I like certain types of content on Steem. I have given support to users that post content I value. Some users might have noticed I stopped voting on their posts, even though I used to support them at some point. Some users I have given 100% upvotes to, no longer get any upvotes from me.
Why did I do this? Why did I stop upvoting their posts, even though the content is still what I like and value?
The answer is likely that either they have been using bidbots to buy votes and I finally noticed (buying votes after I cast them where I have to check the past posts to know what they've been doing), or they started to use bidbots to buy votes (I see the bidbots used before I vote). Even if it's not all the time for each post, if I see they've used bidbots now and then, I don't know if they stopped using them and if they will use it on a post I vote for after I give my vote. I don't want to support bidbots, so I stop voting for users whose activity shows they have or are buying votes. I've done this since the first bidbots appeared last year.
The only way for bidbots to not be supported is for users to not use them. And the only way for users to not use them is to realize that they are not beneficial to a platform where content is supposed to be primarily evaluated and ranked by what others value in it, not by buying votes and buying your way up to appear as if your post is actually valued by others.
Some people don't care about the better way for a platform to operate, and only want to get more rewards or more visibility and get more voters by appealing to the bandwagon effect of popularity and riding the curation wave. Some are sharks who just want to exploit whatever method they can to make money and climb up the ladder, rather than earn their way there with time, effort, energy, dedication, determination and persistence.
In order for those people who use bidbots to stop using bidbots, pressure needs to be applied. How to do that? Stop supporting them, stop giving them your votes, stop commenting on their posts, stop feeding them the attention they think they can buy. I don't really support flags, as some of you may know I have issues with this "feature". Removal of support is better than an attack with flags.
Imagine if the only votes people who use bidbots get is from their own vote buying?
Imagine if the only comments people who use bidbots get is from the bidbot comments?
Would they get the message, or would they just keep doing it anyways?
I have been against bidbots since they first appeared in 2017. They are not in alignment with the evaluation of content to be rewarded by others. A platform where people can buy votes to make money or gain popularity is not an honest platform where content is actually being evaluated by others in order to rise.
Here are some of my posts from the past 2 months about bidbots, and some thing to consider about how beneficial they actually are for the platform.
- Reputation Can Be Purchased Through Vote Buying - Does it Matter?
- Do I Like Vote Buying Bots? No (Just to Be Clear)
- Steem is a Free Market, Therefore Buying Votes is Voluntary and Not a Problem (or is it?)
I recently did a witness interview where I spoke negatively against bidbots again. This might be why I lost more witness support and dropped 12 spots in the witness list overnight (as I recently mentioned to @abh12345 on a related post). I've previously mentioned how delegations for profit are an issue for the betterment of the platform as it supports delegating to bidbots when I delegated my power for free for a week while I wasn't using it, and I dropped over 10 spots then as well.
If you want to support a witness who sometimes speaks up on these issues (as opposed to never), please consider voting for me. I'm no tech genius to make apps for the platform, I'm not ROI or investor focused, but I have a goal of trying to share knowledge of how to better ourselves and the world, and want to use Steem to do so. That's how I can help Steem. I have said so in my first month on the platform in 2016, and in my witness declaration post.
I post about topics related to making things better because I want things to get better. I see problems and their cause, and I talk about it. If you value or appreciate what I do and want to support me as a witness, look at the bottom of this post for how to vote for me as a witness.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
If you appreciate and value the content, please consider: Upvoting, Sharing or Reblogging below.
me for more content to come!
My goal is to share knowledge, truth and moral understanding in order to help change the world for the better. If you appreciate and value what I do, please consider supporting me as a Steem Witness by voting for me at the bottom of the Witness page.
I stopped using them because bidbots make crap content rise to the top, and it essentially consolidates power to the wealthy more.
Yes, the wealthy get more wealthy, and they don't even work for the curation rewards. Paid votes and no-work curation rewards, win-win for them...
Sounds good to me! I guess I am the fool for not dropping 50k on buying 50k SP back when it was 1 USD. Coulda quit my job ;)
My content is small but real. I am determined and persistence. I voted you as witness awhile back.I do not like vote bots of any kind. I do like the contest and challenges here on Steemit. I will keep Pushing my way to the top but I will do it fairly.
We can't all be at the top, but we can put in the honest work to climb and get support from those who want to support us, not by our way up. Thanks for being another fair player in the 'game'.
As someone who has been here less than 4 months, there is something I see missing that I feel is even worse when it comes to the bidbots that is overlooked. I have mentioned it a few places now and hope the more i say it the more people will spread this.
Almost all of the people I connected with who were new at the same time are now dead accounts. One of the reasons I believe is tied to these bots.
Unless the bot is paying out more than 200%, it will result in a loss for the buyer of the votes. Newer members believe they need to use these vote bots (especially when top witnesses have scummy videos proclaiming that's how one makes their foundation here) and watch their tiny rewards evaporate as they hand them over to these whale machines. So not only are the rewards minuscule to begin with, but for these newbs it shows them the site is a scam that costs money to post.
I believe this is why there has been no rush to fix the value of SBD, and possibly why it was allowed to grow so high in value. Instead of curating at the normal split between SBD and SP, these whale bots bypass that split and get it all paid upfront in SBD. Then get gravy at the tail end for curation, which is all they would have received to begin with. I have to believe this was all done by design for this reason.
The flip side, those who are using them are not, for the most part, clicking with communities. Robots are not a community, and they will find themselves ultimately always having to pay these bots to be their friends.
