RE: Steem Witness Roadmap for @jerrybanfield in 2018!
Dear Jerry,
Will you please address the looming crisis of top level censorship on Steemit coming from a core developer at Steemit Inc, as well as the witness election deadlock that exists that is never officially addressed? I respect your focus on these important aspects you mentioned here, but it will all be for naught if the new "enthusiastic" people you talk about get the provable impression that this place is not a free and open platform but a clandestine oligarchy of state-sanctioned narratives and top level censorship.
All the growth and marketing will be futile if these points are not addressed by the witnesses, as open minded people will avoid Steem, knowing it to be yet another place where their voices are stifled.
You can read up on the situation I am referring to in the following posts. Will you look at this please and give your view on it when you have a minute? It is very important to many Steemians! And many will leave the platform and stop recommending Steem to their friends if this is not addressed soon.
Thank you for all your hard work <3
Your work brought me here.
@paradigmprospect thank you for sharing these posts with me because I had not read any of them. I read through all of them. What I do on Steem now is focus on my contributions and I stay out of everyone else's business as much as possible because that I do not control. I do not control votes or software or development or anyone else's projects. When I have an opinion or an idea, I share it in a post and often even if the reaction is negative at first from some, usually the idea is included in the whole picture somewhere.
With soon a million other users, I trust that when I do my part the rest will work out. When things appear to go wrong, I try to learn from in and adapt my strategy.
Jerry, I'm voting for you as witness. But the man above has a point.
The primary attractiveness of using Steemit instead of something else is the lack of censorship. The rewards are there, first of all, to restrict spam by giving it a greater opportunity cost, and create the incentive structure for decentralized archiving.
Nobody throws out money. Content printed on money is archived. But that doesn't work if the money isn't worth much, and if there's little content being added to increase its worth.
The weird tit-for-tat and pay-to-spam, spam-to-win strategies dominating the site are keeping the value of steem relatively low, user retention low, etc. There are 200,000 more accounts now in March than in back in December. But according to bandwidth, there are fewer active users posting content.
I'm a scientist. Yet as I've told Ned a month or so ago, I can get almost nobody else in academia to come use the platform. And why not? Why despite all the potential? Simply because serious people don't play games.
Serious people don't play games. They invest. Or they create content. Also they consume content. But they don't play games. Nobody with any face will come here only to risk getting flagged and losing face. When they can invest in private placements, why would they invest in order to be able to reverse a flag and clean up the site . . . This is likely why most celebrities and academics are not coming over to use Steemit. Even though the rewards for a far smaller number of subscribers, readers, etc, are far greater here . . .
The various weird and aggressive and pointless flagging games practiced by some of the other large users open up the door to censorship by paid activists in the future. They set a precedent. It's not a good precedent they set. You've already experienced the friendly good nature, erm, of several of these, eh, gentlemen, I see.
Consider doing something about it. You can probably join we-resist, or organize something yourself, and help make the site more attractive to serious users. You have the SP, which right now is still worth something. Remember what Solzhenitsyn said.
The entire value of the steem token is based on proof of brain.
It's based content, not mining. So anything that results in the nonviability of professional content creation eliminates the value of the token. Which creates a problem for valuation. And for investing.
And it matters little for content creators whether censorship comes from Youtube or Twitter the company or anonymous individuals, and discourages them from using this platform rather than some other one. And then it's rather hard to prove brain to a consensus, I suggest, when there's no brain to prove and no consensus, and when there are few users and therefore no security, no archiving, and no platform.
At the beginning (before I made my account) STEEM was mined via PoW. That's just madness. If this was just a "currency" like Dash, it's not a major problem. But STEEM is used to power up and vote for content. Everything is distorted because there are many whales who didn't payed big money nor earned through posting quality content.I kind of touched the subject here: https://steemit.com/news/@vimukthi/the-initial-token-distribution-problem-of-steem-and-dan-talking-about-steem-2-0-on-eos-telegram-q-and-a
Another problem is that STEEM has no proper constitution. I thing flags should only be used in the cases of violation of NAP such as Plagiarism, spam, doxxing, attacks on groups/organisations/ individuals that are not backed by any information or analysis, spreading misinformation that ar objectively verifiable to be false etc.
``Flags should only be used in the cases of violation of NAP such as Plagiarism, spam, doxxing, attacks on groups/organisations/ individuals that are not backed by any information or analysis, spreading misinformation that ar objectively verifiable to be false etc.'' Agreed.
Some people here treat this like 4chan or reddit: ``I like apples you like oranges. And you never upvoted my cat post. Flaggd you, lolz, haha, yeah!''
I told Ned: whenever anybody whose time is valuable and who'd be an asset to the community is shown this site, almost always what happens is they browse for a few minutes on their phone, and ask me why I suggested what I suggested.
