The strongest argument I can come up with for comment voting is for influence, which your change covers (my pros/cons post is here). I like this change. If people want to vote themselves up to make money, they can do it on their own blog. If they post too often with too much crap, they will lose followers anyway. Ultimately there's no way to stop self voting because of Sybil attack concerns, but this might at least make it a little more difficult.
As to the second point, well... I've been on the other end of abusive voting and it's quite discouraging to see 60% or 70% of a payout disappear in the last 12 hours during the time when no other upvote could change things, especially when there are hundreds of positive votes and many comments supporting the post. I agree there's a lot of reasons to avoid flagging, especially with daily target vote change of HF19. That said, I feel we still don't have good processes in place to counter abusive flags that aren't based on any of the reasons outlined in the steemit interface, but just to piss people off because of personal grudges. If it was just a downvote, I wouldn't mind, but the reputation is also impacted. flagging is complicated. I do think the platform could do well with more honest flaggers though, so I'd be willing to support it and see how it goes. Maybe it'll force a prioritization toward fixing the abusive flagging problem.
I think you are right on the influence part - at least mostly. The only thing with that is when others also upvote you, the argument against self votes goes right out the window.
The reputation thing is a major fault IMO.
Take a look at my post that yours inspired, I go deep into the whitepaper and sort out some game theory about self voting:
https://steemit.com/steem/@kyle.anderson/subjective-proof-of-work-some-rational-comments-on-the-self-voting-trend
Excellent post, Kyle! Thank you for pointing it out. I think you covered a lot of details I remember reading and thinking through at the time, but as you mentioned, the white paper is just too far out of sync with what the site is today (reputation, "flag" instead of downvote, radically different distribution amounts with "bad whales" taking advantage of the system, etc)
:) glad it was interesting.
Although, I am not so sure the whitepaper is it of sync with what the site is today. Steemit is a portal into steem, just like busy.
I would just argue that steem is the first of many more experiments to come. I don't think steem correctly addressed all the problems needed by a network like this. I am passionate about the now though.
I think there is a bias of perception between bad flags and good flags. I suggested that there should be an easy way to select a reason or to enter a custom one when clicking the flag. Many people just don't know why they got flag, disagreement on reward can apply to pretty much everything and at it pertain to Steem what steemit inc say are good reason to flag is not really relevant.
The good flags are very rarely talked about because people don't appreciate that some whale downvoting a bigger whale that upvote it's own content increase the reward of everyone else that deserve it more.
Two example from today, who cares really?, the whale who spend SP, who lost a curation opportunity and risk retaliation to flag this isn't getting any praise whatsoever for their good flag. :
https://steemit.com/politics/@joseph/transparent-wall-at-the-border-with-mexico#@mehmoodasultana/re-joseph-transparent-wall-at-the-border-with-mexico-20170716t040758669z
https://steemit.com/business/@bookingteam.com/what-you-need-to-know-in-the-vacation-rental-industry-07-16-2017
you can be sure under the present system fox cnn nbc ........ and the rest would never make a penny on this platform so it may have a good effect on keeping the riff raff out ... lol ...
Very well-said Luke! I totally agree with everything you said :]
Flagging is complicated and one of the poorest implemented features here on steem.
The problem is at the end of the day, I believe vests are vests.
@lukestokes, I do not like downvote or flag options... it could be something that could help.... but maybe not yet like you said.... Facebook does not have a dislike BUTTON..... and it is kind of negative to downvote and stuff..... and it is very subjective to downvote.... like hate speech should be included in the freedom of speech.... but some will say they are not..... but others will say they are..... and that is one of the debates people have.... I want to focus on upvoting... I do not downvote people.... I do not have time to do that and it is a waste of time..... better content will get a lot of votes..... better content will make a lot of money
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We should not be motivated to post better by downvotes that we get but rather by not being number one..... like Michael Jordan / Jackson...... like Pokemon... I want to be the best.... but downvotes can discourage people too much as it lowers our reputation and that can get people to give up............... it can be very unfair.... like you said as people carry grudges and everything...... downvoting is like going to a restaurant and taking money from it..... because you do not like the food.... but other people are there eating the food and they paid the money.... downvoting is like stealing the money from the store or bank or whatever and it could be like censorship or something........
The whole point is that it is subjective. You are incentivized to vote payouts so they align with your views. If you don't you are risking steem becoming something where your stake is no longer valuable.