RE: Thoughts on the Current Experiment and Potential Strategies
@sykochica Personally I am a a bit torn. I think everyone agrees the system is broken and needs to be corrected. However, I'm not convinced this experiment will achieve the results which are being sought.
Increasing bot registrations to get around the continuing flagging does not equal a growing community.
Increasing numbers of comments and blog posts needs to be viewed with context. If the explosion is due to outrage, I wouldn't call that successful, sustainable engagement.
My concern is more and more authors are withholding rather than publishing. Several I follow and actively converse with are going dark for a bit. Honestly, the whole "experiment" seems incredibly reactionary rather than carefully considered, and it could have some very severe consequences.
I don't think writers who study a market and cultivate relationships with patrons who have deep pockets and voting power should be punished for not writing from a place of altruism. I'm sure content creators on the sites you may read outside of Steemit would not supply content for free. I'm sure the journalists writing some of your favorite articles in the magazines you may read would feel similarly, as would the authors of the novels and books you may read. They treat their writing as a business. Some have chosen to treat this as a business, and because their motivation is different from the altruistic "fun" blogger somehow now they are the problem on Steemit? I don't think that's a fair assertion. It's also somewhat hypocritical on a blog dominated by anarcho-capitalists (which the phrase itself is an oxymoron) and steeped in libertarian values.
Everyone here is motivated by self-interest. For some it manifests in maximizing payouts. For others it's about creating a large social network and for others it's pure catharsis. Everyone's self-interested motivation is different. The flaw is not in their approach or rewards, but the system in which they choose to exercise their self interest.
When businesses are in the planning stage, the first thing they do is look for a market to sell a product or service. Many businesses choose to target "upscale" customers, selling luxury products and services. They spend time learning about their target market, carefully and deliberately cultivating the relationship to receive long-term, recurring revenue. Food purveyors, fashion labels, automobile companies, concierge services, etc. Should they be punished for not altruistically giving away their product without expectation of payment?
It seems as of late, the community has been engaged in a witch hunt for straw men to unleash their pent up rage upon. Flagging wars were a manifestation of this and, make no mistake, this is simply another repackaged flagging war with new straw men. The rage and frustration should be directed at the architects of the system whom many feel refuse to engage in a way which makes them feel heard and acknowledged. I get that they may be overwhelmed with a million issues to tackle, but it's business 101 to engage with your customers - even if they are spouting venom you may not agree with. Their perception is their reality.
Personally, I have scaled back my content production dramatically, but I chose to do so before @abit and the whales decided to do this experiment. It came more from a place where I saw trending pages loaded with Steemit related topics (primarily bitch-festing) upvoted to nosebleed levels from both sides. That spawned a never ending train of articles in the same vein. This repackaged flag-war is doing the same. It stifles and drowns out true value-added content which the platform needs to attract more users who are not bots.
I'd like to Steemit get to a place where we are not chasing straw men. I'd like to see a burst of more value-added content and less Steemit related content. I believe the system is broken an needs to be fixed, and more linear vote power curve seems like a great start. The users need to demand this become a priority from the architects and stop demanding all users motivations come from the same place as their own.
Here is to hoping.
Flattening the vote power curve would have much the same effect in terms of completely changing the game and greatly reducing the rewards that come from 'patrons who have deep pockets' (unless, of course, they actually pay those rewards out of those pockets). To earn more with a flatter curve (as currently with whales sitting out or being countered with downvotes) will require getting (and keeping) a larger base of followers.
Two counterpoints to this argument.
This argument assumes the experiment will be successful and a larger user base will come into Steemit. I would suggest to you the experiment is creating more badwill than goodwill because of the user perception of what a flag means. No bot script or politically correct message will change the perception of being collateral damage in an ongoing flag war. One cannot build a larger base from a diminishing group.
