Direct from the desk of Dane Williams,
This is not your average forex broker blog.
Evening team,
So I'm pretty bummed.
The other day, I shared my opinions and concerns about HF22.
In that blog, I was pretty wary about the changes, especially around the free downvotes, around which I shared the following thoughts:
I do know however, that shit is going to hit the fan when some petty cunt with a tonne of SP, doesn't want to be told that there's a bigger picture at play here, and downvotes all your posts for the next month in retaliation...
It's going to happen, we know it is. But what are we supposed to do when it does? Your account can get completely destroyed if you piss off the wrong whale.
Well here we are a week or so later and I log on to find my account looking like this:
All rewards that are pending for the next week flagged to zero.
Yep, there's the petty cunt I was waiting for - @haejin.
The nobody who just leaches from the reward pool day after day, week after week, month after month.
I just shake my head - Because there's literally nothing a nobody like me can do. A nobody that has plowed thousands of investment dollars into Steem by the way...
But in the grand scheme of things, definitely a nobody.
I chose to create original content on the Steem blockchain, because I see the potential of what this media funding model could become.
But come on, when my whole account can get wiped in a single day like that, there's no point.
"Well just curate" - The HF22 supporters say.
But curate what?
My content is all posted on the #forex, #trading and #steemleo tags every day. As a result, I obviously read them simply because I'm interested.
Can I be honest? It's 95% garbage now.
Here's another extract from my opinions and concerns about HF22 last week:
If you're taking the incentives for quality content creation, then we're just turning Steemit into a cesspool of garbage. Therefore, it doesn't matter who's curating the content, because it's all shit anyway!
This is happening.
I see people saying how clean the trending page is... But have you actually read it? It's all still garbage!
So you want me to stop creating original content that I use for my business here on Steem, and just 'curate' the garbage?
You're really encouraging writers like me to stop writing and simply curate, because it's a better ROI? Such short term thinking!
How is this sustainable?
This is where I'm at and why I have zero motivation to keep putting my time, effort and money into Steem.
Best of probabilities to you,
Dane.
@forexbrokr | Steemit Blog
Market Analyst and Forex Broker.
I've had my posts wiped out by him too, but the community got me my rewards back. Steem is about freedom and that includes the freedom to be an arse. He's pissed of because his unearned rewards are being removed. We can hope he will just leave.
This is true and now I've calmed down, I do respect this fact.
But in saying that, I now realise that as a relatively small account, I certainly can't say what I think is best for the platform. Is that really freedom?
You have to decide what fights are worth the risks. There are a few bad actors with serious SP, but a lot of the orcas are only going after those who actively harm the platform.
Up your content. That is the one thing you can do. I was flagged by haejin, too, but my answer was to upload some self-portraits with some thoughts on what had happened. I got MASSIVE support: all my posts were pumped back up and I hit top 10 Trending with the self-portraits. Point is: there are whales who are ready to undo the damage an occasional bad actor is causing.
There is also some account (can't remember its now though, unfortunately) that is specifically aimed to help with cases such as yours.
I have also found that I've gotten support and appreciate the community stepping up for me.
I do get that you can't have a totally decentralised platform, and then complain when someone does something you don't agree with. But it's just frustrating that it takes people with bigger accounts to fight what is essentially a pissing contest, for me.
Well, luckily the retaliation comes from few bad apples only. Most bigger accounts are reasonable enough not to engage in such behavior, because it negatively affects their reputation. I have downvoted a bunch, and only retaliation came from haejin and some small user whose vote barely affected my rewards.
When people are saying that trending is looking clean, they mean the posts with a single picture (probably copied from somewhere) and 2 words are gone.
95% of posts are garbage? Eh, that's probably true. 95% of posts on facebook, twitter, linkedin, newspapers, magazines, and everything else are garbage too. 95% of songs are garbage. 95% of any kind of work that people produce are garbage.
You have to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The great thing about human creativity is that the things that ARE good can be really good.
As far as your haejin downvotes go, well STEEM distribution is too broken to save in my opinion. Long live tribes.
What is different about tribe token distribution that makes them not susceptible to this same, petty bullshit?
I tag my posts with #steemleo, but haven't ever properly delved into them too deeply.
3 things make tribes different:
1, There are whales, but the distributions are not anywhere near as extreme as we see in STEEM.
2, The price of a user buying a large enough percentage of the float to reach any desired level of influence isn't that high. You can buy your way into a LEO whale for 2-3k USD.
3, If whales (or anyone else) start acting like jackasses, they can be muted. Some people don't like this part since it isn't completely decentralized. But the tribes are not a free-for-all. The tribe moderators can tell you to get off their lawn.
Urgh. THis is shitty. He's such an arse. Agree that most of the stuff on steemit is still rubbish though.
My biggest question around that the new rewards split, is whether we're just disincentivising content creation even more. If there's nothing quality to curate, then what's the point?
Only time will tell...
I feel for you man, but keep away from 'him', things are happening.. so sit back and watch the action.
I'll let @goblinknackers know about you, he's a keen trader and is threatening to do a post on trading.
I will watch from afar. With my small size account, I've learned my place here. Just back to keeping to myself.
Well that's not surprising..... And the STEEM price keeps moving down. Why would you invest your time and money.
In terms of price, I see alts ALL just following each other down, independent from any real world business case. It's just price action.
There is certainly still potential here, but things like this obviously burn.
Well that's well and truly fucked.
We've just gotta know our place in the community ;)
Mhh, wrote the comment on the wrong post. No doubt that you will find it!
Cheers,
Peter
Hey Peter, cheers mate!