Nailed it. People are trying to apply the general social media logic into a monetized platform. It's just as dumb as migrating video game mechanics to live action movies.
I must say that STEEM doesn't have a way to show dislike. There is only the equivalent of like and report. May be a "Dislike" function with zero payout effect or a a "Dislike" button that can only cast a 1% flag (would be better with an additional cap if the account has lots of SP) would be nice. Then instead of ignoring BS or some unwise opinion, I can show that I don't like it without aggressing on someone's payout. A dislike capped at 10 cents would be nice.
I don't think any of them understand the tremendous growth that could happen if those whose blog for a hobby didn't feel compelled to leave the site because of the censorship concerns. In all reality this site really sucks and it's hard to want to even stay on here. It's rare to find even hot button political post reaching comments into the hundreds. That's why people leave here because they want open dialogue and discussions....and in real time, they also don't want to feel compelled to have to agree with the author all the time. One of the problems is is that a lot of those at the top know they have the wealth and influence to keep themselves in business and they don't want competition from thousands of others, thousands of others would obscure their chances of being clicked on. Right now they know that those at the bottom look to those at the top votes as having the most monetary value, this keeps people clicking for them, they don't want to or have any attention of sharing the wealth and this isn't going to be sustainable in years to come as more people leave. New people will come but that doesn't mean they will stay either, that's why the constant plea's to grow the community because they have to continually replace those who leave. They can lay a bet if they like that those in third world countries will hold them up because pennies have extreme value to them but that's a limit scope based value of return since they are seeking the penny but haven't the expertise or knowledge to expand the community. This thread is pretty typical transcript of what appears day in and day out, someone at the top post a thread and everyone bows down to it followed by a thank you very much. It's boring and mundane.
ive been here a short time and what i miss most is the honesty in the comment sections. most the time its being as nice as possible, such comments like thank you so much for this content. great post. thank you. ect. cant help but think it is fear of being monetarily harmed by expressing actual honesty or opinions.
It's quite sad actually, in my opinion, that people feel they can't participate in a honest and open debate.
Life is a game. You get out and you may fail. Businessmen go out and they fail more than they win. And that is capitalism. And people who join Steemit get that. You should accept the good and the bad together because it works better that way. How else could it work? As Facebook dies, more people will continue to come here. #DeleteFacebook. How many billions of dollars is Amazon losing? They are going down. As the dollar decline, Steem and Bitcoin recline, they rise. Millions of new users ill be on Steem before 2020. Ans Bitcoin will be worth a million dollars or more in a few years or less maybe before 2022.
Incorrect.
You're confusing what our friends at the Mises Institute, and Herbert Spencer long before, have correctly called "vulgar" capitalism, with capitalism itself. That is, you're assuming anything that occurs without "obvious" violence involved is the free market. It's a fallacy.
Crony capitalism, organized crime, fascism, socialism called capitalism, etc, are not capitalism. The map is not the territory. If prices are regulated, or interfered with, if the general mass of consumers does not have sovereignty, and decide little which producers gets paid, that is socialism. If there's a probability of violence in case a consumer buys one product instead of another, and therefore buys the product he's coerced into ultimately buying, and that at the price given, you can't call the result capitalism and the price valid just because, in the end, the product was in fact purchased and nobody was hurt.
A social network is a constructed system, the rewards are not those on free market. Like in central planning, they're programmed. You have model risk. You might program the wrong rules, anticipating their outcomes incorrectly, and they lead to the wrong fixed point.
``You should accept the the good and the bad together because it works better that way.''
No. Principles matter. Because results matter. Absolutely.
Wrong principles, bad results.
Life is not a game. Because results matter. Therefore principles matter absolutely.
brilliant fucking comment. wow. so articulate, where I could only mumble something about gut and feelz leading to the same more logically constructed explanation, thanks!
Thanks for the kind words.
I'm pretty good at public speaking. That sort of thing might carry over to writing.
Yes, Steemit may not necessarily be what you find on the free market because Steemit is not physical, generally speaking, because there is a difference. Steemit is a communication tool, mostly, that would cost money generally. Everything we do on Steem could and maybe should cost me and you and each user money to use like we would spend money to use electricity, phones, computers, cable. Our ability to not pay, and our ability to make any money here, be it thousands of dollars or maybe even one dollar is a miracle. What we have on Steemit is capitalism as each post and comment is the product that is auctioned by and through everybody. If millions of people upvoted this comment that I am writing right here, then I would get more money THAN YOU in your comment assuming they didn't also upvote your comments too. That is capitalism. We all determine the prices through our voting.
