RE: dMania owner zombee is abusing steemit delegation with multiple accounts, stealing users chances of getting rewards and censors them
...and represent an illegitimate use of the ninja-mine (which was supposed to be for funding purposes and not be used for stake voting except in cases of emergency)...
I recall this argument being made many times in the past when STINC did similar things with their stake. Since HF18, they have added several millions of SP into the daily voting pool from their ninja-mined stake via delegation and other transfers to delegating accounts. Every instance of this translates into more dilution of influence for actual investors.
But it isn’t enough to dilute all other investor influence - they also pick and choose “winners and losers.” And it seems that more often than not, they make terrible decisions regarding where the SP is delegated. How many times have we seen things mentioned in this OP play out...starting with Steem Guild in the fall of 2016?
Despite the frequency and/or severity of the abuses, these mistakes continue.
This delegation nonsense really needs to stop - especially from STINC...and especially because of how it was acquired and how they are perceived as the “leadership” of what’s billed as a decentralized blockchain.
What are your thoughts on delegation overall and the idea of eliminating it altogether?
I would vehemently oppose eliminating delegation.
OK. Why?
I think it helps add value to the platform. I think delegation helped create some things like dtube dlive etc. Plus it can be used as a revenue stream for investors which for some reason seem to be in short supply. In addition I feel it has been beneficial to me. I am very bullish and very dedicated to this platform so hopefully I can help move us forward in part thanks to delegation.
Would not bother me to eliminate it, but that's kind of focusing on the mechanism.
The original guild stuff, which as you say was the same sort of mess, was done with bots. That was devs using their own accounts (though still filled entirely with ninja-mine stake). But when delegation came along that became a sort of loophole/excuse to weasel out of 'non-voting', not only on individual dev team accounts, but on the whole steemit account as well. Obviously this made matters worse, but the real problem to my point of view is the weaseling and the bad judgment. I don't think you can fix that with a protocol change, unfortunately.