Yes please do go read it and also the comments too... It is a very very good battle and we can help in other ways... Like one thing you can do is to spread the word about it!!! Resteem it and tell people about it...
And to make it more simplified what the battle is about, there are people that have been "cheating" and not only that but hurting legitamite voices that have tried to fight them.. Fulltimegeek has had enough of it and will be using all his power to attack them head to head. We can help by getting the word out. Our voices matter more than our SP
Forgive me @davemccoy but I really don't fully understand what this epic battle is all about and I actually DID read @fulltimegeeks post...what is the "cheating" troll thing about? And how have they "been hurting legitimate voices that have tried to hurt them?"
It is not very clear to me but because I know you are one of the good guys, and I very much appreciate the advice you took the time to give me, if this is the good side...well, I'm on it! But if I could just understand who or where the orcs and trolls are maybe I'd be a better elvish warrior! 😊
Hi @lilygolightly thanks for asking... I will be happy to explain.
There has been a group of people that have gamed or cheated and set up a whole bunch of accounts and gained a lot of control. They have got so much power that they are sorta in charge because of the way the system works. It has to do with your Reputation and your SP.
Essentially these guys cheat because they essentially just massively upvote their own stuff even though it is something a 4 year old could do. Then when anyone has tried to "flag" it (which is how we are supposed to police ourselves), these individuals used their power to destroy the lessor persons reputation.
One quick note: if two people have a disagreement the one with the higher reputation wins. That is how it is structured. So if me and you fought, I would win since my reputation is 55 and yours is 40. You can't hurt me by yourself, but I could hurt you. Of course I would never do that, and neither do most people here. But there is a group that does exactly that and they have got too much power so nobody can challenge them. This has led them to take a large % of the rewards every day. And they do it day after day because no one will challenge them. All of us get cheated because this group has gained all this power by essentially cheating the system to get there.
Finally someone has woken up and is going to do something about it. His name is @fulltimegeek. He is the one who started the #stewardsofgondor. To give you some background on what he did, he got so powerful that he wasn't comfortable with all his power. So he decided to delegate most all of it away to others who he felt would do a good job and help others. In that way he didn't carry his weight so heavy that he could be the sole decider of things.
But today he is coming back. He has had enough of the evil group and is going to attack them with his own power. He is taking back his delegated power from his "stewards" and he will once again have the ability to have lots of control over the situation. He will also have an army of people that will help him (like me, even though I am small) because he has earned respect from many for his selflessness and giving.
So that is why I am pointing this out because you should understand what he is doing. The whole system is beautifully designed but there is no one person in charge. So people have to get together to make changes or the place will fall apart. I have been aware of this problem for most of my time here. But not until today did we find someone that is willing to risk it all in the fight.
Does that explain it to you? Do you have any more questions, I'm happy to answer them!
Note: I upvoted myself to get the answer higher because I felt it was important.
Now I'm fully understand the whole scenarios, I'm aware this too even before but I'm just a minnow. Hope everything will be fine and help out those newbies losing hope in this platform. Thanks for clearing all my doubts with your detailed explanation. I like your post and resteem it. @davemccoy
thank you very much for letting me know I explained it right. :) I want people to understand because this is a really good thing that fulltimegeek is doing for us all... I hope you have a wonderful day @tessalonica and thank you for your nice comment again :D
Thank you @davemccoy that is a fullsome and clear explanation and now the sense has been restored to what looked on the surface a confusing mess of info!
I think the reason that most of us joined steemit was because the platform is decentralised, uncensored, and the sheer quality of most posts reflects the intelligent and talented efforts of a community building a HUGE, and educational, resource of information for the future. There are always people out there (and in here) who see an eye for the main chance, who simply self promote, self aggrandise, and are willing to exploit any opportunity to make a quick buck...sad but true as we are witness to here!
You, and the stewards, appear to have enough axes, swords and muscle to positively affect this situation but if by my pen I can assist, give me a shout, or blow the Horn of Gondor😊
I'm glad I could explain it to you so that it was more clear. I understood the first time I didn't do a great job at it, so I tried to be much more detailed. Yes they are a good group and and I don't have any axes, swords, or muscles... my weapon is the harmonica because I'm as new as most of you... ;)
I will borrow that horn of Gondor and blow it loud though when the time comes :D
Awesome explanation 💖
Thank you very much @yogajill :) ... It is great to know that I helped! ANd love the pretty heart!!! Where did you get that??? ;)
You're welcome! Thanks for your reply @davemccoy 😁
I steemit from my phone, so it is an emoji i think they are called! There's a bunch to choose from. It's super cool that they work here!!! 🎉
I haven't ever used my phone, I think I'm missing all the good action!!! :)
Very cool @yogajill... thanks for being fun!!!
