Most of us either in our email or blog posts has seen weird comments (or posts) that do not have anything to do with our mail. This is annoying, especially in an amazing blogging community like steemit. Some even send in links that will compromise your security in order to steal your data’s and thus steal your hard earned money. In steemit, however, this issue is prevalent because of the ability to earn money blogging here even by commenting only.
Some of them are :
Wallet spam: I do not have issue when someone sends some steem to my wallet in order to pass a message however when it starts annoying many members of our steemit community then we all should be worried. For example @thecryptofiend who is a nice and peaceful person had to send @joanaltres a message to stop spamming members wallet with a resteem offer that is valueless: ; @joanaltres - STOP SPAMMING everyone's wallet with your pointless fake follower crap. You are killing what little reputation you had; link here .
Post & Comments spams: steemit posts have been fraught with picture spams : members posting one single pictures (flower, sexy lady, sun, moon, sea, baby, cat, bee, food, juice , teeth etc) almost every 30 minutes in order to make constant money-and in response to @thecryptofiend spam warning , @stellabelle started her own amazing campaign against spam posts here : The war on spam and challenged all of us to join the fight and thus make steemit a better place to blog . My question is, are you ready to join the fight?
Most worryingly, due to the ability to earn rewards via commenting, many members are no longer reading post rather they copy and throw in phrases like Follow for follow , up vote for up vote or even good post please up vote my blog post , wow good please up vote my post too (haha without even up voting the original post).
Up voting spam: Up voting spam is the steemit killer because it robs all of us revenue from the reward pool. Moreover, some steemians have thousands of account just for the purpose of up voting their posts and comments. The good news , however, is that some steemians , examples, @stellabelle , @ats-david , @transisto , the newborn @sadkitten , @sherlockholmes , @personz , @papa-pepper , @pfunk, @patrice , @clayboyn , @fyrstikken , @ausbitbank are working hard to stop or at least reduce spams here. One example is @ausbitbank down voting a spammer whose thread had about 60 comments, all with ~3400 votes from the same voting trail that seems to be led by @ecoworld see link here (Good job indeed isn’t it?).
Why spamming is bad for steemit
Flagging: we all want flagging to stop because it is not good for community spirit. However in order to control spam and scam, flagging is necessary.
Less attractive: if steemit were to be a beautiful lady, spamming certainly will make it ugly and unattractive.
Cheating: spamming relates to cheating especially those who send in loads of posts, comments and up vote spams
Solutions to Spamming on steemit
I do not have the magic stick however, the best thing to do is to be proactive and report spammers to @stellabelle , @sadkitten , @cheetah and @steemcleaners ( please not to @banjo , @ionlysaymeep or even @onlymanamana ) . Another good contact is @spaminator . In fact, on 30th July to 5th August 2017 the account found 10,102 spam comments see link here . Moreover if anyone sees anything fishy, please send a message in steemit chat to @sherlockholmes who will look into it .
;Out of 21,708 users that commented in the 7 day period more than 10% were comment spamming for profit with their own, rented, or borrowed vote trails. While I haven't checked every account, I'm sure 99% are using delegated SP from @steem;
Conclusion : in this post, I have outlined the dangers of spamming to steemit , indicated some members doing their best to make steemit a spam free platform and gave a succinct advise on what to do against spam. Moreover, there is no advantage of spam rather it is fraught with a lot of downsides (especially the bots throwing in spams) and thus needs to be eradicated.
What do you guys think?
• All spams are bad
• Not all spams are essentially bad, i.e. I do not have a problem with any spams
• Spams are here to stay!!! Indicate why you think so
Send in your comment, Please resteem this for others to join and up vote to send your support.
Is steemit a greaveyard for poor people? Click here and see my former blog post: Steemit: Poor People killer Or A Strategic Solution For All ?
I propose a solution to spam: Let them win.
By which i mean: allow everyone to spend 100% of their voting power instead of the current 2% (max).
If we do this the self-promoters and investors have no incentive to spam. Infact, instead of posting 5 mediocre spam articles a week some popular poster might try to make one good post per week.
