My Response to dantheman's downvoting campaign against mesteemCreated with Sketch.

in steemit •  8 years ago 

Hello everyone!

I initially didn't want to join this whole fiasco, i wanted to remain silent, but since I got called out by Dan (@dantheman and @dan) himself I decided to write a reply afterall.

First let me say that I didn't react to the flags and trolls (not referring to @dantheman here) is cos I simply think it's a waste of time arguing.

But due to the respect I have towards @dantheman as a developer, member of the overall crypto community and a person who actually took time and wrote a post without the offensive language and insults like the others, I felt it is only the right move to write an equal response without insults.

So, I will start by describing what I did on Steemit and why. Then move onward to comment and respond to the post "Why I Flag ozchartart"(https://steemit.com/steemit/@dantheman/why-i-flag-ozchartart) by @dantheman and finally conclude the post, and hopefully the whole scene, that was made here, with my opinion and a word on the future of ozchartart.



What I did on Steemit and why?


As I started this account my initial thought was not to do daily updates on STEEM and BTS, rather post charts for different altcoins, based on a longer term view.

Back at that time STEEM was still pretty high in price, and as I posted my first chart, it was a STEEM chart, I got asked to start posting updates on a daily basis, so I started doing it.

Realizing that the price of STEEM is high and that the rewards are high, I decided to post altcoin charts only occasionally next to the STEEM update.

In fact there were periods of over 20 days that I only posted the STEEM update.

And this is what it looked like all the way till late November, I kept posting 1 chart per day, the STEEM update that the community asked me to start doing, occasionally an altcoin chart. ( I will post additional screen shots in the comment section).
Along the way the only posts of mine which were downvoted by a whale (in this case not Dan but Ned), were the altcoin charts i posted, not the STEEM ones, so that sent me a clear message.

As time was going on and the STEEM price was falling together with the author rewards, at the end of November when the STEEM price was near it's all time low, at 14k satoshi, I saw the chance to start posting some altcoin charts again, and at that time got asked by @officialfuzzy , the community leader of Bitshares, to start posting daily updates on BTS, starting with the first one on November 22.

It was all going pretty much as usual, occasionally some flags, but everything seemed to be ok.
At this time, as I started posting more charts on a daily basis, and as they were upvoted constantly I began climbing on the weekly authors leaderboard, landing in the top 10 about mid December and recently hit the number 1 spot on it, something I never thought I would see.

At this point I started getting attention from @fyrstikken and some other members of this community, constantly downvoting my posts, and trying to provoke me in the comments, by calling me a dick, my charts bullshit and else.


All that started 19 days ago, and all of my posts have been flagged since, with @dantheman joining 16 days ago and is still going on today.


Throughout the whole time, I never complained about the flagging of my posts. Not even one single time, in fact I publicly stated that I don't care if I get flagged.



Why I did it how I did it?


So as said, initially my idea was to posts charts on different altcoins, preferring to go for the long time view, because that is what I believe to be the most profitable way of trading crypto.

As I got asked by the community of Steemit to start doing daily updates on the STEEM price, I decided to do it.
As I was aware that payouts were really high at that point, I decided to not post more then 1 chart a day, occasionally another on an altcoin I saw being ready for a move ( whats the use of it if I post it after it has already made the move which I was anticipating?), being fully aware of the possible impact if I started posting more, not on me but on the other authors on the platform.

As time progressed and STEEM hit it's all time low level I started posting more altcoin charts again.
At that time I got a request from @officialfuzzy to start doing BTS updates.
With a few days of thinking and asking about opinion from different sides on the matter if that might be too much, I decided to start those as well.
Shortly after I was even asked to start doing daily updates on Iconomi, which I declined, exactly cos I thought I was already doing allot.

I have to mention that I wasn't posting altcoin charts each day, sure there were days where I would post both updates and another altcoin chart per day, but it was still mostly only the updates.

Community members were also asking me for allot of these charts, so many of them are made, only for the reason of the Steemit community requesting them.

At this point I started taking (obviously) a larger portion of the author reward pool and was fully aware of that fact.
But at the same time the 2-3 posts I did per day were providing way less rewards then any post back in the days, the votes were giving significantly more rewards then today.
This was the reason why I decided to post more altcoin charts now, while the price is low and upvotes are worth far less then when the price is high.

Fully aware of the fact that I am draining more from the authors reward pool now, but as mentioned in terms of dollars it is way less, and I believe it was a good decision from me to keep the posting 1 post per day while the price of STEEM was high, to let more authors get a stake when the posting is worth allot, and start posting more now, while the STEEM price is low and post get way less rewards.

I watched many authors "milk it", posting numerous times a day while the price was high, yet i kept off from doing the same.



What I could have done?


With all honesty, I could have been posting more charts back when the STEEM price was high and the posts were worth a magnitude more then today, keep in mind that at today's price I would probably need about 7 days of posting (or more) of 3 posts per day, without any flags in order to match only 1 post from back in the summer.


Summer


recently

I could have milked it out, take the money once I did and leave like many authors did, yet I decided not to let my greed take over at the most important stage, when Steemit was new and needed new users, all of them earning money to get attracted.



Why is there so much copy paste and why do all the posts look so similar?


So, this goes for the updates of STEEM and BTS, I am doing a daily update on both of them, which means I want to show how It looked the previous day (the copied charts) and what It developed into the time of posting, same goes for the volume.

About the charts in the updates, why do I keep my lines on there and don't delete them?
Very simple, because the line are important! They mark where the coin made a certain movement on the chart, and that wont go away, it has happened, therefor it stays there, no one can undo it.
The lines are there and serve to help future price discovery and they are important be they 1 day old or 3 years old, it doesn't matter.

Altcoin charts, they are similar, yes they are, very! All of which I chose to post personally (not by request).
But for a good reason, If you look a bit closer you will notice that they all have similar price movement in the history.

Those are the markets that I believe have the most promising potential for profit. And that's why I will point them out, not after they start going up, but before they do.



A read and reply to the "Why I Flag ozchartart" post by @dantheman


Starting of with the first paragraph and picture:

First a comment on the picture, I don't remember expressing any rage or anger about the flags of @dantheman, @dan, @ned, or for that matter any other flag that was every put on any of my posts.

Second, the sentence which caught my eye is this one, and I in fact am not gonna comment on it, but rather ask a question to @dantheman , @dan.

" I originally started flagging with only one of my two accounts, but the persistence of other collusive whales in up-voting this content has forced me to express myself more firmly"

Please don't understand me wrong, hence this is just a question, but how I understand is that you started flagging my posts in order to get attention of the whales, expressed your personal opinion on the posts so to say,


as you state here

and then expected them to follow your opinion, aka stop upvoting my posts, and once they ignored your personal opinion, they probably have a different one then you, you started downvoting the posts with another account of yours to further express your personal opinion in hope to get their attention. After they didn't change their opinion even after that, you didn't stop, rather you continued to try enforce your personal opinion upon other members of the platform?


