Let's talk about this
I must first admit that this is not a popular or comfortable topic to talk about. In addition, I am not qualified to talk about this. That said, someone must say this, so I am saying it. This post is not meant to be an encyclopedia of abuse that is visible on social blockchain like ours. There were some comprehensive posts written by @steemcleaners on the topic. This is my personal view and opinion on the matter. Oh, by the way, it is a strange day to write this, as today Hive is rallying!
Types of Abuse
- Plagiarism
- Copy & Paste
- Tag Spam
- Identity Theft/Deception
- Known User Verification
- Comment Spam
- Malware/Virus/Phishing
Back in the steem blockchain, these are the abuse types that were considered in scope for @steemcleaners, as described in this 2017 post here. There remain the same today I think and continue to be some of the primary threat to the Hive blockchain. However, several things have changed. @hivewatchers do not have the Steem, INC's delegation any more, because, now Hive is a community project. But tell you what, we will get back to that...
Times have changed since that post above have published. Bid-bots are practically a thing of the past. Although some still exists, not exactly thriving, but they are out there. We have made and are making quite a lot of progress.
I like all that and appreciate the facts. However, at the same time I do not think we have addressed all kind of abuse of this blockchain with the list above. So I like add to that list:
- Circle Voting
- Revival of the Bid-bots
- Vote begging
- Vote begging in exchange for Witness votes
These are beyond the capabilities of standard rule based abuse fighting systems. So of it was address by SFR, now Hive-DR. However, many of these are quite controversial and dare I say, political.
Now the relevant people this post is directed towards, they all understand what this previous bullets mean. Also I do not want to make this post an 'encyclopedia of abuse'. I am neither capable nor interested to write such a post.
Modern model of abuse, and how we handle it
First line of defense: Hivewatchers
First of all, we must talk about @hivewatchers. They are our first line of defense. I think they need our help. Now I am talking to common hive users. I am not sure if you know this, @hivewatchers do not have the Steem INC.'s delegation anymore, because this ain't steem. That means community must step up to support them, and abuse in general. Now there are certain individuals already helping the cause. People like @themarkymark and @theycallmedan have helped the community in a variety of way. I remember @blocktrades stepped up when Haejin was on rampage. There are countless others to mention as well, especially folks at the old SFR. But with that said, we are in the brave new world at Hive, and below is the delegations to @hivewatchers
As you can see, that our first line of defense is seriously under-funded. There used to be 1M plus delegation into these accounts. There amount of spam these accounts handle, this amount of funding is not nearly good enough.
Remedy:
- Community can delegate to these accounts (well, first ask @guiltyparties)
- The smart developers at hive can develop a system, where @hivewatchers can use the idle downvote power of multiple community members
Option - 1 is difficult to accomplish for most users, as @hivewatchers is not really a curation project, therefore, amount delegated will most likely have to be a donation.
Option - 2, if implemented can be much more useful, as I know for a fact that majority of communities downvote power remains idle (this includes me, although I feel, that I use it a lot)
Second line of defense: Curangel, Hive-DR, OCDB and others
I know back in the steem days Anthony's SFR was quite effective, especially against the bid-bots, so was OCDB. I think both lost some amount of delegation and are in the process of reorganizing, but they remain active and quite effective. There are a group of individuals who rally around these projects and downvote any individual who bought bid-bot votes. There is a recent revival in the form of a program called x30 and the account called @bot-api. Community must nip this in the bud.
Then we have @curangel. I delegate to the project. You can find more details about the project here. Regarding abuse fighting, delegators can use a portion of curangel's stake to downvote eligible content proportional to their stake. We are in the process is tightening the system, so that it can't be abused. Currently it is only available to select few community member. But the importance of curangel is that it is very effective to deal with circle voting where other more conventional tools fail.
Last line of defense: You
And me of course. We as community members are the last line of defense against abusers. Unfortunately, we are significantly underused. Last I saw a statistics during the steem days, that only about 7% of the stake is used for downvoting. Likely that number is lower now. Perhaps @abh12345 can enlighten us with new numbers. The main reason is fear, if I have to guess. It is the fear of relatiation. Especially if the abusing account is a larger account, it is difficult for a common person to raise his/her voice in fear of retaliation.
Only thing I can say about that, is have no fear. There are a huge number of large stakeholder that is out there who can hear a retaliatory downvote. There are excellent examples out there right now in the form of serial abusers who tried retaliatory downvotes to random minnow accounts. Well you can imagine what happened there.
