Content indifferent behavior is the bane of this system. No social media platform can survive if it's unable to at least sort exposure and rewards by some subjective standard of quality.
I fully agree with the diagnosis. I'm not sure about the solution proposed here - for instance, I don't quite see why linear rewards are a problem and going for something like 1.3 would improve the system. I do think downvoting has powerful social costs that should not be left out of the equation.
I am convinced the problem should be addressed, it is essential it gets addressed. In my mind the way to go is not to "tweak" the curation parameters and the downvote incentives. In my mind the current steemit system only has a monetary layer and it misses the social layer.
I believe the solution is more likely to come from overlaying a stronger non-monetary, social system on top of the economic one
For n to n1.3 has a cost of inequality, although not as extreme as n2. What we want is just 10% of the cost of n2 for 90% of its benefits. The benefits are:-
It's a matter of economic incentives. Check out @trafalgar's recent post and thread on it.
Thank you, I have read @trafalgar's post and commented on it too.
Ok, maybe the 1.3 or 1.25 could "nudge" in the right direction, it's probably worth trying.
It's not that the economics cannot be tweaked and improved by doing so. It can, although expect some of the tweaks misfire and lead to other unwanted behaviors.
One thing that might be worth considering is that at this point the reward/risk ratio for tweaking the economic incentives went "below" the equivalent ratio for implementing more social features. "Below" in the sense that the reward for the latter is higher and the risk lower than for the former.
Example: you are kevinwong and I am sorin.cristescu. I've watched a youtube video where I saw you on stage with andrarchy at steemfest 1. You are a real person to me, thus I am a lot less likely to flag you if I don't agree with you - I automatically granted you the respect owed to another fellow human. It's not the same if you were, say, @xyz987 with no avatar picture. It would be even worse if I could act hidden behind a random pseudonym like @bla42.
What I mean is that a conversation between @bla42 and @xyz987 has much more risk of descending into a flame war and name calling and flagging and disrespect. And with disrespect come reflexes such as "it's ok to steal from that scoundrel I don't respect"
Also it's psychologically much easier to be a spammer and a scammer when you hide behind a random pseudo like @bla42 or @xyz987 than when you walk here under your real name.
Not sure I'm being very eloquent here ... I hope you get my point.
Let's work together on some sets of shared values (a set per community) and then offer both economic and social incentives for users to adhere to the set of values they prefer and then stay true to those values because it will be in their best self interest. So yes, economic incentives, but reinforced with social incentives