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The “free downvotes” are limited so I honestly don’t believe we will see a negative impact to normal users. Sure there will be a few unjust flags thrown around (as there are now), but I believe ultimately the targets will be large abusers.

It depends on what you mean by flag wars, as yes I think if large stake holders start coming together to take down large abusers there will be some back and forth, but this is actually good for the ecosystem and will result in more rewards in the pool to be allocated out to content creators.

As I mentioned at the end of the post, I do think it will take some time for the dust to settle and things to balance out, but I don’t think downvotes will be an issue.

... but the large stakeholders are bid bot owners/operators and delegators. The argument that large stakeholders will use the downvote pool to flag bid bot crap posts seems like such a flimsy argument that I have a hard time believing it is being advanced. That is basically asking people to take action against their own financial short term best interest - which would be to not flag bid bot crap posts. Not attacking you personally here, I think you did a great job both summarizing the changes and presenting what the goals are. I just find it hard to believe that anyone who has witnessed Steem in action thinks that the large stakeholders are going to do anything except continue to support the bid bot economy. Do you remember the account that used to comment on bid bot posts with the totals spent to boost the post? That account didn't even flag the bid bot posts, and encountered organized flag resistance from bid bot money which killed it. That to me seems the obvious end game in any attempt to flag bid bot posts. The bid bot side controls the majority of active SP, so the bid bot side will win any flag battle.

No I know it’s not a personal attack and I share the same concerns and it’s why I wanted to make sure there was an open dialogue with clear communication for all.

I do remember the account, I need to go back and see what accounts crushed it. I was relatively new then so I didn’t recognize them, but I remember that happening.

What I can say is that many large stake holders (some bot owners and some not) who are supporting and pushing for this EIP know damn well it’s all on them to downvote or it all fails. They have openly admitted to this and have stated they will be doing so. Whether they will, well I’m a bit cynical. But what I can say is that if this does get accepted and they don’t do what they said they will then I will be the loudest pain in their side and will throw a public fit until they fix it our all removed. And that’s my promise to the community 🙂

I do support the unbundling and using others sources to fund the SPS as well. There are of course downsides to unbundling but I am still actively trying to push that discussion.

Whatever happens, I just want the community to be prepared and have a clear understanding. I appreciate your comments and what you do for this place ❤️

To me, this is the same thing as the bid bots that have a blacklist and point to the individual cases of plagiarism that they have caught, removed vote, and added to blacklist. It is a way to say "Look I am doing something!" while still being part of the problem. There is currently no shortage of SP available to downvote spam and abuse. Literally millions of SP delegated to that end already is sitting at or near 100% VP at all times. I have a hard time seeing this claim by large stakeholders that adding a downvote pool will exert any significant negative pressure on bidbot use as anything more than a smoke screen while they literally rob the poor to give to the rich by reducing the author/curator reward pool, decreasing author reward share, and changing the curve so that only a large dolphin/whale/bid bot post falls high enough on the curve to make the same or more than current curve. The change to the curve is the most insidious because it works in concert with the dust vote threshold - the chart from Stinc which you include in your post that shows the curves just flat out ignores the dust threshold. The beginning of that curve in fact is a flat line at 0 until the dust threshold is reached, and the new curve pushes the amount of SP needed to vote a post/comment above the dust threshold way to the right. Even a 4000 SP account will no longer be able to give any reward nor earn any curation by upvoting a comment, unless the comment also gets upvoted by larger accounts and falls above the new dust threshold. This literally kills all possibility of small to medium accounts rewarding engagement.

Can you honestly look at the screencaps below and tell me the problem is there isn't enough available downvotes to combat spam and abuse?

Might we be only giving additional flagging power to present day offenders; not mentioning anyone's dear old uncle by name?

Free or not, if one does not use them now they aren't likely to start, in my opinion. Perhaps flags should cost more instead of lowering their value.

Censors already exist on Steem with no other purpose. They will greatly expand their operations, at least by 25%, but given the greater impact a delegation can have due to the increase in flags potential, I expect many more censors to arise. Also, Bernie is gonna go nuts.

Believe me, I am familiar with the problem.

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