Downvotes... are they a good thing for #steem or not?
I've been thinking a lot about the free downvotes that were introduced with HF21.
I made up my mind and I don't like them, because the potential for misuse is high and we can see such toxic usage of downvotes with people targeting others for different reasons from the safety of non-posting accounts that are just registered for downvote usage.
Upvoting and leaving comments on content that we don't like is more than enough to show opposing belief, disgust or any other critique.
What I was concerned about has materialized in little projects even like downvotecontrol for instance.They target SBI (steem basic income) users because they think "Vote trading circles are worse than bidbots, downvoting posts upvoted by SBI farm, upvotebuilders etc ..."
So, what do you think! Are the downvotes a good thing or do they make #steem more toxic?
- Downvotes are good for #steem!
- Downvotes are bad for #steem!
Answer the question at dpoll.xyz.
My opinion is they are a necessary evil. :) We need them, the free ones are fine too.
While I don't appreciate the reward police crew and those who attack success, each of us can only allocate what we own or control through delegation.
While I really dislike how some are using them I have to remember it is just an annoyance and not real damage.
I'm not answering the poll, because I think there are pros and cons with the free downvotes and I think this phase will pass.
I don't like negative votes either, I think that when I started on this network, if you didn't like something you didn't vote for it and if it bothered you a lot, you would comment on it and make your point of view clear. But now it turns out that I have several negative votes simply because it occurred to me to enter the SBI a bit.
Thus, without explanation or right to defend myself, I will constantly receive negative votes from bot accounts that only issue these negative votes, without those accounts ever having a publication or burning steem for the benefit of the network. They are simple zombie accounts that are used to attack others without giving them truce or opportunity to dialogue.
I would like that if an account emits only negative votes, at least the same blockchain forces you to write a brief comment when you vote, verifying that it is not a text repeated to infinity, to at least complicate the life of the bots and make them People explain what bothers them so much about what is written in the accounts that they vote all the time in negative.
Hello @pedrobrito2004,
yes, maybe raising thebar a little in terms of the downvote policies would do the trick of ensuring a more fair and transparent handling of downvotes.
Cheers!
Lucky
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Negative curation is a healthy part of the ecosystem. The problem I see is some people have a hard time w criticism. If a post is overvalued, why not adjust it to what is reasonable and leave constructive feedback?
Because very often it is not constructive and not objective and based on nothing but an opinion.
It is also part of the platform and needed but many have a long long way to go before they reach constructive.
This is true.
A lot of them seem more or less arbitrary as they will often not bother leaving a comment. I can imagine folks frustration.
But even taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment w constructive criticism, it's a toss up whether the user is going to take it into consideration or worse, they take it personally.
When there is at least one comment that explains it can be assumed that it is not a systematic attempt to harm anyone, but when the votes come from accounts that only cast negative votes and do not publish anything, they can no longer be given the "benefit of doubt"
If downvotes were limited to active accounts that post and comment I would be fine with them I guess!
But being downvoted by dedicated "downvote accounts", sometimes with no stake "in the game", simply seems wrong to me.
majority of the time there is no criticism, and there is no explanation, its just bots or whales downvoting for no explicit reason.
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I would say it definitely depends on the circumstances. If a spam post is getting downvoted so they don't get rewards for doing nothing, that is good. If it is just "getting a downvote from a random account for no reason" or "downvoted because I disagree with this person or don't like them" that is bad.
Thanks for your comment and your vote! 🙏
So it will stay a dilemma, right?
If there's no chance to actually quantify and qualify the good and the bad we'll maybe just have to live with the dilemma, right?
To me the individual reason for someone downvoting content of others would be interesting to know but every reason is fair game to me!
I don't like the sneaky type of downvotes distribution via anon or bot accounts.
I would prefer that downvote capabilities must be earned by engaging with the community or by actively posting.
That way at least some of the misuse if steem voting
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The current downvote system is a crap that is destroying Steem. It looks like a desert now. I have to say no.
