Some things never change on Steemit, and lately an air of nostalgia has been brought to the platform by, you guessed it, flagging drama.
People still see the flag as a personal attack against them, which is not how it should be.
People still feel entitled to their potential payouts, which is not how it should be.
What seems to happen a lot on Steemit is people attracting regular big votes long enough for it to become standard, and then they feel that's the way it should be forever and ever. They get used to the fact that once they post, they make, say, $100 every time, and they are entitled to that.
These people seem to lack a fundamental understanding of how Steemit, and the allocation of rewards, works.
There are two types of votes: upvotes and downvotes. These don't differ from one another in any other way other than being opposite to each other.
When a post is upvoted, it's upvoted because the upvoter feels that particular post should be rewarded more.
When a post is downvoted, it's downvoted because the downvoter feels that particular post should be rewarded less.
It doesn't have to be anything personal, it's not like all upvotes are personal, either.
It's hugely hypocritical to accept the upvotes, but reject the downvotes. It reminds me of a certain other trending author from back in the day, who was more than okay with the fact that he was getting upvoted by both dan accounts, guaranteeing huge rewards, but once he got downvoted, he went on a nonstop tirade FOR WEEKS about how it's soooo wrong that one or two users on Steemit dictate who does and doesn't deserve to be rewarded.
Why wasn't he ranting about the same thing when it was indeed one user ensuring him the rewards on a regular basis? How was it any different when it was upvotes instead of downvotes? Why were the upvotes not an "abuse of power"? It was largely one user deciding he should be heavily rewarded.
Of course, it wasn't. The only difference was that the upvotes made him money, while the downvotes reduced his potential payouts.
When it's a whale upvoting, there's never a problem with "one user" "abusing his power", but when it's one user downvoting, it all of a sudden becomes an abuse of power.
Even though both votes do the exact same thing: allocate a large portion of the resources, based on the whim of that particular individual.
And there's nothing wrong with that. The voting is stake based. I feel silly having to even explain this, this is the entire basis of how Steemit and STEEM Power work, but obviously there is still a significant portion of the userbase that doesn't quite seem to grasp how this Steemit thing functions.
Stake based voting means that the more STEEM Power you hold, the bigger the portion of the rewards you control. This counts for both upvotes and downvotes. A stakeholder can use his or her stake any way he or she sees fit.
I repeat.
A stakeholder can use his or her stake any way he or she sees fit.
So, as an example. Large Stakeholder A decides to upvote a post. This is how he decided to use his stake today. Large Stakeholder B decides to downvote that post. This is how he decided to use his stake today.
No crime is being committed here
Recently, we had a situation where @transisto felt that a particular poster was being rewarded heavily, in relates to his view count. His logic was that the author's posts were not attracting a large enough view count to justify the rewards on those posts.
Now, people can either agree or disagree with the logic, but that is @transisto's logic, and he is an investor, something STEEM needs more of. As an investor, he is interested in bringing value to Steemit, and wants the rewards to go to posts that, in his eyes, bring value to Steemit. And, to him, the view counter is one way of measuring this.
I think this needs to be encouraged. Not enough whales care about the reward pool, or the long term value of Steemit/STEEM, at all.
People need to get over the idea that they are entitled to their potential payouts. This is long over due. The term "potential" is there for a reason. All payouts are subject to community/stake holder consensus, and during the payout period, people have the right to upvote and downvote as they please.
I can not, for the life of me, understand what it is about this that is so hard to comprehend for so many people.
This is not me kissing anybody's ass. Personally, I, too, post fiction on Steemit. They attract around 30-40 views on average. My other posts attract a lot more, and I know what to post to break the 200+ mark pretty consistently. I'm fine with the fact that fiction is not a huge draw on Steemit - since very few people read Steemit posts to begin with - and it's different type of content that attracts readers. I'm also way too lazy to promote my posts, or anything of that nature, in any way.
So, no, I don't post content that brings value to STEEM in @transisto's eyes, and that's totally okay.
I think a lot of people are overvaluing their posts on Steemit in general. Go anywehre else on the internet, and a blog post that gets 30 views is valued at precisely $0.
Steemit is this unique thing that can make posts like that valuable, but it doesn't mean they hold any value in the real world.
Personally, if a story chapter of mine that stood at 30 views, attracted a vote from one big whale, and got rewarded to $150 for example, I'd be totally fine with someone deciding to flag it to around $30 or whatever. If a large stake holder digs it, great - but at the same time, all other stake holders are entitled to disagree with the rewards.
And it's the resulting consensus that ultimately determines the final payout.
I generally post two types of posts:
- My story chapters, because it's fun
- Whatever happens to amuse me at any given time
Any payouts I make are a bonus.
Of course I like money as much as the next guy, but I'm not entitled to anything. Steemit doesn't owe me anything.
Steemit and the reward pool are not about me!
And they're not about you, either.
People always use the argument that it's "original work" and this, that and the other thing, but they fail to realize that there are tons and tons of people posting on Steemit that never attract whale attention, and make a few bucks, if that, per post. The rewards that one poster loses upon being flagged are not burned, they go to all the other posters not making a dime.
They post "original work", too.
That's not to say there aren't copy and paste artists raking in the rewards, we all know that there are. But this all goes back to there not being enough whales with the interest, or the balls, to really go against these people. And the community attacking big users flagging surely doesn't encourage doing that.
