I know your story quite well as I've been following you very closely since we've meet on Steemit.
Im really sorry for your missfortune to become a victim of unjustice on this platform. Many people seem to believe that decentralization is a solution to all our issues. And it may as well be. But it simply isnt working here, on social media platform.
I really hope you're gonna stay here a little bit longer as I found so much value in your posts. We will get your rep back. Dont you dare to give up!
I agree steemit falls short on many points of what decentralization is intended to do. Personally, I believe steem, while it may be decentralized in the form of the nodes which power the infrastructure, being a for profit company and especially this issue of empowering and then allowing big money to buy so much centralized power in the hands of such a small percentage of the users is far from any concept of being decentralized in my view; and certainly it's complete lack of any privacy is very opposite to what so many initial intentions of this technology aimed for.
My main intention of this post was more about putting it more in a community context of creating dialog to discuss and look for solutions of the underlying causing issue of the platform and less about venting my own story and frustration, even if that may not come through as clearly as I would like, I have attempted to make my story count for something more than just me, which is really what I feel community is all about.
Realistically, I would be blind if I couldn't see that @adm's initial reasoning that a public threat (to consider legal action) can damage the community too, even if it was directed to one individual or a small group of individuals. I knew the appeals area to reach @steemcleaners and @guiltyparties and that was my bad for not taking the issue directly there. At the same time, it still doesn't negate the severity of the punishment, especially in light of trying immediately to edit out my own errors and feeling to be made a fool of apologizing so many times to no avail, only to see him repost the original post that had the issue.
Back on point, in my view the system needs to be tweaked to limit that power that money can buy and far more needs to be implemented in the form of real Customer Service. @Guiltyparties helped me to see that a big part of what the initial flagging of my account was tied into the level of plagiarism that really is plaguing the steemit system. That really is another huge issue they are trying their best to tackle, which very much plays into this whole issue of warlord downvoting, but I believe @ned needs to step up to the plate as CEO and put more resources into that too than are currently in place. I do understand that the initial idea is to empower the community to self regulate, which in and of itself is more in line with decentralization. This is where the discussion needs to be focused.
I believe a very clear set of rules and their consequences of violations needs to be clearly conveyed and agreed to by all members of steemit. Then a more humane warning system reiterating those rules with a time period to fully comply set into place before any sort of punishments made. I understand in a way that makes steemit a bit more centralized, but let's face it, as a for profit company they do have certain responsibilities too in the world we live. A non profit would be the better solution in aiming for real decentralization. I understand there is only a 7 day window before the steemit system sets data into stone, so to speak, which I believe is another fault of the system. I believe it's all just a matter of organizing a management system that will benefit everyone.
Hi Piotr, Yeah, I think anyone who thinks blockchain is free from censorship is living in an illusion, not knowing the reality of it, and dreaming of a future so many of us would like to one day see. Steemit still gets a lot of kudos for taking a big step in that direction though in many aspects. I'd like to think that @Dan may get a hold of some of this discourse here in one way or another to consider in his tweaking and preparing EOS and Steem II, because I can't wait to see how he makes it better.
So transparent, very little privacy and censorship around the corner.
Definetly blockchain is huge, but we're naive to think that it will serve all people and human greed + power will not use this technology to control population even better.
Discouraging, to say the least. :( hopefully the process will get better, especially if they, and we all want steemit to continue to grow and keep the plankton and dolphins they are trying to attract.
Im very political, and controversial when i post... so when i saw how getting flagged can harm you, well it definitely made me wonder what will happen if the same silicon valley whales on fb and twitter start investing in steem. Will we too become an endangered species on steemit?
This is actually a really good post as you took the time to dig through that video and you found something that directly contradicts the Steem whitepaper. Take a look at pages 14 and 15 (of 32) https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Downvoting is not meant to be "bad" and the fact that this explicitly stated in that interview is an issue on its own. If I catch Ned on the chat in the future I'll ask about that. Downvoting (same as upvoting) is meant to be an equalizer. With downvotes and upvotes the value of the post is meant to be determined at payout time. That stops the crabs in the bucket (see analogy in whitepaper) from escaping through plagiarism, abuse, or whatever other means.
Reputation is not part of the rewards mechanism and is mainly a behavior incentive. Everyone wants it but doesn't really need it. The person you found, Berniesanders, got that negative rep from just one flag from Dan for some comment he made. It didn't stop him from continuing on the platform.
I don't own Steemcleaners btw. It's a group project.
how does this fare for people who post political or controversial topics? how can you prove something is flagged for opinions, rather than a legitimate purpose? i came here to get away from that kind of censorship... but seriously, what happens when steemit gets much bigger and more nefarious types come in and flag people for opinions they dont like? there must be some kind of way to counter it? otherwise you get a very boring platform with bland opinions and kind of a borg mentality eventually.
