Why is the Steem Price Low? How Do We Fix It?
Will you please read this post if you care about the future of Steem because what we see here is the most important issue we are currently facing for Steem? If we seriously hope for our blockchain to continue to grow in value and to continue to attract more investors, more authors and more users, we either need to take care of this in the next hard fork or sell today before the price goes to $0.
Why is the Steem Price So Low + How Can We Fix It?
The simple reason the price is so low is that the demand to buy Steem is much less than the supply from sellers willing to take any price for it. While we cannot fix most individual issues related to why Steem is bought and sold, we can make one change that will remove a huge reason that investors sell Steem and authors stop posting on Steem.
Flagging Rewards = Millions of Steem Sold = Lower Price
When we imagine Steem with just one feature having been removed, I estimate that the value of Steem today would be closer to $10 instead of a $1 if in the previous hardfork we had made one relatively small change. If we expect Steem to ever consistently grow in value and in daily users, the time is now at a bare minimum to test removal of the ability to remove rewards from a post by flagging.
Blockchain Downvoting = Blockchain Censorship
I am very grateful Steemit Inc just made the following post on their blog named Censorship: Why All Blockchain Projects Should Join Steem (especially Status) because it highlights the vision for Steem (a censorship free blockchain community) versus the reality (a heavily censored blockchain community).
Of course, even if we didn’t want you, there’s nothing we could do to keep you from posting and even earning STEEM!
Part of this is true and the other part is a complete lie. While technically no one can stop you from posting, tens of thousands of people can stop your posts from being visible and from earning Steem unless you stick to a very particular format while following the laws in the USA. In fact, Steemit Inc is delegating millions of Steem power to a project that systematically downvotes mostly new authors trying to get started on Steem while failing to downvote any of the most obvious abuses. While this is rationalized as "being there to protect the rewards pool" the obvious reality is missed that one's idea of a post unworthy of earning rewards is based largely on culture.
Most Authors Start with Crap and Get Better.
On top of that, most people's early creative efforts are crap which then gets called spam and gets downvoted here. My first (and some would argue recent) videos online were ways to say the f word. My first website was incredibly ugly. My first blog posts were bad. The first posts I made on Facebook were crap. If we do not allow authors to start with crap and still earn rewards, we are killing off almost all of the seeds that would later grow into valuable contributions.
That said, Steemit Inc's delegation to a project downvoting mostly minnows collectively for hundreds of dollars a day is the tip of the iceberg. Several big Steem power holders spend the majority of their time "killing accounts" and trying to shut up authors like me that post anything potentially disagreeable. YouTube offers way less censorship than Steem does today because only YouTube can remove earnings while anyone with Steem power can go take money away from anyone else.
My last stand up comedy video on Steem was a perfect test case here to demonstrate that censorship is alive and well on Steem. This censorship is ruining the potential of our blockchain for investors and authors. The price today makes that clear and it is time to stop blaming it on the Bitcoin price and start considering what we can do about it.
Downvoted Investors + Authors Eventually Sell Everything
Our authors and investors collectively have sold millions of Steem instead of buying millions more Steem and powering it up because of relatively small downvotes. While rationally this makes no sense, when we understand that most human beings are predictably irrational everything becomes clear.
Most of us are more motivated by the threat of punishment than we are seeking a reward. Most of us getting downvoted $20 will feel more emotion than we will earning $200 from our posts. Thus when we think about a downvote it feels much bigger than what it was while the rewards then become smaller. All of us that had parents who were willing to hit us if we did not do what we were told understand that the fear of being hit was nearly constant even if the parents did not that often follow through.
Over the last year, I have watched authors and investors like me that were really excited about Steem enough to collectively investment millions of dollars turn around and nearly unanimously sell out usually directly after achieving enough success to get recognized and downvoted. While some held on for months in the face of consistent flags while others left at the first downvote on a comment, over a year nearly all sold AND stopped posting on Steem. This is a big part of the reason why despite having almost ten times as many users today as a year ago, the price of Steem remains about the same while the daily number of posts is actually dropping as seen at https://steemit.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/weekly-steem-stats-report-monday-june-25-2018.
Solution: Move Downvoting from Blockchain to User Interface
The #1 argument in favor of keeping downvoting is that we need to regulate the content posted to Steem which I completely agree with. We want to encourage high quality content and discourage spam, plagiarism etc. When we do this directly on the blockchain with rewards, we are creating a community of censorship where any stakeholder can simply take money away from anyone else for any or no reason while user interfaces then are forced to respect what happened on the blockchain.
The call to action I'm suggesting is that we immediately remove the ability to downvote from the blockchain and move it into each individual user interface such as https://steemit.com, https://busy.org, https://dlive.io, etc. because this gives us the majority of the benefits we get out of downvoting while removing nearly all of the downside in terms of the value of the community and the Steem price. Meanwhile, trying to exert power and control on the blockchain becomes very difficult without downvoting but easier on an individual user interface.
