First, for your post to have any meaning whatsoever, you must define what voting rings are.
Secondly, your methodology has to be more substantial than: I ran this algorithm, and here's what it spit out! Conclusion: collusion!
I can see from the comments that you're raking up the false positives pretty fast.
Finally, Steem is a stake based voting system on a blockchain. Each person's stake is their own personal property and under the existing rules, they can use it to vote in any manner they deem appropriate.
Do you intend to shame all of Steemit into voting randomly to avoid the appearance of collusion?
I think you're possibly well intentioned, but you may be trying to untie a Gordian knot of rapidly evolving social communities. Because two or more authors all support each other, if anything, indicates that they enjoy each other's work, and have formed social bonds.
That you see some nefarious collusion, may be your own hasty conclusion.
Some great points here, thanks. Have defined a voting ring now in my article. I can see how this could have been handled better now. Some false positives were inevitable but there has likely been a lot more than that in this first trial. apologies for any offence. Absolutely not intended :)
I'm not offended, I just think you're a little hasty in going down this not so well defined rabbit hole. :P Nevertheless, scour the blockchain and see what you find. I'm sure it won't be the first or last time. :) Best of luck.
Agreed. Not claiming to be an expert here but thought the community would be interested in the first trial. It could have been done better, agreed. :)
But it looks like I was onto something. So I have learned that these exist https://steemit.com/votingtrail/@acidyo/curation-trails-bad-or-good-for-the-platform
Surprised there is not more amazement that these are allowed. :0
Yeah, if you keep digging you will find seemingly endless discussion about many of these novel responses to the game that is the Steem blockchain, here on Steemit. We've got bots, trails, reward curves... It goes on and on.
Again.. 'allowed' is a funny concept here. It's a complex stake based system. It would be dead tomorrow if someone could just go around telling everybody what they could and couldn't do with their stake. The rules are in the code, after all. They are able to be modified with enough consensus, but the system favors free and unhindered use.
thanks for your level-headedness. I will take all this feedback on board and my next post will be done better!