Friday night useless

The reputation on this platform is obviously a broken metric but, I still find personal value in it because I know where it has come from. It is obviously useless because those who consistently use bidbots will artificially inflate their reputation. Mine is about to click over to 73 Rep and currently that puts my account position in 105th position ranked by Reputation.

My User Authority score however is worse than my platform Rep but, is still relatively good considering I am not a witness which means, no witness multiplier. Regardless though 257th out of 60,000 active accounts isn't bad and again, even though these numbers are somewhat meaningless perhaps, I think this is better than the platform Rep.

For example,

If you don't know that account it is because you haven't visited Trending over the last 8 months.

Interestingly, we almost share a Steem birthday.

 

In that year, 564769 accounts were created in between which average ~1547 per day.

This is his User Authority ranking which is actually pretty good in my opinion considering what is created, the engagement he provides and how many flags he gets. But, there is a fair difference between those two numbers. Ranked 79 on platform, ranked #1637 by User authority. Maybe these numbers are comparing apples to shoes though, perhaps guitars.

What I think would be interesting numbers to see is, how much is the total of Steem/SBD he has sent to bidbots to reach the top 100 rep and build his Steem Power. Since he is probably the largest customer of the bots, I think it would be a decent demonstration of what kind of return they are really producing for their promotional efforts. I don't think it would be too hard to query and discover.

I am not bashing @chbartist here because let's face it, he is actually one of the better quality content producers on the platform of late. Strange to say really. None of it deserves 200, 300 or 1500 dollars at these prices though which is why he cops so many flags for disagreement of rewards. This is just to show how useless the Rep mechanism actually is and why there is a need for a better system.

No cost to vote?

Someone brought up as they argued about my case for autovoters post from the other day that there is no cost in voting because voting power replenishes. This is not true though, there is an opportunity cost, actually there are two of them.

Firstly, even though the vote replenishes, one isn't forced to use it on anyone else and as we have seen time and time again for 2 years, some people only use it on themselves or in a very tight circle affectionately known as a 'jerk'. It is kind of like a flock of sheep, a murder of crows or a pod of dolphins. So, voting on someone else is a loss of the ability to vote oneself.

Secondly, to actually be able to transfer any significant value to someone else through a vote means to have Steem Power which comes with another opportunity cost. To have the opportunity to transfer value comes with the cost of selling the Steem. Every time we get a vote from someone who adds a cent, a dollar or a 100 dollars it means that they have chosen to hold Steem locked for 13 weeks rather than dump it onto the markets.

Of course, people come about their Steem in various ways, some buy-in, some earn, some buy votes, some get delegations given to them and so on and so forth. What is interesting to note though is that it seems that the harder one works for the Steem Power, the more one thinks about sharing it to other members of the community. This is likely be because those that consistently power up are on average thinking longer term than selling it at the next spike in price. The value of 1 Steem isn't the market price alone, it is the value perceived by the holder of it, sentimental value. Some find it very easy to sell, I don't.

The other thing that was mentioned in the exchange was that there is no place for automation in social interaction. Just to be clear, voting isn't a social act, it is a financial transaction. This is probably why there aren't 'like buttons' on bank transfers. The social interaction here comes through the human to human contact, not the voting. Commenting, engaging, chats or meeting up for lunch with someone for the first time like I did today.

The voting can be automated completely and still there can be social interaction, they are independent functions which is why it says 'get paid for your content'. If I trust the producer of the content to deliver value to the community (something I value), they do not need to produce specifically for me and, I don't need to look over their shoulder every minute.

What I find interesting as I ramble is how seriously some people take this place even though they aren't willing to actually invest into it themselves or, keep any value here. I find it somewhat disingenuous to discuss with people who put on a show of caring through their words while not actually acting past their words. There seems to be a lot of angry people willing to argue over various points but, the same people tend to do very little else. It seems that their return in being here is just for the sake of arguing and their giving is just their opinion.

I find the various personalities here interesting and as the system is in constant flux through the code and the way people behave, there is an endless supply of new interactions, new relationships forming that engage in a whole range of different ways. To me, Steem is more like an organism than a coded platform and it is enjoyable to interact with.

We tend to focus pretty heavily on the numbers but at the end of the day, all of the numbers are somewhat irrelevant as even the most representative of them is still just a number that describes us, it is not actually us. Who we are is always an uncountable, as is the total value we might bring in a lifetime. At the end of the day though, there are going to be large differences between what people bring into or take from this world and how much they help or harm others.

The numbers will never be accurate but, the ripples will still be real.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]