After dedicating 5.5 years to Hive/Steem, I've been informed by KING ACIDYO that I added no value

in LeoFinance3 years ago (edited)



Post Rewards Notice

For reasons that will become clear in this post (in order to help show the true colors of certain actors) I will be donating (via the beneficiary mechanism) 100% of the rewards on this post to various communities & projects on Hive.

In this case, the rewards have been split evenly (20% each) between the following projects: informationwar, theherbalhive, dynamichivers, crossculture, and hive.pizza

Edit: I have had to adjust this to declining the rewards moving forward instead of donating them, because the down-voters don't care WHERE/WHO the rewards are going to, they just want to make sure my content isn't seen - and if I accept rewards then their downvotes can eat away at my 76 reputation, and within a handful of posts I will be muted from almost ever Hive front-end.



Hello beautiful humans!

Coming to you from the magical Rocky Mountains, for the first time in a few days - after being provided with a ton of inspiration for new content, by the folks attempting to censor content & creators on Hive.

This is the first of what is most likely my last run of posts to Hive, after 65 months of dedicating myself to this blockchain.

There's a lot to cover before I go... so I'm going to start from the beginning.



5.5 Years on Hive/Steem - The TL;DR Version

It's 2016, and I just got to my buddy bruceb's house, after the National Rainbow Gathering, and my good friend churdtzu lets me know about this new platform called Steem[it].

Unlike FB, Twit, YT, this was a "decentralized blockchain" platform, censorship resistant, not run by Big Tech - something for and by anarchists.

At this time, I had been living out of my backpack, joyously wandering the planet going to festivals, gatherings, ceremonies, and intentionally communities, not using money at all, and lacking for nothing...

For just over a year, since I had quit my job, given away my belongings, and headed for the 2015 Gathering.

Needless to say, I was hooked pretty fast, both by the warm reception to my content (in terms of comments, follows, and rewards), and the level of intellectual conversation to be found on the platform.

I became a full-time writer. Those first few weeks & months I was playing with all sorts of content creation, all sorts of topics, and finding my voice.

Because, until this point, I had no blog, no vlog, not even social media. Hell, I started on Hive with a free laptop someone kicked me down, because I didn't even use a cell-phone at the time.

As the title alludes to, I dedicated the next 5+ years of my life to content creation, curation, and onboarding people to Hive.

I started @tribesteemup, which evolved into @abundance.tribe after the Hive HF, and through it have had the honor of supporting many of the people and projects creating world-change, and great content on Hive. Projects like informationwar, deepdives, naturalmedicine, ecotrain, homeedders, familyprotection, build-it, crossculture, and so on.

Sometimes I posted daily (very rarely more than that), sometimes I went months without posting at all, only commenting & curating, and promoting Steem/Hive out in the real world.

Sometimes I've posted 3000+ word research papers (I've hit Hive's character limit for a post many times), sometimes simple shorter videos to share important news.

Oh ya, ALL my written content has been exclusive to this Blockchain (videos being mirrored on Odysee/lbry for about a year now)

I took part in dozens of panels on crypto, social media, and cryptocurrency - always giving the best info I had, but focusing on the potential of this blockchain.

I have done hundreds of presentations and Q&As about this blockchain, in multiple countries - sometimes to a few people, sometimes to hundreds.

I led hands-on, hours-long classes to onboard people in dozens of cities, and offered 1-on-1 support to everyone who's ever asked me for help with the platform - from friends to random people on Discord.

Did I mention that every single one of those classes, consultations, workshops, presentations, and so on were all done 100% on the gift economy? (Meaning I never charge anyone for anything - not even "recommended donations")

I did multiple video series specifically to promote this blockchain and support the community, like my Steemians of Anarchapulco and 2 Minute Steemit Tips series. (40 & 37 episodes, respectively)

I have given away tens of thousands of Hive/Steem through various art contests, FundTheMusic, PayItForward, and various other initiatives I launched.

When the Justin Sun incident occurred, I covered it in-depth, and at a level normal people could grasp, I rallied for witness votes, did an interview with a friend who's a crypto YouTuber, was in the Discord town halls, and did everything I could to support the community and the blockchain.

In the last year, I fell in love with Splinterlands, and started spending more and more energy on that side of things, investing basically all my crypto that wasn't staked Hive into the game.

Through the gaming side of things, I became part of the hive.pizza community, and eventually co-leader of our PIZZA 1 guild

For many months now, I've been curating with my own large SPT & ONEUP stakes over on @kennysgaminglife, as well as being a curator for monster-curator.

The gaming side also allowed me to make a series of pack opening videos where I gave away thousands of dollars worth of Splinterlands assets, I launched the #BrawlReport initiative, I was able to support the launch of the #ONEUP token & platform, as well as the #SBT token, and I've gotten to connect with a whole different part of the Hive community.

Did I mention that since getting into Splinterlands, that one onboarding ramp has allowed me to bring in more than 2 dozen new people to Hive? All of whom are investing crypto in the project that is putting this blockchain on the map, and only a couple of whom have even approached the social media side.





Why the Background on Me?

Well, that's easy - because the basic concept behind all of these claims (and the justification for censoring my posts and taking away my rewards) is that I've never added anything to this blockchain or this community. You can see this in the comment pictured above (click the picture to go to the original comment.)

Question to the audience #1: In your opinion, have I "added no value to Hive."

Obviously, there's a lot of digging that any of you are free to do, into my history on this chain.

I was half-tempted to tag some people here to ask them the same question, rhetorically, but I figured there was no reason to unnecessarily make potential targets of others, especially without their consent.





The Censors Strike

Now here we are. It's November of 2021, and I've been feeling so bullish on Hive because of splinterlands, spknetwork, and various other things coming up.

Of course, at the same time, the malicious down-voting of content by the informationwar / deepdives community led to me making a big adjustment to the voting for @Abundance.Tribe / @tribevibes / @tribesteemup, mostly in an attempt to counter their attacks.

If you've been here for a while, then you know that power-abusing whales is nothing new, so I wasn't really concerned - just figured we were dealing with the current bad actor(s).

After days of telling all my friends about how Hive could totally make it to $10 by January 6th, or at least $5, and then the price spiking up over $2, I just had to make a video for Odysee & Telegram laying out my excitement for the blockchain, and letting people know about a bunch of awesome projects on the Hive.

That post blew up, receiving the most upvotes I've gotten in a LONG time, a bunch of comments (many adding other great projects I didn't know about), and over $300 in payout (much easier with $2+ Hive of course)

Payout day for that post comes, and goes - and I didn't even count the rewards (because I never do), I just reinvested them into HE tokens.

The next day, when I looked at my front page on peakd, I realized that my post had been downvoted right at the last minute, for over $230 by one account, curangel.

Now, I've received plenty of down-votes over the years, from belligerents, from random empty accounts, and more than once from whales that dislike seeing anything "controversial" on trending.

That's the kicker right there - almost every single time that I've been downvoted over the last 65 months has been because I posted about something that doesn't go along with the mainstream narrative.

Of course, those posts are always well-sourced, and no argument is ever made - just downvoting. Why defend your beliefs when you can simply silence the heretics. Most of the time I only address it by leaving the DVer a comment asking for explanation.

In this particular case, after seeing the coordinated attack on multiple high quality creators and long-time supporters of this blockchain, I had to say something more. What's the point of having a platform if you aren't going to use it to call out wrong-doing?

So, I made a post, with a somewhat click-baity title, with the massive curangel downvote in the thumbnail, and a walk-through of what happened to me, quickly shifting to an introduction to what's been happening across the platform over the past months.

That post was quickly up to dozens of comments, and over $200 in payout.

It was just as quickly zeroed out by 1 person.

Here's where it stands currently:



Countering Non-Factual Claims - Making an Actual Argument

One of the most common excuses for this malicious downvoting that has been offered is because we're just a bunch of conspiracy theorists, or as king acidyo himself put it posting controversial no fact "truths"

Of course, none of these posts that are being downvoted have a single comment or response post attempting to challenge or refute a single claim being made, or any of the sources... Go ahead and check my posts that have been attacked, or those of jasonliberty, or ura-soul, or many others.

Just censorship. Without explanation or justification.

Sounds kind of like Facebook or Twitter, eh?

So, that first part of the post was something of an introduction to acidyo, and anyone else who doesn't know me - because his comments made it clear that he's never glanced at my content, and has literally no idea the ways I've been involved here.

Now, the rest of this post will be dedicated to sharing some of the conspiracy theories and outrageous, non-factual claims that acidyo has been making about me, and others, in the comments of my recent posts - with nice clear responses for him, and everyone else.

Since we've got this pile of comment threads where he throws accusations, ad hominems, and disrespect at me while ignoring my responses, or the reality that is available to the public, on the chain, we might as well explore and address, no?



Your Posts Get No Interaction!

One of acidyo's assertions today was that my content doesn't get any interaction, except for when I make a post about how they are maliciously down-voting people.

  • First, if that is the case that should tell you something about how much the community cares about this problem.
  • Secondly, I challenge his statement, for which no evidence was provided.

While yes, my most recent post about this downvoting problem does have WAY more comments than I usually get, I assert that his statements are blown out of proportion, in order to mislead the readers.

The following is simply a collection of my little vote-payout-comment things from all my posts in the last 30 days, with the top one being the aforementioned outlier post.

Let the data speak for itself, eh?

That's 22 posts.

Six of those posts have 5 or less comments.

Twelve of those posts have 10 or more comments.

Question to the audience #2: Are there "never comments" on my posts?



You're Just In It For The Rewards!

Another assertion that acidyo made about me today was that I'm just in Hive for the rewards, and that I'm a parasite on the system. Again, nothing has been given to back this claim, and it came in along with strings of childish verbal abuse.

Now, at the time, I had already explained some of my practices to reduce my impact on the rewards pool to him in this comment, a reply to his claims about me taking advantage of self-voting (another claim we'll address shortly.

As I explained to him, I post less, intentionally, when prices go up, and I've posted consistently when I got $2 posts, $100 posts, and everywhere in between.

All of my claims here, as well as acidyo's are can be checked on the blockchain, by checking out the history on my accounts and/or using one of the block explorers like hiveblocks.com

I've also provided links to various things above that clearly counter his assertion, in my introduction portion.

Question to the audience #3: Am I just in it for the rewards?


Bonus Question: How much more or less successful do you think Hive/Steem would be than it is now, if it had never had financial rewards as an incentive for content creators?



You Just Vote For Yourself With Delegated Stake!

Acidyo's next assertion, and the last one I'm going to cover in this post, is that I just have a bunch of delegated stake, and I use it for nothing but up-voting myself.

Now, this one is a bit trickier to present evidence for (at my level of tech expertise and time availability) because we no longer have steemworld, and the replacement (hivetasks) never seems to work for me, so I don't have any easy way to present vote distribution charts like I used to.

I'm sure someone else can find an easy way to present that data.

I can guarantee you that I receive well under 1% of the total vote-weight given by @tribesteemup - regardless of how long of a time frame you want to look at. I don't have a chart, but I know it to be a fact, and anyone can attempt to disprove me by checking the records, if they so choose.

For now, I'll present the top upvoters from my last handful of posts. The two that were zero'd out will be separate at the bottom, because I did upvote them much more with @tribesteemup to fight the censorship attempt, as I laid out in my recent TSU update.

Now, as promised, the two recent posts where I did give myself 100% upvotes from @tribesteemup - just like I have been for all the other wrongfully zero'd out posts that I find.

Obviously this is just a small sampling, and real due diligence would require y'all to do your own research into this (and I'll pay someone to! Scroll down just a bit more), but I'm going to do it anyway, to stay on theme...

Question to the audience #4: Do I just up-vote myself?



