Well, it didn't take long for at least part of my idea to be implemented. As you may have noticed, the so-called Foundation-sponsored "curation accounts" have had their delegations removed. We shall need to ponder seriously if there is a better way forward.
Firstly, we must thank those curators who have been doing a good job, but the system as a whole is not achieving it's objective of widening participation.
The reasons are quite clear: many "curators" are just upvoting a circle of friends, some don't seem to know what they are doing and, most importantly, we have not seen an influx of new members motivated by those curation accounts.
Therein lies the difference between merely curating a flow of posts and forming communities around those tags. There are a small number of exceptions, who have carried on their task with diligence, warmth and humour, but even they must agree that there has not been a significant influx of new members.
So, the guillotine falls quickly. We could have announced this and given curators another week or two to adjust, but we all know precisely what would happen in that case. Anybody who wishes to complain can add up all the money they have made in the last 9 months to console themselves.
This also clears the air for those people who are building communities. It also removes the distortions of having a few people manifest a false sense of popularity. Curation initiatives such as @r2cornell prove that it is possible to run such projects through dedication and self-funding.
For now, the funds will move back to Foundation accounts. I am reminded that our ancestor chain also had a large non-voting stake, so it isn't unusual. I personally hope we can put in place some kind of funding mechanism, maybe temporary so that such communities know they need to power-up their earnings as they expand.
I started on Steem with zero stake and knew nobody, yet managed to build a community and some successful token-funds. Voting is powerful, compounding is powerful - put them together and anybody can grow on Blurt.
Build Blurt Better!
Thank you for the mention in your publication. I have expected that the delegations from the foundation would be limited in time of duration. I think we all need to take things in stride and try and build Blurt.
I have funded a third account that will also be curating from those using my tag and community post-promotion channel. I will have only one curator working in an account.
We (curators and I) will be discussing adjusting how we approach curating posts. The focus will be on higher quality posts. This has not been consistent with the curators, and to be honest myself. Even when the new approach to curating takes place, it will be subject to change.
I actually have a third account that has only been used for delegations, which is slowly being funded.
Those using #r2cornell tag, or leave links to posts in my community on Discord are not guaranteed it will be curated. This is a free service I am offering, so I do we do not have to curate a given post. At times this may be due to low quality, and other times not enough voting power. I am hoping with 3 accounts equally funded some of the latter will be resolved.
Sometime users overlook the fact that if they would focus on quality of their publications and building the Blurt community, they will earn more in the long run. When I invest in anything, including Blurt, I always think long term and not short term profits. Once I fully understood this and put it into practice my net worth rose significantly. So, if you are participating in this platform think long term, not immediate income.
I know this is difficult for many around the world who need income to help support their families. When given the chance I tell users, new or older ones, that if they need income to live on to only take 50% of their earnings and keep the other 50% powered up. As your account builds do some curating of some quality posts and you will see a rise in income.
Sorry if I got carried away with my comment @rycharde. I do not mean to take away from your post. Thank you for letting me use your post as a platform to say what I said.
Please, don't apologise, it's great to hear from you - and what is probably the only curation project with past experience on Blurt. (There must be others lurking!)
If any of your current curators wish to earn a bit extra, then please show them the new experimental "open-source curation" on @blurtcuration. Indeed, anyone can have a go!
I've been asked to train some new curators - something I suggested months ago - so perhaps if you need some more we can put in place training sessions. I've been through both Curie and steemSTEM, plus my own community, so I know how they work.
Anyway, some near-term plans to consider. Thanks again!
Thank you. I will send a link for @blurtcuration to my curators. I like the idea of training new curators. I have tried to train mine, but I never have enough time. I will give them something to think about.
I am agree with the statement of engagement, building community and focusing on long term. I love @r2cornell from very beginning of my steem journey. Thanks.
We had the delegation only 2 months but are still grateful for the trust.
I didn't get most of the community tags, and most of the time if I used one it didn't get an upvote from the curation project.