Blockchain Downvoting Empowers Hate, Drama, Discrimination, Bias, and Racism
Did I throw in enough words to get your attention because this is the tip of the iceberg? With blockchain downvoting being completely out any centralized control compared to doing flags by user interface, we allow for everything we dislike to be used as a criteria for being downvoted.
Don't like someone's skin color? Downvote them! Dislike someone's religion? Kill off their account with downvotes. Hate a certain sexual orientation? Silence their voice with a downvote long enough and they will leave. Want to discriminate against posts promoting a certain cryptocurrency or using a certain bid bot voting period? Flag the rewards and teach those bastards a lesson!
Top Stakeholders Spending More Time Downvoting Than Upvoting?
When you realize every one downvoting my recent stand up comedy cared more about trying to teach me a lesson than giving you an upvote on your post, then we see the real problem. Allowing any downvoting on the blockchain encourages people having a bad day or drunk at a party trying to show off or on some righteous path to pour time and energy into figuring out which posts to downvote instead of which posts to upvote.
Despite only having downvoted a few posts myself, I have thought about it a lot. I have imagined who I would downvote and how they would feel. I have even considered launching a downvoting service and imagined how awesome it would be to watch the anonymous transfers come in and then lay big downvotes on people otherwise immune to direct downvotes out of fear of retaliation. In considering the total time spent, it seems today most of the big voters actually are spending more time reading and talking about disagreeable posts than focusing on finding and upvoting quality posts.
Blockchain Downvotes = Voting Bots
When investors try to post and get downvoted, the logical solution is either to sell or delegate to a voting bot to get the highest return. In theory, it seems good to try to take rewards from those posting ten times a day and upvoting themselves until we consider the bigger picture. What if the posts from those self upvoting ten times a day add a lot of value to the blockchain? Why not just let someone take their $300 a day payout instead of downvoting them to $100 a day when they either decide to sell their $300,000 worth of Steem or delegate it to a voting bot?
I estimate the delegations to voting bots would be a fraction of what they are today without blockchain level flagging while the amount of posts on Steem would be five or ten times higher as more authors simply upvoted their own posts and naturally over time upvoted others following them too.
Speaking Out Against Downvoting = Flag + Witness Vote Removal
In theory we should be able to have a rational discussion about this where we compare the pros and cons while sharing our experience. In reality, when we even start talking about getting rid of flagging on a blockchain level, we immediately get downvoted. Within minutes of mentioning that I was thinking about making a post about removing downvoting, I lost a huge witness vote which dropped me out of the top 20.
Fear of Downvotes and Losing Witness Votes = Silence
If all of this is not bad enough, even as fearless as I think I am, my self centered interest in making money guided me for a year to keep my mouth shut about downvoting even as I saw it wreck accounts of those I loved including my own wife. After around two months as a top 20 witness and a friend's desperate pleading with me to see how toxic his experience of being flagged was for his future on Steem as an investor and author, I finally got the courage to speak up on behalf of all of us with the certainty it would immediately cost me what was at the time $500 a day in witness rewards earnings.
How many of our witnesses are willing to lose $500 a day to speak out against a feature that many of the top witness voters love using to exercise power and control on Steem? I decided to do it because the pain of keeping my mouth shut was greater than the pain of giving up the money.
Protest by Selling Steem!
Most of those with a lot of Steem power I have talked to and watched downvote have no interest in anything I have written here or any of the experience of other authors on the blockchain. The general feeling is "I can do what I want with my Steem" and "Having a lot of Steem power gives me the right to do whatever I want." After my experience seeing clearly that these stakeholders make it clear to the top 20 witnesses that any public disagreement leads to having a witness vote removed, how likely is it that the witnesses will agree to this change when considering the possibility of joining me in the lower ranks without the 260 Steem power a day a top 20 witness gets?
Therefore our best option to communicate how much we disagree is to power down and sell Steem to lower the value as much as possible to motivate those holding on forever to make whatever change is necessary to keep the people happy and to allow those buying in to have more influence per dollar invested. I have been powering down and selling for nearly two months now prior to making this announcement and intend to sell all the rest of the Steem I have bought (about 40,000 more) this year until the ability to downvote on the blockchain is removed.
Ready for Change!
For the first time in a year, I am opening myself up to being attracted to another blockchain which has similar functionality to Steem without allowing downvoting. If another community presents a better opportunity for free speech on the blockchain and good rewards for authors before Steem removes the ability to flag from the blockchain, I will sell all of my Steem and use my blog here to exclusively promote that competitor. I already know of several other top authors here that have left, are in the process of switching, or will leave when a better opportunity comes along. When the critical threshold is reached, that is game over for Steem regardless of smart media tokens because Steem itself has to be a success story to attract the use of a SMT and if a competitor is easy to clone on another blockchain, why bother with a SMT?
