PuttItOut ago

While I haven't read your post I wanted to quickly say that all the dev work being done now is being built with distribution in mind.

If Voat gets the development resources we will build in distribution.

heygeorge ago

Thx pt

go1dfish ago

If the primary intention of the currency system is to be an investment vehicle yes.

I think some sort of currency (be it karma, SCP/CCP etc...) is necessary to make this sort of forum model work.

The difference in this case is that STEEM is transferrable and more limited than karma/*CP I don't know the economics behind it and honestly don't care too much because I don't view the thing through that lense.

There are better ways to make money off cryptocurrency than trying to pump the STEEM currency.

I do think the economic incentives for posting can have a negative effect on the network. It's damn hard to find any decent content on the network now IMO.

So I'm giving a go at curating, because I have always fundamentally been more of a lurker at heart that just gets grumpy when people get censored.

I welcome the feedback, I'm not suggesting that this has to happen or even necessarily that it should. The steem network is very similar to what I've been envisioning myself and brainfarting about on Voat for months so it seems worth exploring to me at least.

There are downsides, and I think it's pretty unlikely that it will happen; but it is worth considering and may be one of the best alternative places to flee if Voat does ever shut down.

european ago

With this system is content undeletable from the backend regardless of legality?

go1dfish ago

That is my understanding yes.

https://busy.org/ is an example of an alternate frontend to the network.

You could imagine country specific servers starting up to comply with the local dictators as well.

Edit: another frontend in a quite different style that focuses on a subset of the network by tag I think:

https://beta.chainbb.com

That same sort of approach would allow Voat to maintain a separate group identity within the network.

european ago

We all tend to need to use one currency or another though.

Yogus ago

These seem more open and possibly less cryptocurrency specific. You just need a distributed ledger when it's all said and done.

https://www.hyperledger.org

https://www.openchain.org/

http://www.multichain.com/

go1dfish ago

I'm open to whatever, need to research these more.

My general understanding of blockchain tech is that it doesn't really work without some built in incentive structure i.e. coins/tokens.

Also, I think such a framework is useful for the prevention of spam without central authority.

The proof of work concepts that led to blockchain development in the first place were originally designed a spam prevention measure. So in a way you could see this sort of thing as coming full circle.

Yogus ago

I am favoring open chain although I need to research their parent company coinprism. The github repo looks very approachable too: https://github.com/openchain

What's nice about this type of solution is you depend just on that api and cloud space, which is commoditized thus easily swappable.

Disclosure: Still learning about these technologies, bare with me..

chrimata ago

I don't know much about steem but I like that you're trying to contribute new ideas

go1dfish ago

Could you elaborate or provide sources?

go1dfish ago

Fair enough, no offense was intended.

You can look at steem the same way though, as an online free speech forum. Most of the participants there are going by pseudonyms as well, much closer to voat/reddit than Facebook.

Mylon ago

Steem is designed as a pyramid scheme. Buy steem coins, get more visibility by more favorable rankings, earn more steam coins for even more ranking. Or cashing out.

There's no interest in producing quality content. Only spamming shit to get clicks, either for marketing or to earn steem coins. And buying steem coins helps to earn steem coins and perpetuate the pyramid scheme.

If it does take off then the early adopters sell their steem coins to marketers and it becomes just another Reddit with paid content all over it masquerading as content.

go1dfish ago

This is a criticism of every cryptocurrency, there is some validity to it in every case as well, a failed cryptocurrency is nearly indistinguishable from a pyramid scheme.

There's no interest in producing quality content. Only spamming shit to get clicks, either for marketing or to earn steem coins. And buying steem coins helps to earn steem coins and perpetuate the pyramid scheme.

This is one of the biggest downsides of the network as I pointed out, too much of the content seems to be people just desperately trying to get returns. On the other hand, you can ignore this once you find some solid sources of good curation.

One of the interesting things about steem IMO is that it is free to post (exposure isn't cheap though) and that leads to that spammy sort of behavior. There are some reputation mechanisms and down voting to counter this, but not sure how effective they are.

The community like aspect of subverses would also be entirely lost in favor of a more tagging/categorization style system.

If it does take off then the early adopters sell their steem coins to marketers and it becomes just another Reddit with paid content all over it masquerading as content.

Also a valid concern, as a counterpoint all of the balances and wallet behavior are public, so it's clear who the "whales" are so to speak.

If it remains free to post, and possible to insulate yourself into a smaller network of like minded folks just as was originally intended with subreddits then that doesn't necessarily doom the network IMO.

Somebody inevitably has to pay to move the bits, if they do that with clickbait and transparent market manipulation it may have bad effects (worse than reddit is now?) but it may also bring along truly free expression for the ride.

Mylon ago

The initial design of Bitcoin (coin earning power is based on percentage of computing power owned, coin rate decreases over time) very much is a scam but if it lives beyond the scam stage it's pretty solid. This has also helped protect it from many alt coins as they have to jump that scam stage hurdle and few have tried to significantly modify the disbursement scheme. Steem on the other hand embraces the pyramid scheme with the mechanisms I've already described.

Steem is more like reddit in that visibility can be purchased. Even if you can find solid sources of curation, those too will be purchased and subverted eventually.