Join Me In Discussion To Build a Better Platform. @pawsdog
![9eed471ac8aead690609afd1fb40fa56--presidential-history-presidential-quotes.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeHm3j51B4JbpwTaZqRvJycSapf83XZefmuiAmvxKcVLa/9eed471ac8aead690609afd1fb40fa56--presidential-history-presidential-quotes.jpg)
I have often been accused of thinking beyond my reach, or to put it in simpler terms trying to emulate Icarus minus the hubris, as I do not consider myself to be prideful; adamant and aggressive as required by the situation, but not prideful.
To that end I am stepping way outside of my Steemit socioeconomic class (Minnow here) to look at the platform as if I were its curator. In so doing I want to draw from my recent observations, experiences and interactions with other users.
So what are the problems with Steemit and what will prevent it from reaching the next level?
I have pondered this for a couple days and more so since my recent, both positive and negative interactions with a few power users (whales). This is such a difficult question to answer, as in many ways Steemits weaknesses are also its greatest strengths.
Steemit, from my understanding as a lowly minnow, is a platform as much about financial incentive as it is about the free exchange of ideas in an entirely self policed community free of content Nazis such as those found on Facebook and the like. It is, in theory, a place to express your ideas and opinions (so long as they do not constitute hate speech or violate any laws) free of recourse in an effort to attract others that share the same interests and ideals.
That said, the financial benefit of the platform brings with it the inclusion of greed, jealousy and the need to begrudge or bring criticism to the success of others. In many ways the financial benefit has created an environment that encourages us to cherry pick the platform features we like and use those as justification to villainize the features we don’t.
We like the idea we can be paid for creating meaningful content; we don’t like the idea that others may be paid more for content we view as not up to par. We like the idea that our posts are gaining an audience and that our efforts are proving profitable; we don’t like the idea that others may earn more, and potentially deprive us of our share. That said, we hold this ideal of social righteousness, up to the point that we are viewed as the one earning too much. At which point our views shift and the payouts are just compensation for our hard work and dedication; anyone who says otherwise is just bitter, hateful or needs to put in more work.
We hate the idea of moderation or content control as this is a decentralized platform built on free thought devoid of censorship, yet we scream for governance when we feel as though others are earning too much or their content is offensive, not valuable enough or we have been slighted. The inclusion of money does tend to add an entirely new dimension to things and lends credence to the age old adage that “money is the root of all evil”.
To that end what are the problems? What needs fixed?
Looking at it objectively as is my nature I can certainly see a post reward cap being a good thing, both on a per post basis as well as a per time frame basis (no more than $X in 30, 15, 7 days etc.). What that limit should be I have no idea. Perhaps we could even add performance incentives for authors to decrease the cap over time based upon average user up votes of reputation 50 or higher. To state it clearer, everyone starts with a cap of say $50.00 per post, each month a calculation is applied to determine the number of high ranking users that upvoted the post and a percentage (say 10%) is added to that users earnings ceiling, the percentage decreases accordingly as the amount increases with a max of say $200 per post. This would eliminate the benefit of shill accounts as their 25 reputation would provide nothing towards increasing the author’s earnings ceiling and at most would be of minimal benefit to the authors reputation in accordance with the current system.
Another idea would be a multiplier that weights a user’s potential impact not solely on their SP (the amount of money they have), but on their reputation as well, tying the two together in a fashion so as one depends on the other with reputation being the more heavily weighted of the two. This I think would avoid situations wherein a user with questionable or negative reputation is allowed to, negatively or positively impact posts based solely upon their wealth.
As it stands now, and correct me if I am wrong, I could have a reputation of 0, invest $1,000,000 towards my SP and go on a terror spree if I so desired. I feel this is a flaw in the current system and both your impact and potential earnings should be limited based upon your reputation regardless of how wealthy you may or may not be.
