Types of Bounty Posts on Cent

On Cent, despite - or maybe because of - the fact that there is only one bounty smart contract, it is amazing to see the wide range of applications that different users are able to imagine using such a seemingly simple tool.

What's more amazing is that distinct but complementary categories have formed around certain specific and repeatable types of bounty posts.

So far, in a broad general sense, I have sussed out three main categories along with a fourth 'other' type of bounty.

Those three main categories are:

1. Work-based bounties
2. Semi-formal bounties and
3. Playful Bounties

The fourth or other bounty is the traditional 'winner-take-all' bounty, which funnily enough, currently isn't (yet) possible on Cent.

Work-based bounties are bounties that put a premium on compliance and speed of completion with relatively little demand for creativity on the part of the fulfilling party. These bounty posts are looking for some non-trivial number of responses that meet their minimum requirements and are willing to provide a uniform award for each completed response.

A few examples of work-based bounties that have made frequent appearances on Cent include: posts asking Centians to user their referral links and provide proof, follower boosts (i.e. posts that ask Centians to follow them on whatever SNS they are using like Twitter), polls, surveys, and targeted feedback.

One degree removed from the relatively straightforward and joyless work-based bounties are what I call semi-formal bounties. These bounty posts definitely have a target in mind that delineates the range of acceptable feedback, but they provide a higher degree of freedom to the responders to be creative. These bounties work pretty well based on the existing bounty distribution method that Cent employs now: top answers (currently limited to 10) receive a percentage of the bounty that corresponds to the percentage of total up votes they received from users who sorted the responses from best to worst.

Some good examples include the weekly BOTI bounty that asks as many users as possible to submit what they think is the best of the internet from the previous week, as well as general recommendation bounties (e.g. what are some awesome under-the-radar Netflix shows), competitions like the current cryptoground bounty [here], and general idea sourcing bounties. In short, these are bounties that are looking for something where that something is unknown until many other people each show you examples of what you wanted to look for (but didn't know you wanted).

Playful bounties represent pretty much every other bounty on Cent. These bounties have no real clear target response in mind - they simply want responses. And they can be super fun for both the bounty poster and responding user. The current bounty distribution model on Cent works great for these bounties too.

In terms of loose examples, open-ended posts that don't seem to ask for anything (e.g. blog post, rant) and super subjective questions (e.g. what's your favorite 'x'?) fit the bill perfectly.

Now how will the product of Cent develop now that these categories have become apparent? That is the question.