Hey everyone
A few fairly significant changes have been completed which lately some of you may or may not have noticed or read about. Check it out:
Weighted "Likes"
In response to the obvious like farming that happened last week after the point value was raised from 0.5 to 1, I have setup a precursor to the upcoming weighted upvote/downvote system that we have been talking about.
Everytime you "Like" a post now, that like carries a different weight depending on how much LTBcoin you have [in a verified address] compared to the other user who is receiving the upvote. The minimum PoP point value per like is 0.05, and the maximum is 5 points (you need a pretty fat ltbc stash to dish out max points though). So for example, if I have 100,000 LTBC and the user who's post I am liking only has 10,000, that user would get somewhere around 1 whole point.. but if I tried to like/upvote someone who had 250,000 LTBC, they would only receive the minimum 0.05 points. The more LTBcoin you have, the larger your influence with each like.
Also, scores for Likes are now diminished on a per-user-per-day basis. Everytime you like/upvote the same user in the same day, each like is worth less. For example, if you were able to give a max 5 points to a user twice in the same day, they would only get 7.5 points instead of 10 points.
Additionally, the entire privilege to "like" a post or topic has been disabled for the majority of users. In order to regain access to this option, you must first receive at least X points (mystery!) worth of likes from one or more other members. Since all of the farming accounts would easily pass this threshold if I calculated the new variable scores for all previous likes in the system, I have opted to have the updated points system just start from today onwards. Instead, I created a quick script which applies the new calculations on every "like" that Adam, myself, and a few other staff members have made, so most regular / active members (excluding the spammers) should still be able to like peoples posts right away.
Theoretically this should all totally kill the ability to farm likes/upvotes and put the favour back into the people that make quality posts (or at least are quality members)... but we will have to wait and see! Should be interesting :)
Blog Article Submission Fees
This update has been live for a few days now actually, but we never really made an announcement about it.. In your account dashboard, under "Blog" there is now an option called "Submissions". This is the new area that blog articles can be submitted to. It only shows articles that you have submitted, can be searched or sorted through and the interface for writing/editing posts has been improved (separated into multiple tabs + a few other changes)
Unless you are a frequent writer for us (contact us if you are not already setup with proper permissions) or are a podcaster, then you must pay an LTBcoin submission fee in order to submit your article. This is primary an anti-spam mechanism, is non-refundable and is also not a guarantee that your work will be published on the front page or elsewhere. @adam can probably elaborate on this more
Fees are paid in the form of purchasing "Submission Credits". Clicking on the "Purchase Credits" button slides out a box which shows a quick explainer paragraph as well as a bitcoin payment address. 1 Submission Credit costs 1,000 LTBcoin, and it costs 1 credit to create 1 blog post. You may purchase multiple credits at once. Send however much LTBC to the payment address it gives you, and the page will automatically update shortly after with the payment.
This is only the first round of updates to the blogging system. Over the coming weeks there will be a whole bunch more changes and new features for the backend submission and editorial systems, including some additional direct uses for LTBcoin. Stay tuned
Comments? Questions?
