Thanks for bringing this up. Looking forward to more discussions.

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posting interesting, useful for life. @Beanz

This is the first time I've ever made it to the trending page...  Not that I deserve it more than anybody else of course but shouldn't everybody feel like there's a chance to get up there...

Thank you for posting this.  It is a very important lesson and unfortunately Steemit had its chance but didn't listen.  Then they kept pretending they were going to be hiring for different positions and were "collecting resumes" instead of just hiring well respected content creators who had already broke their back for the platform.  
The best thing that could happen is if a well funded group can take the lessons of why Steemit has failed and create a new platform addressing those concerns.  
Basically if we could have a "Do over" scenario where from day one we didn't have these ultra powerful whales to try to impress.  I would like to think that Steemit still has a chance to come out of this but in a lot of ways I don't feel that it does.  They needed to take action back in July 2016 but @ned and @dantheman continued to power down and sent a very clear message to everyone.  It power bombed the platform and disenfranchised the user base.  For several months I have continued to power down.  At certain points I have thought I was going to stop the power down and let the rest ride incase this sum-bitch can be turned around.  At this point I almost feel that getting an additional $50 out is better than a $0 bid.

Great analysis on Digg. Thanks for bring it in - resteemed.

I want to clarify my position that I opposite guild's self-voting and my voting power is not automatically used to upvote their posts (I check manually in the last 30 days). I have been aware of whale's self, collusive, or recursive voting can ruin fairness feeling of many other users.
Believe or not, the current situation is more alleviated than 6 months ago. I posted about whales voting twice, and at the first time several whales voted more than twice a day on average for one author (over 42 times in 21 days). In the next post, I discovered that the top curator voted up to 112 times in 3 weeks for an author.

Things are revolving but the center is there still. I am still struggling for better Steem for everyone (except abusers and scammers!). My personal plan is to delegate majority of my Steem Power to active contributing community members. Hopefully, other bigger whales join this move.

Very interesting history, I hope the steemit developers will learn from it and prevent a similar melt-down.

Upvoted & Resteemed - We do not want Steem to end up like DIGG.

Also @beanz, take a look at my article today: https://steemit.com/kicking/@fyrstikken/kicking-little-old-lady-down-the-stairs

We need a cultural change in the top around here.

Technologies change but not humans. We have the same behaviors. The structure of steemit allows these behaviors and it is unlikely that a mathematical curve can bring about changes. It will be difficult to get rid of collusion, bots, etc.
The thirst for power and money always finds a way to circumvent the rules.

One of the many things I like about Steemit is that people do talk about perceived problems. The discussion can be scattered around among many posts, and it all can be concerning for new folks, but I've been impressed with how things ultimately do get addressed. Reminders like this post are really helpful for me at least, to put what's going on now into a bigger context. Thanks.

chill out on the hard forks, focus on the issues and hold a conversation, for months if it has to be like that. I'm one to expect steemit to rise, still I wouldn't want that with the current trends. The problems need real solutions and no amount of rushed fixes can cover the gaping holes. 

It's all up to us, everybody here is a whale, some are bigger children. 

If we work together we can get back to dreaming of a bright future on a trendy new age platform with lots of great content, people and interactions.

If we don't welcome in the botnet :D at least some AI can come out of the info here :D fragmented and lost probably tho :D 

I would welcome your input on my plea to dan 
https://steemit.com/steem/@j3dy/re-dantheman-steem-and-bitshares-cryptographic-security-update-20170225t123215538z

Resteemd and upvoted, read thoroughly. 

Btw Skeptic or smth is already spamming the Minds for scam and censure platform whines and such. He's not the first "troll thrown out" because of neglect.

Great story. Hope you're well @beanz... :)

Keep scrolling, stay humble and upvote or resteem as much as possible. Imagine when my tokens are worth $1000 a piece. I can buy a home IRL. I can repair mistakes I have made. I once again believe in something greater than myself. I will white knuckle this mother fucker until it's last breathe.(apologise) Thank you for resurrecting my spirit. Stay Strong, Keep Going!

snsjd

Thanks for posting this,it's a crucial discussion. THings need to change now,or steemit is dying.

I didn't know about this post, thanks! Read most of it earlier but coming back to comment after a full read.

I can somewhat see myself being applied to this by some people. I'm not friends with whales to selectively upvote me, they upvote because they want to for the content, not the person. If I don't write stuff they like, then will they upvote the content? No. I don't always get an upvote. There are autobots, although less now. So my "15 minutes of fame" have possibly passed in term of being a "trender" hehe.

