I saw my first unfollow today. And it wasn't after a controversial post, or posting too often, or anything. It was just a regular, "delay unfollow" that is the norm at places like Instagram, which I hate to even name.
I hate it.
That practice is a huge reason why I'm here.
Don't follow people to get them to follow you! It's so stupid, and it doesn't actually work, especially on this platform.
All you end up with is low-quality followers who don't engage with your stuff (no money, if that's what you're after), and a ton of people confused and discouraged by being used and annoyed.
I'd like to appeal to altruism here, but those who are willing to spam away likely don't care about the bigger picture. Of course it starts to eat away at the magic that is the Steem world. And I hate that.
But the truth is, it just makes people annoyed, and it won't work for you in the long run. It's all the more obvious that your content isn't good if you've got 1000 followers and no upvotes. Seriously.
So please stop ruining it for everyone else. Spammers don't belong here, and eventually you'll be found out and flagged. Just don't do it.
Be yourself. Share good content. Invest in others members--and you'll see success. More than that, you'll be contributing to the little David that might just take down the Goliaths of the world.
A lesser evil, but also frustrating, is when someone asks you to follow them. Sometimes, I was at the point where I wanted to follow someone, and this just turns me off totally!
(This is me trying not to be too indignant)
Please keep this place different. Those of you who are here to spam: stop. And the rest of us--get your flagging teeth out, and flag mercilessly when it comes to spam. It's going to be crucial that the committed community members step up to protect this place.
Xx (yes, kisses even for the spammers who are reading, if you are now repentant),
Kay
Thank you for sharing this, following you!
One of the guys on this thread saw that this is literally every single comment you post. We should all flag you. Please delete your comment and don't keep doing this. It's annoying and ruins Steem for everyone else.
You can report them here:
https://steemit.chat/channel/steemcleaners-linkdrop
You might even get a little reward for it :)
Thanks! I'm yet to get on the chat feature (new and a little overwhelmed with it all), but that's a great resource. I hope EVERYONE starts reporting spammers--at least the obvious ones that might even just be bots) so it doesn't last.
I mean, maybe with the newbies who don't yet know how different it is, we should cut some slack with warnings (they might just be 14-year-old Instagram addicts after all), but we definitely need to make this a routine part of our use of Steem if we want to keep it good.
The steemcleaners have a routine of warning them first ...
That's PERFECT. Exactly how it should be. I just told someone to stop spamming, and they agreed to. In the end, I'd rather have repentant, quality users on here who stay and change than just angry people who got flagged.
I will come back to that link soon. @bananaskin should take a look--there's a sleuth :)
Yeah it's so annoying isn't it.. Anyway, I really appreciate the "Thanks for sharing!" comment you left on one of my songs the other day @kayclarity. Hope you enjoyed listening. ;)
You bet! Yes.. it is annoying. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that there isn't all that much on here, now that I've spent a little more time on the platform.
True. I'm guilty of this to be honest with you.
One of the repentants :). Welcome back to the real world! xx
Fine Then LOL, I will follow you cause your an awesome singer :)
haha! A girl's gotta vent sometimes.
kisses for the repentant spammers ;) Well done, kayclarity! Hope your chest feels a bit lighter now
It does!
Hey...can I get some kisses too?
True
Soooo annoying!
Haha well now is everyone's chance to flag crypto-p for spam!
Oh, I see.. Is telling people you're following them spam? I tell people sometimes, but usually only because I want them to know that I really support them!
Hmm.. I don't necessarily think so but, posting the same exact comment on everyone's post is the definition of spam isn't it?
Yesyesyesyesyes.
lol - what's that?!
The comment at the bottom of this thread. If you go back through their comments on their profile, all you see is "Thank you for sharing this, following you!" repeated hundreds of times.
@bananaskin aaaaaah! Thank you. You are teaching the preaching newbie! lol. I will be profile-checking a bit more!
