From my vantage point, Steem sold its users a false bill of goods. I don't know whether it was intentional, a marketing ploy, failure of imagination, or what exactly happened. However, the blue paper touted two new key features in Steem tokenomics that allegedly made it both "smart" and "social." The features outlined are (1) rewards that incentivize content creation and curation and (2) a voting system that leverages the 'wisdom of the crowd.'
I don't think many can pick fault with the former. However, because the latter is impossible, it makes the platform seem wonky, off-balance, and in many cases, throws merit right out the doggamned window. So we have the code, which is the base level of law here. And this code says: "Welcome to the jungle, do what you will with your stake." The law of the code or jungle, in this case, is 100% amoral and gives zero fucks.
And this ultimately bred conflict between people who wanted to see the platform work as advertised. Those who chose to extract as much as the system allows them to do with their stake. And the animals who psychically feed off of the despair of others after they financially censor their reward potential for the crime of "wrongthink."
So the DEVS started in their behavior modification efforts. They did so by adding a downvote button and encouraging people to use a free daily downvote. I imagine they did this for multiple reasons: (1) To discourage those extracting maximum value with low effort. (2) because they can't control why people use flags anyhow, so they just embraced it and call it a downvote instead. (3) to discourage scams, spams, and plagiarism. (4) a failed attempt to try and force crowd wisdom to work by promoting more curation.
Four is a failed attempt because it doesn't matter how many more people you get to participate in the process. The hard truth of the matter is, if the votes are uneven, you can't successfully tap into the crowd's wisdom. Thus in effect, what we have at HIVE is a veritable meow-meow beans situation. It's a complete and utter shitshow. Suffice it to say--we don't have to stay stagnant. We can help to try and encourage more natural market behavior.
We need to accept past failures and move forward with better ideas. Putting the downvote button back where it was as a flag for spam, scams, and plagiarism would be wise. Also, I liked bashadows ideas about taking reward dispute downvotes out of curation rewards. In this way, genuine quality content creators don't get discouraged or chased off by the animals.
On a more disturbing note, even if we could effectively harness the crowd's wisdom, people are generally dumb and easily manipulated. And nothing shows us this better than the thought experiment done on The Orville S01E07. The episode is entitled 'Majority Rule.' It's on a par with that quote about the two wolves and the sheep deciding what's for dinner.
Fully agree, and thank you for your excellent, well thought out comments, you are saying much of exactly what I had wanted but not yet had time to say, particularly in response to the 'downvotes not punitive' claim, but in far better words than I think I could have said it, so thank you, and keep on keepin' on. We are ruffling feathers here with evidence-based posts blowing holes in the establishment narratives on so many issues, I am convinced if not for this there would be no such prolific downvoting or at least not near the degree that there is now.
Funny too how the lowering escessive rewards doesn't hold true on this or your recent post on the topic, further illuminating the reality of the downvotes being punitive :) This post is now my 7th research-based post in a row to be downvoted, 6 of them by whales significantly diminishing rewards, the last 3 by smooth. But I'm not on here for the money, that's just a nice bonus. As demoralizing as it is, it's also funny in its own way, the hypocrisy of it all, and I take it as a sign that our work collectively over the years (of the truth / freedom / independent journalism / conspiracy movement) is finally causing a major paradigm shift in thinking that threatens the establishment, status quo, and beliefs of all the statists / covid cultists / big pharma worshipers, as the world is more aware now than ever of the lies being used to keep humanity in subjugation, and the truth for the first time in centuries may actually threaten their monopoly on power in a very real and tangible way as the system nears its total collapse. All empires collapse upon themselves, and this empire of lies is nearing its end, I say, thus the insanity we see all around us is but a reaction to the inevitable fall of an empire, a desperate attempt to maintain control over the minds and hearts of the masses as the tipping point of liberated minds is reached which will bring the system to its end and usher in a new age of peace and freedom.
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I see signs of global awakening and hope for freedom all around me. Things will get worse before they get better, still, but I feel that we as a whole are close, humanity is finally ready to be free, at least enough of us to create functional freedom- based alternative systems. Although your point of crowd wisdom being disturbing due to rampant stupidity is accurate, both on and off the blockchain, we are witnessing the 'crowd wisdom' of Covid1984 groupthink implode on a massive scale right now as dozens of states go back to normal with no consequences or resurgence of the 'virus' (yet), and it has the powers that be on all levels shaking in their boots. The more the truth advances, the more vicious the counterattacks will become, on here and in our daily lives in the world, especially by those whose trust in the system is so strong the truth threatens the entirety of their media-induced 'reality'.
Well said, we're living in exciting times! Your optimism on the matter is rather refreshing!
Yes indeed, I'm glad you find it refreshing, many who hear my optimism proceed to 'correct' me by insisting we are all doomed because end of world/NWO/Great Reset/Bill Gates gonna kill us all with vaccine/etc. scenario. I don't think so, but that kind of thinking sure doesn't help the chances of a free humanity! I think while outwardly they appear to be moving according to plan to take over the world, inwardly they are shaking in fear as they know more people are awake now than ever due to the blatant scamdemic lies forcing people out of their slumbers. 'They' being all Those Helping Enslave You.
