Hmm... as much of an edge case as this may be, is it a bad precedent to introduce hard-coded censorship into the blockchain?
After all - banning users from repeatedly posting the same comment, as bizarre as it sounds, is censorship. And I'd argue that all forms of censorship must go through a community enforcement model, not hard-code.
In my mind, we would handle this the same way we identify and eliminate plagiarized works - via flagging, not through lines of code.
Edit: to take it one step further, I would support adding a feature that auto-hides spam comments into a Steem interface - for example, if busy.org were to not display any commments that meet the conditions you outline in your original post - because, again, it resolves the problem without resorting to hard-coded censorship.
I think you are making a good point here, that stuff belongs at the interface not the network level and even then it's a tricky problem to solve. We can probably all agree that spam is bad. But can we all agree what is spam? I would bet that we cannot, that people have widely different opinions on what is spam and what isn't because it's not as simple as it sounds. If detecting spam was simple, you wouldn't be told to "check your spam folder" so often, despite the fact that many companies have worked for decades on solving the problem of email spam.
Yea, this is a good point - even spam is hard to define.
Of course, this is an ideological debate. And there is no absolute answer, given there are bound to be different opinions on this - just as there were on the issue of the hard fork that split Ethereum into two chains.
I'd say fuck the ideology of absolute non-censorship. Focus on the broader context...
Spam is SPAM. If the community agrees that spam is inappropriate, fuck the particularity of "hard-coded censorship" - the community has agreed that spam is inappropriate, and uses the tools at hands to enforce that standard which shall ensure the integrity of the platform.
It's not a matter of "censorship" - it's one of defining clear rules of conduct for this shared digital space and establishing the conditions to enforce those rules. If people don't like the rules and want a space that fits their ideological standard of complete anti-censorship so they can spam with disregard for respect of the community's other members, then they can go elsewhere.
Re: flagging... good in theory. not so much in practice.
Most people won't flag.
Many don't know the function is even there. Yet more don't have a fully clear understanding of when and when it's not appropriate to use. And many may be tempted to use it, feeling it'd be appropriate, but are too fearful of using it - feeling they'd either be a "bad" person for penalizing somebody according to their own subjectivity or not wanting to piss anybody off by flagging them and perhaps reaping the consequences of making enemies that could do them greater damage in the future.
From my viewpoint, a clear agreement on what constitutes spam and setting measures in place to automate the enforcement of such a defined cultural code is the only way this issue may effectively be addressed. I could be wrong, though I'm focused on what'd be effective and best serve the community first before caring about being right...
We agree on a few clear points:
(1) spam is bad.
(2) whenever rewards are allocated to spam comments, the Steem network gets weaker.
(3) we should use the best tools available to ensure that (2) does not happen.
It's not a question of whether or not spam is good. It's a question of what the right tools are for the job.
What percent of the community (or percent of stake) should be required to agree before we hard code censorship into the protocol? I'm trying to understand how this process is different from one that could lead to censorship based on, for example, political ideas.
While it may seem strange to compare banning spam to banning ideologies - we've seen a similar path towards censorship in history regarding centralized networks (i.e. Government) - can we be sure the same thing won't happen on a decentralized network?
hmm... there are definitely alot of important issues related to governance coming up here. and undoubtedly, even if the whole premise is to be working towards complete decentralization, there's gotta be some form of governance...
extending beyond this one issue of spam, this does raise some good questions along the lines of "how can consensus be reached on key decisions that need to be made for the protocol to upgrade and community to advance?
truthfully, I don't know how the decisions have been made to date. there have been multiple hard forks - though what has been the process for determining what gets coded into those updates?
I'd guess that most people on the site have no clue either.
So, who is making those decisions? And if more users were to know how the process occurs, would they be freely open to step in and participate?
this might seem like a bit of a diversion, though I feel as going through this that there is a point emerging I didn't expect: there is no ideal of decentralization that can ever be fulfilled to the full extent of the ideological epitome. somewhere, someone is making decisions to drive forward the protocol. that's NOT decentralized. perhaps to some degree, as it's kind of democratic if anyone can step in and join the process. But, the majority of people won't. so there will always be some degree of centralization of decision-making as a byproduct of the way it has to be...
of the thousands of users on here, I'm guessing only a few dozen really know how they could get active in such decision-making processes. and even if ALL were to know, probably only a fraction would get involved.
nonetheless, decisions have to be made. perhaps the more people that get involved, the closer to "decentralization" we'd move.
(and maybe that'd be part of the case for futarchy - as little as I know of it, it seems there is some part of it relating to voters being invested in an outcome. or perhaps, there could be some sort of incentivization offered for users to participate in a voting process to help with the decision-making processes, thus moving closer towards that decentralization ideal.)
man, this feels like one of the most scattered comments I've ever written here. lol. as proving - not a simple, straightforward matter...
Yeah totally, it is important that as many users as possible understand how these decisions are made. To my understanding, it is the top witnesses who ultimately control the power to enact hard forks. I believe they are the ones who have the discussions, sometimes "behind closed doors" to some extent, that affect us all.
Perhaps some more research is in order, so both of us can figure out a bit better what the hell is going on here?!
Cheers dude, it was good to discuss this with you.
Is a bot classed as a person?
CommentWealth tries to flag spam for minnows who might not feel comfortable or confident flagging it themselves. But since the account is human and not a bot, obviously it only flags a minor fraction. But we're trying!