This post is to explain the current situation going on with @xeldal. If you follow me, you probably notice I rarely post these days.
As a general rule, I don't leave comments or respond to comment regarding my downvotes. This isn't because I'm an asshole and I don't care. The reason I have found no matter what I say, I am always wrong and they are always right. No amount of discussion will change this, so I just don't bother. Typically these discussions go on for ages and never come to a logical resolution.
I have been getting tons of notifications on F.R.I.D.A.Y. regarding downvotes and @xeldal upvotes most of which are comments that are various degrees of inaccurate and rather than respond to all these comments, I am writing this post to explain the situation and provide context and clarity to what is going on.
If you are completely oblivious, you can either ignore this post, or read more to understand. It's not really that interesting, but I think it's a good idea to get it out there so people know what is actually going on rather than make up their own versions.
Grab your favorite drink, and most comfortable chair and have a seat. I need to setup some context before we get into this.
I have been curating on this blockchain for years and have been voting over 200 unique authors a week with a similar 10% upvote from my accounts. Many of the people I upvoted were not popular and did not get large upvotes.
I 10% upvote ranged from $5-10 depending on the price of Hive. I felt this was a good size upvote to reward users I felt put in the effort regardless of how I felt about what they wrote about. I am not a big fan of dropping massive upvotes to a handful of blessed users.
I had my own mental algorithm that I used to decide who I voted for and who I didn't, but the biggest factor was my arbitrary decision on how much effort a user put in. I was not influenced by any third party on what I would vote on and asking me for votes was a sure way to not get them.
Another piece of context I would like to mention is a personal challenge I had when I got here. I am not an author, I have published some blogs and I do type a lot of content daily but not in the form of blog posts. When I got here, I decided I would publish something every day for a year. This was back in 2017 and something I continued to do long after the 365 days passed. For the longest time I used to joke I was publishing in a blackhole as no one saw or read it. I am no stranger to social media or marketing, and I know how long it takes to build an audience and how consistency is one of the biggest ingredients. Long after the 365 days one of the biggest reasons I continued publishing despite the obvious fact I don't really need the rewards is for a few reasons.
First, I wanted to set an example.
Second I wanted to provide more content for search engines and future users to make Hive more relevant to the outside world.
Finally, I a lot of the content I published was teaching in nature, either development or the technical aspects of Hive. Many of my most popular posts are things like my deep dive on Markdown, my posts that explain commonly misunderstood concepts on Hive like curation rewards, and my posts talking about things people really don't want to talk about.
Since I have been here I have spent an embarrassing amount of time fighting abuse and countering users taking advantage of the reward pool. I have discovered and broken bot nets with thousands of accounts and users who were farming hundreds of dollars worth of rewards a day. This in fact was a large part of what I did for the first 4 years here.
I know right now, these two things don't make a lot of sense to why they are important and they really are not, but I want you to understand I was a very consistent curator and content producer. I think most people know at least some extent of the anti-abuse efforts I have done, regardless if they agree or disagree with it.
So why is this my last post and what does this have to do with all the current chatter about @xeldal?
To explain that, I got to rewind the clock to over a year ago, when I first discovered @newsflash (transisto) voting on an automated posting account by @brianoflondon called @no-agenda.art.
This account published 20+ posts a day in a similar style of this one. Basically a title, an image, and copy/paste footer.
While these posts are harmless on their own, when they get voted for over $100, it becomes a problem.
For example this post received a $84 upvote by @newsflash.
I stepped in and started downvoting these posts when I noticed consistent large votes on them many times a day. This angered @newsflash (aka Grumpycat, Transisto) in which he responded by downvoting everything I published to $0 and downvoting anything I upvoted as well.
At this point, I stopped curating and was forced to just upvote the hbd stablizer account so others wouldn't get downvotes because of this, and he wouldn't wipe out all my curation rewards because of his temper tantrum due to not being able to farm easy curation rewards without actually helping out authors.
This went on for almost a year where I couldn't curate or publish until. @newflash recently powered down his stake a few months ago and bought some HBD and sold some? Before this happened though, enter the current @xeldal situation.
About 9-10 months ago, I noticed the account @tdvtv publishing 40 posts a day and receiving $500+ across 30-40+ posts a day. Most of these posts are not his, many were duplicate posts, and most posts from other users who already received rewards for the exact same posts.
I started downvoting these posts, and as @xeldal (and his other account/friend @enki) was the largest voter, they responded in a similar fashion as @transisto and started to nuke all my posts and all my upvotes to $0. At this point I wasn't publishing much as @newsflash was already zeroing out all my posts and upvotes, but I would occassional put up easy posts as bait for them to waste their downvotes.
@kencode who runs the site that powers the account @tdvtv has contacted me on multiple occasions about these downvotes. At some point changes were made because of these downvotes to set many of the posts from the @tdvtv account to decline rewards if a user didn't claim the post. This prevented some of the problems with @tdvtv, but didn't stop @xeldal from trying to punish me for getting invovled.
Recently @kencode left some comments saying I am being unfair and I am harming users which he has been telling people for some time. He has accused me for being a criminal for downvoting these posts and how despicable I am.
I thought this was ironic as @kencode contacted me back in January expressing concerns that he feels the owner (Jeff, aka Dollar Vigilante) may be a pedophile and his wife and kids may be in danger and he is concerned. I told him to contact authorities and he said in Mexico there really arn't any.
Both xeldal/enki and newsflash followed my upvotes to the hbd stablizer, but since there are so many voters and posts, their downvotes really had little impact. But I am left with no choice and I am unable to curate freely.
For a full year I tolerated this malicious and childish behavior from two large whales who had no ethics or maturity. After about a year, I decided I would return the favor they granted to me and started to downvote their upvotes.
A portion of these large upvotes were on shitty low quality content. @xeldal was following some large curators and over time I believe his votes to these curators increased but for the most part I noticed they followed specific accounts and just ran on auto pilot.
Around April I started to counter these upvotes, and managed to reduce his curation rewards to below 2% APR, far less than the typical 8-9% of a quality curator.
Despite what most people think, I don't like downvoting. I don't do it because I enjoy it or for my benefit. I have noticed many believe I receive some sort of reward when I downvote, or those rewards go to me or increase my earnings. Even if I was posting, and I downvoted something for $100, I would likely see less than $0.01 flow back to my post due to the reward returning to the reward pool. 99% of the time when I downvote, it is for Hive and not for myself.
I have deep regrets of getting into anti-abuse in the first place, it has made my time here fairly miserable and has had no benefit to me. I don't have a proposal for it, I don't get paid doing it, and it has caused endless headaches. I mostly stopped doing anti-abuse awhile ago but I still downvote real obvious cases but I am mostly out of it. I will downvote abuse as I see it, because I still care about Hive and willing to stick my neck out doing so but I don't spend time trying to find it like I used to.
So here we are today, the situation is pretty much the same, but more and more people are leaving comments many of which making false accusations or don't know the full story.
I see no point and posting, every post and every project I work on gets nuked. I have no incentive to work on projects as once they are discovered to be mine, get nuked as well. I no longer have any choice in what I curate.
Lots of people have saying I am the bad guy here and my downvotes are evil and I am hurting Hive users. The fact I stopped voting users over a year ago, has prevented thousands of downvotes a month. I have little to no choice in what I can do, I chose to take it on the chin for over a year so no one else would be pulled into it. I have reached out to @xeldal and explain he and Hive users are the primarily ones getting hurt here.
You can take this and do what you want with it. I am getting endless notifications on F.R.I.D.A.Y. with comments that are completely inaccurate or unaware of why this is happening. I want no part of this, but I wasn't going to let users farm of duplicate and content that wasn't theirs. Especially at the scale it was happening.
