It looks like while everything went smoothly for the hardfork, a fun little quirk managed to make things interesting for the next week, where curation of pre-fork posts will be affected by post-fork votes. This means that there are some people collecting some very large payouts on pretty small votes, effectively scooping up all the curation rewards of other voters.
Obviously, the @ecency team realized this and this is what happened on my last payout:
All's fair in the rules of the blockchain of course and this makes for an interesting week of fun and games, with people looking to vote close to payout posts. I was wondering why I was getting some unusual voting pattern behavior on my old posts and then saw the PSA update from @acidyo mentioning what is going on.
This might annoy some people, but hopefully everyone remembers that it is only for 7 days and as more people realize this is happening, the rewards will balance, so get out there and take part if you want.
What it is a good reminder of is that pretty much everyone works on incentive and financial incentive is a very strong motivator in crypto. Pretty much, everyone who sees an opportunity to increase their takings will take it, at least to some extent. I don't selfvote normally, but I did put a 50% vote on my oldest post, just to see what happens - but I will not be taking part in any more of the curation festivities for the rest of the week and will leave it up to those who are more keen and perhaps those who will have fun or get some decent personal benefit from it.
It looks that for the coming week, my own curation is a right off, but I wonder... does this make my next six days of posts as "backrunning" targets? I am not quite sure how the mechanics of the pre-hardfork open posts works, but I am guessing there are a couple hundred HBD worth of curation up for grabs by those who vote after the hardfork.
Will there be any drama or outrage over this?
(I might get lucky @edicted ;D )
I hope not of course, but these quirks after hardforks are part of the fun and while some of them are pretty terrible, like when most people had no Resource Credits for days at HF20, others are pretty awesome, like when the move to the linear curve in HF19 shifted all open payouts to the new algorithms, pushing the value up immensely... That was a fun week too!
... until the bidbots started.
As I have said around all HFs and whenever there are changes of any kind, every change is going to have intended and unintentional affects on the system to which it is applied. Move one part and ten other pieces shift, fix one problem and ten more spring up. Rather than avoid making changes to limit disruption, it is best to become comfortable living with uncertainty. This is actually a near vital trait for anyone looking to invest or trade and especially in crypto, as volatility is a constant partner and is what makes it so lucrative, but also risky.
I remember hearing about a very highly rewarded author from the past who wasn't getting his autovotes because of a hardfork quirk say, "Do you know how much this is costing me?" and then attempting to angrily force people to vote manually on him to make up for his "loss". Entitlement.
Just as certain as people act on incentive, people who are accustomed to a "certain level of treatment" expect that they will be treated that way forever and get special privilege, as after all, Don't you know who they are? They come to expect certainty and consistency, even when they do not offer certainty and consistency themselves.
When the votes don't come they get upset, when the flags come they get upset, when price drops they get upset, when things change they get upset. Pretty much, they are like pampered toddlers who are only happy when things go the way they want in the way they expect - like Goldilocks, where everything has to be "just right".
Just right doesn't exist, but good enough does.
I am so happy that the Equilibrium hardfork 25 went well and there was no downtime or major adverse effects. This curation quirk is a short-lived event and is kind of like an Easter Egg hunt for the next 5 days or so for those who are willing, and I hope people will go and have some fun and enjoy the change in blockchain behavior - kind of like a refresher stretch before seeing what the new hardfork codes are capable of.
Have fun "curating" out there!
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]