2.5 free flags or downvotes per day is cool. I think they can and eventually will be used in good ways to prevent "reward pool rape" and they will be used to reduce rewards from low/poor quality content and I also believe that they will be used to limit shitposters from getting extreme payouts, eventually. (We have already seen results!)
@theycallmedan has recently announced that he will put in hard work to achieve these goals with his "rekt" list, and he has got a lot of support from others who jumped in immediately. Especially after he offered people upvotes for spotting spam and bid-bot abuse.
These are obviously good intentions, and I appreciate the effort, but personally, I think the outcome has already started to look like a "witch hunt" in many ways... And that is also why I have decided to avoid these things before I see what type of standards there will be in place.
With Great Power Comes...?
What I don't like, and the reason I think this already has started to look like some sort of stupid "witch hunt" is due to the fact that many users seems to be flagged for doing practically the same thing as well-known and established users are doing... But the latter is not being punished for it.
The mindset & mission for this whole "flagging-operation" is very simple, but both confusing and difficult to understand at the same time.
We want to reduce the rewards for:
- Low/poor quality content that has multiple Bid-bot votes.
But, we also want to reduce the rewards on content that has little engagement (articles that have few replies & comments), and we want to reduce the rewards on short-ish posts that doesn't involve "so much effort". Because truth is, that many of those posts are considered to be of low quality.
This is where things are starting to be really complicated, even though these things are very easy to understand at first sight.
Let me give you some examples:
(Taken from @theycallmedans post)
User: crystalliu
This is clearly spam, and this user is buying votes for some of those posts. This is a clear case of "minimum effort/maximum reward", or an attempt of it. This should obviously not be rewarded. Downvote!
User: taifkhan
This is where it starts to become complicated, according to me.
@abh12345 said this:
Anything by taifkhan will do nicely, no engagement (apart from downvoters stating reasons) and some posts in the $80 - $90 range.
We all know that I love Asher so this is nothing personal against him, and I would actually agree with him on this, 100%, if the same would apply for everyone. - But more on that later.
Asher also wrote a comment on one of the posts:
"I'm here for the lack of positive engagement on any of these posts.
taifkhan - Your content is seemingly unappreciated by the community in its current state. The posts regularly hit trending, but receive next to no engagement. Doesn't this tell you something?"
That being said, Asher doesn't necessarily want this type of content to have less rewards, it's about the engagement. That basically means that the content or author doesn't bring much attention (judging by the comments/replies) so he does not deserve trending-posts.
And why is this complicated?
Everyone talks about rewarding quality, so we shouldn't reward authors for being who they are. That's the first problem I see, because this is literally exactly what people are doing. We reward friends, family etc. more than others.
Secondly, the type of content should not be judged, as we have different tastes. Some people like gameplays and others don't. So we shouldn't reward authors based on the type of content, but the actual quality of it.
So, how can someone who does not like gaming, reward gaming content in the first place? They can't see the difference between high or low quality.
Having said that, we get to the next thing on the list: engagement.
I watch streamers several hours per week on Twitch for instance, but I never chat. I watch hours of YouTube videos on a daily basis, but I don't subscribe to channels or leave comments.
Steem is also not a very "social" place anymore in general, even though that is what we want to change...
Personally, I have very mixed results when I publish things:
As you can see, mixed results.
My gaming highlights or stream posts for instance, they often generate 0 comments. More than often, probably 9.9 out of 10 times. Am I not allowed to earn from those posts?
Look at the article second from the top, a bunch of more comments... right? It's 36 comments more than on my gaming-related posts. But, I earned less...
Now, this might not be a problem in my case, because I haven't bought votes for any of those posts...
But where is the line between having too much paid votes and not?
How much am I allowed to earn? And who can I ask?
- Am I supposed to ask the people who already flagged me because I had "too little engagement"?
What if I had become close friends with a handful of whales? I could basically have earned anything from $10-$100 due to auto-votes and my relation with those whales, right?
It's time for the last example:
User: gooddream
More or less the same payouts on each post. A couple of comments and/or replies on each of the posts. Posts that I personally would consider to be of rather good quality, comparing to many others I have seen with similar rewards.
Now, from what I can see, gooddream haven't received any flags (so far), but he was mentioned in the "Spam/Bid-bot Abuse!"-article from theycallmedan.
How much am I allowed to earn, in whatever way I want, if I get
- 1 comment?
- 10 comments?
- 100 comments?
And is engagement what actually matters here, or are we talking about the type of content? Should I have received more for my article with 36 comments than the one with 0? Would it have been okay to buy votes for 50 SBD on that one? How about all the artists that are spending hours on a drawing? How about that one guy who spends 9 days on a vacation and takes hundreds of photos... Should he be rewarded something for one single photo with just a short sentence or not? More importantly, how much are they allowed to buy votes for?
And, perhaps the biggest questions of them all...
- How much is enough?
How much are users allowed to earn before they will be put on the "rekt" list? How much are you allowed to buy votes for? And how do you measure the overall value? Would it be okay for someone who earned $1 to buy votes for $10?
Honestly speaking, gooddream, (the last example) has been doing this for a long period of time, in an attempt to grow his stake etc... Just like all the @ocdb users did. Most @ocdb users probably spent more than gooddream on votes too... So, I fail to see the problem.
- What is bid-bot abuse?
I can totally understand that spam and duplicate content would be bid-bot abuse, but what about my streaming posts, and what about that 30 minute long DTube interview with only 3 comments but 50 viewers. How much are they worth, or allowed to earn?
#NewSteem is far from perfect and we have a long way ahead of us, but I am here, ready to learn, adapt and thrive with all of you... But I seriously need some better "guidelines", so I know what I am allowed to do and not..
Truth to be told...
I think everyone would benefit from it.