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RE: Steemit Winter Update: 2017 reflection, our Vision Statement and Mission, and a look forward
Please focus more on fundamentals.
Steem will only succeed as a platform if it produces and discovers the highest quality content.
The current trending tab is a collection of self-promoted posts, upvoted by bots. It's not a collection of the best work, rewarded by the steem community.
I believe this to be an essential problem and hope more effort will be made to improve it.
Once Steem becomes asscociated with 'promoting spam', it'll be too late. :/
Communities should help with quality content discovery.
Communities will be destroyed by upstream abuse.
FUD! Have you read the spec?
ned, please. Instead of pulling your hair out and calling names (again,) why don't you try explaining in plain and precise language, the concept for how you intend to neutralise the negative effects of concentrated and rapidly escalating anti-social concentration of SP using communites and SMT's, without creating further disincentives for anyone to hold SP?
If it is so obvious and you are absolutely sure you have a solution, please, write it down here. I raise these issues out of CONCERN. I don't believe I'm the ONLY ONE raising them. It is a FACT that abuse is occurring and getting worse. You admit Steemit.inc's FAILURE to communicate effectively and to having a desire to correct that. Please start right here. This is NOT a trap. I'm WILLING to listen. I TRULY hope you have a solution. I just cannot see it and I can't understand why barely anything has been done in the interim, there are so many positive steps that could have been taken.
I loved this platform ned. It amazes me still. Where do you think my passion comes from? I'm so busy with work, my kids, everything else.....that is the measure of how much I sincerely care. I remain constantly concerned with the Steemian community and the status of Steem.
If I am wrong about my concerns I apologise here and now. To everyone who has read my posts, to anyone who sent some Steem my way, to you, to steemit.inc. But I would rather be dead wrong in front of everybody than allow something as marvelous and unique as Steem continue down a bad path when I had a chance to say something.
A-fucking-men.
Define what you mean by upstream abuse
Content production runs on the reward pool. The idea is that quality engagement is incentivised (give or take subjectivity around quality.) The inflation powers everything.
There are many kinds of abuse that effect user experience, quality of content and optimal/healthy (from a sustainable, common ground, fairness point of view) use of the reward pool. The use of communities and smt's offer potential advantages for sure, but how does either address abuse of the reward pool that effects everything?
By upstream I mean anything that effects the ability of the reward pool to sustain and positively incentivise activity. For example, if a whale is running a bad quality post scheme or a comment upvote scheme, that behaviour leaves less of the reward pool for everything else, including communities and SMT's (which derive their value from steem.)
Communities and SMT's may offer more greater visibility of behaviour, improvements in curation within each bubble, but what is to stop the actions of powerful accounts from directly or indirectly starving a community of rewards from the reward pool.
Due to the present distribution of steem, the effects of anything that massive SP does is felt downstream.
For instance, wouldn't you agree that behaviour has become more and more about self-rewards and buying votes? This is a downstream effect of the incentives at play among the power players.
Take an smt, launched by Reddit to use steem to further incentivise the content of their users. Don't you think they might have issues related to the amount of abuse going on "upstream" of their use case/community if the value of Steem is effected by the perception of steemians or the broader market as a result of rampant power player abuse?
The bottom line is that stake needs to be far more broadly distributed, then there may be balance among the power players. Better yet, as switch to greater reward pool availability, helping improvements in the ability to curate more effectively add value.
I am basing most of my concerns on what I have seen and see today. I'm clearly making assumptions about how communities and SMT's will interact with steem and the reward pool but I think you'll agree on two things; there must be a connection between them and steem, the distribution of steem and its effects don't simply disappear.
I am very keen for someone to explain how communities or SMT's are able to solve these issues, but as you can see, I'm still waiting for a response from ned. I've been pointing out these issues and suggesting the (90% of steemit's stake in the hands of the community) solution for weeks now.
The economic incentive model is unstable, adding complexity could, at the very least, create unintended consequences.
I want to be wrong. Have I explained my concern well enough? Is it valid from your perspective?
The ultimate definition of upstream would be people's perception of the value of Steem. If it turns sour, so does the value of steem and the ability of the reward pool to sustain the whole show.
Content discovery != rewards distribution. Communities will have control over what can and cannot be posted in their community. This is what will improve content discovery.
Rewards distribution can be helped by SMTs. If a user creates a SMT and achieves a ‘fair’ distribution of the SMT among a set of community holders, then that community will have full control over how those SMT rewards are distributed.
Don't you see a problem with what you are describing? How will communities enforce their "control"? Will they ban abusive whales? What good will that do? Whales can still effect the value of steem dramatically.
With SMT's the same would seem to apply. Unless steem is not going to be utilised as an incentive mechanism any longer, in which case, what does that mean?
timcliff, I genuinely hope I'm not wasting your time or being monumentally stupid. I really appreciate your effort to help me understand. I'm just thinking that if you start excluding steem power stake, what is the value in having it? What does that do to the economic model?
Sorry, but I get the feeling that you are arguing against these things without really understanding them. Have you read the community specs and SMT whitepaper? I’m not saying that these two things are going to magically solve all our problems, but they do provide a framework for solutions.
One really important thing to keep in mind with SMTs, is that STEEM whales will have zero influence over SMT rewards, unless they actually invest in the SMT. Communities really will be able to form their own independent rewards pools.
One last point, what I have suggested as a solution to steem abuse could still be implemented and could make a big difference even if you believe SMT's and communities will work as intended. As you acknowledge yourself, SMT's and communities are not going to magically solve all the issues. Given that most of the issues stem from the incentive model and steem distribution, I assume you acknowledge the importance and validity of addressing them? In the end, that is all I'm suggesting. Address the distribution, improve the incentives, before (my preference) or in parallel with SMT's and communities.
Can I ask, do you think the distribution of steem contributes to the issues on steem? Do you think it's worth pursuing solutions other than SMT's and communities? What is your view of the steem controlled by steemit.inc?
I have read the white paper. The bit I most certainly don't understand is what happens to a successful SMT if Steem Power's influence is degraded or abuse in the Steem based economy continues/increases. None one has been able to explain that to me plainly. If you can, that would be great. If not, I've said my piece, I could be wrong to be concerned, unless some new points are raised or understanding comes to light, I think I'll leave it here. Thank you again for you time.
My community can beat up your community.
I'm cracking up here Tim hahahahahahaha
Frankly, this has ALWAYS been the issue, since steem could talk. Listen, we all want the same thing. But it'll never be perfect. The best way around this is to focus on micro-communities....niche groups if you will. We have the ability to reward and upvote one another. The bigger you get, the more influential you'll become. All in due time. You'll be on the top some day, and your trending page won't even matter by then. You'll be too busy building up the community to notice if you've made it to the front page. And your rewards will be rich and abundant.