Have you ever been Steemauled by Burnitallbernie?
Berniesanders. Is he well? I couldn't say for sure but what is clear is that his deranged, schizophrenic, abusive, vulgar, vindictive and threatening influence stalks steem with impunity and degrades a significant number of people's experience.
He is a relentless bully and a coward.
He plays multiple personalities very well, but rest assured, it is all designed to extract what he wants from Steem, Steemit and Steemians.
I wonder how many of you have his filthy marks on your blogs. How many of you have been visited by his vulgarity and injustice?
Just a couple of examples. These do not come even close to the worst of it.
He wants us to upvote one of his accounts, @nextgencrypto for witness. Granting him such would be an act of extreme masochism. He is currently 50th, I truly hope he gets no further.
As many of you know only too well, for standing up to this bully, I will almost certainly be punished. My blog that I've built and nurtured will be smeared with his filth, my future work will most likely receive the same treatment. So be it. I will risk sacrificing my blog in the hope that doing so will further raise the issue of rampant abuse on steem. I hope that together we can get Steemit.inc off of the sidelines and doing something decisive about it.
If this post is flagged into obscurity, I will continually post it day in and day out until something is done to address the rampant abuse on this network.
The best way I can think of is for Steemit.inc to commit the majority of stake they control to the task of moderating abuse (both of the reward pool and by powerful antisocial accounts,) in the hands of community elected researcher/curators who will moderate according to community derived guideliness.
Maybe we can stop the worst of burnitallbernie?
One can hope.
Happy Steeming
Maybe burnitallbernie is not the cause of the problem, but merely a symptom. Maybe all the things that happened on Steemit have contributed in a way to create what it is now, if it has created monsters or creatures with hard-to-understand motives, maybe that is exactly what the current system does.
Remove one bernie and another (maybe even darker one) will rise, do not doubt that for one second.
This is exactly, what I'm thinking about this issue. All the abuse and cyberbullying is the direct result of the way the rewards are distributed. It's mathematically guaranteed that this system is going to be abused. This is not a matter of behavior. It's a mathematical result of the current formula.
The method of reward distribution needs to be changed asap, because it results in $65 Million USD abuse in Steem investor funds in just a single year. It's a matter of time, before investors figure this out, the Steem price crashes, and Steemit implodes.
My solution proposal is to get rid of the reward distribution scheme altogether and let people choose the posts they want to tip and how much they want to tip. All with their own money; not distributing someone else's money. I've explained this in detail by a post called How to Solve the Reward Pool Abuse Problem Once and For All.
If there was enough stake operating to curb 'negative' behaviour then even the existing incentive model would work far better to curb the behaviour of accounts like burnie. The trouble is we have a benevolent whale that is not fulfilling it's potential.
@steemit probably won't. I'd think it wouldn't even agree of how it should fulfill it's potential or what its role actually is.
I agree, it looks like they will not. If they did, the community would be able to help figure out the best way to use it. We could do our best, then make adjustments as we learn more.
Ok dude seriously, you gotta cut the old man some slack. He was sabotaged by his own party which led to the all mighty orange leader being elected. Now Bernie is living in a post "The Donald" as president world. It probably is taking a major toll on his already deteriorating mental state. So now the only purpose he can find in life is to try and police Steemit to ensure a more socialistic reward pool. Unfortunately dementia is setting in and one of the side effects is vulgar and foul mouth words spewing out that can be more toxic than water from Flint, Michigan. So I don't know if he is on a quest to make Steemit great again or is just trying to help bring focus to the issues that plague our society here. All I do know is that he is making it easier for competition like EOS to improve on the problems here if no one else does.
Lol. That's an interesting take for sure :) I can tell you this, behaving like he does will never make steemit great. An abuser fighting other abusers at the same time as attacking innocents is still an abuser.
Thank you for daring to voice your concerns about BS "The Mother of Reward Pool Rape". Most people have been shut up by now and censorship is a big problem here.
I would suggest to change some of the basic rules here on Steemit and make use of the Reputation Score - if it is in the minus, it should reduce the VP to 0, which would solve the problem of any spammer and not just the BS guy.
I have long advocated that VP should be weighted by rep, rather than SP. As a bonus, doing so would protect the witnesses from a Sybil attack, to which they are presently utterly vulnerable due to stake-weighting. All it takes is money to vote in whatever witnesses, and whatever code, you want.
I wish it wasn't necessary but it is. I agree that when people are censoring themselves, which they are for fear of reprisal, it doesn't matter a fig that you have a censorship resistant platform. I wish Steemit.inc could see that.
Stinc is aware of it. I have personally spoken with them about it, both on and off chain, including many of the top 20 witnesses as well. The issue for them is that the market for their services isn't the users, but the SP.
