Downvotes: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Much has been said about downvotes, but: How does the common user perceive it?
I know cases of users who had to witness how their reputation was decreasing more and more until they practically lost their accounts due to the flags. We can even find user accounts with a negative reputation.
In my opinion, one of the main reasons to feel rejection towards the use of flags (Downvotes) is that in most cases the affected party is unaware of the reasons why they became deserving of this "award." For this reason I have participated in certain debates of ideas where we have agreed that there is a need to include in the coding of the Blockchain, a space where the grantor of a Downvote, has the obligation to express (Perhaps with the use of a few characters) the reasons why he made the decision to assign said flag.
"Perhaps this could open the doors to a friendly debate between the parties, where there could be conciliation and at the same time a growth of the participants through a healthy debate and exchange of opinions".
The Good
The negative votes serve to clean the platform of those shit publications that only seek to milk the cow and those users with great VP who incur autovoting.
Downvotes is a great tool to combat collusion groups.
With this we can give a better image to the platform and thus investors would be encouraged to bring their resources with the conviction that the value of their investment will increase. This does not mean that they will have more tokens, but that STEEM itself will be more valuable.
The Bad (Downvotes Gangs.)
The main value proposition of STEEM has been curtailed: "Economic freedom".
The new Downvote Power bar has skewed this in the wrong direction. When used excessively, an incorrect message is sent to potential investors and new Steemians. Who wants to be in a social environment or invest their money where Armed Gangs can hijack the system?
The possibility of knowing new great authors has been diminished. It is a fact that negative votes are being assigned many times without real reading or analysis of the post-punished. New authors with great inspiration who approach the platform with the hope that their talent is appreciated give us the best of their muse and their effort to then receive a lot of downvotes (Where these are performed as a blast in the same space of time, giving the feeling that they were issued by an organized group) that decrease their possible reward to zero. They will simply leave.
The Ugly (Account creation for Downvotes.)
I have witnessed first hand and victim of the creation of accounts which are being destined exclusively for the granting of downvotes.
These are precisely accounts with creation date very close to the effective date of the last HF.
The most amazing thing about all this is when we review these accounts on Steemd and always get the same scenario:
Here I leave just a few as an example:
https://steemd.com/@yaluma
https://steemd.com/@termium
https://steemd.com/@minchew
https://steemd.com/@dentbos
https://steemd.com/@kievcrow
https://steemd.com/@camillesteemer
https://steemd.com/@islore
These accounts do not publish. They have not given a single positive vote since its creation.
Its only activity is to issue downvotes.
What may be behind all this that Steem's authority has not noticed?
What benefit can the owner (s) of these accounts get so well organized?
What is the reason for the existence of Downvotes?
The use of negative voting to keep people from abusing the system leverages the crab mentality that many people have when it is perceived that one individual is profiting at the expense of everyone else. While crab mentality normally refers to short-sighted people keeping good people down, it is also what allows good people to keep bad people down. The only “problem” with crab mentality is when people wrongly believe someone is profiting at everyone else’s expense.
Right, just like that. The creators of STEEM assumed that the Negative Votes (Downvotes) were going to cause problems.
"But why are we witnessing an indiscriminate use of this tool and nobody does anything to control it?"
It is the same community that is misusing the Downvotes. We have been granted that great power, but we have not known how to use it properly.
@juanmolina
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I share what you say, especially what refers to the existence of accounts that specialize in only giving negative votes.
The idea that the negative vote should be accompanied with a comment I think would be very useful, at least it would be constructive to know what readers think is wrong and how it can be improved.
We should create a campaign for this option to be included in the next HF.
This option to justify the downvote in writing has become a clamor of the community
This needed to be said - thank you. Especially the downvote accounts.
Thanks for comment, dear friend.
Dear @juanmolina!
I share your views on this issue and have posted two articles in the last days to address this.
https://steempeak.com/steem/@doifeellucky/anonymous-downvotes
and
https://steempeak.com/steembasicincome/@doifeellucky/i-ve-enrolled-mmmmkkkk311-who-promotes-downvotecontrol-com-into-steembasicincome
I think it's time to discuss this with many other fellow steemians before the frustration of some over this gets unbearable for them and they might leave the #STEEM blockchain.
In general I believe that expressing of positive and opposing beliefs or even disgust via not upvoting and commenting is more than sufficient.
Giving everybody the chance to downvote without having own stakes in the game imo seemed to be a bad idea before hf21 and right from the beginning of the "free downvotes" possibilities it became transparent on the spot that there was misuse taking place.
I'm afraid that this will reduce the attractiveness of #STEEM significantly and this becomes even more toxic because we are in a troubled crypto environment anyways.
Cheers!
Lucky
I had the pleasure of reading your publications.
This option to justify the downvote in writing has become a clamor of the community
Undoubtedly, if someone does not like a publication, the healthiest thing is not to vote in favor and perhaps leave a thoughtful comment.
The downvote should be an option of last resort.
Thanks for your comment! Exactly my thoughts! That should be enough!
My Dear Friend!
@juanmolina, thanks for such a thoughtful post. It is nice to see others who feel the same as I do on this topic.
I have said this in a few posts on this very topic. Require justification for the downvote. I wouldn't be opposed to the same for an upvote as well.
I am opposed to the "free" downvote. If it is something bad enough for one to downvote, one should be willing to pay to downvote it, just like they pay to upvote when they feel it is deserving of such.
I can tell you from experience, I was away from Steemit for over a year and just returned two months ago to give it another try. My very first post was A Year of Ups and Downs, But I'm Still Standing. It was immediately downvoted by some asshat for no reason that I can think of. Some felt it was because a curation pool or pools may have voted on my post. Another person thought he was the reason for the downvote because he upvoted my post and the downvoter did not like him. All this said, I almost threw my hands up and walked away from Steemit and Steem for good.
The old flag wars and this new downvote mafia mentality is in no way good for Steemit. People who are serious content creators, or just social butterflies, are not going to stick around long if they are being downvoted for no reason, or at least no reason is being given. so they can adjust behavior.
A good example of this is @paintingangels who has left our community per her post Hello and Goodbye. This pisses me off because she was one of the first who reached out to me upon my return and convinced me to stay after my first post back was almost downvoted to nothing.
I am all for the requirement to manually provide a reason for a downvote and to make them put SP toward the downvote.
Hello dear @juanmolina.
Great question friend, I think this should be controlled in some way, but we will reach a point where people will be running steem and the percentage in content creation will be reduced
These people who are misusing negative voting should react and modify this practice because they are damaging people who are working here and making a great effort to publish.
Great damage is being done to the community, I agree with you brother.
Hi @juanmolina
Friend nothing nice these negative votes. but I agree with you in some way, it is that if they should explain why they grant those negative votes and be able to reach an understanding.
As we say here in Venezuela.
Speaking the people understand
Totally agree with you dear friend.
Thanks for comment.