In a recent post by @kennyskitchen on the ongoing downvoting saga on Hive, I came across a comment by @valued-customer that inspired me to think about the core issues involved, beyond mere rewards and politics. Decentralisation is the key issue for Hive's success and the consensus based 'Proof of Brain' algorithm is directly strengthened/weakened by the degree of decentralisation/centralisation in place on the network. Being distracted by card games and other apps that are unrelated to POB, while Hive is based on POB is potentially problematic... Are you excited to explore these topics? My brain waves are revving up, ready your intellectual surf board!
Source: Jeff Bezos Inseminates Space - by Beeple
The gist of the comment by @valued-customer is that it is the unnatural accumulation of power made possible by the industrialisation of the world which has caused so much death, hardship and suffering over recent centuries and that this centralisation always causes problems. When we see this type of centralisation reflected on social media platforms, we expect problems to arise and they do indeed tend to. Of course, as in the offline world, one person's observation of a 'problem behaviour' in another tends to be a 'philanthropic service to humanity' in the mind of that other!
Centralisation of Hive Stake & Proof of Brain
Centralisation of stake directly colours the result of 'proof of brain' such that POB starts to reflect the disproportionate involvement of specific brains. If the big stakeholders only have interests in increasing their wallet and not in furthering the intellectual dream of promoting greatness of thought and creativity/enquiry, or disagree with the definition of these things as compared to the consensus in the wider community - then there will be discord and complaints. Such discord and complaint in a community leads to low morale and devaluation of the community (thus also a loss of value of the token).
In the presence of a significant wealth gap, as occurs on Earth and which continues to grow daily, the more a community expands, the more the discord grows when stake weighted power is pitted against raw human consensus. Hive is a mish mash of human sentiment consensus that is NOT stake weighted and which translated into market sentiment and community morale, along with the numerical stake weighted consensus that is calculated and labelled as 'proof of brain' on the blockchain. Denying one in favour of the other will cause problems to the stability and growth of the platform.
Despite the claims from some that many Hive posters are 'just here for the money', the reality is that most of us have grown up groaning at the biases and lazy thinking present in mainstream media, education systems and political circles and are tired of screaming at TV sets. Decentralised social media (with built in meritocratic metrics) could and should be the place where we finally get to evolve out of this horribly isolated, information hell hole - and so to many people, seeing the overall quality of the information ecology on Hive degraded through attempts to 'protect the reward pool' is more saddening than the thought of 'losing' any financial rewards.
Just as there are complaints that posters are exploiting the reward pool with (subjectively assessed) 'junk' - so too is the opposite true.. That there are complaints that curators are numbing and dumbing down the results of POB for reasons that may or may not seem equally as nefarious as anything the 'junk authors' might be accused of. The interests of large wallets CAN become at odds with the interests of the community and a middle ground is needed that includes a greater appreciation and fairer assessment of the motives of many posters on Hive than I am often seeing from some of the larger downvoters here.
The community morale is a key metric in the future valuation of Hive and this is often, currently, being hand waived away while those involved point at Splinterlands as if Hive is actually just a card game network with a blogging system that somehow got bolted on but shouldn't really be here.
Information Is More Important Than Money
When 'proof of brain' is too coloured by one individual, POB clearly becomes only 'proof of wallet', since the actions of the account holder in question become powerful, not by merit of anything that can excite the brains of others, but instead by the amount of wealth they have somehow invested. This can be counter to the aim of 'Proof of Brain' and thus the underlying design of Hive as it stands.
We see this dynamic present in the offline world too - in newspapers with editors motivated by advertising revenue and political agenda, rather than pure knowledge and intent to share information for the greater good. 'Newspapers' have long become narrative control papers in most cases. This tends to bother people more than the loss of money in many cases. Humanity needs replacements for these information control networks that have literally held back the evolution and freedom of humans for too long. Information can often impact survival more than money can - so in that sense alone it is priceless.
Even if users agree with the voting of the accounts who continually penalise certain topics or posters, regardless of the quality of their work, they will still likely feel that the voting is wrong because it is not being done based on intent to promote greatness, but is instead being done to remove information from circulation - whether directly or indirectly as a result of a loss of the financial power needed to free up time to create more content in future. The underlying nag that information is more valuable than money, more often than not, outweighs any thought that downvotes might slightly inflate the reward pool for 'everyone else'.
