You know I do downvoting as it is necessary to deal with abuse and there is plenty of that. Doing it to adjust rewards can also be valid. It looks like Smooth just hit one of your recent posts that is still making over $40. Isn't that still good? A lot of people never make that much and there are finite rewards each day.
We have various people who can give out tens of dollars in votes and some of them may do it fairly randomly. Some people may feel that is excessive. Making anything here is nice. I get downvotes too, but it is just part of the system and I never take rewards for granted.
I think Smooth is part of the effort to stabilise HBD, so that explains the self-voting. They get downvotes too.
I do feel for you, but I wouldn't take it personally. Hive is the wild west and bad shit will happen, but mostly I think it's doing good.
No it’s not good. I often get a dollar for a post where is he upvotIng those to make sure it’s fair? He doesn’t, because he doesn’t upvote anyone only take, unless they are in his little community. I saw a lady he took from who barely even posted her own content she just re blogged and engaged in the community. She made one post and it did really well.. obviously because she spends time working with the community not posting and he took a chunk. It’s not ok. He’s not researching he’s seeing individual posts and making a momentary judgment. He admitted to me he never upvotes or supports smaller content creators or creatives.
Is he taking any posts below zero? All rewards are subject to change before payout. Other big accounts are supporting you, so it balances out. Others do not get that support.
There are people getting consistent huge votes from troll ranchorelaxo/haejin. Is that fair? They don't actually care about Hive.
Smooth has been with us since the start and has done a lot of good. I think he has helped out in dealing with abuse. He only gave you one downvote of 15% and left you with a lot. He could have wiped you out easily.
I see all his rewards go to the HBD thing and I can believe he doesn't profit from that. He would be called out if he did. That is what he is dedicating his votes too.
When I downvote I accept the risk of retaliation. I do it for the good of Hive. Luckily I have good people who choose to support me and you do too. Enjoy that. We'd not be making much elsewhere.
BTW I see you copy your posts to 'the other place' so you get extra rewards there. People there care less about abuse. I got censored for criticising them. You have rewards on Blurt too. Nobody will care if you copy posts there too. Your choice.
Not having a go at you. Just saying it as I see it.
To be clear, RR/HJ up-votes things that are trending.
Many of us who do care quite a bit about Hive and have put thousands of hours into the platform since it was steem, have the blessing of support from communities/individuals, and hit trending sometimes, end up receiving the occasional up-vote from RR.
Usually followed by a swarm of down-votes to (at least-but usually more than) counter that up-vote.
I'll comment separately on the OP, but I wanted to address that specific point.
I pissed H off too many times for him to give me a vote :) I guess he rigs things to try and make something from curation.
I know some people dread getting on trending as it can attract the wrong attention. I think it's fair to trim some excessively rewarded posts to spread them out a bit, but I would hope people are left with what the real community gives them. Downvote trails can be an issue.
It looks like a lot of trending posts are not downvoted. I very rarely get on the top few pages.
Why is it for the whales to judge if a post is excessive? Sounds like a censorship oligarchy, just because someone (who has a lot more money than I do) thinks that I am earning too much money
This is the worst thing about this platform and it makes me not want to onboard people here anymore. I have probobly done way more to bring people to this platform than smooth has, but because hes rich he can control everything and take away half of my income.
It's the same whales (or different ones) who vote for most of the rewards in the first place. Somehow it is perfectly legitimate to get whale upvotes but not whale downvotes? I don't think so.
No one complains about unfair upvotes on their posts.
I think removing the effect of rancho/haejin votes is fair as we know he doesn't give a shit about quality. I have seen a couple of those affected saying they are leaving despite having done really well from Hive. One posts the same to Steem and makes 20c each time. They don't seem to appreciate how lucky they have been and how the reward distribution is skewed. I keep saying Hive is not fair, but it can do good.
Thanks for what you do.
Er, this is how Hive works. People are happy to take the free money from votes by big accounts, but if those same voters decide to adjust rewards down it's a disaster. Smooth has stated his reasons and its not an all out attack on any one person. I've been downvoted plenty of times. Get over it and move on.
I see you've had huge rewards thanks to rancho. It's not because haejin actually reads your posts.
Too much drama!
