RE: Let's Make Downvoting Great Again!
I think the problem cannot be solved (solely) by flagging (the bigger the abusing accounts the more hopeless it will be to fight against self-voting with flags). Instead of that (or in addition to that) the system should be improved in a way that self-voting, circle-voting and spamming would be less attractive again. That can be tried for example by ...
implementing diminishing returns when upvoting the same accounts (including own ones) again and again.
reintroducing the restriction to four full paid posts per day (from some hard forks ago) which was very reasonable.
thinking about other ideas like a sigmoid reward curve. Due to it's flat begin it would be far less attractive to upvote posts on which nobody else is voting (self-voting of comments would be less attractive). As it also ends flat, extreme rewards (like with n^2) would be avoided, as well.
considering also other ideas like the one of UserAuthority from @scipio.
Other ideas appreciated!
There should be an open discussion (and yes, I especially would like to hear more from the witnesses here) about how to solve the self-voting problem.
These are really good suggestions. The witnesses and stakeholders have actually talked about them quite a bit.
The problem with the diminishing returns and 4 post limit proposals is they are only a deterrent. It may seem difficult to a ‘normal user’ to setup 20 or 100 accounts, but for the people who are abusing the rewards pool for hundreds or even thousands of dollars - they will put in the two hours of effort to create a bunch of accounts to get around the rules. The users who stay “in bounds” will be at a disadvantage, and the net result is the true abusers would be able to extract more than they could today.
The alternate rewards curve would help lower the amount of rewards that go to abusers, but only to an extent. The ones with enough SP (including leased delegated SP) to get over the initial ‘hump’ would still be able to reward themselves a lot through self voting.
UserAuthority is an awesome idea, but unfortunately it will not fly for STEEM rewards. The reason is that it breaks the contact with all of the existing SP holders that bought SP under the premise that more SP meant more influence over rewards. It could very well be something that could be implemented with SMTs though.
Thanks for your well-elaborated reply! Good to know that you are discussing the matter and also seeking other (additional) ways to solve the problem than with flagging only.
On the other side your answer leaves me somewhat discouraged: my suggested ideas may not be effective enough. I always think that we must be able to find any solution within the system itself (which is more 'elegant' than flagging - which has always something of a 'subjective nature') ... but maybe that's just wishful thinking ...
Nevertheless let's all keep seeking, collecting and discussing ideas.
Agreed :)