As for trending, I have read it was a mess due to whale circle voting before the bots became prevalent. I think it will always be a matter of slowly finding those you identify with, then you will find a lot of others in their comment sections. I don't follow a lot of people and my personal feed is already filled with more posts than I can share upvote love with. Screw trending. Water rises to its own level and once you find the water it all falls into place.
I think anyone who sees what this idea represents will realize quickly as I did that to grow here you invest in those you want to grow strong with. In my case this meant renting SP so I can reward those around me. It won't pay off quickly, but it adds another brick into the communities I am drawn to and maybe a handful of small votes from me will be the deciding factor on someone staying another week, another month etc.
Want to see those bots dry up, set SBD back to what it is supposed to be pegged at. You will see a lot of people pulling their delegations out of these profit bots real quick.
You might be right. They can pump the price up higj by buying a lot of it, then sell it and their bidbot winnings off slowly...
Screw trending is right. I don't know why people obsess over it. Was the same back int he day. I ignored trending as then.
Its my contention that any rewards received not voted to you by others is reward pool abuse.
If bots were about advertising they could require rewards to be declined and still serve that function.
The sellers wouldnt charge less than the curation rewards they would have gotten and could profit even more than they do now.
But dont mention that in certain discords or they will boot you out, i know.
I think we bring back the n(something) and a 500mv vote cap and as dolphins and orcas are born the cap can be raised.
Not a coded cap, either.
One enforced by the community.
Thanks for being in the struggle to free ourselves from the tryranny of the wealthy, and shame on stinc for not standing up for steem.
Interesting options. 500mv enforced by community would require flags to combat, and if the higher ups with the SP in power don't agree then they can get away with it unless there is a concerted effort for ppl to flag those who are high in SP to remove their votes... If the code can change back to n2 (which I dont think is necessarily better), why can't it change to limit the power level to upvote?
You're welcome ;) Good post today on the subject.
Yes, the whale experiment showed that only a few flags would be necessary.
If the noncooperative whales persisted, there would be no other choice.
I looked at the top accounts, only steemit has enough that couldnt be countered by two or three other whales working together.
A hard coded cap would show weakness in the resolve of the community.
If the community decides that its better to muzzle the whales to benefit the newbs, then it needs to make that happen.
Were the community to decide the bots are cancerous, we should flag their users.
Like the vote bots, we will know our success when they have no customers, when folks decide to tilt the math in favor of the havenots, rather than the haves, we will see our success.
I think it is better to not choose an option than to have that option removed.
It looks better on the whales to show restraint than to have their option removed by the code.
Its the same as not commiting a crime because you think that action wrong rather than because you fear punishment.
Thank you!
I think it's good to have open honest communication about the bid bots. I think we would be better off without them or if no one used them. However, the problem has been pointed out over and over and it doesn't seem to change anything. Do you see a solution that we could actually get support for and try to get done? I've seen some pretty good suggestions but nothing that has ever taken hold.
Yes, we can't change the main site features, unless Steemit inc does. If enough people posted about it it would make waves and the consensus would force a change by their hand, or maybe @andrarchy as Steemit's Content Director can help get the Trending page to change and that would change motivations partially? Is that the main thing you are talking about, trending?
What are the exact changes that should be made is the question. What is the solution that we want to rally behind to get rid of the bidbots or make them obsolete. I agree that talking about the issue is a good thing to do, but I see the discussion getting further from the forefront. The market seems to have spoken. It seems that people don't want a paradigm shifting gift economy. It looks like we want the same old selfish bullshit. I hope not, but that's the way it is starting to look to me.
I think the trending page is where the problem is most visible and probably the place to deal with the problem, but I think the bidbots undermine the whole idea of the platform. I guess communities might help fix the problem. My hope is that a community that doesn't use bots becomes the place for the best content and therefore the most successful. However, I'm not convinced that will happen at this point. I don't know what the solution is. If there was a solution that someone was putting forth that made sense to me, I would get behind it.
I would love to hear @andrarcy's thoughts on this. As Content Director, this should be a top priority in my opinion. From recent interviews, it seems that steemit inc. is well aware of the problem. The thing we are missing is a solution that makes sense. I don't think it's that difficult to come up with one, but I haven't been able to come up with something that appeases the majority of the stakeholders at least not a stake weighted majority.
No, don't encourage Steemit to make more rules. Let this site be governed by it's users. Otherwise we will finally become like facebook and youtube. It all started with one little rule.
I don't like bid bots and don't use them (I do use faucets and MSP). I doubt that most of them are profitable, especially after that 25% is taken out. But for the ones that are, you really can't stop people from trying to make a quick buck. Most people won't attract people with a lot of steem (it is always welcome when that does happen) in their post especially as more and more people join the platform, most of the upvotes they will see if about .00-.05 cents. In the end everything is just a points (SP) game and how wisely they play the game, and I guess they see thats how the game works for them. Because the rewards is convertable to money, you are going to have business models built around it whether they are viable or not. These models will have their own supply and demand curve, and plenty of suckers too. I don't think a boycott will achieve much in deterring them. I don't even think abolishing fractional voting would solve the problem either-they will just splinter out. The steem platform has some intrinsic problems, and probably the solution would be to make the yearly return of daily upvotes for a year worse than a risk free investment....and that would probably mean steem needs a few more decimal places and likely a sell off and disinterest in the platform. It is a glitch in the matrix so to speak, and ultimately creates demand and value for steem and hopefully keeps it out of circulation. Do as you wish, but is futile to fight against human nature unless you become a God that can change nature itself....which in this case would be those in absolute control over steemit.
