I was just writing a post on how long it takes me to get feedback on my work when this update came to my attention. You might remember that the other day I wrote a post about one of the longest running vote circles on Steem with 8-10 accounts taking out hundreds of thousands in rewards from the pool.

Steemreports appears down so I am going to have to go a bit more old-school and skip the charts and instead take the grabs from:
https://steemworld.org/@sweetsssj

What you will find is lot of votes on 8 accounts:

and curation rewards from 8 accounts:

But what you might not have been paying attention to is what has been happening since I posted.

And that looks like this:

For a closer look:

If you are wondering who has been downvoting this circle, that would be @ocdb, and they have been spending their 2.5 downvotes a day in an attempt to break up this circle.

Who knows how long that could take...

oh. I do.

If we look at the voting of @Sweetsssj in the last 24 hours, it looks like this:

Getting somewhat better and, those 8 accounts who have mostly posted in the last 24 hours haven't been voting on. I will take that as an early victory on voting behavior.

Now, these posts weren't even taken to zero but as I have predicted, as long as they are taken down below the 50% curation return, it is enough to force a change to maximize the vote and, what a surprise, it only took a coupe rounds of downvotes to make the shift to a new model of maximization.

However, there is still likely a lot of room for improvement but the problem is that Sweetsss likely doesn't spend much time reading on Steem and, 800K of her voting stake is delegated to her meaning, she can't allocate it to something like @ocdb or @curangel (the new curation initiative) to earn off and spread the Steem from the pool further. What she should probably do is follow a curation trail so that she can still earn and also actually help to build the platform.

But, what about the other accounts she supports?

Well, perhaps it is time to stand on their own two feet and after a couple years of being on the platform, they should have a pretty deep social network - if they had ever commented that is. In ,my opinion, there has been far too much extraction already and from now on, the voting behavior of Sweetsss should be closely monitored as old habits die hard.

But the first lesson is, old habits can die on #newsteem.

The second lesson is that this should serve as evidence that the downvoting changes can make a difference if used well.

The third lesson?

That is pretty obvious isn't it? It is a warning to the other circles that unless they start opening up their curation habits to drive value into the community instead of a narrow sliver of users, there are initiatives and people like @ocdb, @curangel, @acidyo and @theycallmedan that are going to target them in various ways. The bigger drive should be swelling from the community though, and I hope that everyone is using their votes to improve the platform by directing Steem to those who both value it, and will use it to improve Steem further in various ways.

So far, the changes that have happened with the latest EIP have completely shifted the way many people use the platform and again as I have mentioned, brought in more randomization and less clear pathways for maximization. This should in time leak Steem into corners that were previously dry and encourage more initiatives to form. The goal should be that the "maximization of earnings" model is through creation and curation.

Lastly, I would like to thank two accounts, @ocdb for stepping up to tackle this and @sweetsssj for changing behavior without drama. For the latter, I really hope that she will spend more effort using one of the largest stakes on the platform to do what helps. I am sure that there are going to be more people than me watching what these accounts do next and who knows, perhaps they will find a way to redeem themselves by doing something great.

I am also quite confident that this is just the first of the voting rings to be dismantled.

#newsteem on!

 
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]