In my last post i wrote about how voting was a means to adjust the allocation of the reward pool. I used a series of examples to demonstrate that, for certain types of adjustments to the reward pool allocation, using a downvote could accomplish the same effect with far less Steem power than using an upvote. Because of this, if there is a cultural taboo against the use of the downvote, certain adjustments will be impossible, or much more difficult to make.
This is part two of three. In part three, I am going to propose my solution. Well, solution is probably too strong a word. But i am going to propose something that I hope has a positive effect.
The Dwinblood Fallacy
Dwinblood is a long time opponent of the use of the downvote.. He wrote two posts recently on the subject. One before and one after reading a post by @bitcoindoom. I have drafted him into my argument here because, though he is well intentioned and his position is well thought out, he is completely wrong about just about everything that has to do with downvoting. This stems entirely from a single false premise on which he bases his entire position. Its really just one thing that hes wrong about, and rest is just the same error carried forward.
There are many on steemit who are operating from the same false premise, and it is worth exploring. Let me sum up my take on his position, which you will probably hear from a lot of people:
1. A downvote ought to be used only for spam, plagarism, and abuse, and gaming the system.
2. Downvoters should have to leave a reason for their vote, and if that reason is subjective, or not within the listed, permissible uses for the down vote, they ought to face some sort of punishment
3. Using a downvote for subjective reasons or to redistribute rewards is bad (he compared the latter to theft in his first post)
@bitcoindoom seems to have convinced him, at least on a game theory level, that a downvote is a necessary aspect of steem to prevent people from gaming the system. From that post:
> Now with this system (which is so far up-vote only), a group of people can decide to get together and form a "reward mining pool". They will all up vote an empty post to allocate the maximum rewards possible on the n^2 curve and then they will divide the rewards linearly. Everyone who joins in profits with higher interest while the reward pool for everyone else shrinks quickly. The logical endgame is that everyone joins the pool or they will be inflated away for no benefit.
This example was compelling to dwin, i think, because it is compatible with the false premise upon which he bases his position. To explain what that is, i want to explore these system gamers and their empty post.
What, precisely, is it that makes what they are doing "abuse" and "gaming the system"? I suspect that most would agree it is because they are getting something (a large portion of the reward pool) in return for nothing (a post that, being empty, adds no value to the system. )
Imagine exactly the same situation described by @bitcoindoom above, with one exception. Instead of being an empty post, the post has the word "boobs". Now, the reward miners are no longer getting something for nothing... that one word, boobs, adds value to the system. Infinitesimal value perhaps, but there is something there. Someone might see just "boobs" sitting there alone in a post and snicker.
Now imagine exactly the same situation, but instead of the word boobs, its a cat meme. Or a picture of actual boobs. Which posts are abuse/gaming the system? Are the cat meme and the boob pics OK? What if its a dog meme? What if they're man boobs? Is it gaming the system if they vote for the cat meme at all, or is it just gaming the system if the cat meme makes more than a certain amount of money? What is that amount? Can the dog meme make more than the cat meme (dogs are way cooler than cats, after all)? Can the girl boobs make more than the man boobs? If so, isn't that sexist? If not, isn't that gross?
For that matter, what is spam? Is just high frequency posting spam? Are @issac.asimov and @wang spamming when they comment on every post? Does there have to be advertising involved? Should all advertising be considered spam? How about people who post links?
To answer these questions, lets go back to our empty post. We decided that the empty post was 'gaming the system' because it was getting something for nothing. But making a policy to prevent gaming the system when all someone has to do to get around being "nothing" is type the word "boobs" is futile. To prevent the system from being abused, we must have broader prohibition than "something for nothing", we must also prohibit "too much for too little".
The problem with such a prohibition, however, is that it requires a subjective analysis. "no value" is an objective measurement. "not enough" is a subjective evaluation. Which is really all we are doing when we are trying to stop people from gaming the system. Every reason to upvote or downvote is entirely subjective because its based entirely on the subjective comparison of a posts value to its reward.
Could we develop an objective standard? Of course. Consider, for a moment, facebook reddit and twitter. On facebook, reddit, and twitter, there are an objective set of rules, a TOS, and you flag a post or tweet based upon its conformity or non-conformity to those rules. The objective set of rules is necessary, on those sites, precisely because it is the entire basis for the voting. If someone got a "false flag" for subjective reasons on reddit, it would indeed be a reason for that person to be upset. Because that flag is, in effect, a false accusation. A statement that his post does not conform to the rules set forth in the TOS.