I regret that we only have 7 days to lock in a profit, it would be nice if it was continuous. Sometimes I wonder if with all the automated voting, and services like steemfollower, if people even read what is posted anymore. But if something a few weeks from now, or a few years from now goes viral, there is a lot of profit potential lost because of the 7 day model. I am not sure that the numbers game makes steemit that useful for spreading ideas as it was intended anymore, especially when the quality posts may not be noticed for some time through google queries. Sadly the bots don't want us to include ads and referrals and want to restrict us to the 7 day rule which is also detrimental to viability of steemit.
The main positive, especially regarding controversial or gagged ideas, is that what is on the block chain can't be removed so long as the blockchain exists. Many gag suits these days are to try to obtain orders telling website to remove reviews about people or their businesses, so the block chain is a big f you to the courts/censors and to the petitioners. In many cases where speech is prosecuted criminally, the police tend to produce edited copies of what was spoken. They are quite limited in their ability to do so when it is on the block chain.
LMAO :P
Thanks for your input. It looks like things are fucked and can't be fixed is your conclusion :/
I started using the "nobidbot" tag . over a 4 day period I received 19 flags from resteem bots . I stopped using the tag and the flags stopped . I will start using the tab again and see what happens to confirm my suspicions .
I believe you when you say that you have lost support do to your stand on bidbots . But you did gain my support :)
Its never easy doing the right thing .
hmm interesting, let me know how you get on with the tests.
That would be some idea for analysis? Depending on the result maybe a post.
good idea :D I'll see what comes back from @wolfhart
Your balance is below $0.1. This is your 2nd notification that your account is running low and should be replenished.
I will definitely keep you in the loop .
That's a valiant effort to demonstrate the non use of bidbots. I have not used them. If it comes at the expense of being flagged, I recommend not using them, and just let your content's vote history be the proof that you don't support it, or talk about it in posts if you need to ;) I don't like people getting flagged... but it's up to you :/
There might be a better way besides poking a bear . Have to give it more thought . I am very proud of my vote history .
I have to admit that all those flags did get me down a little if not for those who supported me and I support . Have to say some really good people here . The best !
Steemit seems to be immune to adds from outside but internally there is no way to stop it, except the reactions of well-intentioned Steemians.
Citizens' journalism is being replaced by a nickel machine system to look like a casino.
I'm tired of receiving messages and adds to buy money with Steem.
I would like to receive adds telling me to write quality content.
Maybe there is an idea to start here.:)
Yeah, the only option left is to resist and withdraw support. Ads to pay for quality content is an idea for sure hehe ;)
Great post and I completely agree. Automation of this process is the bane of its existence. We should be on this platform to read peoples content, comment on their posts and expand our knowledge, expertise and grow as individuals. This automation and bot junk is just the deterioration of society and this community before it can get a chance to succeed further. The bid bots are ruining what people have worked hard for. I may really enjoy a particular authors content but when using bid bots it doesn't let me tell them that this one post they created wasn't up to the standards I have or if I disagree with their post the bid bot votes anyway.
I refuse to use these bots even though I am at the bottom of the barrel as far as strength on here, I will not succumb to the ease of automation.
If only that's was the main motivation for everyone, with money afterwards :/
Good on you for not using the bidbots :)
I dislike bid bots.
Not just because of how it messes up the rewards pool, but how it messes up the trending.
The trending is no longer useful. It is almost just a war of bots.
Then, was it ever useful, accept to know when and what whales voted on?
I avoid bitbot voting, mostly by only voting on posts that have low payouts. Usually after a good post gets above $20, i am less inclined to upvote it.
Good to know. The platform is run by SP. It's all about the money to move things. If we want a better trending page, change how it chooses posts, or change the way power gets used to make it not 100% on SP.
Hai @krnel,
I used to buy small upvotes through bidbots in my initial days. And now it's been more than two months since I lastly used any bidbots on my posts. I feel very proud to say that most of my reputation came through organic votes. I publicly made a swear In my post that I made 20 days back not to use bidbots even if I get nothing as reward. And I will never use them as long as I do exist on steemit.
Also, as a consequence of this post I'm going to unfollow the people who run bidbots right away. Thank you for thinking in the same line that I do.
Congrats on taking a stand, I applaud you for it :)
Hi again @krnel
The problem I see if generally users were to boycott the bots would be that they still existed, as a then profitable tool for the bot owners.
It would act pretty much as a pay-for-vote self service machine where the delegator maximizes their stake, and the bot owner receives huge 'self' votes.
And further to this, who will police this action? As for the most part, the ones that would police in the past are the delegators to these bots. It seems we are in a tough place right now.
I don't think I quite understand what you're saying, maybe... To not support users who do use bidbots, would mean the bot owners would upvote their own posts? They could already do that before, but now they can do more with delegations to their accounts as you say, because people want to make ROI without working at it by curating and taking the time to do it. At least it would be more obvious how selfish it would at the expense of the platform at that point if that's what they did when no one would use their service. Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying...
Hi @krnel, sorry for the slow reply.
Yes, I have witnessed bot owners upvoting their own posts with their own bot when the bidding round is quiet.
This seems like paying yourself twice to me. I've even seen this happening without a bidsend via the wallet - not very transparent at all.
But as long as the delegators get paid, no one seems to care 😞
I used to use a bot thinking it would help get eyeballs on my posts and help get the message out, but a while ago I read one of your posts on the bid bot issue and then did some digging on my own into the larger dialogue and realized it just doesn't make sense to use bots if you want the platform to survive and thrive for normal people.
