Witness Consensus: @therealwolf

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Yesterday, @cervantes published a post where he summarized the witness consensus at the time regarding a few changes towards Steem.

I applaud this move, even though it was a bit premature as most witnesses weren't aware of the publishing of the spreadsheet and were left in the open, without being able to explain the given decisions. Especially since most decisions require a bit more than just "YES", "NO" or "OK".

In this post, I'm going over and explain my given decisions towards different core changes.

Decisions on Changes

Change	Explanation	Decision
n^1 rewards curve	The rewards curve shall be kept linear as introduced in HF19 (keeping it as it is today)	Approve
n^1.3 rewards curve	The rewards curve shall be updated from linear to a “mid-superlinear” n^1.3	Interesting (Testing Required)
50% curation rewards	The reward distribution per post should be updated from 75% for authors and 25% for curators to 50% and 50% respectively	Approve
5 minutes curation window	The curation window shall be reduced from 15 minutes to 5	Approve
3 minutes curation window	The curation window shall be reduced from 15 minutes to 3	Approve (Prefer 1m)
10% free downvotes	Users shall be able to downvote 1 post/day at -100% without actually decreasing the amount of remaining voting power	Disapprove
Separated upvote/downvote pools	Users shall be able to downvote 10 posts/day at -100% without actually decreasing the amount of remaining voting power but consuming its separated “downvoting power” from its own pool	Approve (10x -100% seems too high)

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For some changes, the initial idea is great that's why I'd approve/accept it, however, they do require more discussions and fine-tuning.

Explanation

Rewards Curve: n^1 vs n^1.3

We're currently using the n^1 rewards curve and it works. I'm not in favour of changing it without reason, but rather being open about other curves as well. Steem initially had a n^2 curve and I would be very much interested how Steem would work with a n^1.3 curve. But only in combination with the curation changes & downvote pool as well and only on a testnet which resembles the main-net as best as possible.

Curation Rewards: 50%

Right now, authors receive 75% while curators receive ~25%, from which also a bit goes back to the reward pool if a vote is cast prior to the post being at least 15 minutes old. I believe this is a problem, as it gives the incentive for behaviour like self-voting & vote-selling, instead of focusing on curation/finding undervalued content.

I believe that higher curation rewards in combination with a more incentivized downvote-action, accounts would be hesitant about what they vote, due to the possibility of their rewards being reset. And on the other side, the incentive to find undervalued and higher quality content is being put into a positive feedback loop.

Now, some services as @utopian-io are rewarding their contributors with author rewards via votes, which would be reduced. However, they could simply pay out a certain % of the curation rewards for the given vote if needed.

Curation Window: 15m vs 5m vs 3m vs. 1m (?)

When I first read the proposal I wasn't completely sure why it was being proposed, however, after reading smooths comment it made a lot of sense:

Quote @smooth: I'm in favour of the shortest proposed window (3m in this case) as I actually think the window should be even shorter, like 30s-1m. I don't think it should be used to force humans and bots into head-to-head competition. Instead, I see the value of the window as a short opportunity for bots to bid down the curation rewards on easy sure thing type content (known authors etc) for which curation is low value. These rewards forfeited by bots via this auction rewards are returned to the pool and can be paid out some elsewhere they have more value. Once the short window is over, humans should not ever need to 'time' their votes.

I don't have much more to add to that and am in favour of a 3m or even 1m curation window, as it's pretty much just time wasted for humans, waiting for a post to vote on.

Downvotes: 10% free vs. seperate pool

Steem is a system which relies on upvotes and downvotes working together to find good content. And I feel that Steem has been trying to emulate other social media platforms over the last year, but it didn't work out.

Giving out rewards to users from a public reward pool requires that people are able to guard this reward pool. And right now: downvotes have a big negative cost attached to it. You can either upvote a post and earn curation rewards, or do something good for the public and downvote an abusive post.

The latter will result in no revenue for the user and thus no incentive to do that. Now, my biggest argument against any incentivised downvotes was always the fact that this could create toxicity, more flag wars and maybe spire out of control.

However, what I realized over the last few days is the fact that Steem is different. And the way it's working right now is not good enough.

That's why I'm in favour of a separate downvote pool, with a downvote power of at maximum 3x -100% downvotes (Roughly 20-30% of the voting mana) with the reason to start small and to see & analyse what the consequences/results are.

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Let's make Steem greater!

I also want to mention that my decisions are not set in stone and that I'm very much open to discuss and argue about my position/the different changes.

But please keep in mind that, in my opinion, we will not have a flourishing Steem if we never try anything new, keep our head down and avoid the risky changes.

And for that, let me quote Steve Jobs:

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Steem is very much a square in a world of round holes, wouldn't you agree? Where else do you get paid for blogging, contributing and even gaming?

And I believe now is the right time that we show the world even more how different Steem actually is. We still have a few months left until SMTs come around. We can use this time and do nothing, or we can try to improve Steem - for all of us.

Sincerely,
@therealwolf

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^{If you believe that I'm of value for Steem, then please vote for me as witness. You can also set me as a proxy and I'll vote on great witnesses for you. You can learn more about me and my witness infrastructure on therealwolf.me.}