RE: @ecotrain: Making voting bots great (again!?) with whitelisting and 11% ROI! Plus my opinions on why voting bots are a good thing for Steemit!

[somethingsubtle]

Interesting points, but I don't think better bidbots is what we really need.

I'm worried that bidbots break down the economic engine of Steemit by re-inforcing rent-seeking behavior that doesn't build out the community in other ways, and overall, bidbots ultimately devalues Steem and the platform.

Comments

[eco-alex]

its a HIGHLY complex issue.. but i think it defiantly drives the desire to Buy Steem so that alone is a good thing.. better bid bots DO build out the community, like mine in many amazing ways.. so there is a LOT that can be said for them ... Further more,, people with high VP do not usually want to spend all day curating.. it is not possible also for 1% of the SP holders to even attempt to curate 99% of the posts in an ever expanding ecosystem. We NEED delegation and voting bots to allow the reward pool to be shared out.. previously there was WAY to much vote exchanging and self upvoting happening.. and those things are far less prevalent now..

more importantly if it werent for bid bots i could never have upvoted SO many minnows and encouraged them to keep posting!

thanks for your comment!

[somethingsubtle]

the desire to buy Steem

The same could be said during the 2008 housing crisis when more and more people were driven to buy houses and an entire unsustainable economy was created over people chasing over-valued assets in unsustainable ways.

high VP do not usually want to spend all day curating

This is definitely an argument for distributing the VP around in a more equitable way. I think the bots are a poor way of doing that. They are consolidating voting power and then distributing it for a fee. This is just like the banks in 2008 that were happy to give mortgages to crappy lenders. Most bots are indiscriminately giving value to any posts, regardless of merit.

So, again, the banks (bots) are happy because they are selling loans (votes). The delegators are happy to fuel those loans because they are getting paid, and yet everyone is digging a bigger and bigger hole which is fueled by more and more people wanting to get into the Steem ecosystem - not for the content an community, but for the ROI provided by bots.

If Steemit really wanted to share the reward pool in a different way, we shouldn't need middle-bots taking their cut. I think it is a poor solution to a systemic problem.

[eco-alex]

i appreciate your comments, but they don't really stand up against a guaranteed ROI and whitelisted people .. i.e. there is no 'fee' as you say if you make more back than you send..!?

plus

this bot is ALL about content and community.
I DO wonder if you REALLY read this post from your comments?

do u have a better idea?

[somethingsubtle]

Please keep in mind, I'm not commenting against your bot, specifically. I'm glad you are taking steps to try to make bots a bit better. They obviously aren't going away any time soon, and I appreciate that people taking positive steps within the bot world.

In general, I do think Steemit should discourage bots overall.
Below are some possible corrective ideas:

• Limit the total amount of SP that can be delegated by an account to some percentage (10, 25, 30%)
• Reduce the value of delegated SP in some way (1/2, 1/3, 1/20). i.e. Power in your hands is worth more than power loaned to someone else.
• Improve the discovery capabilities in Steemit. e.g. Call out highly-commented posts, call out 'rising stars', provide 'saved favorite posts', etc.
• Adjust the payout duration to reward longer lasting content instead of just more ephemeral content that requires immediate promotion.
• Compare and contrast why 'Promoted' posts are less effective than more complicated vote bots.
• Adjust the Promoted page to improve discovery and surfacing of promoted posts. e.g. Could Promoted posts be interspersed into Trending using a simple auction algorithm?
• Build out new features that mimic the capabilities that cause people to drift to Discord rooms. e.g. Communities, Favorites, etc
• Adjust payouts to better reward minnows. In many ways, the concept of a few whales acting as gatekeepers to content is also antithetical to Steemit's ideals as a decentralized blog. The core idea from my perspective is that hard-working and solid content creators can find the long-tail audience that supports them without the need for a dolphin or a whale to throw them a mercy upvote, for them to buy bid-bots, or for them to speculate their way into actual discovery.

[eco-alex]

thanks for these ideas.. its been a Long day so pls excuse me for not continuing this thread right now.. THANK U for your inputs!!!