Going on, second paragraph:

Yes I was the top author for 1 month! I am very very proud of that! I even took a screenshot of that rare occasion!
There were, there still are at the moment, authors who make way more money on their posts, who also get constantly upvoted by big whales, including you, @dantheman and @ned.
Furthermore, if I wasn't the top author of the month, it would have been another author who is a regular poster and gets upvoted by whales.
But as I clearly stated and analyzed in my posting history above, the part about me posting 3-4 posts every single day is a false accusation without evidence, or your "statistics" have some big flaws. And yes the top monthly author will always earn more then any other blogger that month, that shouldn't be a surprise, whomever it might be on the #1 out there.

Gonna drop in a replica here,
But have I really earned more then any blogger out there, in the whole history of Steemit?
Lets take a look at the top 25 people in posting rewards! For the help I will use the http://steemwhales.com/?p=1&s=pr page!

So, @ozchartart, #9 there, posting every single day, so a daily blogger u can say, apart from me there are just a couple that have been posting on the daily basis, respect keep it up btw! That's what a real user is!

Apart from the daily posters there are people who have mostly posted while the rewards are high and have stopped since, or do so only occasionally, nothing wrong with that.

@dantheman being #12 on the list you have a posting reward of 103,409,025! Despite declining rewards for the past 2 months! One of the founders! Caring founder, you like your own platform, that's for sure, nothing wrong with that, but as a founder you are the #12 person with the most posting rewards, and that has had an large impact in the author reward pool, furthermore you have upvoted you'r own posts, which isn't a big deal, everyone does that, but you are one of the biggest whales, and a user in the top 25 posting rewards, who has by far the most SP on there, nearly 2.5 million with the next closest to you from that list having about 300k SP!
On top of that, your other account, @dan, has a posting reward of 44,617,340 and 4.7 million SP and is ranked #47

On both accounts combined, you have 148,026,365 posting rewards, which would put you alltogether on the #6 just 200,000 lower then #5.
That means u haven taken a great chunk of the reward pool which has had a big impact on the distribution of the rewards to the other users on the platform, and ultimately means that I have not earned more on posting then you, in fact you have earned 11.74% more then me


Going on:

Here I would like to point out:
"The problem I have with @ozchartart is that he has been producing the same content for almost 6 months and prior to my flagging attempts was pulling in more money each month than anyone else."

And again, it is a assumption based on no evidence or lack of knowledge on the market analysis field, that I produced the same content for almost 6 months, and that I was earning more then every other Steemit user each month is just absurd, as I have pointed out and provided evidence above, that not even near as true, in fact @dantheman, you earned about 12% more money through posting then I did, who posts on a daily basis.


Now to the next:

The sad fact is that any post could be automated, which I think was a discussion topic in the past, and the fact that you personally don't know what you are looking at when you take a look at my charts, is not my problem, if you wish I am free and open to explain how I do it, if you have questions, never hesitate to reach out to me!

Do I automate my posts? No I don't it takes me a reasonable amount of time to edit the updates, and to be able to say what I expect next, I don't write just anything that comes to my mind, I take a look at the chart, and then write where I think it will go next. I write it up in as short sentences as I can and in as "English" as I can, because I know many people are not experienced with the technical terms and would not be able to follow at all what I am writing about.


Next paragraph:

As you said, this is your humble opinion, although I do have a lot of opinions about allot of posts out there, I do not flag them, for the soul reason that the flagging was introduced to counter trolling and hate speech, fraud and plagiarism and spam.


and the next one:

Personally I know for a fact, since some people have reached out to me and thanked me for the charts that I provided and for the money they made thank to them, that my post do offer some value to other people.

Some of the screenshot of the trades that some people sent me back in the days, which they made based on my charts:




The value of my post is depends, If it turns out that I gave a good tip on buying or selling an altcoin, the information could potentially be worth 100's of thousands, either by making profit by entering when the price is low and exiting when the price is high, or by exiting the market before a heavy dump, in which case my post would save money, not generate it.

Furthermore, you have declined payouts, you are one of the founders, have nearly 2.5 million SP on the account @dantheman and 4.7 million SP on you're account @dan. On top you have more posting rewards then @ozchartart, it has been like this for far longer, since you started declining payouts only 2 months ago.

I am just a user, not an early miner, nor a witness, my involvement in Steemit came with posting.
I have since spend hours not only promoting Steemit on the web and in real life, but also teaching people how to use it, explaining how to transfer cryptos, not only STEEM but also bitcoin and how to use crypto in general, from Steemit, exchanges, wallets, etc. For what reason? Because I like Steemit, and want it to grow.
I spend my time writing the posts and analyzing the markets.
No I will not decline payouts on my posts!


Up to the next paragraph:

So by this, does that mean that I am getting punished because someone who you don't like is upvoting my posts?
If that is so please sort that out with him and leave me out of your war.
And again, as you say "In my opinion he has proven himself to be a bad whale", your opinion, and again you try to enforce it upon others?
Same as the bad whale, so do you profit from promoting and voting constantly on some users posts.
You personally drew away at least 1 user from the platform, doing the same you are doing to me now, I'm talking about @masteryoda , whom I have personally given the advice to stay and keep posting, and with this post I personally Invite him back to Steemit to start his posts again! Yoda, we miss you!


Next one:

So you will keep on trying to enforce you'r opinion upon others until they change theirs?


So, you say people cry about censorship, but 2 sentences after you do exactly that,

cry about your comments being flagged, while you excessively down vote me every day with all your power?
You say lets keep it with flags and upvotes, and then complain about your comments getting,,, well,, flagged?!
Meanwhile you are doing exactly the same to me, you are downvoting my posts and even hiding them if you catch them before anyone else, with that you are sabotaging my posts.

You have no problem with my content although you basically said it's worth nothing, and you will not stop down voting it until it fits the reward of your personal opinion?


And finally the last one:

I agree that you developed STEEM and I thank you for developing Steemit!
I do not even wanna dream to accuse you of gaming the rules or securing a larger stake in the project, I believe that you are perfectly aware that you already have a very powerful position, not only as the mastermind and developer of Steemit but also as one of the largest whales on the platform.

From the evidence provided it is clear that you are the one who milked out more money out of STEEM then @ozchartart, even just by posting.
You call other people abusers, while you are preventing my posts doing the normal cycles, and trying to ruin my reputation by calling me out, saying that my charts are worthless, whiles u clearly state it's your personal opinion, you also state that you will clearly pursue enforcing it until everyone changes their opinion about my posts, no matter what.

As you said, we got to deal with the abusers, now I ask you, what have I done to you so badly that you won't stop flagging my posts till everyone stops looking at them, this is pure censorship!

