So someone asked me what I did today. They picked a pretty bad day to ask that question but after I re-read a comment posted under @spaminator it inspired me to share my day.
I fell asleep last night before I finished working on a web page. I don't recall what time I actually rolled out of bed... errr... off the couch this morning but the first thing i did was head to the kitchen and fixed a cup of coffee while @zoee went outside to do what doggies do.
My only rule - No typing before coffee... Patrice without coffee isn't a pleasant girl first thing in the morning.
I sat down at my computer to finish up the fore mentioned web page. It was around 30 minutes before I save the first draft on this page:
@patrice, 13 hours ago (September 29, 2017 @ 09:02:00)
9:02 AM UTC 3:02 AM CST
If you've read any of my previous posts you know by now I am not an expert in anything. I'm a hack. I good hack most days but still just a hack.
I spent a frustrated hour inserting form fields I'd forgotten in the new Abuse Reporting Form and formatting table views. All the time I'm rerunning workflow in my head to think of the most efficient way to setup the new processes.
@patrice, 12 hours ago (September 29, 2017 @ 10:19:48)
10:19 UTC 4:19 CST
By now I've had enough of the website. I've created 2 more forms, added more forgotten fields and given up on my tables being 'pretty'. I'll settle for useful today.
Time to face the world! Cringing I open the Rocket.Chat+ & Discord apps.
Today's seems to be off to a pretty good start! While every channel I'm in on steemit.chat is lit up like a Christmas tree there are only about 20 or so mentions. And ahh... Discord is blissfully quiet with the exception of my new favorite bot giving me notifications.
My first stop? #steemcleaners-public.
One quick question there.. And a quick answer.
Next I'm off to #steemitabuse.
I need more coffee!
I start pulling up excel queries and running them to retrieve data and put on a pot this time instead of just getting a cup from the Keurig.
Back at my desk I grab a couple of Tylenol and contemplate the forbidden bottle of ibuprofen and decide that I don't need any yet. I have a couple of queries deadlocked so I restart them and start looking through the rest of the chat channels. I pretty much ignore #steemitabuse-appeals for the time being.
Nothing interesting going on so I hop into the private @steemcleaners channel and start throwing out questions about search parameters for the new 'Abuse Report'.
I stop into the dreaded channel... #steemitabuse-appeals and skim the names of the users wishing to appeal their blacklist status with @cheetah. One I immediately recognize the other I'll have to look at. I file them away in my 'to think about' box and move on to answering direct messages.
I start looking through my queries and decide that it is time to write new ones. The patterns have once again changed.
By now it is 6:00 AM CST and the only useful query I have is for phishing posts.
Since chat has pinged me with mentions about a dozen times I figure I better check and see what's up!
Not much really. Mostly users on @cheetah's blacklist that can't wait for me to review their posts and give them a response. There are however question in the private channel that need answered and some thought & discussion on some different types of abuse. All while trying to hack together some new queries.
@nnnarvaez brightened my day around 6:41 am when they offered to help out on some queries. After some discussion and time out to report the phishing sites to google and semantic I got back to my data.
As I said.. The only useful query I had was for the phishing posts. Time to downvote and ban. I spent some time there along with monitoring chat and responding to requests.
Before I know it my dad is calling at 12:05 AM CST. Somehow I've managed to meander my way back to steemcleaners.org and I have new users who have filled out the 'Identity/Content Verifcaiton Request Form' Yippy! I'm typing away on my mechanical keyboard half listenting to my dad until I hear him ask - "Are you working?" I kinda grunt and he tells me he'll call me back.
After taking care of a few more inquiries in chat my stomach reminds me that although I told someone I was going to go eat breakfast I never left my desk.
When I get back to my desk after actually eating lunch I pull up the information @nnnarvaez so kindly generated for me and plugged the names in my existing spreadsheet. Only to find that I have 3081 accounts that I need to review to confirm they are indeed spammers/scammers!
Yeah. Let's do something else first. Uhh. Anything else. Time to check in with the @steemcleaners & @spaminator posts and see if anything new is happening there in the comments section.
Not much really. For once I'm grateful that there are not comments on the new @steemcleaners post Introducing Identity/Content Verification Reporting & Lookup that need replied to since time isn't something I feel I have at the moment.
Time to check for new replies to @spaminator. Nothing new on Downvote Party 9/27 - Post Spam. Everyone did a wonderful job helping remove those payouts. I was a little worried about how the community and supporters of @spaminator would view downvoting posts like this since we are pretty much moderating content here when we don't give a formal reason for the downvote. Most of those were plagiarized from a couple of sites. I have to go back and analyze some of the up-voters on those posts and hope they lead me to other spammers with voting trails later.
