"Central Premise & Proposals" - A Series About Fixing Steemit - Part 4

This article is the 4th in a Series of Articles about "How to Fix Steemit." The first three were:

1. Jerry Banfield, Down-Voting & Freedom of Speech
2. "Down-Voting as Censorship" - A Series About Fixing Steemit - Part 2
3. "Derivatives" - A Series About Fixing Steemit - Part 3

* The comments and replies to these articles are worth reading as much as the articles themselves.

Central Premise  

Every organization has a core idea around which it is organized. Christians believe in the Divinity of Christ. Nike believes that sporting equipment increases the excellence of athletes. Armies believe in the concentration of force at the enemy's weakest point. 

Without such core idea, around which all else revolves, an organization has no center of gravity, no purpose and no direction. This core idea might be called an organization's Central Premise.  

To be successful, an organization's Central Premise must be sacrosanct. It must be the overarching objective that all actions multiply or, at least, do not diminish. It is the lens through which all deliberations must be viewed, the scale upon which all actions must be weighed. It is the tie that binds the boundless and the creed that creates the credence. It is an a priori assumption, an axiomatic First Principle.  

In short, it is an organization's raison d'tre, its very purpose for existing. 

It is an organization's ... soul.  

Steemit's Central Premise  

So what is the Central Premise of Steemit? 

This is an extremely important question to both ask and answer ... and, if Steemit is to survive, and thrive, it is one upon which everyone must agree. 

I would submit that Steemit's Central Premise is that: Content Shall Be Compensated Commensurate With Its Quality.  

Unfortunately, no one with more than a week's worth of experience on the blockchain believes that Steemit's Central Premise is being fulfilled, or that we are within a mile of its fulfillment.  

The Blame Game  

Everyone has an opinion about whose fault it is: The Whales; the Witnessess; Steemit Inc.; the Bid-Bots; or the Voting Rings.

Upon some lengthy reflection, I think I know precisely who to blame:  

No one.  

Cryptocurrencies were created by anarchists and anarchists don't believe in rules. No rules leads to chaos. And, chaos is what we've got. The design of the system itself all-but-guarantees dysfunction because when there are no laws, people will, predictably, act lawlessly. "Every man for himself" guarantees turmoil which undoubtedly explains why no society on Earth is, or has ever been, structured in this fashion. 

In theory, theory and reality are the same. In reality, they're not. Political and philosophical ideologues, of whatever persuasion, do not construct functional real-world organizations as they do not incorporate the realities of "being human." They assume a Utopian vision of humanity and assume a level of cooperation that has no precedent in all of human history.  

That's not meant as a criticism of anarchists. Cryptocurrencies were, and are, an experiment in the decentralization of not just computing power, but in decision-making. While perhaps naive, there was, and is, nothing immoral about such experimentation. Nevertheless, the observation is one that must be made if we are to understand how we got into this mess, and how we can get out of it. We're going to need some rules and a pragmatic way of enforcing them. 

We're going to have to become less ideological.

Top of the Food Chain  

Human beings are, compared to other animals, weak and slow. We don't have fangs or talons worthy of mention and our sensory systems, like eyesight, hearing and smell, are nothing about which to boast. Anthropologists wax and wane about why humans became the top of the food chain and it usually has something to do with having opposable thumbs, large prefrontal cortices and the ability to make fire.  

These were, of course, very important contributors. But anatomically modern humans spent a couple of hundred thousand years (give or take) with all these advantages and, for 95% of that time, were more often the prey than the predator.  

So what was the game-changer? 

Human beings possess two extraordinary qualities that are unique among all animals on Earth:     

1. The ability to form Non-Kinship-based In-Groups; and  
2. The ability to adapt to almost any environment.   

And it is these two qualities, I submit, that explain why Steemit is as it is, as opposed to how it ought to be.  

A couple years ago, people started joining Steemit. As they did, they quickly realized that having a pile of SteemPower gave one a tremendous advantage in earning post pay-outs. Moreover, they noticed that some of the pioneers had set up multiple accounts and were just upvoting themselves and each other. And why not, there were no rules against it. 

Having little SteemPower, these newcomers did what humans always do ... they sought to adapt to the realities of their environment in order to survive. And so, they began to form groups. There's strength in numbers. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Follow for follow. Upvote for upvote.

When even newer Steemians joined, they found themselves frozen out of these established voting groups. It was they who were now most disadvantaged. And so ... they adapted to their environment.

