I have been giving this issue a lot of thought, and as I do, I discover more and more reasons to agree with my prior post, and to support more strongly the conclusions I came to and expressed there.
@dwinblood posted a very thoughtful statement on voting, and began an animated discussion there. I have resteemed it for maximum exposure. As I commented and replied there, I eventually spent a couple hours composing a reply to @l0k1 that I recognized would simply look like I tried to hijack @dwinblood's post.
I won't do that.
So, I have edited my comment and am posting it here, in order to confine these extensive comments to my own page, and not post a wall of text on his. Here it is:
@l0k1 said: "In fact you have that backwards. Single voice single vote is precisely how the stakeholders in most democratic nations are being steadily destroyed. If your vote at the polling booth was multiplied by your tax bill (and made accountable to you), there is no way the government could take services from those who pay more taxes to give them to those who do not." (responding to a comment of mine).
Stakeholders in democracies are vanishing few. No one has ever represented my voice in my country. I am certain no representative elected by a minority (I doubt any representative in America has ever been elected by a majority of the constituents in their district, and none probably have been anywhere else in the world, either) and that I am forced to obey under physical threat, ever will.
It is the monopoly on force that proves the fallacy of the contention that were my vote at the ballot box to be based on my tax bill, I would receive honest representation. The forces of government cannot be made responsible to me, as they outnumber me, and are more heavily armed (recall President Andrew Jackson's statement regarding a Supreme Court decision 'They have made their decision. Now let them enforce it.'). I am compelled to accept an overwhelming plethora of services I do not want, and would not pay for were I not threatened with compulsory slavery - or worse - for failing to accede to them, such as waging war in Iraq, or panoptic surveillance, for example.
The real stakeholders in democracies are those wealthy enough to corrupt those representatives that in fact concentrate the sovereign power of citizens such that it is derangable at a single chokepoint. Steemit is already more fair than political systems based on coercive extraction of sovereignty under threat of force. It can be more fair yet, and should be.
On Steemit I can speak for myself. Were my voice as powerful as my rights, my ideas, and my effort, then the full expression of my sovereignty would be recognized as equal to anyones, yet weighting votes by SP means no matter how valuable my ideas and content, my ability to bless Steemit and this community is tiny compared to the wealth concentrated in the accounts of substantial investors.
When you speak of democracy, you neglect myriad mechanisms of divergence, inherent in systems based on force, which all governments are, with Steemit, which is purely agorist, (voluntary and devoid of force whatsoever). Steemit doesn't tax. Steemit doesn't censor. I cannot even begin to list all the differences between geopolitical entities based on military force and Steemit, and utterly refute that merely because both systems somehow involve votes that they are remotely comparable.
@l0k1 also had said:"Single voice single vote leads to a situation where the most skilled politicians can manipulate the results to get the support of the most entitled pricks in society to the detriment of the rest of us."
Single voice votes, as you call them, cannot result in politicians that manipulate the system on Steemit, because, other than witnesses, there are no representatives. I cannot be compelled to obey any bot, user, or group, through force or any other mechanism on Steemit, as I can be forced to obey politicians that pass laws in states. There simply is no force potential on Steemit - except economic force, and that will not be present in an equal vote system. That force is only potential where votes can be overwhelmingly powerful, as they presently are.
@l0k1:"As for preventing sybil attacks, there is numerous algorithms that can be applied to the task of recognising these malicious players. Textual fingerprinting, IP addresses, social network relationships, financial transactions between individuals."
Steemit is experiencing an ongoing sybil attack right now. Just as accounts comprising 51% with equal votes can overwhelm the system, single accounts with enormous weight due to substantial SP holdings are equally able to do so - and that is what is happening. "In the real world, algorithms must be designed in such a manner that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit. Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system.", per the white paper.
Weighting votes according to SP creates the possibility to self vote, or vote in cliques that reward each other, and generate $1000's in income each week. This is a system that makes it almost impossible for substantial holders of SP to curate as Steemit requires to meet the goals of the developers. This mechanism actually deprives whales of their ability to curate, because of the need to attend to finance!
@l0k1: "Myself and @personz are in the midst of developing a bot that will name-and-shame self voters on the platform..."
