Unfairly taking a person's money is an illegitimate use of force whether the government does it or a private company. Cops kicking in the teeth of a kid is a much more gruesome and dark use of force so I'm strongly against that. That said, I never compared a down vote to a cop kicking a kids teeth in. Are you high? The use of force whether its from the government or from steemit is illegitimate if it's not done in self defense. I'm not sure how you claim government force is fundamentally different than steem force? I fully agree the government is much more violent and uses more force than Steem but force is force no matter who is using it. Right @mikemacintire?
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No one is taking your money. Once it is in your wallet that is yours and no one has the power (without extremely drastic measures, i.e. hard fork ) to touch that. But in-progress post rewards are always subject to change due to changing votes, market prices, changes to other post earnings, etc. People can add votes, remove votes, add downvotes/flags, all of which change the post reward amount. Until it is paid out, it is still part of the Steem reward pool, and not your money, yet.
@smooth and @the-ntf .
I respectfully disagree about hiding it at all.
We need to be able to see at a glance what the payout is in order to know if it deserves to be rewarded more with our vote; to not be rewarded more with our vote; or to be knocked down by our flag. It is every users responsibility to have a say in how the pie is shared. If you have to dig in to every post and click a button to see where that post is in value it only serves to make the system less transparent, less accurate and less efficient.
I vote to leave the rewards visable and make it more obvious how the system works to all users in order to let people do the right thing, eventually...
Though I guess it would cut down on the anger people have when a crap article gets paid $1000 and their objectively better, but unseen, article gets $0.10... : wink :
I disagree with this. Steemit needs to evolve so that people are not just rewarding content in ways they think will do well or because they think they are worth what they've got so far, we should be liking what we like for what we like about it. Currently we're not that incentivised to play this way. Removing the reward count on the main page would help with that, once the community has really expanded and remain active.
But I do agree that to ensure distribution of rewards which many whales are working on, certain curators need to be able to find what content hasn't done well and maybe should have among other purposes. This data will always be visible on the blockchain, and if you really want to base your vote on what somebody has already made you can still do that, it just won't be as easy as it won't be visible on the main page.
Funny... people earn hundreds/thousands of dollars more than they EVER did on Facebook or any other social network, and yet still people want to complain about the "unfairness" of the system...
So much misdirected angst towards the whales - completely forgetting its their funding that makes this site possible. Sad how some produce content from a mistaken sense of entitlement rather than learning the rules of the game and understanding the depths of VALUE, putting their talents & passion to use contributing to the community vs resisting a system in deveopment whose flaws still are huge steps forward from other models...
I agree - Although a real newbie here, I love the idea of seeing which of my posts and which topics catch the attention of other Steemers, either whales or minnows. I'm on here for the fun of it - any steem that comes my way will be a bonus. :-) Stuart.
Thank you. Not many other comments in this thread made any sense and I couldn't articulate myself as good as you did.
Hope posts like these don't make it far in the future cause I'm tired of reading them.
Smooth, if the payout isn't yours until the vote time is completed, I would suggest that's a reason not to publish a number. Or perhaps only the person who posted the content can see the accumulated total.
Unless it's all immediately on the blockchain and there's no way to not see it, of course.
It is immediately on the blockchain but that doesn't mean that it necessarily has to always be thrust in peoples faces either. Maybe there is some UI redesign that could help reduce misunderstandings about just what the number means. Perhaps a button you have to press labeled with something like "Show in-progress voting" could be used. I'm just throwing out ideas here.
Your point about not showing a number until the money is your does make logical sense, so I think this deserves some consideration.
I don't really mind about the numbers. The numbers have their own usefulness as people can use it as a factor to evaluate or make certain decisions on the post. And yes they have their drawbacks as well. But I think it's fair, as the the rule is not subjective and applies for everyone. Making it an honest rule.
It's mainly important to show the number so the community can review it.
If anyone would like to hide the dollars amounts, they are free to do so as I outlined here. Complaints about money that is still part of the changing reward pool prior to payout seems a bit like an entitlement mentality to me. The rest of the article brings up valid and important concerns.
I think post earnings being hidden by default will have a good effect on people judging posts by the quality of their content instead of how much money they made. But it will have a bad effect on new users coming to steemit. Because that homepage with the big numbers sure does attract people.
Yes personally I would recommend simply removing the dollar symbol from the number. It makes people think they've "earned" money when in fact the value could change, and after the voting period only a fraction of it is earned with actual steem dollars, and much of it going to the curators. The reasoning for this makes sense, but putting the dollar symbol maybe not.
