Downvotes are Flawed
I really think the "downvotes" need to be rethought. The other day I tried to say something to that Trevon guy and I was, for lack of a better word, attacked by @berniesanders and his henchmen for talking with Trevon. When I say attacked, they ganged up on me by sending me a barrage of downvotes. Why? Because I asked Trevon if he got served yet with a lawsuit.
Seriously??? They really want to control everyone's behavior into doing what THEY think is right. That defeats the entire notion of being "free" in this ecosystem. Hell, Youtube didn't stop me for chastising Logan Paul. But @berniesanders thinks he has the right to stop anyone from communicating with anyone else he has a beef with. At least with Youtube, you only have 1 entity to contend with. Here, you have 100's of Whales to contend with and make sure you don't get on their wrong side.
This means everyone is walking on eggshells...hoping they don't offend anyone they happen to disagree with.
@ned, please tell me you have a fix for this. This "self-governing" thing isn't working.
Potential solutions:
Downvotes should only have the strength of a "1" Reputation with no SP. This minimizes the effect the whales have and equalizes all negative impacts. Meaning, only if that person gets 50,000 downvotes, then it should be removed from being viewed. 10 Whales should not have that power. 50,000 people call can't be wrong...but 10 easily can be.
Have deligated downvotes by elected accounts, just as we do with witnesses. This would give a smaller handful of people power to downvote with more influence. And open a petition mechanism to remove the downvotes if you feel it was unjustly done. Where if I petition to remove a wrongful downvote, I can petition to have my request reviewed by a next level up or to another group of witnesses. Maybe something like our judicial system today.
1st Level: District Court
2nd Level: Court of Appeals
3rd Level: US Supreme Court
Wow, this is one of the most fascinating and thorough comments I've ever read. Thank you.
I think the solutions you propose are well thought out. Seems like something like that would be good to add. That's why I mention in the post that things at the moment just seem like the wild west.
There needs to be more clarity and a little more oversight, me thinks.
I just wanted to relate some info to you as you seem to have a few misconceptions.
In your solution number two, you are creating a monopoly of force. When you have that monopoly, you open it up for corruption. In fact, I'm not totally sure I agree with the way we vote on witnesses either, but I'm not sure I have a real solution to it. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know those things.
Hi @moeknows, allow me to respond to your points.
The big point in all of this is, steemit downvoting system is broken. Vigilante/mafia's are what rule what is "right/wrong." And that style has never worked in real society.
It matters, maybe not in this case, but in general because here, it makes no difference whether you were downvoted/upvoted 50 times or once. All that matters is the SP of the person downvoting you. So whether Bernie does it from 50 accounts or a single account makes very little difference. I'm not arguing with you. I'm just explaining that because it is not always apparent.
Not really. Here, downvotes are used to reward monetary funds meaning that it is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to downvote good works for no other reason than because you feel that the rewards were too much.
In order to fix a problem, you have to understand the problem. Your proposed system only addresses a single aspect of a multi-faceted problem. I just wanted to relay some of the facts.
Yeah, whether they're bots or not, I think, is not the real question. It's the issue if being able to gang up on someone.
It is a single individual. Even if all his power were consolidated into one account, the result owuld be the same for the victim.