WHALE DOWNVOTING AS A MEANS TO EMPOWER MINNOWS AND DOLPHINS – IS IT WORKING?
Whale Downvotes (flags) hurt, but can they help?
Trust me, I was not impressed with the idea when it first came out, but I do believe that the goal is honorable. I’ve been getting my fair share of whale downvotes too, and the initial feeling is usually the same.
Should I just quit?
With delight and excitement, we watch our post payouts increase (when the posts aren’t completely missed). Many of us think, “Yes, finally a nice payout!” Then, suddenly, there is a drastic decrease. Why? Most often, a whale has chosen to downvote your post.
According to @smooth, who is at least kind enough to leave comments:
A downvote was applied to partially counter earlier whale votes as an experiment to reduce whale domination of voting influence. Not intended to express an opinion on the content nor result in a net reduction of rewards or reputation (automated notice)
Recently, I had a very original video I posted of baby Red-Bellied Snakes emerging from the sacs that they are born in. This is the type of stuff that you normally only see on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel, but this was my own video that I filmed of the process. I’m guessing that few people have ever seen this in real life, much less filmed and shared it.
When that post crept over a $20 payout, I thought that was appropriate. Then @abit came along with a downvote and it dropped to just over $5, which is still not a terrible payout.
The message that @abit left stated the following along with a link:
Downvoted to counteract the upvotes from bots and other whales.
More info here: https://steemit.com/test/@abit/whales-no-up-voting-test
Yes, it hurts, but could it possibly be working? Here is the only evidence that I have.
When my approximately 25,000 Steem Power gives an upvote by itself, the maximum payout of that vote alone has never been worth more than a cent. If I upvoted a comment of yours at 100%, it will usually automatically go up to 1 cent, and then eventually be followed by a stream of votes that follow mine which do not increase the value.
Today, however, for the first time ever, when I voted first on my own post, it went up 2 cents.
2 CENTS!
Whether or not this is due to the downvoting that is occurring by whales or not, I can only speculate, but, it has never happened before this.
That particular post even climbed up over $10 in potential payout, and now has dropped to less than $1, also due to @abit.
Trust me, being able to have my vote be worth 2 cents rather than 1 cent doesn’t make up for losing $20 worth of post payout, but it may be a sign of things to come.
I’m not sure if this will pass, but perhaps it’ll be wise to save excellent posts for a time when excellent payouts are allowed… that’s just my 2 cents.
The automated explanations of the downvote are bullshit. I am seeing posts that have zero whale upvotes being downvoted by these "experimenters". And they have not defined the terms or parameters of their "experiment" so there is no useful data to be gleaned from all the turmoil they are fomenting.
They are trying to counteract a supposed over influence by some whales by an arbitrary and non-useful "experiment" that cannot produce accurate and useful data but can create enormous turmoil in the community.
The arrogance of their automated downvoting is stupefying and would be laughable if it were not causing such harm. Valuable contributions to our platform are being harmed and users are becoming disillusioned.
Downvoting requires conscious deliberation in order to not cause far more harm than good.
Yeah, @smooth was doing personal comments back when the votes were manual, but the whole thing is definitely playing with a lot of people's feelings right now. Thanks @marginal!
Not one of my downvotes has been on a post with zero whale upvotes. I can't speak for others but in my case that simply did not happen.
You are lying...I had no whale votes and you down voted all my blogs yesterday!
@smooth
I'm not lying, I just looked at one of your blog posts and it had whale votes.
@smooth
And the one worth $95.40 that you did not down vote, didn't...?
Not intended but there may be some occasional bot down time for upgrade or other glitches. Congratulations on your windfall I guess.
Here's one right here:
https://steemit.com/bitshares/@testz/youtube-bitshares-hangout-11-w-christopher-hering-and-fuzzy
That post was upvoted by summon and wang, both whale accounts, before my downvote, and my downvote at 2% was less than their upvotes (in fact less than half)
Lol, this really would've gone better if people knew what the fuck was happening...but I think I've caught up--This about right? https://steemit.com/life/@dreemit/to-everyone-who-is-not-a-whale-let-s-see-if-we-can-t-get-something-from-this-experiment-read-on
its a great experiment, especially if you earn 15 SBD then abit comes to fight whales, and bring u down to 3! even though u had just 1 whale who gave u 3 SBD and rest was cummulatie of other votes.
An interesting experiment indeed, and, to be honest, my downvoted posts still make more than a lot of users. Hopefully they will get some of that!
The experiment has a double edged sword.
The first test is to see the effect of dolphin-minnow voting unhindered by whales.
But the second test which I feel might be hidden beneath the first (but actually the one they also care about some what) is a test on the authors.
It is a bit extreme but I think that part of the experiment is to see whether those who get downvoted continue to produce content. Remember, the whole point of the experiment is to give minnows and dolphins more power. It is not so much a reduction of payout since we know that the total payout remains the same regardless. Rather, it is an opportunity for those with less SP than the whales to wield a little more influence.
I think this can be seen two ways. The positive way is that authors should acknowledge that they still have the same opportunity as anyone else to receive votes. And for once, it'll be less skewed by whale votes.
The negative view, is that large stakeholders are testing authors to see their commitment to the platform regardless of payouts. Which in my opinion is not a problem, but only indicative of design that doesn't facilitate natural human behaviour or natural motivations.
Right, we will see how many authors (whether minnows or better) go ballistic over this. I try to give others the benefit of the doubt, hope for the best, and encourage others to do likewise, regardless, but we will see what happens.
Thanks @sweetsssj!
I think the experiment was not carried out in the best way. People who publish quality content like you are highly affected.
I hope this has good results for the community at the end of the road.
