RE: Whales No Up-Voting Test
There are many people in the community that feel strongly that the current distribution of stake is preventing the platform from scaling to billions of users. There is pretty much no incentive for a 'regular user' to buy SP, because even a relatively large investment of a few thousand dollars does not provide practically any influence. Figuring out a way to make the platform more appealing to 'regular users' to invest is really a key issue that needs to be solved if we all want our stake to grow in value.
The million dollar question is how do you achieve this in a way that is fair to the original stakeholders, and does not open the doors to abuse. Here is a post with some thoughts on the subject:
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/whales-can-the-community-buy-out-a-portion-of-your-influence
The initiative that @abit is an agreement with many of the whales to not vote for a period, as an experiment to see what happens when the dolphins+minnows get more influence. It is an experiment. It is not the solution to the problem.
If the experiment helps the community to reach a consensus on what that solution is though, then it will be doing everyone a great service. We need to figure this out / get this right in order for the platform to scale.
This is not a solution. Downvoting represents nothing that is positive for those receiving them. That is the only data that will be retrieved from this.
Ask those receiving downvotes if they think the platform is more appealing.
I received downvote to abit. Now I defollower abit.
Very sorry you had to experience this. This is not how we want to treat our users. My apologies.
I'm not sure with what authority you can say that.
I am so confused and try to understand this move
@personz its called empathy.
Did the same. Good move. More people with guts.
Following you.
The goal is for the whales to participate in the experiment. If whales don't upvote with a large portion of their stake (hence defeating the experiment) then there will be no downvotes.
Not true. They have been downvoting post that did not have any whale votes.
@abit No, I am not a whale yet - though I fully intend to become one. I have invested very large amounts into PURCHASING steempower. It is partially due to people like me, who have been buying steem all through the downturn in prices, that people like you have been able to cash out some of your steem.
I also attended Steemfest AT MY OWN EXPENSE unlike many others who were subsidized for their costs and reimbursed for some of their travel expenses.
I just came back from promoting Steem at Cryptopulco, again at my own expense. I have funded the prize money for contests on steemit in order to generate interest and enthusiasm in our platform. I have promoted other's posts at my own expense.
I have spent hundreds of hours curating and commenting and encouraging on the platform. I have never made use of a bot, but give conscious consideration to all my interactions AFTER HAVING ACTUALLY READ THE POSTS!
I have plowed everything that I have made from curating and posting right back into the platform (except for what I have donated to steemit projects or used to promote others' posts.)
Hence this, probably well-intentioned but definitely ill-conceived, experiment which can produce NO data of value because no parameters were set, is most discouraging to people like me.
DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT I SHOULD REDUCE THE VALUE OF MY VOTE TO SUIT YOUR AGENDA? IS MY AGENDA NOT AT LEAST AS VALUABLE TO THE PLATFORM?
[Nesting]
Respectful.
We all want a better platform.
Just do what you think is right.
Which post?
I think you are a whale.
Please consider lowering your voting weight.
With our efforts, your vote now worth 0.6$. Feel good or not?
Again, not one single mention of how this affects our users. This is a problem.
Based on what I have seen, the lack of communication is really the big problem with this experiment.
@timcliff what is there to communicate? "Hey, I like your post. But due to our experiment, we have to downvote you today and more than likely tomorrow as well. Keep on steeming!"
Anyway. I have productive things to do, so i will let the " Steem(it)Think Tank" get on with more innovative ideas. Peace.
Im tired of being downvoted ! Especially after working very hard on my Ham dinner food blog tonight !!! Now flagged 3 or4 times !! All it does is piss me off !! 👎👎👎
I received my downvote few days ago (we know that the experiment was started days ago, totally random as we could see watching the posts on the trending page) and I felt demotivated and discouraged. I wrote a content asking to whale don't upvote my posts, explaining (in my usual civilized manners) how a "simple (but honest) user" can feel confused after this . Not for the different payout after the downvote (5 dollars don't change my life, fortunately), but because I received it without explanation. Now, I can appreciate that a whale say me that it's running an experiment (ok, I can have my own concerns about it, but I'm only a minnow, no?), but I really hope that it isn't random and I really hope that the users are conscious that it's an experiment. I'm feeling as a lab rat, honestly.
I'm feeling as a lab rat, honestly.--->that's right
We are all lab rats, hehe. This is beta :)
@timcliff, you are right ! In my opinion there are two difference about lab rats in steemit community, mice (minnows) and big rats (whales)...ha..ha..!
Here is a good post for you to read.
https://steemit.com/payout/@timcliff/everything-you-need-to-know-about-potential-payouts-and-flagging-for-new-users
@timcliff I read the post, but,as i wrote in my comment, the problem (for me, sure) isn't the payout that can be down. The problem is to receive a downvote without explaination. As many users here, I have some years of experience on the net and as users in some communities, so I perfectly know how the human factor works. If you hurt me (yes, a downvote without explanation can hurt someone, especially the minnows), I react and the reaction, for a simple user, is usually stay away from the community (I'm not talking about me ^_^). Maybe i'm wrong, but looking around I read that one of the objective of steemit is increase the number of active users, not decrease it. There is a very simple solution against the decrease: communication. I appreciate @abit, because he wrote that it's an experiment, but it would be useful for the users if he (or other for him) explain the plan. I can guess the "why" of this experiment, but you need to understand that the human factor is really important in every community ;)
Vorrei solo sapere quanto dura questo esperimento...io non voglio essere la cavia di nessuno. Questi sono metodi fascisti... Dovevano chiedere prima
One thing that might help is to consider voting for witnesses who are not supporting this.
Change your witness vote and let them all know why.
In the meantime, it is having a positive effect on the price of steem and this is driving the power of votes upward. It just needs marketed completely differently.
You can tell people we're stomping out bot votes. They'll understand that.
Abit is voting, all the time
I'm looking at his voting history in steemd, and it looks like they are all 1% upvotes. These votes essentially put his votes at the same level of stake as dolphins - which is very different than a whale upvoting with a large share of their stake.