Steem Has a Severe Glitch That Likens It To Reddit, Facebook and Fox News
Steem has a disturbing problem in its platform that demolishes the claim that all members’ content has an equal chance of rising to the top. If you really want to do well on Steem, you must please its board of directors, known as “Steem Whales.”
Normal people like you and I are labeled “Steem Minnows.” If a Minnow wants to make bank with Steemit, he should vet the Whales to learn their likes and dislikes. A Minnow can become rich if he publishes content the Whales like. On the other hand, if the Minnow hurts a Whale’s feelings, the Whale can crush the publisher and drain his earnings.
Although whales are deep divers and usually shy in the wild, Steem Whales don’t hide, so you can meet them here: http://steemwhales.com/. The first 20 whales on the list all have Steam portfolios in excess of $1 million.
Steem’s unfair defect should raise the eyebrows of thousands of activists. Almost all activists have been tortured by censorship at the hands of statist-owned publishing sites like Facebook, Google and YouTube. Steem claims to prohibit censorship and allow the most popular content to rise to the top as it earns the publisher a significant monetary reward. Unfortunately and sadly, that’s not the case. Steem content is heavily censored.
I noticed the unfair glitch in Steem from the beginning. My gift of skepticism that helped me become one of the best undercover narcs in the U.S. continues to help me smell when something’s fishy. After befriending a Steem Whale who chooses to remain anonymous, I learned Whales are the ones who decide if you get an “F” or an “A” on your report card.
How do we know some of the Steem Whales are not cops? I’m positive the CIA has tens of thousands of agents worldwide. We also know through court records they infiltrate and disrupt activist organizations. They have launched massive operations to hinder, collect and stop flows of information. I can’t prove government trolls are or will be Whales, but as an ex-agent, I’m positive that it has happened or is going to happen. This really sucks for me, because I’m famous for being one of law enforcement’s harshest critics. I don’t have much faith in Steemit because all it takes is one “Cop Whale” to keep me from earning money and reaching my audience.
My anonymous Steem Whale friend explained that Whales gain their position by investing or earning $100,000 in Steem. The sizeable buy-in gives Whales so much voting power, they can totally kill your blog by not voting it through. No matter how many Minnow votes you get, one Whale can destroy your earnings with the push of a button.
This unfair use of force recently happened to Dollar Vigilante’s Jeff Berwick, who lost a pile of cash. As you may know, Berwick has been crushing everybody on Steem. Apparently, a certain Whale forgot he wasn’t a fish, and forgot to come up for air. He didn’t surface, but his jealousy did. The killer Whale pompously used his $100,000 elite position to penalize Berwick’s success by down-voting one of his blogs to the loss of $2,000.
I’m a drug expert, not an economics expert, so please double-check my claims. If you are not jealous of money expert Jeff Berwick, he is the one to ask. If you can’t reach Berwick, ask Janet L. Yellen or Alan Greenspan. They are both experts at manipulating cash out of Minnows, so they can probably verify the glitch is real.
I’m not quitting Steem, and neither should you. I am happy to be a publisher on Steemit and I am very grateful to be part of such a cool site and group of Steemers. I am currently running a campaign to invite all my Facebook, YouTube and online fans to follow me on Steem. I’m all in. I’m trying to power up everything I make because the experts predict Steem money will rapidly grow in value. I think it’s one of the best investments a person can make at this moment.
The main reason I’m not quitting Steem is because I learned Steem is able to redesign its system so Whales can’t crush the lowly Minnows. Steem is operated by a group of very intelligent, passionate and sincere people. They want Steemit to be fair and lucrative for their content providers. I have faith they will make the correction, so hang in there with me and let’s see what happens.
In the interest of fairness, allow me to say that most of the Whales are really good people who would never unfairly sabotage one of their members’ wallets. I give a big tip of the hat to that group because they did invest in a great project. It’s sad for the good Whales because it only takes one bad Whale to stink up an entire ocean.
