RE: The Politics of Negative Voting
Speaking of voting:
A. People shouldn't be allowed to Up-vote their own content, especially whales who can instantly push that content to the top of the /trending page in the category (tags) they posted it in.....AHEM! (Yes I am guilty of it myself so I am not a hypocrite)
B. Any system where a post gets 100 up-votes and is still under $5 Payout is inherently flawed, IMHO. Just look at my Post History and you will understand why I say that. If there are that many people who like the content it should be paid a reasonable and fare rate. Which brings me to my next point.
C. The current structure of Steemit and especially the Voting system means that no matter how good or desired your content is, if you do not get Whale votes you do not make jack diddly squat for your efforts. I have over 50 Blog Posts with less than a $5 payout, most of them with a metric butt ton of votes. This leads to the next comment...
D. Because of (C) there is a growing subculture in the Steemit Forums and Chat of Vote Swapping, Begging for Votes and so forth. Which sadly still leaves most posts not getting paid anything or very little....even the ones that are Quality Original Content and deserve to be rewarded.
E. All of the above have led to an environment where you have to suck up to Whales and convince them to "Feature" your article under their account to get any recognition. Which means they keep 100% of the Steem Power and you get 100% of the Steem Dollars. Now this, on the surface, seems well and good and beneficial to everyone but the problem lies in the fact that it actually does very little to help the "Featured Author" and leaves them still a Minnow no matter how many times they get "Featured" while the whale (who often features numerous writers) gets even bigger and fatter off of someone else's work.
*** Point is that while steemit.com is an amazing place that gets 90%+ of my freetime now the current voting/rewards system is going to be the downfall of steemit. As more and more whales get fatter and richer the minnows that are here are going to continue to grow disheartened and eventually leave. Additionally, any new members that arrive, with the hopes of making money on steemit are going to rapidly realize they don't stand a chance and move on as well. Without a constant influx of new users who contribute (and get a fair reward) new content steemit will not survive and will ultimately go the way of Digg/Slashdot in a few short years....if not sooner! ***
@dan @dantheman @ned I hope you guys see this comment.
Also check out this Suggestions post I just finished (revised edition)
@venuspcs you and I started on steemit around the same time. I believe we both started with steem power of 10.
I have made 1326 posts (most comments, replies, etc) and I now have 625 steem power and I've been here almost a month. I consider that a pretty good return. I haven't landed the massive posts, that pay big payouts. That is not solely why I am here.
You (whom I have been following since before following worked) have posted 558 posts on your @venuspcs account and yes you get a lot more votes than I do. I am actually fine with that. I up vote a lot of your stuff. You have been on the trending page at least once, if not several times, and you've had multiple posts break $1000. I think I cleared $300 on a post once. Sure the majority of your posts don't make much. ALL of them make something. I have posts that I worked hard on that made $0.00, and I have many well below $1. I am not complaining about that. I am making something in a field of endeavor where previously I made nothing (reddit, forums, etc). So your description is not entirely accurate based upon the numbers.
Though I will continue to follow your work as I enjoy quite a bit of your stuff.
Ultimately how much someone else is making on their post is not my concern. It is the fact that I do have the opportunity to make something. A vote worth $0.00 means something to me. A vote worth $0.01 means something to me. A vote worth $100.00 certainly excites me and makes me happy. Yet that is not what it is about.
If you look at how much you've made in a month with your now 4700 steem power, you asked us the other day if you should quit trucking. If you continue to do that well, you probably safely could, yet that is still your decision.
I post a lot... that doesn't mean people view the quality of my posts as being worthy of votes and money. I am long winded and opinionated. So are you, but your posts are a hell of a lot more amusing and entertaining than mine. :) So I think you deserve more money than me. That is my opinion. Guess what? It is working you've gone from 10 steem power to 4700 steem power in the same time I've gone from 10 to 625. Most of my earnings have been reinvested into steem power. I didn't really dig to see if that is also the case with you.
I am pretty satisfied with the system except for the negative perception that a big flag/down vote can have on the perceived earnings of a person simply because someone disagreed. I KNOW that the vast amount of the population will not understand that and it will be viewed as an attack. I'd like to see the steem platform grow, and I'd like to see it crush reddit, youtube, etc and tons of other steem blockchain apps, sites, etc born. It is a revolutionary moment. Yet perception DOES matter, so whether we think that people should be able to negate something and take perceived money away is acceptable or not DOES NOT change the perception of the masses. We have some opportunities. Do we leave it as it is and LIVE with that fact and take it as a mind changing, educational opportunity and just prepare for the "shit storm" (sorry was fitting) that will happen as more and more of the typical people join"? Or do we do something to make it work yet head off some of those perceptions? It is kind of a catch-22. If we educate people it will be harsh but would likely in the long term lead to a better world, if we "fix" it to promote PR better we grow the platform much faster yet we miss out on an educational mind awakening opportunity.
