After 13 months I finally succeeded in getting hit by the down vote brigade. An army of people all voted at the same time on my recent post pointing out possible issues with Randowhale, and accounts like it. Primarily that is due to who is fronting those accounts, not due to what the accounts themselves do. I described it like the bully bringing candy to school.
That post was up to $55 or so before the bot votes hit it and dragged it down to $0 and -16 votes at one point. I had BernieSanders who is linked to all of these bots, and to Randowhale call me a butthurt old man in some comments before the down vote began. I actually wasn't butthurt, I was just inspired by reading posts by other people. I am not worried about money, and I am not butthurt. I do care what happens on steem though and I tend to always go head firsts at perceived "bullies".
I don't generally spend a lot of time thinking about BernieSanders, DonaldTrump, Randowhale, Engagement, TheCyclist, Danknugs, steemed, steemroller, lovelace, itsascam, dashpaymag, zztop, ledzeppelin, nextgencrypto, complexring, the hordes of badger bots, and many other accounts. I don't go out of my way to post about the ever growing "complex ring" of accounts passing funds through places such as TheGhost and bouncing in and out of various accounts. It is actually a pretty impressive shell game.
Now I am interested, now I have looked at puzzle pieces and I suspect there may be some interesting revelations if anyone bothers to look. So I will be one of those that looks. I do want to do a proper investigation and post some blogs with what I find. I'll do what I can to show the fragmented kraken and possible interconnections.
If you have information you wish me to look into related to this feel free to send it to me.
I don't intend to attack anyone. I intend to just show what is transparent on the steem blockchain. In cases where I am speculating I will be sure to state that is what I am doing.
I would not be surprised to see any such posts and possibly even this one down voted to oblivion. That is what they do. It doesn't have to be spam, plagiarism, or abuse with these people. It simply has to be something they don't like, someone they don't like, or someone who challenges them.
To do a proper investigation will take a bit of time. I spent a few hours doing some digging today and as I dug I kept finding more and more paths I'd have to follow. He has been a busy person. I am still not convinced it is just one person involved in these things, but it could be, and even if it isn't there definitely is at least one person who seems to be the most influential.
Why do this? Community is important on steemit. We cannot rely on code to solve everything. A lot of that is on us. If you whine about down voting and then you use the services of some of the greatest down voters then you really shouldn't be whining. Using their services simply makes them more and more powerful.
They have been countered before by people with more power and they didn't like it. They've gone cockroach like and spread all over the steem community, and they've found ways to quickly POWER UP across multiple accounts.
I wonder how many people using things like Randowhale truly know some of the things the person that made it has professed on steemit. If they did know these things would they continue to use it, or would they not? The optimist in me says they might stop, the pessimist in me says that greed often wins out.
I won't tell you what type of people we are dealing with, I'll investigate, show transfers, and show their own dialog to let them show you who they are.
The rest will be up to you. If you ignore it after the investigation then I will too.
Here is some evidence that may help you with your investigation @dwinblood.
https://steemit.com/abuse/@jparty/the-real-story-behind-the-war-against-noganoo-screenshots-of-berniesanders-abuse-towards-noganoo
Thanks. I'll check it out.
you please follow me and i will upvote you and you same will do please...
This post will get attention that is for sure. To be honest I don't know a lot about the downvoters as of yet. I do appreciate what ur about to do and am really curious to ur findings. As of how I know u so far, u have only good intentions as to what happens to this platform. Ur probably gonna piss off some people with this investigation, but most likely will get some very powerful friends for it as well. Good luck, and Thank You!
I have some powerful friends, but they tend to try to remain hands off. This is why those that abuse the down vote can get away with it when they too are powerful. Those powerful enough to truly do something usually don't, and when they do we hear massive complaining that they got involved.
I can get that. For one, downvoting only gives a loss to everyone involved. Secondly, with some of the most influencial people of Steemit together, things can get very messy..
His BernieSanders account was the 7th most powerful account on steemit at one point... he has since powered it down and moved that power around and into many other places. He had other accounts that were powerful when he was 7th and had all of those been combined he may have been overall more powerful than 7th.
Now it is scattered across many accounts and he is just getting bigger every time someone pays Randowhale for a vote.
He is truly powerful. I've only scratched the surface so far it truly is web like.
