You will find posts from over a year ago, @phoenixwren, of me beating the drum for an optional distributed CAPCHA proof of Proof of Brain system for the blockchain.
Without such a system, in my opinion, there will always be grey zones of automated account usage. For example the auto-voting that you had brought up would be under the same attack as SBIs if they could be clearly identified. It is, likely, only the fact that they cannot be distinguished from manual usage that keeps them from being downvoted.
It seems to me that the technology cannot stop the use of automation of account use; nor should it. The code can, however, offer rewards to curb that behavior through the use of their algorithms.
By rewarding the usage of a CAPCHA system so that stake holders can make a more informed decision of their actions would be a good thing in my option. There would also be the bonus of giving the non-top 20 witnesses a revenue stream of CAPCHA internal transaction fees coming from a community pool.
We could then bring to the debate a situation whereby we could say definitively that , this account was downvoted when they were still under a CAPCHA verification time limit to this account was downvoted when they were not under a CAPCHA verification time limit.
Until such a system is in place (which is not likely) we must do what we can to minimalize behaviors that are not desired by the Community's representatives... the top 20 witnesses. This brings us to the opinion of the Code is Law, which is another story. You will find me in that camp.
My approach is not to ban bots but to offer an option that clearly identifies manual account usage so that dApps and stake holders can decide on their response through verifiable means or demand the use of those means to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Reading my post you will see that all STEEM generated through automated account actions are deemed counterfeit STEEM in my opinion.
[Edit : Corrected proper links and some grammer ]
I don't agree, especially with:
The witnesses are like senators in the US - mainly decided by monied interests, not the masses. A whale's witness vote holds more weight than a minnow's. None of it is proof of brain, it's proof of riches, the same as any other crypto you have to be able to buy into, abiding by the "you have to have money to make money" principle.
Steem was supposed to be different, where poor people could legit earn with work, and SBI was a way we could make tiny investments to help each other rise out of poverty and have income from it like rich people have. But instead Steem becomes more and more for the already-rich (including the 50/50 split).
People talk about "onboarding the masses" while making it less likely that they will ever want to do so. I don't talk it up to my friends anymore, that's for sure.
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So I was thinking on it and here is my idea for how witness votes should work:
If you have:
posted x number of posts/comments total (with an algorithm to check for spammy ones and not count those);
and you've been active (posting x number of posts/comments per month) for the past year,
then you get to witness vote.
The witness vote is weighted just the same for all active members of the community. If a person becomes inactive for a few months, then their witness vote stops counting, which erases the problem of people setting their witness votes, quitting Steem, and still having them affect things. Also, witnesses who quit being witnesses automatically get unvoted as well, solving the problem of people setting their votes and not checking them to make sure the witnesses themselves are still active.
This way, the votes are decided by active, established members of the community, rich or not. And no one has outsized power. The witnesses are still people who know how/can afford the hardware, but if they don't do what's good for the community, they'd lose their spot.
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The witnesses are representatives that achieve their positions via stake based voting. Because of that governance we are able to have the fastest, free transaction fee, scalable blockchain that exist to my knowledge - without the hashing power required by Proof of Work blockchains.
Those witnesses receive stake based votes. Even in the White Paper STEEM's design was stake based. One can wish it to be different, but it never has and (unless one is willing to put a lot of stake forward to enforce that change) it never will be other than stake based.
If someone has led you to believe that it ever was an egalitarian democracy they have done you a mis-service.
STEEM is quickly moving away from the one trick pony that it had been from the time of my account creation. The power of that fast, free and scalable blockchain is rising and Condenser is quickly becoming just another dApp on The Chain. A wonderful and unique dApp to be sure. A dApp that allowed us to put personalities on hash addresses.
My feeling is that STEEM was never meant to replace Facebook. My feeling is that Delegated Proof of Work was an experiment to see if scalability could be achieved.
It has been achieved.
We are likely going to see the blockchain explode in ways we cannot yet imagine after the next HF. We will have users that don't even know they are using the STEEM blockchain. They will deal in tokens while not even realising that those tokens float on top of the foundation of STEEM. It may be hard to believe that this experiment is only a little over three years old the way we look nostalgically back at that short evolution; but STEEM has only yet begun in my opinion.
Because the whole premise of STEEM mining being based on Proof of Brain, it seems critical to me that all forms of automated counterfeit STEEM mining be penalised, so as to reduce the counterfeiting. A bot is a bot is a bot which devalues STEEM through counterfeiting in my opinion.
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OK, again, you're allowed to disagree with me and love it Because Technology or whatever, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it has problems and would like to see it improved. It has always been stake based voting, but I think that sucks. You can think it's lovely. People have always been unfair here, and I think that sucks. You can think it's lovely. Your opinion is your opinion and mine is mine. I am way more concerned with people escaping poverty than any other aspect. I've always known that this space was very heavy with ancaps, but I am not one and so my values and priorities are different. The tech is the means that I was hoping to be used for the ends of lifting people out of poverty. If those ends aren't met, then people using the tech to play games and not realize they're using it means very little to me.
You're allowed to think the system is great; I'm allowed to think that it's not. You can think that the community on the blogging end is irrelevant in the long run, I disagree. You can think the blogging end was all an experiment and "one trick pony" and so doesn't matter, but I think the community came and showed their dedication and then were given the shaft in repayment for their hard work.
I'll hang around to support the people I care about and the causes I care about, but from my view, things are a lot worse than they were, and a lot of our community has left our little village, and I think that's sad. If Steem wasn't serious about the "social media" aspect, then they shouldn't have touted it as such. If it was only for the techies and no one else was welcome, then "onboarding the masses" should never have been attempted. It should have been billed as "an experimental forum for blockchain enthusiasts."
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Steemit had been flying a Beta warning on their opening page for about three years. Only recently has it come down. Does that tell you anything?
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It's irrelevant to my point. Again, you can think it's great. I don't.
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The fact that the project was deemed to be in Beta until fairly recently by the main developers of the project is very relevant in my opinion. But let's save that thought for a happier day. 😎
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It's relevant to your point, but not to mine: alleviating poverty and community.
We're not going to agree on the point of Steem and it's potential though, so yeah, let's leave it.
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