The next thing that helped me change my mind was learning a bit about how the reward pool works, which I did by stumbling across the raging debate between a crypto chart expert and a one-time democratic candidate. Before that I wasn't clear on the reward pool (the exact details are still a bit beyond me) and didn't realize the better somebody else is doing compared to you determines how the reward pool is divvied up. That made it very clear using bots actually hurts other people trying to compete in the free market of ideas. Not good.
And for good measure, there's a guy name yallipapi or something like that, who is actually a very entertaining writer, but he explained exactly how he manipulates the system by dropping $150 on bid bots to get big payouts, and makes it very clear anyone can do the same thing with zero-effort posts.
I just thought wtf, I put hours into stuff trying to get an important message out there, or to write some really nice thoughtful fiction and people can use bots to pump 20 second posts? That's not fair to me or anyone else actually investing time and trying to make a difference, so if I continued doing that, having understood that, I wouldn't be any better. So I stopped. The bidbots must die, the only way to do that is to starve them apparently.
Yeah, it's a sad tale for the whole community. We are supposed to earn our way, and some people don't play that game. Some people put in time = work to try to earn their way, and others don't put in any work yet get rewards because of a fucked up system that in place...
completely agree with you, and I think applying soft pressure like this is a good way forward. What would be much better is taking away profit from the people operating the bidbots. But since they are paid directly in SBD this is not possible. I have argued before that we would really need negative SP delegation to remove SP from the bidbots.
As long as there are people operating the bots some will buy. By punishing the users, we are just making it more of a high risk high reward and some people will take that. I think we need to target the ones that get most of the rewards and that are the operators, not the users.
How do you target them? Is the negative delegation your solution? What's that? Like a flag?
The idea is that you can reduce the sp of bidbots by a negative delegation. It probably should not be possible to go below 15 sp to not make this to abusable. Instead of flagging a post this would be like flagging a person.
Then that bidbot would not be able to sell the vote anymore as the vote will not be worth much anymore.
Even better, when all the big guys work together and use a part of their sp to target the biggest bots, then the honest voting sp will have a much bigger impact. The reward pool will stay the same and is now distributed by all the honest curators.
I am not sure this would work out in practice, but it sounds like a good idea to have in addition to a flag also a negative delegation.
I applaud your speaking out. I wish it didn't have to be at the cost of losing a number of places in the witness queue, but I suppose we all at some point must go with our heart and do what we feel is best. Including those who decided that they're votes were better used elsewhere.
I appreciate seeing in words the thoughts I've had in my head. It's good to have someone else writing them, especially someone who is a witness and may have something to lose. I think, however, in the end, you will see that things will loop back around. There is plenty of community building going on. It just takes time, and so the setbacks of now become the victories of tomorrow because things change. All kinds of factors will come into play. I wish I knew when and how. In the meantime, I believe they will.
Thanks ;)
I kind of agree with you on bid bots. I personally feel that the quality level of content with multi dollar earnings is quite low. I use steemit to follow interesting people and learn something from their blogs (that's one of the reasons for using steemit, besides the monetary aspect associated with it). The second reason is that I want to write about cryptocurrency (being a professional financial investor) and bring some realism to the investment aspect of cryptocurrency. However, lots of content that trends is really really bad. I have seen literally copy paste articles without mentioning the source earning 20 bucks, and such articles should not be earning anything (and such things make me a little disheartened because my original well-thought article sometime have only 1 vote - my own).
I have also read about the argument in favour of bid-bots - its like advertising so that your content can become more visible but may be there is a solution to that and I am not sure how much that is doable - remove any SP delegation to bid-bots or assign 0 value to bid bot upvotes/autohide bid bot comments. So one will still be able to trend but not make money out of it (Also pardon me if I have made a huge error in my fundamental understanding of how steemit works)
I had a question though.. how can i check whether someone is using autovoting or bidbots? Manually by going through every voter?
Yeah, you click on the upvote arrow and see who voted, and recognize the bots.You can check a longer list in steemd.com by replacing 'it' with 'd' like so: https://steemd.com/steemit/@krnel/why-don-t-i-upvote-your-content-anymore-even-if-i-like-it
If you want to know who is a bot, check the bot tracker site https://steembottracker.com/
As for delegations, you can't really remove delegations unless delegations site-wide are removed...
It sucks being new now, especially with bidbots and trying to organically gain a following based on the content you put out. many people swarm to favor the vote buyers because they are "popular" in the trending page... psychology at work... low-level thinking :/
Thanks for the two links.
I believe i have learnt much more in the last week by interacting with the right kind of people than i did during the first one and half months.
I’m new on steemit, here for a couple of months now. And still discovering, i really like the platform, and the content, but ... to become a leading platform, they really need to change some things. One of the things that it needs is a ban on the bots. I’m not sure how the bots work, but it is obvious that these bots just help the few, and the content is not all great. Also the discovery section and algoriddm needs an upgrade imho.
And i like to add @krnel that the platform itself has the opportunity to become the voice of a generation. Especially with the war on free speech on centralized social networks. But, for this to become a reality, the platform needs the human touch with the curation
Yes, human touch, not bots. I've been against bots since the beginning, but unless a majority wants it gone, it won't be.
Yup, simple things like content discovery have not been implemented... what a shocker... Steemit Inc needs to get their head out of their asses on that easily fixable point.
I agree with your points here.
I am now kind of against them, but I must admit that last year when I just got into Steemit I did use randowhale and booster a bit. But randowhale was way more innocent than what bots are nowadays where you can boost your posts to several hundred dollars. And not only that, with BidBots you can make other bidders to lose money if you bid too high, thats just nuts. (please correct me if I am wring, maybe things changed, but it used to be like that a couple months ago)
I totally understand your frustration about seeing users growing their Rep super fast by boosting shitposts like there is no tomorrow < EVEN Witnesses.
