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@steemcleaners is combining Tag Spam & High Frequency posting into one guide for the simple reason that High-Frequency Posting isn’t “abuse” unless it is combined with “Tag Spam” or “Spamming inTags”.
Why Tags Are Important
The current UI of steemit.com uses Tags for navigation. This allows contributors to select up to 5 relevant tags for each of their posts.
Why is “Tag Spam” or “Spamming in Tags” Bad
These two concepts are closely related.
Tag Spam = Using irrelevant tags, especially popular tags.
Spamming in Tags = Posting irrelevant or relevant, no (or low) value content to tags with High Frequency. (See Recently: Sports Stream Spam)
Both have the potential to render our current system of navigation useless if Tags are frequently abused.
Subjective Tags
There are tags that are almost impossible to “spam” unless of course, the contributor is a high-frequency poster. For instance life & blog.
- blog - Well, this is loosely termed a blogging platform by community members. If you're posting… Your blogging…
- life - Even in fiction, most topics posted can find some loose relation to life, even death as was pointed out to us yesterday.
There are tags such as art that can cover a wide range of subjects.
- art - one man's junk is another man's treasure. Depending on an individual's point of view any or all creative works could be considered art.
There are also tags that have unclear connotations.
- steemit - We would like to see this tag be reserved for posts that are relevant to the website steemit.com, or the company Steemit Inc. Unfortunately, some argue that “being on steemit.com means the tag is relevant”.
- steem - Similar to above except there is a large difference from steem to steemit. Steem actually refers to the underlying cryptocurrency and blockchain, and actually, has nothing to do with the website.
Artistic Content Tags
Many members of the Steemit Community value original artistic content.
photography: the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (as film or an optical sensor) source
art: works created by artists : paintings, sculptures, etc., that are created to be beautiful or to express important ideas or feelings source
poetry: the writings of a poet : poems source
We hope the community can refrain from posting “shared” content in these categories unless the post includes relative original content.
Examples:
- Shared images or videos of creative works with your detailed discussion of the artist or the artist's techniques.
- Shared images or videos with your detailed instructional or “how to”
- Shared poetry with your detailed analysis or discussion
Steemcleaners actions
High Frequency posters
- As a courtesy @steemcleaners will leave a comment to let contributors know their rewards could be drastically reduced.
- High-Frequency Posts that consist of spam (no value content) could receive a comment or a flag.
- High-Frequency Posts that also abuse Tags will be flagged, especially if it makes the Tag unusable for navigation.
Tag Spam
- Contributors using irrelevant tags will receive a comment.
- Contributors posting “shared” content in artistic tags could receive a comment by @steemcleaners.
- Flags for Tag Spam are reserved for repeated non-subjective abuse. (Sorry, dogs are not cats. Repeatedly insisting they are through the use of tags will result in flagging!)
To Err is Human
We are all aware there are some bad apples that sign up for steemit and see easy money. They consistently post “spam” in the form of copypasta, plagiarism, affiliate spam, etc.
There are some great community members here that may on occasion make a mistake. Many times that mistake can be rectified on steemit.chat. Sometimes attempts in contacting a community member fails and a comment is left by a member of the team.
A comment and/or flag left by a member of @steemcleaners is NOT a call for a downvoting brigade. Most of the time, @steemcleaners doesn’t even flag; we try to guide the community in the right direction first and foremost.
Ask @steemcleaners - Future Q&A Posts
@steemcleaners will be doing a semi-regular post titled “Ask @steemcleaners” in the future. If you a question that you feel we haven’t addressed on Tag Spam & High-Frequency posting please post it in the comments. Questions asked may be included in a future “Ask @steemcleaners” posts.
This bot needs a lot of work... in my first 24hrs on SteemIt It has flagged two of my vlogs for tags that 100% were covered and given my OWN opinion on the topics discussed.
Complete BS... I'm new and trying to gain a following and then I have some group of A-holes flag a vlog of mine without watching it, and then "steemcleaners" hide it and another for "low ratings"... with 0 explanation!
I thought this was a decentralized/unsensored platform, but then we have the complete opposite going on. We have groups of people going around and flagging people's post because they don't like the title or tags for monetary gain... this I see becoming a much bigger problem in the SteemIt community going forward if it isn't taken care of within the near future.
You are so right! Steemcleaners need to flag them selves.
Good work @Steemcleaners :) So the main rule is to use relevant tags on original high quality content. Five tags is a fine number. Not many and not to few.
Maybe we could all get more benefit from smart use of the tags. The great thing about tagging is that it is such a simple way to integrate that post in a subject related list of many good posts. Its a fast practical way to organize information. A good post usually ranges between several subjects and as you mentioned general categories like "life" or "steemit" will usually be relevant one way or another. So that will be a judgement call. With good tagging we then make it easier to find interesting posts in many different categories. A dream for the future could be for all topics to have our own special "toplist" substeems. In those toplist substeems we could find the most interesting and highly rewarded articles about the given subject posted on Steemit. It could work almost like a google search except we collect incredible quality articles from Steemit of the kind which are a joy to read again and again. With the tags it will be easier to find them :)
So all of this seems to depend on keeping a high standard in the posts. And then using relevant tags with common sense as a part of the stategy. High quality content + relevant tagging is a winner for everyone :)
Would it help to limit posts to one tag? I mean, the idea of having more than one tag, especially as many as 5, in and of itself, appears to call for the subjective task of deciding what is relevant. Why just today someone dropped by to chide me on my poor tag usage and frankly, I did not even know that tag was available for use!