With controversial topics the intent is that both sides will argue through voting. So let's say for example I make a post stating that vaccines are death and you disagree, you can do so with a downvote. At the same time, another reader who agrees will give an upvote. The result is meant to reach an equilibrium in regards to the evaluation of content. Because of the new prevalence of high-stake accounts only selling their upvotes and the existence of other high-stake accounts downvoting, the system doesn't always work as intended. There are also users who take pride in "helping" users who were downvoted in a systemic manner unrelated to the content itself.
While I'm responding here I can address what people think of as "censorship". Censorship is impossible on the STEEM blockchain as all content is permanent. What flags/downvotes do is artificially hide it on frontends. However, and this is the main reason I'm here myself as a user, all content can still be retrieved. It can't be altered or permanently deleted if it's inconvenient for some group. It's always there. The frontends are open source and anyone can make one that shows this content in any way they want irrespective of what sort of votes it received.
I agree, it is kind of a flaw, especially learning how steemit works, doing searches and following older guidance, before things must have changed, which led to a lot of mistakes for me. Like when I first got hit by @adm, I decided to start the power down process, only to find posts saying it takes 2 years... Man, did that add to the emotions... Then I found it in the FAQs to now be 13 weeks. Thanks for your input, @miss-j
Yeah, that's what ive been finding difficult too, searching for the different tips and tools and post discussions, the information changes.
As for deletion.. what if someone posts here for a few years, then say, wants a job or something and they no longer want their posts and comments up for the public to see?
This will be a gigantic hindrance for mass adoption. Same with crypto.. I don't like that the coins that track everything you do. There should always be a way for privacy going fowards. We at least have privacy coins somewhat, but if there ever is a competitor that allows deletion and takes away opinion flagging, steemit will lose a large following.
And you said it exactly right, it sounds like social engineering, like aldous huxley talked about. A group think mentality, and the financial rewards to go with it, or to punish those who dont. Its a psychological brainwashing.
Either it is bad, or people may stop caring. If I was your potential employer, if I was objective enough, I might ask you if you are still the same person as you were when you said this one thing or did that one thing years ago on Facebook or even Steemit for example.
Do you really want to go back and delete things later on? For me, I do not even have time to do that. And Steemit may create a new flaw, a new hole, by allowing things to be removed later on. And nothing on Facebook is ever removed. Nothing on the Internet is ever destroyed as there are things online that steal and store data of what happens online. There are websites that archive deleted YouTube videos for example. There are all sorts of things going on that most people are ignorant of.
yeah , but what happens when all the people who ruined facebook twitter and you tube decide they want to be a bunch of whales over here... what does that help steemit, except to become the replacement for facebook in name only?
I just read a great post from aggroed about how people should not get into flagging wars, even if you think it a good cause, because the biggest whale wins and unintended consequences. this is a big deal in my mind, because you are saying we should get involved in flag wars and other uses say dont, or you will get squashed.
Thanks for adding that, @miss-j. It's good to see others talking about this too. Maybe we are collectively whipping up enough steem in the hornet's nest to see some sort of positive change here. Who knows... :)
I do understand what you mean with "censorship", @guiltyparties, in the sense of it can never be deleted or completely removed from steemit, but censorship can also be considered "suppression" in the form of putting down, holding back, limiting and removing visibility too. It's like censoring someone's column from the normal front pages to the back pages where they get less visibility too.
and self censorship, the worst kind since it isnt something written and said and then hidden, or suppressed, its the orwellian effect where nothing will be said or written at all that may offend due to fear of getting flagged. thats a borg state. everyone will be the same and no one will want to willingly give up their money or rep.
well, at least there are forks. thats a good thing. to fork, or not to fork... that is the question.
Find like-minds, build communities. For example, there is the #SteemChurch community. There is the #ColorChallenge community. There is the #InformationWar community. Different Steemit communities think different and grow together as they upvote each other. Once in a while, whales can downvote you but not consistently. Stick together with a bunch of friends and grow together on Steemit over the course of many years and brace yourself for the storms. In the past ten months, I've been flagged a few times but I rode through those storms, recovered my reputation points & became stronger each time.
This really is true... I have so much stuff I have been playing with posting here and have held back because of the very point you make, as well as maybe even more so the way that until one really gets a following here they really don't get much active visibility for anyone else to ever see to begin with. The thought goes, "why waste the time, if no one hardly ever sees it, comments or upvotes it". There were many of my first posts here that I tweeted and shared on Fb that got more likes there than here. I wonder how many of the 90 or 95% of those who have signed up on steemit left or at least don't do much anymore because of that.
Clearly, I struggled some with that more when I made the last 3 posts, but for me the driving factor was more along the lines of making some sort of social impact for positive change in the community, as well as the tech in this last one.
I'm still toying with the idea of how you can invest into SP (Steem Power) on steemit, but to get all you put in out, the power down process takes a minimum of 13 weeks. If you make any more in the mean time and want to power that out too, you have to cancel and restart the power down process again and again, pushing the time to who knows. Plus, the fact is in the current system, you will never be allowed to get out at least 5 steem, because they say it will make the system unstable. That's a big one too.
