Randomness would discourage early voting by bots.
That is naive. Bots love randomness because the parameters are public and they can compute where the sweet spot is. Especially if seeing early votes allows them to recalculate EV of different timestamps. Longterm, they would just kill anyone trying to play the curation game by guessing (or even worse, sticking to a predictable timing).
Labeling a post as "naive" diminishes your standing as a legitimate debater, imo. Bots do not love randomness. Yes, they will compute the 'ideal' spot based on the parameters, but that is just the point. The creators of the parameters can use randomness to shift the 'ideal' spot in such a way that potentially diminishes their overall negative impact.
I was not saying this was a 'good' solution, but merely one of many to openly discuss and debate. It's not a position I would favor (nor is a straight lottery), but worthy of being 'out there' for folks to consider and debate.
Fair enough.
I do not claim to fully understand the architecture of the game. By all means, call out anything that might be inconsistent with the status quo or otherwise infeasible.
@themarkymark did a great job of explaining the current 'rules of the game' in principle here, but I have yet to dig into the code; so my comments and perspectives very well might 'miss the mark' in that regards.
A bold statement coming from an alt account.
Assuming your algorithm is shit.
As opposed to hard coding their sweet spot as it has been?