RE: A Possible Cure For Steem?
Let us also remember that when we had 40 votes each, it was also "pre-linear" days... as in voting weight was ^2. So someone with 20 SP would have 400 voting power, while someone with double at 40 SP would have 1600 voting power... which skewed influence very strongly in terms of those with a lot of SP, while minnow were little more than "dust."
As for self-voting, there was a proposal floated some months back to add to the base code to address the "abusive" part by simply having self-upvotes drain your voting power MUCH faster than votes for others. It was something like your first self-upvote was at full power, but a second one would drain 20% from your power, the next one would drain another 30% and so on. The counter argument was that people would just create more multiple accounts.
It's always tricky... when there's money involved, people start behaving badly. Even when it's possible to profit from behaving well.
Yes, I remember all that. It's not easy to devise a system that is fool-proof. I liked the idea of draining your vote-power for self-voting, but it still doesn't address the fact that newcomers are still dust and absolutely need to have a dolphin or whale show them some love. As more and more people join up, the competition for the attention of someone with lots of VP becomes fiercer and fiercer. This leads to attempting to 'game' the system or leave in frustration. Neither is good for the platform. However, if everyone drops 25 cents per vote, there is no longer that competition for the attention of a whale and everyone feels like they have an equivalent chance as everyone else. Lots of votes is how to make good rewards and that means growing your audience with good content. I realize that someone with 1,000 accounts can still 'game' that system too, but that is going on now anyway, so it won't make things worse. What it will do is give more hope and a feeling of inclusiveness to the newcomers. Some other solution needs to be thought up in order to stop the multiple accounts problem.
Solutions won't be found over night, but if we keep brain-storming, we may be able to improve things bit by bit. I think its also important to keep the long-range goals out in the open so that new people will see those goals and understand what they need to do to achieve those goals and what actions will hamper those goals.