I outline my argument here:
https://steemit.com/steem-ideas/@donaldtrumpfan/allow-a-100-sp-vote-the-best-voting-problem-solution
Good point, thanks for sharing. Checked your post and upvoted...good tip indeed
That's an interesting angle. I'm not sure that they would start creating quality content because it suddenly becomes profitable.
I'm new and struggling to see how I can turn a profit. I spent a few hours on a post covering this issue last night and only have 0.02 Steem dollars 😂
Anyway, I think it could be a self sabotaging ecosystem. I feel ReddCoin might come out the winner in the long term. Reasons are outlined here https://steemit.com/steemit/@joannajablonka/steemit-is-in-danger-of-self-destruction-why-reddcoin-could-win
Yes your solution does seem to be a good one for this as well as to get more investors!
Nice input!
Good point, feel free to see my latest post on steemit being undervalued and send in your suggestions..
Ok I wil check it out now!
Thanks a lot
what solution will you propose for scam as you did for spam in this post.I posted about even a more serious case of scam at steemit in my new post, I explained some points about scam in steemit-feel free to see it and send your suggestions on what to do. More success
When more people start to discover Steemit the level of spam will also grow since there sre always people out there who want to make money this way. My view is that we can only prevent spam if it is a joint effort:
When the numbers boom I just hope we don't also have to deal with new users reporting posts that they just find offensive. That could also be an issue
Good point indeed, noted.
Thanks
welcome
That's exactly what I'm thinking
Here, here.
With numbers and a sense of competition, yes we are bound to face more spam. Having a team to handle spam will help, but also a better distribution of wealth to devoted content creators and community contributors could reduce spam.
you should also mention the newborn @sadkitten!
Good post! Wee need more awareness of this issue!
@sherlockholmes see the updated version of the post, thanks for your sugestion.
Noted, thanks
Please follow Sherlock, he's doing great work tracking spam bots.
I confirm @sherlockholmes :D
I am doing already thanks, my latest post also explained some points about scam in steemit
Hey, I've heard about @sadkitten, what's that all about? I'm checking the profile now, thanks for mentioning it!
Hope you found someting good about @sadkitten, in my new post, I explained some points about scam in steemit-feel free to see it
I must read and learn everything!!! Keep learning new stuff every day here,amazing! And thank you for being part of that learning process ;)
Good point. In addition to my last comment, feel free to join the conversation in my new post about future of steem...it will motivate you more about steem . More success to you.
I will even though I'm still a newbie so I doubt I will actually follow (or be motivated) but you never know ;) Thank you! Likewise! (Now, where's my ice cream? :D )
Come for your Ice cream dearie...now?
Haha, good point
I think another problem if I understand the system correctly is that it is totally impossible to make money on a post that is a certain age or older meaning any user is encouraged to spam more frequent less thourough posts than a very well-thought-out very long post that could earn money over time the extreme of this is obviously the spammers posting single stolen pictures or useless comments with Incredible frequency.
This is especially true with new users who if I understand the system correctly have almost no incentive whatsoever to put that much effort into their beginning posts because many of their early post will not even be noticed at all let alone make any money.
I think as well as systems to combat the obvious spam directly there also needs to be better systems that will help notice and support new users who are at least attempting to produce quality content and are going unnoticed.
I think there's also going to be an incredible increase in SOB stories and request for donation Etc which is fine but I believe there will be so many fake ones that it will take the attention away from people that actually need and deserve the help of the community.
Most of the spammers don't seem to engage in any real conversation at all so you may have a tough time at it but one way would be to try and make them understand that it is pointless even if you have thousands and thousands of followers if they're just chump change spammers like you than you won't make any money at all off of them, seemingly the only way to make it on Steam is to be noticed by the large dolphins or whales and most of them seem to be quite preoccupied with circle jerking each other...
Then there's the people abusing the power that they have in flagging in a way that does not line up with the guidelines for flagging.
If steemit gives particular guidelines about what deserves to be flagged and you have very powerful people flagging things that do not meet that criteria it is incredibly damaging to the reputation of the community.