Well, if I might interpret, it sounds like they're going after haejin, who has been called out for months now for posting analytics for individual cryptos which amount to a chart and a few words (so low quality), then self-upvoting and receiving an even greater upvote from a whale that also delegates him STEEM. He can post up to 10 times a day or more (so considered spamming), and has a large following of smaller accounts that are either his own (I don't know if that's the case but they do tend to exclusively vote for him, just like the whale), hoping to make something in curation or actually follow his advice. If you got down into the comment section you will see someone has posted his avatar from his account.
You hit the nail head on... and in so many less words than me! Thank you :)
You get a newbie nickel for that my friend!!! (and good to see you glen!)
I am generally the one who takes the longer route, so not sure what happened with my explanation, but I guess I can do it when it's called upon. :) I appreciate the nickel.
Ah. I see. Thanks for the explanation @glenalbrethsen. It all sounds a bit scary to me.
I'm not keen on the language of battle personally and am a bit disappointed to see it here to be honest. I find it all a bit divisive. 😢
Yeah, it is a bit scary, and pretty divisive.
I understand why people feel it should be done. I know there was a cease and desist that lasted for about a day, so diplomacy, if that's what you want to call it, didn't work out.
I think it should be handled, I just don't like the way it's going down as a call to arms. There's something about taking things into your own hands, even on a platform where there really isn't a governing body, that just doesn't feel very good.
And if this is the only way change takes place on Steemit, what will the next mob go after? These kinds of things only seem to escalate, or cause the rest of us to look over our shoulders and wonder who's next.
My feelings exactly @glenalbrethsen. I don't know what the answer is either and, like you, I think it should be handled, but battle never ends well. And, it seems to go against the ethos of the platform. It reminds me of fighting wars in the name of religion. If Steemit is to be a leader in decentralised community then can't we come up with a better way than this to handle such things?
Seems to me there are many incredibly innovative and creative people here, surely there must be a better way. 😍
@Boom yes, @gillianpearce agreed!
And thank you @glenalbrethsen for your clarity in explaining the situation to us!
For me this comes down to a potential need for some way of maintaining high ethical standards within the community. And the need for an effective penalty such as the one facebook has of barring a person from posting for a period of time, or removing them completely.
I can see that the lure of financial gain for those tech savvy enough to exploit a decentralised platform like steemit is pretty seductive. Further I have a distaste for the whole upvoting bots, resteeming bots, paid for promoters. Surely we should have pride in our posts and our work should stand on it's own merits?
This is sounding a lot like the wild west posse to me...and although I personally deeply appreciate the principle of decentralisation..it does raise the question of how can governance be instituted without the formation of a governing body from within the community?
You state this very well and I agree with everything. It is a mechanism built into the system to all for decentralization. What you are witnessing in the wild west in a way as we are still new like the old west was.
In reality fulltimegeek has so much power it scared him and so he delegated it to others for the good of the community. He tried to do it right and recognized the harm of having too much power.
Unfortunately the bad guy here doens't have the same ethics and only cares about himself. Therefore there is only one solution, and that is the people with power have to either agree or not. They don't so there is a policing mechanism call "flagging" and that is what will happen. The problem with using flags is the other can hit you back. And this bad guy got so powerful that no one could challenge him any more...
Until today
fulltimegeek is bringing back the power that he has loaned out to people to get system back in balance. That is what is meant. The reason it is phrased as a war is that the bad guy will fight back and try to keep fulltimegeek from stopping him. No blood will be shed, but the future of the platform rests on the outcome, because if fulltimegeek loses then the bad guy will be unstoppable.
So your last question about governance is a good one, but the founders of the platform believed that good will win out over evil... We will see, but I think they were pretty smart to enable someone doing bad things to be stopped by the community at large.
Actually I think you will see that this is the better way. There won't be any blood shed, it will be one of the big guys bringing another big guy into line. It happens everyday. What makes this different, is that people have been upset for a long time and none of the whales did anything about it. And so the bad guy was able to build up tremendous power as a result. This is really just to fix that.
I understand your points and would normally agree with you. But I would point out that @fulltimegeek isn't inciting a mob, he is just taking his power back. He was so powerful that he was is the same position. He didn't like that he had that much power, so he delegated almost it all away to the stewardsofgondor so they could use it to build the community.
Unfortunately the one who you speak to has no interest is anyone else, his sole aim is to take as much as possible out of the system for himself and his buddies. There is only one way to stop him because he failed to listen to anyones pleas to stop. And that is that fulltimegeek take him on by bringing back the power that he has delegated out.
