Whales-No-Voting "Experiment" Going On
The whales-no-voting "experiment" is going on. Please be aware.
(Edit: by saying "it's going on", I mean I'm not going to stop it anytime soon. We'll keep doing it after the 0.18 hard fork. It seems there have been misunderstandings.)
"What this will do, is put so much money back into the rewards pool, that dolphins and minnows votes will have actual influence and add more significant amounts with their votes. The reason for this is to entice more people to the platform, because more people will be not only interested, but excited to be in a place where their votes actually make a difference. And ultimately the increase in numbers will result in the price of steem rising, which benefits us all." (thanks to @dreemit for writing this)
Most "whales" are participating by not voting, or voting with less weight, or countering votes cast by other whales who aren't participating or voted with higher weight intentionally or unintentionally.
Links of earlier posts (and other links inside):
- https://steemit.com/test/@abit/whales-no-up-voting-test
- https://steemit.com/steem/@abit/definition-of-a-whale-and-a-whale-like-group-and-the-math-behind
My bot has been running for a while. Please check this link or this link for action logs.
- Every single vote that has a outcome beyond
4,000,000,000,000 rshares, which is equivalent to a 100% weight vote cast by an account with 800M VESTS or around 384,000 Steem Power, - no matter upvote or downvote,
- except some votes cast by @adm, which is being operated by @steemcleaners to fight plagiarism and other abuses,
- except some votes on posts that declined payout,
- is being NULLIFIED (to achieve near zero outcome on author rewards).
(Edit: it means if a whale upvoted a post with too much weight, my bot will downvote with same influence; if a whale downvoted, my bot will upvote. So the consequence on author rewards will be like if the whale didn't vote.)
Some known accounts owned by same person are considered as one account, voting weights are combined before judgement.
Votes below the threshold won't be affected.
When to stop the "experiment" haven't been decided yet.
Experiment is a full blown success. Steem power of dolphin users like me actually has some value now and powering down is not something I would do like before when my vote had 1cent. In short, this experiment made steem power great again. Gj @abit.
Now we need an image of dolphin Trump saying "Let's make Steempower great again!"
LMAO! That's gold!
Hehe, was surprisingly easy to find results on "Trump Dolphin" on google.
that's the exact image i will see from now on when some mentions dolphin or prez again; anywhere about anything
awesome
This is so awesome. Wonderful to see that whales have acted as a group for the benefit of all in this manner! Kudos!
Hello @abit. I need your help with something regarding the new changes brought forth by the hardfork. What I am looking for is an honest answer, clearly explained in non-technical terms. It is something the steemit team is sorely lacking.
Actually, to explain what help I am asking for, I am going to use the no whale voting experiment as an example.
If either you or smooth had simply come out with a post saying "We are going to do an experiment. Everyone over 300,000sp (I don't think that's exact, but for the sake of having a number it is what I will use as an example) is being asked not to vote with power that exceeds 300,000sp. So if you have 3,000,000 sp then don't give a vote over ten percent. If you choose not to join the experiment than we will be downvoting you. So if you use 20% of your vote, then we will come along and use 10% of our sp to downvote it. What this will do, is put so much money back into the rewards pool, that dolphins and minnows votes will have actual influence and add more significant amounts with their votes. The reason for this is to entice more people to the platform, because more people will be not only interested, but excited to be in a place where their votes actually make a difference. And ultimately the increase in numbers will result in the price of steem rising, which benefits us all."
Now I have oversimplified this a little. But, I can absolutely guarantee you that a post saying something just like that, ahead of time, would have eliminated the majority of the crisis that unfolded in the aftermath of the experiment you began. Yes there would have still been some whales who refused to give up their rewards. Yes, you would still be forced to use downvotes to counteract them. And yes, there would still be people who would cry and stomp their feet about the flags uncaring of the reason, just simply disliking the flags. But these people would have been in the minority. In fact, you and smooth would have elicited an enormous amount of support for your cause right off the bat, had it been addressed in this way.
Now. We are faced with a very similar situation with the fall of the rewards after the hardfork. The explanations that have been given are vague to the degree that the only thing that people know is that for a certain length of time the rewards on their posts will be so small, as to be laughable. And people such as myself will have seen a post that was sixteen dollars yesterday now showing sixteen cents today. And what we're being told is that this will all eventually level out.
But, we are not being told whether the amounts on the current posts will increase, or they will just be lost all together.
We are not being told when we can expect to see changes except in the vaguest of terms. And quite honestly we are not being told in any significant way how this is going to help us overall, help steem overall, help the community overall.
Is there not anyone who can be honest and forthright? Not a single member of the steemit team that can explain to a large majority of the community who has no experience with technical terms and essays, who are artists and not mathematicians, exactly what we can expect? Someone who can do what I just did above about the experiment?
If you or smooth had come to someone like me, someone who loves steemit, who is loyal, who is a consistent contributor, who never abuses the system, who prides herself on quality content. If you had come to someone like me and explained what you had in mind, I could have paved the way for you. I could saved so many people so much anguish, including yourselves.
