Whats funny to me is that everyone is so sure about their own proposal, their own idea. "This would be better, that would be better".
I always found Kevins idea flawed.
This is basically the form of his post:
- Point out bad things happening on the platform everyone agrees on, in a concise and well worded way to get people on your side.
- Get people on your side. (Not too hard since hes influential, has a large upvote)
- Push the idea that benefits his position the most.
Now i know he might be doing this out of a sense of wanting the platform to succeed, but what hes actually doing is acting from his point of view.
We all act the same way but some try to understand that part of themselves.
See the problem here is that youre essentially killing the small stake holder and reducing their effect on the platform.
You give big stake holders more power. You increase large stake holders income. You centralize the platform even more.
For any of this to work you would need a large number of passive stake holders that invest in bots or whatever to start curating... That will never happen. If they are passive now, they will remain passive.
At least with bots you can get something from them. a 10% ROI, some exposure, etc..
Do what Kevin is proposing and they will either leave or just program a bot that will post inspirobot quotes and auto-self vote...
Nah.. This is a proposal only from the perspective of a active whale, (dont get me wrong i think the guy is great) that feels he is missing out.
And indeed he has started doing what others he criticizes are doing..
I think its high time we forget about the whales and focus on communities. Thats really the only thing you can depend on.
This is a position I'm fairly certain about too. I'm still waiting on other arguments because others seem to be thinking that superlinear criticizers (or with whatever magical combination they think is right) are missing a point. But.... still I have not seen it.
And to your point about benefiting larger stake, it's really hard for me not to see that as what the proposal will end up doing. I suppose the argument is that "Yes, larger stake will be better off, but we will also make the platform better". And like you, I'm also not convinced.
And the odd part, specific to your bot farming-- that's exactly what Kevin's proposal said would not happen since they would be motivated to curate, but I have yet to see why that is even true. A passive auto post-farming bot is what you need to prevent, and I don't see any proposition that kills them. (I assume the discounted downvote pool is an attempt at it, and hell, maybe we should try it. I have no idea what will happen.)
The logical thing to assume is that people rarely change if not forced to do so. Since you cant force anyone to do anything here, let alone whales, nor should you, their behaviour will remain the same.
A discounted downvoting pool goes both ways. This again empowers whales most of all. Who in their right mind would risk getting their blog destroyed. Not only are you increasing their income, not only are you increasing their influence with the 1.3 superlinear but you are essentially placing the active whales (thats the most important destinction) in a position of power far beyond their current position if you stack all those changes, where their decisions who to upvote and who to downvote, who deserves what and when, affect the platform so much more.
At least now you can buy votes from them and earn something. Not depend completely on the whims of whales. Im all for fixing the trending page but that can be changed by fixing the UI and adding filters. Such a drastic change Kevin is proposing wouldnt do any good imo.
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