What are the benefits of integrating tips on steemit ?
Tips will allow lurkers/commenters who contribute to steemit and add value in their own way to also receive some rewards. As I said in my previous post this demography represent the large majority of steemians so we should not neglect them.
More activity in the comment section, better comment quality, more interaction.
More steemians will be rewarded, users in closed groups ( friends/family) who would have a more difficult time to earn rewards as they won't necessarily engage with the community will be able to tip each other.
It will incentivizes people to actually read content so that they can post inspiring comments and earn some great tips.
Tipping will create a more equal and friendly environnement.
Higher retention rate / faster onboarding . Newbies when they join a platform that promise them to earn want to experience earning straight away on their first or second post/comment. If they don’t earn anything the first day they move on. Steemians could tip these users to support them and encourage them to keep posting.
Another use case for steem dollar ( this is also why i think SBD is very important, there are features that we haven’t even thought of yet that would require a stable token, tipping is one of them)
Tipping strangers on a large scale creates something very powerful which is the mindset of giving.
I also think tipping will become an important feature when/if steemit/busy is used by millions of people as the steem blockchain won't be able to pay everyone, that's already the case today but it's going to be even more true in the future.
How would tipping have to be implemented for it to work as intended?
Tipping a few cents to someone should be as easy as upvoting a comment/post. This means that it should require no more than 1 step. This is key, if people have to spend more than 3 sec they won’t use the feature.
Fortunately, it is possible by creating a separate wallet dedicated for tipping where funds would be spendable using the posting key. Some code would have to be deployed in order to accommodate the new feature, users could also have the choice to set their default tip amount ( 1,2 or 5 cents) so that they can tip different amounts.
How would the feature look like UI wise?
We would just have 2 upvote buttons, the current one and another TIP button ( the term 'tip' is important so users know they give their own money when clicking on that button) Tips collected for a comment/post could also be displayed but would be transfered immediately.
And another tip wallet would be displayed in the wallet tab where we can transfer chump change for tipping.
Why would people use this when they can already send a few cents to someone with just a few clicks?
Simplicity, the fact that it is so easy to do is very tempting. Why do you think apple users buy so many paid apps? Because they don’t have to enter their payment info every time, one click and it’s done. A tip feature will be used because of that same principle.
The fact that a lot of the tipping money will come from the platform itself is also why I'm sure this feature will be used. When someone gives to you, naturally you want to give back. When the steem blockchain gives to you, you want to give back to the users in that ecosystem.
Giving is contagious :)
There are also ways we could incentivize people to tip each other, by creating a weekly tippers competition. The 3 best tippers of the week receive some rewards or a statut on their profil or a steemfest free ticket.
What are the cons?
None? You tell me.
The only thing I had in mind was bloating the blockchain but this is not bitcoin right? Let’s use steem to its full potential!
Would you like to be able to tip 1 cents , 2 cents or 5 cents to your fellow steemians on any post or comment ?
Please let me know in the comments below and don't forget to resteem this post if you want the feature
My latest post with other ideas : https://steemit.com/steemit/@snowflake/let-s-get-that-steem-flowing
I like very much your "tip" idea!
I've tipped people before, but a dedicated button would make it easier. The fact is that most won't earn anything just from comments, but I want to encourage them
I would tip $ 0.10 for a great comment . Imagine if there is 10 people willing to do that too. That comment earned $1. Now if this person post 10 great comments per day that's $10. The few cents can build up pretty quickly :)
Even if 10 users only tip $0.01 per comment, that's still $0.10 cents per comment, multiply by 10 and that's $1 per day which is $30 per month for commenting on a forum!
I'm sure you will be surprised though how much people are eager to tip, especially if you throw a competition into the mix.
Exactly. Even if you post earns 1c you generally don't get it and that can discourage new people. My votes won't pay much, but I am willing to do tips
I imagine that if people were that eager, we'd be seeing a lot of such manual payments on the blockchain already?