People could also think of it this way: if posts that bring value to the blockchain are encouraged and reward, then the smaller rewards made by other posts - such as my fiction - will grow as the price of STEEM grows in the future.
Now, I personally am not in the camp of believing that blog posts could really bring value to the blockchain to begin with, but that's another discussion. A lot of users here sure see to think that their posts are a godsent, and the platform would be doomed without them.
I'm not one of them, I'm perfectly fine admitting that my content is not needed on this platform. If you like what I post, awesome! But it's not like my absence would make a dent in anything. Also, I'd like to say that I'd appreciate genuine engagement more than bigger rewards, since my personal finances do not depend on Steemit. Everything I make is a nice bonus, and I think that's a healthy way of looking at Steemit rewards. That way, I don't take anything personally.
Recently, I've just sent my Steemit rewards to my sick mom to help her with her bills anyway.
Steemit is not your job, and if you truly are talented, you can find occupancy elsewhere, I would think. If you can't - hey, maybe you're just not as good as you think you are.
And I know I'm going to be getting those "Well, I guess you don't mind being flagged then!" people, and to them: No, I don't. Bring it.
However, conversation about this topic is welcomed! Agree? Disagree?
Leave a comment, let's talk.
Great points, well made.
I think it's a psychological thing. We see the pending $$$ against our names and instinctively it "feels" like the “money” is ours. If we get a regular payout, we normalise it. Anything that disrupts our "good thing" is anathema.
We forget (or ignore) the rules of the game that we signed up for. We also forget the reality of what happens outside of the platform.
I still can’t get over when people felt bitter that they were “only” getting $2k per post because others were getting $10k+.
The reality is; if you’re a Content-Creator the real currency is not the STEEM you earn but the following (real following not fake follows) you can amass/ bring. I.e. the attention and engagement you can garner. Steem is in the attention economy business and if Steem stakeholders do not see value what you bring to the platform, another platform will (assuming what you bring is valuable). I think sometimes people give themselves titles like “minnows” and relinquish their own power to better their situation.
Complaints about downvoting, about no longer getting upvotes, about others getting undeserved upvotes will be par of the course for any platform like this.
....and yet many "whales" are in this perpetual back-scratching club called auto-upvoting. One well-known whale makes a post and they have 800 upvotes worth $200 in 10 minutes. So much for being a "Content-Creator" driven platform.
Back-scratching, yes can be a problem - but it is different from autovoting.
Auto-voting is just a tool. Used effectively it can benefit Content Creators. I know many people that use auto-voting to provide consistent rewards to Content Creators that produce quality content.
I use auto-voting myself and I've lost count of the number of Content Creators that have thanked me for supporting them. I do not have the time to read every word of every post they make. But I do I review their blogs periodically and adjust my auto-vote, even removing my vote if warranted. Also I'm always on the look out for new Content Creators to add to my list.
I think it is important that we define the problems we see properly. Back-scratching, circle-jerking or whatever we want to call it exists and it is a problem. I'm not sure it can be completely irradicated but it can be mitigated. However eliminating or demonising auto-voting does not solve it. It is just as easy for a relatively small group of 'whales' to manually vote for each other as it is for them to auto-vote.
What doesn't scale so easy is trying to reward hundreds or thousands of Content Creators through manual voting, there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Auto-voting helps with this until we reach a point where larger Steem Power holders can run their accounts like a business and hire people to professionally curate for content. We're a long way from that point, so auto-voting is the best we've got to consistently reward good Content-Creators.
As funny as it seems apparently youtube algo rank higher videos that are controversial. So in the same spirit someone getting a +100$ worth upvote and a -90$ should feel way happier than a guy that get 10$ and almost no attention whatsoever.
The $$ part is very predominant on Steem. while this is good for transparency. It also encourages greed and makes new users feel like they aren't compensated well enough for their efforts.
I agree with this sentiment
Exactly. A very good addition to my post.
Loved this part so much!!
Yup... even if steemit dies tomorrow (hope not).. what I gained is the people I met because of it. The contests I took part in and people who taught me writing (@bex-dk, @tinypaleokitchen and @rhondak)
That's a big comments and it's a great I appreciate it @nanzo-scoop 👌
I really can't think of adding any more to this post...
Put simply... This is one of the best Steemit-based articles I've ever read and hence, one of the easiest 100% upvotes I've ever given...
Thanks a lot, man!
Couldn't agree more.
Thanks, @shaka. :)
That's a great comments I appreciate it @ezzy 👍
Growing pains. Crypto seems to attract a lot of overly entitled, delusional, greedy or hubristic people. Such a personality is not suitable for publishing content on the internet, and it's just a matter of time they are replaced by actual bloggers who can handle a negative opinion about their work. Indeed, there's been great progress on this front, and the frequency of flagging dramas seems to have reduced greatly over time.
One can only hope there's truth to this statement. It seems the latest new thing to Steemit is the resale shop.
Is this a platform for creators or sellers of unrelated content?
Peace.
Which type is you?
I don't claim to be a blogger, though I do like writing occasionally.
Wow - just, wow. It's extremely rare that I read something like this which completely changes the way I have thought about something.
A big part of the problem and why people (including myself) don't see it the way you are describing is because in the UI it is called "flagging" instead of "downvoting" which has a completely different connotation.