Another idea would be limitations on down voting, in that you are only allowed to down vote a specific user a maximum of X times per week, month etc. This would likely put an end to flag wars and provide a period in which cooler heads could prevail and let time heal the wounds. At current it seems as if it is common practice to go on crusades that last an inordinate amount of time as users are allowed to continually damage the accounts of others and receive instant gratification time and time again for doing so with no cooling off period.
Conversely this could be applied to upvoting as well to further limit the benefit of shill accounts and users with a network of bots at their disposal. This would prevent them from abusing the system by consistently upvoting themselves or only one person. It would also eliminate the pay for vote industry that has found roots in our community and only serves to dilute the true curation of good content by readers that actually value that content. This industry has perverted the ideals of the platform by allowing content of questionable worthiness to make its way up the ranks based solely on how much the creator is willing to pay for it to be noticed. It is not true curation, does not gain status based on its merit or value and most likely pushes down potentially more valuable content from authors with less financial means.
Lastly and perhaps the most controversial point we vote a delegation of 5 that have authority to rule impartially in much the same way as an appeals court. We set standards for the panel, a peer review process and ensure that the members represent an equal cross section of the community. Say one of Rep 30-40, two of Rep 50-60 and two of reputation 60 or higher, all with equal say and power by consensus on issues brought to their attention. We also apply a wealth restriction of no more than $100,000 per account to avoid implications of self enrichment. I have often looked at politicians whom make $500,000 for giving a speech as hypocrites when they claim to be my peer or understand my needs. A government of the people, for the people and by the people means you need some “average people” in charge as only they can bring true understanding and empathy for their socioeconomic peers.
I will end this here as I have covered a lot, some of my ideas may be dumb, some may not but I certainly appreciate input and community involvement when it comes to making this a better platform for us all to inhabit.
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmSgvWb7SsQm8TMfvUiyEsbfd7sH3M5YZZa7QRsqV2Q5vk/DQmSgvWb7SsQm8TMfvUiyEsbfd7sH3M5YZZa7QRsqV2Q5vk.gif)
Good post, here is my opinion on your suggestions.
I wouldn't be in favor of an arbitrary cap on rewards, I think that would be a bit too blunt. I can also see it being a thing that would require regular adjustment based on the value of steem/SBD/USD etc. However I think a system of diminishing returns could work well. ie a relitavly small amount for voting power would be required to get a post from 0-10 dollars but a much larger amount of power would be required to get a post from 100 to 110 dollars. IMO this would not only ensure that any given user does not get too much of the reward pool but would also help to direct more net rewards towards minnows and new users.
On the idea of a post cap, I don't like that at all, again it's rather arbitrary and dependent on the type of content a given user is producing. The recent disagreement points to this a lot, but as a follower of @haejin I always found it useful to be able to ignore or just scan through the posts relating to coins I'm not interested in. However going back to the previous point, if we had a system of diminishing returns on a per user basis rather than a per post basis that would allow for content types that favor high post count without it making any difference to the overall payout for a given user.
For outgoing voting and flagging, diminishing returns on a per user basis could also work. For example lets say I upvote user A and it gives $1, if I vote for him again he only gets 90c but a vote for user B would still be worth $1.
Adding reputation to calculations could help to discourage the use of bots and multiple accounts but this would be far more complicated imo. At the very least I think some kind of exception would be necessary for the likes of steemcleaners. Maybe the witnesses could be empowered in some way to police that.
I'd rather have a simpler and elegant system where it's easy to calculate everything. Let's say you put a cap of max rewards per week = number of unique upvoters per week X 5
No other arbitrary limitations and codes where you can find a loophole to game the system. The only way to game the system would be to make hundreds of bots which would be easily noticed and will also require much work to create and maintain bots.
As for flagging I think 100% flag should cost 3% or even 4% VP instead of 2%. Naturally the flags will be focused on negative content and flagging wars would end faster and will be costly.
Yeah, simpler is better. I'm not talking about anything too complicated, just a system similar to leveling in games, the higher you get the more xp is required to gain another level. It should be fairly easy to follow and it only needs to apply to author rewards, not curation because you don't want to discourage curators from upvoting a post just because others have upvoted to a particular level already.
