Idle thoughts really... I was thinking about the problem that some of the new changes in HF21 were supposed to be addressing. Well, mostly... I'm a bit indifferent as to the new reward splits and new reward curve for authors. It is just too hard to see how a couple of changes in a complex non-linear system will play out. Of course, there is the immediate effects which are easy enough to see... but it would be quite brave to predict with any certainty what the eventual equilibrium will be...

However, I do still have a bit of an issue with the idea that upvoting and downvoting are essentially risk free. By this I mean that it costs RC (which is regenerating and not really a real economic "cost"... but there is no real economic risk for a voter to cast a up/down vote. This means that you can just cast your vote left right and centre with no real concern other than maximising relatively pitiful (for most of us...) curation rewards. Even then, there is no cost... just trying to stay ahead of inflation... but the worst you can do is 0.

This seems to lead to a complete carelessness to what happens to your vote... bots, vote-selling, auto votes are essentially all results of this. There is no cost... only potential benefit. Now, what sort of system has only upsides and no risk and consequences for actions?

Now... just throwing out an idea out. What if the act of casting a vote (up or down) meant that you were actually ALSO staking some SP (small and proportional to your potential share of the curation reward) which would be added to the "curation pool". Thus, if you upvoted and the post was generally upvoted by the community then you would just recover the staked portion and also normal curation portion. However, if you upvoted and the post was downvoted to zero... you would not recover the staked portion and not gain any curation rewards either.

Now, this could also help fund downvoting... If a post was generally downvoted by the community, then the stake that was forfeited by the upvoters could be redistributed to the downvoters, whilst the downvoters would recover their stake.

Of course, like any system... this could be gamed and exploited. However, it is a little thought... It could have the benefit of slowly whittling account that are involved in flag wars, due to the incomplete recovery of SP. Yes, it can be exploited by accounts downvoting to try and capture the staking rewards... however, if this was countered by the community at large, then those exploiters would end up LOSING SP.

Anyway, as I said... thought bubble...

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