Downvoting: The Underrated Superhero of the Steem Blockchain
One of the coolest parts of our blockchain that is often overlooked is how the ability to flag/downvote is actually a good thing because it allows you to fight back against harassment, and general ass hat level behavior.
Warning... this is a bit of a rant and as you can see - contains a few swear words!
🙈
Some of you may have seen me mention that I started a crypto Instagram account: Instagram: @girl_gone_cryto which has honestly been SO fun because I've been able to connect with tons of cool people in the crypto community and even spread the word about Steem!
You know what sucks about centralized social media though? There isn't much you can do when someone is a total douche. Check out these DM's I got earlier today.
First of all... he deleted the douchy message he sent me before I could screenshot.
He sent me a message saying "I want u so bad." Which honestly... you have to expect to get comments like that from time to time when you are a woman moving through the world - especially in a male-dominated sector. But this guy is actually pretty well known in the crypto space and has over 65k followers on Instagram.
I thought about leaving some snarky remark - but had a bad feeling that he might try to twist my words... so I just simply said, "Not interested". Which is where the screenshot starts. Maybe he's just used to people cowering to give him what he wants because of his influence...but he LOST HIS SHIT.
I purposely cropped the image to remove his username... because the point of this post isn't to send people after him specifically...but just to illustrate what a useful tool flagging can be. I'll get to that more in a minute... but for now - here is the conversation.
Why Downvotes with a Monetary Consequence Puts the Power back in the Hands of the Users
YES, yes I know... downvoting is often used on this platform in a negative way and the power is abused - but I wanted to take a second to highlight some of the benefits as well.
If an interaction like this had happened on Steem... I'd be able to flag him. And other's might see that kind of harassing/threatening behavior and decide to flag him too. On Instagram, I just have to say "well that sucked", move on and hope he doesn't actually start posting shit about me online to all of his followers. 🤷♀️
What are your thoughts on this? I know we usually talk about downvotes being a negative thing - so I wanted to take a second a point out an example of where it could have provided some good - or maybe even curbed that kind of behavior completely.
Lol I'm not a girl... But I can imagine the attention that it brings.
Well best part... Him freaking out does show his heart. Oh what was that? He is a little insecure? Maybe not worth the time to date.
And nice throwing racism into the mix to make you really look like a knob.
Well you 1and him 0
Winner!
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Thanks friend! Next time I think I’ll just avoid this mess and not respond in the first place. 😅
Oh just hit block and ignore! Way better people in the world...
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For sure! ✌🏻
Hahah yeah I’ll have to work on my witty comebacks. 😂
Bet you have some good ones laying around...
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Next time just congratulate him on his superior intellect and give him a clap.
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It's one of those idiots with the only argument in their arsenal is to call others racists or sexists. Brainless PC culture following main stream media indoctrination.
Yeah he jumped to that SO fast... I was like dude, really?? If you can’t handle rejections - don’t send creepy messages to girls. Just a thought. 😂
Don't hurt his feelings, reality is too much to handle.
Let’s say hypothetically If some whale(or group of whales) didn’t like you/your content (whatever there reason maybe) and downvoted every one of your posts - hiding them - how would you handle this? If you try posting about how unfair it was they would just downvote you and the post would be hidden. They could literally downvote you or anyone right off the platform. I’m saying this just to give perspective of the other side. I personally think downvoting is not the way to handle finding the best content. Why Steemit doesn’t just do exactly what YouTube does is beyond me. Want to earn Steem? Instead of votes you earn Steem from ADs over / on your content - just like YouTube. If people like your stuff, they give it a thumbs up, if not, thumbs down. More watch time, views, or engagement, the content ranks higher. Simple.
Just heading out the door for dinner - but I’ll come back to leave a more thorough reply later. 😊 I still think there are a lot of flaws with the downvoting system - but wanted to point out a use case where it would have been helpful. Talk later!
I'm thinking certain forms of social media inject narcissistic personality disorder into the mind. What's on the inside shines bright over the internet. He put a huge spotlight on his personal demons, and probably can't even see where he went wrong, because to people like that, they're wired to think they can do no wrong. I'm not making excuses for him though. Douche was the correct term to use here.
They should change the wording a bit. Stop calling them "followers" because to some, they feel like a natural born leader. I like "subscribers." Just the other other day someone pulled the same attitude problems with me. "I have six times more SP than you!" I think he made the mistake of thinking SP makes the man. I'm glad he said it in public though. No flags needed. I simply roasted him.
In life, these psychos sometimes have a little sparkle in their eyes. On social media, they always have that smile.
haha yes your roasting skills are far superior to any flag! I gotta work on my witty comebacks. lol
Such a good point about the word "Follower" and how that inflate someone's ego. I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if he bought some of them. You can buy like 10k followers on instagram for pretty cheap. Kinda crazy.
