The code or what text says you "can" do needs to be related to the affect it has on the community of actual people who make up the platform the code is there for.

There is a concentration of power that the community has not liked since the outset, but it has remained, as those who have the concentration of power (SP stakeholders) don't want to let go of that power and control. This concentration of power issue applies to the allocation of the majority of reward pool from what are called "whales" (the highest SP holders), as well as the self-appointed reward-police who selectively and inconsistently reverse reward allocation as they see fit.

Just because the majority of community doesn't have as much SP power, doesn't mean the majority of people should be disempowered from directing the platform, such as what features are good or bad like the concentration of power being used on the platform to do things certain people decide they can do.

If the large stakeholders of STEEM (49 people) continue to alienate the community at large, this project will implode. Steemit will not survive if the community remains disenfranchised and disillusioned.

Community vs. Code

The code can change according to the betterment of the community. Ignoring the issues in the community while simply following the tech/code because the tech/code says "you can do this" is not going to create a lasting platform as it ignores the community of real people that make up the platform and focuses on what the tech/code says is "allowed". What is allowed is to be determined by people/community that can change the tech/code rules to better serve the community rather than harm it. The tech/code isn't immutable from change or from being flawed or working incorrectly.

The community can recognize something is wrong and needs to change. The few powerful stakeholders alone can't decide to use tech/code/functions regardless of how it affects the community of larger users. If that's how things were run, then Steemit Inc. could take their @steemit account and do anything they wanted, change any code without care for how it affected the community.

But that's not how things are run for Steemit Inc., and they shouldn't be run this way for how stakeholders think they can just do whatever they want either just because "its in the code", or "it says it in the text here", or they "feel like it" and do whatever they want with no repercussions. The community is the one that is supposed to apply consequence to wrong behavior and force changes to the underlying code to improve how the platform functions, which isn't all about stakeholders. The platform is nothing without the community to use it.

Thinking according to "code = law" ignores what the behavior the code is promoting. The code dictates what people can or can't do, right or wrong, and then people do it right or wrong because they are only looking at "code = law".

Thinking according to community decisions to determine if behavior is acceptable looks at how the cold impersonal code as "law" is affecting the overall community.

Difference?

Notice the difference?

The code doesn't care about problems, and those who follow the code blindly as the "law" or "rules" that permit or allow behavior, are not looking at how the community is affected. The code comes first in many mindsets, and it says that "something" is allowed or not, so those who do certain behavior just keep doing it because the code allows it. Apparently, there is nothing wrong with their behavior if the "code = law" allows it. The "law" is blind and perfectly "just", it applies to everyone. Or does it? Not if certain individuals are applying it selectively and inconsistently. Then it's not "the law is blind" but the law is being used against some but not others who get a free pass for some reason.

A community is made up of people that can judge and respond to changes in behavior and how it affects the community. When bad code is allowing bad behavior, the community can decide to change it after recognizing the problem. They aren't simply blinded and restricted into "code = law therefore nothing wrong being done". Individuals and the community can judge wrong behavior, whereas code can't. Code is created by a person who is hopefully trying to prevent wrong behavior from being perpetuated on the community, but that doesn't always work out. The community discernment of what is happening from bad "code = law" is what can change the bad "code = law".

Adapt and Change to Correct Bad Code/Functionality

In a post yesterday by @dwinblood on decision paralysis, it ends with an important thing to understand:

I am fine with trying anything to make steemit better with the understanding that the things that don't work we all agree to stop doing once we've proven they don't work.

Flag Reasons and Changes

If something was not in the code before (or not in a text box saying you can do this because the text says you can), but then was added, it can also be removed. Things that don't work need to be stopped once demonstrated it doesn't work right. One such feature that was added in recent months, is the display text that simply says: "Disagreement on rewards". This says "you're allowed to remove rewards by flagging". Why? Who knows, you just make up the reason as you see fit... does that seem right to you?

• Thumbs up, likes and upvotes are automatically associated with a positive (+) anywhere online.
• Thumbs down, unlike, downvotes, and flags, automatically associated with a negative (-) anywhere online.

The standard flag reasons are:

Fraud or Plagiarism
Hate Speech or Internet Trolling
Intentional miscategorized content or Spam

This shows the negative reasons why a flag is used for something wrong done. The flag is a negative applied for doing something wrong. Is being rewarded by others negative or wrong? Who decides? 1 or 2 people?

Plagiarism isn't just someone deciding it's plagiarism because they say so. It can be detected. Spam is spam, usually posting irrelevant comments that have nothing to do with a post. Repeating information about an issue that people don't want to address is not spam. It's bringing up an issues that people need to be aware of, but that takes time. How do you think the abolition of slavery succeeded? By not repeating the same truth over and over for people to understand? No, repetition is required.

The flag has specific reasons and criteria that each have measures (measure of plagiarism to determine it is plagiarism, etc.). They aren't simply made-up by someone. If reasons are simply made up and not applied with any measurement or consistency, then abuse of the coded functionality and misflagging can occur. This is why a review of flags by the community needs to be implemented into Steemit because it's being applied willy-nilly by some who take it upon themselves to police the rewards on the whole platform. There is a reason they are doing this, as mentioned above, the concentration of power. Except, they are concentrating the power to remove rewards into the hands of one or two individuals, while the concentration of rewards is at least 30-40 people who can do it. The reward-police is an even greater issue from concentration of power. But both concentrations of power need to be addressed.