Wow! That's all right from the gut. Moving. I love the Emerson quote. There are indeed some who have vision. And, no doubt you are aware of the psychopaths pushing for war with Russia as I write this comment, which thing appalls me and moves me to bitter tears. I suppose the best thing we can do is try and be sane and caring and compassionate ourselves and to do what we can to stop madness. Blessings on your head my friend.
Thank you for your comment, @mistermercury! I totally agree... This is my Hail Marry to really lay it out there and see if steemit is really worth staying... :) I believe there's still hope for Emerson's vision to come to pass too. Blessings to you too, my friend.
Flagging is a valuable tool for dealing with abuse of steemit, but there's no overall authority to complain to. The founders created a platform where we have a lot of freedom, but that risks people exploiting it. Generally steemcleaners do a good job and I'm sorry to hear you had those issues. Bernie is a loose cannon in. Sometimes he dies good stuff, but other times he attacks those who are not doing anything bad. It is the wild west. As it grows out may improve, but it's still up to the community to moderate.
Well said, @steevc. It is a wild west. I have to say I've grown to understand and appreciate steemcleaners more through this experience.
@guiltyparties, who is the main one I've seen running steemcleaners, took the time to point out, among many other valuable things he has added here in this discussion, that there should be a clear distinction between the downvote effect on the revenue share of the limited "rewards pool" and on "reputation". So in my view the suggestion to limit the effects of a downvote should be directed mainly to the "reputation" aspect, which for me was so demoralizing. If it had only effected the revenues on the specific comment, I believe the message would still have been received loud and clear, but the damage would have been far more bearable.
Excellent post that describes the reality of Steem well. I didn't know about the stats of all the bombs dropped during the presidencies. Steem is like a country with good and bad people, a technology can be used for good, but also for bad in the wrong hands. I don't think downvoters have the best intentions because otherwise they won't do it anonymously. The only thing I see possible is to limit the downvote power in the next fork because as you said these attacks scare people away.
Thank you for your compliment and your excellent proposed suggestion, @gmichelbkk.
I totally agree on limiting the downvote on the next fork. I think probably in at least many of the downvoters minds they have their own reasoning, but who knows exactly better than they. I do understand @steemcleaners has the best intentions to try to clean up so much that many see as trash on steemit. Part of that is how one persons trash can be another persons treasure.
This is why I said what I said below to Piotr:
I believe a very clear set of rules and their consequences of violations needs to be clearly conveyed and agreed to by all members of steemit. Then a more humane warning system reiterating those rules with a time period to fully comply set into place before any sort of punishments made. I understand in a way that makes steemit a bit more centralized, but let's face it, as a for profit company they do have certain responsibilities too in the world we live. A non profit would be the better solution in aiming for real decentralization. I understand there is only a 7 day window before the steemit system sets data into stone, so to speak, which I believe is another fault of the system. I believe it's all just a matter of organizing a management system that will benefit everyone.
And certainly this is just a brainstormed thought (beginning) that could be built upon by the community. What do you think?
This surely has to be improved and I'm not sure they want clear rules and warning defined because it's too inconvenient. The solution in my opinion is only technical and setting limits in the blockchain. There have been tons of suggestions made already by people who like you got the hammer flag and nothing changes.
tons of suggestions made already by people who like you got the hammer flag and nothing changes
Part of the reason I suggested that was because @guiltyparties explained to me that the first week everything started with me they were swamped with dealing with such cases as well-known writers from, I think it was, Forbes and Medium contacting them about plagiarized stories that had been copied and posted on steemit, which could clearly have legal implications for steemit Inc. For all I know, maybe @adm is more closely tied to Steemit Inc. and hit me as a sort of oversensitive knee-jerk reaction to something deeper legally happening at the top, especially given the "adm" account name, which I honestly thought at first was Steemit "admin".
I still believe absolutely that as a for profit corp., in which anyone can invest in by virtue of especially powering up SP (Steem Power), which really locks you into the system for at least 4 months or so, that they really do need more user friendly Customer Service.
I don't know about the internal issues they may have. The question is who owns the Steem blockchain? There are other sites pulling data from the Steem blockchain like Busy for example. I agree that there should be a way to delete content, which has a copyright complaint, but is that possible because ourselves we can't delete our own posts. I honestly don't know.
The blockchain was created by Dan. Steemit Inc manages it by proposing hardforks, patches, investing in development, etc. It's not "owned" by one person as it's processed through myriad witness servers. It can be "forked" as Golos did into a new blockchain. The reason you can't control your content and delete accounts and all that is because the blockchain is coded to not allow that and its decentralized nature prevents nodular modification (it must always sync). We actually tested all of the parameters ourselves to try and remove content for a guy who was losing his job over it. It's not possible. Changes to the blockchain itself would be required to allow you to delete your own post.
