RE: Extensive stats comparison pre-HF19 and post-HF19
"...you can make more money by voting on your own low value comments than voting on top quality content."
Herein lies the big problem: different people have different tastes. I might like to come online and see people making funny text-messages back-and-forth, with emojis & quick, one-liner responses. Another person might be blind, so cares nothing about graphics & layout; they want to read a long, thoughtful article. Another person likes to watch music videos, and other people like news & politics.
WHAT YOU, OR ANYONE ELSE CONSIDERS TO BE "VALUABLE" OR "GOOD CONTENT" IS YOUR OWN OPINION. DO WE ALL NEED YOUR APPROVAL NOW, BEFORE MAKING A POST OR A COMMENT? WHO'S APPROVAL DO WE NEED TO GET? WHO MAKES THE RULES OR LAYS DOWN THE GUIDELINES?
SteemIt is much like a Direct Democracy. In fact, it is an extremely rare form of government that few people actually feel comfortable living within - because they are used to having people like you tell them what they should think is valuable or what has no value.
(I'm playing "devils' advocate here, so don't take any of this personally.) Your assertion that short comments and self upvoting are to be considered as "low value" is your own opinion - and I think that, in certain cases, a short answer could be the perfect answer.
In other words, I could have not written any of the above content and just said,
"Nice opinion. Please don't tell me that I should conform my system of values to your own set of values."
Are you a financial advisor? Are you telling me how I should be distributing my money & giving it away to other people? Is there something wrong with me saving up my own money to provide for my family? Is self-interest "bad?" Is it immoral for people to look after taking care of their own needs, first?
Better question: What gives you the right to tell other people how they should be using their money?
Would it be best for me to give away everything to the "poor" on SteemIt? Then, what if I were unable to take care of myself - because I gave everything away, and didn't save any money for myself? Is that good?
You might want SteemIt to be a place for rewarding top-quality content creators. I might want SteemIt to be a place where I can grow my own savings account. SteemIt is actually a big enough place for the both of us, and then some.
Good post. Upvoted & Resteemed.
You make some interesting points @bi5sh0p.
Indeed, we all have our own opinions about that.
Outside that question-- at least for me-- comes the greater "story arc," namely how do my actions now contribute to (or not) the building and survival of the community, in the long run. I'm less concerned about having an objective standard for "quality content" than being able to answer the question "what type of content is most likely to help ensure there is still a solid Steemit community for ALL of us, 5 years, 10 years from now?"
Now, I suppose if that's my primary objective... my next question to you would be "Do YOU care whether there is still a Steemit, 6 months, 2 years, or 10 years from now?" if your answer is "no," perhaps our objectives are too different to work towards a consensus... if your answer is "yes," my follow-up question would be "would you change your approach to content to whatever serves the survival of the community, rather than purely what puts money in your pocket next week?"
The reason I phrase it like that is because it seems to me a lot of the disagreements about "content" and "value" on Steemit are really about time horizons; immediate vs. long term.
Using SteemIt as a savings account would mean I would take a longer term view of wanting to know how to best preserve the platform. I frequently cite the phrase, "The turtle wins the race," when posting comments on people's money posts, or where they are asking questions.
The things about cryptos is that they attract short-term speculators like flies to $#!t. Really, I think that it is "much ado, about nothing" - because whether you take short term profits or hang onto your tokens for the long-term - both sets of people are going to lose and make money, based upon sound investing strategies. Namely, when to take profits - and when not to. When to buy more of something, and when not to. Overall, cryptos are going to be booming this next decade - IMHO. Blockchain is a complete game-changer for worldwide currency & transactions. It's here to stay. Short-term speculators and long-term holders are also here to stay. One group should recognize the existence of the other type of crypto-buyer, and learn how best to deal with them - because it takes all types to make the world go around.
Every big social media platform is forced to deal with the phenomenon of internet trolls. They come with the territory. Blockchains like SteemIt have whales and voters to determine our future course. It would seem that any Hard Forks could be problematic - in that they sometimes seem to produce unintended consequences. This is a question and problem for mature code-writers to deal with, ultimately. The community can talk all day about what they think they would like in a hard fork - but actually programming it & achieving the intended results... well, that's a bit more problematic - I would think.
I don't disagree with what you're describing at all. But some of the truly abusive self voting occurring involves a user making a post that simply says "test," followed by 100 comments with no more content than the numbers 1-100. Then they just go through and upvote everything as a means of "mining" Steem. I don't think there can be any label for this other than low value content, and I'm in favor of flagging it as it's against the spirit, intent, and long term health of the platform. This is very different from short replies, memes and emojis which I believe will be much more rewarded as short form versions of Steemit, such as Steepshot and Zapple fully launch.
On your second point that people are free to use their stake as they see fit, I also agree completely. But I extend that unconditionally to the act of flagging as well. If mining via self voting is valid, flagging those posts is equally permissible.
Good point about flagging. That's exactly why SteemIt is so awesome - we can all participate in shaping the community in ways we like, or don't like. For example, I flaggged some post that was promoting Islam the other day - because I think it is a bad idea and promotes things which are detrimental to individual freedoms. However, some rich Saudi prince could come by and "punish" me for having done that. I could cry foul all day long - but I would have brought it on myself.