The downzap game is becoming annoying and disturbing. To me, it no longer seems like just a matter of liking or disliking a post. Until now, downzaps have been seen as a sign that you don't like a post. So, you don't like a post, you downzap it. Fine. But this is not fair at all. In a forum where freedom of speech is respected, downzaps seem to me like a denial of free speech, because a downzap has an impact on the ranking of a post. In other words, you are telling the other person, who has shared an opinion that many people don't like, but which is his own opinion, and you downzap him, shutting his mouth. You are telling him: We don't want you to express your opinions. Then set conditions for being accepted into Stacker News and don't lie that this is a free forum.
I have been here for a very long time. Many good stackers who used to write here back then are no longer here today, and this shows that this forum is losing the values it once had. Back then, downzaps were completely meaningless. If you didn't like a post, you simply didn't interact with it: you didn't zap it, you didn't comment on it, but you respected the other person's freedom of speech.
Another problem I see with downzaps is the fact that downzaps are being used not simply because you don't like the post, but because you don't like that particular stacker either. So, you may have made a good post, but two or three stackers with whom you have had a debate and disagreed with their opinions simply downzap you, to shut your mouth, so that you don't post anymore. Because, regardless of the content, they will downzap you, because they don't like you as a person, not the post. I have seen many posts that did not deserve a downzap, but one (or several) stackers had given them one. This is unfair.
This last category of stackers seems very low to me. They seem to me like people without integrity and cowards. Hiding behind anonymity, they downzap all the stackers they don't like as individuals.
@K00b should review the downzap rules. In my humble opinion, downzaps should not be anonymous. I should know that such-and-such a stacker gave me a downzap. Also, a downzap should be accompanied by concrete reasons why such-and-such a stacker is giving a downzap.
This would make the situation more transparent and give the person who posts a chance to understand why they were downzapped, so that they could keep it in mind when posting again. But it would also hold the person who gives the downzap accountable, making them give a reason why they are downzapping.
Let's discuss this issue.
What do you think?
What does @K00b think about this situation?
Back then, scammers, trolls (including concern trolls), bots, and nutters couldn't boost and self zap, or get other scammers, trolls, bots, and nutters to zap their posts into prominent visibility. Back then, we had trust weighting zaps/boosts, preventing scammers, trolls, bots, and nutters from gaining visibility disproportionate to what our version of consensus decided.
Today, downzapping is the only tool stackers have to fight scammers, trolls, bots, and nutters.
Unless you've read the mind of every downzapper, we don't know this to be true. It probably is true sometimes, but I personally downzap scams, trolls, bots, and nutters because I want to save other people from drowning in scams, trolls, bots, and nutters.
This doesn't solve the problem you have as well as you think it does. I can just spin up a fresh one-off account, give a reason like "hahahahaha," and downzap. These problems aren't present for lack of me thinking about them. These problems aren't as trivial as "@k00b should just do xyz. problem solved."
I think, nay I am fairly certain, downzapping is less of a problem than scammers, trolls (including concern trolls), bots, and nutters boosting and zapping themselves/each other. Unless of course, one is a scammer, troll, bot, or nutter. So, we will be prioritizing fixes for scammers, trolls (including concern trolls), bots, and nutters boosting and zapping themselves/each other.
Really strange to hear you say that since you are using downzaps to cover up scam reports instead of using them against the scammers?... I've been trying to protect the community against Justin Shocknet draining their sleeping Lightning wallets, and you've been downzapping my warning:
Actually. I'm downzapping your bullshit.
Why?
I only downzap your boosts though and not all of it. I don't wish to censor nor can I afford it, but I do wish to at least undo some of the rank manipulation you're buying, especially on something so poor quality. It's not personal, even though to me it reflects poorly on you personally.
It also reflects poorly on SN to have that top ranked.
How is this warning "completely incoherent"? What corrections would you like to add?
For one, you cannot receive a lightning payment to your node if you're offline, so it's a non-issue. The sending node will construct an onion path and the payment will time out because the handshake protocol is interactive. Second, you anyway need a watchtower construct if your phone client has inbound liquidity from nodes other than your own.