Bonus QUEST for the audience

I'll pay 10 Hive to the first person who can give us an visual breakdown of the incoming votes (by weight) on this account, as well as the outgoing accounts from @tribesteemup, where the delegated stake that has been entrusted to me lies. The farther back, the better. Thanks in advance!



Closing Thoughts

Don't worry, I didn't forget about the other malicious downvoters, like azircon, ocdb, altleft, smooth (and the aforementioned acidyo & curangel)

It's just that ocdb & curangel are "groups" that will never comment or respond to anything, smooth has remained relatively silent and has only downvoted content about downvoting, and azircon is already threatening people on the chain - so no need for me to address them.

Acidyo, however, came in acting like he was the mature, non-biased, righteous savior... and quickly went off the rails name-calling, wild conspiracy theories, and stating obvious lies as though they were fact (much of that being about who I am and how I live - hence the intro.)

I do recommend everyone go read through the comments on my last post if you've got the time. Very informative, in many many ways, and lots of great thoughts on the state of Hive, from two of the downvoters, and dozens of other users.

I've got just one or two more of these posts swirling around in my head - breaking down potential solutions & alternatives to the clusterf%@k of Hive, addressing the total lack of willingness to debate shown by that side of the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum, and how all this mess on hive is .



How Long After Posting Before They Zero This One Out?

I figure they're going to dog-pile on this one within minutes again, even though I'm not getting any rewards. Then I'll burn Hive to promote it up onto trending again.

Because I'm the one who just cares rewards, right King Acidyo?



Image Sources

The bullshit-meter portion of the cover image was taken from this page on thepointmag.com - came up in a PREsearch for bullshit.

Divider image available free from of @rqr4 - had to use something because the basic markdown dividers were just hideous.



Quick Edit

I just totally forgot to drop the screenshot of the part where acid revealed that all of the "controversial" content creators on Hive are just one person!

This is where the "conspiratorial" part of the sub-title came from - just too good to pass up.

Oh, and look, his basis for his conspiracy theory?

The claim that my posts get no interaction, which we already addressed above.

Thanks for tuning in, and TTFN!


Since I had to edit the post a couple times, I removed all of the tags and replaced them with links to people's blogs.



Sort:  

I'm perplexed that none of these low value make-up nor elementary school level crafts trending posts don't get downvoted to remove at least half of their earnings. They increased exponentially to spam level, because they've become an easy way to game the rewards.

That being said, the Abundance.Tribe and formerly NaturalMedicine are two communities who are responsible for a good amount of retention on Hive. While I understand where Acidyo is coming from I don't agree that this conversation hurts Hive.

On the contrary, free speech requires you accept the speech you disagree with or are even appalled by. The problem is autovoting, which has destroyed interaction, because it took the need to scroll and read content to assess the quality out of the equation.

This splinters the platform and separates everyone further into tribes. Because of this, no one sees what happens outside their own. They stay in these tribes, partly for the interaction, but mostly for rewards. Proof of this was the attempt by acidyo to push others into the more niche communities, yet users keep using his, because they feel there's better discovery for 'THEM' there.

Same with Gems. I've watched users use NaturalMedicine and Abundance.Tribe earning more than they deserve, but end up posting to Gems for the larger votes on lower quality content. I believe this happens, because we are inherently selfish. On top of that, too many are overlooking the real problem; high stakes not curating quality content.

Part of it is fear of retribution. Another part is complacency, because votes are limited. I think cleaning up the trending feed as a whole is a better solution than targeting a minuscule topic range. Allowing the seemingly negative or even damaging topics to live alongside the positive is necessary to show free speech does exist here.

This whole thing that only the positive should shine through is not realistic nor representative of the real world. I think the Abundance.Tribe is guilty of this as well. I forget which pillar it is or the exact words, but requiring nonconfrontational speech is not healthy nor free speech.

My words are my responsibility, but your reaction is yours. I had a problem with this one pillar since day one, but figured I'd see how far you guys considered it as necessary. It turns out it's pretty important to enough of you that have power it became a problem for me and it hinders free speech by putting the blame of another's reaction on the messenger, rather than where the blame truly lies. This is in opposition to common sense, responsibility and Anarchist philosophy itself.

That being said, I hope you stay kenny, because if it isn't about rewards, then the downvotes won't matter and you'll carry on and keep the conversation going. I look forward to your suggestions. I myself think changing how staking works here is the only solution, but it seems most don't want to lose that power they bought in many cases. Power should never be for sale...

P.S.- if it isn't about rewards, you should have never mentioned that you worry about those who use this as their sole income. This isn't supposed to be a welfare system, UBI nor the only way to earn an income. First off that's socialism, which is in opposition to Anarchy. Second it stifles the growth of those receiving it without question. While they may be creating quality content, they aren't earning new skills to get them by when/if these earnings are affected... This was never meant to be nor should be anyone's sole income.

"Power should never be for sale..."

That's all DPoS is.

100% upvote, DPOS is power for sale.

Nailed it.

Justin Sun came in and paid for power, boom he took control and has the power.

Someone could do the same to Hive.

It is ongoing on Hive, as it was on Steem. @ned no longer is part of that oligarchy, and Sun Yuchen may not be, but an oligarchy wields power on Hive, just as it did on Steem.

Stake Holder Economics have Pros and Cons. Alpha is who can ally himself in smart ways, that's how it's done between Chimps in the jungle and also on DPoS Blockchains by humans.

Don’t expect anything else, srsl don’t.

You might be surprised to know that Hive tokens are a form of speech. Speech censored could include our tokens, if we're not quite robust about protecting our speech.

I consider my tokens the least important form of speech, perhaps because I pay far more attention to my words than I do my tokens.

But here, or elsewhere, I'll not be ruled by force. Pandering to power is not sovereignty, and I will expect better, because if we don't do better than that Hive will never have the ability to distribute the means of production it was meant to, and something else that can will replace it, because the market will act to secure independent means of wealth whenever possible, and the technology to make it possible exists.

If Hive has tricked us into thinking we could get it here, and we can't, Hive is doomed to failure, and something else is going to eat the market it could have had.

That's not wrong, but #HIVE is also one of the best ecosystems to start this 'new' rather layer2 system.

Whenever you think this is the ONE - you've basically already lost the plot. It's amazing to me how people can watch "The Matrix" and don't see the ultimate lesson behind it. Every system will eat itself from inside, it's just a matter of time. We need to embrace change and invest in what will disrupt us eventually.

So yes I think you are right, but your fast with your conclusion may be too fast.

I see the value in Dpos if implemented right. Stake is valuable and there should be perks for hodling, but it doesn't need to give one more power than another in governance, for example. I don't think it needs to be done away with, but think it could use a restructuring.

The problem is, those who get to make the decision to do so are unlikely to give up that power. None of the forks(alternatives using the exact first layer) have addressed this, so I don't see them as an answer to much.

Loading...

It's pretty simple really. If you want to remove stakeholder votes from rewards, then remove stakeholders as the ones paying the rewards from inflation. Create a new system with rewards paid for and controlled by a subcommunity with different allocation rules, or rewards coming from ad revenue and allocated in some other way, or something else.

I don't think it is necessary for DPoS to involve rewards at all. The social posting and rewarding system just happens to be an app that was built on the chain, but it's not the only way, and not part of DPoS itself.

I think only people who secure the network should even be rewarded with Hive. 2nd layer solutions that are out now easily can reward people in specific tokens for a community.

Fine with me. The social app is basically an app. It happened to be built into the blockchain, but from a software design or blockchain consensus point of view there really isn't any reason for it. The model of "smart contract" used in Bitshares (predecessor of Steem, predecessor of Hive) was code included in the core blockchain consensus code itself, but the world has moved on and that's not really seen as ideal at this point. The social app should probably be second layer, yes.

So stakeholders are paying inflation that they have not earned or received yet, but post author and voter rewards aren't theirs until the receive them?

Rules for thee but not for me.

Stakeholders are paying for inflation every single block no matter what they do, because they are the ones being inflated. If you show up looking for rewards with low or no stake, inflation doesn't cost you anything. And that's perfectly okay, the system is designed to potentially reward you, and maybe you will get some rewards, but you're not entitled to them nor entitled to much of a say over who gets them.

Stakeholders can't avoid being inflated (well, at least not without a hard fork), but they can and do have a say (in proportion to their stake, i.e. contribution to the cost of inflation) over what that inflation is used for.

That means, if I understand it correctly, that those who are squinting at their payouts here are stupid enough to believe what it says on the box? Well, insofar as I myself trust the advertising that is made for a product, I haven't learned very much in life, have I?

However, shouldn't it then rain downvotes for postings that do marketing and have catchwords on their packaging that suggest something on the social app that can't really be adhered to there, because the actors suggest to the curious customer that he can find a livelihood here? In any case, I see the upvotes fluttering in everywhere in praise of these "unimagined possibilities". Consequently, you should basically take the wind out of the sails of such postings too, because they suggest something that goes against the purely rational principle of block building.

If you took away the social app altogether, what would be left? A pure cryptocurrency that wants to experience being traded and financial transactions without banks as intermediaries in between? But where is Hive traded? Not on binance and kraken, as far as I know. As we are experiencing, anonymous transactions are not tolerated or crypto trading platforms are pulling out of it, or am I seeing this wrong? I am not a pro at all of this.

A cynic might say that it is these hopefuls who take the advertising for granted and spread enthusiasm that basically ensure that their own illusion is maintained. The emotionless calculating stakeholder who is in charge here can be quite happy with that, can't he?

If I understand Hive as a casino (which I think, comes closest to what it is), where I play with chips, wouldn't it be the case that I also want to exchange these chips at some point?
Why then all the fuss about social engagement, as read above? Why the mantra of "holding"? Why is it that individual bloggers are expected to engage in their comment sections? Things are being mixed up here that seem to contradict each other.

The jester would probably laugh and say, "Well, we never said you couldn't make a living on Hive, however, we don't rule out that possibility either."

That's basically a form of promise without a promise. It can be done, of course, and we see it being done. Looking at it that way, one could interject that those who believe the advertisements are also the ones doing the advertising. Advertising is always tied to the emotional sensations people experience through it. To that extent, I could dismiss it as romantic nonsense. But still give my thumbs up - lol

You just can't say that too loudly, because then you'd probably be stoned from all sides, both by the hopeful bloggers and by those who are in charge here, because it just doesn't play well, does it?

I don't worry in that respect, I do not put my woe and well to this place, for the better wisdom. With my acquired stake I can, as they say, do what I want, can't I?

Loading...

I think we are in the wrong business, making posts about food recipes, travel posts, and photo challenge posts seems to be the way to go. If we were truly about getting rewards all of us would be doing what gets upvoted on trending instead of writing political posts.

I think we are in the wrong business, making posts about food recipes, travel posts, and photo challenge posts seems to be the way to go.

Ahem,... eerm..... I think you forgot to include "makeup posts" in that sentence!

Yeah! definitely we serious wizards are indeed in the wrong business to be seriously rewarded.

That's a very fair point. 😁

I'm perplexed that none of these low value make-up nor elementary school level crafts trending posts don't get downvoted to remove at least half of their earnings. They increased exponentially to spam level, because they've become an easy way to game the rewards.

I agree and I do when I notice them. Usually by only a portion because I don't think I should be the only one making these adjustments. Sometimes others do too, just not that often.

It is the nature of the system that downvotes aren't incentivized in any way, so for the most part nobody is going to put a lot of time into it. If we happen to see stuff, we might downvote it, otherwise not.

It is the nature of the system that downvotes aren't incentivized in any way

Except that they shift those rewards that are being removed right up to the top-earning posts, correct?

Or is that just an untrue thing that lots of people on here say? I haven't seen a technical breakdown of that, and can't read the code myself - but I've seen many folks explain it this way, and never seen anyone correcting them.

Except that they shift those rewards that are being removed right up to the top-earning posts, correct?