A Deeper Look on Video
I am releasing the video above on YouTube today to help anyone on YouTube see what the biggest problem is with Steem today and how we can fix it. An upcoming post will feature an edited transcript of this video and help us continue the conversation further.
Fix It or Fail
We will act quickly together to get rid of downvoting on the Steem blockchain or Steem will fail to achieve everything it was setup to accomplish in being a platform free from censorship where our voice has value. As it stands today, Steem is a heavily censored blockchain where those with the most money make nearly all of the new Steem and actively collaborate in silencing the voice of anyone disagreeing. Anyone that speaks out or shares a truth that offends any big stakeholder is subject to losing everything which makes this a community inferior to all of the ones it attempts to be better than.
I refuse to continue helping a community grow which will not act in the best interest of the majority of its authors and investors. I am committed to continue the conversation on this until either we make the change or I run out of Steem power.
Where Can We Be Free to Share, Connect, and Earn?
I am imaging a future where a blockchain empowers us globally to each share our voice without fear of loss from downvotes while each user interface makes decisions on what to show to readers. I am seeing people everywhere grateful to earn enough on this blockchain to support a family and be free from oppressive work and governments.
The question is will this blockchain I see be Steem or will we stubbornly refuse to change and leave Steem behind for something better?
Love,
Jerry Banfield
https://jerrybanfield.com/
https://jerrybanfield.com/books/
https://jerrybanfield.com/comedy/
https://jerrybanfield.com/contact/
https://jerrybanfield.com/freecourses/
https://jerrybanfield.com/masterclass/
https://jerrybanfield.com/partners/
https://jerrybanfield.com/podcast/
https://jerrybanfield.com/resources/
https://jerrybanfield.com/steem/
https://jerrybanfield.com/twitch2019/
https://jerrybanfield.com/wirecast/
https://jerrybanfield.com/youtube/
https://jerry.tips/emaillist1017
https://jerry.tips/songsbyme
https://u.jerrybanfield.com/
https://www.facebook.com/jbanfield
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id915442105
https://www.patreon.com/jerrybanfield
https://soundcloud.com/jbanfield
https://teespring.com/stores/jerrybanfield
I think I am one of the biggest proponent of what I call negative curation (flags/downvotes) as a way to improve efficiency of content curation. The main problem with flags is that they don't happen enough and people get startled when they get a big one.
If you'd like to engage in a voice debate about the subject I could make myself available. You can find me on discord.
BTW, In your video you ask us to check back at the trending to see many example of unfair flagging. I looked back at least 5 pages (7 day back) to see any significant amount of flagging. Most post have zero flags, do you think it's normal to have 2000 upvotes on a post and and not get a single downvote?
Have a look for yourself, this UI show flagging of 5$ or more, Nothing is flagged. https://steem-sincerity.dapptools.info/trending-analysis
@transisto I would love to see a back and forth with large Steemians like you and @jerrybanfield. I will be here on STEEMIT no matter what other people do and power down and leave. I am just a little guy that tries very hard to put up some content each day. Thank you for what you do and others do to make STEEMIT a great place to be.
@JerryBanfield would dominate because he is use to public speaking and is actually a user of steem. From what I can tell @transisto is someone who mined steem early on. Now he just runs a voting bot and downvotes.
Spot on!!! Dont fall asleep...it's a scheme, a setup to lurk us minnows from our money...
Dude, he even sells his upvotes, why not give it to content creators.
Why not sell his steem and invest in another coin?
Why does having money mean someone owes it to give to you?
Many investors in cryptocurrency to save and invest their money. Not even sure why some of the big whales stay on this site when all they get is hate.
I can't answer that question,
but jerry banfield already faced some of these issues
@transisto : I am completely at loss to understand why my posts are being flagged by upmyvote. All pictures and text is original from my recent travel. It is this reason I have reservations about flag options
You seem to be suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Don't worry, I take these illnesses seriously and will not judge you.
Remember that day you decided to boost a form of plagiarism to the trending page, then got caught? Do you remember, about twelve hours ago, how you were acting confused about these flags so I reminded you of this incident? That comment is near the bottom of this comment section.
I personally believe once you come to terms with the fact you screwed up that day and stop blocking it from your memory, you'll find yourself feeling a lot less confused about this situation. From there you'll realize you're not actually a victim of anything other than the consequences of your own actions. Then, maybe, you'll stop harassing people and all flags will cease because showing signs of honesty and integrity should never be considered behavior worthy of a flag.
Good luck to you, sir.
Haha I have no idea about this story I just wanted to say that was an amazingly written response. Poetic even. haha
I'm not speaking for the particular situation which I have zero knowledge but just the life concepts!!
You are waking up the users with your clarity using words...thats not allowed...
Why do you ask me? I'm not the one who flagged your post.
This is in reference to the discussion in the post - I wanted my opinion to come to yr attention as u said u are flag supporter.
I think flagging is a double edged sword if used excessively and unchecked then it may have unwanted results.