Roasting skills. A double edged sword. Usually feel bad after, look like a troll, the dark side outshines the bright. Do all that for a laugh but there's a reason why the funniest people aren't in a good place inside most days. Be careful with it. ...and yeah, that douche totally bought followers. If it was that easy for him to lie, of course he's fake.
mmm good points. ❤️ Well If you ever get accused of being a troll - let me know and I'll set em straight. 😉
Knowing me I'd have the hole dug too deep and there ain't nobody with a long enough rope to help pull me out of that mess. I just need to learn how to STFU LOL! You have yourself a good day over there.
haha you too my friend!
I can certainly see the benefits of doing this. And on Steem, his comment would be stored in steemworld for you to screenshot there.
He certainly is a douche and to claim people are racist because you weren't interested shows he has serious issues.
I am reluctant to downvote anyone because one time I ran into a nest of white supremacists on here. All I did was highlight that a known white supremacist was in fact that on a video that was shared on someone's blog.
I didn't downvote their page. Just nasty ignorant crap directed at me in comments afterwards.
I could see their downvotes affecting my reputation score so I edited the comment to stop the harassment I was getting. Some of them still stalk my account!
But if it's the only defence we have then I am grateful for it.
Sorry you had a bad experience on Instagram, and I'm sure it's not indicative of the majority there.
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Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about your experience with that comment and that some of them STILL give you trouble? That's just petty on their part... you'd think they would have something better to do with their time!
Thanks for the encouragement and the comment my friend! I've run into a lot of people trying to sell me things and a few shady figures on insta - but mostly nice people!
You will get a lot of bots and fake people on Insta, but Steem can be the same too.
I've removed delegation from several dApps as a result of some of it.
To clarify, I muted the people who caused the trouble and all the nonsense died off after 24 hours or so. Low IQ = low attention spans. I am sure they are still following my account though.
But a flag war is something you want to avoid, and now I focus on doing my own thing.
I hope you don't mind mind the occasional compliment / piece of encouragement sometimes.
I have always tried to support people.
And it's people on these platforms that make the experience what it is.
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Seems like it was premeditated! Incredible to think that he is well known. I think that the flagging and downvote is a good tool but like many things, depends on the user and its intended consequences.
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I 100% agree! When I replied with "not interested" all of his replies literally came within the span of 30 seconds. It definitely seems like he was ready in case I wasn't "flattered by it".
I totally agree about it depending on the user and situation. The flagging system has a lot of flaws... like a lot... but this was a moment where it would have been helpful - so I thought it would be interesting to point out. :)
Sadly, I believe the way Steem voting power is structured, then it will likely lend itself to more abuse and bullying than it prevents.
It could be useful, however, if all downvote were of equal value, but then what's to stop bullies just creating a bunch of new accounts and using them to downvote as well.
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That's a great point! Someone with a large stake can inflict a TON of damage on someone - but if flagging was more equalized it could still have that negative consequence without being so extreme.
Yep. I think at a high level, it has benefits, particularly in the example you have provided with Mr Sleazeball, it just needs to be properly refined or it will just become another tool in the "wallet" measuring competitions we see happening here from time to time.
@coruscate also good for upvoting good contents for Virtuous Cycle of Steem ♨ On !
Congrats Day ! 💙
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Let's Together Participate Steem Power Up Day season 2
#spud
#steem ♨ On !
#seven77
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고마운 곰도뤼~💙
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Down voting only puts power into the hands of whoever has the most steem power though. Lets say this creepy guy had a few million steem power.. He can nuke you from orbit because you didn't like him back...
That is an excellent point - and actually, one I hadn't quite thought about. I have friends on here that would help me flag someone if needed - but hard to argue with a few million SP. I honestly think guys like this are mostly all smoke - they just need to feel powerful and defend their ego. The "FLOOD" of messages never came through... so I doubt he did anything - just wanted to exert his power into the situation.
I agree that forcing people to have to put money where their mouth is does tend to weed out the chaf. But I have personally had at least one argument with a whale one time and got to experience a 300 USD downvote. I can only pray to god this guy was not vindictive enough to follow every one of my posts. I could have been rekt really badly lol.
I cant even remember what the topic was. I think that it was about EOS centrality. Its not like I was trolling the guy either.
Geeez that’s so crazy. 😬 Also impressive that you had a $300 post to downvote - back in the good old days probably when Steem was a couple bucks. 😅
But yes to your point there is an ugly, terrible side to flagging.
He nuked my zero value post into oblivion lol
It was scary though, I cant explain how nerve wracking it was to log on the next day worried that this guy would have been following me around. If it were certain other whales I would have been forced off the platform.
I am totally with you. For the ones who follow you and see your enthusiasm, it is hard not to get upset about what you experienced. Downvoting or flagging has a good purpose and it can be mishandled, of course. I did follow your Instagram with my business account (the only one I have) instagram@smopinions2013.
aww thanks for the words of encouragement! You are spot on that flagging can certainly be abused (and has many a time) here on Steem - which is why I thought it might be helpful to point out a situation where I really wish I had a flag option! 😉
Thanks for the follow! I'll definitely go check out your page as well. 😊
That is brutal...
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Right? I can't believe how much this guy just flew off the handle.