Note: The upvotes of the largest stakeholders are boosted in a weighted way that favours these stakeholders over everyone else, when downvotes are applied to the rewards at payout time.
Decentralisation and Layer 2 Tokens or Greater Social Agreement?
The ideal solution to this inherent and potential conflict of interests is greater decentralisation and the need for that is currently high. Layer 2 tokens provide the promise of real decentralisation, but we are not quite there yet due to high cost of entry to creating them and other issues.
What upsets many people currently who have long understood this conflicting dynamic (between Proof of Brain and Proof of Wallet) is that the problematic outcomes of centralisation on Hive only manifest if those in the most centralising positions in the network deliberately cause them to emerge by their voting choices. So the annoyance is not inevitable and always has someone to blame for it's presence. 'Why can't we all just get along?' :)
For those who see decentralisation and free speech as the primary selling points of Hive, being told that the downvotes are 'to improve the quality of information on the network' in order to try to increase the value of Hive, is a kick in the face. Any potentially beneficial effect of the downvoting is always tainted by the huge negative of seeing/feeling freedom of speech and open discussion of the merit of ideas being eroded/removed by the actions of a very small group of thinkers/brains. The claim that the downvoting is actually a positive action for Hive is hugely at odds with the observation that the downvoting is a threat to the core selling points of Hive. Accurately measuring which side is more important is something that relies on accurate measurement of the wider public perception, but too many individuals are involved in forming public perception for us to really appraise it overall with accuracy. The best we can do is point to price changes and look mystical as we claim that the recent price gain was due to developments that are in alignment with our own agenda and not, in fact, due to other reasons entirely.
For now, I see Layer 2 tokens as the failsafe option to resolve the downvoting disagreements. However, I know I share the sentiment of many people when I continue to feel surprised and a bit sad that those adopting certain militant downvoting patterns don't see that by reframing their perception of the value of Hive towards decentralisation and away from 'card games' or other such add-ons, they could actually help the value of the token far more than their 'policing' ever will.
The Big Picture For The Long Term of Hive
If the aim of the downvoting and also the development of layer 2 communities and of developing Hive itself in the first place is to grow Hive and produce great returns for investors - then there is a need to consider the big picture beyond short term and frankly quite limited frames of reference.
Markets tend to be driven by supply and demand. There isn't a shortage of 'content policing' online, Silicon Valley has an abundance of that for us. There IS a shortage of empowerment and respect of individuality online - which are both potentially core selling points of Hive. Hive can potentially supply a huge demand among web users simply by consistently and strongly demonstrating real commitment to continually providing an alternative to platforms where content policing is agenda driven.
This is a market arena that is driven by thoughts and sentiments and every factor involved in the operation of Hive that has a baring on decentralisation and the ability of community sentiment to feel respected WILL change market demand for Hive.
The hole in the market which needs to be filled with truly decentralised social media that feels egalitarian will be filled by something and it could be Hive. However, the success Hive has here will be relative to the overall intent within the community to create such a culture. Large stakeholders will always have a surprisingly large capacity to direct community intent as people hunt those rewards and seek to appease the stakeholders to get upvotes and avoid downvotes.
Ironically, the people who are 'just here for the money' are more likely to publicly be in agreement with whatever the big stakeholders do/say than they are to be in opposition to it. Just this factor alone means that those being heavily downvoted, by dissenting away from the interest of 'big stake', are arguably less motivated by money than those who tow the line! Clearly there is great potential for disagreement, confusion and frustration when such wildly different perceptions of the same situation are being held by key people involved.
For the sake of community morale and delivering on Hive's core selling points, I personally see that the big picture urges downvoters to be diligent in their investigation of anyone that they Nuke, lest they trigger a cascade of events which negatively influence wider public perception of Hive as a whole. Since the spirit of decentralisation implies careful attention being paid to ensure the absence of centralisation, large stakeholders would do well to train themselves to zoom out of temporary dopamine fixes and egoic agendas, in order to take in the bigger picture for Hive that includes a broad range of viewpoints held by a large number of people.