Bidbots were created allowing people to artificially boost a post so that it might be seen on the Trending Page, hopefully garnering additional upvotes because of the additional exposure. Of course, anyone not using bidbots were now disadvantaged ... and so, they too joined the party. They adapted to their environment. Dozens, and then hundreds, of bidbots materialized. 

By this time, the Central Premise was but an anachronistic memory. Pictures of ceiling fans and weeds in one's back yard started populating the Trending Page. And who cares about misspellings or grammatical errors ... you'll forgive yourself, won't you?

The Quality Content premise was relegated to the marketing materials used to seduce new Steemians: "Just create great content ... and you'll succeed." 

Tragedy of The Commons

In economics there is a well-known and widely studied phenomenon called the Tragedy of the Commons.

Here's how Wikipedia describes it:

The tragedy of the commons is a term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action.  

Sound familiar?

Depending upon the day, bidbots drain 25-30% of the Reward Pool. God only knows how much it is depleted by fat wallets with multiple accounts repetitively self-upvoting themselves. 

Imagine a lake. In the lake are 10,000 fish. Around the lake live 100 human beings. Through trial and error, it has been determined that the lake can provide 1 fish/person/day and still maintain a stable fish population. Simply, the fish can repopulate themselves at the same or greater rate than that which they are being depleted through human consumption. In economics, this called the "carrying capacity." 

Now imagine there's an asshole, as there always is, who decides he wants to get fat by catching and consuming 10 fish/day. And so, he invents a trot line and a bigger plate. OK, that probably won't make a difference. Probably, the lake can sustain the loss of an extra 9 fish/day. But here's the thing: It set a precedent and Assholeosis is contagious ... it spreads. "If he gets to do it, then so do I."

Before long, others are creating trot lines too. Some creative fellow comes up with a floating net. As you can imagine, the fish stocks soon plummet as do the daily catches, irrespective of the trickery employed to catch them ... you can't catch what's not there. Simply, the fish cannot reproduce and grow fast enough to offset the rate of depletion by humans. People begin to starve. Strife becomes rampant.

So what do the people do? If they're smart, they get together for a meeting and say, "OK guys, this is not sustainable. We've gotta have some rules. It's 1 fish/person/day ... and we're going to enforce it. And no bloody trot lines or nets." 

Of course, anyone with a passing familiarity with history is probably skeptical. Most likely, some of the people start yelling, "No one's going to tell me what I can and cannot do! I'll catch as many fish as I want, and in any way I want to!" 

Surprisingly, everyone, even the biggest assholes, know that the situation is not sustainable ... but self-interest is notoriously blinding. In order to continue with what is self-evidently destructive behavior for the group, the most vociferous trot out the Tyranny Card and start bellowing, "No Rulers, No Rules," in an effort to reframe the debate, turning practical matters into philosophical ones. 

Dunbar's Number & Why We Need Rules

Anthropologists have discovered that, due to cognitive limitations, human beings are limited to social groups of around 150 people before they need to introduce professional police forces and law courts. This is based upon Dunbar's Number.

Here's how Wikipedia describes it:  

Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.[1][2] This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. 

When groups are under 150 people, peer pressure acts to moderate behavior. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing and gossip is rampant. Social support is the reward for social cooperation. And, if someone misbehaves, someone will tell their Mom. Over 150 though and the wheels start coming off the bus. People start becoming strangers and self-interest overrides the self-sacrifice required of those dependent upon one another.  

And this leads to the most destructive force in any organization or group of people: Free Riders.

The Free Rider Problem 

Economists have been grappling with this one for a long time as well.

Investopedia's definition:                 

The free rider problem is a situation where some individuals consume more than their fair share or pay less than their fair share of the cost of a shared resource. 

In that same vein, I would add: "... or unfairly reap rewards to which they are not entitled, thereby reducing the legitimately earned rewards of others."

Nothing destroys the unity and cohesion of an organization faster than the appearance of a Free Rider. Free Riders create resentment amongst those who are pulling their weight and playing by the rules. "Fairness" is one of the Six Moral Foundations upon with ALL human beings construct their sense of right and wrong. And, it's not just humans. Rather, it is a phenomena that is widespread throughout the animal kingdom.  

The video is both humorous and incredibly revealing. Imagine if, after this experiment, you asked the Capuchin on the left, "Capuchin ... would you like to move to another zoo?" How long do you think it will be before there is a Steemit-clone promising a basic sense of fairness to its users? For God sake's folks, they have their own accounts on Steemit and are actively recruiting! A number will launch within a matter of months. 

