The troll downvote issue.
I've been listening to SteemSpeak Radio and one of the talkers brought up that most of the trending topics have at least one flag.
And this is true. If we look at the trending posts. Most have a few flags. And I've run across downvoters before who have said that they are purposefully downvoting articles. One said it was to limit the amount of money others were making.
I don't know why anyone would want to purposefully downvote articles for no reason. Certainly there are legitimate reasons to downvote articles. Like if the article violates the T&C of steemit. But to just downvote articles for the sole reason of downvoting them is absurd.
How do we deal with the problem?
I have several ideas that could possibly work in order to deal with downtrolls.
- Set a time limit on when a person joins and when they can downvote. We could simply not show the downvote flag for members who newly join.
- We can base downvoting privileges on a users reputation score. Again not show the downvote flag until a person has a certain reputation.
- And lastly. Make the downvote cost steem power. If you want to downvote an article. It will cost you some steem power to do so.
So there you have it. I invite the community to comment upon the ideas. If you have a even better idea than the ones I have given please let us know. Hopefully we can come to a consensus on how we should move forward to and make steemit even better for all.
Thanks.
I like the last suggetion you mention about it costing someone steem power.
Would work for me
Remember those kids that got all excited at the idea of the Hall Monitor at school. They grew up, now they admin, monitor and do other things to gain a simple feeling of power.
I was flagged for a comment where I disagreed with someone. He wanted my comment to drop and it did.
As a minnow, my downflag doesn't mean much. However, I have a limited about of times I can click flag our upvote. Maybe the two things should consume equal power.
I feel the pain. I have trolls on my Youtube videos who sign up for notifications just to give me a thumbsdown. I could make a video with puppies who cure cancer and the troll would still give it a thumbsdown. I guess those people are universal and are the crabs in the bucket.
The good news there are a lot more people who are positive and supportive then trolls.
I really like your ideas, I would also like to add that you can vote someones negative comments away. So if a troll gets on to do nothing but leave hate filled messages Steem will just make all their stuff invisible.
I don't think I would pay to flag a plagiarized post. Most of the time I just leave a comment, but I have flagged a little (not that my vote has much impact). If we vote on blogs without reading comments first, we might not see a comment about plagiarism. If I notice a flag, I look in comments to try to figure out the reason for the flag.
I think to flag we should have to check a box giving the reason, with everyone able to see those reasons. Not liking the point of view of someone else should not be a reason to flag. I've seen people with a lot of steem power and reputation using flagging in ways that seem abusive to me, and I'm not sure how your first two solutions would prevent that.
Check boxes would certainly help newbies understand flagging a little better. I have been bumbling around the last few weeks trying to figure everything out, and I don't think I'm the only one.
The issue of flags to limit cash payout on a post is, I think, part of the larger hot issue of how to fairly compensate participants, and I think what to do about all the ways people are gaming the system has to be part of that. Another issue is the impact of voting for celebrities not because a particular post is that good but because they are celebrities with lots of followers, which can benefit the platform--perhaps--but leaves a lot of people disgruntled.
@grey580 I'm not sure where downvoting has gotten to.
However a user didn't like one of my comment so he goes and down votes 4 of my comments in other posts that had earnings.
If I was being childish I'd go down vote his. But votes are hard enough to get as plankton / minnow. People coming from other media (YT or FB) are used to doing downvotes but now there is a REAL $$ cost involved. And there seems to be no dispute resolution system either?
If steem are planning to bring users over from other systems this needs a fix ASAP in my view.
@ned
flag power depends on steem power, so as long as whale don't flag you its meaningless. If newbie flags trending post it drops by 0.02$ or close.