That is not how we do it here. Consider the posting of links on steemit. Just a link to a news story like in Reddit. Currently, that is considered abuse here on Steemit. It has not always been that way... it was perfectly acceptable when i first came here in July. @smooth has said that he wants it to be acceptable again. How did it become abuse to post links? If it does, how will it become acceptable again? On reddit, we would simply change the TOS.
At one point, it was cool to post without verifying your identity. then it wasnt. Then it was again. Who made these changes to the rules?
Links were originally OK, then people started spamming them in July in hopes of getting a random big upvote (which happened quite a bit). People got sick of them getting too much money for no work, and started downvoting them. People stopped upvoting them.
Posting your identity became a thing because of catfish getting big upvotes. People got upset when not-real hot girls were getting massive upvotes, only to be outed as fakes. So they started flagging intro posts that didn't include identity verification. People took it too far though, and a lot of new users were being harassed, and there was kind of a witc- hunt mentality. So many users, including whales, started downvoting requests for ID and supporting those who were being flagged for not confirming their identity.
That is to say, the rules changed because of the way people voted. Each individual vote, and each voter deciding what he is going to support and what he is going to downvote, and what an appropriate value for a specific post in a specific situation is moves the line in one direction or the other.
On facebook, reddit and twitter, the rules are the basis for the voting. Voting exists to enforce the rules. (which really makes calling it voting sort of silly, if you think about it)
On steem, the voting is the basis for the rules. Voting exists to determine the rules.
The false premise dwin and others who share his position on downvoting is believing that voting on Steemit is or ought to be like voting on twitter, facebook and reddit, except that our voters should follow the rules better.
There is no compromise position between these two paradigms. Either the rules determine the how you vote, or how your vote determines the rules.
The Other Side of the Coin -- witch hunts, copyright/identification nittery
If you don't believe that one should use the downvote for a subjective reason like quality of content, there is no reason to talk about the value being taken from the reward pool vs the value of the content it is being used to reward. At the end of the day, the conversation has to go like this. statement: "I dont think this is a responsible use of the reward pool" reply: "fuck yourself"
So when there's a terrible author, or some endeavor like steemsports thats on the front of trending every day, people see it, and at least some of them have the sense that this particular post/poster/endeavor is getting more rewards than it deserves. But because most people don't feel comfortable with discussions of value here for the reasons discussed above, they try not to think about value at all. So they just see something that strikes them as wrong, then they try to figure out what makes it wrong. Some rule that the poster is violating that makes it OK to say that they are getting more pay than they deserve.
So, for example, when some whales vote to pay thousands of dollars for boobs, the conversation should not be "well, how do we know that's really boobsgirl posting?! I want a dated picture!" the conversation should be "Isnt it an injudicious use of funds to pay thousands of dollars for boobs. Maybe we should wait on the rewards until she posts something besides that pic of her in a tight t-shirt. I am downvoting this, because 1500 a piece for two clothed boobs is too high a price". WHen someone is making hundreds or thousands every day posting copyrighted pictures from other sites,the conversation should not be "OMGOMG i am the copyright police, you don't have the right to distribute those photos" the conversation should be "aren't we paying just a bit much for photos that are already on the internet FOC"
I believe that this is what happened with klye and steemsports. I don't think klye really gives a shit, in his heart of hearts, about whether SS has the right to distribute these photos. I think klye saw was ss taking up a huge portion of the reward pool with multiple posts every day, saw the new "steemy" posts as potentially more money to this enterprise, and he decided "well, theres got to be something wrong". I think the same is true about @stellabelle and the msgivings bot controversy.
The important thing to understand is that it could work very differently. Thats the great thing about voting. You can vote your beliefs, I can vote my beliefs, the other guy can vote his beliefs, and at the end of the day, things will shake out how they shake out, but we can all be be OK with the final outcome because we all had a chance to participate in the final outcome.
The alternative is people who see what they believe to be a poor distribution of funds, but feel as though they are unable to address the issue. And what inevitably follows that is unnecessary resentment and conflict. This holds especially true in a system like steemit, where the presence of many large stakeholders will naturally lead some people to believe that the system is fixed
According to Steemit.com:
"The flag should be used for the following:
Fraud or Plagiarism
Hate Speech or Internet Trolling
Intentional miscategorized content or Spam"
The way I see it we should either simply remove this instruction for flagging or add a downvote button, because right now that's seemingly not even how the founders use the flag and that frankly makes it look kind of silly....
