With the volume of posts having increased by so much recently due to the explosive user growth, is it time to reduce the curation reward split time down from 30 minutes to 5 minutes, or even scrap it altogether?
We all want to be rewarded for good content, but we also need to incentivise good curation, and encourage voters to vote where content is good. The problem is that good content disappears very quickly down New the feed list, and anybody wanting to maximize their curation reward needs to scroll through so much mud to get the the content they spotted 30 minutes earlier. This causes users to not vote on brand new posts, and to only vote for posts of users they are following in their home feed, because that feed is easier to get to the 30 minute mark.
This is espicially true of high value voters who want to earn their fair share of curation rewards from their bug votes. They may miss a good quality post in the New feed because they have to wait 30 minutes before getting their maximum reward, so they move to their Home feed and vote there instead. If they like a post, they should be able to upvote and resteem there and then, without sacrificing their rewards.
For those of us who don't know how the curation rewards work, here is a screensht from the Steemit FAQ:
source
You see, if you vote too soon you get almost no curation reward. Your best reward cimes if you only vote in post 30 minutes old, which are far down the feeds.
By bringing the curation reward timeline down from 30 minutes to 5 minutes, or getting rid of it altogether, we get to the point where the author gets 75%, and the rest is split according to the voting weight and voting timeline. I also believe this will help reduce self-voting to some degree because every vote you cast earns you up to 25% reward if you get in early enough, and the author may get the bigger votes because his post hasn't been pushed down the feed list into oblivion. A self vote will also then only get 75%, with the rest going into the curation reward pool.
I'm sure there would be many pros and cons. Perhaps it would increase self votes because you would feel justified by "giving away" your 25%? Perhaps self upvoted should be split 25% author reward , 75% curation pool? I just don't think the 30 minute split is working at the current volume of posts and needs to be looked at to improve curation rewards.
