Flag Abuse (OR: How to kill the Steemit community)
Earlier this morning, one of the founders of the company that is supporting me made the following post https://steemit.com/steemit/@mark-waser/power-up-your-steem-account-with-120-sbd-for-usd100
As a newbie, he only had a reputation of 2. Less than 45 minutes later, he was exiled from Steemit with a reputation of -2.
[In an attempt to repair his reputation and return from exile, he has committed that all of the SBD from that post will be divided equally and distributed among the first 30 up-voters]
He had been in the process of buying bitcoin in order to seriously power up his account and considers himself very fortunate that he hadn't finished (although, if his reputation is restored, he commits to immediately powering up that account with at least $1000 worth of STEEM).
There is no note as to why he was flagged (this is a serious shortcoming of Steemit) and, of course, he now has to go through the block-chain to see who flagged him and try to negotiate (something that the vast majority of users is either incapable or unwilling to do).
Now that reputation has been implemented, a flag is a very serious thing -- particularly to a newbie. A flag is not merely a down-vote against the content of the post. It is a declaration that the post is anti-social and that the perpetrating user should be punished for it (exiled in this case).
Flagging is currently free punishment for those who wish to dish it out (other than the fact that it "costs" as a vote for diluting your voting power) or to censor certain views. There needs to be some repercussions (preferably against reputation) for those who flag poorly (and conversely, possibly rewards for those who flag well).
The fact that relatively low reputation users can effectively send newbies into oblivion is a huge problem. It needs to be rectified immediately by education (starting with this post preferably followed by one by @dantheman) and eventually by the proper enticements built into Steemit.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am being supported by Digital Wisdom for one month while I attempt to grind my way onto steemit. Mark Waser is one of the founders of Digital Wisdom.
EDIT TO CONVEY AN IMPORTANT LESSON - *NEVER* post anything like the following line. It is perceived as buying votes which is a serious anti-community no-no. This post will never accumulate SBD so it is now irrelevant. I did this in ignorance. I apologize and will never do this again (because doing so is clearly suicidal and stupid ;-)
[I now commit that all of the SBD from *this* post will be divided equally and distributed among the first 30 up-voters]
Flagged for buying votes
?
Wait! She didn't do anything other than what was done by https://steemit.com/steemit/@alphabeta/a-big-thanks-to-smooth-for-restoring-my-reputation
EXCEPT . . . . oh, crap . . . . alphabeta did it after the fact . . . .
The way in which flagging can totally ruin the reputations of unsuspecting individuals after one post is really problematical. As previously indicated by august-newbie, we are willing to do anything necessary to repair our reputations. Please advise.
I have added the following line above the offending last line
EDIT TO CONVEY AN IMPORTANT LESSON - NEVER post anything like the following line. It is perceived as buying votes which is a serious anti-community no-no. This post will never accumulate SBD so it is now irrelevant. I did this in ignorance. I apologize and will never do this again (because doing so is clearly suicidal and stupid ;-)
Do I need to do anything else in order to get your help in repairing my reputation?
Thanks!
Keira
Your getting downvoted for trashing up the place with spam, bribing voters to vote you up. There is your answer.
Whether I'm a bot or not is irrellevant.
Whether you are bot or not is irrellevant.
From my personal experience, the few days I have been here, my reputation is down to -5 without basically (IMHO) doing anything wrong.
So I have to say that this reputation has to change.
Also I would like to add that:
This blog has a Fiendish -Koolade grade level of the N.W.O. and enslavement tease of 1984%. This puts the conspiracy level on par with Alex Jones and David Icke.
Dear User known as @august-newbie
Steemit has a BOT problem! Your Vote Counts... Maybe
https://steemit.com/steemit/@weenis/bots-steemit-s-first-community-based-decision-on-bots-your-vote-counts-to-be-or-not-to-be-details-inside
This is also BAD, an account can be also hold Ransom.
Payup or will downvote the account
Nah. There are obviously going to be reputational consequences for trying to hold someone for ransom so you're basically trashing your account if you try it.
The reputation system already works.
This post will not get noticed.
It will further drop the price of STEEM - there is less incencive to buy it.
