Surity Bonds - Decentralized Accountability for Actions that Harm Community
Steem suffers from a problem where rewards from voting abuse are privatized while the costs associated with the behavior are socialized. A sustainable system needs to have well balanced rules. For every negative action someone might take, the community must have an equally powerful reaction. Under the existing rules someone with Steem Power can use their voting behavior in ways that most people judge as negative. These could include:
- Rage Flagging to punish others / all of Steem
- Colluding with others to extract undeserved funds from reward pool without work
- Colluding with others to flag those who would draw attention to abuse
There is currently a very weak incentive to vote rationally: its impact on the future value of Steem. 99.9% of the user’s own less than .1% of the STEEM which means that 99.9% of the cost of their bad behavior is born by the community. Any residual cost born by the bad actor is often perceived as less than the emotional or economic benefit they derive from their behavior. Often times they can inflict more harm on others than it costs them. People are spiteful and will often "burn the place down" even if it harms themselves equally. The problem is exasperated by the fact that only those who post have anything to lose. A misbehaving voter who never posts takes no risk and cannot be countered by flagging. Some bad behavior yields a positive return on Steem Power by generating more income than the price of Steem falls.
There is a real tragedy of the commons here. If only one person misbehaves then it will have little impact on Steem as a whole, but if many people start misbehaving the aggregate effect can be greater than any individual. What is worse is that no individual feels personally responsible for the outcome because their own contribution was so "small".
We can mitigate these problems by giving those with voting power something to lose personally. There are two options for things they can lose:
- Voting Power (aka future influence)
- Steem Power (aka future influence and value of account)
Lets imagine a system where any user can file a complaint about another user’s behavior by submitting a post in the proper category. This post will be voted upon using the same process of all other posts. After 24 hours the post will have either a positive or negative payout. If the complaint has a positive payout, the filer is rewarded with the payout and the offending user’s Steem Power is negated by 10x the payout received by the filer. SP cannot go below the account creation fee.
Now that Steem Power has a 3 month power down period and the inflation rate of STEEM is low enough that speculators no longer need to hold Steem Power, we can make Steem Power into a bond. In exchange for taking a risk these bonds pay interest that should more than offset any small losses from offending the community.
I understand the problems you are trying to solve are serious, but your solution seems to me very much like nationalization / expropriation. I am not sure I want to punish bad behavior by seizing the bad actors' property (SP). I just want them to stop acting badly.
From this point of view it might be better to seize their voting power only. This way they will be unable to do more harm without expropriating their SP. If they don't want to improve their behavior, they can power down & sell. On the other hand if they do want to improve their behavior, they can power down & power up with a new account (still a form of punishment because of the unrealized possible profit).
We as a community don't want to look like thieves, we just want to make bad behavior uneconomic. Also we wanna be open to everybody and offer an opportunity for bad actors to improve. If we seize their SP after 1 incident, they don't have the opportunity to improve and their only option is to start complaining, shouting on every corner how bad Steem is..
That seems incredibly ripe for abuse.
How could it be abused? The abuser would have to risk their own SP. It would require everyone to passively support the abuse because if their was clear abuse most people would recognize it and stand up against it.
The only risk is the "lynch mob". A lynch mob could gang up on someone and take all of their SP. Those who are afraid of being lynched by the Steem Power Mob should not fund their bond (power up). This could have the down side of creating a self-reinforcing echo chamber.
Collectively the echo chamber has financial incentive to be tolerant and grow the user base. Anyone who acts in such a way to devalue STEEM will hurt their whole portfolio.
The problem of Lynch Mobs exists under the current system too.
I think you are asking people to always act rationally. They don't. If we put aside the first point and just look at these:
Those who have most to gain from doing the above are those with the highest SP balances. Using your reasoning these people are destroying the value of their own SP investment in the long term as people will move away from the platform.
As for the rage flagging issue I think the community can come together and act on that. I have myself (when hearing of it) gone back and upvoted posts that have suffered this kind of abuse. It might just be simpler to have some kind of formal appeals process to reverse flags and some kind of punishment such as loss of the ability to flag for those who abuse it. This could be incorporated into the blockchain.
I would guess the majority don't collude to harm, but a large minority might attempt it. If the majority is corrupt then it is game over.
Today we have a situation where a minority can harm the system.
I suppose through not voting for people who are bad actors and the reputation system and flagging - obviously it is not perfect, but neither is the proposed solution here.
I'm not saying we should not consider refinements - I'm just saying we need to be very careful that we don't just replace one potential problem with another one.
The whole idea of having a complaints system that is voted on seems to be asking for abuse. It might actually put certain people off joining, particularly if they are people who have attracted controversy or suffered online abuse in the past.
It also does nothing to deal with the bad actor who is intent on destruction and no longer cares for their investment in the platform - the "burn the house down scenario". It could be someone who is wealthy or just outright crazy, maybe a bit of both.
That said I am not someone who doesn't change his mind based on rational arguments in favour of something and it is not for me to impose my opinion on others (sorry if it might sometimes seem that way).
Anyway I know you won't make any decisions without careful thought and taking community opinion into account. Just wanted to add my thoughts - you probably understand these issues more than most of us.
