If Snake Whacking Day became a reality

I am curious as to what the EIP model might bring to the ecosystem and especially what the most vital component of the proposal will do, free flags downvotes. While there is plenty of worry over "toxic downvoting" where personal feelings come into play, When @eonwarped (the nicest and one of the smartest people on the blockchain) is a fan of free downvotes, it is worth finding out more.

While I am not too concerned about getting flagged myself as I am quite certain it will happen more, the bit I am interested in is what happens to the trending pages when they are trimmed. What happens when content that is getting voted up to the sky like this one is incentivized to falg and knock it down to a reasonable level.

As I have said before, while the topic of the content is what it is, the value placed on it should be around about what it might be worth within the community under normal circumstances. What I mean by this is that it isn't the total price minus the purchase of vote price. For example, that post probably has 250 dollars worth of buys on it to get it that high but, it might really only be worth "perhaps" 30 dollars. So, knocking it down to 30 should be fine in the eyes of the community, even though it will cause a 220 dollar loss for the purchaser. People have to remember that regardless of the buy price, all of the payout value comes out of the shared pool.

At the moment there is no incentive to return that 220 dollars back into the pool for redistribution but, soon there might be. It will be up to the community to start policing the community and everyone is incentivized by this, except those who produce shit and are currently untouched. But, that doesn't mean that a post needs to be knocked all the way down to what it is worth to change the behavior of bidders, it just needs to be knocked down to a loss, which is about 15% of the value. How many will keep buying at that level if there is always a loss?

But this changes the dynamic of the bidding on bots quite a lot as instead of getting large bids to use their voting power, they are likely to get moe small bids but, everyone is open to receiving flags so, ho many are going to dare? This then has a knock-on effect too as it means it requires less voting power behind a post to get it into trending. From a bidbot perspective this means that an application or announcement considered valuable doesn't have to buy as high to be seen.

This also means that organic voters will again play a larger role in what does actually get seen in trending too, as they are able to both vote it up there requiring less SP and, downvote the content they consider unworthy. This means that the large voters and curation initiatives have a chance to actually push stuff past bidbot boosted posts quite effectively, something that has been impossible for coming on to two years. This means communities like @ocd and @curie, could team up with @blocktrades or @theycallmedan and develop a much broader experience through Trending filled with content that is more user friendly and less, well, shitty. Yes, these posts could get voted down as well of course which means that the curation initiatives have to consider what they are going to put there for the platform and the world to see.

While I am quite certain there will be abuse of downvotes and revenge flagging that goes on, I also think that it creates a more dynamic environment that just might feel more natural and fun to be in. As @acidyo said last week I think it was, he is looking forward to a time where very few posts have zero flags on them as it will mean it really was a, great post! It also adds in gamification and excitement much like gambling may and, makes people think a little more closely about the content they put onto the blockchain. It really could create a better experience, even if there is a bit of toxicity as after all, this is the internet.

It took me a long time to start flagging people on Steem and then it was in extreme circumstances. However, I would like to flag a lot more content such as that post on Trending (I did flag it) and a few more that appear there. I think that combined with the other proposed changes of a convergent curve and 50/50 curation, the ecosystem becomes quite a lot more active as there are more games to play and more risk involved. Risk is part of the gamification model that tempers behavior and makes people cautious, caution is a good thing on a immutable blockchain and even more so when real value is at stake.

While the bidbots can stand to gain more, they are also going to have to think about their customers and whether their customers will risk using them for a loss. I can't see them guaranteeing a return for users if that user gets heavily flagged so, who is going to send 500 Steem worth of bids to the bots if they are going to get flagged down to 400 steem loss?

Anyway, while I am not looking forward to the stupid revenge and emotional downvoting, I am looking forward to see what kinds of changes it will make to the platform as I believe the increased dynamism will make this place much more enjoyable for users of all kinds, except those who are abusers. I also think that it can make curating interesting again as rather than people targeting the boosted posts (as they are going to get flagged) they are going to have to find content that will get rewarded and not get flagged.

So, if you had something like 2.5 free flags a day, would you use them and, where would you use them? While I don't think everyone has to burn their quota every day, it is worth thinking about what kind of content you might want to use it on now to set a baseline before a hardfork takes place on this - If it takes place on this. That way you will hae a better understanding of what you consider DV-worthy, before there is an incentive to downvote.

Well, off to bed.

:)

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]