RE: Announcing the first student project of my class: Proof of Blind -- a way for unknown authors to get recognized & rewarded quickly

Here is how we envision new authors 'graduating' out of the program:

we will post periodic (e.g. weekly) statistics (via @blind.stats) showing which authors are posting to Proof of Blind and the rankings of cumulative and median rewards earned by each author. This can serve as a gateway for extremely talented authors to quickly establish a name for themselves. These periodic reports will also serve as a way for manual curators to easily expand the list of authors they choose to follow, thus enabling relatively unknown authors to readily connect with proactive manual curators.

In other words, we expect manual curators to regularly check the @blind.stats reports to see who is consistently receiving high votes (and 'follow' them). Also, I anticipate some manual curators will take the time to look at the beneficiary list whenever they find an exceptionally-well-written Proof of Blind post, so that they can directly follow that author.

Once an author starts gaining followers (especially once they get the attention of one or more 'whale' followers), they can start experimenting with posting some of their content under their own 'brand'. As soon as it becomes more beneficial for them to be publishing solely under their own account, then they will have graduated out of the program.