Berniesanders is randowhale? Honestly I don't know anything about berniesanders, nor about the people behind randowhale. I am currently an user of randowhale, and not sure a service like this is really a bad thing. As long as it brings a profit to the user of the bot. Something as self-voting seems far more harmful to me. That being said. What the profit is being used for, if it is truly for things I cannot stand behind, then I might stop using it.
Let's put it this way. Someone can provide a good service, but if the profits go on to fund a hostile actor then is it worth it?
Account transfers and other comments on the blockchain seem to support that yes Randowhale is a product of the same person known as Berniesanders. Though most of the money transfers actually go to nextgencrypto. Looking at the money moving around as when it get's web like. Keep in mind it could also be multiple people colluding among their accounts in fact that would further maximize profits so one person didn't have to pay as much attention to everything going on.
Well that is what I ment with "what the profit is being used for." I still don't really know a lot about these people either. Not that me stopping to use a service like randowhale is gonna make much of a difference (except for my own morals). But if there really is some bad stuff going on there, more awareness through the platform and action from the bigger whales will be required to make a real difference.
@randowhale @Berniesanders @nextgencrypto are all the same person. You can see when bernie needs to downvote someone he uses a lot of accounts.
I am new to Steemit and am largely unaware of these issues. Thank you for bringing them to the forefront. I am looking forward to your future posts. Followed and promoted :)
If you were a newbie, I would try to warn you. However, you've been around for long enough I am sure you know how this tends to end.
It could be interesting,...
Yeah it might be messy. If it gets too messy oh well. I have a few other accounts I am not using. I know the tricks they have used to try to remain unseen. I can use them too if they insist on smashing this account. I won't ever have their power level, but I can still play the cockroach game. It also likely won't turn out WELL for me. Someone has to speak up. However, like those other cases you referred to I don't intend to call them names, ad hominem attack them, etc. I just plan to show information and let everyone know where I got it from.
Thanks for doing this. I value your work into this investigation.
Up front, I'd like to welcome you to the BotWars.
I know we shall be victorious!
So glad to see you looking into this - I think you are one of the few people on Steemit capable of working all this out!
I knew this was going on but couldn't even begin to understand it all...
I hope that because you are high profile you can avoid being flagged to oblivion - you have some nerve and I hope it all goes OK
You're not a victim. You just like to play victim to get attention, that's why you're where you are today.
Thanks for the tip. I need this kind of information.
Think this is a great idea @dwinblood and agree it is important and needs to be done so that everyone knows and understands better. The connections can be quite meaningful in some instances. Blockchain should be about Open Awareness & Open Understanding.
Seems we as a community have uncovered some connections we have not liked and/or found of consequence in one way or another. Like you I am not hear to say anyone or anything is good or bad.
Blockchain is about openness and such connections should be out in the open as opposed to being hidden and mysterious. Look forward to the information you and others find. Am sure oehrs may follow suit and help us all have a better understanding as many of us are curious to understand more.
An extension of blockchain transaprency is a great idea!
Best,
Good luck, and best wishes. They do downvote as a group, sometimes simply because 'everyone else thinks its spam, so I just go along with them'. Sorry, that is a paraphrase from a recent post that I read where the person engaged in a mass down voting of an undesirable steemian, then begged the community's sympathy when he struck back at her. I only have sympathy for someone who has not down-voted other people if and when they are attacked. If they join a group attack, well, what goes around, comes around, and I don't care if the person you hit first was a nasty snot-hole.
I imagine you will get hit hard for doing this, @dwinblood, because that is the form censorship takes on Steemit. Again, good luck. We'll be here to re-upvote you and restore your reputation if needed.
If you're talking about Krystle you need to get your facts straight.
So far I am fine as my reputation is better than theirs. They can only steal my potential earnings. They have to have a better reputation than me to damage my reputation and so far that isn't a problem.
Community is incredibly important here on Steemit! It's kind of sad the damage to the whole that some people are willing to cause just to make their own slice of the pie bigger, even if it spoils their piece, too. Greed is a terrible thing. We need more people interested in more than just their own pockets to help Steemit grow. Thanks for taking such a huge burden on yourself on behalf of the community!