As it stand now you want to drive me out of the platform and won't stop down voting my posts to 0 till you do so.



Future of ozchartart


For now I will keep off from posting the altcoin charts and will keep on posting the daily STEEM and BTS updates.
Another thing that will change is that by starting with this post, all of my posts will go to 100% STEEMPOWER.
The reason being that the altcoin charts which I post are the ones that I consider big money makers (in trading) and they have been, throughout the history of my posting on Steemit, the most downvoted ones.
Furthermore I have no reason to publicly something I think could potentially make allot of money, not for the reason that I don't want to, but for the reason that there are people like @dantheman publicly thrash my posts and charts, who push their opinions about my posts upon others until accepted and refuse to consider any value in them what so ever although charting and market analysis doesn't seem to be something you devoted your life and time to like some others did.

Since @dantheman posted about my @ozchartart account the views on my posts has at least doubled!
That proves that they are being read and are an active part of the community despite the opinion of @dantheman.
Multiple people have reached out to me since, to express support and gratitude for posting the charts.

I have no intention to leave Steemit what so ever!
You can keep on flagging me, I don't care, you can do it to the rest of eternity, I'm not someone who abandons something only cos someone else has a different opinion.



Conclusion


So to put some final words to my post,

I am being downvoted and called out publicly because of the personal opinion of one of the biggest, if not the biggest (2.5m SP+4.7m SP= 7.2m SP , qualified for rank #2 on SP ranking, 1.5m SP alltogether bigger then the what would be #3 ned, with 5.7m SP) whales on Steemit, who won't stop downvoting me until everyone else follows his personal opinion, in response to that:

First of all I thank @dantheman / @dan for making me such a public figure, the interest in my charts grew larger then ever before.
Even interview invites are coming to my email, something I never thought was possible before!

My sincere apologies to everyone mentioned in the post that didn't wanna be dragged into this ( @ned , @officialfuzzy and @masteryoda)

I have not once cried or complained about him flagging me.
I have been a faithful daily poster up to this point.
I have started, both the STEEM and BTS updates on requests by the Steemit community.
I will not leave Steemit.
I will keep posting.
I don't care if you flag me, keep on doing it if you want to.
Powerup and Steem on!

The reason being is that I believe that Steemit is bigger then an individual or a group!
It is a decentralized social media where everyone has the rights to post.
I believe in the idea and the chain that has been put out there and I have no wish or intention to leave it.
I hope this will be an end to the matter and that everyone can keep on with the daily Steeming.

For the note I don't even expect any sort of reply from @dantheman / @dan himself or any other mentioned above.
Although @dantheman if you want to learn more about my charts, how I choose them and why, reach out to me, I have an account on steemit.chat, although I don't use it often I get email notifications (OZmaster on there)

And for the end as it's tradition in my posts, I will also end this one with a song!

You got another thing coming ;)

Kind regards, OZ!

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upvoted to counter the autodownvote

Just to be clear, I have no auto down vote on these posts.

It wasn't yours, and I wasn't referring to the post but to the comment

I cringed so hard reading this post, subtlily attacking dan so that OP appears to be to the victim, rambling irrelevant stuff while completely avoiding the real accusations ( excessive whales upvotes and your content is not worth the money)
Reading this thread I’m shoked by the naivety of steemians who buy this bullshit

I am just a user, not an early miner, nor a witness, my involvement in Steemit came with posting.

You are a Liar @ozchartart, @ozmaster which is your other account also got huge support from whales for posting rubbish cannabis reviews
$4000 for a fucking cannabis pic https://steemit.com/marijuana/@ozmaster/today-s-smoke
And whales consistently upvoted your shitty cannabis post which you also ended with some crappy youtube video. It doesn’t take a genius to know that you are a whale upvoting yourself,no one has ever received so much support from whales for posting garbage beside masteryoda which was probably a whale too. Your charts are also upvoted by hundreds of sock puppets accounts badger1,badger2,badger3,etc..you wouldn't have to do that if your charts were really popular as you claim
I find it hilarious that @dan started upvoting you after this post when you made a pure mockery out of everyone especially him.

The masses, a faceless shared account? You, want to start shit yet again with

"subtlily attacking dan"

rambling irrelevant stuff while completely avoiding the real accusations ( excessive whales upvotes and your content is not worth the money)

The real accusations? Excessive whale upvotes? and.. your content is not worth the money? From the same account that was posting "pizzagate is fake news" and spreading their fear mongering message "investigating or talking about pizzagate is exactly what they want you to do, and you don't have any idea what they have in store for us" LMAO. You find it hilarious? YOU? AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I find it hillarious that YOU equated pedophilia to LGBT and claimed you know that the way to beat the elite is to think like a deprived sick elite and urged everyone to stop talking about pedophiliacs in power because "Once it's global you have to pay attention" and excused pedophiliac behavior by the elite by saying "they have been doing this for a long time" you pedophiliac supprter creep. Get the fuck away from this discussion, you funny in the wrong way creature.

Go look at their comments and replies and the way this user/this group has always cackled at whatever. I got cackled at when I first confronted them for equating LGBT to pedophiles, they told me "Must have hit a nerve, are you a pedophile?" after calling me a crackhead and using the same formula of asserting their opinions as facts and never providing any evidence for anything they say, and then they said how it was "kinda funny" that I thought that earlier, in the first conversation with them, that it was kinda funny that I thought I was making sense, and not the least here this comment structured with the same cackling attitude of laughing in your face without any shred of evidence for anything they say. The gusto to say "you're a liar" is prime example, but pick ANYTHING they say and guarantee that the troll formula of shit talking without proof is in the heart of every sentence. They enjoy cackling at us through anonimity, and it's the same author(s) so yeah, reading by what they put out... its the fucking same person, but don't take my word for it, go prove me wrong.

Calm down, mate.

You just stated that you're aware it's a shared account, so how do you even know you're talking to the person who said that shit?

Chill.

FYI @anonymous who flagged this post is @xeroc

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment

hey berniesanders upvoted me 1 time ... maybe twice? so perhaps he doesn't just vote his own sockpuppets? :)

Take a look at my votes and you'll see the real story. Plenty of claims here with 0 data to back them up even though it's readily available on the blockchain. @curie does 99% of my voting with 0 input from me.

i do, i always see you voting on a bunch of peeps stuff! :)

I did take a look at your voting after I read this comment and I just saw this post and @barrydutton's comment and I have to admit that I really thought @ozchartart was @berniesanders or there was at least collusion. After reading all this, I will no longer flag @ozchartart. I don't think you are profiting off of these posts except for the curation reward of course and honestly if you are, after all the other voting you do, I don't even care. I think these flag wars are bad for Steemit. If we are going to use flags this way, we should call them downvotes and we should always consider if someone has found the content valuable.