Edit: The instructions for flagging were since changed and as of right now (1/19/2017) all that remains is to replace the flag icon and adjust the powers weilded by a low number of whale votes.
The team at @busy.org have expressed similar ideas as I've expressed before, about separatin the powers of the flag and the downvote.
Agreed. There shouldn't be any advice on how the down-vote should be used. There should simply be educational posts to refer to on the opportunity cost of a curation reward.
Have you registered for streemian? He started a curation trail called hovo that you can add yourself to, to hopefully accomplish exactly what you were looking for when you started posting about the steemsport and others like them problem. I put myself on the list, hoping you'll be there with me :)
I'm not on streemian but I will be checking and following the flags regularly :)
I agree with you completely.
It used to be a downvote button (and it is actually a downvote, not a flag). they changed it, and added that instruction, to try to discourage people from using it like a swipe left. It backfired though, and now it just makes people take it way more personally.
A downvote would have to be defined by actually calling/making it look as a downvote (as they used to do I suppose) and not giving it any specific rules. I call it a flag to differentiate, because of how the platform currently labels it and makes it look.
To summarize: If they call it a flag and give it rules, to me and anyone that's just learning the platform that's a "Steemit flag" no matter what we wish it was.
I hope we get a downvote button (again) soon...
The problem is that "steemit" and "steem" are two different things. Steemit is merely a front end to the steem blockchain. Its notable in that its the first one, and created and run by the same people who created the steem blockchain, but liteally anyone can put a steem clone up. Another front end, called busy, is in the works.
So dwinblood could have a steem front end with no way to downvote at all. I might have one with the down chevron. Someone else might have one thats represented by a dickbutt icon, and makes you chase it around the screen before you can click it. <-- feature request right there....
Yes. =)
In other words, if we want to promote "Steemit" to outsiders, we should abide by the "Steemit" rules. If we break the rules that were set up, then this is gonna make aspects of Steemit look really silly.
Personally, I think "Steemit" currently is the most important frontend site and therefore it's important that it doesn't confuse the outside world as to how "Steem" works. It's also very important that the community here doesn't come off as a bunch of trolls that don't give a crap about the rules, because they "know better".
Agreed, sometimes steemit feels like the wild west. Sometimes there are rules based on a stronger hiearchy and other time we are just completely making it up as we go! At the very least if no one wants to call them "rules", there should be more guidelines.
Even if the guidelines were "there are no rules" they would be more helpful than what we have at the moment.
Haha, yeah I complexity agree. That actually would be more helpful! It would prevent me from looking like I am wrong when I tell someone "the proper way to use a flag".
I think just making the "flag" (which is now more or less a powerful downvote) icon look more like a regular downvote would help new users get used to the platform.
I think you are right, Then it become more of "I disagree with this because that is my opinion" instead of "you've done something wrong and I am calling you out"!
Great post. A couple thoughts:
My biggest issue with downvoting posts just because you subjectively think they are overvalued is that it lessens the "lottery" effect of the steem platform, and it's the lottery effect that actually encourages people to invest in building the steem platform. Here's what I mean:
Imagine a world where the author rewards were simply evenly distributed among all authors posting over a given period. Being divided among so many people, they wouldn't amount to much for any one author. And, authors wouldn't therefore be incentivized to invest in creating great content because they know it would never pay off.
By contrast, when aspiring authors see other authors occasionally earn "outsized rewards"--that is, an award that is hugely profitable to the author, meaning that the author earned far more than is "reasonable" given the amount of effort put into the post--aspiring authors are encouraged (1) to post reasonably often (essentially buying more lottery tickets), thereby adding value to the system, and (2) to post stuff of reasonable or excellent quality (since crap post's like just posting "boobs" will never win outsized rewards), thereby adding value to the system.
Now, suppose that someone makes a makeup tutorial of excellent quality and it earns $25k worth of steem. Despite it being of good quality, few people in their right mind think such a post is objectively worth $25k. So, many of them start downvoting it until its worth only, say, $250. Because the downvoters don't get to decide who gets the steem that is reallocated by virtue of the downvote, downvoters are essentially then always just downvoting to more evenly distribute the coins. That is, they are downvoting simply prevent the bunching of reewards among only a few posts.
