The Downvote Proposal 👎 A Solution To The Flag Crisis 🚩
This will be a shorter post because I want to more so have a discussion than anything. Lately there has been a great deal of talks around bid bots use to get your posts trending, flagging abuse, and general negative sentiment to whales who are heavily flagging content that doesn't match their ideals, but is technically fine. This raises the question as to whether this is actually censorship free? Some whales have said they dislike cursing and pornography, so all the people who got censored on other platforms coming here to share can share, but they will be oppressed and their reputation harassed on here. It's not much of an improvement aside fro the transparency and ability to earn then.
We want STEEM and Steemit to last so we need to think long term. What is the easiest way to implement a system that can show that you dislike a post, without destroying someone's reputation? Well because whales are going around and enforcing their made up undocumented guidelines that no one is aware of it feels fairly oppressive.
Downvotes.
Well isn't that basically what flags are? Technically yes, but it makes a lot of sense to have a native downvote feature to express distaste limited to a very small portion of your influence that is meant to show distaste without hurting someone's reputation greatly. This is also a great warning measure for people who are learning the "unspoken" rules.
Flags should 100% used on spam, scams, abuse, harassment , and posts that are overly boosted and earning way more than they should or trending content that is low quality. They shouldn't be used for enforcing personal private morals. This is what happened with the police with prohibition and the drug wars causing so much problems, segregation, and distrust between the people and state. SO, given that in this sense the state is more or less the whales and the witnesses, I think it's on you to either set a better example or work in some solution like this one. I think I've seen something like this before, but I figured I'd share my own take on it.
So yeah that's it, there wasn't much to this I just wanted to get this written out and see what everyone thinks moving forward. I've talking with people and several people have asked me to run as a witness so that is definitely something I am considering moving forward to help clean this up and provide solutions and get them into action. I think I would do a great job of better representing the values of the minnows in the politics of the STEEM blockchain which is only run by whales and witnesses. We are decentralized, but so we must take on the onus of having a safe, secure, open, fun, and fair community. If we allow the flag crisis to continue, it will paint a terrible picture of Steemit and STEEM as it becomes more main stream and come off as a scam to the average non-crypto user. We need to do this for the future of the platform and to have a productive and thriving community here. Steemit could be another failed hierarchical system of an amazing successor to social media on web 2.0.
Let's work together to make Steemit the standard, and make sure that it is still STEEMIT with the original ideals and values that were behind it's invention by the time we get there! Let me know what you think :)
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If I am not mistaken many of the original Steemians when the platform was launched were Anarchists. In fact I heard about it from Jeff Berwick who is the founder of Anarchapulco and was (is?) an ardent user. I suspect he is a Whale and many of his original buds are Whales too. They are all very pro freedom. I do not know if it is they who are the source of the mean spirited "censorship" or not but it certainly would be ironic if that was the case.
The thing is those who have become Orca's or Whales are more equal than the rest of us. Thats life. Not fair, but it seems that's life. Of course there are the Witnesses. And they are more equal than the rest of us too.
It's all an interesting study in human dynamics and relationships. It seems we have our own little mini-country here where we are not entirely free, at least if you want to thrive. But thats life too. The golden rule, so to speak, of Libertarians and Anarchists alike is to do no harm to another either to his/her person or possessions. That code of ethics is being challenged it seems.
Your idea of a "native downvote feature" is a strong step in the right direction. Anyway, being relatively new here, I'm observing with my own personal filter being: Seek first to understand. Your post helps. Thanks.
Indeed, when I first signed up in early 2017, it was pitched that us anti-statists have a safe place here where we can express out views. I never posted here and I left for a year, returning to a TOTALLY CHANGED place for the most part. I swear EVERY POST I make someone is telling me "Do this" "Don't do that" and "You better be careful because ABC Whale doesn't like that" and bots leave messages.... mind you... do have a look at my content. Every other post I win some kind of AWARD such as a curie, a truffle pig, a helpie, something... if what I'm doing is so wrong, why do I keep winning author awards?
It is really annoying to say the least. I agree with your sentiment. It's a little country. Authoritarians are at level of the userbase weilding their stake in their own (often conflicting) crusades.
