This is an idea born out of experience. I will take one step back before I give you the scenario, and why I believe this could make Steemit’s community stronger moving forward…
@smooth - NOT a Killer Whale
I happened to have a conversation with @smooth as a result of one of my posts, where I had used his account (in an anonymous nature) as an example of a bot. He noticed I was talking about his account, and DM’ed me on chat. He proceed to explain that his account was not as it seemed on the surface. Although the blockchain is completely transparent, numbers don’t tell you the true story of the users behind the accounts. His account (for instance) has (amongst other things) ~10 users behind it, who trawl through (currently) unloved posts, searching for hidden gems, that deserve more attention. This account achieves very lucrative Curation Rewards, but is also providing an important service to the Steemit platform. The numbers on the surface, to me, suggested it was just one guy, with a very clever bot.
One thing that is worth making clear is that. He didn’t ask me for a retraction, or EDIT even though I offered one, this was purely one user educating another.
So, I thought that was it…I’d had an education which had changed my perspective on the Steemit ecosystem, and gained respect for this user in the process. From that moment on, I started to take a closer look at how certain user conduct themselves on Steemit. I then came some unusual voting behaviour, a week or so later…
Strange Voting Behaviour
This Happened to 2 Separate Posts
So, I posted, some 30 minutes went by, and then, @smooth up-voted me, which sent me near the top of the trending list. Obviously, this got a lot of eye’s on my article, and the up-votes started to roll in. An hour went by, and because of the Creation Rewards Algorithm, this single vote had become very valuable (~$1000).
@smooth then removed the up-vote, sending me back down the trending list from #1 to let’s say #15. I thought to myself, either he decided my reward was too big OR he re-read it through and decided my work wasn’t very good, either way, his actions are his prerogative..
Then @smooth up-voted again, sent me back to #1 on the trending list. Then I thought, this is interesting, @smooth is clearly a fickle character. Then another hour or so past and it was removed again…This happened once more until the 12 hour cycle was over, and ended up a very successful post, but without @smooth’s vote, and the ~$1500 reward that would have come with it.
What impact did this have?
Would this post have been as successful without @smooth voting in this manner? I don’t think so. Not nearly as many eye’s would have seen my post, and for an educational post, this was my whole aim.. I was grateful for the post-promotion @smooth had performed for me..
I had been rewarded handsomely over the previous week for a number of posts. I understand that, we need distribution. Distribution is what will make Steem become a stable cryptocurrency and allow us to retain an engaged user base. It’s pointless for certain users to get all the rewards, as those rewards will only end up worth nothing when the user base become disillusioned and move on to other activities.
I did contact @smooth prior to posting this to make sure I had understood his intentions properly. He proceeded to explain that, if he sees content that he likes, he up-votes early. If this post makes it’s way to the top of the trending list, and in his opinion gets too bigger share of the Creation Rewards, he will often remove his vote to allow those rewards to be allocated elsewhere. That is, NOT down-vote/flag, just remove his up-vote. If your questioning whether his intentions are pure, he also walked away from a big curation reward in the process, after up voting me at ~$20 and the post going as high as $3000…
Summary
I believe this type of active behaviour from ‘Whale’ is key to helping Steem become distributed in a fair, and positive manner. Greed will kill this project. However, having a group of ‘Whales’ with their hands on the scales could remove distribution worries, and really help the community at large buy into Steem as a fair cryptocurrency.
This will also allow them to promote material they like, whilst keeping control of rewards certain authors receive. Steem(it) IS a free market, but diligent Whales can make it a FAIR market, and help Steem(it) on it’s way to mass adoption. There are certainly a few Whales, @smooth being one, already participating in such actions, I’m looking forward to seeing more users follow their lead.
Interested to hear users views on this matter...
Image Source
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