Yeah, we get upvoted because people like our stuff. We are fine with that. If we got downvoted because someone had some issue with our content, that would be something we could deal with, but the fact that they downvoted us for no other reason than they dont want us to make as much money as they do is very upsetting and a bad mechanic on this platform
It shouldn’t be!!!!! This guy especially is meant to be a witness no? They should be examples and he’s a bully. Who is he to decide what’s too much? A lot of creatives are not working since last March. This is a great platform for them to actually make some income not just a coffee like it is for some.
Maybe we should get the pll we invite elsewhere now.
Trust me this won’t end well for this platform they have annoued one too many ppl. Being downvoted and censored on whim is going to piss a lot of ppl off especially freedom loving creatives. It doesn’t matter how much the post is if it was 1 dollar voted down to 50 c I would feel the exact same.
No more soup for you - The Hive Soup Nazi.
How can you even think it’s ok for people to live in fear of their post trending. There are some amazing people and communities on this platform but that is toxic as hell. The fact people don’t recognise its toxic means they have already been conditioned into fear and limited freedom. They should be grateful if the witness allows them half their post they earnt. Seriously f that.
I don't want people to live in fear, but you are making a big deal of the one downvote you had from smooth. You have not done badly otherwise. Many talented people are not getting any big votes.
I know some people always do really well because of the connections they have made. I'm grateful for the support I get. If the odd post got downvoted like yours it would not be the end of the world.
Hive is not 'fair', but it can still do good.
It's not an odd vote here and there, it's not about being angry at a downvote on a post of ours, it is about a pattern of daily downvotes, often hitting particular users time and time again, often hitting users on their one lucky trending post who ordinarily make peanuts. It's not about 'fair', it's about what is good and right, it's about a healthy friendly platform, and this behavior creates a toxic environment that is chasing good people away. Defend it all you like, it doesn't make it any more honorable, and the same applies for small payout posts losing half their rewards to smaller downvotes.
It's the nature of the behavior that's the issue here, particularly downvotes not accompanied by comments explaining why the downvote was given to a post, and although it is not the end of the world, it may be the end of a thriving hive blockchain.
Those of us who are regularly downvoted all the time by a variety of users for voicing politically incorrect views understand the scope of this issue, it's happened since before the hive fork, it's never ending, and it is easy to see that certain users and content is targeted far more than others for the content not level of rewards. Maybe you don't see this because you don't make content these whales and curation trails of downvoters out there disapprove of and police rewards on.
It’s not just me tho, it’s the amount of people this is happening to is over the whole platform. It’s clearly a targeted attack, to stop any smaller people attaining anything because the already rich people think we ‘got enough’. again if it was a random spammer doing it fair play, what can you say. But this is a WITNESS who’s working with other witnesses to take away people’s money they fairly earnt because they don’t think we ‘justfiy’ It. Some of the people doing this, cause it’s not just smooth, are the ppl who laughed at newbies in 2017 in steemit chat room 2 and continually threatened to take them down to rep one and demolish them for fun. They voted each other up and didn’t want any new people to get anywhere they spent the whole day laughing at them and sharing their posts between one another and deciding who to target.
Agreed you cannot take an isolated large upvote as too much when that person might have been working with communities a long time. I see all that circle consistently get 80 dollars for just waffling about their family or depression over and over again. Fair enough if people like it and you think my art sucks but then just don’t upvote it like I don’t upvote the daily depression stuff. Live and let live.
Everyone has the right to down-vote whatever they want with their stake. It's all part of the 7-day process to reach consensus around the "value" of a post.
Personally, I don't use downvotes except in cases of scammers, spam, when JSun took over, etc.
But I don't have a problem when others downvote my content, except when it becomes systematic.
That payout wasn't "mine" yet. (Big lesson about Steem/Hive there) Until voting is over and the payout happens, nobody has received anything, and nothing can be stolen.
Think of it as a practice in non-attachment.
A regular person whatever. But this is a bunch of witnesses who are happy with their mates getting 80 bucks about a post on someone’s family or depression but then deem the artists u worthy of more than a certain amount. If it wasn’t the bunch of witnesses it wouldn’t bother me as I would just think it was a crazy unhinged spammer on a mission but these guys are trying to make this part of the fabric of the site. So the people ‘In charge’ ... through delegation and not earnings may I add are deciding who they allow to earn money and who doesn’t. Personally I think that sucks and people should stand up to that.
