There's always going to be people upset they are getting flagged or downvoted as we call it these days. The discussion seems worn out, exhausting at times, but I'm thinking I do have a couple of points to contribute, and I hope I'm allowed to bore people a bit with them today.
To be a dangerous Hivean
It would appear I'm about to go on an unnecessary tangent, but I promise I will make sense in the end.
I would also say that even though I'm not a fan of Jordan Peterson these days (because of his politics really), there are lessons he's taught me that I find very significant to my philosophy of life, being this one among the most important:
"A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control."
There's a lot to unpack here, and maybe I won't be able to address it all in one post, but I want to focus on something implied by this truth, if I'm allowed to call it that.
We ought to be dangerous, we should want to be dangerous, have the power to right wrongs, while at the same type hope that we never have to.
The idea that we can live in a world without danger is naive at best. And, more importantly, the idea that the people will always do what's right is incompatible with observable reality.
If I was to apply these ideas to Hive, to our social experiment, I would say:
we should want for there to be people here who are dangerous, who can right the wrongs if the situation calls for it, while at the same time use this power only when it's absolutely necessary.
Let's make it more Petersonian for fun:
A hive user with no stake is not a good user by default. A good hivean is one that has stake, has power, can affect the network and user's experiences greatly, but choses to do what's best for hive not just for himself.
If I was to steal some words from the $LEO project, I would say: We need noble lions here.
But...
What if we declaw everyone?
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I know why other Hive type experiments have failed. But I will say that I know for a fact some of them, like Whaleshares were built on nothing but good intentions.
As a matter of fact, I think I remember distinctly the reasons why Whaleshares, for example, came about, and I want to say it was because downvotes and drama had effectively pushed out some otherwise enthusiastic Hiveans (steemians at the time). They really thought declawing the system was the way to go, getting rid of bots and downvotes did seem like a good recipe for success. but, What happened?
As of me writing this post, and as far as I know Whaleshares is no longer operational, but there is still one "clone" out there, or should I say one fork who is giving it a go.
You know about Blurt?
I don't remember the drama to be honest with you all, and maybe that's not as important to my little exploration here. Maybe it's enough to say that the team who forked out into Blurt, wanted also to fix what they considered downvote abuse.
A capable team of once prominent Steemians/Hiveans, mind you, that ran many successful projects on this blockchain in the early days.
As we can see from the price action, the grass is looking not quite so green on the other side of the fence. Even if I was to analyze it's current situation without taking the price of $blurt into account, I would still find a network gasping for air, with very little users. As a matter of fact, trending posts have two upvotes and no comments, and I think that proves my point perfectly.
Is everything perfect?
Obviously not, and I hope I'm not sounding like a cheerleader here. All I'm saying is that as far as I can tell removing downvotes is not going to fix Hive magically, as some people think it will.
If you however believe that the system is rigged, that the little guy has no chance here, and that the evil downvoters are the ones keeping you down. Then, all I can say, and I say this respectfully:
What's your solution? A real one?
Because every single time someone tells me remove downvotes altogether what I picture in my head is a young man telling me how socialism does work, but it has never been truly implemented.
Food for thought, as they say
MenO
MenO
9 tmes out of ten the people I see decrying downvotes are ones that have either abused the platform or attempted to in some way. Or the friends of someone who does/has.
It's not perfect and I would her interested in hearing ideas that are not simply, get rid of them
This post was inspired by someone spamming biblical verses who felt betrayed by the downvotes he was getting, when he paid the LEO premium fee to "make money".
So, it's exactly as you say... I did direct him to checkout Blurt, but I doubt he will go there.
Blurt is free of all that but funnily enough never quite appealing enough. I suspect the sub-cent price might have something to do with it 😃
I think DVs have a purpose and that they generally do it. Without them this place would be much worse. The problems may be in the centralisation of stake, but that is not the fault of the code. I keep saying that Hive is imperfect, but it's good.
I just downvoted some spammy comments, but that person will keep posting anyway. Maybe I should automate it.
i rarely downvote, but when I do, it's usually because someone is literally being harmful to the platform (as far as I can tell)
That's generally why I do it.
I have always thought of downvotes as this chains ability to self police itself.
Abuse, illegal, scams....All for the downvotes.
I'm not a fan of people downvoting because they disagree with someone or want to remove rewards. I've seen it scare away really good content creators and caused more drama than it's worth.
I know it's not a popular opinion, but it's how I've treated downvotes in my 7 years of being here.
You well state matters as they stand. It is sadly difficult to deny the mathematical realities that, just as taxation keeps financial assets concentrated in the hands of those that can afford tax attorneys and offshore machinations to dodge paying taxes, DV's concentrate stake in the wallets of an oligarchy.
What to do about that, when we depend on a network that isn't facilitating plagiarism, spam, and scams, isn't immediately obvious from an understanding of the problem of unrestrained taxation. Simply removing one problem doesn't fix all the others that erroneous fix was an attempt to solve. In biology, there are similar examples of introducing a predator of an introduced pest backfiring when the predator further exacerbated ecological harms caused by introduced pests, and trying to stuff the toothpaste back in the tube is notoriously impossible.
As you undertake here, practical solutions that don't themselves cause different problems, such as DV's concentrating stake in an oligarchy, aren't just magically obvious, and requires discussion, and even inspiration, to arrive at potential solutions.
Thanks!