You are right and if these things will last longer then it will be dangerous for the community. Computers (bots) can do a lot of interesting calculations but if those calculations will be used for productive purpose of society (in this case curation right content) (in this case curation right content) then it will be good otherwise it will be like Cold War and at the end of the day average people's hurt and nothing will be gained to society as whole. Please do a little bit effort to make real money by creating and curating real content . Don't try to get rich quick soon because if do it will have dire consequences.
We certainly don't want to make the rich get richer and giving them more power to downvote, but what is the proposed solution for the contents not getting seen? And those who need to be given a chance for a spot on the trending page. I'm sure if only the whales get to check @ocd for the undervalued posts of more talented writers that need to replace those superficial travel bloggers and advertisements there?
Some people down here live off steemit btw. And there are a lot of travelers like me who travel on a steem budget by cycling, hitchhiking, staying with the locals (instead of the fancy resorts). These are the more inspiring travel bloggers who should be seen instead of those companies and the same faces advertising 'luxury travel', encouraging more people to slave to their jobs to afford the dream?
Now if only the whales could see those content instead of voting for the same people or their friends, then there's no need for bots. If only the system will improve the new tab, the views and put quality content to the top.
But I don't see the difference between those who have money to invest in whalebots to power up and those people who buy steem to power up?
After all, the whales have too many mouths to feed and the minnows found some temporary solution, and just decided to become independent and promote their own post. They were just investing their money to get their posts be seen, it's not the others fault. It's just the system.
But steemit is still in beta, and we have high hopes here.
Well ideally we don't want to be focusing on the whales and keeping them whales. There are only so many of them and if we keep focusing on them it'll make it harder to create more. With Hardfork 19 it is a little tougher for them to just spend votes, and the number of people on steemit is increasing.
So really the best tactic is just to focus on making a good blog, writing about what you enjoy and hopefully getting a following of people. Ultimately focusing on the whales is focusing on a small group of people that have more and more people that they are being divided against.
Also being a whale doesn't mean decent. So yeah they will support their own friends, and such and they should be able to. Yet do we want to follow them around hoping they will notice us and in the process keep giving them more and more power while we try to get their attention.
For me that is a resounding no.
There is a discoverability issue with steemit but, as you state it is in beta and I'm hoping communities and some other initiatives can help with that.
I could not more strongly support your analysis of pandering.
I think the possession of substantial holdings (whether SP, any other currency, or of any goods or services) tends to focus the interests of the possessors, as well as reflect their interests. To an extent, this explains interest in luxury goods and services.
It is both part of the reason that SP weights VP, and an artifact of that weighting that trending articles show such content, and posts not focused on wealth tend not to trend. On a platform as transparently based on wealth as Steemit, it is preposterous to expect posts not focused on wealth to perform competitively.
While I very much like the Steemit I post on, it isn't the posts that focus on wealth I most enjoy, or pay much attention to, but those which reflect my own interests (not money). Unfortunately, just as in the real world, I have had to buckle down and consider how wealth has impacted, and will drive, Steemit, and this has brought me here, as well.
Frankly, I could not agree with you more strongly that jobs are slavery. Work is not a job. Too many conflate and confuse the two. I love work, and particularly like fixing and making stuff for people, so am a carpenter. I don't have a job, but get to work anyway =D.
Oddly, I find that I strongly agree with one of the most infamous mottos ever to disgrace honest work, "Arbeit Macht Frei", which notoriously stood over the gates of Auschwitz, IIRC. Unfortunately the desperate slavery that was promoted by that motto is the utter antithesis of my own work, and I am left shaking my head at how propaganda can deprive people that wisely consider the source of a statement, and react to the statement based only on that information.
If the Antichrist said 'love is good', that would not make love bad!
I would, however, urge you to consider how bots curating degrades human agency, as we are entering a world on Steemit, and generally, where AI and bots are imposing inhuman (by definition) values on human intercourse. Bots are of inestimable utility, but their opinions are vapid and insipid, IMHO.
Edit: atrocious grammar
There is something about craftsmanship that clears your head. You are thinking about how to make something not about all the abstract problems of the world. i sometimes jokingly refer to that as "Arbeit macht frei", ofc there is also something Marx said about "Entfremdung der Arbeit" also really interesting concept.
This is a huuuuge (Trump voice) problem in our modern society. An idea should not get value because of who said it.
I also don't mind bots. Maybe there need to be rules or etiquettes regarding bots, but a bot is in the end just a tool.