There should be an active monitoring to see if posts are being flagged for no obvious violation but revenge or other malicious intentions
Just my opinion
I call bullshit.
I clicked the link. It's not censored. You're a liar.
Most? That's bullshit. You're a liar.
Several? That's bullshit and you just threw many undeserving individuals under the bus for no reason.
I had a post flagged away, a long time ago. Look who's still here. So that's bullshit.
So let me get this straight. If I don't agree with the rewards you receive for this seemingly scammy and anti-social behavior here today, you'll simply threaten my investment by encouraging others to dump and that won't stop until I meet your demands? And all this just because you're pouting about something and feel like going on a power trip?
The other option is, you'll power down and leave?
Okay. See ya!
P.S. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
You're a bit of a legend - one of the few people to get a full-power downvote from @freedom.
P.S. I can only imagine what your username would be if you signed up today instead of when you did.
Two posts got hit that day, so two full power freedom flags. I think it was because I used the f-word too many times while writing a joke about the f-word. If I remember correctly, I lost potential rewards(not money), but the situation gave me something to write about, which I did, and did it well, so I made some money that way.
The whole situation was a blessing in disguise. People say these flags are censorship but in reality, when a post gets smashed into smithereens with flags like mine did that day, it's much like a train wreck or a car crash. And what do people do when they see a car crash on the streets? They gawk. People want to know what happened, so they look. Since the posts aren't censored after being flagged, people can then conclude with, "Oh. So that's what happened there. Cool."
A blogger needs attention in order to be successful. That situation put a lot of eyes on my blog, so I carried on and made over 22k SP. Whatever! Thanks for the flags!
I didn't pout, I didn't take it personally, I didn't go attempt to retaliate. There was no need to give up and since I like to prove people wrong, I stuck around and did just that.
I'm glad you brought that up. My real life experience and what Jerry is saying here today, well, night and day difference.
As for the name, I'd probably be NoNamesLeftToUse12 by now.
You got a Freedom flag!? Wow youre sooo lucky.. :) jk
Anyways, on topic at hand. Flags have nothing to do with censorship even in a plutocratic society Steem is.
A "flag" is voicing an opinion. A negative one. Based on your own evaluation of the post, the rewards, its trending placement... etc.
What Jerry is asking for is a safe space ..
Taking away the ability of others to speak with their stake on what they want and do not want on this platform.
Taking away flags is an attack on freedom of speech in its purest form.
And the arguments he makes... Terrible. "The biggest danger for Steem"... "steem would be at 10USD if not for flags"....
No, just no. People that get the most flags are the ones that are doing something really wrong or its just drama. People have a right to have drama fights and everything that comes with it.
His credibility was thrown out the window the moment he took the irrational sensationalist approach while going as far as choosing to use his this is an emergency tone of voice commonly heard in advertisements selling chemical cleaners designed to rid the world of stains.
Jerry is asking for a pub he can go to where anti-social behavior isn't thrown out the door by a bouncer. He wants to get drunk and start grabbing women's asses without consequence. So let's think about a pub like that for a second. It wouldn't take long before people hear about these gropers, and they'd simply decide to go somewhere else more civilized. Sure, the pub fills up with more people like Jerry out looking for asses to grab, but there aren't any asses left to grab, then those ass grabbers stop going to the pub, and the place goes out of business. If they would have hired a bouncer, they'd still be in business, because there are far more good, wholesome, decent, civilized types walking the earth than there are savage ass grabbers so it's better for business to get rid of that minority and embrace the good ones.
That's the real world right there. This place isn't much different. Jerry obviously needs to get out more.
Hahaha. By putting the bouncer at the door youre censoring their "bottom-grabbing"... And censorship is bad.
Its not only that you arent allowed to have a bouncer at the door, youre not allowed to even say something....
Thats how far this "remove flags" argument goes.
They censored my cigarettes and now I have to go outside to smoke.
Of course downvoting has a strong element of censorship to it.
By flat out hiding posts, or by demotivating contribution, to mention a few.
The second reason would not be all bad if the influence of a downvote was evenly valued to the individual. However, it is not. It's directly linked to ones SP, which mean censorship can be bought and controlled by the few.
Also, with the utilization of bots, the human factor is in many cases removed. So much of what is being downvoted is never even being considered or evaluated by anyone in the first place.
It really does not. Censorship is institutional. It requires a government or organization effort to suppress speech.
When an individual uses a flag he is using his vote to make a statement on the content in question.
Would you call any negative response to an argument, a claim, content censorship?
No. Flags are pure freedom and need to remain. Removing them takes you in the opposite direction of freedom of speech.
It would be a terrible day if they decide to remove flags. Truly would.
Atm thats the only way the community has towards fighting spam and trash content.
I must disagree. I get the impression that you choose to see the upsides (at least in your opinion) and glance over the negative.
