I am new to Steemit
And you already have some very strong opinions about how things should be run around here. Interesting.
I've been here almost a year. I'm a witness. I've worked very hard to understand this system and the motivational psychology and game theory involved. In your discussion, you didn't answer my question / analogy comparing it to bitcoin mining rigs. Do you take issue with someone who invests 10,000 in a mining rig to secure a portion of the block creation rewards? If not, why take issue with someone who invests in Steem Power for the same purpose?
Do you know why any of the posts here have monetary value at all?
The investors.
Those who put real money in are what drive the price of STEEM and SBD. Without them, it's like any other voting system with relatively useless tokens or points or scores or karma or whatever. If there is no incentive to Power Up Steem then people won't do it.
I think self voting is stupidity.
Okay. Others disagree. Did you read the comment I linked to? Do you disagree with it or think it's stupid?
Just ask a simple question, would anyone self vote if it was not incentive-ized.
Every single thing we do is based on incentives and motives, even if they are subconscious to us.
We have created an incentive structure to prop up an inherently wasteful social activity and there lies the crux of my argument.
Why is it wasteful? For me, it's important at times for adjusting my comment within a thread. Since I invested real money and time into my Steem Power, that's my privilege to push my comment above others, if I so choose. I don't see how that is wasteful.
Self voting harms the community and our relationship within it.
I think that's a subjective opinion. I think obsessive self-voting signals to others that the person is only interested in their own rewards and not the rewards of the community. I agree, that's a harmful action and certainly not one I'm advocating for. I don't think all self-voting is harmful because, again, Steem Power needs to have value for investors to invest in it. Voting on your own posts and (occasionally) your own comments adds more incentive for investors to invest.
Hi @lukestokes. I am sorry if I came out as strong. The idea was not to offend. I hope you will take this all in good stride. I am self admittedly new to steem and you have a right to passage, but I also think perspective from some one on the outside (the newbie here) can also be helpful cause they are yet to become entrenched stake holders with vested interest in maintaining particular status quo's.
I will try to put my arguments in points so they are easy to follow for both of us:
I don't believe mining or the benefit of miners are the end goal of Steem and hence I did not respond to it. For a lot is us in the cryptoland, we are already looking forward to zero fee transfers and doing away with miners altogether. Those technologies will only get better as we proceed (if you have used IOTA for transfers you would know how amazing it feels). As for SP, it would still hold value if we banned self voting on comments. There are already enough incentives for people to want to buy SP. The argument that STEEM will loose value and just be another coin if self voting on comment were banned is something I don't see.
SP has far many more incentive then comment self voting. This post is not about ending incentive in general but just ending self voting.
"Every single thing we do is based on incentives and motives, even if they are subconscious to us" - my point as well. My argument goes further and says that we are incentivizing a useless social activity.
Again, I was not intending to question any ones right to self vote or anything close to that. I was questioning it at a policy level. There is no personal offense intended.
And my apologies @lukestokes if my comment insinuated you.
I agree, a fresh outside perspective is valuable as long as it's an informed opinion.
Again, the investors create all the value here. It's not so much the status quo as how economics work.
Do you get that perspective from the whitepaper or is that just your own opinion or...? Most cryptocurrencies (Steem included) rely on a financial incentive model for success. If the tokens don't have tangible value for the token holders, they don't do well. Steem has zero fee transfers and has done away with miners, but not with the financial incentives which give Steem value. Self voting may be just one of those incentives.
Curation rewards are certainly one, but some say it's not enough. The comment I linked to before mentioned reasons why self voting could be beneficial for a whale. Do you have thoughts on that?
That was not my argument. I said removing all financial motivations would so do and self voting could be seen as one of many financial motivations to hold Steem Power.
I do see how many really don't like the concept of self voting, but based on sybil attack concerns, people could just create other accounts and vote themselves up that way so there is no real way to stop it or ban it without just making it much less obvious who is doing it. If people think it's bad to do, they can withhold their vote from that author in protest.
I think we agree on most things. My issue was only restricted to self voting on comments and I am not looking to advocate dismantling of any other incentive structure. Also i think the loss in self voting incentive can be compensated by an increase in incentive in curation rewards. If that would balance out net rewards, while at the same time no longer incentivizing self vote on comments, I think the solution could benefit all parties.