As for why, well I was stupid enough to be using my 2 free downvotes per day to flag users who were raping the rewards pool with bots and massive self voting. He was one of them.
Back into the shadows I go. I really don't have the money to be properly curating content both up and down.
Probably the smartest thing. I try to operate as much as I can in the shadows. My account just isn't big enough to be in the frontline.
Sorry, you don't have enough staked BEER in your account. You need 6 BEER in your virtual fridge to give some of your BEER to others. To view or trade BEER go to steem-engine.com
I'm not sure, but I think that he has a problem now. He had his million worth stake and voted for himself. Now it is no more profitable. So, he wants to mess with the rest. He is afraid of competition.
Two years ago he was involved in similar war, back then he was the one that got downvoted.
I do hope that the community does take him down for raping the rewards pool. It's just unethical and was what the HF changes were to help encourage people to stop.
But I've now learned I have to just leave true up and down curation to those with big accounts. I know my place here now and I'll go back to keeping to myself.
Life is not easy. Greed follows the big money and not everyone is capable of handling it. 🙏🏻
Goddamn! Sorry bro about it. Not to worry, your followers still see your blogs and appreciate them very much! Me being one of them.
Cheers for the support mate. Bring back the good old days! ;)
To be honest I cannot say anything has changed if it comes to the kind of content posted.
Not everyone is a great writer, there are many who do have potential and will grow if they are given some advice and time.
I am also not a big fish but you have my vote plus I resteemed.
If it comes to the lost motivation you are not the only one and fact is as an author you aren't seen here. Steemit is not the place to be recognized, where you get rewarded for writing. The photo without even one line text earns better.
May I ask how an account can go back to zero?
Let's hope it all works out positive. I wish you a greet start of the weekend with a !BEER smile and 💕
Posted using Partiko Android
Thanks for your support Kitty, I appreciate it.
I just mean that the rewards on all my unpaid posts had been flagged back to zero. I take it that I also lost some reputation score, but in the scheme of things, not enough to actually go back to zero there.
We just have to wait and see how the community starts handling these petty, revenge downvotes from big accounts.
For us smallfries though, it's back to blending into the darkness ;)
I am happy to hear from you and hope the community will fight back.
🤔 I guess if they leave it is a way of fighting back too. The whales can write and vote in their own circle.
I didn't know it affects your reputation too, can that easily be changed by up voting?
How much Steem does one need to be a whale?
I wish you a great day without downvotes and love 💕
Posted using Partiko Android
UGH, out of all accts to get downvoted by. The fellow "technical analysis" poster that has out earned us all no matter that many others' analysis has a much better track record. Life is funny lol.
But that's the Steem model.
I can see that the changes after HF22 are trying to encourage the community to put an end to unfair reward distribution, but I've also found out that you have to have a massive account to be able to do it.
Not for accounts our size to be involved.
I feel for you man. Hopefully some of the more benevolent whales will see this type of injustice and come to your aid. I am certainly watching for it.
I'm just a little guy who's used to being ignored but I've resteemed this anyway. For whatever it's worth (not much) I warned about this type of flag warfare pre-fork. I normally don't like to post links to my own stuff but I don't give much of a fuck any more.
Hard Fork 21 and The War To End All Wars
I actually read your post at the time and totally agree with it. We just have to see how it plays out now between the big boys, because it's not a place for accounts our size... obviously.
I'll see you back in the shadows ;)
Hang in there. He's bringing a lot of attention on himself.
I'm curious how you got on his radar.
Because I was stupid enough to buy into the hype of having free downvotes and thinking the right thing to do would be to use them on those unfairly using bid bots and taking from the reward pool through massive self voting...
It's the right thing to do for the long term good of Steem, but it's not a battle for accounts my size. Back into the shadows I go.
I can totally get why you would be annoyed especially building up a solid account with reasonable SP. I can't say I'd blame you for moving on and yeah there isn't much fo a solution until we have a collective stake that is spread around enough to mitigate this level of abuse of power
I'd say you silver lining would be tribes and focus on LEO like yeah it's not ideal but theres still an element of protection against your downside of reward loss
This is interesting. Is it on the radar? It really shouldn't be the responsibility of bigger accounts to bail us small guys out when shit like this happens.
I'll watch this with interest.
Also, do you mind expanding on this? Why is there an element of protection there that isn't in Steem?
I have heard some people talking about being able to give your downvote stake to another account or just delegating in the meantime. Nothing stopping communities from creating a downvote service that goes out and cleans up abuse and protects against retaliation. I think this will become part of how many communities operate in the future.
The reason I say it has an element of protection is that a user flagging you would need to have a stake in all the tribes to completely remove all your rewards
I think things are really changing and while not the biggest fan of the latest Hard Forks, I find myself returning as I can’t find a better alternative and enjoy the engagement still.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I've calmed down after my initial hissy-fit and do agree with you here. I just hope that the changes don't drive quality content creators away and that the downvote for downvote pissing contests, like the one I've gotten myself into here, come to an end.
I'll still write here, but I'm going back into the shadows when to comes to true up and down curation. I'll leave trying to encourage true change to the bigger accounts.
Don't worry about him for now. It's happened to me in the past as well but he is going to get flagged to zero going into the future. It sucks but it's short term pain to have a better future and if we all work together can improve the chain.
Posted using Partiko Android
I agree with this and was trying to use my 2 free downvotes per day for the good of the chain. Taking away from excessive bid bot and self vote abusers.
But if this can happen in a petty retaliation, then I'm no longer involved. It's up to the bigger accounts to do it for us.
Highly rEsteemed!
Cheers Frank.
View or trade
BEERat steem-engine.Hey @forexbrokr, here is a bit
BEERfor you. Enjoy it!