If the desire is to grow the platform fast then I'd say fix the issue with perception around funds. If the desire is to long term make the world better and we are willing to wade through the flak and take a bit longer getting there then you could leave it as it is.
I do not advocate redistribution, or nerfing the reason to accumulate steem power. Getting better payout is a big reason to increase steem power. Increasing steem power locks the funds into the system and makes then much slower to get at (reduces liquidity) but also protects the system from being killed by people suddenly pulling all of their funds. It makes it far more difficult for people to game the currency.
Thanks for the "NOVEL OF CONFIDENCE" you wrote.....in a comment....If your posts were as long and succinct as that comment you would be well ahead of me in SP by now.....oh and yes I reinvested most of what I made on Steemit into SP which is part of the reason why I am having trouble making up my mind if I can afford to quit driving a truck.
Thanks for the clarification. I truly appreciate it... and yes we were at the nesting limit, so quote and reply was all that remained.
I have a problem with being long winded. I also try to give people i comment to the benefit of getting the best reply to them I can think of at the time. Often that takes a bit of work. I respect you enough and consider you one of my friends on this place, so I felt you worthy of the best response I could come up with.
And yeah... it was friggin' long. You have your alternate accounts. I have mine in the form of @chaospoet and partially why I only speak in poem with that account is because it keeps me from rambling and typing these books to people. In the age of TL;DR I am very aware that most people likely skip totally past anything I write.
Apparently except for @dantheman you upvoted your initial response to my comment.....you got it dude!
(
You know what is funny. My blogs that do the best is when I am controversial. If it BLEEDS it LEADS. Perhaps that is partially why you do way better. You are way better at controversy than I am. :) not intended as an insult Thus, why I once commented on one of your posts that it was genius.
And that is the reason I word my response (above) the way I did....again sorry I wasn't trying to be a douche.....it just comes naturally!
My posts are longer. I am not belittling you, and even though I like you that does not mean I will not call "foul" if I see something that is not accurate. I've watched you rise and been pretty happy. I write this long and succinct all over the place, including my blogs. Thanks for the belittling though. I don't think it helps your case. :(
I wasn't belittling you, I was making light of the loooooong comment. I am, however, sorry if I gave you that impression.
Perhaps you'll like three replies rather than a long one. If you've been reinvesting then I'd wait until you know you'll have enough that if you powered down, or if you lived on just SBD rewards you'd be okay. Plus, since it is in beta we don't know what will happen. If they for example change the platform as you suggested in terms of payout you might suddenly actually be making less than you are now. So making an important life decision around this platform while it is in beta is pretty risky. :)
Ya think? LOL! :)
Hello,
Great post. Just let me add one thing. As of today or yesterday, there is a button for whales to scale down or up their vote. so i think this is a great feature, as whales can now vote on stuff, they didn't vote on in the past, as they didn't want to give a guy 200$, even they agreed. so but maybe the whale thinks, yes 20$ for that comment of post is OK for me.
and look at your comment i just up-voted it by 40cents. and its at 28.29$ that's pretty impressive !
I just send you 5 SBD, as i think your comments and your posts deserve more attention, but i could only up-vote you by 40 cents.
I like that at steemit, everybody is trying to help each others, and its not a 4chan or 2chan stye bashing of other users. so that was the reason i am giving out Steem$ to other authors, who didn't have the luck yet to have some bigger payouts.
love the sliding scale. a bit like goal nets and wheeled luggage,
it could have been baked in, instead of an upgrade.
never met such good blogging anywhere else as steemitn!
Yeah that is pretty cool. I am totally for people being able to decide how much of their potential they wish to commit.
Also thanks for sending me a tip. It is appreciated. I care about the community. I have not been negatively impacted by the system personally yet, but I do worry about some of the potential negative PR signals that are being sent. This is why I am so vocal.
In my opinion the money doesn't matter so much as that if you have something to say that is worth hearing, because people vote, more people get to see it, comment on it, and maybe even clarify errors you have made in it. The money side of it I think is auxillary, an incentive, certainly, but if it boils down to a popularity contest solely then it's a waste of time.
