I received a few reports from multiple people about two posts that are in trending right now.
(UPDATE: Removed reference @buildawhale wasn't used on both posts).
#1 & #2 on trending curently
These posts are causing a lot of unrest due to the massive rewards gained by using lots of bots. I've looked at them a few times, although I personally am not a fan, it isn't something I can do anything about.
Apparently, though, I am personally responsible.
But hey, I'm an easy target to kick around some more.
I spent a good long while writing my response, I had to edit it 50 times because I am so pissed right now. I'm still not happy with my response, but I haven't slept and I have to go meet the family for breakfast in an hour. It's the best I'm going to get at this point.
My response
This is about your lack of responsibility.
It is not my responsibility to judge good or bad content, I can't go around removing votes because you don't like something. Show me fraud, spam, abuse, scam, then I can do something.
You see any other bot owners spending 1-8 hours a day stopping spam?
I know you are going to say this is abuse, from my bot perspective he put one vote on one post in day, that is not abuse, the fact he used almost every bot is outside of my hands as I can't dictate how many bots he uses. Who is to decide what that number is? What's too much? Again I can't remove a vote because he used 40 bots. I can't remove a vote for disagreement with rewards.
Oh really, they will loose money? I can't see this! A top trending position will bring them hundreds of followers and increase their reputation considerably. Have you thought about that? No you haven't.
I think you mistake me for some village idiot.
But take your time to study and read and think and finally make your decision.
Just because you're unhappy doesn't mean I'm going to just go around unvoting everything you point to. When you messaged me, I put it on my list and will go through it when I start doing my daily abuse research. I've looked at the post many times, and in fact, I saw it before you even told me about it. I have no grounds to do anything about it though. Unvoting a post is reserved for black and white cases of abuse, plagiarism, content theft, fraud.
If this wasn't your business account but your private account, would you upvote such trash, too?
Again, I can't remove votes because I wouldn't upvote something personally, it has nothing to do with anything. Have you seen the garbage on new and trending on a daily basis?
The post in itself hasn't broken any rules (there aren't even any freaking rules for that matter) that I can even use to justify removing a vote.
Feel free to continue to harass me with your accusations. I have better things to do than having to justify myself to you.
You think I am not doing shit?
Everyone one of these users I have personally and manually researched and blacklisted from @buildawhale.
havi15
bibkchhetri
leoumesh
justdothat
finance2nomad
gumpul
kanaya
ina15
dara15
cinta15
riska15
melly15
ais115
sooja
mona15
raya15
eldassi
shonani
widene
wynelli
babapa
dreler
gadebl
harvesee
nerrieari
desesperado-hp
firary
fitex
waynette
wenuckan
nutshell
viconnons
divel
morad1
doakas
zerorez
chillest
max1994
nikchuma
iamra8
peaches88
steemyt
aysages
ilyaskren77
alex1999
loveliness0427
sharesteem
dikanevroman
tucuxi
goretrojen
asaran
kalabagirl
photo-mania
garryv
doujinblog
haidong
uoftconfessions
calgaryconfess
harquick
mdalam
vampy
misrori
aftabkhan123
speckofdust
usamamalik555
angela.james
theteam
lina22
asmamohamed
helena4
christina013
viki.mara
gaboo12
fedii
rahma97
houssemhsh
ahmeed.try
diop
ayman23
syrine
samsoo
hamaa
ichrak
sheldons
kaki
salemm
nours
medbc
malekk
tarak97
camilia1
kely
ismailmeftah
moviess
medaminee
basmaa
mlouka
berlin12
abri
alia11
sanfra
gmovies
haloufa
kendall12
jokes4life
slouma
daly
lina.kh7
nouha
jesserr
garts
rihabb
majoo
gmusic
nabilaa
azerfredj
jazmiin
ninaa
bibi.bibi
jaja438
zinab
amalbali
peetar
jackson01
karolina.kar
kokoka
anna12360
manar7
monceff
faiez
montassar123
chayma
hosem
jiw
karolina7
youzef
lynda.ajili
chamou
soniahk
dadou.abid
mirna.mira
hamza.azayez
claudia405
lina.toumi
hamzaaa
ala.salhi
nina.nana
souha.salhi
fatma.fakhfekh
ameni.amouna
azza.lannouar
sabrinasabrina
sabryna
samehguedri
ameni.frikha
saifgrioui
azzerr
oussema
firasbc
islem.grioui
bohmid
sarah017
wahibfersi
tokyo12
eva12
kenza
quavo12
stormie
yessine
offset12
harhour
imen
weldezonta
ahmed.zouari
hamma11
achraf1
achraf2
achraf3
achraf4
achraf5
achraf6
achraf7
achraf8
achraf9
achraf10
achraf11
achraf12
achraf13
achraf14
achraf15
achraf16
achraf17
achraf18
somoy
acting
actors
afk
akiho
arcade-trail
arcadetrail
basecamp
bubba
changing
charm
crashboom
darknets
express
fema
fireandbrimstone
goonsquad
happybot
happytoes
hardline
hot-sauce
internal
janus
junkanoo
junko
keymaker
komodo-dragon
league
loving-you
luiscordon
mage
magi
neganator
russkaya
scarybot
scrollsmero
seth-krings
squirrelmaster
stooge
teamamerica
topkek
ultima-online
utilities
victorious
virtualarcade
we-are-the-world
xiexie
xiknybuc
ahlawat
emm28
allisgood4us
always4good
miamiheather
whatagreattime
all4thegood
iamahappyman2
iamalwayshappy
nowreadthis2
whatagooddayitis
allinagoodday
beachdayisgreat
begintheday
bmwlover
carclubfun
mercfan
whaticando
suninthecity
whatshecando
black.alien
garryv
ajaa888
akakei84
casidas
dariastavr
dariy123
defe
gamesocial
grand
madik707
maestro1289
merdankadr
mikka89
pasha94
prepper
serendipity77
soniia
vactera
vasla
aaabbbccc
ayay
boxes
caojiandong
caoyuange
chinesefood
cjd
cocococo
comingback
cs5
dogme
fishwowo
good-night
greenlove
guangzhoulife
haircut
inguangzhou
lovemyson
makuku
mybaby
mycat
mylife2018
one23
onepen
paka
pakhar
snowwoman
sogood
tree3
w-c
fabix
msteemian
lukehunter
michaellamden68
aligufron
turksays
whocares
booski
bubblemen
cricnews
soccerguy
matrixbot
googly
cryptoseeds
freakred
rich.fat
hindi
tokenguy
sciencefeed
dags
hackbot
wayfaraway
millennials
marketmen
randomfeed
feku
bhakt
hodlit
szsys
bestprince2017
superlotto
foodndrin
steemitrobot
followcolor
you-decide
khudgabbar
spitfire2507
valcrannie
raphae608
auctionator
initial.bid
rajazia
mohsinnafees
mohitshivhare
mayankverma
maliksaim
khuramshazad
malikamjad
ijazali
hasnatahmad
hamzazaheer
hamzaprince
hammadmadi
chnasir
chumar
arslanahmad
ankitgautam
ankitagupta
waqasmalik
umerraja
srabonisingh
nadeemali
mujahidhashmi
mausamitimilsina
manvigupta
mansoorchaudary
malikidrees
manoojkumar
malikhusnat
happyforever
lakshmishetty
binduchethan
asimmalik
ashokumar
asimkhokhar
aqibwarsi
akkisingh
deybala
jonty123
shihann9
cryptondo
movieclips
galacticarc
samiksa1982
nirma1982
pravinsuthar
rumis
prince60
suresheee
hakanlama
tenorbalonzo
hakanyaman
cemalbaba
efsun2007
asagikulak
radolphine
amnasheikh
alvinass
alishapti
arnob25
mishu
mishujr
alexandruionescu
blaineb
pornwhale
kaleem345
carface
giokaceh1992