Not all jobs are slavery indeed. For example, steemit has become a bit of a job, doing what I am passionate about - travel & writing. The reality is that I could not go back to being a corporate slave again and sacrifice my spirit. But if these votebots are becoming the corporate I escaped from in the past, then I'm not going to further encourage bad behavior.
There's a difference between those people who make a lot of money on the trending page, and someone down here just trying to put food on the table, hoping that her craft would be noticed someday. I'm not being sponsored by those fancy resorts and stuff. It's 3-hour masterpiece undervalued. I'm also speaking on behalf of other undervalued writers out there, not getting seen, not the fault of others, but it is just the system at the moment.
I am not carrying a knapsack full of special provisions, and not part of the tribe flattered by the media. I live a simple life, traveling w/o bills and living off my savings. Yeah, steemit is the change I want to see in the world - do what we love, get rewarded, be free to travel the world, live anywhere, free ourselves from state control, why not?
I'm doing what I can to contribute t the community through my writings, spread awareness, promote budget travel, promote minimalist life, expose issues... But I'll stay positive. I'm still new.
I have utterly depleted my VP and need to recharge it again =/
Followed, so I can see your posts more often. I also am somewhat nomadic, and I bet I can learn from you. At least following only inundates me, rather than depleting my VP =)
Followed you back. I wish I can sleep too much and type too little... ;)
LOL Sometimes I wish I could eschew sleep altogether, but then I reflect on the dangers of Meth =p
Lol, sleep deprivation is enough, like a drug effect on me.
Wow. I could not be more impressed with your integrity.
The Steem drama well will be deep, I imagine. I try to avoid the interpersonal conflict such draughts require. Just as @berniesanders and @noganoo have literally hundreds of alts, all viciously attacking each other, the leading PTB on Steemit, such as @dan and @ned, probably do also.
resteeming and grateful for your determination to investigate the depth of the tentacles of of these kraken.
mmhhh so were do I start. First of: If you got some tasks you would want to delegate to me I would be all open. Love detective and grass root journalism stuff.
Even though I normally say it without context I say it again in this specific case, I don't believe bernie or other specific people are the problem. I think clarity about the guidelines of Steemit and maybe the code itself are responsible. The blockchain is supposed to be transparent but every project here says "join us Discord", "join us on Steemit.Chat"....
People should be able to openly admit to wanting to make money with their Steemit investment. We all want that, be it for our invested time or hard earned fiat, but for the sake of this being truly a blockchain driven website we should keep it on the blockchain.
Correct. I am more pulling pieces together so if I document it well enough other people won't have to spend the huge amount of times trying to track this information down and it is only going to get bigger over time.
I really only have one problem with Bernie. He has absolutely zero problem voting down posts due to not liking the topic, not liking the person, or for some other nebulous reason I cannot understand.
So to me he is much like someone who plants his goons with baseball bats outside of a little shop because he doesn't like what the shop sells and scares away the customers.
Now I think Randowhale is a pretty cool thing, but I realized it is funneling a pretty heavy return on investment back to Bernie. I wouldn't have a problem with that other than realizing it is powering him up so he essentially can hire more baseball bat wielding goons thanks to the returns from running Randowhale.
So I have absolutely NO problem with him making money. Not one iota. I have a problem with how he attacks people and topics with his power. If he didn't do that then he'd be getting nothing but admiration from me.
I do not believe his good acts outweigh those negative ones.
Well I am really sad that @berniesanders hates to talk. There is one urgent suspision I have and that is anonymity. Speech patterns can reveal at least part of your identity. What do you think of anonymous as a movement btw considering they are against revealing their identity and somewhat not permitting true transpreency through that?
I dont think I need to tell you but take care not to dox anyone by accident. I think they would have a legitimate reason to be pissed then.
I dont like @randowhale not because of it's creator, i don't like it because of it's lottery ticket style. Didn't you say something a long the lines of "there is no free shi*t!" ?
If Bernie would at least read the articles and then decide if he votes with 2%-5% I would be much more OK with the system.