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
Somehow whales' downvote policies and anti-abuse efforts always include a lot of personal bias towards content. So it ends up being used for censorship under the name of rightfulness.
Even though maybe setting out with the best intent, all those who raise the flag of anti-abuse eventually end up nuking accounts they disagree with. And so did you.
It is really complicated to get a perspective; I had the case with @pfunk, who (like you) is quite an important part of our eco-system, but then suddenly goes on a binge of hate & nuking an account he hates (and I found interesting). I am not getting into azicorn (or however you spell him), spaminator, gtg & all.....
I assume that you do have your victims too. Some small accounts that have nothing to defend themselves. So sorry, but here's a taste of your own medicine.
In my humble opinion, anti-abuse policies is one of the things doing the most damage to Hive; the 'good ones' are fucking it up.
Important footnote: I did not spend hours researching your voting behaviour; this is cumulative impression after 6 years on steem/hive.
Exactly Marky, thanks for proving my point with your downvote, which is in line with your personal bias about content.
I'll tell you right now your voice matters. Your views matter. I'm not taking a position on anything you've said. However, out of respect, your response here about the downvote is indicative of someone who has just been manipulated by this drama.
Reality dictates Marky was simply countering xeldal's votes. Is it a stupid reality for everyone else? Yes. Who's to blame? Both of them equally, nobody else, and especially not you or your views.
Don't let the drama fuck with you. Stay focused. Since you were duped into responding in that manner, that could discourage others from speaking their mind, and both of these people are to blame for that, equally, and not anyone else. They are one and united. It is their problem. Xeldal knew in advance you'd be downvoted.
The moment everyone rises above all this shit and sees it for what it truly is, is the moment the drama loses control over the minds of others. Once that's gone it's just two fish flopping around and everyone can focus and get back to their lives.
I do agree with you; but the drama does fuck with my feed; find new source of information, gone again because nuked, repeat.
And I am curious about the function/principle that makes people with power (and good will) so out of touch with people ;)
Out of touch? Maybe, but a clash is actually people coming together.
He already said he counters all Xeldal vote.
Colateral I guess. Like all Hive has become colateral ;)
Did you even read his post? He explained why he's downvoting.
Jordan Peterson made that point very clear, moderated communication is always less valuable than free speech. All you want to do is adding personal filters agains information overflow and malicious actors.
Maybe he got that right.
I took personal exception to that Russian shill's bullshit after Russia's further invasion. He is a propagandist for belligerence. I have little tolerance for it.
others found him valid and that should be respected.
but never mind, I sound like an old teacher ;)
OK ... so, I was pulled in only this January because Xeldal started voting up and you started voting down, and I appreciate the context of your side of the issue. Thank you for sharing. I come down hard sometimes, but I try to be fair, and in fairness, I see what you have been trying to do.
Yet you do realize, as a highly intelligent person, that as long as you are DVing people who CANNOT know this history, you are going to be backed into the bad guy corner, right? I'm not going to stop writing. @xeldal is apparently not going to stop upvoting. In a bear market, those upvotes are especially welcome to MANY, and AGAIN, everyone Xeldal upvotes is not spam. I'm not. You know that. But I get it; you are doing your best to keep someone you feel is supporting spam from growing. Yet in expanding these DVs outside ACTUAL spam, you have made the decision to introduce yourself, NOW, to dozens if not hundreds of people as one who takes potential resources away from good content in a time in which people truly need all they can earn. I care enough to read and understand better, but I also have the luxury of sitting in a home that's paid for, with plenty of basic resources at hand.
@xeldal, I have read your posts from way back -- you also are a highly intelligent person. You also have an opportunity here to stop this madness that is hurting people that are not spamming and should not be involved in this matter. Just how much is it worth it to you to keep your part of this going while innocent Hivers are getting hurt in the middle? I don't know your side of the story as well, but I'm sure you have one and it is rich with history -- but for TODAY, I can think of something you can do today to help everyone. I would think withholding the $42 DV you and @enki tend to drop on Mark would help a lot to end this whale war. I would think you upvoting whatever you want and not DVing everything Mark upvotes would help a lot. Both of you can be heroes for Hive today -- NOW -- or you can both keep up the madness and hurt Hive's short-term and long-term chances. What's that $42 DV worth to you and Enki today, Xeldal?
GENTLEMEN, whales, and global countrymen all -- PLEASE make peace, so that Hive can flourish and not be crippled. Everyone has a side to the story. Everyone is responsible for what they do from here on out. If tomorrow is the same as today, you will have chosen that. If tomorrow is better than today, and Hive's innocent content creators can breathe easier again, you will have chosen that. It is entirely up to you.
You fail to factor in the thousands of downvotes a week I prevented and the thousands of upvotes a week I no longer give when I stopped voting on authors. I can assure you it accounts for way more than the small percentage I have downvoted.
I'll take your word for it, Mark. I'm not disputing your version of longer-term events because I don't have evidence either way ... but the other Hivers you are DVing don't know either. They know what is happening to them NOW. I'm not spam and you and Freeborn rolled through again today on me -- even if it is just to take off Xeldal's votes, y'all treat me like I'm blacklisted here, and it has a psychological ill effect. You just think I should take it on the chin, and I can while even caring enough to try to understand your side of the story ... but the point here is, the New Hivers that come in here need not be burdened with having to manage years of context to understand why they should be discouraged, coming in the door. Hivers creating good content shouldn't either, Mark.
Remember WHO YOU ARE, Mark. I read your whole post. Look back at all the good you have done. Is this fight with Xeldal the absolute best thing you can do, going forward? Does it even fit with your total reputation? THINK, Mark -- think! If I BELIEVE YOUR POST, you're better than being reduced to just a whale war ... why would you allow your broadest legacy to be DVs in a bear market when you KNOW that people have been surviving because of Hive starting in the pandemic? Xeldal is powering DOWN; he's not going to get significantly bigger even if you let his non-spam upvotes go. I'm not saying "don't fight against abuse." I'm not saying, "Just take the abuse because nobody cares anyway." Despite the fact of our unfortunate introduction, I do give a darn about you because you are a human being in a tough, tough spot. I'm saying, the way out is up to you.
Mathematically, you know you might end this positively by voting UP what you agree is the good stuff Xeldal votes, right? That stops you from DVing each other, and suddenly, good content makes both of you and everyone else so profitable that spam becomes less attractive for everyone. EVERYBODY DOING GOOD GROWS, and spammers get less. You know with your skills, you can inform people that the best thing to do with real spam is to MUTE IT, the most underused ability on the chain -- certain abusers are getting muted out by whole communities, and that may be the wave of the future!
There has GOT TO BE A WAY, Mark. You are highly intelligent, highly skilled. You still have options and choices, NOW, to fix this thing. You do not have to be trapped ... but that which is your choice is YOUR CHOICE, not mine, not Xeldal's. You make your reputation, DAILY, with people who have not been here as long and cannot know all that has happened. You can stop being called the bad guy TODAY, and from here forward. It is UP TO YOU.
Destroying an innocent person's income is in no way shape or form acceptable. Collateral damage is abuse.
And it shouldnt ever happen on Hive.
The dvwar is literally the pot meeting the kettle. Why can you not see that?
I'm simply removing one person's vote, nothing more. In fact by me not voting authors, I have removed way way more downvotes and "lost income". If I vote you right now, you will get downvoted. I also used to upvote you, but now I don't due to that fact.
But do we know this is STILL true, @themarkymark? I have suggested how you test it -- it could be that @xeldal is willing to let this go.
Find a non-spam author Xeldal upvoted -- upvote that author. See if he removes his vote because you are there. Maybe start with some New Hivers he is upvoting. Make their day.
Find a good content creator. Upvote that person before @xeldal gets there and see if he DVs. In fact, I'll volunteer so no one else who doesn't know what is going on has to go through the foolery.