No, they don't. They reduce the eventual payout of the one post which results in more remaining in the pool. That larger pool then results in marginally higher payouts of other posts.

Ah. Thank you for clarifying that.

To dive deeper then...

If we say (just for me to understand) that the top 100 posts have a 80% of the rewards that have been voted out at that time, those 100 posts would also get 80% of the rewards removed from the down-voted post?

Feel free to shoot me a link or tell me to go find it if this is already laid out very clearly somewhere.

It doesn't change the distribution of other rewards, it mostly just increases all of them by a certain percentage. So if the top 100 got 80% before, the top 100 would get 80% after. Both top 100 and outside the top 100 would increase by X% (X% is very small for any single downvote of course, let's say 0.01% hypothetically).

You could have just said yes.

The Reward Pool is a somewhat static piece which gets distributed across all votes of a period of time. You can't expand or reduce it by voting habits.

Correct, by the voting habits (specifically of whales) do decide where those rewards get allocated.

For example, if they downvote a $300 post to $0 - that $300 is added back into the rewards pool, where it will mostly be awarded to the top posts at the time.

Sounds fair and it's nice to see I'm not the only one bothered by this.

Usually by only a portion because I don't think I should be the only one making these adjustments.

This kind of behavior earns my respect and won't likely scare many people off chain. That's wielding power responsibly. If it weren't for one or two people getting off on their ability to singlehandedly destroy a post (often for arbitrary reasons), I don't think downvotes would be a big problem. As it is though, one or two bullies have the potential to scare a lot of users away, and more users means more projects will want to build on Hive and more investment with it.

We have downvotes as a check on abusive upvotes, wouldn't it make sense to have some kind of check on abusive downvotes?

Also, It sounds like you don't like having rewards for content on the first layer. Is that a popular opinion among the devs and other large stakeholders you talk to? If so then why wasn't it removed earlier to avoid confusion?

We have downvotes as a check on abusive upvotes, wouldn't it make sense to have some kind of check on abusive downvotes?

They're not equivalent. Upvotes earn rewards and generate payouts, downvotes don't. The sort of abuses are different and while downvote abuse may be annoying to an individual, it isn't systemic. The 25% limit on downvotes (essentially 2.5 full power downvotes per day) means that there are always many payouts escaping downvotes (or at least not being downvoted very much), no matter how much havoc someone wants to cause.

sounds like you don't like having rewards for content on the first layer. Is that a popular opinion among the devs and other large stakeholders you talk to

It is somewhat mixed but very few actually think it is working well, or has ever worked well going on six years.

If so then why wasn't it removed earlier to avoid confusion?

In part because it is a significant task and there have been other priorities, including building out software infrastructure that would make second layer solutions more powerful and accessible. There isn't much support for removing it without better support for alternatives.

Loading...

It is quite clear that the maggots feeding on the corpse of free speech are violently opposed to sharing the sustenance with anyone else. Censorship has eaten forthright speech across the web, and continues to get worse, as now the UN undertakes to block DNS resolution of private sites that do not parrot the oligarchs' propaganda.

The blatant censorship will continue, and I am confident that Hive will be no different than other communities, nations, and sites controlled by oligarchs dedicated only to their own aggrandizement, until that unfortunate day when such minor powers find they are just chattel, their supposed fortunes are null and void, and they are just as subject to the CBDC, social credit algorithms, and vaxpass as those they have always considered their prey.

I would rejoice at their comeuppance, but it will come long after we mere plebs have been silenced across the world, even though Hive may be one of the last bastions of free speech, and that only if you do not care a fig for money, as I do not. Neither tokens, nor fiat, inspire me to work, but the goodwill of my community, the benefit of my neighbors, and the truth of my convictions alone stir my efforts, which I dedicate to my good people and their survival in the ongoing unrestricted war killing people today across the world.

In the full scheme of things Hive is a minor loss, a tiny voice crying out in a censored wilderness, but it had the potential to be more, and my grief at it's final passing will be profound.

I urge you to spend your fiat and tokens on good people while you may, that the goodwill of your neighbors and community might sustain you when the hot war begins. It is goodwil that alone will be useful currency soon, and crypto, fiat, and even shiny rocks will be censored, withheld, or prevented from being of use by oligarchs that must force CBDC alone to be transactable in the world they seek to create in which we are all enslaved to algorithms through the vaxpass.

Seize means of production that can enable you to provide what is essential to you and your community in that coming pogrom. Grow food, produce power, and manufacture goods and services that lacking will be used as weapons to starve you and yours into submission. Have faith in the life we are all part of, that we will prevail over those that seek to destroy life itself and subjugate it to machines and a simulacrum of undeath.

It's much worse than we can imagine. Our enemies are evil itself.

When we prevail, the paradise that follows will prove every sacrifice will have been worth every tear, all the sweat, and every drop of blood our wounds have shed.

Thanks!

Well said my friend.

That's all nice said and stuff but you realize that if you are what you say in this comment you're the absolute opposite of OP, he's the quickest to turn against the platform in the face of a few downvotes I've ever witnessed. I honestly wonder how gullible some of you are, not you directly but many of you. Or you just don't care cause you're in the same circle of being fed the same votes from OP through various accounts. Oh the freedom Hive gives people, for better or worse.

you're the absolute opposite of OP, he's the quickest to turn against the platform in the face of a few downvotes I've ever witnessed.

Again, I'm not turning against this platform, I'm just exhausted trying to win it back from authoritarian censors, and tired of not calling it out as loudly as I can (because I was worried about getting zero-repped out by y'all - but I'm not anymore)

As I've also made clear dozens of times (from the very first posts I've made about downvoting until now), yet you refuse to understand, this is about the broad-sweeping problem of centralized control on Hive, by a small handful of people, who like to censor content that causes them cognitive dissonance, and people they don't like.

I am just what I am. My wallet is public and I have never once sold tokens for fiat.

@kennyskitchen has undertaken to promote this community and has built his following by that sweat and effort. Now you and others seek the HP he has accumulated thereby and use flags to prevent that HP from being useful to him. You continue to purge the voices you disagree with for fun and profit, deprecating Hive all the way to the bank. You are actually selling free speech for tokens by that mechanism, and it is free speech that is Hive's source of value, not it's token.

I do not accede to your characterization of your implementation of censorship as 'just a few downvotes'. I have seen dozens of high quality content creators driven from the platform by you and the censorship of free speech you and your ilk undertake.

Thousands of Christians have just been removed from Twatter. Gab is absorbing them. Why isn't Hive?

Because you make Hive no better than Twatter.

Had you and other oligarchs on Hive actually decentralized HP, rather than centralize that power in your wallets, Ned could have never destroyed Steem, and it could have actually become able to prevent being turned off by the UN, as is coming soon.

You didn't, and you will be judged as you have judged others.

Thank you for the courtesy of your reply, but unless you're going to substantively address the underlying problem of centralization of HP, please just ignore me instead. We'll both be happier, and be able to do things that actually matter with the time saved.

Why support this medium at all if your posts can just be downvoted to nothingness? I thought this place was decentralized from authority and there was no censorship but it doesn't appear that way.
Is there no honest place to communicate anymore? How will our species ever find our way if we can't talk to each other?
This is identical to gov overreach telling others what's valuable and what's not. Damn, so disappointed.

It's not censorship. Post all you want. You're just not entitled to get paid for it if stakeholders vote not to pay you.

Sounds like you're describing a slave / master relationship ... like it's okay or something.

Hardly. It's rewards you may get or may not get. There's no coercion involved whatsoever.

Flags are censorship, and that is why they exist per the White Paper. You and others simply refuse to use the accepted definition of censorship, as if that actually matters.

It doesn't, because we live in reality, and flagging content suppresses it, which is why you do it. You do so predatorily, profiting from deprecating Hive and it's primary value of free speech.

Economic stress is a substantial source of psychological stress, and psychological stress is the leading indicator of life expectancy. It is false to claim that manipulating Hive's economy is not coercive.

https://odysee.com/@lancewdetrick:b/IA---Denis-Rancourt-on-there-being-no-evidence-of-a-pandemic---Jerm-Warfare:2

Your lack of philanthropy will be your undoing. It is the very wealth you have accumulated that deprives you of your ability to adapt and sustain the civil society on which you are utterly dependent, and current geopolitical conditions strongly indicate that the time that inability will become of existential import is either presently, or soon.

How will you feel when your tokens evaporate before your eyes, and you realize that if you had strengthened the community instead you'd have goodwill to depend on instead of your worthless stacks of tokens?

I know how desperation feels, because I experienced it when Citi stole my property. Your solvency depends on the UN continuing to allow Hive and exchanges to be resolved by DNS, and the UN has begun taking sites down it does not want online.

I suspect this is goodbye, because I don't think Hive and cryptocurrency exchanges will long survive the introduction of CBDCs, and that has already begun.

Good bye @smooth.

It's tyranny whatever you want to call it. This platform should change its profile in order to be completely honest.

And be sure to include the fact that what your content is worth will be decided by a centralized authority, not by the market,

Why belong to anything that puts you at the mercy of some insane authority? @kennyskitchen , @tlavagabond and god knows who else has added no value as decided by some tyrannical authority is ludicrous. Blunt truth.

Sure, you can say whatever you want but you won't get paid if it doesn't meet with the central authorities approval.

Need any help with that new profile? I could post it on youtube for you. Just trying to help.

I have an idea. Just admit "you" were wrong and change things around in the interest of good will and freedom. Naw, tyrants never have good will.

The more "you" try to sell it, the more irritated it makes me.

So, when one stakeholder pays for a post with an upvote (they way y'all have been describing this - stakeholders PAYING for the content rewards), and another stakeholder comes along and deletes those rewards (for author & curator), how are they not stealing funds - from the stakeholder at least, if not the author?

To be fair, 4 stakeholders isn't the will of Hive..

There are a lot more than 4 stakeholders.

Exactly!

The definition of censorship != "deleted", it actually = suppression.

https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

I'm not sure how after being here all these years you didn't know that.

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

Rewards are not imposing beliefs. They're a reward. You're entitled to submit a candidate to get rewards, and may get some, but you aren't entitled to them, and not getting them or getting less isn't "imposing" nor "censorship".

If you don't agree with the terminology, fine, but you're still not going to be entitled to an "uncensored" flow of whatever rewards you want.

The concept of a "reward" needs to be reexamined. Rewards aren't given and then taken away in real life that I've heard of, so the naming nomenclature for what is called "reward" is the wrong word to begin with.

An upvote isn't a reward, it's someone assigning someone else system resources(though why that is done at all still doesn't make sense either). Taking away that assignment of resources via downvoting is taking away someone's potential for earning that system resource. Whether or not it is built into the protocol isn't relevant.

The definition of censorship I provided above.

The definition of Curation is to put on display, to discern and create a list/public work that is on display, or to prominently put on display for others to see. Downvoting removes that to a certain %, so it is the opposite of curating and that means downvoting is suppressing something(censorship).

I'm disagreeing with the incorrect use of terminology that is being used across Hive, I am using historical definitions. Hive has censorship built into the protocol and it's called downvoting, to the degree that happens depends on if a post is lessened somewhat, a lot, a little, or zeroed out. For some reason people equate censorship = deleted, and that's just simply not the case.

As I mentioned before, I think downvoting someone because of an opposing viewpoint is just uncalled for and the antithesis of a decentralized platform like Hive. If someone disagrees, put it in a comment or make another post and have a real debate.

Honestly, Kenny and I have completely opposite views on a lot of things, but not once have either one of us taken it out on the other, called each other names, insulted the beliefs of the other, etc. We have a common interest in Splinterlands and the HivePizza community and have been working toward the same goal of bringing more and more people into both communities. I love how Kenny has brought more awareness to Hive and Splinterlands and his work to further the reach of both is admirable and should be rewarded, not penalized.

