Malicious Downvotes on HIVE - The Dark Clouds & Silver Linings

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I've written in the past about the great Steem dream. You see, Steem had this lofty and noble idea that somehow we'd be able to tap into crowd wisdom, and in this way, the various posts would accurately rise and fall in value based on their merit as determined by the consensus of the many. I've shown time and time again that this idea was fundamentally flawed, and therefore we have no choice but to adapt accordingly. Yet still, we have powerful forces on the blockchain who refuse to concede this fact.

One of my many (substandard and wacky) analogies for HIVE's inherited problem is as follows: Imagine that someone creates the most outstanding design for a beautiful automobile. Almost everything about it is perfect, save for one square tire, called a "smart tire." Perhaps the description for this 'smart tire' says that this enhancement mimics the shape of the road on all four sides, and thus it is more equipped to handle flat and road-shaped terrains more than a round-shaped tire that's curved on all sides.


Everybody That's Somebody, Drives the L7Tell'em boys!


And the one odd-tire means that this perfect automobile design is twenty-five percent more road-efficient than cars that don't have a single 'smart tire.' Now here's the cool part about the nonsense I just spewed above.

To some people, it'll sound legit. We have so many "special folks" in this world—and I promise you I could sell one of the first cars with a square-shaped 'smart tire.'


The only problem is when the customer drives it off the lot, they'll learn they got deceived by a fast-talking huckster, and then they'll demand their money back.

If I run a respectable car sales establishment, I'm going to have to rethink my policy about 'smart tires.' And this is especially true if they don't live up to their hype. Imagine if I don't do that? Suppose every week I talk some poor dumb sap out of 30-60k, and as they drive the car off the lot, the automobile destroys itself on the way out because of the so-called 'smart tire.' And this puts me in quite a pickle; Word will get around that I'm a terrible car dealer who sells lying lemons that you cannot even squeeze for lemonade purposes. Either that or people will be so hopping mad that they'll vandalize my establishment in a desperate attempt to pay me back for conning them out of their life savings.

Anyways, we know what dPoS is. dPoS is the law of power on the blockchain that says you can do whatever you can do just so long as you can get away with it. And you can get away with whatever you can get away with so long as there are not persons with more power to stop you. So what does this mean in real talk? It means that those with the most stake can act like despots and dictators on the blockchain while blaming their poor behavior on dPoS or the code, "which is the law." The thing about that whole theory is the entire notion that code is law works in reality too.

IRL, with the 'Law of the Jungle,' if you have a gun, you can shoot someone in the head with it, and they will die. The main point here is that there's nothing necessarily moral or ethical about this kind of behavior; Unless, of course, you acted in self-defense. It is here where the STEEM/HIVE ecosystem has found itself stuck. It's been this way ever since they abolished the guidelines for flagging and then introduced downvotes in some abstract and twisted hope that they could somehow force people to tap into crowd wisdom despite the failure to meet the parameters required to make it work.


PoB (Proof of Brain) is comprised of two elements.


☑ Rewards incentivize content creation and curation.
☐ A voting system that leverages the wisdom of the crowd.


Now all of the above are the dark clouds of the STEEM/HIVE ecosystem. The cold hard truth of the matter is that PoB, as outlined in the blue paper—can't happen because it clashes with dPoS. That said, all is not lost. I say this because an intelligent person who I do not know has created the POB community. And these good folks appear to be paving a path to set forth some standards for the use of their second-layer token. In particular, as of late, the focus seems to be on downvotes, and there appears to be some drama and contention surrounding the idea of muting the stake of malicious downvoters.

Ask yourself this question: What do we do in society with mass shooters? Mass shooters get neutralized, and usually, this involves getting shot dead (aka silenced permanently). But we're talking about some internet nonsense, and it's hardly that serious, but malicious downvoters are just as cancerous to HIVE as mass shooters are to society. So if you ask me, the notion of censoring the up and downvote power of POB's second layer tokens isn't such a bad idea. Any affected individuals can sell their stake back to the marketplace if they're not down with communities that condemn antisocial voting behavior.

There are many naysayers to this effort who are making false equivalences and attempting to suggest that POB will fail if it does not allow downvotes because it will become like Blurt. This idea is complete nonsense, and I've debunked it using sound reasoning here. At this pace, if downvote standards get implemented on a second layer token, I think that over time we can teach the outer-HIVE how to get good. And the simple rule of thumb here is to find a way to deal with sociopaths as they run amok.

Again some of these proposals don't aim to eliminate downvotes, rather merely to implement standards that discourage people from using the force of malicious downvotes instead of harnessing a bit of brainpower and typing words to express their disagreements. Anyways, I'd love to hear your take on the matter. Are communities and second layer tokens the appropriate place for such an experiment? And if a successful model gets implemented, should the outer-HIVE take note? What say you on the matter?


Thanks for stopping bye!

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