RE: LOW-LIFE DOWNVOTING MEMBERS
"If your business model relies on charging people for ZERO services, you are running a scam."
But isn't that exactly what Steemit is doing? What benefits (or services) do the vast majority of Steemit members gain from their investments? I would venture to say...Nothing! No other significant public forum requires members to invest money in the platform. True, you can get most of your money back, but only after waiting a total of 13 weeks, and only then if the value of your Steem investment does not drop significantly before you have a chance to trade or cash it in.
Is Steemit a a ponzi-scheme? Perhaps! Different people no doubt have different views on that.
Is Steemit a Scam? I believe that it is because the vast majority of members do not fully understand what the platform entails, primarily because that is not clearly explained for the layman to understand. Sure the facts may be embedded somewhere within Steemit's FAQs and so on, but as I am sure you will admit, they are not spelled out in plain for most to understand, and certainly not for those whose first language is not English.
Is Steemit an unethical business model? Absolutely! Most certainly! There may be no other platform like it, and I think that is for good reason. First of all, no honest person or company would ever develop a system like Steemit has done. It just would not happen! And secondly, it is simply not a sustainable business model. You can;t keep paying out money (no matter how small) without incoming revenue. Even Steemit has been forced to admit that with it's near bankruptcy last year, and the layoff of 70% of its staff, and other cost cutting measures, such as drastically reduced payouts and so on.
Permanent web hosting.
"Permanent web hosting."
Not at all! As long as the vast majority of Steemit members can have their posts downvoted and hidden, and their reputations ruined by a few slimballs, nothing is permanent. Steemit offers absolutely nothing of value to anyone except to a very select few at the top of the pyramid.
Even if your post is heavily downvoted and your rep is (-77), your posts can still be viewed.
Nobody can erase them, they're coded into the blockchain.
That may be true! But without a positive reputation and significant SP, your votes mean nothing, nor can you ever make even the smallest amount of money.
You can't make money with upvotes, but there are other ways to make steem-money. People run a lot of contests, photography, creative writing, that kind of stuff.
"You can't make money with upvotes, but there are other ways to make steem-money. People run a lot of contests, photography, creative writing, that kind of stuff."
None of those things will work under Steemit's current system design.
No capital investment is required.
No other significant public forum offers free permanent web hosting and 100%transparency (blockchain FTW!!).
Sure you can get downvoted, but you know who did it.
If you get flagged (insta-banned) on yo.tube or fa.cebuk or pa.ypal, you have ZERO recourse.
ZERO. You don't know who did it, you have no way of asking them, and you have nobody to request help from.
Oh please....
"No capital investment is required."
Sure there is! Without an investment in Steem, there is virtually nothing you can do on Steemit.
"No other significant public forum offers free permanent web hosting and 100%transparency (blockchain FTW!!)."
Neither does Steemit! "free permanent web hosting" is totally useless if you have zero reputation, and your posts and comments keep getting downvoted and hidden. That is not free web hosting! As for 100% transparency...So what? Knowing something is not a solution, nor is there any mechanism at Steemit to find and carry out a solution once the problem is known.
"Sure you can get downvoted, but you know who did it."
Knowing who did it makes little if any difference, as long as nothing is done about it, and they are allowed to continue downvoting, hiding posts, and ruining reputations.
"If you get flagged (insta-banned) on yo.tube or fa.cebuk or pa.ypal, you have ZERO recourse. ZERO. You don't know who did it, you have no way of asking them, and you have nobody to request help from."
And what recourse do the vast majority of members have on Steemit? ZERO!
Have all those members I listed who are engaged in little more than downvoting other members been removed from the Steemit platform? I didn't think so! So where is the recourse? There isn't any!
You can easily identify users with high-rep and post thoughtful comments to get their attention.
I've actually been very impressed with high-rep users responsiveness.
I've received several non-boilerplate replies from ura-soul, crypto.piotr, themarkymark, and even gooddream.
Socky and me-tarzan even gave me MASSIVE upvotes!
"You can easily identify users with high-rep and post thoughtful comments to get their attention."
Perhaps, but I find that even the most positive of comments rarely get votes from high-reputation authors. They simply do not engage in upvoting those with lower reputations than themselves.
"I've actually been very impressed with high-rep users responsiveness."
Then, congratulations! You are indeed the exception to the rule. As I stated above, it is very rare that higher reputation members will ever upvote those with lower reputations than themselves...very rare indeed. It simply does not happen very often.
Ok, maybe "easily" was a bit of an overstatement.
It's a roll-of-the-dice, but your odds are way better than any casino.
