RE: A Great Reputation System. That's What We Need.
Networking is an essential form of value that can be brought to Steemit. Networks make the world go around, after all. I do believe creating algorithms and functions to make Steemit more "social network" and less "game of upvotes and chance" would be of net benefit to the value of the network.
However, I see a bit of a clash in the overall blockchain culture and that of regular 'social media'. Crypto has an air of anonymity and closed loops that seems at times hard to unify with the 'big data' side of social networking.
I hope we can find a balance between the two, that will allow optimum function of the network whilst still upholding basic privacy that many of us value.
Do you think this is inherent only to a crypto crowd, or perhaps something Steemit can finally do different where big data farms like Facebook and Twitter failed to protect privacy?
That's a good question and I'd like to write about this topic soon. Dan Larimer brought forward the topic of Openness vs Privacy some time ago in the Bitshares community. There is great value in an open network and I've been leaning in favor of Openness instead of Privacy despite being in the crypto community for some years now. Steemit is more about openness, especially when you consider the introductory posts. There may be a clash between open social networks and privacy, but the good thing is at least members are rewarded for their openness. The data is also not controlled by centralized entities. Those who want to remain private still can participate and do well. Those that are more open are likely to gain more financially at a cost of their privacy.
I think that the avenue of a reward for openness might be a good tradeoff.
It would be essential to make safeguards against such a reward in relation to abuse, though. As it stands, you can be 'open' without ever being open, by wearing the mask of somebody else and making bank off of THEIR identity being the one noted down in the book of the blockchain.
Generally speaking, how do you see the value of openness being greater than that of privacy? I can see a big case for community pillars and matters such as goodwill backed escrow, but what else would you see as a value-compounding effect of using 'real' identities?
I'll describe more about the benefits of openness in a bit more detail later, but being public naturally improves trust. A real identity is scarce and hence more valuable. When you are public your reputation is on the line. From one perspective you use your reputation as an escrow. Ultimately those that have the most power today have the most to hide. Governments. The Mafia. Intelligence Agencies. Secret Societies. The more open we are as a society and the more value we are able to create with an open society, the less incentives there are to continue maintaining secrecy. In the past and in certain countries you could be persecuted for having the wrong ideas so in certain places privacy is important, but in the Internet Age and in modern societies we have an opportunity to take full advantage of being open and public.
Hey Jun,
this is a bit off-topic, but as you mention the Bitshares community...
can you recommend any exceptionally good posts of material to catch up on everything about Bitshares?
and/or - if you HAVE been in the Bitshares community a while, I imagine you could do an excellent job in curating a piece that'd help newbies to Bitshares get up-to-speed with their developments and growth.
having just discovered Bitshares, I'm a bit intimidated by the amount of conversation that's gone on - seems like a whole rabbit hole of its own, WELL-worth diving into - but not sure where to start. It'd be great to have a resource that'd help new Steemians unfamiliar with Bitshares get up to date and clarify what it is, the growth its gone through, the potentials for its future - especially integrating with Steemit.
is there such a resource that already exists...?
Hey Rok,
Well for technical resources & whitepapers you can go to @xeroc's: bitshares.eu
If you have time you can listen to Fuzzy's past mumble sessions at Beyond Bitcoin or go to bitsharestalk.org and read some of the past posts. I think someone was working on a book more about the history of Bitshares and Stan gave a very good background here. Max Wright did a Bitshares 101 ebook. Where is that guy anyways? Things have changed quite a bit so there's a lot to weed through to get up to speed and get accurate info. If you want to chat just email me at: [email protected] and I can give you my perspective via Skype anytime. Glad to hear of your interest.
awesome. thanks mate.
exactly the type of direction/guidance I was hoping for.
looking forward to connecting & chatting. may be in touch in a couple weeks, as would like to digest some of this info first and get myself up-to-date so can come into the conversation better prepared.
thanks much! :-)
I think that some kind of "reputation system" would be a great idea in the steemit network, many may say that we have already something like that- it is called wallet.
But i don't agree,i think that we should get some "users feedback" on someone's profile, to know if that person is nice and kind to others, not only have big account over here.
If we're going to try to enforce "nice and kind" here, I'm out. That's why I gave up on reddit. I'm interested in truth and sometimes, no matter how hard one tries, the truth just isn't kind. I've been really disappointed at the lack of curation here lately and the direction that the site is going so I've been calling people on their BS, and sometimes, particularly when I'm out of weed, I just don't care to put the kid gloves on. I'm down with preventing gaming and spam but if the polite police show up here, this site will suck.
There is a balance that can be made. It's not necessary to go in to full-on troll mode. That is the kind of thing we don't want. I want the truth to prevail as well. Being nasty in order to tell others what you think the truth is doesn't do anyone any good. They turn off to the "truth" as you see it and then you've wasted everyone's time. Better for you to just write out your comment, bask in it's glory, then delete it. You get your catharsis and nobody else has to suffer.
On the flip side we need to be able to listen to critical views and not cry. Some of us are too sensitive, and need to harden our skin. Others are too invested in their ideas to be able to listen to contrary views and need to lighten up and not think that others have any valid opinions.
Anyway, this is a new community and thus we have the opportunity to shape it to some degree. Let's work on that while the system is still relatively small. A system for keeping the trolls at bay and to incentivize kindness, without being heavy-handed and without censoring is possible. Just letting the "free market" fix everything is a pipedream. The free market of ideas needs some level of molding. Not a lot, just enough.
This platform is already dead to me. I'm so disgusted by the ignorant stuff that the whales are upvoting, the quality of content that people are posting, the lack of discussion, and the general ignorance here that this will be my last comment/post. Best of luck trying to out engineer stupid. :)