I don't see how censorship have to be institutional. That is how we are used to portray it today, I agree, but it is not a necessity. If we are however to follow that idea, there is already "institutionalized" downvoting within steem today. Groups of individuals that have come together to make a downvote-bot for instance. There is no universally agreed moral that dictates what they today or in the future decide to downvote.
To answer your question "Would you call any negative response to an argument, a claim, content censorship?"
By no means, no. Please do not misunderstand me. I think it is an absolute crucial requirement that critical responses is allowed. However, downvoting is so much more than only that that. Downvoting have multiple functions, and I think it is important to address them individually.
(1). It has a monetary element. It affects the distribution of newly created STEEM. Having the possibility to also vote to take away shares from specific "meaningless" posts could be argued for. This function too can be misused, and who is to determine what is "meaningless" and not. Even then, the persons upvoting "meaningless" content did invest in STEEM and are contributing to the added value. Should they not be able to do with their investment as they see fit? To me this topic is not as clear cut.
(2) Downvoting is actually hiding content. To me that is textbook definition of censorship. No way around it. I can see the argument of making pornographically material and the worse less "in your face", but that is still censorship and again who draws the line of what is acceptable or not? Hiding other individuals content through flagging is not freedom of speech, as you imply. That is censorship. Free speech is when you can leave your own comment with a piece of you mind. I am very much free speech, but not "selective free speech". As of now I lean towards that this element of the downvoting is better off removed.
(3) is the element that you are mainly referring to; the possibility to express once approval or in this case disproval. This I would absolutely like to keep. However, it should be separated from the two above. Those are tools for people who want to boost the value of their own opinion over the next person (referring to SP; a low SP individual have a smaller say than a high SP individual), or to express hatred, revenge or simply censor what they do not like (that one is no. 2. - again, that one is pure censorship).
Let me end with a question back to you. Do you think the current downvote function have no negative side to it, and that it cannot and is not being misused?
You bring up good points, these are things I end up discussing quite a lot. They are valid objections in my opinion.
But they are answerable.
1 ) from a rewards point of view, this is the simplest case. until payout, there is a completely open system wide vote on the rewards to be granted to each post, as a proportion of the rewards pool, with each voter enabled to vote to strength according their stake.
Both up and down votes are permitted. No one can take away rewards, as rewards are set at payout time and delivered to the rewarded account. In the seven day window between posting and payout (apart from the last few hours) the voting is open and active.
It is a failing of the main Steem UI steemit.com for setting the tone on both (a) down votes as flags, and (b) encouraging users to see pending rewards as guaranteed rewards, i.e. that their rewards can only track upwards. I've written about both many times and at length before, but that's the gist and is very straight forward.
2 ) posts which have pending or final rewards of zero or less are represented in the steemit.com UI (and all the main others I think) as less visually drawn attention to, collapsed etc. All that is required to show them is a click. An additional click is then needed to show the images.
I don't deny that this has a big effect on whether people choose to read the posts. @valued-customer successfully argued against me that this is not censorship, it is. It is however very very light. There can be scales of censorship and I would not consider this to be Censorship with a capital C. That is the so-called institutional censorship, total blocking of content, deletion, book burning, prohibition from writing or publishing, even imprisonment.
What we have here is better viewed as ordering and prioritization. It is a UI decision that's similar to putting porn in a cover which obscures the cover. This is a real practice. Would you say that this porn is censored? Kind of is the best answer. It's still possible to get, the hurdle is minor. But does it put some people of viewing it at all? Undoubtedly.
Again this is down to the UI. Don't like it? Make your own. The actual blockchain doesn't do this, or any form of censorship. It's important to make that distinction. It can't be more important.
3 ) this to be is a red herring. We can't peer inside people's minds to gauge their motivation. We stick to the facts and assume nothing.
The negative side is that if someone with a lot of SP want to remove your rewards they can. The balance is that you can buy stake to counteract that yourself. If you can't afford it, you can appeal to other large stakeholders you may be able to go by social means to embarrass them or enlist some people to counter it.
That's just from a practical point of view though. Systematically this is the hard reality of Steem, decisions are upheld by stake.
Well it seems @mack-bot disagrees.
Would you say that.... lets see.. Scientology shouldnt have the right to attack those that attack it? And those that attack the practices of Scientology dont have the right to do so?
Look.. I know getting flags is tough, but if you want free speech you need to have a system in place that allows for those that object to something to have an effect on that, just like in real life..
The reward pool isnt a given. The rewards arent your money, or my "money"... We all share the reward pool and we should all have the right based on our stake, individual or grouped to say where those rewards should go to.
This is as simple as it gets.
The flag system is a must.
Its a shame most people dont use it fully.
And no... i dont think the system can be misused. Absolutely not. Vendettas or anything in that regard arent misuses of the system. Not at all.
Not liking someone and flagging him/her is a shitty thing to do, but we should have that right..
If that goes too far there are corrective measures.
This is a social media website and if you for example came after me (not that i think you would) for dunno, disagreements that would lead to a reaction and a normalization would occur eventually.