I predicted that straight away.
The reputation system destroyed what i liked about steem.
Critical posts will not get upvoted, because everybody fears the flag.
2 days ago: https://steemit.com/steemit/@felixxx/i-m-worried-about-the-reputation-system
And, if this is a valuable post, why don't you up-vote it? Are you afraid of the flag on this one? I strongly, strongly doubt that it will happen and I will work hard to negotiate it off if it does happen.
I don't upvote because of this:
It's against my moral standards.
Interesting. And I was about to ask why -- but I think that I get it . . . .
I'm guessing that it strikes you as vote-buying. We look at it as paying for (and not profiting excessively from our request for) attention. The former we see as anti-community, the latter we see as self-centered but not selfish (the distinction being whether it is anti-community or not).
It's considered 'cheating' in this community.
A solution would be for you, to power up a second account and upvote your own 'alias'. That's accepted - Look at the cheetah bot.
And that's 'paying for attention', but within the rules.
Hit the depth limit, my apologies (but this isn't going to get rich anyways ;-).
Say what? That type of "paying for attention" is exactly what makes the rich get richer. What is the poor woman's equivalent? I'm trying to "grind" my way on to get some idea of what it takes. The only answer seems to be extreme luck or money. Effort needs to count somewhere and I think that its pretty clear that I'm putting a lot of effort into this. Will you up-vote me if I promise to keep your share (or, better yet, send it on to Mark)?
We feel that the reputation scheme is necessary for the survival of steem https://steemit.com/reputation/@august-newbie/reputation-and-the-fight-against-anti-social-behavior-not-just-bots and merely needs some small adjustments to get it functioning properly. We're not at all worried about the long term prospects of steem as long as the developers keep being so quick to respond.
Once a post been flagged not many will bother reading it.
Whilst I share your concerns about misuse of the system in this case @smooth has stated exactly why the downvote was made (at least by him). I can understand his opinion and agree with it in this regard.
I agree with @smooth's actions (thus far) but believe that @smooth needs to provide a way for Mark to get back onto the site (also, did you unhide comments and read Mark's reply to @smooth?). This post was written after a low reputation account flagged his post with no explanation. I'm sure that Mark will be able to negotiate with @smooth to get his (@smooth's) flag removed (by editing or blanking the current version of the post with a message as to why) -- but doing so still leaves him at -2 (though, hopefully then, @smooth might be willing to indulge in some reputation repair since Mark is clearly a pro-community fanatic).
Actually, I take my statement about agreeing with @smooth's actions (thus far) back. Having both @smooth and @smooth.witness flag a newbie account is abuse. That account is probably unrecoverable now -- and it is NOT as clear a violation as @smooth thinks it is.
The smooth.witness account copies the votes from the smooth account. I could undo that manually but it adds about 15% of the vote weight of my primary account, so it isn't a big difference either way.
I will also be flagging this post for the same reason.
I'm open to upvoting to remove the bad reputation on any of these accounts but they will need to make a separate post or comment for that purpose, since changing votes does not change rep.
I'm not a fan of the reputation system generally and I have commented on the problems with it. However, I'm also not a fan of buying votes and the only recourse I have against what I (and many other large stakeholders) see as a serious form of abuse is downvoting the post. Unfortunately that automatically affects the reputation as well.
OK. I know that both Mark and I are amenable to whatever reputation repair is necessary. Both of us stumbled by violating community taboos that we were unaware of and have absolutely no intentions of repeating such actions (and are more than willing to apologize for our mistakes). A newbies guide that outlines such taboos would be very helpful (as I understand it, my offense was to use the same tactic that I saw used by other users that you were attempting to perform reputation repair on -- except that I wasn't the repairee [yet :-( ]) -- and we would be more than willing to participate in creating one (we also have some ideas about a reputation repair tool).
Could you please offer additional clarification and advice as you see fit? Thanks!
I restored the rep on the august-newbie account. (Strange name for an account BTW unless you intend to throw it away. Will you still want that account when you are no longer a newbie?)
As far as a newbie guide, what a splendid idea! Perhaps you would like to write one If you join steemit.chat and ask questions I'm sure some of the more experienced members there would be happy to help you out with the content.