I've heard people say before that it shouldn't be called "flagging" but I didn't understand why and thought that "flagging" was a fine thing to call it because that's how I thought downvotes were supposed to be used.
Thanks to you it's clear to me now that downvoting and flagging are very different and I think SteemIt would benefit from having both. Downvoting would be what "flagging" is now - and should be used just like the opposite of upvoting.
Then a separate "flagging" feature should be added to flag posts that are illegal, inappropriate, spam, etc. Flagged posts would often also be downvoted, but downvoted posts would not necessarily often be flagged.
Thank you for this!
Yes, the flag should definitely be changed to downvote on the UI! It's a "downvote" everywhere else except the actual GUI.
Agreed, I found that very confusing as a new user. I guess the intent was to make "flag" sound more serious than "downvote"?
I agree that "flag" should be changed to "downvote" but not sure what a flag would then mean. On some sites, flagging reports it to "the authorities" who can then manually delete the post. Can't really see that happening here.
It would just be an indicator that the post has been flagged. Then it is up to the front-end sites how they want to deal with that. Many will probably opt not to show them on their site which accomplishes the goal nicely in my opinion.
This seems like a great idea to me. In fact, the front ends should probably implement the flagging system themselves. This way content that might somehow be a poor fit on one site wouldn't necessarily be flagged across the board.
You read my mind (and posted what i thought 2 minutes after me ;) )
I honestly want to know how to quote a text within a reply.
Just put a “>” as the first character in the line before the quoted text.
Thanks for this @yabapmatt
I totally agree with you. I've been on steemit for about a week now and though it's not a long time but it has been long enough for me to notice that some persons feel their posts are "heavenly" and so they should be rewarded greatly. Steemit is supposed to be a place were we all as humans come together to share ideas and experiences with one another and the fact that there are rewards attached to contributions should be seen as bonuses. We should look beyond these rewards and add value to this community. Let us learn from eachother and grow together.
You're a new user. Someone who still sees all this "from the outside", so I'd say your opinion is very valuable. Those of us that have been here from the start pretty much can easily get stuck inside the "Steemit bubble", which can skew our views.
Good to hear from a new user.
Thank you. My walk around steemit has been great. I've learnt a lot of stuff i can actually apply to my everyday life. Some of the blog posts of some users are quite helpful.
I agree with you!
I actually just commented on one of the posts about this:
https://steemit.com/writing/@michelle.gent/my-flagged-posts#@ats-david/re-michellegent-my-flagged-posts-20171120t164715100z
It's mind-boggling to me that this is even a thing right now.
it's still a thing and don't forget to flag a ham :D people always have a thing for their own view, so it's hard to see other's perspective on whatever.
I got trolled, received tons of messages in discord, was implicitly blamed for witch hunt for downvoting. -_-
These people only make things worse.
If there were two equally positioned buttons one for upvote and another one for downvote then you would be right.
When one is called FLAG people naturally assume that it is to be used to penalize someone for bad behavior, like spam, scam, violations of rules here and so on and certainly not a simple innocent downvote.
When someone flags you for no reason other than that someone wishing you to earn less money, yes it maybe perceived insulting, offensive and taken personally because in the mind of the authors they didn’t violate any rules and didn’t deserve to be “flagged”.
Also I have an issue with your approach because of reputation. When you donvote/flag someone their reputation suffers as well. So it’s not only your disagreement of how much you think they deserve to be paid. You are damaging their hard earned reputation and it is a big deal and a good reason to get personal.
There is a huge difference between disagreeing with someone’s position and to disrespecting the person stating it. Flagging is associated with disrespect. If done without very strong reason other than payment consideration it feels defamatory too.
If you could RESPECTFULLY downvote without affecting reputation then I would partly accept your position.
Let’s say you have a very smart opponent whom you respect but just don’t agree with their position let’s say on politics, religion etc and but the person is making very logical arguments to which you can’t say anything proving them wrong, you just don’t like it... and then instead of respectfully disagreeing you come and smash the person in the face.
This is how it Coomonly felt here when someone downvotes for no apparent reason, as it seems to the majority.
Hope you can see the difference.
What @bix said.
Excellent observations, stated very graciously.
😄😇😄
Thank you
Nail it.
Well written. Gues it's just human psychology. When you read about what happens when people start to earn more money it takes like one month to mentally get accustomed to. But once you lose your job or have to take a rather significant paycut it takes three times as long to get used to.
People get comfortable with their rewards and assume everyone will always agree that the rewards should be there. Yeah it sucks to get a flag. The current trend now is to attribute every flag to being abuse and to publicly complain about it; we are no longer asking ourselves whether the down-vote is the voter simply using their stake.
My personal level of involvement and giving a shit in any flag-related drama is pretty much zero. Or in any drama for that matter.
Woops, didn't mean to re-arrange the rank of the comments here. Thought this was posted on my post. :P
Too much #price lol
You can always re-re-arrange the rank of the comments:))
First I want to say that I upvoted this because I agree with the base thesis: Complaining about downvotes makes no sense if you're not also complaining about upvotes. They are part of the same system.
However, there are a lot of details that I feel you get wrong (or, at least, I disagree with them).
For one, you say that you don't depend on Steemit for income, yet you are powering down - essentially giving up potential returns in the future - in order to help your sick mother.