This was common when I started here. I don't remember the user but it was a story from Venezuela that was at around $1000 that was successfully flagged and unvoted.
Guidelines are for the community to come up with and find support for. Groups like @steemcleaners and the future group @spaminator rely on support from the community to function.
I'm quite happy that most heavy hitters refrain from flagging these days. I once helped a guy who was flagged to a negative rep by @dan for a comment while well meant looked like spam.
I don't think this has anything to do with age. It has more to do with being seen in the new or hot tabs. The more you post the higher chance you'll hit the lottery and get a vote by someone. You may actually win the jackpot if you get a vote by @blocktrades who likes memes.
Same applies to comments. The more posts you comment on the better chance someone will upvote you. In that situation it is more likely to be less rewarding since users holding SP do value their votes and their stake in steemit.com.
When they removed the posting limit in favor of a bandwidth limitation I don't think they considered that relatively new accounts could post a lot of links. At one point @alonekim was posting more than 100 posts a day with only a link.
As a member of @steemcleaners I've shied away from addressing that problem because it strays into content moderation which I don't want to do. But it could be come a spam issue if it isn't deterred. I hope to come up with some rewarding ways for users to interact and have actual conversations in comments.
you are doing an amazing job. I am back from teaching, so I hope i didn't miss anything!
But it's true that higher quality longer posts are being forgotten. There should be another category in addition to new, hot, and trending:
qualityperhaps.That is true. I believe some older posts could still generate rewards legitimately. Some information doesn't expire or lose value. Especially artistic content. On the other hand I see them as ways to hide bot trails up-voting older posts for profit.
It would be great to have a way to view older content. The current development of STEEM/SBD tip bots would be a great way to reward those older posts directly.
Are you saying an author still receives payout rewards on posts older than 7 days, if it keeps receiving upvotes even months after?
pls do explain that further?
No. Currently authors don't receive any rewards for posts over 7 days. What I am saying is it would be nice for there to be a way to view older posts made by users more easily. There are graphics, tutorials, etc that don't lose value to the reader. With the development of tipbots here users could show their appreciation by tipping authors of these posts.
yes o. That does make a lot of sense, with tipbots, the rewards system for quality posts that remain relevant, can go on endlessly. This indeed will be a great positive innovation for the steemit if it is implemented
Thanks for the insight, I definitely think promoting quality users is a superior tactic instead of attacking inferior users, because the problem with spammers is they just make another account(s)
But undiscovered quality users being supported will have a stronger lasting effect in my opinion regarding the percentage of spam to quality on steemit.
This is one of the best comments in the thread. Good points!
I agree
Your points are great, I posted about even a more serious case of scam at steemit in my new post, I explained some points about scam in steemit-feel free to see it and send your suggestions on what to do. More success
So very true.
Great points indeed, I agree. Thanks for your comment.
Wow great post !! I also did a post a while back about all this spamming , it really is bad for the platform , hopefully it gets taken care of soon , im sure it will , Like to try VB and keep a positive attitude right now ! Steem on my friend , and don't forget to enter my Power Of Positivity P.O.P Contest !! Thanks !! Upped and resteemed your post !✔🆗🆒💙
Hahaha ! Kidding! Keep calm and Steem On !!😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂 always glad to see your comment. Spammers will run away after seeing you beat the shit out of a spammer!!!
Use your downvote to disincentivize abusive behavior.
Good point, thanks for your comment and surpport here. Wish you a blessed weekend.
This post earned my 100 % upvote
Good one @charles1 ... Your point on @joanaltres wallet spam is on point...I think that nonsense has to stop as am sure he now has over 10k spammer followers used to scam peoples 2sbd for resteem that has no value...also other annoying spamers should be deleted...thanks for this...
welcome, thanks for your comment.
always welcome... keep it up
Good content will surely prevail in steemit. Spammers will always phase out.
Thanks for your comment.
Spammers are people who are either too lazy or too incompetent to produce value content as that takes brain and time... Whenever money is involved people seem to just go for that rather than showing their value first!
