I've learned about this analogy from someone else but I forgot who so I apologize for not being able to give the credit. But I also wrote this based from what I understand about the cake analogy and the whale experiment.
A Cake in a Room with Many People.
Imagine a beautiful and delicious cake. The fact that it's a great cake - it has a huge value.
Now, that cake is inside a beautiful room with many kinds of people in it who would want to take a slice and give it to someone else for their contributions. Some of these people:
- contributed so much effort and money to make the room and cake exist or more attractive or look more expensive. They may also be the people who have been there for so long - the pioneers. Meanwhile, some...
- ...have been attracted by the room, went inside and contributed effort and some money to also keep the room as beautiful as it is or much more, as well as make it a merrier place (the more, the merrier).
The Whale Experiment
For a long time, the people from number 1 have had the chance to get a larger slice of the beautiful cake and give it to someone else for the contributions that they make.
Now, they're experimenting to see what will happen if they let all the people from number 2 to get around the cake without them (the people from number 1), and then slice it.
In relation to Steemit.
The beautiful room is Steemit, the beautiful and delicious cake represents the overall payout of all posts, the people at number 1 are the whales, while the people at number 2 are the dolphins and minnows.
About the Current Downvoting
Some of the whales see that some people of their kind are still not abstaining in slicing the cake (due to being unaware of the project or that they're just plain bots).
So they cancel those votes as if saying to another number 1 person in the room:
Great analogy about the cake. I see that you've escaped the downvoting so far, pre. I fear I'm not so lucky. I've been downvoted by whales even before I was voted by any whales haha If this trend continues, I think I'm going to owe Steemit some money.
I just got mine @jedau XD also without other whale votes prior to flagging (or at least that's what I sighted). Maybe there's a program behind it that matches the whale votes as they come.
Sorry to hear that, pre. I think you're right with regard to the downvoting being automated. It's a shame, and I don't really think they're going to succeed with their initial intention, however pure it is. Steemit is imploding, and I hope that the powers-that-be get a handle on this before this platform bleeds out users.
Dude, what! HAHA! Your post already has 219 votes and $15.43 as I write this comment. The downvotes didn't even seem to affect you! :D
Woah! Yeah, man. It's true I'm on a 15 dollar potential payout. I mostly thank Project Curie 'cos their curation trail is where most of the upvotes and payouts of my post come from.
My assumption awhile ago might be wrong - about a computer program behind every early flag by the experimenters. I thought that the program has a function that partially matches votes coming from nonparticipating whales, as they come - but it seems doesn't. Now I'm starting to think that the tools being used as of the moment in conducting the experiment is not being used as it is intended to - but of course I'm just saying this out of my lack of knowledge about the entire experiment and the specifics about the tools that they are using.
But analyzing it carefully: If (and only if) everyone gets the same amount of downvote power on their posts, it will turn out to have no effect to the overall payout other than a delay. It's like telling everybody to pause first and then randomly taking away a certain portion out of the cake slices that everybody was holding, putting it back to the cake, and then telling everyone to resume their slicing.
If the tools are not being used as intended, maybe we can tell that they are still figuring out the right tools and one of the purposes of this downvoting is to make everyone aware or give attention to an upcoming experiment.
To be fair, the project curie trail has a lot of minnows and the most common whales I see at the top in every project-curie-approved posts, such as val's accounts are no long being seen as of today - means that they have also abstained from voting.
So the only ones left are likely bots. And, upon seeing the trending page right now, there are no huge gaps. But then again, the tools being used are seemingly not the right ones - or at least it doesn't have the right functions to accurately match the upvotes of nonparticipating whales such as whale bots or the whales who have no idea what's happening.
I've been abandoned by curie for some time now so I don't really have any say about what their approach to this is. I think that aside from counteracting whale votes, they have an algorithm that targets a certain amount of SP. As someone who has an SP of below 2K, I don't think I'm considered as anyone of note. I'm just a rather fat minnow. But still, I had been downvoted by more whales than those that did upvote. So, it tipped the scales negatively for me. Also, I noticed that I was downvoted before I was upvoted, so it looks like a pre-emptive strike in anticipation of whale votes that sadly didn't come.
As I read through the purpose of the experiments, I could see where their intention was coming from. Unfortunately, I was classified on the same side as those who have 100K SP or even 10K SP, which is a bit unfair. My votes don't even amount to a cent, and my earnings average less than $6 a post. They should've refined the algorithm to weed out those who are posting original work and those who are posting non-sensical posts that earn more than $20.
Right now, I'm just posting to prove that the majority of Steemians are vain instead of voting for posts which have a real-life impact. It's really a sad state of affairs.
curie only last till rep of 62. last time i checked
@surpassinggoogle Yeah, I was at 62 rep for a long time. That's what the period I was referring to. And, since they're the guys behind Steem Guild as well, I'm including that for the time I'm beyond curie qualification. I've been told that Steem Guild was going to catch me, but sadly that was never the case.
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A downvote was applied to partially counter earlier whale votes as an experiment to reduce whale domination of voting influence. Not intended to express an opinion on the content nor result in a net reduction of rewards or reputation (automated notice)
Got it, smooth. Thanks for the notice.
Downvoted to counteract the upvotes from @curie bots and other whales.
More info here: https://steemit.com/test/@abit/whales-no-up-voting-test
Got it, abit. Thanks for the notice as well.
The problem is that Steemit is being treated as a zero-sum game without regard for the individuals participating and creating to help it grow. You can't fix a bot problem with bots.
Problem with the flags is they are not proportional. That is hard to do. So the result is often that the flag is more powerful than the 1 or 2 votes it was supposed to counter.
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