The other issue of "downvoting due to disagreement on rewards" is a tricky path to go down. Why should a few highly powered up accounts dictate what is or isn't a proper award for a post? As many have mentioned, the trending list is full of basic food or nature pictures getting $200-400 rewards and I don't see any of the usual suspects downvoting them into oblivion.

Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is the "quality" of a piece of written work on Hive but, in the current system, whales can decide unilaterally if something is "worthy" or not and shoot it off the trending list with a single downvote. The downvote is seemingly meant to "protect" from inflation (according to the whales), but they should not be the sole arbiter of what post types should and shouldn't contribute to that inflation. They are effectively editors and Hive is just one big newspaper media company that they are running.

Kenny, I really hope you'll stick around and continue contributing.

Loading...

No name calling here but I don't support complaining about rewards and how people vote being rewarded. If you're going to do that and I see it, I'm likely to downvote it.

Never been downvoted but I care about the chain so I want to find a middle ground. @smooth You guys have done a great job at solving past issues with the chain, but this style of downvoting is eventually going to lead to a whole lot more drama. It's a leak in the ship that needs to be fixed somehow.

It's just a reminder of how much more power large stakeholders like yourself have and how little power the rest of us have (and a much more potent reminder than upvotes). I know it's getting better thanks to forks and that we want to incentivize people building bigger stakes but we need some more mechanisms to decentralize voting power and in the meantime, softer, more diplomatic downvoting, otherwise we will constantly leak support and energy.

We are doing our best but we are far from "Decentralized".

I shouldn't be scared of having all the support I've gained over 5 years erased by sharing this opinion with you right now. That's the main issue.

But I trust that you care about this ecosystem and so I risk it.

I'm not even into the whole truther community, but Kenny has done way more for the chain than he gets credit for (attracting a millionaire investor and a ton of users over the years, not to mention supporting a lot of good content, not only truther stuff, also the Cross Culture community that I run). I told him he should resist the accusations (even if he feels justified) and try to reason with you guys instead of rage quitting, but people get emotional when you hit them in the wallet.

A healthy ecosystem requires more complex solutions than "It's my stake, I can do what I want with it". If that was enough we wouldn't even need downvotes in the first place.

@azircon @curangel I'll risk getting on your bad sides too by tagging you, please consider being gentler with your downvotes, even when you hate the content. At the very least, explain yourself kindly and realize nuking peoples posts to 0 or near 0 feels like an attack and makes even those who you haven't targeted worry about what we can share and what we can't share. "Censorship-resistant" is nice but we want the place to feel fair and as decentralized as possible too.

If anyone decides to target me because I share an opinion like this and the community doesn't come to my rescue than this chain is not what I thought. I believe you will listen to reason, so I have to say something.

"I shouldn't be scared of having all the support I've gained over 5 years erased by sharing this opinion with you right now. That's the main issue."

This kind of perpetual fear should not exist. That kind of control is counterproductive to creativity and authenticity, and will yield sugar-coated and incomplete content. The original point of all this was that a post promoting Hive, from a studied and seasoned Hive/Steem user was downvoted to zero, and the main reason given for the downvotes was to correct excessive rewards. The rewards were not leveled in the described way, they were eliminated completely, and at a time where no counter votes could occur. There are 605 accounts that supported that post, and it only took 3 to erase the rewards entirely. Why was that valued at zero with that many votes? This is clearly an issue guys.

Kenny's 2 min Steem tips video series (along with his countless hours of in-person training) is the sole reason I ever understood or even discovered this blockchain in the first place. I know for a fact there are many others with the same story. I watched him give entire seminars to groups on many occasions.

I feel that I risk a lot to speak my mind on this - but I should not be made to feel at risk in a truly evolved form of governance. It is my sincere hope that I can continue to add value to this blockchain through my original art, music, projects, contests, promotion of other Hive projects, NFTs, blockchain gaming promotion, onboarding, and in general high caliber, concise, and comprehensive publications, and that I will continue to receive the loving support I have earned through my years of hard work, and I don't mean only votes/rewards. The strength of networking in this community is where I have always held the most value. Is there any way we can establish peace bredren? Coming to terms on something here would provide a shining example of how Hive members can work out their differences to achieve massive leaps forward in the evolution of the community and how it is continuously co-created.

We do not have to agree on everything to exist together - we only have to respect one another. If humanity could apply this as a species we could see an end to all wars. We can start that movement of energy right now, how do we want this story to go? Thank you to everyone who has poured their love, passion, and lifeforce into this ecosystem - no matter what side you fall on in this debate. Much love hive fam - love you brotha Kenny. Growth hardly ever comes without pain... if anyone knows that, its me. I just lost the love of my life, and all my hope now is to help make Hive the best blockchain possible - is there anyone here not on board with that? I am down to discuss practical and agreeable solutions, respectfully and peacefully. We are here for each other. Blessings.

Well @elamental and @selfhelp4trolls basically said all that I wanted to say. Especially when it comes to how much you have contributed to Hive Kenny. You have put so much time and energy into the platform and you are all about creating abundance for others.
Also you created Tribesteemup, which of course is now Abundance.Tribe as a means to support content that focused on many topics, not just free speech or Conspiracy Theories (as some like to call them), the list also includes Non-Violence, Philosophy, Veganism, Mindfulness, Community Empowerment, Love, Original Music, Esotericism, Healthy Recipes, Psychedelics and Permaculture, which is such a broad range of topics.
Diversity is so important within any community and being able to embrace that diversity is what really makes communities thrive.
I like to see Hive as one big community and for sure we don't all have to agree, but we should at least allow others to be heard, to share their truth, without fear of retribution.
However, If there is evidence of plagiarism for e.g, by all means then we should intervene.
I have a lot of love for the many wonderful people within this community and for all that I have learnt and continue to learn from being a part of it.
I do hope that the platform gets to reach it's potential xxx

We do not have to agree on everything to exist together - we only have to respect one another.

Amen

I think ppl misunderstand the difference between respect and courtesy. Respect is earned and courtesy is given, until it's not shown to be appropriate. Respect is too much to ask right from the start and courtesy must be the first act, but the other party must also show they deserve it going forward by their reaction. JS😁

No "disrespect" intended but the view you express sounds judgemental. So, you're not respectful of anyone until you're done judging them?

In Jamaica, it's quite common to get a fist bump from a complete stranger and the only word spoken is "respect". Why, what does that mean? It does not mean that the two individuals are going to agree on anything. It just means, to me, that there's respect for another's freedom and right to be an individual and the same is asked for in return.

Lots of ways to look at things, not saying right or wrong, just saying what's my way. So, are you saying that Kenny has done something that you disrespect him for? That's not been my experience.

... we maybe just disagree.. that's okay

There's a difference in respecting the rights of all and respecting individuals without knowing a thing about them. Regardless of the word they choose to use, I call this a courtesy.

What do courtesy and respect mean to you? Are they interchangeable or do they have distinctive meanings? Is your perspective derived from the current casual definition used today or the actual meanings, loosely or accurately?

Perspective means a lot subjectively, but it doesn't mean one's personal truth is well, truth. Also, judgement is the most important thing we have. Would you respect a murderer? How would you know whether or not he is one without getting to know them? How about a pedophile or rapist?

Is your default respect or courtesy and when do they end or become solidified?

I argue that respect can only be earned on an individual level, which is not equal to the level you used as an example here.

Thank you. Well said. I think there is a solution to this, but there has to be enough support from the people who develop stuff for it to actually become a topic of conversation again. The last two days I’ve been thinking about downvotes that cost money and hive proposal fund support for those who are looking out for spam (if they start downvoting for other reasons they lose they start behaving poorly we can fund different downvotes who look out for abuse.

Not sure how much this idea has been discussed

Such calm and reasonable words in this heated debate. So good to read, thank you! I agree whole-heartedly. I've been looking at @selfhelp4trolls posts and videos, liking them a lot, but this comment deserved a follow.

Thank you so much man. I will keep an eye out for your posts too

... and realize nuking peoples posts to 0 or near 0 feels like an attack and makes even those who you haven't targeted worry about what we can share and what we can't share.

It appears to me that that is exactly the intention.

... than this chain is not what I thought.

Don't think it is friend. My hope is that we shall see a workable facsimile emerge from ETH 2.0. Even the original creator of DPoS considered it a "experiment" which he chose to walk away from.

Dan walks away from everything.

I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt for now. They ignored me for a year over bidbots corruption and finally saw that it was a problem. Then they came up with a solution that I hated which turned out to be great for the chain. I think this is more of a problem of "how to organize society" (we are a little society), something which humans have struggled with forever. DPoS is imperfect, but so is everything else so far.

I know Acidyo to be a decent guy who cares about the chain, and I suspect a lot of people on both sides of every debate here are better than we imagine. But when you have power, you wanna use it, and we all only have so many hours in the day to understand each point of view. And most peoples accusations tend to turn into self fulfilling prophecies.

They haven't yet realized that the level of power they have is incompatible with the idea of decentralization. I think they will eventually. I'll stay here as long as I can find people who listen to reason, and I still can find many.

Good points, @selfhelp4trolls. It's the community that keeps bringing me back although convinced that this experiment is broken. It was doomed with the Ninja Mined Tokens. There was that brief chance of making the fork from STEEM meaningful by simply leaving them behind; yet like Frodo's ring it was too hard for our Champions to destroy. Instead they moved it to a slush fund which @gtg's Return Proposal #0 ensures that it will not be used on anything unless the HF 20 Cabal gives it's green light. It is my feeling that only by starting at the ground up will the goal of a fair self governance be put back on track. Fixing this incarnation of DPoS seems as monumental as taking the dysfunctional out of the US Congress. It would make me happy to be mistaken on this point however my years of monitoring those involved does not give me much confidence in it happening.

I am not sure if it’s broken or not. Part of me feels that all economies will always be fundamentally broken, or that we still have a very long way until we discover how to unbreak. I still feel this is better than the world economy and all its potential social media competitors, mostly because of the diversity, which is why I want to defend that diversity. The only groups I might not want to defend are groups that are undeniably racist or sexist or looking to cause harm to anyone.

I just try to be where there is innovation, decency and opportunities and Hive still checks those three boxes as far as I can see. There just seem to be a tiny handful of people who can make it a much less pleasant experience for people they don’t like or for arbitrary reasons and so I’d rather stay out of anything that might stir them unless I have a chance to convince my followers or one of the decent whales, and I think there are more decent whales than most victims have given hive credit for…more than the indecent ones. It’s not always easy to figure out which ones are which though because few of them are good communicators.

I shouldn't be scared of having all the support I've gained over 5 years erased by sharing this opinion with you right now. That's the main issue.

This is an incredibly powerful statement and I have to admit I feel the same way sometimes when speaking up. It's wrong and none of us should feel that way. This should be a place to share our ideas and opinions and have a respectful dialogue. Unfortunately, some of the heavyweights feel the need to throw their money around just like the big bullies threw their weight around on the playground in grade school.

I can only hope that your last paragraph holds true.

Thank you. I was quite impressed with myself as I was nervous about who it might stir, though I do think that if you speak with an understanding tone and stay calm and patient there are people who will come to your defense (including whales and devs) because they understand this is a healthy conversation to have and they don’t want their investment to go to shit. That’s why I am not too scared to share anything.

The only issue is that as soon as you’ve been targeted, you have to be more adult than the person who targeted you because otherwise they use your reaction as fuel to justify their actions. It’s not just a hive thing. It’s true of all people who get into heated debates on anything. The only difference here (and the reason I think we need to keep brainstorming solutions) is that the monetization of our behaviors makes power disparities more pronounced. It sucks that the one who is being bullied has to be the adult to have any impact on the situation.

It’s my experience that most of the larger stakeholders aren’t malicious at all, and they care about the chain. There may be an exception or two though…..

