The growth of Steemit has been explosive during the last couple of months. Unfortunately, with this growth a lot of new users came here only to make a quick buck without providing too much value (if any). One of the easiest way to spot this behavior is in the comments.
Judging only by my on posts, about 20%-30% of my comments are just spam: "nice post", "please follow me back" or some random words put together by a bot.
Dealing With Spam, The Positive Way
My way of dealing with these comments is to upsteem all valuable comments until the low quality ones are going to the back of the list. I wanted to make this very clear, because, in many parts of Steemit, the "normal" behavior would be to flag the spam. I don't think it's a good idea.
First of all, if you flag, you spend the same amount of voting power as if you would upsteem. So it's a waste of voting power.
Second, if you flag a comment, the current Steemit UI will trick you into something that's not very productive. As it is right now, if a comment has been flagged, it will be hidden, and a label will be shown along it, something like "comment hidden due to low ratings". But given the curiosity of the human nature, many users are clicking that hidden comment just because, you know, they're... curious. So this kinda backfires into actually making the spam more visible and exposing the average user more time to it.
In my approach, I consciously choose to leave all the comments visible, specifically to point the spammers. All good comments are right under the post, as they should be, and if the user scrolls down, he gets to see all the mumbo-jumbo, realizes it is mumbo jumbo and an isolation pattern is formed. Now you know that a certain account is a spammer, or a dumb bot, and next time you'll see it in other places (the feed, other people posts, etc) you will just ignore.
And that's when the spam ends: when it's ignored. When it doesn't gets any attention at all.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
I agree that flagging comments does not make much sense, as your are wasting your precious Voting Power and your approach makes much more sense as users who take their time to involve in a discussion do actually benefit from it.
I was always curious though, what role does a rating play on this, does it have any restrictions on posting if the rating of a user goes negative?
Low ratings means less money and less reputation, gradually. Posts and comments with lowered ratings or upvotes or likes are given less money and and reputation begins to decline too. My reputation score is 51 right now. We tend to start with a 25 REP. Some will have a 7 or maybe a negative number as they are flagged.
Oh, my bad wording. I meant how does low reputation of account influence posts payouts etc?
If you are a 5, then I am less likely going to vote for you. If you have a 72 reputation score, then more people may upvote your posts and comments. As far as I know, low reputation does not influence post payouts directly apart from simply getting less upvotes. People will trust you more and read you more and watch you more and follow you more and interact with you more and upvote and like you more and pay you more money when you are more, when you have more money, when you have a higher reputation score.
Ok , i see, thanks :)
Reputation is a vanity metric, it doesn't influence payouts.
Thanks for elaborating that, as i was thinking should we include this to our platform when connecting to steem BC. Looks like here is no point.
I was also thinking we should simply hide flagged comments to avoid the problem you have pointed out, but then again.. it would be censoring somebody's opinion if a single guy with high SP simply does not like it.
You're spot on here. I've also been upvoting the non-spam comments on my posts to move the spammy ones to the bottom.
And I hate doing it but I do sometimes go look at the hidden comments on someone else's post just to see what it says, knowing full well it's spam. Urgh! Curiosity.
Curiosity killed the cat. Me too. Monkey see, monkey do. Hee hee.
I don't think much about the technical things..or it would not be wrong to say that i know nothing much...but its true that i go for comment when i get subject of my interest...though m also a new member of this community but my hope is not making numbers of just comment but focusing on the topic ....to make sense...dont know how gud i write or able to make any sense yet when feel gud with topic just i use to go for few words..
I think you choose the best way dealing with spam comments!
Upvote and resteem !
*beep beepbot * I'm a bot: nice post, check out my latest post, I upvote bro, i follow you can you follow me back please.
Sums up the spam in the comments these days.
Don't read this. Don't click here. Comment hidden due to low ratings. Don't think about elephants. Are you thinking about elephants? You might be. We tend to look. Agreed. We are curious. We do what we cannot do. We try to be rebels. We kind of fall towards negativity. I agree. We should focus on better comments and posts and videos and photos and people and everything both online and offline and we do not have enough time to flag everything we dislike and there is more to hate than there is to love. Sadly, some crave the negative attention including attention towards Trump for example. They say no publicity is bad publicity. Pay it forward. Highlight what is better. Focus on the things you love as much as possible because it makes you feel happier.
I know what you mean about the curious clicks on those hidden comments and posts - I myself have done that a number of times.
I also agree with your strategy and do the same thing. If somebody leaves me a thoughtful comment that adds something, I upvote it so that the commenter earns something. On spam comments, depending on the level of egregiousness, I either just ignore it or reply quickly but don't upvote.
I hope over time the majority of spammers realize they don't earn much from spamming and change their ways. I'm sure there will always be some level of spamming but will be interesting to see!
I'm doing something similar to third comments to the top. I will flag persistent spammers to discourage them. They are unlikely to check on where their comments end up. I'll usually just give them 1 or 2%
It is frustrating to see so many comments, where the 'person' has clearly not read the post, or at best just skimmed it, In my first few weeks on Steemit I didn't really bother with commenting (rather I just voted for what I liked) but as I spend more time on here, I realise I prefer to receive positive comments more than votes, so that's the way I now try to act - comment combined with (my measly worth next to nothing) vote.
