<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTix86ErSXBBR7Dd6HzYJb8GaWRqKuyZ1krRqgdohWwgm/image.png)</center>
<h3>@timcliff [posted](https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/proposal-to-make-spam-less-profitable) earlier today, suggesting the possibility of a minimum payout threshold for comments as an anti-spam measure. 
It wasn't wildly popular amongst those responding, but there's definitely a problem which needs to be addressed and I'm glad he's put it on the table.</h3>

**In Tim's words;**

*One thing that I think increases the amount of spam is the fact that there is a small chance of earning rewards - even if the posts/comments suck. If a user posts 10,000 "nice post" comments in a month, and 10% of them earn a few pennies worth of rewards - then that is still a profitable business model.*

Or as @tarazkp wrote [in response;](https://steemit.com/steemit/@tarazkp/all-upside-the-cost-of-community-benefits)

*This is the catch-22 problem isn't it? A cost can't be introduced because it will decrease interest levels in users but, without a cost, there is only upside to behaving badly. People want to have the best of both worlds but there is an incompatibility between the two. People want to protect the new accounts from costs so they can grow but in doing so means the system is getting swamped by those that only care for profit.*

___

The first problem with many proposed solutions is that they need to be endorsed by the witnesses and go on to apply to the entire blockchain; the second is that they really struggle to disincentivise spammers without also punishing legitimate minnows.
___

<h2>What if blog pages had a new display telling us about their pending payouts and number of active posts and comments, with a "Downvote account" button?</h2>

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdqaupbbs5eyPS6i1NyuDsUJD5H26b73dWnofCEaVCmRv/image.png)</center>

You could catch me spamming, click my account name to go to my blog page, discern (according to your own subjective judgement) that you're looking at a spammer and choose to downvote the whole account, oldest active posts and comments first.

Your front end of choice, Steemit.com, busy.org etc, would calculate the total downvote strength required to drop each comment to zero, and downvote as many of them as your chosen voting strength would permit, starting with those closest to payout, working back to the present. Effectively voting many times with a single click. 
You could then see the pending payouts and wait times change.

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXuFTebeySQkVPUW2WrTTvdR1Q5UtWpJjVwxJFzfWSKWK/image.png)</center>

You could downvote the account just the once, or hit it over again until there's nothing left to land in their wallet. 
You could dedicate one full strength upvote each day to the same account until they change their ways, knowing that they won't make a sneaky cent, while only having to check on the account every five or six days.

*I recognise that this would make it slightly easier for vindictive flaggers to target legitimate accounts; however legitimate accounts can usually be flagged down to zero in a few minutes anyway since they tend to have fewer, larger paying posts.*

Unless I'm mistaken, this could be handled by any app in possession of one's posting key, and would give the anti-spammers a similar level of automation as that enjoyed by their quarry. 

**The real problem we have is that those without money but with lots of time, are able to use simple bots to spam comments; while those with the voting power to tackle them and with little time to do so, are trying to downvote these comments manually.
Our issue isn't with a particular piece of content, but with the activities of the account overall; so why require that those looking to fight this scourge, scroll through thousands of spammy comments hoping to find some which haven't yet paid out?** 

<h3>Pitfalls, possibilities? Is this not technically feasible? Let me know in the comments.
As always, have a fantastic day.</h3> 

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfSLHCocGAXXCMLgAvkvrRmesR3L4mEajWBzRnNXLLrMV/image.png)

NB: I recently posted a Dlive clip discussing quadratic vs linear rewards; but a lot of people advised of excessive buffering so I've reposted it to youtube - [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLXhIXnCU-k)