Houston, we've had a problem. A major UX design flaw.
I've been banging on about this issue in comments but after seeing posts like this or this or this, I've decided it's serious enough to deserve a separate post.
The symptoms
(1) No way to express a reasonable stance
Users who encounter a post which in their view is legitimate but does not deserve the payout it has already accumulated, have no way to express their stance. All they can do is apply the spam/abuse flag but there is a major problem with that: the flag is clearly not meant for the purpose of lowering a payout. There is an explicit warning associated with the flag:
Flagging or downvoting a post can remove rewards and make this material less visible. You can still unflag or upvote later if you change your mind. Are you sure?
As a result, people are rightly reluctant to use the flag in this case. It just feels uncomfortable and stupid to flag a legitimate (and in most cases valuable) post with a spam/abuse flag. Also, the user is told about removing rewards (what kind of rewards??) and making the post less visible. Whereas all the user wants to achieve is very simple: make the payout lower, nothing more.
Doesn't it look wrong that Tara's post, while receiving an enormous payout, is heavily flagged and is deprived of the leading image? Imagine how confusing this is both for the author and an external observer.
What is most important is that the desire to lower a payout is, in most cases, well justified and does not stem from envy or anything like that. It stems from the concern for the well-being of the whole system. The payout needs to feel right. Which means it needs to be perceived as both not too low and not too high. A payout that is too high is as damaging as payout that is too low - Steem acquires reputation of a system where funds are spent carelessly.
(2) No way to prevent trolls
Currently any troll can flag a legitimate post and there is no way to counteract it. Nobody can do anything, even a whale - the flag stays forever. It's a just matter of time when a malicious actor goes through all posts and flags them down - this will render the flag completely useless as all posts will be flagged.
(3) Spam/abuse flag has lost its meaning
People who put lots of effort to spot actual spam and abuse are not being appreciated. Why? Because the flagging process has lost its primary meaning - you never know when you see a flagged post if it's actual spam/abuse or valuable (yet overpaid) content. So the author of a post never knows if they violated any social rules, happened to be overpaid (due to no fault of their own) or were just troll victims. As a result, we get user confusion, as expressed here, and/or user frustration, as expressed here.
(4) It's not clear how to undo upvote
I think very few people are aware that when you've accidentally upvoted a post/comment or just changed your mind, there is a way to undo your action by clicking the upvote icon again. So the functionality is there but it's hidden and quite counter-intuitive.
The solution
It's simple - split the downvote functionality into two separate actions:
- Flagging spam/abuse (with the option to un-flag a post which will enable users to counteract trolls or just express their stance that a post does not actually belong to the spam/abuse category).
- Actual payout downvote, treated as a complementary option to payout upvote. And payout downvotes should participate in the curation rewards on equal terms with payout upvotes - downvotes are as important as upvotes: they aim to set the payout at the right level, not too low and not too high.
There will be a clear logical distinction between those two actions and they will not overlap:
- You use the flag when there is an issue with the post itself and the author is capable to fix the issue. So it's a way to give feedback to the author about social rules being violated and also a way to warn other users about potential abuse/spam.
- You use the payout downvote option when there is an issue with the perceived value of the post - and there is no flaw related to the post itself or its author. Instead, this is a legitimate part of your curation efforts. There should be no hurt feelings involved - both upvoting and downvoting are part of the same process of setting the payout at a level that feels right by the shareholders. Just as buying and selling sets the price of a commodity, upvoting and downvoting sets the price for posting. Surely, we don't have markets where only buying side exists and selling is disabled.
I do not know if your solutions will work but the symptoms are absolutely spot on! Flagging is an issue where serious thought must be given, as your SP holding determines whether it is effective or not. In most case they don't even make a dent on the earning or visibility. Agreed that in a new system you have to be careful, but slowly this imbalance will have to be addressed. Anyway what good is something if it only works for a few and does not for the masses.
Eventually , what I can see there will be lesser people voting
I can see everyone become so selfish not sharing their bread crumbs.
I think this will be a concern
You down voted my post ?