It's not that evil, greedy people need to be shamed for doing what is responsible to do in that position, it is the system that needs to change to create the same motivation in substantial investors the rest of us have to curate according to the developers intentions. Self voting whales aren't malicious. They simply recognize that if they don't self vote they are giving away $1000's a week. They just aren't fools, or saints. Shaming them is not appropriate, much less going to be good for Steemit.
What will be the effect on whales naturally acting responsibly to attend to financial matters they are beholden to, when they start being 'named and shamed' for doing that? The system forces them to act this way by weighting their votes, such that even if they want to upvote posts on single mothers, or ganja, they can't because they have a duty to act responsibly regarding their wealth! Whales whose votes are weighted according to their SP holdings would be acting irresponsibly to curate other's posts.
As I have stated, that many of them do anyway is a testament to their personal dedication to the Steemit platform, the community, and altruistic concern for others. There are also many other things such folks do besides, that they are blessed to be able to do, that contribute to Steemit, such as sponsorships, promotions, and etc. I doubt there are many greedy investors in Steemit, as capital markets provide ample places at the table for such, that are utterly devoid of the demonstrable beneficial intent Steemit whales evidence.
Self voting minnows are just uninformed as to how much better their votes are invested in others, as rewarding posts and comments they like both increases their ability to improve Steemit as a whole, and also generates a feeling of wanting to return the favor in those upvoted. Minnows will grow to whales only by either dumping cash into Steem (which isn't an option for many), or by gaining followers who upvote their posts and comments. How much more valuable is that than the $.02 they get from a self vote?
They don't need to be shamed. They need the system better explained to them. Who is so greedy that they'd rather have $.02 than a new friend? Not many, I submit. In a platform that their votes were equally valuable on, they'd be less likely to desperately self vote in the vain attempt to grow.
Steemit has features such as downvotes, which are intended to be employed to curb financial manipulation. "Through the addition of negative-voting it is possible for many smaller stakeholders to nullify the voting power of collusive groups or defecting large stakeholders." Steemit white paper.
However, it takes tens of thousands of minnow downvotes to equal one self vote worth $1000. This will never work as intended. The mechanism simply ignores that many minnows don't want to stop self votes worth $1000's - they want to cast them. There is no way to even get that many people to view a post so self voted. I cannot take seriously any assertion that tens of thousands of minnows are going to do this, or that other whales are going to use downvotes in that way. It just won't work until vote weights are equalized.
Even if it did, those so flagged would be right to object, and to vote with their feet, depriving Steem of necessary capital and liquidity - not to mention the voices of those competent to manage their affairs wisely.
It is the current system that potentiates unequal economic force to manipulate voters, at least those that seek to pander to whales to gain upvotes (pointlessly for the most part, but that remains their best hope of substantial rewards, as one whale vote is equal to tens of thousands of minnow votes). It is the 'nuclear' weapon of downvotes applied by whales that is the closest thing to violent force on Steemit, and again, it is only possible because votes are weighted by SP, and would not be more than insulting in a system where votes were of equal weight. Indeed, were votes equally weighted, downvotes might become merely conversational tools, as they are on many other platforms.
@l0k1: "Single voice single vote, plus no vote decay, would overwhelm the blockchain with meaningless votes..."
I voted purposefully hundreds of times this week, before I read the white paper (unaware that by doing so, I was preventing my VP from being recharged). Not one of those votes was meaningless, and each of them provided valuable curation. "Voting input from community members is critical for Steem to accurately allocate payments to contributors. Voting can therefore be viewed as a crucial contribution...", according to the white paper.
However, as my VP decays, I am prevented from continuing to perform that valuable work. Furthermore, this same repression of useful curation is dramatically curtailing minnow votes across the platform, as minnows recognize they have to not vote, because the system is designed to penalize them for doing the necessary curation Steemit depends on.
@l0k1: "The decay of voting power is essential to stop spammers. "
How does the decay of VP stop spammers? If spammers aren't possessed of powerful votes based on SP, then just a few downvotes of peers will be shot across their bow. A couple dozen downvotes will crush them. Decay of VP is utterly unnecessary to prevent spam. I saw this happen just the day before yesterday, when @aggroed rallied MSP to counter the malicious flags on one user by another.