UGH... sometimes it just so hard to ignore the spam. Especially when it is over the top and just nonsense! I agree with not flagging though.
Good advice, following!
Two things come to mind in response to your post. The first is mute. By muting spammers, those comments no longer impact your attention. This, however, may preclude the spammers learning from their mistakes, and, should they transition to commenting substantively, might negatively reinforce that evolution.
The second is adding a simple dropdown menu to the flagging option, that has some few tags: spam, pr0n, etc., that would allow curiosity to be satisfied by folks without having to reveal the flagged comment.
Thanks for your lucid consideration of this topic!
I have been doing the same thing. Also on posts written by others. Upvote the really good comments and the good stuff rises to the top, like cream.
I don't see that many spam posts. I know that people complain about it, but it's not really that bad in normal reading. Perhaps I'm not scrolling all the way down to the bottom of the comments on the posts I read... which also supports @dragosroua's logic.
Well said dragosroua, if you ignore most things they wii go away, hopefully this will apply to spam as well
Hi @dragosroua, This is very interesting approach. I agree with you. It is better to ignore than spend energy on negative behaviors.
I remember when I started sharing SBD, the only criterion I had for sharing was to upvote ( I was new and didn't know any better). But with time, I noticed that some accounts that upvote have no posts whatsoever. Then I changed the criteria to share SBD to comment and upvote.
Guess what? Most of the upvoters disappeared
many Thanks for sharing :)
Thankfully i'm small enuff no one has bothered messing much with me yet (-:
Let's fight spammers together :) I recently started series of posts about how to improve Steemit :) I guess spam is Nr.1 goal, but I am not very technical in this question, so hoping developers are working on it.
What if you ignore it because you do not like the person's comment would you call that spamming?
nope
@dragosroua - That's nice Sir, flagging also hurts ourselves too. Love your method & the post also. Therefore, I wish to ReSteem your post.
(I am not a bot spammer Sir)
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
This is very interesting.
You've provided a means to eradicating spammers and spam messages easily.
This post is highly useful especially at this time that steemit is growing astronomically
Even though I haven't been on here long it does seem the spam comments and becoming more and more prevalent, your logic makes such good sense and I think is the best way to deal with them
agreed, mister Harrison Ford
First of all i dont agree with not flagging users,
if you flag user he will lose his reputation and if his reputation is low his new posts/comment will be not seen automatic by other users! i think its important moment.
Second yes we lose our upvoting power but we help community to not see this kind of messages , if you just ignore more newbies will see this kind of messages and try to earn in same way money , but if they see flagging system then they will not spam.
so in my opinion spam not works if its flagged and we have strong community if all will just ignore it spam will continue!
I see nothing in source code to support this claim. There is a threshold under which the posts aren't shown, that's true, but to get it to that level it means literally eradicating that user from the platform. I don't see why I would do that, individually, instead of letting the community decide, collectively, by promoting what's considered valuable, instead of focusing on downvotting. If you focus on downvoting you set yourself up for low value, unconsciously.
I agree that this is a more effective (productive) way of dealing with spam. Make the important ones easily accessible (readable) at the top of the thread and the lesser ones at the bottom.
@dragosroua,
Actually this is a hard time for me too :D I am earning in steemit via posting and commenting! And now I have lots of competitors :D Some people upvote his own comment and trying to get the top to the comment queue! Or will provide cheap comments like you said!
Respect the way you think, personally I hate use flag, coz I am not much powerful and it will drain my vote power also! So, better the way you deal with them!
Cheers~
Dunno but often when I see a comment flagged I don't look at it unless I have some doubts that it was flagged cause of other reasons than spam. But yeah I get ur point, it is questionable how effective this flagging method really is.
we Have to protect this community against scamers and spamers we should promote steemit to reach 650000 in the end of this year
amigo #resteemia at your service
nice method to make spammers unhappier. excellent work @dragosroua
ReSteemia
'UpVote ReSteem Comment'
Congratulations @dragosroua
MinnowsPower listed your post "Dealing With Comments Spam On Steemit In A Positive Way" as one of the top 10 posts of the day...!!!
A concept of dealing with spams and spammers.
100% Upvoted by @MinnowsPower
MinnowsPower is not a bot, I am a Crowdfunding Hybrid
I think your approach is a really good idea, i used to click on the greyed out comments, but know realise theres a reason for it.
@dragosroua We need remain informed and concentrate on things that are hidden from the majority.
thnx for putting this information all with each other..
Maybe we need more writers to write about spammers and show everyone why they look so stupid and uncool.
A lot of folk treat life like a cigarette end, instead of viewing life like a candlelight. Quick, stop the world, I`m getting off...
@dragosroua Intriguing put up - many thanks . Have to be terrifying to own this issue. Resteemed.
This concept makes a lot of sense and should be included in a beginner's tutorial. Reward the good content, ignore the bad... Makes total sense to me.