Community Engagement being suppressed by the @asshole account on here w. Flagging everything. My proposed democratic solution - Simple. A Vote.
A network wide/community vote system must be built, scheduled and done on the blockchain to soft fork by coding this kind of thing out of the community.
Coding it Out. I like that phrase, it is powerful. And democratic.
That's the 2-sentence short version. Keep reading for the fulsome version where I expand on things.
I have broken this down into 2 simple parts:
1/ Overview of the Problem with Facts & my opinion as a Community Member.
2/ Proposed Democratic Solution within the parameters of the Blockchain currently being exploited.
We are here for Liberty and free speech. But when that is threatened by people as naturally happens, we in the Liberty movement have to be able to address such things as they (sadly.../ inevitably)-- arise.
Abusers like this will use the governance model against the system for their own selfish gain. This has been exposed. so, let's deal with it. We have an opportunity here for positive change.
Adapt. Use the same blockchain governance to look ahead, and do something positive here.
I have never been one to just complain and not try to help. I know I am not an IT guy and make it clear regularly but you don't need to be, to know when enough is enough in terms of governance problems or glitches, bad policy, gaming a system, bullying or harassing. This problem has all of these.
It offers us a chance to shed light in an area DURING BETA launch phase that needs improvement and honestly, that is how I am approaching this.
Today I noticed not only are the main posts being flagged but now a lot of people's comments and replies to posts. This is getting ridiculous now. The proof is right in your posts, go look. And see the screen cap below.
Simply put - this is abuse of the system and people. It is lowering community morale, confidence, activity and engagement and there are already enough issues on the platform to deal with.
I understand someone making a political stance by creating accounts/bots/scripts to profit as we have seen, or counter all the trends they disagree with and in principle that is largely fine.
I've been in the public eye for YEARS with my activism calling out government corruption so I am someone who has publicly taken stances to defend Liberty and best practices where most have not. I have some idea practically here.
I get it.
But. THIS.
In reality this trolling practice by this account on here is not working. I hate censoring and fascism and gaming the systems as much as anyone and that is pretty easy to find about me.....but this is basically daily bullying now and suppression without warrant.
NO.
- Why should we the members have to comb thru posts and then manually do something, we should not have to do -- just to counter a nefarious practice and "get back to breaking even" on a post or a comment? Don't we have enough to deal with in life, without all this extra work that should not be required?
That's not a solution, that is a band aid. The root cause here needs to be addressed.
This account (and others like it) -- were funded by other accounts to seed their start up. Further, you can see I have highlited their amount of vested power in the platform which will continue to grow, since they cannot be flagged.
They will continue to "curate" and can transfer 10k, 50k or 100k of Steem power into their account and their power to control you and suppress your engagement and social and financial success on this platform.
Again, veiled in the processes of blockchain Liberty we love and usurping it.
We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to such behaviours if we claim to love Peace and Liberty.
As many of us know and those that did not -- you can clearly see the agenda of this account. And perhaps more to come.
Some of us have stalkers in life. What happens when they find us on here and do similar things? What then?
The worst offenders in life will continue to hide behind fake accounts + aliases under the guise of "Liberty" or "Privacy" -- while stealing THAT from others.
To counter these kinds of behaviours by such types, there needs to be something in the governance model here, changed, and built into the system where a hard code vote can take place, with ___ days notice for such abusive things, a democratic vote taken and stamped into the blockchain. My steps for this are just ahead in point form.
Fighting fire with fire and being FAIR about it. A community vote.
Proposed Solution:
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/11/15/08/19/banner-1044109_960_720.jpg)
Send the account(s) in question a message that MUST be opened ie - at next login or withinin 12 hours, addressing the issue. I am not a coder. But it can likely be done easily.
Message should contain a democratic message of sorts consistent with Liberty and Blockchain best practice. something to the effect of the damage it is causing and the hassles and infringing on the community which has been SUPER clear + stamped into the blockchain. State also that their work has been noticed. Flows into next democratic point:
Outline possible solutions such as a cease and desist, warn them of an impending community vote on the issue and that they cannot use their account unless they REPLY with their reasons for the behaviour to this point and also - they must state their intentions go-forwards. Account cannot proceed to post or vote or comment until they sign in with their keys, like we have to for every other "transaction".
Code in a similar message to every account in the Steemit Ecosystem/Community. (A pop up or forced message that must be acknowledged before proceeding, same as above point -- keeping the same process for both offending and offended parties) stating that on ___ day or within --- days -- a vote will take place on this community standard issue/coding change/fork/implementation and state the case and link to it on a post -- for brevity sake. They can all go and review it.
