Obviously I cannot change the proposal at this point. I posted a draft a couple weeks ago and invited comments. The draft actually had the de minimus amount at 5 POB with no HBD limit (which would mean infinite HBD).
No one actually commented about the de minimus levels. However, upon further reflection, I decided to reduce those numbers to 2 POB and 2 HBD to help limit the potential for just what you are describing -- the little guy getting his/her posts consistently destroyed by whales. Maybe I should've chosen much lower thresholds? If your comment had been available to me before finalizing this proposal, I would have reduced the amount further.
The reality is, though, without this 'rule' in place, the threshold is infinite for both POB and HBD.
If this proposal is ratified and you find yourself being harassed by someone via de minimus downvotes, tag me or reach out to me via Discord and I will do what I can to rectify the situation (e.g. upvote to more than offset the losses due to de minimus downvotes).
To be clear, I should have added, "if the proposal fails" ;>
a POB specific community initiative such as @freezepeach or @flagabuse might be a good idea, but I'm not volunteering either of us. Having run a community before, I know what a PITA it can be
@trostparadox aside from DV's from plagiarism, do we have statistics on how many de minimus votes have occurred on POB? @AMR is this something you can provide to us?
Also, does ratification of a proposal mean it can't be altered in the future? I don't know honestly how it would work here.
I have not pulled that info, but it could be done.
A ratified proposal could be altered at any time, by whatever governance protocol happens to be in place at the time. At present, the stated governance protocol requires greater than 50% of stake-weighted POB voting affirmative.
As @mineopoly pointed out in a separate comment, that means abstentions are effectively "No" votes. Personally, I would rather see a higher threshold (e.g. 67% instead of 50%), but have it be based on whomever votes within the stated timeframe.
I would be happy to eliminate the de minimus option. It complicates the monitoring aspect considerably.
In retrospect, I probably should've left that out. However, I don't recall anyone raising concerns about it when the draft version was posted.
I voted no for this, while voting yes for the new proposal without the "de minimus" part. "De minimus" can easily become an exploit against weaker stake users.
Thanks for letting me know why you voted the way you did. That will be helpful in trying to come up with suitable alternatives to present later on.