Game theory of downvoting ?
Ok so first of all I want to preface this by saying this is my attempt at applying established game theory to HIVE out of interest in how it could apply. It was inspired by all the recent talk on downvotes and is not aimed at any one party.
So:
- These are not theories I created
- I am trying to apply them to HIVE/POB
- Humans are complex, I am talking in basic terms that take out things like emotion and morality, nothing below is meant to offend or belittle the community.
- Assume everyone is driven by HIVE/POB rewards (Not true I know)
- I am saying HIVE, but could be LEO, POB or any HIVE tribe
Ok so let's talk about conflict, downvotes and wars that go on. Hypothetically when two members disagree they can take one of two approaches, they can be a:
a) Aggressive down-voter and attack hard and in an unrestricted manner, downvoting every post of the person that they disagree with and conflict with, only stopping if seriously injured.
b) Angry commentator, who writes a comment disagreeing but does not start or enters into fights and does not use a downvote.
If an aggressive down-voter fights an aggressive down-voter they will not stop downvoting until one of them has lost a serious amount of HIVE.
If an angry commentator meets an angry commentator they will write comments at each other but eventually will back off and no downvotes are given, but a small amount of HIVE is lost due to wasted time commenting back and forth rather than writing really good blogs.
Ok so if you win a conflict straight away you don't lose any HIVE, if you get in a conflict but stop you only lose some hive but if you get into a long drawn out war you are going to lose a lot of HIVE.
Ok so we know that aggressive down-voter will always beat angry commentators, it's always a win for the aggressive down-voter and a loss for the angry commentator because the angry commentator will not strike back. What we want to explore is what happens when we look at different numbers of aggressive down-voter and angry commentators in a community.
Ok let's look at nothing but nice friendly angry commentator, no one loses a lot of HIVE because no downvotes are given, however, we might see some small lose because of time wasted commenting back and forth. Overall everyone does pretty well.
But then comes along an aggressive down-voter, they start to win every conflict and rapidly take over a community. This draws more people to become aggressive down-voter and suddenly we see a swing towards aggressive down-voter. Suddenly everyone is in a sustained war and losing a lot of HIVE.
Ok what if your an angry commentator in a community full of aggressive down-voters? Yes you take an initial hit to your votes but you don't get into any wars, you actually start to do better than all the aggressive down-voters who are voting themselves into oblivion all around them. More and more people see this approach working and start to flip into an angry commentator.
As you can see from the above there are 3 types of communities which can exist. Pure angry commentators, pure aggressive down-voter or some ratio that stabilises out. This number is driven by the mechanics of how much loss in HIVE a single downvote is compared to how much you lose in a war vs. the cost of not blogging.
The best situation for anyone player is always a group of angry commentators . The problem is the only way for a community of only angry commentators to stop an aggressive down-voter is to form a pact that they will collectively turn on someone who does who does. Otherwise its too tempting to switch.
Ok so what is the best strategy from a game theory point of view? Act like an angry commentator every single time until you are attacked by an aggressive downvoter, then act just like an aggressive downvoter.
Again a very very basic take on a very very complex system.
^ my art
Interesting read! I'm going to have to digest it a bit.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Hey glad you liked it! It's a bit truncated and simplified but let me know if you have any questions!
I think this assumes that angry downvoters only downvote other angry downvoters. If the angry downvoters are also quick to downvote angry commentators, don't the angry commentators also get voted into oblivion, even if they are unwilling or unable to retaliate with forceful downvotes of their own?
So I imagined when a angry downvoter downvotes someone there is two responses by the down votee, they either don't respond to avoid more downvotes or downvote back.
I'm this model I am assuming that without a proactive response the cycle stops.
So option one the downvoter wins, the perosn they downvoted backs down no more downvotes are given (very simple model) . Downvoter wins, the person who got hit takes it on the chin and takes the moderates loss. They probably also need to change thier behaviour to avoid further downvotes.
Or if you downvote back you start a flag war. Both parties loss.
I do agree it's a simple take and assume the downvoter does not follow that person around out of spit and people change thier behaviour to avoid more downvotws.. which may be a very very simple and way to logical take now that I write it
Definitely well said,have seen someone who downvote me just because the said I wrote (lolz) on another users post,it is very funny to just se someone like that doing that for a selfish reason
This was a good read.
I mean. I am angry about this post and many other things... angry, and not alone... grrrrr.
Good angry commentator lol!
I'm glad you caught that... if you didn't, I would have just looked like a bafoon.
Congratulations @failingforwards! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Your next target is to reach 1750 replies.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
I'll share my opinion in a simple logical way which I'll see The blockchain as a meal thereby downvoting serves as the salt. A little is okay in the system but too much of it will f*CK up the block chain(meal), making it toxic.
Disagreeing on a post doesn't mean you have to downvote, leaving a comment might be a first approach to see how the other person reacts, which determines the next move.
Sometimes ego or power gets a hold of us and we think of doing the rational thing(DV) first and the victim either retaliate or just go his own way by not adding too much salt which will fuck up everything and create a flag war just as you said.
Most of all these dramas are kind of long term grudge that should have been settled long ago or we sometimes are too emotional to accept corrections from others who might be below us or above.
I believe maturity should have been a little helpful when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle in real life and on the internet.
Note:just my own personal opinion
!PIZZA
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
@failingforwards! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @marvinix.
Learn more about $PIZZA Token at hive.pizza (2/10)
Its a good opinion!
I agreed with you on this
Well an angry downvoter should not be angry with an angry commentator because what goes around comes around...when you push the angry commentator to the wall then he or she might be forced to act back before you downvote them into silence..