Isn't the idea of Steem to be a meritocracy based on quality of content? Even with no shenanigans, wouldn't power naturally flow to the creative and diligent? Does the current sytem meet that ideal? Or is that creativity wasted on gaming the system?
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
A meritocracy only works if all work gets chance to be fairly judged. That simply isn't the case here. Informal and formal communities, voting circles, cliques, and groups of people who take advantage of the system have made this impossible, as if usually the case with humans in and community. In that way Steemit is really truly a social network, and there may not ultimately be a great solution for this.
The system has been tweaked a few times, but inequality always happens, and indeed, it is based on merit to a large degree. Unfortunately though, there are many other factors at play. Should early adopters be rewarded? I believe they should, but to what extent? One thing I would like to see would be more reasons for people to use Steemit other than the financial reward. The sense of community is pretty poor in my opinion, even within niche subjects. And yeah, most voting is completely unnatural.
This sort of begs the question:
Do you believe that all people share the same interests and a common idea of what "quality "is?
If so, then you may believe that the distribution of resources on Steemit does, in fact, describe a meritocracy. After all, wealth and power to naturally flow to people who are best able to work within the system.
But if you believe that what I think is quality and what you think is quality may differ because we are individuals who have different means of judging what we think is worthwhile – then you may have a problem with the essential authoritarian assumption of Steemit-as-arbiter.
I would contend that it is impossible for a system which makes the assumption that everyone not only does have the same idea of what quality is but should have the same idea of what quality is to meet the ideal of a meritocracy based on the quality of content. We have taken an essentially subjective analysis and assumed that it is equally applicable to all agents within the population. To that end, an aggregate measure of those with the most power in the system has been taken to represent the content with the most quality.
All systems exist to be gamed. That is the nature of systems. If you create a system in which someone can be rewarded in any currency, whether it be a digital commodity, or attention, or applause – people will be interested in gaming that system. Some of those people will be successful in exploiting the system.
A well-designed system takes into account that such exploitation is inevitable and works to minimize the impact on individuals who don't want to be part of it.
This may require a complete rethinking of the mechanisms which underlie your system.