Ok yes, let's go over some options, just freestyle out of my head - no magic. Keep in mind, we talk about permanently locked / soulbond Hive Power.
Here's the playbook:
We have a new user, he comes around and starts to dig into the ecosystem. 0 Clue, very little research, no discord contact (as it should be). There's a steep learning curve ahead of him, it might take a year to get on level. He puts out some good posts, some bad, some good comments, and some very bad.
Scenario 1
You Permanently Locked 120HP to get a "fully verified" on a new account
(Twitter Blue is ~96$ a year, you pay upfront the first year)
Usually what people do is, will post low-quality, unoriginal stuff and misplace content by the community selection. We can now help them renavigate them into the right corner without downvoting them because they have already invested 120HP. That lets us crowdsource the education work and immediately releases us from the pressure to police the rewards for a long period of time. Tbh, it takes a while for a new account to earn that Hive with shitty posts.
Scenario 2.
You commit to locking up 10Hive a month every month, you can stop - but the badge will disappear and you get a lower level verified at the beginning.
That means you have very little commitment at the start, but you can earn your way into the stake month to month without converting additional fiat. People will be more inclined to help you reach those monthly targets and if you post trash or overreach in comments, there's a least a certain amount of shield before you get pulled over to a full struggle session including a public humiliation.
Scenario 3.
It's an attacker, fully AI or semi-automated.
Those will be a lot in the near future, dramatically increasing with cheaper AI APIs and professional tools for human-like behaviors. Right now, we have to act swiftly and mercilessly to get a hold of those. Those verified batches work as a deterrent to some degree, but if not, you still have to commit to an investment in preparation for your attack - which wasn't the case before. You now have a higher break-even, which kills the option of a super thin very wide circle of voting and if you get found out, you can't just rugg all the accounts and leave because you have soulbound HP on them. Nevertheless, an attack is very possible, but the attacker will have a lot more to lose if found out while using verified accounts.
This was full freestyle, have merci with my half-backed stings of thought.
Dude. I found a spammer today. Using two accounts to post nonsense then upvoting it with his main account. You could see how the two accounts would send the money directly to his main account that he'd use to upvote his spam comments. It took my five minutes to take care of it, alone.
If he paid for a checkmark, he would stop, because people would approach him and ask him nicely to stop? No dude.
All I did was negate the ill-gotten gains. Didn't mess with his main account that appears to posting somewhat normally. Even left a nice comment pointing out I know what he's up to and how I plan to negate the spam and his self votes on said spam (seriously, a picture of Bieber with a Getty Images watermark), and even said I'd stop if he could give me a reason why I should.
I think it's great community members all have the ability to take action, or not, by default. Decentralized. Sure, some go about it the "wrong" way. People are flawed so a flawed system seems rather fitting. Can choose from all sorts of options including keeping your cool or being a total prick. Again, decentralized. Everyone is in charge of themselves, and that's it.
You apply sensationalism to your points so that makes it difficult to communicate with you on these matters.
Create a problem, offer a solution, but charge a fee. The oldest trick in the books. People fall for it all the time and don't even know what hit them. Just ask anyone using Twitter and they'll tell you they had no clue that happened to them.
You're adding useless layers of complexity.
You're also suggesting tax. Members can earn. They will use some of those earnings to purchase a pointless blue checkmark. Everyone will have one. Once everyone has one, it means nothing, aside from everyone earning less, and all that money goes to who again? The frontend? Consumers will not be interested in making that same purchase for every frontend on Hive.
And some crazy AI from outer space attack is going to require a lot of RC, and can be negated using the same tech and tools already in place.
Why should every human have to pay now just because a few people did some dumb shit, got downvoted, and that lowered their rep score? Why does every human have to pay for it? It's not them that screwed up...
That is a very interesting take because you are right if your priority is to protect the system and its integrity. I personally have seen into the abyss and gone down some of those interactions. Now here's what I found and why I turned my head 180° and started to recalibrate.
Only people who knew that they did something bad or at least risky went through the full redemption arc of getting flagged, and writing an apology.
Guess who's immediately leaving and trash-talking Hive across the internet forever. People who felt handled unfairly, and those are the people I'd like to protect even if they do wrong sometimes.
I'm not too concerned about people freaking out in public and dissing Hive. Those people look like idiots when they do that. People do have the ability to judge the quality of their character. People can also look for themselves and see what that individual throwing a fit over an inanimate object did to get to that point.
People sit around complaining about everything from fast food not being fast enough and every other ridiculous thing you can think of. What majority of those types have in common is they don't matter as much as they think they matter.
Sure, some individuals representing their own interests ask for an apology. That's not everyone and they don't represent Hive. If some random-ass people on Facebook or Twitter asked for an apology, that is not Facebook or Twitter asking for an apology. Dissing Hive because you disagree with the actions of a few individuals on Hive tells me they don't really know what they're screaming about.
Oh, and yes, every scammer and con artist will say, "I didn't know I shouldn't do that."
*pardon my edits, I'm multitasking and thinking about several things at once again.
I read your comment and if everyone would be you, none would be salty. You've been very nice to that person, beyond what he deserved.
I don't expect everyone to be, like me, or handle things the same way. I expect people to be themselves. I expect some to like their approach and some to not like their approach. Maybe some people will eventually learn their approach isn't quite working or could be improved upon. I expect them to learn and make adjustments on their own. If one requires "handlers", a decentralized arena is probably the wrong place for them. People make mistakes and nobody can take that ability away from them, regardless if they're the one posting garbage or downvoting garbage. Mistakes will happen but those are their personal issues to sort out, not Hive's. Hive is just a blockchain.