I will not be doing any of that kind of information dump.
well isn't the only reason so many people want o meet in chatrooms to keep things off the blockchain?
on one hand, discussing things by chat can be a lot quicker than putting them on the chain
on the other, what happens off the chain stays off the chain
I actually never liked chatrooms. I dont want to talk to a room I want to talk to people. Direct messaging is different though, but I dont see what is so uncomfortable writing it on Steemit? There must be a reason why you dont want to give people the possibility to upvote your comment.Sure you dont need to discuss your sex life with loved once via steemit to be transperent, but shouldn't steemit project be managed on steemit?
Not the only reason. Those tools are more developed and can do a lot of things that can't be done here, and it can be faster. Discord is chat, full on media sharing, and voice chat if desired all rolled up in one.
Yet, I do have a problem with it not being on the blockchain if it is discussing important things about steem/it, but even steemit inc., keeps things off of the blockchain until they are ready.
As far as these people... Bernie hangs out on steemit.chat in the #price channel and goes by the handle nextgencrypto.
You can jump on steemit.chat and scroll back and grab huge amounts of data and "personality" from reading the discussions there. Then you can screen grab them, or otherwise grab them and post your findings on the blockchain. :)
I'll think about tasks if I can come up with some it makes sense to delegate.
sweet
Thx for sharing
thanks @dwinblood fascinating - appreciate your work into this - I will be following along
What's up with all the votes and only 76 views?
I suspect a ton of bot voting.
Yeah that's nog trying to suck up to a percieved ally .
Where have you been, Mark? Having some issues with the law?
Ah ok, I haven't seen those around in a while.
Me either, and this is certainly the most I've seen on my own post. I got the opposite type of bot herd on my other post. :)
And probably some people that just read the subject as well... there always seems to be some of that.
This is the sort of crap that will keep Steemit a niche, forever set on the back shelf of social media.
Which crap? Me using the transparency of the blockchain to investigate those who flag people for purely personal reasons, or do you mean their actions?
I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. Yes, that was directed at them. Your attempts at trying to expose these scammers is fighting the good fight, even at the expense of your own virtual well being.
I don't see enough of a return from that upvote service to warrant continuing to use it, especially when there are others providing a better service.
This is just another reason to starve the beast.
Well he is getting ready to change it. Perhaps more like an actual lottery so there will be a chance for a big payout. My advice is to resist the greed and not use it. It just fuels some of the most hostile activities on steem. If you think about it he is likely getting a much larger Return on Investment (ROI) from Randowhale than he would be if he was curating.
That's why more and more people are setting up the bots.
It's like the gold rush all over again, it's not going to be the saps with the picks & shovels getting rich it'll be the ones selling the picks and shovels.
I started looking into wallets and following trails, there's some weird shit going on. I can't say I understand how it all works though.
Yeah I saw some strange things. Like why can some people transfer vast sums to Bittrex without specifying a memo and do it multiple times? DO they have some identification agreement with bittrex? Or perhaps it is a feature of bittrex I was unaware of. I saw several strange things like that.
I'm not the most crypto-savvy person here but the year old accounts with one or two posts but lots of transactions made me wonder if they were bot accounts. And then you look at some of the other accounts that transactions are coming from and going to and they don't seem to be doing anything here other than moving crypto around. Something must be pretty lucrative.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Again
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You're a fucking moron
That's giving the IRS a lot of credit I'm not sure they deserve.
is this really happening? Man...
It has since I came here 13 months ago, and usually mostly the same people. A lot of people that walk this path eventually realize the harm they are doing to the platform and stop doing it. There are some that don't really care about that at all, they have sufficient power due to right place right time (or so I have heard) and mined their power before steemit went live.
Can anyone actually confirm that is how this power was acquired or did they actually spend money to get their power? I've heard they got it from mining, but I'd like to know the truth.
No it is an illusion, everything we see with our eyes is false! It is all just a hologram. (sorry, couldn't resist xD)
I have also dipped my toes into suspicious activity. Take a look here. https://steemit.com/steemit/@gikitiki/re-berniesanders-noganoo-mark-bretl-the-scammer-upvoting-shill-comments-with-his-accounts-flag-away-20170727t182715790z
Thanks I need all of this kind of stuff. There is so much information that trying to tie it all together and come up with a way to compress it into some posts is the tricky part.
OMG there's SOOO much information. You're so oblivious you didn't even realize @gikitki was talking about @noganoo. Good luck, Sherlock. I promise, you'll need it.