On that day, no account (similarly to above login/pop up message) can use Steemit or proceed until their vote is cast on the blockchain.
Remind them this must be done for every account they have --- or risk future lockout. If they do not vote with all their accounts and miss the vote.... something similar to "accepting the policy of the vote outcome" should be stated to prompt/remind/warn them of said process.
I have thought a lot about this as a Regular Guy on here with no IT background but as a member who loves Liberty, not the crap we are force fed and told to believe that we have every day by those imposing their political will on us.
I believe this solution respects the spirit and integrity of the Blockchain, Liberty, best practices and the love and respect for one another we should daily strive to show one another, even our adversaries or those that oppose us.
I know Crypto Currencies like DASH for ex. can set a vote in their blockchain, have it dealt with and come to consensus within 24 hours on large issues from my research.
I also speak from the position of someone who has been harassed and stalked and threatened politically since about 2011 by those who impose rule over us as human beings and since 2013, by people who I personally and professionally decided were no good for my community and kept my word to distance myself from them.
That may sound awful and it is --- but this is the type of behaviour we should all rise up against and drive out of society. It shows what can happen. This account issue here flagging everyone has allowed us to look at solutions and why they need to be addressed.
People should speak from an informed and balanced P.O.V. and I have done my best to do this today for the benefit of the greater good -- something I am used to reaching for daily.
I would love to hear feedback from the community from everyone on this important current and future issue - from regular non IT / tech types like me, and that of the founders, whales, developers, etc -- like @timcliff @ned @dan @dantheman @jamesc @stellabelle @pfunk @donkeypong @blocktrades @freedom @val-a @val-b @abit @smooth @tombstone @riverhead @rainman @roadscape @xeldal @wang @wackou @fuzzyvest @nextgencrypto @complexring @ozmaster @berniesanders @ozchartart @mrwang
Thanks for your time and attention today.
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/http://i.imgur.com/68SXQpW.gif)
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://i.imgur.com/Wn3S0bI.jpg)
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To counter these kinds of behaviours by such types, there needs to be something in the governance model here, changed, and built into the system where a hard code vote can take place, with ___ days notice for such abusive things, a democratic vote taken and stamped into the blockchain. My steps for this are just ahead in point form.
Proposed Solution:
Send the account(s) in question a message that MUST be opened ie - at next login or withinin 12 hours, addressing the issue. I am not a coder. But it can likely be done easily.
Message should contain a democratic message of sorts consistent with Liberty and Blockchain best practice. something to the effect of the damage it is causing and the hassles and infringing on the community which has been SUPER clear + stamped into the blockchain. State also that their work has been noticed. Flows into next democratic point:
Outline possible solutions such as a cease and desist, warn them of an impending community vote on the issue and that they cannot use their account unless they REPLY with their reasons for the behaviour to this point and also - they must state their intentions go-forwards. Account cannot proceed to post or vote or comment until they sign in with their keys, like we have to for every other "transaction".
Code in a similar message to every account in the Steemit Ecosystem/Community. (A pop up or forced message that must be acknowledged before proceeding, same as above point -- keeping the same process for both offending and offended parties) stating that on ___ day or within --- days -- a vote will take place on this community standard issue/coding change/fork/implementation and state the case and link to it on a post -- for brevity sake. They can all go and review it.
On that day, no account (similarly to above login/pop up message) can use Steemit or proceed until their vote is cast on the blockchain.
Remind them this must be done for every account they have --- or risk future lockout. If they do not vote with all their accounts and miss the vote.... something similar to "accepting the policy of the vote outcome" should be stated to prompt/remind/warn them of said process.
I have thought a lot about this as a Regular Guy on here with no IT background but as a member who loves Liberty, not the crap we are force fed and told to believe that we have every day by those imposing their political will on us.
I believe this solution respects the spirit and integrity of the Blockchain, Liberty, best practices and the love and respect for one another we should daily strive to show one another, even our adversaries or those that oppose us.
I know Crypto Currencies like DASH for ex. can set a vote in their blockchain, have it dealt with and come to consensus within 24 hours on large issues from my research.
I also speak from the position of someone who has been harassed and stalked and threatened politically since about 2011 by those who impose rule over us as human beings and since 2013, by people who I personally and professionally decided were no good for my community and kept my word to distance myself from them.
That may sound awful and it is --- but this is the type of behaviour we should all rise up against and drive out of society. It shows what can happen. This account issue here flagging everyone has allowed us to look at solutions and why they need to be addressed.
People should speak from an informed and balanced P.O.V. and I have done my best to do this today for the benefit of the greater good -- something I am used to reaching for daily.
