Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I wanted to propose some adjustments to how downvotes are handled here in the Hive ecosystem!
In the past few years, I wanted to do something in my life that was both beneficial as well as challenging.
I made it a point to not just identify problems but offer solutions to said problems. We need more solutions offered in the world we live in I think! It’s a lot easier to identify problems but offering a potential solution is a lot more difficult. It requires a different kind of thought, I think.
Here is one of those attempts today!
This ended up being a very long post, so for slightly easier reading I am separating the sections with headers unlike my normal photograph-laden posts.
I am not married to this solution but I felt the need think of a way to propose this down vote change argument. I am trying to offer a way to adjust the system a little bit to give less opportunity for abuse but still give us the ability to downvote. None of this may technically be possible, I don't know, but everything starts with a conversation!
Down votes are a crucial element of the Hive ecosystem. Those of us with a fair bit of time and stake here on the platform know and understand this. The unfortunate part about it is that it is a system that can and has been abused in the past. (those of us who remember the berniesanders downvote wars... lol) This dissuades a fair amount of people from considering Hive a platform they would like to use. This is a good thing in many regards because it keeps low-quality assholes off here, like those who mooch off us but it also has the chance to ruin a good users experience if they stray off the right path a little bit, and end up on the wrong side of down votes. There have been quite a few examples of this happening sadly, but such is life.
The first change I am proposing would be we could have the flexibility to down vote two (or three) posts of someone’s account in a 7 day period starting 00:00 UTC (the underlying blockchain time) on Sunday’s. Then it would go into “recharge” just like RC or VP. I don't know if we would see a recharge bar or something similar to how we see our resource credits or voting power, but that might be possible as a user visits an accounts page. At least on PeakD, we can click the "i" for their info and see their percentages. Perhaps we could have an account-specific downvote bar there. I don't have the technical knowledge if this is even possible, but I know smarter brains than I will give it a good analysis if they feel it's worth their time to think about it, and confirm or deny it's possibility. This is probably going to be one of the less controversial pieces of this post. I think we can agree that it gives a bit of a happy medium between unlimited downvotes and no downvotes at all.
The second change I am proposing if someone is to be added to a down vote list (recently called a "blacklist", but I would like for services like Hive.Vote to respect the same process) it needs to happen only via proposal and pass a threshold similar to proposals for DHF.
The proposal process could be structured in a way that it’s in a community dedicated to that topic only, users being proposed for a downvote / blacklist addition. The pinned post is the format of the post for them. To make this streamlined the posts will be short so not to be an excessive burden. It also gives the person putting up the proposal the discretion of what type of punishment they think would be appropriate. For example, a second time plagiarism offender could get a 7 day or 7 post downvote as a firm warning to cut the shit. Someone who trolls and posts their "Blurt is better than Hive" bullshit could get their account submitted for a 1 year or permanent ban depending on the severity.
I kind of like the format:
For example:
There could be some different choices configured for the recommendation. It would kind of work like the advanced features in a post. I think it would be good to have several different options. Doing timeframe or quantity would allow flexibility.
Timeframe options:
Quantity options:
Reversal:
There would also need to be the option to end a permanent post blacklist just because it makes sense to not only build in the ability to permanently downvote somebody, but while you are doing the work in my opinion it makes sense to be able to undo that. The chances of somebody getting to a permanent blacklist and then redeeming themselves are quite slim, possibly nil, but I have a philosophy of coding it once, and code for the potential situations that way you don't have to go back in the future for more work.
To end a permanent blacklist, it would need to go through a new proposal and reach a similar threshold as getting a blacklist applied.
Similar to the DHF proposals, we would need to have a "return" proposal. Those who do not make it above the return proposal for threshold will not get the downvote requested strategy applied.
I think it would be most helpful to have a page setup just like the proposal page, except for the downvote requests. It would list current requests, past requests, "all" requests and the threshold similar to how the DHF proposal page is organized. This would allow for the posts themselves to go into a community, just like DHF proposals do, and there being a way to keep the current list relevant. The default view would be "current requests" to keep things easy and organized. I am not sure if we need an "upcoming" tab as well, so I put that one out to the audience. I find it helpful either way, with or without it.
I think similar to proposals for things like Splinterlands, we could incorporate a cost into the system. This would potentially deter someone submitting a downvote proposal out of spite because they got in a fight with somebody. We have seen this happen plenty of times before, and is one of the motivators of this whole idea.
