People often notice the many similarities between me and Jesus. Today, I will attempt to explain the voting power changes coming on the 13th in a parable, just like Jesus would.
Going into this, I want to correct an error in my earlier post on the subject. In my earlier post, I misunderstood some graphs on the white paper and assumed that the vote target was a "sweet spot" and that going above or below it would result in a penalty to voting power. This, in fact, is not true. You are only penalized for casting too few votes, not for casting too many. If you cast more than the target number of votes, your decreased voting power will be entirely offset by your increased number of actual votes.
You can read some of the discussion that led to this post here and here
The 5 Curating Brothers
Imagine for a moment that there are 5 brothers. These five brothers do all of the curating on steemit. They all have the same amount of steem power. In this theoretical steemit system, the total daily reward pool is $8,500.
Andy devotes the most time to his curating duties. He casts the target 40 votes per day.
Ben is not as good as Andy at managing his time and his votes, but he still tries. He casts 30 votes a day.
Carl doesn't have very much time to delegate to curating. He casts 20 votes a day
David Has even less time. He casts 10 votes a day.
Frank barely has any time to devote to curation, he casts 5 votes a day.
In total, 85 votes are cast every day to award $8500. Each vote, therefore, is worth $100.
Brothers Vote Value At the 40 Vote per Day Target
| X | votes cast per day | Median Vote strength | Adjusted Votes Per Day | total value cast per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andy | 40 | 1 | 40 | $4000 |
| Ben | 30 | 1 | 30 | $3000 |
| Carl | 20 | 1 | 20 | $2000 |
| David | 10 | 1 | 10 | $1000 |
| Frank | 5 | 1 | 5 | $500 |
| Total | 85 | 1 | 85 | $8500 |
Note that, for a fixed amount of steem power and reward pool, Andy is unique in that he cannot earn more money by voting more. He wouldn't lose money, but the change to his voting power would make any vote above 40 a wipe. He actually can lose money by clumping his votes. Ideally, at 40 votes, he should be able to cast every single one of his 40 votes at 100% power by spacing his votes at 36-minute intervals through the day. If there was a super-Andy who cast 80 votes per day, his adjusted vote value would be the same as Andy's, because he would be unable to cast his full 80 votes and also wait long enough to cast them all at 100%.
Brothers Vote Value at the 5 vote per day target
| X | votes cast per day | Median Vote Value | Adjusted | total value cast per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andy | 40 | .125 | 5 | $1700 |
| Ben | 30 | .166 | 5 | $1700 |
| Carl | 20 | .25 | 5 | $1700 |
| David | 10 | .50 | 5 | $1700 |
| Frank | 5 | 1 | 5 | $1700 |
| Total | 85 | .29 | 25 | $8500 |
Notice that, because they are above the vote target, Andy, Ben, Carl, and David all have median vote values below 1.0 Just like Super Andy in the previous example, the "extra" votes that they cast above the target threshold attenuate their voting power. Andy could bring his voting down to 5/day (just like frank) and be able to cast 100% votes, but it wouldn't really make a difference. He is not being penalized for casting too many votes.
Note here that the monetary value of a single 100% vote did go up.
To begin with, it was
8500 / 85 =100
After the target change, it is
8500 /25 = $340
In this particular case, it went up just over 200%. However, this increase was insufficient to make up for the 87% decrease in the number of votes that could be cast. The farther away each brother was from actually casting the maximum number of votes, the less his average influence was effected.
To use shennanigator's model, if you could cast 40 100% votes per day worth 10 cents each before the change, after the change you would be able to cast 5 100% votes worth 34 cents after the change.
Here are the before and after numbers for the total $ influence exerted by the brothers.
| x | 40 vote target | 5 vote target | % gain/loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andy | $4000 | $1700 | -57.5% |
| Ben | $3000 | $1700 | -10% |
| Carl | $2000 | $1700 | -15% |
| David | $1000 | $1700 | +70% |
| Frank | $500 | $1700 | +240% |
Lowering the Bar Does not Improve Participation(it just improves how many get over the bar)
Biophil wrote in my previous thread
It just depends on total voter participation; if participation goes up (a good thing), the increase won't be 8x. If it goes down (a bad thing), the increase will actually be more than 8x. It's very difficult to predict.
This is somewhat misleading. Imagine a classroom with 40 students in it. At the end of the year, 4 students are scheduled to be awarded a certificate for perfect attendance. On the very last day, the principal comes into the classroom and announces that, in addition to the 4 students who actually have perfect attendance, 10 students who have been absent 2 days or less will also get the certificate.
By doing this, the principal has not, in fact, increased attendance. He has merely increased the superficial appearance of attendance by rewarding imperfect attendance the same way he rewards perfect attendance. In the same sense, the 5-day target does not increase participation. It merely gives the same reward to lower participation as it does to higher.
In fact, it disincentivizes high participation. In the new system, there is less reason for andy to take the time to read and vote on 40 posts. He can still do so, but why should he? He can be like frank, put in much less work, and get the same level of influence.
I heard the new voting target is helping fight bots... how is it doing that?
It's really not. At least, not directly. It does hurt bots (because most bots are Andys, though I would argue that most Andys are not bots). Basically, if you're a high power frank, this new target helps you at the expense of all andy's, bots included. When we say this decreases the influence of bots, what we really mean is that it decreases the influence of all very active curators.
Which brother are you?
If you look at the charts above, it becomes clear that there are two factors that influence how the change to a 5 vote target will affect each individual voter.
- How close are you to optimal voting right now? If you're an andy or a ben, you're probably going to see a decrease in influence.
- How close is everybody else? If you're currently a more optimal voter than average, this will definitely hurt you. If you're a less optimal voter, this will definitely help you.
In a world where every poster was an andy, this change would have precisely the type of cosmetic effect @shenanigator and others have described. If everyone on steemit were a Frank or a Dave, and there were only a few Andy's, this vote would decrease the voting power of the andy's significantly.
At the end of the day, what you need to take away from this and my other post on the topic is that this change is not cosmetic, or a "bug fix", or a way to give users two dollar bills for 8 quarters. It is a very real re-distribution of influence with very real consequences to active curators. We should look long and hard at the effects of this redistribution when it happens, because its very possible that some of the best curators here will, to coin a phrase, get Franked in the Andy.