Is "Voting Ring" a bad thing in Steemit?
I was very tried and sleepy when I returned to my hotel room after a nice dinner gathering with my team in Japan. As usual, I spent the little time before going to bed in Steemit.
@sigmundnash created a post that caught my eyes and drove away my sleepiness.
Exposing Steemit Voting Collusion [6 potential voting rings found]
This is title of the post, which made me become 100% awake right after reading it.
Voting rings - a term I never come across before. I can sense evil by just reading the title. That made me more interest to read the post. I would like to know more about this term and understand more about the author's position regarding it.
Sadly, there is no definition of Voting Ring in the article. The author spent majority of his post describe how he identify the voting rings reported and the algorithm he used, followed by the 6 potential voting rings found by his algorithm.
Then there are lots of comments from Steemians with majority of them are far from happy and friendly.
Frankly, up to this moment, I am still thinking voting ring is a naturally born creature under the upvoting system of Steemit or similar communities. So I don't understand why the author create this post.
I then google "Voting Ring" and studied a little bit. It took me no time to find out what exactly is a voting ring
"A voting ring is a group of people who vote for each others' submissions in an organized manner."
and it is not rare in these kind of social media. Looks like there is already system out there to deal with voting ring.
So why I still bother to type all these words?
My point is "should voting ring be avoid/punish/De-powerized in Steemit?
Looks at all the posts here, you can always find something like "Please follow me and I will follow you back", "If you like my work, follow me". Steemians are cross-following each others.
Not to mention that there are many different groups of Steemians who share similar background and interests teamed up and from some kind of clubs or teams.
With this kind of environment, it is very natural that voting rings being formed. If voting rings are such a evil thing, should they be banned from Steemit?
Or there is any certain mechanism in place here? That's why your post won't value much even though it got over 100 votes but someone's post worth hundreds or thousands by getting votes from the whales?
Can the whales/Witnesses give us minnows some insight?
And you are getting upvotes from one of the rings :)
Hahaha!
Before reading this post i must admit i had not heard of the term Voting Rings, I am therefore glad that you explained it in a clear and concise manner to me. I think it is also a relevant question that you ask whether something should be done about it. BUT i think there is one very big point that you are leaving out of this equation. Steemit is by it's very definition a decentralized blockchain application. It has no bosses in the sense that there are moderators. Yeah sure we have Whales but they are not working in Steem HQ. Because of this decentralized nature of the project we are kinda free to do whatever we want. And the community will respond to our actions, Whales especially. Is it then, not up to all to decide to do whatever they want? And who are we to judge?
I know I am going waaaaaaay out there to the philosophical side of it. But i guess what i am trying to say is that Steem is basically living off "the rules of the land", you take what you can get. And isn't that the whole point? To put us all in this huuuuuge sandbox of a platform and see what happens?
So you don't see the value of restricting behavior like voting rings? I am neutral in regard to this kind of regulatory rules as long as it is clearly indicated.
As what you said, Steemit is a decentralized blockchain application and seem to have no rules enforced. However, wherever there are human, there are rules/guidelines, be it explicitly setup or implicitly built upon time. I am still new (a small minnow), so this is still unclear to me. That's why I put out this post and hope to stimulate some discussion.
It is quite cruel that you spend an hour to write a passage only get few cents for reward, but a comment in whale post brings you dollars.
Of course, as a beginner (whole brand new one, not a famous blogger/youtuber) here, it is the problem inevitable. Besides forming team, you can first invest a number of STEEM to power up youself and attract attention. Money is the rule of all rules. Cruel enough.
Of course, there will be expectional, but rare.
Nowadays, groups and information exchange is the fastest way to get success. I just don't like abuser and freerider...
Yes, it is very discouraging to see your hours worth of work only valued by others as not more than 50 cents. This is why minnows want to become at least dolphins so their hard works worth decent amounts.
I am working very hard to become a dolphins and hope to reach there ASAP.