopian.
Congratulations! Your contribution was Staff Picked to receive a maximum vote for the analysis category on Utopian for being of significant value to the project and the open source community.

We’re already looking forward to your next contribution!

Get higher incentives and support Utopian.io!
Simply set @utopian.pay as a 5% (or higher) payout beneficiary on your contribution post (via SteemPlus or Steeditor).

Want to chat? Join us on Discord https://discord.gg/h52nFrV.

$0.00