If the goal is to zap posts that you think will get lots of zaps
I vaguely remember reading something like this and thought I must be misinterpreting it because it seems like such an obvious miss. If it is a month long thing, then it doesn't matter much. But if this is true in general, it is a huge mistake, something that would probably have me stop using SN.
It is entirely possible I am hoping SN turns into something different than what the founders want, though. Which is fine, it just means it would not be for me.
The rewards, in my view, ought to incentivize a diversity of content, when content is created, and etc.
@elvismercury recently had a post (last week maybe) where he pointed out thursday morning posts get the most zaps, to me that implies thursday morning posts ought to receive the least amount of daily rewards.
Here is a very quick, knee jerk reaction as to how I would structure rewards:
It would be a function of what area it is posted in, and the distribution of zaps within that topic.
E.g., suppose posting in bitcoin on thursday morning eastern time zone has the highest average zaps per post at 5000. Posting in oracle at 2am eastern might get the lowest average zaps per post at 100. If a post in Oracle at 2am gets 1000 zaps while a post in bitcoin thursday morning gets 5000, the oracle post ought to be rewarded more. The oracle creator just produced content that is 10x better than average while the bitcoin creator produced average content. Maybe this is how they do it for posts already
Rewarding which posts I zap is effectively subsidy, so any system that weights my zaps non-uniformly obfuscates market signals. It is a huge swing and a miss. A swing and a miss that will potentially lead to SN becoming something I hope it doesn't in a different post.
I would also not give anything other than daily rewards. One exceptional post ought to be rewarded. Assuming SN gets bigger - giving rewards based on the entire month could have people waiting to post until the end of the month. I am not in the running this month so I would be better off waiting until next month to publish a post that I think will do well.
Here is the other thing - this is comment 122. It is nearly pointless to post it if my goal is to get zapped. I would be far better off creating my own post with a reference to this one.
@elvismercury recently had a post (last week maybe) where he pointed out thursday morning posts get the most zaps, to me that implies thursday morning posts ought to receive the least amount of daily rewards.
You're right that I said that and posted on Thu bc of it, but @davidw did the actual research. I don't want to take credit for his work.
Here is the other thing - this is comment 122. It is nearly pointless to post it if my goal is to get zapped. I would be far better off creating my own post with a reference to this one.
That's probably true. This reply will also be similarly dis-advantaged. My attitude, aside from moving that post to Thu, is generally to not think about any of this at all, and it makes me enjoy the SN experience a lot more.
I work in an industry where we offer incentives to people to do stuff, and the prevailing wisdom is similar to something someone said earlier in this convo, that people need to understand exactly how the incentives work, that they have to be dead simple, or people will complain. That may be true, and maybe in my industry we have to care about it, but I've always been tempted to say something like:
Our reward algorithm rewards you for making enduring contributions to SN. What that means is complicated, and is always changing, but if you add value, you'll be rewarded for it.
It would turn off people who were trying to maximize, surely. But is anyone really here mainly to earn sats? Or rather: is anyone really here for that reason that anyone would miss if they stopped coming? Honest question. I suppose unanswerable.
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Our reward algorithm rewards you for making enduring contributions to SN. What that means is complicated, and is always changing, but if you add value, you'll be rewarded for it.
Very well stated. That's what I was trying to communicate to various people throughout these comments.
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Here’s the research post #441843 if interested. Thanks for the shoutout @elvismercury. I’m sure this is already evolving however, even since the post was made.
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I'll be very interested in a follow up, if anyone want to do the work.
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waiting to post until the end of the month
Meant to say waiting to post until the month ends, as in a new month begins
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