I don't care who he was talking about. I am collecting information on a lot more than just you. And yes, I did realize who he is talking about. I went and commented on that post. ;)
Mirrors are useful for those that like to ad hominem. Then at least someone will be attacking you, even if it is only yourself.
Say what you will, you're just a pathetic old man trying to build a following. I get it.
Nope this isn't how I build a following. It actually is not what I prefer to do.
Much easier ways to build a following.
So set the record straight. So far what I am going to ask you is hearsay. So I am asking you and you can set it straight.
Did you get your initial power by mining steem before steemit went live, or did you actually SPEND money on it?
I ask so you can tell me which is the case. You have told me and others if we don't like it buy more steem power. I know you have bought steem after that, but I am mostly interested if the people are correct that you mined your initial steem, or are they wrong and you dropped a chunk of cash on it.
Most if not all of his steem was by mining. https://steemd.com/@berniesanders?page=450
I suggest you do your research on the blockchain. Regardless, I acquired it just like everyone else could have.
feels like mom and dad fighting all over again ;.;
Are you, perhaps, Jerry Garcia? just thinking your avatar looks an awful lot like Jerry
I actually wrote a post last week to address this:
https://steemit.com/whoami/@dwinblood/my-cartoon-image-jerry-garcia-albert-einstein-santa-claus-about-my-cartoon-and-photos-of-me-and-my-family
Honest question, what is up with all the votes (hundreds from the looks of it) all at the same time by accounts with 0 rep?
Someone or someones with a bot net up voting. The same thing can happen in the other direction too and did on my post before this.
Congratulations @dwinblood!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
See this post: https://steemit.com/steemit/@venuspcs/berniesanders-and-his-many-alternate-identities-revealed
Yep that scratches the surface. I've seen similar older posts. I am doing similar but following the side trails too.
Interestingly enough various accounts sent @venuspcs some funds too that belong to Bernie, could be due to @venuspcs being homeless and him trying to help out. Who knows.
Yes, and you'll likely see more of that in your investigation.
I would hope you'll report on this as well.
I will. I fully intend to.
Sounds good.
mate, why you don't you tell me when you write something like this :/. Even tho I like to browse through your posts I am not only checking dwinblood timeline when I am on Steemit ;)
Heh... Hard to keep of all the things I should do. Especially when I am now walking around the tip of an iceberg of data with no clue how big it actually is below the waters.
I really appreciate you investigating. If Steemit should be more than a mere money printing machine.
There is one thing about Steemit. I think it gains value because your stake allows you to influence the most visible opinion. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
I am going outside for a bit I will comment more detailed when I am back in 1-2h
I have been souring on Steemit over the last month; the games you are describing here are playing a large part in this.
It's not funny b/c I am heading out here in a minute to walk a friend through setting up his new account here.
Well as far as "souring", currently it is still better than ANY alternative currently out there. My goal here is to simply maybe make it better. There will always be people who game the system, and there will always be those that get off on forcing people to only produce things they like.
We can't really stop that, other than by being aware of it. We also cannot bury our head in the sand, or under our blanket and expect it to just go away.
The realizations I had on my post before this one that was heavily down voted on I could have ignored my realizations and said nothing. Yet, if we see a problem and say nothing we become part of the problem.
So spin it in your mind as a positive. At least we collectively might be able to do something about it.
agreed
I have the sad feeling that a good portion of my steemt time is going to be supporting you and the other Steemers who are speaking out. I'd rather put 90% of it into Information War, but control of information platforms is part of that, and per your first point, Steemit (or at least the Steem-chain) is going to be part a huge part of that in the future...
if it isn't undermined by irresponsible action of the part of the main stakeholders
I can't add to this; it sounds like something I would write ;>
Thank you for writing about this, this is very useful if we have a community.
I have no other suggestions for you because I just a few day's in here.
'Community is important on steemit. We cannot rely on code to solve everything. A lot of that is on us. If you whine about down voting and then you use the services of some of the greatest down voters then you really shouldn't be whining. Using their services simply makes them more and more powerful' - I like this word cause we are in Indonesia have many community like you mean .
I find this mildly interesting, but I'm really depressed at how much meta content Steem has.
Only as much as people are willing to give it. And unlike corporations and governments, it is available to everyone.
By meta content I mean the actual use of the word meta, as in, "about itself."
Thanks for the clarification. I thought you were referencing the accumulation of meta data.