I have talked with a Witness that likes to boost a lot of his posts in PM and the answer I always get is "It is for exposure/visibility reasons"
I just don´t see the need to give exposure/visibility to a post about a Fortnite session though... I honestly see that as buying Rep while making a quick buck (not really good money, but it all adds up)
I think that can happen, or maybe they put caps on each round, I have never used so I'm not sure either.
Long story short.. you are truly awesome 👏🏻 👏🏻
@krnel To be honest I used to buy upvotes until my last post but after reading your article I realised that I should stop this now. Yes you have raised valid points here which is an whistle blower for the community. Last week I was reading this post written by @marketstack and realised that using bidbots is completely nonsense because you get very little margin whatever you spend. Even sometime you lose the money which you have actually spent.
Thanks for your time and effort. I have casted my witness vote for you.
Thank you for the support and for no longer using the bots :) I'm glad I was able to make an impact. Just goes to show how speaking up on issues can create change in other people :)
You have much integrity, and I understand why bidbots are bad for the platform.
You have recently upvoted a couple of my posts, and I want to be honest with you. I have used bidbots on a few of my posts. Not because I am greedy or anything.
When I write about my current ordeal under the #familyprotection tag, I can make between $20-$60. When I wrote my #deepdives entry, I made over $40. When I write on another subject, sometimes I'm lucky, but often times not. A very small payout is embarrassing to me, because someone who happens to look at my blog might see that and think that it must be a crappy post... I know I shouldn't care what people think.
Since reading this, I won't use bidbots anymore. Thanks for the post @krnel! :)
Yes, and that's because those certain topics have people who value it who have SP. That's just how anything goes. No one is obliged to like the other content you produce and give you the same amount of rewards. If you want to focus on the money, then keep writing on those topics you actually do get rewarded for, instead of buying votes for topics that don't get rewarded by others. It's pretty simple. If you want to keep doign the content that doesn't get as many rewards, so be it. In the world outside Steem, if someone wants to support others, they aren't obliged to support everyone. They pick and choose. So too is it on Steem, people choose the type of content to support.
I'm glad you won't use bidbots anymore. I am glad this post has provided value to you and caused you to rethink things :D
I don't expect the same people who vote on the topics they value to vote on other topics they don't value. I'm grateful that I'm even making as much as I do. I guess it's just the reason I spoke of before. I liked to try and raise the value of the quality low payout posts to give the perception of consistent quality and not be embarrassed by the marked difference in rewards. Wrong, I know, but it was not out of feeling that anyone should be obligated to upvote them.
Just wanted to clear that up. ;)
It's good to see that bid-bots finally start to discomforted big bois.
Sorry to see this > This might be why I lost more witness support and dropped 12 spots in the witness list overnight.
I hope your passive-resistance will work. IIRC a guy initiated a project to flag those posts gets on trending w/ bidbots and got instant responses with friendly approaches from bid-bot owners. (couldn't remember his name but it's starts with an h... probably.)
Well tomorrow they'll have more power so even flagging might not help us/you. Top 20 will be raided with them and they'll decide what's good or bad for the community (=
Let's tie our hopes to HF21.
The more we use bots, the less people are actually interacting with Steemit. That is a death-spiral for any social network.
I agree. It just not an obvious put one thing, and put another things, and you get two things in front of you situation. People don't see the link... it's too covert and obfuscated for many to see the likely pattern...
I am still fairly new to steem and was recently introduced to bots. I had a bit of sbd and thought I would try it out.
I put a fair bit of thought and time into what I create and figured since they were offering 200% and more payouts it was irresistible.
Long story short, it was either too God to be true or my content is actually shit. Either way, I lost my sbd and learned a valuable lesson.
This platform is made of people, real people at the end of the day and not robots. If I wanted garbage content pushed up my feed based on a posters ability to pay for votes I would have just stayed on Facebook.
But I like steem, mire and more every day. And I realized that there are a lot of people behind the scenes making sure the garbage posts are kept to a minimum. For that I am thankful and decided that I would never pay a bot again.
I'm sorry that I might never know if you like what I post @krnel because I appreciate your opinion and like your worldview (at least what I know so far).
No worries either way though, I'm happy to still give you my votes either way 😂😂😂
Glad to see you learned your lesson on them. I hope you would have stopped using them even if you did get a profit ;)
Yes I think I would have. I came to the conclusion that bots would degrade quality of content overall which sucks for everyone. And then I read your article and felt even more sure of my decision.
You are right and I understand you when you say that it does not support users who use bidbots, everyone has their criteria when they use bots and I very little use it.
I only use it when I have more than 2 hours and I do not have any vote in my publication and I tend to invest a few cents so that it does not remain at zero.
Reputation must be earned honestly. There are many who have a reputation of 70 thanks to vote buying.
Reputation, rewards, comments, everything needs to be earned by people valuing what is produced to want to participate in helping one out with rewards or feedback with comments.
What is the alternative to bidbots? I dont like that system of buying votes either... But now that it exists, I believe is not enough to, like, tell people the problems it causes... Can you really emerge on steemit without using bidbots? How? Answering that question effectively for minnows, could contribute very much. But this is just what I believe... Anyway I enjoy the debates on improving steemit, so thank you for this post!
The alternative is to earn your way. Earn what you get. Nothing is guaranteed, but you have to work at it to try to make it. The content will be the value and merit to "emerge". Many people have done it. I did. Maybe @freebornangel 's recent post can help shed some additional perspective ;) Enjoy.
