February 24th, 2021
Wrong is Wrong, It is That Simple
To @curangel
This is from your introductory post:
... In addition to that, they can use our website to propose overrated posts to downvote, lowering the rewards for those posts without having to be afraid of direct retaliation.
Our curation team has a lot more freedom than with other projects. We don't enforce certain formatting rules, arbitrary quality standards, or focussing on new accounts. We are aware that every curator has a different understanding of what an underrated post is, and trust their common sense. That does not mean that we will turn a blind eye on abuse or circle voting though, the suggestions are watched and we will regularly evaluate the work of our team members.
This was a nice concept, it worked for awhile, but the program has become corrupted. There was absolutely no visible reason for @lucylin's Sunday post to be down voted other than for a disagreement on his point of view and his experience, growth and changing attitude toward Saul Alinksy in this post:https://peakd.com/hive-122315/@lucylin/understanding-the-real-saul-alinksy-and-the-shamen-the-deepest-of-dives-part-1
There is no plagiarism, the sources used were given, and this was nothing more than a post about his journey and what he felt was the opening of his eyes toward the book **Rules for Radicals **.
The post was not over rewarded, and the abuse was conducted by the curangel account.
People may say their HP their Vote, that does not fly here, the @curangel account is an account that the community has delegated a large amount of HP to (almost one half).
@curangel Owes @lucylin an apology for the down vote and removal of the down vote on this post.
I would like my name added to what ever list you maintain for accounts not allowed @curangel votes. I can not stand by and watch in silence as one account tries to control what type of content is allowed to be rewarded on Hive and what is not allowed to be rewarded. I will not turn a blind eye toward this abuse conducted by the @curangel account.
The actions taken on Sunday goes against everything that Hive Block Chain was created for from the Justin Sun fiasco of Steem. By trying to control what type of content is deemed rewardable @curangel has become nothing more than a puppet account of facebook, youtube and twitter by trying to control the allowed content on Hive.
While I have been a recipient of @curangel votes in the past I would hope that the @curangel curators will no longer submit any of my content to be rewarded by @curangel
I'd be interested in the reasoning behind it. Disagreement should be expressed with words, not downvotes.
I read his post, there was in my view absolutely no reason to down vote it, other than the simple fact of what the post content was about. Other people may have differing view and see something that I missed that would constitute a valid reason for a down vote.
At least the ability to lay down such a huge downvote by a single entity should be addressed (eliminated or capped?) Any down-vote should be nullified if such individual or group fails to 'comment' with their reasoning at the time the negative vote is cast; IMO.
Hello @bashadow; I was surprised and saddened to read these things you've written about @curangel. I was there when @curangel was created; in fact, the internal voting code had its very first origins in another bot which I had written and operated for a benevolent purpose here on Hive (which was still called Steem then).
I understand what you're saying when you lump us in with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and that crowd. It would appear, yes, that there is a decent amount of community voting power behind @curangel, both via delegations and on our trails, and we do strive to use that responsibly, for both positive and negative curation. From the outside, I understand how it may appear to you that we are some shadowy monolith under the control of an ancient and unholy power cabal.
So, who wields the downvote cannon? Not the administration (except when acting in terms of their own delegated stake, if any), and not curators either. When @curangel first opened to delegators, we allowed them to submit downvotes into an automated queue, which would then be exercised with their share of whatever power was available at the time. Our aim was to only control what the delegated stake was upvoting, and leave downvoting to the individual delegators. So, you see, our initial goal was to make our downvoting as decentralised as possible.
Unfortunately, over time, it became clear that this model could not stand. We were attracting negative attention as an organisation from people who didn't understand what was going on, or just didn't care about what we were trying to do with regards to keeping our delegators' downvote power in their own hands. It was clear that a change was needed. At that point, we moved to an opt-in whitelist system for access to the downvote tool.
While our guidelines for the downvote tool now clearly discourage personally- or ideologically-motivated downvotes, humans are humans, bias exists, and sometimes, something gets submitted for a downvote that some of us think shouldn't have been. The leadership is then in the position of balancing its trust in those whitelisted delegators (who, all in all, seem to make decent choices most of the time) against the other aims of the organisation. Sometimes this means a retraction is in order, as it was in this case.
