RE: The Downside of Downvotes
(Edited)
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I think we need to normalise downvotes as part of curation.
If you know of a way to effectively market that, I think that could be a welcome change. Education could be a part of this, but I don't think it can fully overcome the essential gamification that's at the core of what makes social media successful.
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I don't have all the answers and I suck at marketing. I have tried to talk some people down from their state of outrage. We cannot afford to lose those who could add value. The gamification is different here as we have rewards. For some people a few bucks make a big difference. There's also the issue that a lot of people don't dare downvote for fear of retribution. A whale can wipe them out on a whim, but I would hope they can be better than that. I've always said it's like the wild west. Some of us can be vigilantes if we want.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Just downvote more. Everyone who does it encourages others to do so as well. Ignore the complaints and "outrage" that more often than not is just self serving.
I'm not convinced this is a good idea at all. In fact, I think this is a terrible idea. The carrot and the stick only work if they are in balance, and multibillion dollar corporations have ignored user pleas for years to add a dislike button for a reason. To ignore this is to be willfully ignorant.
They don't give away rewards based on votes. It's a completely different problem space.
As you say, removing rewards would be one solution, which makes it more like those multibillion dollar platforms, for better or worse.
Agreed, and as I also said, removing downvotes is not an option. However, one must view the downvote as a stick, a punitive measure to correct some behavior, and this becomes especially true the larger ones' stake becomes. There is a psychological effect at play here, one that a simple explanation, or even a reversal of the downvote, doesn't correct. I have ran @freezepeach for over 3 years now, and even when we were able to completely neutralize downvotes on posts, people still left. It's not about the rewards, it's about the dopamine, or perhaps some other value derived from the interactions.
Getting a dislike on facebook or youtube is whatever, getting a dislike on here having rewards removed can be very unnerving.
Dopamine hits are what attract people to something typically, if a bunch of people are being downvoted they aren't going to want to be here, whether the downvote is justified or not. It's a psychological issue that doesn't build confidence in the way this system is setup.
I still think limiting posts to a maximum of 50 USD would be a great start. There's almost no reason why any post should make more than that.
I actually think there is very, very little on here that is worth even close to 50. Most days nothing.
To be worth that, content on the internet has to attract a very significant amount of search traffic, monetize in some manner, contribute meaningfully to increasing the value of the Hive brand, or document some important work (development, marketing, etc.) for Hive, not just some not-terrible pictures posted to a blog, or rehashed conspiracy theories that have been going around for months or longer.
If no one else will pay you even close to that much to post to your blog (and they won't), that should be a clue we're overpaying too.
If there were a cap it should likely be lower, but since there are occasional legitimate exceptions, better to recognize that autovotes and various forms of vote buying are often pushing rewards way out of line with actual value-add and make more use of downvotes.
This seems to eliminates most posts of a 'personal nature' from being 'worthy' in your eyes. Thus works of fiction, anecdotes of a personal nature, creative expression (art in various forms), music and poetry etc posts IF they get to the 50 USD mark are in the smooth-downvote zone is it?
Kinda sounds like it!
They're worthy and welcome to post but should they get rewards that are frankly crazy in economic terms ? No, I don't think they should.
Hive has to attract investors in order to pay for rewards that people want to cash out, and a story of taking money from investors via inflation and giving economically absurd amounts to people for making personal blog posts that don't attract a large following or otherwise pay for themselves isn't and won't be a story that compels.
Sounds like you regard 'value' as primarily something practical/useful. In terms of posts, the 'main' use/function is to bring more folk to Hive (and raise token value) is it?
For me, blogging has been a question of self-expression primarily.
Our views on this clearly differ fundamentally! When you imply that a 50 USD payout (with less than 50% of it going to the author) for a post which doesn't bring the kind of 'value' you would like to see, is 'frankly crazy in economic terms', I dunno what to say and I guess there isn't any more to say :|
However, I acknowledge your willingness to engage with the subject. We ARE all in this together, that seems inescapable as long as we hang around in this space (kinda like the global situation atm - we're in this together, be it an existential 'viral' threat or an encroaching and disguised system of CONTROL we are up against :).
Self expression is fine. Why do you need to be paid a certain amount to do that?
I don't have expectation or sense of entitlement to be paid, nor is payment (the prospect of) the primary driver of self-expressive posts, but payouts are a very nice side-effect :).
As for yourself Smooth, might you consider instead of clipping wings in a somewhat random manner ('random' being your word if I remember correctly, from a recent comment in which you stated you browse around randomly in search of posts to d/v) which is likely tinged with some personal prejudice (selecting posts to d/vote based, it does seem, on content you disagree with), to shift the energy towards building up (away from pushing down)? I'm sure you've done a lot for Hive in your time here and commanding 2M HP is pretty punchy. I don't see how putting that powerful punchy energy to use in a downward, limiting, restricting motion can possibly help growth/expansion, when that very movement is in the opposite direction to it.
Anyhow, that if you like, is an arty-farty description of the issue as I see it. Thanks for listening 👍