P.S. Please don’t let cops become Whales. Thank you. Amen.
The problem you see may be impossible to resolve under the current system, the power to upvote or flag given to large SP holders, a.k.a whales, is the only thing that gives steem value, the only non-speculative use for steem at this point is to power up and be able to influence other`s payouts, so its interesting to see how this issue is also the main value proposition for the steem token.
I think the issue may be able to be dealt with though applying stricter perimeters on the flagging function. I vigorous discussion on the issue is being held here
Thing is, I doubt many people will buy Steem to power up, when they can just buy SP directly through blocktrades.
So I highly doubt this is what gives Steem value.
I would think advantageous interest on SP holdings would suffice to attract people to buy SP - and I would maintain, even more so, than the less tangible value proposition of influencing user interactions on the platform.
When you buy SP at blocktrades you are buying steem and then transfering it to your vest account. So no, you can't buy SP without getting hold of steem first.
Science!
Lots of good content has been written on how STEEM is rapidly becoming more distributed and whales are steadily losing influence. The Steemit platform has been designed to transition from benevolent dictators (Dan, Ned, devs, early miners etc.) smoothly and automatically. I agree with most of what you've said, however, I'm very optimistic the future will be full of benevolent dolphins kicking ass on bad whales. If you catch Dan's most recent posts he's already looking into ways to further distribute voter influence and mitigate bad whale attacks. All good!
for this to happen @johnsmith the rating system needs to change. there is some excellent writing outhere but still earns pennies on the dollar.
I'm also very optimistic and more so after reading everyones comments. Thanks johnsmith. Fist bump.
Though the TDV issues was extremely unfortunate, I agree with your assessment that much is this is due to the growing pains and challenges of equitable distribution of a new currency. We have some very honorable people in the whale ranks and I think they will have this under control until such time that there is a more equitable distribution.
THIS ^^^
PS We are in beta guys, don't "panic" everything will get fixed !
Bravo. I love our passion for this liondani.
Yep.
Love and Peace.
(whale speaking)
You're not a minnow Barry. With > 1000 SP you're well above that status already, and as you continue to collect rewards, your influence will continue to grow. There are a number of bloggers who started with nothing and are well over 10000 SP already (maybe >100K?) and I expect that some of the recent group of well-known bloggers joining Steem (you, Jeff, etc.) will probably advance faster.
I seriously doubt there are any cop whales (my personal opinion only) but I'm sure you are aware that pressure can, and perhaps will, be applied. If influence hasn't sufficiently dispersed (see above) before that happens, it could be an issue. All should remain vigilant.
Every single one of his posts have earned him money, he doesn't really know what it is to be the average user on steemit. I am starting to wonder how do I get enough attention to my work and have realized that people pay more attention to steemit related subjects than what makes the individual steemit user unique. Seems like writing stories barely got me a few $ and the only real money I have been rewarded was by adressing a steemit related subject in one of my early articles. Thats another flaw in the system if you ask me. You often see the same people coming back on the top page, wondering if they are making it there because of their content or because of their name. Let me tell you, If I was the one who wrote what you just have written, your message would have been unheard.
This has been true, but it is changing quickly. Most whales are not voting on Steemit-related posts anymore; they are trying to elevate other content. It just takes time for the SP to be more widely distributed. @kuriko I am sending you a direct message through the chat site to discuss your blog.
Is the goal to spread SP widely or should SP go to people who bring the most positive attention and resources to Steemit? If it's about bringing value to Steemit then you cannot deny that Dollar Vigilante is bringing value, even if it's measured under the political anarchist spectrum.
If in theory someone could convince Elon Musk to post on Steemit then we wouldn't be shocked if Elon Musk immediately got lots of upvotes. It's not a bad thing either because if Elon Musk is impressed by Steemit then he may tell his friends and that is good.
