'Proof of brain' is one of the original unique design factors that peaked interest in Steem's design... But today it is mostly broken due to bid bots - let's look at it more closely and explore what might be done to improve the situation.
If posts that meet real needs are meant to be the highest valued and one of our real needs is to be able to identify the posts that most meet real needs - then maybe posts that help is reach that goal are the MOST important posts there are?
There's a reason why Facebook's designers have aligned their system's algorithms to reward engagement (likes, comments and shares etc.) with extra reach in the network - it's basically because they want to expand Facebook's userbase and keep it relevant. To do this, they know they need to keep the users interested and excited to keep using the system and that means finding ways of allowing them to discover content they like on a regular basis. Content that generates a lot of comments, likes/votes and shares/resteems is inherently interesting in some way - so it makes sense that as long as those who game the system are kept in check somehow, on average, if highly engaged content is made visible to others then it will be appreciated by more users than low engaged content will be.
Steem doesn't have the AI managed and curated system that Facebook does and that is actually one of it's strengths. While a generic algorithm that learns preferences and determines what users will see and won't see 'could' be useful to everyone, the truth is that Facebook is a corporation (and most likely an arm of the 'intelligence' services), so it's integrity is always going to be low in this regard. Aside from outright censorship, Facebook is well known to have a tendency to try to promote itself as some kind of authority for what is 'true' and thus the reach of ideas they deem to be 'untrue' tends to be hampered. I don't know about you, but I don't really need or want the postal service to read through all my mail and just fail to deliver some if they decide it doesn't contain enough truth! What Steem does have is 'Proof of brain' - which is, in essence, the system of users rewarding the 'best' content with upvotes.. The proof of the brain is meant to be in that people appreciate the content and thus some brain must be present in it's creation.
Setting aside the reality that not everyone's brain is the same or shares the same ideals and that stake weighted voting means that not all votes are equal, this mechanism does at least have the strength that it allows the community to operate as a whole, promoting and demoting content according to something tangible and defined. When groups of creative people come together in a shared vision - such as the somewhat abstract idea of 'making great content', there tends to be a team atmosphere where individuals aim to fulfill real needs of other people. This is, to me, part of the power of 'proof of brain', in that it is also to some extent 'proof of understanding real needs'.
REAL Needs? Bid bots are an affront to community spirit.
Sadly, this is where proof of brain and Steem are falling down most at the moment, to my mind. Before bid bots were a thing, the trending pages were a decent reflection of content that was varied and interesting, but which could be relied on to some extent to be a clear solution to someone's questions, desires, problems and real needs on some level. I might not personally want to know how to make the perfect CV or know the perfect mechanics of a paper airplane, but at least if I see a well made post on that subject on the trending page when it has gotten there organically, I know that someone, somewhere DOES want to see it.
As long as votes are for sale and proof of brain is broken, all of these other strengths disappear too. Now posts don't need to meet anyone's real needs to have the highest reach, they only need to have been made by someone willing to pay someone else a high enough amount of money. The entire creative kick and magic of community co-creativity has been shat on from a great height in one fell swoop!
The fact is that there are so many posts on Steem that we really NEED a mechanism for exposing the best ones and the community has always been intended to manually power that process.
I truly am saddened that so many in the community fail to understand this basic dynamic and have no problem with facilitating a centralisation of power into the hands of those who operate the bid bots here. I feel this is a reflection of the dynamic we see offline too, where predatory 'business' people exploit creative community intent at every opportunity and hide behind carefully crafted PR messages in order to deceive as many as possible into using their products.
So what is the solution?
Thankfully, a few Steem sites already filter out posts that are boosted by bid bots, including @partiko and @steeveapp. The more that Steem UIs follow this trend, the less of an issue all of this will be and the greater Steem can become overall. I have posted several alternative options to this over the years too, including a 'voter muting' feature that is similar to what partiko has created and also an idea to have Steemit inc. use their tokens to run their own bid bot that undercuts the competition.
It is also an option to have the community rally around the path of integrity, such that we downvote posts that use bid bots en mass. It wouldn't necessarily take more than a minority amount of downvoting cost to put people off of using the bots as their profit margins are already slim.
