Please don't vote on this post as I've declined rewards. See below!
There are some people who just cynically take from Steem on a daily basis. They do nothing to make it an attractive platform or interact with the community. They may actually be harming the image of Steem as a platform, but earning from content they took from others.
A prime example is @jout. He is posting around 3 times a day and it's just Youtube videos he found or memes. Nothing original that I can see and he doesn't even add anything of his own to the posts. He's been here for over a year, so he's well aware of how Steem works. He's buying sizeable votes on each post and so taking around $70 out of the reward pool each day! I note that he gave up on commenting 9 months ago, so he's not interested in talking to anyone.
I realise that is not all profit, but he's actively reducing what you can make whilst enriching some vote sellers.
So what can I do?
If we can flag his posts. This is not attacking a minnow. It's restoring the balance of where the rewards should be going, i.e. to those producing original content that has value. He's by no means the only one, but he's doing more damage than many. If we can at least make his posts unprofitable then he will lose the ability to continue without buying more Steem.
It's worth scrolling to the posts that are about to pay out, i.e. six days old, and flagging those first so we reduce what he's making now. According to SteemNow he has $441 of pending rewards that we need to take back.
What's in it for me?
Using up your voting power for flagging does reduce your ability to support others, but I think it's worth doing. If he stops then there's a little more rewards for everyone, but it's an ongoing battle to deal with such leeches.
You can actually get rewarded for your flagging. @SteemFlagRewards is a project to incentivise flagging of posts that abuse Steem. If you leave an appropriate comment the account can vote it up to a similar value to what you removed. There are some limitations on this. You need to be able to remove more than the 'dust' amount, which is about 2c, to get anything back. It's up to you if this matters.
Your comments need to adhere to some rules. You must give a reason that is one of those listed on their Discord and then tag @SteemFlagRewards. You are free to give the offender some tips on how they could do better and I think that is valuable as some don't realise they are acting against the community. In this case I would consider his actions to also come under 'bid bot abuse'. His 'promotion' of his posts is nothing to do with reaching a wider audience and all about profit.
What are the risks?
There's a chance you may get retaliatory flags, but this guy currently only has 50SP, so he cannot do you much damage. I have some others flagging me on a daily basis, but they don't have much more than him between them and I suspect this set of accounts are all controlled by @atempt, who is on the receiving end of flags for similar offences.
I'd like to see him blacklisted by the vote sellers. Is it in their interest for Steem to continue to lose users?
I realise I make myself a target by doing this and acting against the interests of the vote sellers, but I think a better Steemit that rewards honest effort and engagement to be worth fighting for.
I'm declining rewards on this post as I want you to use your voting power elsewhere. Even if you don't want to flag anyone you can vote up those who do and/or delegate to @SteemFlagRewards or to the accounts dedicated to this sort of flagging.
The future of Steem is in our hands. It's not looking to great at the moment, so let's help make it what it should be.
Steem on!
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Spam comments may be flagged. Beware of the Commentphant!
Flagged a few at 30%.
I am working on building up some STEEM so I can delegate a little bit to SFR. It won't be a ton since I am still relatively small, but hopefully it will help. Thanks for continuing to advocate for them and for keeping this topic at the forefront of our attention!
It will be appreciated. I'd like to see some of those with 50k SP delegating more. They can afford it.
Received word from @therealwolf that this account is blacklisted by @smartsteem.
Also on @buildawhale and Minnowbooster FYI
That's some good news. I wish all bots were as proactive.
I have been systematically flagging this guy every night along with a bunch of other SFR people. He doesnt seem to be getting the message and is probably now taking a hit on this 'profit' if there ever was one.
Most see it right away and either shrink away, or comment. This case is a little different so far.
Keep it up if you can. If we remove enough rewards he won't be able to continue.
Thanks to talk about it, Steve! I think users like this are just a shame for our community. We need to have more active users who write original contents and less users who just copy a link to buy upvotes. People who see those kind of posts are taking a lot of money could think that steemit is just a place where people earn money to do nothing and it's no true! We need to take care of good users discouraging the bad behaviours.
He's now claiming he did it to promote Steemit. I don't believe him.
Thanks for putting this out there, I flagged a couple of the 6-day old ones.
hi @steevc . sharing youtube videos from the source on steemit it's legal i do nothing wrong.
Fair play for your bought upvotes,
Fair play for our downvotes.
okay good luck
Why do you think you deserve these rewards? They are not your videos and you add nothing to them. We are just restoring the balance.
actually i bay votes from bots with 20% loss or more just to promote those videos to bring the youtubers to DTube im note new on steemit i have more than one year here.
I saw you are not new. If you want to promote Steem then why not add some text to the posts to at least say what you are doing? Even so, the post rewards are not deserved and people will continue to flag as your posts are regarded as spam and an abuse of the rewards system.
Has anyone joined as a result of your posts?
If you want to bring Youtubers here then do a proper post about it. You can feature several in one post. Just buying votes all the time is considered bad behaviour. You are not being part of the Steem community.
actually i'm a day trader i dont have so much time and neither skills to write articles but i would try. you can flag as you can i dont care about 100 bucks worth of steem
So why did you not defend yourself before? Do you not look at comments? We want people to promote Steem, but it has to be done in a productive way.
if i defend myself you wont be able to show your posts on steemit again but attacking bloggers with flags this is what's illegal on steemit
Hope he's blacklisted by all, pronto.