I know he doesn't. He has voted pretty consistently on my posts and even resteemed one of them. I'm grateful for his support and think he does a great job of curating a lot of authors to help out the community.

yes he does support a wide variety if you take the time to notice!
and also thanks @berniesanders for past support !

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Flagged as trolling. As Dan indicated to you on the other post, you can express your views without attacking people and name calling. I would say the same to Dan, but your hostility is even worse.

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment

I can't speak for anyone else but I personally have no ongoing conflict with you and I'm happy to discuss anything with you or anyone at any time on steemit.chat, as I have in the past.

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment

You're flaming quite often. Clearly. This has to be pointed out from time to time even when I can't pick a side in a specific conflict.

If you've got a copy, please share it. Don't just talk your usual talk to get everyone riled up.

Likewise, but I think many would be interested in the things you've said compared to either @smooth or myself.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

You apparently do not understand how to engage in a reasoned conversation without making attacks and false accusations.

you included should in company with the other collusion whales be ashamed of your actions

I don't know what language that is exactly but it looks vaguely like a false accusation and a personal attack against me.

Please learn to communicate without trolling and attacking people

The above is an instance of flaming in an attempt to win influence from anyone watching the conflict and has to be pointed out from time to time even when one can't easily pick a side or stance on a specific issue.

Looking forward to your daily updates, Oz :D
All the best!

I'll admit that I found myself siding with Dan, regarding his stance that you're over-rewarded, on the whole (as an average, compared to what other posters make, particularly those whom use the same, or similar tags as you).

That being said, I've gained much respect towards you for how you handled this situation and for your admirable perspective on it. I admire your resilient, seemingly unwavering positive, attitude.

You have me re-thinking my position, regarding your payouts. Regardless, I think your efforts are worth more than the $5-ish payouts that you've been getting most recently. I'll definitely make an effort to up-vote your posts anytime that I see them near that ridiculous amount.

He handled it exceptional and has my respect and support also!
I have no doubt that with this kind of quality members we will make this place something we can be proud of!

what well thought-out response... respect ozchartart!

hell ya! just to be clear I have found great value in these posts and appreciate your work.

The saga continues, thanks for commenting and being a part of the community. That was my only issue, this accounts lack of interaction. I am curious how much this post will make lol. Scam 😉

That was a good and well thought out response. I know what prompted some of Dan's reaction, but I can fully understand your point as well. You did not get involved in the back and forth heated debate over this issue, and this post is pretty reasonable. I'm impressed and I "get" what @smooth was hinting at.

I've heard that other people trying to make charts have sometimes been attacked for kind of walking onto your "territory". This was hearsay, and I don't know if it was you doing it or other people. By this post I am pretty confused about that hearsay. If it is true though, that isn't cool. As to you getting flagged for your posts. I up voted your posts, not always, but at least a couple of times per week. That gave you an entire $0.01 if you were lucky. Yet, I think you WERE also in the backlash of what I see as a problem with the flag. Powerful people subjectively down voting people like @dollarvigilante because he posts here and doesn't engage further, though before that when he did engage it was because he was talking about stuff other people said before he was here and thus it had no value. Other people do it because of his reputation outside of steemit and controversy. Yet it was subjective, and he is responsible for a lot of people coming to steemit. I know Dan is aware of this, and I suspect you became an obvious center point to illustrate the problem. I will tell you that even with the flags you still make more than most people, so don't let that get you down.

There is a problem with the way the flag works I believe, and I know Dan is aware of it as well. The problem is that finding a solution that is not even easier to game so far has not been clear.

Anyway, this was a good post. I admire you for not acting like an "ass" for getting flagged. That is actually quite admirable. Like I said... you are still doing quite well even with the flags, so please don't let that get you down.

I am anti-flag myself except for Plagiarism, Spam, and Abuse... so I won't down vote anything for subjective reasons. Though I do know why it is there at the moment, as no workable alternative that cannot be potentially gamed worse has really been conceived YET.

Though some of those that do subjectively flag posts with their powerful posts are also people that like to up vote yours, and their own comments to high value. I think some of the hypocrisy involved in the justification for why they flag people based upon their own actions might have finally caused Dan to try to do something about it. From that respect I am glad he did.

You are a decent person I "think" so I think it sucks you happened to be the epicenter of that battle, but fortunately due to the amount you do make you seem to be someone who can be the epicenter and still do quite well. Other people have been crushed, and not just @masteryoda. He is who people mention for Dan, yet Dan is not even the most common whale flagger I'd be willing to wager.

what you are doing seems fair, all due respect to community I think flagging feature should be reviewed and only be used for abuse,plagiarism, etc...
let's say you made a great network with a group of people and anything you post get a lot of upvotes, so what?! this is the prize of your effort for making such communications and your contribute to the community.

Since the "flag" was once again made into a powerful vote with a confusing icon, I think it may be more worth while to rework it into a less powerful one with the proper look to it than trying create a good system for flagging so far. The flag can be added later, as the platform matures.

I was initially impressed by @dantheman calling attention to ozchartart, because I really didn't know someone was making $40-$100 posts, multiple times a day.

But to be honest, I was more impressed by ozchartart's response, as detailed as it was..

It appears to me that public disagreement such as this should happen in private messages so people could have a chance to discuss things and come to an understanding if possible.

Not all dirty laundry needs to be aired out in the middle of the street with a bullhorn.

Or even better, RSVP to Fuzzy's BeyondBitcoin (every Friday) Mumble show, to hash things out.

The idea of "flag-then-explain" doesn't seem to be as effective as "ask-via-openletter-then-debate-then-take-flag-action-if-necessary"

Honestly, none of us should be here to alienate each other. All of us want to see the success of this platform, just everyone has a different opinion on what needs to happen to get there.

+1 for private messages on the platform.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

To flag, in internet speak, is saying that someone, an arbiter, an ultimate authority or all over the world known as simply ADMIN will examine something and come to a decision.
The verb to flag is not in line with any of these other conventional definitions:

verb
verb: flag; 3rd person present: flags; past tense: flagged; past participle: flagged; gerund or present participle: flagging
1
mark (an item) for attention or treatment in a specified way.(who's attention or treatment? marked? more like hidden and devalued)
draw attention to.More like draw attention away from. That it is unintentionally the opposite, because universe loves to fuck with assholes who tell people how to live is not the point.
charge (a player) with a penalty by dropping a penalty flag. RULES. rules (echo). After the TOS is discussed then maybe we can appoint some admins jklol..
2
direct (someone) to go in the specified direction by waving a flag or using hand signals.@danthecop
signal to a vehicle or driver to stop, especially by waving one's arm. @danflagwar
raise or throw a flag to indicate a breach of the rules. @selfappointedRefereeDan
3
provide or decorate with a flag or flags. @captaindan
register (a vessel) in a specific country, under whose flag it then sails. and another million analogies about captain dan.