I never bought a single vote and I never will
You're my witness from now on, Sir.
Awesome. Keep it up ;) Thanks for the support.
There is a lot of speculation and abuse of questionable means, it seems that everything is being automated and I do not know if it has a solution, perhaps it's allied with the ideology of the platform, thanks again.
Yes I agree, I have been against automation, despite the ease and convenience it brings to others. I have done manual curation all this time. I want my vote to actually be applied to content I want to support ;) Imagine if Steem was all that way if all content was evaluated by people based on them liking it, without automation. I think the site would be a much better reflection of who is adding some kind of value for people to appreciate.
I also try to do it manually but my vote worth almost nothing and also feel overwhelmed, I can't even imagine how you may feel with that amount of traffic, what I can not understand is how that goal could be achieved, it would be a much better site indeed.
I think this is an honorable yet ineffective approach. We have to take a look at why vote bots exist in the first place.
They exist because the primitive Steemit trending tab is easily exploited by them. Simply pay for votes and you get more exposure on the site.
I've done a lot of experimenting with buying votes. I bought votes for exposure and I bought votes to manipulate the way curation is distributed. Maybe you noticed that I would pump a post after you upvoted it. I was trying to give my organic followers an artificial curation bonus.
Now that @smartsteem is getting a bit greedier there is no reason for me to continue to buy votes. The margins are razor thin. It's also nice when I don't have to look at a big payout and wonder how much (if any) of that is even profit.
When it really comes down to it the only way to truly stop vote buying is to fix the way users experience content on Steemit. We need better filters and custom trending tabs.
I've also dabbled with the idea of creating a decentralized network of vote buying/selling to undercut everyone else. Anyone would be able to sell their vote for any value. It would be a free market of supply/demand. This would likely create a race to the bottom where vote bots would no longer be making a profit because everyone could choose to be their own vote bot.
I'd really like to punish all the devs who put all those hours into exploiting the system... but I'm sure you can see how that would be hypocritical unless I could get it programmed relatively quickly.
Advanced custom trending tabs are the real way to kill bit-bots. I need to learn JavaScript, Node.js, and Chrome Extensions before I can make any headway here though.
Change the way the trending page is coded then. Simple. That's not a validation for buying votes. As for ineffective, it is effective. Bidbots stop and people return to curating for curation rewards to reward others with upvotes, when people stop using bidbots, and other people can apply voluntary removal of support to facilitate that change. There is no negative flagging of taking away rewards. It's a removal of support, not upvoting.
People can get rewarded and whales can vote for people to get curation rewards. Right now, whales get a double return, one for curation, and two for selling their votes. Curation alone wasn't good enough for them, gotta play people on psychological grounds of fame and popularity to buy votes and make the rich richer...
Trending should change, why hasn't it? Is it so damn hard? No, it's a bit of a change to the way something is displayed... yet it hasn't been done... So the people in the community need to egnage in behavior themselves to change things, since Steemit Inc won't try to a simple change to see if it can change the motivation of users.
I'm not trying to validate anything. I simply think bid-bots were born because of a flaw in the system. A flaw that needs to get fixed.
If you tell me I should never buy another vote then that's what I'll do. It's totally against the spirit of the entire platform and proof-of-brain.
Unfortunately, this is an issue of statistics. You can't expect everyone to engage in the honor system. There will always be bad actors. That's why development needs to be done to directly attack the bots.
Changing the trending... I don't see it happening. I've said it before. It would require stinc to choose side. Choose against the profit of the biggest accounts. I don't see that happening, they don't have the balls. It's easier to hide behind neutrality. And saying that steemit is just an interface. If there is a need someone else can do it. That kind of lame excuses. I'm sure for our community we will be going for a steemstem approach.
I didn't bother with witness voting until this post
Tried setting you as a proxy as well but it wont allow me to do that for some reason
You'll need to use your active key to set votes - strange that it allows for the click but not the proxy?
Thanks I'll play around with it after the weekend and let know
Yes, as @abh12345 says. Did you manage to get things working as you wanted?
I'll look into it further after the weekend and let you know, thanks
Well, I guess ignorance is bliss... I wouldn't know how to use one, I'm not even sure what they are!
LOL :P
LOL :P
Bid bots are just a natural progression even when money isnt involved. People pay upvote bots on reddit just to push their own ideas or agendas. I think its really mostly up to the user to be diligent in looking at the type of gamed content, but if they enjoy it, I dont see too much of a problem. You see the same thing in Twitch with people trying to promote their channels.
While sometimes they do use view bots to push them up to the top, they might offer giveaways instead to bring people in. I think many people just want a natural audience growth, which bots can serve that purpose. Eventually if people dont like their content or they dont see it worth it, they will stop using them.
All of those purchases are for visibility, and provide no rewards through upvotes in return. Money goes one way to gain visibility, not both ways, as on Steem. It's not the same, although there are similarities. As for "natural", anything that happens can be said to be "natural", which isn't an argument for why it should or shouldn't be there.
Lolz. Everything is natural. Oil is a natural resource. Doesn't make it the best choice or end solution in many ways.
While I agree with allot of what you say, I don't think not upvoting content of those you want to support just because they use bidbots is the answer.
No upvotes or comments on content that has bid bots on them will never happen. Its not a fight that can be won.
If your not a whale with a big enough upvote or don't have whales upvoting your every post then you are highly unlikely to hit the Trending page without the use of bidbots.
It's easy for a whale to say .. don't use bots. But if you are a newbie they are almost essential to your success on this platform.
