Houston, we've had a problem. A major UX design flaw.
I've been banging on about this issue in comments but after seeing posts like this or this or this, I've decided it's serious enough to deserve a separate post.
The symptoms
(1) No way to express a reasonable stance
Users who encounter a post which in their view is legitimate but does not deserve the payout it has already accumulated, have no way to express their stance. All they can do is apply the spam/abuse flag but there is a major problem with that: the flag is clearly not meant for the purpose of lowering a payout. There is an explicit warning associated with the flag:
Flagging or downvoting a post can remove rewards and make this material less visible. You can still unflag or upvote later if you change your mind. Are you sure?
As a result, people are rightly reluctant to use the flag in this case. It just feels uncomfortable and stupid to flag a legitimate (and in most cases valuable) post with a spam/abuse flag. Also, the user is told about removing rewards (what kind of rewards??) and making the post less visible. Whereas all the user wants to achieve is very simple: make the payout lower, nothing more.
Doesn't it look wrong that Tara's post, while receiving an enormous payout, is heavily flagged and is deprived of the leading image? Imagine how confusing this is both for the author and an external observer.
What is most important is that the desire to lower a payout is, in most cases, well justified and does not stem from envy or anything like that. It stems from the concern for the well-being of the whole system. The payout needs to feel right. Which means it needs to be perceived as both not too low and not too high. A payout that is too high is as damaging as payout that is too low - Steem acquires reputation of a system where funds are spent carelessly.
(2) No way to prevent trolls
Currently any troll can flag a legitimate post and there is no way to counteract it. Nobody can do anything, even a whale - the flag stays forever. It's a just matter of time when a malicious actor goes through all posts and flags them down - this will render the flag completely useless as all posts will be flagged.
(3) Spam/abuse flag has lost its meaning
People who put lots of effort to spot actual spam and abuse are not being appreciated. Why? Because the flagging process has lost its primary meaning - you never know when you see a flagged post if it's actual spam/abuse or valuable (yet overpaid) content. So the author of a post never knows if they violated any social rules, happened to be overpaid (due to no fault of their own) or were just troll victims. As a result, we get user confusion, as expressed here, and/or user frustration, as expressed here.
(4) It's not clear how to undo upvote
I think very few people are aware that when you've accidentally upvoted a post/comment or just changed your mind, there is a way to undo your action by clicking the upvote icon again. So the functionality is there but it's hidden and quite counter-intuitive.
The solution
It's simple - split the downvote functionality into two separate actions:
- Flagging spam/abuse (with the option to un-flag a post which will enable users to counteract trolls or just express their stance that a post does not actually belong to the spam/abuse category).
- Actual payout downvote, treated as a complementary option to payout upvote. And payout downvotes should participate in the curation rewards on equal terms with payout upvotes - downvotes are as important as upvotes: they aim to set the payout at the right level, not too low and not too high.
There will be a clear logical distinction between those two actions and they will not overlap:
- You use the flag when there is an issue with the post itself and the author is capable to fix the issue. So it's a way to give feedback to the author about social rules being violated and also a way to warn other users about potential abuse/spam.
- You use the payout downvote option when there is an issue with the perceived value of the post - and there is no flaw related to the post itself or its author. Instead, this is a legitimate part of your curation efforts. There should be no hurt feelings involved - both upvoting and downvoting are part of the same process of setting the payout at a level that feels right by the shareholders. Just as buying and selling sets the price of a commodity, upvoting and downvoting sets the price for posting. Surely, we don't have markets where only buying side exists and selling is disabled.