People who have been following me may have noticed that I delegated 250 Steem power to @Steem-UA last week. Today, I ended that delegation.
Some of this is because I wasn't really planning to keep the delegation on a permanent basis when I went into it, but some of it also has to do with some of the experiences I've had and seen.
Steem-UA has been a pretty big deal on my feed this week, and I want to talk about my further thoughts as I've found out more about it.
What is Steem-UA?
Steem User Authority is an ongoing project to create a better version of the reputation system on the Steem blockchain. I agree with a lot of those assertions: just having upvotes does not necessarily equal creating value.
The way it works is simple: delegate some SP, and you'll get votes on your content in relation to your rank in the Steem-UA system. This makes it function like a bidbot, but one that ideally rewards good community members. This is something I'm 100% behind, at least in theory, and it's one of the reasons why I've purchased a lot of Steem Basic Income shares (both for my own benefit and that of other content creators).
However, the exact method by which Steem-UA goes about calculating this new reputation score is a little fuzzy, and that's the number one reason why I ended my delegation. From what I've seen, it doesn't necessarily seem to be incorrect, but there are a few concerns I have with it that I'll get to later.
Vanilla versus UA
One of the things that I'd like to point out is that I'm fairly experienced with reputation systems. I've spent a lot of time on the StackExchange network and playing games like Eclipse Phase where the benefits and flaws of reputation systems come into play and are discussed at length.
The default Steem reputation system is pretty light, but it's functional. You do have problems with bot accounts and a complete dissociation between quality and reputation, but I don't think that for the majority of users who are just worried about what their reputation says about them that this is a major issue. There may be some people with very high reputation scores that are not people who would receive those scores in an ideal world, but we don't live in an ideal world.
Steem-UA, on the other hand, tries to monitor activity. In a recent post, they talked about how to increase your score.
Becoming an interesting content creator, interacting right, attracting followers using the dynamics we already understand: Interact with your audience, curate your comments, comment on other people's post, etc.
Example given in the article linked above
The problem with this is that Steem-UA doesn't seem to publish the exact mechanics by which their reputation system works, nor do they go into a whole lot of detail about what exactly you can do. Let's take a look at a recent comment that they put on one of my posts:
This is where the image ends, if you're like me and can't see the break clearly.
My rank dropped here, but it had gone up by about 500 places over the course of the week, so I can't be upset about that. I've also just had sort of a hard streak of posts recently, because I've been writing a little less prolifically than usual and I've been a little below my usual quality, so I'm not at all surprised by the result.
However, there are a few things to note here:
- A lot of what this is suggesting I do could be mimicked by bots.
- Steem-UA winds up being a popularity contest, which doesn't necessarily encourage quality content.
- The exact mechanisms by which calculations are made are obscured.
Another thing that I would like to point out is that I was originally attracted to UA by comments about how it rewarded people who were sure to follow and (to the extent within their control) be followed by people who actually create quality content on Steem.
The post that I linked to above makes it look to me more like the focus is to be followed by as many people as possible, regardless of whether they're actual content creators and Steemians in good faith, or if they're spammers and bots.
There's also a huge marketing blitz going on for Steem-UA. I'm not necessarily against that; I'm a huge fan of word-of-mouth. Heck, I'm singing 
However, right now there's no way to guarantee that the system doesn't reward people who speak publicly in favor of Steem-UA, giving them a bonus that pushes them ahead relative to others who don't have the reach or influence they might have. This is one of the consequences of how locked-down their system is.
I just want to make some money, is it worth the investment?
Financially, yes. I've been making back more Steem than I would have via curation and self-upvotes had I not delegated, in the form of upvotes from the program.
However, I'm not a fan of using bots and boosters, except for ones that have clearly designated effects. For instance, I'm a proponent of 
What are your concerns?
The big concern I have with Steem-UA is that I really haven't seen any evidence that it does what it says it does well. For starters, the API is only made available to trusted parties. I understand the need for some control of access, but to have no access and no public technical details, you're not really proving that it's good.
A lot of the posts and stats that are available about Steem-UA are mostly about how big it's gotten. There's nothing wrong with that, but I really would like to see more details about specifically how the service is actually benefiting people and how it's better than the simple vote reputation system already used on Steem.
One of the things that really made me a little more anxious about this was a spat that went down in their Discord over the weekend, in which a prominent Steemian (who was looking to pick a fight, by my reckoning) pointed this out and started a nice little implosion. The full details are still up there, and I don't think anyone at Steem-UA did anything showing vice as it were, but the response was not something that filled me with a whole lot of hope and optimism about the service.
Another concern I see with it is that Steem-UA does nothing to support people who don't support Steem-UA. Compare this to the work of the big curators, like 
Where do you stand now?
I'm not against Steem-UA, by any means, but I don't think I'll be supporting them right now. I just don't have confidence in the system, and I'm on Steem partly to support good content creators. When Steem-UA can prove that it's not just a bidbot, but rather something greater, I'd be happy to delegate to it again. However, as it stands it seems like a system that funnels more Steem toward already powerful Steemians, as opposed to something like Steem Basic Income, which I can direct toward users that I support and want to support further.
Do I suggest that other people go out and cancel their delegations? Not necessarily. I have concerns, and I'd like to see them addressed. 
If you have to pay (sure, it's an investment you can get back, but it's still tying up funds so for all economic purposes it's the same thing) for algorithmic curation on your own works, you're not really doing anything to boost the people who don't pay. Sure, the bots who (hopefully) have crappy UA scores will get hammered, but they're not going to invest, so what do they care?
As it stands, the only people you're helping are yourself and people who've bought in. That's not world-changing. That's status quo.