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/31606/downvote

I'm mostly a neutral observer in this whole debate (reaches for another handful of popcorn) but feel it's finally time for me to weigh in. I am one of those who appreciates the daily charts published by @ozchartart . As a crypto trader myself, I know that it takes time to perform analysis and arrive at a conclusion regarding future price action. What we see in these posts is that analysis distilled into its final form. I like using the posts to check against my own independent analysis and see if our thinking lines up. They're also valuable as a forum for potential discussion on trades, much like the daily threads you see on Reddit, for example /r/EthTrader.

That said, I can appreciate Dan's point of view. I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say this posts are not automatically generated. But it certainly does look that way at first glance, especially since you put your commentary as an actual comment instead of in the body of the post. I think Dan's argument basically boils down to an opinion that the work required for your posts does not justify the high payouts. This perception has caused trouble for other high profile formulaic looking daily posts as well, a recent example being Steem Voter (which I use and think is a wonderful service). Just out of curiosity, about how much time would you say goes into creating each of your posts, including time for the underlying analysis?

Perhaps you can look at ways to increase the perceived value of your posts, for example by varying the style a bit and including other kinds of content related to trading. For example you could trade according to one of your recommendations on Monday, then track the progress of the trade and show how it evolves over the course of the week. Or have contests and reward people who have the best / worst trades, etc.

Thanks for using SteemWhales. Personally seeing nothing wrong in what you are doing. Sure your rewards seem pretty high for the value of the content you are giving, but eh if you are good at networking, then good for ya.

Aha! I caught a whale! If it makes any difference, I'd like to express to you as well that the problems here seem to be down to one thing only; The strenght of the downvote and how it has been put in very few hands + unnessecarily still labeled a "flag" and given a confusing icon. If the downvote could be rebranded, given a different weight and used like a normal downvote, most of these discussion could never have started in the first place.

Good night!

/Thomas

thanks.jpg
In an attempt to stay neutral on all these issues, and the toxicity that currently exists in here, i am saying thanks for speaking your mind. A lot of thought last night was done. Two paths were laid out in front of my eyes: one path showed the division and death of a community with the root causes of ego and greed, and the other path showed a Peace Oracle leading the way towards two grown men shaking hands, at first unwillingly, but shaking hands nonetheless. I will continue to see us moving towards the second scenario because the communities that came before were all split apart in the way of the first path.

When everyone is hemorraghing on the floor, it doesn't matter who was right or what rule was made. The blood on the floor is still a mess.

I hadn't intended on saying what i'm going to say but for fuck's sake, you are all killing Steemit.

Dan: Please don't be so rigid. Accept others who are different from you even though your stomach feels sick. Be more gentle with newbies as I've seen your abrasive, robotic-like way of interacting offends countless people.

Berniesanders: Find the source of your misery. Poking a stick is getting old and you're driving away people, hurting a lot of us. You think your suffering doesn't affect us? It does. And we're hurting because of it. But I bet you're hurting more than us. What do you need? What would make you happy?

Smooth: I have little to say.

Fyrstikken: Quit going off the deep end. You're making the situation worse.

And I know all of you are going to tell me to "butt out" and that it is not my business, but you're wrong. All of you. It is my business. It's all our business. We care. A lot of us DO CARE. But we are sick of this nonsense. We are all racking our brains to figure out how to find peace for you, but realize we cannot find peace for those who do not wish to have it.

Find a way, any way to resolve your differences. This is getting out of control and you're killing Steemit. Those who don't care about Steemit and building the decentralized future need to leave Steemit. it really is that simple. YOU DECIDE.

I disagree, I feel SteemIt, has been being "killed" by lazy curation, auto voting, bots, and shady people for quite some time. (See, Price, user-retention, and activity for evidence)
Discussing it and looking for solutions isn't always neat and clean, but it is the first step to finding a resolution. It may get messy, but it is worse to just let it roll down a path that obviously isn't working.

I have to agree. I'd like for it to be less messy, but discussion and debate over these issues have to take place until we've made improvements to the platform. After all, we're still only in a beta and this platform havn't even lived one year yet.

I personally would prefer having a heavily reformed downvote rather than a flag, any day of the week. The flag could be added separately at some point, as the platform matures.

@stellabelle - we have been on the same page as some issues lately. +1

I threw my two cents at this, now I'm going back to work. I can express an opinion but I cannot fix the problems. We are mirroring what's going on.

I think all this will make good to steem as an end result and will not kill it...
I think many ideas for improvement will come because of conflicts like this... except we are all 100% stubborn...

It is stubborness and an inflexible mind that are the roots of users' frustrations.

I do believe your posts are a piece of a gigantic shit. I, with my tiny account started downvoting them way before Dan started doing so - like 3-5 mo. ago . You should remember you retaliated by downvoting my post into oblivion in return. I also clearly explained why I am doing so in a comment at the time.

Anyway, what Dan did yesterday was not right! But not because your posts were or started to be of any actual value (except for your self and your upvoters ; as in sucking rewards)... but because he himself did the same ...sucking hundreds of thousands of rewards - 100K USD...no he sucked up probably way more...
Coming now and playing fair and just is just comical.... and let me not start on HE being the one who determines "evil and good" whales....
"The full of himself idiot".... should have been the title of his post probably.

EDIT: BTW downvoting - Because I do not belie wining about something posts bring any value and or should get monetary rewards!

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

I do not belie wining about something posts bring any value and or should get monetary rewards!

Largely agree on this point and I removed my earlier vote on the post (given because it was well written and carefully presented in a non-hostile, non-divisive manner). I'm not 100% sure in all cases but I think I would generally come down on the side of these "meta" posts being "decline rewards".

BTW downvoting - Because I do not belie wining about something posts bring any value and or should get monetary rewards!

A perfectly good reason the way I see it. The "flag" was once more made into a powerful downvote with a confusing icon and I think we should start treating it like that, while also making sure we are adressing the issue of it having too much power.

While I disagree with much of what you wrote, that part made it worth voting for.

Which part do you disagree with? The part that the 300+ ozi's post are nowhere near worth 100-300 USD each, or that @DTheMan has taken 100-300K worth of rewards for almost as worthless posts as ozi?

Dan's posts are not worthless.......they are all unique and appear to have taken a lot of time and thought.

I don't have a position on each of those topics so far. I think both have provided good content at times and less valuable content at times. I've voted for both, but more recently so for @dantheman.

How much they made in the past is just not something I'm bothered by or bother with. But it's true that there are issues with the power that downvotes (still called and displayed as flags) have over users and content, just like there are issues with the ease at which some users get a big portion of the money when really good content often stays in the 5-20 dollar range.

i voted for you because of your comedic twist, 'gigantic shit'. Keeping it real has its place.

Woohoo!! Welcome to the wild west, boys!!