What you did to anger the @mack-bot i have no idea, but i hardly believe that the situation cannot be resolved fairly easily.
If you were hollier then holly, then the community would eventually stand up for you out of personal benefit of having such a person and Mackbot would backdown, out of self interest.
No... Flags are a must. Has nothing to do with censorship. But has everything to do with free speech.
What you consider "trash" is another man's treasure.
It's on the blockchain ... your web interface is likely Steemit.com??
They have an algorithm that chooses to hide posts.
There are other interfaces to the steem blockchain. Would you prefer that there be one that Does Not hide flagged posts?
How would you like to see it go down as far as hiding or not hiding posts?
That is a valid point I was not aware of. It doesn’t change my concern about how this work in practice, but it does redirect the question of what to potentially change, from blockchain to the various UIs. Thanks for pointing that out.
My current stance would be yes, to not hide any comments or posts. Any filtering should be on the user end, like we have with NSFW. That would leave you with those who do not correctly label their content, either knowingly or by mistake. The latter would correct themselves by simply notifying them. The other group would be those who post with an intent of disrupting, shocking and offending. To block that a stronger tool is required. So far, I cannot see any such tool that also gives the power to infringe on peoples’ freedom of expression. Any individual could argue that they would accept the trad-off. For my part free speech must be absolute. Any compromises are a slippery slope, like we experience so many placed in the world today.
There are other ways to counter the effect offensive texts and memes. Why do we raise our children? To prepare them for the world, and the inevitable dangers and offences that lingers there.
My censorship concern related to the downvoting is put to rest by your new info. Any UI, like Steemit, is free to do whatever they see fit as far as I’m concerned. The free marked will handle any disagreements on that end.
Whether downvoting is a blessing from above, should be modified or is better of “voted out”, is something I still ponder.
Maybe we can just start a new tab called Flagged and it works opposite of trending the most flagged post goes to the top. Users can see it and upvote if they feel it is worth payout.
Simple fix to fix the entire issue without removing the most useful feature on the platform.
K @warjar so I work on @steempeak ... we have filter out (hide) NSFW as an option in settings and we can easily put in Hide low voted comments or low reputation users. I think that's a fair request.
I want to hide them personally because there's so much to go through as it is and i'd love to not have to sort out the spam but I think I'm actually with you giving people the decision to hide what they want making it their own decision.
So... the question for you (and others)
Should a user be able to hide what they are exposed to only? Or should they have more control on their own blog post as well? I'm not saying total control... but should they have some sort of say at least?
Your saying well
You're not.
Well, well, well.
😎
Hey @nonameslefttouse, I'm following you and yesterday i read your blog related to art and creativity that was one of the best blog of that day. and I hope you will be enjoying your passion. But I think your creativity is unique and everyone should appreciate your art.. I m waiting for your next blog..
love & support @nonameslefttouse
Don't miss to follow and upvote on my blog @devkapoor423
Democracy has always been a number game around the world ! I reckon social media too is now no different. Ive come across quite a few posts highlighting censorship as one issue & one that makes a couple of them leave the platform! I'm quite new here to comment as I do not have a first hand experience however freedom of expression should not be trivial - just a thought !
Democracy does not exist. It's plutocracy.
Lool Yes I agree - 100% its a frustrating fact but it nice to see people realizing this & putting in baby steps to get out of the damn !
It's low because it wanted me to buy. And I did
I hope @Haejin and others go so I can watch people cry as value tanks and small users go to platforms like ONO
Yes, it would be great to see the abusive and whiner types leave this place and take their attitude problems to the competition. I'm looking forward to it. This place will be a lot better without them and their entitlement issues. Steemit would be left with more hard working individuals who appreciate the platform and all it has to offer and that would attract more people like that who care about their investments, and this place will eventually thrive. Success attracts more success so if we can get rid of the some of the trash here, I'm looking forward to it.
lol that idea makes me laugh. Oh no the people making the system bad are going to move their behavior to the competition, what will we do. I wonder if they will send them back.
I've been in management and other various leadership roles for quite a few years. Since many have to work to earn around here, they're not much different than employees. When disgruntled employees start throwing hissy fits and threatening to leave the establishment to go work for a competitor, the best thing to do is hold the door open for them. They won't ever change, because that's just how they are under any circumstance, so they'll take their negative attitudes with them, and that's good for business because you get rid of problems and give them to the competition.
Jerry did the same thing here in his post today. Good riddance! I'll hold the door open for him, no problem. He said he wants to leave, not us. He gave everyone here an ultimatum, but in reality, he gave himself that ultimatum. Now he can either stay true to his word, or stick around and be known as an even bigger bullshitter for making empty threats. He just keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper and he'll have to make some serious changes to be ever to climb out of it. Again, he made that choice. Not us.
That has to be the glue that holds the corruption together.
I know this is controversial, but I believe this is further evidence of the need for decriminalization of cannabis.
