The @iostkr account
I wasn't originally going to post about this but for transparencies sake I figured I might just as well explain my side and view on why we've been downvoting this account.
First of all, if anything, the 25% downvotes, no matter the negativity and abuse that comes with it are very much needed for Steem's regulation of content and in the long term with more 'generous' stake helping combat the abuse and unfair downvoting & retaliation I believe it will balance it out for the better. While I understand where these users may come from that they want this 25% 'free' downvotes removed I think it's kind of short sighted and I am not sure they are fully informed of what has occurred here the past few years when these downvotes didn't exist.
I really hope that certain downvotes early on into the HF were not a catalyst of sparking the initial debates that got big stakeholders and proxy's such as @proxy.token to be against the downvotes. I realize there is a language barrier and lack of communication going on at the same time which may confuse and misinterpret a lot of things so here is my explanation which might make it clearer.
Before @ocdb went full curation we focused on breaking off two very large stakeholders that were voting on very few accounts which naturally meant the quality of the posts was not great as they were literally spamming posts to get those 5-8 big daily votes. While one of them understood the problem and decided to give the HF a try, the other retaliated (unfairly imo) for some time but started curating more widespread some time after.
The issue here is that these users will hold a grudge towards the ones that were doing the downvoting to begin with. This is something that even if it's needed and universally accepted or say the majority of stakeholders would agree with it it does not change the fact that the initial users doing the downvoting stopped vote farmer X from curating on very few users and at no point in time will they forget this no matter the proof that the initial downvoters were doing it to protect Steem.
So with that little amount of backstory, I stumbled some time ago upon the account @iostkr which seems to be a Korean account posting news about the cryptocurrency IOST. Before you may even think about the fact that it's another cryptocurrency, no, this is not about "competition" or anything like that. It's about rewarding effort depending on the content and other "social" scores such as engagement, following, views (even though we don't have a viewcounter right now if there's no engagement or an increase in followers even when these posts are being heavily rewarded it does tell you some things about it).
I admit I don't understand the language and it is not easy for me to find out if these posts are just copy-pasted or not but even so I have stumbled upon many such cases.
Here's a few examples:
Original post:
https://blog.naver.com/iostoken_kr/221743597528
Steemit post:
Original post:
https://blog.naver.com/iostoken_kr/221688412755
Steemit post(s):
https://steemit.com/kr/@iostkr/final-results-for-iost-q3-contribution-rankings-and-rewards
https://steemit.com/news/@iostkr/final-results-for-iost-q3-contribution-rankings-and-rewards-2
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@iostkr/building-the-iost-node-ecosystem
Original post:
https://blog.naver.com/iostoken_kr/221698727643
Steemit post:
Now to be fair I have not spent much time researching this, it could be that some of the posts are in fact original/steem exclusive but considering the effort that went through the ones I did go through and the lack of me being able to find the sources of others as korean is not a language I speak I tend to believe that the majority aren't.
These are the posts I checked through from https://blog.naver.com/iostoken_kr depending on date shown there and date posted on the @iostkr account:
I have also no say about the accounts activity such as powering everything down and sending it to exchanges, but what I do mind is content that is copy-pasted from somewhere else being rewarded up to $20 (1-2 times daily when we first started downvoting them with @ocdb a month or so ago) and the account having not a single comment, barely any followers and the majority being the same stakeholders curating it while at the same time instantly retaliating:
it makes me believe that there's some foul play going on here and if I don't act with my downvotes then I am doing Steem a disservice by ignoring it.
Steem is delegated proof of stake with emphasis on proof of brain and rewarding content can come from many justifications and posts have 7 days to find consensus of what the rewards should be. Things like these though show that they are not playing by the same rules as the majority of stakeholders would want this unique currency to be.
It's also a good case to show why we need downvotes and why Steem was constantly dropping in marketcap and userbase over the past few years with the linear curve, no downvotes and everyone voting on whatever they liked without caring of the value it brought to the platform. Removing downvotes will bring back just that, everyone voting only for themselves, their friends and content being a placeholder with no care of quality and content discovery being non-existent.
I don't mind the downvotes, but without saying a single word after we've commented and let them know with the @ocdb account the reason to our downvotes it makes it hard to think there's anything else behind the @iostkr account except some user mainly copy-pasting content that might not even be theirs just to reap rewards and not play by the same rules the rest of users are trying to since the EIP.
Hey if that's an official account (again no signs of linking to the steemit account from their blog or facebook page then cross-posting is of course more okay (imo).
To end this, I don't know the korean community well, nor do I know the connection between @happybelly and @proxy.token nor have I checked if it has proxied it's stake to it. I just hope that our downvotes which have always been meant to improve and help Steem are not one of the reasons they are so against them in the first place. Would be nice if this post gets some communication going as it seems difficult to get in contact with the ones involved.
I do hope I am wrong and this isn't the case of someone just reposting someone else's content while rewarding themselves but my detective skills here are weak and the language makes it really difficult to find out more.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
I get the impression many of these accounts bought a bunch of steem because they were led to believe they could farm (or mine if you prefer) with very little effort. They view it as pure proof of stake, and their stake entitles them to game the voting system as they see fit. They would never admit that, but in studying their behavior for some time I am led to this conclusion.
The EIP seriously undermined their ability to mine, and rather than attempt to pivot, they have dug in.
You know, you're not wrong in this assessment. There's a definite air of "low effort, high payout" from people that don't necessarily understand the system. It doesn't work that way, at all.
I second that. I've seen this kind of behavior within some communities.
Yeah, I've also heard the justification that they bought in at price X and are down X so it's okay for them to receive a higher ROI because they are "down so much". It's really ironic because their actions just have a worse effect on their own investment so instead of trying something new like the EIP they keep attempting to game the system and are so emotional about it that they instantly retaliate on others trying to put a stop to them basically crapping where they eat.
You're right, many think if they bought tokens they have the right to do anything. I don't know if they will ever understand that they are wrong.
Yup, and why downvotes are necessary I'm afraid. As bad as people perceive it to be, it would be much much worse without them.
I totally agree. I've seen downvoted changing people's behaviour in good and others left because we're not willing to play by the rules.
I believe things are going to be better with every tool we have to stop abuse.
You should join the SFR discord then if you're on discord! Lots of discussions going on there in regard to anti-abuse and what not.
discord.gg/aXmdXRs
I definitely will, thanks for the link!
That has been the justification from many of the non-KR orca/whale circles as well I'm afraid.