I imagine we will see this issue tackled in creative ways by the new Steem foundation, but that, to some extent depends on bot operators not having the power position within it. I suggest learning who is involved and not supporting those who may corrupt the potential for positive change here!
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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Unfortunately, the human heart is the problem and not the software. Bid bots are nothing but a short-sighted cash grab by greedy individuals.
I agree that heartlessness is at the root here - but there is no way to explain to those without heartfelt understanding of balance, what they are missing. The only way is for them to go through the step by step process of healing and integrating their own heart and balance. I literally just finished a post about ego balance that is highly relevant :)
There certainly are steps that can be taken in software to defend against heartlessness, though, it just takes the will of the people to get behind it I guess.
Thank you, interesting stuff.
Steemit (to me) is an interface for a banking system at the end of the day. I have cynically not paid a penny to it and I am perfectly crap at getting upvotes. But I think comparing it to FB and the limits and scope of algorithms and edited opinion is looking too much to a social media agenda that simply cannot apply to the ruthless world of banking and its many creative back alley cohorts.
One anaemic long blank blog page is on offer without the other immediate functions to exponentially grow contacts and raise awareness ~ its limited in its reach from the off.
If collective groups innovate with worthy content, as you say, then perhaps pushing this cohesion would help great posts get spotted ~ moving away from individual accounts? Besides, it's all a branding exercise anyway if formerly based on brain power to attract votes, as reality can be dull and not everyone on Steemit writes on popular subjects with the panache of a over-zealous PR exec. AND some people without brains get a sh*t load of upvotes. :)
Maybe put the heart to the brain and enable cooperatives to take it by storm - being a single blank blog page doesn't really give you much scope to begin with. Something needs tweaking and stitching together so that Steemit fam can see each other. Safety in numbers.
You are welcome. Steem is a socio-economic system, so it is both a financial platform and a social platform simultaneously. It's kind of a new thing, in it's own category.
Curation groups have always existed, they just don't have the kind of backing that would boost posts higher than individuals can currently do via bid bots. Heart improves the capacity of brain, absolutely - but that can occur just as much within individuals as within groups <3
Too many think POB is Proof of Bot! Steemit don't seem interested in countering that impression. New users will just see Trending and think that's what they should do too.
There are some of us who do flag posts that are over-promoted. We only need to take about 20% off to kill their profit, but some are just too big for us to really affect. Certain people do this persistently to trend and ramp up their rep. It's not how Steem was intended to work, but the freedom they gave us also allows people to abuse the system.
I don't have all the answers, but I'll keep trying to make Steem better for those who do good stuff.
A turn of phrase that needs to be looked at carefully: "it's not how Steem was intended to work."
Well, either it is working as intended or the encoding of the economic rules is flawed.
Economic systems rely on positive and negative feedback loops to be both dynamic and stable. There is no point hoping that behaviour will follow some plan when the rules allow for an altogether different plan and different behaviour. It's not "freedom", it's just a naive economic code.
There are limits to how much you would restrict what people can do with Steem as it could hamper good activities. It was intended that users would curate to get rewards where they are deserved, but it seems selling votes is more lucrative. If specific measures were added to stop that then people may find ways around it. People are more versatile and it's up to them how we move forward. I'll keep on flagging abusers.
Yes, one needs to think carefully about code changes. One of the results of game theory is that bad actors can never be wholly removed from a system, but their rewards can be minimised to the extent that they do not create a "bad system".
In the film The Matrix, the Architect describes that the system has gone through a number of iterations; none of them perfect but converging towards some optimal goal.
Apart from changing a few obvious parameters, the Steem economy has not seen significant iterations. And as we have seen, those parameters are not sufficient to change the economy; they have merely changed the profitability of bad actors. "Bad", as always, refers to the tendency of a system to converge towards some fixed point whereby bad actors become significant.
All this muting, hiding, and safe spaces are favoring the abusers.
Hiding abuse to not confront it is not conducive to healthy ecosystems, imo.
Bring back the n2, flag the ~70 accounts that can, if they do, abuse it enough to make the math unworkable.
We solved this problem, but stinc vetoed it to give us bid bots and proof of wallet.
Despite knowing from the gitgo where we would end up.
