@revo here. I've been slowly working on a new photography curation concept, and wanted to introduce the idea and to seek any expressions of interest. I was intending to wait until the price of STEEM recovered and we would see an uptick in the amount of posts on the blockchain, but with the renewed interest in curating thanks to PALnet with 50/50 curation (and steem changing to 50/50 soon), I felt the time is nearing to release this project.
The project will be centred around a steem-engine token called PHOTO. The use of the token is mostly intended to "gamify" the curation process, as opposed to being a money making scheme for myself or those involved in the process. Having said that, the intention is for the @photocurate account to offer to buy tokens back on the steem-engine.com exchange. This isn't going to make anyone rich, but will provide a little something if you can manage to earn enough PHOTO.
The intention is for this to be a project for those who love good photography and want to help raise the profile of photographers on the steem blockchain.
How's it going to work?
The mathematics aren't settled and won't be fully settled until I see how the process is being used. But the intention is to have a large inflation pool that goes to holders to make sure there are enough tokens in the system to enable curation to be ongoing. Tokens that make their way back to the @photocurate account will be burnt and taken out of the system. A further faucet will be photography post promotion paid with PHOTO.
Discoverers
Anyone can be a discoverer of good photography. Simply reply with a unique tag to a photography post, and the relevant image will be added to the photocurate website for curation. Discoverers earn PHOTO everytime a curator votes on their discovery. There will be a balance between the amount of images a discoverer discovers and the amount of PHOTO they receive. Each extra discovery (without a curation vote) reduces the amount of PHOTO they will receive. The algorithm will ensure that discoverers won't just flood the system with crap in the hope of getting more PHOTO.
Curators
Intially curators will be selected by me, but once the project is live anyone can become a curator if they possess enough PHOTO tokens. Tokens can be accumulated either by buying them or earning them as a discoverer. Additionally, once you start curating you are in the running for weekly token rewards as one of the best curators for the week.
Initial curators will be airdropped enough tokens to get them started, and they (along with any hodlers) will get a monthly inflation on any tokens they continue to hold. This is to maintain enough tokens in the system to ensure curation can occur. The initial curators will be those who want to curate not for money, but for the love of good photography on the steem blockchain. Hence the intention that they won't just immediately sell their tokens, or hold all of them for years to reap in the inflation bonus.
When curators vote, some tokens will transfer to the discoverer. Due to the algorithm (something like (100 + 10 * votes) / number of discoveries), it's expected that more tokens will be removed from curators than are given to discoverers. Those extra tokens will be burnt by a 'float' account.
Daily and weekly posts will highlight the best images that have been discovered. The photographers will be rewarded with PHOTO tokens and upvotes. There'll also be weekly reward posts for the best discoverers and curators. Liquid rewards earned on these posts will become open buy orders on the steem-engine marketplace, so that those earning the tokens can convert to steem if they wish. Steem Power rewards will remain with the @photocurate account to pay for server costs and to upvote winners.
TL;DR
Discovers find good photos, curators vote on the ones they like and automatically transfer some PHOTO tokens to the discovers. Steem rewards from the @photocurate daily and weekly posts will go to purchasing back PHOTO tokens for STEEM. Those that hold will get a monthly bonus from the inflation pool. The whole process will be 'game-like' in that there will be rewards for the best photographers, discoverers and curators.
What's next?
The whole process will be automated with bots. The code is mostly finished, so the project could be launched fairly soon. However, I would prefer to wait for a little bounce in the steem price (to encourage more photographers to post), but will be watching keenly the interest level in curation generated by that most excellent project - PALnet.
Calling all aspiring curators!
Are you interested in being one of the original airdropped curators? You'll have a strong interest in good photography and hopefully are a steem photographer yourself. Let me know if you are interested either in the comments section, Discord (I'm @revo), or via a steem memo.
Get yourself some free PHOTO
To try and kickstart interest in the project those who vote on this post and also follow @photocurate will get 10 PHOTO. Resteem this post and I'll give you another 10 PHOTO. I'll transfer these after the post payout in a week. Thanks for your interest!
Followed and upvoted. Also resteemed.
Keen to see where this goes. I've started to rebuild my photogrpahic portfolio and am shooting far more actively recently, so very keen to get onboard and get known within the Steem photographic community.
Would love lists of names to follow - already following the excellent work of axeman, jarvie and lightcaptured - would love to know of other professional photographers on the platform!
Will there be the opportunity for critique from curators as well as the photo awards? I feel as though a community comment + critique may be more valuable to some than just the tokens!
Thanks @holoz0r. And thanks for the critique suggestion. I'll look to see if there is a way to incorporate that.
Another photographer who comes straight to mind as someone to follow is @kieranstone.
Thank you, I've followed them - good to see another Aussie out there! :)
See my edit, I got Kieran's name wrong.
All good, I still found it! :)
How is this project coming along? It has been a while since I have heard anything. :)
I regret not seeing this until after the 7 days were over for upvoting your post, resteeming, etc. My main focus on my posts is photography (primarily of flowers and wildlife). I will try and monitor your progress.
Following, upvoted and resteemed. ..thanks
I see it just as @axeman... I love photography and there is no holding back when something comes up that hopefully works. Wishing you all energy and inspiration you need to pull through. I will look forward finding out more. Count me in. My interest has been rising for projects like that.
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Thanks @gunnarheilmann.
Well, any new initiative for supporting photography at steemit is just warmly welcome. Will see how it works, but generally you can count me in :)
And yeah, followed and resteemed
Thanks @axeman.
Good luck with your plans. Start small and grow big!
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Thanks @dronegraphica.
Love the idea and concept I have been hoping for something just like this for us that are into photography 👍. Resteemed
Cheers @j85063.
Heyo, this looks cool. I like the idea that the algorithm will balance total submissions with votes following submissions, will be interesting to see how it plays out once up and running. I am interested in participating as a curator, I am not a "real" photographer although sometimes I manage to capture something interesting with my cell phone :) I am a "real" curator, I am one of the co-founders of @c-squared and I am also a @curie "direct" curator meaning I can give out small Curie votes. Cheers - Carl
Cheers @carlgnash. I'll let you know when I kick the project off. Given the price of steem keeps going down, I might still put it off for a few months. There's probably not enough quality photography going on at the moment to generate enough discovery/curating activity. Although, anecdotally there appears to be a bit of excitement about curation around the PALnet project. Hopefully that keeps up.
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Thanks!
Sounds like a great idea!
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I like this, I want to see more.
I cross my fingers for the project, hope it will be sucessfull.
Follow and upvote and resteemed
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Follow upvote resteemed
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Followed/upvoted/resteemed :)
Good luck!
Congratulations @photocurate!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade for newcomers in the following category:
I also upvoted your post to increase its reward
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This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
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Follow and upvote and resteemed :)
I like it! Followed, upvoted and resteemed! ;-)
Greetings,
It's a very interesting project, I was hoping that a token-centered photography group would be created, like all those that are popping up lately around other subjects. Thank you for your initiative.
I would be interested in being amongst the initial curators. I mostly use Steemit for photography (both posting and voting on), and I've discovered many talented photographers in the 1.5 year I've been here. I'm glad to be able to reward them already through a fair amount of SP, but it would be nice to be able to add a photography-centered token on top of that.
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Hey there yes Steem needs this for the photography community would love to be involved