When I read your suggestion, the first thing I thought of was an MMO level system. Though it isn't very complicated it still isn't something you could calculate on top of your head. Also what if some person is really a big fan of one or few steemians? Then that person would feel restrained and might just end up making some bot.
If you just take the amount of unique upvoters and multiply that with a number, you know roughly how much each person can earn while treating each vote equally. This won't solve all the problems. But it's easy for even a complete noob to understand and it's easy to explain to a new user.
Thanks for engaging in the discussion.
Followed you since you seemed like a very intelligent person.
ditto :)
I have come to think that the "flag" in an of itself sends the wrong message, as well it is positioned incorrectly on the page. If we are to keep a "flag" then let it be for content that is egregious or violates policy (hate speech, illegal content etc.) It should serve to notify a super user or delegation of content that should be examined further.
Along the bottom of the article simple add a downvote option to offset the upovote option as they essentially carry the same weight. Much like thumbs up or down on FB..
In regards to the flag, leave it in its current place but limit its use to egregious content and apply a penalty if it is deemed to have been used in a malicious fashion.
As to the cost in SP, making it more expensive to be a dick.. I agree.
Positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement. There is a reason Fakebook started with likes only and Instagram only has the heart button. If you don't like something, the default and encouraged action should be to do nothing and move on.
I do support the idea of a notification of power users with a separate button. We could dedicate a section on steemit where anyone can come and take a look at posts which other people deem as negative content and choose to flag them after reviewing. We could even make a sub-chain dedicated to this and nobody will have any central authority and even minnows will be able to help with their numbers.
Good idea, basically a "spam" folder for review.. solid idea.. I think you are right in that positive is better than negative. That said the money aspect here tends to motivate some members to act in bad faith towards the path of self enrichement
That's why we need influence through positive reinforcement. When theft is harder than honest work, people would engage in honest work. But there will always be kamikaze hateful type who always resort to stealing. There are no perfect system that doesn't involve tyranny. Jus make the positive stuff easy and negative stuff difficult.
Solid idea about diminished returns on voting and flagging I never thought of that but it is a really solid idea and tailors well into what I offered without being so definitive. We will for the moment have to agree to disagree on a post cap or combine the two ideas yours and mine, but diminished returns is an excellent idea. I suppose in essence you could could apply a post cap through your method wherein the amount of SP to push a post from say 100 to 150 would be prohibitively expensive in terms of SP. We may be on to something..
Well if you don't have a post cap and base the diminishing returns around the user instead of the post then I think you can kill two birds with one stone. Of course you would have to base the visibility of each individual post on something other than the payout amount.
I agree and I think that is why reputation should have more status weight applied to it. Add to that number of upvotes with reputation X or higher.
All good and positive suggestions marking a starting point in the search for essential changes needed to make Steemit even better than it is now.
A widely distributed, decentralized community needs some sort of logarithmic/multiplier capping of both upvotes and downvotes, as well as some sort of internal arbitration for extreme cases that require real human interaction.
And the best part of these proposed reforms would be the obvious increase in the rest of rewards received by lesser well known contributors getting fewer upvotes since the percentage lowered on the bigger rewards would automatically be distributed equally to the rest of upvotes not having reached capping thresholds (or proportionately up to said thresholds, etc.).
Good job. I'm a big believer in moving forward in the positive, and this certainly looks to be exactly that. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's opinions and suggestions!
I figured these points would mark a good place to start a conversation into needed reform as I see multiple areas in need of improvement and have noted abuse from the rich and poor alike. I think that in order for this platform to make it the next level each and ever member should fee as though they are valuable, a part of the community and if they matter. At current I see much disparity and feel as though those in the lower echelon feel a bit left out and or abused.
I am highly in favor of a capping system of some sorts as like you said it would leave more available to spread around to other users and improve the platform
I upvoted this even though I do not entirely agree with you. What I am excited about is the quality of you writings and the fact that you are always willing do debate others in the comment section while staying level-headed!
