Hello ! As you probably know hard fork 21 is now live and with it comes a 25% downvote pool.
One main benefit of this is the ability to fight abuse without losing out on your own curation. However, it also means that you have to do "negative curation", aka find bad content to downvote. Thanks to the effort put in by many already to sort out the Trending page, this is already getting harder and harder to do.
Furthermore, the more clever abusers often use bots to make this even more tedious. Whether it is to spread their self votes on comments, time it near the 7 days mark, or abuse a bug in hivemind to change the order of their posts. So in order to make it easier for normal people to keep up, I decided to build a downvote trail tool and make it fully open source.
You can find it at : https://downvotecontrol.com
I believe it is only right that the normal community members have the same tools available to deal with spam as the spammers. The hope is that we can enable the community to make proof of brain cool again in a #newsteem fashion. No matter how small your stake is, if a thousand minnows find one whale abusive, they should be able to add up their votes to powerful downvotes. This in turn could help reallocate rewards from the hands of abusers to the hands of good authors.
Currently there are two features :
Trail downvotes
Allows you to trail the downvotes of a specific account and thus downvote any content they downvote at a given rate relative to the size of their downvote.
Example: If you choose to trail @abuse.control with rating 0.75, then if @abuse.control gives a 50% downvote to a post you will give the same post a 37.5% downvote.
This is very useful to give support to abuse fighting organisations without the hassle of checking their reports and downvoting content yourself.
Counter upvotes
Used to counteract upvotes from specified accounts, meaning that you will downvote anything that they choose to upvote at a given rate relative to their upvote.
Example: If you choose to counter upvote @baduserr with rating 1.2, then if @baduser gives a 50% upvote to something, you will add a 60% downvote to the same post or comment, while a rating of 0.5 would make you downvote 25%, etc.
this can be used for multiple things, counter a rogue user that continuously self votes over multiple accounts, reduce the earnings of a bidbot that doesn't have any quality standards or anything else, you name it :)
What features do you want next ?
I wanted to ship a very first downvote solution and improve on it over time with your feedback. Here's a few ideas that I had, feel free to write in the comments what are yours :
- Whitelist : do not downvote if the user is on it
- Bidbotted percentage : downvote only if bidbots represent x% of the payout
- minimum payout : only downvote if the post has reached x$ of potential payout
- Number of words/characters, only downvote if the post has less than x words/characters
I feel like having these kind of options would allow for a greater granularity and overall increase the chances of finding and downvoting bad content.
An open source initiative
The downvote control tool is completely open source so you can easily customize it yourself and add your own spin to it or just copy paste some code snippets that you find in there (like How to get the downvoting power of an user ).
The stack is as follow :
front end : https://github.com/drov0/downvote-control-tools-front
back end : https://github.com/drov0/downvote-control-tool-back
voting bot : https://github.com/drov0/downvote-control-tool-bot
I hope most will use their downvotes responsibly and still believe it is best done manually for the most part. I do, however, think that there are many who may want to help flag the most clear cases of abuse without going through the often negative user experience of looking for bad content. Hopefully, this proves useful to some!
If you think my contributions add value to Steem then please consider voting for our witness : @steempress
Will need a feature to "stop" the trail if the post is already at zero rewards.
Great idea. Please keep working on this tool. :)
Dear @howo
Solid read.
My strong impression is thart in current form that downvote pool is causing more harm than bringing benefits. Right now all those downvotes look like a whichhunt. Personally I know few users who got heavily downvoted and noone (absolutely noone) took time to warn him that he is doing something wrong.
No warning. No explanation. Just pure punishment followed by "hate". Downvote pool is being abused.
Our purpose should be to educate users and build their awareness and punish only those who have been warned at least once or twice. But noone really seem to bother about that issue :(
Great idea.
One small remark: only content that is accepting rewards should be downvoted
Yours, Piotr
Well stated.
Please explain the moral/legal theory behind killing bit-bots?
I don't understand why they are so hated.
I also don't understand why people don't just use the MUTE feature.
Don't people want a cheap and easy way to advertise their post?
Isn't the built-in "promote" feature basically pointless?
Selling votes (ENDORSEMENTS) seems like a free-market solution to me.
Your remarks are valid, I think it's because the culture is changing rapidly, people will learn pretty quickly the overall culture and how to behave. I've seen quite a few people who came to me to ask why I've downvoted them and I replied. It would be better to be able to leave a comment, but I think there are enough automated comments everywhere already.
