Interesting that you cut off the list at # 10. Guess who is # 13? That would be @ats-david...
Yes, that is correct. I am at 13. I provided the link for everyone to see. I have nothing to hide.
...who upvotes himself on every post (in addition to upvoting many comments to make it look like others agree with you)
I very rarely vote on my own comments, and usually only upvote them if I have been flagged. When I do upvote for other reasons - which is rare - I mostly upvote at 1%.
...with the @tombstone account, which is one of the Top 15 SP-holding accounts on Steemit. Haven't been too transparent about that, have you?
Yes, actually, I have. But it should be noted, I am not in a guild and I am upvoting for my own reasons. I do not profess to upvote "for the good of Steemit" or to "balance out post rewards" in order to make things more "fair."
Aside from your ongoing hypocrisy and the fact that you seem to think people working 10 hour days should do so for free, it's a worthwhile discussion.
Thank you for highlighting the very thing I talked about at the beginning of this post. If you have nothing of value to add to this discussion, I would ask that you kindly excuse yourself from it.
It doesn't matter what one professes, the model is precisely the same. The only differences are that Steem Guild is a collaborative effort while your guild is an individual effort and Steem Guild has much more voting power (again, makes sense as there's far more manpower involved). Otherwise, the model seems identical. You vote on your own posts and de-facto get a vote by your trail including @tombstone.
I have absolutely no problem with that and greatly respect you for going out and convincing a whale your curation is high quality. Kudos to both you and Steem Guild!
In many ways @liberosist is correct. It might not be precisely the same thing, but it is similar in many ways.
The key difference is that @ats-david votes for himself presumably because he believes that the content that he is posting meets some subjective critera of "good". TITS he votes for the content, not the person.
SG curators get their whale vote as a reward for work allegedly done in the service of SG. Getting whale upvotes for low quality posts (many of which are borderline plagarist or barely coherent) which, presumably, would not otherwise receive them is part of your model, and its not a part of @ats-david s. (and as i noted in the thread with smooth below, when your stated purpose is to increase the exposure of good content, but youre funding the endeavor with undeserved (based on quality of content alone) upvotes on relatively low quality posts, then it really begs the question: what are you really trying to accomplish?
Personally i think ATSD's posts are normally of a high quality, even the ones that cover topics like sports that don't interest me particularly. If ATSD got a bunch more whale followers like the vals and the michaels, and if he started posting incoherent plagiarist drivel 4 times a day and self-upvoting it as a reward for his curation efforts on other posts, Then yeah, hed be almost as bad as SG. Still no threats (that i know of) or downvoting critics (that i know of) but almost. Then again without the "for the good of steem" rhetoric that SG uses, hed probably lose most of those whale followers if he did that.
It actually is not the same. My model is based on ROI. The goal of my trail is to maximize my SP rewards. It has nothing at all to do with better distribution of rewards. I do not seek "undervalued content" and I do not curate based on "the good of Steemit." As I have stated before, my votes are based on the following:
Or any combination of those four.
I am not a guild and my votes are given almost entirely based on my self-interest. My trail is open for anyone to join or to leave. I ultimately have no control over that. I have not been delegated any specific SP for any stated purposes of "improving" Steemit or finding specific content.
I was also approached by Tombstone. He thought it would be an interesting experiment. I did not seek out any particular whales. It is entirely coincidental. I have curated almost exactly how I was curating before all of my followers joined my trail.
So, in short - I am not at all like the existing guilds. The fact that I upvote my own posts - like any other users - is to be expected. When Steem Guild upvotes each of their members' posts at a much higher voting power than the rest of their selections (which was 3-4 times as high), it's an entirely different ballgame. The Steemwhales.com image demonstrates the effects of that.
Of course, we are getting into semantics here, but for me you are by definition a delegated curation guild. A very different type of guild, sure, but the same model applies. I'd call it an individual curation guild. You could call it whatever you want - but you have a whale and several other accounts following you trail. You get paid both by curation rewards and by author rewards from votes on this trail. You could just as well choose to not self-upvote your posts - the trail wouldn't follow. Don't do that, by the way! You should definitely get the rewards for your work. It's a free market.