@guiltyparties, thank you for the explanation, that's very interesting. I was wondering what would happen if for example a judge ordered a post to be taken down because of some stolen copyrighted content and that technically it's not possible?
In my view this is another major fault of the system. I learned a lot of wrong outdated info on steemit from old posts and even YT videos from whales... It makes for a big learning curve. Not to mention, if I'm not mistaken, I voted on a lot of old posts for nothing. Is that why I didn't get any curation rewards until I invested into SP? So am I correct that if one votes on a post that is older than 7 days the vote is basically recycled back into the rewards pool and they get nothing? This one I'm still unsure on.
I think this whole notion of equating a downvote in and of itself as an “attack” on or “harm” to another user is, frankly, pretty absurd. That may be how it’s perceived by the receiving user, but that’s not actually what a downvote is.
And we’ve also been hearing that downvotes are “the number one Steemit killer” for nearly two years now, yet the user base continues to grow. (Yes, a lot of users abandon the platform, but that’s mostly due to other factors not related to downvotes.)
I think too many people expect rewards - or a certain amount of rewards - for their content and believe that, if they don’t get that amount, they’re somehow being cheated. Also, a misunderstanding of the system leads them to believe that a downvote is actually “stealing” something that belongs to them, rather than a reallocation of potential rewards that had been temporarily allocated to their post.
That being said, there are some issues with how people use downvotes for personal vendettas but those issues are still mostly with perceptions and feelings and not with the actual purpose or function within the system. In the end, downvotes are necessary to mitigate abuse. But any user can ultimately cast either an upvote or downvote however they wish.
The beauty of the system though is that any user can increase their stake and have a bigger say in how/where rewards are allocated, so any user (or group of users) can increasingly influence/mitigate the effects of both upvotes and downvotes.
Thanks for your comment, @ats-david. I hear what you are saying of the notion of a "downvote" in and of itself being an "attack" or "harm", but let's remember that in this world we live in "perception is everything". This is especially the case in social media, where our input and output is generally limited to words, pics and "reputation numbers" on a screen.
Also, if you've really been hearing it as “the number one Steemit killer” for 2 whole years, I would ask why has it not really been addressed before. Yes, maybe steemit has grown in numbers over that time, but how does it's growth compare to the growth of all the other social media online in the same period, which has really exploded to dominate the bulk of the masses flocking online. I would think that give the fact that one can actually make something out of creating content and posting, that it would have attracted more. And why is it that there are only tens of thousands of active members out of over 900,000 total members? That tells me that something has gone awry to cause 90 - 95% of the members to not be active.
I do get what you mean of the misunderstood belief
that a downvote is actually “stealing” something that belongs to them, rather than a reallocation of potential rewards that had been temporarily allocated to their post.
I think that misunderstanding is mostly due to the complexities of learning the ropes of how the entire steemit system works. So you really do make a good point there. This has become more clear after a month of being active here that it's not actually the person's money they are giving when they give someone an upvote (or "stealing" in the "perceived" case of a downvote for that matter), but one's share of the "rewords pool", based on how much SP (Steem Power) they have. This is something I don't think can be made too clear to newbies and probably should be a major priority to the steemit community to help them to understand better.
Maybe I did sensationalize things a bit with the title and some of the content, but the primary point of this post really is targeted on how can we as a community mitigate the abuse of the very system designed to keep the abuse in check (i.e. the downvote system).
As you pointed out before, there should be a clear distinction between the downvote effect on the revenue share of the limited "rewards pool" and the "reputation". In my view the suggestion to limit the effects of a downvote was directed mainly to the "reputation" aspect, which for me was so demoralizing. If it only effected the revenues on the specific comment, I believe the message would still have been received loud and clear, but the damage would have been far more bearable.
This may be the last comment on this post before it gets steemed into the blockchain for good. I just want to thank everyone who upvoted and commented. All the best
I just realized my silly mistake. In my previous post I didnt include the code that would justify text. Silly me.
Here is short article I've found that explain how to do it:
People are good too... There's always some good in bad and some bad in good. This story is taking time to get out of, as I expressed in my last post. Any ideas or help you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Hi @positiveenergy
I know your story quite well as I've been following you very closely since we've meet on Steemit.
Im really sorry for your missfortune to become a victim of unjustice on this platform. Many people seem to believe that decentralization is a solution to all our issues. And it may as well be. But it simply isnt working here, on social media platform.
I really hope you're gonna stay here a little bit longer as I found so much value in your posts. We will get your rep back. Dont you dare to give up!
Yours, Piotr
Thanks for you comment, Piotr.
I agree steemit falls short on many points of what decentralization is intended to do. Personally, I believe steem, while it may be decentralized in the form of the nodes which power the infrastructure, being a for profit company and especially this issue of empowering and then allowing big money to buy so much centralized power in the hands of such a small percentage of the users is far from any concept of being decentralized in my view; and certainly it's complete lack of any privacy is very opposite to what so many initial intentions of this technology aimed for.
