I totally understand your point, however, from a professional point of view, this constitutes a conflict of interest.
Steemit inc has the full right to manage and promote the platform and its content in the traditional way, it should be enough to take it where they want it to be according to their vision. I don’t see a need for individuals related to Steemit inc to subjectively and directly interfere with votes and such.
Micromanaging is definitely not the way to go. It’s totally unprofessional. Micromanaging will not be possible when/if the number of users reaches millions. So the best solution is to manage it is through legislation and proper management and marketing.
My understanding of what they are trying to do is to build/groom a community of 'dolphins' that can ultimately take the place of the current power-house whales. I think part of their vision is to get to a place where they can step back and let the community run the ship, but they want to make sure they have the 'right' set of people in place to guide it.
I think everyone here agrees on the strategic objectives of this platform, and wish it success whether it’s the founders or the big stake holders or the community members. What I disagree on is the operational management.
I realize it is a loose analogy (because Steemit, Inc. does not actually own the Steem blockchain), but in a lot of ways this is essentially a start-up, with the Steem blockchain as the product. @dantheman, @ned, and their chosen crew are basically the founders. The witnesses (and whales) in a lot of ways are the 'chosen' upper management. With this analogy, you are basically asking the founders not to be involved with the decision of who their management team will be.
Where my analogy starts to break down a little more is when you get into voting on content. Here there is less of an argument to be made for the 'company' to care how its users are using the 'product'. I would still argue though that they do have a vested interest in seeing that the community discussions and reward pool are directed in a way that meets their interests, so I also don't think it is totally unreasonable for them to be involved in the voting process.
I’m afraid the extent to which Steemit inc individuals are interfering with the voting system is far beyond the reasonable limit. It might be considered mismanagement in legal terms.
I invite Steemit inc to conduct an independent and professional audit of their management practices in an effort to make things right. This kind of things are very important when it comes to investors’ decision. And could constitute a serious flaw that would for example impede any initial public offering.
Replying here due to the nesting level.
Out of curiosity, have they said why they have been downvoting you?
Some of the reasons were stated here.
Replying here due to nesting level.
Yeah, I guess where we differ in opinion is that I feel it is still within their right as heavily invested SP holders to influence how the reward pool is distributed. I agree it sucks though. If I was doing a series of posts that was getting paid a lot, and all of a sudden any whale started down-voting it to the point it didn't make much, I would be upset too.
If you look at the posts being flagged by this Steemit inc related individual for the claimed reason, you will find that 99.9999% are mine.
This is unjustifiable.
I think instead of singling me out and abusing power on me for some reason (I suspect some alter motives to be in play here), a more general solution can be found, using legislative power i.e. implementing some kind of rules in the blockchain related to the payouts. The rules would apply to everyone instead of using subjective discrimination.