What you have gone through, you have gone through -- it is a LOT, Mark -- but I keep telling you that you have the power to change things yourself. You are wrecking your reputation on Hive because the average person on Hive does not give two dead flies about what happened three years back when they see lost potential earnings and your name on that loss, and will NEVER READ THROUGH THIS POST. Those few who do will get your side of the story ... and that of those voices for peace who addressed both you and Xeldal in an attempt to end this. If you want to keep doubling down so you can be right in your own eyes, that's a choice ... but only one. Others have been highlighted, so, if content creators leave or never get started here because of your choice from TODAY, we will know your why, but also that other ways were possible that could have built a better future for Hive. I am attempting to reason with you, but I am also highlighting for the chain, for both you and @xeldal, that if Hive fails and reasons are sought, that there are people who chose to be reasonable and people who chose to follow their personal agendas, rolling over people who did not deserve to be pulled into this when other options were available. You can do nothing about where Xeldal chooses to write his name in that record. You only can choose where you write yours.
@themarkymark
This is one of the detrimental effects of DV wars that saddens me the most. Because DVs cost the DV'er nothing, yet they cost good-faith curators, sometimes considerably, it drives good-faith curators away from certain accounts, authors, topics, or away from manual curation altogether, as in your case.
Hive was a much better place when you felt free to distribute your upvotes in what you saw as a meaningful way. The value of Hive has diminished as a result of this conflict between you and newsflash, then xeldal. I'm not talking about market cap value. I am talking about the informative-content and decentralized-governance value (via manual curation) that you personally used to willingly provide to the chain (which, quite honestly, was in no way 'worth your time' in monetary terms).
Prior to this DV war, you were consistently adding value to the chain. I have no doubt that you could have been making more (in monetary terms) by just focusing on coding and projects, rather than writing and curating. That's why this is so sad and frustrating to me. Even when you were reaping author and curator rewards, you were 'losing' money, in terms of opportunity costs. But you were willing to do it and the entire chain was better off because of that. With you walking away, your continued efforts at growing the pie are being taken away from all of us.
This is by design. Rewards are supposed to go according to stakeholder consensus. If there is disagreement, then rewards go somewhere else. In cases where the disagreement is consistent, it's a waste of your vote power to continue voting there, because it isn't going to be part of a consensus and get paid. You need to vote elsewhere if you don't want to lose out.
If people could just send rewards unilaterally, without regard to consensus or disagreement, it would just be tipping (which people can also do, without concern over downvotes).
Thanks for the engagement. I truly appreciate it!
Yes, I am all for systems that facilitate consensus and that are at their core community-driven. With that said, when a single whale account can repeatedly nuke posts to zero, just because they personally disagree with the content or dislike the author or with one or more of the curators, it is not 'consensus'; it is merely the weaponization of stake. If the community genuinely prefers a Hobbesian state of nature for the blockchain, then so be it. (And if such is the case and if it becomes clear to me that such is the case, then I will likely do as marky and 'walk away' from day-to-day involvement.)
However, if one prefers a Lockean state of nature, as do I, then some changes are warranted.
As a relative newcomer to Hive (I've been here for a little over two years), I see the ease with which DVs can currently be weaponized as a serious drawback to the future growth and health of the ecosystem.
Greater transparency can and will improve the situation, without the need for any protocol changes, and I am actively working with some well-respected members of this community to accomplish those ends. However, we should also seriously consider potential protocol changes. I will be presenting some ideas in that regard, and hopefully something meaningful will come from the ensuing dialogue.
I get the fact that adequate tools are needed to combat spam and fraud and the like. I also appreciate (and agree with) the importance of consensus with respect to reward pool distribution. My thoughts and concerns (regarding the current system) are threefold:
First, I genuinely fear that the ease with which DVs can be weaponized can and will blow up in our faces if and when Hive gains some of the widespread recognition it deserves.
Second, if under the current anti-abuse system we are unable to maintain the active participation of valuable longstanding contributors, like marky, that should be a wakeup call, imho. (Even if marky is okay with 'walking away', I am not okay with that. Not when I believe we can do better. Not when I believe we can achieve a both/and rather than either/or solution, if we put our minds to it.)
Third, although I am convinced that 'free DVs' have their place and likely 'saved the day' when malicious actions by a few were threatening the continued viability (and thus the very existence) of the blockchain, it is an extremely blunt instrument as currently configured. In light of my first two concerns, I refuse to simply shrug my shoulders and move on. I have been and will remain diligent to explore new ideas, to dialogue and brainstorm with any who care to join me. I have no doubt we can hone the tools at our disposal to provide much more precision with much less collateral damage.
We'll have to agree to disagree. A single whale CAN nuke SOME posts. But they have to prioritize which posts, and that's consensus. The ones they're nuking do not have consensus. The others that necessarily survive with successful payouts are consensus.
Nothing is going to blow up in our face if Hive gains widespread adoption because there will be too many posts and too much engagement for any peculiar preferences of an individual to make a difference. We pay a lot of attention to it now because the whole thing is small so every controversial outcome becomes a big deal.
On every platform on the internet, ever, there a variety of bad outcomes, but they're usually small and not at such a systemic level that it destroys the platform. People's accounts get hacked, get locked for mistaken reasons (and sometimes never unlocked, etc.). There is also blatant copyright infringement (someone posted an entire Disney movie on Twitter in HD the other day and it stayed there for a few days before being removed), impersonation, aggressive disinformation campaigns, etc. Perfection isn't achievable. Same here.
Erm... do you mind to paraphrase that a bit, mate? Please, define WTF is "community" consensus under the premise that you are describing.
Consensus can also counter those downvotes if they so chose to. In the end, the votes are a community effort. The real problem is most people won't be bothered to, or even care.
That's just going to be human nature at work and a you problem not a me problem issue. You also have the fact a third party won't fully understand what is going on and won't be easy to make an educated decision on which side to support. They will have to further invest time, which many won't want to.
This is why stake-vote-negation is actually a more elegant solution to counter malicious whales than downvotes. It was proposed all the way back in 2016 by Dan Larimer, but the community considered it a form of censorship and it was never implemented.
Stake vote negation would mean that it takes far less effort for a prosocial whale to counteract an antisocial whale, while at the same time it also means that users who have stake collectively can each commit part of their stake, without one or few having to sacrifice all their voting power or dedicate enormous time to counter selfish or malicious behaviour.
Stake vote negation would achieve the same thing as downvotes without all the collateral damage of people thinking they are being attacked personally for no reason. The kinds of abuse that are possible with it are also easily countered by delegation (which is essentially the inverse).
Can u elaborate on that? Is it reputation based or what?
Let's say you have 2 users each with 100,000 HP, Alice and Bob. Bob is voting selfishly, either his own posts or just randomly upvoting posts. Alice judges Bob's behaviour to be harmful enough that it is worth sacrificing some of her own rewards to counter Bob's.
Alice has tried talking to Bob, but didn't make any progress. In fact Bob started downvoting Alice's posts for merely suggesting that he should change his voting behaviour, which he says is censorship. Alice could in the current system downvote everything that Bob upvotes. We have seen how this plays out, it 'works' to a degree, but is pretty shitty for all involved, especially Carol the third party who posts paintings that she makes, who finds herself being upvoted by Bob and downvoted by Alice. As far as Carol is concerned, she is being told her posts are bad and abusive for no reason, and Alice is the bad guy.
Stake-vote-negation is a separate option from downvoting. Instead of having to direct her attention to everything Bob is doing, she applies a 30 day negation of 100,000 HP to Bob. That 100,000 HP is no longer counted for her own votes, but Bob also gets a -100,000 HP on his votes for 30 days. It's effectively timeout for both of them. Bob can still power down, he still gets the basic stake reward, but can't get the curation rewards he expects from his 100,000 HP.
