Yes, I'm aware of *how* the process works.

Consider other alternatives to full linear in order to mollify new users and users who are not well-versed on how to build their social media presence/following.

And also consider that there were other protocols that have been eliminated, as I stated in my original comment. A series of changes has led to the amount of abuse/exploitation that we see today. If you'd like to know more about what's actually happening around here, feel free to visit:

https://steemit.chat/channel/steemitabuse

Also - talk with some of the whales around here who have been doing their best to counter the abuses. People like @transisto and @berniesanders, and other users like @pfunk and myself. If you want lists with figures, I'm sure we can compile some...and a few users are already doing it.

@spaminator
@sherlockholmes

~~That's a bit disingenuous. You personally reshuffled the witness cabinet to insure that outcome.~~

I retract this claim.

I'm sure there are many other ways to address the spam caused by self voting, none of them perfect, I just wish people working at Steemit were more engaged in the discussion of possible solutions, There has been at least 15 serious posts specifically about the issue and possible solutions and nobody from Steemit commented on them if only to acknowledge having read it.

Can someone help explain this to me? I am a new user (joined yesterday) and all i see is a ton of bots and services to pay to promote your posts...not at all what I consider curated content. Before I decide to spend any time or money with SteemIt i'd really like to understand the plan for preventing that and surfacing actual content.

@smooth can you confirm for me that this change to a linear reward system thus means everyone can reward themselves with the full weight of their STEEM POWER?

If yes, then this exemplifies the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dilemma that I had reasoned about in my 2016 blog [_Blog rewards CAN’T be widely distributed_](https://steemit.com/steem/@anonymint/blog-rewards-can-t-be-widely-distributed).

@sigmajin wrote:
> that is to say, under n^2, the abuse was more concentrated. It was a very few people making six figures annually (steemguild, curie, etc).

Linear weighted rewards means that mathematically the whales (or cartels) no longer have a _disproportionate_ advantage but it also means everyone should be economically motivated to _only_ vote for themselves (or their cartels). Yet if all users don’t realize this, the _disproportionate_ advantage returns to those whales and others who realize they should always be voting for themselves. Ruthless whales retain a _disproportionate_ advantage by always voting for themselves and because their (perhaps sockpuppet) content rises in the rankings and thus more users who are unaware that they must always vote for themselves, thus vote for the whale’s content.

Note for naive readers, by _disproportionate_ we mean a share of the minted tokens rewards that exceed the proportion of the STEEM POWER held. Disproportionate rewards means that the money supply concentrates more and more in the hands in the few (or they’re holding their share of the money supply constant while selling the excess for Bitcoin siphoning off the value from the ecosystem). This concentration can be hidden with sockpuppet accounts.

This is what I mean when I say Steem’s design is insolubly broken and can’t be fixed. It was clear to me in 2016. Note I know of a different design which can fix resolve this dilemma and drive 10 – 100 times more revenue to everyone (content creators and upvoters) without debasing the money supply! The psychology aspect is the most important for the designer of such a system!

Btw, this change to linear can explain why I receive much fewer (in number, not SP weight) upvotes than I used to, although it might just be that my recent blogs have shifted to negative vibes.

@mkdouglas wrote:
> I think accounts should not be able to upvote their own posts.

Sockpuppets can always route around any attempt to make such a restriction. Such a restriction gives the whales more disproportionate advantage because they’re aware that they need to create sockpuppets ([up to 8000 daily currently](https://steemit.com/steemit/@anonymint/re-marc99-re-anonymint-re-marc99-re-cryptovestor-critical-analysis-of-steem-and-why-i-m-invested-20180414t183635188z)).

Realize that by making this change to linear rewards, we have forced STINC to take control over rewarding the faucet signups to themselves via obscured sockpuppets. Because if they didn’t then some other nefarious group would game the signups (email address and phone numbers are available for free in bulk). So imagine they have 8000 signups per day of sockpuppets with ~120,000 SP added to their balance daily. By having their sockpuppets upvote their sockpuppet content, they are extracting most of the voting rewards (both of the author and the curator). Everyone else who wants a Steem account has to pay for one and purchase SP. Then finances the ongoing extraction of Bitcoin value from the system. Dash has an analogous extraction scheme via the masternode concept.

@quinneaker wrote:
> if it wan[t] anonymous then people could just go and down vote anything they didn't like all day long and no one would then be able to hold them accountable.

The fact that Steem relies on downvoting to curate content and bad actors is very deleterious. Downvoting is very negative and turns discussion into nasty fights that nobody is interested in viewing. Makes the site look bad and encourages [crab bucket mentality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality) for curation instead of encouraging people to apply their energies to positive curation. My project will have no downvoting.

@sadekj wrote:
> Low-quality content is being rewarded more than high-quality content. **I am sure Steem was not designed to do that.**

Au contraire, the original whitepaper [stated that](https://steemit.com/steemit/@anonymint/re-marc99-re-anonymint-re-marc99-re-cryptovestor-critical-analysis-of-steem-and-why-i-m-invested-20180414t183635188z) Steem was designed to do that.

Steem was designed to be a whale controlled power vacuum. Period. Some of you may be blinded by your idealism. Wanting Steem to be something that it isn’t and can’t be.

-----

P.S. given how well Steem is doing in spite of the massive amount of corruption inherent in it’s design and launch, this exemplifies how powerful this concept of social media/networking on a blockchain can be! Very exciting.

Agreed. The benefits of HF-19 far outweigh the negative impact of the spammers.

> If the community is unwilling to take a stand and downvote, it can't be helped.

Agreed, but please help us by making down-voting anonymous. This way we don't get burned by stepping on the wrong foot. I see worthless posts that really deserves a flag, but then I check their SP, and decide not to pick a fight.

>when it comes to widespread I would agree it is obviously much more widespread.

I agree with this statement in the most literal sense.

that is to say, under n^2, the abuse was more concentrated.  It was a very few people making six figures annually (steemguild, curie, etc).  

The total percentage of the reward pool going to spam/abuse is, i suspect, probably about the same (and if its higher, ite because many whales got fed up with fighting abuse and now just sell their votes), there are just more people getting some of it. .

Obviously, neither situation is optimal, but if we're going to pay out a significant share of the reward pool to abusers, the abuser community should at least be inclusive.