While I believe this is admirable, I also believe the statements are contradictory. If you really didn't need Steemit at all, you wouldn't need to power down to help your mother.
I think that everyone has some level of dependency on Steemit. What you mean is, your level of dependence isn't very high. And that's fine, great even.
But I think there's a small insinuation that a person might be a bit of a loser if they do depend on their income from Steemit. I disagree with this. If it makes money, it's fair game as a means of survival.
However, this is also why I agree with your base thesis: what people don't like about Steemit is that it is perfectly fair. You put in more of a stake (either through the sweat equity of writing posts and doing projects or through a direct financial investment) and you get more say in how the platform works.
I like that you invite people to talk at the end. You can be a bit of a character so I was unsure about you, but I think the lucidity and equanimity of this post has earned my follow (I'm sure you care).
I also disagree about blog posts being valuable. Value is what we say it is, the more people that percieve that value and engage with it, the more value is inherently brought to the platform. Steemit might be able to survive any specific blogger leaving, but it certainly could not survive all of us (or even the top 20,000) taking off at once.
I've seen things developing and certainly understand both sides, but people threatening to quit the platform really turns me off, especially when they're fortunate enough to have been making that much a post regularly.
If they can downvote you and you don't like it, become resolve to become more powerful.
As you say, people can do exactly what they like with their power on this platform, and it behooves all of us to attempt to act in the platforms best interest the more we have invested in it.
Perhaps I should have been more clear. My personal finances do not depend on Steemit. What I meant by this is that I don't use the rewards on myself. I have no use for them at this point in time, so I feel that it's a good little way to help her out. She does depend on my finances right now.
But you make fair points, I must say.
What @jenkinrocket said...
Excellent observations, stated very graciously.
😄😇😄
Great coverage of the rewards side of flagging.
The other big issue is censorship.
If a drug company sets up a Steemit account with say a six million $ wallet and starts censoring posts about vaccinations - are you OK with that?
And if Goldman Sachs come along next week with a wallet containing 666 million $ (pocket change for an investment bank) and censor everything they disagree with about crypto curries - which might include just totally trashing Steemit - are you cool with that too?
You are so wise! Believe me it has definitely crossed my mind with all the unkind words thrown my way that those throwing insults and calling me names are paid by the pharmaceutical company to harass people who are against forced vaccinations. It has also been suggested that the big whale who is at the top of the comments on my post must be a major stockholder in BIG PHARMA.
After all it is common knowledge that George Soros funded Black Lives Matter to create division and dissent.
I upvoted your comment too bad I can't resteem it.
No posts are censored on the Steem blockchain mind you. Steem is censorship resistant. So assuming a drug company is silly enough to plunge millions of Dollars to buy Steem (Moon!!), they'll only be a whale. downvote all they want, the only damage is a $0 pending payout and a collapsed post. Which can still be viewed if the readers want to.
not making money off a post isn't "being censored". So why be afraid of censorship?
I think making a post go grey so it looks like spam and nobody sees it is censorship. And taking all the rewards from posts that you disagree with is also censorship.
Both of which are happening to posts that expose the evil truth about vaccinations. It's already happening with just one or two small whales doing it.
What would Moby Dick do?
The BitConnect article flagging was pretty big a few months ago. It seemed to only affect people who weren't whales.
If they wanted to they could buy enough stake to vote themselves to witnesses. So, stake will rule, it just depends on who owns the stake.
We are all here on a volentary basis.
I don't see how you could not see a flagging/downvoting as a personal attack. I've been flagged for making comments about bitconnect, I've been flagged because I disagreed with a poster, and I've even been flagged for upvoting my own post.
You can comment on my post or my ideas WITHOUT flagging and still express your opposition to my idea, flagging makes it personal.
I look at it as still the wildwest, anyone can flag or upvote. the person who is flagged or upvoted can also post an endless stream of complaints etc since its within their power to do it. Not my personal choice but still its within their power.
What I find interesting is people who will say hey its their steempower let them vote how they want, but then they dislike when someone decides to sell their vote power or upvoting only their own content etc. I find it fascinating to watch where people draw lines, often arbitrarily to their sense of "fair".
I agree with much of your post. I am also the type who knows my posts wouldn't be missed if I left. I often see people who talk about the amount of hours they spent making a post like that matters. I don't think my drawings are "worth" big upvotes simply because I often spend many hours on them.
I disagree a little about blogs being of "value". I think some of them may have value depending on content and readers interest. I am more than happy to upvote blogs I like to read because I think its a great use case for awarding steem.
Steemit is a game to me, a cool game where you can make money, but a game none the less.
well I never got to settle on that viewpoint, blogs for me are meaningful and sure steem as a technology is what drives the value for the most part, but the community is what is driving it in the first place, so good posts and good authors make this place better, it's way easier to have quality in one place then to search it around everywhere... content and quality is what made most of the better platforms stand out. It's not different here, I can't agree to the game aspect and I dislike playing with people's perceptions of a fair game.
on the upvote/downvote dichotomy I've commented a few times already, so I agree with everything for the most part,
what you have noted on time does bug me however, should I be rewarded for my approximately 30 minutes on this post, reading it, commenting, reading it's comments for valuable content, I bet I should, I bet I've brought value to the conversation, if not I've seen what value it has to offer based on my standards, that is rewarding as it is to me, but in comparison, if somebody makes scammy spammy posts and comments is a douche for the most part, gets a bigger reward because he games the platform better and gets the favorable odds stacked precisely, then you bet I want his money or at least a part of it, views and controversy don't make a good conversation in my eyes, well sometimes they do, but for the most part it's empty barter coined noise in the general sense.