Now to other users, Bob is just a minnow randomly voting on posts. Carol doesn't even notice that he is voting for her at all, nor does she notice Alice, who doesn't have to downvote her.
There are ways for stake-vote-negation itself to be abused. For example, a whale could maliciously negate the stake of random small users for no reason more than to troll the community. However this kind of abuse is itself quite easy to negate by other whales by providing delegations to users who experience this kind of abuse.
Stake vote negation also makes it easier for a bunch of smaller users to act collectively to police abuse. If there are 10 users, each with 20,000 HP, all 10 of them can each negate 10,000 HP of Bob's (100,000 in total). They can then keep posting on Hive like normal, but with only 10,000 HP of their own power for upvotes and curation. There isn't a need for one person to completely sacrifice their life on Hive.
Hmm, interesting. I guess it would in some ways be "worth it" if certain users really are a abusive and if there's users willing to sacrifice/park some of their HP to negate others. I like that there's a cost so others wouldn't just randomly negate other people's stake no matter if they're doing good or bad with it but there's also the question of those who don't care about the stake or curation returns, looking at some of xeldal's voting pattern lately and for a long time, for instance, he's been steady under 2-3% APR losing out on a lot of curation returns than if he'd just give up on his current ways and vote similarly to rancho instead on posts already doing well that others won't be able to effect their returns as much. It's almost like he's okay with it as long as it paints Marky/the platform in a bad picture.
Another idea I've been thinking about is if there'd be a downvote pool, or take half of the current one. I.e. Alice votes on Carol and Bob downvotes Alice's upvote but Carol still gets the author rewards that Alice sent her. This would be pretty limited (12.5% mana) so if certain accounts are really misbehaving/have misbehaved badly over a long period of time, there'd be more accounts able to negate their curation rewards without affecting authors. The thing about this idea, though, is that it opens up a lot more abuse vectors and accounts just trying to maximize curation rewards by utilizing their 12.5% mana to take from other's curation rewards even if unwarranted. Maybe instead of the "free" downvote pool it would cost upvote mana instead, so you'd still have to give up some curation returns but the rest of stakeholders got more instead by nulling the curation returns of the "bad behaving account". If their behavior changes the downvoter would naturally stop and go back to receiving more curation rewards while allowing the bad one turned good to earn curation rewards again. Dunno, there was a lot of talks in @dreamsteem's post so was just one idea I was experimenting with but too many loose ends.
The thing about stake-vote-negation is that it is pretty hard to find something simpler and more elegant. It works both to counter curation-related abuse and author-reward related abuse. It greatly reduces the mental overhead involved in policing abuse and it is not technically complex (it's basically just an inverse of delegation).
Stake-vote-negation flips this on its head. Now Bob doesn't get seen as a nice guy just giving out upvotes randomly, but as just some neutered account. Alice doesn't come out as the bad guy.
The main problem with it in the Steem days no longer exists - that is that steemit being a mega-whale could have potentially negated every other player in the system and still had stake to spare. The stake has been much more widely distributed since and there is no longer a single whale account with that level of power that could potentially be abused.
It turns out, Carol was me the whole time.
I hadn't heard of negative delegation before. I can see some merit in it. Delegation is one of the secret weapons of Hive anyway. Any of the tools can be used for evil, but then the platform should be neutral and let people decide how it plays out.
BTW, it is @dreemsteem. You have a typo there.
So in future I need to get in touch with (circle jerking) whales even more?
Or my stake will just be negated
"However this kind of abuse is itself quite easy to negate by other whales by providing delegations to users who experience this kind of abuse."
great
sadly I only got a few delegations in my 5 years here
and A LOT OF ANGRY WHALES or ORCAS
There is no perfect solution. Larger stakeholders abusing smaller ones is already possible and already requires intervention from other large stakeholders. There is little reason to think that this would increase it, and in all likelihood it makes it easier for smaller stakeholders to group together to counter abuse, making for less reliance on larger ones.
Can Bob just delegate to one of his other accounts, and then just keep voting?
No. If that were possible it would not have been implemented correctly.
yeah, that's... a terrible idea.
@themarkymark
Thanks for sharing.
I have long hated the way DVs can so easily end up being weaponized. And, I've always hated the collateral damage that can result from a DV war between whales.
I noticed a year ago that your posts were being consistently nuked and that you had greatly curtailed your posting frequency as a result. As a fellow nerd, I always enjoyed your posts and found them informative and helpful. As such, I was sad to see them become so infrequent.
I have done a LOT of contemplation about the various issues related to on-chain abuse and past and current anti-abuse efforts. I have also dialogued a LOT with a lot of great Hivers about this issue, many who generally agree with me and some, like yourself, who have generally expressed disagreement with my points of view.
In any event, I plan to publish a post soon that will detail multiple different approaches that might help mitigate the problem of DV weaponization, while maintaining adequate protection against other forms of on-chain abuse, such as bot-nets, comment farming, spam and the like.
I am optimistic and hopeful that we can improve the situation considerably, with some relatively minor changes.
Despite my situation, I still believe downvotes are needed. My situation is very rare and is a tiny fraction of typical downvotes. There are only so many childish whales available. As I said in private a few times there are far more malicious upvotes than malicious downvotes, at least to a scale of 10,000:1 or even 100,000:1. Most "solutions" to this issue are easily countered by just making more accounts. Finally there are already tools available to counter this type of abuse, they just frequently are not used.
I respect that perspective (even if I am not fully convinced regarding the relative scope or impact). Even so, I believe there are some better methods we can employ, that will get us much closer to a both/and solution to help mitigate both types of abuse.
You should start a discussion with your ideas in MM with the devs. A lot of ideas have been brought up before, but most are very easily circumvented.
Fair enough. I’ll do that.
Wen post?
I recently noticed that you were dropping hints elsewhere on the chain.
Well, at marky's suggestion I will be presenting them to a group of devs for critique and stress testing first.
Hopefully I'll have something meaningful still worth presenting after that.
I got a laugh out of that, in a good way. Things can and will get picked apart. Of course, it needs to happen.
Alright. I'll go back to working on my patience.
I do agree with you, bro!
I've scratched my head at why no-one would stick up for you. I mean you've always been fair with what you've downvoted (and also upvoted).
In all honesty I'm quite pissed off that because of this situation it's switched you off hive entirely -- when in reality you are one of the only whales that dares to support the whole hive ecosystem.
I get laughed at by my crypto-bro friends when I show them my project on one of the lowest liquidity markets known to man. You could probably launch "turd" token on some obscure EVM chain and it'd have at least 3x the action us guys down on hive-engine see.
We get zero support down here and mostly we're all fighting off of scraps. That being said, you're usually around to buy into some of the stuff you see as good.
That sentiment has changed now, though, and sadly, because there's at least two projects on here I know you'd take a gamble in but the hive ecosystem has worn you down to a nub.
My personal issues aside, I'm annoyed, because my general assessment of you is a good guy, that wants to see others do good. Something I admire about you is that you require excellence, and if that means not jerking off the next mediocre guy so that you can get jerked off then you take that hit, then that's of good moral character.
I vehemently disagree with people that think otherwise.
Back the blue, until they do it to you.
Chain bloat busting the nodes is a thing of the past.
The day of the content nazi is coming to an end, imo.
You are wrong here. Marky have a huge fanbase from antiabuse who supports him.
I cant help but read your comment in what I remember your accent to be lol!
I've been telling somebody about this lately and they just refused to believe it. Makes me wonder if I might be trapped in a Matrix with bugs.
well written
I don't need anyone to stick up for me, I won't lose sleep. Just want people to know the truth and not the bullshit being spread.
I know, but some of us, you know, want to stick up for you - and big strong Marky will have to accept that sometimes it's ok that others want to help him too.