But again, it's exactly this bunching that creates the lottery effect that incentivizes the desired behavior from other aspiring authors. Undermining this lottery effect lessons the incentive and, taken to an extreme, could kill it altogether.
So, I like the downvote, but I'm currently among those who think it should only be used very selectively and judiciously and not just becasue one believes that a given post is "overvalued."
Just my two cents. Again, great post.
How is the lottery working out? IMO, the best argument against the "lottery" system is that we've been doing it this long and hemorrhaging users.
Basically, there are two models I could see attracting people to steemit.
And we can't do both, because to pay for the lottery payouts, we have to use a ton of the reward pool.
I get spam all the time offering me a chance to win a free gift card for taking a survey or something. Im sure you do too. Do you take the survey? I bet no. Because lotteries are stupid. And most people think lotteries are stupid. And the ones who don't know it are probably not the people we want producing our content.
Also, even if its true that a more expensive ticket, a post with more thought and effort put into it, is more likely to win, I don't think most people will believe its true.
Also, even if the lottery isnt fixed, this one will definitely seem fixed to anyone who watches for even a short time... because its always the same people who win. Oh theres sweetssj eating noodles with Ned, and its at the top of trending. Wow shes so lucky.
As someone whos been on both sides of the gambling industry for years, i can tell you that people usually tend to think the game is rigged when they lose even when its provably and obviously not. In our system, in some ways you would argue that it is rigged for some users. I just don't think its very attractive as a lottery.
Well, judging by the price of Steem, I think the lottery is working out pretty well so far. Steem has gone from being worth nothing less than nine months ago to being valued at over $36 MILLION today. Not bad for a shoe-string budget startup that's just getting started.
Gambling is a yuge multi-billion dollar industry. Lotteries, a subset of gambling, raise billions and billions each year. So, clearly gambling has appeal to lots of people. They are willing to invest yuge amounts of time and money in pursuit of a big payoff.
To say that gamblers are "stupid" for gambling may or may not be true, but it's irrelevant nonetheles. And to suggest that gamblers are too stupid to produce good content is a non sequitur. The biggest gamblers in Vegas are some of the most successful, creative and brilliant people you'll ever meet.
Why do you think you get all that survey spam in your inbox? Because it doesn't work for the spammer? No, because it DOES.
In theory, I'm not opposed to your option number 2 above. I simply suggest that it won't work in practice. The money will get spread too thin to serve as a continuing incentive to authors. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
In any event, subjective downvoting based purely upon one's opinion that a given post doesn't "deserve" the currently advertised reward simply ensures that no posts will be worth much at all. It will not only discourage authors, but it will actually piss them off to get downvoted. That's not a great way to attract talent.
Imagine a scenario where the salaries of football players was determined by fans using a system like steem rewards. You might think that player "X" deserves $50 million a year, but how many others are gong to think that? And, in particular, how many others who favor players on OTHER TEAMS are going to think that? They will simply downvote your guy hoping that more money then gets reallocated to their favored player. And...you'd do the same. In the end, you'd have a situation where salaries were much more egalitarian but you'd also have a situation where tremendously talented football players might instead choose to play some other sport without such a silly system. Or...another league might be formed where comp was truly determined by market forces or player popularity rather than people trying to game the system with votes.
If youre going to judge the lottery effectiveness by the steem marketcap, you have to use when the lottery first started paying as a starting point.
jul4, when they first started paying out, the market cap was 13 million. It took less than 5 days to get to the mid 30s, where we are at now. For most of the time we have had the "lottery" going, it has been declining.
Im all about being positive, but if youre looking for an unbiased price metric to guage the effectiveness of a particular strategy starting from day one block one can't work. It started out worth nothing. Now, its worth more than nothing. The plan works!
That said, there are other factors that effect price. I think the best way to guage the effectiveness of a lottery system to attract new content is to look at user growth and the change in the daily number of posts. those numbers tell a troubling story.
I didn't say that gamblers are stupid. I said that lottery players are stupid. The lottery is what us gambling types call a sucker bet.
It is a fallacy to compare economic events at two points in time. You must compare what is to what could have been. Unfortunately, it is difficult to measure what could have been.
@sigmajin - great post! As someone who personally subscribes to the "only downvote for abuse" policy, I found that you made a very compelling argument.