Downvotes shouldn't be free 'coz people abuse them to wage personal wars. Downvotes should cost real steem so that morons don't abuse them.
Thanks for your comment and vote!
I agree with you! This would be one way to fight the pandemic of downvotes from anon accounts.
Accounts like this one here just serve the purpose of downvoting others content and comments.
Cheers!
Lucky
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Not when they allow people to bully others for pleasure.
Thanks for your comment and vote!
Hmh... hard to say when it is bullying and when it is for "legit" reasons.
Like the ones I mentioned in my recent articles around downvoting. They think SBI is bad and therefor they target SBI users with their downvotes. They found their reason to do this but they try to force their beliefs onto others by their downvotes I feel.
Other's motives stay completely unclear like this fellow here...
He downvoted this dpoll article but I have no idea why. One thing is for sure this is no user accoount for posting content or engaging with the community on here. It must be an alt of an fellow steemian who's probably a too big coward to use his main account.
He can shoot with downvotes without having to worry about any repercussions/consequences.
Cheers!
Lucky
You're not alone. Ihihihih!
Hahaha! This was rather cool tho! Brahaha!
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The concept itself is a positive aspect.
But as it is currently configured, it is not functional for the community.
the policies should be modified
Thanks for your comment and vote!🙏
Hmh... so what would be adequate policies?
Tie downvote capabilities to active users (actively posting/commenting) or other criteria?
Cheers!
Lucky
I will continue to support the possibility of adding a comment justifying the vote. The voter should make a check accepting terms and conditions, which must be presented on screen before allowing to cast a negative vote.
Perhaps this procedure gives a legitimacy and seriousness to the whole process and thus is not taken lightly.
Thanks for your comment and vote!
Yep, this could raise the bar a little!
Cheers!
Lucky
This is a downvote strategy that I could get behind, if you do not like something I am doing tell me or I do not know what I have done wrong. This would help noobs and might not scare them away.
I always prefer postitive interactions.
Certainly, I also think it could work.
Nice to meet you.
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Downvotes are necessary. On balance, what we had before HF 21 was much worse than what we have now. Votes were purchased with positive return on investment putting practically anything to Trending, which is a completely insane concept because no platform can survive paying people to advertise on it. Few people would sacrifice their voting power to combat that.
The reward pool is a common resource. It is owned by no one and users have influence over it in proportion to their stake. What happened to the pool prior to HF 21 could serve as a textbook example of a tragedy of the commons. Preventing reward pool abuse absolutely requires active policing. There is no going around that.
To be honest, I'd much rather see the content reward pool completely removed than to have it abused like it used to be before HF 21 and #newsteem.
Hello @markkujantunen,
thanks for your comment and vote!
I understand the positive effects of the after HF 21 changes to some extent.
But it seems to me that the rules about what is an abuse of the reward pool and what is not aren't clear!
There maybe some obvious abuses like plagiarism, spam and so on. But for instance in regard to programs like SBI or upvotebuilders they are seen by a few as also abusing the reward pool others seem to be Ok with such "upvote circles".
So where do you/we draw the line?
Is it already abuse of the reward pool if you upvotes content and comments of befriended accounts or does it start getting sketchy when it's simply a more structured approach like with SBI?
At least for @mmmmkkkk311 and his supporters SBI is an issue.
What are your thoughts about this?
Cheers!
Lucky
I think there will never be a universal consensus over these issues. This is, after all, a decentralized community of users. We can discuss and try to get people to agree on some kind of standards, though.
I downvote when I see blatant abuse like plagiarism or vote farming with substandard content (relative to the rewards). I apply stricter standards to what I see in Trending. I want to do my part to make sure that nothing that gets to trending has votes bought with a positive ROI. It's insane for a platform to pay someone to advertise on it.