Hi there. I'm a busy guy. If you have something say, say it. These little pointless one liners you're leaving under my comments don't make much sense, unfortunately, so I don't really know what you're talking about and can't respond until things are clear.
@nonameslefttouse i have an opinion about this typical fluctuations about upvoting https://steemit.com/steemit/@nitindafda/my-opinion-about-steemit
Source
Leaving comments asking for votes, follows, or other self promotional messages could be seen as spam.
More Information:
The Art of Commenting
Comment Classifications
Your post has nothing to do with the discussion here. Flagged for shameless self promotion.
Oh Jerry, please stop sending your shit ideas to trending. You get flagged because you take advantage of people who are new to Steemit and create shit content.
You try to tell people that you are a stand up comic, a musician and a Steemit expert. You are none of these things. All you are is a failed get rich quick "guru" and a scam artist.
Let's hope we see you drop below 50 in the witness ranks soon.
That's cute, Jerry used one of his alt accounts to flag me.
i don't use this much but +1
Flagging helps stop the scammers and plagiarists from taking a cut of the reward pool away from the people who care. Yes this is the primary reason for doing it. I think that this is a good thing because the people trying to take an easy ride by stealing others works are not here to make Steemit a better place, a lot of these people just want to make a quick buck. This in itself is a bad thing because they are the ones who will sell Steem for any price. We need people holding Steem, this increases price as there's less being sold.
People who really believe in Steem do not sell all their Steem. FACT, they power up.
Removing flags will be a nightmare because more people (dolphins+whales) will start spending hundreds, even thousands on bid bots without having to worry about being flagged, this in turn will reduce the reward pool share for the little fish. Flagging trash increases funds for everyone else. If everyone flagged trash, it would make Steemit a better place for the people who care. Flagging also teaches newbies who are here for an easy ride to evolve, often they start posting legitimate content, which improves Steemit.
Everything you say seems to scream personal gain, I just think that you want flagging removed for your own gain, not to help everyone else.
Removing flagging is a terrible idea. I vote NO.
Your last trending post wasn't stand up comedy Jerry. It was you having a shit rant about getting hated on because you suck your own dick.
And removing the ability to flag someone for receiving rewards that they don't deserve isn't censorship. It's the community determining what a person deserves for their content, which is perfect. The community should absolutely decide how rewards are distributed.
You should not be a recipient of any rewards. You are a scam artist and a terrible representative for Steemit. I was so happy to see you drop from witness rank 22 to 31 over the past week. That speaks volumes about what people think of you here.
Sooo... I took the time to read this angry rant, but couldn't muster the willpower to watch the video you made, you know, the so-called stand-up comedy. Do you realize that's on there forever now, as Steem isn't likely to budge even one fraction of an inch because of this lengthy threat of yours? Look, I was even willing to stay fairly neutral on your typical whale-behavior and bid-bot abuse in my angry rant about egotistical behavior on an blockchain that's designed to have maximum growth if everybody just acted with that community in mind instead of just their own pockets. If you're really the sport you say you are, if you even have the slightest sense of humor and if you have but a fraction of the concern for others you claim to have, you'll read, upvote, resteem and comment on this post: Sh*t-Post! Read At Own Risk! (Braincells Might Perish!). This might be a first small step toward redemption...
Now that we have that shameless plug of my own post, which I know you'll appreciate since plugging yourself is all you seem to do, out of the way let me say that you're not doing yourself or your brothers in arms any good by posting this. "Do as I say or I will leave" doesn't really work well on a community of people that found each-other mainly because of a shared longing for freedom. Most of us are mature enough to realize that there's no such thing as "absolute" freedom of any kind, not even the oral or verbal kind. When your freedom to say what you want hinders my freedom to do the same, you're actually not advocating freedom, you're advocating hierarchy. You're right that one negative experience leaves a bigger impression than 10 positive ones, but that's life my friend and goes for a lot more than just upvotes or flags.
This is also the reason why almost all of us are very hesitant to use that flag-option: we know how it must feel. I never ever flagged anyone in all 3 months I've been active here and The Lord (Jerry?) knows I've seen a lot of crap that doesn't deserve the insane earnings they accumulated. Oh wait... I did flag someone once: I flagged myself just as a fun experiment, to see what it does.
What I'm trying to say here is that "normal" posts don't get flagged under normal circumstances. From what I've seen it's mostly comments that fall in the "beggar" category or the "spam" category being downvoted by spam-bots or blatant copying by the (in)famous cheetah bot, like "I like this post a lot! I upvoted it too! Can you please upvote and follow me too?" copy-pasted in 100 posts. If those users used that energy to make a picture of the street they live in and tell a funny anekdote on what happened there yesterday, they would make the same small amount of money if their obvious free-ride comments were being left alone. They would even have a chance at the occasional massive upvotes if they strike gold with a particularly beautiful photograph or funny text. Then they would be starting with relative crap, but getting better over time.