Keep up the good work and you will grow fast!
Yep, he got a new follower in me because of his writings over the last few days.
thank you, I try to touch on tough topics and be just aggressive enough that I don't burn this account and make to many enemies but at the same time get the info out there. I'm going to give it some time to be forgotten about before I get more interesting again on the hot button topics that can piss those off in power. I am happy the community stepped in and helped. Really gives one faith.
Yeah, it's a fine line we have to tread as minnows. All I can say is that you've got more guts than me at the moment. :)
Nah, not really.. I just figure the worst that can happen is they attack my account. There are some very shady characters at play, especially the one that went after me.. You should let google be your guide, you would be surprised what information is out there.
I think he has gotten a few :)
Not many in here would write about the subjects that @pawsdog has chosen out of fear of being unpopular, downvoted, etc., glad that someone here has journalistic integrity!
Yeah I figure the hell with them, worst thing they can do is attack my account.. nothing more.. I have a ton of other info that would be super interesting but I'm trying to figure out how to get it out there. I would need a ton of backing which I don't have yet. Neat stuff, just my observations really, but I'm going to wait a few days or longer to build a better platform to fight from so I don't get slammed again or make any new enemies..
It seems as if I have been left alone for the time being and I'm fine with that.
When you stand up for what is right you will always invite hate, but you also have a chance to prove your integrity and that will attract far more supporters than haters. Focus on doing whats right to build your base, then soon a downvote will mean nothing in comparison.
Just one woman's opinion :)
No worries and every opinion matters. I would recommend going to steemd and going back to the beginning of time on certain aggressive accounts, note the connections and then let google be your guide. I agree, there are always gong to be haters nothing we can do about that and some that hate just to hate even though the side they are on is clearly wrong. Very interesting how some cannot think for themselves.
No worries, thank you so much for the comment. I think that people matter and are worthy of my time. I think that it would be shallow of me to write an article for people but then ignore them if they ask about it. Opinions matter, people matter and I can be nothing without supporters. So I will support them as well.. Thank you for the comment
Your attitude is refreshing and much needed on Steemit :)
I feel you on a lot of this. There are times when I see a comment say something like "good job" and that comment has a couple of upvotes that translate to $5 or $6 and I am like that comment is worth more than my earnings for the entire day or even the entire week.
@originalworks
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @pawsdog to be original material and upvoted it!
To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
Yeah that does suck and I feel your pain. I also don't like the concept of self voting or upvoting your own stuff for profit.. There are times I can see it being useful if you are adding a valuable opinion to a post with 100 comments that are garbage and you want to start a discussion, but for the most part I think self voting is somewhat tasteless.. For what its worth.. here are my 3 cents..
I agree with you on the self-voting. The problem is that it is a community norm here to self-vote your own content. I first noticed people voting up their own content, so then I searched it and I found that it is generally accepted to vote up your own content.
I don't think it should be allowed at all. To me, that is like going to your own store and buying your own products in order to inflate your sales numbers and trick your shareholders into thinking that you have a ton of sales.
There is also a controversy about voting up your own comments. I have seen mixed answers to that questions, so I have not voted up my own comments. I do vote up my own content only because the general consensus is to do it. I don't mean to say that it is right just because everybody else is doing it. It is something that I am torn on, but I also see that people are voting themselves up, creating bots to vote themselves up, buying votes from bots, and creating jointly owned bots to vote themselves up.
I find it to be even more unsettling when people of sufficient wealth do it, knowing damn well that they don't need it as much as the others commenting on their posts.
I used to get so frustrated, actually I still get a little pissed when I write out a detailed comment to an article (such as you have done here), get a response from a whale/high rep member and the the dick upvotes their response bu leaves me with zero. It would be like if I upvoted "this comment" and ignored yours that prompted me to write mine. I find that to be quite the dick move in most cases. Let the guy behind you upvote your musings if they are of sufficient quality that they warrant it.