The thing to appreciate about this video is that it under-represents the magnitude of the problem on Steemit. In the video, each Capuchin contributed the same input (handing a rock) while receiving a different outcome (a cucumber vs. a grape). On Steemit, the problem is an order of magnitude larger: A significant number of Minnows are creating far higher quality content (input) than those appearing on the Trending Page and, to add insult to injury, the disparity in post payouts (output) is more analogous to receiving a bunch of grapes.                

The thin veneer of civilization is just that ... thin. The English word, "civilization" derives from the French word, "civilisé" (civilized) which derives from the Latin word "civilis" (civil) which derives from the Latin word "civis" (citizen) which derives from the Latin word "civitas" (city). To be civilized means to live in a city. 

Living in cities, a very recent development for humans, required that many of humanity's baser instincts had to be suppressed lest everyone start raping and killing their neighbors. And hence, a whole litany of rules got created. Some of them got codified into laws. Others became religious doctrine. Some, cultural norms. In any event, they became restraints on instinctive behavior. These baser instincts didn't just disappear ... they simply got shackled. Without such restraint, human beings quickly revert back to their instincts and "Survival of the Fittest" justifies "Every Man for Himself" which, in turn, justifies "Anything Goes." 

Cheating, Free Riding by any other name, becomes rampant and the society disintegrates.  

Proposal No. 1 ... Ban Bid-Bots

It is hard to imagine an activity more obviously corrosive to the Central Premise than bidbots. When you can simply buy your way to the top, the Central Premise becomes little more than a philosophy for fools. As mentioned earlier, bidbots drain 25-30% of the Reward Pool. This represents an enormous misallocation of scarce resources ... of the limited upvoting capital that is supposed to be used to curate the quality of content. Bidbots are Stage Four cancer ... a terminal condition presaging death. It is simply inconceivable that the blockchain can survive if they do.

Bidbots must be immediately banned. It would not be difficult to achieve as they are not part of the blockchain's code.      

Proposal No. 2 ... Limit Self-Upvoting

Self-upvoting abuse, of one kind or another, is rampant amongst large wallet holders. For those who are unaware, here's how it works:

1. You've got USD $1 million worth of STEEM. Open 11 accounts, placing 1/11 of the million dollars in each. Each account posts a picture of something stupid with a two or three sentence description containing numerous misspelled words, and, a concentration of grammatical errors one would think statistically impossible given the brevity of the description. 
2. Each account upvotes itself, and the other ten accounts, at 100% power.
3. Each account's upvoting power will recharge to 100% within 24 hours.
4. Tomorrow ... repeat. 
5. Periodically, "Virtue Signal," by expressing your moral outrage concerning how other people are raping the Reward Pool by using bidbots. 
6. Run for Witness, promising to stop the abuse.

Solution: Limit all accounts to one 100% self-upvote per day. This would include self-upvotes on "secondary accounts" and self-upvotes on comments and replies. The self-upvote could be cast on a single post or broken up between multiple daily posts and comments/replies.

Proposal No. 3 ... Mandatory Disclosure of Real World Identities  

Each account would have to be linked to a real world person. Almost all social media platforms already require this in an effort to prevent SPAM.

By connecting each account to a real world person, detection of self-upvoting becomes much easier and quickly subjects it to enforcement (explained below).

This will likely be very controversial as secrecy is a driving motivation amongst cryptocurrency purists. Too bad. The destructive consequences of multiple-account-self-upvoting are so grave that it has to be stamped out ... and that cannot be done without knowledge of who owns what.   

Such information would not be made publicly available and would only be accessible by Steemit Sheriffs in their efforts to root out self-upvoting abuse. 

Note: Such central repository would create a database that could be subpoenaed by real world law enforcement or taxation authorities. So be it. The entire blockchain cannot be held hostage to those committing tax evasion or trying to avoid their soon-to-be ex-spouse's lawyer. Moreover, such database already exists to some extent in that each new account requires an email address and cell phone number to open. Such information could be subpoenaed by real world law enforcement to identify an account's owner. 

Cryptocurrencies, across the board, are learning that "Sticking it to the Man" is a lot harder than Satoshi imagined. A crypto's access to exchanges and institutional capital require Know Your Client (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) disclosure and compliance. ICO's have been deemed "securities" (of one kind or another) by all the world's major countries subjecting them to securities law compliance. Those requiring iron-clad secrecy for their cryptocurrency assets would have to go elsewhere.