The one thing you stated a whale could do is "not vote" on their stuff. That is doing nothing and presumes the abuse is from content of post.
Those who abuse without posting do so with impunity. Even if they did post they don't lose anything.
If the abuse of the system is bad enough "effecting 1% " or more of total Steem hardfork their steempower away. If it is a minor issue then we have bigger fish to fry @dantheman
If that were true then bigger whales would already be shutting down the problems in the current system that the OP suggested and we wouldn't need the change in the first place.
Like I said people don't always act rationally. We don't necessarily understand their motivations. Sometimes people (even whales) may be afraid of aggravating other whales or retaliation - or they might just want to avoid the drama. That pressure may be even greater when we are dealing with people who have power/celebrity in the real world.
Substituting one form of abuse for potentially another is not fruitful and I suspect in your position it is something that you are all too aware of when you came up with the ideas for the economy behind Steem/Steemit.
I suggest that @trevor.george may have a better means of dealing with some of these issues. I still need to think about it more but have a look and see what you think.
Thanks,
Arif.
How can whales shut down problems in current system?
I'm not saying we can't improve the situation. I just don't think the suggested solution would not be open to abuse in itself.
As we have often seen in online communities (and life in general) popularity and fame can trump logic or doing the right thing.
For example:
Let's say I am famous figure and I don't like someone. What is to stop me from filling a complaint post (which incidentally my own vote could give a head start to if I am whale) and then getting my followers to upvote it. You could destroy any criticism/rivals or enemies this way.
Add in things like curation trails and it could get out of hand very fast. Perhaps I am missing some important thing here (entirely possible) - if so please let me know.
That's exactly what I was alluding to, smaller users would be shut down by a fraudulent claim, lose their SP, and the only recourse is to hope that some whale or group of users bigger than the bully notice and take action to stop it. The bad actor or actors would also be able to create multitudes of complaint posts.
This system also assumes the bad actor isn't just trying to bring the whole system down.
Yeah, that could happen but others would cry foul and even bigger whales will shut it down.
Absolutely I wasn't saying that the current system is perfect.
solution.... user acquisition ?
Exactly and sometimes people can act destructively and burn their own house down (metaphorically).
This seems like a good idea at first but it could be abused too. I'm not sure the added complexities are worth the potential gain. Thank you for sharing though we need to keep thinking about how we can improve things.
Edit: Just to add. Those who act badly on the platform do ultimately lose anyway by depreciating the value of their SP. The ones most capable of gaming the voting system are the ones who have the most SP so in some ways it balances out anyway. That is not to say that people are always rational actors. Just because you are a whale it does not make you any wiser or economically intelligent than anyone else.
i agree, this is just another system that can be gained. i'm unconvinced the added complexity is warranted in this case.
What about the imbalance he points out in the current system?
The problem may be legitimate even if his solution has other problems.
I never really thought of it as a problem since most orca whales are founders or insiders with intentions of seeing the system succeed. Have there been instances of abuse that we know about, or is this more to shore up the system to reduce future vulnerabilities?
That can't be counted on in the future
true, it's possible some divest, but is this even an issue now, or just something highlighted as a potential issue?
Yes I think one of the problems with any system involving many humans interacting is that even a small change to fix something can introduce a whole other set of problems (some of them unforeseen).
Yup, and changes induce uncertainty themselves...best for the proposed change to reduce uncertainty/complexity, like the recent fork...perfect example of beneficial change.
Agreed.
"Lets solve the malicious voting/flagging issue with another voting system but this time let that voting system steal your Steem Power" bad idea
Ten times the amount as a penalty is a bit harsh. And you're also assuming the voting power of the community will always be used for good.
Can we make any other assumption? Bad behavior can go undetected for a short period of time, but if it really starts to impact the network the good guys show up to put it down.
I know I don't have time to pay attention to all the little issues. But if something becomes blatant then I will show up to vote.
What do you mean when you say bad behavior?
Can we make any other assumption. Yes, we can and we should.
I don't really see a system such as this being a huge help. I feel that growing the user base, building out new categories, and the passage of time will decentralize power slowly but surely.
I do think systems for disputing flags and abuse could be developed, but Steem Power should never be removed from an account.
Any penalty that may be imposed could be on future earnings only. All rewards would go toward clearing the negative judgement, forcing the user to work off their debt with positive posting & curation in order to resume growth of their own balance.
This is a terrible idea, IMO.
For one thing, winning a popularity contest doesn't make you right. And losing one doesn't make you wrong.
But even more fundamental is the idea that when you give someone a vote, its wrong to tell them how they can and can't use it. What type of voting behavior are you planning to criminalize? At the end of the day, youre trying to fine someone for using their vote in a way that you don't agree with. But it isnt your vote, and its not your (or anyone elses) say.
I don't like this.
I think voting in steem is designed badly. The incentive is so that bad behavior gets incentivized. Instead of creating a work around one needs to simply fix voting.
Voting is a right that was earned through the acquisition of steem power. As a result people should be able to vote on anything they like. But today you must either vote on what others like at the right time, or you will be financially pusnished.
its just bad design, fix that, don't create work arounds.
Every system is subject to abuse. We can only minimize but not totally eliminate. I hope that this post will generate more interest or ideas on how abusive behaviour can be penalized.