So in my opinion, this isn't a case of mob rules... In fact I would argue that most people that are aware of the situation will be cheering one person losing so much influence. There will be no war if the bad guy quits the practices you mentioned, but if no one stops him then he will keep getting stronger each day.
I am personally pumped because I have seen people quit in frustration about how hard it is to survive here. The people at the bottom have no control against some of these whales. Here we have one that has not only tried to help everyone by delegating out his own SP in the past, he is now bringing it back in to stop the guy from taking even more. He has already said that he will only take him down to the 60s where he can be managed by others.
I know that it seems unfair that one person can do this, but since that is the way that the platform is structured it is what it is. I would rather have fulltimegeek use his power to stop the bad guy, than have him sit and watch as we get an even lessor pie as time goes on.
I think ultimately, we're going to need to agree to disagree on this one.
The fact of the matter is, there are no rules here. You're pretty much free to do whatever you want. Unless someone with enough power objects, singularly, which is mostly the case, or collectively, and then takes matters into their own hands. When they could have done it a long time ago and for whatever reasons didn't.
Whatever sense of fair play others may have, or whatever etiquette people might want to instill does not make it law. Law here is hardwired in, how it functions. Someone going against someone else's sensibilities isn't law.
That said, very few are going to disagree with the idea that haejin's had his chances to ease off and that he needs to, if for nothing more than good will or for the good of the order.
Letting him continue at a lesser degree isn't going to address whether or not his posts add value. The abuse will still be there, just in a lesser, more tolerable degree, I guess.
Anyway, I'm going to stop. My issue isn't with you, and this is probably another post all together. :)
:) ... Glen, if there was one guy on this platform that I would want to agree with me, it would be you... I have always agreed with every point you've made, so you definitely have my respect. So first I will say thanks for weighing in because you always make me think. And second, I read your reply and I think I agree with everything you said. lol
So if we disagree, I'm not exactly sure what we are disagreeing about. But I'm completely with you when you say that we can have a difference of opinion! You have always added value to me every time I see you speak, so always feel free to tell me like it is!!!
If you make that post, let me know because I'd like to wrap my mind around your point and see what you see ;)
Here's another newbie nickel to the man I have utmost respect :D
he did a great job of explaining it... And I agree with you that war is not something that I like to see at all... Unfortunately I don't see any other way since the guy Glen referenced will not stop unless someone stops him. He will continue to take a greater share and greater share until there is nothing left for anyone else and we all leave.
The system was designed with certain rules and this is all part of the process.
I feel exactly the same @lilygolightly. Read the other post but I don't understand the language of it at all! 😊
Same here--I feel so out of the loop! But I know @davemccoy is one of the "good guys" so I'm going to go ahead and assume that this is a righteous cause.
that's a good assumption Mallory! And thanks for the confidence! :)
I answered it above, more detailed but it has to do with fixing the platform so that a group of cheaters are not using the rules to take money from all of us by using the power they received. I explained more to gillian above and since this thread is already getting long, here is a link to my comment. Feel free to ask me more questions because this is a major battle and very important for this platform. And good to see you interested :D
https://steemit.com/stewardsofgondor/@davemccoy/notice-everyone-a-war-is-coming-pay-attention-get-involved-and-make-a-difference-now#@davemccoy/re-lilygolightly-re-davemccoy-re-leighleigh-re-davemccoy-notice-everyone-a-war-is-coming-pay-attention-get-involved-and-make-a-difference-now-20180222t023126678z
Phew! Thank heavens @gillianpearce I ain't the only one! I felt a bit like the boy in the Emperor's New Clothes story...going hang on, folks...what the actual heck is everyone talking about??? 😄
And if there is a loop @malloryblythe its all a bit of a tangled mess and I can't work out who as hold of the end...or maybe thats the beginning??? Totally agree @davemccoy = good guy, looks like @fulltimegeek is too but goodness me, ladies I think I understood Tolkein's Silmarillion better than this!
As Boromir said "They have a cave troll" and maybe that, ladies, is all we need to know? ⭐️😊💚
it is the beginning... you will find out all about it soon!!! And you have the players right lol :)... I don't know why I can't link my comment here but I do have an answer to you somewhere inside this thread... I think I got it to you directly, but if not let me know... I will help you understand this, no worries!!! ;)
I answered it above right above you Gillian, here is the link to my answer to make it easier. If that doesn't help you or you have more questions, just ask and I will answer! This is a big deal.
https://steemit.com/stewardsofgondor/@davemccoy/notice-everyone-a-war-is-coming-pay-attention-get-involved-and-make-a-difference-now#@davemccoy/re-lilygolightly-re-davemccoy-re-leighleigh-re-davemccoy-notice-everyone-a-war-is-coming-pay-attention-get-involved-and-make-a-difference-now-20180222t023126678z