Ultimately, this is fairly inconsequential.
You boys are gonna play with ya'lls marbles how y'uns see fit, that's just a fact.
Personally, I have changed the channel, I'm just here now because the other channel is on a commercial.

As we can tell from some early high flyers, steemites can be fickle, what gets voted today will not enjoy it's popularity forever.

I'd like to see all that money come back into the system somehow.
What are you doing with all that found money, @ozchartart?

i like the pictures. it breaks up all the nonsense with humor. carry on.

Thank you, very much!
My initial reaction was:

Um,.....No?

Which would have been funny as being intentionally rude is out of character for me, but the response is spot on for the situation.
However, since we ain't face to face, and haven't declared our friendliness, I'm glad that I got a moment to reflect.

Sorry, but can we stop with these huge comments filled with pictures or extra large text when we're discussing an important issue?

I have pm'd you on steemit.chat.

Found this comment now. If you want to debate something however, I'd rather see it recorded on the blockchain itself as I think this would be a good practice to solve common issues with transparency.

Nope, guess I've said all I got to say.

More information on my downvoting can be found in my profile description. But if there's anything, just let me know.

As if,...

Sorry, what?

You came into my comment and told me I suck, then you want me to go to your blog to find out what rule of yours I have violated?

Seriously?

You came into my comment and told me I suck, then you want me to . . . find out what rule of yours I have violated?

No I didn't and no I don't. There's no reason to start throwing out false claims. It's all there in plain sight to read.

I'm not sure that I want to continue to hijack this thread.
Filling it up with memes, as I am,....
But if you don't want to let it go,.....

Sure, go ahead. I don't care. Nobody's here anymore unless you didn't notice, so I'm not gonna care to flag someone that's gone trolling just to give him what he wants when it serves no real purpose.

Right,....

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

Sheesh. I got tired just reading half of this - and that's not a comment on your comment. I'm just a guy who appreciates a (mostly) censorship-free platform. Don't give a damn about cryptocurrencies (I'm a solid bullion guy, and I've been around computers long enough to know they can't be trusted.), I just want to express my political position and be done with it. In some ways, the "money" seems to be at the root of the problem, and that's sad. If (or when) Steem dollars become more important than an open exchange of ideas, then I'll leave, along, I suspect, with a lot of other minnows. Thanks for sharing.

@ozchartart I want to make it clear that I have no problem with your posts and even have great respect for how you have kept yourself out of the dispute. Unfortunately, this is a dispute among the "judges" voting on your content and I hope you don't take it personally.

With all respect @dantheman , how do you expect me not to take it personally?
You publicly called me out and as one of the founders stated that my posts are the most worthless ones on the site:

"In my humble opinion, almost every single post and comment on the site represented more real value than @ozchartart was providing."

While I respect your opinion on it, you are publicly ruining my reputation, which could have a drastic impact on my future.


You publicly call people to stop voting on my posts, which is pure sabotage:

"I will no longer flag @ozchartart if other whales stop up voting for him. "


You state that in the end, it doesn't matter if someone thinks my content brings value or not,
meanwhile you are flagging my posts for days in row because your opinion is , and are determined to enforce it to others, that my content are less worth then any other on the platform.

"Whether you believe @ozchartart adds or removes value, it is clear that burying my actual comments is abusive and taking value away from the platform."

yet you firmly request in the same sentence, that people stop downvoting your content because, again in your opinion, downvoting your content takes away value from the platform?

How do you expect me not to take it personally?

I voted as this comment was hidden by an anonymous voting bot.

Interesting...

No problem with the posts? Didn't you say they could be created by AI? That's pretty insulting to someone who spends time creating those posts.

It's clear that you want to decide who earns and who does not here on Steem which I and most users here are not a fan of. Maybe it's time to start counteracting your votes.

That dan/theman and other insiders who got massive free vests or had inside information when mining the first week want to be gatekeepers for the reward pool is a major reason steem has a very small chance of success.

The practice might in rare cases be tolerable, but as so many have noted, these insiders spent the months when steem had the highest price completely exploiting the reward pool.

Their actions are not only controlling (which is antithetical to decentralized systems) but hypocritical.

I don's see it as being a gatekeeper for the reward pool, more removing the barriers to scaling steem. These insiders also designed steem, the economic system and propelled it forward to where it is today.

They're guiding the ship - give them a little space.

He might have no problem with the posts but has different opinion with other "judges". You cannot blame downvote while it only decreases reward (not hiding contents)

The whole idea of Steem is to make people to decide who earns and who doesn't. I would definitely consider to leave if I didn't like the idea.

You purposefully ignore that dan/theman can singularly decide who earns and who does not. He obviously believes that it is his prerogative, but he is not a typical member of the community. His vests were largely free because of insider mining and free coins from steemit, which they obtaind from a well-documented questionable relaunch. He has control over the protocol by being the lead dev and controlling the witness list with his massive votes and influence over other massively free-vested team members like yourself. It makes him (and you) different from other whales, and he should not involve himself this way.

No "investor" wants a monarch at the helm of a decentralized asset, and that is precisely what dan/theman makes himself.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

I mostly agree with what you wrote except I think you take it a bit too far. I'd note that Ethereum likewise effectively has a monarch at the helm, as do some other crypto projects, and quite a few investors seem okay with that.

The difference seems to be that in most cases these other monarchs exercise their special "monarch" powers rarely and only under exceptional circumstances, while Dan apparently wants to pretend to be a "regular user" when it suits him (and this on a fairly regular basis), not recognizing that he can never be such and his actions always carry the added power and responsibility of his unique role.

Steem/it would be far better off if he, and other Steemit founders and key team members with a similarly special role, simply never voted outside of extraordinary circumstances (malfunction, hack, etc.). There are probably 50 or so large stakeholders (whales) along with a few thousand other moderately active users. If the system can't function on the basis of those other large and small stakeholders making the day-to-day decisions on things like rewards, downvoting of abuse, and choice of witnesses without Dan (and his team) showing up regularly to "fix it" with their voting power, then it is seriously busted.

At a minimum, we can never know if the decentralized incentives-based model actually works at all without papa Dan and the team directing it on a centralized top-down basis unless they sit firmly on their hands and decline to routinely involve themselves in it.

EDIT: @wingz (nesting) "pushing the boat" is what we call development. If the system needs improvements, that is where they can be made in a manner that actually matters and is an appropriate role for a founder and lead developer. Whether or not @ozchartart's posts are of high quality or not, and whether or not @ozchartart is more or less worthy than someone else of occupying the #1 earning author slot is not pushing the boat, nor is it even steering the ship, it is mopping the floor of deck 3. There's are deckhands for that, or at least there should be. If not, then the problem is not that the captain didn't go mop, it is that the ship is not properly crewed or led.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Ok, I can pretty clearly see your position. I guess what you're saying is an excessive focus on the micro rather than the macro.