I'd rather speak with thinking and reading people, then the two button one thumb slider population.
I think the problem with the approach taken in this particular instance is not the reasoning which I agree is quite sound - 30 views should not be valued at $100. But if we want to be realistic, 30 views should not be valued at more than a few cents. All the other value you see is not value created by the content itself but by things like investing in the platform, speculation and desire for reward. But this also means that if he applies the same logic earnestly, he should kind of downvote everything that has ever gotten a whale vote, doesn't it? After all, all rewards here are hugely inflated compared to the "real world".
If you look at the trending page, the rewards and the view counts, they are absolutely unrealistic. There is pretty much no other place on the internet where a few thousand views could have you rake in a few hundred bucks. The other alarming thing is that having more votes than views is something extremely common and something that happens to all of us.
The thing is, flagging literally random offenders (because for now this is not a consistent policy) is something that is unlikely to help the platform in the long run. It's mainly drama and conflict and if you want the price of STEEM to grow, that is not what you want. You want stability. And while people might be unjustified to expect their regular and potential rewards to be what they get, getting them builds trust and stability which are needed for growth.
So I don't think it's a good use of SP to downvote posts that are not abuse but "over-rewarded" because of other people using their SP.
And I also kind of disagree with the idea that upvotes and downvotes are really supposed to be equal. Voting for a post is something regular, but the correct word for the downvote is flagging and this is not supposed to be a regular thing. Everywhere on the internet you flag something only when it's abuse and on most places flags and downvotes are two very different things. But you are technically correct of course, no doubt.
I definitely agree with the fact that they are potential payouts and are at the liberty g
You are bringing up a great point here, and I think @ats-david's comment he linked was great too - basically, why should anybody feel entitled to the rewards?
It seems like there is a cycle that happens for many users. They work hard and build up a following - often doing 30+ hours a week of hustle just to net a few hundred dollars of steem. Then, once they are on the autovoters, they get lazy. Or at least, they set a mental expectation - "from now on, I deserve this much money from steem."
Personally I have been up and down the rollercoaster of steem too many times, from $500+ a week to less than $100 a week (and much less at the beginning)... so I take it as a personal challenge. getting flagged down is definitely brutal, but in this case, it is very clear why. The flags are due to a specific kind of content that is seen as abusive to the reward pool. If the user adjusts her posting methods, she can stop getting flagged... it seems reasonable to me.
Like if I was earning tons of money from my beat posts, and then got flagged, I'd be pissed for like two minutes. Then I'd say OK, fine, I'll change that content.
the flags are actually really good advertising for these accounts, brings a lot of attention to the authors, and I think in the long run it's a net positive. that's my only comment for the moment
lol "all publicity is good publicity..." maybe
I think the word "flagging" doesn't help, that implies that the post has been "flagged" to some higher power because it's offensive or something. I know it's not the crux of the matter here, but maybe this needs to be changed so that it's more of an upvote/downvote system. I wasn't really aware that flagging was effectively just a downvote until all this kicked off, so there might be others who think or have thought the same.
Yes, it was originally a downvote. I have no idea why it was changed, but it was clearly a very bad idea.
When I joined Steemit pretty much all the guidance on flagging/downvote was it should only be used for abuse - plagurism, harassment, illegal content etc. Over and over people said "Don't downvote because you don't like something".
This post here is essentially saying "Anything goes, there is no such thing as a bad downvote". I mean it literally says "people have the right to upvote and downvote as they please".
See that? It says people have the right to upvote as they please! So when a downvoter justifies that downvote because the post got too much upvote love that seems at best ironic and at worst illogical. I mean it is logically consistent that both parties are free to do whatever they want under these rules of engagement, but to use "too much reward for the views" is basically throwing shade on how other people voted and makes no sense. Then it's just a up/down vote battle between two whales.
IMO the OP shouldn't really be involved here. To me her protests sound like someone who had a or some wealthy benefactors here who appreciated her content and now some showed up and is saying, "No! Your benefactors are not free to shower love on you that way, you will be punished and those rewards given away to others!". Wouldn't it be better for random whales who have a disagreement on rewards to duke it out offline without downvotes? It remains to be seen how she (and others) would react if their rich benefactors just stopped voting for them - I would hope and guess, in a lot less pissed-off way. They might even approach former benefactors and say "Hey, I see you don't vote for my content any more. Why is that and perhaps I could write something else or deliver it in a different way?". That's the difference between a carrot and a stick!
Or maybe her benefactors would not change their voting pattern at all - just like real life benefactors of the arts they promote what they please and the court of public opinion be damned.
I've looked at other systems and I see many that deliberately avoid up/down vote drama by just removing the downvote. By renaming downvote to "Flag" that seems to be what Steemit is endorsing. At that point this becomes an argument about what abuse is. I've seen arguments that this is abuse of the rewards pool - but by previous arguments people are free to vote as they please.
