For me the discussion isn't so much whether or not vote bots of any stripe should exist, or be used, or even how much might be appropriate, or for whom.
Because the answer to all of those questions end up taking us around in circles and away from the real issue:
What kind of content should people being seeing, and how is it possible for more people to see it?
Well, content, I'm afraid, is highly subjective. I'm bound to find something interesting or entertaining that someone else won't. It's tough to find universal appeal. So, what everyone is calling trash and garbage could actually have worth to someone.
So, what are we really talking about? What are we really trying to say? What do we really want to resolve here?
I don't think our goal is to take down the vote bots. That's something that happens once the central issue is solved. So, how do we get to that, and what's the solution for it?
The content I wish to see in Trending or at the top of each tag is the content that has been placed there by the votes of the community as a whole, or the interested parties related to the tag in question.
I gave 2/3 examples in the post, one being @steemitblog's recent Hivemind update Post, which barely made it into the top 10 despite 100s of manual votes.
My current thinking/hope is that communities will lockout/hide bot voted posts, and the leaders/owners/larger stakeholders who want their community to shine will push the best content to the top.
One reqiurement would be a centralised bot-list updated often, that's doable.
This could then reduce the popularity and profitability of the bots to the delegators. Although, the quieter the round, the more profit available for a given bid and so bids purely for profit may keep the boys running, as the bidders, owners, and delegators care little about visibly as they are all making a profit.
Yeah. I wonder how much refusing the payout discourages people upvoting it. I know plenty of people still do it, and some of their posts have received much higher, too. Everyone should really be following steemitblog anyway, so the trending page becomes moot, especially when they've denied payout.
I'm hoping that what you say about the hivemind/communities deal happens exactly how you describe it, but in that hivemind update you mentioned, they had the ability to create community bots listed. Do you know what that's supposed to mean? There's also supposed to be the capability of creating bot trackers, so it kind of sounds like they're heading towards bot institutionalization rather than away from it.
Maybe it's a community bot that goes around hiding posts that use other bots? 😁
I'm not sure to be honest, but one would hope they are to aid and not the opposite.
That would be awesome in my opinion. My concern, and I'm sure I don't have a clue at all about this, is that it will essentially put pressure on every community to offer some kind of bot that will provide some level of support for their members. Or, it could be the means by which the moderators or owners of the community accounts get some measure of compensation. Or both? I don't know. It just seems like a step in the opposite direction of where I would like to see it all go. :)
I hope, and suspect the community bots will not be for individuals to push their content to the top. More will hopefully he revealed soon.
Now, I must start the weekly curation league post :)