In short ... I agree with what you are trying to accomplish but don't agree with " punishing " good content providers ( content by your own admission that you like ) by not upvoting just because they are trying to be on even playing field with everyone else that uses bots.
I also don't like the flag feature. It gets misused all the time. If you don't like content then you can show that by not upvoting it.
It's my answer. If you want my vote, don't use bots. Simple. Earn your way to get support, not buy it. It can happen. if people care to make it happen, just like anything in life. I don't hit the trending page. So what? I'm not a whale. Whales have at least 250,000SP inmy book, and that's a small whale. A real whale has over 1 million SP.
I'm not punishing good content providers. I'm not flagging them. I'm only not supporting them, as I don't have to support anyone I don't want to. I'm not taking away their rewards like a flag.
And you have the right to do that. My comment was my opinion on the subject matter that you posted about.
My view is Good content is still good content regardless of a bidbot vote or not. I shouldn't of used the word Punish which is why I had it in quotation marks. Let me rephrase ... I don't agree with not rewarding good content providers because they decide to use bid bots to reach a larger audience.
Trying to stop EVERYONE from commenting and upvoting bid bot users is a fight that can't be won. It would be next to impossible to get EVERYONE to stop. It just won't happen.
I understand so little about the subject however it seems you are right...:-)
I am here only for interesting content and because I would like to be in a decentralized platform...
"All little bits help", said the wee mouse and he peed in the sea.
I just gave you a witness vote as these are the kind of characteristics that I'm looking for in a witness.
( not upvoting people because they use bidbots, speaking up and staying true to your values )
I'll keep an eye on you ;>)
Thanks for the support :)
you're welcome
It sucks bid bots exist yes.
But what is one to do these days if they want to be seen when so many already use bid bots?
What I don't like is people abusing it. By abusing I mean sending every bot they can pretty much to their post with high bids. I understand using a bot here and there, this is life on steemit sadly. But no need to abuse it. You should still strive to have some organic support to your post.
It's not fair then when you can't use bidbots? Is it fair that only those who can pay can get visibility? Is it fair that the rich will get richer while the people who want to be popular make them richer by buying votes? How does that help the concentration of power.
Many people have gained in popularity and support by earning it through the value of their content. It takes time. It took time for me. I didn't buy my way up. People who come here should be willing to put in the time, effort, energy, dedication, determination and persistence to build their brand and get support. You have to interact more on other posts in the early days, to contribute relevant comments so that people are interested in checking out your posts. I do that when I get good comments.
It took time for me as well. And a lot of hard work. And I’m working harder than ever.
That said, I sometimes use the services of certain post promoters if I feel I have written something deserving of a few more eyes.
It’s sad, but when whales are delegating and not paying attention to the low quality content and abusive behavior of those they delegate to, and when so many established figures use the bid bots, the market begins to sap itself dry.
I am looking forward to communities and SMTs, but for all the talk, they seem a long way off.
I don’t mind upvoting someone's quality content if they use a promotion service now and then. I still want to add my value to their curation, and help them to not need to utilize those services anymore.
Does this post mean you will no longer vote for certain articles of mine that you like? I often vote for your stuff at 100%, but think this is a bit of a hard line to take given the current climate, and hurts the individual bloggers more than it does the services you wish to protest.
Just my 2 cents. I think they are largely detrimental to the platform as well. Just think that there are more effective ways for dealing with the problems.
I dunno. I both understand and do not understand your approach here.
If there were no bots around at all or no one used them, that would be ideal. But they are around and people use them. To be honest I use them. I created few posts early on and i had 0 organic growth. My post didn't appear anywhere. So i started using them. Not to gain votes from others but just to generate ROI for my time. Bots make the big bucks and i make about 10%. Now i am writing about how to exploit bid bots to get more ROI for minnows. steem-bounty is something else that is much like bid bots. I have a very good handle on how to generate wealth but there is no point in writing if no one is reading.
Having said that, i understand what you are trying to do and I will support you with my witness vote. (my first one). If i start getting organic support, I will stop using bid bots altogether.
Well, I disagree with the motive for an ROI at all costs. Money is important, making money is too, but it's not the most important, it shouldn't be the prime motivator for what actions to take. Thanks for the support of my witness though ;)
motive for ROI is driven by motive to grow/gain influence on steemit and in turn by getting more eyes on what i write. I hate to write what no one will read. I put thought and effort in what i write. If i have more influnce on steemit, my content will have more visibility.
One more thought i have is if steem wants to promote manual curation, its quite easy. Dont let people delegate there SP. And possibility check vote selling.
I have never used bidbot and don't intend to, even if I have a post I need to be on the trending page, bidbot is killing the steem blockchain, only bidbot earners are actually earning high, people are either selling their vote or buying, the system is fucking up dailly, something need to be done or we loose people due to low earnings.
Thanks for the article it is my understanding that Christian Trail and classical radio does not work like a bot. As for Family Protection I was told it's a donation basis. I'm only telling you what I know but those are the ones I've used all good causes and from my understanding not paid boats again thanks. @krnel
But sir some of us dont use bidbots and we read your content as well
I'm not a machine that can see all posts, I don't have the time, nor do I like everything that is posted.
Joined yesterday and it all seems so overwhelming.