I was worried for a sec.. because I do sincerely interact on here, and definitely tell people when I follow them because I want them to know I appreciate their blog.
Haha keep doing your thing Kay you have nothing to worry about :)
Thank you :) haha. Have a good day! xx
Thanks! I am not gonna follow for followers while I'm here ;)
Thaaaaaank you! xx
I had some weird spamming going on this morning. Ugh.
So frustrating. So. Frustrating.
good article ...kisses
I completely agree active genuine engagement is what it's all about
Yes, yes! I remember you from yesterday. Nice to see you here! xx
I have definitely been guilty of this in the past. It's so tempting to fall into old practices because they are vital to succeed on other platforms. I always have to remind myself that I don't have to do this anymore. I usually tell people that I have followed or reblogged them because I think steem should have a notification for this, it just makes things straightforward.
Thanks for being honest.
I was tempted before, but could never bring myself to do it--it just never felt right. And thus I didn't really succeed, actually. It's hard when the world isn't built for integrity. I really hope we can all commit to doing things differently here, and therefore encourage integrity, common sense, and virtue in a world that desperately needs it.
I tell people as well! Of course that makes sense without the notification, and because I only follow authentically, I want people to know I support and encourage them.
Click below on @crypto-p and look at his comments. I love that there is a feature here where you can tell if someone is a spammer or not. I'm definitely going to be checking from now on, and encourage others to as well.
A side note about authenticity, even if you delete your spam posts at a later date I believe they are still permanently stored on the steem blockchain itself for anyone to view.
Super important for people to know. I think we should be forgiving, though, if people realize it's a problem and stop. But very good for people to know!
I just commented on a spammer and told them to stop it, and they agreed to. That's a success. I think most people are good-hearted and probably will respond to a calm correction. Maybe we don't need to use the flag feature unless it's really persistent.
Nicely put.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Xx, Kay
No problem, thanks.
Absolutely spot on, i am a bit soft and if anyone asks me to follow them i will, but when it comes to me i just put posts up and hope people like the material enough to follow me. I am get terribly affected if people unfollow me, but as you say whats the point of having 1000 followers if no one upvotes the stuff you post because they aren't that interested.
Part of what i love about this medium is the "sweat equity" concept, my hard work is rewarded with crypto currency, but again, i am slightly contrary, i like the upvote thing and still suffer from Facebook syndrome, loads of upvotes mean people like my stuff, still trying to get my head round a platform, and members, that materially reward me for my work
Sweat equity. Perfect. That's exactly it. It's incredible to feel like you're earning success, small or big.
I never do that and don't like that either. One thing that I think is silly are the ones who have thousands of followers and only follow a few to look important. Is that why? And those who make sure they have more followers than following.
Human pride is a wicked thing. I think as long as people are being authentic, the number shouldn't matter overly much.
You're right, none of that should matter.
Good Joob
I 100% agree. I remember when instagram was awesome in 2013 when it first came out. It was so much fun to interact with friends and meet new ones on your phone. Then marketers and spammers destroyed the platform.
Ugh. Exactly. We really need to commit to working to protect this Steem thing.
I used to do a lot of following back just out of courtesy or if asked. It kind of makes it tough though if your feed gets full of things that you don't care about too much. Dropping someone that you have followed doesn't feel too good either so I generally avoid that.
Some of the folks that try to get you to follow them spam out a lot of smaller posts quickly that I'm not too interested in. It makes it difficult to find and vote up content of the people that you care more deeply. A lot of times I check which people I comment on or have commented on my stuff recently and pay less attention to my home feed.
I generally don't vote for my own comment unless someone else votes for it first but that is just my own thing. I feel like it keeps me from going hog wild and spamming out comments so I can vote for them myself, lol. ;)
It's nice to hear a few people talking about what they experience with all of this. Helpful! Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I feel the same way.. I will unfollow if it's an authentic unfollow, but not very often at all. And so I don't follow unless I'm interested in hearing from people. lol about the self-voting :)
I've been doing "social content" for almost 20 years... and the endlessly copied tit-for-tat followback comments is about as useless a strategy as there is.
