That's partially correct, UA does not directly look at the ratio between an account's follows and followers.
It matters more who follows an account and also how many others that account follows.
The most optimal increase for your own UA score, is be followed by an account that itself has a high-UA score, but does not follow many others.
One such example would be @neilstrauss : Neil is (arguably) (one of) the best Steem author(s), a real user (not a bot, and not an alt-account), and Neil is followed by so many people because of his amazing content. However, Neil himself is very careful about who he follows.
Thank you for that comment, I was just a tad bit concerned when I saw "Unfollow > Flags" headline. This cleared it up. I want to get the number I follow back down to a manageable level, however when I first read that paragraph I got just a little concerned it was going to be another follow for follow if you want a reputation (UA) score.
@cryptoctopus meant with
Unfollow > Flags, that with UA it's more powerful (and safe! ;-) ) to un-follow a user you disagree with, than to flag his or her content. Because by unfollowing that account, on average, it receives a lower UA score, hence less influence and power to monetize its account and content.That was a little of what I gathered, I was more concerned that the people following the most people would have an unfair advantage over those that choose to follow fewer people so they can better manage their feed. So with a bit better understanding that fear is no longer really there.
It's actually the other way around: an account following thousands ("N") of other accounts, can only distribute 1/N of their own UA per follow
So I posted this asking cryptoctopus further down, but think it belongs here...
So what about this attack vector: An attacking user creates one hundred accounts. These accounts all follow each other giving them a neutral UA. Then all of these accounts follow the attacking user to transfer their UA to the attacking user.
Wouldn't this be a way to undermine the UA system?
I like the idea behind UA, I'm just worried it can be easy to take advantage of.
Answered in the top comment! ;-)