I think anyone who gives up is missing out. Even if your rewards go to shit, this place is a fascinating experiment and a great place to find passionate people and deep connections.

I will always stay for the people I meet here, and unless I find another place with no ceo or company that is as diverse and capable of evolving, I prefer Hive.

There were supposed to be two unique properties of STEEM/HIVE, and this was to make it both "smart" and "social." They were as follows: (a.) harnessing crowd wisdom and (b.) using that to distribute the token. They called this Proof-of-Brain. And unfortunately, because it's a dPoS system, Proof-of-Brain can never happen. You've been trying to force PoB to work all this time by adding downvotes in hopes that you can make the vision reality. I get it. In theory, it was perfect, but the truth is it doesn't and cannot work. You'd have to have one account per person, KYC, equal votes, and no automation or trails to make it work, and nobody wants any of that sheite. All of that said, when a small fraction of stakeholders, you and a small handful, when you can null the will of several hundred stakeholders, that's not going to make PoB work. All it does is disenchant people with the platform. I know you are smart, but I have to ask: When will we let this one go and implement something wiser than the failed PoB mechanism?

I completely agree. The rise of the bidbots merely expanded on autovoting, and the utter corruption of free speech oligarchical stakeholders wield on Hive is it's death knell.

They will rule over ashes one day.

Thanks!

I think bid bots have mostly been out of the picture since they jiggered with the system and taxed the content creators 25% in favor of giving those funds to content curators. That didn't change the fact that people act in self-interested ways, but it did change how they go about it. I'm hoping the oligarchical stakeholders will see that acting like dictators of what is acceptable is unacceptable in an age of censorship. The best I can do is appeal to their logic, like with the last comment and hope they see why it doesn't work.

Thanks, valued-customer!

They just moved to dlease.

I didn't name it "proof of brain" and the person who did is long gone, after doing a lot of damage before he left.

It's a nice idea, but the reality is that it is a stake-powered reward system. Stakeholders pay the rewards (through inflation), and if you want rewards you need to post things that a consensus of stakeholders (not just individual ones) want to reward.

It's not perfect, but it's what we have, and, perhaps with tweaks but certainly not KYC, is about the best you can do at the base level with a native permissionless blockchain platform.

Second layer tribes, etc. can do things a different way if they like, so there are other ways to socially earn rewards.

Yeah, I don't know who named it, but I think you spoke up in favor of the downvote regularization and had the final word on the GUI change that implemented it. And that was based on how you interpreted either the white or blue paper. Now, if the downvotes somehow magically helped to tap into crowd wisdom, I could see a point to it, but they don't. Anyhow, when one realizes that Proof-of-Brain isn't smart at all, the downvotes, outside of a limited spectrum of use cases, cause more harm to author morale and the platform than they do help. And This is especially the case when one to three actors can null the will of hundreds of stakeholders. It applies whether they are on a voting trail or not because if they are on a voting trail, it's an intentional act to see that rewards go to specific content. Healthy markets function by consumers supporting things they like. Without crowd wisdom and outside a very narrow band of use cases, flags (or downvotes) are on a par with Molotov cocktails getting thrown through plate glass windows. Nothing good comes from it unless you subscribe to the broken window fallacy.


Addendum:


Interesting moments in Steem's history: The GUI was changed to reflect the idea that the whitepaper explicitly condoned downvotes when @smooth said: "Reducing subjectively excessive payouts is a valid reason for downvoting/flagging" However, when the whitepaper speaks to negative voting, it only says that it is possible, it does not say that it is "VALID." Much like in real life: I can kill a man, I can steal his lunch, I can burn his business down to the ground. The law of the concrete jungle allows for all of these things, but it doesn't mean that one should do them. This post is a prime example, it has the goodwill of 388 stakeholders behind it, and all it took was for your will to censor its rewards. Is this the HIVE that you want? Where the guy with the most stake can say: NO REWARDS FOR YOU!

^That can't possibly be the desired atmosphere you want, can it?

And that was based on how you interpreted either the white or blue paper

Not especially, but I might have referenced it. Most of what I say is based on my own thought process. If I didn't think the white paper made sense I would say so, and have.

This is especially the case when one to three actors can null the will of hundreds of stakeholders

Oh it works the same way for upvotes and nobody (mostly) complains. Hundreds of stakeholdres might see something and decide it is crap, and then one or two whales decide to upvote it. In MOST cases being discussed, the bulk of the rewards being offset by downvotes come from a small number of large upvotes too. It's a stake weighted system, both on the upside and downside. The people with the investment (and getting inflated) get to decide where the rewards go and don't go, according to the size of their investment (and cost of being inflated).

One more thing. If smaller stakeholders wanted to have more influence, one way to do that is to start downvoting more. When you don't use your downvotes, you are taking 20% of your influence over where rewards go and throwing it in the trash. The main reason there are only a small number of downvotes in most cases is because they don't.

And what do we do if we want to downvote a large stakeholder (or delegated account) but fear retribution where they start downvoting all our posts to hell just for thinking of downvoting them? I'm not saying you or acid would do that but I can think of 2 or 3 people, probably the ones I'd be more likely to downvote....

That only happens because of too few downvotes. If there are 50 people or 500 people downvoting, they're not going to retaliate against all of them.

Alternately, smaller stakeholders can stick with downvoting smaller stakeholders (when appropriate). Leave it to the larger stakeholders to downvote the other larger stakeholders. But at least by downvoting something you are maximizing your influence instead of throwing away 20% of it.

Healthy markets function by consumers supporting things they like.

This isn't that sort of market. You're getting influence over inflation that doesn't come from your own stake, it comes from all stake. You're not a "consumer", you're a participant in shared decision making.

For this to make economic sense it has to also benefit all stake. If the other stakeholders don't agree that what is being paid out benefits them, you can't have unilateral decision making over that shared resource.

You CAN certainly support what you want as a consumer with your own money. That works just like any market and can't be downvoted.

However, when the whitepaper speaks to negative voting, it only says that it is possible, it does not say that it is "VALID."

It says more than possible. It also explains why it is needed: For significant cases where rewards do not add (enough) value, while also noting that not every single little instance needs to be stopped (which I agree with).

Also, it kind of matters that the original system had superlinear rewards. You needed to get a LOT of stake voting in order to get significant rewards. A small amount of staking trying to vote where others don't agree would accomplish nothing (tiny or no payout). That had good and bad elements. When we eliminated, downvoting became more important, not less, because individual upvotes were then able to pay out significantly without any sort of stake consensus.

"This isn't that sort of market. You're getting influence over inflation that doesn't come from your own stake, it comes from all stake. You're not a "consumer", you're a participant in shared decision making."

Right. I think you are speaking to consensus-of-stake. The problem with that is there's no merit, nor rhyme, or reason behind it. There is no wisdom behind it, not when one can null the will of the many. When you abuse the downvote function as you did on this post, all your doing is battling other stakeholders for no good reason. It's a major turn-off for any would-be investors, and it's damn near impossible to rewire people to think that it's well and good. Those kinds of mind tricks only work on the weak-minded. Additionally, the optics from a PR standpoint are terrible. When you have chain dictators who police content why bother opting in when Twatter, Fakespace, and Bootube can give you the same unbellyfeel that you get here. Hell, when fakespace gets their Diem rolled out, what'll be the difference? You can get demonetized over there for your opinions or demonetized here. And over there, there might be a bigger audience.

Fakespace with Diem won't reward you for posting, at least not to anywhere near the degree that happens here. That's the difference. You want stakeholders to pay you, stakeholders are going to decide if and when doing so is useful to stakeholders, both large and small ones, but mostly (for BOTH up and down votes) large.

No one is policing content either. It's rewards. Post whatever you like, as long as it isn't child porn or whatever where the UIs block it. If you get no rewards, then you don't. You still get to post.

For significant cases where rewards do not add (enough) value ...

I think here you are leaving the space where you are objectively trying to achieve something that cannot be objectified. The vocal criticism of those who complain about downvotes is a value that can be called the value of "conflict in existence".

If you were a cool rational being here, you could probably readily agree that the presence of conflict makes a great value contribution in the social space of communication. I usually compartmentalise my subjective judgement of what I consider not worthy of approval in such postings (complaining, bruised egos etc.). I can abstain from any vote, but simply comment.

But I see the overriding potential of such postings precisely in the fact that, as a rule, the engagement of the comments that then start are quite passable: To see conflicting views being debated with each other. This form of engagement can hardly be found anywhere else. I think that can be readily admitted.

Now, one can say pejoratively that no one needs such a thing when it comes to advancing the cause and would probably meet with approval, but just not totally. Those who open the barrel and criticise loudly may not be totally right, but they are not totally wrong either. On another level, however, I would argue that the obviousness of conflict in the public sphere deserves as much of a presence as the obviousness of non-conflict, triviality and superficiality.

I would find it a nice surprise to see such gouged by the usual downvoters, just as it would be surprising to see the usual upvoters criticise it.

However, as long as one pretends that there are two firm fronts and neither individual is willing to admit that he is nevertheless on both fronts, the demand for proof of the other's probity is rather hypocritical insofar as one's own probity cannot be clearly proven. Since neither can be proven nor not proven, the impulses to try to do so nevertheless have a rather paradoxical character. My interpretation of "What is of value?" would consider the naming of this paradox as valuable.

I didn't entirely understand that, but I do agree that in cold rational terms, conflict can have value to social media. Many people would consider that a problem, but it is what it is.

And I will join smooth in that. As this post and previous one not only complaining about rewards, tag spam and name calling. But it is also a massive $70 self vote after smooth DV on a post where rewards were liquid.

Is it tag spam if you only tag very specific people that you are actually talking to/about in the post?

I didn't make some giant list everyone who upvotes/downvotes/follows/etc like some people have.

Every account tagged is either a community I've supported over the years, someone already involved in the specific conversation at hand, and the one person whose divider images I used.

Truly the problem is in THEM...
the blockchain functions that way.

I don't support these GASLIGHTERs Kenny!
But I do Support YOU, often.

And if I see something I don't like? I typically move.on

HIVE!D

and watching with interest.

 3 years ago  Reveal Comment

Any potential tag spam has been removed - I changed them out with links to folks blogs instead, because a few small errors had been pointed out and I realized that my headings weren't showing up along the sidebar because I had them centered.

I appreciate that you don't name-call or make ridiculous claims, and I specifically mentioned that you've been pretty silent during this.

I don't support complaining about rewards and how people vote being rewarded.

Hey, rules of the game say it's your stake and you can do whatever you want with it right?

You'll notice that almost nothing in my post had anything to do with down-votes, but rather with lies being spread about me by a prominent member of this blockchain.

Yeah this is a bit much. In my years since the last chain with yall, I always saw you and acidyo as two of the most solid and influential people doing cool stuff. It sucks seeing a community that banned together and forked away from the 51% stake attack to have such division. I just had this happen with guy that is battling acid ironically enough trying to use my past comments and reblogging them in some attempt to use comment in his whale war. When asking about it on text he flipped out and acted like a whole diff person. like whoa. @peerplays man is a really cool thing. Right up your alley and no downvotes for using network that runs off the hive network. airdrops from staked hive if i am understanding properly.

It's because you made no sense and STILL don't...

"I just had this happen with guy that is battling acid ironically enough trying to use my past comments and reblogging them in some attempt to use comment in his whale war. When asking about it on text he flipped out and acted like a whole diff person."

I'll be happy to clear whatever this means up but you need to write it down for a Mature Adult like my LAWYER to figure out... otherwise YOU are part of THIS PROBLEM i'm afraid by Perpetrating RUMORS.

So for the FUCKING RECORD KID!

TO ALL WHO CARE:
I ABSOLVE @dynamichivers from ANY AND ALL ASSOCIATION WITH MY BRAND!

