RE: Will Flagging Ultimately End up Killing the Steemit Platform?
Downvoting does not destroy rewards, it reallocates them to other things that have been upvoted.
The estimated pending payout on a post doesn't belong to the poster, it's just a prediction based on the vote tally so far. Downvoting and causing that prediction to drop isn't stealing rewards from the poster because the rewards don't belong to the poster until the payout happens.
I disapprove of the use of downvotes to hide content or take away rewards based on disagreement with the ideas presented, but I think downvotes are a very necessary feature to take away rewards for spam and attempts to harvest rewards without producing anything of value.
There are real problems with the curation/rewards system, and much larger problems with the centralized distribution of SP. Those I think are the real source of the censorship/downvote abuse. I think getting rid of the downvote feature itself would be a serious error.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment @troglodactyl. You make a very interesting point with respect to the problem of spam. I think that many users overtime develop a discerning eye and pretty much ignore spam comments. Well, that's what I do anyways.
If Steemit were to keep the flag system because of spam comments alone, that leaves us in the same predicament whereby richey-rich the instaWHALE could downvote posts based on his or her ideological leanings.
In the age of social justice warriors, it's really only a matter of time before that kind of thing starts to happen, I think they'd get a real kick out of it to be honest. Some people just love to powertrip, they get off on it.
Do you think that the damage that spammy comments do to the reward pool are equivalent to the problems caused by soft censorship? I know that the soft censorship is really not a super huge problem right now, but I definitely see it getting to that point.
One of the things that really caused me to embrace Steemit was the fact that all of the other platforms were beginning to censor content. I think it's important that somehow, we find a way to protect Steemit from the same type of bad reputation that will ultimately lead to their downfall.
As far as your first two points, I will have to concede that you are correct in the technical sense. However, I think that you too might concede that most Steemians latch onto Steemit in a more simplistic way.
A comparative analogy might be: They can legally ban guns in America because the manufacturing industry has converted their guns into products, and products can be regulated. What they did, was an end-run around the constitution. It was very clever. However, people in America have learned that they can print, and mill their own guns, and it's completely lawful.
I would posit that the initial regulation of guns, went against the spirit of the constitution, and although they could technically get away with it. Everything was legal. It was, however, morally repugnant to try and trick Americans into believing that they couldn't own a arms without registration, and a permit.
There are allot of laws and institutions that are morally repugnant. For example civil asset forfeiture. They found a way to legally steal from people, but it's not theft if it's legal right? That's tricky territory, a slippery road down into the abyss.
Covert censorship is about to become so very unpopular, I think it's prime time that Steemit find a more creative solution, even if it has to put out instructive YouTube videos, that encourage people not to upvote spammy comments.
The survival of Steem depends on the majority of stake being held by good faith voters. I think that has to be accepted as a premise, as attempting to work around it and minimize potential abuse by a dominant group of stakeholders compromises the integrity of the whole system's design. If it becomes clear that abusive whales dominate the network and the distribution can't be fixed by adjusting incentives such that they either cease their abuse or sell out then I think a fork to a new distribution would be the required fix. I hope that's never necessary.
The community is beginning to swarm and unite against abusive whale behavior in many cases. Services like @freezepeach are being created to raise awareness about potential abuse, and I think steemit.com and other sites should add a controversial tab to help raise the visibility of posts with both upvotes and downvotes.
I shared some other ideas in my reply to @hmushtaq also.
Thanks for sharing that, I didn't even know about @feezepeach!
The sad reality of the situation is, the ability to buy heaps of SP thus empowering them to up or down vote content, is what gives the currency the current value that it possesses. Other than this what sets Steem apart from any other cyrpto? It's sort of the bane and beauty all in one. I for one am glad that at least everyone can click "reveal" and judge the situation themselves. Wish I could do that on YT or FB. (Lolz, who am I kidding I wouldn't touch FB with someone else's fingers)
LOL, I hear you @imjustsaying. I'd much rather believe that people are buying Steem as a means to promote their posts, or gain extra bandwidth, as opposed as a means to soft-censor the posts of others, but you're probably right.
No-doubt, by now some people may be purchasing Steem to flag posts, and I'm pretty sure that flagging in spirit anyhow wasn't initially intended for the purposes of anything other than removing spam posts, or abusive trolling posts.
One thing is for certain, if that worse case scenario comes to be, and I question if it isn't already in some cases, then Steemit will take a significant reputation hit. I think I realize why I had my initial misconceptions in the first place.
It may be that Steemit employees look at it is nothing published on the block-chain is ever censored actually, the problem is most people aren't reading the block-chain directly, they're using the Steemit interface to read it, and when soft-censorship happens in the realm of the Steemit interface it looks like censorship.
Another thing to point out would be, that people who engage in unnecessary flagging are actually working against the spirit of the platform, if they weren't the downvote function would be right next to the upvote function. It wouldn't be hiding in the upper right hand corner as a flagging utility.
It seems to me that the only reason they have 'disagreement with rewards' as one of the guidelines is because they simply have no control over whether or not people use the function as it was intended.
So that guideline write up in essence; is the ultimate out, it takes Steemit out of the loop in a weak sort of way, and puts the burden of frivolous flagging on the user who engages in it. In the future I see the problem becoming untenable, and potentially antithetical to the spirit of the platform.
I will have to go back and watch some of the early promotional videos and interviews that the founder has done in promoting Steemit, and listen very carefully and try to make sense of the exact claims that were made, if I am to make any sense of what is going on.
Thanks for your insight, into the matter!
I defiantly don't like it when I see it. But the first thing I do when I see a hidden comment is I click on it to see what's there. It actually draws my attention much more than normal posts and comments do. I HAVE to know why. often I end up bringing up the flagger's profile to see what other stuff they have been flagging. It's sort of a two edged sword, yes they can remove the payout but it certainly gets my attention. If I see someone serial flagged I usually follow them to see what transpires. I've yet to be flagged but I may get a string of them with my last post. I just couldn't hold my peace anymore about things I see as damaging to the community as a whole. If your interested I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
followed <3
I think the system should introduce moderators, who approve of flagging before a post is really flagged. I mean someone may flag a post, despite it being a proper post and not a spam. In that case, the user should have an option to file a complaint, and if moderators see that there was no problem with the post, the downvote should be removed.
As it is now everyone is a moderator, and I think that's as it should be. It should be a decentralized network, and the problem is the centralized distribution and the shortsightedness of some of the whales. Adding more centralizing features like designated moderators with special powers is only going to make things worse because that power will ultimately still be controlled by the stakeholders, amplifying the destruction of the centralized stake distribution.
I do think there should be curation penalties as well as curation rewards. If you use your stake abusively to upvote spam or downvote in order to censor, other stakeholders should swarm and counteract those votes. Just as you should receive curation rewards for upvoting popular content, you should receive a negative curation reward (a penalty) for voting against a strong stakeholder consensus. In any case the survival of Steem depends on the majority of stake being held by good faith voters.
Hey, that's a really clever idea @hmushtaq! Maybe if someone engages in soft-censorship too many times, they could permanently, or temporarily lose their flagging rights? That would put less of a work load on the moderator(s).
I think someone abusing the flag button that much (with malicious intent that is) must lose more rights than just not being able to flag.
I feel where you are coming from, but at the same time we don't want to turn into the people we are fighting against.