Doing my rounds on the SFR Discord to see the going ons and became aware of this situation.

_{Obviously, need this up here to be the thumbnail.}

Basically, @crypto.piotr was calling out @transisto who runs @likwid for downvoting a user that apparently wasn't using their downvote mana. Moreover, they haven't appeared to use it in the last week or longer which I will explain below but let's start with a quick meme.

I've been on this strange Batman phase after watching The Joker.

Besides making my sister-in-law and wife shake their head when I do the laugh from the movie, I've been trying to draw parallels to the world around me and it's going-ons. By the way, not even talking about the "tortured soul I'm dying inside" laugh but the maniacal laughter. I think I'm pretty good at it to be honest and considering trying out for a haunted house next season.

Send in the Clowns

After seeing the post and @whatsup comment, this one called out to me to create it. I had no choice but to comply. Including the quote as well...

"Because @transisto's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."

I really love how the screen snip captured:

"I simply downvote"

Had to joke around that would be my new recurring meme and SFR catch-22 category. Actually, I'm only kidding about one of those things.😜

I'm not going to spoil the movie if you happened to live under a rock and never watch it. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Seeing it for the second time really helped me pick up on things. The gist of the statement is that the true hero sometimes has to do questionable things. Things that people may not understand. This is opposed to the hero the people need which operates within lawful parameters.

No, I'm not saying we should give ourselves a high five as heroes of the blockchain. It's something all of us should be doing as stakeholders if we care about that stake to hold value and not be siphoned out by the exploitative. I don't want to get too deep into the philosphy and moral implications partly because it's late and I need rest for that challenges of my day job.

So, as to not re-invent the wheel, I'll include my comment below and may interject if I feel something needs to be clarified or an additional point should be made.

I will also include the script that was used to pull this users vote data. I will add that I would have obtained a much larger window into their habits but, unfortunately, it seems I am hitting a wall on the API side of the house. Enough technobabble, I'll put that below so the nerds can nerd out. My first remark below was in regard to the cropped words mentioned already.

To be perfectly honest, he could have stopped right there and not even extend the courtesy to these people.

We've encountered many downvoters that won't extend this courtesy. It's kind of a bummer. Sometimes, you can speculate. Like @ctime hitting a couple of my posts / comments after criticizing the potato but other times one is left in the dark. My opinion is he should be thankful he got any kind of feedback even if he didn't like it. Also, had an opportunity to discuss the matter.

Moving on..

I'm generally not in favor of content agnostic downvotes but these is something I can can get on board with because it's some bullshit reason people give for not using their downvotes to make Steem better.

A. They are a people pleaser that shirks duty for being liked and defers it to others.
_{Perhaps "responsibility" would be more apt.}

B. They are a coward afraid of anything remotely controversial.
_{Some people avoid controversy like they would the Coronavirus. I am not one of them.}

Both of these I have little if any respect for. If everybody had a mentality like that, this place would go to hell in a handbasket.

I believe this. Furthermore, it's kind of messed up to assume those "hated" flag guys will take care of that racket. Way I see it, it's selfishness being dressed up as being nice or even false piety. Maybe they want to be popular but the the sooner we all realize negative curation is something we should all put a bit of time in. Find a manipulator. Flag a manipulator.

_{Note: Please, see our Abuse Definitions for specific guidelines.}

Also, check out the sleek Flag Trail App designed by @reazuliqbal if you would like to assist in blockchain cleanup without lifting a finger. (after initial setup of course)

See? It's Easy.

Edit: I would *consider downvoting a never downvoter, not just because someone let their dv top off. To me its an interesting idea that merits further exploration imo

The rest of the comment was critical of @crypto.piotr for, in my opinion, not following due diligence in presenting the subject matter which I find can be counterproductive to what should be our mutual goal of keeping Steem clean.

I doesn't fall in any user or groups responsibility as it's something that has bearing on the sustainability and self-policing capabilities designed into our platform.

Before I get off my soapbox

Did you know you can get paid to find and downvote abuse? That's basically our spiel and I have recently picked up efforts to optimize our bot which I will document in a later update.

Basically, we have grown this project for 2 years and change and the intent is to foster and encourage decentralizing content moderation and empowering those that partake with visibility / stake that they we may grow together.

Believe it or not, this is not ever our final form as I am in the midst of developing a web app and have a few more ideas up my sleeve.

If you want to be on the ground floor, I would advise following me so that you will be apprised to new updates to include business plans once I secure rights to certain intellectual property.

Well, It's 1 AM here. So much for that quick post, huh?

Oh, I almost forgot. Time for the NERD THINGS!

This is a little Python snippet. I use Beem to do what was supposed to be pull ALL the votes on the account.

a = Account('livinguktaiwan')
downvotes = []

for v in a.get_account_votes():
    if int(v['rshares']) < 0:
        downvotes.append(v)

As you can see in the above, it only pull 126 votes out of 19719 cast. This is how the output of the votes look when you print them. Included the first and last.

{'author': 'gooddream', 'id': 535326633, 'last_update': '2020-01-21T08:25:09', 'num_changes': 0, 'permlink': 'how-to-get-ripped-off-by-a-taxi-in-da-nang-vietnam-sad-but-true', 'rshares': '276638629072', 'vote_percent': 3500, 'voter': 'livinguktaiwan', 'weight': 15415}
{'author': 'pennsif', 'id': 538047046, 'last_update': '2020-01-28T04:36:06', 'num_changes': 0, 'permlink': 'returnoftheprepper8proofofegg-da4wu99oiq', 'rshares': '304951916715', 'vote_percent': 3900, 'voter': 'livinguktaiwan', 'weight': 45056}

I verified that reversing the expression to greater than does get the upvotes so the logic is sound. I may try to develop a script to obtain the votes using account_history in chunks due to the limits. A lot of the things I used to do in the ol days are becoming a bit more challenging.

One thing that appeared anomolous to me was that when checking my account it only pulled 116 votes versus their 126. I don't know what exactly is going on but it seems that @holger80's library may not be in line with the RPC changes.

I could theorize as to why at this point. Is it because RPC node operators are feeling the pinch as we continue to grow or perhaps another reason. I'd have to do some research but it does appear some cost saving measures where implemented on the API.

If you have any insight into this, please let me know.

I suppose a possible way forward for me is to start streaming the blockchain data I need into a relational database but I would have to assess the technical requirements as my server hardware is fairly dated but maybe it could handle MIRA with at least one of the plugins I would need.

But, for now, sleep is my top priority. Good night yall!

---

Would you like to delegate to the Steem Flag Rewards project and promote decentralized moderation?

_{It's much more fashionable than self-voting.}

Here are some handy delegation links!

50 SP 100 SP 500 SP 1000 SP

Also, here is my SteemAuto fanbase link if you would like to be one of my consistent supporters.

---

_{P.S. This was created using the eSteem Surfer Desktop App and really digging it. I highly recommend it if you are on a Desktop. P.S. Edited with Busy.}