It is harder for minnows, for people just starting out, for people new to cryptocurrencies, and some whale power should be dedicated to searching for quality posts among minnows. I just don't think it should be at the direct expense of quality posts from celebrity posters or from established posters. It creates direct animosity if you say you're robbing peter to pay paul, or taking from Dollar Vigilante to spread the wealth to unnoticed minnows.
Instead, it should be that you solve the underlying problem of attention scarcity among the whales. Solve that and the minnows will be noticed more. Over time as whales power down the problem will solve itself because more people will have enough SP to make a difference for a blogger, if and only if the price of Steem continues to rise in the future.
Same goes here. My technical analysis get little to no rewards and the same guys get rewarded all the time.
Most average writers will never see the main page or "trending page". There is a growing talent entering the Steemit Community everyday and I don't expect to compete with these brilliant writers and bloggers. What I do think I can do in compete in my area of interest or my hobby. Maybe then I can make it to the "trending" page under MY category. That is definitely more realistic in my opinion.
That is because he's not an average blogger off Steemit. The people who are able to do well on Steemit from the beginning are people who already have an audience, a large social network, a lot of connections, a lot of resources, and it's no different than if someone brings a lot of Bitcoins to buy Steem Power directly. In this case it's people who are bringing celebrity status and social power from other places such as the anarchist community.
It's valuable to Steemit so Steemit rewards it. If any celebrity posts on Steemit it will be heavily rewarded at this early stage. So who is to blame if the other celebrity types refuse to post on Steemit? Bring your favorite celebrities to Steemit and upvote them.
Thanks for the minnow correction mr. smooth. Your analysis and advice to remain vigilant is spot on. I'm glad to see you come up for air when you are supposed to. lol. Peace.
@smooth is up for air very often actually ;) very dedicated Whale in my opinion!
even if you arent a minnow, you are speaking for the minnows...respect
I don't know how a person that's making 2000$ on his post is mad, I've been here for a week and introduced a few of my friends and haven't made more then 8 cents so sorry if I don't feel your pain.
I guess I'm just thankful enough to be off of crap ass Facebook or Twitter, 8 more cents then any of them gave me.
So thanks #steemit .Aswell as to @dan and @ned for starting this wonderful site.
Welcome aboard
When supreme court judges vote whether it be yes or no, (Because it has such a huge impact on a given case and the future) they usually publish an opinion on why they voted they way they did .. Perhaps something could be implemented at least at in attempt at transparency ? Just sayin ...
Read More, Reason More ... JTS
Smooth, there might still be cop whales, or whales with SOME political objective, one that isn't wholly benevolent. Think of it as a kid who likes arcade games, but also doesn't mind cheating or playing dirty in order to get all the tickets. Some whales might just be crooked people, and we don't want to play in an arcade where we might spend our quarters on a game that's already out of tickets.
I mean, that sort of analogy is kinda convoluted, but eh. It's valid. We want a website where we don't have to worry about pissing off a whale. What if someone with a bit of popularity wanted to talk about a REALLY controversial subject, and ended up pissing off a whale? That could ruin a person just for having an opinion, and that'd be rather unfair. Flagging ought to be down because of illegal or legitimately low-quality content, but it's not a secret that you can flag for any reason at all.
Even so, I don't really think that this problem is as big as the OP is saying. I haven't met any friendly or unfriendly whales so far. I'm just having fun posting stuff and reading new ideas.
~Kitten
These flippant uses of phrases like "use of force" and "censorship" drive me crazy, especially from someone who should know better! You really think a whale who downvotes in a way you don't like on a voluntary network is the same as a cop kicking some kids teeth in? 'Cause that's effectively what you're saying.
Participation in steem and steemit is voluntary! Try telling a cop, "Oh, I'm not going to participate in the Drug War." They don't care, and they will arrest and cage you. Government coercion is absolutely, fundamentally different from steemit downvotes and content control!
[
] Hello @mikemacintire
Very well said. No whale has ever helped me and I am doing fantastic here on steemit. I think this is the best I have ever seen. I am allowed to do what I want. It is not so terrible to behave nice.