I think I’m in trouble, I had a huge following in the past with facebook, Instagram, snapchat etc etc... I got tons of hate for no reason. 😂😂😂
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Well as long as you aren't being an ass hat like this guy... Then you are good. haha Totally get that about receiving hate messages just because you have a following. When you have a big following people tend to scrutinize what you are doing and think "why him/her?? My stuff is better" - but they don't realize the time and energy that goes into building that up!
Would it not be the same to just not upvote crap content? This battle has been raging ever since I started two years ago and every move of course can be exploted in some way as will this one. Instead of working on these dumb hardforks all of their effort should have been and should be smt that where promised to the community last year. My hope in steemit as we move into half a year in 2019 is fading quickly.
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How about a sliver of empathy for her being harassed, the real crux of the post? People are the value and where the hope is, not Steemit, imo.
Good points - I'm not saying flagging is a perfect system ... because it is far from it. I just wanted to point out a situation where it could have been a beneficial tool. I DO think that flagging is very different than just the absence of an upvote. One is ignoring and one is a small slap on the wrist - which psychologically feels different to the person doing the harassing.
Is it worth it for all the headaches and harm it's caused on this platform? Not sure... but I do see there has been some value brought about by it.
I guess we will soon see what happens. I guess my biggest issue is that everything else seems to be being worked on besides the real core beneficial stuff and we are now half way through 2019. I guess i'm just a little sour still lol
Oh I totally get that. Steemit is doing things... but there's just so much ground to recover that it doesn't seem fast enough. Or maybe to your point - not focusing on the right things first.
I was gonna make a stupid joke...but then I read his comments and now all I can think is "WTF is wrong with him?" Plenty of people have to live with hormones and shit and they make us stupid sometimes...but I don't get this whole "You rejected me so I'm gonna shit on you!" Maybe if they like insult you or something when rejecting you... Guys like him ruin everything for everyone.
Yeah he was SO fast to lose his shit. There was so much more I wanted to say back to him - but I knew that would just make things worse... so I pretty much let him have his fit and storm off. Been a while since I ran across someone THAT insecure. 😬
It's important to remember that fuckbois are actually real...even if sometimes they seem like a cartoonish exaggeration in a world that sometimes acts like they're almost common... It's not normal...but it is a real problem.
That was really uncalled for... but I gotta say you really showed some great emotional stability.
Yes, Downvoting is going to be one of the main essentials of Stem ecosystem especially after changing reward to 50% Author/50% Curator.
Thanks, @bluemist! ❤️ Did a 50/50 change actually happen? I must have missed that.
Not yet but we might see big changes in upcoming Hardfork, maybe in few months.
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I upvoted this post because it was excellent. However, I feel like I should have downvoted it to keep with the spirit of the subject at hand. (joke) Seriously though, that dude trying to white guilt you into sex, wow! I thank God I'm not a woman because I don't ever want a dic pic from anyone, ever.
Hahah yeah nobody wants a dick pic! 🙅♀️
Also your comment about downvoting the post cracked me up! Would have been funny.
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I'm not entirely sure about that... Of course, downvoting provides some sort of a way to fight against people who have less SP than you, but people with a lot of Steem Power can retaliate on you with so much harder downvotes that you will suffer harder than they will.
If he is, as you say, well-known, then chances are that he also got a lot of Steem Power, which makes him essentially invincible on here as well. If you downvote him, there's a high probability that he would do the same to you and perhaps harder as well.
I've downvoted bad people in the past and got downvoted much harder for doing so. The world isn't a very fair place and I'm not sure if Steem really changes that.
You acted well in the situation though.
Definitely good points my friend. If he had a ton of SP then my glorious moment of flagging him would be short lived. 😅
Congratulations @coruscate!
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Steem's done a lot of cool stuff with the downvoting/flagging concept honestly, and I don't think it gets enough credit for it. You see basic downvoting get abused on Steam (the game store) and Reddit and it's a really big problem from the former.
I can see the skepticism about people really putting in money to downvote brigade something. But for the average trolls and jerks, downvoting something won't be worth it.
Fair warning - a bit of thinking out loud belowTL;DR: What steem has is pretty solid, but there's a ton of possibilities to make it better. Maybe even things that the decentralized nature of steem might make more possible.
If someone or even steem themselves looked in to some improvements on the whole downvoting system i think they could make it even better then they already have.
Like what if we could tell how trustworthy or valuable your downvote was based on if people think you're spamming the downvote button incorrectly. Maybe combine it with a system where we can say why you're downvoting a post (Maybe it's dumb, maybe it's harassment, Maybe i don't agree with it) Maybe i'm trustworthy at flagging harassment but i get a little too trigger happy with posts i don't like or something
There's a lot of ways it can be made better and the whole decentralized thing gives an interesting opprotunity. Not only are your posts judged by your peers but your criticisms of posts and people are also judged by the same peers.
Could work, Or not, i don't know, Just thinking out loud, would totally be an interesting social experiment though or to see what others would come up with