Synopsis of Security Guild Proposal
Thank you for taking part in yesterday's news discussion; we are not sure if anyone was aware but it was a discussion topic and not actually an approved project. From the various communications received on the topic, we came to learn something interesting, @sneak from Steemit.com mentioned on a Github comment that flags may be discontinued in future:
https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/issues/932
There is not support; flagging is not broken right now and the current implementation is not an impediment to our growth objectives.Perhaps we will revisit flagging/downvoting at some point in the future, but I'm leaning toward removing the UI for it entirely.
Debating the merits and uses of flagging on steemit.com is permissible. Doing so in the bugtracker is not. :)
-- @sneak (on Github)
There seems to be a strong sentiment from @sneak and others that a flagging should be removed entirely from the UI, but that does beg the question whether is can still be initiated on the blockchain through a custom interface or script. If flagging were to be removed entirely perhaps peace could return to the platform, but that may be a contentious issue and not everyone may support that notion.
Interestingly enough we can see the exact same comment attack that we faced yesterday happening to others, such as on the posts of @mynamesisbrian:
The solution for Brian is to either setup a script that detects all downvotes from @the.masses account and reverses them using the posting key already available to the public, or for that aggrieved person to drain the voting power of the attacking account with an auto-comment script at frequent intervals, the former being a better implementation.
Through posting on this topic we have uncovered a few attack vectors that previously lurked in the dark, namely, persistent targetted comment attacks from accounts such as @anonymous and @the.masses which are accounts with posting keys that were distributed publicly upon creation; Sybil vote attacks from nearly 300 accounts allegedly all from the @sigmajin guild, mostly all small accounts with less than 20 SP each, used to defame a post and making it look like there are 300 unique downvotes where in fact it is just a fewer number of people downvoting, coupled with multiple whale downvotes and trolling, yesterday's post and the New year's post were a perfect showcase as to what dangers and attack vectors can be found on Steem/Steemit waiting to be awakened, while flags are still able to be used.
Perhaps this show of Flag-maggeddon will make the Steem developers' decision easier with regards to keep or remove the flagging functionality on Steem.
Steemvoter Curation Guild
image creditOut of the ashes of a flag-maggeddon discussion, hopefully some positive light can emerge and we must not lose sight of the great things we can achieve as a combined community and not let negativity divide us.
Imagine for a moment that each day you post a new article you stand a chance of receiving a Steemvoter Guild vote, which if all current Steemvoter customers participate, will mean that the recipient will get up to 1000 votes and 80 to 90$ on their post.
We feel this will bring back some excitement and anticipation of "who will get it next" type vibe and would be an interesting experiment to conduct to see if it can improve general enthusiasm and morale.
The guild will go hand-in-hand with the daily Spotlight Post, where approx. seven authors will be showcased and the top pick of the day will be upvoted by the Steemvoter Guild.
To donate one extra daily vote to the guild, simply ensure that the "Guild" checkbox is ticked in your steemvoter.com dashboard as shown below.
Curation rewards should be good on such posts, but the idea is to do it for the excitement and hype for the active authors to stay engaged and motivated rather than for rewards.
Steemvoter itself doesn't make any profit from this additional service and is merely our way of giving back and helping organise the community into a unified voice to do something really spectacular together.
We have been offered by @cryptoiskey from the @steemcleaners to help us pick the winning post of the day and a few others and we are also open to anyone contacting us to join our private guild channel where suitable persons will be allowed to join on a pro-bono basis.
We Look forward to the successful implementation of the guild within 7 days at the earliest, having given everyone enough time and notification to adjust their settings.
Steemvoter is a public curation bot with an easy to use interface, it truly is a bot for the people, making automatic curation on Steemit easy with just a few clicks.
This is a payment post! Thank you for allowing us to use your Steem accounts to upvote this post by virtue of your free subscription to our service!
Anyone not signed up for SteemVoter.com is welcome to do so or just vote this post to help the project.
https://steemit.com/steem/@bitcoindoom/why-down-votes-and-flags-are-an-unavoidable-consequence-of-game-theory
this. Also note that posts like the steem voter daily payout post are precisely the type of abuse that the downvote is there to combat.
A post where many accounts vote on it to increase its n^2 share of the reward, then split the proceeds linearly (as payment for the SV service)
Actually the split would need to be by SP/rshares to be a collusive drain. A linear split doesn't accomplish the same thing. Instead, with a linear split it is in effect the larger SP holders voting to use the reward pool as funding for stake redistribution (a sort of faucet or airdrop). Arguably given the current state of the system and the importance of accomplishing a wider stake distribution that might be one of the most worthwhile things to use it for. Some protection against sybil attacking is needed in this case of course, or at least awareness of the possibility and vigilance to ensure it isn't happening (too much).