I would love to hear feedback from the community from everyone on this important current and future issue - from regular non IT / tech types like me, and that of the founders, whales, developers, etc -- like @timcliff @ned @dan @dantheman @jamesc @stellabelle @pfunk @donkeypong @blocktrades @freedom @val-a @val-b @abit @smooth @tombstone @riverhead @rainman @roadscape @xeldal @wang @wackou @fuzzyvest @nextgencrypto @complexring @ozmaster @berniesanders @ozchartart @mrwang
Thanks for your time and attention today.
Images - Vectortoons, and PixaBay where images are free to use every day!!
If you feel my posts are undervalued or you want to donate to tip me - I would appreciate it very much.
Bitcoin - 18J6RRuzX4V7b2CDbx7tWZYNBLkkGWsvWX
DASH - XgZvsvSZgPkNbmGbRhc3S1Pt2JAc7QHwiS
Monero - d8ecb02c09f70ec10504b59b96bc1f488af28b05933893dfd1f55b113e23fbff
Ethereum - 0x3Ad69Ff057C9533ca667B2d7E3E557F5eeFd4477
LiteCoin - LKdsnvSXk9JW99EiNicFMGKc1FXiBo9tUE
Stratis (STRAT) - SNsJp6v1jXvKWy4XcXSXfNQ9zhSJJppJgv
Synereo (AMP) - 1KnrL6wFHaT4gjJ2YJ5f6WmKTDJNsaBS8s
Expanse (EXP) - 0x819b9cce8630ab638198eabfd7496786c20d629a
ZCash (ZEC) - t1aCPEYELkGaf3GtgGTiCEDo7XfPm4QEwmL
I upvoted.
I'm not sure @asshole or people doing the same will be a problem. @asshole doesn't upvote anyone so they aren't making any curation reward. They will become less powerful as time pass.
As for their reputation those people will never have a good reputation, no one will ever vote for their posts if they make any and thus their down vote won't be a problem for people's reputation but thank you for starting this discussion.
I feel like it's an important discussion. I feel like a lot of people are being annoyed by the situation. If, I'm correct Steemit inc propose to remove seeing the flag on steemit.com so they shouldn't be displayed in our face so prominently much longer.
TY for the comment, nice to hear from you.
Negative curation --- is still curation.
In my post that is why I put quotations around the word, for that reason, to make the point.
I didn't read that part right. The more someone will want to counter a post, the more they will have to buy Steem and thus the more they will have to believe in the necessity of obscuring that post. On the other hand obscuring all posts can't really be done as they would need more than 51% of all Steem.
As I say I think it' s a good conversation to have.
I'll be creating a bot to monitor for his flags and upvote users affected in the next few weeks.
I worked with @anyx to update the @seraph bot to counter the @asshole downvotes.
Why not double the counterweight, make the flag worthless.
It has more Steem Power, so its votes are worth more.
I saw that, what I meant though was what if the upvoter was 2k SP vs the 1k SP of the down vote, kind of a boost!
We made sure it had more SP than the @asshole account. It cost me around $100 worth of STEEM to give it enough voting power to outgun the account though. It would be expensive to give it double power.
I saw Seraph was upvoting posts he was downvoting. I will make a hero bot to join in the fight against asshole regardless once I get the chance. :D
:)
I Would really just like to see flag's limited. IE: For every 10 upvotes you give, you can give one flag. Problem solved: Allows flags to still be legitmately used, but kills this abuse.
I had not considered that angle which covers a few things. Nice idea.
It does not solve the larger issues addressed in here though namely repeat offenders and harassment that is targeted.
What about you can't flag if you don't post, the numbers can be sorted out, you know, how many posts in a week so you can flag? Personally I would just eliminate flagging, but I know a lot of people are ok with it. I've never seen @asshole post anything.
Before I started this today, I literally wondered about e/m you first to gather ideas and your ideas as a tech guy but I wanted to let you deal with what you have to deal with. I think it is great you commented, honestly. Would really appreciate your RS and support of this post and your other ideas from the IT side my man.
TY very much for your time!
No worries Barry.
I've never been one to resteem much as I figured people visited my blog to see my content and it can sometimes be a bit much to weed through others blogs that seemingly resteem more than post. Each to their own mind ya!
I'm packing tonight, moving tomorrow, setting up my office again after that and will go into blitzkrieg on development.
@asshole will be nullified once I get the time to do so. :)
LOL, you were just flagged twice by that in account in this thread lol.
Yes, if something would be built into the blockchain/ecosystem, it would solve the issues long term, vs. other one off or repeated more labour intensive bot building or other efforts.