SO FUCKING SORRY IF HE WAS HARMED BY RETWEET, REBLOG, OR REBIRTH.

HE IS DEFINITELY NOT WITH ME!

~FRANK

Bukowski2.jpg

now lose my # and stop confusing the ISSUES!

AND RESPOND HERE!

if you HAVE to

Hey, rules of the game say it's your stake and you can do whatever you want with it right?

Exactly.

Post whatever you like. If you want rewards for it, post stuff where rewarding it is supported by most of the stake.

It's the community that keeps bringing me back although convinced that this experiment is broken. It was doomed with the Ninja Mined Tokens.

Holy shit!

There you go again smoooth. Dammit, just finish of growing a fucking mustache, travel to the past and learn to play the damn guitar once and for all you MoFo!

And yeah, I've read each one of the comments you've made in this post so far. But with as many misleading bullshit as you've stated, I wasn't going to bother pointing out or citing one in particular. Hence, this intensely expressive comment!

My answer to everyone who talking about how bad it is, how it is doomed, etc. is: What are you doing here?

If the answer is milking rewards, or looking to flip a 'doomed' token to a greater fool, then I don't care what you have to say. If it is something else, than what you're saying doesn't even make sense. It's just whinging about downvotes, and trying, badly, to make it looking like a sincere opinion. Again, not interested.

Loading...

Weren't you going to go and tell everyone not to join Hive?

I'll be keeping a closer eye at what tribesteemup starts overrewarding in the near future, cya around. :)

Weren't you going to go and tell everyone not to join Hive?

I have been telling plenty of people. Some want to try to "win Hive back" - not realizing how built-in these issues are. If it's not BS, it's Azir, or you, or whoever comes next.

Whale's gonna whale.

As long as the game is set up this way, this will happen.

On Hive, and in the world at large.

Profit before people, obedience and virtue signalling over questioning authority, and censorship of anyone who might put a wrench in things.

Authoritarians are always going to try to squash anyone who might question their rule.

I'll be keeping a closer eye at what tribesteemup starts overrewarding in the near future, cya around. :)

That's a nice way of saying that you'll start down-voting all sorts of people that I support because I'm calling you out, correct?

Just want to make sure, for the permanent record.

Well, at least you'll be checking out some content that challenges your world-views, and probably even see people peacefully disagreeing in the comments.

Could change your life.

Nah was insinuating you're just going to switch to another account after burning your reputation on your main one. Remember that sockpuppeting only requires one mistake.

I'm being open about what my plans are, and the support from TSU is going to continue as it has for the last few years.

Maybe if you read my post - an introduction of myself to you - then you'd stop responding to some imaginary version of me that doesn't exist.

Yeah cause that's how Hive works, if you "open" about aomething it means that's how it'll be ye? There's no way you can just shoot up a new or old account and vote it up with all thay stake in your control ye? I mean omg people wouldn't lie on the internet!!! and for money?? get outta here you!

Overrewarded comment, damn you're really good at using other people's stake willy-nilly all over this comment section and posts, huh? @kennyskitchen

Attempting to help more people see your threat, which you have now partially censored, once again proving the points being made.

No name calling here but I don't support complaining about rewards and how people vote being rewarded. If you're going to do that and I see it, I'm likely to downvote it.

I'm curious why you 100% down-voted this post, which is very much not about rewards or voting, and entirely focused on the libel being published by a top 20 witness.

It seems like this comment (which came well before your downvote) was proven false by that down-vote.

Am I missing something?

I see it as the same sort of insider drama. By all means, go ahead and post and debate but I don't see added value to Hive that justifies rewarding it (but if enough stake disagrees with me, it'll get rewarded anyway)

I see it as the same sort of insider drama.

That makes Hive look bad, because it's got too much centralization, especially in the hands of people acting in the ways I documented.

By all means, go ahead and post and debate but I don't see added value to Hive that justifies rewarding it (but if enough stake disagrees with me, it'll get rewarded anyway)

And it doesn't matter that the rewards were all given away to communities that support tons of people on Hive?

And you know most of the stake that hasn't already voted for my posts (and been cancelled out) is either one of the people downvoting, someone completely AFK, or someone who won't risk retaliation by talking about this glaring issue.

I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, and if you don't mind me saying so, you have an obvious interest is claiming that you getting downvoted "looks bad". I'm not buyng it.

Document all you like of course. The debate is reasonable, just not pay-worthy IMO.

you have an obvious interest is claiming that you getting downvoted "looks bad".

As I've made clear hundreds of times, since my years-past posts about downvotes, this isn't about me, and it isn't about rewards.

It is about the unwillingness of some large stakeholders to allow content they find mentally challenging to be seen by the [hive-scale] masses, and the massive amount of centralization that their success in doing so demonstrates.

This is about the dozens of people who have commented about how they were attacked & zero'd out, the people I've specifically shown as examples, the people reaching out to me privately to thank me for calling this out (because they fear retribution), the many MANY people that have already left because of this reason, and the many more who will never come here because of it.

It's not your fault, altleft's fault, azircon's fault, curangel's fault, etc.

It's mostly the faulty of a semi-idealistic system, which was sold/marketed/pushed specifically as a solution for free speech and non-corporate content online, in a decentralized platform... even though it was clearly designed to just be another capitalistic oligarchical shit-show. Thanks Ned & Dan :-/

That, and it's simply because almost every single person using this blockchain was born, raised, traumatized, indoctrinated, and now lives in Babylon.

Can't really expect them to act differently than the "celebrities," "politicians," and "executives" that their religion places as the highest class of humans.

You downvoted him once before this from what I can see.

image.png

Man, these idiots aren't even trying anymore.

Probably more than once, but that's not really the point.

Left him a more "calm" comment just now. I think some people know I have a short temper for stupidity and may say things I don't mean or aren't completely true after attempting to deal with this shit for a long while now, but trying to use that to defend his position may probably be more lame than anything I've said.

I swear this shit couldn't be better if you were writing a script about wannabe dictators. Am I being punked? 😜

Translation:

I can't control my temper when someone questions my authority, and I'm likely to throw temper tantrums, during which I will make outrageous claims, tell bald-faced lies about people to tarnish their character, attempt to remove their rewards and censor their content. Because I'm the good guy, and they need to be punished for questioning that.

lol, well, I tried. @selfhelp4trolls

guess he feels it's more important to continue whatever narrative he thinks will help his rep or hurt mine. Cute.

The fact that you address your own faults here man, I got nothing to criticize. I won’t blame you at all if he decides to leave or do something that invites more downvotes.

Some people just have so little trust for those with power that they can’t distinguish that these are individuals with their own approaches and plans. There may be conspiracies sometimes but not everything is a conspiracy. If he looked at your activity on chain over the years he’d see that you are a stand up dude. I can’t vouch for 100% of anyone’s activities but you’ve used your power more responsibly than almost anyone I know on chain or off.

Funny though, some of the other downvoters responded with comments that don’t really seem to address any of my concerns in the slightest.

I said, I think that “My stake I can do what I want with it” attitude without a concerted effort to continuously distribute power is going to eventually lead to a system where a few people dictate everything which will be a shitty sell on the “decentralized future” pitch. Sounds like the definition of centralized control. Same shit as what we are used to, just a different flavor.

So I see why a lot of people don’t trust those with more stake and input into development when they see that kind of attitude.

I think that they’ll realize they need to be more careful with how they wield power and spread the stake out more when it comes back and hits them in the wallet eventually, but they don’t seem to have much respect for me or my opinion so I’ll leave it alone and hope that they are convinced by the example that you set @acidyo

I’ll be patient and willing to contribute to the ecosystem so long as we have enough people who are trying to make this place more fair, diverse and truly decentralized.

Thanks man 🙏

Whilst many of us say we're in this for the community, we wouldn't stay if it wasn't for the rewards, unless the platform worked in some other magical way, but then it'd just be Facebook. However, it's a little balance of both, I believe.

Whilst people are critical - have been critical - of the Abundance Tribe autovotes, recipients were chosen because they were good authors who added to the platform in some way. Now of course people might disagree with that, but HIVE was always meant to provide a home for everyone, no matter whether you like their content. I've seen Abundance Tribe remove autovotes when people were taking advantage of it and, say, posting soley memes, and certainly withdraw support when people acted in consistantly violent ways. Everyone I knew took the responsibility of producing good content for that vote seriously - they took time over their work and made sure it was worthy. And for some people, in some places this vote made an incredible difference to their lives - they were able to pay the rent, buy themselves a phone when previously they couldn't. The Natural Medicine editorials are a case in point. They were upvoted well because of all the hard work behind the scenes commenting, curating, retaining people, making them feel valued AND they weren't cut and paste editorials. It was a devastating blow when we were downvoted for a stage because it wasn't just a financial blow, it was an emotional blow for all the hours of work and good intention that went into it. So yeah, there's always a tension between financial and emotional reward here. Some whales don't take into consideration how much the rewards influence people's real lives or let their personal bias about particular content influence their voting patterns.

I always felt incredibly honoured to be supported by you and AT, Kenny. I've always found you incredibly thoughtful, intelligent and measured, and willing to interact with others in a respectful way. The content AT has supported is needed just as much as crypto is - of course, I'm biased as I believe we probably need posts about freedom, truth, love and the like even more in this current climate (when have we not?). I'm under no delusion this is for everyone, but it doesn't behoove those who profess to support HIVE to supress the voices that make up it's whole. You are valued. I've never seen you act with anything but integrity and a post that speaks out against what happens here is just as important - if not more so, ;p - than a post about cheesecake.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Love this Heinlein quote! It struck me that one of the things I've loved about this platform - and why, perhaps, I'm still here - is that HIVE helped me increase my skill set! Reflecting on the years here, I think of what it's provided me outside the financial realm - I've learnt many things about permaculture, for example, crypto (of course), co-operation and leadership, writing and poetry, and so on and so forth. The fact that's it's given me some financial gain as well just helps with that as well - it paid for my course on how to grow mushrooms, for example, and helped pay off part of my mortgage. It also helped open my mind in many ways to all kinds of things. TSU is part of why I stayed here and probably become more skilled up than I would have in the communities I'm in in real life (sadly - lol, I must find a new tribe!).

I really didn't want to comment here as I've had my fair share of drama but I felt it was important to say thanks for all the positive influence you've had on people here, including myself, and the things you've enabled to happen, like the support of alternative health on HIVE.

After reading your wonderful comment @riverflows, I realize that there is so much that I didn't touch on. How Kenny enabled so many other communities to come together and thrive. I only touched on it by saying how his main focus is on creating abundance for all, how could that really be seen as adding no value to the platform?
At the end of the day we are all in this together, regardless of what side we take, what we choose to believe, how we choose to live.
Right now as the world continues to lock down, surely we should be providing the opportunity to open up. To encourage people to come and be heard. Like you so rightly said, that is what is needed now more than ever.
I am forever grateful for my AT family xxxxxx

Me too. I thought your comment was perfect - couldn't have said it better myself. But gosh - yes, when I think of @miriannalis with the Spanish community and @holoslotus, and various other projects Kenny's been happy to support just because we asked him to and he knew we had good intention, and were pro Hive and pumping out quality work that we all believed made the world a better place, well, that has meant a lot to a lot of people. I think if you don't like things you should scroll on by - unless it must be stood up against, of course, like violence against woman or something! WE ARE all in it together and should be listening to each other, not shutting each other down.

Except it wouldn't even be facebook, because of the technology gaps.

The rewards system is a means of distribution. It's not the "Whale's Inflation", it is just their job to allocate it.

