My thoughts about free downvotes and possible flagwars
Among the 3 aspects of EIP (Economic Improvement Proposal) the encouragement of downvote is something that I haven't really thought about. It is probably because of my focus on the positive side of things and not much in the negative side of it. And I rarely downvote, in fact If I recall in the past 20 months of my stay here, I only downvoted for about less than 10 times. That's a small amount of effort compared to my thousands of upvotes.
I believe that many of us don't even bother to downvote since it can cost us our rewards. And if we are to think about it we are not directly making ourself a favor by doing it. If I downvote a post that is clearly having a problem, I'm being of service to the community by combatting a wrong behavior but at the end of the day, my downvotes has cost me my curation rewards that I should receive when I upvote a quality content. And If I were given a choice between upvoting or downvoting a content, I would choose to upvote since it's something that will garner me an reward and recognition from the author that I vote.
So, here comes the EIP which states that each user will be provide with free downvotes each day. Based from what I gather, there will be a separate pool for downvotes and it will be about 25% of the size of reward pool.
So, now that I will have free downvotes that will not cost me any of my curation rewards, will I use it? And if I will use it, what kind of behaviour will I downvote?
- plagiarism?
- low quality posts that used bid bot services?
- low quality posts that was voted by a dApp?
- or to revenge to someone who downvoted me? (this is obviously subjective)
If I were to use my downvotes, I would definitely use it to plagiarize posts that I proven myself. Well, this is not easy to do and it takes a lot of time and energy to prove it especially if the author is really good at it. Again this is gonna be exhuasting for me to do and there is a chance for me to make mistakes in doing it.
The other aspect of it is the fact that the user that I downvoted will retaliate and downvote my posts as well. So what will happen next? I engaged into a flag war and I know for a fact that it's gonna be stressful and counter-productive on my part.
If I were to enter into a flag war, I rather prevent myself from posting and become a flag machine and become a plain curator for the rest of my stay in this platform. While that is a safe choice for me, it will also restrict my freedom to express my thoughts in writing for my posts.
With regards to downvoting, this is where I will stay on the fence and observe until the whole ecosystem have it's consensus on which type of contents will be subject for downvotes.
So, that's my opinion about it. It may change at some point but I don't see myself using the free downvotes until I have a clear goal on why I will use it.
That's about it. Cheers everyone!
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Agreed, I think absolutely the same..
Every downvote is a kind of punishment
and we should rethink about it.
To make downvotes easier is a bad solution in every way.
Have a nice day
Tom
Posted using Partiko Android
Since their is "money" involved, the users who recieve the downvotes will retaliate for sure.
I absolutely thought the same thing, downvoting could be a major problem as many would simply abuse it.
Posted using Partiko Android
That could be another scenario to it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about it.
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downvotes have their place, they are designed to not only combat bad behaviour but also to counter posts people believe have excessive rewards pending. I agree with you that they should be used with some thought and even caution, they have their value.
There is a mindset on the platform that the moment that rewards appear on a post they below to the creator. They don't, they are subject to change until the full 7 days has run out. That change can be from upvotes, downvotes, change in steem value etc, but they are subject to change.
When we can manage to change that mindset, then upvotes and downvotes will be seen more as the ying and the yang of the process. I understand Reddit has an upvote and downvote process. It doesn't get reacted to the same as it doesn't involve payout but the intent is similar... to churn up the better content.