https://steemit.com/discussion/@whatsup/remembering-the-whale-experiment-thinking-about-distribution

Second result from the search list, how deep did you have to go to find those outliners, or you searched specifically for "whale experiment fail" lol? That post explains why it was a success. In the comments more people doing the same.

https://steemit.com/steem/@abit/whales-no-voting-experiment-going-on

Yeah it was a "cluster fuck" and it had no 'control' but it was an experiment not in the strict scientific method way but as "Let's see what would it be with a different reward distribution" and the site was Lit. Like never before or ever since, we should be lucky to have that kind of engagement and reward distribution again. Go. And. Read. It's surely extremely hard to not run into post after post talking about how good the experiment was, though you seem to have burdened yourself in digging up the initial, reactive posts as if that means jack shit besides blasting the bias you have of "que wisdom of the crowd".