I'm interested to see what the impact of minnows downvoting would be. There is a term, the 'wisdom of the crowd'. Do you think this term might apply now that minnows downvotes have some weight behind them?
I don't want to pick on particular authors, but I do see some payouts for posts that seem a little excessive. Now that could be due to them being wildly popular and upvoted by many. I suspect at the moment that some of them are due to autovoting on particular authors, and the dog pile effect.
In the past there where posts that made several, or tens of thousands for one post.
Do you think a post should be paid $300?
Do you think a post should be paid $200?
At what point does a payout become obscene (Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty)?
I would like to see the minnows of Steemit, and perhaps even the dolphins, exercise the power of their downvote on posts that they consider being paid 'too much'. Now I understand that is subjective. A minnow vote or a dolphin vote is only going to change the outcome by a 1 to 10 cents, but if enough people perceive a post paid as receiving 'too much' then it will make an impact. This is a beta. We are in the 'experiment'. We should be testing this.
What are your thoughts?
-edit-
I think the question that needs to be asked by minnows and dolphins is
Is it good for you?
It would begin a revenge war of down voting
That is certainly possible if it is one person downvoting one person. If it is 100 minnows downvoting one post, then who are they going to take revenge against? There is safety in numbers.
Essentially that is why I'm making the case for minnows to embrace the idea, because if it is just a few, they do risk being targeted by revenge voting.
At this particular moment in time, while downvotes are being made against posts across the platform, people are not paying attention to who is doing it. If minnows where to start downvoting trending page articles that they feel are being upvoted to 'obscene' levels, right now, nobody would notice. And by the time they did, it would be too late to know who to target.
It is an interesting dilemma for sure and I understand your concerns but this action would cause me to have different concerns.
I mean, if this were to happen, be aware that it would set a precedent and as such know one really knows what the consequences of such a dramatic action would be. Letting the genie out of the bottle so to speak.
If someone is on the trending page then it means many have voted for that post. If then a 100 minnows downvoted that post then they are also making a statement to those who upvoted that post up. It could cause a reaction in that all those who upvoted that post would take revenge by making a note of all the minnows who downvoted.
Never underestimate the motivation of revenge.
This action would also effectively make the downvoters as bad as the down voter. Tit for tatt is a game that never ends.
Surely this should be worked out by programming.
One other thing, ask yourself this question, which minnow would be brave enough to make the first downvote. Often in such cases you may suddenly find that all the other minnows back down from fear and then the first one or two are left to be sacrificed,
Einstein said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In my experience there is always a way to counter things in a positive way.
It is just a matter of finding what that is. But be sure, the right way is always harder but changes tings for the better. The easy way always leads to disaster.
I hear you @seablue and I know your intentions are honorable, but I honestly urge caution about such an action.
Although I agree in theory, it would be good to see that, I hope that the idea doesn't float with the community.
It's ok that some folks get lots of rewards, it's bad when the whales starve everybody to feed their favorites.
This sp delegation thing is going to haunt us, potentially forever.
Many whales are not voting atm. This is about minnows and dolphins.
Some of them are interesting. Some of them I enjoyed reading. Quite a few I felt where getting amounts that I would like to see spread out amongst other authors.
The question is...
Is it good for you?
Yeah, likely the whales just spread out among their sock puppets, but as long as the bottom stays up I figure it for a good thing.
I'm not buying this your "Is it good for you" idea at all. You seem to be encouraging people to do what abit and smooth have been doing to displease the community.
Do you go on twitter (or any other social network) to report someone as "spam" just because they have more followers or "influence" than you do? Because you disagree with the fact that people seem to like them?
If you feel it's something you want to do, you have every right to. Maybe I should downvote this post because I don't agree with what you've written? Nope. I'll just move on 😊✌️
Feelings on the actions of abit and smooth are mixed. There were problems in the execution for sure. The downvotes wouldn't be necessary if they could get 100% support from all whales. That didn't occur.
The results for smaller stakeholders voting power has been very positive. People are more involved with their voting. Comments and engagement has increased across the platform. Bot voting has declined (anecdotally). It has been an interesting experiment.
Interesting. Although I do not like downvoting pure for the reason of post value and the users subjective opinion; Since what is good content? On good content: what I saw today regarding posts I made was that one post with a cartoon I didn't create myself expressing something about mister Trump got 10 times more value from voters than a post I find much more valuable, about an interesting classical composition that has all the elements modern electronic dance music has. If I had all the voting power, I would give the music post maybe 10 times more over the cartoon one.
I think it has been shown that concentrated high stake voting power is like using a sledgehammer to thread a needle. While the whales are showing restraint, a minnow vote can have a small impact. Minnows voting freely, up or down can arrive at a mass consensus. It requires that we all push through what we perceive as a 'taboo'. We are afraid to downvote.
Was it good for you that it got 10 times?
