In a comment on this post by @gavett I mentioned that I think the n^2 voting power rule is too extreme and serious thought should be given to changing it to something more reasonable like n^1.1. I would like to try to demonstrate how extreme this is with some back-of-the-envelope calculations of how much more powerful a whale is than someone who has invested (by earning it or by turning bitcoin into Steem Power) a significant amount of money (let's say $1,000) and powered it up into SP. Clearly such a person has a commitment to the platform and their influence should be recognized right? Let's see how their investment stacks up to some of the larger accounts here.
This is exactly how it is supposed to work based on the Steem Whitepaper. But, you have to wonder if this is a good strategy going forward given the fact that there are many accounts with over one million SP.
Is this not a bit too extreme? Might we not see more investment from new users if they could reasonably achieve some influence without investing a million dollars?
In case you're not very familiar with powers of 10, here's a YouTube tutorial (credit for this goes to the tutorial authors on YouTube).
Are you less than a Minnow? Less than a Krill? #lessthankrill This is based on info found in Google searches and such. I kind of hope I'm wrong here but ... seems plausible that, forget Minnows - new users could be one one thousandth as "important" than @ned (in terms of voting power) as a hypothetical "krill" would be.
The main argument for a non-linear voting function seems to be that it can help discourage the creation of fake accounts because people will be incentivized to instead grow their main account since doing so makes more sense when your voting power is higher by doing so. OK, fair enough. However, any function which always increases and does so faster than a linear function would achieve this goal. Why does it have to be n^2? Why not e.g. n^1.1, or possibly some function that favors accounts reaching a certain size, but not accounts which are too large (e.g. something like n^1.1 in the beginning, but transitioning to something like log(n) later).
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Good question, but also why not 1.01 power? Anything higher than one will help fight sybil attacks, and the less 'extreme' it is, the more fair it will be for "normal" users. I agree a more detailed post would be good but honestly my SteemIt related posts have gone nowhere so my incentive to put a ton of effort into something like that is pretty small. This post was kind of a way to see if people had any interest in this topic or not (it's also sometimes difficult for me to figure out what points from the white paper might be known to many and what points aren't) - so far it seems like there is some so, yay!
I would like to see the numbers run with 1.1 1.2 1.3 all the way to 2.0 and see how different it is. Perhaps it will be obvious which is a nice balance to rewarding winners and rewarding all.
55 votes and only a half-dollar earned. Guess the whales don't agree, no? I actually prefer Krill over the Minnow moniker, and will be using Krill from this point forward, as it more resembles the truth.
Thanks. This is something I've been thinking about for a while but felt it needed to just be done today hence the back of the envelope calculations. I would like to ask that anyone who is mathematically inclined please check my work and let me know if there are any errors. In any case I believe the main idea is sound - n^2 is too extreme.
This is the reason this platform won't go mainstream is they keep changing everything by the day I feel like they need to go with one formula and stick with it not keep changing everything. I don't use the site like I used to because I am tired of all the weekly changes and your vote only counting if you invest $1,000,000 into the platform bfd let everyone have equal votes not only investors who have money to burn then it will go mainstream.
Facebook doesn't only count your vote if you invest into their stock do they? And Reddit doesn't only count your votes if your an investor either. This is basically what the platform is your votes only count if your an investor. How about we just create a great platform build the site to over 1,000,000 active users and not worry about the money just focus on building a successful platform then the value of SP will go up. The only way the value will go up us to build the userbase.
All very true! (However Facebook and Reddit don't pay you for your votes, or your content that they profit from.) This is new territory, and I won't spam here but just did a pretty decent post totally agreeing with you. I've said in comments and articles many times, Content is King, Cream Rises, comment, build an organic following, and play "the long game" here because the price will go up (as the user base increases, as you said) and all of our micro-pennies just might turn into a whopping retirement fund as every college kid in Uzbekistan (ie, everywhere) signs up here just to get a free blog. The platform is still in Beta, building a great platform is what is happening now as committed users add their content and technological skills. It's awesome to be in on the ground floor still i think.
Thanks @ibringawareness. If I didn't care about the platform or didn't think it had a future, I wouldn't have posted this. However, I think it's healthy and helpful to point out things like this. Please keep in mind when I said "Your votes don't matter" in the title, I'm including myself since I don't have 100k or 1M SP either ;)
Indeed, I'm still a microplankton too. And as to the beow, yes we all get excited about money; it has to be included in the discussion always, as a large part of the equation.
Good points, but since money is a part of this new paradigm we can't just ignore it. It seems like anything which could improve the situation for newer users would be helpful to the growth of the platform, which is why I brought this idea up :)
The initial distribution method for steem is a bit of a joke, it might be financially beneficial for the few that got in early but the effect it's had is that where they don't vote barely any rewards are dished out - leading to users leaving in droves.
Just thought of a new name: #millikrill
If a millimeter is a thousandth of a meter, a millikrill is a thousandth of a krill.
By the way, as I mentioned in the article, if I am wrong on any of these points in terms of my calculations, someone please speak up.
This is a huge issue. I think it's better if the formula is simple but why not the 1.5 power?
I would love to see a real post wIth different scaling factors and how it might impact rewards.