jasonmunapasee
shakailove
ran-a-banana
pdxgal
kennybrown
apon6531
phoenix-group
sibtainchishti
steemvote
steemcollector
mybooster
provote
midobashamido
infokrieg
newsfront
secrettv
blockbooster
kidstv
kittentown
randofish1
politik
topzehn
cropcircles
steinzeit
simplemoney
filme
matzep
votebuster
whalo
whalewatch
getvotes
querdenken
astrotv
news24
lionpk
upv4life
velocity007
neuehorizonte
ophelion
wissenschaft
randofish
howtodo
cookingstar
umpe
appreciato
steemwin
myup
nuoviso
up-me
cashbidbot
pushmeup
amayahaley21
postpromo
crazy3
alexalma
amanat1993
anushkasingh
ayeshakhann
efatfatima
haniyakhan
hinatariq
hirraangel
homsys
joy69
karthikraj
kirankhan
kittynoor
kospi
manishakhan
maryamkhan
mohammadsaleh
myupvote
nikitapatil
nishantranjan
nkbooster
rihaan
rupeshdeepak
stylishgirly
sukhen1155
timeall
yousafmaier
hafsatariq
robin-ho
truewriter
loveforever
pornhub1
hotandwet
wallpapers4u
joseph1956
coinbooster
cj23
alextuteu
rajawasim176
amitraj
cryptozert
aiyanna
billibo
steembeamer
steemtools
bdupme
cashbot
voteboter
freeupvote
upvoteforfree
minnowsteemwin
votex
hygge
pinacle
garudi
steemboter
ata27
skirbutis
craig-grant
money-dreamer
atjehsteemit
psychologies
cotarelo
markosky
serkagan
dailyraffle
haejinfans
chancellor
aarecipes
alan-walker
alanfakeer
albi2007
aliakbar2
allthereisislove
arnobtogor25
arshikhan
banglabhai
bdupgrate
bdupwhale
bhaiaslam
capooo
capooo1
chittagong
educ.leb
farhanrajpoot129
gazisahadat
ghasemkiani
ghazanfar.ali
hasibur
hira01
ivanmendes
jakiasultana
khulna
mafuzzz
manann
mani0005
mindsmania
mrpabel
munnisingh
muzzusingh
nafijur
natkhatnavneet
nayyersultan
nazmul82
neer
nidakaur
nomanali
parveenkumar
photographer2
pingpong
princesohan
prodip012
prodip0123
promita
qamarjee
quotobox
rajafaseeh
rajasheri
rajatgarg
ramesawargurjar
ranaraab
raziwajid
rihadkhan
rubia.michelle
sabiransar
sanjeeva
sapnajain
shaileshgiri
shapla
shawaizrasheed
shubhammathur
siddarthjain
smsulaiman
sondip
steemainfun
sumayia
sunny2502735
sure40002
sylhet
taimoorraj
thankmelater
tuyendg
universalpro
wajahatali
wajid786
waliafridi
werewennad
ximedark0
zahidsun
zakariashikder
buildawhale.bot
amat
trevonjb
zear
zeartul
bellyrub
bellyrubbank
stronger.man
vipins
food.travel
Personally, I've never found a bot profitable. Surely there must be a way to ban all bots. I also think auto-voting should be done away with as well.
I think the reports you used don't display all votes in a correct way - @buildawhale has been used for both:
***
I understand you can't just decide that you don't like the content and remove the vote - But why can you not blacklist them for the future?
There is no right to use boosters. If you have a company you don't need to approve of every customer.
However thanks for your answer and your great work with the many other spammers ;)!
Why would he blacklist them? It costed them money to buy the votes. It's not like it's a sustainable business model to land stuff on the frontpage that is more likely to attract flags than more upvotes.
People buy votes at a lost expecting that their post will attract more upvotes than what they've lost on the promobots.
I agree with you buddy.
I don‘t really care if they make money out of it or not - it‘s rather about them filling the „trending“ page with garbage. I know its not really usable anyways - but why not at least try do something about it...
It's cheaper to fill the rest of the frontpage with good content that flag those crap.
Woooah! Slow down there.. The way the trending page is now, it's nice to actually see something (even if it is trash) besides the same 5 f-ing people all the time...
If anything, it's creating a break in the trending page.
Steemit is divided into two groups.
People who get pissed at vote bots because they themselves don't want to pay to promote their post, and then take a holier than thou stance, while preaching steemit is "community."
And those who actually realize that it's investing in your own product to gain momentum. Just like anything else in this world.
Steemit is THE model of late stage capitalism at it's finest. It takes money to make money, is a part of that.
The former users that complain about the trending page are hypocrites anyway. If you really cared about steemit, you wouldn't even be browsing trending in the first place, and seeking out quality post on new under specific tags that you like, to help your "community."
You made an important point here!
One of the problems with excessive vote buying is that people are able to completely skip community engagement.
When I joined Steem 18 months ago there was a completely different philosophy. Selfish behavior was not very well seen, and everybody was focussed on pushing the overall growth and sustainability of the community. Now I've maintained these values at least for my own blog, where I'm close to reaching 7,000 followers and around 27,000 Steem only by blogging every day now - and without having paid for only one vote :-) I have amazing conversations with people from all over the world that are often prolonged in the chatrooms then. Some of them have even become friends I meet in real life.
I would love to see that type of culture on the whole platform. But maybe that's a too romantic and unrealistic wish :-)
Compared to 2016, the culture of Steem has made a 180° turn. Self-voting and excessive vote buying have become respectable, while engagement and dedication have become rather secondary. Maybe it has to be like that, I don't know.
From my point of view it's hard to believe that a decreasing engagement in a social network will help to strengthen the eco-system in the long run. Buuuut, we can just wait and see what happens :-)
Welcome to steemit btw, just seen that you're one of the newer users! Hope you enjoy the ride so far.
Well, I think the difference from 2016, is just that, the community was small. It was easier to be a community. Steemit is too big to be a "community" now.
I always see people rave about "Steemit gains X-amount of new users!," "Steemit has reached top 1,000 websites!"
However, this isn't a good thing for a "community." It makes it too large, and quickly the idea behind it falls apart. It has become the next instagram. Too much content, being posted too fast; it's impossible to see it all. Conversely, it's impossible for new users to be seen. Hence, upvote bots (advertising).
I don't see how bots decrease the social engagement. For example: a new user makes a post, and within the first 5 minutes, it's buried, never to be seen again, and no chance of anyone finding it unless they scroll for hours on "new" and happen to click it. There post gets 0 social engagement. Example 2: New user makes a post, decides to spend his OWN money promoting post. Post gets on trending, people actually click it, and this user not only gets some upvotes, but a handful of followers; MORE social engagement.