Me too, I'm willing to "suffer" temporarily in order to benefit others in the long-term, so we will have to see if a benefit actually comes. Perhaps the whales could have just restricted their upvotes to 25% or something else instead... as that would have made a difference.
Even at 25% (for the larger whales at least) it is still massively more powerful than other users and completely dominates the influence over rewards. In fact many whales (especially those running bots) do often vote at 25% or lower so that wouldn't have been much change at all.
Good point, 25% of a million is far more than 10,000... so I get your point. A whale vote strike would have made a difference though, right? Anyway, hope this works!
being an automated experiment across the the entire platform is now showing it's value as a great experiment, the longer it lasts the better it will show results, at least a few weeks would be great, with some tweeking over time
Sure, it's been a relatively short time so far and already I've seen evidence of a change. Though it can be painful at times, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for your positive feedback @craig-grant!
There should be no pain if is for the good of the platform! I enjoyed your post and also @abit's post and I think it will be better if there will not be bots anymore! Cheers @papa-pepper!
Thanks @the-future!
No problem! Thank you for this great post!
Yes I'm of the same mind that this experimental phase may be beneficial but I don't think us minnows should risk great pictures/videos/thoughts during this uncertain time.
I enjoyed your two cents!
Thanks, and I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It seems that some things we have to share are very rare and potentially worth something here on steemit, but now may not be the best time to post them.
I'm in complete agreement. In fact, I'm going to stop sharing my herp posts with pictures until this is over, since so far they've garnered the most money for me.
I'm having fun thinking of all the other posts I'm going to make. I have a lot of random thoughts, and I think this will be the best time to let loose some of them into the wider world :)
When you do post them, spread them out too, rather than dumping a whole bunch of good material in one post. I like making a series out of them when I can.
Thanks for the tip. You've been on here much longer than I - how many posts per day is ideal?
4 or less. I usually try for one in the morning and one at night, but, last I knew posting over 4 times in 24 hours would reduce payouts too, so perhaps it's still good to keep that in mind. Also, don't sacrifice quality for quantity. Be consistently excellent!
Same here I'm with you man! I was rooting for you & I both to receive this nice payout. Yours especially as that was so fascinating to see such creatures born in the wild.
@abit(ch) had the nerve to call me a 'WHALE'. Wow! I've been complaining for the longest about not receiving rewards and NEVER received this much and was truly hoping to enjoy this payment ;(
I mean they took most of the rewards leaving me with $2+ what tha!!!!!!
https://steemit.com/family/@tradz/mulligan-fun-f0r-the-family
THIS is the reason why I was not liking(and still don't) the idea of this childish-ish. Why can't I enjoy this nice payout@least this one time and to top it off, I now have to wait longer for the payout?
What is going on here??????????????
Yeah, that's the toughest part... when someone finally gets a nice payout and then POOF it's gone. I'll upvote that one for you anyway!
tHX al0t I appreciate that I really do. Made me feel a bit better and funny how you posted this topic before me lol
I was going to link them to people who had more money in their accounts than me, who received their rewards.
This really did drain me out. All the excitement I had telling my family I finally made it to a decent level then this happens. Why do I suddenly feel like a looser when I know I'm n0t:(
I truly do enjoy your posts and hope to see more despite this chaos :(
I don't think that I'll be able to compromise my efforts into this platform, regardless of the actions of others. Glad that you enjoy my posts, and I won't be making them lame as an attempt to avoid getting good payouts, whatever happens!
Not you are the whale but the one who voted on your post.
It should be the other way around. We small timers should be the ones to downvote them, not the WHALEs downvoting us?
I don't think they could do it in another way. Maybe they hoped that most of the whales will agree on stop voting, but not that happened. I think there should be more, replied communication before all of this, because it seems most of the users don't get what happens.
I don't think the experiment is working. They underestimated how many dolphins and minnows have lent their votes to the projects like curie or steemvoter. That leaves very few other people who are voting independently.
Take a look at the front page or the trending - I think the quality has gotten worse.
Also, I love tea, and even started growing my own! In fact, some people even call me "Mr. T" because I drink so much of it! LOL!
Good point about all of those who have lent their SP to voting trails. That was another effort to combat with whales ruling steemit. I'm not involved as much with voting trails, so I had forgotten that part! Thanks @teatree!
That means it is working . We are finding what front page would look like absent whales. Still as I posted here we actually have to keep up the expirement until the bots are changed so that they are no longer front running whales.
That's very interesting... However, I don't agree with down voting for the sake of experiment at another users expense. Down votes should be reserved for poor content! If you're putting out good content, unless someone genuinely perceives your content as unoriginal, or just plan bad...there should be no down vote and you should not suffer the consequence of reducing your post payouts that you probably deserve! just my .0002 cents ;)
I completely know the feeling, but with the freedom to upvote however one chooses also comes the freedom to downvote however one chooses. Opinions about the purpose and requirements for downvotes will vary, but as long as people are able to exercise their freedom, they will do it in different ways... we will see what happens! Thanks @jaybird!
Ya I understand what you mean, and, also somewhat the point of the experiment being discussed. It just kinda sucks that someone who is generally putting out good stuff get's targeted. Isn't the point of this platform to reward users for putting out good content? Not penalizing them for it...
Right, I know what you're saying.
@jaybird
Exactly
I have noticed that my upvote is worth more. I noticed again just now voting for this post. It will be interesting to see how much minnow and dolphin votes turn out to be worth and what the trending page looks like. I am being a little more careful with my vote now!
Proper stewardship of votes is important, and it is nice to see it increasing in power, isn't it @richardcrill?
Thanks man!
Definitely. With more power, comes more responsibility.
yeah like mo m0ney m0 problems huh