I'm personally not into going after vote trading clubs or SBI because there is a lot else going on that needs to be downvoted. But I understand why that account goes after structured and impersonal, totally content-agnostic vote trading schemes such as upvotebuilders or SBI.
I think SBI is a mostly negative thing because it's all about buying votes for yourself and a little to a buddy. It's a structured self-voting scheme that has some sort of a very loose quality control policy. SBI votes would be better used by curating someone else's posts particularly now that the 50/50 split is in effect.
Thanks for your comment!
Interesting to see your reasoning regarding downvotes and the critique about vote trading and SBI.
I understand these arguments. I thought SBI was a great thing because of the fact that you enroll/sponsor fellow steemians. A nice way to show appreciation for the content and comments of others with longer lasting effects for them than just an upvote.
But I'm for a change in their upvote policy based on quality of content! That would be a really nice move and the critique part of being quality agnostic in their votes would go away.
Cheers!
Lucky
Not true. As far as I read it, the ROI is smaller than what your buddy gets.
Ok. But it is content agnostic use of the reward pool anyway.
There's nothing wrong with being content agnostic. We all used to upvote our friends posts by 100% and that didn't matter then, why should it matter when we let a bot give a small vote every now and then?
I don't see the reason to complain when the vote sizes never ever make anyone's post trend, or make them rich.
Also, it allocates a certain amount of votes on a weekly bases, and if the person only posts one post per week, they get a larger vote per post, than he would if he posted say 25 posts per week.
Concerning your idea about the bot voting for the most upvoted post... I don't see a reasonable way to allocate the votes to the most upvoted post if the users have different styles of creating content. Some only post one post per week, some do it more erratically. The bot needs to accomodate to that. And still it needs to be fair.
I think the way it does it now is as fair as it can possibly be, but if you have a better idea, please share.
If however there is a concern that the bot-owner will run with the sponsorships, one idea is to automate the bot via a smart contract, so that the funds will be only available to the bot and no-one else.
Lisäys: Kun joku käyttää terrorismia saadakseen tahtonsa läpi, ei sellaiselle paskalle anneta myönnytyksiä, koska seuraava terroristi vaatii aina pikkuisen lisää ja lopulta sille paskalle ei tule loppua.
Goodbye to Steem then? You forget it is a crypto currency, and the distribution of that cryptocurrency would become a whole lot more difficult if it weren't for content rewards.
I have no idea what else is a more democratic way to distribute crypto than via some sort of proof of person. But proving that would be a bit difficult, if not by writing and creating content that then would be rewarded.
If you have a better idea, please share.
What about every PoW out there? Bitcoin does not have a reward pool other than mining rewards and works just fine. A cryptocurrency does not require a reward pool like on Steem to work let alone be successful.
My point was that prior to the introduction of the EIP in HF 21, Proof-of-Brain on Steem worked so badly that it would've been better to remove the pool completely and just let STEEM derive its value primarily from its other characteristics such as how SP confers Resource Credits and how it has fast and feeless transfers, human-readable addresses, different keys for different types of transactions to enhance security and even an account recovery system.
Steem has no Proof-of-Person and anyone can create as many accounts as they like. In fact, it stands to reason to assume that the vast majority of the 1.3 million accounts on Steem were used as foot soldiers in vast bot armies used by large stakeholders to vote farm. Thanks to the sublinear curve, that sort of thing has abated to a degree because it is significantly less profitable.
The current system in place with the 2.5 full downvotes per day worth of voting power per account in combination with the 50/50 author/curator split and the convergent sublinear curve. On balance, that works much better than what we had prior to HF 21.
But it does. 21M reward pool for proof-of-work. That's exactly what it is, it's a distribution model. And that didn't work for Steem either, hence it was ditched.
Explain to me, how are the actual rewards to be distributed then. Since this system doesn't seem to work. There are these self-proclaimed heros making life unbearable for everyone who just wants to do their thing and not be bothered with these wars.
