Too Much Fluff: flagging and Steemit - What does the community think about my flagging habits?
I will flag posts in the hot or trending sections that I feel have earned more than they are worth to me. Does the community agree with this practice? How to maximize valuable content on the trending pages?
I agree with @berniesanders regarding flagging this continued upvoting of absolute fluff.
After becoming more active in my flagging habits, (I have recently powered up a significant portion of my Steem holdings and thus stake in the community) I have noticed users taking a harsh feeling to my utilization of the downvote feature. I want to stand by my flagging as an effort to maintain the influence I am entitled to as a stakeholder of the network. For as long as I continue this practice, I will keep a disclaimer in my profile. I argue all users need to vote in their best interests: a front page full of objectively valuable content. If you see these mindless blurbs making good money, don't strive to imitate or let them sit at the top of trending. Make good content. Use your voice.
A picture and a few sentences advertising a new cryptocurrency do not deserve more than a few cents, therefore I use my influence accordingly.
Steemit makes it clear that flagging is for disagreement on rewards; they even go so far to make it the top bullet in the flag popup. That said, the community seems to have split opinions on the utilization of the flag. I want to know your opinions on how this feature should be used/changed to ensure more quality posts stay on trending. - comment!
towards a realistic social economy
Steemit is a network where participants need to realize the influence their stake gives them. Users should be encouraged to exercise their influence; feelings need to be set aside, money is involved now. Users need to expect the community to act selfishly. If this is a community you wish to remain in, your selfish interests lie in voting posts that are valuable. Less valuable posts generating large rewards dilute and devalue your earnings.
Users need to be more comfortable with their "tweets" only earning fractions of a cent. This will be the reality of the large social economy that steem could become - is striving for. This is not to say that all short posts are worthless, there are plenty of tweets I feel could have been worth hundreds. The takeaway is those were needles in the haystack as far as volume goes. Those tweets would only be valuable because they were 1 cent funny to millions of users.
Eventually, this realistic social economy will result in Facebook-worthy posts likely making just barely enough to pay for the protocol infrastructure required to host your "steem-update" in a decentralized manner. Automation on the client side could enable the simple act of loading your post able to generate these tiny fractional rewards. Keep in mind you were not making any money on Facebook, also they own your data.
the need for tips
If I am not going to be using flags, I want to advocate for an addition to the Steemit site that hopefully can keep quality content at the top for longer: Tips.
This should be implemented in a way similar to live-streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch, where your explicit monetary contribution to a creator grants them visibility as well as the reward. This feature will become increasingly important to sustain small but talented creators. I am aware any user can easily tip using steem but an explicit, client representation is needed.
It might even be worthwhile to add a new section to sort posts by most user tips. Sometimes if you want good content, you have to pay for it.
Hopeful for some input. Stay decentralized,
-Kyle
I have been thinking about this a lot lately and trying to read about opinions on the matter. This is the best article and comments I have seen. Thank you all for the discussion.
I have been staying away from downvotes so as to not get retaliated upon. I also find it hard to wrap my mind around reducing value that others place on a thing. If they vote, they find value. Who am I to reduce that value?
Your points give me something to think about concerning curation towards the value of this site, which I have a reasonably significant stake in.
All that said, I recently down voted one comment due to what I thought was no source on a graphic, and then was wrong so I corrected it. I'm very concerned about taking money out of someone's pocket without a really good reason, and then I see that I could be wrong.
Of course, I really do want this site to be the best...
Thank you so much for your post, I haven't see you around much until late, great content - welcome to steem. This is certainly an issue that I have been struggling with.
I have already seen this happen to me and I have reserved my flags as of late to the really low value posts... I am okay with the lottery for the short term.
I think this a very natural and honestly, agreeable point. The problem is, here on steem - it is your duty/right to use your stake in the platform to influence payouts how you see fit. You have the stake, no one can question your vote, you own part of this community. You take a much more nuanced stance than most members - stay thinking!
Thanks! I'm a late comer. I only started a couple of months ago.
Sometimes I wonder if I think well, but I know I think a lot!
That's okay because I tend to think good. Haha.
I'm late to the party too - I missed the early days of steem due to my skepticism and unfounded blockchain maximalism.
I was really sceptical about Steemit last year. It just sounded too good to be true, but now I think I understand why that happened.
I have long thought that blockchain tech will be best when everyone has one (maybe not quite).
Well I had some issues with the way the steem blockchain was launched and I stayed away. Those issues were largely unfounded as of late.
My 2 cents,
You don't have enough Steem Power to make a difference when you downvote. When you do it the rewards get spread across all the other posts and not necessarily the content that you may support.
You would be much better off upvoting other content. At least that way you may earn curation rewards and bump up the stuff that you like.
If you down-vote a post as a matter of principal then you have every right to do so.
IMO, I have plenty of Steem Power to make a difference. I use my Power heavily, my opinion doesn't happen to be worth dollars.
Mathematically with a small vote you're doing much more by downvoting posts with large rewards than upvoting others (which may or may not have large rewards), due to the r^2 system. The argument of 'how much difference you make' favours voting on posts with large payouts, whether up or down.
