RE: Proposal to make spam less profitable
Change the minimum potential payout for a post from zero to a small negative number. A post or comment starts at zero as currently but a flagged post will receive -0.02 or -0.05 payout.
The negative payout could be deducted from wallets (controversial and potentially tricky legally no doubt) or built up into a debt which is deducted from any future positive payouts. Spammers will get less than nothing, making the practice uneconomical. Minnows will be unaffected.
As an alternative, give users a set number of posts and comments per day (5 posts and 20 comments for example) with the possibility to purchase more from a central market for a small fee. Alternatively an additional free comment could be awarded for each comment that makes a certain small level of payout.
I think the first idea is great. This will actually impose a cost on spammers. In my comment, I outlined why this measure doesn't really impose a cost on proficient spammers.
Not sure if it's possible to impose negative rewards that takes away from one's wallet though.
Thanks @wilfredn!
When I've looked at spam accounts before in analyses, the majority do tend to shut down once their potential return falls to zero. No doubt they start up again with a new account but that's a different problem to solve.
Another option (bouncing off the ideas in your comment) is to reduce the delegated SP or bandwidth as the debt builds up, so spammers spam themselves into submission.
To prevent free speech suppression it could be made possible for other users to remove a user's debt using upvotes. The amounts of potential debt would only be small, unless the user is producing vast numbers of flagged comments.
This is a brilliant idea, and if the negative payouts reduced a spammer's SP that would reduce the power of mass produced spammers that have their SP delegated from a main account.
They should take away from the user's Steem Power, because spammers could easily avoid this by not having any SBD or Steem in their wallet, but Steem Power is required to have bandwidth.
This should work for this idea as spam accounts will never get out of debt.
I think so. It would be a question of calibrating the negative amount so that it takes away the thin margins on which spammers operate, without allowing any serious impact or abuse from flag wars. Even -0.01 might be enough to deter spammers, who would quickly rack up dollars of debt. Whilst a flag war with far fewer posts would still be only be cents at worst.
It is at least worth an experiment isn't it?
Many people writing normal comments won't get out of debt. Imagine some minnows interacting on this social-network, they will lose money with each comment they are making to each other. Where this will lead?
Not under the (first) approach I put forward. Minnows won't have any debt. All comments start at zero. You will only build up a debt if you start getting a very large number of flagged comments. Minnows writing normal comments won't be affected.
That theory could possibly help a great deal and some help is better than no help.
@timcliff have you seen the idea posted by @minature-tiger? What would you say this would do on a broader scale (you know the code better than others.)