There seems to be a lot of people posting lately about the current incarnation of the steemit platform and how certain groups of people are making use of it, so I thought I'd have my say, since I am a part of this community and the actions of it's members reflect on me. My opinions on certain aspects of steemit and the behaviour of some of my peers probably won't be an easy read for a lot of you and may cause you to reconsider either your own actions or your continued support of my little blog but since we are all being so honest about our feelings, I thought I would share my own.
Spam is a pain in the arse to be sure but then again, if everything is subjective then one mans rubbish is another mans treasure. I don't like seeing spam and follow for follow (I don't actually get much tbh, certainly not enough to complain about) but when I do see it on some posts, a lot of the time it is very reciprocal and at least it is an honest and upfront arrangement rather than some of the actions of others which can be dishonest and deceitful, whilst appearing considered and 'thoughtful'. I understand that there are others who have to deal with insincere, generic spam comments on a much more frequent basis than myself due to their 'reputation' and follower base and I sympathise with their position but we are free to post whatever we want and others are free to comment however they choose. I don't see it as being as big of a deal as some other issues yet it is getting quite a lot more attention than some of the more pressing matters that in my opinion, should be being discussed.
As far as the follow for follow and upvote for upvote, it is clear to me that this primarily extends to the lower echelons of the community and as such represents a tiny fraction of the reward pool being misappropriated, which should of course be addressed but as I say there are more pressing matters which should perhaps be looked at first before using the lowest common denominator of abuse on the platform as a smoke screen for more serious and substantial abuse by others.
How many different add-ons are there now for boosting and buying votes? Seriously?? Curation trails, voting trails, automated voting, voting bots. Aren't these just as bad as follow for follow? Anyone who knows me knows I am not very technically minded and I will admit that a lot of these things might be good ideas and very helpful but certain ones are definitely clear abuse and profiteering. It is not my place to tell anyone what to do or how to behave but I personally have issues with buying votes from someone who should be using their voting power to vote on 'quality content' rather than selling their privilege and earning a profit from increasing the exposure of 'random quality of content' and I certainly wouldn't buy a vote for my own post. I have used the minnowsupport project bot to upvote other people's work at times but never my own and have stopped doing so completely now as I am not sure whether I am completely comfortable with the set-up, stemming from the lack of understanding I have about the workings of the system. In theory it sounds like a good thing but until I am sure in my own mind how it works I will abstain from using it. A lot of the posts I was upvoting with the project were also related to my own so I was personally uncomfortable with how I was using it myself which was another reason for stopping.
I am not a self voter with one exception recently. I have started upvoting one series of my own posts for a very specific reason which I am comfortable with myself. Whether you are comfortable with it is a matter of choice. Other than this though, I never upvote my own posts or comments. I used to upvote my posts but that was because it was set to do so. When I realised I could change it, I did. I just don't feel the need to. If you upvote your own posts then that is your decision and I respect your choice. I understand some of the arguments for upvoting your own post such as getting the ball rolling and a little reward from yourself because you know how much effort you put into writing it or preparing it, etc. Maybe it is just because I have an upvote worth about 7 cents and as a man living in the West, 7 cents is not a lot at all, that determines my decision not to and maybe if my upvote was worth $100 my feelings would change but I don't think so. I'd rather keep that vote for someone else. I like the excitement of putting something out there and being rewarded for my efforts, or not as the case may be, by those who have enjoyed what I have produced, whatever that happens to be. I know it can be discouraging when you put a lot of effort into something and it doesn't get the attention you feel it deserves but that is part of the excitement to me. Like I said, I just don't feel the need to. I actually don't see why there is such a function for self voting in the first place.
As for voting on comments, I understand the self-voting of comments for visibility on certain posts and other technicalities but the blatant abuse that is obvious at times and substantial in terms of rewards misappropriated is very disconcerting, yet draws little attention when compared to the aforementioned and barely comparable, upvote for upvote system employed by the minnows. It would appear that if you have enough funds and lack of morality or capacity to think morally, then steemit is the perfect opportunity to invest, pay yourself a dividend anytime you like and recoup your investment in record time while still retaining your initial investment and ability to pay yourself for little or no effort at all, thanks to the users that are hoping you will take the time to view their work and reward them from your rightful share of the reward pool which should be dedicated completely to rewarding the work of others. I don't vote on my own comments. In truth I use my own votes far too much for comments and whilst I do think that rewarding comments is definitely a good thing, I could definitely do with saving some of the votes I use for posts instead.
