If you pay attention to r/all at reddit (which I do not) you likely have seen a lot of activity from r/The_Donald. I actually only heard about this from other people and by seeing other news articles elsewhere. By the time I checked there were two posts on a 4K monitor display from r/The_Donald, and at least that many bashing r/The_Donald and that was across all the tabs when looking at r/all.

When I visited reddit.com for the first time over five years ago I quickly learned that some of the major reddits were very biased and patrolled by what would become known as down vote brigades. I was a Libertarian and I went to r/politics. That was a big mistake at the time. r/Politics back then was an echo chamber for supporting whatever Democratic leaning politician was the medias darling at the time.

Eventually I learned about r/libertarian and about the concept of sub-reddits in general. I learned I could subscribe and unsubscribe to specific reddits much like the tags on steemit. This improved my experience on reddit, but I still would see down vote brigades, and I often saw activity much like r/The_Donald is being accused of now. The only difference between now and then as far as I can tell is that the people who have been getting away with this same type of activity for years are now getting a taste for what it feels like.

Is a person a troll because they disagree with you? NO.
Is a person a racist because they disagree with you? NO unless they claim they disagree because of your race.

A troll is someone who doesn't care about agreeing, or disagreeing and they simply enjoy getting a rise out of you. They enjoy baiting you. It is not uncommon for people to call someone a troll simply because they do not like what they are hearing and the two of them have been struggling to reach some compromise or ground from which they can build an understanding. This is not trolling. This is a normal part of argument (the good kind). A person disagreeing does not make a person a troll.

What about now?

I have often referred to debating on reddit like entering trench warfare. I occasionally would do so in r/libertarian and r/anarcho_capitalism. It could be bruising, but it was a learning experience. It could definitely get my blood pressure up.

I've also experienced being down voted to oblivion there with no substance provided as to why. They simply did not like what I was saying. This could be very frustrating, saddening, and other negative emotions. It felt like an attack. It felt like a form of bullying.

I've been in physical fights and I've been mentally attacked. Physical wounds heal and I cannot even remember most of them (though I was very young and it was decades ago). I still bear the mental scars from mental attacks from very young ages. They did more permanent damage then any of those physical attacks.

Non-Aggression Principle

I consider myself an anarchist now and strongly believe in the non-aggression principle. If I have to defend myself I will do so, though I will do my best to never attack someone. This includes not calling people names, saying they are idiots, etc. this includes me not down voting you simply because I disagree with you.

Taxation = theft

This is a common statement. Many people believe taxation is equal to theft. Yet they have a difficult time convincing people of this. There is a lot of back and forth discussion on this. I mention it, because there is something on steemit that I think is a similar idea that people argue over and don't seem to agree on.

Down Vote

It is clear that reddit had some influence on the design of steemit. It shares a similar voting mechanism to that which makes reddit a very warlike place. You must learn which neighborhoods are safe for you to walk thru on reddit.

Steemit adds a new element into this mix though.

As I gain steem power my votes have the potential of awarding payout to things I like. This payout is based upon the amount of steem added to the platform per day divided by the total up vote powers of all for the day, and then my portion being allocated to what I voted for. The actual dollar amount depends upon the market value of steem.

So if a lot of people vote throughout the day the value of my vote is lower. If the market value of steem increases, the value of my vote increases. If the market value of steem drops then the value of my vote drops.

If someone CANCELS out my vote then that frees up some of the vote potential that was locked up in my up vote to be REDISTRIBUTED to all of the remaining up votes that were not countered.

I like to describe it more like this...

I have gained skill (steem power) so that my potential pay for the day is X.

I go to the store and I see something I am interested in and I up vote it and award it potentially X.

Someone else decides they do not like the thing I voted on and their potential pay for the day is Y. Now the thing I was interested in is actually awarded only X-Y and if that is less than zero it is set to zero. The difference is effectively returned to the pool for that day to be redistributed.

Let me extend that a bit more...

I go to the store. I want to buy something with power I earned or purchased. I walk to the cash register to buy it.
Someone else doesn't like that product and walks up to me, takes the cash I was going to spend, walks somewhere to have it broken into change, and then goes and pays all the people that vote upon products they approve of their portion of that wealth.

If taxation is theft, then why with the way the down vote works in steemit is that also not theft? Is the steem power mine, or is it not? It it representative of a currency or is it not?

I know it is vests. I contend that any maneuvering that people attempt to do to justify why they should be able to nullify my vote for something I am interested in is any different from theft.

Ultimately whether I like something or not is MY DECISION. I vote on things I like. I don't vote on things I dislike, just like I don't go buy caviar from the store. That doesn't mean I go steal the money from anyone that is there to buy caviar.

You can still judge the potential interest in a product by the number of people that viewed it and then decided to up vote it. It doesn't really matter how many people were not interested in it.

As far as the pool. Our votes already decrease in power by a % every time we vote, so if we wish to maximize our votes we are told it is wise to only vote a certain percentage per day. If I vote for things that no one down votes then my entire X is applied against that pool.

I contend that the monetary aspects of steemit amplify the negative aspect of the down vote. It magnifies how aggressive that it can feel. For those of you that have a lot of power, you likely cannot relate to it. You have not been silenced and your funding for your work stripped away because, we don't have the ability to do that. If we did attempt to gang up on you and do that (e.g. WAR) then you could make a note and nothing would prevent you from retaliatorily smacking us all down into oblivion.

So while the articles are still on the blockchain, if we count on the funding at all for our efforts, you just removed that, if we hope for visibility then if the post is hidden that is likely going to limit our audience as well. You can claim it is not censorship because it is on the blockchain and if people wish to hunt for it they can still see it. When the government redacts a document and you can't get at it without a FOIA request and then maybe not I guess that is not censorship either, because it IS in some filing cabinet somewhere. Yes, that is an extreme example as getting access to the blockchain is not as difficult as attempting to break into a secure facility to see what part of a document was redacted. It also won't result in you getting shot or thrown in jail. Yet it is still the same concept without quite the extreme efforts and risks involved in attempting to get around it.

It's been awhile

My proposal for some time has been to remove the down vote. Leave a report button to report SPAM, ABUSE, and PLAGIARISM. We need a way to handle those. Remove the ability to down vote due to disagreement or lack of interest in a subject. It doesn't matter if you dislike it. If you don't like it, don't vote on it, and don't read it. Why should you be able to dictate others are not allowed to like it?

It wasn't built to do this

One answer I've been given is that the platform was not built to work this way. I've been told such a platform could be built. In reality, yes it is built that way. Right now if people ONLY voted on stuff that everyone agreed with then it would work just like I am saying now. The difference now is that there is a button, or CLI command to negate someone else's vote.

The anti-spam, plagiarism, and abuse technology uses this AND reputation tied to the down vote. We need such a service, but it could easily pop up a dialog that makes you choose SPAM, PLAGIARISM, or ABUSE and in the case of FALSE REPORTING there could be a reputation ding.

Concerns

As with any proposed change, does it open new ways to game the system? Can it be abused? Will it make things worse? Does it require a big code change? Does it actually fix the problem?

I also have the concern of getting more people to stay on steemit. Reddit has a lot of users, but it has nowhere the number it could have. I know people that will not go to reddit just because they feel it is a very hostile environment. Until you find the subreddits where you are welcome IT IS.

Steemit has every potential for being just as hostile. I believe due to the monetary attachment to votes that the hostility will FEEL amplified. If we want to attract people and keep them here then I believe this is something worthy of serious consideration. You may not need to follow my recommendations, but I do not believe emulating reddit is a good idea either.

Steem On!