Reading through the comments again I just couldn't ignore this one this time around:
I really appreciated @reggaemuffin's previous response but I felt the need to reply and let off a little steam.
By the time I got around to actually posting that comment with all the interruptions to deal with steemit requests and complaints it was close to 9 hours since I started my day here. Well to be fair there was about an hour I spent dealing with a housemate complaint in there, too.
Comon... what a bullshit way to money grab.
Come on... If I was here for a money grab I'd be posting two or three times a day on all of my accounts (I have 5) raking in the money and cashing out. Or as the old saying goes - If you can't beat them, join them. But that's not me. I have bills to pay and steemit for better or worse right now is my choice of a full time job even at half pay.
I'm not going to bore you guys with a full blow by blow of my day. Partly because I'd have to look it all up in my chat logs to figure what I did and when I did it! You'll notice I copied and pasted time stamps at the beginning so I can remember when I did what and at what time. I honestly didn't know it was Friday until well after lunch. Both Google & Alexa had to remind me to pay a bill due today.
It's now 6:35PM CST. I'm roughly 14 hours into my day if my math is right. Some days I think I should just set all my clocks to UTC time. A good 11 of that I have been here on steemit working and writing this post.
Not every day is like this. If it was I think I'd quit. Seriously. I'd make more money working at a local convenience store. I'd also pay less taxes and not have to deal with spammers & scammers as well as complaints from the community that I don't do enough, I should be doing it for free, I am over compensated, etc.
It's those like @fitzgibbon, @bearbear613, and the others who have made mistakes but value my work and appreciate it that keep me going on days like today. Not to mention the members of @spaminator & @steemcleaners and all the aquaintances and friends I've made here.
If I had to sum up what I do all day? I play whack-a-mole while herding cats and trying to catch a fish.
This is me as about as uncensored as I get. I didn't do a lot of editing except typos and I didn't go back and look at the time line of my day so I may have events out of order. Somewhere around the age of 40 I gave up worrying about keeping detailed track of my day since I no longer have a career that requires it.
Thanks for your support guys! And thanks for reading what turned out to be a quasi rant.
Now I think I might mute the volume down on my computer and take @zoee outside to play for a bit. Tomorrow is another day and I'd really like to get some of my 'todo' list knocked out. I'm really looking forward to getting steemcleaners.org up and running.
Sigh... @logic is DM'ing me and I have desktop notifications going crazy and this awful dinging sound. I guess I didn't hit mute fast enough!
Image by @atopy, Thanks!
Current Projects: @steemcleaners 🙣 @spaminator
Patrice,
I'm so sooorry
My attempt to help actually made your day worse...
I guessed you've had a hard day and indeed it is the case.
BTW: The 5209 accounts I sent you today, are wallet traceback to the leader of the bot NET Meaning the new 3081 new records are confirmed BOT accounts sending the money back home.
I cross checked them:
To appear in that list i sent you:
Any account sending money to the owner must have voted at least in 20 other posts voted by the BOTNET so it contains only BOTs voting in the BOTs posts and sending money back home.
You can safely kill them all... (I know you need to check them because you are serious about doing this job) but trust me I made it in a way that should free your time not add work for you.
Oh you don't know how happy that just made me. :) Thanks my friend! I was actually going to chat with you tomorrow before I dug into them to see if that was the case.
That's the reason it took me so long to compile I think it was that query that make the whole network slow today (no i'm joking it was a heavy one but i did it linear to avoid hurting the RPC node, just takes longer to complete...)
Once I have my own witness node (awaiting delivery of the server) I will be able to do more
Such rants are good. I had many post rants in the past.
Steemians have no idea how much hard work "Steemcleaners" do. Sometimes it is more than full time work. I had had no idea before I joined SC myself.
And I'm sorry about stressing you out with PMs :-)
I knew that you were very busy. I know how frustrating it is to be surrounded with loads of notifications, PMs and other distractions that bring chaos to your workload, take the concentration out and drag the day forever.
I have just found out that it is good to completely switch off the Steemit Chat and Discord until certain SC work that does not require chatting is finished (like searching for abuse, investigating, logging etc). Then after the task is done, start dealing with messages.
It is good to switch it off at times. It does get distracting! You didn't stress me out. I just thought it was funny that I was getting ready to mute the sound for the night and take @zoee out when you PM'd me.
I think of you often when I write my heartfelt words of gratitude on @steemcleaners. you are performing an incredibly arduous work, most wouldn't want to approach with a ten foot pole.
AGAIN AND AGAIN, THANK YOU for all you are doing for us on this platform, it is beyond most of our understanding yet, highly valuable for us all. You allow for this platform to be more sustainable and to rise with integrity among the digital world.
All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
When I have the time to stop in and read the comments on our logs I always appreciate seeing yours there.