Great idea !
What features do you want next ?
I'd like a feature to counter your upvotes.. especially when you're obviously not manually curating..
Unless of course you're going to claim you actually read and curated all 5 of these posts that were posted within a hour.. but I'd be willing to call bullshit.. I'm disappointed in myself for actually thinking you were trying to do good.
There's already a feature to counter my upvotes, head on over to downvotecontrol.com
As for my votes, yeah they are automated, I trail steempress votes, which are mostly voting on either whitelisted authors or trailing community curation efforts.
So basically you're flagging me for the same thing you're doing?
I actually don't know you, I used to automate my downvotes (thanks to this tool) and I trailed ocdb, trafalgar, curangel and blocktrades (and others but over a smaller time window). I assume one of those downvoted you and I just trailed.
If that was done wrongly, sorry.
@howo
I have come back and re-read this post - I was planning to and then we all got forked ;)
I said in my earlier comment that I liked this idea and I really endorse these suggestions:
I particularly like the last one - with the caveat that if it's a photography post, the words/characters may be few, but there does need to be an explanation of the image(s).
However, I'm not sure I understand this one:
I'd be glad if you could explain this in more detail.
Many thanks
Fiona
Thanks for coming back :)
Here's an example to explain minimum payout, let's say you set the minimum payout to 20$. Then you will only downvote posts that have a payout that's higher than 20$. This is done so that you don't downvote "small abuse" or "small bidboting" where you downvote a guy with 50 cents payout. I think it's better to go for the people who are earning a lot by abusing and then go for the lower ones.
Edit : upvoting to un-hide myself
Thank you @howo. That's very helpful.
A rule like skipping downvotes if the post rewards < $N may prevent unnecessary downvotes. No need to spend downvote mana if post is not visible already. (Unless you want to destroy reputation of the target.)
Great start, looking forward seeing its progress.
It's still draining rewards out of the pool and therefore hurting the ability to reward real contributions (unless N=0 of course).
I do agree there is no reason to waste downvote mana and take things too far but even a lot of small payouts can add up to a lot. If they aren't adding value then the small amount isn't really a reason to give a pass.
What I thought originally was that specific N=0 case, then thought its better to keep the amount configurable.
Agreed that a small payouts add up and may create a giant snowball at the end.
There is also no need to downvote if the earn is zero and someone else already did.
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so you haven't trolled enough and now you want to apply your trolling else where?
even worse....
Hello, I do not know you but I received a downvote from you. I received a downvote from you on a Splinterlands post of mine. I was making a video showing people how to use the Steem Monsters upvote bot on the site. People ask me often so once in awhile I will show them. I used my own DEC to pay for the upvote on a post that Dtube voted for already. It was at $8. I now have to come back with the next video and tell them we got nothing more than the $8 as I was downvoted. My DEC is gone now. I was going to show the post how it earned an extra $10 or so and now it is gone, you took money out of my hand. I am happy if you are rich but I am not. I make $9 an hour PT hours only- taking care of my disabled son who has severe Cerebral Palsy in Richmond, VA USA. I have been making a little extra money with the STEEM blockchain for over 2 years. I just wanted to show you what and who exactly you are taking from.
Hopefully you will please remove your downvote.
Thank you.
Chris Love
Same here. I don't understand everything...
@howo wtf?
I don't get it, you are a software engineer, so why are you flagging my technical post? I don't really care, but it just struck me as odd that's all. What, I guess u don't like my script, fine good enough!@ lol or r u mad cuz I didn't post step by step instructions and hold u'r pinky all the way through? jk! Flagging u back I do need someone new to flag, so thanks for that! lol
It would be nicer if the downvoters give a reason why.
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Hi @howo, were you already aware of flag trail?
I think the functionality you provide here is more of less the same as @reazuliqbal's code but I do like that you have added the counter upvote functionality.
I had created something similar for a certain naughty whales self-votes a while back which was interesting.
Anyways, good luck with the project! Hopefully, with a diversity of tools available we will be able to make much more of a difference.
I was not actually, this is great I mostly built this because I wanted to have a tool ready asap after hf21 to allow people to downvote. The more tools built to downvotes the better imo.
