RE: My take on Self-voting, Vote-buying and Reward Pool Rape
Followed your link(s) and read up. Lots of theory relating to an idealized perfectly functioning Steemit, but a bit short on objective and achievable goals.
@shenanigator presents us a convincing case about negative long term consequences for non-linear voting and your reply gives me the impression that you oppose non-linear simply because it can't make an imperfect world perfect. On the surface that might sound like defeatism, but, when really thinking about it, it sounds even worse to me - it sounds like you're saying that since it's impossible for everyone to get paid, it would be better to pay even more to those who do get paid!
If we go to that other extreme, is there any justification for further increasing already large reward amounts? Can we justify in a democratic setting the idea of giving even more to those who make the most, and less to those who make the least?
If anything, the only thing justifiable in my view would be non-linear in the opposite direction: the fewer votes received, the more relative power behind them. In theory, voting power should equal, regardless of who has it or how much has been receiven, but if we're going to try to ethically justify a modification to that ideal equality, wouldn't it have to be progressive, and not regressive? We are living in the 21st century, are we not?
I'm really befuddled here.
Certainly you aren't arguing in favor of increasing the relative power of each vote as the number of votes per post increases, are you?
Is wikipedia is a good comparison? Are we looking to become something that resembles wikipedia? Or something more like Facebook, with circles of collaborators that grow, intersect, multiply and that have open membership? The later would be a Steemit where small groups could actually distribute meaningful rewards among themselves, as well as participate in more well known authors' threads, for example.
I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well since my main point is the same but I'm getting no feedback on it.
Don't you think it's best to aim for the most widely distributed reward structure possible? Even if it's not possible for everyone to get paid?
Or, perhaps, precisely even because everyone can't?
I don't pretend to know the absolute truth on this matter and I respect the opinion of everyone. I'd love to be convinced either way whether it be for or against.
Steem aim at is making the most useful information at the top of Steem. The most useful information is specific to each individual. We don't have the same perspective.
Those who have the most to lose, the largest investors, must have larger votes.
Someone cannot claim the labor of others nor can they claim the investments of others.
Those who advocate for non linear reward aren't looking to destroy their own investment which would happen if we don't get the economics right.
That's the issue here. If it cost more to police Steem than to abuse Steem then in the long run the abusers will own most of the Steem.
This is what Dan is arguing in his latest post. He's arguing that it cost more to police than to abuse Steem thus the abusers are at an advantage.
If he's right then it needs to be corrected.
I've shared some other thoughts in a reply below to @shenanigator.
We're on exactly the same page.
Is this an absolute target, as in on the main page? Or is it a relative and distributed target for each tagged topic?
It seems to me that they already have an appropriately weighted advantage: they have voting power correspondent to their investment - everyone has that same "equal" percentage that we've all agreed is fair.
The task would be to present rational arguments in favor of giving the richer an unfair advantage by making their relative percentage stronger. I think the progressive counterargument would eventually win out, but first we must debate the ideas.
As for the rest of what you said, I have problems following what's being said. I'm not even sure if policing is necessary, but that's a whole other argument that I think is premature at this point.*
Before moving forward I think we clearly need to decide if we're in favor of making the equally distributed percentage based voting power of richer Steemians stronger relative to poorer Steemians - which is what I understand you to say when you say "the largest investors, must have larger votes". Correct me if I've misunderstood.
*See my most recent post for an introduction to why policing is a throwback to centralized authority and not necessary in a positively aligned environment - Steemit would be grass roots at its best if allowed https://steemit.com/steemit/@cryptographic/enlightened-self-interest-and-steemit
Just a random thought here. The old system made it beneficial for people to just upvote the same old people all the time. This doesn't mean they are creating good content. Just that people always upvote them.
I think that the issue is we are upvoting individual, and not content.
So many people are auto upvoted, they could post a PoS, like a literal picture of a PoS and get over $100.
This isn't helping Steem. And I think that people with bot armies, aka, the person I have been posting about lately, would get extreme rewards just because they have 1000s of accounts.
I've shared some more thoughts on the matter in my reply below.