I'm really happy you wrote this. You deserve a lot since without you, Steemit would truly be full of trash!
Thank you for the encouragement you have given me to keep going and do more. I will get more organized and start posting at least 4 times a week! :hugs:
It kind of looks like I'm your Steemit blogging life coach! I'll be checking up on you to make sure you write 4 posts per week.
Kudos also for people like @stellabelle. Yours works speak for you.
awwe! what a wonderfully heartfelt post! I am ever grateful for your service to this community. if anyone gives you a hard time lmk ;-)
Thanks for the great conversations. You help a lot when it comes to thinking things out and getting new ideas.
I'm glad to see @stellabelle did the post she did to help you. I was thinking about doing something also and so if there's anything I can do to help you just let me know. Take care Patricia!
Oh wow. I'm sorry to say but that comment in your post that you replied to was really not thought through at all. I don't have the skills to what you guys are doing however even I know that it's a lot of work that goes into it. Thank you for your support :):)
Hi @patrice, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
First thank you for all the hard work you do and if @stellabelle had not resteemed this I probably would have missed it.
Second I am glad you have @zoee to keep you happy! I love my Max. Now I must pop over and follow @zoee .. Max wants me to set him an account up now.. but not yet, unlike you I know very little about computers and am constantly trying to learn. ❤️ Thanks again and here is a little tip! 1.00 for you for taking the time to share what a day is like for you. Well done..
Awe.. Thanks! I love @zoee. I'm so glad my son and daughter-in-law found her. She is wonderful! If you ever want to create an account for Max let me know. I'd be glad to help. There is a great mobile app called @steepshot for taking pictures and posting them directly.
That sounds cool.. I will look at it and let you know if I need help. Hopefully, I don't have to give a phone number. Already used my phone for my account. Thanks for letting me know about this. :) Will look at in the next couple of days. I do not see how you do your job, it seems there always something new.
I just looked whoa I have no clue. I will look more tomorrow..where do I get the app?
I've used this tool to create a few accounts. Use your active key and not your password for it though.
https://steemit.com/news/@timcliff/new-tool-from-busy-org-create-new-steem-blockchain-accounts-with-steemconnect
There does seem to be something new everyday! It keeps me on my toes.
thanks I will be checking this out when I am a bit more alert .. we just got home from dinner, lovely night here ..even stopped at the local observatory and viewed the moon.
Wow!
I've tried to help on a couple wack a mole 'call to arms' against spammers....
But my little vote and my little focus are nothing!
You are a trooper!!!!
Thank you!
Interesting post... It's very interesting to see what Steemit looks like from the other end of the spectrum. Interesting original account of a day in the trenches.
Days are usually better than this. I've had a few worse. I just miss having time to read & curate.
Well, that was a good read actually to see what some people are up to.
I actually thought you were a dude TBH, honestly LOL!!!
IDK much about you, but found out reading posts months ago you were helping with all this spammy crap and likely --- that is why I do not know much about you.
Because you are too busy DOING the stuff to help out here, and we do not know you.
I know the work you guys do, like this, even with all of us flagging content burning thru time and vote power is unrewarded largely --
So I guess I want to say thanks to you, also.
(:
lol. Common misconception. I had a childhood friend that couldn't say Patricia. When I needed a pseudonym I thought it was a good one. I didn't realize that while unisex it is mostly used by guys.
You're welcome! Thanks for the support.
It is a good one.
I played hockey in HS with a friend whose sister was named Patrice, she was an older women by a year or 2.
We were sort of an item, a little bit.
In Canadastan here, Patrice is a very common name for dudes, mostly in the PQ / French areas, not that I am in one.
I do appreciate your work, thanks again ---- I am sick of warning and flagging people and checking accts first to be fair, it is wasting a lot of time and resources my friend.
But I am fair.
Thank you for all of your hard work behind the scenes to help make this place function efficiently. Without you and the other members of SteemCleaners, we would not have a usable site.
It's amazing the amount of abuse we wade through everyday. Just when I think I've seen it all something new crops up!
We couldn't do what we do without the help of the community. Days like this I just have to remember that there are community members that support and appreciate what we do.
I also appreciate people like you @donkeypong. Your hard works cannot go unoticed
Every now and then a good healthy almost rant like yours clears the air. People forget that steemit is a user driven platform pretty much, hands of approach from any sort of management. An Anarchy test field so to speak. I appreciate what you, anyx, steemcleaners and @cheetah do on a regular basis. So here is my thank you: Thank you you do good work.
I agree. Either that or they don't realize it when they sign-up. I appreciate your support!
Thank you for everything you are doing @patrice! Your work is highly appreciated and I will defend you in the comments section every time I can 😉
I too am sorry for pestering you with all this scammed user stuff. You were already helping in exactly the right way, while I was still wrapping my head around what exactly is going on.
