The Whale Downvote Experiment-- Some Perspective and the Value of Staying True to Yourself
Wow.
What a morning! There's no doubt the whole "Whale Downvote Experiment" currently running on Steemit is causing a lot of buzz.
Stacked rocks in the forest
A lot of people are understandably upset, often because they are unaware of what's happening, aside from seeing a bunch of flags (aka "downvotes") on their posts, for no reason they can figure out.
And it's definitely a shitty feeling, to have something you worked hard on be sent downwards towards (what feels like) oblivion.
So tempers are flaring in parts of the community, while others take more of a "wait and see" approach. I'm more in the latter camp.
Want some useful information?
If you're interested enough in trying to actually understand what's going on, here are a few moments of clarity I have found, on this morning's rounds.
First @fyrstikken made a video that makes about as much sense as any explanation I have seen, so far. Giving up a few minutes of your life to watch it might alleviate some of your frustrations... it did for me. Somewhat, anyway. So have a look at Explaining the Whale Fasting Experiment.
One of our blooming lilac bushes
Meanwhile, some people are just angry and get very busy with the business of pointing fingers and assigning blame and expressing their disgust.
Some are engaging in "countermeasures" by only posting spoof content... or mildly relevant and/or inappropriate rebuttals.
Some are refusing to post at all, which is-- of course-- their business, especially in this "freedom" and "non-censorship" community.
As I see it, it's not all gloom and doom, anyway. In fact, this post was partly inspired by @meesterboom's more positive take on the whole thing, from earlier today. Also worth a read: The Excitement of the whale experiment-- why we should get on board.
Also, for a little broader background, there's a new update post on @steemitblog with updates on the much discussed hardfork 17-- also worth a read: Update on Simplicity- cutting complexity with Steen 0.17.0.
Now, I invite you to consider this, as you think about all this...
When you get all fired up, are you keeping in mind that (a) this is just an experiment and (b) it's not "personal." It's about developing a more equitable rewards system, and has nothing to do with the quality of your individual content.
Flowering shrub in my parents' garden
As in, when you get these downvotes, it's not a statement about the quality of your content... it's a countermeasure to emulate what rewards would look like in an ocean without Whales. It's merely a whale upvote offset with a whale downvote... a zero-sum game. I realize that might be "cold comfort," but it helps me to keep that in mind.
Personally, I feel hopeful.
I was getting a little tired of seeing a handful of "featured" posts-- of very MIXED QUALITY, I might add-- earning $200.00 worth of rewards, while the vast majority of really good and well presented content might be earning $0.10.
As @krnel very vocally pointed out for several weeks (among other things), such a rewards system makes contributing more of a "lottery" than a system that rewards quality content.
Above that, though... and most important to remember:
STEEMIT IS IN BETA!
I realize many of you know what that means, many of you think you know what that means (but don't really), and some of you don't know at all.
Japanese maple leaves in fall
Short layman's version, though, it means that Steemit is in the "testing stage," where things are tried out and adopted (or not), bugs and kinks are worked out (removed), new features are considered and so on. It is a process (at least in software) that is done by a sampling of the intended end users.
It's a process that happens before a project is greenlighted for world wide release.
Also meaning that we're not "guaranteed" or "owed" anything... we're merely part of the early stages of the much GREATER "experiment" known as Steemit.
Of course we get to share our feedback (and hopefully it is heard), but we're not "entitled" to a damn thing, at the current state of development. Back in the dark ages (when I worked with some of this stuff in earlier incarnations of the IT industry) we also called it "User Acceptance Testing."
Yeah... but I got DOWNVOTED, and it was a really good post!!!
Now consider this: You could be over on Reddit getting flamed and abused by some know-it-all Redditor and for WHAT reward, exactly? Or you could be posting all your images to Instagram, in return for which you get WHAT, precisely? Or maybe you could be writing excellent articles on Medium, in return for which Medium rewards you with... WHAT, again? Or maybe you could have some vacuous debates with Facebook bubbleheads, for which Zuckerberg will give you... WHAT? Certainly not the level of intelligence and insight you get here... but maybe a chance to pay $20 to get your post "seen more."
It's not like we're dealing with life and death here. Sure, many have substantial investments in Steem so it's depressing to see the value of Steem decline... but clearly "doing nothing" hasn't worked so well, so maybe giving "doing SOMEthing" a chance would be prudent.
But enough about that!
All Communities have Growing Pains
From where I am sitting, it seems Steemit is having some growing pains. As far as I can tell, all communities have growing pains, whether they are virtual ones like this, or simply villages trying to become towns, or towns trying to become cities.
Rhododendron in bloom
I spent my college years-- and the next almost 20 years-- in Austin, Texas. When I arrived in 1981, it was a small sleepy college city of some 350,000 people. Today, it is the 11th largest city in the US and a sprawling metropolis of two million+, as a result of 35-odd years of being one of the fastest growing cities in the USA.