What you've done in this post is, you've accused us of something to which most, if not all of us at @curangel (being members of the crypto community after all) are diametrically opposed, and accused us of being something which we are not. I admire the spirit of such an open letter in defence of what you feel is right, but we were informed of this incident only when one of our delegators raised the alarm about this post himself. I would have far more greatly admired your dropping by in our Discord for a civil discussion. I assure you, we're not YouTube.
I am well aware of the beginning of @curangel account.
The only accusation was of abuse of the down vote power under the account. The facts were there, the account down voted the post for no apparent reason. I do not know which curator, and neither do I care, A few individuals have tried to justify it as being a down vote from a known vote farmer. As mentioned in another comment this is a very slippery road that curation accounts travel.
The post and the vote was broadcast on HIVE Block Chain, not on Discord. The problem was here on the block chain, the problem should be resolved on the block chain not behind closed doors. I am sorry you see my comments and my post as being uncivil.
The down vote was wrong and un-justified, it is that simple. I have not asked nor even suggested anyone pull their support for curangel, the only support I asked to be pulled is any future support on my post from curangel and they have done that.
I understand your points, especially the one about Discord; although the general chat in our server is open to all (thus, not behind "closed doors") it is not on-chain, and I can certainly respect your avoidance of it for that reason. To be truthful, I'm not the biggest fan of Hive's systemic reliance upon Discord in general; we're not the only major project dependent upon it, and far from the biggest.
That said, this statement of yours is patently false:
You did directly accuse @curangel of being, and I quote:
We are not that, we have never been that, and we never will be that. You also did not read my comment, or you would not have gone on to say:
As I wrote (emphasis added):
It is curious, and perhaps telling, that you should so aggressively demand retractions and apologies from others, and expect them to read and give thought to your essays, but fail to extend any of those same courtesies in return.
Good day.
And, I classify this post as a rant. I decided not to reward it.
My account is my own. Not a single HP is delegated to me by anyone. I also bought majority of my hive with my hard earned money.
Good luck.
PS. There is always freedom of speech (by the way, the definition is more applicable to govt.s). There is no way to block anyone on the hive blockchain. But that doesn't mean a post must be rewarded. If there is that expectation, it is called entitlement on my personal books.
I agree a persons vote is a persons vote, and free speech is a thing that is generally only walked on by governments, however part of the Split from steem was to avoid having a central authority saying what can and can not be said.
In others words a part of Hive is all about free speech, it is how it is advertised and how the platform is being presented to the world as censorship resistant.
Blocking an individual is very difficult, driving a person away from Hive, turning Hive into another Facebook where only authorized type post are allowed is simple, just keep applying large down votes on content that does not fit the agenda of the down voter, reward those that do fit the agenda of the down voter, and soon you have carbon copy brain dead post from everyone because they are to afraid to stand up for what is right.
The majority of my Hive is from posting, voting and commenting rewards, I understand that some people who invested money feel that their opinion has a higher standing than the opinions of people who have only earned their HP via posting, commenting and curating (voting) on post.
I have no expectations of reward, in fact I am extremely surprised by the number of votes received. You may classify my post as a rant or however you wish, it still does not change the fact of the appearance of why the post was down voted.
One of the comments made was that the post was down voted because of a vote farmer, is that not what all curation projects do, they farm post, (look for quality post) to vote on. How long before the competing curation projects begin to snipe at post that were voted on by their competitors as was happening on Steem.
We are in full agreement then. I just checked I have voted many of your past posts. Hopefully there is no element of disagreement in future.
Sometime disagreement is healthy it gives us a new view to examine.
Not rewarding a post through your own account for whatever reason, I suspect few if any would have an issue with. Down-voting with a sum large enough to completely obliterate the up-votes of other members who were of a different opinion, is quite different.
We issued a statement under the post itself. Your request to be blacklisted has been fulfilled. Have a good day.
Thank you for resolving the issue.
It looks like this was an issue of countering a known vote farmer, not a personal attack.
Weird flex at the end there, but ok.
This is one thing I honestly do not understand about voting.
I took a quick look at @xeldal account and at his voting for the last few days, No I do not think this is a case of vote farming at all, it looks like a person who values good content, and has the means of rewarding that content.
It is okay for a curation account to provide a large vote but not for an individual account to provide a large vote.
Thanks for speaking up in support !...- Very much appreciated, matey.
I could not help but voice my concerns, I am glad the issue got resolved.