It is not for me to decide what steemit should be and how others should conduct themselves but I am free to suggest that consideration is given to actions taken by everyone who represents the community which I am supposedly a part of. There definitely is a steemit 'community' but it doesn't accurately represent the complete picture of what steemit is. It is only one small part of a multi-faceted platform which in theory, will become whatever the users ultimately decide through their use of it and while everyone has a right to make a case for their perfect representation of the platform, no-one has a right to say that the way they are using it is correct and the way others are using it isn't and certainly no-one should be bullied into having their experience determined by someone else nor their actions judged by others, lest those who judge be judged themselves. We all have our own interpretation of steemit and what it represents to us.
I continue to post on steemit because I enjoy doing so and it is rewarding to me in a lot of different ways. I enjoy reading and viewing other peoples work and thoughts and I really enjoy being able to reward people in some small way. It is not for me to judge the actions of anyone and my thoughts on some of these things may change in time but I just wanted to share the way I think about using steemit at the moment and encourage others to think about what steemit represents to them. I am always willing to change my opinion given new information and perspective so I encourage anyone who disagrees with anything I have said to let me know and put forward their case for why I am wrong in the comments section.
In conclusion, I think that like most things in life, steemit has become too complicated and as someone who will probably reflect the average end product user, I think there are too many complicated add-ons, both technically and morally. I'm sure I could spend the time and research this area of steemit and that area of steemit to come to an informed decision about where I stand on each individual aspect of it but to be perfectly honest, that is not what I'm here for and I shouldn't be expected to have to read a user manual just to use the site. That's not very appealing to me. I don't see what's wrong with simply producing and curating content.
I see myself as an idealistic hypocrite since I feel there is definitely value in trying to be ideal, even when it is ultimately un-achievable because the pursuit of idealism means that you are always heading in the right direction but I am also a hypocrite in the sense that I have to live in the world that has been built around me and in order to do so at times we are forced to do things we don't always agree with because not adhering would mean time lost and like everyone else, I don't always practice what I preach but I am always trying to better myself and when it comes to the morality of behaviour on a social media platform, we definitely have complete control over our actions and should consider the morality of them.
There is definitely a lot more to be said since there are so many different aspects of steemit to talk about but I have said enough for now. I don't want to take up too much of your time and I don't want to be any more incoherent than I already have been. Just some quick thoughts! :)
I am interested to see what others have to say in response and as I said, I am open to changing my mind if I find reason to do so, so if you think I am wrong on any of the points I have made, please let me know.
Thanks for your time! :)
I am very new user of steemit and I do NOT understand many things here. I do not know how to get steem power and so on. I have seen automatic upvoting on youtube, presented by older users and I must say, that I am very disapointed by such thing. Person who does not read the article is unable to make an opinion and therefore, in my eyes should not make a decision if the article is good or bad with upvoting.
I like steemit, because I can get rewarded for work I do here. However, I do not understand how and as well, I feel, like it is very easy to get lost on this website. I guess I will find out later.
I am not sure how self upvote works, but I think, that if I as author write something, the fact that I post it is my self-upvote and therefore such button is only for a business thing.
It is great to be rewarder, but people should not spam steemit and upvote bad contents only because they want money. Steemit should not work like that.
I like to read opinions and stories about topics I am interested and I found this one very valuable for me at the moment. I just hope, that someone with bigger "power" will read it and think a bit about things you have raised. Overall, all the best to steemit.
Thanks so much for such a wonderful comment @sobca. Steemit can be a very confusing place to be and I am still learning many things myself. I can understand the automatic voting in certain circumstances for example @blocktrades has an 100% upvote of $330 and has ten of these to use each day. $330 is a very large upvote and probably not too many posts worth that much of an upvote from a single user so if they award their upvote at ten percent power, $33, they would have to curate 100 articles manually which is a big ask for anyone and not realistic so I can understand it in certain situations in the current steemit set-up. Perhaps the distribution of voting power could be changed in some way though to make things easier for manual curation. I really don't know enough about the way things work. It is a learning process my friend! :)
Don't let the negative aspects ruin your experience mate. Enjoy yourself! :)
I agree with your points here, and it has got me considering my current actions.
