That basically means, if a contribution gets a somewhat lower than average score, and a lot of other contributions get an exceptionally high score , the lower scored contribution can get 0.00$ rewards from utopian, if it won't reach its place in the queue before the 7 day mark.
Isn't it a serious bug in the system? Some can put a decent amount of work into a contribution, even if the medium\below average score is justified, it still would mean that those users get a big 🖕 from @utopian-io, because higher scored contributions were prioritized up to the point where the payment window for the lower scored contribution is shut forever.
I don't know whether its obvious or not, but under those circumstances, a user who isn't sure that they'll get a high score in the review, will risk putting all that work without getting the expected reward. Some might contribute regardless, meaning they would contribute even if utopian didn't exist.
But some are doing it, at least partially, for the 30$-70$ reward (or whatever the range is for rewards is these days), those users might choose to do something more financially productive, like adding more shifts to their day-job, or just enjoy their free time playing the Xbox or something, if they feel that the game is rigged (or just simply to unpredictable) they won't participate, and the whole Steem ecosystem loses.
Also, some may disagree with me, but in business, certainty is one the most important a start-up should offer. Right after having a viable product.
I hope utopian can address that, so users won't have to feel like they're gambling when contributing, and may have a fair knowledge about what they're about to earn as long as they follow the rules.
It has been said many times that upvotes from Utopian aren't guaranteed. As @knowledges has already mentioned the idea behind Utopian is incentivising people to contribute to open source projects, which thousands of people already do without receiving any kind of compensation. People shouldn't be contributing / creating an open source because they think they will receive a reward by submitting it to Utopian. I feel like you are completing missing this point and are seeing it as some kind of compensation towards the contributor, which it was never meant to be.
Either way you think about it, it's still impossible to reward everyone (especially with the current price of Steem). Because of this @elear decided to split the reward pool amongst categories (so each contribution is only competing with contributions in the same category) and prioritise contributions with a high score (which generally means a quality contribution). This way it is made sure that at least the best of the best is rewarded, and the others still have a chance of being rewarded.
As for your concerns whether or not people will use Utopian when the next version comes out if the bot keeps this behaviour (which I disagree with): I have complete confidence that @elear knows what he is doing, and I'm sure he has plenty of great ideas to keep users interested, like the new bounty system they are implementing.
I'm not going to discuss utopian's future plans and their viability over Steempeak comments.
^100% this. I hate feeling like I'm gambling when I pour my heart, soul and most importantly my valuable time into a post.
My day job pays me well enough and I could just be focusing on that instead of dealing with hypercritical mods.
Some may have awesome tech skills but doesn't mean they are competent at properly appraising the value of a contribution to our chain, first and foremost, and then the open source ecosystem in a broader sense.
I got un-voted by one of their higher ups which I suspect was due to a damn typo even though I did work and spent time investigating in a bug-hunting contribution which revealed a certain plug-in was finally disabled on the StINC API nodes. I knew it was coming but I learned it finally happened while putting time into troubleshooting the flag rewards bot.
That node is still a default node in Beem so maybe others would run into the same issue and would follow the trail after searching for the error and details I recorded on the blockchain. It could be helpful to someone.
I'm not asking them for participation trophies but if that higher-ups unvote was due to my typo it kind of says something about how exceedingly critical some of them are.
P.S. I know Utopian votes aren't guaranteed but damn the splitting of hairs and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That shit has got to stop. /rant
One of the main goal of the open source world is to give project users the chance to contribute to the project they love. Even before the birth of Utopian.io, open source exists and people have been contributing to it free without prioritising the "reward." Although the reward sometimes motivate people to contribute to one's project. Utopian serve as a gate way to empower (not "pay") these contributors by rewarding them for their quality effort. If you truely love and appreciate the term open source, you would not even care about the reward. I understand that utopian reward is one of the key factor that motivates some users to contribute but we've mentioned it many times that these rewards are not guaranteed. There wont be hard feelings if the reason why you contribute is not soley tied to the reward.
I suggest saying 'Rewards are guaranteed for most of good contributions' instead!
why we are delegating sp to the utopian? we want to reward contributors
Then it seems the "rewards aren't guaranteed" policy isn't broadcasted enough.
Users who assume they'll receive them, even if they would've contributed regardless will feel cheated.
It's not a good feeling to have if you want them using utopian V2.
It's actually a terrible policy to have if you want them to use Utopian V2.
I hope you change it, because it seriously lowers your chances of becoming profitable.