Define selfish. To me the person buying their upvotes, is not selfish at all. Selfishness, are people who refuse to vote, and think that no one is worthy of such a vote. Or a whale/dolphin handing out a .5% upvote. WOW YOU GAVE THEM $0.05 CENTS!! Vote is essentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Whales/dolphins don't take the time to vote, and minnows are to self righteous to actually vote on people they follow. Also, whales/dolphins want to sit a preach about "invest in steem" "steem wow!" when really they are just hyping steem to protect their own investment. I don't see them flagging on the regular... (they don't want to lose their sp). I don't see them voting on the regular with meaningful votes. That is selfish.
I think your success is simply because of timing. I think if you were to make a new account, and start over, it would be 10x more difficult.
I have 250 followers, some of these followers have big accounts. I have made post that I have spent HOURS on. 60 pics, 2000, words. Maybe its not great content, but what constantly makes it to trending would tell me otherwise. Yet I don't even get 5 upvotes, or more then 10 views... where are my 250 followers at!? Where are the bigger accounts that followed me because I supported one of their post?! Oh, they are too big time for a minnow.
People who road the early wave are not giving enough back IMO.
There's a difference between followers and followers :-) Those who follow you because you are trending are actually not those who'll come back voting and commenting your stuff when you're not trending. Only through organic growth you'll get the right ones - those you'll have meaningful conversations with. It takes a lot more time, but it's also a lot more sustainable.
Btw how do you personally engage with people? I saw that you only follow 9 accounts. Many people use their feed to build like their own community around them. How do you handle it? Also usually you need to invest more than you get back first. That's at least how I perceived it in the very beginning. You start following and supporting others, while you mostly invest time without getting much in return. But then over time that turns around, and you need to invest less time for getting more output. Does that sound like a plan to you? :-)
With selfish I was referring to self-voting. Lots of accounts vote more for themselves than for others. You can check this here: https://steemworld.org/@imlikett
Yours is at 6.45%. Very good though :-)
Also what helps a lot to get more visibility is curating content. Yesterday you only voted 4 times, while you can actually do this 10 times per day without your VP decreasing considerably. Sorry for diving into your numbers, but I thought this might be helpful to you :-) Maybe those 250 followers will engage more with you if you also engage more with them.
Steem on! :-)
Btw nice conversation.
I love how you used sheer effort and not pay for one vote. I am not relying on steemit as an income source at this point. I like the platform. Yet the reality of letting go of trying to earn and promote leaves me with 20 views, 10 votes, and $.0.10 on all my articles. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth writing if no one really sees it.
I would agree, but not so much the groups you suggest; I see it more as one being "content first" and the other is "money first." Sure, we all want rewards, but which one is in the driver's seat? Content, with rewards as a consequence? Or rewards, with content as largely coincidental?
Agreed entirely, but also misses the mark in a major way. The "Trending" page is Steemit's public calling card. If you're not logged in and not a member, when you see when you land at Steemit is the trending page... so we have to take a long hard look at when we attract new members, is that what we want to "represent" the community?
Sorry, but we can't deny ALL of us joined because of the incentive of earning.. there is no denying that. The whole push of steering is "EARN" for posting. It's the only reason Steemit is being talked about.
This actually makes my point even stronger. If you are a Steemit user, all the more reason NEVER to use trending, that way you can give what you deem quality content a chance to be on this "calling card" to users with no account. The only reason you, as a user with an account, should be surfing trending, is to downvote if you think something misrepresents the "calling card" presented to the public.
Well i mean either the post are interesting or they will lose auditory in the long term...
But do i think right,(I don't know,i am freaking tired :D ...) that if someone pushes himself that extremely,the steemitdollar and power loses value(etc.) ?
In the long term, if they fail to gain audience because their post aren't interesting, one would think they would eventually stop promoting.
I think it actually strengthens the value, as they are putting (investing) more money into steem.
Should be renamed paid advertisement page
How do people propose to solve it? I just see a lot of complaining and very confusing flagging going on. I don't even really understand what the problem is supposed to be and no one ever explains it. Are all bots bad? Or just when someone buys an upvote for content the bot creator doesn't think is good enough? How are new people meant to understand what to make of all this?
If you looked back on the beginnings of Steem and compared it with today's situation you'd see that the whole culture of the platform has completely changed. The original vision of giving value back to those who create value has changed to give value to those how are able to pay for it. From a content and quality-oriented platform we've constantly evolved towards a purely profit-oriented platform, where profit means individual wealth and not common (community) wealth. Self-voting and excessive vote buying have become standard.
Now projects such as @curie and @communitycoin still support the original idea of promoting quality content and spreading rewards towards smaller accounts. Bid bots promise supporting small accounts while the only ones that effectively benefit from vote trading are those who sell their votes. At the same time, bid bot owners don't open and read content before upvoting it, so they have no effective control over their voting power and don't assume any responsibility when abusive content reaches trending positions thanks to their contribution. They rather rely on the community and services like steemcleaners to balance rewards if they mistakenly upvote abusive content. In my opinion everybody needs to assume responsibility for their votes, whether you manually curate or bots do it on your behalf.
From my understanding, in a tokenized environment attention is the most valuable currency. Putting it up for sale weakens its original value. Why spending hours in editing content if you can copy-paste it from the internet, boost it to the trending page and get full attention?
I'd love to see moving ourselves into the exact opposite direction, where attention needs to be earned through creativity, uniqueness and dedication and where value is given back to those who create value as it was originally defined by the founders.
I can't speak for the whole community just for myself, but I'd personally love to see a more content-driven and quality-oriented approach in the future.
I personally see little to no value in the post by @flysky and though I do occasionally use vote bots I think this has gone overboard. The post by @aidasfg7 isn't too bad other than the cheapness of all the text placed with the images as if it were content pulled from somehwere else.
@surfermarly Well i think if the content is that bad,they will lose the people anyway again. Humans are individual so do you think everyone likes the same things?
So what do you think happens,if more people come to the platform if not the fact,that they bring their own "taste"/"style" with them and spread it. It's like with the spread and mutation of a language.If the speaking community is large,there will be dialects :D
To be honest:as long as i don't see "the joy of violence " et cetera here i am happy.
Excuse my english c:
Your English is perfect. I'm also not a native speaker, so no worries at all :-)
Of course taste is absolutely relative and subjective and untouchable. We were rather talking about excessive vote buying and its consequences in combination with abusive content. It seems that there is a trend to copy-paste content from the internet and then boost it to trending positions. The actual input from the author is very low then, while the output can be tremendous, just thinking about increasing repuation and followership.
My point is rather a different one: people that excessively buy votes, try to avoid engaging with the community and are just looking for quick money. When I joined Steem there was a completely different philosophy. Selfish behavior was not well seen. Today it seems to be the only way. That's what I was trying to voice here.
It's weird beging exposed in such way if your actual intention is getting back to a more community-driven culture...:-)
I can't wait to see the community feature installed. That may change the whole game and make engagement more valuable again.
@qfilter is another to add to your list of projects promoting quality.