Growing pains? You bet!
Constant battles of the city council over what to do to improve infrastructure. Changes of zoning laws. I actually lived two streets over from the most pothole-y street in the city, but there was "no money" to fix it. Environmental concerns. A plethora of citizens action committees fighting for this cause and that. Business interests vs. citizens' interests. Growth proponents battling no-growth proponents.
My point being, growth is never a smooth and easy process.
And the basic human truth seems to this... people tend to want change, but they generally don't want to deal with the process (aka "price") of change.
Too bad, so sad-- one doesn't come without the other, unless you're living in some utopic fantasy that doesn't translate into functional reality.
Wild rose with a "passenger"
How does this affect ME, right now?
Well, whereas I find this "experiment" annoying and disruptive, I am still committed to the potential of Steemit. I plan to use all the Steem I make this month to Power Up on March 31st.
But I find myself pausing and wondering what to do, while this experiment is running.
Well, I'm not going to stop blogging. That makes no sense-- I have a sense of momentum, and feel like I am just getting back into the routine of writing. Stopping as some tangible statement of "protest" seems counterintuitive.
I'm not going to waste my time with "nonsense protest posts." I honor that some people want to do that, but I don't want that crap to become part of my timeline, in perpetuity.
So, what does that leave?
Flowers in our garden
Well, I could "continue, as if nothing is happening." That's a sort of OK solution, although I'll echo what a number of other active bloggers and content creators have said "It's a bit demoralizing to spend two hours writing and choosing photos, only to have your work downvoted by robots."
Which is what it is, by the way. These downvotes have NOTHING to do with the actual quality or worthiness of our posts... it's about shifting how rewards are distributed. Or not... time will tell.
So What's the Plan, Stan?
Anyway, the decision I finally arrived at is that this will be a good opportunity to simply write some "articles" and post them to the web, shifting to the mindset that-- for the time being-- Steemit is merely an "online hosting platform" where I can park content and send other people to read it.
Might not make any rewards for it, but then again, I wouldn't make any rewards by putting it on Medium, either. Here, at least, it becomes part of my current base of work.
White Nigella in bloom
So that's my plan, until further notice.
Heh... it'll be a little strange, to suddenly have posts where "number of views" outnumber "number of votes" by a factor of 5-to-1 or more... it's usually the other way around!
I guess I will be using this experiment time to conduct my OWN experiments in "web distribution" and social media effectiveness for promoting articles. The cool thing is, I'll still be posting "quality content," it'll just be formatted a little differently from my usual fare.
So, yeah, that's how I plan to "make lemonade" from the "lemons" that have been served to me by this little Steemit whale experiment.
By the Way, did you Notice?
Not saying there's a correlation, but has anyone noticed that the price of Steem is up over 20% in the last 24 hours, or basically since this little experiment broadly went into effect? And that the uptrend is on very heavy volume?
Could be a random coincidence, of course...
How about YOU? What-- if anything-- are you doing about the current "Whale Voting Experiments" going on? Posting normally? Withdrawing from the site? Buying Steem? Powering UP? Cashing out? Is it a good thing, a bad thing... or simply "a thing" that's to be expected in a projects that's being Beta tested? Leave a comment-- continue the discussion!
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
I understand it. That doesn't mean I agree with it or like the consequences it has produced.
"Congrats! You've built a reputation and gained a following! Now we're gonna downvote you because you got upvotes for doing too well in networking socially on the social network!"
It seems like a clumsy and ill conceived attempt at doing something that could be a worthwhile test to find a way to make this truly scaleable, if only it were done properly.
Sometimes it feels like the BIGGEST problem is that we have a "social" platform created by a bunch of developers and blockchainiacs who have no idea what it takes to run a "social" site... trying to interact with a bunch of social bloggers and content creators who have no idea of the functional implementation required to make a platform like this work, in the functional sense of the word.
You can't afford to ignore the human element or the incentives and implicit signals flags add to their decisions.
Yeah, I wrote about it, which kept me up well past my bedtime last night.
And as expected, I was flagged...but I was waiting for them so it didn't hurt as bad.
My contributions have not stopped. They will not stop until Steemit closes its doors. I'm committed to the site as much as ever and I am hopeful that we are moving in a positive direction.
Yes... I'm sure this has been flagged, too. Can't say as how I really care, one way or the other... this, too, shall pass.
Like you, I am committed to to the site as much now as ever... and I don't intend for this bit of bumpiness in the road to rain on the parade.
I don't have a problem with the experiment. Yet it is an uncontrolled experiment with some big flaws. I wrote a post about it a few minutes ago. If you are interested it says what I would say, without having to say it again.
Thanks-- I'll go check it out.