That's the beauty of the blockchain. Nobody can be banned. Nobody can stop you from sending or receiving direct transfers or delegations of steem.
Your bank can flag you and freeze your account (real cash-money-dollars) at any time and for any reason, they don't have to explain it to you and they don't even have to charge you with a crime.
Pa.ypal can also kick you off their platform (permanently, they have your ID) and freeze your funds for 6 months and nobody can even ask why.
"That's the beauty of the blockchain. Nobody can be banned."
No, there is no beauty in that! In fact, the fact that nobody can be banned is one of the biggest flaws with the Steemit platform. Without the ability to ban abusers, Steemit is turning into a cesspool of undesirable activities, not the least of which is all the porn that the system is attracting, all of which is a huge deterrent against finding new members, at least those with reputable standards.
"Your bank can flag you and freeze your account (real cash-money-dollars) at any time and for any reason, they don't have to explain it to you and they don't even have to charge you with a crime."
That is simply NOT true! There are many safeguards in place to prevent that from ever happening, at least with any kind of a reputable bank.
"Pa.ypal can also kick you off their platform (permanently, they have your ID) and freeze your funds for 6 months and nobody can even ask why."
I fully support PayPal and what it does...it is by far the most widely used and without exception, THE safest payment gateway on the planet, bar none.
"Your bank can flag you and freeze your account (real cash-money-dollars) at any time and for any reason, they don't have to explain it to you and they don't even have to charge you with a crime."
It is 100% true, I've seen it with my own eyes. And it was a "reputable bank" (if there even is such a thing) one of the "too-big-to-fail" banks. They cited the Bank Secrecy Act.
I couldn't pay rent or buy groceries or gas for two full weeks.
Put that on your list of things you'll never see in the MSM.
"Pa.ypal can also kick you off their platform (permanently, they have your ID) and freeze your funds for 6 months and nobody can even ask why."
They permanently ban people for no reason.
Pa.ypal is one of the biggest ponzi-schemes on the planet earth.
If you are currently using pa.ypal, I'd recommend exploring a backup-plan in case you get insta-banned with zero notice.
"They permanently ban people for no reason."
PayPal does not ban people for no reason! There is always a reason, and usually a good one, even though the PayPal member may not like the reason. This is something that I have been very closely involved with for almost 20 years. I have seen all kinds of complaints, and upon investigation, found that it was not quite as the complainer initially claimed.
From experience, I have found that there are always two sides to every story, but that it is somewhere in the middle that you will eventually find the truth.
"Pa.ypal is one of the biggest ponzi-schemes on the planet earth."
PayPal is not even remotely close to a ponzi-scheme by any stretch of the imagination.
"If you are currently using pa.ypal, I'd recommend exploring a backup-plan in case you get insta-banned with zero notice."
Thanks, but I'll remain with PayPal. After almost 20 years, and more than 150,000 transactions (both paying and receiving) with only a handful of very minor incidents, I can say with 100% certainty, that I fully trust the PayPal platform, much more so in fact than any other payment processor on the planet.
What would be your wish-list of key design features if you had the resources to design your own social-network with exchangeable value-tokens?
Build a system where...
Articles cannot be downvoted by others, regardless of reputation. Allow only upvoting of articles and comments. That way the articles with the most votes will truly be the best articles. As it now stands with Steemit, there is no correlation between an article's quality and the net votes it receives since downvoting by high-reputation members carry such a huge weight.
All votes carry equal weight. Votes of a higher-reputation members should not carry more weight than those of lower-reputation, simply because reputations on Steemit are bought rather than earned. That is a major flaw with the Steemit platform.
Curator payouts are equally divided among all curators, and not simply favor those with higher reputations and more steem power.
Porn is completely from the site, as does Google, Facebook, Instagram, Seeking Alpha, and all other reputable platforms. Allowing porn degrades any platform to the point where most members will simply abandon it. It's just a matter of time.
...there are many others I could give, but I think you can get the point form those. Steemit is simply not an enjoyable or desirable place to be, and will likely not survive much longer regardless of the success of the Steem blockchain or Steem coins.
What enforcement mechanism would you propose?
"What enforcement mechanism would you propose?"
The same mechanisms that other platforms use: A combination of bots and member flagging/reporting, and of course the ability to actually remove the post, NOT just hide it.
How is flagging superior to downvoting?
I've had pages get flagged by competitors for the sole purpose of sabotaging me.
Even big yo.utubers complain about getting demonetized (even temporarily can be a big deal if it keeps you off the trending and recommended lists) by bogus flags.
"How is flagging superior to downvoting?"
Downvoting has an effect on member reputations, and can actually cause articles to be semi-hidden.
