Let's do an experiment to see what happens if the whales were to stop voting for ONE day.
You all know robinhoodwhale, curie, minnowsunite and those other 'charities'. Why do they exist? Why are they so popular? Because everything is just fine or because there's a problem?
The reason why those project exist and are so popular, is because they address a very real problem; the results are skewed!
Now, let's look at some stats;
Yes, you're seeing that right ... the total amount of posts and comments just keeps going down, down and down ...
Now, let's look at these stats;
To make a long story short; 1.07% of the active accounts distribute 90% of all the voting power.
Which means that each time a whale votes at 100% they have such a massive impact that everybody else's loses 90% of their voting power, which is why posts don't get enough rewards and the results on the tag pages are skewed ... not at the top, but the middle is basically missing and it's a slaughter at the bottom.
What would give the best results? 30 people making all decisions or thousands of people making those decisions?
So, what's the problem? Well, it's a combination of 2 problems;
- too many massive whales
- not enough mature dolphins.
So, what needs to happen?
The whales have to stop voting!
(or at least put it on 10% and leave it there or ... vote really a lot, like 50 to a 100 times per 24 hours))
That way everybody else, as well the dolphins as the minnows will get more voting power ... 10 times more voting power, so that we no longer have hidden gems, at least not at the amounts we have now.
At least stop voting at 100% and simply vote at 1-10%, that way you still get to play, your 1-10% vote is still significant, but not too significant, so you don't suck all the air out of everybody else's lungs ... because, despite all the good intentions ... that's what happens when a whale votes at 100%; it takes away all the time, the effort, the love, the blood and the tears all the other users have been putting into their voting ... all wasted.
The whales got too big too soon and now they're skewing all the results by consuming such a massive chunk of all the voting power that there's just not enough left for the minnows and the dolphins, with as a result that Steemit is working completely backwards ... and the posts are going down ... and people are leaving!
And 
was smart enough to 'spam' me with a link to his post; to do a test for just 1 day is his idea and I think it's a great idea!
I assume we support the scientific principles, right?
Good, because that means you will never say 'no' to an experiment, right?
There's no point trying to guess or argue, as long we don't have accurate data to work with, so ... we need to conduct a proper scientific experiment to see what would happen if the whales were to stop voting at 100% ...
And in order for a theory to be considered scientific, it needs to be be able to accurately and consistently predict the outcomes of the experiments ... so, here my predictions;
What would happen if the whales were to put their voting slider at 10% and leave it there?
All the dolphins and minnows will get 10 x more voting power! Yes, 10 times! And that's how all of a sudden there will simply be no more problem ... yes, just like magic ;-)
With as a result that posts that get up to a 100 votes will already have the reward they deserve ... the problem will be solved, there will no longer be a need to go and look for hidden gems, because they will be almost non-existing.
The total amoun of posts will go up again, people will come back instead of leaving and eventually the price of $SBD will go up again as well ... what's not to like?
So, please ... upvote this posts, so we can all come together and come up with a date to run a test and see what happens if the whales were to put their voting slider on 10% and leave it there. (It will be like a miracle!)
Ow, and by the way ... to all the whales ... if you want to see your estimated $ go up, rather than what it has been doing now for weeks, which is down, down and down ... you have to put your voting slider on 10% and leave it there!
Don't do this out of principle or sympathy, do it because it's in your own self interest!
Another prediction I can make; once I no longer have to write these type of posts, I will be able to finally get to this site;
http://bounty.steemr.io/
and work on the related posts links
And I got an idea for the voting slider as well ... keep the mathematics, but just display it differently; select 1-2-3-4-5 votes to give from the 100 (per 24 hours) , exact same maths, but totally different perception.