In my last post i wrote about how voting was a means to adjust the allocation of the reward pool. I used a series of examples to demonstrate that, for certain types of adjustments to the reward pool allocation, using a downvote could accomplish the same effect with far less Steem power than using an upvote. Because of this, if there is a cultural taboo against the use of the downvote, certain adjustments will be impossible, or much more difficult to make.
This is part two of three. In part three, I am going to propose my solution. Well, solution is probably too strong a word. But i am going to propose something that I hope has a positive effect.
The Dwinblood Fallacy
Dwinblood is a long time opponent of the use of the downvote.. He wrote two posts recently on the subject. One before and one after reading a post by @bitcoindoom. I have drafted him into my argument here because, though he is well intentioned and his position is well thought out, he is completely wrong about just about everything that has to do with downvoting. This stems entirely from a single false premise on which he bases his entire position. Its really just one thing that hes wrong about, and rest is just the same error carried forward.
There are many on steemit who are operating from the same false premise, and it is worth exploring. Let me sum up my take on his position, which you will probably hear from a lot of people:
1. A downvote ought to be used only for spam, plagarism, and abuse, and gaming the system.
2. Downvoters should have to leave a reason for their vote, and if that reason is subjective, or not within the listed, permissible uses for the down vote, they ought to face some sort of punishment
3. Using a downvote for subjective reasons or to redistribute rewards is bad (he compared the latter to theft in his first post)
@bitcoindoom seems to have convinced him, at least on a game theory level, that a downvote is a necessary aspect of steem to prevent people from gaming the system. From that post:
> Now with this system (which is so far up-vote only), a group of people can decide to get together and form a "reward mining pool". They will all up vote an empty post to allocate the maximum rewards possible on the n^2 curve and then they will divide the rewards linearly. Everyone who joins in profits with higher interest while the reward pool for everyone else shrinks quickly. The logical endgame is that everyone joins the pool or they will be inflated away for no benefit.
This example was compelling to dwin, i think, because it is compatible with the false premise upon which he bases his position. To explain what that is, i want to explore these system gamers and their empty post.
What, precisely, is it that makes what they are doing "abuse" and "gaming the system"? I suspect that most would agree it is because they are getting something (a large portion of the reward pool) in return for nothing (a post that, being empty, adds no value to the system. )
Imagine exactly the same situation described by @bitcoindoom above, with one exception. Instead of being an empty post, the post has the word "boobs". Now, the reward miners are no longer getting something for nothing... that one word, boobs, adds value to the system. Infinitesimal value perhaps, but there is something there. Someone might see just "boobs" sitting there alone in a post and snicker.
Now imagine exactly the same situation, but instead of the word boobs, its a cat meme. Or a picture of actual boobs. Which posts are abuse/gaming the system? Are the cat meme and the boob pics OK? What if its a dog meme? What if they're man boobs? Is it gaming the system if they vote for the cat meme at all, or is it just gaming the system if the cat meme makes more than a certain amount of money? What is that amount? Can the dog meme make more than the cat meme (dogs are way cooler than cats, after all)? Can the girl boobs make more than the man boobs? If so, isn't that sexist? If not, isn't that gross?
For that matter, what is spam? Is just high frequency posting spam? Are @issac.asimov and @wang spamming when they comment on every post? Does there have to be advertising involved? Should all advertising be considered spam? How about people who post links?
To answer these questions, lets go back to our empty post. We decided that the empty post was 'gaming the system' because it was getting something for nothing. But making a policy to prevent gaming the system when all someone has to do to get around being "nothing" is type the word "boobs" is futile. To prevent the system from being abused, we must have broader prohibition than "something for nothing", we must also prohibit "too much for too little".
The problem with such a prohibition, however, is that it requires a subjective analysis. "no value" is an objective measurement. "not enough" is a subjective evaluation. Which is really all we are doing when we are trying to stop people from gaming the system. Every reason to upvote or downvote is entirely subjective because its based entirely on the subjective comparison of a posts value to its reward.
Could we develop an objective standard? Of course. Consider, for a moment, facebook reddit and twitter. On facebook, reddit, and twitter, there are an objective set of rules, a TOS, and you flag a post or tweet based upon its conformity or non-conformity to those rules. The objective set of rules is necessary, on those sites, precisely because it is the entire basis for the voting. If someone got a "false flag" for subjective reasons on reddit, it would indeed be a reason for that person to be upset. Because that flag is, in effect, a false accusation. A statement that his post does not conform to the rules set forth in the TOS.