Surely if we want rules about what is appropriate use of the rewards pool why not just put them into the system? Something like weighting some part of the rewards pool payout to pageviews? Or just not ordering posts by reward but purely by recommendations, pageviews, and upvotes and downvotes on a one-per-user basis. Otherwise some random whale with more money might just show up, drop a few hundred million into STEEM and decide (for example) "Nope, I'm just going to downvote all your popular posts and promote only fantasy stories about unicorns and rainbows so screw y'all!". Then what? You know nothing upsets a whale more than a Kraken showing up that makes them look like minnows...
People can upvote and downvote as they please. That's the point. Person A can upvote a post, Person B can downvote that post. It's the resulting consensus that determines the final payout. No is being stopped from upvoting or downvoting. It's about consensus.
That I was agreeing on. The FAQ is clear that downvoting can be for whatever, but the labeling of "Downvote" as "Flag" is highly misleading and sets all the wrong kinds of expectations not least that there is some real centralized abuse moderation system (I'm not saying we want that, just that people, especially noobs who haven't studied the FAQ thoroughly are misled that way). It's almost as if the Steemit UI designers wanted to highly discourage downvoting, isn't it?
To reiterate my point of contention - to downvote because you don't like how something was upvoted on is logically consistent within the system of "vote however you want" but is effectively a vote against the system itself. It is saying the personal thinks system of vote however you want is broken and that this person is going to have to police every single post that breaks their personal beliefs about what is a good upvote or not. What a waste!
As you point out consensus will win the day and the author is still getting some rewards. Perhaps eventually
transistowill get bored of downvoting those posts. Or perhaps that user will power-down and leave the platform which I believetransistoand others will deem a win for the platform (I think that is what is happening).Assuming no one wants to codify "rewards should be relative to page views" which
transistouses as his justification for downvote, then IMO the real problem here is that we have one or a few whales treating "Flag" as a traditional downvote in the Reddit sense and most minnows and many others who are not. If the one big downvote had been replaced by a dozen or downvotes by small fish then the OP might not have felt so picked on. They might not have felt like this was one capricious user throwing around their whale weight and more a vote of no confidence by the hive mind of Steemit.I personally think the reward system is broken, but I don't see that working around it by having one or few whales arbitrarily downvoting particular users all the time to be a great way to do it. That's not really consensus, it's just authoritarianism brute force.
Short of a systematic fix I believe a better way is to find and reward good content and use nudges to change the behavior of those that upvote content deemed not in the best interests of Steemit. If you really are going to systematically downvote someone's posts then maybe a better way is to use a bot that does it in an egalitarian way, cites all the metrics and votes for the post you have a problem with. That will a) make it a lot less personal, b) make it fairer, c) cause less fighting.
That's the reason why at work my company uses a completely automated system to enforce software coding conventions. We form a consensus on the rules, and don't fight over individual infractions. Newcomers who don't like the rules may bitch and moan for a bit but they have to obey the same rules as everyone else. They have a channel to lobby for changes and have a say in future changes to the rules - by consensus. I've not yet seen anyone stop work or leave because they don't like the coding standard are enforced. What we never do is have some particular person(s) appointing themselves to be "cop" and enforcing the rules. I've seen how that causes no end of strife with personal disputes, plus inconsistent and uneven enforcement, just as we see here which only serves to make things even worse.
Insightful..
What are your thoughts on @steemcleaners?
From my own experience it mostly works but needs to be smarter. They need an automated way to prove ownership of content or an account on a third party site to stop its nagging and eventual flagging. I've seen cases where people were as desperate as Michelle to stop being bugged and had concrete evidence that they were who they said they are. Something clearly wrong there.
I think all bots should have owners with proof of brain that can be challenged. I think all bots should issue warnings before taking punitive action. I think all bots should have something at stake so they can be reigned in.
I don't know how you enforce these things but those are my thoughts. How about you? Are you a cleaner fan?
To be honest I don't agree with you. Technically I agree and up and downvotes can be used to place good content on top.
However emotionally the same result can be reached with only using the 'positive' upvotes. You find some connection with certain content and upvote it.
When you don't care or you don't think the quality is sufficient you just leave it be, no need to bring it down... You could put some comments to state your opinion.
Imo downvotes should only be used with abusive content or people just exploiting the system.
In short it should be like training a dog. Reward positive behavior and ignore bad :)
Steem is a community and a good social experiment for how a real world community without a centralized authority would operate. When you have people in your community who are bringing down the value and/or abusing your community system, there will be people who stand up and take action for the betterment of all, and there will be those who stand aside.
I agree , anything wrong is wrong I feel like we could create a system where if people think something is wrong they downvote it but not really being the value of the post down but if it revolves around plagiarism then it should decrease the payout
I'm not sure you understood what I was saying.
Maybe focusing on the payout so wrong it’s not suppose to be that way , to me engagement is key and feedback then comes the payout . You can expect to receive $100 everyday that leads to greed and greed leads to bad behavior and jealousy
Ideally, the potential payout would be hidden until after payout, but it'd be possible to dig up the info anyway, so it wouldn't work. But ideally.
We could add an off-chain secret voting layer. The difficulty would be doing it in a way that's decentralized while remaining secret, and encouraging people to use it. A simplistic approach would be a vote collating service which is given the authority to vote by users but they only apply them on a Just-In-Time basis.
Hi...