Tipping needs to be as easy as upvoting for it to be used. If it takes more than 2 sec to do then people won't do it.
People buy a lot of apps on the app store because it's seamless, if they had to enter their card details everytime they would buy a LOT less apps.
Great idea as it will encourage interaction among members esp new ones.
I got a 15 Steem tip once. I gave 10 back in contest prizes. ^^
Feels good.
I agree . I do the whole payitforward.
Brilliant post. I love it very much
Thanks!
Great idea, I will resteem later I have just Rs another post a couple minutes ago
I like it.
Re-steemed!
I think that tipping will become a new way to show appreciation.
Thanks for sharing, Snowflake!
Upvoted and followed.
Re-steemed!
Great idea @snowflake...re-steeming.
It would also be a way to help new users with good content earn some more.
Good point!
we are working on a steemconnect button to Donate, with a transfer popup
goodjob snowflake
I think this is related to what I issued
https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/690
Yes it's very related. I'm glad you brought this up to the devs. This feature can bring a lot of positive things to the platform if implemented correctly.
I'm not a coder and don't use github so forgive my silly question but is this just an idea that you proposed or is there already code to make it happen? If the former do you know if there is any technical limitation to build this feature and do you know how difficult it would be to code?
There is no default tip amount per vote in your proposal so I assume the amount would have to be entered every time someone tip? If so I think we should find a way so that 1 vote = 1 cents for example , and users would be able to set the whatever default amount they want,so that each vote will tip that amount.
Tipping could be an excellent feature but if it requires filling out forms people won't use it because it will be no different than now where you can just use your wallet and make a quick transfer, it needs to be a 1 click thingy :)
Btw I like the gift balance name and agree that it's better than "tipping"
I take it you are not a programer either? Really interested to know if this is practical.
I am not (I was busy from family travel). But had a discussion with argah and smooth
If you want to ignore people's question please refrain from posting in their thread. It's a pretty odd behavior .
would it be better to use a extra "donate" button maybe?
That donate button is massive :)
I was thinking about something more discreet! It could just be a little circle similar to the upvote button but instead of the arrow inside it would be a T ( for tips)
I don't think it's better to use donate. To me donate has more of a charity connotation to it, I could be wrong tho.
I love this idea, would be great :)
I think better to transfer with payout to avoid clutter in the recipient's wallet.
Do you mean clutter recipient's balance history? If so I think steemit could just hide it.
I don't know how it could be transfered with post/comment payout because when users click on the Tip button they will sign the transaction. I think what you suggest would be more complex, not even sure how you would do it actually.
The filtered view still would still take processing and storage, so it isn't only a matter of visual clutter. If it is an option on the existing vote transaction, then no additional transactions need be generated, and no new transactions would attach directly to the recipient account. This is a not really huge question about the idea though, more a matter of possible implementations.
In my idea, the vote transaction (with nonzero tip option) would immediately deduct the tip amount from the voters account and add it to the pending tip balance for the post/comment. Upon payout, the tip balance on the post/comment would be added to the reward balance and paid to the author.
I see what you mean but I don't understand why you would want to add the tip amount to the post payout and delay the tip reward when it seem like it would be easier to send the tip immediately.
I've spoken with @ekitcho and he is working on a tip button which may require users to enter their private key every time they want to tip. This is never gonna work, as I said in my post the only way this feature could be successfull is if tipping is a one click process, basically the same as when you click "like" on busy. Even the upvote action on steemit is not 1 click,it's a 2 step process, the 2nd step is asking you to adjust SP meter.
To make it a 1 step process, an additional wallet would have to be created where funds could be spent with the posting key. As we've talked about on bitcointalk. @Ekitcho didn't really know whether it was technically feasable or not so maybe you two should probably get in touch to discuss this matter further, the busy team want to add this feature but they need to make it the right way or no one will use it!
Yes, having a separate "tip jar"-wallet would probably be better.