Wow! Not so much for this comment but for who you are. I went to your blog and read your post on your son with Autism. That was a superb post. One of my foster sons (I'm taking the liberty to give you a link here:https://steemit.com/newbieresteemday/@mistermercury/my-foster-son-twisted-dark-roots) has a young nephew, who I see almost every day. Cute kid but well within the autism range. I may actually end up fostering him too. He would be the third from that family. (OK too much information here). Anyway, if I do you'll be hearing from me for sure. His family could really give a shit. For them he is a source of Social Security income and thats about it. (again... too much information!) Anyway love the fire in your soul and that your son is Mensa and that you found treasures in that journey. That you are a Gemini is a small part of your astrological chart I am sure.( I'm an astrologer).
Now, as regards the comment above: yes, sad to hear this place has changed. It seems that no matter where we who seek freedom go we find the busy bodies, the bureaucrats, the flaggers, the bastards who want to control. I'm all for respect and honoring others and being pretty mellow , but my hackles rise when confronted with those who wish to manage my life.
Ha! this is my first writing of the day. I'm thinking I'm on a roll ... better go blog. I thought the post on your son was really important so I resteemed. Just have a hunch someone who needs to read it will respond. Blessings.
"safe place on the internet" is a total oxymoron.
Great comment, @mistermercury
I agree and thinking in those terms helps to pull back and put it all into perspective, keeping all the emotional turmoil at some arms-reach distance.
I was drawn here as well by Jeff Berwick's comments in some of his videos. I very much doubt any of his followers/believers are behind the Warlord downvote craze of steemit. I also have my doubts that @Ned and @Dan are Freedom loving Anarchists who believe in doing no harm to another either to his/her person or possessions, at least to the degree as Libratarian/Volunterists believe, especially given the WarLord empowerment here and the anti-privacy extremes.
It is very much an interesting study in human interaction and all our imperfections. I'd like to think that sooner or later we will all learn to evolve beyond the current WarLord mentality humanity seems so stuck in and that blockchain technology will one day helps us to do so.
Really awesome input and feedback there, I'm glad you feel the same. Hopefully we can all unite with our voice and influence and make an impact
I agree with this 100% and it's actually one of the ideas I keep repeating over and over and over. More can be done at the interface level here and accross all platforms built on the Steem blockchain. Another concept that would do wonders at the interface level is cloning the NSFW feature to essentially show/hide various types of content. That could be done right in Condenser without even touching the blockchain. I like how https://www.parley.io/ only pulls content for it's front page from the tag alone. Someone really needs to build a Condenser Build just for people who want to see the tag blog. And why is there no way to hide users? That could be done in Ajax.
Lots of great ideas stewing. I'm sad they don't get that much review. And if they're botted to the top for visibility, then it's smackdown time. It's a circle of self-sabotage.
I was thinking of eventually investing in a witness and seed node, or maybe several. I'm hearing they're costing around $500 month for the full version. But I'm not sure I want to do that or invite our friends from other industries with so much petty chatter and not enough taking action.
I really like this place though. Agh, love hate relationships... lol.
A team witness approach seems to be catching on. It is not my preference though a couple have my vote at the moment. Spreading such expences among a group of people would make it less stressful financially.
true should definitely be a block, there is mute though I guess. Lots of good ideas in there
@novacadian That was something I considered as well. If I were to set up a witness/seed node, my second one would probably be crowd funded. One of the witnesses I voted for, @justinadams has an initiative to build evergreen community nodes.
I think a community witness node could actually be monetized where, after expenses and a small payout to the administrators, any profit is redistributed back to the investors that also vote. A website could be put in place where the investors that vote could have a say in witness decisions (like upgrading, forking, etc.), so it becomes a representative of it's voting investor base. It could be on a cloud server and be transparent with a constitution. And likely other featured could be on the server and site to reward the investors as well.
Couldn't that be more abusive if we give people with alot of money more say into what the witness has to do?
The most representative way to do it would be to have every Steemian vote on everything, but that would never happen, hence witnesses. I think the most important thing is having a better platform for communicating and polling with the witnesses. We need a voting platform and political poll website where they can ask feedback from everyone with 25+ rep all equally representational in the vote to see who wants what. Minnows may all say no more voting bots, but whales may say yes, but there are many more of us so it would then be representational. However, with a rep limitation, whales could just flag one time on someone who they don't want voting and that could be super abusive too so maybe no rep limit or find a way around something like that. Ideally there would be a way to ensure it was only humans voting not bots, but not sure how
This sounds like an exciting project to explore how to effectively work with team witnesses, @omitaylor. Perhaps smart contracts with Etherium could be employed to distribute profits fairly among investors.