What does that have to do with what Justin is saying? Justin has forever been saying that the interface to LN must run on a (your) server and then the phone interface should be a light client. This is very similar to the bArk lightning bridge you're a fan of, and you're both bickering over competing tradeoffs and design choices, except with increasing escalation into the absurd.
I don't know why you feel like you should write accusations as if you're Luke. You're a smart guy. Respected. Why are you on a villain/retardation arc?
Correct, I clearly specified this condition that the user must have previously received funds on lightning. Read my post again:
So there's no corrections for me to make, as my warning is already coherent.
I acknowledge watchtowers as a (trusted) fallback.
why is then k00b on #1 and not you?
edit: ok I got it now, you downzapping
@Kruw,@k00bis taking care of@dendehomie(?)@k00b 's spent balance is the only one that is large enough to account for the downzaps made against my scam warning. The sats dende and I spent are accounted for (boosting our own posts).
Because there are more people than just me downzapping? Also
spentis zaps + boosts + downzaps. And boosts and downzaps to a boost don't have to fall into the same 24h window.Actually, go fuck yourself as well. You are just a shit...
The only scammer is you, everyone can read what I wrote, and that its not what you claim I wrote.... you're just an illiterate clown who literally does what you accuse me of doing... promoting mobile slop that will lose users funds.
I'm not pushing mobile clients, I don't work on Ark, I build a REAL ALWAYS ONLINE LIGHTNING NODE FOR SERVERS... I shit on mobile lightning constantly... and everyone knows that.
Keep projecting and lying, this is great for me, everyone can see how retarded you are... go back to bitcointalk and pretending the Satoshi operators care about your scam coinjoins and fake L2.
I just had to look up what a “concern troll” was. Very interesting! I’ve been aware of this concept, but never knew there was a term for it. Yeah, I feel like concern trolls are among my greatest downzapping prey. If they’re not concern trolls, they’re just folks making straw man arguments, so either way they’re cooking up good downzap fodder. I agree with @Tef that downzaps over disagreements is certainly collateral damage for all of this though. Maybe the virtues and vices of downzaps are all just an examples of the value of multiple venues for public discourse.
@K00b, What do you think about this post? Does it look like a "scammers, trolls (including concern trolls), bots, and nutters" kind of post to you? It's downzappd 1000.
Why?
Because someone does not like it? I don't think so. If someone doesn't like it, he can comment here and express his disagreement.
Question for you now that I've answered yours: do you think upzapping your own content with an alt account(s) is fair?
Alright, your position is clear. You'd rather see stackers fighting each other with downzaps than trying to find a better and more acceptable solution. That's fair enough. Your forum, your rules.
When did I say that "upzapping your own content with an alt account(s) is fair"?
There you go reading other people's minds again. This time mine.
I never said you did. Please answer the question though.
No, I don't think it's fair, for sure.
Don't you realize that's a ridiculous argument? I don't need to read anyone's mind to make a logical deduction. I look at the facts and draw a logical conclusion. I'm not stupid. Come on, man. I used to respect your opinions and the way you reason, but with the way you're communicating now, I'm starting to question everything. Maybe I was wrong.
So you've never done it?
You're are telling me what I think and what I intend to do and I disagree. Nowhere did I say what you said I'd "rather see."
That's a good habit.
While you're questioning everything, you may want to question whether you're wrong right now too.
Go fuck yourself @k00b. Do a favor to all us here...
I'd guess it's because this has been discussed extensively over the last week (e.g. there's already a post on the frontpage discussing related issues), let alone over the last months, and whoever downzapped it is upset at seeing more, in their view, naive takes on what @k00b should do.
It's going to be very hard having a productive discussion when we assume what's in other people's heads.
They could and I hope they do, but given the current algorithm, it's also acceptable for them to attempt to curate their and others' experiences by downzapping content - just like it's acceptable for the anyone who agrees with you to upzap this content.