@mmmmkkkk311 is just jealous that his system didn't work and this other system seems to be better, as at the least it is more democratic.
But that doesn't answer my question. If this current system is broken as it allows piss-for-brains like MK carry out their little revenge campaigns without no recourse. What is your solution?
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I think it's mixed.
It's as though we equip every steemian with a weapon. How we use the weapon is dependent on individual.
It ultimately depends on whether there are more good actors than bad actors on this platform. Time will tell
The issue with this is that not even a majority must misuse the downvote instrument to cause frustration. If you're targeted because of affiliation with another project, token or initiative it won't help you that the majority isn't misusing the instrument.
I think a fair solution would be to make mandatory that only accounts that actively post content or comment on content can downvote.
The style in which the downvotes are implemented right now is a standing invitation to misuse imo.
Cheers!
Lucky
Friend @doifeellucky, it's a great discussion you propose.
Negative votes have begun to be used indiscriminately in an irresponsible manner, with criteria adjusted not to the misuse of the platform but to the personal taste of each one.
I particularly think that this platform has the purpose of being able to express ourselves freely, as long as we do not harm its operation or other users.
In my case, every post I make is hit by negative votes from some accounts for no apparent reason, according to what you express is for using SBI, a vote with which someone generously supports me to help me.
In my personal opinion, regulators must be regulated!
Thank you for your comment and vote!
Imo there negative votes should be reserved to accounts that actively post snd comment for instance! I guess this already would help a little.
Maybe the use of downvotes should be discussed again and put up for consensus.
Cheers!
Lucky
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I did not like the idea of voting freely in the negative, less when it can be done without having to give any comments that could explain what we dislike and give the author the opportunity to discuss or even correct the port.
When there is at least one comment that explains it can be assumed that it is not a systematic attempt to harm anyone, but when the votes come from accounts that only cast negative votes and do not publish anything, they can no longer be given the "benefit of the doubt"
I would like an option to be included in the future, whether it is voted only positive or only negative, but nothing is ever published, as the account is suspected of being a bot account; that when you only cast negative votes, you have to write for each case, so that it is explained what motivates you to vote negative a certain post; I think that in any case there may be users who will take it as something personal (which I do not deny that it can happen), but at least we will have some discussion and better possibilities to learn and grow than simply having bot accounts giving negative votes.
Hello @pedrobrito2004,
thanks for your comment and vote!
I agree 100%!
In the case of @mmmmkkkk311 it's clear why he spreads his downvotes. In his words from his profile "Vote trading circles are worse than bidbots, downvoting posts upvoted by SBI farm, upvotebuilders etc ...".
Well, I'm definitely "guilty" of that ;-) I've been enrolled in SBI for quite some time now. I still think SBI is a nice idea to share some longer lasting appreciation to fellow steemians, I've enrolled hundreds of steemians, with some benefit for the person that enrolls too. I've also delegated some SP to the program because I like the project.
After receiving the downvotes from the "downvotecontrol" guy I've again critically looked at SBI but there's no abuse I can identify with SBI.
So, maybe I/we just have to agree to disagree with this "SBI hater" and his supporters. I think this kind of mo is questionable at least and I don't like this kind of "policing" the content and comments of others.
I've come to understand that there are certain things that should be flagged like spam and plagiarism and this kind of content hygiene is pretty effectively done by @steemitcleaners.
But to force anyone's opinion onto others with downvotes is questionable to say the least. I came to the conclusion that the free downvotes and maybe downvotes in general introduce a kind of toxicity into the otherwise wonderful #steem blockchain. I wanted to get a feeling for how others think about this hence the poll.
Cheers!
Lucky
They aren't a good thing. The downvotes should be treated as a flag or a report function like it used to... Now you're just giving more power to whales to freely downvote with impunity against smaller channels... and now tribes actively run separate accounts to downvote people to protect either their shittokens and or their other projects.
Hello @esecholo,
thanks for your comment and vote!