Principles are found as we shift and filter through the good and the bad. That is the art of the deal of what life is all about. Steemit is capitalism in so many ways mostly because it serves as a platform for doing Steemit. The biggest aspect of capitalism may not necessarily be found in the voting system, in the upvoting, in the voting power, in the curation, in some of those things, maybe not some might argue to some extent, but Steemit allows you to sell your stuff or whatever if you want at any time. Your online store can be there or linked on Steemit. Don't look at the Shelton Music LLC Store in Shelton, WA, and do not go to http://SheltonMusicLLC.com and remember that Steemit is at least not selling your data like Facebook and maybe Steemit is not perfect has limitations and certain problems and you may also feel it has problems too and some of those things can be improved upon and stuff and http://Busy.org has a http://d.tube player while http://steemit.com does not currently have one and that is one example of limitations but it is all about the competition and more.
Steemit is of capitalism not in itself and not by itself alone maybe maybe but it is rather an element of the bigger picture of a world seeking to get away from Rothschild and corporatism and socialism and China and technocracy and plutocracy and Soros and Clinton and Bush and Obama and the EU and the UN and much more. The prices are depending on us more than you say it is. We decide a lot more than you seem to admit. Steemit is not necessarily a direct market place and that is what might be confusing you. Steemit is more like a walky talky.
Steemit is a Walky Talky
I agree on the whole, but I separate capitalism in "young" and "old" instead. Young is good, old is bad, a prime example is America from the 50's compared to today.
Totally agree with you. You just gained a new follower with just that comment. Also nice to see a fellow reader of https://mises.org/wire
Flags play a vital role in quelling abuse. Although, I respect many of the individuals of the we-resist movement against GC but find the movement itself to be misguided.
Their grievances should be against the negligent bid bot users facilitating abuse which has led to GC's actions but do agree that his method is a bit heavy handed at times.
There is often collateral damage in warfare and, in the fight against abuse, I don't think we can expect any different. I have not seen @jerrybanfield work against bid bot abuse. He seems to be the type to avoid controversy to maximize his mass appeal. I believe we need more influential witnesses with more courage and less people pleasers if this platform is to turn itself around.
@jerrybanfield
Thank you for your reply Jerry. I completely respect that decision and your choice of path. Just knowing that you are aware of these things is more than good enough for me at the moment.
Trusting the swarm is important, and so I do my part to make people aware of this, especially when they are all in on Steem. You have no obligation to act on this, it's just really good to know you have seen it. We all have to make our choices.
Thanks again, and good luck on (y)our continued journey here.
What good are witnesses if they can't get together and solve the problems among the contingency?Witnesses are suppose to weigh the concerns to upper management of what the underlings have concerns about.
That's not actually in our job description at all. Some of us DO try to do that, but we have no obligation or requirement to do anything but run a box, and install software to do so. Sometimes opting to continue to patch up or not. The contents of the patches come from open source submissions that get accepted by the core team. There's one choke point in the decentralization fallacy right there. We get a saving throw if the top 20 witnesses don't install that patch as a quorum.
Likewise, if we do pitch ideas, there is no upper management of the block chain, per se, except the coders who accept the patches to the core code and then in turn the top 20 witnesses accepting the new build.
Now guess what, some of them are the same people, and some of them have vested interests in controlling the outcome.
welcome to decentralized centralization.
#Truth.
What I do on Steem now is focus on my contributions and I stay out of everyone else's business as much as possible because that I do not control - @jerrybanfield
The key to survival right here, ladies and gents...
And one reason why I vote his witness as witness #71 myself.
Hi there @paradigmprospect,
My friend @anjkara and i were just talking about this very same subject and were calling other witnesses for help, with no response. @anjkara has personally seen flagging from Vegans and Christians that were against Atheism. Regardless of a belief system, we should all have the right to say how we feel.
We totally support your comment and if we can help in any way please reach out to us.
@eaglespirit
I completely agree with your take on this. Worldviews are so heavily dominating so many people's decisions these days, and the craziest thing is: Everybody means so well, flagging other people for their views. It really needs to stop. Hence my mission: To show that most people whi have a strong worldview DO have a point. Just not the complete picture. Myself included.
I like to refer atheists to the flaws in Darwin's (Spencer's) work, there are glaring impossibilites in the narrative of natural selection and macro evolution. I like to refer Christians to work that showcases how the bible has been repeatedly messed with by man. Vegans to the paleodiet and Price's work, Price apostels to work that points out he was mostly looking at dental health disregarding other important factors and data.
If we are to figure things we out we have to allow everyone their say. We may not like what others have to say but it might turn out to be the puzzle piece we have been missing due to our own stubbornness holding on to a defined worldview package.
Definitely followed, both of ya, thank you for reaching out <3
Yes you said this well and thank you so much for responding with a very reasonable answer with fine examples. I’m of the same feeling so as far as being open and not entirely closed to hearing each other. I only get up in Arms when I’m being told to think a certain way or someone is too stubborn to hear because of programming. So many people are brainwashed.
