Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I wanted to propose some adjustments to how downvotes are handled here in the Hive ecosystem!
PLEASE READ Down Vote Adjustment Suggestions
In the past few years, I wanted to do something in my life that was both beneficial as well as challenging.
I made it a point to not just identify problems but offer solutions to said problems. We need more solutions offered in the world we live in I think! It’s a lot easier to identify problems but offering a potential solution is a lot more difficult. It requires a different kind of thought, I think.
Here is one of those attempts today!
This ended up being a very long post, so for slightly easier reading I am separating the sections with headers unlike my normal photograph-laden posts.
I wanted to preface this with the statement:
I am not married to this solution but I felt the need think of a way to propose this down vote change argument. I am trying to offer a way to adjust the system a little bit to give less opportunity for abuse but still give us the ability to downvote. None of this may technically be possible, I don't know, but everything starts with a conversation!
Background
Down votes are a crucial element of the Hive ecosystem. Those of us with a fair bit of time and stake here on the platform know and understand this. The unfortunate part about it is that it is a system that can and has been abused in the past. (those of us who remember the berniesanders downvote wars... lol) This dissuades a fair amount of people from considering Hive a platform they would like to use. This is a good thing in many regards because it keeps low-quality assholes off here, like those who mooch off us but it also has the chance to ruin a good users experience if they stray off the right path a little bit, and end up on the wrong side of down votes. There have been quite a few examples of this happening sadly, but such is life.
I have TWO changes I am proposing.
The first change I am proposing would be we could have the flexibility to down vote two (or three) posts of someone’s account in a 7 day period starting 00:00 UTC (the underlying blockchain time) on Sunday’s. Then it would go into “recharge” just like RC or VP. I don't know if we would see a recharge bar or something similar to how we see our resource credits or voting power, but that might be possible as a user visits an accounts page. At least on PeakD, we can click the "i" for their info and see their percentages. Perhaps we could have an account-specific downvote bar there. I don't have the technical knowledge if this is even possible, but I know smarter brains than I will give it a good analysis if they feel it's worth their time to think about it, and confirm or deny it's possibility. This is probably going to be one of the less controversial pieces of this post. I think we can agree that it gives a bit of a happy medium between unlimited downvotes and no downvotes at all.
Where it might get a little squirrely.. :D
The second change I am proposing if someone is to be added to a down vote list (recently called a "blacklist", but I would like for services like Hive.Vote to respect the same process) it needs to happen only via proposal and pass a threshold similar to proposals for DHF.
The proposal process could be structured in a way that it’s in a community dedicated to that topic only, users being proposed for a downvote / blacklist addition. The pinned post is the format of the post for them. To make this streamlined the posts will be short so not to be an excessive burden. It also gives the person putting up the proposal the discretion of what type of punishment they think would be appropriate. For example, a second time plagiarism offender could get a 7 day or 7 post downvote as a firm warning to cut the shit. Someone who trolls and posts their "Blurt is better than Hive" bullshit could get their account submitted for a 1 year or permanent ban depending on the severity.
I kind of like the format:
- User
- Action(s)
- Recommendation
For example:
- User: cmplxty
- Actions: plagiarism of online articles with no sources provided. Multiple warnings and continued violations. [links to the various posts/examples will be required to be provided]
- Recommendation: 30 post blacklist / automatic downvote
There could be some different choices configured for the recommendation. It would kind of work like the advanced features in a post. I think it would be good to have several different options. Doing timeframe or quantity would allow flexibility.
Timeframe options:
- 7-day post downvote / blacklist
- 30-day post downvote / blacklist
- 90-day post downvote / blacklist
- 1 year post downvote / blacklist
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist
Quantity options:
- 7 post downvote / blacklist
- 30 post downvote / blacklist
- 90 post downvote / blacklist
- 200 post downvote / blacklist
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist
Reversal:
- Reverse permanent downvote / blacklist
There would also need to be the option to end a permanent post blacklist just because it makes sense to not only build in the ability to permanently downvote somebody, but while you are doing the work in my opinion it makes sense to be able to undo that. The chances of somebody getting to a permanent blacklist and then redeeming themselves are quite slim, possibly nil, but I have a philosophy of coding it once, and code for the potential situations that way you don't have to go back in the future for more work.