I am excited for your move but not as much as you I bet. Thanks again.
I'll get @asshole sorted out in the next few weeks. Crowd fund 1010 STEEM to overpower his shitty -1% flags and sick my hero bot on him. Should be fun. :)
Quote of the nite. Hero Bot.
lol
Love it man.
No please crowd fund 2x, then match the downvote ie 1% with 1% upvote! Benefit the person who is getting the downvote more than an equal upvote to offset. This is an idea that would be great to implement!
You da man :)
Ha, you were just flagged for that too lol
So, Tim, any input here?
Is the flag actually causing stuff to get hidden?
1/ In general: at their current 1% power settings, not as much, but you would know better.
2/ In specific: The flags will affect the new users just getting started more than other more established users but as I said, it is already enough of a challenge on here daily
3/ This kind of stuff gone unchecked creates barriers to onboarding and keeping people.
I submitted this pull request which will hide all the flags from posts/comments. It hasn't been put up onto the live site yet, but it is approved - so it should go up in the next release. Once this is live, the flags from @asshole will not really be noticeable unless they are actually causing the post/comment to be hidden due to a negative voting score.
[Edit] Hopefully @klye's box can counter the posts/comments getting hidden.
Had to reply here for nesting, but TY for your help as always TC.
Always appreciated.
I spent 10 mins of my time going thru and voting up everyone's comments to counter it, so what is my time worth an hour. I know what I would bill people as a consultant.
So there are lots of ways to count the costs here. Not just $ either as I have mentioned a few times.
Have a good night my man.
The complication of upvoting to keep comments visible is it affects voting power - maybe this is the next level of subtletly in the game.
I suspect that the community will find a counter to it soon.
Thanks. For some odd reason - dunno why - @asshole has been going after my posts today. No biggie, just strange.
Don't take it personally.. Just some anti-social neckbeard having a temper tantrum. :)
That's very reassuring :)
Actually, I'm not affected; just scratchin' my head. I don't think it's a neckbeard, I think it's a testing bot of some sort. The thing is too...automatic, volitionless to be an anti-social human. It's more like a swarm of mosquitoes: they fly your way, you get bitten again & again. But then, they fly off and you're left alone.
LOL, so many of us feel that way, and all the comments here like yours, or others and all the clear DOWNVOTES in this post by said account, cements the fact here for everyone to see the problem so they have really not shown the IQ today in terms of high tide marks.
Great pos dear friend @ barrydutton
This was my reaction to harassment
Because you do not do something more productive and post a post on the platform.
Do not waste your precious time putting flags to the world.
I invite @ asshole you to actively work on the platform.
I agree that my work does not like, but at least respects the opinion of other people who think differently.
These flags will change the good mood of work on the platform, which is what I feared from the beginning.
The most important thing that the platform has is the good working climate.
I hope my comments contribute to the cause
Great comments my friend.
And they flagged you, like everyone else in this post lol
I agree
thank you very much
I discussed with @anyx and the @seraph bot has been updated to counter all of @asshole's comment downvotes with an upvote.
One possible solution is to allow flags to be made only by people with a reputation above say 50. This would require them to post something I believe. I doubt anyone that just flags will be able to keep their reputation above 50. Even 30 might be good if you feel like folks just starting out should have the right to flag - it would be easy to go from the 25 starting rep to 30.
The problem with voting an account out that I can see is that if you don't take the funds the user can simply transfer them to a new account and start over i.e. @asshole2 etc.
I've heard the Rep. Score idea before, it is pretty good.... but creates a barrier to those innocent people, that have just joined, or do not / cannot post much with life getting in the way.
People should not necessarily have punitive restrictions on them for reasons like this.... but of course, some people are not active for other reasons, perhaps less desirable or honourable, etc.
Sure accounts could keep setting up --- but they have to go thru the hassle, the process which is currently not easy... and then fund it with some Steem Power to start their flagging again.
Not many people will bother with that, as a result.
They will start flagging, run into this stop-gap by design and have to start all this over again with the #SteemitPolice so to speak LOL.
Nobody is going to keep that up.
Once in awhile in life you really have to do something that stands for something like this which can fairly protect Liberty and the social responsibility that comes with not only starting a platform like this -- but falls to the rest of the community members and stakeholders like we all are too.
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A potentially simpler solution would be to make it so that every account needs a minimum rep (e.g. 50) to flag AND make it mandatory to comment with every flag. That way if someone abuses the system they will likely lose reputation and be unable to flag further.