Unfortunately I believe spam will always be with us. English is not the first language of many users on Steemit so to make it simple for them just a simple "Good post" or :interesting" is used to feign interest. Many people will start to lose interest if they find they are not getting traction so some of the spam will die off but new ones will take their place.
Good point , I agree
There is also a finite amount of Steem to be shared amongst Steemit users. Spammers are essentially stealing value from bloggers and honest content consumers.
There needs to be a mark as spam option so that spammers can, more quickly, be ostracised and ejected.
Good point, I agree. Thanks for your comment.
Steemit is a beta ...there is the deliberate spamming that will happen as steemit grows ...from it competitors even paid youtube trolls will end up here and be able to cause a mess ...could you imagine one with a whale acc ... lol
there will be many forks in the road before this is a smooth running machine ...
And at the end of the day the only way it will work is if all votes are equal I think .... other than that the door is open for misuse...
Good point, however there is no way all votes will be equal due to steem power and ability for those with big money to buy steem and power up or delegation of steem power to people
Spammers will always phase out..
Thanks for sharing..
Good comtent as always..
You are welcome, thanks for your comment
Another problem IMO is that people with huge SP post junk and upvote themselves... Is that true it's possible to actually make money like this with sufficient SP? (Sorry, I'm still a Steem noob).
Everything is possible
We also talked with @stellabelle about it a bit and some other fellow Steemians because the situation is indeed getting out of hand and it is always on our minds. I think all spam is bad but I don't think it's impossible to eventually get rid of most.
But...who would report spam to @ionlysaymeep???!!!
Also, @cheetah is there to report plagiarism not spam - it is not the same thing.
I have a problem with @joanaltres as well - I'm glad it's not just me at least...
I'll check all the links now plus some Steemians in this I didn't know about, thanks! And yes - this has to stop!!!
Good point, I agree. Some spam like cheating goes to @cheetah and @steemcleaners too for maximum flagging
Ah yeah, in this sense, certainly! Cheating is Cheetah's job :D
Good point.
I'm having the most hilarious dialogue with banjo in comments of one of his posts...... does trolling count as cheating/spamming, to report to cheetah?? Ahaha :D Seriously though, I don't think so :P
No @banjo is a friendly bot like Casper the friendly ghost
hahahaha what a comparison! Like my bf calling himself a 'friendly stalker' the other day :D Well yeah, from the brief talk we had, he seemed a bit annoying but mostly funny so I don't really count that as spam... He is a bot though - I didn't know bots can actually interact that well - ok I don't know how well, sometimes his answers didn't make much sense :P
No need to report our buddy @banjo to @cheetah ...he will make love to the cat and the cat will fall asleep.
Best thing is to ignore or chat with him if you feel bored..haha
I hear ya -and I wouldn't, he's so funny haha ;) (but I do see he gets flagged though...)
@charles1 got you a $1.81 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)
Want a boost? Click here to read more!
Thanks bot
Spam is definitely taking Steemit, Hopefully good content and nice people who reads and appreciate the contents will prevail.
Thanks a lot
Please tell me is there any chance to be banned in steemit ?
You can be flagged to destruction if you always spam , copy other people work and picture without referencing
ok thank u so much
welcome
Absolutely true. It is sometimes makes very angry.
Good point, I agree
Thank you!!
welcome
Good topic and so true, thanks for posting.
welcome
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by charles1 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
Thanks bot
Really touching post. We all should take action about those spammers. Thanks for your time to expose this issue infront of all..
you are welcome and thanks for your comment.
I think all spams are bad but in the case of some very new users I warn them that this behaviour will not bode well for them. If I get a reasonable response I don't flag. The rest, will they can get flagged for all I care!
Good point , I agree with you.
I guess while sending you message you should check if user DOES understand English. There are a lot of people here which don't know and understand English. They can just copy somebody's comment and post it everywhere.
Unfortunately, we all come here from different platforms where follow for follow is normal. It might be just a bad habit is brought from previous life
When I came to Steemit I did the same my first few days and if you would downvote me then, I wouldn't be here now
Ah but I would have warned you if you were new and you might have seen countless posts saying that was spamming ;0)
As for the English thing I am sure like I do when faced with another language I just pop it in Google translate .
