If Delegation / Vote-Buying Is To Be The Norm, Give It A FUNCTIONAL...

Commence rant.

I'm really tired of the delegation function. Frankly, I think it's pretty much ruining (ruined) Steemit. However, it seems too late to lobby for any substantial changes to it, as it provides the main investor yield for Steem - to remove it would drastically reduce the value of Steem.

We appear to be stuck with it.

If Steemit is going to remain some amalgamation of crypto-Ebay-post-promotion, let's just get it over with and give Steemit a functional delegation wallet.

Increasingly, delegation is turning Steem into a simple DPOS system like any of the other coins that do this, rendering the "proof of brain" tag-line farcical. At this rate, we may as well all simply delegate to the bots and check back in a year for the Bitconnect-like Cease & Desists.

Delegation 1.jpg

You laugh now, but delegations are paying 75%+ APR, sometimes more.

I'm tired of having more and more people coming to me via DM to tell me I was right to rant about this in the past. I am tired of "Code Is Law" becoming more relevant each day as all the large Steem holders profit while small posters are forced to pay tolls to buy votes, an action that was widely shamed and reviled merely a few months prior. I'm also tired of flame-wars against any authors who "make too much" without using the bots.

I'm tired of hearing people complain about how unintuitive delegation is. Yes, it was programmed in a manner consistent with its original intent being a torture device. I'm losing track of how many people have tried to delegate to targets and been screwed out of their SP for 7 days because it is so counter-intuitive to edit an active delegation. I've dealt with this issue personally, and for a number of other users.

I'm tired of having 3 comments on my posts that say "nice jobr i upvoted u u upvote me", because my post doesn't even make it into "Hot" without paying a massive toll to use the network I am funding and staking. Is nobody concerned that nothing really gets READ on this site?

Maybe we should change the site's name to "Postit". It sure can't compete with "Read-it", because nobody reads much here.

It's bad enough that it has turned the entirety of Steemit into a vote-buying circle. I've given up on trying to get any of my posts seen, and I'm done wrestling with bot trackers to try and minimize my negative ROI from the "content promotion tolls." I just rely on the benevolence of my current and past supporters and my diligent clientele of however-many high-quality commenters (you know who you are.)

However, it also makes it clear to anyone that does even the most minimal research that almost all of the rewards on the highly-paid posts are bought, many at a negative ROI, and severely detracts from the impression that a new user might be able to make a profit here.

If it had looked like this when I got here, I probably would have checked out instead of bought in. It would have been obvious who was making the money - huge delegators, not content creators.

The trending page of Steemit is now a parade of garbage, from gamblers using the blockchain to pay out "fantasy cricket games":

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I'll pass on Steemsports Round 2 with a more boring sport, thanks.

To pumpers shilling cryptokitty giveaways:

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No real people vote for this shit, but that doesn't keep it from being the top of Trending everyday and making Steemit look like a goddamn cesspool:

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Good luck getting a bid in for some quality content with this garbage slamming the bots.

So, now that delegation and widely acceptable vote-selling is the norm, expect to get screwed if you don't do it. You can expect a minimum of 400-500% more gain from selling your vote compared to curating, so why bother? Simply join the club and fuel as much abuse as possible.

I guess it's a GREAT THING (tm) that Steemit didn't implement my proposed reciprocal voting to make curating more profitable than delegating like a rent-seeking oligarch. Sadly, it it Steemfollower and Steemengine willing to implement a Trending ranked by something other than post payout, while Steemit languishes.

On that note, expect to get screwed if you don't buy votes, either. Your posts are effectively invisible now if you don't pay the "bot-toll" to promote them.

So, it's clear that delegation, for better or for worse, is pretty much the key aspect to Steem now. Nobody buys and powers up their own SP - they pay to the "toll-masters" either per-use or for rentals. If delegation is going to be the norm, how about we get an interface of some kind for it?

You know, maybe a button or some kind of visible indicator ANYWHERE on Steemit other than the (-XXXX) in the wallet that tells you nothing? Perhaps some controls for editing an active delegation if we are going to insist on instituting lockout periods for mistakes nearly forced upon users by an interface communicated with via hyperlink URL? Some explanation of delegation in the interface for new users?

I wanted to insult the delegation interface by calling it a piece of shit, but it doesn't even have an interface. It's a joke. It's so counter intuitive that you need to actually calculate Vests per SP on the fly to an exact 6 digits. You literally have to find someone who knows what they are doing to set you up with a delegation link that is custom edited (or use the MSP delegator tool), then you have to trust an outside site like Steemconnect to even get it running.

Oh, and even if you do, this might still happen:

SC Dead.png

Complete with wildly inaccurate error messages.

You can't add to an active delegation in the expected fashion. You have to re-apply the same delegation, after manually recalculating the vests, then add the new amount to it and make it all in one delegation.

Apparently, making the delegation function as prone to errors as possible wasn't enough - there had to be a massive and stupid penalty added on as well. "They" decided to program in a penalty that made sure to maximize both the chance and impact of any mistakes the user makes - a 7 day lockout period for any adjustments, even in error. The fact that this can't be edited if a mistake is made serves absolutely no purpose (there are better ways of curbing delegation "abuse"), and I consistently field questions and frustrations on SP "in limbo" due to the obfuscating nature of the delegation function.

Oh, and note that the "edit delegation" function of Vessel should not be used, as it is broken. It doesn't edit anything, it just applies a new delegation failing to take into account the old delegation. Try to edit a delegation with Vessel and all you will get is your SP missing for 7 days and a loss of voting power. You have to assign it as a new one, over-writing the old one, as per usual.

I'm about done with this rant. I'm not saying delegation should be removed; it's probably too late for that now, and it has been used for good purposes. I have been a longtime delegator to the Minnow Support Group, for example. Nevertheless, things hardly seem better than the days when leasing large delegations for self-voting/vote trading were the norm.

Have a glimpse into the future (aka: the present)

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