The poll so far seems to be clearly on the "Downvotes are bad for #steem" side.
Although I've read a few comments and arguments pro downvotes that seem to make sense to me. I still think the potential for misuse of the after HF 21 possibilities in regard to downvotes is high.
...also, #steem is so much different form other social media platforms or other crypto projects. Not at last because of it's wonderful, wide range of possibilities. But especially the tribe and token stuff on here brought a new level of complexity into this that I'm having a hard time to keep up with tbh. Hahaha!
So I always wonder what this might make as some first impressions to a #steem n00b. Especially when they will also look at the whole downvote thing and that it isn't so uncommon for newer accounts to come under heavy fire.
I'm afraid the toxicity of downvotes could turn out to be the biggest problem for #steem.
Cheers!
Lucky
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Some people are literally destroyed. I don't like downvotes. I find it sad that some are so strongly downvoted that they are always invisible. I think it's anti-social and toxic
Hello @suntree,
thanks for your comment and vote!
That was exactly what I was afraid about! I think especially on the smaller accounts downvotes must have a devastating effect!
It's something completely different if you get a few downvotes on your post that has a few hundred upvotes or upvotes from the right people (whales).
Is this a pattern I start seeing here that some of the proponents of downvotes are in the 70 plus range reputation wise?
Cheers!
Lucky
Congratulations @doifeellucky!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
Very nice! Thank you!
Cheers!
Lucky
You're welcome @doifeellucky
BTW, feel free to support back and vote for me as a witness
I thing down votes could be effective if they weren't weighted. Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you should have the power to to ruin somebody because it doesn't fit your agenda. It doesn't mean you have the right to be a bully and it doesn't mean you are any smarter or fairer than someone who has a small amount of money. From the start of Steemit that power has been abused and has ruined countless individuals and groups by irresponsible actions due to an unfair advantage.
Having the power to affect others comes with a great responsibility and as we've seen through history those that hold power generally abuse it and that hasn't been any different here.
Thanks for your comment!
Yes, I think very much like you about this issue.
The question becomes though if these downvotes are the cause for a lot of frustration up to the level that people think about giving up on here what is the goal of those that shortsightedly abuse they downvote capabilities.
Clearly I would absolutely understand if some fellow steemian would rather post on some other platform if the returns on here aren't worth the trouble of wasting time on such negative things like flag battles.
What really pisses me off though is that "policing" or "schooling" of others by targeting content and comments of fellow steemians by some individuals and groups.
This is surely not why I came here in the first place!
Don't get me wrong I like many ideas of the STEEM blockchain but the HF21 changes that messed with downvotes... imo they were a big mistake and if even seasoned steemians think about closing shop on here because of this how can anyone expect onboarding new users?
...and there are many other issues on here too all from people that act in their own interest like still a bunch of big guns on here still use self-upvoting on a regular basis. Their simply to big to seriously mess with them though.
Cheers!
Lucky
I think it's a big ego boost for bullies to have a feeling of being superior and more powerful than others without any regard to what destruction they are doing to the platform and either those coming on board or those who decide to throw in the towel after working really hard and long on their work just to see it buried and earning nothing.
I agree entirely with you regarding "policing" and the stalking manner in which they proceed and taunt.
Yes, they are too big to mess with and unfortunately those with the power to do so don't put them in their place. There are too many times here and elsewhere that there aren't any consequences to bad behavior when you have a lot of money.
Very true my friend!
But a blockchain could solve this and address more equality. Jeez... and that was exactly what HF21 should address in part. To end the unfair "rape" of the pool by bitbots and vote buying and so on. But on the other hand people that have a higher stake in the game might understandably demand to have "more" to say than the average "Joe".
So, privileges exist, that's a fact.
Cheers!
Lucky
Hi @doifeellucky
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Downvotes do great damage to the platform for small peces growth
Hello @lanzjoseg,
thanks for your comment and vote!
Cheers!
Lucky
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