Source: http://theoatmeal.com/
I'm pretty sure you have heard of the "whales experiment" by now. If not, you can read more about it here. I see several issues with this experiment:
- It might be only me but I didn't know about this experiment before reading some articles from other Steemit users. Apparently, there was no prior communication about the interval, the implementation and the people taking part in this experiment.
- The source code of Steemit is open for anyone to have a look. The behavior of Steemit is hard-coded in there and thus we actually know what happens if the whales refrain from voting and give more power to the dolphins.
- There is so much uncertainty right now that many people are intentionally refraining from writing high-quality content in order to avoid being flagged by a whale trying to counter another whale's vote.
The counter-votes of some whales do, in most cases, actually not always exactly counter the votes of the whales not participating in this experiment. As not all whales have the exact amount of Steem power, normal users might end up worse off if they are flagged by a whale just for the sake of this experiment.- The timing seems to be very bad as well as the price of Steems is hovering around an all-time low. If this experiment continues for several days, it might lead to people thinking things are always that chaotic on this platform. In the worst case people might just get fed up and leave the platform. It might also have a negative impact on new users.
This being written, I have only two questions left on my mind for now: Dear whales, why did you do this experiment in the first place and when will it finally end? Maybe there is some hidden logic behind it, which I fail to see. If that's the case: Please enlighten me!
//edit: I updated this post to reflect the fact that, by now, the whale voting seems to be balanced. However, that didn't seem to be the case at the beginning of the experiment.