Yes, that has been mentioned a few times but in my comments here addressing that -- I mention the angle as to why it might not be a great idea to marginalize honest accounts with low rep scores.
I appreciate the feedback, TY very much
I don't see how it would do that.
I went thru my thought process on that in the comments dude.
your concept is interesting until I hit the part where you think every user should be forced into voting on the matter or risk losing access. Forced voting will just piss people off enough to support the bad behaviour. That is rather counterproductive.
Bad behaviour by some people force decisions to be made and sides to be picked at times. At least this is democratic and the reason it is forced, is because you have to have accountability on both sides here -- the community users and the core dev's.
The dev's have to protect and limit their liability so if everyone gets the same chances and time frames and warnings, it is completely level on the playing field.
Like with real estate, there is no perfect house, or ideals.
It also reinforces to EVERYONE -- bad behaviour will not be tolerated, and community solutions will be found.
Like I said Barry.. you force those who are not engaged in bad behaviour to take sides, then you will encounter those angry enough at the forced involvement to take a FU attitude and vote in favour of the transgressor. There is nothing democratic about being forced to take part.
Ask me to take part in a vote on the behaviour, I'll do so and uphold the community standards. Tell me I have to and I will take a screw you approach and vote contrary.
LOL.
Anyone who would act like that on a vote.....honestly, is an idiot.
anyone who would force someone to vote under pain of being turfed if you don't is likewise an idiot
Thanks for taking the time to write this up and express your thoughts.
How about an even simpler solution?
Set a max number of flags per day - to say... 4.
And... here's the tricky part.... set things up so you can't downvote more than you upvote. So before you can downvote something you have to upvote something. That should even out the trolling process a bit.
I'm not really in favour of shifting the problem of one idiot onto the rest of the community to manage - just stop the idiot from being an idiot.
My personal preference would be for all the voting / flagging bots to be gone. I write content for people to read, not for bots to read - no offence intended to any bots reading this.
I would rather get less votes (and yes less money) and know that the vote I got were from people who actually read what I wrote.
It is the bot capability that is the enabler of this behavior on the scale that it is, so remove that and you remove a bunch of the issues.
Set the requirement that they have to manually upvote content before they can downvote content, and it stops being so much fun for them.
For the rest of us, nothing much changes.
I agree with you that something needs to be done. But i think there are much simpler methods of dealing with this guy than requiring the whole community to vote on stuff. Especially if there are 100 or so of these bots running, and I have to vote on every one of them before I can post, why would I bother coming back? I'd spend all my time voting on what to do about bots, and then have to do the same thing again tomorrow because the guy we voted on yesterday created a new bot today.
Another more slightly draconian approach would be for Steemit.com - which is a website built on a blockchain not the blockchain itself so it can have centralized management, to delete the accounts of anyone trolling / flagging / bullying / abusing and put their money back into the resource pool.
It would be pretty simple to automate - if you flag more than 10 times in a row - you get automatically deleted. Simple.
Btw the comments here and the content of the article, it is not about THIS one account.
But this one account has exposed the issues, like I have been saying here and thus precedent has been set. Now we have to deal with it and look long term with internal set up/changes like we are saying here.
Nice to hear from you, thanks a lot for your time and ideas.
I understand what you are saying - that this account is one example of bad behavior. I think something along the lines i pointed out would work for other forms of bad behavior as well.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who think freedom of speech means they can say or do whatever they want. But I disagree.
This is not their sandpit - it belongs to Dan and Ned. If you want to come and play, you have to play nicely and by their rules, or you can bugger off and make your own sandpit.
The freedom you have is the freedom to engage with others respectfully, and the freedom to leave if you can't do that.
It's also worth pointing out that I / we also have rights - the right to not be bullied online. This is codified into laws around the world. just because Steemit lives on a blockchain doesn't mean the law doesn't apply.
And that's something the people behind these bots might want to think about.
Well said. Thank you.
I found out today that @asshole was living up to his name. You've got my vote to find him and beat him shiny... Maybe break a few digits. But if you can't do the physical fix, literally clobbering him unmercifully in front of his family, then do whatever nerd bot solution you need to to run him off the platform. Turnabout is fair play my friends. @asshole is on my spoon list for sure.
![Imgur](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://i.imgur.com/pu6UEMO.jpg)
Francis, nice to hear from you, the lore of which you live with daily being Francis Bacon lol
LOL
It's Franklin @barrydutton ; )
Francis is a distant relative.
My full name is Benjamin Franklin Bacon.
Here's my Declaration of Independence:
https://steemit.com/bitshares/@frankbacon/block-g0d-emperor-bacon-the-baron-of-that-blockchain-project