Here we are.
All hail, stinc!
How will N^2 solve anything, except give a 1 million SP whale a 1 trillion voting power?
Oh, I see now, you'd use that super-power to... flag! Nice.
There are, actually, amusing ways around such flags.
I worked on this too, so know which algorithms can be discovered - send a sentinel to catch a bot. All of which leaves the users, the middle class, either ignoring the flagwars or feeling that the system is not so social.
I would prefer to change the economic code so that abuses are marginal and marginally profitable.
We do, however, agree that building a healthy community on top of an unhealthy ecosystem is not working.
Yes, give downvotes equal power to upvotes and let's see if the abusers win, or if the community defends itself.
Negative curation should pay just like positive curation, imo.
If the community doesn't defend itself from abuse, then it earned its failure.
Do tell?
Retribution is always after the event, is it not better to design a system whereby less flagging is needed because perceived abuse is less profitable?
Eg, voting rings are less visible to most users but are a content-less drain on rewards. Flagging can be done by dedicated sentinels, but needs SP to keep it going. Would it not be better to design a system whereby such votes drain their power more quickly, thereby making them less profitable?
What do you mean by giving downvotes "equal power"? You mean get curation rewards for flagging?
If we arent getting back the n2 proof of brain, then downvotes should be same same with upvotes and flags used for abuse.
Curation is positive, and negative.
Steem is open to abuse by design, if we don't want it abused we have to defend it.
By design.
That design was getting worked out by the guy that designed it until an appeal to authority rekt it, two years ago.
Downvoting does not have a proven track record in solving problems - it requires continual engagement and tends to fade out without ever really changing anything. It requires investors to forego their own profits and that can't last forever.
It appears to be the way the system was designed.
Is it perfect, no.
Is it better than linear rewards, i think so.
We see what ned gave us, i say we give dan's design a chance.
Will some whales have to be the adults, yes.
Will the 1.4 million accounts be better off, i think so.
We have to solve the abuse of the less than 70 accounts that are still abusing us somehow.
I say make downvoting equal to upvoting and lets find out if the abusers will push us off the cliff or if the community will defend itself.
I'm pretty sure a combination of empowering users to reject content they don't want via voter muting and also improving curation rewards should be enough to tip things towards organic post discovery and proof of brain.. but ultimately, we won't really know until the different options are tried out since there are so many variables involved and so many different people. It would be good if the new foundation made plans to find ways to experiment with the different ideas that people have to improve these areas.
Muting just pushes abuse off the radar.
Instead of confronting, and resolving, abuse, hiding in a safe space is not a viable means to ending abuse, imo.
Excising cancerous stake needs to be discussed.
Especially if the n2 is to return.
Look what proposing a fork got us.
Steem was doing just fine with the n2 until an appeal to authority rekt us.
All hail, stinc!
My vision for voter muting (which is not the same as normal muting) is that it would result in everyone being empowered to just negate the entire net result of using bid bots. Partiko already does this as i understand and so does steve. All it takes is for this kind of feature to be popularised and it becomes the norm and now there's no benefit from an exposure perspective to using bots. At that point the users of bots might still continue to some extent, but the margins are very small now I think and ultimately we can probably never stop private agreements to upvote each other anyway. From my perspective, as long as proof of brain is working again, many problems get fixed that are absolutely essential for Steem's survival and usefulness.
The justification for bots is based on ROI and those magical 'market forces' - so I think it's appropriate to use those to negate them.
Ned has stated that he is all for forks, just not ones that split the chain deliberately. SMTs could absolutely provide a framework to try out many experiments - so it's very unfortunate we are having to wait so long for them. We are in limbo right now really.
All because of an outranking.
I agree that proof of brain is the desired end goal.
I just think that the abusers that have brought us here may not be the optimal choice in counsel.
Obviously, their opinion comes with bias.
I really like how @steeveapp is addressing the bid bots problem and trending page. I fully recommend its use as well as the use of @partiko
Posted using Partiko iOS
https://steempeak.com (@steempeak) is another beautiful user interface, with no trending or hot page.
Steempeak's equivalent of the trending page is just the 'topics' list - but i am speaking with them currently about the possibility of filtering it in the way i suggested months ago, using 'voter muting' lists.