Hello @surfermarly good to see you here. I was thinking about this the other day about how the original content on SteemIt was all about quality .vs this pay-for-play type mentality. I suppose this was a bi-product of Promotion tab not working really. I was thinking things out as I run @moonbot , which is a subscription based upvote service ( not a bidbot upvote service) , and was thinking if everyone just got a bump on their posts, in general, they would be content on not having to pay to send their posts to Trend ,but more jump start there post. I know the bot wouldn't be able to service everyone ,but they could service people above a certain rep. A kind of built-in bot to the platform, or community driven/funded type bot ( maybe, we all can burn our SBD there ? ) . It would obviously do a larger upvote then mine and still allow that person to benefit from a jump start. A lot of people just use bid bots to gain followers even. AND just maybe, if it had some "trending" type meter icon function in it the bot can come revist it based on views and engagement around it and give it another bump. I'm just trying to thing outside the box on these issues these days. Have a nice day :)
edit:
tdlr; a reward based bot , based on true interaction from the community & maybe, a little jump start to their post.
Hey @steemitqa! Great you jumped in here. I guess one day we'll have all steemians together in this one blog post - awesome :-)
I think that's always the way to go.
Still I don't know if bots were really needed if you'd consider the power of social engagement. In all these bots yes/no discussions sometimes it seems as if we forget that we have a brain :-) I know that it was easier back in 2016 but it was actually not different. How long did you need to be seen within the network? I remember it was in my 5th months when my articles started to be recognized. Five months. I wonder how many invest five months of their time today? Most people are looking for quick solutions, but it takes time to build up something solid and grow sustainably. I still believe that - even we're more people now - social engagement beats paid promotion.
I will definitely check out your @moonbot, since I already like the name a lot :-) But now I'll go skiing (writing this from the Alps :-))
Have a great day, too!
As someone else who has been here long enough to watch the change in "culture" happen, it saddens me... but it doesn't surprise me. The "Human Greed Gene" is alive and well.
Maybe I am naive about how things work, but I am still trying to figure out why major stakeholders prefer schlepping bid bots with their SP, rather than leasing that SP to some top notch trusted HUMAN curators. They'd still get paid on their investment... but the result would be site improvement, rather than site decay.
Hey @denmarkguy! Good to see you here :-) Great statement/question to which I unfortunately don't have any solid response.
Bid bots are actually counterproductive to one of the fundamental principles of the Steem white paper, did you know that? The sweat equity principle according to that:
This paper was updated in August 2017, it's not that old actually. Still it sadly looks super antiquated if you compare it with reality.
They are also buy false REP which gives the facade to other users that their content and actions are what is expected of users. We all hear claims that rep has little to do but I do not see any whales handing out full power votes to new users unless paid for, a friend or a alt account. I do see a lot of full power self votes though by most of those same users saying one thing and doing another.
Sorry, im new. So for cliicking the "up" you made a penny and get more money for this reply?
Yeah. This is just a strategy to do a thing.
I have also seen the @buildawhale-votes under both posts. And another aspect: it is one thing having a discussion in the comments or in the chat with somebody. But exposing and accusing someone directly in a post like @themarkymark is doing this here with @surfermarly is something quite different. Especially since his statement doesn't seem to be true.
Updated post, I do see it as well, I went by a screenshot in the comments and didn't do the due diligence to check. I was tired and frustrated. I left a reference of my mistake in the post as well.
If huamans were logical,we all would love mathematics... :D
So yeah.Mistakes are normal especially if someones tired.
I didn't even read the part where he talked about @surfermarly, I just wanted to show that the reports for some reason don't show the votes from @buildawhale.
I fully understand why he is not withdrawing the votes he sold to the users since he can't just withdraw what he sold if he doesn't like the content afterwards.
But I think he can withdraw the options to use his business for future use to certain users - meaning blacklisting them.
In my opinion @dobartim and his company friends should be on the blacklist. I dived very deep into it today, because I also wasn't quite sure what to think. His business-model isn't transparent and in my opinion he wants to abuse Steemit. And I really mean Steemit itself. Not just with getting rewards from it through bots.
If you look at the competition that this thing is a part of, it asks for people to donate SBD to the prize pool. It lists the donors - one is that top trending post, another contributor has won a round in the history. It is wall to wall dubious.
To me everything he does smells like what I know as snowball systems. The only real winner is @dobartim.
That's my mistake, likely due to the lack of sleep. I went off the screenshot someone posted and I didn't see our vote. Maybe the screenshot was taken prior to our vote and I didn't check otherwise. I am sorry about that, I will update post.
Update: @buildawhale was used after I made this post and far after it was in trending. That explains it. So I'm not losing my mind. Well, maybe I am but not in that case.
This Post:
@buildawhale's vote on the $900+ post:
The vote came in 2 and a half hours after the this post was submitted.
Personally, I think the majority of 'Trending' is utter crap, whether the poster has paid to advertise or not.
Members should know by now that this is not the place to find quality and engaging content.
The vote was placed yesterday 24th of feb 2018, Asher :-)
Too sad. It's the page everybody visits who comes from the outside, not being logged in to steemit.
I guess that brings us back to the main question: how can we make sure, this place doesn't become a cheap merchandising platform, that tells everybody it was about valuable content and higher ideals like freedom?
If something is not done, pay to play upvote bots will be the beginning of the end of Steemit. Why the Frack will people spend time and energy creating valuable thought provoking content, if you can just post BS and pay to get it trending?
It's all very sad. Make me reconsider whether I really would like to post my novel here. Maybe I should just start gaming the system too.
Oh yeah, that pesky conscience of mine.
Seems to me this along with the problem of one or two rich in Steem Power being able to flag someone into the ground is a fundamental problem with the Steemit system which they will need to find a solution for.
The whole thing Bitcoin was solving, essentially, is the same sort of issue here. Where you didn't need people to cooperate or "trust" them . This will probably not be able to solved quite that elegantly but it will need to be approached in the same way. You have to assume people will try and game the system you can't expect people to just not exploit it and hope the problem will go away. You might as well say why bother with verifying Bitcoin transactions people should just not try and cheat anyone.
As far as the potentiality for censorship goes this alone is potentially worse than YouTube, since at least it is only You Tube that can make those decisions. In fact more dislikes actually could still be GOOD for you and people who knew this would say if you didnt like it still downvote the video! This is because the system didnt care if you didnt like it just that people were watching. Not here on Steemit.
I'm literally put off posting content in case it's too "controversial" it will anger someone with a powerful vote who decides to ruin all my hard work I put into it and that's assuming they decide to stop with just that one piece. It only needs one person and they can overrule a hundred or more others. It doesn't even need to be controversial, just not to their tastes. Seems to me all memes should not be considered for rewards at all to be consistent here and yet there's another whole external website just for Steemit memes!
I've seen people praising flagging Trevon James into the ground but they really shouldn't be so happy it was so easy to do that. Whose idea was it to decide you could only either upvote something or flag it which makes no distinction between reporting it for terrorism, child porn or you just didn't like it? It will only get worse the more Steemit starts taking more of the market from the reddit and Youtube type platforms.
It may take Steemit competition to show a different way, as well as actually potentially show they could be a real risk of taking market share from Steemit, to actually get the problem solved. I do think there's a solution, but clearly this whole aspect is a major flaw they didn't account for.
I think there could be many solutions. But for finding solutions, you first have to realize that there's a problem. I guess we will need a far bigger flag wars for that.