Both steemvoter and steemsports are systems that function in this manner and larger stakeholders who support them are doing exactly this. It is very much money-losing for those with large SP to vote for steemsports even if they enter the game (I usually don't). The whale votes in support of it can only be explained as a expressing preference over the best use of (a portion of) the reward pool, not as motivated by the relatively tiny return.
Well, sort of. But the important distinction is that your faucet, at least in the case of steemsports, drips one out of every three drops into the same guys pocket. Now if that guy were actually a sibyl for one of the whales who supported it, that would be not great.
But even if its the whales are acting completely independently, that guy with the wet pockets has every financial incentive to make those drips as large as possible. The end game of this business model, from a pure business perspective, is to maximize the amount of money you distribute (arguably a good thing) in order to maximize your 30% cut.
When its something like steemsports, then yeah, its limited, to an extent, by how much the whales who back it are willing to support. However, i would argue that, especially if growth is relatively gradual, it can grow far larger than most of those supporting it would have envisioned originally without jeopardizing that. That is to say, it sprawls.
When its something like steemvoter, (especially when its something like steem voter that can change the rules and make that change 'opt-out') , or when the enterprise is actually a sibyl account for the whale that backs it, there is really no limit to how many "payout" posts they can do a day.
Not to mention, SS and SV are both using the votes they buy exceptionally inefficiently. If they were doing it the most efficient way, which im betting youve probably thought of, they would be assigning probably 10-20% of the reward pool by now. In my opinion, thats simply too much, even if they are robinhooding 2/3 of it back.
I don't necessarily disagree with this
[nested reply]
Yes, maybe I got the terminology mixed up. The importnant point being that an "even split" (as you now call it) is what steemsports and (by your description but less directly) steemvoter are doing.
That does very much change how the current system looks (and works). People don't get to be contributors based on their SP or voting. So you are full of it.
Okay, then given that you explicitly "don't intend to" give the impression that steemsports or steemvoter are a conspiracy, how about dropping the whole witch hunt which implicitly does do exactly, whether you claim to intend it or otherwise? If and when there is an actual instance of such abuse, I'm interested in hearing about it. Innuendo and smear tactics, along with discussion of you would engage in a hypothetical (and obvious) exploitative scheme that is different from how steemsports and steemvoter actually work , I'm not interested in hearing about.
Yeah, youre right. Where do i get off? Here I am annoying SS with with rocket-chat popups and sending them cryptic private messages, and all they want to do is mind their own business and just do their own thing. Im such an asshat.
Someone who doesnt want to be the subject of a witch hunt should not ride around on a broom, wear a conical hat and turn people into toads.
That said, my disclaimer was merely because of the use of the word consipracy, which has negative connotations that were not my intention.
I take it as a given that steemsports and SV would attempt to incentivize their larger voters. Because SS and SV are business. And the correct strategy for a business would be to provide such incentives. I don't believe this is evil (as the word conspiracy would imply to many), but it is exploitative. The nature of all business is exploitation.
You want a specific example?
To me the timing of this and the subsequent changes to the SS post format seems to indicate that, at least in the mind of SS, there was a degree of quid pro quo.
Do i believe that that quid pro quo was the reason for whales votes? No. I believe that the whales who vote/voted for it do so because they believe its a good idea.
But i believe that it was (an ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to sweeten the pot for their largest voters. From a GT perspective, that pot sweetner is really all that seperates the one model from the other.
So yes, my hypothetical is different from the above. But its only different in that I would go out of pocket more to offer better incentives to my best customers. Because thats how you run a business.
The key point which you flew by is that a linear split is not an effective method of gaming the reward pool, as long as it allows free entry, and continues to have support from larger stakeholders. Any small stakeholder can enter as free rider which destroys the economic value of the scheme (if it were a scheme in the first place) for anything other than redistribution.
When it comes down to it though, "sybil attacks" (arguable whether to even call it that) by (smart) whales probably won't be recognizable or likely detectable at all. The fact that large stakeholders can direct the reward pool to (direct and indirect) benefit is an almost inevitable consequence of the entire design of the platform (i.e. it is by design). Only if the larger share of the voting base agrees that rewarding blog posts is a good use of dilution (i.e. increases the value of the post-dilution stake) will it actually happen. There is no way to force the voters' hands.
just as a side note, the whole post above is how these things could be altered to function like the empty-post conspiracy described by @bitcoindoom and the white paper.
