I simply don't think I or anyone else here should be able to prevent you from voting your stake as you will on the platform, as that is somewhat fundamental to the way the blockchain works.
I agree: everybody should be able to do with their stake whatever they want, but at the same time I wonder what prevents other big stake holders to use their stake somewhat more often to counter (in their own interest and also in view of the reputation of HIVE) the actions of 'whales' who enjoy doing things like posting penises on other platforms (which instead to damage them, damages the reputation of HIVE!) and regularly downvote (for personal reasons or disagreement on opinion) and insult other users in a justiciable way?
Things like spam, plagiarism or farming are combated, and rightly so, why not also combat the actions of bigger stake holders which cause a devastating impression when HIVE is watched from outside?
I don't say anybody should be prevented from downvoting, but I wonder why big stake holders very rarely try to help the 'victims' (I know this word is somewhat overdramatic)? Everybody can and should curb spam, but to curb the actions of 'crazy whales', unfortunately, big stake holders are needed. Why not just flag insulting comments like for example these against @cryptofinally, just to show that the majority of big stake holders prefers to discuss things in a civilized way instead of attacking people with different opinions? Downvoting insulting comments of course wouldn't mean to agree (for example) with @cryptofinally, it would just show to disagree with insulting HIVE users. That also wouldn't be censorship (as you often state yourself that downvoting != censorship).
Apropos, do I care about rewards? Sure, somewhat. However, is that the reason for writing comments like this one? Of course NOT:
Firstly, comments like this could well serve to permanently reduce my rewards significantly. :)
Secondly, my point of view is that my main aim is not to get more rewards but to increase the value of HIVE (which would be much more beneficial for me than increasing my rewards, while the HIVE price remained low).
Before I forget it: thanks for all the precious development work (which is a really big contribution to increase the value of HIVE)!
I could downvote Bernie's comments all day (well, and I did at one point, when he was upvoting them to milk rewards), and he'd simply laugh about it. But there's no rewards on the current comments and it's not like he cares about reputation. To me the most applicable solution to someone that's continually insulting you is to mute them if you don't want to see it.
hey.. im curious what is the story with you downvoting my and other posts that have upvotes from rancho? It seems odd for you to downvote like this on posts that dont seem to break any conventions here.. I dont consider his upvotes random.. these are big effort community posts i have been doing for nearly three years ..
Its a little frustrating because i also have been flagged to death on Steem ...for again someone else's story.. and i invested years and many thousands on being here.. thanks...
You can ask around for a full history of ranchorelaxo if you like, but I don't have the time to repeat it right now. I can assure you his votes are not based on content. Right now I think he's upvoting whatever is on hot or trending, I haven't bothered to figure out which.
i assume you mean the long saga of rancho and haejin.. now by the looks of it you also dont approve of him upvoting hot or trending posts.. to me that is not random and im surprised you take such a strong stance on it... it feels to me like you have a personal issue with rancho.. and as a result you are flagging people like me.. which seems a weird way to go about things..
now you see. others are following your lead and are also downvoting my posts..
you know.. i dont see how this is helping anything.. and to me it just makes no sense.. it seems like yet another personal vendetta that is spilling onto other peoples laps.. honestly.. i can think of FAR worse things than someone using their voting power to support good posts! meanwhile.. id like you to know that these kinds of acts push people like me one step further out the door.. which is a shame considering what i have put into this ecosystem so far.. and indeed what i have had to put up with in so many ways...
i ask you to stop your bot because it will do more harm than good.. people DON'T like being downvoted. i dont mind nearly as much as some people who take it VERY personally and stop posting... thanks for listening,
Then looks are deceiving. I don't know personally know haejin or ranchorelaxo, and as far as I can remember, I've never had even an on-chain conversation with either one of them.
He's not voting based on content. As I already mentioned, it's not strictly random, as hes voting for whatever is on hot or trending.
But that voting pattern is also bad, IMO, because it just focuses out-sized rewards to a few people instead of distributing the rewards more reasonably among posters. If you makes you feel better, you can view it as reward disagreement, since I think getting votes without anyone paying attention to the content tends to lead more reward than should be received.
There's also another issue with the ranchorelaxo stake, since it appears it's being voted against the wishes of the actual owner, by haejin who seems to have the posting key, but not the active key. This creates a perverse incentive in terms of voting, since his primary interest becomes maximizing rewards of the haejin account, while ignoring the potential losses in stake value of the ranchorelaxo account from his actions.
Finally, I reject your claim that others are "following" my downvote. I think you'll find that others are countering haejin and ranchorelaxo's votes, but generally speaking they were doing so before I started. I mainly started because others asked for my help in doing so.
thanks for responding. I understand what you say.. and i would like to challenge you, in the best possible way, about it.. please do take just one more minute to consider this.. this for me is really not about rewards at this point.. its about how we govern Hive.. WHO governs hive, and whether or not we should even be attempting to micro manage it. I hope you can take this as constructive criticism...
Back in the day of voting bots, there were way more scammy activities happening, and it was clear that a HUGE amount of posts were getting unfairly rewarded.. and some even made profits from voting bots on top of the unfair rewards.. the trending page was really not very exciting.. It took time but finally the situation was resolved with a hard fork.. by giving free downvotes each day.. Suddenly, overnight things changed.. the system dictated how we behaved, and the addition of a simple new downvote directive took care of the whole problem very swiftly.
What makes a good post? What makes a post worthy of a good vote?.. That is of course entirely subjective,. It is obvious when a post is plagiarised, or worse.. and i do agree those posts are worthy of a a downvote.. but even then not always depending how its done and whether any extra value is added.
What is happening now is VERY different and sets a dangerous president. It is this that I am focussing on. I dont believe that anyone, but especially someone in your position, should be getting involved in micro managing votes, deciding what has value, or using your very large stake to attempt to steer the reward pool in a certain direction. It dishonours one of the core principals of anarcho capitalism and a true decentralised model.. in my opinion we are on the road to failure because this path of micromanaging leads only ONE way.. which is only MORE censorship and attempts to steer a ship that does not want to be steered.
We must let her (hive) evolve naturally. To stifle it means it won't grow, we will lose diversity, and we have lost our freedom to express and to choose with our own core values what we like.
I know you are passionate about Hive, and have put ENORMOUS amounts of energy in to creating it and keep it going.. and sometimes we may get a bit too attached,, something like an overprotective parent.. but i say.. LET HER BE FREE.. PLEASE!~ Let's not go down this path.. things will resolve naturally and you dont even have to do anything. Let the community handle things.. EVEN when things seem DIRE..
I hope you understand this comes from a place of love and care.. but with a slightly different perspective..
have a great Sunday!