RE: Let's Make Downvoting Great Again!
The idea, like many others that involve any sort of regulation, sound appealing. You make a valid point. Garbage content should not be pulling in hundreds of dollars. But how do you draw the line between garbage content and quality content?
The example you posted is quite clear. It is not adding anything to the conversation, or the community, and it goes against the very purpose of steemit. But what happens in the case of a more controversial post? Or in the case of differing opinions?
What you advocate for in essence leads to censorship. Perhaps clear rules on blatant abuse (upvoting self-comments like the one you posted) could help the community as a whole, but I'm doubtful they could be properly implemented and not lead to greater complications. A single downvote from a user with a large share could literally take away the entire payout of a well-written post, which they happened to disagree with.
I do, however, love that you're always thinking of ways to make the community better. And that you're willing to listen to the people who disagree with you.
Edit: Finally upvoted your post. Steemit wasn't cooperating for a while.
I believe downvoting is open to abuse and does in fact lead to censorship. I was attracted to Steemit, not because of the monetary rewards, but more for the belief at the time, that the platform was not subject to the same levels of draconian censorship we have seen on FB, Twitter and Youtube during 2017.
I have been a long time follower of a writer by the name of Sarah Abed who has written extensively on the War on Syria. As a Syrian-born American, she has an insight into the conflict that many others do not. Her extremely well-researched views are counter to the views pushed by the mainstream media. When she writes an article, she puts a lot of time and effort into the research and writing. Soon after I joined, I was excited to discover Sarah was a member of Steemit and sharing her articles on this platform.
While her posts were providing modest rewards, she was spending days and even weeks researching each article. But someone, or someones, didn't like what she had to say, and started downvoting her because she had the nerve to criticise certain governments and express support for others. The rewards she earned dropped dramatically and she has virtually stopped posting.
If she is gone for good, she is a huge loss to the Steemit platform. If other talented writers and researchers with alternative viewpoints are also flagged into oblivion, I'm not sure what the future of Steemit will be.
Good example. I think there is a solution somewhere, but it is not as simple as what timcliff presented. I don't think it's bad for people to disagree and voice that opinion, and in reality, when people disagree it does mean that what is being said has less value to those people. My issue is the impact one vote can have, and I can see a single vote wiping out the entire value of what 50+ people voted for.
Yes, I believe any solution has to protect the platform from censorhip as a key priority. The censorship on Facebook is getting ridiculous. I rarely use FB any more, but when I went on for a quick update yesterday, for example, one of my Syrian FB friends was announcing that she was now back on after being banned (just for expressing her support for own country). Another FB friend Jay Dyer has a large following on his website, Youtube channel etc, he appears regularly on many popular podcasts and has his own show on Gaia TV called Hollywood Decoded. He received a warning from FB recently that he may soon be banned for life.
It's these people who should be welcomed on Steemit. Jay Dyer, for example, puts a lot of work into his writings and Youtube lectures and would be a great asset to this platform. He is extremly knowledgeable on a wide range of topics from religion to geopolitics and movies.
Yes, debate is healthy, and I know Jay for one would welcome the opportunity to debate his ideas in the comments section of his posts. But will these talents come if any income they can earn for all their knowledge and hard work can be wiped out by someone, or a group, who does not agree with their point of view.
While possibly flying under the radar now, Steemit will eventually receive the attention of professional lobby groups, PR campaigners, political groups and even governments. all with very deep pockets. They will be able to invest in the platform and possibly wipe out all dissenting voices.
If that day comes, we will just have another heavily censored platform where the free expression of ideas is not tolerated.
Yes, that's the problem with flagging. The 'weaker' one often doesn't dare to contradict the 'stronger' one.
By your own subjective standards. We do not need to have totalitarian rules on this, the consensus emerges from the individual and independent votes of all interested stakeholders.
Not so. Removing some potential financial rewards by down voting is not censorship. It is showing the market value of the post to be less than it was a previous point in time when the opinion of another stakeholder is factored in.
You make a valid point. Perhaps "censorship" was a bit extreme. I'm not against the idea of down voting, just against a systematic pattern with no objective rules.
The biggest issue I have is that timcliff brought this up as a way to combat abuse by those who are self voting useless content. It isn't a solution to that problem. Logically, when their posts start getting down voted, they'll do the same to others. And then it becomes a measure of who has more vests.
Perhaps down voting that only impacts a post when it has more downvotes than upvotes, or is above a certain threshold would work better.
The market self-regulates. In other words, ordinary people will have to make those decisions themselves. Stopping them from doing it or encouraging them not to by making a user interface that encourages other voting patterns is just as much "regulation" and can be much more harmful if it stops all forms of downvotes (to any extent).
What we need is to have a separate downvote and yet another separate flag. One for dislikes and one for site abuse reporting.
Less or no rewards is not censorship. Real censorship is impossible due to the blockchain that stores the information. If you want to show more or less of the information, you can switch the app you use to access Steem.
You also make a valid point. See my above reply to personz in this comment thread, as I think it applies to you as well.
This is what is supposed to be self-regulating. I can agree that there might still be good to have some coded limits to this, but they are not all that easy to actually impose because they have to be done through incentives somehow. Not just blocking a feature.
I stand corrected. Maybe you made an error in your writing here. But limits like these can't certainly work to mitigate at least part of the problem, because they can't be avoided by buying votes etc.
Steemit is supposed to be working as a team effort. Just have all high rewards and flags be up for verification via public lists every day.