Then rename it from "Trending" to "Most Voted"? I don't even bother with Trending, I go straight to the New category. Frankly, I think being in Trending is mostly good for newcomers to the steemit.com site and not so much regulars.
Its not as simple as you make it out to be. What you want is practically impossible and very unrealistic as a goal. There is a big market in bot services on all the social sites, not just Steem. And for Steem to become anti-bidbot you are talking about a drastic overhaul of the blockchain.
Steem is pseudonymous as all open blockchains are and they are that way for very good reason. The coin STEEM is a utility token, a store of value and a currency all in one. If open blockchains were not pseudonymous then the better name for them would be doxxedchains... We can't have open blockchains and identifiable personal data together, people need to be protected by pseudonymity.
You are never going to eliminate vote selling. It is not possible to remove from Steem's design. It might have to get a little more sneaky rather than out in the open, but upvote circles/memberships are a fixture of this blockchain. Steem is staking platform, people will only stake if they get something out of it and they are always going to aim to maximize their gain.
If you really believe you can do it. Tell me how it can be fixed. Be detailed, give me all the technicals. Because I am confident it cannot be done without a very massive overhaul of everything. You are talking about way more than an HF23...
It's easy. I've already explained it. If you don’t believe it or don’t get it, I don’t have the time to try to convince you, sorry.
Yeah, that means you don't know how to fix it... But hey, that's cool man. By the way, I caught the Satoshi joke. ;)
It is hilarious that you refuse to speak to me after my comment. It isn't my desire to deride you, but people don't get to be flippant with their arguments without me pointing the lack of technical support for their suggestions/claims.
Don't respond, I'll be quite satisfied getting the last word then.
You fixed nothing with your tribe nor could your idea work at all with Steemit Inc. You are right in saying that your might makes right approach would require the upvote circles, subscription services and bidbots to adapt and become more hush-hush, but that would only result in clever new approaches to conducting business. And its not a long-term strategy.
Steemit Inc. will want their stake to reduce over time, we all should wish for that as well. So, your approach is nonsensical from a sustainability standpoint, it just simply is not sustainable.
No, the only way to solve a problem (if one agrees that purchased votes is a problem and not a natural feature of POS-based blockchain economies) is through the code is law approach. This means that it needs to be a change in the coded structure of Steem itself, not some silly social enforcement rule from some elite group.
But how very authoritarian of you to suggest such an idea... Why care about a decentralized blockchain at all? You seem quite satisfied with a permissioned blockchain from the sound of it.
The argument that this can all be solved by sheer retaliation from a individual or group holding a god-like amount of stake really reveals your thinking. Knowing that, I would never want a single one of your tribe's tokens... A token meant to be so centralized is worthless, and a token not meant to stay so centralized cannot maintain that strategy.
I love when people try to make the "OG" argument. "You weren't here back then..." Yeah, well, nobody needs to be. That's the whole point of a whitepaper, to catch people up.
If there was a brilliant version of Steem that didn't allow bidbots and everyone was frolicking about in glee, where did it go? Oh, right, Steem upgraded. Maybe it wasn't so perfect then and maybe that is why it was changed.
Again, I have no intent in disregarding your feelings, I disagree with you but I do understand where you are coming from. I'm simply trying to debate your viewpoint for the sake of the best ideas winning out. People should be able to debate each other's views.
I've already fixed it in my tribe. It's as simple as a statement from Steemit Inc. And using major stake to downvote bidbot services offered and posts that use them. We clearly have very different views on the subject and you don't seem to understand what I've said. You also weren't here in the beginning to see how well it worked. You have not layed out anything that I don't know or an argument that makes sense. This is my last reply to you.