Proposal No. 4 ... Sheriff & Jury System

In a prior article in this Series (about fixing Steemit), "Down-Voting As Censorship," I outlined my proposal to counter abusive censorship downvoting by creating a Jury System:

Steemit and Down-Voting Abuse

Steemit is a blockchain whose very raison d'etre is the Monetization of Content. And so, when content starts getting demonetized for any reason other than "Offensive Behaviors," we've got a problem. Specifically, when it's used to punish "Offensive Speech," we enter into the realm of Speech Suppression and thereby create the justification for a competing cryptocurrency-backed blockchain. 

The problem, of course, is that what constitutes, "Offensive Behavior," is subjective. Abusively, anything could be called, "Offensive Behavior," just as many activists now call anything they disagree with, "Hate Speech." So, how do we solve this seemingly intractable problem? I would submit, the same way it's been solved for over a thousand years in the real world ... a jury of your peers. 

Let A Jury Decide

Let's say that @trumpsmyhero creates a post supporting Trump. @theresistence doesn't bloody well like it. And, in his world, anyone who supports Trump must be punished ... because any such support, in and of itself, is immoral. @theresistence believes in de-platforming Trump supporters, silencing them so that their ideas, ideals and insights cannot be heard, and doesn't give a hoot if this constitutes Speech Suppression.  

And so, @theresistence downvotes @trumpsmyhero's post. 

There was nothing in @trumpsmyhero's post that would constitute "Offensive Behavior." It wasn't spam, a scam and there was no bid-bot abuse. It did not physically threaten anyone and did not untruthfully disparage anyone's reputation. And so, @trumpsmyhero feels that the downvote was abusive and decides to hit the newly-created Appeal Button. 

The Appellate Process 

An Appeals Request is randomly sent to three Steemians ("Jurors") with reputation scores above 35 (they're not complete newbies). To ensure there will be no retaliation from either @trumpsmyhero or @theresistence, the identity of such Steemians is kept anonymous (see the Note below). Further, the names of the two disputants are blanked out so as not to unduly influence the Jurors. The three Jurors review the post and the rationale for the down-vote, as articulated in the Down-Vote Justification Form below:  
 

The Jurors will have two choices about how to proceed: 

1. Support the Down-Vote, in which case the down-vote stands ... but the down-vote gets doubled.  The reason for the doubling is that the poster wasted 3 Steemians time with a spurious Appeal when he/she knew that he/she was guilty. This is necessary as, without it, every down-vote will be Appealed. 

2. Overturn the Down-Vote, in which case the down-vote is erased from the author's post ... and is instead applied to the down-voter's account, adversely effecting the next post, or posts, that the down-voter makes, until the full amount of the down-vote has been used up. This is to punish the down-voter for down-voting a post with no motivation other than censorship ... Speech Suppression. 

Note: As everything that occurs on the blockchain is publicly accessible, this would have to be built into a  non-publicly-accessible side-chain, or, off the blockchain entirely (like Discord), so as to ensure anonymity of the Jurors and prevent retaliation.  

And, from the comments section of that post (in response to @bossel): 

Jury duty in the real world is not voluntary, it's an obligation of citizenry. As so too would it be under my proposal. Nevertheless, there are practical realities that cannot be ignored. If someone hasn't posted for a month, what's the chance they'll even see the Notification? The system has to adjudicate the incident quickly and move on. 

So, when the Appeal Button is hit, the blockchain determines that there are currently 12,000 users online and it randomly sends the Notification to three of them. Each one of them will have 48 hours to respond. At the end of 48 hours, if there has been no response, their ability to post or comment is frozen for a week and the Notification is transferred to someone else. Nothing in life is free and there is a price for citizenry ... so do your duty, and do it without complaint.  

As you can see, the Jury System would be used to adjudicate censorship down-voting abuse and other "Offensive Behaviors." Note the fourth checkbox on the form: "Bidbot or Self-Upvoting Abuse." 

The Jury System would be accessible in two ways: 

1. By Steemians wishing to challenge a downvote, as described above, via the "Appeal Button;" and
2. By Sheriffs, who have uncovered what they believe is Self-Upvoting Abuse (or any other kind of abuse for which they have been authorized, by a consensus of the community, to stop).

Sheriffs

Sheriffs will be permanent and salaried employees of the blockchain and will be paid from the Reward Pool. Their job will be to use data analysis to uncover "Upvoting Abuse." According to my proposal, this would include bidbots and self-upvote abuse using multiple accounts. It would also include any other manner of "Upvote Abuse" that was agreed upon by the community.

