I've learned the hard way not to poke at the mean whales, having spent a week on bernie's auto-flagging bot. And all I did was ask a question. Not flagging or anything. Yeah, I was this close to leaving the platform, but I think there's more good than evil here.
The whole @haejin situation is not something we little fish can solve or even dent. The only thing we can try and do is aggressively encourage steemit inc to do something about the current state of things. And the sooner the better.
Sure, other people are cheating the system and earning way too much money while the hardworking majority see peanuts. Ironically enough, this is exactly the kind of economy blockchain technologies like steem are trying to defeat. And here we are, with our own oligarchs and scammers who end up sending life-threats to those of us who speak up (see @themarkymark).
Bottom line: don't waste your anger. We're here to share what we're passionate about and we can't fix the flaws in the system. That's what the witnesses and steemit inc are there for.
While I agree on everything you said, I am also an idealist, so I refuse to believe nothing can be done. If we, the little fish, let the whales play their game, without even raising our voice, then the platform is doomed. I will not stop posting stuff I am passionate about, but it does sadden me when this kind of abuse is possible on a "decentralized" blockchain.
We only need ~200 accounts with $1 votes to bring his rewards down to a (more) reasonable level - it is far from impossible. Here is our guide on how to flag from an anonymous sock account or through anon delegation to this account.
https://steemit.com/haejin/@steemlegion/steemlegion-help-take-down-haejin-without-fear-of-reprisal-anon-account-creation-and-delegation-tutorial
There would likely have to be a massive outcry of epic proportions from all us tiny fish collectively. But to whom? I don't begin to understand what goes on behind the scenes, who makes 'the big' decisions about how things work, but ... will it really change anything? I read Dan's post. Doesn't seem like there's anyone coming in with a magic wand.
The other thing you're dealing with is human nature, and it doesn't make a difference as to which platform you are on, you'll get the same personality types doing their same old personality type stuff - be that good people, aggressive people, or thieves.
The good people get sick of the taint so move on and for a while it is great, but then in sneak the others and you're back in the same situation just on a different site. I noticed this a lot on forums. Heck, we all know neighbourhoods have them IRL.
But don't lose you passion to change things for the better. You never know... :)
I know my attempts might be futile, but that does not mean we should stop trying. If we stop trying then we are under the tyranny of silence, which we orchestrated ourselves.
More than anything, this is a learning experience. Steemit is not the last platform to try and reward authors for contributions. Others will learn from it.
I didn't say nothing can be done. And we do need to raise our voice, just in a way that will MOVE things, not just fill the blockchain with posts like this one, you know? Yes, it's always sad to see people abuse an amazing ideal. It happened with communism, and it's happening with steemit. You can't plan an economic system without investing a lot of time and thought in dealing with its abusers. Our role is to poke the good whales and witnesses into fixing what is broken. Because we can't do it otherwise.
And I guess I am an idealist too. It's why I am still here after having bernie kick the life out of my post and comments for like a week. :)
Well this post is not just ranting and raving and not offering any solutions. The almost entire point of this post was that we need to solve this for the betterment of steemit and I also offered two solutions that might work.
Here's one I think might actually dent the issue:
https://steemit.com/haejin/@steemlegion/steemlegion-help-take-down-haejin-without-fear-of-reprisal-anon-account-creation-and-delegation-tutorial
You say we, but in truth there is little we minnows can DO aside from, well, aggressively inform. Not rant. Didn't say you were. In fact, would not have replied if I felt you did.
That was my point exactly. As you see I have been flagged into the dirt so there will be no informing from me.
I was flagged into the dirt. Ask anyone - it did NOT stop me from speaking out on Discord channels, in private conversations and in comments.
You are right. There are other ways. It just sucks that it cant be done on steemit. This is effectively a kind of censorship if someone who doesnt like my post, just makes it pretty much invisible.