I also hate the buy a vote bullshit. If I can write a trash article and simply buy votes for it, how does that qualify as the community picking only the best content. How does that inspire me to get my shit together, improve my skills and pick topics of interest?. How does it motivate me to engage my audience, interact with them, know them and help them so they help me? If I could just buy votes up to appear popular I would not have the need to know people. It become non personal and just a sham site full of shit masquerading as a place where the community decides the best content.
Remove the self vote and the bots and I think we would see many the milk the system move onto other things and many that are unnoticed would get noticed... here have .03 :)
People buying votes, creating voting bots, and voting networks call into question the whole purpose of the platform. Vote trading whether it be through direct one for one vote trading, jointly owned bots, or voting networks all leads back to the question of what is this network for?
Is this a social network or is it a tit-for-tat ego inflating pyramid scheme? I don't mean to disparage the network. If I hated the network I wouldn't have joined and I wouldn't stay, post, and comment.
I just know that their other blockchain based social networks on the horizon. If they get right what this platform gets wrong then I can see people leaving the network. People only have the time to really be on one social network. The last thing I would want to see is Steemit being a MySpace that is sitting around waiting for a Facebook to take them out.
I am invested here. Nearly all of my post are set up to 100% Power Up and the ones that are not set up that way were done so by accident.
Indeed, I would invest more, financially at least, in this platform if I didn't also see the distinct possibility that it could end up being the failed experiment that prompts the next big social network.
I think disruptors forget that they too can be disrupted. Often times it is easier to disrupt the disrupter. You get to see what the disrupter does right and wrong and you make small adjustments which doesn't cost as much since you don't have to build from scratch.
It seems like the people in the position to change the network either through hardfork changes or by changing their own actions directly are also the people that seem to have an incentive not to change the network since they are beneficiaries of the broken system as well.
They might only make changes when they see external threats, but then it might be too late. People who are less invested like me are now in the position where we are thinking about hedging.
Hedging is the last thing you want to see from your customers on a social network. You what all in mass adoption.
I agree, but you need to not go after the disrupter but go after his command and control. If your army is small don't go after the dictator and his larger armies, go after the farmers that make the wheat to feed his army.
Very true.. I think that many changes need to be made to create confidence in the platform.
When it comes to the self voting, I think that it is okay to Love yourself. I have seen others refer to this action as the "I love me syndrome."
I told my wife about this little bit of info when I first started and she was like "You better go and love yourself!"
It has come to my attention that when you are a minnow you are not shown something: An upvote slider. When your account reaches a certain value, your upvote slider lets you pick a lesser percentage vote. So as a whale if your upvote is worth $1000 at 100% voting power with your slider at 100% you can lower it to 1% so as to not give a user hundreds of dollars over a small comment but more like $10.
With that it is left up to the user to govern himself if he's going to love himself at 100%. I think its great being able to give myself a nice upvote if I really want my article to get noticed (as opposed to buying an upvote, since I can do it myself, hypothetically speaking) and I can't see myself abusing it. Some of the whales I see upvoting themselves are also curating other content as well and spreading the wealth.
I am not opposed to a specific hardcap on how much "love" you can give yourself to give your post a little boost and get noticed. Most people that are heavily invested in this platform are probably not going to spit out shit posts cause it'll only hurt their investment. At least one would hope they realize this, but common sense is not so common
When it comes to the buying of upvotes, there are both positive and negative avenues for this. For example, I user @minnowsupport and use their upvote feature in the discord channel. This helps me with recognition for sure and only cost a 1 time payment of a small amount of SBD.
Other upvote whales though are most certainly turning this into a Pay to win game. As a gamer for many years, I know all about pay to win and I am not very fond of it. This is very different though but the concept pay to win still holds some ground when it comes to buying upvotes. Especially if it is a bad post.