One question that I have (and maybe you will address this in your next post) is how do you address the fact that being downvoted harms the user experience? I don't think that there is any way around the fact that being downvoted and losing rewards is going to make people unhappy.
oh, I blame you for that.
Well, not really, though i do think that the UI is a part of the problem. showing the non-aggregate down votes in the UI, and representing it as a flag is a big part of that problem though. Im not in favor of hiding it, but showcasing it is a mistake, IMO.
That said, i think you address it by educating people. There is so much about steem that is completely different. The blockchain. porn now. paying people for social content.
I think if we can get people to accept posts about alexanova and her adventures with Moe The Monster, we can get people to accept the notion that a vote is a vote. Its about money, and it isnt personal.
Step one is when people get flagged, and get upset about it, you say: "Grow the fuck up. this isnt facebook. votes arent personal here. Its about money." well, maybe youre nicer than that, but you get the point.
Part maybe, but I think it is a huge oversimplification to try to put too much of the problem into that narrow bin. As you perhaps remember, the original UI had a naked downvote button (matching the upvote button but inverted, with no confirmation box). Part of the reason for the UI change was that people were getting downvoted and getting upset about it. Dismissing that the existence and significance of that reaction is to dismiss a huge component of this system, the human component.
Even prior to that, the @bitcoindoom post explains that Ned and Dan originally wanted to create an upvote-only system. Why? Because they felt it would result in more positive user experience that would be more successful (and probably drawing on some user experiences in other systems with and without downvotes). It was only after working through the game theory and identifying the necessity for downvotes were they included in the design. So again, there is clear recognition (possibly incorrect, but I don't think so) that the human component of this system would really prefer not to be downvoted.
So while we may indeed want to transition to an upvote-downvote system for various good reasons, it is not something that should be done with an unrealistic view of the very real costs of such a system.
As you know if you reviewed issue 215, I'm not a fan of the UI telling people how to vote, but I'm not at all convinced that the UI is to blame for the negative reactions and the resulting reluctance to routinely use downvoting. I think that is getting the causality backwards.
I agree completely with this. This is completely rational. After all, no one wants to be downvoted.
The thing is that even though it is rational to not want to be downvoted, it is irrational to_get upset_ about being downvoted. For the same reason its irrational to get upset about a bad beat in poker. Because the very same system that allows your hands to hold up most of the time (and therefore allows you to make money) also causes your hands to get cracked sometimes.
So it was irrational for these users to get upset. There are three ways to handle someone who is irrational: The first, middle of the road, solution is you can do nothing. The second way is that you can embrace their irrationality. The third is that you can reject their irrationality. The advantage of embracing that irrationality is that the immediate effect of doing so will be to comfort the irrational person. The disadvantage is that it will also reinforce his irrtionality. The advantage to the third solution is that it might get the irrational person to think more rationally.
Consider Rudy. Patch's roommate in the movie in the movie "patch adams". RUdy believes that he is being stalked by an army of millitant squirrels
In this scene, Patch uses the second method to address rudy's irrationality.
Note that choice 2 and choice 3 are mutually exclusive. Patch can either try to convince rudy that the squirrels aren't real, or he can help Rudy fight the squirrels, and thereby implicity acknowledge that they are real.
If someone is irrationally upset about getting downvoted, Choice 1 would to just ignore them. Choice 3, which is the way i would have gone, would have been to say, especially to the very well paid authors who were most vocal about downvoting, "stfu and stop whining. the very same system that allows you to make all this money also allows you to be downvoted. If youre taking the money, youre accepting the system" and followed that up with an explanation about h ow its not personal, and its necessary for the system to work.
Instead we grabbed our trusty squirrel bazooka, changed the UI, and went with choice 3.
So changes to the UI might not have caused the irrationality, but the decision to reinforce it (versus do nothing or actively oppose it) is, perhaps, why it persisted. (although its also possible that it would have persisted regardless of either inaction or active rejection)
I agree that UI changes to help clarify would be good. The current "rules" that are shown (mentioned in another user's comment) are contributing to the belief that a downvote (i.e. 'flag') means they have done something wrong.
Can you please clarify what you mean by this? I'm assuming it was a joke, but it went over my head ;P
^ Yes. This.
Aren't you the UI guy, or have i got you confused with someone else? (it was just a tounge in cheek way of saying part of it is a UI problem)
No problem :) I should probably start mentioning in those posts that I do not officially work for Steemit.