Is there not someone who can do this in this instance? Or could you possibly explain to me as well as you can what is happening right now with the rewards, what is expected to happen over the next week or weeks, and what the expected ultimate result will be?
I am going to post this in your chat as well. In fact, I will probably put it in smooth's chat also. I am sincerely hoping that you will get back to me.
I want to be clear that my motivation for this is to HELP. I want to help. I would have helped you guys back then, and I want to help now. For the sake of this community that I love. For the people that I have met who have become like a family to me. And for the people I have yet to meet whom I hope will one day be a part of that family.
We need a person in the team that treat user experience (UX) as the most important thing. Perhaps the new marketing guy can do this. Perhaps another UX designer in the team can do this. But this person should have a say when making changes, be able to predict consequences, have the ability to plan, have the resource to coordinate things, and etc. I hope that the team leaders are aware of this and are doing things to improve the situation.
In regards to the rewards issue, actually I've thought of this before the hard fork took place, and wrote a post, you can take a look. Also I've thought of some other things and notified some team members, but haven't got enough attention.
The whole hard fork was rushed out. There were deeper reasons to rush it out, which I know there were but don't know exactly what they were. Time will tell.
Thanks for your help. (I presume that you allowed me to copy & paste some of your words into my post. Should I?)
Thank you for responding. I can see that most people just do not know what is going to happen. Those who do (on the team that you mentioned) are not being forthright, which is unfortunate.
I think that honesty and sharing what they know so that everyone knows where we stand would be much more productive. They might think that if they have to tell us that some rewards will be lost that they will then have to deal with people throwing temper tantrums. I think they underestimate us.
The few who would throw a tantrum would be easily put in their place by people like me who I believe are in the majority. I think that the results of your experiment once people understood it has proven that most of us care more about the overall growth of the platform then the immediate gratification.
I would be glad to help in any way. If you learn anything more that I can share, please let me know.
If you haven't noticed, here is the link to my post: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@abit/abit-witness-upgraded-to-0-18-1
For me the 'mistake' of the lack of a countermeasure to fix the reward pool size has nailed the last nail in the Steemit coffin. I love the system, in its principles, and from the effects that it has on people, and I want it to go forward but this kind of nonsense has happened too many times that for good reason there is a lot of suspicion about the intentions of the people in Steemit, Inc.
But I'm not abandoning the platform, but rather I am taking part in a development project that among its' goals is to build a way for a migration of the users to a platform where this kind of disrespect will never happen. If people feel that what happened in the 18 hard fork was bad, I would suggest they don't realise how negative Steemit's treatment of developers and Witnesses has been the whole time.
Communication needs to improve. It's that simple but please try not to over-react to mistakes. Everyone makes and will make them. By all means build a better system...I'm very supportive of you and faddat, but I'm also supportive of those supporting Steem. I believe we can still work together.
The evidence in front of my eyes is now becoming absolutely convincing to me that there is something very wrong with the people at Steemit, Inc. Check my latest post, for now a whole year
steemdhas been generating incorrect JSON code. Recall that I was in Amsterdam for Steemfest. I was disturbed by something about a lot of the people I saw there, there was something 'fake' or disingenuous about a lot of people.My suspicions are not against everyone here in the Steem community. Just a whole bunch of key figures who somehow have pulled the wool over people's eyes, but I didn't feel right about it from very early on. Sheep in wolves clothing, parasites, and they are doing their best to steal from the rest of us without it looking like that's what they are doing.
Well lok1, I've always valued your intelligence and integrity so I'd be a fool to reject what you are saying based on your experiences and analysis. As I haven't had the same experiences I must continue to have an open mind. I am however interested in understanding what is causing poor communications and frustration with some developers and witnesses outside of Steemit.inc. Can you provide specifics about who is causing your concerns and what specifically they are doing that is detrimental to Steem? We have witnesses to ensure robust governance....with more information available to the community, it is possible to push back.
There are issues I have that are outstanding anyway.
The Steemit account - those funds cannot remain hanging over the Steem economy. The must be distributed as a matter of urgency with a reasonable/modest amount earmarked for the Steemit roadmap development....no more.
Communications must improve.
Hardforks must be handled much better...less changes, more frequent forks for a period of time. Much better communication.
Design choices that take user experience into account would also be welcome. Goes beyond lack of communication.
No argument there! :)
Unfortunately I think that there is something quite sinister going on behind the scenes, and I am trying not to focus on doing the investigation because for me it is enough to motivate me towards building a solution for the community. But I am sure that someone who also has been piqued about this will most likely conduct a thorough investigation.
I don't think we have any legal standing in government courts to do anything about it, but then again, I think the whole process that has been going on is all about people learning how to govern themselves. The things that have been wrong in all this have been very cleverly designed to dodge every possible recourse in the final stage of their process from consequences. Well, so now, in response, we will invent the way to bring justice.
I read a really good article a while back about how 'stupidity is more likely than malice' when things are amiss. It pointed out how stupidity can act as a cloak, in conspiracy theory jargon it's called 'useful idiots'. There is a bunch of those here in the community too. But I think it's come to the point where someone can deliver the evidence more than just the data points that lead me to finding justification for my hunch.