Just cause you're not always respectful doesn't make it any less valid. I'd rather eventually say what I think than constantly be fake for whatever I believe it will bring me down the line. Like when you and a few others left the incubation because you couldn't help yourself to stuff your own pockets of the curation reports rather than share it with the community and were getting overrewarded reports by, oh wait, who was it again? Yeah, tribesteemup, aka, kennysupvotekitchen. Some of you pseudoscience nutjobs need a reality check every once in a while, since you're too far gone from what you preach at least the rewards can be affected.

Why many word when few do trick?

Added no value??? Well, no offense to anyone but this is one of the most righteous things I've ever read. A roadmap to civilization.

  1. Don't rage quit and don't make your account all about the drama
  2. Organize with other users in your circle
  3. Change witness votes
  4. Hold stake and coordinate, they can't DV everyone
  5. Mute those on their curation trails.
  6. Mute users using their curation tag or delegating to them
  7. Don't argue with idiots
  8. Continue to engage with others in a positive way

You are doing fine, continue to make content and let the situation calm down

  1. No rage, just a finally breaking point after years of watching centralization and censorship take over what could have been the Library of Alexandria 2.0... It's not about "drama" either, it's about calling out malicious behavior by dishonest people claiming to be saviors/rulers of the chain.
  2. That's what I've been doing here for 5 and a half years dude.
  3. I don't vote for any of them, haven't for quite some time in most cases - others revealed their true colors later.
  4. Yes, yes they can. Just the 5 accounts that have been coming after me, urasoul, and jasonliberty the last couple weeks have more than enough stake to zero out every single post of every single person they don't like, if they want to.
  5. That's a hell of a lot of work, and vindictive. I have been reaching out to people directly and asking them to withdraw support instead.
  6. Same thing as 5 ^^
  7. But... it's fun sometimes! Haha. Especially when they are millionaires who act all high & mighty, but quickly devolve into pissed off adolescent name-calling.
  8. That's what I do. That's literally what my life and my blog are about.

You are doing fine

Way more than fine, life is wonderful!

continue to make content

I've got a few more posts lined up before I walk away, and then I will most likely still be using Odysee/lbry to post vlogs.

and let the situation calm down

It seems like you may have missed much of the discussion - these are flaws inherent in the design of Hive, which have been being abused for years, and which I and MANY others have been trying to bring an end to for just as long.

Thanks for the comment... but I get the sense that you only skimmed the post.

Or maybe I just was hoping for a different ending. Wish you well either way.

To be clear, this is the king's approach:

2021-12-08 19_58_37-After dedicating 5.5 years to Hive_Steem, I've been informed by KING ACIDYO that.png

A very slightly veiled threat to down-vote the people I support, because I'm calling him out.

The comment section has gone full shit show.

I know Azircon and to a lesser extent Acidyo from around the chain, I don't really get why they're downvoting you, also for the record I think Acid's claims aren't at all fair - I know you've always acted with integrity even if some people don't like your opinions.

Just keep on doing what you're doing I say! I'm sure you're not the type to let this get you down!

That's true, they're not completely fair but after reading that he's purposely going to shit on Hive and tell anyone he knows to stay away I can't help but tell someone to go fuck himself and downvote him on the way out. He's a tiny percentage of people getting downvoted and it occurred for maybe a week max, this sort of entitlement will face downvotes from me any day of the week and vulgarity if I feel like it as well after seeing it happen time and time again with the same methods and excuses over and over.

It would be great to think that with enough intelligent analysis and commentary, the various groups with various approaches to life would value and understand each other enough that they would unite enough to have harmony. While it is not impossible to hold space uniformly, in a respectful way (balanced), the reality is that Earth is wildly out of balance and heavily polarised into what amounts to 'sects' in many cases.
Having participated in online forums for decades, many of which are oriented to resolving world imbalance, it has been made abundantly clear to me that:

  • A) Many people are reversed away from their own heart and the associated balance that only heart presence can manifest. The result is that they will do whatever they can to exploit the denials of others and stifle even the most noble causes.

  • B) The degree of misunderstanding about important aspects of reality and also common failings at logical processing within the majority of people (regardless of qualifications being held) is such that there are large numbers of people with deeply held convictions about economics, life and wellbeing that are provably wrong, yet which the people involved will never allow to be examined/exposed or changed. In essence, many people are stuck in fight/flight mode due to their own unresolved traumas and anything approaching open mindedness or even an ending of stress itself, will tend to trigger their imprinting that leads them to try to recreate stress. In other words, projection and denial are epidemic - leading to most of our global problems.

  • C) The lazy thinking that is so present, globally, often means that people will quickly throw other people into fixed 'boxes' that define them to be 'that kind of person', even when the evidence doesn't really point that out as being a truth. This both makes life 'easy' for such people and also reinforces the idea that they are right and others are wrong. The basis for such inaccurate, dysfunctional and lazy thinking is usually a lack of self acceptance. Of course, this lack of self acceptance (self denial) is usually also heavily denied - so there is usually no way to approach this with such people until they feel it in themselves and start to notice something isn't right (they than have to take action to correct it too). I know all of this after decades of working on myself and with others to resolve exactly this problem.

  • D) While it would be great for everyone to be consciously engaging on a similar level, with similar intents and an aim to find balance.. We simply aren't there yet. There is nothing wrong with freedom of association and everyone is going to be going to their right place now - whether they know it yet or not. What this translates to on Hive is that we need to focus on layer 2 communities and effectively create 'internal forks' that mean everyone stays on Hive but people who wildly disagree do not usually cross paths.

I personally greatly appreciate you Kenny and your work/efforts for Hive (plus so many other areas). There are huge numbers of people who do too (or would if they understood).. There are also large numbers of people who simply have no frame of reference for the way you live, your goals and who you are - instead of knowing you, they will simply judge you. That is part of what is happening here.

Much love to all.

I just want to echo some of your sentiments. There's a lot of polarization and all kinds of labels and name calling going around especially concerning communities that I've been a part of and towards content users that I enjoy and respect.

Is it too much to ask to disagree with others without it devolving into smears, insults, harassment, and personal attacks?

Disagreements are healthy and help people learn and communities develop. You would expect a true decentralized platform to have a healthy diversity of opinion...

I remain quiet for the most part, not out of fear of retribution but we've all engaged in this circular argument multiple times without finding satisfactory solutions. Often, we're further divided than when we began.

The other reason I usually refrain from jumping in is that, like many, I prefer to concentrate my efforts on building solutions. I don't like to talk about my plans before they're ready to be released but I've been working on an L2 project with @truthforce, @ura-soul and others for close to a year. Still a lot of work to be done but we're getting there. By now I think most agree that the way forward is clearly going to be L2s and experimenting with community tokens.

Just also want to say to @kennyskitchen that I think your track record speaks for itself and you've done a lot for Hive and the previous chain in terms of on-boarding, community building and supporting a wide range of users. I've never met you but I admire your dedication and resilience on this journey and also for speaking up for those who can't defend themselves.

Cheers, you're not on trial, keep your head up.

The simple fact of this whole last few months is this.

  1. Investors looking to buy Hive will be repulsed by the behaviour and words of a few of the top witnesses. If this was a company they would have been fired the second they started cussing people out and accusing them of being "willing to sell their mothers for money" on top of the other rampant swearing and derogatory comments.

  2. People have left Hive and are continuing to leave due to being sworn at and belittled publicly.

  1. Witnesses, especially top 20, should not be behaving like teenagers swearing online. It's going to make everyone think this chain is a complete joke ran by angsty teens who love cussing people out and behaving badly. Hive didnt go to 3 usd because of fundamentals or sentiment, manipulation by centralized exchanges caused this, it is now 1.50 usd. It will go below 1 again mark my words.

And the fundamentals are still here but are eroded by bad witness outbursts publicly. We all criticized EOS when they had drama, this is no better

  1. Then they too have an issue with free speech. It can't work both ways.

  2. People leave every platform for various reasons. There's no one-size fits all solution. Looks to me that more are coming than leaving. New users are more likely to buy, while older users are more likely to sell.

While the inference might sound negative, it's how markets work and for Hive to succeed, we need new investers. Retention is another animal that all platforms will never tackle either.

1(b.?) Again, free speech. Swearing is common place these days. It's here to stay and plenty of people swear legitimately in common conversation. It's becoming more common, not less.

Also, those here in this thread are not representative of the top 20 as a whole. That being said, we need fresh blood in those positions. A few new 1st layer developers would be nice as well.

I don't take issue with the downvote. The problem is it only affects earnings and reputation. It needs to be added to governance as well. As is, the top 14 accounts can push their will on the platform. They don't own 51% of the stake though. All the levels below Whale could override their votes for Witnesses and Proposals if the downvote were added to them. This is what I'd like to see.

unfortunately, people do get partially stuck at certain ages of development, yes - ideally, freedom of association via layer 2 can start to resolve the problems being caused by it.

Below is an excellent discussion covering points you raise and providing high-level psychological insight into polarisation around these topical issues

upvoted for a Chris Martenson link to follow.

Have been following you for a very long time, Kenny. We have not always agreed about everything, yet have always found your content to have value and for you to be a valued member of the community.

The HIVE/STEEM HF exposed to all the broken nature of the platform(s). This event seems like another sad nail in that coffin. The HF 20 Cabal would have been wise by simply rebranding the fork as SplinterLand instead of HIVE, however no one could have predicted the craze of NFTs at the time perhaps. SplinterLand is what is most likely keeping the lights on at this stage.

Hopefully your content will still be available via Odysee, Kenny, so will look for you there. ✌️💛

I have been downvoted to zero on all my pending rewards posts 2 times in hive life of 4 months. Reason: I upset whales. One time I commented on a whales account "where he was stating that splinterlands posts are shit and should be downvoted if you see them in sponsor section", I quickly tell him that I am on hive because of Splinterlands. I was downvoted by that whale because I supported splinterlands. And the other story is even bit shady related to reward pool abuse. I will not risk giving any more details as I suffered 100s of dollars loss cause of it. No whale silenced me, they neutralise me.

Thanks for mentioning about splinterlands.

Thanks for mentioning about splinterlands.

Thanks for your input to the thread.

as I suffered 100s of dollars loss cause of it.

Sorry but you shouldn't see something you didn't own as a loss, it's pending for a reason and should be considered as such. If they downvoted you just for that, then that is quite shitty.

Actually it's my understanding that @dlmmqb was being downvoted by the Leo folks after bragging onchain to a newbie that he & a friend had "cracked" onealfa's voting bot, and also had some sort of system using leofinance and pob tags to milk curation.

https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@dlmmqb/my-apology-blog-to-leofinance

I bring this up because this whole "I upset whales so they downvote me" narrative is more than a bit disingenuous. He did something shady & there were consequences. And to be fair, he does seem to be working to combat abuse onchain with HW & HiveDR now, so maybe he's learned from his mistakes.

And the other story is even bit shady related to reward pool abuse.

He's taking an interesting position in discussing the other instance. "I upset whales" isn't exactly what transpired. What did transpire was textbook.

  • He made statements that were interpreted as acting fraudulently.
  • Someone took action against him based on those statements.
  • @dlmmqb then worked to clear things up.
  • All DVs stopped after the clarification.
  • The span of these actions took place over about 24 hours. Done.

It sucks that he was denied those rewards. Truly, but if the event is going to be discussed, then he should please discuss in a bit more detail than "I upset whales". Anyway, it's in the past and dlmmqb is doing some good work now.

Sorry sir if I had to talk about misuse of tags or spreading misinformation, I can clearly say it. Since you are on discord, If you keep the information safe, I will discord u. !PIZZA

NOTE: IT WAS CLEARLY ANOTHER ISSUE, I FACED.

Thanks for the mention, I am truely working hard to combat abuse specially within pakistani community and the article you shared and aciyodo reblog about Plagiarism, if I am correct then it was really help for me.

Note: Believe me when one day I will feel secure, I will explain my self or pass my research to some big whale who can come in front. Till then the things you said are completely correct but do you consider this that maybe there is a slight chance that I know something about reward pool abuse that others don't know?