That is not how we do it here. Consider the posting of links on steemit. Just a link to a news story like in Reddit. Currently, that is considered abuse here on Steemit. It has not always been that way... it was perfectly acceptable when i first came here in July. @smooth has said that he wants it to be acceptable again. How did it become abuse to post links? If it does, how will it become acceptable again? On reddit, we would simply change the TOS.
At one point, it was cool to post without verifying your identity. then it wasnt. Then it was again. Who made these changes to the rules?
Links were originally OK, then people started spamming them in July in hopes of getting a random big upvote (which happened quite a bit). People got sick of them getting too much money for no work, and started downvoting them. People stopped upvoting them.
Posting your identity became a thing because of catfish getting big upvotes. People got upset when not-real hot girls were getting massive upvotes, only to be outed as fakes. So they started flagging intro posts that didn't include identity verification. People took it too far though, and a lot of new users were being harassed, and there was kind of a witc- hunt mentality. So many users, including whales, started downvoting requests for ID and supporting those who were being flagged for not confirming their identity.
That is to say, the rules changed because of the way people voted. Each individual vote, and each voter deciding what he is going to support and what he is going to downvote, and what an appropriate value for a specific post in a specific situation is moves the line in one direction or the other.
On facebook, reddit and twitter, the rules are the basis for the voting. Voting exists to enforce the rules. (which really makes calling it voting sort of silly, if you think about it)
On steem, the voting is the basis for the rules. Voting exists to determine the rules.
The false premise dwin and others who share his position on downvoting is believing that voting on Steemit is or ought to be like voting on twitter, facebook and reddit, except that our voters should follow the rules better.
There is no compromise position between these two paradigms. Either the rules determine the how you vote, or how your vote determines the rules.
The Other Side of the Coin -- witch hunts, copyright/identification nittery
If you don't believe that one should use the downvote for a subjective reason like quality of content, there is no reason to talk about the value being taken from the reward pool vs the value of the content it is being used to reward. At the end of the day, the conversation has to go like this. statement: "I dont think this is a responsible use of the reward pool" reply: "fuck yourself"
So when there's a terrible author, or some endeavor like steemsports thats on the front of trending every day, people see it, and at least some of them have the sense that this particular post/poster/endeavor is getting more rewards than it deserves. But because most people don't feel comfortable with discussions of value here for the reasons discussed above, they try not to think about value at all. So they just see something that strikes them as wrong, then they try to figure out what makes it wrong. Some rule that the poster is violating that makes it OK to say that they are getting more pay than they deserve.
So, for example, when some whales vote to pay thousands of dollars for boobs, the conversation should not be "well, how do we know that's really boobsgirl posting?! I want a dated picture!" the conversation should be "Isnt it an injudicious use of funds to pay thousands of dollars for boobs. Maybe we should wait on the rewards until she posts something besides that pic of her in a tight t-shirt. I am downvoting this, because 1500 a piece for two clothed boobs is too high a price". WHen someone is making hundreds or thousands every day posting copyrighted pictures from other sites,the conversation should not be "OMGOMG i am the copyright police, you don't have the right to distribute those photos" the conversation should be "aren't we paying just a bit much for photos that are already on the internet FOC"
I believe that this is what happened with klye and steemsports. I don't think klye really gives a shit, in his heart of hearts, about whether SS has the right to distribute these photos. I think klye saw was ss taking up a huge portion of the reward pool with multiple posts every day, saw the new "steemy" posts as potentially more money to this enterprise, and he decided "well, theres got to be something wrong". I think the same is true about @stellabelle and the msgivings bot controversy.
The important thing to understand is that it could work very differently. Thats the great thing about voting. You can vote your beliefs, I can vote my beliefs, the other guy can vote his beliefs, and at the end of the day, things will shake out how they shake out, but we can all be be OK with the final outcome because we all had a chance to participate in the final outcome.
The alternative is people who see what they believe to be a poor distribution of funds, but feel as though they are unable to address the issue. And what inevitably follows that is unnecessary resentment and conflict. This holds especially true in a system like steemit, where the presence of many large stakeholders will naturally lead some people to believe that the system is fixed