With respect to that last sentence, some people are exceedingly creative when it comes to cheating. It seems an inescapable conclusion that whenever one door is closed, cheaters will seek another. A permanent "police force" therefore will be required to uncover the more sophisticated of these innovations.

Upon discovery of alleged upvoting abuse, a Sheriff would create a Dossier, outlining the alleged abuse while providing supporting proof of such allegation. When completed, the Dossier would be sent to the alleged offender and given a week to respond, countering the allegation. The Dossier and the Response would then be randomly sent to three Jurors who would decide the case.

Sanctions may include: Reversal of ill-gotten gains (reversed back to the Reward Pool); temporary suspension of posting activities; and, permanent banishment from the blockchain.

Sheriffs will also, from time to time, publish a report outlining the most recent innovations in upvote cheating techniques and make recommendations respecting changes to the Rules of Conduct.   

Proposal No. 5 ... Clean Up The Accounts

I have a number followers with reputation scores of "- Infinity." I'm not sure what you have to do to earn a negative infinity reputation score but one would presume it's something pretty dastardly (probably unending amounts of SPAM, but I'm not certain). Could we presume that such accounts have no constructive future on the blockchain? And what about the -25's?

How many of Steemit's purported 1,2000,000 accounts are such junk? I don't know but such data inflation serves no one's interest and the presence of such actors are but problems waiting to happen.

I propose that such accounts be frozen such that the only action they may take is liquidation of their account. Recall that under Proposal No. 3, all accounts, new and existing, would have to be linked to a real world identity. Individuals behind such liquidated accounts would be permanently banned. Yes, banned individuals might open up new accounts using their kids' identities. But, if the offensive behavior continues, sooner or later ... they'd run out of kids.

Additional Proposals

I have two additional proposals about: 

1. Creating a Capital Formation structure, tailored to the realities of Steemit, for the purpose of financing blockchain start-ups (specifically Steemit Star content producers); and
2. The creation of a Synthetic Derivatives Arrangement (for lack of a better name) that would allow Steemians to purchase products and services from a wide assortment of online retailers via Steemit wallet transfers of STEEM ... and hence, transforming STEEM into a functional currency.

Given the length of this article, and those, they will be discussed in future articles in this Series.  

In Summation 

Steemit is in the midst of an arms-race, each person trying to obtain a more powerful weapon to counteract the weapons of everyone else. The Whales have nukes. In an effort to reestablish the balance of power, others have deployed biological and chemical weapons because they're cheaper. But an arms-race ends in only one of two ways: A ball of fire; or, in a court of bankruptcy. We need to mutually disarm and ban all the weapons of mass destruction.

We have to get back to the Central Premise for which Steemit was originally created, that: Content Shall Be Compensated Commensurate With Its Quality.

I can already hear a chorus of critics, "But what about this or what about that?"

My proposals are not designed to make Steemit perfect. But, as I've argued in the comments section of the previous articles in this Series, "Let not perfection become the enemy of the good." As I tell my daughter, "95% is, by definition, imperfect ... but it still gets you into Harvard." There will still be abuses of one kind or another but if we don't fix these ones, the other ones won't matter. 

If the engine doesn't run ... don't bother about the paint.

Quill

UPDATE - Day 3

By the end of Day 2, this post became the 7th "most commented on" post on the blockchain. Whatever else you're doing ... STOP IT ... and read ALL the comments and replies. They're long ... but extremely enlightening. 

While you do, keep in the back of your mind one question: Do we need reform?

Now imagine there's an asshole, as there always is ... 

... the most vociferous trot out the Tyranny Card and start bellowing, "No Rulers, No Rules," in an effort to reframe the debate, turning practical matters into philosophical ones. 

When reading comments on this article, be informed that: @noblewitness is a partnership between: @sircork, @gmuxx, @rhondak and @anarcho-andrei 

Yes ... these folks are one of your Witnesses.

Here's a taste of what's coming:

 quillfire (50)  ·  2 hours ago@palasatenea, 

What percentage of people do you believe would actually want to hijack or blow up an airplane? I'd bet it's somewhere around one millionth of one percent. Not many. And yet, society has to spend  countless billions of dollars for security and undergo huge inconveniences because of those few. 

Nobody wants to spend the money to be x-rayed and no one likes being body-searched. But the potential adverse consequences of one person slipping through with a gun or bomb means we tolerate the cost and inconvenience. The alternative would be to shut down civilian aviation or get used to planes flying into skyscrapers. 

And that's what's happening on Steemit. A very small number of people have figured out ways of enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else. Because the blockchain has no "airport security" there's actually nothing preventing them from this odious behavior. 