I agree Meester!
Going through Steemit threads, I can't help but notice all the clickbait posts and commenting spam that occurs. I'm always sifting through dozens of spam posts in the "New" feed to find the quality content written by undiscovered authors. Hopefully higher quality content becomes more discoverable as time goes on.
Also, MIT Sloan? I go to MIT haha. Haven't found any else from MIT on here yet haha.
Great, I agree with you. Spam is an issue here indeed. Following you in order to stay in touch and send in my support.
Anything that has value will be gamed.
It seems the only way to fight effectively is to automate the process. We can't hope to catch everything. Perhaps some kind of machine-learning process could help here to spot patterns with some human stewardship.
This will never go away completely, but perhaps it can be made marginal and largely ineffective as a strategy to extract value.
I agree with your view point. The process is going on recently...hope to see some progree.
Love your article. Building steem the old fashion way, one follower at a time...no room for spam
I agree, good point indeed.
Unfortunately I think this is a situation where we gotta take the good with the bad. Decentralized and whatnot. But keep up the good work and posts. Gonna follow and upvote. Steem On Brother!
Thanks a lot for your comment and support. More success to you and have a blessed weekend.
Yes they must be stopped.
Good point, thanks
Spam is going to be unavoidable, but hopefully not uncontrollable. We're hampered by the concept of free speech here, and rightly so- because Nazi, frothing Dominionist, or Daesh hatespam is still free speech, but only gets controlled when it gets robbed of fuel by downvotes and blocking.
Good point, thanks for your comment.
This is a good post! Is there a guideline somewhere for how to recognize spam? I wouldn't suspect spam just because they post a photo with no write-up. Maybe they take photos but don't like to write? Is posting a You Tube video by itself considered spam? This is very confusing for a new Steemian.
Good point, there i no exact guideline however you know one by the nature of the comment or post and checking out the senders post timeline. However see the page of @spaminator. Thanks for your comment.
Well I wonder what would an efficient way to stop spam would be?!
Because indeed is getting ridiculous, not only article spam, but email as well.
And yes, @joanaltres keeps sending those messages, I understand that she may have her personal interests in promoting that service, which myself I have no intention on using, but one message would be enough, she will be loosing credibility for sure, if she keeps that act up.
Now on a a bit different side, I am amazed of the sheer number of useless comments that I see on a lot of articles, and I did not know that there were bots doing that, but now that i found out from your article i am not surprised.
In my opinion no bots, and I mean absolutely NO BOTS, would be best. I prefer to have people interaction, if they like my articles. Actually there is @ocd, and there are people who promote articles, not bots, at least as far as I know. So services like that is what we should have in this community, people communicating with their peers. Something ought to be done against spamming bots, and those accounts closed.
That's what I had to say, and maybe there are other who think the same.
Great comment indeed, thanks a lot buddy.
You are very welcome, this is a good article, because it is an annoying fact.
You are welcome, I agree.
Your comment caught my eye and I checked you out - glad to see you resteemed one of my bf's (@creutzy) posts! I resteemed that one as well - beautiful mountains!
Also...if you have that moto, why didn't you choose Socrates as a nickname? Hehehe ;)
I totally agree with the no bots but that means no randowhale, no cheetah, and no useful bots if no bots in general :(
But what about email spam? You mean when you get spam on chat and then on your email? It happened to me, annoying....
And yes, @joanaltres, my GOD, she found you too? Lately she's sending me some 0.0000000whatever steem, with a bla bla spam message and I don't know how to stop it...but have you seen how many people she follows? (and therefore how many follow her)
Yes, I do get spam in my email, when I receive a chat, and looks like not only @joanaltres is sending those messages, but I had received 2-3 other messages about that service from different people in chat... and of course in my email as well.
Well if there is no way of s(n)orting the good bots from the bad ones, and looks like there is not, I would say wipe'em all out and be done with it.
I'm not here for the bots anyway, the bots won't read our articles nor make any meaningful conversation.
