Jerry,
"In other words, it doesn't even make sense for me to even try and do anything about this, other than simply sharing it and making sure this is shown in the light."
This is a problem I've written about before. The only reasonably easy solution I see is implementing a separate downvoting power. The opportunity cost of flagging is otherwise just impossible to overcome, and the few who do it will be greatly punishing themselves, from a game-theory perspective.
"Extremely clever, you would have to essentially intentionally go to war on this one."
Well-put. It would require stalker-like obsession and would garner no reward. In fact, it would open one up to significant retaliation.
I think a big part of the idea of Steemit was to align economic incentives with community contributions. This is the baseline I think we want to work from to determine what abuse is as a community.
Perhaps mindhunter is simply looking at this like a game of Risk, but he's more serious than most of us. We're all just picking whatever country sounds fun or screwing around with Europe (which nobody ever controls completely for the bonus) - mindhunter's down there, quietly locking up Australia.
"I'm not saying this is right or wrong. "
I, too, am not eager to pass judgment for the reasons you highlighted above. Also, mindhunter has been nice to me and resteemed some of my posts. He replies to almost every comment. I happened to follow him very early because I did what you did - looked at steemwhales for active posters and followed them all and started reading/commenting.
Now, the tamim situations looks like abuse to me, but I'm not going to waste my voting power on flagging it. As it is, I'm already losing out to these authors because I am conforming to social norms, often at great effort. In fact, I've been flagged before for voting up my own comment for visibility (on my own article) with a link to part two of an article when everyone in the comments was asking for it (tax article that had $550 pending rewards at time).
If I was employing the systems these authors were using, I'd be making a ton more. That means I, and most of the rest of you on this platform, are losing out big-time by following the social norms. We either need to change, abandon, or enforce these social norms.
I'm not sure what the best option is.
All judgment aside, you've just revealed the fact two biggest earners on the platform right now are not even close to the two hardest workers on that platform.
It looks to me like you and @papa-pepper should be the top two earners on Steemit.
Jason that would be very nice to have a free downvoting flag to use because of the exact point you made.
As things are, we are fortunate that there are several whales who give so much in service that they are willing to downvote often hundreds of dollars instead of giving it to themselves. What I like about Steem is that it simply makes the world more transparent because we often are aware that the same inconsistencies exist in the world around us but it is easy to ignore with the cloaks of secrecy. Thank you for your kind feedback including me with @papa-pepper as those that work to contribute each day.
Happy to do it, Jerry. It's clear to anyone who takes a little time to look at you that you work very hard. You're too well known to make everyone happy all of the time, but I'm convinced of your honesty and intentions and will continue to defend you on those points when it comes up.
Unfortunately, since you are willing to be pretty honest about your thoughts, you end up taking some heat. Ironically, probably from people who have had those exact thoughts, but like to virtue-signal to the greater group that they have not.
For example, we all noticed that you could just self-vote yourself a bunch of money here each day, and most of us probably considered that as a "pro" for investing in Steem, if not as a main strategy at least as a "worst-case scenario". However, I still see people attack you for your early post on self-upvoting, despite you were just laying out the facts, as-is.
Kill the messenger, and all that.
Thank you Jason for your support today!
To earn that much you need to invest a lot of money. What's wrong with that if someone buy lot of STEEM to vote for himself? I'm leaving Steemit because people here do not understand that. Everyone thinks the price will rise only from themselves and without investors.
Which should be the reason for investing. To give you the money?
Well, you can invest in any coin as a bet on the price going up. Steem just happens to allow yourself to "mint" a bunch of new coins by upvoting yourself. If Steem becomes known as the coin you just buy to upvote yourself, then I think most of the reason for it existing will be gone, and we will all lose.
The community needs to take a hard line on this one way or the other, because half-measures only hurt the rule-abiding.
I am pretty sure that the financial manipulation factor has tainted Steem with the 'scamcoin' tag, from the research I have done. Particularly the early mined stakes in Steem, which remain today the largest stakes on the chain, since mining is no longer possible, and certain ploys were undertaken to ensure that those stakes were overwhelmingly large (including relaunching the chain when others mined competitive stakes).
99.9% of people will never be able to just buy enough stake to compete, and those that can are unlikely to be interested in doing so to promote uncensored social discourse, but rather focused on doing so to control the platform in a Sybil attack.
I believe you have seen and commented on my earlier posts on how to fix this problem (going from memory here, rather than taking the time to search for the actual data) and have found my proposal insuperable.
The code permits these rewards mining schemes @jerrybanfield has pointed out (and that I have discussed with @snowflake, and others regarding a flagging endeavor undertaken by @transisto, IIRC. In that conversation @snowflake admitted that @mindhunter was buying his upvotes, acting as a sort of one-man @randowhale, just for @mindhunter. Since the value of the upvotes does not come out of @snowflakes pocket, and selling them was more cryptic than self-votes, which draw flags, it's a profitable scheme for all concerned), and permitting this makes those early mined stakes possessed by those that control the witnesses presently worth $millions when a Sybil attack is undertaken.
Because of this I reckon the rest of us, who have no mined Steem, are powerless to affect the outcome. HF20, intended to dramatically increase the number of accounts on Steemit, will cause an upsurge in both the price of Steem, and the value of the platform to those with nominal wealth to mount a successful attack.
I expect we will see very soon after HF20 is implemented whether Steemit is a pump and dump scheme or not.
$Mx are at stake in those holdings that potentiate a Sybil attack, and for this reason I am confident in how they will proceed.
Remember that controlling the witnesses potentiates ending the 13 week power down (even to limit that exception to certain accounts), and the simplest agreement between the stakes currently in control of the witnesses (and @alexvan's comment points out just how easy it can be to influence the witnesses with cash) can enable them to simply take their buckets of cash and leave the platform to Zuckerberg, or whoever wants it, and has the money to buy it.
Edit: according to the white paper, the weighting of VP by SP was intended to allow whales to curate with greater control of the discourse on the platform, not to provide some kind of dividend to whales for their investment.
However, folks immediately understood that these rewards pool mines were possible, and this has caused many including the top witnesses with whom I have conversed, to become dedicated to the rewards mining, rather than curation, inherent in the VP weighting scheme.
While the white paper pays lip service to discouraging financial manipulation, one only has to look at politics to see that words can often hide intentions exactly the opposite of the meaning of the words.
This seems to be the case with Steemit and VP.
Thank you for this excellent comment. You have clearly done your research. I was remiss not to be following you, which I have corrected.
Your blog is very good and deserves more attention. I will try to point my Steemit friends and their "racks on racks" to this comment and your blog.
I attempted to locate your proposed solution that you mentioned I found impossible to implement. I am open to changing my mind in light of new information. Could you link me to it, or summarize it?
Thanks!
i don't get all this but i can tell its an important topic
Your reply is the kind that would be great to see get the big bucks. So much more quality than a"me too."
As someone trying to figure out who's worth following in the community, I appreciate your sharing of positive experiences. It'll be interesting to see how/if either's behavior changes now that a spotlight has been shown on what they are up to & what level of integrity they'll display.
Thank you for the kind words?