Sadly, it can also be a "site killer" if allowed to run rampant.
Any time you see copy/past comments and content, you can always report it to steemcleaners, as @felixxx suggested.
The person in question here is interesting in that the account is substantially "powered up" and the owner is upvoting all his/her own comments... worth some 60c per vote. That's "gaming the system" in the worst possible way.
It is so awful. I do want to spend some time with steemcleaners, because I think this is something we all need to be invested in at the very beginning so a different culture can grow and take root.
Ugh. We should flag him - I warned him already, and he is literally posting the same thing over and over and over again. @crypto-p. Very frustrating.
I just really don't like that kind of crap... the rest of us can report copy/past when we see it, and otherwise focus on creating the best possible original content.
Good point. It isn't fair to have to invest time in that. Probably you've got the reasonable mind on this. It just riles me when so many of us work so hard, and then others just ruin it. My hope would be that if it's cracked down on, and we habitually don't tolerate it, spammers won't waste their time here.
I agree.
The worst. Thanks for your comment. xx
Oh dear, I'm starting to get what's going on here @steemit (umm does giving someone/something a strudel before their name mean I'm spamming?
I get the part about just following people because they showed/feigned interest in my post...100 or so in since yesterday. Looks like I'll need to do some deep cleansing...
I think it's best to maybe drop the keyboard and mouse around for a while...just respond to my feed and replies. Thanks for this post @kayclarity ...lol I came by it by my feed because I followed you...I'm such a newb...think I'll go write some poetry...feeling kinda down now...I'll be back though.
~may all hatred cease...let there be peace~ ...'n that ain't spam no matter how often I use it...don't care what anyone thinks about that ~slightly skewed smile~
It can be a little disheartening. I think commenting on posts, as long as you mean what you say, is a natural way to "meet" people on here. How else would you connect? But spamming is when people don't take any time to construct a meaningful response and just copy and paste something and say "follow me" or whatever. I don't comment on posts that aren't interesting to me in some way, although once in a while I'll do a simple "welcome" without much else to someone new (I appreciated that when I first came on here).
Don't be discouraged too quickly! Just follow people you're actually interested, and be kind to people, interacting in an authentic way, and I think you'll enjoy it!
Well duuuhhhh...yes of course you're right and of course that's how I roll. Everything you said is correct. There is some amazing content here and I intend on tasting as many flavours as my brain's pallet can stand.
btw...that duuuuuhhhhh thing...it was meant in a humorous tone
Spot on, the only thing more annoying is buying follows via clickfarms or similar. Thx @kayclarity
Yes. So so frustrating. I think spammers will find it's different than other platforms, however, in the long run. And we should warn people first, I think, but if someone is really abusing the platform, it's nice to know we have the flag option when necessary.
I must admit that I am tempted to copy/paste content I wrote so far on other blogs, but I don't want redundant content in here...
Hmm. I wonder what other people think of this? With some of my other content, I don't mind, but I'm new here and maybe don't know how things work. I had a blog, but hardly anyone read it at all, so it was almost like just a well-written online journal!
Well, your stuff gets readers now, so all good :) And I think it ain't a deal, as long as it is your content
Good post. I've been seeing a lot of this. I'm not usually the kind of person that can be bothered to report others, but this practice needs to end. The worst thing that can happen to this platform is for it to become a spam fest.
This reminds me of times on Myspace about 10 years ago when it became a trend for people to have thousands of friends, and they would post Myspace bulletins with huge lists of people to add.
Followers that engage with you rather than exist as just a number are much more worthwhile.
It's true. Meaningful followers is much more worth it. Besides, if everyone starts playing the same game, they'll just go and unfollow you later anyway.
Very helpful read for a newbie like me.
Glad to hear! I certainly try :) xx.