Is there a comprehensive list of tags somewhere so I can even know what I have to work with?
Theres a link at the bottom of the tag list that says all tags or more tags, somethin like that. those are the established tags. you can write whatever tag you want. I suggest using established tags too if you use new ones. That is one reason why only one tag is no good.
Should mention: I browse steemit on PC, never been logged in on another device so Im just assuming the tag section is viewed the same.
That is the sense I had, thanks for confirming, much appreciated.
I guess we should have asked those who post in the science how they feel about the use of that tag. 😯 I'm not sure I know what would be considered science!
Anyone can create a tag. That's actually one of the great reasons to use tags is that they are dynamic. The drawback, of course, is that if you are the only one using it the chance of your content being found by that tag is unlikely. So you need a few more tags including a currently popular one. That's one of the reasons I think having more than 1 tag is necessary.
Personally, I'm hoping that Steemit, inc. will develop a new system of navigation. Maybe sub-steems similar to subreddits or top level categories with tags.
When you mention asking people who post in science what they think, do you mean in chat? Or should I make a post with that tag asking if raw, unhinged, speculation is welcome or not - or something like that.
I was thinking I should have gotten some input in chat. You're more than welcome to bring it up in a post for discussion. Might be interesting to see what others think.
Right on, that makes complete sense. It did occur to me even, but I'm chat shy. errrr, really. I'm too hyper for chat ...
Excellent work, this really needed attention. Thanks so much for all of your hard work @steemcleaners, ya'll are doing a really great job!
The #science tag is also a good example of mistags. I slightly started to ask for removing #science from non scientific posts...
I once suggested that a science fiction book review probably didn't belong under the tag science. The contributor basically told me I was narrow-minded!
I don't see anything wrong with asking users to use more relevant tags.
Science fiction is still connected to science, in some ways, although I would have probably asked the same (the tags are at the end of the day there to help people finding what is interesting for them). But they are much worse cases where users feel the needs to fill all 5 tags with something even if not relevant ^^
i smell fashism....
As in fashion police? or fascism? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism)
Thanks @steemcleaners for this post (and olso the ones from the past) !
I just followed and I started to read all the information that you put in your blog...
I belive that knowing the rules is knowing how to improve!
Great update and very valuable points for us all. Thank you for all your work.
Spam in www.steemit.chat bugs me too. I see to many ofthe same article posted in 7 or more channels and its a gd post has nothing to do with the channel.
so many rules.
i smell fashism. the taste of the start of the end. tag are limited and so on. better write articel about how peopke can improve their articel so they can make more qualitative money in the end. this regulations just end ind the end of thid platform
what does fashism smell like? citrus perhaps?
light and fruity with robust undertones of dead autumn leaves and a nose of corporate greed
ah...Friends of the Earth headquarters...gotchas.
good article!
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Thank you for this useful information!
Great work and impressive coding on the SteemCleaner bot.
thanks VERY MUCH i am a artist and am pleased to find out original art is valued by the community - i am new and haven't shared much of my painting or music yet but i haven't had hardly any response to it either -so i was really wondering if i would be valued here -- am sharing on a variety of topics and trying to learn the best way forward .. all the best -David
So I guess, "General" would be a no go?
yea some one on steem hates genesis mining and steemcleaners flaged me and took my rewards like asses. just worn someone first dicks
My problem with this is that the comments and flag seem really arbitrary , and can make serious damage to people who are new
The other is that the plagiarism and content quality thing is really subjective , and sometimes can look or be a sort of gatekepping , when only certain kinds of contents are allowed or favored , and posters stop posting any other kinds of content , lest they risk being flagged by steemcleaners
Why i would make the hard work and effort to post various pieces of contents on diverse topics , and make comments on the threads , if steemcleaners can wipe my rewards with the click of a button , if they dont find my content of their liking ?
I'm glad to see there is community policing here. I have noticed a lot of spam, mostly in the way of mass posting. I also read one article that was so well written, I googled it. It appeared to be original content. Awesome! A lot of great writers here.
The Spammers here on Steem are out of control and will ruin it for the quality posters - did a post on it here: https://steemit.com/spam/@nzfxtrader/and-127830-making-ham-from-spam
It seemed to me to be very difficult to get on steemit. I needed an email address and telephone sms verification. Then I had to wait a day. If someone isn't behaving, and gets banned, it must be difficult for them to return with a new identity?
I like
Quite helpful post for newbies like me. I suggest new accounts should be made to autofollow accounts such as this so that they can receive contents that will guide their activities on this platform in their feeds. Thanks for sensitizing the community
You can quote sentences or even a paragraph or 2. Just make sure you specify the source with a link to it. Don't quote an entire article or good portion of it.