I'm now all for pure linear reward distribution, both for content rewards and curation rewards.
1. Current Distribution Curve: Superlinear
People hesitate voting for good content because it is "too late" to get cool rewards, due to early-voting bonus (aka late-voting penalty)
People hesitate voting for good content because it is "too early" to get cool rewards, due to reverse auction mechanism
Bots have huge advantages on voting on "right" contents at "right" time (maximize their returns by "robbing" from other voters)
Complexity: hard to explain to casual users
Authors got voted by piling whales earn much more than their percentage of votes (stake weighted) received
Whales earn much more than their percentage of votes contributed
Casual voters got the most penalty due to reverse auction and follow-voting
Content value distribution is distorted.
2. Proposed Distribution Curve in 0.17
- Whales still have advantages, although less than before
- People still hesitate voting
- Bots still have big advantages
- Still hard to understand
3. Pure Linear Distribution
Authors earn rewards correlative to votes they received (stake weighted, upvotes minus downvotes)
Voters earn rewards correlative to votes they contributed (minus those be downvoted)
No penalty nor bonus, no matter when you vote. Casual voters will feel good and enjoy voting.
Easy to understand
People don't need to predict how others will vote, so content value distribution will be organic
Bots have less advantages, although they'll still vote on contents with best return, they won't be able to rob from other voters
//Edit:
4. Things that are non-issues
- Minnows earn zero curation reward: it's natural, because minnows contribute few influences by stake-weighted voting; but minnows can contribute more by posting / commenting.
- Nobody will downvote bad contents: there are already volunteers now, working with no return, or be compensated outside the system.
- Abusers will downvote good contents: with a linear algorithm, abusers can not do more harm than the stake they have.
- Small SP holders will vote for themselves, "mining dust": no matter how small stakes they hold, they're their stakes, they have a say. Worst case, they won't earn more than they deserve with a linear algorithm. Still, good people will downvote if they upvote bad contents.
//Edit 2:
[More things that are non-issues]
- People will pile on voting for already popular contents: this is why popular contents are popular. With a linear algorithm, there will be no extra benefit for both the voter and the author. When a popular content is overvalued it will be downvoted, so it's not guaranteed that the voters will earn more rewards by voting on it.
- No incentive for people who found popular contents early: people will feel good when being shown as the first N voter. We could also set funds off-chain to reward these people, or delegate more SP to them so they'll earn more curation rewards in the future.
//Edit 3:
5. Differences between Linear Reward Distribution and Pure Tipping
- People are forced to tip. So people will make judgement on targets, although perhaps it's random targeted, or voting for a list of authors/tags, or following others, or by content analyse, there are efforts involved. As long as they can never do more harm than their stake weight, IMHO it's natural and positive. In a pure tipping system, people can opt out by not tipping at all, which encourages false negative (good contents may be undervalued).
- Downvotes. Pure tipping system doesn't have downvotes, so it's more possible to do self-tipping, which encourages false positive (bad contents may be overvalued).
- Stake based and limited voting power. So one player's influence is limited, less possible to manipulate the trending page, so fairer IMHO.