True, but next you also need to know what the problem is, otherwise one could just as well be making it worse.
Flagging is not the solution it's not a solution at all, especially when the flagging system is itself one of the problems.
Oh yes, my apologies!
It is sad, the trending page is misleading to passers by in so many ways.
My question is, what would be the best content to have sitting at the top of Trending for those visiting steemit.com for the first time?
No problem at all.
Keeping it as diverse as possible I guess. My new trending page is @curie's voting list :-) They discover a lot of great content.
Definitely an option!
@carlgnash and co will be very happy to hear that!
It looks fairly diverse, if you go by main tag?
Enjoy your holidays! Please bring us back some fresh and diverse content, thank you! :D
Thanks for the tip. New here. I have, after a little more than a week, begun to discount the Trending page. I'm more comfortable on the New page, because then I get to choose what I like and not what other people like. However, briefly checked out @curie and it seems to have interesting material highlighted. I think Steemit is great. There may be flaws, but I've never been in any circumstance that was perfect. In the short time I've been here, I've run into a lot of positive voices. I've learned about plants in Australia and magnetars. I can find a way to be comfortable on a diverse platform like Steemit. Of course, I am new, and eager. I love to write and find this forum prompts me to do that. I'm spending way too much time here. :)
If anyone hasn't yet, they should vote Curie for witness.
It's one of the last great hopes for Steemit.
Well said :-)
Fixing the trending page would be fairly simple thing to do sort of:
But then you would get people saying that I think my content is worthy of my vote, if it is not worthy of my vote why would it be worthy to someone else. Also you would get, vote bots are allowed and available why should I not be able to be on the trending page just because I bought a vote. And then what I hear from all the people that want to keep using vote bots, "you can't tell them from real people, and if you did away with them then you would just have people getting more names and false accounts to upvote themselves.
I would bet that almost every individual that has responded to this post with a REP of more than 62 has used one or more vote bots. I would hazard a guess that more than 85% of the people with reps of 62 or more on steemit have used a vote bot on a post or two. So the problem will likely never go away.
That probably explains it, as I thought I checked as I don't typically just say things for the fun of it. Thanks for clearing it up.
Only now i've checked the trending posts ;) Be well mate.
The bid-vote bots are being abused, end of story. Who is to be held accountable? Steemit inc? The Code? Witnesses? Ned? How about the enablers or owners of said "vote bots" who are raking in huge sums of Steem/SBD in exchange for votes and then complaining about having to clean up the mess THEY helped create, with those same votes? I have no sympathy for you markymark.
This bid-vote bot business is a huge can of worms since it's now universally condoned as well as actively being used by our witnesses. The same witnesses who are now not only running these "abuse-farms" but are also (in effort to curb abuse...only) encouraging EVERYONE else (no scammers though, please!!!) to use these vote bots now so it will be less profitable for the REAL scammers?
Lol... WTF has this place turned into?... A ROI vote business...? How about a return on quality content and organic following? BUT it's not fair?! I get the fact that if you didn't (run these bots yourself),most likely several malevolent actors would (and likely do already) do the same, but does that make it right or even remotely the best solution?
Well said, it's the system. When the system allows for abuse there will be.
I thought I read somewhere that Steemit is supposed to be a commercial-free platform. Is promoting through bot-votes the same as a commercial? What if all bot-promoted posts were highlighted in a different colour, so everybody sees right away, if there is promotion going on?
If that was the case there would not be the option to promote posts and a dedicated tab for promoted posts?
Maybe we don't need the promoted-section anymore since we got bots?
Yeah I don’t think anyone reads that tab
Who needs bots or whales? I'm doing fine without them
They are taking advantage of YOU, and you're ignoring it. You're turning a blind eye. You've chosen money over people by doing so. I'm ashamed you are on this platform now.
The content rising to the top is the BLACK TAR SHIT of this site, and it's getting up there because of "services" like what you offer. You are telling people "I accept bribes for votes", and in doing so you are tainting the original meaning of this place. Even in the white paper it talks about how the setup SHOULD bring the best content to the top. But the moment people like you offer bribed votes, that all changed.
I have been screaming from the mountaintops for someone to give me delegation so I can do my part in correcting some of this, to bring the ACTUALLY good content to the top and now I'll be going into level 10 efforts to get it.
Otherwise, quality of content means exactly nothing because of services like yours.
Vote buying was here before I got here, and would be here if I wasn't. Now it is far more public and transparent, but without bots there will be just as much vote buying it just would be more secretive and hush-hush.
The majority of trending posts are the result of paid votes regardless if actual bots are used.
Every platform has advertising, and that's what buying votes are. Google Search, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, you name it, it has advertising to push shit to the top as you would say.
I would rather have someone like me trying to make a difference for the good than leaving it to those who don't or the backroom deals the control trending.
I just saw this reply, and I had one for you in the steemit.chat room as well, which I'll go ahead and post here too. No reason not to:
Alright, look, I'll put a cap on it. I don't have to agree with what is done, but I have nothing personally against you. We just seem to have a disagreement on what is considered ethical. I've been putting more thought into all of this, and I'll make it my mission with any delegation I get to be use it for voting, not flagging. In fact I'm going to update my post to reflect this in just a minute (which I've since done). I honestly don't expect to get nearly the amount I've aimed for. I purposely aimed high because I figured it would give me a shot at getting at least a decent enough amount to do what I plan to do with it, which is simply to highlight what I consider - in my professional opinion - to be higher-shelf photography that seems to be getting lost in the shuffle. Yes, it's subjective. I get that. I never disagreed with that. I just don't find anything useful in philosophical discussions about subjectivity. I've already solidified my own personal stance on what is and isn't art (or good art) many years ago, as well as the realization that changing one's mind about any given subject in a debate is extremely unlikely. So I'd just rather not. We can shake hands and have an understanding about each other's position. We don't, of course, have to make enemies out of each other, either. I don't plan to anyway. The ultimate fact of the matter is that no suggestion for what direction any community should go will ever be accepted by 100% of the people in it. Yay, politics.
It's good to read this. It was what I thought: that Trending Posts are often in some way paid. And I don't like it. This place is all about money. Boring. They tell us about proof of brain, when the only proof of brain seems to be about making money the fastest way. But being able to make lots of money often isn't about brain in this world, but about having no scruples
all the minnows are losing rewards as the whales get all the rewards from massive vote buying, we need a set limit to how much vote a single account can get from bots!
Actually, in this case we have some small/new users who have found a way to pry the rewards out of the hands that are used to receiving it.
I don't like it, but I think it is the direct result of ignoring big account's bad behavior and I think it is good for changing the distribution of steem. I know it can not last, but I have mixed feelings.
It has been quite entertaining watching the selective outrage, which didn't happen about any other bad behavior, but when one displaces those who feel entitled to the trending page, suddenly people care that the trending page has nothing to do with quality?
It is pretty entertaining.
If the community doesn't like it they can flag. Please, tell me again why they shouldn't use their voting power to flag it if they want something done?
Your stake is your stake, sell it if you like, but so far the community doesn't care enough to use their flags. They just want to scream for someone else to fix it.
I very much agree with you; I think it is weird to celebrate steemit as an open platform, but then call for some kind of police.