Posts like this give SC a face and a pretty good one at that 😊 in the end there will always be people complaining, don't let that stop us 😎
You're not pestering me! With the exception of certain members I don't mind the mentions in chat. I've learned that 'block user' is a handy tool. I've also learned how to live with users that type frequent short sentences one right after the other. I just wait until 30 seconds after the last notification to see what they have to say! lol
I appreciate the help and support you've given me. It's great working with you.
Hey @patrice! You mentioned me, how nice! Thanks for that lovely conversation we had .
And please know that, while you may still have some hard days ahead of you (the spammers and scammers will never stop trying..) the vast majority of Steemians want you on this wall, we need you on this wall...
We appreciate all your hard work and we support you!!
Helping real users like yourself brightens my day. I don't want to deal with only those who are here to intentionally post abuse. I want to help users as well.
U do great! No need to validate or justify your actions if u ask me. :) If people think they can do better or more....they can simply do it and not whine bout everything.
Exactly! Why don't they volunteer to help? Or do it on their own.
Thank you so much for all of your hard work at Steemcleaners! I know the few small flags I throw around hardly do anything in comparison, so I'm glad there's people hard at work for Steemcleaners to try and keep this a good place!
Every little bit helps!
I'm learning a lot here. Hope is restored. Thanks for sharing.
Such a busy day
Likes of you should be celebrated here
You are doing great work and thanks to this, I finally remembered to follow @spaminator to be able to do my own bit of help a bit better.
I have a huge appreciation for what you do, please keep on being good and strong.
Thank you! Thank you for this post, for the work, and for not giving up. Thank you!
You are an amazing Steemian.
This is awesome work you've been doing. Taking out our trash as @stellabelle aptly put it. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Well done and thank you.
Hello @patrice
I never really thought about people who did the job of cleaning up Steemit till I read @stellabelle's post minutes ago.
I am grateful that they are people like you working round the clock to keep Steemit clean, it is actions of people like you that will truly make Steemit a place of excellence.
In my opinion it is better to ignore negative people, there are people who will complain no matter the amount of good you do. Well done and keep the flag flying.
Shared On Twitter.
@ogochukwu
Thanks for the cup of coffee... Irish Creme Mocha's are my favorite!
Thank you for all your time, energy, and effort you put in on a daily bases.
I often seen the results of your work and the community around you quite often. The positive effects from the work you do against those at war with this platform are wonderful. I’ve even seen firsthand you go out of your way to help out one of the people I follow.
Thank you.
I'm not sure what I did for the person you follow but I really enjoy helping when I can.
Great work!
Even if not all your days are as busy as this one you still matter on this site.
I had no idea about the ammount of time and work some of you guys put into taking out the trash here.
Thank you!
Wow. Thank you for this service. I never knew there is this amount of work and activities going on behind the scene. Do take some time off for rest.
Great respect @patrice.
This was an amazing read. Well done for all that you do. You've gained a new follower :)
@stellabelle was the one who made me aware of your work through her posts and resteems and I really want to say:
There are many users who have zero idea of what you do for the platform. Your continued effort and drive to make this a better place for all seems to not get as much attention as it should. All I ask is that you make sure to take time for yourself and don't burn out. The work you do is important, needed, and very undervalued by many in the community so I hope that more exposure will bring more support for you.
Thanks for your dedication to keeping steem clean! 🐓🐓
@patrice, you're doing the Lord's work. Thank you. I learned about your work last night. It's efforts like yours that give me confidence as a newbie that Steemit has a bright future.
Thank you for keeping Steem cleaner and cleaner each day. Always way too much spam and bots on Steem, so nice to see you working hard to keep it that way. :)
Resteemed!
It was really strong !!!!!
Nice work..
@Patrice
Pls am new to the steemit community, still trying to find my footing.
Scanning through ur posts is very captivating. Really wanna be your fan.
Nice post.
Hi @patrice! @rebeccabe is sending you 1.0 SBD tip and @tipU upvote
:)
@tipU - send tips by writing tip! in the comment, get share of the profit :)What a day's activity. Yes you need to take down that computer and play. That will help to reset your brain. You are awesome.
The work of @steemcleaners is like the air, unseen but very important we can't do with out it. Thanks so much for this, though not enough, but i believe the steemplanet can appreciate your works but attaching tokens to each spammed post cleaned. Just a suggestion though. Thanks again
thank you patrice for your dedication. on behalf of us all. cheers
This post received a 2.11% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @logic! To learn more, check out @randowhale 101 - Everything You Need to Know!
You are one busy lady! I sure appreciate all the work you do on spaminator @steemcleaners! Many thanks to @stellabelle for resteeming this post so that I caught it!
Thank you so much for all your hard work!