To end a permanent blacklist, it would need to go through a new proposal and reach a similar threshold as getting a blacklist applied.
Similar to the DHF proposals, we would need to have a "return" proposal. Those who do not make it above the return proposal for threshold will not get the downvote requested strategy applied.
I think it would be most helpful to have a page setup just like the proposal page, except for the downvote requests. It would list current requests, past requests, "all" requests and the threshold similar to how the DHF proposal page is organized. This would allow for the posts themselves to go into a community, just like DHF proposals do, and there being a way to keep the current list relevant. The default view would be "current requests" to keep things easy and organized. I am not sure if we need an "upcoming" tab as well, so I put that one out to the audience. I find it helpful either way, with or without it.
I think similar to proposals for things like Splinterlands, we could incorporate a cost into the system. This would potentially deter someone submitting a downvote proposal out of spite because they got in a fight with somebody. We have seen this happen plenty of times before, and is one of the motivators of this whole idea.
The challenge is that you don't want to set the bar too low, like .001 HBD but you also don't want to set it too high like 10 HBD. This itself would deter people too much in my opinion and people would be able to get away with the crap they get away with.
I think a tiered cost structure would make sense..
Timeframe options:
- 7-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 0.1 HBD
- 30-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 0.5 HBD
- 90-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 1 HBD
- 1 year post downvote / blacklist COST: 2 HBD
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist COST: 5 HBD
Quantity options:
- 7 post downvote / blacklist COST: 0.1 HBD
- 30 post downvote / blacklist COST: 0.5 HBD
- 90 post downvote / blacklist COST: 1 HBD
- 200 post downvote / blacklist COST: 2 HBD
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist COST: 5 HBD
Reversal:
- Reverse permanent downvote / blacklist COST: 10 HBD
Where does the cost go?
The cost from the proposal for downvotes would be sent to the DHF in my ideal opinion. It could also be burned, but I kind of rather send the funds to the DHF to help build that in what ways we can.
Now, as I said in the beginning I am not married to any of these as hard rules, the cost could be adjusted to be minimal like .001 HBD or it could be removed altogether but I think having some sort of cost is beneficial. Hell we could even incorporate a Resource Credit cost! The Resource Credit cost would be another usecase for RC and it also requires a fair bit of stake in the platform in order to make proposals. The permanent removal should cost about 8,000 Hive Power if my calculations are correct. (they could be wildly off, but I was basing it off my RC amount I am able to delegate at 42k HP, I was thinking 20% of my HP max RC 71,000b RC)
Resource Credit cost tiers:
Timeframe options:
- 7-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 1,000b RC
- 30-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 2,000b RC
- 90-day post downvote / blacklist COST: 3,000b RC
- 1 year post downvote / blacklist COST: 5,000b RC
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist COST: 10,000b RC
Quantity options:
- 7 post downvote / blacklist COST: 1,000b RC
- 30 post downvote / blacklist COST: 2,000b RC
- 90 post downvote / blacklist COST: 3,000b RC
- 200 post downvote / blacklist COST: 5,000b RC
- Permanent post downvote / blacklist COST: 10,000b RC
Reversal:
- Reverse permanent downvote / blacklist COST: 20,000b RC
The use of Resource Credits here incentivizes their use as well, not just for transacting on the chain or claiming account tokens. This might be a preferable option for some since it doesn't cost anything in terms of liquid assets, but relies on our staked assets. The incentive to have staked assets are many!
Appeal?
I haven't put a lot of thought into a down vote appeal, but I guess it could be possible. I defer to folks to make a suggestion for an appeal process. It would make sense for longer durations but not 7 day/post ones. We could suggest to someone make an appeal post in the designated community.