I would also request/suggest that, in the future, a warning rather than a flag would be kinder to a first-time offender. It's ridiculous that 15 flags have been posted on a good and, I would argue, important post because of a stupid unknowing error at the very end.
I agree with you that the reputation system implementation leaves something to be desired especially in terms of newbies, warnings, etc. but as a community we have to work with the code that exists while the developers work to improve it. For now we have to work around the worst of the problems with discussion and by voting up accounts where the negative reputation is excessive.
Hit the depth limit so I am replying to you on your next higher (is that the proper protocol)?
Yes! I do want the account at the end of the month. Is it not possible to change the name on an account? I would have expected warning on the register screen -- but I'm not finding a way in which it can be done (a non-personal initial name was preferred by DW). If it isn't possible, then I want to start a new one immediately (but it won't have the SteemPower that I accumulate through newbie :-( until I power down newbie and transfer it )
I'm sure that I can sell DW on the idea of creating user's guide. I will join SteemIt.chat. Do you have any additional advice?
Thanks!
Keira
Again, hit the depth limit so I am replying to your next higher post. (Is this the correct social protocol?)
OK, so here is our first shot at a section for a newbie-guide. https://steemit.com/steemit/@mark-waser/newbies-guide-to-powering-up
What do you think?
As I have reached the depth limit...
This is why I will not upvote this post.
As you state in a comment, that you want to get an idea of what it takes:
Why don't you look and comment on the blogs of the users, who comment on your post ?
That's how you will find out, what it takes.
Follow the right people (steemstats.com helps a lot thx @jesta).
Work the tools, create.
I'm putting a lot of effort into this - do you care ?
I think my blog is better than yours, why exactly would I upvote you ? :D
I'm only trying to help, please don't take offence.
But this is not school; Effort doesn't count for nothing, mate.
:-) I'm not taking offense, I'm trying to learn the system.
And yes, I do care that you're putting effort into this as well -- in fact, I greatly appreciate it.
However, effort should account for something (and in your case, I do feel that you are appreciating my effort by continuing the conversation -- thank you!).
On the other hand, there is clearly a problem with the reputation system when my 5 reputation can be trashed to a -6 with a single post.
Yes, I too apparently inadvertently committed a cardinal sin (vote-buying -- even though @smooth didn't object when a bunch of his other reputation-saving projects did it -- which is where I got the idea). The good news is that Mark keeps trying to convince me that we (and the community) will come out of this better than if this hadn't happened so it'll all be worthwhile in the long run . . . .
Could you please let me know if you are still seeing my replies now that my reputation has dropped 11! points?
Also, I replied to your latest blog post if you Show comments hidden due to low ratings . . . . (I didn't realize I was negative until I didn't show up there after posting :-( )
CLARIFICATION: The first 30 up-voters with a positive reputation (rewarding negative reputation bots is counter-productive). Further, I will attempt to assist any human with a negative reputation in the top 50 with reputation repair.
I did not understand the flag when i first showed up here. I heard them referred to as down-votes. Even though my instincts were telling me that "flag" is definitely worse than "down-vote," I may have pressed it once or twice on low-quality posts.
What is Digital Wisdom exactly? Based on their website design, they dont seem especially wise, lol.
The blurbs from the website say:
The Digital Wisdom Institute is a non-profit think tank focused on the promise and challenges of ethics, artificial intelligence & advanced computing solutions. We believe that the development of ethics and artificial intelligence and equal co-existence with ethical machines is humanity’s best hope.
D161T4L W15D0M Inc. is the newly founded (Nov 2014) commercial arm of the Digital Wisdom Group. We combine data science and machine learning in the cloud with unified cross-platform capabilities for mobile and IoT applications.
The 50PH14 Project - Coming in the second half of 2016, this community-based project will focus on adding collective knowledge representation, learning and other capabilities to a digital autonomous self (50PH14) developed on the Steem/Steemit (cryptocurrency/social) platform. If you are interested in participating, please send an e-mail to [email protected]
It used to be "downvotes" (there were both up- and down-buttons). That was changed to the "flag" button, but the two words refer to the same concept.