Freedom means more responsibility for each of us, and everybody should vote responsibly, but also flag responsibly. If this was becoming normal (NOT whalewars), and flags were something normal (NOT whaleflags!), this platfrom might pan out itself pretty nicely.
So even though I'm scared, I'll try that. My rules:
Small flags (-0.01) are good to use if you disagree with content, opinions or language; strong flags should be only used if a post/comment is unfair or damages the platform or other users on it, and they should be preceeded by a warning.
Isn't that too obvious? I can tell you that in case I would flag everything I think it deserves to be flagged, very soon I wouldn't earn any cent anymore here. OK, maybe one day I will start doing exactly that, but at the same time that will mean the end of my 'career' as Steemit blogger ... or do you really think whales wouldn't take revenge?
As long as I intend to write articles here I simply cannot afford to realize your suggestions (which I actually support in theory).
I flag and receive some flags in return. For me it is just part of the economy. Like paying my bills.
I saw already that you are acting rather courageous from time to time! :)
Maybe your flags are comparable harmless (so that whales won't really care) or you were flagging the 'right' persons who aren't too unforgiving ...
Anyway, the real problem is that if a really big account owner decided to take all of your (or my) future rewards he would be able to do it without any problems ... So my explanation for seeing not more flags is simply that the average user doesn't dare to do it ...
Yes, my flags are pretty harmless and yeah, I also am a bit careful who I flag.
I agree many do not dare... It is a culture thing.
Everything will remain a mess until people consider the job of cleaning... Everyone's job. (IMO)
I think if minnows flag minnows, dolphins... etc. By the time accounts were large, they would have accepted whatever the cultural norms are.
Why put limits into a descentralized world? The whole concept is based on the stake of the vote, why and how shall that be limited? Nobody is entitled to anything in here. Whales must not vote Minnows, they should if they like it but they must not. Minnows could buy some SP to help rise the value of Steem as most don't understand that somebody paid for their account. Like someone paid for mine and for yours.
This. It is a reflection of the "I deserve everything handed to me" mentality that is becoming the norm. I have been here almost three weeks now and the amount of whining about pay to play, people investing, etc is pathetic. Equality doesn't mean equal outcome, it means equal entry point/barriers.
It is nice to see someone else that can see, thank you.
follow me
LOL
A neutral comment good, I wanted to ask a question, Has UPME vote bot, the top vote bot on both post, owner gotten half the shit you have gotten for this?
Not sure, but it comes with the territory by speaking up and being public about such things.
I have posted a few times about this sort of thing but they are never seen because I don't pay bot to upvote me.
if bots are not outright banned the whole of steemit will turn into a complete shit show making everyone SDB worth less than the pixel used to display them.
i would post a link to show you what i mean but not spaming someone else's post.
upvoted you fury123 and droped you a follow.
I don't mean this accusingly in any way: But if @buildawhale hasn't been used, why is it in the vote-lists of both posts?
This Post:
@buildawhale's vote on the $900+ post:
The vote came in 2 and a half hours after the this post was submitted.
EDIT: This, as the comments below state, does in fact show the post was voted on by @buildawhale prior to this post (which has now been edited to exclude these comments anyway, which is going to make things totally confusing if you only just showed up!)
Doesn't this show the vote buildawhale placed was on the 24th, which was yesterday? This post is almost 21hrs later (the 25th) by the screenshot.
Yes, my apologies. It seems there are more than just one of use requiring more sleep.
doh, making me look even worse Asher :P
How is that even possible today? :p
For what it's worth, I do feel sorry for you in that you are clearly the most pro-active bot owner in dealing with obvious spam accounts.
I understand the frustration of many seeing utter shit in Trending which is promoted by one person, and clearly not the content that the community wish to see at the top.
HardFork 17(i think 17) gave us delegated Steem Power, thus the birth of the bid-bots. What people forget is that it also gave Steemit and other accounts the ability to delegate stake to projects like @dtube, @utopian, @dlive, @sndbox, @curie, etc.
In addition to that, the ability to delegate SP to individuals (something I do to 10+ accounts for no financial gain) has seen a massive boost in engagement in my part of the Steemit world.
The prime example of this was a recent delegation of @fulltimegeek to around 50 accounts with 350,000 Steem Power - the mission being to do the curation and engagement work of 1 account x 50.
Personally, I think that delegated Steem Power has offered more good than bad. The future is not steemit.com, it is the applications that are here and in the pipeline, that will need delegated Steem Power to kickstart them.
Feel free to send @buildawhale over to my 'house' for dinner tonight :)
I agree partially. It brought the bit-bots. And some bit-bot-problems with it. Maybe these problems can be solved without "killing the bots". Maybe it could be regulated in some way.
Maybe there lies a big future in applications and the pipeline, but I am sure there are still many people who are interested in Steemit and don't want to see it drowning in shit-content.
I know that I'm a nobody here. I also know that it may result in loss of profits. That being said, have you ever considered putting that steem power into a human curation platform? It would be so much better for the community and the value of steem as a whole. I just really see the dangers of pay to play auto upvotes. I'm not hating on you Mark, and I know that you have every right to do with your money/sp/steem as you see fit. Just a thought. It could even be where people pay a set amount to be "reviewed" and if there post is worthy then they get an upvote worthy of their work. I personally won't use Upvote bots but would consider something like that because it wouldn't really be paying for a vote but rather paying to be seen and your work can show for itself. It could be like a @buildawhale meets @curie. It might be to labor intensive to implement, but boy would it be a game changer. I just wish I had the capitol and time to start a project like that. For now you still got my vote, I'm not planning to change it, but if things start to get out of hand with people "abusing" your services I'm not sure if I could in good conscience continue to support that sort of work. Please don't be offended by this, that is not my intention at all. I was considering sending this to you in a DM, but decided that perhaps some others with the means may see this idea and do something with it. I'm just a lowly guppy out here swimming among the whales, orcas, dolphins, minnow, and red fish.
Also, You would never have to do one of these posts again. :)
I got nothing but love for you @themarkymark. Just please consider what I have said, or at least bring it up to any of the big wigs you may be in contact with.
Yes, it was yesterday 24th of feb 2018:
I understand your frustrations about the situation and you are getting a lot of flak for stuff you can't control, here is what you control...Your bot services. Yes both of the shit post in question along with many others had a pretty big upvote from your services last night along with the use of other bots that you have no control is filling the garbage page...oops trending page, that part you have no control over, I get it. Just like they have the right to send you money for a vote on their shit content, you have the right to not vote it for poor quality and send the money back. I applaud your efforts into blacklisting spammers and plagiarism and I understand you don't want to remove the votes on the garbage post but you also have the ability to get them a first class ticket to your blacklist for poor usage and abuse of your services. At the end f the day, your bot, it reflects on you and your contribution to the platform by upvoting garbage into oblivion. As you stated in the sea of comments " I have curators that go thru 1000 posts to find 5 good post for the curation digest" with that line, you are kinda of validating what many have been saying, that your bot gets abused by shit posters. Think of it as a first time user will check out the trending page and want to be on it...what example are they seeing? what will they do?? the same thing as those who got there. A potential investor if they are smart will look at the trending page before investing to see what is considered quality...what will they see? Would you invest if that was the only thing you knew about the place was the first glance at the trending page? Maybe they lose money to use upvote from bid bots maybe they don't, I personally do not know but it reflects badly on the platform overall and we all lose in the terms of the loss of value of steem the more of a shitshow it becomes. I sincerely hope this controversy will bring the issue to light so a solution can be found.
