RE: Negative Voting and Steem
@brianphobos Like I said before here...
https://steemit.com/steemit/@williambanks/response-to-dantheman-notice-to-bot-spammers
There really are two classes of users, owners and larpers. But there is also a third class and that class are "mods" or moderators. We call them whales here, but let's call them what they are "mods".
As moderators, they have a duty of care to make sure that a post doesn't get too much money if it isn't representative of the wishes of the community as a whole. There is nothing wrong with a whale who downvotes a post for too much money when there is only so much to go around. As long as they state the reason. "I think this post is seriously overvalued".
This power really should be reserved for instances where a post is more than $1,000 though.
I would put money that all of these 'mods' are from the same demographic, I would also assume that none of us (users) have officially given these people our blessings to make decisions on our behalf. I understand that the site is centralised, but if there are 'mods' which I agree with you there are, then where can I vote to say that I don't want any posts downvoted because a guy who I've never met, who's social/political/family/financial views I may not agree with feels that it has earned too much money. Who is he/she to make decisions on my/our behalf? An early adopter? SO WHAT! What we have here my friend is awful governance. A lot of users here are from the blockchain/Bitcoin community/mindset, Where freedom of choice is abundant, and external control is limited. I can pretty much guarantee that when a platform arrives that stops 'other' people being able to cancel the money you've earned arrives, then we'll all jump ship, and Steem will sink just as quickly as it's risen.
@cryptosi I'm not defending it bu I am explaining it. The system here is one where if you don't like things, you vote with your wallet.
Same advice I gave to @thedollarvigilante is the same advice i give you now.
Fix it by buying steem. It's not that these guys are early adopters, it's that they are investors and using their say to drive things the way they want it to go.
If you had more steem than them, you could drive it the way you wanted to.
Also we're all from the same demographic :) Steem has an appeal for people who shun social media in general but can be bribed to join a social media network. That's not a huge amount of diversity. But there will always be a diversity of opinion.
So instead of "Free Market" voting, instead it is a Governing Board that determines and can control the value of all the posts? Not exactly how it was marketed.
@whatsup It's a matter of evolutionary phases. At this early stage, it was felt that the need for upfront funding in exchange for an immediate amount of control and prestige was a pretty good deal. Right now many of the whales are powering down. As they do this it drives the price of steem down and allows you to gain more power simply by purchasing steem from the open market, or buying and holding SBD until the price drops low enough that you can convert to steem and power it up.
It's an inherently unfair & unbalanced system (as recently described by dan), that will eventually evolve towards a system which is more fair and more balanced.