A healthy reaction ;)
Congrats that you were able to maintain that state of mind through all the indoctrination happening everywhere. We really gotta walk our own path and not someone else's.
hey, where ya been? this was almost 2 weeks ago. LOL
yes! "walk our own path," definitely!
blessings,
eagle
Went back to check comments as I sometimes neglect to go back far enough. Really need to try that ginabot ;)
all the best to you as well
ah that can happen, gina was off her game lately. poor girl, she must be tired. :(
yes GINA is the best!! (when she isn't tired) :)
blessings
eagle
I cannot flag and downvote for any reason? You are against the freedom of speech, as in free speech, the ability to choose what to say and do? Are you a progressive left democrat?
Misrepresented. I didn't say "for any reason". Spam is not a valuable contribution so if I feel I want to use my voting power hiding spam that is one thing. Flagging other people's posts that talk about something I find absurd does not give me a moral highground to hide their stuff. If anything it shows my own level of awareness and progress in understanding the world. And my narrowmindedness in censoring other viewpoints that contradict my own.
The greatest insights can be found with people who see things differently. IF they can make a good case.
I have long rejected the political categories you mentioned, because they are a scam. Having said that, I would never flag an article of yours telling people why Trump is the savior or why we should have voted for Hillary.
The whole political game is complete BS to me - but not to other people (yet). So instead of flagging I just move along. No energy to it.
Agreed, focus on what you love, and focus on that as that is key to civilization, to philosophy as talked about by @Stefan.Molyneux and life is better as we influence and encourage people towards destiny over storms towards rainbows.
I should be free to flag and downvote whoever I want, right?
that wasn't the point, most of us are on her for free speech but not the abuse of such nor of people who are brainwashed by MSM or the fight for what is really going on in the world. Let alone those that are just flagging because they feel someone is an idiot, etc.
In other words there is a balance as in all things. Did you actually read what was stated above? There are people flagging and creating bots just because someone likes meat! so if you post a photo of a piece of meat you get flagged ... that is NOT FREEDOM!!! That is ABUSE!!
Freedom includes abuse because freedom is freewill, choices, decisions, made by individuals, both good and bad, and people do good and bad stuff, and people abuse, and that is part of life, and that is part of what freedom and life and love is all about and are we going to remove free speech from people or where do we draw the line between free speech and abuse and who determines what is abuse and what is not abuse?
Yes, I do not like it when they flag my stuff or your stuff and others. But what do you want to do about it? Do you just want to lock them up because they were wrong for flagging and downvoting and because they are using bots or too many bots and how do you know which accounts are bots or not bots and are bots ok or not?
I hate abuse too. I want to stop bad people too. I understand all of that but be careful of becoming the thing you are fighting. We can stick together and upvote great content in order to survive the storms of the bad people out there downvoting and abusing and flagging and everything. I think it is better to focus on the things we like, the people we like first, in upvoting the content we love on Steemit, and offline too, instead of getting lost in the bad people who are abusing us and worse both online and offline and we will always find bad people all over the place and it is good to tell people about what the bad people do to expose them and to raise awareness and we may need to stop and arrest and remove bad people sometimes too maybe.
Freedom Vs. Abuse
I don’t flag period, unless it is a abuse. For instance someone outright calling me a bitch. At any rate you did come into my convo with someone else, and you are judging. I know who I am and I read people very well. I do not become what I speak up “against.” If you truly read and understood what I was saying you wouldn’t be sounding like you have no clue what I said in 3 paragraphs. I have not been flagged. LoL
Maybe go back and reread.
Ps. My philosophy of how I actually work on Steemit was never discussed but yes, I do tend to stay away from the flaggers and upvote what I like. It sounds like you got on your soapbox ... not sure why to my comments with the original writer.
There are plenty of people within the comments to go argue with, you completely ignored what we said to begin with and then again in my second post. You just want to rant and not listen. I’m done. I Will not be responding to you again. SMH
Judging is a good thing. Soap boxes are a good thing. Conversations are a good thing. It is too bad that Eagle Spirit is saying that she is going to not talk to me any more. She might be judging me but she might have said I should not judge her. I am ok with judging but some might not be. I am talking about inconsistencies in the logic of people. David Hodge challenged Alex Jones to a debate and then backed down when Alex said ok. Now, Rex Jones is begging Hogg to a debate to save Rex from brain washing it seems and Hogg is not responding. That is what the left does. The left says one thing but does another. That is an Ironic Mystic. http://DrudgeReport.com
We all can flag and downvote each other, right? But some have more voting power which means that their downvotes and maybe also flags do more, are worth more. Voting power comes from your SP, mostly, as far as I know. You can buy SP or earn it as you are upvoted. So, that is capitalism.