In that case a better communication with the users would be preferable... alongside a separate account to provide 'guidance' and 'take polls'.

You make a good point.

It's not a bad idea for their to be a macro focus, not a micro one. The whales need to see how their nitpicking and strong opinions hemorrhage this site. A more relaxed approach is most likely needed.

Decentralization will work in the long run, but with all the development required... there needs to be someone at the helm steering the ship. Dan will lose power over time along with all the largest stakeholders.

I can understand the decentralized 'utopia' that is expected of crypto, but at the end of the day someone needs to push the boat in the right direction or else this just turns into a tragedy of the commons.

Steem/it would be far better off if he, and other Steemit founders and key team members with a similarly special role, simply never voted outside of extraordinary circumstances (malfunction, hack, etc.).

Statements like this one are the reason I do not trust you or your motives.

I have crafted a solution that dissolves the monarch feel to steemit. it's the Engagement Guild. I'd be interested to hear what you think. Users seem to like it so far. Thanks.

As a tiny minnow newly born in this Steemit ocean, with a heart filled full of new hope to this world community forward, wish no more kinda war between whales which actually confuses us. We here in small country, tell our friends and people we know to join Steemit, to happily share every useful and positive things to others. Hope what is happening here recently will lead a positive end.

Politics is always messy. We choose transparency because it is better than behind-closed-doors, but it means that we must see the mess.

Yes - it's that important. And this is really training wheels for everyone in self-governance.. in a way. Since when do we have such a responsibility outside of Steemit? unless if i'm an employer or provider for a family, but anyway, nothing of this magnitude. It's epic!

Maybe I need glasses. I read training whales for self-governance.

lol, might be a freudian slip..

Very nicely crafted to assign blame to others... the evil trolls, the evil whales and the evil censorship!

Maybe you really are doing what you must for the community and the 2 people you follow, one of them being yourself - I didn't see you adding that piece of info when you compared Dans two accounts :P

There are so many cleverly crafted phrases and assignments of blame in this post that's it's exhausting going through them. I'll just stick to one point.

How can you say that you're trying to make your explanations simple...

"I write it up in as short sentences as I can and in as "English" as I can, because I know many people are not experienced with the technical terms and would not be able to follow at all what I am writing about"

(translation: I provide simple sentences saying that price went here and there without context)

...and then provide the most confusing unexplained lines ... and expect people to have the slightest clue of what you're talking about...

"About the charts in the updates, why do I keep my lines on there and don't delete them? Very simple, because the line are important! They mark where the coin made a certain movement on the chart, and that wont go away, it has happened, therefor it stays there, no one can undo it."

(translation: the lines are important... but I'm not going to explain them... no, no, no...instead I'll just give the 'illusion' that I'm analyzing something with lots of super important lines and then just keep it simple. Ya know? With basic "English"

Your first post was great

https://steemit.com/steem/@ozchartart/usdsteem-btc-technical-analysis

What happened?

My view of the matter; "Flag" him if you want and let the debates be over. Let's start using the now once again reformed downvote as an actual downvote, take away the flag icon and adjust the power it has.

Real flags can be introduced once the entire community and platform has matured, so that we actually know how it would best be used and limited.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

@dantheman, @dan,

Real flags can be introduced once the entire community and platform has matured, so that we actually know how it would best be used and limited.

This point couldn't be hammered more, whoever decided to change the wording to the flagging system and paint it like you and others have always used it: A FUCKING DOWNVOTE, and a very powerfully influential one like smooth has pointed out, clearly ABUSIVE, and put that and equate that to "hate speech, internet trolling, and SPAM" GTFO bro, spam? internet trolling? what the fuck do I say about hate speech..

Can we change the fucking icon, remove the bullshit "trolling, and BAD behavior" language, as people can understand what a fucking downvote is, that is not to say to mystify it some other way but inform people with MORE than the bullshit that it is now

"can remove rewards and make this material less visible."

and be truthful "WILL REMOVE REWARDS BASED ON BLHA BLAH" , and introduce the real discussion: is this an 18+ website or a 13+ website. make up your mind.

While I'd be hesitant to use the likely percieved by many as agressive language you just used, simply because of how it typically have ended up making the conversation into the tiring defensive/offensive back and forth rant that we've seen for so long already, I tend to agree with your overall position.

Thank you for publicly backing the position quoted.

The article and tone of argumentation solid, poised and thorough, as far as I have observed and read. thanks for sharing this message publicly in such a manner, MANY could lear from that process.

Your last words are a rally call for all and in themselves a monumental account of the potential of integrity this platform can offer to all. Thank you, all for one and one for all! Namaste :)

img

Discussion and argument both fulfill their respective purposes. No discussion without arguments to be presented.

I hear you, @the-ego-is-you, I think if everyone stands back from the situation and manages to be a little self-deprecating and humble, the mist of ire will retreat.
Many many people can see the flaws - when one is in the thick of things, seeing the lumber within the arboretum can be a challenge.
Humour is a cool tool.
Thanks for the reply, appreciate it
Namaste!

Personally, I'd much more appreciate it if the cool heads with the greater thinking skills got involved in the discussion and brought some sense with them, but I can understand your point of view.

Be well.
(And feel free to "flag" me back if you dissagree btw, I have made my thoughts on downvoting clear in my profile.)

/Thomas

To be honest, I am not sure why you would downvote a flippant lob from the sidelines as the perpetrators justify and counter-justify.
What does your downvote achieve?
I have never downvoted and I do not intend to start here.
I am just curious as to why you might do that and what it means to me - I really have no clue!

I consider it an apropriate way to make the community more accustomed to seeing downvotes again (even if they are still marked with a confusing flag), when I disagree with something and want to adjust potential rewards of any kind for that content. I've also written just a little bit in my profile description about my voting and downvoting behaviours.

I hope it means very little to you in terms of your view of me, as I mean no offence by it and I'm not hurting your reputation or even hiding your comment.

Discussion is great but the war between Dan And Bernie is getting really old. We are tired of it.

I agree. We need an end to this. Problem is I'm not sure what better ways I have than making my voice heard about it.

The better aspect to it is that I've actually seen certain changes in style of these debates that I'm very happy with and that seem to be happening due to discussion where I've been contributing with constructive criticism for both sides of the fence rather than attempting to fence down either side.

Looking forward to seing a longer post about how your Oracle would work in a situation such as this one.

Mind you, I generally think in abstract, slightly sci-fi overtones. As an atheist, I see no reason for religion other than blind faith. However, I do think I have some sort of insight into human psychology that enables me to dig into someone's mind, for the purpose of greater understanding. This comes and goes and is linked to the work I'm doing to destroy my ego. My teacher in this line of thinking is Nikola Tesla. His dream of bringing decentralized energy wirelessly to the masses was smashed by the greed machine-fueled men of his time.

