Fairness can be violated by creating a system wherein first mover or creator bias leads to overwhelming control over the system. Then using that control, one devises retroactive rules that further increase one's control over the system.
In all cases it is trivial for the rule maker to say any actions they took were "fair" because those actions or rule modifications conformed to the existing rules.
P.S. I've voted myself up on this post to underscore the fact that the OP also voted himself up.
I never vote my comments with full power.
Never devised rules to increase my control. In fact I do the opposite, devise rules to decentralize control.
@dantheman Whatever I did to get black balled can you remove it sir?, sincerely asking. My post shuts down after a few votes, is my content really this bad please just enlighten me.
Your reputation system gave you a very high reputation score, calculated reputation based on retroactive data, and you just exercised control with it by downvoting me. How does it feel to be baited so succsessfully?
I agree the reputation score should have started anew, and not interpreted past votes in a manner that was never intended when those votes were cast.
I ended up spending quite a bit of time personally cleaning up the mess created by the initial values of Dan's reputation system, especially in the form of enthusiastic users having their Steem dreams crushed by being sent into deeply negative rep by generally a single minor offense of poor taste or a mistake that happened to be downvoted by a whale (often Dan himself). Or even in some cases a downvote that was inexplicable (and possibly in error). I don't know how many simply quit instead of appealing for help, but I'm sure some did.
When the rep system is redone yet again, it should start with reset reputations rather than repeating the mistake of reinterpreting history.
@stellabelle, I don't think he intentionally rigged the rep system to give himself a high score, but I think he deemed it acceptable because it gave himself and others who he considered worthy high scores (and possibly because it did not place him at risk of having his reputation severely damaged if he were to make unpopular posts, as others much consider), while paying little to no attention to how it treated the others. If a proposed reputation system happened to give him or any of his favorite members a very low score based on past votes, he'd probably have revised it, or started with reset reps.
I would add, however, that if Dan were interested in giving himself a high reputation score, don't you think he would have made it so that he had the highest one? He does not in fact have the highest one, and myself and @tuck-fheman have a higher rep than Dan, so we could at any moment decide to downvote him. This reality doesn't align itself with excercizing greater control over the system by the ones who created it. If Dan was in fact not an honest person, he would rig the rep system, giving himself the highest number.
It doesn't matter at all in the big picture, when company accounts are used to censor any conversation (as they have been doing and will likely continue to do) they please, regardless of community voting consensus.
This has already been proven by the actions of management using those accounts for this purpose.
Anyone believing Steemit as it exists currently to be a censorship free platform for free speech is sadly mistaken.
Please be aware that a downvote from you or @tuck-fheman can only bring about 10% of impact on rep score than a downvote from @dantheman, because he has about 10 times more SP than you.
His score doesn't need to be the top score. It just needs to be very, very high. It would be unnecessary and impossible to design a retroactive rule set that perfectly optimized for a chosen account without the need for obvious special cases.
It's great that you have a high rep, but it would have not been difficult to assign everyone the same score at the start of a new fork and allow reputation to evolve from a point where everyone has equal footing.
If the environment is created by the person, it is still fair that they change the rules of the environment - so long as it is communicated and they're not misleading, manipulating, or violating anyone's rights.
Others choose to participate in the environment or not. Their choice is also fair.
The problem is when the environment is presented as something other than what it really is, or when those that are in control feign community interests "trump" theirs...all the while using company assets to silence those they do not agree with. That is what people are having a big problem with regarding Steemit as it stands.
"That said, perception often matters more than reality and we must design systems that are perceived to be fair even if they are logically and “objectively” less fair from the perspective of mathematics, deductive reasoning, and first principles."
Herein lies the problem, dan.
This is where the swindling occurs, because people are being sold lies - hence the frustration.