I want to say this to everyone on steemit
[
]
Regards
The Viking from Norway
Unfairly taking a person's money is an illegitimate use of force whether the government does it or a private company. Cops kicking in the teeth of a kid is a much more gruesome and dark use of force so I'm strongly against that. That said, I never compared a down vote to a cop kicking a kids teeth in. Are you high? The use of force whether its from the government or from steemit is illegitimate if it's not done in self defense. I'm not sure how you claim government force is fundamentally different than steem force? I fully agree the government is much more violent and uses more force than Steem but force is force no matter who is using it. Right @mikemacintire?
No one is taking your money. Once it is in your wallet that is yours and no one has the power (without extremely drastic measures, i.e. hard fork ) to touch that. But in-progress post rewards are always subject to change due to changing votes, market prices, changes to other post earnings, etc. People can add votes, remove votes, add downvotes/flags, all of which change the post reward amount. Until it is paid out, it is still part of the Steem reward pool, and not your money, yet.
@smooth and @the-ntf .
I respectfully disagree about hiding it at all.
We need to be able to see at a glance what the payout is in order to know if it deserves to be rewarded more with our vote; to not be rewarded more with our vote; or to be knocked down by our flag. It is every users responsibility to have a say in how the pie is shared. If you have to dig in to every post and click a button to see where that post is in value it only serves to make the system less transparent, less accurate and less efficient.
I vote to leave the rewards visable and make it more obvious how the system works to all users in order to let people do the right thing, eventually...
Though I guess it would cut down on the anger people have when a crap article gets paid $1000 and their objectively better, but unseen, article gets $0.10... : wink :
I disagree with this. Steemit needs to evolve so that people are not just rewarding content in ways they think will do well or because they think they are worth what they've got so far, we should be liking what we like for what we like about it. Currently we're not that incentivised to play this way. Removing the reward count on the main page would help with that, once the community has really expanded and remain active.
But I do agree that to ensure distribution of rewards which many whales are working on, certain curators need to be able to find what content hasn't done well and maybe should have among other purposes. This data will always be visible on the blockchain, and if you really want to base your vote on what somebody has already made you can still do that, it just won't be as easy as it won't be visible on the main page.
Funny... people earn hundreds/thousands of dollars more than they EVER did on Facebook or any other social network, and yet still people want to complain about the "unfairness" of the system...
So much misdirected angst towards the whales - completely forgetting its their funding that makes this site possible. Sad how some produce content from a mistaken sense of entitlement rather than learning the rules of the game and understanding the depths of VALUE, putting their talents & passion to use contributing to the community vs resisting a system in deveopment whose flaws still are huge steps forward from other models...
I agree - Although a real newbie here, I love the idea of seeing which of my posts and which topics catch the attention of other Steemers, either whales or minnows. I'm on here for the fun of it - any steem that comes my way will be a bonus. :-) Stuart.
Thank you. Not many other comments in this thread made any sense and I couldn't articulate myself as good as you did.
Hope posts like these don't make it far in the future cause I'm tired of reading them.
Smooth, if the payout isn't yours until the vote time is completed, I would suggest that's a reason not to publish a number. Or perhaps only the person who posted the content can see the accumulated total.
Unless it's all immediately on the blockchain and there's no way to not see it, of course.
It is immediately on the blockchain but that doesn't mean that it necessarily has to always be thrust in peoples faces either. Maybe there is some UI redesign that could help reduce misunderstandings about just what the number means. Perhaps a button you have to press labeled with something like "Show in-progress voting" could be used. I'm just throwing out ideas here.
Your point about not showing a number until the money is your does make logical sense, so I think this deserves some consideration.
I don't really mind about the numbers. The numbers have their own usefulness as people can use it as a factor to evaluate or make certain decisions on the post. And yes they have their drawbacks as well. But I think it's fair, as the the rule is not subjective and applies for everyone. Making it an honest rule.
