@kevinwong, thanks for the good post.
@donkeypong, thanks for the good comment.
When I just joined Steemit a few months ago, I was surprised that self-voting was denounced by everybody, but there is no voice to denounce vote-selling. Self-voting gets half SP and half SBD. Vote selling gets all SBD (all cash) and can get curation. I was always wondering why vote-selling is tolerated by all the whales, and on the other hand self-voting is a shame.
However, sometimes, minnows need to buy votes, because they don't have other choice:
When I just joined Steemit, nobody knew me and I knew nobody. I have to pay the bot to up vote me for visibilities and increase reputation. I believe I did not get financial gain by buying the votes. My only gain is that my reputation increased a little from the votes.
When I detected firepower, a reputation 69 user, was using a bot to sent out more than 300 comments in a single day to spam Steemit, I wrote an article to reveal it. Then, firepower, the spammer, came to curse me, threaten me, and down vote me. He even banned my steemit.chat account. For some reasons that I don't know, you guys also came to down vote me. Fortunately, both of you removed the down votes within hours. However, firepower and his bot s4s down voted me very hard. I have no powerful friend to seek help. In order to make my articles visible, I have to buy the up votes, no other choice. I paid more than $45 to buy the up votes to make my articles visible. Its my only weapon to fight a powerful spammer and abuser.
Steemit.chat, the channel for appeal, is controlled by firepower, a spammer and abuser. He wants to be the dictator and censor steemit. Can anybody help me to bring this issue to SteemFest? Thanks
upvote for visibility
Thanks
So you think it's appropriate for one to buy votes in order to increase his/her reputation?
Reputation cannot be bought; it must be earned.
Hey, Brother
What do you want to say? I signed in and found randowhale listed in steemit tool page. I used this 'tool' when I was new at Steemit. What do you want to imply?
Also, I am curious why did you send money to randowhale? Donations?
No, I have also tested these services myself a few times before realizing that this increases my reputation alongside the rewards.
Got it
All I'm saying is that self-bought votes shouldn't increase the reputation score.
When I was new at here, I was trying to submit good post to curie, and was told my reputation was too low.
How much reputation the self bought votes can give? Not too much.
The real problems are circle jerk and the whales who sell the votes.