I think the "self love" thing pollutes the system by opening the door for one to providing financial incentive to use your influence to line your pockets instead of contributing to the platform. I can see "self love" as useful when you are actively trying to contribute to a key topic and you want to pass the fluff posts of "great job, nice read, following etc.) and get to a point where you can be noticed and actually engage that user on the topic. The way it is being used now, by many with sufficient influence is in an abusive fashion that serves no purpose but to increase their ROI and future level of influence.
You bring a valid point. I can't say I would necessarily feel good about upvoting myself if my upvote had that much influence. Besides all you really need to do to increase ROI is to engage and get involved. Not sure if you've noticed the happenings over at @checkthisout -- here but it is a prime example of a major flaw in the platform but it is unknown to me the purpose of this right now and some claim it's to create balance.
I will check it now, but then again perhaps I would feel differently if I had so much power so as to be able to just use the rewards pool like debit card.. hooker in Vegas... just 100 upvote myself... new motorcycle, a couple 100 percent upvotes.. I think that the lure is what steers so many to the darkside
I would be happy for sb to break out I have a not insignificant amount sitting on Bittrex. I have just not brought it here for the purposes of keeping the experiment pure. I suppose I could be like everyone else and just open another account to upovote myself with..
I resteemed that post to point out the issue with self upvoting and reward pool abuse.. that is worse than the recent flag wars..
I like your sense of reasoning @pawsdog.
Your caption reminds me of similar quote...
"A man is said to have changed his character when you give him the same opportunity he had much earlier but does otherwise".
Let's together make steemit a home for quality..
I agree and I'm all in.. Where do we start..
Yes, I think making the decision to act differently than one has acted previously is a reflection of time and wisdom gained through experience. Some will never change and will fit the saying that "the definition of stupidity is to do the same thing over and over while expecting a different result"
You are doing a lot for the Steem community @pawsdog !!!! Thanks for your effort , respect to you !
Why thank you.. I don't feel like anybody yet.. but maybe by working together we can all become something.
I like the freedom of the earning potential here but I see the problem you bring forth. It almost boils down to it's not what you know, it's who you know. Meaning if you've got a whale on your side, someone with upvote bots, a network of friends / backers / followers or Mr. Benjamin Franklin himself you can post literally anything and generate hundreds.
As someone who's dealt with plenty of limits and hard caps in my life I somewhat disagree with any sort of hard cap but I would like to present what I feel might be a better idea. That is to put a hard cap on the potential rewards percentage. The main problem is the rewards pool. Not necessarily a USD amount, as it was more or less used as comparison to the argument. This was the 6.7%. Accurate or not it caused quite a stir. While the new number was still at over 1%, and whether or not the flags caused the 6.7% to drop to just over 1% is unknown to me but the question is What percent of the rewards pool in a 7 day period is considered too much for one user to suck up?
We would have to see what percentage other whales are taking up on a 7 day basis, however the earnings probably fluctuate so 1% this week might only be 0.2% next week for the same creator.
I can use @exyle as an example because he is delivering a lot of good for the platform with Steemify. I usually try to catch his videos and I would say with the work he's done I think his earnings are well deserved. Over the last 7 days he's sitting at just over 11 grand in potential earnings holding about 0.57% of the rewards pool and no one bats an eye.
I am most certainly not batting an eye. Like I said, I feel his earnings are just based on the observation I've made that he's contributed a lot to this platform. These numbers are simply used as an example so we can all be on the same page.
What percent of the rewards pool is too much for any user?
No. @ranchorelaxo was on @haejin's side.
Many were on @krnel's side, once.
These rogue upvotes of the plebs were a threat to the entire purpose of Steemit, and were crushed. Their rewards were returned to the rewards pool, where the 39 whales could get them, as is the purpose of stakeweighting.
As long as plebs impact the rewards pool insignificantly, they're fine. When they threaten the ROI of whales, they need to be crushed.
Wise dolphins know this. They post their $hundreds earning posts but rarely, and thus are permitted.
This is the Steemit way.
There's some good points for further discussion here. Although I don't agree with your last more controversial point. Thanks for contributing this. Resteemed.