I'm still trying to find my comfort zone with the whole downvoting thing, but I think this is definitely a step in the right direction! Thanks so much for putting this together, @howo, and I may join the trail in the near future. 😊
Same here so far I did not downvote yet but left a comment what to change to avoid downvotes but I decided to give it a try although I know this will start a hunt, war and...
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@enforcer48 @joshman
@anthonyadavisii @lordbutterfly
What do you think about this?
More options the better.
SFR Flag Trail follow certain rules, which include scope, size of user, etc.
We also have a "heal" function for retaliation as needed.
In this case, I would only follow specific dedicated anti-abuse account.
I like to do it manually but if i find myself not having time in the future, having the ability to trail any of the guys you pinged or even @smooth will be a great option.
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This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here
Thank you for the tool,
I think classist and elitist the first idea.
The more control, the less freedom, the perfect formula for steemit's failure, with reference to history.
The request lacks to vote negatively on account as the positive vote does, it only does it following a trace of another, it takes away people's own criteria.
Yes, finally my cup of tea. So happy I found this. Thank you.
Good post
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Hello Howo, I noticed you downvoted my post on Myths About Cats yesterday. Now if you check my account, you will see that i just joined steemit barely a month and i am still trying to understand how things work here. Within the time space of my joining, i have introduced steemit to over 100 people and still counting. I started on 25 like everyone and i grew my reputation to 40. I use original contents without plagiarism but i get my pictures from free picture sites. I don't infringe on copyright issues. Now what i dont understand is what was wrong with my article that made it attract a downvote from you? I really want to know. This action took my account from a reputation of 40 to 12 and I am very discouraged. The time as i write here is 4:25am, this happened last night and it has given me a sleepless night. I have not even told the people i introduced to this platform but they will soon find out and wonder what happened to my account. This is very discouraging especially when you don't seem to know what you did wrong. I currently don't even have the zeal to write another post because getting to 40 from 25 was not easy. I currently told my many friends that i was going to give the first person who gets to a reputation of 45 before september 15 a gift just to encourage them to keep up the fire burning. These are people who write original contents just like me. What was the offense in my post about Myths about cats? Maybe if you tell me what i did wrong, i may understand why this happened? I am sad!
Here is a link to the post https://steemit.com/life/@perezadu/myths-about-cats-udic9dae
Read @steemcleaners comment on your post. They'd like you to learn how to do things correctly, and so would I. There's some patience while you learn, but not learn and your account will be nuked.
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You didn't take that photo mate. On steem if you post a photo that you didn't take, you need to link its source because you are making money off the work of someone else. Even your latest post you use a photo that clearly isn't yours without citing the source. Until you start doing this, you deserve the downvotes.
You already have the answer but I agree the downvoters should say why they devoted you.
Mention the source (even if it is your own post from elsewhere is one of them), but this is for sure not all about plagiarism.
It is also about bad content, no text, not informative, etc and not liking you.
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This is a fantastic idea. Thank you @howo.
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This is a good tool, users will be responsible for who ever their flag trail flags since they are following a trail. I will go check out the tool and I will redeem this.
I signed in bit is a bit confusing. Is it possible to follow steemcleaners in the trail?
The UI is imdeed very basic (and ugly😅) for now. If you want to trail steemcleaners, just select Trail settings and then enter steemcleaners + how much you want to trail them with before hitting save.
Awesome contribution. Will come in handy.
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REsteemed, I'm a bit confused by the example cited in the trail downvotes whereby a ,75 rating on a 50% downvote yields a 25% trail DV? Wouldn't that be a 37.5% trail DV?
I'm running on fumes here and need to coffee up so maybe I'm confused or missing something?
All in all though this is a great first step towards diminishing the negative impact of our more inconspicuous abusers...
Feeling more confident in this new steem eip initiative by the day..
Cheers!
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0.75 - 0.50 = 0.25
yeah no this is a typo, a 0.75 trailing on a 50% downvote yields a 37.5% downvote. But congrats on making sense of my typos :p
There's a very good reason for this actually, namely that it was 04:00AM in Europe when this got posted! :P.
😂 I totally understand how that goes.. I was thinking I'm no math wizard but I do know my 1/8 1/4 ounce fractions and decimals from my cannabis days 😎
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There is a huge difference between plagiarism (the content can be good) and bad content. So what are we going to downvote?
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Yo, nice work making this mate! Great idea.
Thanks !
awesome tool
highly recommend people use this if they don't have the time to downvote
It perhaps causes too many mistakes? It triggered a downvote on my post where i used zero buying or trading of votes.