On a different note, I just had a great idea come to me that I will share, that if those users whose rewards are being pillaged by the massive downvotes to 'balance rewards' had the ability to direct those diminished rewards to posts with smaller payouts of their choice, that would actually accomplish the stated goal and leave the discretion of where this distribution takes place in the hands of the author who got 'excessive' rewards due to popularity (or maybe occasionally random autovotes). I'd be much more ok with that if Hive really wants to institutionalize reward policing as integral part of the platform, as there is tons of content I would love to give bigger votes, and instead of going straight back into the pool to have next to zero effect on the under-rewarded users as a whole, it would make a big difference on some under-rewarded posts. At the very least such an option would make such downvotes seem as if they are truly being given out to 'balance rewards', and would have much more of a veneer of fairness to them.
As it is, I cannot buy that these downvotes are for the 'common good of the community' in any way whatsoever, the evidence from downvote pattern as you've seen clearly suggests otherwise, with this whale also refraining from upvoting under-rewarded content (and content in general for the most part) while constantly upvoting spam comments which rewards go straight to his own pet project. Quite the scheme, really, as you've illuminated quite well with all your links and screenshots here, so thank you for that.
If others can't see it, oh well, we've done our part in shining a light on this rampant power abuse (or helpful balancing of rewards as others call it)... :)
"Yes indeed, I'm glad you find it refreshing, many who hear my optimism proceed to 'correct' me by insisting we are all doomed because end of world/NWO/Great Reset/Bill Gates gonna kill us all with vaccine/etc. scenario."Generally speaking, I'm usually one of those people. However, your perspective seemed packed with optimism. It goes to show with a pinch of paradigm wiggling--things can happen. That and there's a fine line between anxiety and excitement. I had a realization regarding this other thing. Most of the people who couch their arguments behind the theory of conserving "the rewards pool" are like celebrities who pay lip service to global warming and going green. All the while, they hop from continent to continent like fleas on crack in their private gas-guzzling aircraft. It's just a bunch of hypocritical BS masquerading itself as good intentions. Just like everywhere else, there's a lot of virtue-signaling fuckery going on among certain HIVE power players at the upper crusty.
If you've ever powered down HP earned from posting rewards, please don't put the responsibility for distribution issues on anyone else.
Now the way Hive is currently designed, it's not ideal to keep HP distributed and thus keep more crowd-wisdom rather than whale-wisdom. If earned HP had a longer power down time, but still had all the same influence, we'd see something closer to ideal. This can be accomplished with one balance for powered-up (bought) HP, plus legacy/current HP, and once implemented, a second balance for earned HP from that point on. The separate balances would be summed for influence purposes, so you wouldn't notice much change, but would have drastically different power down schedules. Short for the powered-up/legacy HP and a year or two (as the original Steem design worked) for earned HP. If you want to see more crowd-wisdom on Hive, support this idea and spread it around.
"If you've ever powered down HP earned from posting rewards, please don't put the responsibility for distribution issues on anyone else.""If you want to see more crowd-wisdom on Hive, support this idea and spread it around."I powered down most of my HP a long time ago because I got disenchanted with the downvote activity and outright bullying I observed that happened to other people's accounts. Things haven't changed much, and some people in particular, whether they be thot police or thought police have chips on their shoulders and act like snooty bastards.
As a platform that requires users to retain five fucking passwords, the larger stakeholders ought to act like the bigger man and kiss newbie ass while praying to the gods that they come away from it with a positive user experience. Either this, or else they will get cursed with their bags until the end of the world. And by the looks of the current state of affairs, that might not be that far off.
HIVE's motto should be: "Get gud or die trying." It'll either go on our collective Tombstone at a plot in the social media graveyard next to MySpace or etched in the top of people's minds as the replacement for Facebook and the like. Also, there's no such thing as "more crowd" wisdom. We either have it, or we don't. Tapping into the intelligence of the collective is tricky business. And although we cannot do it, that doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage people to act right for the greater good of all stakeholders. That said, I'll power up when it gets good, and I start to feel more comfortable around here. Until then, consider my bags packed and ready to go.
However, there's certainly a rumor afoot. Signs point to positive changes coming down the pike, without a doubt. As I see it, good things will happen to HIVE. But things are hazy right now, and I had better not say. I'm losing my concentration, and it's hard to focus as of late. Ask me again later on. The consensus has yet to come to order. Praise be the DEVS! Blessed be their fruit! And may they poison each others wine with a sprinkle of oxytocin.
I tried to comprehend the middle bit of what you said, but it didn't compute. That could be my fault. There's at least one fuse missing, and i'm defintetly a few fries short a happy meal. P-Funk, step to this, I dare ya. Serious though, that middle bit was hard to comprehend, the below part.
"Now the way Hive is currently designed, it's not ideal to keep HP distributed and thus keep more crowd-wisdom rather than whale-wisdom. If earned HP had a longer power down time, but still had all the same influence, we'd see something closer to ideal. This can be accomplished with one balance for powered-up (bought) HP, plus legacy/current HP, and once implemented, a second balance for earned HP from that point on. The separate balances would be summed for influence purposes, so you wouldn't notice much change, but would have drastically different power down schedules. Short for the powered-up/legacy HP and a year or two (as the original Steem design worked) for earned HP."