I think that about sums up the suggestion. This ended up being definitely the longest post I've ever put onto the chain, but I think it's an important one!
I think that this suggestion could give us a happy medium to not have free for all down votes which ends up making this a place that people don’t want to invest in because of that. It also doesn’t remove them entirely and end up a cesspool like Blurt.
I think this also allows much more transparency for those who have offended to know what they are being called out for and by whom (potentially..). This helps the community and chain tremendously as a whole instead of permanent or trails down votes with no reasoning. We can certainly still throw 2 (or 3) downvotes at an accounts posts if we want to send a warning, but in order to take it a step further and really go after someone, we make it a little more difficult and much more transparent what the offense is.
We don’t have to attract hundreds of thousands of new users but we do need tens of thousands and some investors - how we currently handle down votes is widely known and a black mark in some eyes for the future success of hive.
Drawbacks?
There are certainly plenty of potential drawbacks with this, but there is nothing in life that doesn't have benefits as well as drawbacks.
I think the drawback of this is that somebody could potentially end up creating accounts pretty quickly and vary between them to try and milk rewards off the chain. There are plenty of people who do this now, but if they know there is a limit of 2 down votes per account per week, they could potentially do some spam action.
The other aspect that might be a drawback is that it would be a limitation with having to submit the proposal and wait for it to be enacted upon whereas if someone had the free ability to downvote as long as they had downvote mana, then they would be able to act faster.
Then there are certainly a bunch of trash members that were here previously that made a big spectacle of going over to Blurt because "no downvotes!!!!111" and shit. They are annoying but I'm sure would flock back to only get hit again at some other point because their behavior doesn't seem to change.
Benefits?
I think there are a number of benefits with this type of change.
One of the big ones is that it can show that we are flexible and will make changes to how the underlying structure of behaviors on the chain are handled. Talking to many people over the years, the downvote system and how it's handled is a pretty serious detractor for them participating here at all, or making more investments into the chain and how it operates. This isn't necessarily guaranteed to be true but it is definitely a pock mark on the reputation of the chain when people get in down vote wars a long time ago, and that is what people remember.
We could garner investments and increased interest by having a more governed system for downvotes. Let's face it, the wild west style of doing some things no longer works. It's nice to have the full freedom to do some things like down vote who we want, however long we want but we do need to have some restraint built in otherwise people and companies will not want to do business here.
GIVE ME FEEDBACK!!
Please give me feedback on what you think of this idea! I will try my best to respond to all of the comments in as quickly of a fashion as I can! The absolute best thing to do is foster and garner discussion in the community. The more we talk about things, the more we can change our thoughts and opinions on a topic.
I did great on this post without adding a million pictures :D here is my obligatory final picture!
Finally, 50% of the rewards I receive from this post will go to the DHF. Post scheduling and setting beneficiaries has not worked for me in the past so I will not try to set them ahead of time but I will donate 50% of the HBD earned to DHF. Not that it will be a ton, but it's important!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI. All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated
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Ok, so first of all downvote mechanism is a manabar, just like upvotes. In fact the capacity of your manabar is one fourth of the capacity of your voting manabar. It recharges from zero to full through 5 days, just like any other manabar. The only notable difference is that it is possible to keep downvoting after downvote manabar is exhausted, however such operation costs voting mana instead, which means downvoter gives up his voting power and potential rewards from curation (separate manabar was introduced precisely to eliminate that effect, otherwise no one would want to waste time and rewards in order to police the content).
You can see downvote manabar in various places - for example on account page in Block Explorer.
Downvotes are not just for punishing bad actors. They are also used to trim rewards that downvoter finds excessive. And yes, some downvoters use reasons for downvoting that I personally find ridiculous (or are just jerks).
As for the second part - I'm pretty sure every downvoter, especially ones with significant stake, has their own strategy. There is no need to introduce mechanism for coordinated downvoting, although some community moderators might actually welcome a ready to use way to support their efforts. From the whole idea I'd like to see the ability to attach reason to the user that is placed on a blacklist - also front ends should show that reason. That way not only blacklisted individuals can learn why they are not wanted, but more importantly curators might see that they should avoid upvoting certain content - less people tricked into upvoting bad actors means less need for downvotes (and it is also beneficial to curators to know in advance what is likely to be downvoted, because upvoting content that is later downvoted reduces their rewards).