I agree on abuse of bots and such is a good thing to go after, I also don't know exactly how all this works. But I have been downvoted by you twice and is that cause of self voting? I never vote my own comments and never have.
Only upvotes I used is tipu and booster but and its not much and its not on all my posts.
Is there anything I do wrong? Just wish to know if I need to change anything.
Ive always been here cause I love engaging and comments and reading posts are my favorite thing. And silver stacking.
I want to do right for me so I hope you can tell me.
If you were downvoted by me it's probably because you were using bidbots or are downvoted by steemcleaners
I never been downvoted by steemcleaners ever and I use tipu but many are using that to so is that wrong?
If many are stupid, how can this be wrong?
[THINK]
Well to say you downvote People for a reason that sounds good but in RL has no truth to it.... Is wrong.
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These guys are crazy! I say we use it against howo and set up flag curation on him!
These guys are crazy! I say we use it against howo and set up flag curation on him!
You are ridiculous @howo! Please Stop following/trailing mack-bot! They are really not that responsible! I will keep
coming after you when I see your name on my posts! I will start making posts about you and mack-bot soon! Go Away from my posts!
How do I set up curation trail against you @howo?
Nice post bro
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I have read this and I still need more explanation on the counter voting.
Can you dumb down the explanation so I can understand please
Thank you.
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Yeah thanks for downvoting vaccine awareness asshole.
I am still learning all the rules on downvoting.
It’s a waste of time and a set up to take everyone’s money
Great. Blog posts get less than before with the new HF. Now smaller account using bots to get at least some payout get downvoted by these same whales. We got the message. We'll leave. Assholes.
This promoted content generated 0.154 STEEM in curation reward payback. Thanks for using Steemium.
Downvotes are dumb for haters
Why you flag my post?
Hi, do you mind removing your downvote on my last post? Thanks
I think that in your tool you have an "extra" "r" on this text (where I point with "HERE"):
The application does not vote negatively on specific accounts such as positive votes, it should include it.
I would see
are you fucking kidding?
Someone upvotes with a bot to promote 1 post ....
then you add them to a list and forever downvote any content by them....
THAT IS WAY WORSE THEN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER SEEN.......
YOU THEN DON'T READ ANYTHING, YOU JOIN A CURATION TRAIL TO UPVOTE, AND THIS TOOL TO DOWNVOTE.....
ESSENTIALLY YOU JUST TURNED ACCOUNTS INTO BOTS!!!!!!!
You are bandwagonning big accounts .... instead of evaluating content....
this is an abortion!
Please explain the moral/legal theory behind killing bit-bots?
I don't understand why they are so hated.
I also don't understand why people don't just use the MUTE feature.
Don't people want a cheap and easy way to advertise their post?
Isn't the built-in "promote" feature basically pointless?
Selling votes (ENDORSEMENTS) seems like a free-market solution to me.
Hello @howo,
Just received a downvote from yourself. Honestly I don't think what you did is fair. I'm putting a lot of work into my content. I spend hour crafting original artwork, adding detailed explanations and engaging with the community. Each pages of comic takes me 10 hours to make!
10 hours...
No one ever told me buying upvotes was forbidden or even a bad thing. You should at least send a warning message before downvoting content. Also 10$ is quite a big amount just to make a point...
Please remove your downvote. I'll do research on my end regarding the ethics of using boosters.
Thank you
Regards,
Jrej
Hello,
Not sure which post you're referring to, I didn't downvote any of your recent posts.
Oh I should have mentioned. This one https://steemit.com/dtube/@jrej/rldauv3cjxi
this dude downvotes everyone
Hi why do you put downvots on my account if i have a problem on my account inform me?
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@howo u’r a fuck! die bitch !
That's not very nice
Don't worry, I was just joking. I was pissed that u were adding to the nonsense against me by advertising that flag curation trail that fucking defaults on my posts! So give me a break, flags are serious business! I am the wrong guy to flag! If you keep flagging me I will keep sending mean messages like that! k and flagg you with all my power with your tool, & idk!
The trail doesn't default on anyone, it's up to you to configure however you want. And I didn't decide to downvote you, I am trailing abuse fighting initiatives that downvoted you. If you convince them not to downvote you, then I won't downvote as well (since I'm trailing).
And in any case, I am not trailing steemcleaners anymore so perhaps you won't recieve my downvotes