You are correct. Yet that is your opinion; one which I share. Yet we would like this thing to take off like wild fire and the number one complaints you will see revolve in one way or another around money. "They are paying that much for that crap!" "I had X dollars and someone flagged me and I only have Y", to even people doing quite well complaining that most of their posts are under $5 when I am fine with many of mine being zero and most under $1. :) PERCEPTIONS do matter if we want mainstream adoption. I have not personally been hit by the flag taking money issue. I've seen it happen quite a few times though and that is with pretty smart people on here at the moment. What happens when more and more of the status quo get on here. It literally will be a shit storm unless we deal with it before then while we are in beta and we all are the test subjects.
People who whine about what other people get are not usually very creative or productive people anyway. Or at least they are missing the point of the addition of money into this system, which is really about making people think more about how they throw their votes about, and creating an opportunity cost to mitigate moral hazard, which includes sheepish behaviour, spamming, plagiarizing, etc. 'put your money where your mouth is' in my opinion sums up the key thing about Steemit. Clicks are cheap. But when they cost you money, you think a bit more about it. The same thing should apply to flagging as well. It should definitely cost to flag, quite a lot.
Nice reference to catch-22, an amazing book. I am guess we each can each start shipping fruits and vegetables around...
Hehe... glad you liked it. It is so much shorter than "Between a rock and a hard place", or "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't". : ) It is similar to a shortened URL version of the concept. ;)
The feeling and vibe the book created can be conveyed as well. If you enjoyed Catch-22 you should read some Kurt Vonnegut his books are amazing.
To vote or not to vote. It is "out of the frying pan into the fire".
This I've witnessed before.
I've only been here a week, but I have noticed exactly the same problems. And I've seen what you're predicting play out on other sites that were similar to this, where authors were rewarded for content. I cannot tell you how quickly things can go sour and how quality content creators will abandon a platform at the drop of a hat once they recognize the game. Yes - right now, this platform is turning into a game for everyone...minnows to whales.
This is indeed a sad situation. I have even engaged in the chats for hours to try to drive some people to my posts with very little luck. I spent several hours writing original content accompanied by original photos for a two-part story. After almost a full day of trying to get any attention for them - because I believe that they are good quality - I ended up with about $0.50 for two posts. There were whales in the chats - but I couldn't even get a response there, let alone on either post. I even asked for just feedback, screw the votes...still nothing.
When good writers are begging to be seen and posts that are just a collection of commercial-use photos with a few sparse words thrown in are getting $1000+ each, there's something wrong with the voting - or more accurately, with the "whale" voting. Good writers shouldn't have to repeatedly beg to be seen, especially when whales are there and are ignoring them.
They already do leave. It's just not noticed because of how many more people sign up...and will inevitably follow suit. Active users were around 6,000 for the past week. How many user accounts are there? Over 60,000? People are signing up and either doing nothing or have already left. If the whales/bots keep skewing the trending content and ignoring actual quality original content, and those quality contributors continue having to beg for attention, this site is going to be left with Buzzfeed-type clickbait with no substance and various "celebrity" cliques, who will eventually abandon the platform anyway once the rewards dry up.
As a famous little presidential candidate once said (and this is paraphrased) - you'll just hear a giant sucking sound. That'll be everyone leaving who once cared about this platform's success but were drowned out by people only concerned with playing the rewards game for quick cash.
The whales have the largest share of responsibility for ensuring long-term viability of the platform and curating quality content, but from where I'm sitting, they're not currently living up to it. There are dolphins trying to help, but they seem to be getting continually undermined by the voting habits of the whales. The large power-downs might help, but it may not happen soon enough, especially while the whales still participate in their feedback loop of upvoting schemes (including their own posts/comments).
I decided to stop posting for a while when i realized no matter how good is my content, bots are up voting other authors. If you are not in the up vote list you get nothing. Efforts don't get well rewarded. Only networking. And i don't like it.
Too much focus is on the dollar payout when what it's really about is the reputation, the Steem Power, the followers. People getting voted down for earning too much Steem Dollars on a particular post? What is it really about? It's about reputation and Steem Power which is long term commit to Steemit as a platform.
When you get a lot of votes from minnows what matters is whether or not these votes translate into followers. Over time the power of their votes could rise and you might not have to rely on votes from whales to get a decent sized payout in Steem Dollars. But on the same token, Steem Power is what you want to track to see whether it's being transferred from whales to everyone else.
There might be temporary marketing value in having dollar payouts on public display but I think we should have a debate on the merits of that UX feature.