For those who are still here - What do you think of Downvotes?
A month ago, the Korean community was saying that they didn't support the ex-consensus witnesses because of their stance about downvotes.
Now, Steemit is downvoting a lot of people, even the Koreans are doing so.
I've always been an advocate of downvotes, I think they're an esential part of any DPoS blockchain that doesn't want abuse to thrive.
But I ask you, Steemians (or what's left of them), what is your opinion about Downvotes?
If you reply here, leave your Twitter handle, I'll make sure to give you a follow :)
They serve a vital function in our ecosystem when used properly but can cause harm when misused.
Personally, feel that when used appropriately that there should be a mechanism to reward. That's the gap we tried to fill at SFR.
ATTENTION @steemflagrewards...
When used "properly"... You Scumbags started out with Good Intentions, then turned into the ABUSERS, using your Up and Down Votes, to Stomp all over People from Around the World... What did you really gain, but turning into the ABUSERS...??? SCUM-BAG... DON'T GO BRINGING YOUR ABUSE OVER TO THE HIVE...
March 28, 2020... 12.1 Hollywood Time...
What kind crack are you smoking? We did none of that.
Definitely something that would have worked if more people supported it, I'm sad to see it wasn't but we'll have another chance now :D
There is a case to be made for flags and that is plagiarism.
However the ability to flag was terribly abused, especially by some of the ninja miners. I know of at least two who hold many accounts which they use daily for self voting which was one of the stated legitimate reasons given for flagging.
Anyone who has expressed an opinion that is not in line with official narratives have been flagged here. It is a disgrace and I expect that hive will experience a decline in individual users (not the number of active accounts) the same as been happening here for years.
If we want Steem to grow its user base, forget complaining about posts that dont have images or other complaints about low effort posts. Focus on engagement. I am not interested in high quality posts with two images, I want to connect with people and have meaningful conversations, laugh, joke and have fun, have my understanding challenged, argue and grow as a person. This narrow perspective that the old guard was enforcing was counterproductive as can be verified by the declining number of individual users over the last three years.
Edit
The EIP needs to be binned. Its was just another way for the ninja miners to receive a bigger slice of the reward pool.
Sure, go back to the pre-EIP system and see what follows. You'll have bid bots back. I'm migrating my stake to Hive. After about 2.5 months I won't care what happens on Steem. If it's profitable, I might take part in the ol' bidbottery myself!
Downvotes/flags are essential for a platform where votes have financial value as there will always be those who seek to exploit the system. It is up to each of us to decide what is acceptable. I downvoted people like haejin and got retaliation. Then @steemflagrewards came along and I worked with them. There was plenty to do. Some of the big abusers get away with it as people are afraid to take them on.
I'm doing a lot less on Steem now as I want to focus on Hive. We are already seeing the same issues there and need to keep it i under control. I would hope big accounts will use their free downvotes. Steem failed for various reasons, but selfishness was a factor. I will work with others to do what I think benefits the platform.
Steemit are now downvoting out of spite against people who did a lot of good for Steem. Everyone should know about that.
FLAGGED FOR KILLING STEEMIT WITH YOUR DOWN-VOTES...
ATTENTION @steemflagrewards...
STEEMIT FAILED BECAUSE OF DOWN-VOTERS LIKE YOU, AND THE REST OF YOU SCUM-BAGS... DON'T GO BRINGING YOUR ABUSE OVER TO HIVE... YOU WILL DESTROY THAT TOO...
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
You forgot to flag me. Sorry, but you lose. Goodbye
Hi there
I've been reading through many comments related to new hive chain and I've seen your comment too. Many users are being torn, however majority seem to be moving to new hive.
Are you fully moving there or will you stay on both chains? Just curious. I'm trying to figure out what to do myself.
I just follow here for powering down and getting news about the sinking ship, and helping people get out when they want.
The negative votes are a good option to stop the abuses only if they are in the hands of conscientious and well-behaved people, like you who have always been an advocate of quality and originality, dear Eric. But in general I have never supported them simply because if I don't like a content, I simply don't read it or vote for it, for me it doesn't exist.
I think that those who had the intention of creating a brake on the abuses, didn't think about the abusers who would use them precisely to commit revenge type abuses, I experienced this once I commented on a post by you and another one by @acydio and all the comments were attacked by abusers of the downvote who perhaps had a personal and unjustified war against them. It's complex this thing about downvotes, for these reasons I exposed before, I don't support them, there should be another way of punishing those who sin because, those of us who are not guilty and are honest, many times we pay without having the slightest fault, I live it in every post in which I have received downvotes without a reason, from ghost accounts that only do it to mutilate the reward of someone who dedicates himself to this honestly creating original content.
I'm glad to read you, you always leave something productive. My twiiter user is: @MARYBELLRG. I'll be glad and pleased to follow you. A hug and my love to you, @anomadsoul.
Downvotes mainly helped curtail some of the abuse that was committed by the smaller actors/groups. I tried to downvote any obvious spam/plaigairism and especially if they had paid bidbots for votes. However, I knew better than to start flagging the whale accounts that were doing basically the same thing, albeit more stealthily in some cases and using all sorts of other methods to literally extract as much "ROI" and/or gain as much SP as possible from this chain. If it wasn't for fear of retaliation, more might try to speak up against what they saw as abuse. Since the incentive to scam in crypto is so high, some way to locate, mitigate and/or nullify this abuse (regardless of stake size) is definitely still needed, IMO.
ocdb did a good job of approaching some of the largest accounts while it had support, but it came at a heavy cost to those who were in charge, as they took the brunt of the retaliation.
Hmm, I never even heard about it. That's unfortunate.
Yep, it targeted the largest there were and was successful in changing to some degree. Funnily, it is some of those circles that voted to centralize the chain by supporting JS
Learn something new everyday, there's been so much going on and I thought I was keeping up with most of it. O well. Hopefully some positive changes will start happening soon on the new chain or maybe even here (if JS ever gets his head out of his...) My bet is on the fork, guess we'll find out sooner or later.
Hi there
I've been reading through many comments related to new hive chain and I've seen your comment too. Many users are being torn, however majority seem to be moving to new hive.
Are you fully moving there or will you stay on both chains? Just curious. I'm trying to figure out what to do myself.
I'll be here at least 12 more weeks. Not sure after that.
Big Thx for your reply. I think i will stick around on both chains for time being.
I also figured that you may find this post interesting and worth your time:
https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@project.hope/project-hope-curation-trail-on-both-chains-steem-and-new-hive
It's post published by good friend of mine and I'm helping him to promote their curation trail.
My posts are the perfect examples of what the Down Voter Abuse caused me...
Check out what they did on the last post of @pocketechange...
March 28, 2020... 12.3 Hollywood Time...
On stackoverflow, it costs a user 1 point to flag some answer. Same should be on STEEM, I think Free Downvotes are Evil, as big whales will abuse the power.
On STEEM? I don't do downvotes anymore.
On HIVE? My DV pool is quite low right now, as I sent a load out recently.
They have always been needed for these people who take the piss.
Nice!
I cba to downvote on Steem but i will defnitely do it on hive :D
All that I want to know is who owns the empty accounts that downvote charities.
I have a large list of the downvoting tag names and it doesn't make sense why anybody would downvote a verified charity like @papilloncharity
This is abuse.
I think they are necessary and that the fork where they were set free proved it. There simply has to be some sort of limiting the abuse, and that should be put in the hands of the community just as upvotes are.
I dont agree that it should be gone, but we need to do away with unlimited downvote idea. Also support the idea that a user needs to state a reason for downvoting vs just pressing a button.