First of all, I'm glad someone who is far more technical than I has given it a look and some feedback, thank you! :D
Secondly, yes I know that it could be something potentially undesired to have it baked into the base layer to override downvote bars. I think the conversation is important though because there is a lot of room to be desired with the current system of down votes. It's why I felt the important need to put my ideas on paper and waiting for some feedback.
I think that your banner idea for WHY someone is on a blacklist or downvote list is really important. That would go a long way to improve the communication in terms of it. A lot of people get added to a list sadly, without much consideration of the negative wider implications of that and how it looks. To someone who isn't well-versed in Hive, it's politics and workings, seeing the downvotes is certainly a turn off especially because there is minimal or no explanation provided at all and it's DEFINITELY not easily apparent to someone like a banner would be.
I think this is exactly why I wrote the post though, to just get a discussion started. We can morph the ideas as things go along but a deeper conversation around them I think is really important for the health of the platform.
EDIT - you have just given me some inspiration to a follow-up to this based on your comment, so thank you!!
That's what saved Hive from bidbots - even though there are still bidbots operating on Hive, they don't just overwhelm the inflation issuance anymore.
You mean maintain the control of governance the oligarchy possesses. Taxation is theft. It's also tyranny in a plutocracy, which is what Hive is.
It could be a something that support the ecosystem
The drawbacks are not so much of a drawback and the reason I say this is because creating another account is easy, but but support or upvotes on new account is hard, but although it's possible some people abandon old accounts with plagiarism and move on to create another one.
Thanks for the thoughts and feedback!
Yeah I know it's easy but gaining a reputation that's positive takes a lot of work.
The proposal isn't perfect by any means but it's better than not thinking of an alternative I think!
Some users on Hive have >10k accounts, and that makes policing circle jerks all but impossible, so such bot armies can create their own rep and rape the rewards pool with impunity. It's likely that is the majority of economic activity outside the DHF on Hive today, IMHO.
This is not a bad idea ... a little complex because new users who are struggling with rules they don't know exist will not be able to work this either, and because downvoting itself is complex. One whale not liking another whale who votes someone can get one on a DV list on Hive -- a bunch of people have been through that in the past year or so. But, provided that we get better information to new users on how to stay right, and that bigger actors can commit to acting in good faith, this has potential!
Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. I think this is the core behind it - providing a clearer way for people to understand why something is done. I didn't even want to try to cover the whale wars because those itself are incredibly complicated sadly. That is a very good point and is likely to be a good addendum to this if it's considered!
Hey hey, I'm still kind of new to to whole hive ecosystem and still finding my way and just had experienced for the first time someone down voting two of my posts, I would like to add that when someone down votes a post, they have to explain why - because in my case this didn't happen and when I asked I got a strange answer
Yeah no worries! It’s all confusing for sure.
What you are now victim to is what many of us refer as “whale wars” which means that one whale votes a post and another whale disagrees with the amount of rewards distributed and they go in a battle but the people who are getting hurt are the people that they try to vote on. It’s a difficult thing for sure and I’ve seen it happen many times sadly.
What I would also like to see is you stake some more hive power on here. You’ve been around for a few years but you don’t have a lot of HP and I think that’s a shame.
At any rate though thanks for stopping by and offering some thoughts! Hopefully you don’t fall victim to more whale wars.
Yup you're right, I've been a splinterlands player only for about three years, thanks to a podcast I listened with azircon, I'm not bettering my hive live and keep the hive power instead of selling it and move to my splinterlands accounts so I couldn't agree more, work in progress 😊
Thanks for explaining 👍
Yeah that's understandable I’ve played the game as well, though not so much lately. I am glad that you’re keeping your hive power though so you can get a stronger stake. It’s important for you and the platform long term! Spending funds on Splinterlands is addicting though so I understand haha.