I voted,Commend for you, please comment, vot on my post @rjrubel.........
This is spam. I suggest rethinking your approach to posting here.
nice post
@miti downvote
Hi...
I voted,Commend for you, please comment, vot on my post @rjrubel
@miti downvote
???
come on miti :D
Hi...
I voted,Commend for you, please comment, vot on my post @rjrubel
@miti downvote
It's rich to see someone complaining about downvotes while they're powering down. They care about the allocation of rewards but not enough to stake their steem instead of profiting from it.
Your post was resteem by Whale ResteemService @booster007
Keep it up!
All the best!
First Follow for 3 hours | Send a minimum transaction 0.100 steem/SBD with post URL in memo | Your post gets resteemed | A post can only be resteemed once!
Just had an argument with one of those authors who think they are godsent and no one can touch them :) I don't blame them, they kind of used to it and they don't think about others.
As you have mentioned there is a problem for minnow authors to get noticed, and for them even $5 upvote is wow.
I think that problem is in the system itself, more specifically in the algorithm of hot and trending posts. I think this is where the dev. team should start.
Spot on - strange I agree with another of your posts for the second time within one week! Do not get excited lol!
You are absolutely right, people need to accept it, i hate the whining although I understand first you feel hit, hurt when you got a flag. But indeed different people have different views on how to use a flag. Well @transisto indeed has his investor view which I respect - I do not agree with all his views on certain things but this is because i come more from the content shit site - if i would be a major investor I would act different, we shall really not take all too personally! At least @transisto is doing good for the community - the one getting the flag is not happy that is human, maybe a direct conversation without too much emotion might help here.
Get a flag, deal with it. Worst thing is to get into fights, arguments and whining about it, that does not help. I got several flags in the past - i was hurt, i was feeling fuck you bastard first - however I learned and I see it as a good tool for the community as a whole.
#Justsaying
@schattenjaeger Great post. I hope that this post also help does that couldn't have a clear answer to the reward pool, flag use. Is crazy how it all works but is never personally, but people still make it personally. When someone gets flag is a good thing for the community. I personally think many should get flagged but aren't. Being part of this community has been great but the learning is constant. Not to mention try to make the best out of this without getting discourage can be a struggle. I only hope for a greater Steemit, and can't wait for this platform to overtake the world :) Best wishes to you!
Many right considerations, But there is one.
Up vote determines rewards and therefore All (big and small fish) use it.
The Down vote no. Only loss of daily power. So just use it if it can. The big, steempower rich.
This is right? Maybe, but it is certainly not democratic ...
I, very often, would like to downplay the post because I do not agree with their prize or because they are still rubbish.
But I can not afford it ...
So I disagree when you say upvote and downvote are the same.
For the rest, I agree with everything you say. Great article.
But we must say that the power to regulate is in the hands of a few users and therefore these users must be very responsible and balanced in using prizes and flags.
It would be nice and interesting if they were really the same as consequences for those who use these tools.
People are mad because money's involved and like you stated; it's only potential too! Everyone says they understand the system,
until something happens that doesn't benefit them.A good part of the reason I'm here is because of this type of freedom to do whatever we wish. I don't have to post over a certain number of words or write a specific topic.People are going to like my stuff, and other people won't. Now before anyone thinks I'm trying to be a selfless cuck, money's cool- but if you can't financially survive without Steemit, you should be doing something else.
Also thanks for clarifying that the flagged rewards go back to the pool @schattenjaeger, that's good to know.
It's hugely hypocritical to accept the tag sort orders where the count of views of a post has no value. I see that a great post with 5000 views is lost, nowhere to find after being posted.
Also I see posts with 25 views and 100 upvotes...because of the voting bots going beserk...
Why the count of views is not included in the sort orders? Is this intentionally to give the whales and the bots the possibility to manipulate the rankings?
Yeah, I actually think view count should be way more important on Steemit. I agree.
Not wanted I wanted to hear honestly. These platforms should have thought about bots and manipulation before ever going live. Or implement systems to verify if they're legit upvotes etc. I'm disappointed now.
I agree. It is what it is.
Agreed. That makes total sense. I post fiction as well and I figure people with the voting power has the right to decide what the payout will be eventually.
So, she's smart, too!
Aim High, We should post with the thought in mind that we will make $100 plus a day for posting on Steemit. and if you only make it 10% of that, well that's still pretty good!
Are flags really meant to reduce the expected rewards if you personally consider them to be too big?
If so, I'd have to tag every third post from every third whale. A picture of eating, a good morning, a short story about how you took your child to kindergarten and a payout of 50$+.......
I have always found that unfair, but the flags are not meant for that.
I also believe that flags are noticeably reducing their own reputation. In addition, you can mark an infinite number of VPs because you don't lose any VPs.
In summary, my opinion is that there are enough people who get too much money for their posts, but flagging is not meant for that. When I get a flag, I want to know why and a "my opinion is you get too much payout" is not a real reason.
I agree to disagree on a minor note, just the @krnel drama, @berniesanders was a douche to too many people, on the payouts I'm all for it, krnel was making pointless posts milking rewards from time to time, well rewards and his good standing, it's funny that he's the only person followed by dan, I too appreciated the quality he brought in the past.