Since joining I started taking advantage of up vote bots to both boost my SP and to increase my posts exposure, and I'll probably continue for the short term. I'm definitely in the hypocrite basket right now :)
Thanks for sharing your opinion :)
No problem. I'm very pleased that you have given it some thought and whatever decision you make is an informed one. :)
Thanks for a great comment and for a wonderful entry with the grandfather clock! :)
couldn't agree more!
if the comments are useful or encourage/support a good idea then am upvoting my 2 cents but also if I consider it to be worthy for fun reason ofcourse if it is a funny comment I can upvote it once and it has to be topic related other than that i just vote the post itself showing my appreciation or down voting for opposite feelings ( I only did that once but then I got worried about a chain reaction movement where the downvoted steemian would down vote me for vengeance and so on..lol so I decided not to downvote and instead report spammers whenever I find them..I mean a whale could crush you without the fear of being crushed lol ..ahh steemit the big fish eats the small fish .. isn't the same centralized system but without institutions?? :D)
Thanks for the great comment @kingyus. I've never downvoted or flagged anyone yet. Not sure if I will or not but I half expected to wake up and seee this post downvoted. :)
Hi @Tonyr
It's interesting what you say, and I want to say something about that.
My language is spanish and I really effort me for translate my words, so if I'm not clear I'm sorry.
For this reason, the mayority of my comments only say: "thank you" or "I love it!", because it's really difficult for me translate my feelings and I think that "Google translator" it's not completely effective (althought I understand this post thanks that)
I'm very new here (one month) and when I started in steemit I upvoted my comments because I didn't understand how working this, later understanded that if I upvote my comments, "up" in the visibility on the post and I looked unfair. That's why I don't do that anymore.
I still upvote my posts and don't understand why is bad yet, so sorry for that.
I don't understand about bots etc. (I upvoted some for mistake)
I love stemit! For me is a new world where I can post my drawings without afraid and shame and a good excuse for practicing my drawings. I've know really great people (like you) that supports and motivates me do it better but also literally fake people looking like bots.
I don't understand how works my steempower yet, but I'll try to use it better.
Thank you for your effort support others with your contests and good comments. I think you make steemit be better! :)
Thanks for your wonderful comment @fole and you did a great job of communicating your thoughts. I don't really have a problem with people upvoting their own posts as such. Its just a personal preference that I don't and I am also still very confused by how things work on steemit too so you're not the only one. That is why I would like to see things made a lot simpler in future.
Have a wonderful day my friend and thank you for your lovely compliments. :)
I'm glad to hear your take on things @tonyr. :)
Cheers mate. Hope things are going well for you. :)
My reply might sound very bland, but I absolutely agree with everything you say.
I've never heard the phrase 'idealistic hypocrite' but I like it and I have a feeling more than half of the Steemit population would fall under that category :-)
Cheers mate. I think when you build a decentralised system without rules then those with the means to take advantage often do and when those are the ones setting the example of behaviour on the platform it is no surprise that some others will look to that example and 'follow' it, thinking that it is acceptable without giving care and consideration as to whether it is moral. Some of the people on here who have some influence need to start setting a better example for their followers and taking a stand against all of the negative elements of the platform rather than just the easy targets. Even those issues which might affect their own support and any percieved 'earnings' from rewards that they might lose as a result.
Thanks for your time and thoughts mate. I really appreciate it. Have a great day buddy! :)
I think you and me stand on a similar ground. I never upvoted my post or comment. I came into this super new and green. I knew blogging. Blogging comes naturaly to me...I done it before...so some social rules and foundations were there. Maybe to much of them...Sometimes I feel like I am in a paralel universe. I like to read the content...I like to take time, drop a comment here and there....I like to mingle. I upvote when I like it and reestem if I'm feeling the moment. I think steemit will never get to this point. It can be found in smaller groups of people who are conected in one way or another...but in general we wont get it. People post for $.
That's what I think too. Thanks for a great comment @atopy! :)
I hate bots and the current way things work, all the spam, etc. But you do make good points.. if we allow bots and bot-trails and whatnot, I only understand half of these hidden features (hidden yes, because n00bs don't know and most of them miss out), then it's not really worse than follow-for-follow. I have invited people to follow me too, because honestly... you're not getting followers by just posting and getting no views. I don't like empty and lifeless bot-replies at all either though... If you're going to do follow-for-follow, atleast do it like a person..
Upvoted, 'cause you deserve it more than the crap posters! :)
Thanks a lot @pandorasbox. Its good to know there are others who feel the same way as I do! :)
‘Simply producing and curating content’, sounds like a dream which I thought was a reality when I first joined the platform. Idealist indeed. How could I have expected it to be anything other than a microcosm of the big bad world where morality seems to have exited the building along with the 20th century?