There are now 35 whales, and that is the market for Stinc. That's who pays their bills, and the platform thus conforms to the needs of the whales, rather than the public. The whales seek ROI, and that's why bots run rampant.
Sorry you got hit for voicing your opinion. I have also, and have even run into 'professional flagger', according to the 'about me' blurb. As I was posting about how flagging 'to protect rewards pool' protects only those that have a substantial interest in the pool, i.e. the whales, who receive over 90% of rewards, I appreciated the proof of my contention.
When the flaggots realized they were making my point for me in a more powerful way than mere words could, they quit.
XD
The whole thing sucks. If this shit isn't sorted out, SMT's will be a nightmare and steem's credibility will continue to be called into question. The big players are choking their golden egg laying goose to death.
Is there a "witness" on Steemit who is against the flagging system? I would gladly vote for "witnesses" that want to clean up this Steemit mess, but I don't know if there are any.
How exactly is it even possible to not use force.he is a relentless bully and a coward. I like every post. Thank's for the sharing post.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't what people are calling for - government control - contrary to the Libertarian founding principles of Ned and Dan? Perhaps clinging to these principles is why Steemit Inc. is slow to act in addressing these abuses? Or maybe @dan has seen the need for government and is working to incorporate that in his next iteration, whatever social platform will be launched with EOS?
It depends what you are asking for. I'm not asking for Steemit.inc to act like a government, far from it. I'm asking for the largest store of influence within Steem to be given to the community for the express purpose of balancing the existing imbalance in power, hopefully leading to a more stable incentive model. If we had hundreds of new whales working to moderate abuse as defined by the community, then accounts like burnie could not act with impunity. There would be a material cost.
You're asking someone or some people with the power to do so to act on behalf of others, or be given the power by others, whether to re-write the code, whales moderating (what do you mean by that?), the community defining abuse, etc. That's all government. And is this "cost" to bernie due to action or inaction (i.e., everyone ignoring him) by others?
The reason abuse is so blatant on steemit is because the distribution of steem is far too concentrated along with an incentive model that encourages and makes it difficult to counter abuse. So increasing the distribution of steem, particularly with the remit to counter abuse, will almost certainly cause it to decrease. Within the community are hundreds of researcher/curators with integrity. They can be delegated a whale-sized amount of steem and can use that power to stop abusive accounts, for their valuable work, they will receive rewards. If people start to see a balance and feel there is more justice within the system, they will be less likely to censor themselves as is the tendency at the moment. That is governance for the people by the people, not a government based on force.
How exactly is it even possible to not use force to "use that power to stop abusive accounts"? And how can it be assured that that power is not abused?
Those acting on behalf of the community do so transparently and with accountability. There could also be an arbitration component. Using the SP to down vote abuse of the reward pool or mitigate the actions of abusive accounts is the mechanism we are all using right now......are you saying that is force? I don't think it is. it is applying the economic incentive model in a way that has greater consensus and efficiency.
I'll buy that. There is still a potential for the "powers" to raid someone's account as a form of "punishment", on behalf of the community. And that can happen to any one of us. But we just have to trust the ones in power to do the right thing. Just like we do with our civil governments.
But that aside, I wonder what's taking so long for Steemit Inc. to do something about this. Are they applying anarchist principles to an extreme and willing to just let things play out? Or do they not care because Steemit really isn't what they are hanging their hat on because they have bigger and better uses for the blockchain they are hoping to attract? Maybe @dan sees the inherent problems that aren't being dealt with and plans to launch a social media platform that solves the problems and provides a better user experience?
One of the many things I don't understand and maybe you can shed light on this since you've been around longer - how much of this is controlled or influenced by the Witnesses? Do they vote on changes to the code that change the payout algorithm or is that completely controlled by Steemit Inc., which from what I hear 51% owned by @ned? And also how many of the developers making the changes to Steemit are also Witnesses who are also the ones at the top receiving the financial benefits of being a whale and so have little incentive to change what works for them at the expense of the minnows? And who is @freedom who single-handedly puts several witnesses into the top spots making millions annually (potentially)?
All very good questions. I can't answer any of them I'm afraid. There would appear to be a circle jerk of whales, witness and Steemit.inc interests. That would explain most of the lack of positive change.
If only we can enjoy the social interraction in this community in peace and harmony without fracas, this Steemit would have been even more amazing than it is right now. But then, we can't have any human community without missunderstanding. I hope we all pull through this phase. Lets all STEEM ON!
Yes it would be nice. Perhaps it can be better, I hope so.
Let's pray and hope. This community can still become one laden with love.
I received my first big downvote the other day on my other account, it wasn't Bernie but the downvote killed the rep to -1. I had done nothing wrong and had only fulfilled my obligations that the account promised to fulfill as a resteemer. No idea why it was flagged. Looks like you got lucky here and didn't catch the bernie flag. Thanks for standing up for what's right. It seems there is a severe lack of that on steemit.