I would suggest that if it wasn't, you could downvote it. By doing so you reduce the reward allocation to that post and spread it out to others. Additionally it is only a small impact on that persons payout, which is vastly different from being hammered by a whale vote.
I don't like bot and auto voting. That are votes on whatever, but quality content. I do not like it when a post gets 100+ votes and a couple of views. So maybe that should be the next experiment: stop all the bots.
If the down vote is only reducing a very small part of the overall reward, why using such a negative instrument?
Bot voting is indeed an issue. It's false curation in a bid for a minuscule profit. It clouds the network with bad signals.
One downvote is only small. Many downvotes can make an impact. I think many small downvotes is democratic as well. One full strength downvote from a whale not so democratic. It is autocratic.
It could be argued that a downvote on autovoting bots is an upvote for human voting. :-)
That is maybe the test to run, down voting the bots! If we do it collectively, then the bots may stop??!!
Obviously, this is just a little joke from my side, I think we need to find ways bots are stopping their business until bots get to levels of intelligence we can regard them as relevant readers of our posts and comments.
I think there is evidence that since the 'experiment' some people are reducing their bot activity and voting manually. It hasn't gone away, but it is nice to think it might be going out of fashion.
You could launch an experiment ..
I have already. :-)
So far nobody has said a thing about my downvotes. They were only on posts earning well over $100. It is also somewhat disguised, because of the abit and smooth downvotes.
Do not include me on your list and i will support you all the way😅😅😅😅
I'll be watching your payouts. ;-)
Beware my minnow vote. You may lose 2 cents.
😨😨😨ow shittt...
I think this is a bad idea.
If I were to flag this post, it would lose about 1¢. What benefit would result? How would this improve the Steemit ecosystem? Aside from ironic amusement on my part, the effect is almost nonexistent. Because of this, the effort outweighs the benefits. It's better for me to preserve my tiny vote weight by not spending it here in the first place.
The rewards get redistributed to the steemit ecosystem. So people with lower payouts get a slightly higher payout.
Personally I'd prefer to see a better voting system but currently the downvote is as useful as the upvote in determining where to allocate steem rewards.
That is the question that needs to be asked.
The question is, is it good for you?
What do you gain from downvoting this post?
Not much. So you don't do it. If you see a post on trending making $1000 dollars and you think it is over priced? Is that good for you? Are they going to miss that few cents?
This is why I think downvoting and flagging need to be distinct and separate functions if people are going to start using votes as a reward balancing mechanism. I flag spam and abuse. I might consider expressing disapproval for some content people produce if it used a different symbol and function, but I am not certain. Flags are the wrong tool for the job.
Well I can only state my opinion so here it goes, Whether they be plankton, minnow or dolphin.... if the post is true, genuine and with great content value then there should be NO LIMIT to the amount it could make within a certain timeframe.... nothing is obscene when it comes to amounts someone can earn... If I were blessed enough to earn $2,000 for one post.... that would effect me in a very positive way financially as well as the majority of plankton and minnows. For some that amount could be life changing, no joke... think about it.
Your "reply" post is a steemians chance to debate the subject matter in a healthy way. If you cannot reply with a good arguement if you disagree..... then giving a person the power of flag down voting is just placating someones offended ego.
I have never felt the need to downvote a single post that I have read on this platform.
I only read posts about the things I like and vote on that subject matter.
If I read something new and it begins to bore me and I lose interest... I move on. Why would I downvote something just because I don't like what I read. I just move on because that subject matter might give knowledge to someone other than myself. Why should the author of that post lose $ because of my ego?
If a post or comment is overtly hostile or negative THEN I see the need for flagging a post or comment.
So in my personal opinion starting a flagging experiment with minnow, plankton and dolphins will only poison steemit.
There is a limit because there is a limited amount of rewards to be allocated. If somebody were to reach that limit that would mean one post getting all the rewards, and every other author of that day getting nothing.
I agree the flag is probably not the right tool though. It's what we've been given. I would prefer to be able to vote for the payout outcome, rather than just "up" or "down" from the current pending payout.
I appreciate your well considered answer.
I've heard it said that conflict can often arise from a perception of inequality. The greater the inequality the greater the potential for conflict.
If someone is consistently making significantly more than those at the bottom of the reward pool distribution, would this inequality be also poison for steemit?
I believe all Steemians should have 1 or 2 bots to help facilitate becoming a dolphin when you are in the plankton/minnow stages respectively. (My theory is when you become a dolphin you lose your bots and grow from there.) Growing organically in the process but at a slightly accelerated rate.
Steemit can be manipulated by whales or factions of dolphins because they can purchase Steem thus influencing votes and payout. This is what directly affects reward pool distribution.
The plankton minnow flagging option would do nothing toward affecting reward pool distribution, it would only cause negativity and antipathy towards fellow steemians.
Once again just my humble opinion.