My main intention of this post was more about putting it more in a community context of creating dialog to discuss and look for solutions of the underlying causing issue of the platform and less about venting my own story and frustration, even if that may not come through as clearly as I would like, I have attempted to make my story count for something more than just me, which is really what I feel community is all about.
Realistically, I would be blind if I couldn't see that @adm's initial reasoning that a public threat (to consider legal action) can damage the community too, even if it was directed to one individual or a small group of individuals. I knew the appeals area to reach @steemcleaners and @guiltyparties and that was my bad for not taking the issue directly there. At the same time, it still doesn't negate the severity of the punishment, especially in light of trying immediately to edit out my own errors and feeling to be made a fool of apologizing so many times to no avail, only to see him repost the original post that had the issue.
Back on point, in my view the system needs to be tweaked to limit that power that money can buy and far more needs to be implemented in the form of real Customer Service. @Guiltyparties helped me to see that a big part of what the initial flagging of my account was tied into the level of plagiarism that really is plaguing the steemit system. That really is another huge issue they are trying their best to tackle, which very much plays into this whole issue of warlord downvoting, but I believe @ned needs to step up to the plate as CEO and put more resources into that too than are currently in place. I do understand that the initial idea is to empower the community to self regulate, which in and of itself is more in line with decentralization. This is where the discussion needs to be focused.
I believe a very clear set of rules and their consequences of violations needs to be clearly conveyed and agreed to by all members of steemit. Then a more humane warning system reiterating those rules with a time period to fully comply set into place before any sort of punishments made. I understand in a way that makes steemit a bit more centralized, but let's face it, as a for profit company they do have certain responsibilities too in the world we live. A non profit would be the better solution in aiming for real decentralization. I understand there is only a 7 day window before the steemit system sets data into stone, so to speak, which I believe is another fault of the system. I believe it's all just a matter of organizing a management system that will benefit everyone.
Hi buddy
I want you to know that I read all your comments. But it's always quite a long read and I dont know where to start when it comes to replying lol :)
I also agree pretty much with all your view on that matter and I really appreciate your feedback.
Anyway people for some reason are so happy that blockchain is free from cenzorship. Steemit already is proving them wrong.
Hi Piotr, Yeah, I think anyone who thinks blockchain is free from censorship is living in an illusion, not knowing the reality of it, and dreaming of a future so many of us would like to one day see. Steemit still gets a lot of kudos for taking a big step in that direction though in many aspects. I'd like to think that @Dan may get a hold of some of this discourse here in one way or another to consider in his tweaking and preparing EOS and Steem II, because I can't wait to see how he makes it better.
Indeed. Illusion all the way.
So transparent, very little privacy and censorship around the corner.
Definetly blockchain is huge, but we're naive to think that it will serve all people and human greed + power will not use this technology to control population even better.
Discouraging, to say the least. :( hopefully the process will get better, especially if they, and we all want steemit to continue to grow and keep the plankton and dolphins they are trying to attract.
Im very political, and controversial when i post... so when i saw how getting flagged can harm you, well it definitely made me wonder what will happen if the same silicon valley whales on fb and twitter start investing in steem. Will we too become an endangered species on steemit?
I think some of this has already happened and part of the reason why this has become a growing issue.
This is actually a really good post as you took the time to dig through that video and you found something that directly contradicts the Steem whitepaper. Take a look at pages 14 and 15 (of 32) https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Downvoting is not meant to be "bad" and the fact that this explicitly stated in that interview is an issue on its own. If I catch Ned on the chat in the future I'll ask about that. Downvoting (same as upvoting) is meant to be an equalizer. With downvotes and upvotes the value of the post is meant to be determined at payout time. That stops the crabs in the bucket (see analogy in whitepaper) from escaping through plagiarism, abuse, or whatever other means.
Reputation is not part of the rewards mechanism and is mainly a behavior incentive. Everyone wants it but doesn't really need it. The person you found, Berniesanders, got that negative rep from just one flag from Dan for some comment he made. It didn't stop him from continuing on the platform.
I don't own Steemcleaners btw. It's a group project.
how does this fare for people who post political or controversial topics? how can you prove something is flagged for opinions, rather than a legitimate purpose? i came here to get away from that kind of censorship... but seriously, what happens when steemit gets much bigger and more nefarious types come in and flag people for opinions they dont like? there must be some kind of way to counter it? otherwise you get a very boring platform with bland opinions and kind of a borg mentality eventually.
With controversial topics the intent is that both sides will argue through voting. So let's say for example I make a post stating that vaccines are death and you disagree, you can do so with a downvote. At the same time, another reader who agrees will give an upvote. The result is meant to reach an equilibrium in regards to the evaluation of content. Because of the new prevalence of high-stake accounts only selling their upvotes and the existence of other high-stake accounts downvoting, the system doesn't always work as intended. There are also users who take pride in "helping" users who were downvoted in a systemic manner unrelated to the content itself.