"Through the addition of negative-voting it is possible for many smaller stakeholders to nullify the voting power of collusive groups or defecting large stakeholders.", per the white paper. Additionally many have claimed downvotes necessary to counter spam, and plagiarism, as well as malicious flags. MSP used the downvote exactly for the purpose it was created for. However, some of the minnows attempting to help were prevented from helping, and became vulnerable to flags they could not counter, because of VP decay!
The decay of VP demonstrably and substantially reduces curation. My votes, and the votes of minnows curating, are not meaningless votes, and rather than creating unnecessary complexity, they are the very lifesblood of Steemit. VP decay simply drains away our ability to imbue Steemit with the value of our work. Furthermore, presently whales aren't curating much either, because the motivation to not do so is overwhelmingly powerful.
@l0k1: "Single voice single vote, plus no vote decay, would...overcomplicate the rewards calculation algorithm, and it would be absolute hell."
How will equally weighted votes increase the complexity of the rewards algorithm? The algorithm is presently complex precisely as a result of SP weighting. Presently the calculations of rewards is based on when the vote was cast, how much SP weighted the vote, how much SP is possessed by the content creator, where the slider is set, how depleted the VP of the voter was at the time the vote was cast, and how much VP becomes depleted prior to the rewards distribution. The claim that eliminating all those variables in favor of an algorithm that rewards each vote the same amount - simple addition and subtraction, just adding up how many votes were cast - would increase the complexity of calculations, and the load on the blockchain, simply isn't credible.
We minnows don't need a slider to make us feel like the big fish. We need our votes to be equally recognized as valuable work, because they ARE. Whales similarly need to be able to curate and add their $.02 to the conversation absent penalties to their wealth that currently are imposed when they do. If they want to direct some of their wealth to worthies, or projects otherwise, what is to stop them? If they want to give away their money, they can do that without tying it to, and affecting their ability to conduct, curation.
Many of the projects and effort expended by Steemit developers, and ancillary to it, are intended to create a more fair system precisely because of this weighting of votes by SP. All the bots, and vote selling, too.
@l0k1: " Furthermore, as my friend felixxx, a fellow witness, has informed me, that adding the vote slider for minnow accounts will also require the witnesses to vote for a 128kb block size, because at present the blockchain would disallow more than really a very small number of transactions (post, vote, coment, transfer, powerup, delegate) for these small accounts. The increased block size will allow this to function."
All of these efforts undertaken are only necessary because of that inequity. Not the inequity in wealth, but the inequity in VP because it is based on SP (inequity in wealth is a fact of nature, just as inequity in height, or running speed).
Consider how much more simple and fair, how much easier for new accounts to fully understand and invest in the platform, and how much improved in curation from voices silenced by VP decay, or need to responsibly manage their wealth, would Steemit be with votes of equal weight, and absent VP decay.
Think about how much effort, time and treasure is spent on curation trails, groups like MSP dedicated to helping minnows overcome obscurity and impotence, that could be spent on projects that could extend Steemit, rather than trying to mitigate it's flaws.
How many more accounts would Steemit presently have had not so many given up angrily thinking it was unfair, and how much easier it would be to attract new users to a fairer platform?
Capital markets have existed into prehistory. Investors achieve gains as the entities they invest in grow. This mechanism isn't broken, and functions in the market for Steem. When users fled Steemit last July, the price of Steem plummeted, and investors lost capital. Things that are bad for Steemit cost investors gains.
"...large- stakeholders have more to lose if the currency falls in value due to abuse than they might gain by voting for themselves." Steemit white paper. The white paper has failed to recognize that these stakeholders are compelled to manage their wealth responsibly, even at the cost of dangerously skewing the rewards - because the platform prevents them from curating without neglecting their duty to manage their wealth.
However it is correct that whales have more to lose from this inequity. No one stands to gain more capital than they from Steemit's runaway success, or to lose more as it fails to succeed.