That's great if you are blacklisting people. flysky has used buildawhale to get up there. Is he worthy of joining that list? He certainly doesn't deserve to be trending that high. That should be for the community to decide. I personally think the vote sellers should have lower limits, but I realise it's a business with supply and demand.
Hmmm Interesting. Im glad to see someone looking out for the best of the Steemit community.
Thank you for voicing your concerns with us @themarkymark
It is not a sustainable way for STeemit for operating in the long run.
Wow that list was massive.
I stopped looking at the bot tracker for a while and not using any bots from some time. But why is it an issue ? They just paid for it. Its same as others who have millions of SP and self vote to go to trending page. The only difference is that, they cannot afford to have millions of SP, but they used the available services by paying what they have.
And when I say self vote, it also includes having a second or more account to vote for them. There are plenty of examples.
I think we should just call it what it is. Advertising. You're buying potential views. No one complains that a commercial is shit, they don't get their spot rejected. They're just dumb for wasting money on a bad ad.
It's the same thing here. Money buys visibility. That's what they want steem to mean. They want it to override talent or craft or skill. They want money to mean something in terms of visibility on the platform. They would love it if big corporations eventually moved onto the platform. The platform isn't about you or me or any other normal person having an enjoyable time using a social media platform, it's about preparing the platform for use by even bigger moneyed interests who give even less of a shit about you and want even better returns on their investments.
But they're going about it all wrong.
You can't monetize a platform before it gains mainstream acceptance. That stunts your growth. Look at every popular website, app, or tech business and you'll notice a strong trend. Give shit away for free, hook the customer, then charge. Steemit was pay to win from the start and scared away millions of potential users.
This is why I'm hoping to get delegation. And why I hope other honest users request and get delegation as well.
I feel I can offer a level of curation stemming from 20 years of professional experience to the photography community that only a small handful of us here would be qualified to offer. I've given some serious thought to my position on vote buying, made a kind of internal pros/cons list to using delegation to flag, and came to the conclusion that the smart thing to do with the voting power of any delegation would be to give it to the talented people in the community who are seriously about to quit because their amazing skill is going unrecognized, unacknowledged, and under-rewarded, rather than use it as a weapon. I know that's subjective, but I know how that shit feels, to know what went into the creation of an image for it to maybe get $1 or 2. Some will pop up and say "You should be grateful you got THAT much!" No, not when you see an image taken with so little effort or technical knowledge or any creativity whatsoever, and it's getting upwards of $300, 400, maybe even $700 or $1,000.
One thing the Steemit culture should not be about is discouragement.
And that shit's discouraging.
As hell.
But instead of going after them, I want to go after the discouraged.
Well, I personally still hope you get a delegation. I would love to see really good photography rewarded... and I say that also as a (brick and mortar) gallery owner who has a few photographers in our family. It's hard to get ahead these days when any "idiot with a smartphone" can get lucky and capture something amazing.
Well, if we want to throw money at people for making good content then that's on curators and curation groups, of which there are more than a few good ones already operating on the platform. The problem is that everyone wants to influence how rewards are distributed, but no one really has the wallet to back it up. I'll admit that I don't.
We need more curators. Not sure about curation groups - because I'm not completely sure I believe they've made as big a difference as was hoped or is claimed - but we need more people who, if they've got the money but they're not going to do it themselves, would at least be willing to delegate to people who are committed to it.
I myself am aimed at specialized curation of one of the biggest sections of Steemit.
That's a fine opinion to have, I don't disagree that curators are nice to have around. Without them this place really would be like any other blockchain, might as well not have steemit at that point, and just have stake produce steem/sbd for the SP holder automatically.
I did not read the rest of your comment, I did complain about what I thought was a shit commercial for a cable TV network Channel, they removed their commercial, and changed it. So People do complain about "shit" commercials. Just thought you should know that.
The trending page has always been a shithole of circle upvoting. At least since September, when I joined.
And now new users with bought upvotes get to the top.
I don't see anything wrong there.
Currently #1 is an advertisment for smartsteem. Not sure, how that is better.
And no one complains about that.
It feels, they are envious, because the bot owners make some money and they don't.
Problem is, you are famous!
:)
And to top that, you are the bot owner.
What bot owner else are known?
None.
You stick your head out and everybody aims for you.
Sorry, but at least now you have the wished for reddit drama going on here:(
What is the problem with smartsteem @isnochys? ;)
Do we offer legitimate services that give users amazing ROI? Yes
Do we produce poor quality posts? No
Do we promote our posts excessively? No
Do we scam our users? No
All of that and more does the infamous @dobartim aka @flysky.
I personally can't judge if a post deserves to be on trending as everything is relative. But there is a huge difference in promoting a shady business and promoting a legitimate business.
Well, @randowhale is owned by @berniesanders. That's pretty well known at this point thanks to the eternal drama between him and @haejin.
true, but who would complain to @berniesanders?;)
More than you'd think.
lol
Tons.
I mean that literally. I'm positive if you added up the weights of all the people complaining about @berniesanders it would be multiple tons.
That said, this is a social network. Whenever more than ten people get together drama happens.
Not about, to @berniesanders . About @randowhale
:)
even about @randowhale, you should have seen @haejin crying about rando a while ago :))
Yeah, that is true. But crying babies do not count;)
I know, I am back paddling...:))
@dobartim is the founder of a company called PXDS. Both authors of the mentioned two trending posts also are in it:
http://www.canada.pxds.com/contact/ourNetwork.php
@dobartim himself is seemingly trying to build a similar marketing-business on base of Steemit:
https://steemit.com/steemitschool/@dobartim/steemit-school-school-of-life-combined-with-blockchain-technology-customer-witness-day-5
Does anyone know whether he is allowed to use the Steemit-Logo for this? As far as I know, it is under Copyright?
I am not sure, if this can be called just advertisement.
I am sure he isn't allowed to use the logo, they are very protective of the new logo and haven't authorized anyone to use it (as far as I know) because the marketing team isn't ready yet.
Thanks for your reply. They should really care about it. Wrong people using it will reflect badly on Steemit itself.
I don't see any difference from all the other trending posts.
Self advertisment, Steem Schools and Universities.
Personal Trainer, VLOGs, etc.
Marketing everywhere, Steemit is an advertisment platform.
Okay, then maybe I am wrong, because I thought it was a blogging-platform.
Really when there is money involved like this everything is an advert
I made the same mistake in the beginning :(
but if there is some plagiarism just report it to the steemcleaners
I already reported it. I can't believe that he is allowed to use the Steemit-Logo for his shady business. It makes him look like someone from Steemit.Inc.
Blogging is advertising, either a product or an idea.
I want to read blogs about ideas. Not about products. Already had that on Facebook. But the posts about products are shorter there. So if Steemit develops in this way, it will be better to return to Facebook.
I have to talk here.
The service offered by smartsteem is top Quality, but that is besides the point.
To have it on top IS better because You can see it is advertising.
The other two? One is garbage. The other is fraud. And the Two of them try to pass as legit. Plain and simple.