While I'm responding here I can address what people think of as "censorship". Censorship is impossible on the STEEM blockchain as all content is permanent. What flags/downvotes do is artificially hide it on frontends. However, and this is the main reason I'm here myself as a user, all content can still be retrieved. It can't be altered or permanently deleted if it's inconvenient for some group. It's always there. The frontends are open source and anyone can make one that shows this content in any way they want irrespective of what sort of votes it received.
i wish there was a way to delete content if the writer wanted to delete it... thats kind of a flaw, imho.
but im glad to be here, ill keep swimming. upstream. :)
I agree, it is kind of a flaw, especially learning how steemit works, doing searches and following older guidance, before things must have changed, which led to a lot of mistakes for me. Like when I first got hit by @adm, I decided to start the power down process, only to find posts saying it takes 2 years... Man, did that add to the emotions... Then I found it in the FAQs to now be 13 weeks. Thanks for your input, @miss-j
Yeah, that's what ive been finding difficult too, searching for the different tips and tools and post discussions, the information changes.
As for deletion.. what if someone posts here for a few years, then say, wants a job or something and they no longer want their posts and comments up for the public to see?
This will be a gigantic hindrance for mass adoption. Same with crypto.. I don't like that the coins that track everything you do. There should always be a way for privacy going fowards. We at least have privacy coins somewhat, but if there ever is a competitor that allows deletion and takes away opinion flagging, steemit will lose a large following.
And you said it exactly right, it sounds like social engineering, like aldous huxley talked about. A group think mentality, and the financial rewards to go with it, or to punish those who dont. Its a psychological brainwashing.
I totally agree. It poses maybe even more problems than the "Warlord downvote mentality", because that effects everyone in one way or another.
Either it is bad, or people may stop caring. If I was your potential employer, if I was objective enough, I might ask you if you are still the same person as you were when you said this one thing or did that one thing years ago on Facebook or even Steemit for example.
Do you really want to go back and delete things later on? For me, I do not even have time to do that. And Steemit may create a new flaw, a new hole, by allowing things to be removed later on. And nothing on Facebook is ever removed. Nothing on the Internet is ever destroyed as there are things online that steal and store data of what happens online. There are websites that archive deleted YouTube videos for example. There are all sorts of things going on that most people are ignorant of.
yeah , but what happens when all the people who ruined facebook twitter and you tube decide they want to be a bunch of whales over here... what does that help steemit, except to become the replacement for facebook in name only?
I just read a great post from aggroed about how people should not get into flagging wars, even if you think it a good cause, because the biggest whale wins and unintended consequences. this is a big deal in my mind, because you are saying we should get involved in flag wars and other uses say dont, or you will get squashed.
https://steemit.com/flagging/@aggroed/steem-tips-aggroed-s-rules-to-flag-wars-first-rule-don-t-get-into-flag-wars
It just feels like a disaster waiting to happen is all. I appreciate your comment though! :)
BTW, great video there of Rep. Billy Long putting Mark Zuckerberg in the hot seat over Fb political censorship... :)
Thanks for adding that, @miss-j. It's good to see others talking about this too. Maybe we are collectively whipping up enough steem in the hornet's nest to see some sort of positive change here. Who knows... :)
I do understand what you mean with "censorship", @guiltyparties, in the sense of it can never be deleted or completely removed from steemit, but censorship can also be considered "suppression" in the form of putting down, holding back, limiting and removing visibility too. It's like censoring someone's column from the normal front pages to the back pages where they get less visibility too.
and self censorship, the worst kind since it isnt something written and said and then hidden, or suppressed, its the orwellian effect where nothing will be said or written at all that may offend due to fear of getting flagged. thats a borg state. everyone will be the same and no one will want to willingly give up their money or rep.
well, at least there are forks. thats a good thing. to fork, or not to fork... that is the question.
Find like-minds, build communities. For example, there is the #SteemChurch community. There is the #ColorChallenge community. There is the #InformationWar community. Different Steemit communities think different and grow together as they upvote each other. Once in a while, whales can downvote you but not consistently. Stick together with a bunch of friends and grow together on Steemit over the course of many years and brace yourself for the storms. In the past ten months, I've been flagged a few times but I rode through those storms, recovered my reputation points & became stronger each time.
This really is true... I have so much stuff I have been playing with posting here and have held back because of the very point you make, as well as maybe even more so the way that until one really gets a following here they really don't get much active visibility for anyone else to ever see to begin with. The thought goes, "why waste the time, if no one hardly ever sees it, comments or upvotes it". There were many of my first posts here that I tweeted and shared on Fb that got more likes there than here. I wonder how many of the 90 or 95% of those who have signed up on steemit left or at least don't do much anymore because of that.
Clearly, I struggled some with that more when I made the last 3 posts, but for me the driving factor was more along the lines of making some sort of social impact for positive change in the community, as well as the tech in this last one.