If when we or someone disagrees with a post payout, IF we could signify our disagreement by downvoting the Voter and not the poster, then maybe bid bots would get a clue, if this person bids on me I am going to lose money because in the past they have had the Paid vote nullified. How long before bid bots start to say no to people. Why should the content creator be penalized for someone liking their post? If the bought and purchased votes are nullified, then the content creator is learning either post better stuff, or stop buying votes on bad stuff. Or if they do not learn, then they might learn that they can no longer buy votes, because they have been blacklisted by the bid bots.
yes, that is one good aspect that I have included in my model - penalise the perpetrator not the victim. That also works for other voting patterns such as rings, eg decrease the voter's VP more than standard and the mathematics of the game starts to look less attractive.
Bid Bots are filling the need for more active curators on the platform (not talking about the people who are being greedy dicks, but maybe more so from my experience when using them). Maybe I'm just a terrible writer and maybe I don't understand what a good writer is, but seeing people write amazing posts and get little payouts sucks.
OCD is on break and I've heard Currie is possibly losing a large delegation. A lot of whales are powering down as they've lost faith in the platform and were more than likely not curating anyways.
Add this in to not having a great way to filter content besides this site which I didn't know about until a few weeks ago, the best way to get noticed is to make it to hot or trending.
If you want to focus your frustration at something get to the root of the problem and focus it on lack of good content curators on the platform and the fact that there is no great way to get more eyes on good posts within the platform.
This is one advantage that youtube creators have over Steem creators. You don't have to have a youtube account to earn money for the creator. I don't know if it does much good spending time sharing your content outside of Steem as they have to create an account to reward you and even then they'll probably only be rewarding dust at this point in the market.
agreed :)
Improved content discovery is the aim, but so too is improved proof of brain distribution. Bid bots are an exploit that makes this situation worse, not better.
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Bidbots are the symptom, not the cause of the problems.
Bidbots, and other upvoting schemes, are a consequence of the economic code encoded onto the blockchain that allows such transactions to be profitable without any consideration to any human aesthetics.
To target the effect rather than the underlying cause will never completely solve the problem.
As you say, the solutions currently being designed are to build on top of the blockchain's economy and construct user experiences that align with the original goals of "proof of brain".
However, these will all be built on the same foundation and will have to compete for rewards with those content-agnostic algorithms that will not go away on their own.
I repeat, the underlying economic code needs an upgrade to become more balanced.
The economic code is not sacrosanct, it needs fixing.
The code is designed on principles of anarcho capitalism, which means free trade - there is no easy way to facilitate these principles while also preventing bots at the blockchain level.. Besides which, it's not really possible to block bots at that level reliably.
The aim is not to block bots, that's looking at the effect, the aim is to make the underlying transactions less profitable.
This isn't "free trade", it is an encoded economic system; one is only free to do what is allowed.
The idea is to allow as much as possible - hence the 'anarcho' in anarcho capitalism.
What is your particular suggestion to make the transactions less profitable?
My suggestion is that we need a small team dedicated to looking at the economics of Steem, with the ability to stress-test ideas on a testnet and be entrusted to write some reports of all successes and failures.
The aim is to reduce the symmetric design of upvotes so that bilateral relationships are less predictable and hence less profitable. One example already exists on Steem: the curation algorithm and the reverse auction period. That island of activity is unpredictable yet perfectly algorithmic.
I agree that making alternate rule-sets available in test networks is needed - although history has shown that Steem's complexity can result in these test scenarios having difficulty generating realistic data, but it's still better than nothing.
I agree that effecting the way that voting benefits people such that dysfunctional voting is reduced would be a great thing - however, despite a huge amount of communication and thinking on this issue over the years, I haven't really seen any examples of how this can be done reliably and in a balanced way. In the absence of any workable solutions, I look instead at what is workable and hence I look at preventing the function of bidbots.
Curation, as interesting an idea as it is - doesn't actually stop the bidbot corruption of proof of brain because, for one, the curation rewards just go to the upvoter - which might be a bidbot - which still helps the bidbot operator to offer lower priced votes to customers. Higher curation rewards don't necessarily hurt bidbot operators.