It's mainly important to show the number so the community can review it.
If anyone would like to hide the dollars amounts, they are free to do so as I outlined here. Complaints about money that is still part of the changing reward pool prior to payout seems a bit like an entitlement mentality to me. The rest of the article brings up valid and important concerns.
I think post earnings being hidden by default will have a good effect on people judging posts by the quality of their content instead of how much money they made. But it will have a bad effect on new users coming to steemit. Because that homepage with the big numbers sure does attract people.
Yes personally I would recommend simply removing the dollar symbol from the number. It makes people think they've "earned" money when in fact the value could change, and after the voting period only a fraction of it is earned with actual steem dollars, and much of it going to the curators. The reasoning for this makes sense, but putting the dollar symbol maybe not.
Perhaps put impermanent numbers next to the permanent ones with a dotted line around them, in fainter font color. Have a legend that shows that number labeled as "subject to change" and the other number "permanent earnings."
This is true but you still don't have your voting preferences in any public place so we can know what you'll vote down so we can avoid generating that content. As a result, how are we bloggers to know we aren't being voted down for arbitrary reasons such as a bad mood, or political disagreement?
Why don't you reveal your criteria once and for all for what you'll downvote. Why wait for a post to make "too much money" to reveal it violates some hidden standard?
Can't any of us change our voting criteria at any time?
You nailed it! @smooth
End of issue!
I apologize for the "cops kicking a kids teeth in" part of my argument.
When a boxer punches another boxer in the ring, why isn't it a rights violation? Because they entered the ring voluntarily.
By the same token, when a steem participant loses rewards based on the rules of the system they voluntarily chose to participate in, it's not stealing or "unjustified" in the sense that government violence is unjustified.
We might want the voting system to be different or disagree with the whales behavior, but there is no rights violation. There is no aggression or initiation of force in the way that government does, because government is not voluntary, and steem is. @barrycooper
If the boxing game promised fair competition (censorship resistances) but the rules encourages other forms of behaviour (whales turning day into night) then surely those who invested their time and effort into the game, or in this case created content, have the right to speak out?
This is another submissive argument that's been posted: you didn't put any money in/you are getting more out of this than Facebook so don't complain. It's quite counterproductive because it suppresses constructive discussions.
I spent quite some time about working out how to implement a fair and accurate reputation system, and one of the things that I worked out was that downvoting should not be permitted. Post a post instead saying how crap you think they are, see how that goes? Makes you realise what a dumb idea it is after all.
In my humble opinion, upvotes cost money, downvotes lower the poster on YOUR feed. Whoever you upvote, their downvotes lower the poster to the degree you upvote them on your feed. Downvoting should just be shunning, not actual punishment. Votes should be irrevocable.
For sure. In fact, I can't help but think of it similar to trying to sue a casino for one's losses. You walk in knowing the risk. If that's how you want to react to it, then it's obvious you didn't understand the risk.
There is no rights violation but it's still not transparent. The whales are black boxes with preferences we can't decipher in advance. Maybe by requesting they post their voting preferences we can resolve this dispute. Whales who post the reasons they'll downvote will be more trusted than whales who downvote because they feel like it.
The whales are people with preferences that change from day to day. What one downvotes today is not necessarily what they will downvote tomorrow -- same as their upvotes.
You don't get to know who is going to flag your post, or vote for your post, until you post it.
Voting for someone to be paid less isn't taking money away.
I have to agree with @smooth. Here's the funny thing. If you truly had a problem with Steemit, you'd have written this article on Medium. But you didn't. Why I wonder? Why would you participate in such government sponsored coerced project? :)
So now we are blaming others for lost profits?
"I'm not sure how you claim government force is fundamentally different than steem force?"
It's very different. We don't elect whales.
It's not unfair if they were to list their criteria from the beginning but it's unfair if the bloggers have no clue what certain whales vote preferences are and then find out on the fly as seemingly arbitrary reasons are given.
