@blocktrades I'd ask you to have a look at the way @wil.metcalfe was treated over paid translation of his posts into 3 other languages (see his detailed comment below).
Can you really justify this behaviour?
This sort of thing is happening all the time and pushing good content producers off Hive. It undermines all the good work you do on the backend.
Why are you supporting the Hivewatchers DHF proposal with your vote when they refuse to change their ways.
Their approach to what constitutes plagiarism is far too broad, their "guilty until proven innocent" by appeal on Discord is offensive and unfair, they lack transparency.
I am not suggesting we get rid of Hivewatchers altogether, but it is clearly in need of reform.
I don't really follow hivewatchers' work much, nor most of the other social media disputes that arise among various users on the chain. If I spent my time on such things, I don't think I would get much else done, because there is always ongoing conflicts between Hive users (this is normal for every form of social media, from what I can tell).
I have a lot of Hive work to do already that it would be difficult for others to do, so I don't see any good reason why I should be the particular person to arbitrate voting disputes just because I'm trying to improve the platform itself. For the most part, I think community members need to work out their issues amongst themselves.
At the end of the day, anyone can run a Hivewatchers type account. It is true it has some DHF funding now, but it operated before that, so it seems obvious that the DHF funding isn't necessary to its existence. I've voted for the DHF proposal just because I think it can provide a useful service and I expect that some funding can improve how it performs.
But if you believe you can make improvements to how Hivewatchers works, then there's a couple of options: 1) engage with Hivewatchers and see if you can get them to accept some of your proposed changes or 2) consider providing a better alternative service and compete with them directly.
I'm not expecting you to arbitrate voting disputes.
I also have many better things to do with my time. :-)
However I've been trying to engage Hivewatchers to reform both privately and publicly for over a year.
The problems keep re-occurring and I see good people leaving Hive because of it.
"Good content producers" includes accounts engaged in identity theft and a whole lot of other malicious crap. Account who keep claiming they should be treated better than others because they are superior in nature. The same "good content producers" who take fellow-content creators' work and post it as their own, who defraud curators and readers, who only see Hive as free money. (Wil is not included in this statement.)
The reason we use Discord is because it's a public chat venue. We do not process anything behind closed doors or privately. We do not allow proxy appeals as those commonly lead to threats for the unfortunate victim who was selected as proxy. We do not allow virtually anything that can be seen as favoritism. Nothing about the message on Discord, which is basically detailed instructions to let the community know why they are appealing, is unfair. The instructions are detailed to help people. This is the only service that even has an appeal mechanism built into the process. Imagine if it didn't. Everyone is equal. And it's this very equality that's a problem for those "good content creators".
In regards to reform, Hivewatchers has a constant cyclical feedback policy. We adjust the scope and process constantly to fit the evolution of Hive. There is even an anonymous feedback form. Everyone is encouraged to provide feedback in whatever way they choose and I do read and take it all into account. The only feedback I will never, ever incorporate is to treat some different than others because like I said, everyone is equal.