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You've actually done a fine job of demonstrating why actual curation is important. You bought this top slot and disguised it as popular opinion because you and possibly a loud minority agrees. No different than if this post was about Coke and someone wrote in to speak about their bad experience with Coke while Pepsi paid for top positioning. It's shady. It would be hard to take the Coke hater's views seriously.

I downvoted for the simple fact, the top slot only required $4 but I saw $12 next to the comment. Since the point of the purchase was to place it at the top, $8 was a waste of resources, so I returned a portion of that to the pool, giving others an opportunity to earn it. There's no point in wasting $8 and if people want to treat it like it's worthless, it will become worthless.

It's all transparent so there is no secrecy here. It's not shady since it's transparent. Anyone can go look who buys a vote or promotion. I did this because I felt strongly that it should have more visibility. Now since this boost of comment was something that was possible when I went to the promotion page I thought it would be no big deal.

It was done for visibility. Did it work? Yes it got more visibility and feedback. And I appreciate it. And yes I looked at it with some margins. A bigger numbers creates a bigger response. I wouldn't call it a waste since I think conversations on important nuanced topics as governance has value for the whole Blockchain ecosystem.

I also would call it a popular opinion since I would say if someone puts lots of capital behind something that shows a level of care for the platform. Since it shows some form of investment. I would call important conversations more valuable than any other thing. But I understand people have different points of views about governance and how they want things to be. You need a range of various people to create a balanced network.

I didn't comment because there was money beside the post. I've been visiting and reading this blog since it came out. It could have been down at the bottom, I would have said the same damn thing.

Part of what you're calling 'feedback' was you telling another member how to ask questions properly.

You feel strongly about it, you see value in it, but not everyone sees the world as you do. That goes for me as well. I see the world as I do, and I think it's shady. Just because I can see an employee helping themselves to cash out of the register, that doesn't make it okay.

I could spend $1 million dollars to buy a billboard slot and claim my hockey team is the best in the world. So what if their record is 0 wins and 20 losses? Because I spent money to say something, that makes it true? Because I spent money, that means I love my favorite hockey team even more?

Sounds more like the money is clouding your judgement.

Sometimes I think you're another one here with their head screwed on backwards. And I mean that in a nice way. I just don't know what other words to use to best describe what I see. Sometimes it feels like opposite day here and everyone is just acting weird on purpose because those are the rules.

P.S. I don't have time to sit here and talk in circles tonight.

Exactly we are all different and view at things with slight differences (or big differences). But my base view is that I think money has a larger importance in how it shapes reality. I think money creates reality as you can shape people's life with it in any way you like.

And some of us are too different that it is as you say, it would only be talk in circles and never get anywhere. I enjoy reading a lot of your stuff, it's extremely well written and I would even call it poetry sometimes, but I also know that I would not look at stuff the same way sometimes, but I can at the same time 100% agree with you.

Some people are very hard to read. I like to test reality and sometimes even confuse people. I like to play roles sometimes. Experiment around. And if you find someone else that maybe do the same you may get max confusion. Haha. Well we are on something called Earth with unlimited ignorance. So there is lots of stuff you can do here and spend time with!

To shed some light on how I see things, hear me out.

Someone can spend money, rent a fast car and a nice suit for the weekend. Another can own the same fast car and suit. Put them side by side. One is a fake, the other is real. The money doesn't mean shit at that point. The fake is acting like a big shot and the real deal has nothing to prove. It's easy for me to see the difference and my respect goes to the real deal by default. The fake loses all respect in my mind because they spent money with the hopes of manipulating me. I don't trust frauds. They never change. They'll try to do it again if I let my guard down. Respect cannot be purchased.

As soon as you converted that comment into a paid promotion, I'm reminded of cheeseburger commercials and how they try to make the grease sound good for me. They can't tell me the truth because they spent money to make it look good, not bad. They're trying to manipulate me.

You tried to manipulate me by placing that money there and I base that conclusion upon the words you shared with me here today, not just on how I feel about things in general.

