Lately, I have been reading a lot about curation rewards. There have been many fine technical solutions proposed. Changing the n something to a cube something and all sorts of tosh magnificent suggestions.
I do not wish to denigrate these fine ideas. After all, it is one of Steemits greatest successes that we can all get together and pitch in an idea if we have one.
Well I have one.
What?!?! That's right. Remove them. Get rid of them. Now, before you grab that fiery pitchfork and start preparing the pyre I will explain, so please read on. It won't take long. And also, at least at the end of it, you won't have made a baby. Which can be a shocking side effect of those words.
Firstly what is important is to assess the problem. What I have often read and tend to agree with is.
I get why we have them. It's a noble idea in fact. Incentivising people to search out and discover good content. Buy it just doesn't happen on a grand scale. One of the most common complaints we hear is that good content gets passed up.
I think it is true. There is little in the way of true manual curation. There are however some absolutely amazing initiatives set up to find and reward undervalued users.
These are magnificent. In an ideal world their posts would be found and voted on without their having to be groups set up to find them but sadly it isn't really happening.
So we get rid of curation rewards. These groups can still function. Just think, the deserving author also gets to keep all of their lovely rewards.... Hurrah!
Without Curation rewards would you get clusters of auto voters descending on the same posts? Well, you would still get that. It might not be so bad though because there are bots and people which vote for popular authors for the curation rewards and the curation rewards alone.
It's important to realise that Bots/People voting for the curation rewards aren't really voting for the author of a post at all. They are just chasing the money.
Another thing. I think it might be popular to get rid of them. When was the last time you heard a minnow bleat about curation rewards? Nah, doesn't happen. It wouldn't be missed by large swathes of the user base I am sure.
What about the incentive to look out for cool and funky new content?
Well, it happens on every other social network and people don't have to be paid for it. People/posts still get found and liked. It can be quite the organic thing.
Other people have suggested quite enthusiastically changing the reward structure from 75% authors 25% Curators to a 50/50 model. The way it was back in the day.
That won't work though. It will just make the problem worse.
So what is wrong with going the other way. 100% goes to the author for all their hard work!
I know, wild and crazy times. What am I on? Lack of sleep probably. But thats another tale.
The thing is, curation rewards are broken and I don't think that tinkering with what currently happens will work. We have to think outside the box.
So why not get rid of them? Might it stop the ganging up of auto voters in that first thirty minutes all seeking to get a big piece of the pie? It might, it might do lots of things.
We are in beta. Now is the time to try. To be bold.
Please note that this is not to be confused with the issues of auto voters or voting abuse.
This is simply a suggestion being thrown out into the wind for the ravening hordes to rend with their bared teeth.
Whatcha think? I am more than open to suggestions, being shot down in flames. Remember though, just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean that it can't. I will say it again. We are in beta. We should not be afraid to change things up.