It's a complicated situation, but I agree with much of what you say. At first I noticed it with hot button political issues like Gaza. Downzappers argue that they are protecting stackers from scammers, but, of course, what makes them the sole arbiter of what is a scam?
I hope your post generates some discussion before it gets downzapped into oblivion.
We're each exercising our judgement about these things. It's not about being the sole arbiter. If you're confident that something is a scam and want to reduce it's visibility, that's fine, but you may be throwing your sats away if everyone else thinks it's valuable.
Fair enough. I don't see an easy solution. I just hate downzapping, but I don't like looking at overly boosted nonsense posts at the top of my screen either. I feel like the anytime boosting has made things worse. I prefer the old method of only boosting when making the post. I know bots and trolls are always a problem, but didn't high sybil fees pretty much keep those issues in check?
Boost must have a time limit and if anyone wants to boost it again after say 24 hours, double the boost amount needed. The booster OP will exhaust in a few days.
Yes he might make another post and boost, that again is another problem .
I think it's a mistake to overdesign the system with arbitrary choices, because of a few undesirable outcomes.
We go through this every so often and the pathological behavior usually subsides on it's own because Stacker News has self-correcting mechanisms.
Yes definitely. It's not net negative as well. Downzapping vs Boost is also making daily rewards swelling to a level where all even those been out of SN for a while are back again. And yeah they have also been posting some good content.
I don't love most of the boosting or downzapping behavior I see either. For now, though, it appears that willingness to spend in those ways is greater than willingness to spend on zapping.
I hope that changes.
I too am not a fan of either , however I believe they are indirectly responsible for more zappers and zapping. I've seen that there's an increase in number and amount both since this war started.
Exactly. We're searching out a new equilibrium state.
I zapped this post more than what I usually zap and now I see someone already downzapped it with a 1000 sats. It really feels bad when a post that is no spam, no slop but downzapped..
If you don't like someone in your house, do you beat them with stick?
Actually, yes. Bad example? 😀
This is America. A stick is best case scenario.
Got it. House = Family, now?
You will still say yes, then I'll say - House = wife 😜
It's already being downzapped. So, I wouldn't be so optimistic.
You are touching on some difficult philosophical issues about what to do about the "commons", where my actions in the commons naturally impacts everyone else's experience.
For example, zaps and downzaps have equal effect on ranking a post. Why are upzaps ok but downzaps not? Why are boosts ok?
In the end, everyone has freedom of speech here, but who has the right for their speech to be heard in the commons? It's a tough question.
The way to think about this is as a collective curation effort. We aren't privileging one perspective over another, which is what would happen with more rules around how downzapping works.
Everyone brings their own preferences and values (or lack thereof) to the curation effort and have to pay to see them implemented.
Someone downzapped this post already!
Yes I agree that there needs to be some kinda rules.
Yes, but I don't see @k00b taking this into account. 😞
Why are you so mad at downzaps? As far as I can tell, you weren't one of the people getting targeted (other than this post). If anything, they should be the ones more upset.
Downzaps are treated symmetrically to zaps in terms of their effect on rankings. I am not sure why downzaps make you upset but upzaps don't.
You use the word "unfair" a lot. What about downzaps makes it less fair than upzaps?
Am I getting downzapped now? Really? 😂
Have a look here: #1475219
31k sats downzapped just for expressing my opinion. It’s not a scam, a troll post, or anything similar to the shit that is supposed to be downzapped.
You're still not getting targeted personally. It got downzaps because of the topic. I also would like to understand why you think it is unfair (compared to upzaps and boosts)
I think the problem isn't anonymity, it's that creating an account costs nothing. If you want people to own their downzaps, making them public isn't the answer, making accounts cost something is (age, sats in bond, reputation...), when a disposable account isn't free anymore, anonymity stops being a problem.
A downzap is a tool, and like any tool, it depends on who's using it, if the community uses it to bury a scam, that's fine. If a troll uses it to mess with someone, that's not, but I don't think the tool is the issue, the issue is that anyone can use it for free.
Today are around 200k downzaps in rewards. Definitely SILENCING.