But hey i wasn't noticed and i didn't saw a point in that(buying the upvotes) but for example minnow booster who gives free upvote what i have started to use lately is more of a (hey easy money :D not a lot but i am grateful anyways) and i also met new people on their discord so that is good :)
But i dont get the constant buying of upvotes, i mean i like to see actual people see my content, which also goes for followers, for example for me i posted and got 20 new followers in 1 minute, totally legit :D
You just need to consider one thing! Bidbot services are actually are an after-effect, a symptom if you will, of lack of support!!! If everybody was getting support they deserved for quality content - although we can hardly agree on what it is - then bidbot owners would be cut out overnight!
If people get pennies for a well-written and well-researched article, then what are you expecting them to do? At the end of the day nobody wants to waste their time for something than can't be justified financially!
Them MAIN issue is lack of SP trickling down from those, who have it! Solve this problem and everything's gonna become a wonderland... but we know very well it cannot happen yet for the OBVIOUS REASONS!
There is no such thing as lack of support. Nobody owes you any support at all.
I just post what I feel like and am happy about every upvote. I do never think that any of my content deserves anything. It also does not matter if I spend one hour on a post (which I sometimes do) or 5 minutes (which I sometimes do)
LOL... yes, because everyone should have the support from others, as if it's owed to them? No, it has to be earned. How about working at building a brand name for yourself and putting in the time, effort, energy, dedication, determination and persistence to get the support? It's not given willy-nilly. Real support has to be earned by people appreciating or valuing your content. Not buying votes to play on weak psychology of popularity in the trending page for people to pile onto the curation bandwagon.
By supporting bidbots, you support whales who delegate to bots or run them to not go out and look for content to curate and spread the SP. More and more wealth goes into their pockets because you buy votes, and they get ucration rewards anyways, without lifting a finger to do any work. Get it yet?
I don't think you're getting my point. I'm with you on earning, building, gaining... whatever. But the social-economic structure of steemit really pushes you towards only ine solution if you drop using bots, and that's circlejerking :) I mean we can keep pretending it's about community bla bla, but we all know it's about money and hierarchy.
You can get shitloads of human followers among these 65.000 active ones, but at the end of the day if you keep getting dozens of dust upvotes from plankton users it's not gonna cut it, cause the only ones that matter are these done with high upvote power.
I'm sure you get plenty of upvotes from plankton, but the ones that let you earn are from high SP accounts and I can bet a lot of people have you on autovote... and it's all good, you've been here for a while and you earned it, but you came in a different time, and now reality's very different!
I see a lot of valuable IMO posts, that earn pennies, although at the market price they should earn more... but then isn't the market price what the market is willing to pay? Well yes, which means if you can sway it your way, you're gonna get it right. And that's what steemit comes down to, you have enough power and crypto to push your content to the top and you circlejerk, you're gonna be a winner.
Sure, high quality content is hard to argue. We can evaluate it with golden standards of art, literature, journalism and blogging, but without a few whales/sharks/dolphins having your back it's meaningless!
And that's what I mean by no SP trickling down. Yes everybody prefers selling their votes or delegating, cause nobody gives a shit about integrity! But am I complaining? No, I'm just pointing at a fact!
Ty Resteemed
I agree with ya
I don't like bid bots and don't use them (I do use faucets and MSP). I doubt that most of them are profitable, especially after that 25% is taken out. But for the ones that are, you really can't stop people from trying to make a quick buck. Most people won't attract people with a lot of steem (it is always welcome when that does happen) in their post especially as more and more people join the platform, most of the upvotes they will see if about .00-.05 cents. In the end everything is just a points (SP) game and how wisely they play the game, and I guess they see thats how the game works for them. Because the rewards is convertable to money, you are going to have business models built around it whether they are viable or not. These models will have their own supply and demand curve, and plenty of suckers too. I don't think a boycott will achieve much in deterring them. I don't even think abolishing fractional voting would solve the problem either-they will just splinter out. The steem platform has some intrinsic problems, and probably the solution would be to make the yearly return of daily upvotes for a year worse than a risk free investment....and that would probably mean steem needs a few more decimal places and likely a sell off and disinterest in the platform. It is a glitch in the matrix so to speak, and ultimately creates demand and value for steem and hopefully keeps it out of circulation. Do as you wish, but is futile to fight against human nature unless you become a God that can change nature itself....which in this case would be those in absolute control over steemit.
I regret that we only have 7 days to lock in a profit, it would be nice if it was continuous. Sometimes I wonder if with all the automated voting, and services like steemfollower, if people even read what is posted anymore. But if something a few weeks from now, or a few years from now goes viral, there is a lot of profit potential lost because of the 7 day model. I am not sure that the numbers game makes steemit that useful for spreading ideas as it was intended anymore, especially when the quality posts may not be noticed for some time through google queries. Sadly the bots don't want us to include ads and referrals and want to restrict us to the 7 day rule which is also detrimental to viability of steemit.
The main positive, especially regarding controversial or gagged ideas, is that what is on the block chain can't be removed so long as the blockchain exists. Many gag suits these days are to try to obtain orders telling website to remove reviews about people or their businesses, so the block chain is a big f you to the courts/censors and to the petitioners. In many cases where speech is prosecuted criminally, the police tend to produce edited copies of what was spoken. They are quite limited in their ability to do so when it is on the block chain.
so beginners are punished for using the tools you big fish dont need, and tools you all collectively created. whatevs.
Sorry, noob question, what is a bid bot?
Is it like a bot that upvotes all you do?
I don't even likethe idea of upvoting my own posts.
It's vote buying.
At least someone out there has a similar philosophy. I refuse to use them.
I have voted you as a witness, based on this stance. Integrity. Also, I use steemian.info/witnesses to make my choices for witnesses. What single category of those listed on that site would you consider the most important when voting for witnesses? Thanks for your insights.