I recognize your criticism of Steem Guild, but that's purely a matter of magnitude.
I will reiterate that it is not the same model, for the reasons explained previously. The stated goals are different, the delegated power is different, the procedures and criteria are different, and the results are different.
Yes, there is a difference in magnitude, but this is practically irrelevant. The differences in the above-mentioned factors are what separates what I do and what guilds do. The fact that people receive a larger payout than my single vote is literally the only similarity between me and the existing guilds.
If Tombstone was not part of my trail, that would not change my curation habits. But I would venture to guess that if the members of Curie or Steem Guild had no whale backing, I doubt that they would be curating as they do now with the guild and its guidelines. Their voting habits would likely be different - or they simply would not exist. And this is due to the fact that the purpose of their existence is entirely different from mine and functions in an entirely different manner.
It's much more than a matter of magnitude, as I explained in the post. There are many reasons for me to be against what they're doing, and some of those reasons haven't even been fully explained, due to the length of the post as it stands now.
I don't think he should not self-upvote. That said, IMO it would be a really good thing if streemian had an option to exclude vote following for self upvotes.
[tree limit] It doesn't matter what your purpose or intent is, or what you call it. And it doesn't matter if you have a whale following. Steem Trail doesn't, for one.
To quote myself again -
Let's leave it at that, shall we? You can call it whatever you want, but the above facts don't change.
I checked you out on steemdb after you flagged my comment with my own followers' voting power. Do not attempt to take the moral high ground here. You vote every one of your posts with 100% power of the guild, then vote other ones considerably lower.
And you flagged my comment which was between you and I alone with my own followers' voting power against their wishes.
You are not honest. Do not pretend to be because it's unbecoming.
Gaming the system is one thing. If there are vulnerabilities within the system that can be exploited, then until they are resolved this sort of thing is expected. Such is why I never mentioned this before today.
Trying to pretend you're not gaming the system whilst accusing others of doing so is much worse than the abuse itself. Be a fucking man and own up to your actions. This is embarrassing to read.
You earned that flag. I don't hand them out without careful consideration. I see that you haven't learned much since then.
If your only plan is to try to insult me, you may earn yourself another one.
If you have anything useful to add regarding my post, feel free to comment on that.
Your mistake, David, is believing that I am in need of whatever lesson you are trying to give me. I don't care if you flag me. 1 flag, or 1,000,000 flags. I really do not care.
You're actions are far from honourable, and I will say this regardless of your pathetic attempts to threaten me with a flag.
My goal is not to insult you, that gets us nowhere. That is merely a byproduct of me having absolutely no respect for you. I have always said what is on my mind since I was a child. I see no reason to hide my opinion, especially when that opinion pertains to someone who is hurting a community that I have grown to love.
The point of my message is to highlight the hypocrisy of this post and the dishonest nature of your words. Shame on you.
It's an economy. You somehow want to make it a socialist state and dictate what others can do with their voting stakes. These people are working hard and those who have justifiably accumulated large SP stakes have chosen to 'employ' them to do the hard work of tracking 400 authors and making sure their best posts get rewarded. If you add similar value, perhaps someone will see fit to reward you. Oh, that's right, the 14th largest account on Steemit already does, plus you use your trail of trolls to vote on your posts and comments to make you seem important. Are you just upset you didn't make the Top 10?
I would suggest that you actually read the post. Here is a direct quote:
You're continuing to look extremely foolish. I would advise trying to be more respectful and perhaps users would be more willing to have an honest discussion with you. But the choice is yours.
Honest discussions? Give me a break. You've dismissed everything that is not self-serving to you and the curation rewards you earn from voting @tombstone and trails on all of your posts and many of your comments. Honest discussion would involve comments that do not get upvoted by your whale and trail. That practice is sleazier than anything about which you have complained. I challenge you to go back and look at how many discussions you have falsely steered in your direction through that dishonest obfuscation. "The community" does not include your itchy finger.