RE: What's in it for me?
I just want to address part of your comment.
Democratic principles such as the legislature, executive and judiciary do not work in this environment because nobody has ever established them. Therefore, one doesn't adhere to this separation of powers because it is non-existent here. But whoever invokes it does so in a kind of lawless or lawlessly arbitrary space.
In this space our top twenty witnesses fulfil all of those functions.
It was the witness votes that gave us free flags and decided to implement EIP (economic improvement proposal) https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/hf21-sps-and-eip-explained
It is my understanding (gained from reading many comments) that part of the discussion was about how to normalize flagging, what behaviour would be targeted such as buying votes, plagiarism, low quality posts and spam. The last two seem to be where most of the disagreement and pain are coming from.
The problem as I see it, is the top twenty witnesses are chosen by the amount of Steem Power held by the people voting for them. Stake based voting. A bit like American Democracy - Non Existent. The few are dictating to the many.
imho If we could actually change that selection process this platform could easily become a game changer.
I once had a lengthy debate on the subject with one of the witnesses. It is impossible to hold elections that have a meaningful character because of the possibility of setting up multiple accounts. I asked whether it would be possible in principle to carry out an authentification, but in order to prevent multiple accounts, it would probably be necessary to log in with your identity card details and number.
As this would hardly be done by users on the basis of this confidential data, this way of abusing accounts is not applicable. He also told me that if it were done, it would still not be one hundred percent safe from fraudulent accounts. In that sense, I find the whole debate about rewards and downvotes etc. quite useless, because you are in an environment that is not authentic.
The efforts that have been made since the last hardfork to counter abuse and to detect and weaken so-called circle jerks is not something that can be sustained once and for all if there are constantly new accounts that have to be exposed as abusive again. I think many of the fights were fought by people who already knew each other or who were actively trying to expand their circles to include other users in the fight.
Nevertheless, I would have liked to try the principle of formal consensus voting here, simply to see what the result would have been. Even if people, even if they have multiple accounts, voted on the basis of the least resistance to a proposal.
Democratic principles require a basis of honesty. But if you have an environment where that is not relevant, then perhaps the only thing left to do is to look at the whole thing as a game.
I think some people have done and are doing just that and therefore downvotes are considered something like a feature of the game. But since there are also users who don't consider this a game at all, you can't send one "player" against the other "serious taker", because it's impossible to reconcile these two mentalities.
I would even say that your own position changes permanently, sometimes you find everything quite funny and don't take it so seriously, other times you do.
What we have here is a virtual situation which cannot happen in physical life.
Thanks for the well thought out reply.
Yes, if Steemit were to adopt democratic principals it would be pointless to base voting on each individual account. It would most definitely need to be based on one person. That would be the end of the illusion of being completely anonymous as each person would need to verify their identity and have that linked to at least one account for the privilege of voting.
I believe there would a huge upside and the possibility of mass adoption if it went down that road. Especially if there were no compulsion to register identity to open an account, only to vote on issues and for Witness selection.
Maybe that answers the other valid point you raised below?
Thank you for the links I will give them more attention tomorrow
Interesting, so you're saying that only when you're voting - and not when you open an account - would it have to be like identifying or logging in with your real name to participate in the voting process? Did I get that right? Would not then people who do not have an account on Steemit also be entitled to vote? Which is an interesting thought, too.
However, I still think that nobody would give such a sensitive document as an identity card to someone else - Steemit in this case. I would not.
I hope you will read the linked posts, as to talk with me maybe in further exchanges about systemic consensus. It's otherwise not possible :=D
What do you think would be a "better" system or a key "improvement"?
I sort of see it as a corporation, or mafia, or like in ancient Rome, where people could buy seats in the Senate.
The biggest stake-holders/investors have the most to gain and or lose and it sort of makes sense that they should have the most control..?
Great comment.
yea me to.
The trouble is, a good number of those who rise to the top of the money heap, are somewhere on the psychopathy spectrum and see no value in mutual respect, let alone support. Its the reason these great Empires fall.
I honestly believe that a democratic voting system for the selection of witnesses would sort things out. That would require a big shift in thinking if we were to have one person one vote, it would be the end of our perceived anonymity. I don't see that happening any time soon if ever.
I don't think its just my wishful thinking, there seems to be a slight change of attitude. A few more posts by some respected well known accounts will be helpful.
What you did for that guy was brilliant btw, congratulations.
I am going to do a post asking for feedback on the burn post alternative.
How do you solve the non-trivial problem of sock-puppet accounts?
No clue. Not sure that all alt account are necessarily problematic ?
The person you helped was @starworld Unfortunately he is poking the bear again !
Not all accounts with negative reps have the same visibility or access to services.
I think the main "problem" with alt-accounts is the 15 steem-power-delegation and 25 rep that is provided "for free".
If I can generate 1000 accounts for free, then I can essentially control 15,000 steem-power without spending a nickel.
I can serially upvote each of these accounts with all the other accounts in order to boost their rep.
I'm not sure I did much for starworld except make things worse for them.
Although I did learn that "libel" seems to = ad hominem attack.
I have no clue how people can have access to so many phone numbers to generate so many Steemit funded accounts.
You gave starworld a space free from flags, which must be huge in his situation. He got flagged again with his second post and I am quite sure even he could have predicted the outcome.
lol yes it does seem to have a rather special definition here on Steemit
A lot of these steemians are highly technical and have access to some pretty serious hardware.
Just off the top of my head, I can imagine creating 10,000 gm.ail accounts and 10,000 go.oglevoice phone numbers to match. With the right software (or scripting skillz) this seems like it would be pretty easy.
And even if you couldn't script it, you could hire a click-farm (sweat-shop) in some third-world country to do it for you for a few hundred dollars.
Wow i did not imagine it would be that easy. I was thinking one would need to be a bit more connected to the powers that be than that. Shows how much I don't know.
Opps my ignorance is showing again.
I liked the clip but not quite sure about the relevance, never mind.
Which guy? Sorry, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.
No lots of money does not usually make the best decisions for the majority. But we still need to be aware of the amount of power they have at their disposal and respect that even when it becomes frustrating.
I think being gentle is more productive in the long run.