Unfortunately some bots seem content to support crap. I've mentioned it to some, such as @joeparys, but it's just business to them.
I do not support this kind of content ever and am doing my best to help this community.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I'm happy to hear that, but do you check every post that gets your vote? Here's one repeat offender. Do they deserve those rewards? Do you blacklist people?
I had double check to make sure it's not a parody account.
Good on you, Joe.
Those naughty bot owners need some...
I almost did a post about this account also... But it never seems like anyone cares much. Not said in a whiny voice, even thought it sounds like a whiny comment.
I can't ever talk myself into large investments here, with the lack of concern on having my investments liquidated by these guys.
I care @whatsup! I share your downvote campaigns on twitter too. I need folks like you, and Steve, cause I don't go to the trending page as it causes me to fall ill...
I sure enjoy helping with the flogging though! xo
It is depressing to see the crap that goes on here, but then I'm encouraged by the great community I see at Steemfest and generally around Steem. If a few more bigger players would join in fighting the abuse we could deal with most of it. They could be supporting minnows who are willing to do the hard work of seeking it out. I already delegate to a few who do this. My curation rewards are pretty irrelevant to me anyway.
Nice work man. Good looking out. This is how communities should defend themselves.
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 13 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 5 SBD worth and should receive 167 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePighey my haters hello again check that out https://steemit.com/sharingcontent/@transisto/not-your-keys-not-your-cryptos-proof-of-keys-celebration-jan-3rd I think that i should pump all my bitcoin to steem power too to get the same respect.
Not hating you, just shifting the rewards to more worthy posts that people have worked hard on. Please do invest in Steem and I hope it pays off for you. We want to make this a place everyone can enjoy, but if it looks like someone is taking more than their share then every user is entitled to use their vote to change that. That's how Steem works.
We don't hate you, but what you were doing goes against how some of us see Steem. You can use your SP however you like, but we need to be building Steem up rather than worrying about a quick profit.
Bring in good people and we will support them.
You missed this memo.
https://steemit.com/sharingcontent/@transisto/not-your-keys-not-your-cryptos-proof-of-keys-celebration-jan-3rd#@berniesanders/re-transisto-not-your-keys-not-your-cryptos-proof-of-keys-celebration-jan-3rd-20181211t230705718z
I flagged that stuff as well.
Better keep your word then because I highly doubt it.
Hi there,
I've just upvoted this post
A small contribution from me, to help the steem community to thrive ;)
I am not sure I understand your frustration . There is @share2steem app, it allows you to share stuff here .
Why are you trying to stop something that is by default allowed on this platform ?
That app allows people to share things they made themselves. If the community decides to upvote it then that's fine, but the buying of votes is out of control. It's up to the community to do what they think is right for themselves and/or Steem.
how do you know who originally made content that is shared ?
did you see bid-bot abuse done by this guy @teamsteem . lets flag him , I will join
There are plenty of others. You can pick your own targets. That guy has nothing to flag at the moment anyway.
I say lets start with big abusers , we'll do small fish later
You need a bit more SP to do any damage. We need to stop the small fish getting big.
but if we join forces we can fight big abuse too .
you have nice amount of SP , be our leader , lets fight big abusers too . please be brave
I saw him on the list but his reps higher than mine. Plenty others to flag mind!
Posted using Partiko Android
His rep is irrelevant as his SP is not enough to do damage. Rep is all messed up by people buying votes anyway. I'd get that changed if I could. I think votes should have diminishing effect on rep if they always come from the same accounts.
I thought rep had an effect on rep independent of steem power? i.e. two people with rep 70 flagging me would both have the same affect on my SP regardless of their SP?
.
I'm not sure of the exact relationship and I'm will to risk a bit of rep for this. So far he hasn't retaliated or responded at all. I think we need to kill off as much of his rewards as we can to show him he's on the wrong track.
I'll jump in next round!
Rep is purely dependent on SP gained (or loss). Take away rewards, take away rep in an exactly proportional relationship. This is how I understand it at least.
Is this actually profitable?
Whenever I buy votes they are not really profitable, I usually just do it as a marketing expense that is not very high?
I have wondered this, but we can at least make it even less profitable. It's the vote sellers who always win from the deal. Does promoting a post like this work? Unless you get onto trending it doesn't seem to gain you comments.
I saw one of them mention that one of his boosted posts only had about $2 worth of real votes. So it's not really. All these people are doing is making themselves look silly, annoying people and hurting their own long term profit and everyone else's - all for a few dollars more.
I really think that greed is the biggest danger for Steem. It would be such a shame if that kills it
well the question is actually do u get any upvotes.
It feels like organica upvotes have kinda disapeared from steem altogether.
I get plenty, as well as some automated ones I didn't pay for. I don't deal in absolutes. Steem is neither totally great nor totally crap. I would think the purpose of promoting a post is to get responses. You can earn rewards if you gain supportive followers. Vote buying is spoiling Steem. The trending page is junk and people are getting high reps they didn't earn. I think it's worth taking some action to deal with this, although I can do little about the worst offenders.
Hi @steevc!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 5.844 which ranks you at #375 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 3 places in the last three days (old rank 378).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 277 contributions, your post is ranked at #6.
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