lol, I just looked up an old comment of mine on dwblood's post about experimentation on the platform

>...and be prepared to take some hits to the rewards we expect while trying them out.

I was not prepared ;>

> it is not good for minnows and dolphins that usually don't get whale hits to have those rare whale hits jerked out from underneath them.

I agree. I think the preferred approach is for the remaining whales to scale back their voting below the 800 MV threshold. That would remove the need for downvotes. Until then, it is unfortunately a necessary evil if you buy into the idea that it is the right direction to head.
> That is where the whale home run comes in.

The same thing could be accomplished with a swarm of dolphin votes.

>  But I have always disliked group punishment, which is what this is.

The intention behind this is really not 'punishment'. Any interpretation along those lines is a misunderstanding on behalf of the person thinking it.

> are we looking forward to a time when whales aren't allowed to use their investment for their own interest AT ALL?

That is not the goal.

> Why would someone invest in the currency or the platform if their own curation ROI is minimal?

I don't think most investors are looking for returns through curation rewards. Investors want ROI through passive investment. Increasing the value of STEEM would be much better than dismal curation rewards on a currency that is continuing to lose value.

> The hope for minnows and dolphins is to contribute enough content to earn whale votes and eventually whale Steem Power. Investment folks invest money, contributors invest time and effort.

800 MV is still a lofty goal to aim for. Beyond that, the game changes. Very few people are going to get to that point unless they are very serious, and hopefully those investors are OK with the idea of capping their influence at a certain point for the good of the platform.

> I just think that the experiment is doing more harm than good.

It is too early to tell that IMO.

> Can we get a heads up, perhaps, on how long the experiment is going to run? That might allay some of the hostility towards it.

I don't have the answer to that.

> I got smacked down on three posts today, which were written and "rewarded" before the experiment started. Obviously that affects my view of the experiment

Understood. I appreciate that you are keeping an open mind about it though. Keep in mind - those of us who are dedicated to the platform want to see it succeed on a massive scale. If we get this right, the few dollars of coins you make off your posts today could be worth thousands in a few years. That is what we are aiming for. With that in mind, it is best to make decisions that are going to give us the best possibility to make it there.

> It's good for me to get an occasional whale hit, because otherwise, I will not make any return on my time investment here.

You are more likely to get a stable revenue coming from all your followers than just a few whales.
Less whale vote means more power to all your followers.

>If the community really wants to feel good about giving each other penny payouts for each others' cat pics, that's one thing.

steemit is only one site, there will be dozens of websites or more using the steem blockchain, if you want it to scale and allow everyone to participate it is absolutely necessary that people are able to send each others a few cents. There will be versions of facebook for steem where people only interact with their friends, those people should be able to send a few cents to each other without a whale upvoting them.

>but if the community wants a diverse range of topics to be addressed here, then we can not rely on the community to reward contributors whose work does not interest or even offends the majority.

What interest the majority is what is voted for by the majority.   What you describe is actually the old system where whale get to chose what the majority like.

>But I have always disliked group punishment, which is what this is.

Then why have you not been more vocal about the majority having no say in the platform, this is the biggest punishement of all. Or why didn't you speak up about whales autovoting a minority of authors while leaving the rest ignored? This is also a big punishment.

>or are we looking forward to a time when whales aren't allowed to use their investment for their own interest AT ALL?

Whales can use their investment for their own interest, just look at smooth and abit they are doing just that and smooth is up 50k usd today ! 

>Thanks for the $10,000... Mr. Investor...I hope you enjoy the same ROI that the guy that invested $100 makes

Someone with $10,000 makes a lot more curation than someone with $ 100

>If no one invests big money, we stay at a low market cap (Stephen Kendal addressed the dangers of that a few days ago)

People will start to invest money when they see value in it, like i said blockchain have only values if they empower people, if they reproduced the same old power structure model than we already have then a blockchain is worthless.
Curation is hardly an incentive for investors, curation earns you 20% annum, this is chump change for investors, they want 10-1000x return.

>The hope for minnows and dolphins is to contribute enough content to earn whale votes and eventually whale Steem Power

Minnows will never be able to be a whale by just posting, some users have been here for months, engaging and posting a lot and they were still not able to give 1 cents with their vote.

"Thanks for the $10,000... Mr. Investor...I hope you enjoy the same ROI that the guy that invested $100 makes"
the guy investing 10k should get less than the 100 lol