Thank you
And the truth shall set you free. Keep doing that. The end.
if this platform was truly decentralized it should be a community vote and not a single vote to either vote a person out abusing the rewards pool in this manner. Of course they could just start up another account and redo it all over again it's just a constant mess that so far has no real good solution and comes down a few good actions trying to combat a few bad actors with a lot of good people getting caught in the crossfire often times.
IDK what the solution is, or if there even is one but as a web3 platform that's the forefront of what is possible with social and crypto I think we need to constantly try new ideas. Some how not allowing curation trails and making people manually vote? There's a ton of options that can be explored and improved upon.
One of the largest issues however is as soon as you speak up if you're a smaller account (which mine isn't that small but could easily be muted/downvoted into nothing) is that if those big accounts don't agree with you and decide they don't like you you get slapped for it for no reason. It's one of the most discouraging things ever as an investor, someone who spends nearly a fully time job hour here on hive to build community, bring in people and just engage with others. There has to be a better way at controlling all of this and I feel it comes down to the voted witnesses to figure it out as they are a majority the core developers of hive?
...and main supporters of the Hivewatcher who obviously have let us down on every single point of their mission, besides downvoting me and others every time we call them out -_- so probably after this comment again. Fuck it, it has to be said.
💯
You're not a bad dude. Just stepped in some shit. Happens to us all. Eventually you have to scrape that shit off though, and don't worry about the stains.
You and I had some disagreements way back. Didn't last. Put it in the past.
This place can be so fucked up sometimes. Transisto. I openly criticized his upvoting and downvoting patterns awhile back. Thought what he was doing was ridiculously counterintuitive at the time and it was messing with a lot of good people. Took twelve 100% downvotes for saying those words but then one day he shows up out the blue, leaves a little joke under one of my posts and walked away from it, left me alone. It's whatever now.
I've dealt with a mountain of shit here, dude. Could write a novel about it. Even Freedom downvoted me. Who else has that badge?
Give me a mountain of shit and I'll just climb it to get a better view.
So including myself, here's all these people showing signs they're able to put shit down and leave it in the past. I know you got it in you. I have no clue how xeldal's built though. Don't know them.
Yeah. These games people play here are making a mess. Not my job to clean it up.
Problem boils down to: People pushing buttons on social network.
Shrugs. I didn't go to school for that. I don't know wtf to do. But you'd think since we're all on a fancy schmancy blockchain there would be at least one expert.
wow, do you have that post handy? 😱
It's in the past. It's not a big deal. Was a noob then and didn't know what the hell was going on. We were all noobs back then. Over six years later and all I can say now is it energized me, and I'm grateful for the experience.
That's amazing I didn't even know he voted in the past. I would make a NFT out of that XD
I converted it into a lot more than what any NFT would be worth; but I do get the joke.
those rhymes
💯👏🏻
Great song to start my day with.
So many signs pointing at people being played. Whatever. Steep rise in coincidences...
It's still got that thing, huh? The bassline is killer.
Coincidences? Perhaps we're just waking up a bit more?
I wish we could be kinder to each other. I'll share some of my mistakes as I write around here. Only human. We shouldn't feel so awful about it. I haven't read the full explanation here but the bit I did read made sense. Numbers don't make much sense to me though.
Vibes. These make sense to me. And I trust that now.
CBT has a great perspective. It suggests we approach situations and people with the belief that nobody means to do harm.
Yes I do know some people aren't very healthy and do enjoy causing harm. But mostly... no. We don't. And I don't think harm was intended in this situation either. No way.
Mostly... people don't mean to cause harm. Sometimes we get triggered and we react without clarity. Only human. Who of us gets to judge anybody else? 🤔
Just this perspective can shift interactions so much.
Busy listening to this now... doubt I'll make it through without weeping a bit.
Gawdamned this song.
I love Hive btw. We need to get together and make this work please.
I have nowhere else
to goI'd rather be.This is the only community I've found who is courageous enough to address things and engage with the tough stuff. We may just need to work on some stuff. Which is to be expected since we're trying to figure out a new path. We will, however, need to hear each other to do that. They convicted Galilleo. Just saying. The majority isn't always "right". So tolerance and open-mindedness is the key.
Also. Marky's cool. I have no doubt that pisses some folks off as well. It's that pack thing again. We can figure this out 👍🏻
And by we I mean you. Because I'm old and tired.
Nope. I cried liddle bit. I hope Marky's okay. I'm worried about him tbh.
I've been there and it hurts 💔
I've already sent my apology for being an insensitive dick.
I'm going to lay low for a couple of days. All this activity has worn me down a bit. Catch you later alligator.
@nonameslefttouse edited *sigh
I think he'll be fine.
And yeah. This shit wears people out. It's always a lot of talking and politics that don't really go anywhere. Everyone has an answer though no questions were asked. Still, you're right, people do dig in and it's not always for nothing.
I'm trying to stay out of it. Casual observer at this point or I'll just become jaded.
Time off is always good.
It's never for nothing. It's how we learn and grow. By airing stuff, talking about it etc
It is painful and uncomfortable though. I think it brings stuff up for everyone personally and it's why we so often avoid it. But... it's really the only way to find common ground and a way we can work and stick together.
I've just been burning the midnight oil again as well. I need to slow the fuck down to a roar for a day or so. I get grumpy when I'm tired. Can you tell?
You could just fuck off to the DV-free Blurt, but I see you are not too popular over there as it's been a haven for those you drove away. But then they don't like me much either :)
I know from experience that dealing with abuse can be thankless, but it needs doing. Concentrating massive votes on a few accounts can be considered abuse given the limited reward pool and it can also make Hive look bad if low-effort posts make a lot. I have certainly seen some nasty things said about you that I feel are not deserved. Of course people feel bad when they make less than they hoped, but Hive earnings are not guaranteed until payout and the community gets to decide.
The big accounts get to determine who trends (if anyone cares about that) and they can rake in curation rewards for little work, but we want to see quality matter.
I feel Hive has been damaged by infighting and feuds. It's never going to be a perfectly happy utopia, but people who bully others scare users away who will spread bad vibes. But it is a form of anarchy and people can do what they want. That's great, but we all benefit if Hive does better and that means trying to retain users.
Thanks for caring.
There was a point to my No Agenda art posts and there was a point to being able to show artists there was a way to earn.
As a result of the downvote war you got into with @transisto over this I stopped work on the project (I have plenty else to do). As you know I never got into a personal downvote war with you over this and I just decided to move my efforts in other ways.
Today the successful artists chosen for No Agenda show art receive a cut of the streaming Lightning payments which go to that show if they register and get a Lightning address usually with a custodial Lightning system like Alby or Wallet of Satoshi. Hive could and should have been fulfilling this role but with artists owning their own keys. I didn't have the time to push it and especially against negative push back.
The bulk of the amount earned by that account was given to the No Agenda show but there's probably some sitting in the account I need to tidy up.
Sorry it worked out this way, I certainly wasn't "milking" the reward pool but I understand why people couldn't see the long term goal. I'd hope that the community considers me to be a productive member and if anyone thinks I'm a leech taking out more than I put in, I'd like them to come out and tell me.
You're not a leech.
I've come to offer some outside perspective and I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm not taking any position on this current drama whatsoever.
Quite a few people, including actual artists who are present on this platform couldn't make much sense out of those rewards. If you look around, you'll notice quite a few people talking about things like retention.
Naturally, someone working on an actual post for actual consumers on Hive might look at what boils down to a constant stream of advertisements getting no engagement while receiving a pile of cash, compare it to their results including receiving far more engagement, feel undervalued, become frustrated and possibly leave in the worst-case scenario.
I'm sure that some healthy communication would have solved the issue. I assume many would have been satisfied with something like a compilation post seeing high value and even trending status, which would have resulted in getting actual eyes on the project rather than alienating people and turning eyes away. This could have also led to consistent funding for the project.