Whatever the community chooses here, I feel confident that Hive is strong enough and the people here are smart enough to create solutions that genuinely feel good to everyone, rather than accepting the mediocrity of repeating the strategy of steemrolling individuality and limiting alternative views that has plagued Web 2.0 for so long!
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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I'm very glad that you have discussed how non-financial value is critically important to Hive, and society withal. Forthright speech also encompasses people shouting fire in a crowded theater when that theater is on fire. Such safety signals being censored can - and do - kill people.
I appreciate you mentioning me, and your running with a ball I but mentioned in passing. Your exposition here really demonstrates the value of community engagement and is exemplary of Proof of Brain at it's finest.
Thanks!
upvoted for your care, imagination and use of the word exemplary. haha. :)
Without good content their financial investment quickly becomes worthless. Also if they pay enough attention to gaming they should realize games don't tend to remain dominant. Their actions also scare away serious developers. I had plans for some games years ago around the time Steem Monsters first dropped but I lost interest due to the behavior of the down voters and how they seem more interested in being authoritarian than making a vibrant free community. They think they need to police things they don't like. Really they should just focus on the things they like and it'd all balance out.
Clearly they don't seek balance, but to heavily weight the balance in their favor. I have advocated in years past that means of reducing the weight of stake on governance be implemented, to prevent plutocracy from being the only possible form of governance on Hive (then Steem), but my suggestions were hand waved away, and Steem became exactly the plutocratic tyranny I sought to prevent.
Hive awaits that development, and endures the preparatory softening up in the meantime.
If a post is about creating a dividing line then that post should be down voted. Dividing lines are the province of Centralized Authority, not of Decentralization. Example: You used crayons so it is not art, art is using oil paints only. That is a divisive statement, it is dividing and demeaning, the person that created a stunning rendition of a natural scene from nature with crayons.
2nd layer tokens are centralized. They are created by an individual, they cost money to create, and they are controlled by the person that created them. As far as I know there is no method in place to create a decentralized token in the second layer. You could get a group of people to do it and call it decentralized but it still would not be, the group would still control the token.
So, that's your red line in the sand?
I do not down vote except for plagiarism, My red line in the sand for voting for a post is that, if it is dividing/pitting people against people, it gets no vote, no follow and likely muted by me so I do not need to see them.
People can vote for what they want,the word should in this use case is not mandatory, the mandatory word is shall that removes a persons choice.
3speak and d.lux are both working on tech to be released soon that enables nearly free creation of layer 2 tokens and communities. SPK tokens will be air dropped to the entire hive community and layer 2 tokens that are created can be air dropped to whoever the creators choose. layer 2 are intended to mostly be niche tokens for niche topics. the centralisation of them is able to be determined (initially) by the token creators. if people try to come in afterwards to centralise them more than would otherwise be the case, then it will be a 'Justin Sun' situation and the community can easily be forked - creating a new one and leaving the attacker having bought a lot of tokens that now have no purpose.
you can argue that every token is centralised as long as there isn't completely equal distribution of the token, but that is not a practical and realistic definition, considering that the whole purpose of money is generally to facilitate exchange of some kind and total balance in an economic system is not likely to occur ever.
I like that some users have been motivated to talk about the issue, but don't think it's taking the correct path. Fairness is often mentioned, but rarely if ever balance. I understand that pos tips the balance, but not just with post earnings, which seems to be the only issue being addressed.
Might I ask, if it's the will of the community to do away with the downvote, why hasn't it happened? First off, I personally am glad it didn't happen, because the downvote itself isn't the issue and there are positives for it. As a matter of fact, it's NOT utilized here enough.
Did I just lose you! Well bare with me...
In our system we ONLY have a downvote on posts. This affects both 'potential' earnings and reputation. Considering that your stake and reputation determines your vote weight for governance as well, why don't we have the option to downvote for Witnesses and Proposals?
While I think voting on posts in general needs to be rethought, I don't think downvotes need to be removed. On the contrary, they need to be added to Witness elections and Proposals as well.
I think this would take Hive a long way towards decentralization and leveling the playing field a bit, so the choices are that of the community and not of the few. Collectively all the stake below the level of the Whale is powerful enough to move the platform forward by the collective will.