The problem with the analogy with Digg manipulations and Steemit for whales, is that aren't people on Steemit supposed to be upvoting what they like as well?  Isn't that what some would possibly consider unfair, to vote on things they like, and since they have the SP, that pushes certain content up? If that's not the case, the implication seems to be that whales should vote for everything if they can't judge on their own what to upvote based on what they like? Or alternatively, that they can't upvote at all?

I think that the comparison to Digg fails upon the fact that unlike a server-regulated moderation power, anyone (with the money) can operate a whale sized account, and probably a very large number of users who have done adequately to moderately well as authors here have been stacking up their accumulated steem power.

I'm pretty sure that there is far more dolphins and orcas on Steem now than there was 6 months ago. There should be more - and will be. I ploughed a bunch of cash into my account and I have nearly doubled my influence. I don't know where this 'Steemit doesn't listen to us' prattle comes from. I hate to say it but it seems really infantile to me, and I see good and relevant posts come from @dantheman and others like @sneak and if you are in the right place in the chat you see stuff as well.

About the only thing I'd say is, since they built rocketchat, they should use it and ditch Slack. It's not elitism, simply people just don't see the big wigs often in chat. Even there my experience differs from whoever these whiney people are, when @ned pops in and hangs around, I was solicited for a skype chat with him way back, and at steemfest, Ned, Sneak and others were hobnobbing around like social butterflies, as they should being the guys who build this thing.

I just have to say again, that I see no comparison between Steem and any old school central server with a moderator hierachy and super-natural powers to rewrite history. I have watched several other discussion forums arise and eventually improde for one reason or another. In many cases it is caused by management. Steemit.com might have the veneer of management but they can't write whatever they want to the blockchain (aside from text) and have it be validated and certified. It's a whole world apart from this.

In my opinion some people just aren't happy unless they are stirring up shit.

Meanwhile, I return to a rare bout of casual curation as my favoured curator-wiz seems to be having a hiatus and my votes are going spare.

I should learn my lesson about getting involved in this kind of discussion, it's nearly more of a waste of time than talking to trolls - and the mythomaniacs and FUDsters that want to make it seem like there's a secret agenda that *you* are not in on and that it aims to take all your toys away from you. **yawn**

You can stop this cycle by eliminating personal (I am on page 1!!!) and financial rewards from posts. 

Sounds impossible?

Then stop trying to stop the cycle and start trying how to gracefully live with it.

I have a question then, in your post 7th and 10th paragraphs are repeated ( a pretty clear writing mistake) besides is not an original post. However it has 154 upvotes ...is it not because your friends or people who use to vote you just upvoted you because of that? Don't get me wrong. I do not think that's bad. On the contrary, I think it is inevitable.. maybe the solution is a system that objectively differentiates a good post from a bad post. However, as I said, people who have many friends deserves to get more votes. 
Greetins from Barcelona!

Holy flip, good job in reposting this. It is very prescient!

I watched digg grow and eventually fail, it was one of  my husband's favorite sites. My husband sees similar patterns developing here on Steemit. I have no answers, but I don't like flagging, bots, and guilds, but can't say why with anything that makes sense. Maybe it's because these tools are easy to game? The best social sites I've help manage had community or topic managers that worked as a team to help members resolve disruptive behavior and technical issues. The best site I worked on had clearly defined rules regarding trolling and spamming, the 3 strikes you're out worked well too.

There are at least three relevant differences:
1. digg was closed source, steem & steemit are open source.  Thus, algorithms like digg's flagging algorithm cannot be secret here.
2. Anyone can invest their way to the top with steem.  Digg's insiders were a closed group.
3. Digg's data was hidden, steem's is public - on the blockchain.

As  they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It's only a matter of time until someone takes advantage of steem's open nature to publish and visualize cliques, quasi-cliques, and other characteristics of the steem voting graph.  That sort of openness is not available in a closed environment like digg, and it will eventually limit abusive voting.

People need to start thinking of this platform in terms of months, years, and decades instead of perpetually panicking over the drama of the day.   It's not even a year old yet.

**Update:**
(4) Steemit's users are also investors, which gives them incentive to stick around and fix things instead of jumping ship to another platform (at least for as long as no other platform is doing the same thing).  Digg's users were not financially invested in their platform.

Good article. Unfortunately human greed is still a dominant force within most people and especially those who are power hungry. I've seen many communities be dissolved, in real life too, due to a few people who are mentally ill.....I don't know the answer to your question, but with SP delegation coming, the whales better be super picky about who they entrust.