Unfortunately, based on my previous encounters, the simple act of communicating with one of the individuals involved, in the worst-case scenario, could lead to all previous and future work being downvoted rather than rationalized results and productive conclusions.
This is why I personally ignored it, knowing full well that it would devolve into a disaster.
Again, I'll still vouch for you. You're a good dude. Not a leech. Shit happens. I just want to add I think it would have been awesome if that project brought some artists over and they were present here, earning, like I and several others have for nearly seven years.
Thanks, yeah it was going to be too much work to sell Hive as the place for No Agenda art going forward, would have been good for everyone though.
Perhaps a No Agenda tokenized community tied into Hive covering more than just the art but of course also including the art would be the way to go. Then it goes both ways where you have No Agenda consumer base coming to Hive, and Hive consumer base coming to No Agenda. Keep in mind that both consumers and creators are rewarded on Hive, which would naturally attract more consumers to any brand if executed well. This can be done with any brand. The content naturally struggles without the presence of its market.
And yes, I know you're a busy guy and me suggesting that is no different than walking up to your desk and dropping a one meter tall stack of papers.
Don't worry. It doesn't have to be done by Friday.
Yeah, the expression here in Israel is para-para literally cow-cow... we'll wait ill all the cows have walked past. I've got other things to do.
I wasn’t under the impression you were farming yourself. It was simply automated no value posts 20+/day getting up to $100 in rewards a post. I disagree the reward pool should be used like that.
I paid for it as I no longer can curate or post.
I suggested to make them declined rewards to eliminate the issue but I know that didn't solve your problem of raising funds.
the irony of this post. I'm blessed to have been the 1% downvoted for personal reasons I guess.
I can't claim to be a close follower of your activity, but what I know indicates you're not out to squash anyone, and just want to build a better blockchain by stamping out spam and vote farming garbage. You have my dolphin-level support!
I know some of the new people left when you stopped the 10% weight voting which was a shame. I modelled my voting bot on what your legacy, though mine isn't on 24/7 I still nicked quite a lot of your 'votees' and added them to my 'list'. It was a great idea and I hoped you would restore it someday (and not for the reason I was on it).
With the title of this post, and while reading it I suspected you were getting out. I see that's not the case, so one positive. Can things not be fixed with @xeldal? It would be great if the bigger guys could all work together and we could some good stuff such as retaining these new promising authors.
Speaking from personal experience, every time you and I have spoken, you have shown nothing but respect to me and my projects.
On top of that, you were the first whale on Hive to start voting my stuff consistently and it helped me grow as a creator. Showed me that I'm appreciated as a creator and I'm adding something of value here on the blockchain.
I'm sorry you are dealing with all this, but I just wanted to show you that your actions didn't drive me away. In fact it kept me here when I thought I would never get noticed on chain.
Appreciate you man, especially your excellent taste in sci-fi series that ended after 1 season and should have been rebooted a decade go!
I have seen what you do for our chain for so long and I believe that if the good Hivers who would be willing to defend you could (had the stake to do so) would, but sadly we are too broke to actually have any influence on the voting stuff. I don't want to see you go =( Let us know if there is any way or form we could help!
This all makes me sad tbh! Someone with your skills and passion being made to feel like this and have to do this. Big up Marky and thanks for all your help and support and we hope you are still around in some way otherwise we will get in a right old mess!
Surprised this hasn't been down voted yet 😂
It's auto-downvote, so it'll happen ~~ on days 4-5.
Ahhh. Makes sense
yeah... that's just how it works. Those
fuckspeople are all using the same code. I pledged to be nicer, can't call people names.I think it's incredibly unfair that you've been targeted this way. I echo what @raymondspeaks says about you being a good guy, one of the few whales on this blockchain that are actually trying to do good for it instead of just joining the circle jerk. I'm really upset about the situation. I know I've told you as much in the Mancave, so you already know my feelings and nothing new here. As I said there, Hive is much poorer without all the good you've done here for the past 5 years.
I'm glad you made this post for everyone to see what's been going on. I hope some people with much more influence than me see it and decide to do something about it.
I appretiate your transparency. I admit that everytime that i received a downvote during this problem it made me feel weird… i went to you to ask about it and you answered me . Now you told the full story and I am grateful! Hopefully things will be fixed soon! But for now i am avoiding posting in communities that has xeldal in the trail
I think a lot of us know the good that you do that few others would step up to. Unfortunately, there are a lot who don't know or care to learn much of the bigger picture of what is going on/has went on in hive.
https://leofinance.io/threads/view/abu78/re-abu78-ecftkde2
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people ( abu78 ) sharing the post on LeoThreads,LikeTu,dBuzz.
Wow, that is a pretty tough situation to be in man. I heard about it second hand, but not all the ins and outs of it.
I'm sorry to hear that things have gotten to a point where you feel you can't post, vote for, or be apart of certain projects without attracting unwanted negetive attention.
Hmmm, yeah we're Humans, we can find a better way than downvotes for smart curation. Downvotes create irrational cycles of grief and diminish the DAU pool significantly.
I can see Stakes allocated/rejected (up/downvoted) to Communities, the voting inside of the community decides the mining rewards of the PoB and the community has to use social skills to moderate or has to mute users from using it. Downvotes on a personal level can stay but they should not cause any consequences for the PoB mining, only positive Drama left.
I have to question the purpose of a down vote. Sure I can guess something. Is it suppose to mimic a jester when you don't get good vibes from content that was shared? Can you down vote without posting a reply? Was it intended as a way to show public humiliations? I like to think positive so cause more negative energy doesn't make sense to me.
Very good question. The main reason for downvotes is, that you get to counter people who post comments and just vote nothing but their own comments up. That way all their curation and voting rewards are spent on worthless comments made by themselves and the ProofOfBrain mechanics are completely fallen apart. But it also meant that was the most effective way to "mine" new Coins for yourself. There were several other abuse ways based on this very same concept, none in any way healthy for the platform.
The Downvotes were implemented to create a counter to exactly that. Everything else is just a natural evolution occurring beyond the crude implementation of the Vote/Downvote system.
The original Chain was launched without the current Downvotes, they were added in the late stages of the STEEM Blockchain, not long before the Hostile Takeover and the Fork into Hive. To be fair, there have been Downvotes from the start, but Upvoting and Downvoting had been the exact same Mana Pool, which made them useless from a practical perspective and we could observe them basically never used for anti-abuse. They got useful and common after getting their own Voting Mana pool. There's a side story with a step in between and free downvotes, but that's long gone and I'll just skip that.
Was this helpful for you? You can ask me to dig deeper if you want.
Very helpful. Thank you very much. Sometimes things evolve in a complicated way and after awhile people start to question the purpose and value. I like win-win situations. Thanks again.
Sure, you are very welcome, glad I could help.
This wouldn't be a problem if the 1000mv vote limit was respected.
Interesting!
I feel like downvoting as an concept (at least in the context of Hive type platforms) is really a failed experiment. Especially since there is money involved. People will always feel like once they see an upvote on their content, that money belongs to them even though technically it doesn't. It's just human nature.
Downvotes can be intellectually interpreted in a perfectly logical way, but emotionally it's really straightforward: "Someone gave me money, and another person went out of their way to take it away from me."
It doesn't matter how the down-voter reasons it out or even if the vote was completely justified, because the receiver of that vote only feels spite. So it becomes sort of a 'rock and a hard place' situation.
This is why I don't get involved with down-voting content except on really rare occasions. I becomes more treacherous territory as your account size grows, I'd say.
