I can understand that it is a big problem here, but what about Minnows! The most of them dont have enough Steem Power and nobody notice them or upvote their posts. If they dont promote their posts they have no chance to survive here. Everybody needs a chance and the trending page is their only hope. Personally I dont see any other solution for this problem. And this way whoever is rich becomes richer and Minnows give up and leave :(
The most users are following users with high upvote value to get some benefits. Everybody looks at the reputation before opening any post. So we need to change this. We need more dolphins than Whales and Minnows here to get the balance.
Moreover the most people are using bots now a days and it is not more like before. It became a part of the Steemit platform.
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I agree with your sentiments, but honestly cannot agree with your points =p
First, I have become a minnow after almost a year here. I have never used a vote bot, or paid service of any kind, because I seek criticism--which is in no short supply here XD--rather than emuneration. The problem is many people focus on emuneration. They don't care about being right or wrong very much, as long as they're accepted and financially rewarded.
If I was focused on money, I would have been long gone, this is true. But I have survived here without ever trending, or buying access to views from those that seek to raise their curation rewards by stacking on the right posts. IMHO, giving two shits about who has and gets how much from the ducat bucket is the actual problem that drives quality down.
Trending is not only NOT my only hope, it isn't on my radar. I'm not here to be popular, oddly enough. I'm here to engage with folks that introduce me to critically important ideas, and to share those I find important. Popularity and encomiums are nice, if you get them for the right reasons, but don't stem from, or create, what is important: the quality of engagement, the ferment of good ideas, and the felicity of those whose good company we keep (or want to).
The last point you make I have to disagree with is that everybody looks at reputation before opening a post. I confess I tend to be interested in reputation--as, if it isn't purchased, it relates experience, and thus lends credence to the statements of those with high rep regarding topics informed by experience on Steemit.
Otherwise, I don't care. I don't look at reputation before I open a post. I consider reputation when giving their views thought, for the stated reason.
One thing you say I do strongly agree with is that we need more Dolphins than Whales. Nothing I can do about that, but it's true nonetheless. The stronger the middle class the stronger the society. Societies highly stratified tend to violence and aggression, since the absence of the middle class demonstrates that there is no upward mobility, except for violent seizure of the assets of others. Since we can't seize other's assets here, we just get ragequits and rants, maybe some fleabite flags, when people confront their incapacity to progress up the social ladder.
We live in a world that money lords power over peons in, and dramatically increase that dynamic on Steemit by making power directly dependent on the phatness of the wallet.
This terribly discounts various matters that are far more important than mere money. Society suffers as a result, and Steemit and the trending page is a wonderful representation of why that sucks to do. Society is people, not their money.
Society, including on Steemit, is far more important than SP, and VP being based on SP is a foul twisting of our attention away from those things that matter more.
I haven't figgered out a way to base our VP on how much we love our families, however, so dunno how to fix it.
Thanks for your forthright comments that come from the heart.
That is something I value highly.
Unfortunately even reputation can b purchased now a days. Your reputation goes higher whenever you get upvotes from bots. I didnt know about it before, but discovered it yesterday in one of the blogs.
Moreover there are many people with multiple accounts upvoting their spam comments all the day :(
@heimindanger
So what is your alternative then? Should buying votes be banned?
Or we could go back to the n2 with the whale experiment set at 100mv.
Until the whales stop sucking up the rewards with their sp advantage in the math we will never attract minnows.
The 800k dead accounts demonstrate that the newbs think this game sucks.
Most list the whales not letting the minnows earn rewards as why they left.
Its a clue, ya greedy bastards.
@heimindanger the only people that got hurt is average users
for whom they really fighting if they want a good content to be on the tranding page , how can this be possible if they just downvoting every single content for the name of "good content" from the tranding list without looking at people content?
for my opinion the only thing they do is that they can't downvote whales because whales have a lot of steem power and money to invest into bots so while the whales stay on top, the only people they hurt is average steemanians that don't have a lot of steem power or money to invest, correct me if I wrong but their fight is exactly for average users power just like me, but downvoting posts without reading a content for the name of "good" content isn't that hypocrisy?
the only thing you did is the poor get poorer and the rich get richer
you don't even have a link to user blog or post so people can check what they downvoting
Since the content flagged is only trending because it was upvoted without consideration of quality, merely for money, it is not hurting anyone. It is directly attacking the root of the problem, which is substituting rewardability for quality.
This is a dirty trick, and degrades not only Steemit by infesting it with pandering and pay for play and ponzi schemes, but the hearts and minds of those that get sucked into believing they are improving their lot by buying rewards, rather than earning them.
They're being tricked into substituting money for things that actually matter.
A toddler that gets their hand swatted away from a hot stove is discomfited. As sad as they are at the time, it is only because they do not understand the danger, and how they'd be hurt worse by being allowed to stick their hand in the flame.
There is a metric that drives the flags, and it's percentage of rewards from bot upvotes. IMHO, this perfectly targets the hands in the flames.
The real power of rewards for being upvoted is the elimination of trolls, and the strength of engagement it drives. Those rewards being doled out on the basis of the thickness of the wallet doing the voting poisons the society, however, and warps power into right, which is bass ackwards from what it should do.
@valued-customer
but by downvoting average steemanins only whales will stay on top because they have SP and than once again we will see the same faces on the trending page
I think the bots operators they the once who need to focus on
because people who have money will stay on top no matter the downvotes
@heimindanger The strategy of the curation reward is good, but you get the same result. The most of it will go to the whales. They have the high upvote value and will earn the most of it. It is really complicated, but there must be a solution. We are dealing with many problems here.
Spammers! And yes you see them more active than the other users. We flag them and they loose their reputation, but whats the point! They are still here. My opinion is to remove every account that looses the reputation after checking it.
Scammers. They are stealing accounts everyday and nobody can do anything for that. I can tell you about some acoounts and you can see it yourself. They transfer money out of Steemit and it is visible in their wallet. We must have more security. Maybe block that account and transfer the money back to the owners, otherwise it is not gonna stop. I mean their doing their job and very comfortable here, while thousands of other users are pissed off.
I agree with you. It is correct to downvote posts from the trending page, but not all of them. If someone shares a stupid photo and gets 300$ for it thats wrong. But There are users who write good posts and you can see from the comments that many users follow them and interact with them, then nothing wrong with that.
We should try our best to help Newbies and give them a chance to be on the trending page. The problem is that the most people are not coming online and instead using services like "Steem Voter" to upvote other users. So nobody has time to discover what Minnows are sharing or read their posts. But as I said if we limit spammers and remove their accounts after they loose the reputation, things will look a bit better.
But dont forget that everyone needs to invest at least 100 SBD to be on the trending page. That means if a minnow invest 10 SBD for a bot and get 20 SBD for the upvote wont really help much. Yes some people will see it, but there is a big difference between 200SBD and 20SBD. I see many Minnows with excellent posts and photography, but not getting there :(
Also dont forget that there are many Dolphins using upvoting bots as well. I mean if you check every post on the trending page you will find 70% of them using different bots.