STEEMIT Idea - SockPuppet Account Amnesty!
In steemit.chat (General) last night, @bacchist was being sickeningly modest about his extremely valuable work on the following post - Take Two. And... Action! Now, I do not wish to help cast a bad light upon any Whales in any way, as I believe, despite any possible problems the result of their curation efforts is the main thing we have to attract the wider Social Media world, enticing them to make the move to STEEMIT.
However, as the work of @bacchist (and company) reveals, the use of secondary accounts in this context is very harmful - more so now that it has been exposed. Something must be, and undoubtedly will be done about this, which is the reason I am writing this.
You see, STEEMIT both discourages the creation of secondary accounts in order that the gifting of STEEM at account creation time is not wasted; that this reward does not sit idle in the wallets of inactive accounts, opened but have not made any posts nor participated in curation - they are in fact a drain on the overall STEEM eco-system. On top of that we have a false number of total users - currently approximately 90 000 - I would venture to guess that a large proportion of these accounts are secondary .. tertiary, and so on.
Many people, well meaning members, have opened additional accounts thinking that there was some benefit. They did not realize how the economy works, and that efforts spread across multiple accounts, only harm results (unless of course you are an unethical Whale, sending rewards back to themselves via a sockpuppet). For these individuals I suggest they should have an option to aggregate their effort, and continue as intended by the design - being the individual who they are, which is what gives them the best chance at success on STEEMIT.
Instead of using some brute force method, based on arbitrary criteria, to determine which accounts need to be scrapped and which are legit, I suggest offering users an Amnesty Interface, by which they can name a secondary account they wish to cancelled and closed. Prior the closure, users will be allowed to name their primary account to which all the resources in the secondary will be transferred, prior to deletion, MINUS the starting funds deposited by the system at the time of account creation.
The exceptions to this of course are mining accounts, which should be able to keep what they came in with, because the account is not created until they are successfully rewarded for mining. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but AnonSTEEM accounts are also 'paid for' by the person initiating the account creation - if I am not wrong, these are basically renamed mining accounts, so they would be similarly exempt (???)
Users who has spent any time on STEEMIT quickly understand that multiple accounts are counter-productive, instead of "cleaning house", which will result in many unjust deletions, FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY allow users to amalgamate multiple accounts, thus increasing their STEEM Power / curation capability; this will allow them to focus on producing quality content and develop followings, which are the two best ways to achieve any success on STEEMIT.
.
I am no whale. I do have a second account @chaospoet. I use it when I want to post weird poetry. As you can see I am not abusing it or using it as a sock puppet. I could live without that account, but I do find it fun to have a novelty account where I only speak in weird poetry every so often.
I could also see it useful to have another account if I was creating a project for say steem dollar based video game and I needed an account to act as the SBD pool to fund that game.
So there are reasons I think for having additional accounts. The problem really is in transparency. Steem is pretty transparent, but who an account belongs to in reality is not. So do we go for the side of privacy and leave this anonymous or do we require registration and potentially threaten privacy and increase chance of stalker type situations that some people are already encountering?
EDIT: For clarity I hate the sock puppets and have been following the @mrron, @msgivings, and @honeyscribe type situation for some time. I first heard it from @klye, and then @bacchist, and then others.
I agree, for those with a purpose, who are transparent about it and who do not feel the additional account(s) are hurting them in any way, they should be allowed to carry on. I think I did not make it clear enough in the post that I wanted to avoid these folks being caught up in a purge, when they attempt to remove low-activity accounts based on strict criteria.
I just felt that giving people the option to combine and discard unused accounts would give them a boost, and clear up the database a bit. :)
Thanks for the comment @dwinblood .. I'll be following @chaospoet now as well! :)
Don't Forget Mining...that's one of the main reasons for multiple accounts
There may be an algorithmic answer to the @msgivings problem, but a solution could just be for one of the krackens to make a value call. There's no problem with uber-powerful whales fiddling with the price of Steem, so why can't they just "have a word" with the lesser whales who are abusing the system?
An authentication mass-measure should be implemented to verify humans, and close up most of these scammer accounts that exploit the system. I don't know how that would be done though.... hehe.
I think it is a good idea
appreciate the feedback - thanks
This would undermine the nature of SP as a long term investment. I think it would result in a more active secondary market for unwanted accounts (beyond that which already exists). I like the search for solutions, though. :)
Not sure what you mean .. if the account that one is amalgamating, is then deleted on the next fork. The SP is not lost, just transferred - it actually BOOSTS one's combined stake, if they happened to have earned anything with the secondary account.
Because the SP balance would essentially become transferable to other accounts, there will be more buying and selling of accounts for their SP. It gives an easy way out for people who don't want to honor the 2 year commitment.
Selling accounts still goes on, but this would take it to a new level.
There are mined accounts that are involved in sock puppetry to the tune of thousands and thousands of SBD and SP. I don't think it's a simple matter of preferring one type of account over another. There are also mined accounts that create other sock puppets, so again, it's difficult to try to regulate that behavior. If you can pull off a successful scheme because of anonymity and influence, there isn't much incentive to come clean and combine your accounts into a visible/transparent one.
If someone has a mining account that they no longer wish to have, they should have the ability to easily transfer all that is contained in the mining account, into their primary, and have the abandoned mining account deleted.
But this would undermine the system altogether. It's based on the fact that Steem Power cannot be easily combined into other accounts. That's supposed to be the deterrent for creating multiple accounts - because fully combining them and acquiring that SP for influence would effectively take two years to complete.
Well, the concept of Amnesty is a short-window of opportunity to make right past mistakes or oversights. It is not something that would be allowed indefinitely - just to clear up useless accounts, and put that SteemPower to work.