Encourage the whales to be transparent about what they'll downvote so they can be held accountable to their own criteria.
That attitude will get you far!
First: Very cool that Barry realizes that the CIA has their fingers in every pie the Fed cares about. I wish most libertarians were that aware. (This is a consequence of the nature of cybernetics or "the science of good/powerful/effectie governance." The book "The Human Use of Human Beings" by "Cybernetics" author Norbert Wiener goes into a lot of detail on this subject.)
Second: There is a force continuum. A lot of people here are treating force like an "all or nothing" binary value, hence the similar repeated criticisms. While it's true that curtailing discussion doesn't rise to the level of police aggression, or "direct physical violence" it is what is known as "an appeal to force"; an argumentation fallacy. Essentially, censorship of any kind, (anything other than free speech absolutism) reveals a deeply unfair, unintelligent, and un-American culture.
Should the Whales be forced to modify the Steem community? Only through market pressure, which is the counter-force to censorship. Physical force shouldn't be used against them, the threat of users "voting with their feet" should be.
I hope, like Barry, that the voting method becomes more "democratic" in the proper sense of the term. (In the sense it's used in the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, and "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly.
Heck, maybe Barry can lend his expertise to the site designers to show them how to ferret out the spooks. ;)
Please... No strawman please.
Barry never said use of physical force. It's a well-informed article on his worry that an law enforcement agents could potentially distort the vote because of the disproportional voting rights.
Even if a "Cop Whale" had all the power in the world on Steemit. He/she still could not remove your content from the blockchain... once it's there, it's there for good. Also, if you were to say, build up your following to a very high level, even a multitude of Whale DownVotes couldn't stop your followers from reading your content. You are also lowering the potential power of the steemit bottom percentile. If, for sake of argument, Steemit grows to 1 million users by then, the sheer numbers would create a balance.
Very cool blueorgy. Thanks. I realize a publishing can't be erased but is it true a cop whale can stop one of my articles from moving forward? And can he downvote me to the loss of $2000. I realize no person can stop my followers from seeing the content but I don't consider my followers as my only audience. Even though I will have a lot of followers who will upvote me and see my publishings, can a multitude of whales downvote causing me to lose cash? It is comforting to know that at least all my followers will get my posts. I've been wanting that leisure for a very long time. I love that part about Steem.
When it comes to monetizing your posts sadly yes Whales have a huge say in this and it's something we should probably have a much longer discussion about. Because they have a majority of the power vested in Steemit they have the most say when it comes to monetary value of a post... As for the visibility of your post from multiple Whale DownVotes this seems to be less intrusive. The most recent example would be @berniesanders DownVoting a post (I'm sure i don't have to reference it) although it lost its STEEM value it was still very much trending and had a lot of discussion on it due to comments and UpVote counts.
Ps. you've been followed ;) lets see what you bring to the table!
Big love. Thanks for the good insight and thanks for the follow. I'm curious about some posts I've already written. They are bit risky but I'm going to try a few soon.
I think it may be time to test the waters... Yes, that was a Whale pun.
Also you may think this is cool: Steem.Cool - web app I built that gives more incite into your reputation.
You are mistaken to some degree. It wasn't a single whale's vote that cost Jeff the money. Rather it was a very large number of them. His post was downvoted a total of like...47 times, many of them by whales.
And yet, even then it still managed to earn over $100, which is far more than the average post here on Steemit earns.
In short, no single "cop whale" can deprive a poster of tons of money. Only many whales acting together can make a post worth thousands, or subsequently deprive the post of thousands.
It's not a defect. It's by design. Fortunately for you and anyone else that doesn't like it, the source code is open and third party alternative platforms are welcome in the marketplace. Maybe one of the new alternative steem-based platforms will be crafted more to you subjective preferences.
I hope that eventually we going to just read, upvote and comment posts and not speculating who and how much earn on each post or comment. Reward will come sooner or later. Or am I just naive?