By adding the downvote to both witnesses and proposals, even if they gain enough stake to cross the necessary thresholds, the community can rally to push them back below it if they please. This has to be done on layer 1 though and so would any tweaks to voting itself.
As for second layers being the answer? Partially, but as long as I can use another frontend to counteract the features or lack of them on this particular frontend, for example, what has it really addressed? The same goes for governance as well. Governance is set on layer 1, so really affected by layer 2 applications.
I hope to see more balance in this discussion, because it tends to mostly be the followers of the author chiming in and an echo chamber will never truly get to the heart of the issue.
Just thought I'd mention that there is a return proposal amongst the proposals. What it does is set a monetary bar over which proposals must reach before they are accepted. It's sort of a blanket downvote for all proposals.
It's not exactly what you are talking about, but it does vote against all proposals, so it does some of what you seek.
Right, it isn't. I voted for the return proposal long ago, because it's the best we have. I'm for keeping the Return Proposal in place while also adding downvotes.
I am all for experimentation and would welcome experiments with downvotes for proposals and witnesses - though I think it can get messy and easily implemented in a bad way. We basically need more competition for coding development of the system because currently, despite their seemingly good nature, there is only one team developing the core of the system - when there could be many competing for new features and associated rewards.
Balance is accurately defined as 'no part or aspect overpowering any other' - the fine points of how that plays out in a free will world with limited resources can be challenging.
I have not suggested removing downvotes and haven't said it is the will of the community to do so. However, Blurt was created for that purpose and we now have the vyb layer 2 token on hive that is challenging the POB token and which also removes downvotes. It is all an experiment and it may work out better or worse. I am exciting to find out.
I think downvoting/upvoting can be dramatically adjusted just by tweaking the existing weightings, without needing to fix it by adding downvotes to proposals and governance - however, doing so may actually shift the dynamic sufficiently that things improve anyway - we won't know without doing it.
Layer 2 tokens can have their own reward pool that is independent of layer 1, so it doesn't matter what people do on layer 1 if all your tokens are in a layer 2 space that your downvoters don't operate in or effect. Front ends can be customised to deliver just about whatever experience their community wants.
I have repeatedly seen 'the other side' engage in communication with me until I press on raw nerves for them and they basically go silent.
I agree with most of what you say and only partially in a few areas. The main being that second layer rewards are even close to 1st layer rewards. Which is part of the reason I said 2nd layer apps cannot fully address the issues.
The amount of money in layer 2 tokens will increase once layer 2 evolves and becomes more tailored to the needs of communities. Layer 2 requires organisation and social activity to build it - people need to work together, there is no other way for it to succeed - there is not 'someone else' to do it for you on Layer 2 a lot of the time. It may be the case that funds in Layer 1 dry up quite quickly as Layer 2 sites gain traction, reach, exposure and traffic.
Maybe, but I don't see it happening. As for the forks and layer 2's without the downvote? I don't see them as the answer, so won't use them. Blurt sucks and pob/vyb are just redundancies that I see as a bandaid over a ruptured artery. Vyb is going to centralized moderation, so those wanting decentralization aren't going to bother with it. I won't be...
By the way, your support and use of this tribe implies you are for eliminating the dv.
As I have already stated, I am for experimentation. It is from experimentation that we learn what works best and why. It may be that the ultimately best format for Hive or Hive communities is one that we haven't thought of yet - but it might not be apparent until experiments are completed.
Hive is quite a complicated system that reaches into human psychology, economics, tech and just about everywhere else. Since each person is unique, it is not really possible for me to know whether a community that doesn't have downvotes will thrive or not on Hive.. I can see how it could and I also see the concerns about why it might not. Ultimately, the point of layer 2 for me is that people are free to experiment and create voluntarily as they prefer. Provided they are not committing fraud or harming people in other ways, I only see benefits from the experiments in the long term.
That is a fine argument. I could have sworn I read a proposal about it in the last week. Do you know of what I'm speaking?
I do not. I've commented this a couple times this week and have mentioned it to blocktrades in the past when he compromised by saying decaying votes would be something he'd be willing to do.
