RE: Voting Test - Do You Think Changing to a Flattened Curve Is Urgent?
Everyone accepts that downvotes cause negativity and problems. But nobody has been able to effectively argue against the cases where they are genuinely necessary, including where reward allocation is concerned.
Those who are campaigning against downvotes are getting nowhere because they are failing to convince people that they're not necessary for reducing over-allocation of rewards. Right now the downvote has been applied so liberally that it has effectively enforced a flatter rewards curve and demonstrated exactly that problem, resulting in greater engagement over recent days (posts and comments have spiked, even accounting for bots).
If you oppose downvotes, the best case you can make is to minimize their use. Harm reduction is generally better than prohibition and arguing to deny stakeholders their right to have their say. Here is my proposal which I think can virtually eliminate the impetus to use a 'rewards allocation' downvote:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@demotruk/up-and-down-votes-are-a-big-part-of-the-problem-on-steemit
Coincidentally, I wrote Down-votes: Steemit's Achilles' Heel? within a day or so before "the experiment" was announced.
While I remain neutral on "the experiment" itself, I do think that it proved the larger point that the downvote represents a major threat to the platform, because it can be used by a hostile entity, such as a well-funded competitor or state actor to severely disrupt and erode the user base. Imagine the negative impact that the experiment would have if abit and smooth were whales with harmful intentions, and weren't "pulling their punches."
If downvotes are necessary, then I think steemit's growth potential is perpetually limited to the footprint that its competitors will tolerate.
I would support something along the lines of your median proposal, although I think it may need to be modified from its current form to be compatible with the blockchain.