Yeah there is a lot of that. You won't see a lot of that on my blog, as I write about other things most of the time. A lot of people do write about it and it IS a good way to earn good rewards IF you have positive things to say and talk about steem. People up vote that a lot. In other words, it is good bait. So a lot of people keep using it when fishing for votes.
Some of it is also they are just excited about it, so it isn't always greed related.
Let's repect each other's view. It's better not to vote to down vote. If there is punishment let it be clarified.
hi @dwinblood. I too have been doing some analysis. In fact I was pointed to this post by @theblindsquirl, saying you might be interested in some of the data I have scrapped. https://steemit.com/steemit/@paulag/how-to-get-a-post-on-steemit-trending-what-the-data-tells-us#@theblindsquirl/re-paulag-how-to-get-a-post-on-steemit-trending-what-the-data-tells-us-20170807t010838438z
If you want to contact me I am paulag on discord and steemitchat.
great post by the way and would love to see your findings
I am going through accounts on steemdb by hand so I can decide what is interesting and what to toss. I'm entering that on a spreadsheet to show movement of steem.
That is the first step. I am also tracking memos for transfers to exchanges. With this I will be able to make different levels of assurance that accounts are more likely to be the same person or collective group working together.
I plan to plot that on some charts likely using Lucid Chart to show the relations in a quick visible way.
That is my first stage. I want to collect that information before I start digging into other areas. This looks like it will be a pretty big projects. So some of this I am working on doing once so hopefully others can take what I find and do what they want with it rather than having to repeat the same work.
I will certainly look at what you have there. I tend to avoid discord and steemit.chat most of the time as I get too easily distracted there. I also like having a record of the conversation the blockchain to fall back on.
Sure thing, I understand having a record of the conversation. I love excel and data, but it sound like you are doing a lot of manual work. Let me know if i can be of assistance at all when it comes to collecting, merging and transforming the data....
I understand you know many of the accounts and can pick by eye a lot more than I could with my data tools. Hoping I can learn a lot from you. Following
@dwinblood, if you do look at Paula's data scrape-- which only concerns itself with "featured"-- note the strange population of accounts beginning with "aa" and "ab" as the primary upvoters on featured content... which stinks to me of a botnet or botnet co-op run by someone or someone(s) to materially control what ends up on featured... but withOUT using any "real" names.
Yeah I'm thinking we may need to get into those.
Wasn't expecting the drama when i signed up for steemit .
There is drama everywhere in life. Keeping it minimized is a goal I endorse as well. Yet there are also times that ignoring something is endorsing something. Thus, it is not completely avoidable.
I was expecting some higher than average iq users , as this is a Technology related social network , that will steer away from all the drama , and keep this a friendly place .But eh ..
Eventually more and more people will come here. IQ doesn't stop drama. It just changes the topics the Drama is about. Some people like it. Others don't. It doesn't have much to do with IQ but more to do with personality.
I get what you are saying though. They need to get communities implemented (they have been talking about it for a long time) so that there is a little more segmentation and better discoverability for things you like.
A person can have an amazing IQ and not have been taught or exposed to the concepts of critical thinking other than at a cursory level. This is by design in our education system as it makes us easier to manipulate with emotion, verbal attacks, etc.
Due to that we can't escape it. I do think there is a lot less drama here than other platforms. While it has it's problems it is still a lot better than the current alternatives as far as I'm concerned.
yes , but you see , the same people from other social networks will move to this one .As this one pays for their braging .If they pay money for the hate they spread , they will eventually spread more hate & drama .But you are right , iq doesn't change drama .But it should at least restraint it , to a few bursts .[I'm not a native english speaker , so i'm sorry for gramar and vocabulary errors]
Perhaps it does restrain it some. That could be partially why we see less of it here.
Also people that are spreading hate and abuse don't do too well here unless they are already super powerful and people can't really counter them.
Congratulations for being a Real and Awesome Human Being. Bullies love their successes, however negative they might be. The fine line we walk in negating them is to not give them too much energy. Maybe we could find a way to send them positive, loving energy to virally infect them with joy and happiness. This is a very sneaky approach which, as a newbie here, I have no idea how to engage. Ideas??? Cheers and happy smiles from LINDA
This is an interesting path you are choosing here, my friend... but I fear it may be one for which the time has come.