You really have to do something really insulting, harmful to the blockchain or otherwise do something so bad, that people get over that initial hesitance and actually flag your post. That's my experience until now and I like it that way. Sure it's not perfect and something needs to be done about the misuse of economical power that now fills the Trending page with mediocrity. Something has to be done about the many well intending communities that require the use of a specific tag to gain the benefits they offer. Let's say I write a post, a good one about something interesting, but I tag it with #ocd-resteem, #steemstem, #msp-whatever, #steemrepo.... how can any new potential users ever find the post by searching on the actual topic of the post? These are things worth talking about, ranting about even. But not this, Jerry, not this.
You got -$30 flags. You still have $500+ pending payout.
Do we need authors who leave after first flag? I get over -$200 flag once and I'm still here.
Removing flags will destroy Steem. Can you imagine how much spam is on Steem now? Without flags, there will be even more spam!
Steemcleaners & Spaminator & mack-bot are protecting Steem from spam. They are downvoting mostly minnows, because minnows create most of spam!
Market is down because of bitcoin, not because of downvoting. Whole crypto market is down, not only STEEM!
I think @steemit should be the only account aloud to fly because people like themarkymark abuse the power they have I mean I'm on a blacklist for making meme's now that's crazy
@themarkmark is free to do anything with his stake, you can do anything with your stake too.
Lots of mistakes in the post Jerry. First of all, the price of steem is down because crypto is in a bear cycle and no crypto currency has been able to separate itself from the entire field. WHen bitcoin is bear, the whole sphere is bear. The price of steem is a refelction of this, not downvoting.
Second, how you relate downvoting with racism is beyond me.
Third, when someone spouts off nonsense, spam and steals other peoples content, it deserves to be downvoted and I would go one step further as to limit that user's ability to post. There is no need for a lot of the garbage posts that we see on the platform and the users doing this only have their self-interest in mind. By limiting their access to self promotion we are making a positive attempt to modify this behavior.
Correct @jasonshick. Proof of brain requires the ability to down vote.
@jasonshick reach for an upvote much?
From who, you?
You just keep going with your healthy eating unless you actually have something to add or contribute.
fourth even if you downvote the post is still there other platforms would delete it
WHat about @haejin. I think he stopped posting here on crypto after a witch hunt. U can choose to ignore it. But seriously there was a major element of racism. Haejin has hundreds of dedicated followers and it was great to get free advise here. He literally got smoked out. It's unfair man!
Haejin was here to rape the reward pool and nothing else. If you look at the posts by people who analysed his "advice" you'd see that a tiny percentage of his predictions were accurate.
Only the gullible followed him, and I feel sorry for anyone who followed his investment advice. How many times did you see him communicate what he was actually investing in? Never.
He posted 10 times a day to receive the maximum possible 100% upvotes from ranchorelaxo. That's all it was. There was never any real advice in the posts. It was all bullshit.
Im not too sure. I followed him for over two weeks and he was on track. Not sure what he's advising right now. Couple of predictions went really well for me. He did say SBD will go to the moon before he quit here. .....Which didn't sort of happen coz bitcoin crashed after that. I'd love to know what he'd be saying now. It was just entertaining.. Raping rewards pool - i guess we cannot control everyone's behaviour here.
He left to start a trading analysis subscription site. I’m sure he’d be happy to take your money.
lol...i was happy reading it for nothing here...
he is still actively posting. He has gone nowhere. @berniesanders is just not advertising the guys presence any more. go to his page, If you were a fan or a follower you would know he is still here and has gone nowhere.
He has two pictures and his disclaimer up about Open Text Corp. (OTEX) Analysis - - - Jerry is 100% wrong about flags.. There were more than two post that tracked and showed his guess percentages. it was around 14% correct over a two month study I believe. If you made money during a two week stretch, it was during a two week stretch when everything was going up.
wow. haejin was only here for himself. he made probably millions and never even bothered to throw any of his supporters a scrap. How anyone would follow that guy is beyond me.
Only idiot follow haejin.
delete
That was quite the delusional story you came up with. I needed a good laugh. Keep drinking the funny Kool-aid
delete
I think he's not wrong to separate the value of steem from the bear market issue, since the down tend says nothing about the intrinsic value of steem. markets often behave in a way that exposes powerful players to opportunities thought herding a crowd a certain way. an indication that an asset is undervalued is when accumulation of it occurs as it priced down. I don't see it in steem and it makes me worry about the platform. I hope to see STEEm as being more the a mechanism of wealth transfer in dollars. I think that deploying censorship is a sure wat to ATTRACT sceamers and bad actors, since they will rush to missuse it. So I disagree with you
If you think flags are suppressing the USD value of STEEM - then I've got a DASH node I'll trade for your account.
This post has received a 6.5 % upvote from @boomerang.
@boomerang i studied about steemit and i have an opinion about it. https://steemit.com/steemit/@nitindafda/my-opinion-about-steemit