I am here to grow and work for the betterment of HIVE as much as I can but I will not forgive the abusers(to those I am currently afraid off) in the long run.

What is your problem @acidyo? Why are you actively trying to drive creators off the platform under the guise of "some stakeholders" preferences.

Who are YOU to decide what content comes here?

IMO, downvoting should be reserved for completely unacceptable content (like abuse of others - which you are ironically doing here @acidyo).

HIVE has C/ communities specifically to give seperated 'spaces' to creators so that they can post things that they like, and you are barging into someone's space to tell them what they are and are not allowed to post, while actively ZEROING their income and insulting them?

Voting them late even, lol, sad.

image.png

lol I literally invited 300 users to Hive personally this week, I'm not actively trying to drive creators off the platform.

If they behave like absolute despicable entitled assholes, though, then they can fuck right off. Do you disagree with that Mr comment selfvoter?

If they behave like absolute despicable entitled assholes, though, then they can fuck right off.

This guy has done shiteloads of content, over plenty of time, and it's generally not low effort whatsoever. Where's the issue? All I've seen is him getting repeatedly bashed by you and your nuking of HP values, alongside many others.

As I said, I really see no point in downvoting unless someone is doing something insanely morally wrong, what's he done wrong besides from post things you dislike?

Mr comment selfvoter

And? It's quite literally pennies to tick-over the HP APY while I'm away in trails. Again you're finding anything to bully folks with, it's hilarious, and you call others entitled?

On top of that you started downvoting random comments of mine that don't even have anything with Kenny or you to do, isn't that a form of bullying/retaliation/being a dumbass?

You are a whale zeroing out hundreds of dollars worth of people's income.
Might as well do my part against that? Go ahead, laugh at the little minnows whom retaliate to your over-zealous downvotes against certain creators.

You clearly see the disparity between these situations right?

Countered your dumb downvotes to save the returns of the other people that voted them similar to how I added a vote on another account I felt had been overdownvoted today. Something I would've done eventually for your friend Kenny too if he hadn't gone full shithead.

People still don't understand what the word "potential" means?

Look. There is no contract that says you are entitled to whatever the potential reward at any moment says. The only reward that you can actually call "income", is the one payout on the day 7 after the posting.

Of course it varies, I never said otherwise, I'm specifically talking about the zeroing of rewards that happens for folks that make their income on the platform, it feels OTT to have their entire potential rewards wiped.

I never said it's guaranteed or anything of the like, purely the above.

I did talk to Acidyo a bit afterwards though, so can disregard some of what I said outside that, I hope Kenny isn't too discouraged, any creator would be after these events.

No cause I'm not the one self-voting or votetrading while KennyS here is, tribesteemup->xeldal votes.

Post rewards shouldn't be seen as income, they're never guaranteed, same with curation rewards and witness rewards. HP APR is the only guarantee.

Post rewards shouldn't be seen as income, they're never guaranteed.

Right, but that depends on perspective I suppose. To a blogger or someone whom puts the effort in to write detailed posts and such on a long-term basis, it would be much of their "income" so to speak.

From what I've seen, most long-term folks here certainly write good quality stuff, and IMO don't deserve to be "pushed down" from it. Plus, isn't Hive (especially PeakD and Hive.blog) geared towards bloggers / writers?

No cause I'm not the one self-voting or votetrading while KennyS here is, tribesteemup->xeldal votes.

Hey look, more baseless conspiracy theory from the King of Hive.

Did you bring evidence of any kind with you this time?

No? Just publishing more libel?

I don't nuke anything, I started adding my downvote on top of the others which most already zero'd him based on what he's been saying about Hive and his intentions which negatively affect it. Someone who's been rewarded well for years, even though he's also provided value to it, shouldn't instantly turn 180. It's not a good look for him nor for the people he's supported as it seems it's all about rewards.

Selfvoting comments, especially short ones saying "welcome" has been frowned upon in forever, voting trails are free to join or delegating your HP to curation projects. Doesn't mean you should get a higher APR than others who don't self-vote their comments no matter the size of your vote. How is what I'm saying entitled?

Someone who's been rewarded well for years, even though he's also provided value to it, shouldn't instantly turn 180.

If you actually read any of the posts or comments I've written to you (or about centralization and censorship on Hive over the years) you'd know there was nothing instant about it. I've wanted to leave for years, but been talked into staying by community, time after time.

It's not a good look for him nor for the people he's supported as it seems it's all about rewards.

Hey, there's a whole section in the post that you're commenting on about this specific nonsensical baseless claim of yours.

Just try to act honestly, for like 5 minutes maybe?

Kenny, you're one of the most involved and engaged content creators on HIVE. You've provided immense value to the ecosystem, and kept at it consistently for over five years. I'm amazed and discouraged that HIVE is still dealing with censorship and ideology-based discrimination after all this time.

"We believe in decentralization! Except when it comes to decisions about what content people should consume and how much the creators should be rewarded for it. Then we think five people should be in charge, and those five people should be us."

Well, haters gonna hate. Statists gonna state. I hope they don't succeed in driving you away.

Stop Downvoting in Hive!

Curious to see how this plays out and what solutions you have in mind for your next post.

Until then, I'll have my popcorn ready for the fireworks.

My two cents.. please keep busting out in depth content like this and keep onboarding new people onto this platform. The people have the power, even if a few people have all the money.

👆

Look mate, I'm not even going to bother reading this post.

I left you a comment a few weeks ago in one of your posts literally saying that I believe you do bring value to Hive. I've also been around here a long time so I know.

If you're going to behave the way you have the last comments I've read then I'm going to answer to you like an absolute dickhead too, since no one else is because everyone's too busy caring about their image or potential rewards or witness standings to say anything. Is everything I said true? No. Is everything you've said true, about censorship, anti-truth, CIA and other ridiculous and literaly batshit crazy stuff, also no.

So how about you man up, take the downvotes, think of the bigger picture. Ask others nicely to counter overdownvotes if they keep occurring instead of acting like a balding lunatic after a few dents on all the rewards you've gotten over the years on this chain and focus on what you think provides value to this chain.

I'm not someone who lashes out at people at random nor do I have any reason to defend anyone who's against you and your post rewards. As has been said many times, most posts are overrewarded, especially these days. I'm going to continue downvoting posts and authors I feel aren't being rewarded as fairly as others and you can continue to upvote posts you feel for some reason deserve more rewards. There is a middle ground with a discussion as to why you feel they deserve more and why downvoters feel they deserve less to be had, I'm usually someone who spends the time discussing them but not with people who are just going to instantly call it quits and start shitting on something I hold dear to me which is this technology and platform and the work I've put into it over the years. The fact that you don't makes it really, really difficult for me to expect that you're in it for the right reasons and not just to leech out as much value as you can and some whale out there having made the wrong decision to trust you with his stake. Maybe not initially, but similar to autovotes, trailers and delegatees tend to get lazy or abusive over time.

Anyway, do what you will with this. If you feel it's content worthy for another post to defend whatever you think you have left to defend here from people who already are close to you because you've fed them over the years then so be it, it's not going to change my or other people's view point who know better about what Hive is and what it's not.

A lot of accounts you mentioned in the beginning of the post that I did read already sound like red flags to me where I distanced myself from because I noticed they were mostly focused on their own earnings rather than actually wanting to build communities and give out fair rewards to authors, their curators and moderators. Maybe you've just trusted the wrong people or you're all kind of the wrong people banding together, hard to say but not worth the effort for me to go deeper into finding out. Most of us here today are just a stepping stone for what this technology will eventually become, I'll rather work on making sure new users are enjoying their journey than spend any more time on a handful of them not getting what they want.

Loading...

Dear @kennyskitchen

Few friends of mine shared with me that publication and initially I didn't think about sharing my feedback.

However, I actually feel your pain and I also would like to share my story. Which in many ways is similar to yours.

Myself, I've also been targeted by the same person (as many other friends of mine were) without any real explanation given. Every single post I published has been downvoted to zero, which not only affected my rewards (which I was okay with) but also affected the rewards of everyone who supported my content with upvotes.
After all, their curation rewards were affected in negative ways.

I've never provoked Acidyo and I've tried to stay away from any way of creating conflict. Many people tried to talk calmly on my behalf and I've done everything in my power to calm things down. Unfortunately, I've failed. Bullying continued and I was left with no option, but to say good-bye to this platform.

Since then, I've seen many other users being targeted by this particular individual. It seems to me, that once he decides that he doesn't want you around - then he will simply wipe out all rewards of your hard work. Bringing reputation to zero and effectively censoring your publications by achieving that.

As much as I wish HIVE to be successful, I'm no longer part of this blockchain. Because one person proved that it's far from a dream of decentralization. One so-called "whale" can destroy the work of pretty much everyone.

If Facebook, Youtube, Twitter ban our posts, then at least we (users) can find out the reasons behind those actions. Those entities need to follow some laws and regulations.
Here the situation seems to be very different. Acidyo do not need to answer to anyone. He is judge and executioner. Proving that HIVE is far from concept of decentralized voting consensus. Proving that one person can make life miserable for many users. Without giving even reason for his aggression and hostility.

Again, I wish HIVE to do well. But in the long term - this behavior of one person will bring so much black PR to that blockchain. And it will obviously affect the value of investment of everyone here.

Stay safe,
Piotr

Blurt.Blog

Give it a year... HIVE will go down as SteemIt 2.0 while STEEM will just be absorbed in TRON.

Your Community should be built in BLURT. Much easier that way.

Loading...

Also Thanks for the share in the post rewards man

Good afternoon. This post should be posted on Linkedin, and the link repost via Twitter! Then there will be an excellent result and meaning. Personally, I do this and find it effective. The masses of people must find out what is happening here! Thank you for posting. I wish you every success and all the very best.

well I guess it just means that you need more upvotes then because this post definitely reserves a payout > 0

@tipu curate

Holy Cow, all the discussion here! I know it's futile, but I upvoted anyway lol. I feel there are aspects I still don't know about HIVE community. I hardly ever go to Trending. I guess if I want CNN's version of HIVE then that is where to go.... I'm still happy with this social media forum because the posts themselves aren't removed.

PIZZA!

PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@dlmmqb(2/8) tipped @scholaris (x1)

Learn more at https://hive.pizza.

Like with any case of disagreement on rewards its a matter of who agrees with you and who agrees with your downvoters.
Just because @acidyo downvoted you and has a reason as to why, there will be those that disagree. Its not as if he determines your status here.
We are decentralized.
Even with alts, he controls maybe 0.5% of all staked Hive. Theres still 99.5% of other stake that can vote you. If Acid doesnt think you provide value, you can always try and convince the other 99.5% that you do.

Ive been downvoted by almost every whale on this chain. I never found the need to make a comment on those downvotes.
They either stop by themselves if theres really no reason for them or others would counter them.
Now, ive no idea whats going on here, nor do I care to spend time looking into the drama.

What I can say is if someones downvoting you, offers you a reason as to why and a solution, and you want them to stop, its a simple matter of readjusting your approach to things.
When id get downvoted it would generally be retaliatory and those would always stop on their own when they got bored and saw that i didnt give a crap.

No ones a fan of getting downvoted but most people are reasonable and you can easily make these go away.

Loading...

blah blah blah blah blah

You know I'm not a Hive whale and I don't downvote people, right?

lol bitch please

So I should have dumped all my Hive and spent it?
Keep threatening my life you fucking lunatic, see where it gets you; nowhere.

You are powerless and your opinion doesn't matter.
Deal with it.

Ah I see so you're a pacifist prophet that just happens to know that violence is coming for the people you don't like.

Yeah that's not delusional at all.

My mistake.

I am NOT interested in this.
Please do not tag me any more, or I have to MUTE you