1. Using Bid Bots
You should stop using bid bots. I'm not saying this from a philosophical view that bots are bad for the platform, I'm looking at it purely from an economic perspective. If you jump on to www.steembottracker.com you will see that most bid bots are actually giving losses during most rounds of voting. Paying 1 sbd to get a less than 1 sbd vote just doesn't make sense. One of the main reasons for this is that people don't realise that they are bidding into a pool. They think that sending sbd will guarantee a return but for most bots this is just not the case. Additionally, you run the risk of being scammed if the bot is down, or is the account is a scammer account who had no intention of voting.
2. Having a Downvote War
The ongoing saga of @haejin and his followers vs @berniesanders and his followers is bad for all of us. To new users it gives the perception that Steemit is an unfriendly place and you run the risk of being downvoted into oblivion. Yes, there are issues with self-voting and the abuse of the rewards pool, but I think that needs to be solved at a systems level. The eye for an eye mentality of that battle equals bad press for all of us and it is a battle that neither side can currently win. It also encourages other vigilantism which is a dangerous path to go down (although blatant spamming should be dealt with).
3. Spamming
Don't comment on 100s of posts with "nice post" or worse still "dear sir, please vote for me and I follow and vote for you" (sic). If you want me to follow you, make an insightful comment and produce good content. When someone says something interesting on my posts I will look at their page and if they have good content I will follow and vote. Posting more than 10 times per day will generally constitute spam too, it is unlikely you can produce that many good quality posts. You should also ensure that your content is original, don't copy photos or text from elsewhere and pass it off as your own. This is plagiarism and is immoral (and potentially illegal). If you spam and plagiarise accounts like @tubcat and @steemcleaners will eventually catch you.
4. Voting for crap
I hate seeing a garbage comment with a $10 vote on it. Sometimes it is not that extreme, but the whole point of a voting system is to reward good content. Rewarding garbage will encourage users to produce more lazy spammy content and comments. If you see a particularly bad example you might even comment on it explaining to the user how they could produce better content. If they are a blatant spammer you might also report them to steemcleaners.org
5. Keeping steemit.com a secret
This is a great site. Don't keep it a secret and treat it as your golden goose. The best thing for everyone is for it to expand so that you have larger stronger communities in the areas you are interested in, whether it is travel, gaming, crypto, photography, etc. Tell your friends, organise meetups, encourage others with your interests to join.
@datascience agreed with the points raised .
Having said that , there needs to be a way to educate people from 3rd world ( my land India and neighbours) that they stand a real chance of getting support from this platform , just not by the ways they are used /trained to in their past(spam+bots).
Definitely. I have seen some people with reputation scores below 25 and no clue why people are flagging them.
very nice thinking, i am a newbie, wanted to use bot, but after reading your nice analysis i have decided not to use bot
Thank you for the recommendations. I'm really curious about all of the bid bots and stuff out there. Are there some that can be profitable or are most of them just a waste of time? As far as keeping it a secret, I'm just trying to see if it's all worth my time before announcing it to all of my friends. I have told a few people who were intrigued but is it a platform worth giving up Facebook for? I pretty much have but didn't much like it there anyway. The wait time to get in is an incredible deterrent now too.
Apparently there is an upgrade coming that will get rid of the wait time to join (although I have only heard this second hand). Looking at https://steembottracker.com right now, all of the bid bots that are about to vote are all sitting on negative ROI. Possibly some of the ones like @randowhale that aren't based on pooling bids might be okay sometimes.
Thanks for the reply @datascience. I'm excited at the possibility of an upgrade to get rid of the join lag. Woot!!
Nice post! (Sorry about that haha) But seriously, I agree with every single point you brought. I joined the community a few days ago and I am already having so much fun and full of ideas of what to write. But to be honest I have been guilty of your last point. This place seems so private and perfect for a person to express himself that sometimes it's a little hard to share this with others around us in real life. But I agree that sharing is the best way to make steemit be a huge and successful platform and I hope it will be someday!
I'm too new on steemit, produced already quiet some content. But really not for producing, but cause I have a lot to share. A lot of which I didn't post on (for example) facebook cause I really think that is quiet a different audience and target.. But nevertheless I do relate to some of your points made. I've experienced it myself often on posts I created. Little comments hardly saying anything but. "Good post" etc.
Like I said, I do produce a lot of content, and I think it is better to spread it..But sometimes I am a bit to enthousiastic ;)
Thanks..
TOTALLY agree with all of this. The bots especially are ruining the experience for a lot of users.
1000% agree with every breakdown of this article
Very good analisys and some good advice too. Only people who will follow this path will become successful on a long run.
Thanks. That is my hope in the long run, although at the moment the power of being an early adopter - even if you produce crap - is still fairly high.
Luckily we're all early adopters. Even today. But that is how the life goes. Some will win~ some will lose.
As a newbie - not even here a month yet - I was surprised when I worked out how bid-bots actually worked.
The downvote wars are worrying. Things are pretty calm on steemit compared to other social media - and the system plays a big part in that. But can you imagine the arguments that occur on facebook or twitter happening here, where flagging can trash your reputation and literally take money out of your (or your opponent's) pocket? When downvote and culture wars combine, watch out!
Spam is something we can all help combat - not least by reporting it to @steemcleaners.
The voting for crap thing is a harder problem - and though I'm not sure what can be done to mitigate it, I'd agree that people should not do this.
You have only 10 votes per day. There will always be good and bad actors here on steemit and in the real life. But on average it will level out by itself.
I am heartened to hear this from a more experienced steemian. But with the greatest respect, I worry that good and bad actors might not 'level out' in the way we always hope - either in real life or on steemit.
Don't be afraid. Either in real life or on steemit. Life is short. Just swim with the current and learn on the way.
One mans spam crap is another mans polite and courteous interaction. Especially among our many Asian, Pacific and oriental users.
I agree - I think that's why it's important to not be too hard on people - they can vote for whatever they like!
A bit of education is helpful too. Lots of low SP users vote on popular posts purely in the hope they'll get a good curation reward, but unless you properly understand how curation works this isn't going to happen.
I think the key is not to obsess over the rewards but to seek out and enjoy the content that appeals to you... it would be nice of the vote rewards weren’t quite so “in yer face“
An “open” and “decentralized” platform means bot-builders, trolls and spammers are equal and legitimate members of the user population. I don’t like it but have to accept it. The alternative is discrimination, selection, segregation and apartheid.