Perhaps put impermanent numbers next to the permanent ones with a dotted line around them, in fainter font color. Have a legend that shows that number labeled as "subject to change" and the other number "permanent earnings."
This is true but you still don't have your voting preferences in any public place so we can know what you'll vote down so we can avoid generating that content. As a result, how are we bloggers to know we aren't being voted down for arbitrary reasons such as a bad mood, or political disagreement?
Why don't you reveal your criteria once and for all for what you'll downvote. Why wait for a post to make "too much money" to reveal it violates some hidden standard?
Can't any of us change our voting criteria at any time?
You nailed it! @smooth
End of issue!
I apologize for the "cops kicking a kids teeth in" part of my argument.
When a boxer punches another boxer in the ring, why isn't it a rights violation? Because they entered the ring voluntarily.
By the same token, when a steem participant loses rewards based on the rules of the system they voluntarily chose to participate in, it's not stealing or "unjustified" in the sense that government violence is unjustified.
We might want the voting system to be different or disagree with the whales behavior, but there is no rights violation. There is no aggression or initiation of force in the way that government does, because government is not voluntary, and steem is. @barrycooper
If the boxing game promised fair competition (censorship resistances) but the rules encourages other forms of behaviour (whales turning day into night) then surely those who invested their time and effort into the game, or in this case created content, have the right to speak out?
This is another submissive argument that's been posted: you didn't put any money in/you are getting more out of this than Facebook so don't complain. It's quite counterproductive because it suppresses constructive discussions.
I spent quite some time about working out how to implement a fair and accurate reputation system, and one of the things that I worked out was that downvoting should not be permitted. Post a post instead saying how crap you think they are, see how that goes? Makes you realise what a dumb idea it is after all.
In my humble opinion, upvotes cost money, downvotes lower the poster on YOUR feed. Whoever you upvote, their downvotes lower the poster to the degree you upvote them on your feed. Downvoting should just be shunning, not actual punishment. Votes should be irrevocable.
For sure. In fact, I can't help but think of it similar to trying to sue a casino for one's losses. You walk in knowing the risk. If that's how you want to react to it, then it's obvious you didn't understand the risk.
There is no rights violation but it's still not transparent. The whales are black boxes with preferences we can't decipher in advance. Maybe by requesting they post their voting preferences we can resolve this dispute. Whales who post the reasons they'll downvote will be more trusted than whales who downvote because they feel like it.
The whales are people with preferences that change from day to day. What one downvotes today is not necessarily what they will downvote tomorrow -- same as their upvotes.
You don't get to know who is going to flag your post, or vote for your post, until you post it.
Voting for someone to be paid less isn't taking money away.
I have to agree with @smooth. Here's the funny thing. If you truly had a problem with Steemit, you'd have written this article on Medium. But you didn't. Why I wonder? Why would you participate in such government sponsored coerced project? :)
So now we are blaming others for lost profits?
"I'm not sure how you claim government force is fundamentally different than steem force?"
It's very different. We don't elect whales.
It's not unfair if they were to list their criteria from the beginning but it's unfair if the bloggers have no clue what certain whales vote preferences are and then find out on the fly as seemingly arbitrary reasons are given.
Encourage the whales to be transparent about what they'll downvote so they can be held accountable to their own criteria.
That attitude will get you far!
First: Very cool that Barry realizes that the CIA has their fingers in every pie the Fed cares about. I wish most libertarians were that aware. (This is a consequence of the nature of cybernetics or "the science of good/powerful/effectie governance." The book "The Human Use of Human Beings" by "Cybernetics" author Norbert Wiener goes into a lot of detail on this subject.)
Second: There is a force continuum. A lot of people here are treating force like an "all or nothing" binary value, hence the similar repeated criticisms. While it's true that curtailing discussion doesn't rise to the level of police aggression, or "direct physical violence" it is what is known as "an appeal to force"; an argumentation fallacy. Essentially, censorship of any kind, (anything other than free speech absolutism) reveals a deeply unfair, unintelligent, and un-American culture.
Should the Whales be forced to modify the Steem community? Only through market pressure, which is the counter-force to censorship. Physical force shouldn't be used against them, the threat of users "voting with their feet" should be.
I hope, like Barry, that the voting method becomes more "democratic" in the proper sense of the term. (In the sense it's used in the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, and "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly.
Heck, maybe Barry can lend his expertise to the site designers to show them how to ferret out the spooks. ;)