So I wrote a post that made it to the top of Steemit. Then it got downvoted by trolls. That sucked and here's how to stop it.
My game face.
Downvoting is a necessary evil that a social media economy cannot function without. There must be a means to police behavior that is backed with a direct and meaningful penalty.
There's this guy named Plato who wrote a fun story called the Ring of Gyges. The ring made the wearer turn into Kevin Bacon and do naughty things. Social media is the Ring of Gyges, minus the Bacon but with the naughty. People are gonna hate cause they've got nothing better to do. Using your manners and asking them politely to stop trolling is like trying to put out a blowtorch by peeing on it. So you need a big stick with a few well placed nails to keep the trolls in line.
Or this guy. I'll bet he could keep the trolls in line using the tattoo on his left pec.
The problem with using downvotes to police trolls is that trolls are jerks and will use downvotes to police the police.
There's a reason you need a driver's license to operate a motor vehicle. For the same reason, trolls shouldn't get licenses to operate social media accounts. Unfortunately, unless we want to hand our freedom to a "government" and let them decide who gets to say what to who "for our safety" we cannot rely on any centralized authority to decide who gets to downvote who under what circumstance while wearing what color of underwear. So we're stuck. We need downvotes to keep things civil, but if everyone gets a license to down vote because we're decentralized, trolls can down vote nice people and be jerks for no other reason than that's what makes them feel good on Saturday mornings. What to do?
I think she/he is confused. Or maybe I'm projecting.
Lay it on me.
It's like this: if you want to downvote someone you'd better have a damn good reason for doing so. And because we're all decentralized, you don't get to be the US Government of your downvote and ram it down the throats of the world just because you're Big, Mean and have Bad Breath. You have to make a case and have your case ratified by fellow citizens. If the courts decide your case is just, the downvote stands. If not, you go back to your cave to grow some more back hair.
How do we give the decentralized citizenry the opportunity to ratify a downvote? It's easy (said the guy that types with two fingers): downvotes don't count unless they are accompanied by a comment explaining the downvote and that comment has been upvoted by someone that is not the down voter. See?
Mind... blown?
Downvotes don't count unless they are accompanied by a comment explaining the downvote and that comment has been upvoted by someone that is not the downvoter.
So simple, so direct and so effective. Yes, I know trolls have friends. Yes, I know trolls are probably smart enough to have more than one account and could upvote their downvote. But! Trolls don't have many friends and trolls are lazy. Plus it's pretty easy for the community to pick up on this behavior and police it. I am convinced that this mechanism would greatly, massively reduce the amount of downvote trolling and other bullying that is currently underway.
Edit - for extra points, the weight of the downvote could be correlated to the number of upvotes the downvote comment receives. 10 upvotes = 100%, 5 upvotes = 50% etc.
That's it. I'm spent. Thank you.