The challenge is that you don't want to set the bar too low, like .001 HBD but you also don't want to set it too high like 10 HBD. This itself would deter people too much in my opinion and people would be able to get away with the crap they get away with.
I think a tiered cost structure would make sense..
Timeframe options:
Quantity options:
Reversal:
The cost from the proposal for downvotes would be sent to the DHF in my ideal opinion. It could also be burned, but I kind of rather send the funds to the DHF to help build that in what ways we can.
Now, as I said in the beginning I am not married to any of these as hard rules, the cost could be adjusted to be minimal like .001 HBD or it could be removed altogether but I think having some sort of cost is beneficial. Hell we could even incorporate a Resource Credit cost! The Resource Credit cost would be another usecase for RC and it also requires a fair bit of stake in the platform in order to make proposals. The permanent removal should cost about 8,000 Hive Power if my calculations are correct. (they could be wildly off, but I was basing it off my RC amount I am able to delegate at 42k HP, I was thinking 20% of my HP max RC 71,000b RC)
Timeframe options:
Quantity options:
Reversal:
The use of Resource Credits here incentivizes their use as well, not just for transacting on the chain or claiming account tokens. This might be a preferable option for some since it doesn't cost anything in terms of liquid assets, but relies on our staked assets. The incentive to have staked assets are many!
I haven't put a lot of thought into a down vote appeal, but I guess it could be possible. I defer to folks to make a suggestion for an appeal process. It would make sense for longer durations but not 7 day/post ones. We could suggest to someone make an appeal post in the designated community.
I think that about sums up the suggestion. This ended up being definitely the longest post I've ever put onto the chain, but I think it's an important one!
I think that this suggestion could give us a happy medium to not have free for all down votes which ends up making this a place that people don’t want to invest in because of that. It also doesn’t remove them entirely and end up a cesspool like Blurt.
I think this also allows much more transparency for those who have offended to know what they are being called out for and by whom (potentially..). This helps the community and chain tremendously as a whole instead of permanent or trails down votes with no reasoning. We can certainly still throw 2 (or 3) downvotes at an accounts posts if we want to send a warning, but in order to take it a step further and really go after someone, we make it a little more difficult and much more transparent what the offense is.
We don’t have to attract hundreds of thousands of new users but we do need tens of thousands and some investors - how we currently handle down votes is widely known and a black mark in some eyes for the future success of hive.
There are certainly plenty of potential drawbacks with this, but there is nothing in life that doesn't have benefits as well as drawbacks.
I think the drawback of this is that somebody could potentially end up creating accounts pretty quickly and vary between them to try and milk rewards off the chain. There are plenty of people who do this now, but if they know there is a limit of 2 down votes per account per week, they could potentially do some spam action.
The other aspect that might be a drawback is that it would be a limitation with having to submit the proposal and wait for it to be enacted upon whereas if someone had the free ability to downvote as long as they had downvote mana, then they would be able to act faster.
Then there are certainly a bunch of trash members that were here previously that made a big spectacle of going over to Blurt because "no downvotes!!!!111" and shit. They are annoying but I'm sure would flock back to only get hit again at some other point because their behavior doesn't seem to change.
I think there are a number of benefits with this type of change.
One of the big ones is that it can show that we are flexible and will make changes to how the underlying structure of behaviors on the chain are handled. Talking to many people over the years, the downvote system and how it's handled is a pretty serious detractor for them participating here at all, or making more investments into the chain and how it operates. This isn't necessarily guaranteed to be true but it is definitely a pock mark on the reputation of the chain when people get in down vote wars a long time ago, and that is what people remember.
We could garner investments and increased interest by having a more governed system for downvotes. Let's face it, the wild west style of doing some things no longer works. It's nice to have the full freedom to do some things like down vote who we want, however long we want but we do need to have some restraint built in otherwise people and companies will not want to do business here.
Please give me feedback on what you think of this idea! I will try my best to respond to all of the comments in as quickly of a fashion as I can! The absolute best thing to do is foster and garner discussion in the community. The more we talk about things, the more we can change our thoughts and opinions on a topic.
I did great on this post without adding a million pictures :D here is my obligatory final picture!
Finally, 50% of the rewards I receive from this post will go to the DHF. Post scheduling and setting beneficiaries has not worked for me in the past so I will not try to set them ahead of time but I will donate 50% of the HBD earned to DHF. Not that it will be a ton, but it's important!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI. All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated
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