Too Much Rewards...

"Overrewarded" flags that apply a negative valuation on content, require a measure of its own, like the other criteria for flags that can be measured. If $100 is the criteria, then all posts above $100 are overrewarded, because it can be measured like a speeding ticket. Everyone over 100mph gets a ticket. But if some people get a ticket at 50mph while others can still go over a 100mph without a ticket, something is wrong. Something is broken. The police applying tickets are corrupted or abusing their power by ticketing some people at 50mph but letting others go faster.

Can anyone flag another for any reason? Yes. Does that make it right? No. Discernment and judgment need to be applied to flag. What is the criteria for the flag? What reason? When someone simply says "overrewarded" (you were speeding), but others get more rewards (speeding) yet don't get flagged (ticketed), then something is not being done right. Something is very wrong with the police. This inconsistent hypocrisy amounts to the abuse of power, and is corruption. Look up police corruption in giving tickets. Understand the flag-police are behaving corruptly despite their justification to the contrary. I showed the data earlier for how this is failing big time. It's a response to concentration of power in reward allocation, but they are just concentrating the power even more into their hands to remove rewards. Not cool.

If individuals can't see what they are doing, that doesn't mean other people can't see it. A community can stand against he corruption of the police and force them to change. The community is the one that is supposed to decide what happens in the community, not the corrupt police who are either acting ignorantly and don't understand they are being corrupt, or they know full well what they are doing. It's obvious for many who saw how some posts were being flagged but not others despite larger rewards.

The reward-police is currently a concentration of power in the hands of fewer whales (1-2) than the overall amount of whales there are that give out rewards. 20-50 whales can apply rewards to posts, but only 1 or 2 individuals have taken it upon themselves to be the reward-police and decide who can and can't get certain reward amounts, and they don't even apply it rationally or consistently.

The reward-police claim that they are doing this because things aren't fair when posts are voted on by whales that send the rewards too high. Yet they are only choosing some posts to cut rewards from, while leaving other posts at even higher rewards untouched.

You want proof? It's in the blockchain. I already showed this proof in part for a few posts in a 1-2 day period. Earlier today I posted some more data over a longer period of time: Payouts Over $50 vs. Flags Applied (Feb. 18-24)

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Raising some hell... Fight for what's right!

Why am I doing this? Why am I fighting against this? Because I care for what's right! I care for Steemit and the community. I see what's going on, and so do many others. I speak up against it, but am ignored along with the data presented by those who don't want to face what they are doing, and others are defending this behavior because they don't see the problem either. So I get more vitriolic and call out what they continue to do to silence the information getting out.

Some people justify this reward-policing because its "written on the site", and it's "in the code" because they are blinded by the "code = law" mentality. Some people have demonstrated this to me in voice chat and text chat.

I understand they may think they are doing "good" according to the "code = law so I'm allowed" mentality, but the behavior is damaging to the community, and many people see it. Some people are very familiar with how content generation platforms have failed in the past and have been sharing their experience of how a small group of people deciding to run things their own way goes against how it affects the community, and this leads to it's downfall.

• Repost & Reminder: The Rise and Fall of Digg.com, a lesson for Steemit
• Sunday Musings: Does Steemit have Kids Running with Scissors? No, WHALES running with FLAGS!

Do we want things to change? Or are we just going to keep marching onto more problems that are unresolved because we don't want to address them? Some of us are speaking up, and more people need to listen to what we're saying.

If the real reason the reward-police have formed is because of some content being rewarded more than others, where "rewards are blown up out disproportionately, staving out many other posts", then all posts above a certain reward amount need to be reduced to affect the redistribution of rewards they seek, but that is NOT what they are doing. Their behavior is not a solution at all. It just leaves some posts with more rewards untouched, while others that had less rewards get flagged for being allegedly "overrewarded". It's irrational, inconsistent and hypocritical. Look up the definitions of those words if you don't like them.

Solutions to Concentration of Power?

The real solution to some people being rewarded too much by whales, is to change how the voting on the platform work by giving the community more power to allocate the rewards to content. This is in contrast to just 20-50 whales allocating most of the rewards, and then 1-2 reward-police inconsistently applying reward "corrections" at their personal whims.

Here are some posts trying to address how the community can have the power to allocate rewards so that the whales aren't the ones who have the most weight to allocate rewards from the daily pool:

• Guardian of the steem universe: A different perspective on the role of whales within steem ecosystem
• Guardian of the steem universe : A different perspective on the role of whales within steem ecosystem [ part 2]
• My take on what happened to @karenmckersie

Some changes can be made, but the overall idea is what needs to be understood.

An alternative is to delegate the power to the majority of the community for the majority of people to determine how rewards are allocated, while the curation from that delegation of power goes to the SP holders who delegated it. If a whale did upvote, they could allocate more rewards, but the other posts wouldn't be as affected compared to now, since they would all be upvoted by the overall power being delegated to the community from all the larger SP accounts.

If removing rewards was called for, again, the community needs to be in charge of this, not 1, 2 or 40 large stake holder accounts.

Ideas are welcome. Make proposals on your blog page. Share and reblog them. Building Steemit on a solid foundation is required before building more on top of it. We aren't standing on solid ground. There are many issues and problems that show cracks in the foundation. Before trying to attract more people, issues need to be dealt with so we can have a proper foundation to build upon into the future

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Thank you for your time and attention! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.

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2017-02-27, 1:25pm