Oh, I commented on a proposal post yesterday saying this is a better option than just changing the documentation making it clear that downvotes are only used in one setting here.
The proposal is not about this particular idea.
Curated for IW/DD. Superb article, @ura-soul!
Thanks!
☝️
I agree that community morale plays a big part in Hive’s future valuation. Good thing you mention about the greater importance of unrestricted information over monetary incentive. As to the feeling that mainstream rhetoric is lazy and promotes specific propaganda, its comfortable to read a confirmation that I am not alone. In my offline world, most people I know see that the problem is not mainstream media, politics, and education, but those who think differently.
Reading your post about the down voters, since I haven’t seen much of such action, I am just wondering if it is really the quality of content they are concerned about. Junk and quality content, I think that’s normal in an organic social media platform like Hive, but with the voting system (if the posts are really voted down for concern about quality, and not due to conflict in opinion), soon the junk creators will lose the incentive to continue the practice and this will incentivize those who are dedicated to create quality content. In fact, that’s what I appreciate about Hive. Being banned in two social media platforms (the irony is that these platforms promote decentralized ideas) without knowing the reason why, I was happy to see that even a certain guy that seems to spam many posts here with his “brain terrorism” thing is still being allowed to post his comments. That to me is a good indication of Hive’s anti-censorious stance.
That's sad, yes - the majority of people are heavily conditioned to be extremely mediocre at best and to try to hold back human evolution. It's a terrifying situation and one which means that those with intent to thrive and even to survive must have strong wills and be open to relocating to be around those who respect real freedom.
Downvoting for measurable reasons, such as plagiarism and spam is a useful feature that promotes higher quality posts. However, people sometimes choose to go beyond these limits and try to make out that channels they disagree with are actually abusers or negatively oriented people. This is essentially what Web 2.0 sites have been doing as they censor the world, but on Hive it is more transparent and their attempts to cover it up are always poor. So we have a situation where certain entities seek to centralise and dominate a decentralised network under a variety of poorly reasoned excuses. This does not incentivise quality content as intelligent, free thinkers will leave. This simply motivates the mediocrity that was already highlighted.
Hive will not remove your account and that is a major bonus, but you can be excluded from the main features of Hive that set it apart, so this is an important area to find balance in.
Right to speak does not mean you can force someone to listen. I don't have to believe what a news source says. Indeed, if I am fooled a few times by someone, I'll look favorably on content they put down. What front-end has a granular ignore or anti-weight feature on its feed and trending algorythm?
I believe if you empower users to see content they like then their upvotes will counter the financial hurdles placed by whales. It'a taken me a while to follow indivuduals I respect through re-blogs et al. Would be faster if I can start by anti-following the few I see who downvote in lieu of debating.
Hey there. 3Speak has a trending algorithm that is not based on the stake weighted upvotes, so it is more like a competing video community site, in that sense. The algorithms for content discovery, outside of upvotes is very important - but at the same time, as a systems engineer, I am immediately drawn to point out that if trending algorithms used by sites aren't transparently understood by all users then there is potential for site operators to skew traffic in favour of their own material or preferred agenda (just like Youtube does). Alternative algorithms are a good idea but we need to ideally be sticking to the kind of transparency provided by public, stake weighted voting in order to continue the promise of evolution that underpins Web 3.0.
Communities and also layer 2 websites are good ways to organise content on Hive into niche topics, so we need more of those to further improve content discovery, among other developments too.
Thanks for the tip! I like when someone posts to Hive with links to 3Speak vidoes, but I don't go there for a feed. I looked again just now, and yes, they still require an email. I'm not so concerned with spam as I wonder why they can't just validate your hive key. Reminds me of other software products where I know there is no technical reason for something; I start to feel handled. Still, a day may come where I feel frustrated with Lbry and Rumble enough that I sign up for another video platform. Now, if 3Speak could give me the videos that are not "Created For YouTube" (pronounced: "Self-Censored"), then I'd jump in!! :)
I don't consider an ignore list to be a complex algorithm. Just give me the trending feed with those I ignore to be ignored. The negative weight feature would be an interesting one and a middle complexity. Most complex would be to calculate your faith in people's vote using the percent of your hive power you used voting their posts up or down. Perhaps the effort to list down-votes would be good to include a feature that would replicate the trending without certain accounts represented.