Some Whales that are doing this have SECRET agendas. You just have to figure them out....
There is this one particular whale that will downvote you because you are a threat to him and he has multiple accounts to attack you. These accounts he uses to transfer SBD, Steem and Steem Power. He is basically creating a Steem army or a Steem government.
Yeah Bernie and he has 0 rep for it. Ironically that does nothing to stop him
My concern is more about bots and vote selling services offered even by some witnesses than personal vigilante activity of some large stake holders.
With the downvote the community is more likely to reach consensus of exceptable content. That consensus is likely to change over time in relation to the active stake holders. That is not undifferent than any community.
Even the most harsh of downvoting does not remove the offending content from the blockchain, so can we really call it censorship?
Yes we can, it is censorship if I take your book you've published and is sitting on the front shelf and I take it and put it at the back because I didn't like it, not because it shouldn't be there. So it is censorship to harassingly lower someone's reputation because of personal preference because their content will be hidden. Witnesses shouldn't be selling either yes that is something else that should be addressed. For now my concern is solving the flagging crisis. For example if a whale came along and saw this thread and doesn't want it gaining any motion they flag me until my rep is 0 and even though I only help the community, they'd ruin me. It could be done in mere minutes. It's too easy and normalized
... and another large stakeholder could come along and reverse that. It looks unfair if you are on the wrong side of the larger of stake holder(s). Guess we can agree to disagree the use of the word censorship.
That is true, they could. But they very well might not, and that is the case in a lot I'm in SteemCleaners and Feezepeach discords and they get tons of false flags and harassment or whales ruining people for cursing or having NSFW content, which is biased, unfair, and in a way censorship because flags are meant for abuse not for personal values. Like a religious whale can't go around downvoting atheists for example etc. I say can't, but really I mean they shouldn't. There are no actual guidelines aside from the undocumented ones the whales make up when they feel like it. How were these people able to know these imaginary rules. I'm thinking long term here. We are over 1 million users. We do not shine a good light if you have to go through a ton of work to repair your accounts from harassment of "experienced" members who you would otherwise expect guidance from not to be harassed by.
My point is that excepted norms is a part of the human social experience. They will change over time. To make such an evolution natural there will be a need of cleaning up after accounts show inactivity.
The biggest one is likely the held votes in inactive witness accounts. They would be all witnesses marked in red text at the following link....
https://steemian.info/witnesses
Such inactive deadwood makes it more difficult for new witnesses to make it to the top 100 let alone the sacred 20.
Discussions should be made to perhaps remove downvotes once the originating account is deemed inactive.
Yeah I said all that in this article or maybe my previous, downvotes, dealing with inactivity, lack of communication amongst others
Good post.
Cheers
I'm new here and I may not know much about it ... but as a science experiment I think this sometimes contains some injustice or is misused. I always like to be nice to others and I'm tired a lot until I know how to write A good article not only for profit, but to create good friendships and a good impression for others. After all this, I find someone who has Downvote to an article from my point of view. I do not see anything wrong in my article ... Of course I love to have a report or flag about the bad things ... but please play a more positive role and explain the reason ... so I do not do it again ... please Do not misuse this right There are people tired a lot and wasted their effort because of such a thing .... Thank you very much for opening the discussion in this matter and I hope to be a witness until I vote for you
Thank you! I am trying my best to bring this to light and get a solution!
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I agree with your intention.
Steemit should be a free place full of knowledges about everything.
Even i dont like several things, in that case, i dont vote for it but not flag.
Well, that’s what i think about this
Yeah so this way a simple downvote can express your concern or distaste without harassing someone
Great Idea! Thanks! ReSteemited :)
Thanks so much I appreciate the support
I love your idea!! Finally I read a good post about helping people in Steemit in a right way. The downvote is the greatest idea I've read and I would totally support that. I have seen people who flag some post but they leave a comment explaining why they flag the post, putting in the comment that if the user changes what did wrong then they take away the flag in the post, and that's a good way to use the flag but I really hope the downvote button becomes a real thing. Good post, greetings!
I have seen that a lot yeah, some issues are like when a whale flags you it creates a trickle effect. Also people obviously don't always explain why or their explanation is based on personal opinion only