I would argue we need to normalize downvoting.
But I understand. I downvoted steemitblog on Steem and someone came and downvoted all my steem stuff then came over to Hive and downvoted stuff lol.
I made a post about it to spread the news about that person and I ended up getting more in rewards than they wiped out.
It all comes around, but (for what it's worth) I feel normalizing it would be a good thing.
It'll be tough to normalize downvotes when they're being used on normal people for doing normal things. Normalizing a downvote means folks should feel comfortable using downvotes to help combat abuse. Nobody here posting legitimately is in control of who votes or how much they earn yet in this case and many others people are being penalized, again, for something they had no control over. If a downvote removes $1 from a post, the difference between downvoting abuse and downvoting something normal is downvoting abuse removes toxicity and downvoting something normal creates it. The reward pool still gets its dollar back regardless. Why not make it normal to remove the abuse and toxicity? Look at the reason given here for the downvotes. It's pathetic. Then that member came here to act like a bully afterwards. How is that even cool? It's not. Go bully a plagiarist. Get applauded. Be normal.
The reward pool is a common. Stakeholders can use their vote to express an opinion about whether a post is currently under-rewarded or over-rewarded. That should be normalized.
The highly-rewarded people whose posts get downvoted are a diverse bunch in terms of how they react to the downvotes. Some take it in stride. Others start whining and complaining at the first downvote making a huge production out of it. It's the human ego at work. Those people should grow up. It's always a huge source of second-hand embarrassment when people one of whose posts goes, say, from $50 to $35 throw a fit.
Far more humorous watching people pout about others earning, and throwing a fit.
The thing is that the downvoting mechanism obviates the need for throwing a fit. One can just downvote.
People still use them as a weapon, scare tactic, bullying. Anti-social behavior on a social network will be difficult to normalize. I believe in honest curation. If it takes 100 accounts to raise $15 and one to knock it down $15, that's one speaking for 100 people, negating their efforts, saying they were wrong. 101 honest folks, just using the platform and their stake, wiped away. Meanwhile there are instances of abuse going unchecked. The reason why Steem at the time hardforked to offer free downvotes was because abuse was running rampant and nobody could stop it without losing potential profits. They were not interested in cleaning the place up because they were not interested in losing potential profits. So now why should these content creators who are doing nothing wrong be interested in losing potential profits? I wrote quite a few thoughts on this subject recently. Often the actual content creator's perspective is ignored in all this. I've noticed most of the time, if someone disagrees with a downvote, they're labelled whiners, regardless. It'll be tough to normalize these things when only one side gets to express their view.
I fully agree and I do not condone such behavior. For the victims of serious abuse, healing upvotes are something that should be considered. On Steem, one TA "specialist" did a lot of damage by abusively downvoting people.
The issue in that is stake distribution. There are many ways to remedy that including reward earners powering up their rewards, buying more HIVE and powering up, and other stakeholders taking a look at the situation and using their votes to correct it. I recall one instance where someone expressed disagreement on how HDF funds were being distributed in a post that got downvoted heavily by one large stakeholder. The upvoters doubled down their efforts and the post ended up earning reasonably well considering how controversial it was.
I feel that's a waste of resources though. Recently I was getting slammed hard with a large downvote, automatically. As the value of the token plummeted I think those downvotes ranged from $60 down to $20 before it stopped. People invest in my content, this is a business I'm trying to run here. More work goes in when more money hits the wallet, certainly don't want to do less for more and take it all for granted. I told folks on the first day though don't worry about countering those downvotes with upvotes. There's a trickle down effect. If someone is helping fix my problem, someone else down the line is earning less. That's not cool.
I prefer to see the downvotes being used to counter abuse. I realize we all have our own opinions and I won't try to convince you to see it my way. I respect the reward pool as much as any stakeholder here plus I'm a seasoned veteran, been around forever. I get it.
Honestly I couldn’t downvote someone’s selfie only because got more mine than my post, could you?
Personally I could. Not because it made more in rewards than me but because I disagree with it's rewards in general. That's what downvotes are supposed to be for though.
All that being said I seldom use downvotes due to most of the content I disagree with being part of a protected class that gathers more than any of your posts I've seen. My downvote is merely symbolic and would only lead to retaliatory actions so what's the point?
So you can unvote my post because you know my account doesn’t have a lot value to give you one nice back but you don’t dare to unvote accounts like @xxxxxxxxxx ?
Well I'm saying I could if I disagreed on the rewards, not that I did. As I said my downvotes would be for much larger rewards disagreement. That being said if you're content was earning those higher levels like those then yeah there should be no reason to not downvote it at only a picture either.
As for why I don't go after these larger users I already explained. My downvote in relation to their upvote power makes no effect of regulating their content. It's pointless as my stake has no power against them. Add to the fact they would likely retaliate then what becomes the point for downvoting at all since I affect nothing and would only harm myself?
If downvotes were to become normalized as @ericwilson alluded to then maybe there would be a community willing to step up in unison to large stakeholders. Until then it's nothing more than a photoshoot.
You should consider dividing your stake across a number of small accounts you don't use for posting. That way you can downvote whoever you want without any fear of retaliatory downvotes. You can use that same stake for auto-upvoting on a large number of authors you like to optimize vote time and thus maximize your curation rewards and completely negate any chance that even the biggest whale on the platform could touch your earning capacity in any shape or form.
There is thing you said that I am still learning about platforms like hive :D I didn’t understood all maybe cause my English lol but anyways enjoy your day 😘
I think the basis of all this is morally, if content curation were not a business that has been reserved for "curation teams", trails, etc., it would be logical for 20, 30 or 100 individuals to vote honest and the one who does not like his Downvote therefore, but that rewards possibly only one person gave it, on behalf of 50 who did not even see the photo and who might not even agree that it is good content.
I do not think it is a personal attack, however it is unfair that you can be the protection of a "user with power" who manages the vote of others (conspiranoia) and together squeeze the pool of rewards while we all watch without using the only method we have to do it.
What the fuck do you have against me? Pretty sure you'd prefer to be on my good side.
I am using your account as example, Because I know you make short content that make a lot money, and that happen with my selfie post and one guy think I deserve unvotes because was a post without “effort”
As someone who has been here since day 1, let me give you a little advice: You're going to get downvotes, just ignore them and move on.