Keep up the presence here on hive!
haha I will! 👍😀 if you ever want to return to playing, let me know 😀
Oh! what you are proposing is establish some sort of "Public Wall Of Shame" in Hive. Right?
Hahaha, well, my friend... ¿Who really cares?
Who here in a so tiny and unknown place like Hive full of paupers & sycophants and barely a couple handful of nouveau riche who believe themselves to be the gods of Olympus with their high HP would be interested in spending time, grey matter, money or resources to code, program and establish such public parapet as "The New Mugshot" that no one really is going to see or pay attention to?
Aren't they already more than happy with how everything is working in Hive right now?
Is it better to know what someone did instead of not knowing or being asked to go to a discord channel and ask, hoping someone answers?
The chain is pretty public after all with many things so why not this?
What in life isn't ruled by a group of people, honestly? We have to change the systems one way or another.
Remember Bernie had a horde of sycophants and panderers that found his most vile acts entertaining, and the only reason that all stopped was it actually rose to criminal threats some of his victims acted to get charged by law enforcement. Bernie was never seen again.
Anyway, Bernie's followers well demonstrated that pandering sycophants are immune to shame, and Bernie proved narcissists herding simps are too.
jAJAJAJA! creo que mi cara estaba por allí en esa pared de la vergüenza...
LoL, bueno, no te preocupes mucho por eso. Creo que @cmplxty muy pronto va a convencer a los que te pusieron allí a que den explicaciones y lo aclaren todo.
I liked your idea, maybe because I have been getting downvoted for more than a month, I wish I knew what I did wrong 🥲
I will say I am still relatively new to this platform, so if the reason is listed somewhere I may not know how to find it 😓
It's hard to determine sometimes. Have you asked the hive watchers team in their discord?
I haven't. What is their discord? I commented on a post of the person who was d-voting.
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STOPWow you have put a lot of thought into this. I think I will leave this to the experts to assess the feasibility and implications. As for me, I think we all should exercise our vote wisely. For a start, if someone is intentionally spamming, then we should discourage this behaviour by not upvoting them. If they are getting near zero votes each time, they probably will leave Hive if they weren't serious in the first place.
Kinda sorry I missed this in the madness of harvest season, but I did, and here I am now. I think it's important to approach things on principle, and take actions solidly supported by sound principles. Regarding DV's I think a fundamental problem is that DV's have been considered the opposite of upvotes, and they're not. Content is a product, and upvoting it is comparable to purchasing a product, like a Toyota. The opposite of buying a Toyota is not buying it. The opposite of an upvote is no vote.
DV's then, are taxes in this commercial understanding of content. What manufacturer could survive if anyone could tax them to the limit of their stake? Business would be impossible IRL if Ford could tax Toyota 100% of their revenue on every sale forever. However, selling forgeries or stolen goods can be greatly discouraged by such punitive taxation, and that's why DV's are necessary on Hive, to discourage spam, scams, and plagiarism. There really aren't any other mechanisms Hive can employ to prevent those 'crimes' in our economy, so we really do need the ability to tax scammers and the like 100% of their take to eliminate financial reward for those 'crimes'.
I appreciate you giving the matter so much thought, and actually doing the work to take a stab at solving what is clearly a problem that has all but destroyed Hive as a social media platform - while social media rose to become the largest financial sector in the global economy at the very same time. Unrestricted taxation just completely disables the potential Hive has to enable creators to be paid directly by their consumers, and brilliantly enables that without spending from their personal funds. Limiting DV's to their essential purpose without enabling them to completely eliminate the commercial utility of Hive would enable Hive to rapidly become the go to mechanism for folks to publish forthrightly and create networks of folks aligned in their thoughts and policies on every matter of import to people, which is where we want Hive to go.
If you can come up with some kind of mechanism to delimit DV's to their essential purpose without enabling opinion flags to fly, you'll have the found the key to enabling Hive to conquer the world.
Thanks!