I agree that is true with the current rewards curve.
Do it !
there is no right or wrong, good or bad content, until curators evaluate it.
but keep in mind. flagging has a massiv impact.
You are aiming at very sensitive parameters.
As things will turn emotional, it will be a big task for steemit as a platform to define the feature of flagging in the best interest.
This account (mostly) stays away from flagging for now.
this will change at some point.
For now, the amount of upvotes is already an easy and good parameter to
classify the quality of content.
I would argue that flagging has the same impact as regular upvoting. Sure, every vote we make on this platform is messing with "sensitive parameters".
That said, I agree upvotes are a good metric of quality content. The issues I'm having center around "fluff" content earning large rewards. Even if by principle, I will continue flagging.
as i said. do it.
there is nothing wrong with flagging and it is even better to honestly discuss your intentions !
the difference between upvote and downvote is the like difference between
praise and punishment.
They don't have the same impact even if they seem to be opponents.
You can't measure occurring emotional reactions this way.
So you felt the desire to justify and discuss your flagging habits.
Praising is easy and very understandable, while punishment mostly triggers some emotional and confusing mechanisms.
I would actually argue that praise is the same as punishment. Even if they are "pointed in opposite directions". I have to say I am going to ignore emotions, money is on the table now.
if you look at it from a rational persperctive, they are.
You can understand them as binary possibilities.
But you will see the outcome is not binary explainable.
humans mostly don't react objectively.
Valid points. You can think of my outlook as indifferent to the individual outcomes. The human outcomes are mostly non-important, at least as long as they are not bringing the value of the community down.
Since we have no fees in Steem, you can pseudonymously tip yourself at no cost to yourself. It would be easy to detect this happening cyclically, but even without cycles this would be a very easy system to cheat.
This actually does raise an important point. The Sybil tipping attack would be interesting. This would most likely be a layer on the steemit front-end where tips show up in colors on the side of the post or something. How the tips influence the PageRank will definitely need to take into account the tip Sybil attack you mention.
I'm alright with downvotes / flags, as they're just anti-upvotes that people give out. Personally I've always been treating Steemit as a blackbox. It just dispenses rewards from collective action..
But that said, I found a pretty compelling argument against the implementation of flags as they are:-
https://steemit.com/post-irony/@thecastle/re-coincentrado-re-thecastle-re-coincentrado-re-thecastle-re-coincentrado-re-thecastle-re-coincentrado-re-kevinwong-banking-on-honesty-transparency-responsibility-20170428t172435904z
I understood that you flagged me because of the reward disagreement. I knew it from the start. I support your move but it's the wrong way to go at it at this point. Here's why I think you shouldn't do it at this point. It will only attract bad attention to you. The problem is in the reward curve. If whales would band to no only stop voting but to really police worthy from unworthy content then we could see a positive impact. This is my take on it. You're free to do whatever you please.
The reward curve is only part of a very complicated equation. The problem is bots and inactive wales. It happened to me, there is not always great content at the top so I find myself going to other sites very often. With all these posts promoting scams and blatant ripoff content earning spots all over the trending pages; quality blogs / insights / news ends up with rewards centered around a few accounts.
A big problem with some of these accounts is the curation economics encourage actors to actively upvote these fluff posts based on the Shilling point that others will as well. The cycle continues.
I agree that some of the larger stakeholders like @berniesanders should take a more active role in policing the blockchain but who knows, maybe they like scamcoins and advertisements.
Personally I only consider using flags for something that violates humanity. I simply do not vote on things that do not interest me. I instead try to promote content with steem dollars that I think should be seen. If the community supports people that provide good original content then eventually it will prevail.
Does promoting content give it more visibility on the normal trending and hot pages? I thought it just went to the rank on the trending page. If my time on reddit has shown me anything it is no sane person ever browses the promoted pages.
From what I understand it figures into the votes, comments and views
Most people do not look at the promoted page like I do, so call me crazy
I've taken a peak over there before but it was bitconnect and more spam IMO.
You can just compare regular trending content on steemit to a more mature social media site and see Steemit has a way to go. I am sure the issue will be resolved with code in the future. The constant chick with food post and how great steemit is post trending will eventually go away. Communities will be a game changer
I agree.
Love your flag <3
Flaggin on steemit is identical to 'demonetization' on Youtube.
How so? Demonetized content on YouTube was done so by a single party: Google. A flag is not demonetization, it is simply stakeholders in the decenteralized platform using their stake to influence steem payouts based on their value to the voter. Everyone has the right to flag, the ammount that flag is worth is proportional to their stake in the platform. YouTube demonetization is very diferent than a flag. Steem is designed to allow the community to come to a sort of stake-weighted consensus on how payouts should be.
Can you elaborate? Because the two are very, very diferent.
the effects are the same.
one person, be it a whale or the central committee of you tube can demonetize a post.
.223s and .357s are 'very different' too...but if you get shot by one you're still hurtin for certin.