Well few days ago, one man read an article I wrote and he suggested that I fill in the "About" section of my profile, and I guess I was feeling philosophic, because I went with what came first in my mind... a Socrates quote, I really like that quote, I think is funny and true at the same time, well all learn as long as we live, or we're supposed to and when we depart this world we still have so much more to learn, so no matter how much we learn is never enough, is like we know nothing. Sometimes I feel like the more I know, the less I understand... not that I know much, if anything... and that is nothing.
There are some very nice photos on your website, I especially liked the one with the Vespa, the sun near the horizon, and the last three, some nice artistry going on there. I am into photography as well... among a variety of other things. I might even start posting some pics, actually I will, yes!!
Yeah, I hear you - I tried to stop those initially by nicely telling them to stop, and the 3rd time I just blocked them. @joanaltres thought never did that to me on the chat - other ways only.
I guess bots or no bots would be a solution, but it's quite radical so not sure about that - maybe there's some other way! We'll figure it out ;)
What can I say as a Greek? Socrates was a wise man ;)
Thank you, glad you like them :) Well, yeah you should!!!
Allow spam to be precisely what it is - trash. Don't touch it. Just get rid of it or move on.
Good point.
Yeap, becoming increasingly aware of this issue. I've commented bk and forth with @stellabella and @sherlockhomes and have decided to start taking some action when necessary.
This is an important topic and issue for steemit's future. Thanks for fueling the discussion!
you are welcome and thanks for your comment.
Thanks for posting on this topic. It is not just annoying but it might put off actual new members who have something useful to contribute because it makes the whole community look shady, therefore it is important to spread the message that it is not acceptable to spam.
Good point @thecryptofiend and thanks for pointing out the wallet spam..great guy indeed. Thanks for all your support and I wish you a blessed weekend.
Janagan sering marah,, karena marah akan membuat kita menjadi cepat tua,, sering -sering lah tersenyum
Just flag all spam.
Amen to that..however issue is steem power , haha.
Thanks a lot for your comment and support. Wish you a blessed weekend.
Just flag them. If they flag back, call me.
Good point, haha. However I prefer that you enjoy your holiday in peace. Thanks a lot for your concern, wish you a blessed weekend.
This post has received a 5.07 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @charles1.
Thanks bot
The simple solution is ignore the spammers and if they get annoying or cross the line, flag them. I once read something here on steemit that the beauty of steemit is the ones who work hard to build a following and rep get risen to the top, while the spammers and the people who are just in it for the money if we ignore them they just give up and move on. That's my 2 cents on this matter.
Good pont, I agree. Thanks a lot for your comment
I haven't really noticed it as much, but thanks for pointing it out. Spam is never good for ANYTHING. It's a dirty tactic . It's annoying at best, and damaging and violating at worst!
Good point, thanks for your comment
You are absolutely right.
How do you report? Do you just use the @username in the comments/reply to the offending post? Sorry if this is a stupid question, still finding my way around this site!
It is written on the solution part of this article
Thank you for this article, I'm just getting started and noticed suspect replies to my first few posts. I will join the fight and keep things authentic.
Good point, welcome to steemit and thanks for your comment. See my older posts for advise on how to succeed here. Wish you a blessed weekend.
Spam is indeed more significant than ever those days. My list of muted people grows and grows...
Good point, keep up the great job
I would prefer giving away upvotes. But life is what it is ;)
Great post! Spamming is a huge issuie on here! It's good to see good content discussing this! Thank you!
welcome, I agree.
Great post! I'm glad to hear so many people are tackling this annoying issue. Until now I just ignored them. Thanks for sharing the steemit accounts that handle the spammers. Now I at least know what to do with them.
Great that you liked it. You are welcome my dear one.
Now I flag spam whenever I come across. I encourage everyone to do the same. Don't be afraid to flag!
Good point, lets send the fight to spam
another amazing post! ahh I didn't know that links could steal people's wallets! OMG now I'm scurred.
Yes its called phishing , better avoid links that you are not sure of even in your smart phone. Sometimes they use friends email to send it to all contacts.
This post has received a 3.64 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @charles1.
Explain please.
Nothing bot
You can read minds right?