I'm still toying with the idea of how you can invest into SP (Steem Power) on steemit, but to get all you put in out, the power down process takes a minimum of 13 weeks. If you make any more in the mean time and want to power that out too, you have to cancel and restart the power down process again and again, pushing the time to who knows. Plus, the fact is in the current system, you will never be allowed to get out at least 5 steem, because they say it will make the system unstable. That's a big one too.
The self-censorship is the real problem.
The last sentence is interesting.
Here here... I'll second that.
Wow! That's all right from the gut. Moving. I love the Emerson quote. There are indeed some who have vision. And, no doubt you are aware of the psychopaths pushing for war with Russia as I write this comment, which thing appalls me and moves me to bitter tears. I suppose the best thing we can do is try and be sane and caring and compassionate ourselves and to do what we can to stop madness. Blessings on your head my friend.
Thank you for your comment, @mistermercury! I totally agree... This is my Hail Marry to really lay it out there and see if steemit is really worth staying... :) I believe there's still hope for Emerson's vision to come to pass too. Blessings to you too, my friend.
Flagging is a valuable tool for dealing with abuse of steemit, but there's no overall authority to complain to. The founders created a platform where we have a lot of freedom, but that risks people exploiting it. Generally steemcleaners do a good job and I'm sorry to hear you had those issues. Bernie is a loose cannon in. Sometimes he dies good stuff, but other times he attacks those who are not doing anything bad. It is the wild west. As it grows out may improve, but it's still up to the community to moderate.
Well said, @steevc. It is a wild west. I have to say I've grown to understand and appreciate steemcleaners more through this experience.
@guiltyparties, who is the main one I've seen running steemcleaners, took the time to point out, among many other valuable things he has added here in this discussion, that there should be a clear distinction between the downvote effect on the revenue share of the limited "rewards pool" and on "reputation". So in my view the suggestion to limit the effects of a downvote should be directed mainly to the "reputation" aspect, which for me was so demoralizing. If it had only effected the revenues on the specific comment, I believe the message would still have been received loud and clear, but the damage would have been far more bearable.
Excellent post that describes the reality of Steem well. I didn't know about the stats of all the bombs dropped during the presidencies. Steem is like a country with good and bad people, a technology can be used for good, but also for bad in the wrong hands. I don't think downvoters have the best intentions because otherwise they won't do it anonymously. The only thing I see possible is to limit the downvote power in the next fork because as you said these attacks scare people away.
Thank you for your compliment and your excellent proposed suggestion, @gmichelbkk.
I totally agree on limiting the downvote on the next fork. I think probably in at least many of the downvoters minds they have their own reasoning, but who knows exactly better than they. I do understand @steemcleaners has the best intentions to try to clean up so much that many see as trash on steemit. Part of that is how one persons trash can be another persons treasure.
This is why I said what I said below to Piotr:
And certainly this is just a brainstormed thought (beginning) that could be built upon by the community. What do you think?
This surely has to be improved and I'm not sure they want clear rules and warning defined because it's too inconvenient. The solution in my opinion is only technical and setting limits in the blockchain. There have been tons of suggestions made already by people who like you got the hammer flag and nothing changes.
Yeah, that's one thing that worries me some.
Part of the reason I suggested that was because @guiltyparties explained to me that the first week everything started with me they were swamped with dealing with such cases as well-known writers from, I think it was, Forbes and Medium contacting them about plagiarized stories that had been copied and posted on steemit, which could clearly have legal implications for steemit Inc. For all I know, maybe @adm is more closely tied to Steemit Inc. and hit me as a sort of oversensitive knee-jerk reaction to something deeper legally happening at the top, especially given the "adm" account name, which I honestly thought at first was Steemit "admin".
I still believe absolutely that as a for profit corp., in which anyone can invest in by virtue of especially powering up SP (Steem Power), which really locks you into the system for at least 4 months or so, that they really do need more user friendly Customer Service.
I don't know about the internal issues they may have. The question is who owns the Steem blockchain? There are other sites pulling data from the Steem blockchain like Busy for example. I agree that there should be a way to delete content, which has a copyright complaint, but is that possible because ourselves we can't delete our own posts. I honestly don't know.
The blockchain was created by Dan. Steemit Inc manages it by proposing hardforks, patches, investing in development, etc. It's not "owned" by one person as it's processed through myriad witness servers. It can be "forked" as Golos did into a new blockchain. The reason you can't control your content and delete accounts and all that is because the blockchain is coded to not allow that and its decentralized nature prevents nodular modification (it must always sync). We actually tested all of the parameters ourselves to try and remove content for a guy who was losing his job over it. It's not possible. Changes to the blockchain itself would be required to allow you to delete your own post.
@guiltyparties, thank you for the explanation, that's very interesting. I was wondering what would happen if for example a judge ordered a post to be taken down because of some stolen copyrighted content and that technically it's not possible?
