First no single entity has any feduciary responsibility for the blockchain, everyone is either holding stake or isn't, those with stake cannot be said to have such a role over the blockchain but what can be suggested is that in safeguarding their stake/investment they are incentivized to maintain such a role, although indirectly. I wouldn't call it 'let's try it and see what happens' but frankly that is exactly how science of all manners is conducted. The hypothesis is clear: free downvotes will lead to people using the downvotes to combat abuse and encourage self policing, we are trying to see what free downvotes would do and why they would work is very sound and well reasoned: at the moment it make no sense for individuals to spend their resources on fighting abuse when they could focus them on endlessly more rewarding things.
Flag wars, much like self voting cannot be countered through code changes. This has been considered probably from before steem was even a solid idea and AFAIK there has not been any code changes that were suggested that weren't mere hurdles and caused negative behavior to be more obscure and thus harder to detect and that much more difficult to combat.
We don't have any evidence because we have no experience, to gain experience we must try things, we might brake them but we will always learn, regardless if it's a poor decision or a good one, but if we don't try, if we don't take the leap, we won't know.
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This is objectively false. Flags can just be omitted via code. Votes altogether can just be omitted via code.
Code is infinitely immutable, and good code can fix every problem bad code creates.
Unfortunately, we're throwing more bad code after bad code, and the problems we already suffer are going to get worse as soon as these code changes are implemented. Incentive to imbue Steem with value isn't effected via extant code, and the tweaks discussed are just going to make that worse, and that's all because the devs either aren't experienced investors, or aren't interested in imbuing Steem with value.
Code currently encourages stakeholders to strip value from Steem by extracting rewards via unlimited upvotes, delegation, etc. Code can change that.
But it won't, because profiteers were encouraged to profit, and presently control the lion's share of stake, and they don't want to change the status quo. Every time disruption occurs, it costs stakeholders profiting from extant conditions.
After these tweaks are implemented and things get worse, feel free to comment to me regarding my comments that that is what will happen. Don't think you will, but feel free to.
I flag trash. You have received a flag.
You're fucking delusional.
Gravity is why water flows downhill, and code is why people vote the way they do. Code is infinitely mutable, and can be changed, unlike gravity. I'd try to cogently explain how this can be done, but you won't even acknowledge any points I make. I know this because I've attempted to engage with you previously, and that is what you did.
Have a nice day.
I flag trash. You have received a flag.
See, you are an idiot :) poor chap!!! @baah
The collective body that's deciding which version of code to run has a fiduciary responsibility. To some extent, that includes everyone, but in reality, it's a relatively small group of people.
You can't know with certainty what will happen without trying it, but you can gain an increased level of confidence by doing formal analysis of the change, and developing research-backed theories that are more reliable than our intuitions. You can also increase your level of confidence by running simulations.
Where is the evidence for this? If self-voting can't be countered through code changes, there's no point in implementing the change. As suggested in item (iii), however, I suspect that they actually can be mitigated by realigning the voting incentives.
I don't want you to provide anything, and I'm not the one that needs to be convinced. I'm content with either decision. I'm saying that the people who decide which version of code to run should demand more than an intuitive demonstration that the change will make things better.
What does better mean? In curation, "better" means that it is more likely to rank a set of posts in the correct order, according to user preferences. So, it seems to me that the witnesses who will run the code should ask whoever is proposing the change to provide some level of evidence that the post ranking after the change is likely to be more correct (closer to matching user preferences) than post ranking before the change.
Your argument seems self-contradictory. On one hand, you say that the rules don't matter - and we need to just depend on curators to downvote, but you're making that argument in support of a rule change. If we can't solve the problem of incorrect ranking of posts by changing the rules of the game, then why are we having this conversation at all?
The point of a content curation system is to produce a ranked list of content. Yes, from the voter's perspective, it's just "I rank this as x dollars", but a good content curation system will aggregate all of those individual decisions into an ordered set that approximates the actual combined preferences of the users so that readers can quickly find things of interest.
In that context, it is possible to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a particular voting scheme before injecting it into the blockchain.
You should read A Puff of Steem: Security Analysis of Decentralized Content Curation. There is much to learn, and it suggests several techniques by which the strengths and weakness of any proposal might be quantified before slapping it into the running block chain.
It's very simple to calculate. What is the Median power of an average voter? What is the power of a community vote? Of a bid-bot? Of a whale?
Case closed :D
The fallacy in your logic is that you believe everyone will have the same definition of "abuse".
Exactly. You never said it. That's my point. No strawman here. Just facts.
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I would prefer having dislikes and likes and upvotes but not financial downvotes or flags.
If Steemit chooses to continue having flags and downvotes, could they at least choose not to hide flagged posts? I know hidden posts can be revealed. But I don't enjoy clicking on the reveal button to see hidden posts from people, including you. I saw that people flagged your comments. So, I click on show, on reveal, on unhide, to read flagged comments of yours. I understand why flagged posts are hidden, and I understand the thinking behind that system, but I would prefer flagged posts not being hidden. I have heard that Steemit has like a reverse-auction system or whatever you want to call the upvoting / pool / cryptocurrency / blockchain system. So, I understand the philosophy or theory behind how flags can help in that system a whole lot or maybe just a bit.
I understand why things are hidden but I disagree with that way of thinking.