Private ownership is usually great answer to the tragedy of the commons. In a blockchain world the best solution is to change the incentives (what blockchain is encouraging to be done by paying for it) and UI (users don't necessarily want to make great effort to do something even when it rewards them more).
The blockchain reward system is quite good right now. I wouldn't do any drastic changes to it.
The UI is the thing what should be adjusted. The reason why some posts get a lot of votes is because they can be seen in the front page. If they were not on the frontpage/trending, they would still get a lot of votes but less than they get now.
Frontpage is creating too strong positive feedback loop for some posts that get a little bit of initial attention from the whales. When a post gets into frontpage, it's pretty much guaranteed to get a lot more votes.
My solution would be to individualize the frontpage for every user (maybe a combination of their feed and recommended posts that they may like). Trending page should be a little bit harder to see (a couple of mouse clicks) so that users wouldn't spend so much time in there (the feedback loop has to be made weaker).
There is a downside to this. Posts with large(r) payouts need to be seen so abuse or risks of abuse can be detected. Yesterday I saw the post for the iOS app and it had already reached over $10000 after several hours with no verification whatsoever. I only saw this post because it was on the front page.
It was not an author or topic I would have followed (the author was brand new anyway). After I posted a comment about the lack of verification, the post dropped as low as $1000. In this case, the author of the post then provided convincing verification and the post ended up climbing back to around $10000. But it could just as easily been the case that the post was a fraud (and there have been some high profile frauds on Steemit) and was only caught before a $10000 payout because it was highly visible.
A counterargument might be that if the post isn't visible then it wouldn't get such high rewards in the first place, but I question whether that is a good thing either. Once the post was verified, people found it worthwhile and voted it back up. Having worthwhile posts not get rewarded for lack of visibility also seems bad.
I don't know the answers here, just that there isn't one easy answer to all these issues.
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Yeah, you are absolutely right that trending page is an important tool. I'm just trying to say that it shouldn't be something that users will always see first.
There should be more pages that show potential problems. For example, a page for posts/users that are gaining lots of flags.
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Smooth, that could be as simple as you (and anyone with a hammer as large as yours who need to see things like this) setting your bookmark to the "trending" page.
Meanwhile, the default page of the site is changed to naturally land on "new".
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Great feedback! The feedback loop on the tending page is very real.
I agree that the UI needs a lot of work, especially with search and organization in order to help seek out hidden gem posts.
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I'm assuming that at first glance the "Trending" front page was meant to be a draw for new users. They would see the high dollar posts and think, "Wow! That could have been me!" The funny thing about social media is plenty of things go viral without a monetary incentive. Some people actually do engage with social media for the enjoyment factor.
Facebook has close to 1 billion active accounts and doesn't pay their users a dime. It filled a need in a space where there was a want. No one signed up to strike it rich on Reddit, Facebook, or YouTube, and yet some people's claim to fame came from just those very places.
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Hi @samupaha, whilst not disagreeing with you, it would be great to hear why 'Private ownership is usually great answer to the tragedy of the commons' - thanks
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The basic idea is to eliminate the commons. If you have a piece of land that nobody owns, the incentives can be for everyone to exploit it in every manner and to a degree that the land is ruined. If someone owns it, the owner won't want the land ruined and will most likely define rules and limits governing its use.
Not all commons can realistically be converted to private ownership (example: air), so this approach isn't always a useful one.
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I see thanks. As we know Ostrom’s achievement was to effectively answer that private property isn't the only means of protecting finite resources from ruin or depletion. So I guess the one main question here is if any of Steem is commons or not (including social elements like trust in the system itself). And if it is, we'd perhaps be wise to learn from these kind of principles in action and if not, have an effective transparent model that we can all believe in. Thanks for finding the time to response @smooth.
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