Its not intended to give the impression that they are a conspiracy, just that they can potentially function in the same GT exploitative manner as the one described.
[nested reply]
More innuendo. Someone who dresses as a witch and turns people into toads is a witch. Someone who dresses as a witch and does not a damn thing besides that is probably trick or treating, or going to a costume party, or a cosplaying. Responsible people leave them the hell alone and avoid forming or joining a mob unless (assuming actual witchcraft is actually bad, and mob rule is in such an instance acceptable) there is evidence of actual witchcraft.
All I saw there was a routine looking-UFC post (with some annoying HTML markup so I didn't read it carefully). If you want to claim there is more to the story you are going to have to actually lay out a case.
FYI, Dan or Ned (can't remember which), up-voted a post for steemvoter once a long time ago. On my account, not steemvoters account. It explained the plan if I remembered correctly, and was a blog post that the steemvoters had voted on.
So, I don't think your assumptions are correct.
iirc, originally the plan wasn't to have users pay with voting on an empty post every day. As a matter of fact, iirc that was in the fine print in your website, and i was the one who first brought to light.
That said, your posts are abuse as described in the white paper. An upvote from ned or dan doesnt change that.
I think there is a place for flagging to deal with spam, abuse, plagiarism etc. We don't want people to get rewarded for bad behaviour. This can be done by well funded accounts that are public about what they do. It should not really be used to just attack people we don't like. If it's just lots of sub-minnows then it shouldn't have real impact, even if it looks bad on a post.
I see I'm already in the guild and I'm okay with that.
It was chosen to be an opt-out guild. We will be notifying all site users before we start using it.
NO.
I have previously avoided entering this discussion, however I consider the fact that you are changing your terms WITHOUT approval of existing customers to be abuse of their keys.
You do NOT own your customers keys and you do NOT have permission to implement this simply because you 'notify' them.
Change this immediately to an OPT IN service or I will begin flagging your payment posts with 100% downvote weight and begin to solicit other whales to do the same.
Also, if you look here https://steemit.com/steemvoter/@steemvoter/steemvoter-com-s-new-home
this seems to be the very first "payout" post, and its a month old and has over 500 votes.
The point... that around half of the "payout" post voters signed up to SV as a free service and then got converted to the one payout vote per day because they didnt opt out.
If you look at @anotherjoe 's comment on that thread, you will see that he, at least, didn't know this was happening.
One other point to this -- they kind of do, though obviously they shouldnt.
Now granted, im not huge crypto guy, but the way ive always understood it is having the key is the same as owning the key. Thats precisely why doing it this way is (vice how streemian and SC do it) is unadvisable.
EDIT -- Based on subsequent discussion, the above is probably not correct.
There isn't a large difference in practice between the two methods. In either case to revoke access you need to change the authorization data attached to your account. In the case of steemvoter you have to change your key. In the case of steemian you have to remove steemian from the authorization list. It is much the same thing.
You could argue that giving your key to steemvoter increases the risk of key disclosure but at the same time authorizing steemian to act on your account means you are exposed to steemian's key being disclosed.
There is, however, a major difference in usability and user-friendliness since web users have no way to add or remove steemian from their authority list, but they do have the ability change their keys. If I were implementing a service like, for usability purposes given the current state of the steem/it tools I'd probably use the steemvoter method.
hm... thinking about it, i suppose that makes sense because you hold the higher keys, and could reverse any changes. edited to reflect
its not necessarily an overwhelming concern with something like SV (though it would be with money changing hands and the active key), but one other potential difference i see is that you can (i think) see who did what with authorizations
@marcgodard here. This is why I choose this method. I saw it as less intrusive. I also make sure that deleted accounts removes the keys and are never used again.
QFT
for the record, I am not 100% sure that the daily payout post itself was opt-in, rather than opt out.
check this comment on the original SV thread.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@marcgodard/steemit-s-free-voting-bot-for-everyone#@sigmajin/re-marcgodard-steemit-s-free-voting-bot-for-everyone-20160921t011837023z
and marcgoodards reply.
At the time it was initially advertised, it was advertised as a for-free service. The people who signed up between then and the daily vote posts were, apparently, given the same opt-out option SV now proposes for his "guild".
