Certain authors don't deserve to get zero'd, like your case, but other "influencers" I've seen that bring 0 value to Hive in any way shape or form and constantly trend and earn a big pie from the rewardspool due to these autovote is what I'm against the most.

I appreciate that you are taking the time to comment here and seem to be genuinely acting based on logic that you are willing to share and in doing so, risk having it challenged. The primary downvoters are not so courageous or honest. Note: Newsflash has now removed a 100% downvote and replaced it with a 100% upvote - possibly after actually reading the post it was applied to.

I understand your intent to try to optimise the way that the reward pool is directed and to try to have it directed towards those who actively engage in ways you can measure. However, it is important to remember at all times that:

a) As you can see from the responses to this post, a lot of people both autovote and also read/engage the posts. Autovoting is not auto evidence of a lack of presence.

b) even in cases where people do invest in hive, set autovotes and rarely ever return - that is part of their right, based on the design of the system they invested into. sure, they also bought into a system that enables you to downvote them when you think they are doing it - but as you can see, many (if not most) of the larger stakeholders responding here do not agree that your approach on this is needed or beneficial. Ultimately, totally robotic or 'dead' voting can hurt a system like hive, I agree - the biggest example of this being the witness votes that never expire (and still haven't expired, despite me pointing this out to Ned in 2017 and him agreeing that they should expire!). Arguably, the lack of expiring witness votes is part of why the top 20 rarely changes and part of how the large curation pots have been amassed that are now being used to downvote other people who receive FAR less from Hive. Using an argument relating to autovoting seems a bit perverse in this context and many here can see it. I am not even having a go at you here, I'm just asking you to see it from their perspective for a moment.

Here's an easy example, do you think user @highimpactflix is bringing value to Hive? I checked all his other socials, not a single mention of Hive, no traffic coming in, no views on his 3speak, barely any engagement from himself or others on his posts yet he's getting $50+ on every post before the downvotes.

Personally, I like some of the content on that channel, but as long as his channels are active on youtube and other social networks, people will stay using those networks to view his work because that's where their friends and networks are. Steem/Hive have ALWAYS had a major problem with getting people to leave their existing networks to come here - even when they are being lured with decent rewards for posting. It isn't down to individual big Youtubers to fix Hive's problems. I think that HighImpactFlix, like others such as Dr. Robert Malone, use 3Speak as a backup in case they get deplatformed. The stricter the other platforms become, the more they will promote Hive. If Hive had a larger audience, they would likely promote Hive more and be more willing to come here. At present, big names prefer Rumble to 3Speak and hive - possibly just because it is less complicated and has less of an air of 'shadow politics about it' than Hive does.

This issue is a good one to get to the crux of the matter. A network like Hive can be infinitely better than a centralised one in a long list of ways, but if public perception of it is primarily such that they see power struggles and downvoting instead of positive nurturing of sensible growth strategies, they will tend to actually stick with crappier centralised solutions which don't have such a visible problem with this stuff. Transparency is powerful but it can also put people off if not handled with a care that considers a wide range of relevant aspects and challenges.

High Impact Flix, for whatever reason, has a very high viewbase on other networks and I presume that by regularly upvoting them, their supporters are seeking to both say 'thanks for the content' and also inspire them to come here. He no doubt makes big money on other networks and Hive, being uncensored, is definitely something he would promote if his attention was focused into it deeply enough and he understood it's merits. Upvotes might be the only way to get his attention, I guess.

I can certainly understand you downvoting him since you think his presence isn't actively doing much for Hive as compared to the other channel you listed.

I think your own personal issue here seems to be that you see 'controversial' content as a risk rather than an opportunity. Many of the people that use Hive view such content as not even an opportunity but as a necessity in order to minimise harm to humanity. We have a situation where there has been massive inter generational mind control applied through schooling and mass media, to the point where counter narratives to it are ridiculed without investigation. This is extremely dangerous. COVID19 has particularly exposed this and where large numbers of top scientists, doctors and researchers are being silenced/censored - while completely unqualified people who have done next to no research of their own even end up ridiculing top experts based ONLY on the fact that silicon valley has censored the experts!

Clearly virology and human health are a complex topic but they are not too difficult to understand. My own attitude is that all information needs to be free in order for people to be empowered to learn and discern truth for themselves. Anything other than this leads to extremely dangerous warping of perception on a large level, orchestrated by vested interests who have always sought to control and dominate as many as possible.

I think the autovoting support you see for informationwar posts is a sign that people are heavily desirous of living in a world free from constant mental domination and warping of perception by big money interests. The autovoting, in my mind says 'I'm willing to put my money where my mind is and actually support the people who are doing what they can to counter the mainstream narrative as best they can in a responsible way'. It's true that some posts will no doubt contain errors, but that is also true for the mainstream 'authorities' and in my 2+ decades of experience in this field, the alleged 'authorities' are wrong more often than not. Unfortunately, these things tend to take years to filter into the public perception and only those who dedicate their live to getting to the truth to some extent, will know this in advance.

Sorry if this is another 'wall of text' but life is complicated and there is no silver bullet.