RE: The Flag, The Down Vote... my semi-frequent update to this idea... hopefully those in favor of the downvote read it
I view down vote as up voting everyone else, but the downvoted item, just more efficient.
What if everyone viewed the flags (that's what they're called on the site) this way? What if, instead of every post having something like 100 upvotes, they had 50 upvotes and 50 flags? What purpose would that serve? Instead of flagging content that you don't like, why not just upvote the things you do like, as curation was intended?
The system calls it a "flag" and it's treated as some form of abuse. That's how users see it. The code treats upvotes as a reward for the content, while it sees a flag as a punishment to reputation and the removal of rewards. I don't see how either of the latter options are a good thing. What is the actual benefit of flagging when it's based on content preferences?
"To redistribute rewards," is the common response. But as @dwinblood points out - why do you feel that the rewards that were allocated by other stakeholders to certain users ought to be redistributed to others rather than voting for those other users yourself with your own stake? Or do you think it would be right to flag one post because you don't like the potential payout, then also upvote other content that you do like and think deserves more rewards?
I just don't see the efficiency of everyone flagging posts that they don't like as a way to allocate rewards to posts that they do like. The upvote is more than capable of taking care of stake-weighted rewards allocation, isn't it?
The best example I can give to the conundrum Dan has to face on solving this. Your sock puppets you found. They are the perfect example of how it can be gamed. So what programmatic thing could answer that without having other potential negative ramifications.
It is a tough problem. I am just glad to see he agrees, he simply doesn't know how to do it yet. So with time maybe we can all solve that problem.
Well, it seems to be one of those things that's exacerbated because of the fairly small number of users and the skewed distribution of stake right now. If this was a platform six months or a year into the future with 100,000+ active daily, or even weekly users, would those things even make a difference? If distribution of STEEM Power was more like 5000 users holding the top 20%, would we still have to worry about gaming and collusion like that? I can't imagine it would be as big of a deal as it would be in the current environment.
I believe it will always be a potential problem. Especially for new users. They are the ones that can get swatted like a fly. I HOPE that it would get better.
We also have pretty smart users. What happens when some wealthy SJWs join, and swat anyone that triggers them, and swat all of that person's posts.
I think it could get worse if we get bigger, because we'll likely attract a lot different type of people.
But if it's upvote only, they couldn't do that. That's what I was talking about in my comment above.
Sure. Yet in an up vote only situation how would we stop sock puppets from getting most of the steem power votes, powering up themselves, and then voting on even more sock puppets? You could quickly have a concentration of power with no real way to tame it.
It sounds like Dan is in favor of up vote only if a way can be devised that is resistant to quickly being gamed.