Ok, I’m not using red flags anymore (but I still think we have a problem)

[sasurai]

So, seeing the shitstorm raised by just putting a few flags in content I considered worthless and in some bot replies, combined with the facts that I have not much voting power and therefore no impact, and that a “retaliation flag” from someone powerful can sink any post I make, I’m going to stop using red flags. Way to go towards a self-moderating community, as I’m sure I’m not the only newcomer to feel this way.

I still think we should have private downvoting/flagging.

I still think we should have different mechanisms for flagging abuse and for downvoting.

I also think we have a problem with the huge disparity in voting power (and thus amount of rewards given). It seems crazy than a single vote can give me maybe 50 steem, when regular votes are worth cents, specially if that reward is proportional to the visibility one gets. In that situation, the opinion of a few is worth more than that of the rest of the community, and that seems like a potential problem.

Anyways, this first week in steemit is being a wild ride of emotions. I still think good things and good content can come out of it, but day by day I lose a bit more of hope :/

Comments

[svosse]

Hey @sasurai, just stumbled on this post by accident and I totally agree with you. In fact, I'm working on a list of things to improve about steem to make a post about it and I was wondering about your thoughts. Tools exist for some of these points, but it would be great if all of it was available in steemit. Some quick points to improve:

1. The ability to block users from being displayed as commentors on your post
2. Perhaps the ability to curate comments before they appear (e.g. only show comments you have upvoted)
3. It should be possible to anonymously report spammers
4. Shouldn't the trending and hot pages be more concerned with number of votes and not so much the voting power?
5. I really don't like the concept behind bid bots. I think I would like to disable their value from being displayed and discount their votes from the trending / hot positions. Having money is way to important on steemit right now.
6. I would like to able to search the people I follow. Maybe make them more like friends in facebook.
7. I want to control my delegations on my profile page
8. It would be nice to receive a notification if someone mentions me

Lol that's more than I thought at first. Need to get to work now but I'll try to think of some more on the way. Curious to hear if you have any more points for improvements.

[svosse]

And I'm going to check esteem, seems like it already has some of these features.

[sasurai]

I'm definitely going to check esteem too :D

[sasurai]

Fair warning, possible wall of text incoming XD
Now, you make some great points. I'll answer point by point and then try to say whatever else I have to add.

1. I'm not sure if I like this, as it could end up being a kind of censorship and a way of hiding people who disagrees with you. Maybe it will be a nice feature but only if you can give a "heavy" reason, like being a spammer, or making offensive comments and the like.
2. This is kind of tied to 1, maybe it'd be cool for comments to have one day delay where you can either accept or reject them, but again, only being able to reject with good reasons.
3. Totally agree with this, as you can imagine. I'll go a step further and say it should be possible (and maybe it's not technically possible, I don't know enough about the tech behind steem to argue on that) to downvote anonymously. I've seen posts that have no value, no effort, and are getting votes because they have "friends" or "vote me and I'll vote you people". And I can't downvote them, because then I start a war I'm bound to lose.
4. Again, completely agree. I get that voting power is suposed to be, partly, a measure of a user's "value" in the community, but since it can be bought, it can create a huge imbalance in power and make "low power" users be basically worth nothing (not on the money level, where this is obvious, but also when determining if a post is interesting).
5. Again, I agree. I get the "spend money to win money mentality", but it feels stupid that bad content can get visibility if you put money, while good content gets buried if the creator is not willing to pay. If we want to have a strong community with quality content, the rewards you get should be based on the value the people gives to your contribution, and bots can get in the way of that.
6. Yes, the social aspect of steemit feels kind of barebones and lacking in many aspects, this being one of them. The answer to 8 is basically the same XD. Those are basic features for any social network.
7. I don't even work how delegations work ^^" But it makes sense to be able to control them from the profile.

Now, additional thoughts. I feel like anononymity is a big issue in a platform where people feel like you're "giving them money" or "stealing from their winnings" based on what you vote. I think the core problem here is people and not the platform, but this is another topic that could feel a really long post. Given that fixing people is impossible, the platform should have tools to hide who votes you, to avoid revenge, vote me and I vote you, and other nonsense based on the fact that "woo, I can get money from posts".
I'm going to try to give some core ideas because this is getting super long:

• Anonymous voting
• Private messages
• Hidden payout & rankings based on number of votes. By hidden payout I mean we should see only the "X votes" on the post, not the expected payout. The payout gets resolved same as it is now, and THEN you can see how much money it generated.
• Some sort of limitation or flat-out removal of profits generated from self-voting. I know this sounds harsh, and also that I'm "poor" so it makes sense I will say this, but anyways. Right now someone with high power (the so called whales) can post whatever (like, literally a post with the word whatever if they want) and get a ton of steem out of it, just because of the self-vote. This of course will still leave us open to people voting each other to exploit the system, but it will be a first step in limiting this.
• Limitation or removal of bidding bots. Being able to buy votes (and therefore rewards) seems just wrong. You're investing to get a return, I get it, but by doing that you're removing from the pool of rewards that people can get for getting "legitimate" upvotes.

I'm going to stop here because it's getting late and I need to eat XD. I hope my proposals are useful, even if you disagree, just to start a debate.

Also, I think this way of communication is far from ideal, if we want to have some serious discussion maybe we should find some discord/forum/something else.

[svosse]

Thanks for taking the time to reply in depth :)
I'm thinking of creating an alternative app for steemit, but it would of course be built on the steem blockchain. That means I won't be able to change anything about the core, but I can control how things are displayed to end-users. That means:

1. I can't make votes anonymous per se, but I can choose not to display the names on the interface. Same with the payouts.
2. Spam reporting, on the other hand, can be anonymous because it would be off-chain and only effect the display of posts on the new interface.
3. I agree with your points about hiding comments, perhaps that should not be possible. Maybe only hide comments from users that have more than X spam complaints.
4. The new interface can't forbid the use of upvote bots, but it can filter out the results. So if you get a 100$ upvote from an upvote bot, it won't affect your ranking on the trending page and it's upvote won't add up to the number of upvotes. They can still earn their money, but they don't have to bother us with it :)

Lol, too much to type. Mostly just dreaming though, it'll be a massive undertaking and I just don't have the time. If I ever do get started I would definitely like to have your input and feedback if you're interested. You can find me under svosse#3328

[sasurai]

Hey, quick reply because I'm really short on time today, sorry ^^".
I find the idea really interesting. I'd suggest to collaborate but I'm useless as a web developer XD. If you ever get started with the project let me know, I will definitely be interested, even if as I said I doubt I can help much on the technical side of things.
Also, I'm sasurai#7045 on discord, I think I sent you a friend request (I didn't use it until recently so I'm still not sure how everything works XD)