I'm not sure if Steemit will approve it, but I opened up a GitHub issue to make three changes:
https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/issues/932
Wow awesome. That said, i think there is some degree of resistence to this.
I finally looked issue 215 and its interesting. Regarding what you brought up... the flag/downvote seperation issue... I don't really see why we need a flag at all. The downvote does everything we need it to do. Besides the fact that we elect to call it a flag, theres nothing about it thats different than a downvote would be.
sneak closed the issue on github, encouraging the debate and discussion to continue on Steemit.
The UI saying "flag" and the flag icon are problematic specifically for this reason I cited in the bugtracker discussion:
Renaming it from "flag" to "downvote" does go a long ways towards resolving it. Maybe it is all that is needed (along with the other changes being proposed in 932).
As far as the reason to have two separate options though - I think the idea is that the community would want a way to tell if users are being actually abusive vs. just posting posts that people thought were too highly paid.
In a future state of Steemit where there is a marketplace - I would have concerns about doing business with someone who had 500 flags, but if a flag and a downvote meant the same thing - then I would have no 'warning' for someone who actually did something worthy of 500 'flags'.
Yeah, i see your point. That said, i suspect the 500 flags guy probably makes a new account to use on the marketplace, unless hes both dishonest and stupid.
I think a marketplace would be a great developement, and i can even see it happening, but if it does, there is going to have to be some marketplace-specific reputation/fb system. The current rep system we use (including upvotes. downvotes on posts and reputation score) is insufficient to handle actual commerce.
The github issue was rejected. Looks like we might have to wait for larger UI changes related to flagging/downvotes further down the line.
I'm honored that you would think so, but no. You might be thinking of @roadscape (also named Tim). I have done some work for the UI (like working on the welcome page) and reports about the dev team (such as the Steemit.com development report), but this is just as a member of the community trying to help out. I am not actually employed by Steemit ;)
doh! i must have gotten some mental wires crossed. I think i saw a couple posts about a release of the NSFW filter, and assumed you were posting them as official dev team announcements.
I agree with you that this is how the flag should be used currently, but since not even the founders use it that way it makes it look very silly unfortunately.
Please, see my other comment.
/Ego
Yep. Agreed.
I find this very compelling. On Steemit, the social rules are crowdsourced.
Yeah, when you think about, its a really interesting.
There are a whole bunch of rules here about what is acceptable content, and theyre all 100% made up on the fly by the crowd.
Its somewhat chaotic, but I don't think many online communities would be able to do that.
I will read this and respond in turn. I will tell you that I cannot be COMPLETELY wrong. Why? Because, I am also describing the perceptions and what happens to some of these people. I am also describing people that do not use steemit, or reddit because of these things. Those are very REAL people and REAL events, therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to be completely wrong. I suspect you are one of those people that tends to exaggerate and use absolutes like never, always, completely, etc. Yet it is likely you mean mostly, or almost. You do qualify it as such in some places then in others you use the absolute. This by the way is a logical fallacy on your part. I am going to read and respond to the rest, but since you are pointing out fallacies, I thought it only reasonable that I point out your fallacy of absolutes. All it takes for the word "completely" to be wrong is a single case where it is not true. I spoke of many issues, and those things dealt in some cases with specific people, events, etc. Thus, the use of "completely" is a fallacy in this case... I'm off to read it, digest it, and respond in context of the things not tied to you saying I am completely wrong.
I never do that.
:) LOL touche
Dogs are not cooler than cats!!! ;0)
I never down vote, I just ignore something I don't like, probably there will be somebody else who likes it and I'll just be hurting someone I don't even know.
This is a fantastic post.
I disagree with your stance for similar reasons which I think harks back to your point of the extreme subjectivity that goes into these decisions.
I heard an interview with Scott Adams recently where one of the points he made was that life becomes a lot easier if we realise that most of us act irrationally most of the time but come up with rational excuses to justify it after the fact.
this is absolutely true, and a great point. I played poker professionally for many years, and also coached aspiring poker players.
Because poker is a discipline where, in individual cases, the correct play does not necessarily lead to a desirable outcome, the tendency to play poorly based on emotion or boredom, then rationalize the play after the fact is a huge impediment to novice players. In fact, there are many people i have found who simply can't learn from their mistakes in poker, because their ability to rationalize is just so well honed that they can justify any play they make by tweaking opponent ranges.
