The problem, regardless of which side you choose, is that it's hard or impossible to prove which is the truth. One side points out the admittedly large amount of 'empty' accounts upvoting, while the other one claims these are legitimate accounts. There's just no way to know with absolute certainty which is the truth.
This is the one main problem Steem really faces: the lack of digital identity. There is no way to combat account spamming or similar abuse, and no way to identify an honest account from a duplicate one.
The best solution that the community has come up with so far, that I've seen, is the 'force people to take a selfie or else' approach, and that seems highly unlikely to work with 400+ accounts.
Maybe the voting-power of users on Steemit should be weighted according to their activity on the platform?
Active Steemian = high upvote power,
Non-active Steemian = nearly non-existant upvote power.
Steem power for those who Steem? Proof-of-Activity? Just my thoughts.
How would you define 'active'? Aren't spammers 'active' as well?
Very interesting points, and I'm inclined to agree. We may never know whether the accounts are legitimate or not, but my aim was to inform users by showing that they exist. I don't know, however, that this is a function of a lack of identity. I think the problem may lie in the potential ease of creating these accounts, the lack of enforcement of this kind of abuse, and the removal of post limits. I am open to the possibility that these accounts are perfectly legitimate, what is more concerning to me is that there is a distinct possibility that they are not, and that even if this case is legitimate, there is always the chance that someone else could be abusing the system because there is no failsafe for this behavior.
I am hoping for a good SMT for this.
Sorry to have to ask you to explain, but what is SMT?
im really interested in learning more
That is a great idea, with the current system being so capitalistic.
For a platform like this to succeed, it CAN'T be dominated by only the few people who invest larger stakes in the coin. This drives outsiders away.
If steems focus is money as an incentive to create higher quality content, it needs to be a more communal system. If their goal is a couple of people buying a bunch of steem power and taking over the entire platform, then they've succeeded.