The Haejin Problem: The Solution is Simpler than Most Think, Much Simpler
For months the Steem community has suffered a bitter war involving mostly two Steemians, one aggressive content creator and one whale diligently upvoting said content creator, reaping vast rewards from the Steem reward pool.
The situation has resulted in a bitter flag war, as well as many other Steemians trying to suggest solutions which could end the situation and bring peace back to the community.
Personally, I am not sure where I stand in the situation as I think that the design of the Steem rewards mechanism allows this situation to happen and as such, as left-minded as I may be, it is difficult to hope that every human Steemian will be concerned about their peers and avoid being greedy taking too much from the pool. This doesn't mean I agree with the situation, definitely not, but when it comes to humans at times it is difficult to be an idealist and hope they will do the right thing.
Hope, after all, is for adolescents and adults who wish to get laid on the weekend.
The Possible Solution is Simple
Yet, the possible solution to the problem is simple. Simple but arguably arbitrary.
Steem is ruled by its witnesses, specifically the Top 20 witnesses, who represent all Steemians as our governance. Every Steemian can vote 30 witnesses and the 20 highest ranking ones, by vests voted for them, are our governance as per Steem(it)s FAQ.
The Steem blockchain requires a set of people to create blocks and uses a consensus mechanism called delegated proof of stake, or DPOS. The community elects 'witnesses' to act as the network's block producers and governance body. There are 20 full-time witnesses...
This means that 20 Steemians, representing the wider Steem community decide democratically over the rules implemented on the Steem blockchain, and thus also the possible Steem reward pool, the pool each Steemian shares and can earn from.
In order to avoid that any Steemian could possibly rape the pool and earn large shares representing up to several percents of the pool every day, it takes only one new rule, a rather simple rule even: limit the maximum earnings of each Steemian on a monthly (rolling) basis.
I understand that this would be a controversial and arbitrary rule but when looking at the average earnings and the highest earners, not many Steemians regularly earn more than $1,000/day ($ Steem rewards, not US$, thus complete with integration of the Steem price feed).
Only the most prolific content creators, and one or two bid bot addicts, actually surpass that for most people rather decent payday.
As such I propose the simple solution that the Steem earning/rewards mechanics is expanded with a limitation of maximum $22,000 rewards/30 days (based on a 5 days working week).
Any rewards upvoted exceeding the monthly cap can whether be automatically returned to the curators or burnt to @null, although the latter while good for the Steem economy may be considered negative for curators.
Not Foolproof
Obviously, I understand that rule can easily be circumvented and those who really want to, and can thanks to consistent whale support, could easily create multiple accounts.
Most people will not though because first, and foremost, they will not exceed the monthly cap and second, for many people the maintenance of a second account is too much hassle.
Those who do, make themselves an easier target for the flag warriors by mere virtue of being a smaller account than is the case now with the largest ones. Thanks to the valiant database diggers and blockchain watchers the Steem community has, it won't be long before they show up on @abusereports or in any of @paulag's reports or similar.
Steem and Steemians will be the winner because the pool will have one new, small, additional protection and be available to more different Steemians, without many hogs and nobody will possibly be able to claim more than $1,000 in Steem rewards/day thus not in a position to drain the pool. No matter how many bid bot votes they buy, no matter how large and SP powerful their circle jerk is, o how actually awesome and viral their content is.
Most of all, the curators now fighting to minimize the abuse can return to curate the great content submitted to the community and this flag war can, finally, stop. And most of all, ridiculous offers trying to push people to also share with the community, such as this one, are not needed anymore.
I don’t believe any cap solutions to be workable in the long run.
First, as you point out, it does nothing against multi accounting. If someone is in the position to need to split an account, they will. Managing account #2 for an extra $264,000 a year is a trivial task. Combatting two smaller abusive accounts is no easier than one large account, it would still require the same amount of countering downvotes.
Steem is still so small. We have yet to see what true virality looks like, let alone big business on the blockchain, but this could totally hamstring all that.
An easy example would be to look at the newly launched fundition.io. Steem has a huge potential in the crowdfunding space in my opinion, particularly by way of using votes vs. direct transfers of currency. But can you imagine if a 30 day Kickstarter campaign was capped at $22,000? Or someone’s GoFundMe style campaign to raise $150,000 for surgery was forced to take 7 months to come in under a cap?
People should be able to “hit the lotto” every now & then. Random people go viral on today’s big social media regularly, get their few days of fame, millions of views & votes, and then fade away. The beauty of Steem is that this attention is directly monetized. We know a person with a continuous campaign of self voting abuse will multi account and get around a cap. It’s the person who hits the “attention jackpot” for a single week who will be penalized as their viral dLive video racks up 20 million views & votes on their account; but an algorithm restricts their valid (& temporary) large scale earning potential.
Viral content most often is an absolutely poor performer financially. With the blog network I used to manage in the past, we regularly hit Reddit, Techmeme and also have multiple entries still performer on Stumbleupon and generally they are the worst performers financially.
That also makes sense because most viral content attracts non-members, so-called side door traffic and the people leave again. Try getting your average Redditor to sign up, they're not interested they have Reddit and that's where they live.
I think the difficulty with any cap is to make the cap high enough to stay interesting and not be seen as a burden. We both agree that those who aren't satisfied will always find ways around but I think that will always be a
criminalminority.I'm not sure about winning the lottery, I think $22,000 is a rather nice ticket. Especially if it can be repeated monthly but by all means make it $30,000. ;)
As for fundition.io, I don't think the 7 days limit of Steem is a smart model for any crowdfunding platform. It is IMHO not because it initially seems a great fit and that it can be done that it also should be done. But it would be perfectly possible to not apply the cap on the SMT platform. That could be a simple option for SMT managers.