Closing Thoughts
Today there is a serious price jump on Hive. I expect this is probably a precursor of many such price jumps in future. As this new project gains momentum, we can, and we will potentially see higher prices. Higher the price, higher the incentive for abuse. Therefore, it is our duty as a community member to step up. But I will end with a deep thought from a friend of mine. Abuse fighting is not easy, and it can get very thankless, dark and lonely. But again: "it's necessary!"
Friedrich Nietzsche said:
Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.
PS: None of the projects asked me to write this. These are my personal thoughts.
I think that should be the first line of defense. It shouldn't be everyone's job to watch out for abuse, but those who can should. If I see something that constitutes as abuse(usually vote begging in the comments) I give it a downvote. Many people don't downvote, but its us as individuals who helps the bigger projects help find the abuse. I've filled out hivewatcher's form multiple times and will continue to do so when I see abuse, and hope that other do as well.
It’s difficult for an individual to be organized, consistent and have enough stake to make a dent, just my himself or herself. So it is often better to organize a group to be effective.
I mean to say it's more of a first step. Identifying the abuse.
It's good you're keeping this on the agenda, it really is something we need to keep an eye on, and you've reminded me that I must alter my flag delegations, I guess there's no point delegating to SFR anymore.
I don't like DV trailing, I feel it makes you a visible target for retaliation. If you're going to appear as a target, you may as well DIY and hit one or two people with 100% rather than several with smaller trail amount.
I also like to be in control of my own DVing, and it doesn't take much to chuck in a couple of DVs every day.
I'm actually quite proud to have had crystalliu waste his entire DV power on me recently, but I've switched to someone else who you might also be DVing. One person at a time as you say!
I must check out that bot-api thing. I'm much happier keeping the smaller abusers in check.
I think the healing thing is nice, regular DVers should be encouraged to do a weekly 'heal me' post if they get retaliation, that could also serve to raise awareness of the issue, as well make it a bit more fun.
I miss SFR on that note, I liked the gamification of flagging.
Yes, we must keep this on the agenda. As soon as price rallies not only we incentivize spammers. We also incentivize our old timer circle votes. Most of these people have been there for a while so they know how to squeeze every last drop.
I don't trail DV either.
I was actually considering building a tool like you describe in option two! Step one in developing software is to look for similar software that might exist already. Did you know about downvote control tool? It allows you to follow the downvoteso of someone else, and thereby basically offer a similar result as you propose in option two.
Yes, I am familiar with @howo’s tool. I have used it many times in the past.
Using the rewarding.app one can make their own downvote curation trail.
However, the problem of this is which account to trail? I don't recommend trailing the accounts that go after the big guys for grey area things like reward disagreement. I think making an account that goes after obvious abuse only which can be trailed will be good.
Another idea is making a proposal to power up some of that Hive in the @steem.dao account and just delegate it to the cleaners. It can always be burnt or powered down later. In fact a proposal to start funding a decentralized Mr.delegation may be an interesting idea.
All reasonable ideas. Let's see what hivewatchers can come up with.
Awesome thoughts! I had a moment when I was getting involved in finding people who are plagiarists but in a way they couldn't really be detected by the program, and it's sad! Because I'm sure there are many more who are doing it even nowadays and maybe have great success for nothing!
May not be great success, but they scavenge here and there. More harmful are few circle voters who have been around for a while.
Oh, yeah. Those too! Always opting for the easy way instead of forcing their skills a little bit more and create something cool and be rewarded for your worth.
Good that you're on the old SFR side, we needed a big account to take care of this bigger dickheads. I note a load of activity in the HiveKeepers today, coincidence, or is it that big spike we just had?
You have a slight typo...
Thanks! Fixed the typo. Perhaps there are more. Most of the time I write between screaming hyperactive kids who are trying to kill each other. The fact that I can write sometimes surprises me!
Dan has ~ the same HP @spaminator had before their delegation was pulled back. They are using his downvote power (I think he is trailing their votes) to fight abuse. So, no problem there
After abuse being an issue for so many years, I don't think relying on active user moderation is the right approach. The problem with needing active downvoting to regulate a system is that there is little direct incentive to act. Most users are apathetic and often will only act if there is a direct incentive to. In terms of abusers, there is a direct incentive to abuse. There is potential monetary gain to content generation regardless of the "value" of that generated content. While content production is relatively free and inflation distribution is funneled through content generation there might always be a conflict of incentives where the direct incentives slightly favors the abusers which makes this a perpetual battle.
I like that thought. I like the concept of incentivizing abuse control. You it has been tried with SFR. Although I know most of the people involved in that project, I was exactly sure if the mechanics. I am rarely sure about any mechanism of hive :)
But point is, what you have suggesting had been tried with moderate success before.
What about the harassing ways in which some users comment on other people's posts?