Though i suppose one could argue that it's at least somewhat different in that, even though the service was advertised as free, there was always the "fine print" in the tos .
flagging is a vital part of steemit. unfortunately is has been abused.
flagging shuts up trolls and bullies in ways no other platform can compare.
the account @the.masses should be built differently so it alone can't flag and in return can't be flagged. or something along those lines.
I downvoted your post with my own vote, and that of soome of the accounts i control because i do not feel its reward is a responsible use of the reward pool. I will continue to do so with the accounts sp I control so long as that remains my opinion. If and when i have the time and inclination to add all 5000 of my accounts to my command line interface, i will use all of them to downvote your posts so long as I feel that they are not a responsible distribution of the reward pool. All told, i have around 80-85Ksp to use for this purpose.
What you are doing is dishonest, IMO. You set one set of rules, then changed them and required customers to "opt-out" of the change.
As long as the guild is "opt-out" i will also be downvoting to partially counter any use of the extra "guild vote". If the guild is "opt in" i have no problem with it. Obviously it is your customers choice to vote for what they wish, automated or not.
As to the issue that the many votes cast make it seem as though the multiple votes represent many unique opinions (versus simply mine), there is nothing I can do about that except be straight forward that the accounts do, in fact, belong to me. When i bought them SP was around $1 , and I got them for around ten cents per SP. If you or anyone else wants to purchase them from me at that price, yu are welcome to do so. But until you do, it is my SP to use as i see fit and i will continue to use it as I see fit.
Your business model is precisely the type of abuse @dan describes in the white paper and bitcoindoom describes in his game theory post -- serveral accounts conspiring (or in this case allowing someone else to use their keys) in order to pump up the reward for a worthless post and distribute the increased reward n^2 curve linearly. As long as that is the case, it will have my downvote.
And, as i have said many times, my downvote is not personal, or an attack, or anything else mean or nasty. It is simply my sober and rational expression of an opinion about the posts value. I should also point out that my accounts are not bots. Though i cut and paste their votes as a batch into the command line, I decide each vote manually, according to my own, possibly sober, judgement.
So to stop you from flagging, I need to buy all your 1000 accounts from you,... interesting
no, ill still downvote. Ill just do it with just one account that has all my SP consolidated in it.
I do understand that its kind of broken that my one vote appears as potentially 10000 flags, which is why i havent used these accounts to vote often (in spite of the fact that thats what i bought them for) in the past, o reven bothered to add most of the keys to my cli wallet.
But at the end of the day, its my SP to vote with how i see fit. ANd for something like this, which i see as voter intimidation fraud and bush-league racketeering, i will use it despite my misgivings about the way that use looks
Why not power them down and then transfer the Steem to your main account?
its not that simple. theyre brand new accounts so they can't power down until they get to 350SP balance.
im in the proccess of cycling money through and powering down, but im not willing to put money into SP to extract all of them until the price gains more stability.
I gotcha.
I think you are being dishonest.
Steemvoter has been around a long time, and a week ago had never had a down vote. If people were really against this it would have had some down votes before. Other than a few "special" people who think their opinion is more valuable than the community because they signed up early, steemvoter seems loved by most. I often see messages of support in their posts, and again, before a week ago, I don't recall seeing one negative comment.
Yes they might not have made the best choices, but they seem to be trying their best to serve the community, unlike you (with this message and possible actions).
I don't have a problem with down voting, or saying your peace, but using down voting as a threat is just silly and destructive to a community. From what I can tell, the people who told steemvoter that they don't like what they are doing was received by steemvoter and they are trying to improve things. Personally, I think they should not change a thing (other than improving continuously for the community).
IMHO if you care about this community you will think about how destructive you are being/threatening to be towards it, and look at steemvoters history (before this past week) and see that the community has supported it.
I am using a non-account for this, because I don't want my SP to influence anyone.
UPDATE
The user above has edited their post since this writing.
You are incorrect. There is not a single sentence in my post that you replied to (before or after editing) that is not provably, verifiably objectively true.
You might be right. It might also be true that their recent abuses and behavior have caused many to rethink their stance. I bought all of my steem power, most of it for prices around what they are now. I don't think my opinion should count for any more or less than anyone elses. However, i don't think it should be dependent on anyone elses either. I am fine with being in the minority, if that is the case. What kind of person would I be if i changed my vote just to be on the winning side.
I is not my intention to use the downvote as a threat. He h as the right to post anything he wishes. I have the right to vote however I wish. Telling him in advance that i do not support a specific kind of post is not a threat, because my downvote does not cause harm. It will negatively effect payouts, but those payouts are supposed to be based on votes.