Very nice post, and check it out, I added five cents to it :)
Thank you! And there we go... some parts of this experiment ARE working: More of a voice for us little folks.
I noticed the uptick in the price of Steemit and I get really excited over experiments but was kind of saddened by the lack of organization and communication between the guys who ran the project and the lab rats (us). We aren't lab rats, we need to know what's going on so we can make correct choices.
I had fun today and really appreciate the positive and logical-reasonable critique posts. Best time I've had on Steemit in a long time.
I absolutely agree that it is very poorly organized... for me, it brings into question the whole viability issue of having a "decentralized" structure while trying to build a community. Some of the elements of centralized leadership... like meetings, resolutions, benchmarking and action plans... have real value when you're trying to get something done... around here, we just seem to have a whole bunch of well meaning but disorganized "independent agents" all trying to bring the community forward along whatever lines they believe in... at that moment.
From what I've read being decentralized doesn't mean being disorganized, no excuses. If the whales want their investment to grow they better get organized because from the samples I took today, there's a lot of pissed off sea denizens.
We need a message box on our settings page so everyone can be updated. No excuses for not keeping up to date on community events. For they rest of us, I've seen lots of organizations, community building, guilds, bots, chats by the fire. Maybe we need to reach out to the whales, poor things and bring them into our families. Lololol
That's actually a really good idea-- just an "Admin message" or "system update" box that pops up whenever something major is going on, being tested, or being changed, to let us know that something is in the works.
I hope the powers that be implement a messaging system soon!
I agree with you. Thanks for writing it all out in plain words :)
Two major things to underline:
Nuff said :)
Realistically speaking, Steemit is ALL a "giant experiment" as long as it is in Beta and not in full worldwide release. As such, nobody here has really been promised anything more than an "opportunity." So really, nobody here is "entitled" to any particular number of upvotes, or compensation. Taking an air of entitlement because a person has gotten used to getting $30 for their posts hardly makes sense... besides, it isn't a sustainable model, unless those posts are driving 10,000 new views (or something like that) to the site. I've been part of plenty of Beta (and some Alpha) projects... and sometimes (like this) things get royally effed up; that's just part of being an early adopter.
I'm entitled to the upvotes I earn. Flagging me (or anyone else) simply because someone else thought an upvote was "wrong" feels like an arbitrary tax on creativity.
As you alluded to in a comment above, we can't ignore the human factor. Half the time (or more) those "valuable" upvotes were cast by a bot that wouldn't know the difference between a hole in the ground and quality content... it simply establishes "content exists" and votes. That's the part that tends to bother me the most about this site...
I agree that upvote bots are not good for the Steemit ecosystem, but downvote bots are cancer.
I wrote a community encouragement post today, got 5 or more flags, with massive 10% flags/DV, by the TOP whales, - when 1% would have been fair..... it killed the rep score and payout, and I had a lot of time and thought into it but who cares, about encouraging content right that is then worth $1?
It was a failed experiment and these flags, with no start or end date, or announcement, are driving good people off here daily. Poorly thought out, at best.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@barrydutton/steemit-people-i-m-thankful-for-mindful-community-engagement-encouragement-e-1-march-12-2017
Yes this is whats happening to everyone !!! They are flagging the posts way below what the payouts would have been !!! Its in no way equal at all!! And everyone is tired of the crap !!! Son of satire and many more have stopped posting untill this stupid experiment ends !! Its killing the platform and newbies are leaving once again saying what a joke steemit is !!! 👍😊
You might want read this now....
https://steemit.com/steemit/@barrydutton/time-for-a-steemitstrike-by-content-creators-and-daily-users-who-actually-make-this-community-what-it-is-bring-your-harpoons-the
Thanks will check it out after dinner !👍
I stood my ground, and took a week off but for a couple posts only to Dan himself and related.
I am back. I don't chase money......or suck up to people in power. I am a principled person.
Have a good week my friend.
Nice to see you back ive only been on part time and ive been quite busy lately so not posting much , i might do a post later with our birthday cake etc . Its my sons birthday we usually celebrate and share a cake together , glad to see the price of steem up ! 👍😉
@barrydutton, off to check it out.
I always love hearing from you and every vote counts man, I always say that.
WE need to have a
#SteemitStrike
I said today. Organize it, stop posting for a week, watch the panic and collapse from all the so called stakeholders, and then they will see what matters...
Content creators and daily posters and community.... it is social media as a platform right afterall?
This "experiment" is chaotic and ill-conceived, to be sure. But at least it seems like something is being done... which (to me) seems preferable to "nothing being done."
You can also vote for witnesses at this time, maybe ones that do not play around with fellow steemians.
I did not give my consent to be experimented on. I expect to be treated like a free person.
I consider the 'experiment' to be nothing less than vandalism.