@norbu i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
I completely agree with you. The currently very extreme inequality in rewards has in my opinion escalated to a point, where it endangers Steem/Steemit as a whole. A few posts get rewards in the tens of thousands, while the vast majority stays in the single digit range (if that). Such discrepancies are not "fair", because they in no way mirror the quality distribution. Its in most cases just a question of luck (or whom you happen to know) which decides your income.
I've decided to sit back and watch and see how things go before I put any more content up here. I'm not interested in votes as money but I am interested in engagement and coming to a place with truly interesting content. When I log in and scroll through trending posts for an hour, only to find nothing interesting at all, and look at my posts that have 4 votes and are totally buried, I can't help but think, "Not my crowd."
I had hope that the new user registration stop was an effort to get things back in check but that doesn't seem to be the case as trending is filling right back up with posts that make me think, "Who cares?" and it's the same whales voting them up there. If it's the site's mission to grow regardless of quality of content, it's not something I want to be a part of.
@stormbringer i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
I dont think its up to me to decide whether something is paying out too much or not. clearly its not setup for that and using the flag for that makes no sense as you describe. so i understand the concern, but i feel like you should give value not take it away. maybe the upvote just counts for too much. but adding a devaluation button seems counterproductive to me.
Please note that devaluation for one post means bigger payout for all other posts. So effectively the payout downvote action would translate into this: transfer funds from this post to all other posts. The daily payout rate cannot be changed, only the distribution will be affected.
Don't forget , the payment are in STEEM DOLLARS
STEEM POWER, it may seem a lot but in actual facts
If you guys looks carefully where THE DECIMAL IS
$900.000,000,000
NOW TELL ME HOW MUCH THIS ^^^^^ amount worth
I would say currently you show only love (by upvoting posts) and hate (by flagging a post). There lacks something in between - IMO there should be also "small-upvote" (with current upvote as "big" one, being given 3-7 times a day) and simple downvote decreasing value of rewards (half as much as "small-upvote" increases value).
Nice thinking , I think currently some people just want to make a point by flagging content which according to them is not as value adding as something else which never got a chance to be on the trending page due to posts which were voted due to herd voting.
@whatissteem i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
I am totally agreeing with you but
think about all those other posters hunting a trending rank that will payout downvote everything else. And there is created spam/troll payout downvoting. I can safely assume that more than 50% of the authors and newly backed users will do that.
And another but: this payout downvote can be countered with some account filters like:
Filtering the downvote rights will make it a bit more safe for the community.
Right now they can also do it by using (or misusing) the flag. But they don't (at least most of them). Good authors have their reputation at stake which prevents them from misbehaving.
Totally true but i wasn't saying about good authors with reputation but about the ones who want to succeed in any way, including downvoting everything, and i have seen many.
But those guys won't be able to make any significant impact on the payout - most of them don't have much Steem Power.
1 .. 10 .. 20 .. probably not. Think high numbers of alt accounts created especially for this: 100+ that would make an impact.
Fortunately, it's not the number of accounts that matters but the amount of Steem Power they have.
@ i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
That solution might work and the devs need to have that discussion. Until then, one thing that needs to happen here is to raise the comment ration on this platform. There are too many submissions and not enough community interaction. Pointing out the problems with submissions by commenting is much better then flagging it at this point and will encourage people to submit higher quality content and discourage people copy/pasting work that does not belong to them.
If you are posting content here that isn't yours, at the very least , identify that it isn't original content, leave a source and write your ideas about it to encourage discussion.
@cryptobarry i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
Yeah this seriously needs to be addressed quickly before the next wave of trolls hits Steemit.
The right of someone to determine what one is getting, is the right of his own vote. Thus, I could argue, there is no inherent problem here. If you feel someone is overpaid, don't vote for them - vote something else...
@alegr i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
I like your solution.
@aaseb i have got a downvote and my reputation is down at 12 i need some serious upvotes to increase my reputation please kindly upvote me so it help me
I agree with you today someone flag my post its ok for me but I won't know the reason future to avoid this mistake I made.
I got flagged down for saying I was not religious by 60 people how much bs is that how do I get my number back up
I feel Steemit should add a bot to review a post that gets flagged to see whether or not its spam/scams or legit.