Some people, either already on #hive or coming to this chain, miss-place the responsibility and power of a downvote. It was always something I felt super scared to use and had to have the utmost responsibility to do so, checking as much as I could before doing it.
I understood it had large consequences, not just for me, but towards everyone following me. It's almost like an example, for every time you do it!
Just think about this...
Most people on this chain, are doing upvotes and curating stuff, and that's fine because the default mode of an human is to pay attention to what they like. To those I call the "happy people!" because some might or some might not really understand the reason, why an upvote is NOT necessarily why you would like something, but instead, why you think something should be rewarded IN COMPARISON with ALL other THINGS on the chain.
Then, you have certain people that downvote stuff because they are actively "curating" their own perspective of on-chain content, and "millions" of others drop down in attention to that action you then do... "because you are now removing rewards" to someone.
Have you thought if all this was the other way around?
What if all you could do is to reduce rewards... in order to make the great posts have more "rewards" and avoid "scammy" people stealing the chain rewards... and in this mode by default, everyone would get an initial pay, that would then be curated.
Can you see HOW MUCH HARDER that would be? There is a reason why downvoting (aka, I don't think you should be getting rewards in comparison with many other posts, I have seen) actually exists and is something actually very important for the health of a decentralized social chain. Even if it does not get used that much, its presence and ability to be used is already something that provokes the attitude of socializing.
We all have opinions, but how do those opinions get "rated" in terms of what's accepted and what is not... right?
You are and should be happy to downvote whenever you see abuse... and you can justify it, and be also curated for it.
It's a full-circle society that has still a hard time admitting they do it even IRL! But in fact we all "downvote" all the time things we see in society, being because we see them as "not acceptable" things or because we intentionally want to not incentivize such behaviours.
Responsibly use your power! That's the morale of the story...