AN example of using a vote to threaten someone would be like when SV tried to stop people from downvoting him by threatening to retaliate with his SV users downvotes.
Hi @johnblow. We agree, we have received nothing but love until recently.
perhaps you should look at your recent actions and try to figure out why. Oh yeah i forgot its because the korean gangs are out to get you... nevermind.
You realise that many of the accounts used to upvote these posts have been abandoned by their original owners. Since steemvoter has their posting key there is no guarantee that some of those supportive comments aren't coming from the company.
Looking forward to the results of this new guild! I am already partaking in 2 and ma very curious about this new one. I'll see how you're doing and follow from here before making a decision. Thanks for your work and namaste :)
@marcgodard here. I am also looking forward to it. I really would like to do something good with it.
I like the idea of a one-per-day guild if the posts chosen are very good and chosen for their merit. Thanks for bringing something new to Steem.
I see the comments here are still talking about your downvoting guild idea from the last post. Did anyone read this post? Was it edited?
Anyway, since it's fresh here I'll comment on that too. I think this is an idea rife with potential abuse and you should listen to feedback about it. I agree with @anyx that if you implement it at all, it should be strictly opt-in, just as this new daily guild will be.
Edit:
This isn't what @sneak meant by what he said. Steem will continue to have downvoting. His opinion was a little unclear about removing it from the UI, but if downvoting was removed entirely from the Steemit UI I believe it would still remain in Steem. As explained elsewhere, a Steem without downvoting would have more flaws than how it is now.
@marcgodard here. I wasn't a huge fan of the security guild idea. But I think we got something good from that idea that will come in the future. Also, this post was not edited as far as I am aware. I also personally see value in downvoting. What I have an issue with is when it is used in a threatening manner. Like someone said (and I am paraphrasing) "Oh I will use the 10000 accounts to down vote you". I believe down voting has value, but when used this way it is destructive. I really liked what @johnblow said somewhere in this thread.
You are paraphrasing to completely misrepresent what i said.
I was asked specifically about the accounts i used to DV you. I replied. That was not a threat in any way shape or form. I will downvote you if you continue to attempt to intimidate voters, because i think that posts that do so are harmful to the system.
And it will be with all my steem power. the fact that it comes from 5000 accounts is irrelevant, except inasmuch as this post made a big deal about me using multiple accounts to downvote, or that having multiple accounts made me a "guild".
In fact, i made the exact same point anyx did later on, that changing your terms and making the change opt-out is fraud and an abuse, and that if you went forward and attempted to perpetrate fraud, i would downvote you.
You yourself have frequently used the threat of down voting as retaliation of your own posts being down voted. I think most steemians agree retaliation flags are the worst reason you can give.
I look forward to see how everything works out. :)
However flags should be used responsibly with good reasoning. Don't believe the recent flag tactics are the best approach. Hope the community as a whole may find solutions that are well accepted and received.
Flags should be used in manners that involve the least consequence. Especially when they involve the representation of many users.
So do we!
Of course. :)
Here's to forward moving solutions and (community) core values.
I wouldn't be so sure of yourselves.
Read Dans comments on the necessity for a down vote system
These funding posts will be down voted as long as the service is charging the reward pool instead of its users or advertisers.
This @sneak feller is leaning toward removing the UI for it entirely.
I wonder what gave him that idea ?
This post has been ranked within the top 10 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 04. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $86.27 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 04 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
outrageous post my m8 ! i had a smiliar taught on my mind as well. Follow for follow ! :D
Does one have to be signed up for SteemVoter in order to be accepted and worthy of this curation guild's vote?
You're really talking about two issues here arriving from flagging / down-voting, which are unfortunately conflated on Steemit:
The first issue could be side-stepped by changing the UI by changing or removing the loss of visibility. I presume this is what @sneak is suggesting. For example, flagged posted could be given a mark which indicates it's flagged without graying it out.
The second issue does not seem to be considered an issue by many here and was of course a planned feature.
Solving the first issue is really as simple as UI change, without the need for complicated guilds, which as several note are susceptible to abuse, and we could leave the righteous indignation at the door and get on with business as usual.
I would suggest two things:
A simple chart of some kind, showing up vs down vote, maybe adjusted for weight of effect. I'd feature it prominently but not visually large. Maybe hiding down voted post could be a feature of Steemit.com, like nsfw but opt-in instead of opt-out.