Its also true that an objective set of standards it a great protection against this sort of rationalization. But it is not the only protection. One can make an effort to approach certain matters rationally, instead of emotionally. It requires a very conscious decision to recognize your emotion, and not permit it to influence your decisions.
Great points. I think the poker table is a great way of seeing human psychology at work and how it can both aid us and trip us up.
If you're talking about kyle vs steemsports, I would say that it's true that we often object to things and justify it any way we can, using rational arguments if it makes sense to do so. So I think the idea of "acting irrationally" is a red herring, it's whether or not the arguments (re: objections) are true, rational and relevant, i.e. that they stand.
I'm not talking about any individual - I'm talking about how we all believe we are rational after the fact. I would recommend listening to the James Altucher Podcast it is episode 200. We make up our minds based on mostly emotional impulses and make up logical reasons to back them up later.
I think I will listen to that, thanks. To respond for the moment, I think that's a bit evasive, I don't believe you make that statement without reference to any individual. Also "emotional impulses" could be understood to undermine human decision making a bit too generally here. From what I currently know, the emotional aspect (I say think instead of impulse) isn't majorly guiding. But I may stand to be corrected.
This is a truly excellent piece and your clarity on the subject is so refreshing. Thank you! 😎
Your point on the reversal of rule enforcement is extremely important and should be in the Wiki. Norms emerge from voting, end of. By any means you can, try to convince people to vote your way, but I think the system should not be altered to bake in any of those rules.
One point though. The voting rules can be altered by a fork, so while what you describe is certainly the most accurate description of the current situation, it could be altered. This is good to bear in mind as time goes on and we see more controversies.
Edit: I had intended to comment on your point about kyle
I think you're probably right. The thing is that it doesn't matter in a way, because he's free to act as he acts, and we listen to him or not, etc. etc. without needing to know that information. But there's wisdom in understanding the actions of ourselves and others in a deeper way, and trying to see how this Steemit society work, wisdom that can help us. The way you've approached this is like an anthropological ethnography, it's like the "Thick Description" Clifford Geertz talks about. Great work, it's like you're thinking as an outsider while an insider.
I love the little walk down memory lane haha. All the things we waged war against. There's so much stigma to the flag now though that that doesn't happen much anymore.
Resteemed and really looking forward to the potential solution. Especially one that would make posts like this one earn one hell of a lot more than a buck fifty. Nothing proves the point that adjustments need to be made better than this just did.
Seeing a post saying nothing more than boobs would make me snicker. Seeing a picture of manboobs would make me LOL. I'm starting to realize I have the sense of humor of a twelve year old boy.
Hey, check that out, I resteem you and you shoot up to fourteen bucks (because of course I'm that influential LOL)
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 01. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $8.91 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 01 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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It's hard to adapt yet.
But it's innovative and very interesting.
The system IS fixed. Autovoting and curation rewards have fixed the system, to encourage and pay for "band wagon voting".
As @sigmajin said, this is completely wrong. The curation rewards system penalizes bandwagon voting. People vote for the currently-popular posts for reasons having nothing to do with curation rewards. They may be reasons you disagree with, but it is done despite the cost incurred in reduced curation rewards.
Arguably one reason for the problem is that curation rewards are too small. There was actually more effort put into (time consuming and careful) curation, including by me, before curation rewards were not cut to a mere shadow of their former magnitude, and this was at a time when the STEEM price was little different from what it is now. (Not only were they cut in half from 50% to 25% of the pool, but the early voting penalty, which includes the added by-default autovote, reduces them further still.)
Blockchains work by getting external actors (in this case curators) to perform a task by offering incentives. If you slash the incentives you will get less effort invested in the task. In this case, less effort on good curation.
Curation rewards were intended to get people to read and vote for excellent content. People vote to earn rewards. Call it fixed or not. It doesn't promote good content or avid curation when the same 5 -10 accounts reap most of the reward pool each day. No I am not jealous, I think it is irresponsible and bad for the platform.
"Excellent content" is subjective. People vote on posts they like. You may not agree with the Trending page, but that doesn't mean the system is broken (though you could argue the community's choice is).
Curation rewards encourages people to seek and find new content that have very few votes but may turn out to be successful. Bandwagon voting, as others have pointed out, are most unprofitable.