And so, I come along and say, "Enough! This has got to stop. Posts are supposed to be compensated on the basis of merit ... you're supposed to have to earn your upvotes, not buy them. We need to adopt some simple rules to stop this non-sense." 

"Commie. Dictator. Fascist." But who's doing the name-calling? 

Is it the quality content creators ... or the cheaters? 

In @sircork's own words: 

I have just realized you are pretty much A DOUCHE, and with any luck, I'll irritate you enough to leave the platform, and take your ridiculous ass back to commie land. 

That's the strategy. Either you stay silent about what we're doing ... or we'll drive you out. 

Here's an experiment. Go to @sircork's blog and pick 3 posts at random. Now go to my bog and do the same. Do you notice a difference in quality? I know, I know ... quality is subjective. Nevertheless, it's relevant because your subjective opinion controls which posts you upvote and which ones you don't. 

Sircork says he's got 12 Steemit accounts? Why does he need twelve? I can barely keep up with one. How does one even create enough content for twelve accounts? Do you think multiple-account-self-upvoting might be a possible motivation ... and hence the reason he and his @noblewitness crew have spent so much time and effort trying to shut down conversation about my proposals? 

My DM is filled with supportive commenters that are intimidated to comment publicly for fear of retaliation. Is this the system we want to preserve? These goons are Witnesses!!! 

And where are the other Witnesses? Where's the Whales? Crickets. 

This is why I want to implement some Rules of Conduct and a manner to enforce them. (I will remind you that there are several articles that precede this one addressing abusive down-voting.) 

As I explained in my post: 

1. You've got USD $1 million worth of STEEM. Open 11 accounts, placing 1/11 of the million dollars in each. Each account posts a picture of something stupid with a two or three sentence description  containing numerous misspelled words, and, a concentration of  grammatical errors one would think statistically impossible given the brevity of the description.
2. Each account upvotes itself, and the other ten accounts, at 100% power.
3. Each account's upvoting power will recharge to 100% within 24 hours.
4. Tomorrow ... repeat.
5. Periodically, "Virtue Signal," by expressing your moral outrage concerning how other people are raping the Reward Pool by using bidbots.
6. Run for Witness, promising to stop the abuse.

So, 11 accounts for self-upvoting and 1 "public" account to run for Witness. 

Twelve. 

Imagine if my proposals ever got adopted: The Real World Identification aspect would link Sircork to all 12 accounts. Any attempt to multiple-account-self-upvote would be immediately detected. 

Boom. 

Any scheme where a few hoodwink many, requires that The "Silent Majority" remain "Silent." 

After two days, this post became the 7th most "commented on" post on the blockchain (look at @arcange's comment). 

But look who did 95% of the commenting. The post got swarmed by one Witness Group, @noblewitness. Go look at the comment upvotes. Notice a pattern? Why are these guys trying so hard to suppress this article? 

Noticing this pattern, I started attaching notifications to their comments, informing people that @sircork, @anarcho-andrei, @gmuxx and @rhondak were all partners in @noblewitness. Those notifications started getting flagged! 

@gmuxx's explained that it was because it was depleting the battery on his cell phone. 

Now look back at YOUR comment. As of this writing, it has received an $0.17 upvote for @youarehope and @sircork  ... both are his accounts. Why the generous upvote? 

Because you said  something negative about my proposals. Now go and look at their response to anyone who said anything positive. Irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with my ideas, is this the way civilized people go about resolving their differences? 

A quote from @palasatenea's comment:

... I always prefer softer solutions to the problems than banning, 

I continue:

Fair enough. Discourse and the exchange of ideas was, and is, the whole point of this post. What softer solutions do you think would solve the problems? In any event, my article was not meant to be The Plan. 

Rather, it was meant to stimulate conversation and get people thinking. We have got systemic problems so large that, if they're not solved soon, will lead to the not-distant demise of the blockchain. A lot of good people will lose a lot of money. 

As you can see, there's a group of people who will fight very hard to prevent others from even talking about it. 

You should ask yourself why. 

Quill  

Folks, you too should ask yourself ... Why?

From now on ... I WILL NOT be responding to any of the members of @nobelwitness. Decide for yourselves if you will ... but giving them more attention just perpetuates their behavior. 

And ... you might also want to check to see if you've voted for them as a Witness.

Quill ... BTW, here's a FOLLOW UP Post. 

 

You guys know the drill. Be verbose ... but articulate. 

And remember ...  

Go Love A Starving Poet! 

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