All this complexity, unfairness, and disincentive to curate due to responsibility to manage wealth, vote decay, and perceived unfairness, is both unnecessary to Steemit's functions, and damaging to the platform. All of it can be replaced with the simplest of algorithms - addition - that will benefit the substantial holders of Steem by creating capital gains as the platform resists turnover due to user dissatisfaction upon discovering the unfairness inherent in the system, decrease the load on servers, and allow the wealthy to participate in curation, adding their valuable voices to the equally important minnows.
If you disagree with any point I have (laboriously) made, please do me the honest courtesy of replying with equal detail and examples as I have provided, so that I can consider fully your views. I did not post this with the intent of disparaging anyone, and have carefully avoided language (as best I am able. I tend to write from the hip) that might be considered pejorative or ad hominem.
I am concerned about Steemit, it's growth, YOUR wealth, and the immeasurable potential a simpler and more fair platform can fully realize.
Thank you for sharing your vision valued-customer.
I very much agree with your perspective here. When people act in selfish or inconsiderate ways, it's not so much because they truly are "evil" but more because there is a lack of insight and understanding how contributing and being a healthy part of a community simultaneously benefits you as an individual in not just a financial but also spiritual way.
Education is prevention. Punishment is just a reaction to the consequences of lack of education and would just make matters worse.
"Punishment is just a reaction to the consequences of lack of education and... just make[s] matters worse."
This is very true. We can see the results of that problem creation cycle in the terrible schools in inner cities, and the worse prisons where the students of those schools get their real educations.
We all are the real beneficiaries of ending this cycle, everywhere, not just on Steemit.
I didn't read that deeply, because it's quite repetitive.
You don't understand the mathematics of democracy, in elections, the voters who have already decided long beforehand, make no difference. It's the swing voters who matter. They are generally a pretty small part of the population because most people believe you should hold a posittion.
If the voters votes were weighted by their tax bill, the section of the population that would thus see the greatest power is the ones who pay the most taxes - the middle class. They would vote instead to strip the benefits from the poor and the corporate welfare from the rich. This is the real reason for the disappearance of the middle class, along with ever escalating taxes and regulations on business that are simply theatre for racketeers while they rifle the pockets of society's most productive people.
Nobody trusts someone who claims to be something without that opinion being reflected by their peers, and even then, it comes off looking arrogant. Sure, I say sometimes 'I know I am very intelligent' but that's mainly because I have been tested many times and every time I go into a new thing, with zero knowledge or mistaken ideas beforehand, I absorb the new information faster than most people do, sometimes I have felt a little bad for those of my peers in these situation who simply cannot print that much stuff into their brain.
But intelligence is measurable. The value of your work to the world dictates what you get paid for it.
Does it really get any more complex than this?
Let's look at science. Does a claim count for anything in science? Maybe if you are making the claim to ignorant people. But scientists know that no theory is worth anything without corroboration, and the person, like a curator here, who publishes it first, even if they ruffle a lot of feathers, will eventually be the one who gets kudos.
What about medicine? Would you trust someone claiming to be able to cure your disease without third party verification?
Why do you have to carry around identity documents? Because you could say anything about who you are. Just go into a bank and insist that you are someone else, and see how far that goes. Nope, they also require third party verification, even if this could be forged, as an absolute minimum.
The same goes for evidence in a court. Where the facts are producible, there can be no question. But if all you have is statements from witnesses, you have to look a lot deeper, you have to compare their stories (this is why police split up groups of criminals when they arrest them, and put them into remand centres, so they can't get their stories consistent, if they did not prepare their story). Even then, they seek to attempt to cause the offenders to slip up and incriminate themselves. In law, testimony is the weakest evidence, and a vote is testimony. Courts are also often called 'forums' for the reason that the primary activity in them is about a dialogue between different parties.
"I didn't read that deeply, because it's quite repetitive. You don't understand the mathematics of democracy..." I submit you may not know, as you state you failed to read 'deeply'. You haven't pointed out even one example of repetition, and, since I didn't repeat myself even once, stating I was repetitive is wildly inaccurate, and simply dismisses all of the various points I made.
Apparently, the moment you noted disagreement, you simply ignored everything I said. You can't learn a damn thing from doing that.