Yes, I know excellent content is subjective. It is the perfect line. I don't care strickly about the trending page, I care more about the trending articles and the exactly same votes they receive every day. Maybe someone could create an awesome voting trail or bot which... Votes on something different every couple of days. ;) I can't and won't fix it. I will say again it is very short sighted. The site and the Lottery feel talked about in the white paper, it is boring. Blah. (to me) Look, I have no power in it. I am just sharing an opinion, a view. It can easily be disregarded. I am not the only one thinking it or saying it.
As a matter of fact, the most successful voting bots by curation rewards are the ones voting on new, fresh content. They are successful because there are curation guilds following up their votes. I'd guide you to research on @biophil's bot - he has the most successful curation bot running on Steemit and has several clients (and stalkers) that follow it. So, the reward system does actively incentivize what you are looking for, and to suggest that it encourages bandwagon voting is mistaken.
That said, if there were no curation guilds like Steem Guild, Steem Trail or Curie, these curation bots would not succeed and it'd go back to bandwagon voting.
Nested reply: Thanks for the advice. I would rather read and vote. Thank you though, I believe your intentions are good. Steem On.
check the curation rewards for some of the major whales. Bernie sanders was the highest i saw, and his rewards ended up being about one tenth of one percent of his SP balance for the week. Thats actually probably misleadingly high, because he probably probably gets to vote first when he votes for curie.
Smooth made something like .005 percent. dan something like .02%. The fact is, whale voters are the primary thing that determines what content gets paid, and no whale voter that i can find makes enough from curation rewards to be incentivized or dis-incentivized either way.
Bots are actually a huge curation-rewards disincentive for whales to vote for the same people over and over again. Because once they do so, they will start to get frontrun.
You could argue (and it would be a good point, IMO) that the very fact that the effective range of curation rewards is so small is a problem. For example, from a standpoint of just trying to maximize curation rewards, how much effort is it really worth for a smooth to get a couple hundred extra a week return (which is likely about the best he could do) on a half million dollar balance?
I don't know how else to say it. Voting for already-trending posts does not generate significant curation rewards. You get high curation rewards for identifying new (unvoted or lightly-voted) content that doesn't have votes yet. That takes effort, time, and talent to recognize what will become popular if promoted.
Not really... curation rewards aren't that high, and actually penalize you for bandwagoning. Downvoting would solve a lot of this, if it started being common for overvalued posts. The reason people can vote for bad posts and be sure theyll do fairly well is because they know people won't downvote them for being bad.
The trending page says different.
there are a lot of reasons for why the trending page is the way it is. I think the taboo against downvoting is one of the big ones. But the top heavy distribution also helps a lot.
Agreed
I disagree that curation rewards fix the system. I think they encourage finding content that would be valued by other users. Unfortunately it's not working that way in practice and that could be down to all the stigma of the downvote which would discincentivise those curators who over-value posts from doing so.
The auto-voting however, does cause users to see the system as fixed.
I found your post very informative, Sigmajin!
Upvoted & Followed.
Hey, I forgot to resteem this yesterday. I was kind of wrapped up in post holiday stuff. I have resteemed it now. Too late for 24 hour reward, but it does at least keep your response to my stuff on my profile as well. ;)
Again... sorry. I should have resteemed it yesterday.
No worries. I certainly didnt take it as a given that you would resteem.. no idea what the proper steem etiquette is... i centainly appriciate it though.
I don't know what steem etiquette is. I do have my own though. :)
Just wanted to let you know that you are missed. I took your advice and hooked my wagon to anyx, though my vote is more of a 'like' at this point. However my husband is considering moving some bitcoin into steem, my steem, so my impact may rise considerably in the near-ish future, though unfortunately not nearly enough to go head to head with certain members of the community.
But should you start posting again, and especially once my voting power rises, I will give you any boost I can.
I have been somewhat busy with work... Because we don't accept new clients in the last half of the last quarter, i get about a month and a half off every year.
But when we start taking new clients on again after the 1st, the flood gates open and I pay for my vacation.
What do you do? My guess is work for a law firm :)
I like to think the law firm works for me (im a name partner).
My firm mainly helps medium sized businesses in other countries operate in the US. So basically we help them get bank accounts, merchant accounts, etc here, collect their revenue, then turn turn it into BTC so their governments can't steal it to get it back to them.
My role is mainly negotiating and executing contracts with new clients.
I would never have thought that I'd find an explanation of a lawyer's job fascinating, but that's truly great! Seems pretty cutting edge...is it common for firms to deal with btc?