What is so interesting about this whole "game" is precisely that the blockchain is allegedly "transparent" and Steemit "has no censorship" and yet there are many people and groups of people who seem intent on doing everything they can to mask or hide their activity in this community...
Community does matter on Steemit-- and everywhere. Bots (and code) don't build communities, PEOPLE do.
I wish you well with your investigation. I'm neither "powerful" nor "influential" but I shall follow along here with great interest.
As long as I am fair and people have my back I think it will go okay.
Just a head's up: https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_are_the_valid_reasons_for_downvoting
Yep, I am aware of this. The primary reason for this is they don't know of a way to stop it via code that will not potentially open the door for other abuses. Most code solutions people can circumvent simply by having access to more than one account.
Sadly the downvotes on steemit are not for keeping spam and shitty posts at bay, but to exercise authority on steemit and use that giant SP accounts to shut mouths or take revenge or just to show that "I don't like you"!!
Am following you in "silence" ... I don't wanna get hiy by a "random" drone... glad I found you !! End of text.
Thanks for this. Relatively new and am puzzled at how bots etc. improve Steemit in the longer term. Somehow steemit needs to refocus on content and less on facilitating users with armies of bot accounts.
Hopefully it is growing pains with the platform. In my limitee knowledge I dont know how the community can squeeze bots out?
Bots are simply programs that act like people. Thus, there is no way to really stop them from existing. They simply do the same steps as people and they don't have anything that truly identifies them.
As to bots that do help. @cheetah bot by @anyx is responsible for keeping a lot of spam and plagiarism off of steemit. Before it existed there was a period where spam posts were 90% of what was flooding the new posts.
They can be abused as well, but there are positive uses for them.
Great post
Great post
Hi
See my posts and Upvote it
Thanks
nice one
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STOPHi! I am chandan kumar upvote my post and follow me
Hey I greatly appreciate the steem you sent. I'll fry to follow your page more. Looks pretty interesting. Thank you once again :)
Nice post...
yes
Aww, seems like the old man has nothing better to do. I wish you luck on your investigation, everything is on the blockchain for you to waste your time inspecting! BTW, if you believe all of those accounts are owned by the same person you've got a long way to go.
I didn't say I believed anything. I said multiple people, or one person are possible.
I say, have fun on your little adventure. Again, everything is on the blockchain for anyone to investigate. Just make sure you do your homework, you don't want to end up having any issues making any incorrect accusations.
I will. Thanks for the advice. It is pretty interesting.
Never have, never will.
@dwinblood Thank you. STILL A GREAT ARTICLE!!!! hope it will not be a timeless good read. That would be sad for Steemit. Thank you for being a honest true speaker for the good of
not afraid of bernies flagbotarmy.
We need more people like you on STEEMIT!!!
I see in the blockchain history that the abuse goes on for a long time at least 8 months. many accounts sometimes lifes or at least the hope of a tiny basic income destroyed for nothing.
my new banner expresses the two posibilities best . . . i hope
Will do.
Thanks for the information. Some of that I found just following history in the wallet of various accounts. Though the Twitter stuff is new to me. Seems rather stupid for someone to keep restricting earning potential of people simply due to disliking them, or their content. With this type of information out there he is putting himself in physical danger. Though he also has likely made millions off of Steem already so perhaps he can afford good security. He'll likely need it if he keeps it up. No threat from me. I am too fixated on the NAP, but I am not everyone.
Same here, I would not ever waste my time seeking revenge on him for the thousands in rewards he lost me, but he is playing a very dangerous game.. along with his good friends pfunk and ats-david who flag at his whim.
If this post or comment is visible to you, it should be flagged. You can see by looking at his account, @noganoo is a spammer, scammer and bad Steemian! Thank you for your cooperation.
@pfunk and @ats-david I haven't seen it from, but I haven't really looked. I'd see them doing spam, plagiarism, and abuse, but if they are doing it simply for dislike I haven't noticed.
Also you might be interested to know that ats-david did an investigation quite awhile back that partially targeted these same people.
I'm pretty sure that's not the person you're attempting to dox. Either way, it's irresponsible to dox someone and doubly so if you're getting the wrong person.
Though that was also my point. Not everyone is reasonable. The more people that join the more likely that is to be the case.
Yeah very dangerous.