On the topic in general, you've summed it up pretty nicely :) it's what it is, here I'm 80% on the same page, so you get a resteem from me, since for one I can't be bothered to speak and write so concisely and because I doubt I could do it on a consistent basis... I do wish more people understood the principles behind the rewards, in the flagging topic I have a flagship post if anyone cares, it's original work :D
that's another thing, the spammy selfgoating original workers :D all pushing for quantity over quality, used to be a bit different back in the day, 10 months ago :D
In my own personal experience, I've learned that if you treat @berniesanders with respect, he will treat you with respect.
Like, you know, a human being usually does.
I agree there, but he also does go over the line, well he likes poking people I suppose especially if they whine back. But it's a bit harsh and not really constructive, not that I care much. So far I haven't been getting the autobot upvotes to earn the downvotes :D
Well in my personla opition i am not a person who are having a big amount and i will buy big votes from other and make millions with ti but i can share my thought that we need to stop this voting system so no one will complain and we should make it a law that vote selling is not allowed if that is not in a system them people must complain about downvote as well
if they send money for upvote they must complain about downvote . rest what you guys think you are experience jury
All your points are technically correct and simply make sense. Yet, users (especially non-tech new users) would hope and expect the community to reward the highest quality content. The current reward system doesn't really do that. It's that gap, between the expectancy to reward quality and the reality of whale's motives and behavior that fuel emotionally driven posts about 'My post got downvoted and...' etc
Any system with incentives/rewards will create human behavior that gets rewarded. Always.
I'm new to Steemit but I agree with how this should be the case. Everybody should look at the welfare of the entire community and not just himself/herself. These downvotes should be taken constructively rather than "attacks".
I realized that there is some fear when you start downvoting others. What if they become vengeful, and downvote you each time regardless of the quality of articles you produce?
I think this is one of the primary reasons why people tend to avoid hitting on that downvote button.
I cant agree less with you. Thise who win in life are those who see themselves as stewards. In as much as everyine is entitled to earn from his labour, its also important to accept the fact that not everyone will like what you do. As much as you enjoy the patronage of those who like what you do, also allow people to enjoy the priviledge of not being your fans. In life at times we win and at other times we dont. Anyone who takes it personal has not mature psychologically. Thanks for setting the records straight @schattenjaeger
It's ok for you to write about this, just as people can write about flags. Or upvotes.
A lot of drama has beena going around who is allowed to flag whatever, or what is allowed to be upvoted with certain power.
Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for stupid reasons. Just like I can flag any purple photo if I want, it might be fine, but there are certain times when someone might have a stupid, flawed reason behind the flags.
Someone can flag someone for not doing enough for the community, while the flagger himself appears to do less. One flagging someone for too few views is pretty much socialism at it's best. Just like complaining about someone getting paid more while working less hours. "A doctor should get paid as much as mcdonalds employee becaude they work same amount of hours!!!"
Using your own money however you see fit is the farthest thing from socialism.
Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't bring that issue up. Just trying to paint someone as socialist to make him look worse.
A cheap shot.
I am learning my way around, and this post helps me a lot.
nice post
r8...agreed
Dounvote bad whale's content. Great idea. Thanks)) But what to do if I think whales made mostly bad content, but those content don't deserve downvote - it's only bad.
What to do if you downvote, but they see this and downvote you back? What? It's dangerous
At last, someone is talking things that are really meaningful
Not from only one point of view.
what drama nice article you done superb job on this passion,
yeah. i totally agree with you.. some post just put a giphy and one sentence, it was given 100$ easily. i really hope there is downvote function. :)
The flag is indeed a downvote function. :)
oh really. i thot it is like a bookmark function :)
Sorry for being a noob cos' i am a newbie to steemit.
thanks for your reply and I have upvoted your post. nice one indeed.
Well, it's not like there's a good Wiki for Steemit, or anything like that, so it's not really your fault. But yeah, the flag is basically a reverse downvote: if your upvote adds $1, a flag takes away $1.
The amount taken away from that post is then returned to the reward pool, and allocated among other posts that are pending. :)
Honestly, I love this post, I have been thinking about this lately, because I have discovered that majority of steemit users are so obsessed with the rewards and not even the added value of platform and that is obviously why someone picks offense when downvoted.
But in the other hand I think stake based voting may bring up injustice or rather politicize steemit in the later future when it becomes populated where major stakeholder decides who's gonna get paid or not regardless of the quality of your content. You know what we call "POWER ROITING" may occur.
Yeah thats right...btw nice post.
Serious business.
You have no idea.
agreed
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of something like this, whether for yourself or empathy for someone else. Sometimes it's good to get a balanced viewpoint like this one.
You touched on something I've so far not seen addressed.
What's ironic to me is the system is set up for this upvotes without views syndrome. Curation trails, vote following, and there are multiple services available that do this for you. Your post provides evidence for this very point.
At the time of this posting you've had 56 view and 128 votes.
I just find it ironic. (Meaning the way the system is designed)
Oh, absolutely. What @transisto was saying was view counts vs. dollars earned. But both are skewed on Steemit, for sure.
I just joined and also noticed bots or spamming is present? I saw a new post go up and earn $0.50 within 1 minute, sounds fishy? It's sad because these ecosystems are meant to flush out such rubbish and reward quality content. I had hope for the Blockchain and that it would help me honestly, now I'm just thinking the whole world and every platform on it will always be corrupt and unjust :(