Thanks for your explanation how you see at it I highly appreciate it

I just see it as promote it for better visibility. Is it manipulation? Well probably... I want it in front of more eyes. For me it's an interesting experiment and I don't see it as trying to buy someone's respect. I want more discussions on a post :D

Is it taking advantage of capitalism and pushing something in front of people? Yep... Is it ethical? Is it asshole? Perhaps, idk really... But I think that it's important important stuff get's better visibility, and I only do it on stuff I feel matters a lot

Same as I boosted one of Ned's comments here the top one:
https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/why-i-advice-against-linear-reward

Do you know curation functions in the same way, organically, and places actual popular opinion near the top? Yes, you know that. Have faith in people. What's popular opinion under one post might not be as popular under another post. It all depends who's saying it, who's got their back. Do you know @lordbutterfly is now accusing me of participating in witch hunt style flagging? Blowing it way out of proportion after I had already explained my reasoning to you since you were the one responsible. According to your logic, that was not meant to be a reward, you were simply using an exploit in the UI and a bit of money to move something up. Lordbutterfly should not be upset about losing 'rewards'. He did not earn anything. It's not unusual though to be treated like a thug when using the downvote option, which is unfortunate. Nobody complains when 5 people vote up but 5 people vote down and holy crap look out it's the end of the world. I also acted alone. Made my own call. Planned on downvoting the comment before I even noticed others did. I also see others came after me and I had nothing to do with that.

I already saw your paid upvote to ned. I am omniscient (LOL). That I will not flag because rewards were declined, nothing was pulled from the reward pool, no resources were wasted.

Do you understand how the reward pool works? I assume you do. I'm certain you may not agree with my stance but can at least see how it could be considered a waste of resources.

Boosting shit posts to trending is an extreme waste of resources. If all of the money was downvoted off of every post that got boosted today, our published posts would go up in value. Did you know that? I think that's how it works. That's how it used to work. I don't think that part changed.

"It's not unusual though to be treated like a thug when using the downvote option" yeah the downvote really makes people respond in a discussion since it really becomes personal for many. I can see both your side and @lordbutterfly side and I think both makes sense but sometimes it can get a bit heated.

But I rather have it heated than no power at all. YouTube decided to flag my account today on YouTube for just making a video How To Download a YouTube video lol... Now this is a power game where a content creator has no power at all. I assume with Google that you may not even be allowed to Download your own videos. There is not even a real human you barely can contact. Just a faceless organisation. So no matter how crazy Steem get's at least it's not Google. I like how they try to make it look more crazy by making it all red and fill up your whole screen.

Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 18.42.26.png

Yeah it's nice you said that about people can decline rewards and still get's a boost. Since then you both get no leech on the reward pool and you get visibility as I saw with that comment boost.

I do wish "disagrees on rewards" were more common. Also, I heard a lot of people talk about how they only punch down, trying to correct the behavior of low accounts. Too fearful of retaliation from large accounts. This is awful. Punch up, everyone. If a 1k sp account upvotes their post for a penny, big whoop. But when 100k+ accounts are upvoting for legit dollars and 1mil accounts ?!? That's where the value is going. Is that post worth 3000 times what that 10 cent post is? Not possibly. That's where disagree on rewards should be especially ok. Also also...is it crazy to suggest that downvotes be somehow anonymous? Dunno how trust could be verified, but it seems like it might solve some problems...might cause more.

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Well, but what you didn't mention is that the fake in your example is a single dad trying to bring some light into his kid's life on the eve of their mother's disappearance and the real deal made his big money by selling the mother's and others' kidneys.
So...context.

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But circles are the best shape to talk in.

Thank you, folks, be sure to tip your waitress, I'll be here all.... Eternity.

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It's not super transparent, because there are plenty of new users who have no idea what upvote bots are. There was a bot that tried to post about that, but it got killed. This is an odd war.

I'm just watching. I care, but I can't say I know what's right, and also everyone is really emotional about social media, so that's kinda scary.

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