I do agree it will force users to seek out a larger user base. That certainly has an Orwellian sound to it. One cannot simply compel user engagement at the point of a gun or threat of diminished rewards. Punishing a user for employing a successful strategy which earns larger rewards with a smaller patronage is identical to punishing a programmer for writing clean and elegant code. Consider that brands partner with social influencers to leverage their social capital (in essence upvotes) to earn rewards in the form of customers buying. It benefits them to grow a following organically on other social media sites, but they are not forced to grab a larger user base to earn proportionate rewards. If anything they are rewarded greatly for their efficiency. Pursuing a similar strategy of efficiency here means chasing vote power. It is only logical that on a site where upvotes are linked to the size of the user's stake, that is the primary driver in a strategy, and social capital is relegated to a lower tier. Again, an individual should not be punished for pursuing a strategy of efficiency.
Personally, I support some kind of flattening of the vote power curve. I think larger stakeholders deserve greater vote weight to allocate the rewards pool, but the current vote power curve is clearly broken. I agree with many of the other members of the Steemit community that it's good to see my votes actually impact rewards to authors I support.
I think the community as a whole is open to this idea as well, but engaging flagging/downvoting to counterbalance whale votes creates a seriously negative perception among many minnows and dolphins. Some of them have taken the time to cultivate relationships to earn higher rewards, which both allows and motivates them to produce incredible, value-added content to this site. They should not be arbitrarily punished for pursuing a strategy used successfully on other social media platforms.
The flagging may have a noble purpose, but in the end, the body count is starting to stack up. Can we agree that fixing the problem would be a better solution than arbitrary vigilante justice euphemized into the phrase "an experiment"?
I'm not sure why you answered my comments out of order but this is completely out of context. My comments were related to the prospect of a flatter curve being implemented in the code (since that was something you seemed to advocate in your post), and how that would affect the factors for success of content on the platform. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the present 'experiment'.
My point is that a flatter curve will greatly shift emphasis and success factors toward larger follower sets. This is essentially the same outcome as the current 'experiment'. Whatever gripes you may have with methods, the conclusions about whether you will be highly successful focusing on those with deep pockets is much the same (that is, you won't, unless you get them to donate directly, rather than have vastly disproportionate influence over the reward pool).
@smooth rather than attempting to persuade a closed mind to consider a different perspective or consider unintended consequences, I think I'd prefer to end the conversation here. May you get the results you seek.
Thoughtful. Thanks.
@abit you're welcome and thanks for taking the time to read through my long-winded comment.
I have no doubt the end result you and the others are searching for is a lasting solution, while perhaps giving the users a taste of the poison they seem to be clamoring for before it becomes code. Attracting a massive user base and STEEM which is orders of magnitude more valuable serves the self-interests of everyone here - altruistic and greedy alike.
I may disagree with the methods employed and how it was initiated (more the latter), but I believe the motivation comes from the place of making STEEM more valuable.
I have limited time before I have to head out this morning, but at least wanted to give a short reply for now...I'll follow up more in depth when I get home.
Agreed, giving more weight to smaller users gives motivation for people to make bot accounts to exploit the system. I personally don't want to see that kind of behavior rewarded. I don't know at what SP level per bot it would become beneficial, compared to pooling it to a single account. Either way, bots are always a concern.
I'm not advocating people to be focusing on engaging in the outrage. Personally, I've been extremely sick of polarizing drama being on the front page, most the time with commentors seeming to have very little idea of understanding both sides. If this place wants to be a social media site, engagement is a requirement, and hopefully it is done in many other, more useful (in my opinion) areas.
It's worth noting that the 'drama' posts just tend to be the loudest and given the most attention, hence what most people see as what's going on. Even people engaging off the posts work like in steemit.chat, discord, etc. But I'd love to see this implemented in the code itself as well as have a better outlet for 'drama' than having it plaster the trending page and enflaming users to 'take sides.'
I'm so sick of seeing polarization when in reality we're all in the same boat. Disagreements don't HAVE to be polarizing.