The example would be 10 post with ten votes on each and a whale vote on one. Then show the payout under the old or new formulas
Good question, but also why not 1.01 power? Anything higher than one will help fight sybil attacks, and the less 'extreme' it is, the more fair it will be for "normal" users. I agree a more detailed post would be good but honestly my SteemIt related posts have gone nowhere so my incentive to put a ton of effort into something like that is pretty small. This post was kind of a way to see if people had any interest in this topic or not (it's also sometimes difficult for me to figure out what points from the white paper might be known to many and what points aren't) - so far it seems like there is some so, yay!
I would like to see the numbers run with 1.1 1.2 1.3 all the way to 2.0 and see how different it is. Perhaps it will be obvious which is a nice balance to rewarding winners and rewarding all.
55 votes and only a half-dollar earned. Guess the whales don't agree, no? I actually prefer Krill over the Minnow moniker, and will be using Krill from this point forward, as it more resembles the truth.
Yes, I imagine people think the title is clickbait - it's not - it's just truth.
Still in the process of figuring out how Steemit "really works."
Your post has helped considerably! ;) Thanks!
Wow, this is going to take some time to digest, but this post is definitely going become trending.
Thanks. This is something I've been thinking about for a while but felt it needed to just be done today hence the back of the envelope calculations. I would like to ask that anyone who is mathematically inclined please check my work and let me know if there are any errors. In any case I believe the main idea is sound - n^2 is too extreme.
This is the reason this platform won't go mainstream is they keep changing everything by the day I feel like they need to go with one formula and stick with it not keep changing everything. I don't use the site like I used to because I am tired of all the weekly changes and your vote only counting if you invest $1,000,000 into the platform bfd let everyone have equal votes not only investors who have money to burn then it will go mainstream.
We are still in beta with small userbase. This is the time to tweak.
To underscore my point, this post has 60 votes, many by people with thousands of SP, and has earned 54 cents. I rest my case.
Facebook doesn't only count your vote if you invest into their stock do they? And Reddit doesn't only count your votes if your an investor either. This is basically what the platform is your votes only count if your an investor. How about we just create a great platform build the site to over 1,000,000 active users and not worry about the money just focus on building a successful platform then the value of SP will go up. The only way the value will go up us to build the userbase.
All very true! (However Facebook and Reddit don't pay you for your votes, or your content that they profit from.) This is new territory, and I won't spam here but just did a pretty decent post totally agreeing with you. I've said in comments and articles many times, Content is King, Cream Rises, comment, build an organic following, and play "the long game" here because the price will go up (as the user base increases, as you said) and all of our micro-pennies just might turn into a whopping retirement fund as every college kid in Uzbekistan (ie, everywhere) signs up here just to get a free blog. The platform is still in Beta, building a great platform is what is happening now as committed users add their content and technological skills. It's awesome to be in on the ground floor still i think.
Thanks @ibringawareness. If I didn't care about the platform or didn't think it had a future, I wouldn't have posted this. However, I think it's healthy and helpful to point out things like this. Please keep in mind when I said "Your votes don't matter" in the title, I'm including myself since I don't have 100k or 1M SP either ;)
Indeed, I'm still a microplankton too. And as to the beow, yes we all get excited about money; it has to be included in the discussion always, as a large part of the equation.
Good points, but since money is a part of this new paradigm we can't just ignore it. It seems like anything which could improve the situation for newer users would be helpful to the growth of the platform, which is why I brought this idea up :)
How about a dynamic Fractal function ;In this case the system will grow organically. With the function changing across several classes of SP.
If E=M¾
then individual SP growth(generated as result of content creation or power up)=(Total SP of system)¾
Growth and curation return should not be proportional to individual SP but equal across the system.
This sounds interesting. I don't know much about dynamic fractal functions but would love to learn more :)
The initial distribution method for steem is a bit of a joke, it might be financially beneficial for the few that got in early but the effect it's had is that where they don't vote barely any rewards are dished out - leading to users leaving in droves.
Redistribution or 'raining' of steem assets via Project Rain really needs to take place at some point in the future. https://github.com/grctest/project-rain-site
Just thought of a new name: #millikrill
If a millimeter is a thousandth of a meter, a millikrill is a thousandth of a krill.
By the way, as I mentioned in the article, if I am wrong on any of these points in terms of my calculations, someone please speak up.
This post was featured on @officialfuzzy's show :) Thanks @officialfuzzy and thanks to @brindleswan for inviting me to talk about it.
https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@officialfuzzy/guest-signups-beyond-bitcoin-hangout-173-9-16-16-rsvp-to-friday-s-hangout-refer-projects-for-rewards
I'll add a link to the recording of the discussion when it's available.
Here's a link to @officialfuzzy's write up about Beyond Bitcoin Episode 173 where we discussed this issue https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@officialfuzzy/e173-beyond-bitcoin-peerplays-grc-jewels-steem-posts-nonlinearone-s-lessthankrill-and-intelliguy-s-no-fud
Please check out my follow up post https://steemit.com/steemit/@nonlinearone/highlights-on-the-n-squared-voting-law-from-the-steemit-whitepaper