Too harsh?
I loathe bots, self-voting and buying votes but, as you said, everyone has their own interpretation of Steemit and are entitled to it. I’m here for the fun of finding a lot of wonderful writers and adding some semi-intelligent comment where I can. To hell with all the rest of it.
Thanks for a great comment @deirdyweirdy.
It wasn't an easy post to write altough I wrote it pretty quickly but I am not really an offensive man and didn't want to cause any unduly but I just think that we should all consider our actions and how they reflect on us and the community as a wwhole. If people give things due thought and carry on about their business in the same way then fair enough. But at least give the morality of your actions a second thought.
I think when people trade up-vote for up-vote and offer to do that for a lot of people, they only display their lack of understanding of the Steemit platform because after a certain amount of up-votes, your voting weight decreases and time must be set aside for it to "recharge"; moreover, as your voting weight decreases, so do the payouts you are able to offer other individuals for their content. I think the bigger issues on Steemit involve individuals posting copyrighted material and things that are illegal. How would you go about removing copyrighted material and illegal things from the blockchain? I think in those cases, decreasing visibility by flagging might be the only option (I'm not sure). As far as the tons of plug-ins and things you have to learn as a Steemit user, I think individuals should just learn as much as they feel the need to learn and discover in order to create the content they believe to be the cream of the crop.
I think most of them know very well how voting power works. It just doesn't matter to them, because it the voting power of others that matters to them, not their own.
Good point, I didn't think of that.
I definitely agree that the paying for votes is a much bigger problem than the spam. And quite honestly the spam on my own posts doesn't really bother me, I'm actually much more bothered by the spam on some of my friends posts, most specifically the friends I have that it really upsets. So basically I dislike spammy comments simply because it makes the day of someone I care about a little less bright. If that makes sense.
The thing is, at my current position on this platform I have the power to affect some change in regards to spam, but sadly I do not have the kind of clout it would take to effect the vote buying. Other than on an individual basis, I have talked a few people I know out of using them.
I've come to a few decisions lately. I was feeling quite bummed out/burned out for a little while there, you know when because you and I had a rather long back and forth during that time. And honestly your brother's last post ended up being first really bad for me, then ultimately good. Because I was suddenly feeling so disappointed and dark that something had to give way. So rather than falling into a depression I've gone the whole other way. I might not be able to do anything about the choices and actions of others, but I am in control of my own. We want to see a change in the world we have to be it, and it's really the only thing we CAN do.
So I no longer give a rat's butt about the negative aspects of steemit, I'm only focusing on the positive. The awesome people like you and Paul and meesterboom and Linda and I really could go on for awhile with that list which is a huge positive just right there.
And my brother is just awaiting his confirmation and he will be with us here too!
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you but I've been really, really busy and haven't had much time to think but I really hope you are well and you will of course let me know when your brother is all ready to go. I know the last time we spoke we didn't really agree and I have to say that this time I don't think it will be any different. :)
I hear what you're saying about your friends being upset about spam on their posts and that causing you to become upset for them but I don't really understand it. It is something that can easily be ignored and if it really is upsetting people then why are they getting upset about that and not about the fact that others are using the reward pool to not only vote for their own posts which is fair enough but getting another who knows how many upvotes from randowhale and booster and minnowsupport and God knows how many others there are. When someone buys a vote from one of these services they are taking away a part of the reward pool that might otherwise have gone to one of your friends. It's like being upset about people claiming welfare but ignoring the millionaires who don't pay their taxes. It's hypocrisy. There's no other word for it.
I'm trying to be as positive as I can be and hope beyond hope to be more so in future. I don't really know what else to say my friend. I have had a long day and I'm not really thinking too clearly but didn't want to leave it too long to reply to you incase you thought I was ignoring you. :)
Hope you're well my friend and hope to get achance soon to cathc up properly. :)
Agree on the spam you mean? Honestly, I am leaning more toward your point of view about it. I don't think it's worth the negative energy when it can just be ignored.
I do really understand your feelings about the vote buying, and I would much prefer that it would stop.
I really, really appreciate you taking the time to write me, just to let me know you haven't forgotten me. It means a lot Tony, and I treasure our friendship. We don't have to agree on everything, that's the great thing about having a genuine friendship, we can say what we think and feel and be honest and not hold it against one another if what we think and feel isn't always the same. Depth in friendship is important :)
I also hope you're well and look forward to catching up :)
I love the honesty. I would have upvoted your comment if you didn't upvote it yourself.