The only thing I'll point out here is that I don't see how multiple smaller accounts getting voted up by the big whale is any different than one account in terms of manageability of flag targets. The flaggers have the same amount of value to negate with flags.
Apart from the reason of how unpopular this would be, and thus extremely hard to pass into "law", the solution doesn't scale. It requires witnesses to maintain another parameter and burdens them with the decision on this, one that they can constantly be reconsidering and lobbied to change.
A cap is effectively a limit on votes one can receive, because if votes exceed this amount (with respect to their weight too of course) they will have no effect on payout. People are sensitive enough about flags which are less controversial vote negation than this, but system bases vote invalidation would be seen as authoritarian I think.
I would propose that down votes deliver a curation reward. Maybe it's should not be as high as up voting, but something. This would balance the incentives for everyday bi-directional voting, and make scam and spam initiatives more worthwhile.
This is a very valid argument.
To be entirely honest, this would only be experienced by the loudest now, but as Steem has turned two years old and newer, shinier is happening around us a lot of the most active, and most vocal uservbase, is bound to change over the next 6 months. This means that the most ideal time to consider this would be right now because history has thought us that when you don't screw over over people they generally are acceptant of having some rules, and even limitations, in place.
Since this would be a code is law implementation there would be less sensitivity involved than with flags/downvotes because users would understand that there is no personal element of disagreeing involved. Also, most (99.99998% estimated or more even) would never be affected by it, even not as curators.
But then, of course, the lobbying issue can rear its usually rather ugly head again and again. That said, usually, I tend not to consider options which aim for popularity.
It is interesting you bring up the scaling issue. It seems to me, ever more and more, that Steem is running itself against a wall in a dead end street head on first because of the high requirements needed for the platform. I am starting to fear that Steem can not scale the SMT mountain, assuming SMTs will become popular. The HW requirements for a node are bordering the ridiculous and the ecosystem has barely started to touch mainstream popularity, that without SMTs.
I see no burden in it though, not more than making difficult and at times unpopular decision is part of being governance, just like campaigning an agenda is. We have to accept that politicians are not made to be popular yet the gig has totally turned into a popularity contest.
Putting a cap would have so many ripple effects on the entire steemit eco system.
It seems to me that would discourage investment in steemit. One thing we all to put in mind, is that whereas this platform is premised on content creation, not all people are bothered about that.
I mean, why would someone already with billions invest it on steemit, just so he can get down to creating content and be paid like everyone else, the majority who have in deed, may be invested nothing?
That sounds like charity, no?
Following the many perceived abuse problems currently affecting the platform, I have also read several suggestions, in regard to the bot question, saying that bots should be banned.
That too, like putting the cap you are suggesting, will only serve to discourage investors who in putting in their money, indeed care very little about content creation. But are drawn by the curation aspect of getting value out of the millions they invest..
Your solution here would work under other circumstances, but with the assorted incentive Steemit is premised on, i see it has having a lot of ripple effects, the witnesses would be hell bent on recommending it.
But of course an idea along this, just could be the kind we can build on, may be include some caveats.
Thanks for your thoughts. This is actually the first idea of its kind i have read, among the several that are daily being proposed.
Meanwhile, i curate for @asapers, and i am glad to drop by to check on you. Your content is top drawer, and we are proud you are part of us.
Not necessarily. The Internet has always had a currency to reward great content. In the earliest day it was the traditional curation where people would maintain daily link lists. Later it became (re)tweets and shares. Before those Digg and Stumbleupon were massive share platforms and could over time contribute to the rate card of sites. In fac, several tp digg members, redditors, and undoubtedly also Stumbleupon users have over the years been caught charging $ to submit content to their Web 2.0 profiles.
Platforms like Flipboard and Zyte among others have turned that currency in easier discovery. Depending on the profile of they who shared it was always charitable to share (and possibly crash servers).
I honestly do not think that bid bots or content creation/curation rewards are interesting for high-value, high stakes investors. Most investors who purchased a lot of Steem will be waiting/hoping for Steem to become more valuable. Especially now with SMTs on the horizon, Steem could at some point become a limited currency and that's when its value will go up and what most investors wait for. Remember that more often than not investors are passive, and operate in a background advisory role. Only very rarely are investors active participants or partners.
Those who care about operating a bid bot, or delegating to bid bots, they're here for the low hanging fruits. Actually, not for the fruits... merely for the peanuts. They may already have lost belief in Steem and are just getting as much as they can while it lasts. And, honestly, I'm not sure that is the type of investors we want or Steem needs. But currently, those surely are the vultures we deserve.
Instead, we need investors who are interested in the steem ecosystem for the long run. People who will invest in teams who build new gateways, apps, soon also SMTs.
Do you think that any mid- to long-term investor will care about Steem, and invest in teams, if every day always larger parts of the pool are used by bid bots?
No, we will only get ever more bid bots. It's a self-destructive catch-22. But as history has proven us, the human species excels at pushing the implosion button.
Thanks for your great thought-provoking comment.
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the SadKitten bot needs to be stopped it only helps the whales, everyone knows that,AND when any post has a upvote that shows a amount besides zero that the post will most like then be viewed by someone and maybe even upvoted, and everyone who does up vote get a slice of the pie, the down votes hurt not only the person who upvotes their own post but others who also get a part of it. and when the coins are devided up by steem the only one who get any are the select inner circle aka the whales, which is the only reason that the sadkitten bot is really their, why not flag all the other bots out there who always upvote the whales the ip and vpn always show that the bots are from select whales even now some whales are now changing often the ip and vpn to cover ther butt, steem was a good idea at first then the greed and bots and now even more sad kitten proves it greed and censorship to keep the peasent poor while the rich get richer, greed is greed and nothing more and it will be the death of steem as people flee and will not want steem