Just a note, @themarkymark, and ALL ... @xeldal and @enki voted you UP. That means that they are perhaps ready to let this go -- please also observe that fact, @acidyo, @kencode, and others. That suggests that Xeldal and Enki may be willing to LET THIS GO, Mark. Probably the best way to test that would be to go vote something UP, and see what happens. You CAN KNOW if the war can be over ... maybe you are one decision from "live and let live." Or not. Still, up to you.
I think you are missing the point.
And I think you are refusing to see mine. I know from your post that you were doing your very best to control abuse, and you paid a heavy price for it. That wasn't fair. If you need vindication for everything that happened in that past before you will let this go, that is YOUR CHOICE. But AGAIN ... Hive's good creators and new creators are going through looking like they are the same as ACTUAL spammers because of those daily DVs. That's up to today... I'm speaking to you about a better tomorrow for everyone.
How do you know that FROM NOW, you cannot return to posting and curating? AGAIN, the two whales you say are abusive to you HAVE STOPPED, at least on this post. Can the past be made up for here? No. Hive has a seven-day rule. Can you curate again without being bothered -- only one way to find out, and that's to DO THAT. Will Xeldal and Enki return to DVing you and upvoting spam when you stop pursuing them? Maybe. Maybe not. No guarantees ... but how will you know if you don't test it?
So, maybe you don't care -- this may be your last post. Fine. I will be posting tomorrow as I am today, and I will be trying to uplift Hive and Hivers tomorrow. You used to be GRAND at doing that. I understand that you feel that was taken from you by several larger whales ... but if they are willing to lay down their arms, you can get back to doing what you were GRAND at doing, IF YOU WILL. So many people in these comments have been supportive, and have said THEY REMEMBER, Mark. I believe them.
I most certainly know you are going to do whatever you think best. Whatever you decide, I have now documented for the chain that Xeldal and Enki have budged a little. I asked them not to DV you if they were interested in this ending TODAY, NOW, for the FUTURE. They haven't DVed you; they upvoted you. There's movement on one side of this, Mark. There's hope for Hive and Hivers that this can end -- and I want that EVEN FOR YOU, Mark. Really. But AGAIN, it's up to you. You were not DVed by ANY WHALE today... the next step would be to return to curating and see what happens. The past we cannot do anything about... but we have TODAY, and we may be graced with TOMORROW.
Seeing this feels like we are a decentralized shit and that is why we are not able to sell ourselves. May be time has come where the community should set some standards for who can get how much vote based on their content quality. It could be a varied range, just to ensure that there is some community eye. And it could even be evaluated in phased manner. Otherwise this whole mindset of earning would break the vibes of decentralization.
Leo is working on something like that with their curation trail. You might want to follow their progress, there are 7 attributes they look for if I member right.
I cant believe this is still a problem. These people started that crap before with @blocktrades and other users were just collateral damage. Anything that @blocktrades supported or any user supported @blocktrades they got targeted by @berniesanders and his minions @transisto @tamim @newsflash. Maybe they all same person 🤣
Marky trying to avoid questions
I’ve been on the hive for some time now. I have never been a victim of either of these issues. But I have heard from people never to get involved in the matters of Markymark. So I was listening to one podcast on Twitter when @theycallmean mentioned your name. That prompted me and I was like, “How all these bad vibes but @theycalmedan can is still a guy who believes in you?” That left me to doubt the credibility of what was being said.
There wasn’t any way to communicate well to see what caused everything. Many just explained as you keep downing what he upvotes. The information from they all lacked was, why were you doing that? It was never stated and I never found a way to get to know.
Today is a lovely day I just chanced by this and said, “Now is the time to get my records straight rather than take the wrong decision without knowing.” After reading, I see the light. Seeing someone pull down the home you built with sweat is painful. I'm glad you shared this; everyone who reads this will have a general knowledge of the information they have been hearing.
Now my statement is @themarkymark isn’t a villain. He is just an average human being protecting a property he believes so much in.
Thanks for sharing this. Love from @abdul01 from Ghana.
!! 1st !! imagine if that was a thing on hive haha.. I'll think of a thoughtful response in a sec
BTW.. Marky was on the Cryptomaniacs podcast! I gotta go re-listen to that
I wish there were pun threads like on Reddit, or when we go into reciting lyrics of songs based on something said. Those are pretty funny at times.
I used to do that alot.. soo goofy lol
you said " I powered down his stake " ... is there a conspiracy that you were actually the guy.. is this a rabbit hole?
I fouled this up, what I meant is newsflash powered down his stake, let me reword it. Fixed, I kind of got distracted writing it.
I wish I could proof read shit for people haha.. cos i'll catch that weird shit and point it out.. maby not so much grammatical errors or sentence structure..
Sorry for all the bullshit you've had to deal with marky
I have watched you do so much good for Hive over the years. I wish I knew a solution, but at least I can boost your post and send you an Ecency Points tip! No one can take that away.
How does it feel to get all this out? It may not set the record straight, but the record is now here.
I didn’t want to respond to all the comments because like I said they will always be right and I dull always be wrong so it would be endless going nowhere. t lesdt with this irs something people can refer to.
Yay! 🤗
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Before I saw this post, I shared this on-chain. I believe this will make my points clear no only to use but to HIVE:
I would like to make it clear to you and hive, there r people who like the work of "Themarkymark". I left this under your post also with hopes to see a smile on your face. You did antiabuse duties where even HW failed. You faces political pressure where others stopped you continued to fight. These days will pass like the previous tough days. I trust and believe in you marky. Much Love for your services for hive.
Thank you very much for an informative share.
I have not been on Hive very long. However, I am wise enough to see that Hive blockchain platform has flaws just like all social platforms. The common denominator in the flaws are human emotions. Or, management of emotions and egos. Hard enough to manage our own imperfections let alone trying to build technology to control emotional responses from people with much authority, power, influence, etc.
In the short time that I have been testing the Hive platform as a viable path from a web2 to web3 biz I have found several areas that is not very conducive to growth for someone getting started. Sure there is lots of people telling you how well they are doing on Hive. Heck, everyday I see content about someone sharing how well they are doing. Is that quality content? How do people define quality content? What is the WHY? of Hive? What is the vision statement for the Hive community and how well is it communicated. I understand that technology moves quickly but that is not new. Same as defining processes supported by a set of standards and various bodies of knowledge. Not new. We have a rewards system that is intended to be fair to everyone but clearly there is abuse. There is always abuse when some players in the games have too much influence on the outcome of the game. Most people are not very well trained in managing lots of power. And some people are dishonest and take advantage of weakness in a system. People issues. I share one of my favorite Venn diagram and methodology to solving problems. After reading this post and all the replies so far, it looks clear to me the issue is a people issue. The expectation of people in the system is not clear or well defined. Some people have earned great influence, so much so that when they pool their efforts they can greatly control outcomes that have nothing to do with the overall wellness of our community.
https://www.smartsheet.com/content/people-process-technology
In the diagram I have marked the sweet spot that shows the three circle of impact in balance. I believe the people impact is in transition. Sometimes it aligns with process and technology impacts and sometimes it is overly influenced away from the overall purpose of the system. ie The Vision. The Why of the community. People disagree about the why because it is not well defined? When this happens some people respond against the system or against other players within the system. An emotional response. Noise that needs filtering or just negative energy that needs to be converted and not promoted.
Now what could be a solution or an improvement to an existing system to help protect everyone in the system from abuse by people with too much power?
I don't think another person with lots of power is the answer. Pooling resources in a way to make a bigger gun is not a solution. The system already shows signs of abuse from pooling of resources.
The downvote to me looks like a big gun. Why do you have to downvote anything. We can respond with better content if we don't like the content. Or you can ignore it. We should not overlook the power of avoidance. I prefer speaking out and making a statement and not sitting on the sideline. Take on the bullies. However, sometimes the bullying is a childish behaviour that the adult has not outgrown. Maybe there is a mental capacity concern. Or sometimes it is part of making mistakes so you can learn a lesson. Who knows? We are imperfect beings capable of making an emotional decision in a millisecond and then spend hours, days and a lifetime trying to use logic to justify an emotional response.