Could you show me the $80 depression posts please.
I don’t care about the 30 hive dollars or whatever the dude took its the principle and sometimes it’s necessary to stand up for oneselves and the other people on this platform, cause it is not just me it’s happeninf a LOT.
No but he’s taking away a chunk of them without any research. Some of the people he’s taken from made one post in god knows how long or regularly get 1 dollar and then they got one rly big payout and he swooped in and took a good chunk. I’ve rly looked into many of the people he’s taken from. These creators earned those rewards fairly not just by one post but by general engagement with communities.
Yeah I secretly hope steemit will do well but a lot of the community have left I keep my hand in in hope! I am way too nervous to jump in here due to this very issue I am posting about, same with putting investment here. It’s too much of a dictatorship. What is blurt? I’ll check it out. :)
Steemit is a corrupted system. Rewards can be stolen as Steemit control the witnesses. Blurt was another fork that has no downvotes, so you can do what you like. They do charge you tiny amounts for transactions though. There was an airdrop for all Steem accounts. I had a play with it, but am powering it down as I won't use it.
I still think Hive is our best hope of a good system. Just have to ride out the odd problem. If others Smooth downvoted carry on they can still earn. My only worry is that people will stop posting. We cannot afford to lose them.
Honestly that rly lost my morale. I shared it on my social, to all my friends and finally got ppl interested then it gets swiped away. It’s rly not the amount at all it’s the principle.
Oh I like the idea of blurt. I hate the downvote thing cause it means a couple of wealthy ppl can just dictate what they think is good or moralistic to them. I’ll check it out.
I don’t even just speak for myself I’ve rly looked at some of the people he has taken from and they are honestly people that barely post and support others then get one big payout. I wish they would come here and share their experiences. One made a post that rly helped the Blockchain and got taken from.
I think if heijin or however its spelt ones to reward people with his investment then it’s fair yeah. People should live and let live. Its stifling .
He's just out to make what he can. He abused Steem with self-votes. From what I have heard he controls the rancho vote, but cannot power it down.
Is it really so bad when you can make good money here each week? For someone in Nigeria or Venezuela a few bucks are life-changing, but for us it's an expensive coffee.
Yeah it’s really bad. The amount is not the issue it’s the fact you can put in all that work and some rich dude just comes in and control and swipe it, without any research into the people he’s taking from, It’s depressing. Some of the ppl honestly that got downvotes hardly even posted their own content and who knows what they do in their own time.
I wish more people on here had more compassion and understanding like you, @ultravioletmag, this is what the supporters of downvoting don't seem to understand - the bigger picture and the effect on other people that such negative behavior can have. People don't understand it's not about the amount of rewards, it's about the principle and the effect this has on people who are not just names on a screen but real people with lives and families and struggles and problems of their own.
What if that one trending post for those who rarely get high rewards is one of those Venezualans or Africans struggling to survive, and that downvote deprived them of the opportunity to make big strides towards levels of freedom from poverty. What if they are depressed and that post was just the thing they needed to snap them out of that state of mind and then the downvote pushes them to deeper depression or even suicide. I could go on and on with all the things these potential consequences of downvotes could have, better to upvote content you like than downvote content for any reason other than obvious spam / plagiarism.
It's not just about downvotes either, this is just a reflection of a deeper societal problem where we've been programmed to believe that punishment of perceived 'enemy' and ruthless competition over compassion / freedom / love is the way to 'get ahead', and then ppl wonder why so few are happy despite being 'successful'.
I suspect smooth is not truly happy, most people who inflict pain and suffering on others are themselves in a state of pain and suffering, most bullies are the unhappiest people around.
Although many others don't seem to get it, I can see that you do not appear to be approaching this from victim mentality over the one downvote on your own content, but due to the greater implications this negative behavior has on people and the growth of the platform.