Flagging on the other hand would have no effect on the member's reputation or the status of the article itself, until such time as a neutral body reviewed the article to see if in fact should be removed. If the post was in fact against stated terms and conditions, then removal of it would take place, and with perhaps a warning sent to the offending member. Perhaps after 3 such warnings, the offending account would be terminated.
There it is. Where can we find one of these mythical "neutral bodies"?
Articles cannot be downvoted by others, regardless of reputation (sounds good but we need some enforcement mechanism to remove scams and illicit material).
All votes carry equal weight (this should be a no-brainer, but we would need some sort of automated "proof-of-brain" and protection against people controlling hoards of sock-puppets).
Curator payouts are equally divided among all curators (lowering the minimum payout to 0.001 steem and removing the "timing" bonus would fix this).
Good ideas!
"but we need some enforcement mechanism to remove scams and illicit material"
Yes, we would need the ability to actually remove posts, not just hide them.
"but we would need some sort of automated "proof-of-brain" and protection against people controlling hoards of sock-puppets)"
That could be accomplished by limiting the number of votes any member can make within a given time period, and perhaps even start charging steem to menbers who go over a certain limit. It would also be a good idea to limit memberships to only 1 per person. This can be easily accomplished in a number of ways, such as through the tracking of IP addresses, Google 2FA Authentication, and so on.
"but we need some enforcement mechanism to remove scams and illicit material"
Who would make such a decision? And how would you mitigate the damage potential of a "rogue mod"?
I heard an interview with a fa.cebuk flag-checker recently, they were paid a fractional wage and worked from the Philippines. They said that they were so overworked and borderline traumatized from viewing all the horrendous flagged content, and under pressure to review 1000 flags a day, that they ended up just clicking "denied" repeatedly on all their cases.
"Who would make such a decision? And how would you mitigate the damage potential of a "rogue mod"?"
Such decisions are easy to make (by anyone) if the parameters for violations are clearly defined. First of all, rogue mods would be quickly terminated once a pattern of abuse becomes evident, then to mitigate the damage from a rogue mod, compensate the victim in some manner, perhaps at the expense of the offending mod. Secondly, if the bots are programmed properly, there would be almost no need for mods in the first place. Both Google and Facebook have incredibly sophisticated systems for identifying and removing posts which violate their terms of service. i.e. When was the last time you saw porn on Google or Facebook? Rarely, if ever does such posts get past their respective bots. Of course, I realize that few if any platforms, can possibly expect to match the sophisticated systems utilized by Google or Facebook, but if the desire is there, it can be vastly improved over what it is now.
Yeah, but that New Zealand shooter, "subscribe to pootiepie" video took them several days to clear out... AND they're literally rollin' in cash-money-dollars.
Yo.utube BY ITSELF is raking in more profit than either VIACOM or COMCAST.
What are your "clearly defined violations"?
4 minute story about fa.cebook moderators
"What are your "clearly defined violations"?"
Virtually anything that you want to include in your terms of service, provided that it does not violate some existing law. i.e. You can't set up a public forum, and restrict members from certain ethnic or religious backgrounds from participating. That being said however, I think it's rather clear that many of the forums do that exact thing, but of course, you will not find it in their terms of service.
This is a non-trivial problem.
Many users have access to hundreds of machines with unique ips and have the scripting resources to automate nearly undetectable sock-puppets.
The one thing they can't fake is steem. So, under the current system, they can't amplify their vote with multiple accounts (well, except for the free steem delegation and (25) rep that each new account automatically gets, which is sort of a problem of its own).
"Many users have access to hundreds of machines with unique ips and have the scripting resources to automate nearly undetectable sock-puppets."
Nothing is "undetectable" if you have the right software and skilled programmers to do the job. Take cellphones for example. They all have not only unique phone numbers but also unique IMEI numbers. It is therefore near impossible to setup multiple accounts using a single SIM phone, and even less so, if you were to require 2FA such as Google Authenticator.
The same can be done with desktop PCs or laptops. All you would need is software which detected both the user's IP address and the computer's hard-drive's serial number, and then match those to the member's account. Any attempt to login without this match, would be denied until such time as the user could show that he either changed computers or service providers. Once he did that, the new matching info would be recorded in his account, and the old info deleted.
Some people have access to hundreds of computers with unique ips and unique hard-drive serial numbers.
Yes, you can reduce the number of accounts operating from one computer (hypothetically anyway), but that's not what I'm talking about.
"Some people have access to hundreds of computers with unique ips and unique hard-drive serial numbers."
While that may be true, I'm not sure that such people would waste their time on Steemit (or any other forum for that matter), especially for the very small gains they would realize from their investment and effort.