I know you guys are thinking about working on the bandwidth issues and taking measures to tackle the ever-increasing SPAMMING problem on STEEM!. The best way IMO is to put a limit on the number of people one could follow every day. Maybe two or three. From last three to five days I get followed by at least ten people, just after I post. They don't read the post just click the follow button to get the attention. It irks me out as it is just the wastage of network resources.
Following people doesn't even make any sense on STEEMIT, most of the people in here are using GINA to keep track of the people posting great content. Even if some of the people check the FEED tab on STEEMIT to keep the track of people, they would be following at max 100 people on the platform.
Reason New Users Misusing Follow
Previous Social Network Psychology - The follow-for-follow is a much-taught topic by Social Media Marketing Gurus for getting quick followers. They are just using the same teaching on STEEMIT.
Higher Following Number Attract More Users - It looks true for some of the early adopters on STEEMIT platform and most people feel delighted writing about the number of followers they have, but as the traffic is increasing it no makes any sense, a new user who has just joined STEEMIT could have more followers than a person writing post for 1 year continuously. It won't help make earn even a single buck thou cause the followers aren't organic.
It just about gaining attention nothing else.
Why is it bad?
No Flag - People couldn't flag someone who is misusing the 'Follow' command, they are spamming in the same way as they spam using comments. But as no one could flag they are not afraid of people downvoting or reputation going down.
Doesn't Earn them Money - The Follow-for-follow don't make them earn even a single penny, most people don't even check the feed tab or care to upvote.
They first follow and then unfollow - To keep the followers : following ratio in check, most users first follow and then unfollow to gain attention and eyeballs. IMO that's insane and waste too many transactions that don't even make any sense.
Edit: Screenshot of people following just after posting this very post!
I don't know if this is technically possible and what will be the downside of limiting the follows/day. Please put your opinions in the comments.
Great post, i was wondering about this for quite a while, and your gave me some better understanding of this annoying practice
Im a human and I can only spent sundays on steemit. I read number of posts a day and im looking for interesting authors to follow. Your limitation would target people like me. Bots would be fine.
I hate limits. I believe in freewill. I do not want limits in anything. If it costs money to follow, then Steemit can tell us how much money we have to pay to follow. It either costs money or it does not. And if it does not cost money or bandwidth, then don't limit it. And if it is expensive for the bandwidth, or whatever, then make people pay to play. Steemit should be logical in their rules. I believe in the rule of free market. Let money be the only rule.
Thank you for your valuable comment.
I appreciate your time and effort. I hope you will do well on steemit :)
I will do my best to support you and upvote your content from time to time
ps. did you manage to recover your twitter/facebook account?
yours
Piotr
No, my YouTube was permanently closed by YouTube. So, I lost thousands of videos in 2017. Twitter said I was a Russian bot and I have to confirm my Twitter with a phone I lost with a number I had in Vietnam. I'm near Seattle now and cannot get the number and I cannot change the number for Twitter. Facebook has terminated some of my groups, pages, and accounts, many times, for many years now.
Money isn't an issue @joeynoldvn, they will continue to put more money in buying network resources that's never an issue. My true intention is follow to follow is wasted transaction unnecessarily wasting network resources which could have been used for wider good and introducing SMTs. Well, it was just a random idea and won't be executed because community won't agree even if follow is just a wasted number on the platform.
People waste things with money and resources and that is what life is all about, making choices, in how we spend resources, money, time, and everything, and I encourage the exercises of those choices regardless of whether or not they are wasteful or not because it is better to waste and to live than to not waste and never live.
Yeah thats true, 2 is to few, maybe it can work like with voting power, so there is a certain limit but it's elastic.
Glad it helped you understand a few things, I just want to add that maybe new users are bots coded to follow the people with the new post.
Yeah i am certain of that, i notice it especially when i am using bots, that i get instant new followers and reblogs, that dont do anything, as this happens so fast it can only be bots...
thanks @tenis this post is very helpful to me. indeed most new users continue to follow. now i want to change my game pattern.
Glad it helped you @jamdin!
I submitted a report to SteemCleaners last night after my last post. Hopefully they can look into it or forward to the necessary contacts. A lot of this is clearly the work of profit driven automated bot nets. I had 27 accounts follow me 1 minute after posting. Glancing over them it looked like all of them were created this month, are autoposting embedded videos with no other content, have never made any replies or comments, and auto follow vast numbers of users.
I’m about to start flagging people just for following me!
Thank you! I think I should also do that, maybe we should report to STEEMCLEANERS if they are ready to take action against such spammers.
I agree, but 2 seems low, I might not find any one for a bit but then find a little group together I like. But , yes this is a great discussion to have!
You're right.
2 follow a day? That would absolutelly destroy steemit.
@tanishqyeverma
Im a human and I can only spent sundays on steemit. I read number of posts a day and im looking for interesting authors to follow. Your limitation would target people like me. Bots would be fine.
Yeah but that is averaged out over 4 and a half months. I followed many per day some days and weeks I didn't find any one. I agree with your sentiment, by I think maybe a weekly average or even a monthy average, depending on how we see new users behaving . It's already a really hard platform- lots of rules and new behaviors to learn- we want to be more inviting to newbs while they learn the ropes, and 2 is kind of hard lined. Following 3 or 4 or even 10 a day isn't spamming, its following 40 or 50 everyday . Before we start restricting people more in the name of a few, we need to really weigh it out. My least favorite part of society is how we start restricting each other to try and stop a few bad guys- I think it s is necessary but we need to allow for people whose behaviors are normal for them but a bit outside of the social norm. We ideally want all people who are just being themselves to be able to do that while curbing excessive parasitic behaviors by people who take advantage. Also, if people only got 2 a day, do you think they would find any authors outside of the trending pages? We would find ourselves accidently concentrating viewership even more I think... @tanishqyeverma it's a good idea. I am wondering what about getting follow/spammed bother you so much?
It won't destroy Steemit, it would help it growing past. We need bandwidth for the getting SMTs, follow is just one unworthy transaction which is wasting the network resources and if we could some stop that from happening the Steemit Network will be at advantage.
Maybe you are correct when you say there are people who just use Steemit on specific days and that would be a problem for them thou. I am just trying to put my little head to stop follow spamming on the network.
Hey @killbride, you are following like 220 users and you joined the network in January. Ain't the average following comes out to be 2 users/day (if my math is correct).
I am just saying if people are sensible enough, in a day they will just follow 2 people at most.
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I like it when people follow me and whether or not it is spam to follow or not to follow is way too subjective and even if it is spam or waste, that is what freewill and life is all about. As soon as you begin to limit freewill, that becomes a slippery slope towards limiting more and more. For example, Facebook and Twitter banned me for sharing a photo of a Hitler Islam Quote.
Freewill at what cost?? If someone comes and kills you cause he just feels like to kill you, would it come under freewill? Should he be spared? I don't know man, I sometimes feel for certain reason blockchain will always be looked down upon.
I don't have against Allah or Hitler, I just feel Hitler was narrow-minded thou.
And I also feel you are little immature to digest the fact that such things don't bring any good, they just bring hate against a certain section and no one wants hate!
May Allah enlighten you!
You seem to be against 1776. Because that is what 1776 is all about over 1984. You can watch the @Stefan.Molyneux videos which talks about this. You do what you want and I do what I want. Of course, there can be problems with interceptions between different people but individualism is key in life for you and your things on your own land and in places you own. You should be allowed to do anything you want in your place. And I should be allowed to do what I want in my place. And I love free markets.