Background to the Problem

There are a limited number of whale accounts on Steemit with limited attention and ability to curate.

Currently there are about 29 active accounts with Legend status (steemd) of 1000 MV or more. You can see this in the image below:

The largest whale account belongs to the Steemit team (@steemit) and is not used for voting as the list below taken from steemdb shows:

The Steemit Account Currently has over 79 million Steem Power with 218.23 GV (see image below from steemdb page for @steemit account).

That is a lot of potential voting power that is being unused.

There is little doubt that high value whale payouts attract new users.

Seeing others obtaining them whilst they do not is a considerable source of frustration that I have seen myself amongst new users.

This is likely one of the major reasons for people quitting and leaving.

Dan, Ned and various members of the community (including myself) have discussed the potential benefits of delegated voting and curation.

That may take some time to implement on a global level.

I know that everyone is working hard to make things better but there is perhaps something else that can be done in the meantime.

User @craig-grant has recently suggested what I think is a fantasic idea which would make use of this untapped potential and bring new visibility and equality to Steemit.

The Idea

Craig's suggestion is to use the Steemit Account voting power to create a kind of Super Curation Guild.

This is how it would work:

Voting power from @steemit is delegated to 10 or more (as many as 200) different active user accounts who become "Super Curators" (SCs).
Platform users elect these Super Curators like witnesses.
Super Curators keep the curation rewards in exchange for their work.
They are able to use the delegated voting power for 7 days on/ 7 days off, to create a rotation and ensure variety.
Limit eligibility to non-whale accounts so only accounts with less than 1 GV are eligible - thereby increasing the range of people with whale power to a wider range of people.
Limit to high reputation accounts (e.g. cut-off of 50 or 60).

Advantages

You create a group of 10 or more new whales (a 34% increase) - indeed on the extreme end you could create 200 accounts with 1GV delegated voting power which would be a 689% increase over the current 29 active (over 24hrs) accounts with this level of power.
A wider variety of curation and increased engagement.
Potentially greater visibility for minnows and new users.
Empowerment of active curators and people who engage with the platform but don't have enough SP to make a big difference to posts.
Accelerated redistribution of SP.
Give new users something to aspire to rather than the very limited niche of Witnesses.

Drawbacks?

I personally don't see any significant drawbacks beyond these points:

Obviously this will require work from the Steemit team to implement.
The Steemit account is used to fund new accounts so is constantly being drained this may limit the time this plan could operate. However I feel that given the huge amount of SP that it has this will take considerable time to have any impact on the curation guild suggested above.
Even if only temporary the effect of this guild would have such potential benefit to the community as a whole by accelerating redistribution and making minnows feel rewarded that I feel it is worth pursuing.
Some of the current high power users may not like it although I suspect the vast majority will see it as reducing some of the pressure on them to curate.

Please Discuss, Share and Re-steem

Please let me know what you think about this idea. Perhaps myself and Craig have missed some vital reason why this can't be done?

Whatever you think, the more people that hear about this idea and discuss it the better.

Hopefully we can get the attention of the Steemit team with this.

If we truly want to keep improving things as a community then we need to do our part. We can't expect the Steemit team to do it all on their own and neither should they.

We all have a stake in the success of Steemit and I feel this is one of the best ideas I have heard in a long time to keep pushing things forward and help Steemit to get to the level which it truly belongs at.

Reward for Reading: The Obligatory Kitten Photo

If you like my work and aren't already, please follow me and check out my blog (I mainly discuss photography but I do other topics like this too) - @thecryptofiend

You can find and follow Craig Grant @craig-grant

Photo Credits: Photos number 5, 9, and 10 are Creative Commons wihout Attribution taken from Pexels.com. Screenshots are taken from steemdb by @jesta and steemd by @roadscape. All other photos are taken from my personal Istockphoto.com account. Further information can be provided on request.

(Verification for me here: http://www.aapicture.com/about-me)

Some of my Previous Posts and Tutorials:

Make Minnows Into Whales - Use the Main Steemit Account as a Curation Guild to Elect "Super Curators"