This is a timeless war, and has never been won. This war we're seeing in Steemit is a microcosm of the same battle that has been fought since the very beginning. This thing could easily fail if those in power do not look within themselves to see that the answers reside in their hearts. IF they continue to act out of ego, it won't be pretty and most users will look for alternatives. I don't want this place to be Myspaced but the reality is, competition is coming, and someone WILL GET IT RIGHT. Monetizing content on a social media platform has never succeeded for the reasons we see going on now. Decentralization of power is THE ANSWER.

We couldn't have more different views on what the ego is and what role it has in our lives. I created the profile using this name, with my disagrement with the kind of ideas you express in mind.

(I'm an atheist too btw and a hardboiled anti-theist)

At the same time, I think at least that I can understand and see your point of view. (The essentials, in this particular case. I don't want to accidentally suggest omniscience)

Irrational behaviour, however it looks is always destructive to the self and that which is destructive for the self is always evil.

Rather than continueing a discussion on this forever, I will simply say that I see your Oracle as possibly being an interesting solution to some of these issues.

@stellabelle I'm getting really tired of you constantly pushing the subject. Maybe if you'd drop it, everyone else would as well. But, you gotta get that attention right? Getting involved in issues regardless of whether or not the involve you just to get some attention seems to be your MO (besides whining about never getting my votes, which you have brought up every single time we've had a conversation).

We all know there are people on all different sides that want the attention. But as both you, I and @stellabelle have aluded to in our own ways and from our own perspectives, I'm sure that we can agree some behaviours are best ignored and not fed even more.

Good night for now bernie, bella, I need to put myself to bed over here and there's another day tomorrow.

/Thomas

if you want to talk in steemit chat, i'm game.

For anyone participating or just reading alike:
More transparency please. Less suprise flags or posts as a result of what happened in the shaddows. @berniesanders @smooth @dantheman ozchartart I hope you see my message too.

I have no desire to answer why I don't vote on your posts for the fifth time. I'll pass.

I have no interest in discussing anything about my posts and your voting behavior. That is of little interest to me. You already answered my questions about that topic and I was satisfied with your answers. I offered to talk to you about anything you wish to talk about. It was an open invitation to chat about whatever is on your mind.

wow. this is impressive !

nice to see your reply
as i replied to @dantheman:
i was frequently voting on your posts per bot for some time.
someday i realized your author rewards on spot #1
I simply decided to stop voting on your posts.

I definitely respect you and your content and especially this post.
But I also respect @dantheman's decision and especially his post.
To be Honest.
this transparency of a discussion is great !
Its just too bad that this is getting dirty in a way.

Yes, we need more transparent, cool headed discussion right here on the blockchain!
-Less dirt in the shaddows is a great thing.

As far as I can see, this is very well laid out and argued without resorting to any sort of childish behaviours.

Love it. I consider the read well worth my time!

Oh I did want to say one thing about something people keep pointing at Dan about. The amount he made posting.

He was here when the platform started (he built it) and was posting occasionally (not often) during the crazy time when people were making $36K on make up posts. OF COURSE his value is going to be higher than yours.

As to when he points out he started declining payouts two months ago, people still bash him.

As far as I know you couldn't actually DECLINE payouts until a little while ago. So there likely was no way for him to actually do that until they implemented it. Same with the 100% power up option. Those were all added later.

Dan has a lot of followers, and so does Ned. They built the platform. When they share something we get excited and up vote them.

If there was no way to decline payout then he can't really be said to be milking the system. It was a catch 22... They could get complained to for not communicating enough, yet when they do communicate we all up vote the hell out of the posts. They are always well written.

Some of the people up voting you would have new authors join out of nowhere posting some simple recipe or travel blog with a few pictures (often plagiarized) and all of their posts would get up voted to several thousand dollars EVERY single time. This is when people started talking about sock puppets, and yes those accounts were bad, and were supported by many of the same whales that up vote you.

This is I believe a big part of why you ended up at the epicenter, though I do think it is clear you are no sock puppet.

As far as I know you couldn't actually DECLINE payouts until a little while ago.

That is incorrect. It wasn't implemented in the UI but the feature was available on the blockchain since June. I'm sure the lead developer could have figure out a way to use it if he really wanted to, or implemented a simple check box/menu in the UI, or he could have burned, donated, or otherwise returned his rewards if he likewise wanted to do so.

Dan has a lot of followers, and so does Ned

So does @ozchartart

Thanks for the clarification. I did not realize you could decline it via the CLI that long ago.

EDIT: That is also why I said "as far as I know".

A voice of reason emerges from a cloud of spat and spit - beware the Jabberwock!

I haven't really looked into this case much, but I have to say that after reading this post I was convinced that there is something fishy going on. I just don't get why whales would vote your posts so much. It hurts the platform because it allocates big proportion of the rewards to low-value posts. So better explanation is that here is happening some kind of vote buying or other shady business.

you should check out my recent post.... i was actually looking into some history and there was something i wanted to ask you about specifically. Are you on steemit chat?

My username is also samupaha at steemit.chat.

But aren't you and @berniesanders the same person? Because it really seems like it. Maybe dan noticed the same thing I did. https://steemit.com/steemit/@morir/who-is-ozchartart-really-the-real-story-behing-the-ozchartart-controversy-sock-opera-part-1

And after I posted my comments here, I did make it a blog post. It's on my page. If I had not taken the time to start here, I would not have had that organic process to work thru. I won't apologize for the length as some of the ridiculous comments state in my post reply on this page.

(Almost missed this comment. Damn the nesting limit.)

Sure, I wouldn't dream of demanding an apology. No offence meant earlier either, what so ever.

I also totally see what you mean about it being much easier to write right here on the page, but it still does make things a little harder from my side of the screen. Difference of opinion I guess, but I'm sure we can live with that.

I know I can LOL... and thanks.

Thank you too.

UGLY public fight. Wish hadn't seen it at all

Imagine what could be going on under the surface and trigger much worse things if the dirty laundry wasn't aired at some point. I'm more comfortable with having it all out there for everyone to judge for themselves.

Maybe it's birthing pains. However, don't think it bodes well for this platform.

It most definitely is. We're not even out of Beta testing yet and most startups don't survive a full year.

I am sorry @ozchartart. I got caught up in going after collusion and didn't think about your point of view. I think you have handled this incredibly well. I am glad to see this post was rewarded.

Great post,

As a new guy I've been worried about being pushed around by the big accounts. I've read a lot about it this week and it seems that although people are abusing their powers there is also part of the community standing up against it.

It is discouraging to new people to see that their vote/opinions can lead them to getting downvoted/flagged by people who disagree with their content.

it's the power weight some people have is far to powerful that it can blow another 50 peoples upvotes out of the water.

I will keep a watch, and make my decision as time progresses to see if this is the right platform for me.
@zebbad