In my view this is another major fault of the system. I learned a lot of wrong outdated info on steemit from old posts and even YT videos from whales... It makes for a big learning curve. Not to mention, if I'm not mistaken, I voted on a lot of old posts for nothing. Is that why I didn't get any curation rewards until I invested into SP? So am I correct that if one votes on a post that is older than 7 days the vote is basically recycled back into the rewards pool and they get nothing? This one I'm still unsure on.
I believe I recall @Ned saying in one interview (maybe the one I posted above) that Steemit Inc. owns the steem blockchain.
Maybe these issues are why @Dan is supposedly working on a Steem II. I found and read an article about it a few weeks ago, after @mistermercury mentioned something about it. https://steemit.com/steemit/@spiritualmax/steem-ii-announced-what-s-the-name-what-s-the-intent-what-s-the-difference
Thanks, I will check out the article.
Just dropping in and wanted you to know that I am glad that you are in good spirit @positivesynergy after all that you've been thru.
Thanks, @zestforlife. I appreciate the encouraging feedback. Your zest for life must be rubbing off on me too some :)
I think this whole notion of equating a downvote in and of itself as an “attack” on or “harm” to another user is, frankly, pretty absurd. That may be how it’s perceived by the receiving user, but that’s not actually what a downvote is.
And we’ve also been hearing that downvotes are “the number one Steemit killer” for nearly two years now, yet the user base continues to grow. (Yes, a lot of users abandon the platform, but that’s mostly due to other factors not related to downvotes.)
I think too many people expect rewards - or a certain amount of rewards - for their content and believe that, if they don’t get that amount, they’re somehow being cheated. Also, a misunderstanding of the system leads them to believe that a downvote is actually “stealing” something that belongs to them, rather than a reallocation of potential rewards that had been temporarily allocated to their post.
That being said, there are some issues with how people use downvotes for personal vendettas but those issues are still mostly with perceptions and feelings and not with the actual purpose or function within the system. In the end, downvotes are necessary to mitigate abuse. But any user can ultimately cast either an upvote or downvote however they wish.
The beauty of the system though is that any user can increase their stake and have a bigger say in how/where rewards are allocated, so any user (or group of users) can increasingly influence/mitigate the effects of both upvotes and downvotes.
Thanks for your comment, @ats-david. I hear what you are saying of the notion of a "downvote" in and of itself being an "attack" or "harm", but let's remember that in this world we live in "perception is everything". This is especially the case in social media, where our input and output is generally limited to words, pics and "reputation numbers" on a screen.
Also, if you've really been hearing it as “the number one Steemit killer” for 2 whole years, I would ask why has it not really been addressed before. Yes, maybe steemit has grown in numbers over that time, but how does it's growth compare to the growth of all the other social media online in the same period, which has really exploded to dominate the bulk of the masses flocking online. I would think that give the fact that one can actually make something out of creating content and posting, that it would have attracted more. And why is it that there are only tens of thousands of active members out of over 900,000 total members? That tells me that something has gone awry to cause 90 - 95% of the members to not be active.
I do get what you mean of the misunderstood belief
I think that misunderstanding is mostly due to the complexities of learning the ropes of how the entire steemit system works. So you really do make a good point there. This has become more clear after a month of being active here that it's not actually the person's money they are giving when they give someone an upvote (or "stealing" in the "perceived" case of a downvote for that matter), but one's share of the "rewords pool", based on how much SP (Steem Power) they have. This is something I don't think can be made too clear to newbies and probably should be a major priority to the steemit community to help them to understand better.
Maybe I did sensationalize things a bit with the title and some of the content, but the primary point of this post really is targeted on how can we as a community mitigate the abuse of the very system designed to keep the abuse in check (i.e. the downvote system).
This is why I just wrote in reply to @guiltyparties:
This may be the last comment on this post before it gets steemed into the blockchain for good. I just want to thank everyone who upvoted and commented. All the best
Let me suggest something that may help your readers a lot.
At the beginning of the post use
The difference will be huge. Just like on picture below:
Good luck mate :) Obviously upvoted
Yours, Piotr
Oh and I also wanted to thank you for your comment in my latest contest. I appreciate your time and support. Cheers! :)
oh jezzz.
I just realized my silly mistake. In my previous post I didnt include the code that would justify text. Silly me.
Here is short article I've found that explain how to do it:
https://steemit.com/html/@dyrits/steem-it-1-how-to-justify-your-text
Oh and I also wanted to thank you for your comment in my latest contest. I appreciate your time and support. Cheers! :)
Yours,
People are bad. We do bad. But we can get out of it with help. But it does not come natural to get out of our ghetto of humanity.
People are good too... There's always some good in bad and some bad in good. This story is taking time to get out of, as I expressed in my last post. Any ideas or help you may have would be greatly appreciated.
Agreed.
Thank you :)
I posted another one. Maybe you'll like that one too.
In conclusion, this war goes right to the top several months ago when the CEO downvoted the creator of this platform:
And the creator gives his assessment and states clearly he is working to create a better version:
These are screenshots taken of the post here