I think 3speak requires an email because their system is designed to allow people to create accounts without needing a Hive account.. But there might be other reasons too.
Yes, I have made posts before with suggestions for features for customising the trending lists in similar ways to those you are describing here. There's a lot of potential for creativity with these features.
Urasoullll.. Man.. I'm just getting to know about this downvoting shit, I mean this overpowered downvoting abuse, and don't like it at all.
I'm thinking what could be done to help the #freespeech Ideal in Hive not to be injured by extreme down votes.
To make it fairer, the feed-search in #peakd or whatever app/frontend should change. Trending cannot be tied to rewards only! An overpowered downvote cannot send out your post just like that!
Im quite ignorant to all this coding and stuff, but its clear the way it is today doesnt help free of speech.
Ahoy! Yes, there has been a lot of conversation on it. 3Speak's trending page doesn't use stake weighted voting so much. I am in the process of launching a website for curation that will help to expose downvoting behaviour patterns to allow countervoting.
Good good good
Good for 3speak, and happy to hear about your project. I'll be expectant about it. Its important that small fish can get together to masively countervote abusive whales!
haha, this is the before time.. when some people still have appearances that aren't based on bezos genetics.
Very nice expansion on the subject! With some great points worth considering by all layers of the ecosystem.
Here is a condensed version, lol - https://peakd.com/hive-181465/@montycashmusic/my-vision-of-the-hive-of-the-future
Thanks! There's still everything to play for! ;)
Really appreciate your insights and point of view.
Thanks, I appreciate your feedback!
We are a tough crowd, if we weren't success here wouldn't be cool.
In a sense, but the crowd's toughness is stake weighted. The crowd's toughness is algorithm mediated.
This is interesting to have all most everything captured. Most times, certain things are being done and I most times ask my self if hive is a decentralized system or a centralized one. Truly speaking, the rewards are what make contents creators valueable. I really love what you have done. Thanks for sharing.
I must say this is indeed a helpful blog for new hive user. I'm still learning about hive though it almost alike steemit or I can find this as the sister site of steemit. But my search for more information still going on. Thanks for the blog!
You are welcome!
Looking at the downvotes on this post. If downvotes only applied when a person was of a high enough reputation NONE of the 65 (at the time I write this) downvotes on this post would apply. Ironic isn't it.
Reputation was created to stop spam bots. It'd be nice to see it applied to low reputation power down voters as well.
That would make some sense, yes - as would @logiczombie's idea to burn the money that goes to the reward pool after downvoting. The argument against doing what you are suggesting that I am aware of is that it would mean that those with higher reputation are totally untouchable by the rest of the community, which is not a good thing.
This is true. To negatively impact reputation you need to be downvoted by someone with a higher reputation. You can't easily buy your way into a high reputation but you could cultivate a high reputation over a long time and then become an authoritarian jerk and not be reachable by many people. However, we could potentially delegate power to someone with a higher reputation to address it if it became a big problem.
I've actually never seen this hypothetical event occur. Yet I have seen the one we have now that you call Proof of Wallet being tyrannical with their downvotes many times.
EDIT: I am aware that using multiple accounts can be gamed to bypass anything like this.
I am interested to see how things go with #vyb.
The global table of reputation is actually one of the report on the Hive Alive stats site that I am about to launch. The biggest downvoters are also constantly able to upvote themselves and circle jerk to boost their rep, so they mostly have some of the highest reps on the network. Ultimately, making it so that only the most reputed accounts can effect downvotes would mean that the top 20 witnesses, who receive stake constantly, would likely become de facto emperors even more than they are.
Good to know. I don't know that I've ever seen a report on that. If you do it throw a @dwinblood in a reply somewhere if you remember as I'd like to see it but I may miss it.
I'll try to remember, but I have 6 project running simultaneously atm and limited mindspace. lol.
I should make an announcement in the next couple of days.
If you forget no worries. If you remember great. If you forget hopefully I pay attention at the right moment and catch it. I have a bunch of projects as well and they are external to HIVE.
A lot of food for thought in here. Need more coffee to fully grasp.
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