"in elections, the voters who have already decided long beforehand, make no difference. It's the swing voters who matter. "
There are no swing voters on Steemit. The only reason there are swing voters in a democratic election is because they are forced to submit to whoever wins the election. I submit you are addressing elephants not only in a different room, but on a different continent, which I tried to point out, not repetitively, but through different aspects of the two regimes which are illustrated by various mechanisms - and you have here pointed out another.
You're making points about governance at the point of a gun that have zero relevance to Steemit, which is why I addressed the question so carefully to begin with.
Taking the time to address each point I make, as I do your posts, will prevent that problem. While I will admit that does take time (I spent the wee hours of the night doing exactly that) it is the only way to have a conversation, rather than opposing monologues.
In fact, nothing else of your 'reply' here even addresses what I did say, but simply goes off on a tangent - how governments having the power of violence to compel their subjects to comply are affected by elections.
I had hoped to gain insight into the points I raised from your thoughts regarding them. Since you don't address any point I make - not even one - you have left me completely without the benefit of your views on those points.
Your reply isn't a response to anything I said, but rather a monologue on democratic government, which you seem to misunderstand to be what Steemit is. That misunderstanding may well explain why you could claim that simple addition is more complex than the present vote weighting scheme Steemit employs, for example.
Edit: while I appreciate your actually coming to the post and making a comment, since you have prevented us from having a conversation (which consists of point and counterpoint, rather than monologues without reference to one another) I am left with nothing else but disappointment.
Nothing you have said in this comment applies to Steemit, and does not further this discussion whatsoever.
No, I did not simply 'read one bit' and then decide. I read, skimmed, read, skimmed, read, then I got bored because I didn't see something new, and you failed to understand the relevance of the quotes from me that you posted, which is what I was addressing.
I have been dedicating a lot of mental energy and the at times unsettling emotions that come from conflict, far too intensively today, and I just got done with the most part of a very comprehensive debate with @davidnx on the announcement post for the bot. It is 1am in the morning.
Oh, as I read back and forth I see something I am compelled to respond to.
I perhaps was not clear enough on this point, and I think this is the most important comment in your comment. I hope that I am seeing that correctly. This is the answer I will give:
In fact, I did not approach the issue of the involuntary nature of participation in the society in which these elections occur, though I discussed how the outcome of the election is about deciding which politicians may make such rules.
I do not hold with the false use of involuntary membership as an imperative for conformity, I railed against this for all of my time in school, and afterwards, as it came to be later in my life, in regards to my decision to use psychotropic drugs, that was motivated by a desire for relief and self healing.
However, it is a fact that humans have to share at least some things, such as footpaths and roads, and thus the doing of our daily business requires us to consider other people, and this is not voluntary, although you can attempt to rebel against this by simply barging through people, it will ultimately back fire on you, no matter how sophisticated your cloak over it is.
Despite the fact that the need for some level of consensus to allow peace and prosperity exists, my point about stake weighted voting, which governs the influence of our votes, which comes originally from corporate democracies, which only operates in a voluntary context, despite the unavoidable need to share, the process of deciding the rules should be regulated by stake, and the participation in the decision making process must be voluntary, even if nature says it really isn't.
It must be determined by stake, because whatever one has put into the pool (in this case, tax money) is still my money, and what is done with it, I am still responsible for, not only that, because I make that sacrifice, I should also be the rightful recipient of the benefits of this money being applied to ostensible social good.
I hope that clarifies that point. I too am continuing this debating because I want to be sure that my argument is watertight before I stick my neck on the chopping block putting little red flags on self voted comments.
While I appreciate that there are examples of things that must unavoidably be commonly born, voting in a democratic system is rather an example of how some may be forced by others to have no say in how those things are born, rather than an example of how to rationally and fairly decide such matters.
Your inference that democratic government has relevance to Steemit is incorrect. You haven't much discussed stake weighted voting that I have seen, and the problem with comparing corporate boards with Steemit is that corporate boards are concerned with FINANCIAL matters - it is their purpose to maximize their profit.
Steemit votes are specifically intended NOT to do that. "In the real world, algorithms must be designed in such a manner that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit.
Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system." from the Steemit white paper.
"... you failed to understand the relevance of the quotes from me that you posted..."
You're wrong, and you haven't shown one example of it. You are not replying to any points I have made, but rather just making claims about them, and disregarding the substance of my words.
I don't think you understood what I said, because you didn't read it. It would be easy to show that I am wrong. Please do.
If the abstract principle is correct, it is reflected in the concrete. You misinterpret my discussion about democratic processes and stakes because you are only looking at the involuntary side of it, and not paying attention to the democracy that takes place every day in corporate shareholders meetings and elections.
As I am pointing out, voluntary membership is muddied by the fact that there is unavoidable need to arbitrate the use of commons. I am contra all forms of commons, in fact, however, even if the road is privately owned, its use is communal. Thus the need for rules and etiquette.
My personal beliefs about law is they should be short, simple, and understood by everyone. Like the Ten Commandments in their simplicity and congruency (well, maybe the comparison falls in respect of congruency).
Your quote from the Whitepaper is in relation to the justification for the pre-HF19 vote reward calculation, I believe. Are you arguing against HF19's levelling of the playing field?
Self votes made no impact on rewards for the majority of users pre HF19, with the exception of whales, who were then put under a spotlight and I forget how many times I read posts where people published the data of their investigations of this mischief. It is in this respect that Dan's original theory for how to distribute rewards was functional. However, after a year operating, the outcome was it failed in the central goal of promoting quality, by granting too much power to too small a group, to VOTE ON OTHER PEOPLE. This led to homogenisation and all kinds of groups formed defensive cliques against this power granted to the Whales by this accelerating vote calculation.
In fact, the community lost faith in the system BECAUSE of this ruleset. I know I did.
Now, anyone can upvote themselves, but unlike the Whales pre HF 19, not being a small and visible minority, everyone is constructing justifications for their greed.
If it wasn't ok for whales to do it before, then it shouldn't be ok for everyone else to do it now, either.
lastly:
The ability to self vote was part of the pre HF19 system. Its uses are to give a sense of self-empowerment in little things like being able to push a comment up the thread, which by the way, has a setting that defaults to 'trending' and can be changed to other options. Viz:
I must admit that I've gone through this several times.
At times I did wonder if this topic was more to do with steemit's vote system or the ups and downs of democracy - the back-and-forth did seem to straddle that line a bit.
Throughout, good points are made - and while I have been leaning towards SP as primary factor to weighting a vote - reflecting upon these points has had me thinking - and pondering alternatives.
Thank you again for pointing me to this thread. Its very well-made and is an excellent example of a reply that deserves to be a post.
I hope your agile mind is better able to conceive of acceptable alternatives than mine.
Essentially, I default to principle. As curation is the subjective valuation of content, and I feel it is elitist to consider one opinion of greater value than another, I reckon VP should be equal. Now, I qualify that by further considering that reputation is community vetting. The higher reputation one has, the more confidence in one's opinion the community has expressed - theoretically. In practice, reputation is more a function of time on platform, even more so than SP, as one cannot just pay money for more reputation.
I have not essayed to articulate a better reputation system, except to staunchly advocate that self votes not affect reputation, particularly not positively. I could probably be convinced to accept self upvotes lowering one's own reputation, as a means of discouraging self voting, and separating out folks more concerned about cash than reputation, but prefer neither self voting potential, nor self-affected reputation.
As I have made no headway in my campaign to either have egalitarian VP, or reputation weighted VP, there seemed no point in considering tweaking reputation, anyway. Perhaps I have put the cart before the horse in that regard, however. I gladly allow better minds than mine to take up the gauntlet, so that I might support such better options as they devise.
I confess that I may not be capable of doing more than that.
Particularly not today. I am reeling from family events beyond my comprehension.
I look forward to reading the fruits of your cogitation on the matter.
I am firstly sorry to hear that things are not well with you and/or yours. :c|
Such tend to be the most trying of times, and I do hope that you will pull through.
I concur with much of what you have said here - and my thoughts were gravitating along the same lines. Such has not crystallized and It will be interesting to see how I incorporate this new information in subsequent suggestion posts.
Take care.