Suffering a bit with my first cold of 2018, damn tourists :P It's easier to consume content than produce it feeling crappy, but having read more on User Authority today, I have some more thoughts to share. (Previous post on the subject 25 days prior to this)
The opening post from @steem-ua: @steem-ua/introducing-userauthority-ua-steem-ua-and-ua-api
I wonder where the @steem-ua account ranks currently? :D
The top 100 UA scorers are available here: https://steem-ua.com/ And if you log-in via SteemConnect, you can check your own score out.
At 4:20 pm CET, my UA score puts me at rank 180.
My (bought to some extent in the past) Reputation of 70.191 puts me at 316th place using this metric.
While Reputation seeming has no direct effect on votes coming in, I've long wondered about a couple of 'silent' curation only accounts opting to support content producers - seemingly with increasing regulatory as Reputation rises. I have no solid evidence to support this, and will just say 'thank you' to mangos, alexis555, newhope, ripperone, and redes for now.
@steem-ua though, are looking to support users with a good UA score, and so it may 'pay' more directly in future, to work on this number.
WitnessRank
Steem witnesses have been given a UA boost:
We then look at Trusted Accounts to initiate our sub-algorithm "WitnessRank" with: each day, we check all witnesses for being -a- active and -b- up to date, and -c- their Witness Stake. source
And looking at the top 100 scores on the website linked above, this boost looks pretty big.
9 of the top 10 witnesses are in the top ten with regards to UA score, and there are many other witnesses present in the top 100. I suppose the top witnesses have a say/authority to push changes (HardForks) through via consensus, and so it does make sense for their score to receive additional weight. However, and of personal opinion only, a witness maintaining Steem applications > bid-bot owner/delegator.
@thejohalfiles UA score
With regards to increasing your UA score:
To put it simple: by being interesting / "attractive" to others. Either you publish interesting content that people want to read and comment on (like @paulag for example), or you own a lot of Steem / SP that you might want to share with the people you interact with (like @thejohalfiles for example)... source
As with @thejohalfiles Reputation, currently at 57, I wonder if he is that concerned over his 'high' UA score? His score being given a boost due to his stake. If he wanted a high Reputation, he could easily be number one on the platform by using his own stake on his comments.
UA is for?
This makes me think about who UA is of most benefit to. And I think the answer is the content creators and commentators. If this is right, then I'm wondering if a scoring mechanism for this would also be worth considering. Can you game UA at present? The developers say this will be hard. Can you game content curating / commentating / voting. Yes. And so the work to produce a score, for the whole platform, would potentially be very tricky.
I can do this on a basic level with the Engagement League, but I have just a few hundred accounts to spot-check, and only 5/10 new members each week. There is however, nothing to stop a member of the league going rogue and finding a place to stick a 50,000 character comment, 10 levels down a thread, to give their score in the League a nice boost.
EDIT:
Well it looks like @steem-ua are working on Engagement metrics! :D
Imagine, a score based on something like communication Theory/Information Theory and Entropy with information gain. Could the amount of 'useful' information given and received by a user be quantified? And then perhaps used in conjunction with UA via the API?
I just want to make clear that I am in support of UA, at present, the only visible alternative to Reputation.
Interesting times for sure. And hey, STEEM back at a dollar :)
Right, where's the paracetamol......
Cheers
Asher