A bigger gun does not solve a problem it creates a bigger problem.
What if you got rid of the downvote?
Would that not help avoid the escalation of attacks and address the negative impact and fallout onto our community?
True
Way better, but @elmerlin is probably the best person to talk to on this. He's super smart and has the ability to see the whole picture.
Every antiabuse person's story. Now I think I know your other alt. :)
A specific face appeared on antiabuse land around the same time you disappeared. Is that you? ;)
just joking.
And there r multiple people in multiple discords answering questions from your POV.
I know I'm relatively new to the blockchain here, and to date, I haven't downvoted anything, I think, though I probably should have.
To start, I have always considered the human race basically self-centered and as a human, will not exclude myself from that assessment, regardless of other people's respect for me. Somebody hits me with a big upvote, I am probably about as greedy as anyone else. So, someone comes into this as a money grabber, I expect it. Heck, I'll even upvote my own content on it's last pay day, if I happen to catch it before it pays out because... why not? The question for me is, are they doing it to commit a fraud, theft, launder, or some other financial criminal act, knowing they likely can get away with it without the censorship? There needs to be a way to protect the blockchain from these types of misuses and believe me, I am willing to bet they already exist. I'm just usually too busy looking for much better content that I think deserves a little attention.
Haters gonna hate. Don't know why, but I have always loved that phrase. I also don't hate haters, but rather find them a source of entertainment. I'm the kinda guy that see someone hating and threatening to burn the world down and the only thing that goes through my mind is, where's my gas can?
shit. lost track of time and now i'm gonna be late for work! XD Later. probably wasn't finished with this thought train. Stick arounf, buddy. You got support.
Only 15 minutes late to work. XD. Anyway, thought train derailed, so hopefully this was enough. Sufficed to say, I'm jealous of the big voted posts, hope to get there one day and know their has GOT to be players playing the system. Such is life. Am I gonna let it all ruin my day? Nope. Just gonna give out that next upvote to something I like and hope someone likes or respects what I got to say.
https://reddit.com/r/internetdrama/comments/13j8mda/whale_downvote_war_on_decentralized_social_media/
https://reddit.com/r/WinStupidPrizes/comments/13jv4bc/my_last_post_get_a_chance_to_win_10/
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I hope there will be a solution to this issue. It really sucks that people who contribute so much to Hive are forced to leave. Would be great if there was a special group of people who could advocate for you and make you guys to come to an agreement. Otherwise whoever has a bigger power those can rule and there is no way to control this kind of behavior🤷♀️
Ah, I forgot to mention, but since I engage with EVERY SINGE POST made by you on Twitter (in case I see it of course & am active at that time), I salute your ethos and I don't think that you have ever followed bad or low-level motives.
Smack, I just realized we'll never get Hive Punks 2 or Hive Pandas or stuff like that now.
I was never going to do a Hive Punks 2, it isn't fair to those who bought Punks to have another set of Punks being released.
I did have planned a game @plunderpunks which was a Pirate themed game that used Punks as well as a few other ideas.
ahhh I knew it...
But you could have enabled burning Punks for Punks v2, everyone would have been cool with that.
There was some thoughts similar to that, as well as a few other ideas. There was in fact an idea for Hive Punks: Next Generation but it would play out much differently and would be an optional migration for owners.
That would have been so EPIC. I know Dan bought a bunch and was waiting for something like that.
I wrote a little piece several weeks ago called, value is not created it is transferred. This pretty much sums up what these types of posters are doing. They are accumulating and transferring actual wealth to themselves regardless of their content value. The downside to this is as they cash out their rewards for income with their worthless content and they reduce the value of the existing remaining assets. This in and of itself doesn't sound like a very big deal but when you are combing hundreds of dollars a day in actual value off of the community without actually contributing to it, it's the community that has to pay for it because the value that they inserted into the community for community growth is being removed by someone who's not actually contributing.
Now I support the idea of a no censorship environment, so muting these individuals is not the answer. But, there does need to be a justifiable and effective way to make illicit behavior unsuccessful. The easiest way to do this would be to create sets of programmed laws that govern how an upvote or downvote can be used. For example, No single account can receive any more than 5% of your votes. This means that a person must vote for 19 other authors before they can vote again for the same author. Unfortunately, the comber would likely simply create 20 accounts to curate with the bots. How I would programically counter that is make vote power a calculation of the uniqueness of your last 100 votes. 100 unique votes equals 100% vote power, so repeatedly voting on the same authors reduces your max vote power. There are ways to programically control misuse without singling out abuses or censorship. Making abuse programically harder to do forces combers to adapt or seek easier opportunities.
Last post? xeldal? Friday? fk its all too much! Hey is it time to sell Gods Unchained chests yet?
if you do go, I'll miss ya marky 😃
Been selling off cards as fast as I can (which is really slow)
Wonderfully explained. Quality posts are key for the growth of hive overall.
It’s amazing that you have labour end to explain everything. That’s happening behind the curtains.
I hope you and the other wells can find a way of core existing.
Much love and respect for the deep dive posts you put out explaining how some technical things work on hive.
With great power comes great responsibility. When you are one of the big ones to promote or prevent whatever, you will be asked for responses.
Even if it frustrates you to give the same answers over and over again, forcing you to repeat yourself constantly, everyone who receives your down-votes expects an explanation. Each case is an individual case and wishes to be treated as such.
The frustration that someone does not accept your answers or justifications is quite understandable. But it does not absolve you from having a debate with anyone who wishes to do so, as much as it tires you insofar as you have taken the first step (DV). So if it tires you and you do not feel like and you do not enjoy it, the logical consequence would be to stop your downvotes (or to reduce them to a level that is bearable for you).
It is already very tiring to have a debate with an individual in which that individual subjectively shows no insight. However, this is not a matter that needs to be judged conclusively as long as communication is desired. Only when all attempts at communication do not lead to a satisfactory result for all participants and someone refuses to communicate, ignores arguments instead of taking them up, could DV be the final action. However, this should be preceded by all possible alternatives.
Downvotes would therefore a.) only need to be distributed by you in the quantity that you yourself can handle b.) want to be debated on a case-by-case basis.
So if you can only handle one account, then it's just one. If there are several, that's fine too. But if their number exceeds your capacity, it is up to you to adapt your behaviour to your capacities.
It is, in my view, illogical to equate downvotes with upvotes because they are two different things. Many of your upvotes do not undo one of your downvotes and vice versa because they are distributed among different users. Each act stands on its own.
Frustration fatigue is not an argument and therefore cannot apply.
Impersonal downvotes cannot exist simply because ultimately your judgement of whether a user produces shit cannot be completely objective. It always has subjective parts and only if you want to assure yourself of the impression that an imagined majority (or importance of certain users) agrees with you and you perceive such as a convention, you can keep the image of "good" about yourself.
Reason is brought to you in the measure in which you send out reason. Unreasonableness is brought to you in as much as you yourself are unreasonable.
If you wish peace or agreement with Xeldal, it must be clear to Xeldal. It presupposes his willingness to be in contact and communication with you.
If he or someone else perceived you as wanting revenge or wanting to be right, it can be that this person will want you to take his revenge for some time longer. Eventually it'll stop (except automation is in play and the involved never come back, die or busy themselves elsewhere).
Is this an emotion which you yourself never felt, never had, never acted out?
If you rarely acted out such emotions they soon will stop against you if you decide to become serene.
p.s No "Ask Me Anthing" for ages and I have a burning question... *tap tap
So take some time to rest and reboot because bullying hurts and is very harmful to mental health!
While you find your inner peace again...