While I did witness some milking taking place in the few curation tags of interest to me, I didn't realize there was a lot of abuse taking place. I did notice a lot of music posts (one of my primary interests) focusing on daily holidays I'd never heard of, many of which seemed like whoever makes these holidays has way to much time on their hands as silly as they were.
Like yourself, I too took matters into my own hands at Steem and built value that was predicated on making myself known and finding those who this would be of value to. Much like self publishing, so easy to get buried beneath all the other accounts posting and joining after oneself if one isn't proactive in being seen by those appreciative of who one is.
I've skimmed the new/hot/trending posts and wow, I didn't realize how much voting was taking place by these accounts. Just curious, but with these accounts no longer voting, should we expect the value of our own votes to adjust upwards, or was that aspect negated by your formula that stops people objecting to raping the pool?
In reply to your last question: yes.
Rewards react to three parameters, so is always an interplay between activity and changes in activity.
Similar to market cap, turnover and yield :-)
I personally don't see this (in a general and future decision) as a solution, because with blurt in a really cheap price, people won't be making any kind of earning for posting in here and the less is the earning, the less is the effort, I know this because I've been a long time in this kind of platforms, I've seen Steemit rise and fall and rise again and the most part of the people doesn't fought when the prices came down, now that the Steem and SBD are again back at $1.3/$10.3 now people is coming again and that's ok, people want to make money, people want a safe platform where they can actually grow up.
The Foundation made some bad decisions by trusting in people that didn't use those resources wisely, but what about people that's struggling everyday, working hard to build something even without invest a lot of money? That people deserve trust, I think that the foundation has to open again those delegations with another mechanism where people can show why they deserve those resources, because if not you're just empowering people that has a lot of money invested in the blockchain, so we're going to repeat the same mistakes that make people unhappy in other platforms like Steemit, Hive where people has to struggle for votes or say hello 123103921 times a day in a Discord to try to earn something.
I'm not talking for myself tho, because I've putted my trust in Blurt at the point of invest in a Witness node, I developed a project that stayed in review for 3 month while you had all this people that doesn't work for Blurt with those accounts farming the platform and now we complain about it and take a decision that's empowering people with a lot of BP, I don't know, time will tell if this was a good decision but I think that we just needed to undelegate the people and look for other teams more involved, with better ideas.
I'm not complaining about it, I just want the best for this blockchain because I see future on it, but I think that this decision could bring a lot of confussion to our people.
This is news that will leave many people wondering, but it is necessary and notorious. It has been almost a year since the creation of blurt and it is necessary to look for mechanisms that truly promote communities, investment and a better price.
A brilliant idea it was & an awesome response for its implementation. Hats off to @r2cornell for doing it like a true leader.
Training would help as the new users don't know much about how the blockchains grow & it's a matter of time.
Blurt on!
Hopefully this will encourage curators to Power up and increase their rewards.
This decision leaves us all with our mouths wide open. So we have to digest the news, rethink some things and create new strategies to move forward.
I strongly believe that the quality of the post will improve now from previous time and hopefully we shall see blurt 0.10 $ very soon with this initiative.
The foundation delegation was a great start .... Every Blurt curator should have thousands of Blurt to create their own projects now. Onwards and upwards. Blurt to the moon. 🤬 🚀 🌙
It is true that curation account can't attract the investor or user enough. So blurt authority should take better step. I hope blurt will go a long way. Stay blessed with blurt....
close circle friends may refer to as the content you trust and daily votes would go to someone that post own content and you are familiar with - at least for me
of course expanding that circle is way of involving more community members - win - win
content may be good and interesting but if you are not familiar with authors work and authenticity how to vote for that content
so having system that will recognize original work and vouch for it - (if it is content that i am interested with ) for me that would be enough to vote
until then
Power Up
Could you please sir help me cause I am loosing half of my rewards , for example my post is at 88 blurt and when paid reduced at 44 so finally I take only 22 , why this happening ???
https://blurtter.com/blurt/@rycharde/why-are-my-reward-payouts-about-half