Balancing the pool: Why Helsing is vital for communities
Now, some people might not understand the need for something like Helsing but here is a little scenario to perhaps shed some light through a different perspective.
Let's say there is a Whale that cares for the community, takes their time to curate, delegate, spread their value. Let's call him, THE GOOD WHALE (TGW)
Now, because of TGW's community orientated nature, it cares for the way the pool is distributed and to whom it gets distributed to. TGW spends his effort finding and supporting community nodes who will in turn, find and support a wider group again. By doing this, TGW's value gets spread broadly and among those who are also community developers.
But, something happens. TGW finds out there is a Cave Troll raping the reward pool of massive amounts of value and providing nothing to the community and, those that speak out, get flagged. This makes TGW say, I am going to use my stake to balance the pool but, this comes at a cost.
Not just curation.
TGW needs its stake to battle so, recalls delegations from those community nodes and stops supporting them with votes as it needs the Voting Power for flags instead as the flags return the value back to the pool.
Now, TGW goes on the defensive, the defense of the community pool but, it can only defend its small piece of it. Better than nothing. However, TGW is not powerful enough to take value back and keep supporting its worthy community. Nor does TGW have enough power alone to deliver a battle ending blow.
So TGW flags all its Voting power it can every day and the community that relied on the wide-ranging support slowly shrinks. But hang on, the value went back to the pool, how come they aren't okay??
Well, Communities are already here in practice and they are often gathered around several larger accounts. This means that if those larger accounts 'abandon' them to go to war, they are going to struggle. And this is the issue, those who are willing to flag abusive accounts are the ones who are also the most likely to also have a community of builders surrounding them.
The money does return to the pool for distribution but, the ones who are the most interested in distributing to those worthy, have no Voting Power left to share their stake. So, who do you think gains?
Well, it still gets distributed but it is much more likely to now go to other, (probably lower level) non-community spirited users. One Cave troll might be smashed, but it now splinters into a thousand little orcs but TGW is too spent from flagging and cannot deal with it.
Now, dealing with a particularly large Cave Troll, there may be several TGWs needed which means several communities lose a great deal of their support. These communities are the ones who are more likely to be the builders since their major node is a community-conscious, distribution-aware thinker willing to flag abuse. For the greater community, this is a catastrophe and is untenable as it leads to a spiralling down of the builders and a winding up of the scammers.
This is why Helsing is SO important.
You know who they are - tell them.
For a fraction of the cost, many whales can agree on the largest, clear-cut cases of pool extractors and still have the vast majority of their stake to distribute as they choose.
This in turn means that when the Cave troll is crushed and splinters, the splinter extractors are still not likely to have much access to the pool but, the communities supported by their major nodes have an increased amount. It also leaves whales like TGW the abiltity to cope with the smaller splinters easily on an ad hoc basis.
Even if Helsing ONLY deals with the most obvious cases via a quorum, it will be of so much community value that it should go ahead, at least for a trial period.
Now, Some of you reading this do know THE GOOD WHALES who are community orientated and thinking about the future. Many of you are supported by them.
Put it in front of them, get their opinion, ask them to consider it. Even if 10 or 20 of the largest give 10% instead of the 1% from the 200, it will significantly lighten the loads on a few and coordinate their efforts and leave them with most of the power necessary to support the communities they care so much about.
I don't know them all, I don't have relationships with many but the ones I do, are here, are thinking, are helping, are supporting and I think that says something. Even if you have no idea who I am and couldn't care less, at least give them the time to consider this because THEY have earned it.
Again, this is a trial of self-governance to use stake as chosen to cooperate on an exercise to protect both community and freedom. A Trial. It can be dissolved immediately at any point, it can be parked, hibernated and lay dormant at all other times. But, if a Cave Troll decides to set up residence, it can be animated to remind it, we all live here.
HELSING and GOVERNANCE
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Your words resound with wisdom. I do not know or have a personal relationship with any whale but i do know there are good whales out there who go all out for their communities.
I have heard this reward pool rape and i really need to read up on it because it seems to be a great cause for concern and conflict on this platform.
I think if good whales can have strong support system; dolphins, minnows and redfishes who are invested in the ideals of their communities and are willing to do what is necessary to make their communities troll free, they will do well. This is community policing.
One of the things lacking in this platform which prides itself in content creation, is information. So many members of the steemit universe do not know what is going on. Some do not belong to any community so they are winging it on their own and probably doing a grand job at it, so they do not see the need to belong. Others are in communities but they are not told anything. I know communities where the recent upsurge in phishing is being discussed and members warned; i also believe there are communities that are going about their business, acting as if hacks are none of their business.
There is information all over steemit but not everyone can navigate the information to get news or can even separate truth from fiction. I therefore think that the good whale support should include information support to enable him or her move with adequate guidance.
What i am saying in essence is that whales cannot do as much as we want them to do without our help. We cannot sit down, open our lips, receive communion and sing hosannas, we need to invest ourselves into their goals as well.
Thank you for giving me this platform to vent. Just burnt a pot of rice to crisps. I am going to eat rice crispies and pray i don't get flagged for mouthing off some.
I support this initiative. I'm no whale and nor is any one of my friends but I will resteem this to spread the word.
Thank you, it is appreciated.
It's so good to see you take an active stance in this dispute between the big players. I've been reading up on the flagging war that's been going on more and more, and it's clear that something has to be done and sadly it's already come way too far which only makes the problem bigger and harder to tackle. I really hope that the good whale's can keep combining their power and fix the pool-rapists. I'm hopeful that the call from flagawhale a few hours ago will be answered and the good whales can organize and coördinate themselves even better. Good luck :)
This solution would take a lot of the community confusion and harm out of the equation and would be decisive in its actions. I hope enough would commit to its trial.
If Steemit wants to continue improving something has to be done against the Cave Troll or bad whales that keep raping the reward pool. I've read several posts of several authors about large accounts that are raping the reward pool but so far nothing concrete has be done against it.
I appreciate your idea. The only issue I have is that this is a free platform to post and use how we see fit. You may have people raping the reward pool, but technically that is allowed, and they are mining hard.
If someone was just doing their own thing and collecting a whole lot no one usually notices...most don't even know about a 'war'. It wasn't until TGW responded that it became a big deal.
Now you are designing something that will function like a private security on the blockchain. Like it is a sheriff that walks down the middle of the road to remind bad guys that it is there. It is a tool to be weaponized against an account that someone doean't agree with. Who chooses Helsings function. Who pulls the trigger? What gives them the right to act in such a way? What makes this any different than an overly censored, over regulated, police state? This doesn't seem like self governance...it seems like a central governance.Be well.
wow even you also donate your steem doller to the poor people.nice thats great.i saw your image.thank
You are right, it is allowed. As is this.
A warning went out about posting before any of this happened about posting behaviour, I know, I sent it. It was allowed to go too far.
A quorum 75% majority decision by stake holders.
I support Val Helsing, its the protector of the steem universe to help deal with Vampires (Troll) who are ripping off the community and making steemit harder for the lesser people
Helsing like
This is the first I had heard of Helsing and I gotta say this is one of the best ideas I've heard to deal with the unfair distribution of rewards. I hope you get enough support to at least see a trial.
If you know of one or two larger who may be interested, invite them to have a look
I think the platform needs another layer of diversity called Sharks. How about some Helsing Sharks... with Lasers!
"Lasers"
Yes let Val Helsing, to see new development on this platform