Looks like a straight-up design choice to me, and not stupidity. But I may be wrong, as mushroom management doesn't volunteer much timely, complete and correct information.
Well, you offer me no specifics so consider me alerted but far from convinced at this stage. That is no reflection upon you at all. I just need evidence or my own experience to make conclusions. I hope for all our sakes that your suspicions prove to be wrong and the 'idiot' occurances are just that.
I wish you all the luck in building a better system than Steem...if you pull it off, I'll certainly help support it, especially if it leverages the Steem community. We need to grow together, not keep dividing ourselves.
Take it easy bud!
I think I'm the only person on Steemit who doesn't like your experiment. I would ask you to stop it ASAP but I would just be trampled down by the herd singing "Hurray! More voting power for minnows and dolphins! Hurray! Power to the people! Hurray!" and so on...
you're not the only one disagreeing
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know. Thus far we are two already if I count correctly. Not too bad, there is still hope...
there are way more than two. Unfortunately, they are already on other platforms...
Yeah, unfortunately those people don't really count as their voices went mute on Steemit. :-(
don't stop. most people are very happy with how things are now these past few weeks. Only a few disagree.
stay strong. the majority approve. Steemit has never been so popular.
With no methodology, no metrics, no time window and no opt in / opt out possibility, your so called "experiment" is driving away people in droves. I know at least 5 or 6 regular posters (real people, with real articles, with real time and skills invested in this platform) who decided to leave because of this arbitrary decision.
The fact that minnows have more power is not permanent, it's just a temporary illusion, as long as the SP distribution remains the same. Once the experiment is over, (and at some point it will be over, you can't keep it going on forever, not without being counteracted by other whales) everything will be back to normal.
There is no clear goal of this whole nonsense, it's just that you decided to make Steemit your playground.
Playing God never ended well. Just sayin'...
That's not necessarily true. There's some hope that the curve change that'll probably come with the next HF changes enough to make manual interference unnecessary.
I understand. But the current distribution is so unbalanced that even a flat reward curve will be very disadvantageous for minnows. But I might be wrong.
I would have chosen some nicer words but in general I completely agree with you, @dragosroua.
what nicer words? where am I harsh?
Didn't say you were harsh. I just don't think that @abit is "playing god". This sounds as if he is some kind of dictator... Well, nevermind... this was just pernicketiness. I completely agree with your point that this experiment must end.
He is "playing god". So does @smooth (at least in this experiment), and, every once in a while, @nextgencrypto / @berniesanders. It seems this is a thing here on Steemit: "I'm voting my stake how I see fit, no moral or ethics code whatsoever".
They are not playing god, they are co-operating to use their influence the way they believe will help Steemit and Steem the most. There is absolutely no reason to believe that co-operation will stop or won't stop and restart with something else...perhaps even better given the evidence of co-operation right now. Enabling more people to experience having a meaningful influence on this platform teaches them something extremely valuable and is what will bring growth and value to Steem.
If you want to "entice more people to the platform" try marketing it, you'll find you'll get much better results than punishing (certain) authors. I have seen posts that have had lots of upvotes but not flagged by your scheme.
Anyway that's besides the point, marketing will entice people to the site, why doesn't anyone get that? It is the most simple thing on earth, there isn't a single business on the planet that has ever succeeded without some form of marketing. Why does Steemit think it is different?
For instance at the moment, if someone does try and sign up, they are put in a waiting list
??????
Bizarre, even though hardly anybody is joining the site.... I just have no words anymore, just no words.
Cg
I agree that marketing is important. But it's not everyone's best to do marketing. My job is to keep the house clean, so when people come they can play happily.
For example?
Just one example in a sea of many https://steemit.com/esteem/@good-karma/esteem-calling-for-volunteer-translators-13-get-reward-2017514t7716198z
What is particularly galling is all of these have made many, many more dollars than I have, I just don't get it. Your scheme flags an $8 post but not a $308 post. How is that fair?
Cg
Another example, in fact just go to the Trending page and you'll see that most of them are not covered by your scheme.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@kingscrown/want-steems-price-to-soar-there-is-voting-for-coins-to-be-added-to-btcchina
Cg
Hmm interesting
This experiment sounds cool except for the part where other whales will down vote a post they judge a whale upvoted with too much strength. It would be so disappointing for a minnow whose post got a nice uplift from a whale vote, only to have another whale down vote away that uplift.
nice post @abit thaks for sharing
The community getting bored with your comment
"nice post & nice photo"
Try to comment in accordance with the contents of the posting.
Here print screen of your comment.
Hahahahahhaa 😂
Super!
With continuation of the no-Whale-vote experiment, we can start comparing before and after HF17/18 with all its changes and determine if the no whale vote has different effects to reward distribution, activity and so on.
Can we keep some influence over the reward pool after the experiment, please?
It's going on. My bad English? I mean I'm not going to stop it anytime soon.
its a tough balance. i agree. I truly think things will find a happy balance. it's tough, so tough.