Thank you for standing up to this bully and not being afraid to make your voice and opinion heard, I appreciate your attempts to raise awareness on this important issue plaguing the hive ecosystem.
precisely and it's fine just not giving it in the first place, but it's really gaslighting to let them live in that hope annd excitement to then remove it the next day with the words 'over valued' etc. I can't even imagine how negative that can feel to people who REALLY needed that money.
and your not even allowed to discuss it or talk about it as then you get downvoted more and threatened lol for any form of criticism, which is why this platform will eventually struggle to grow because it can't hear any constructive criticism without getting super offended and attacking. Platform managers are meant to be the ones that are able to detach from the politics and be neutral.
Maybe that woman who got one rly good payout that amount was life changing for her and this one guy scrolled his feed and decided to take it away from her. We don’t know what’s going on in other people’s lives like you said.
A big payout like that is a big deal for some people and is likely well deserved because they have been adding to a community by more than posting. I’ve never flagged anyone maybe twice if they are rly abusive at most back on steemit.
In my opinion users like this ruin the platform and take away morale. Even worse he’s meant to be some kind of example.
If enough of us club together we CAN do something about this we can collectively go around and restore the votes people got fairly. We can form a Robin Hood collective that gives back to those people who got rinsed. Even with a 10 c vote it only takes 200 votes to undo for many of these poor bloggers who are being taken from.
I expect if you did that he would not act against it, but why not just keep spreading the rewards anyway? I will just carry on supporting people who I think deserve it. I do tend to give less to people and posts that already do well. I am often the biggest voter on posts and I upvote a lot of comments too.
If I get a massive vote it's a nice bonus, but if it gets taken away then I'm just back where I started. I do okay anyway thanks to a lot of effort to engage with people.
The best thing we can do is to grow Hive. With more users and people having more HP we can spread the rewards better. That's why I do @tenkminnows. I am not taking anything out for now.
This isn’t growing hive it makes people not want to put their eggs in the hive basket ( as you just noted with me) and lose morale. A big payout like that rly keeps people invested and supporting the platform. I got 5 people to join this week and I posted that highly paid thread on my social media which, attracts others. Now I worry what I got them into. It just strips morale and joy to see someoen downvote you.
Well keep supporting them. Hive is imperfect, but what are the alternatives?
Are any of them Brits? I hope to have a nice boost to the Brit list for next month.
when We get good morale and support it makes it easy to bring on friends and other creatives. Now they will just see all this and not bother, it stops me wanting to bother too tbh.
All of them Brits and people I have been trying to get on for ages. Two are new and two are old steemit ppl who I got to come to hive and one is stil signing up I believe. They come when we talk highly of a platform. Now all I have honestly is bad feeling.
The salad post was a freak payout and it was what actually got me to get new people to take interest on my fb. I do kinda just feel done with supporting and promoting anymore. What’s the point you build up and this one dictator just swoops in and takes what they want.
So $45 is not good? Would you give up the chance of that? You make a fair amount each day from multiple posts.
I see this one got downvoted, but then complaining does not make you popular. This 'dictator' invested big in the platform and acts as he sees fit to make it good. He may not care about being popular. We each have our own opinions. He is just one of many big accounts. Some act for good and others just self-interest. Just how it is.
It’s irrelevant what’s good. 80 c isn’t great for a post but we take the rough with the smooth. The woman I refer to got like 80 dollars but it was one post in as far as I could scroll back of her supporting others and communities.
Another guy only ever rly got one dollar then he did a post where he got lots of people to join that did rly rly well and that got taken from.
I’m happy to make anything or nothing on a post but to have someone ‘supposedly in a position of wanting to make the platform better’ comes in and just takes what other chose to give isn’t good no. To me it’s a complete morale drop. I would feel same if you got a dollar and he took 50 c away . It’s the principle.
Obviously I chat to my friends and as much as me doing good and finding new ways to get compensated as a creative and artist, things like this when I tell them and they immediately don’t want to bother. It’s just a type of thing that puts new people off wanting to invest time. They hardy get any upvotes and are already losing interest. They only mostly get me and my vote is like 10 c when it’s fully powered. Maybe people could spend more time putting the power into these people so they stay. I already see within a week two have rly not posted much more. It might be coffee to some people but I’m inviting friends who are maybe struggling artists or musicians this is a sideline way to support their arts. They won’t continue if they see ppl get downvoted like that. I’m off to check out blurt it sounds great!