I still think we need another frontend. Witness-stuff belongs in an area for witnesses. Developers-stuff in an area for developers. News from Steemit.Inc in a news-area. Promoted posts under promoted. Why not highlighting bot-promoted posts with a different colour? So everyone can see at first sight it is promoted.
Thats actually a great idea. But it would finish the "no ads" kinda publicity steemit has right now. Even if that is only a half truth.
That this is only a half true or at least developing this way... that's the reason for waving flags here! (I did not flag @themarkymark, I hate flagging, but I guess you understand what I mean.) My opinion about it isn't extreme. I just want a solution that calms down the fighting. And I think there could be solutions.
Oh, indeed. I think this is actually an interesting proposal: https://steemit.com/steemit/@yabapmatt/what-if-we-got-rid-of-the-trending-page
We should get rid of the whole interface. It doesn't reflect a fast growing community anymore. It was okay, when the community was small. It doesn't fit anymore.
That is one long list!
Don't sweat it, one angry person takes it out on you, meanwhile everyone you didn't hear from thinks you are doing a great job.
I was shocked at that achraf username. I think it's multiple account, I should say super mutliple accounts.
It is the result of automation. It's easier to automate usernameXX than it is to do unique usernames.
I believe that steemit started off with all the right intentions. It is hard not to see though that as soon as MONEY is involved it quickly evolved to resemble the centralised monetary system. It is not the fault of the platform or the team behind it. It is just a human thing. Facebook is a waste of time and has many issues with it like privacy. But is is still the most widely used as there is no vested interest from most of its users.
Can anyone add any thoughts on this?
yeah the work you are doing is better.
What Im seeing on steemit is basically the same thing we see in the real world. The compounding interest of the wealthy leading to the centralization of power.
If you have money, you can make money. If you dont have money, you cant make money. If you have a lot of money, money makes itself. If you have almost no money, you not only remain poor, but go increasingly into greater levels of debt.
In terms of steemit debt looks like making lots of quality posts but getting nothing in return for it. You go into "increasing levels of debt" because if you were on a blog like Wordpress you could at least make money in the future for your time. Here on steemit you have 7 days, then thats it.
So the way I see it is that in order to stop this from happening either bots have to be removed entirely, or extremely limited to how many bots can be used on a post. Secondly, a tipping system would help, or a permanent "payout" system where somehow the content you create can permanently make you money, so there is an incentive to continuously build quality content without feeling the need to resort to bots and people who find your blog can reward you for past content that they like that maybe they have missed.
Im a super noob on steemit though, Im mostly just researching the site and seeing how it works at the moment. But I have a whole list of content I want to create for this platform but am feeling hesitant to do so. Im seeing that at least if I create content for the next year and nothing happens, I can take all that content and just paste it into a wordpress blog or something and start again. I believe in steemit as an idea... but it seems to be a mirror image of centralized power but on a decentralized platform...
You called it. Steemit is an oligopoly hegemony, where the people with massive amounts of steem power arbitrarily making their own rules and squash anyone who may one day challenge their power. It's one big clusterfuck just like the real world, but even more screwed up because their isn't a social agreement, very few concrete rules, and no one to enforce infractions except for the oligarchs and occasionally some sort of pseudo posse.
Pretty much what would happen if libertarians ran the world.
"Pretty much what would happen if libertarians ran the world."
Ha-Ha! That's a great analysis. I think they like to sound cool by calling themselves, "Anarchists," and tout their love of freedom. They hate it when people point out how they are using their money to limit other people's freedom of speech, though - so don't say that to them, or they're likely to use their $$$ and Steem Power to destroy your "social media reputation."
I say it a lot, Steemit mimics society.
The problem is the system hasn't accounted for ways in which the system cam be gamed. .That's all it is. THAT is what need to be fixed and that is a developer problem that needs to be tackled. The same problem is also found in the censorship potential that comes with someones powerful flagging vote. It has just as many problems associated with that and will only get worse the more market share Steemit attempts to take from services/platforms like reddit and Youtube. It needs to be solved in the same sort of way Bitcoin solved the problem of trust, in that it didn't matter how much someone wanted to screw you they couldn't.
One can already do that. Simply send the tip in a transfer and explain it is a tip in the notes.
First ,I said some things to you the other day out of frustration and i think i owe you an appology . i am sorry i shouldn't have taken my frustration with the system out on you. You are a good guy and i realize that to win around here i am going to have to probably reluctantly use the bots. At least we all do know that you are a reputable person and if their is an issue with your bots you are easily accessable and will take care of any issue that arrises. So again, i am sorry i was a dick the other day. It seems You get enough of that everyday and I don't want to include myself in that.
Thanks, it's pretty much just another day here. I appreciate it though.
People need to understand that if they want the "top" posts to earn less, they have to go out and vote for other stuff.
It's a fixed pot, so the more you vote for other stuff, the less the top posts get. It's that simple and that hard. Hard because most people don't like voting...
You know what I think is worse for this platform than bots... people arguing over bots.
It is just more drama
Steem, you came for the money, you stay for the drama.
It sounds a lot like those are jealous, because someone else is making a bit of money.
And to address themarkymark is just laughable.
I disagree... this is an important discussion and I am always happy to see people taking an active stance on the subject, regardless of what their position my be. I also appreciate bot operators dealing with these matters transparently and raising awareness for their perspective!
You missed my point, probably my fault as I didn't convey it well, but discussion is good I agree, it's the arguing that I have a problem with and NO this is not directed at mark.
Yeah, sorry, I actually did take your comment the wrong way.
Not because I felt it was directed against the OP but because i took it as "people arguing over bots" complaint about the drama instead of just "people arguing" as a complaint about their behaviour.
I guess it's normal that people get like that in heated debates and ideological issues, such as the ethics of paid upvotes.
It's good... if people wouldn't get emotional, all the abuse that's obviously happening wouldn't be cared about either.
Keep doing what you're doing. You provide a valuable and desired service for the community, both with buildawhale and with your efforts to fight spam, abuse, plagiarism, etc. You can't please everyone all the time, and you shouldn't even have to try.
Do table of content
Lol
As long as there are people selling votes, and votes remain in demand, people are going to buy them. Quality is not a factor when it comes to self-promotion - only money.
Giving away control of your stake in Steem Power carries some natural consequences with it. You would have done well to understand and come to terms with this fact BEFORE you made your decisions to go forwards with your plan. Now, however, bots are here and they seem to be here to stay. Now, bots are out there putting the kabosh on other bots' activities - and it's really making the whole environment here seem a bit strange.
Of course, even stranger than the behavior of bots is the behavior of people - the values that govern our actions change on a whim, and that is a fact. There is a bit of psychology/sociology involved in predicting all of the possible behavior patterns, differentiating possibilities from what are the most likely probabilities, and then implimenting changes or 'rules' to re-assert your control over the outcomes. This is social engineering at its' finest - and I find it to be very interesting. Here on SteemIt, we have our very own little laboratory for social engineering experiments. And, if you do not know what you are doing - you won't even know how to begin to analyze your results.
Placing rules and conditions on people using and/or abusing your bots is something that will require full-time monitoring on the part of the bots creator. Now that you are realizing the time involved in controlling your own creation, you seem to be having some regrets. Well, it is never to late to change course and start over again. Maybe there is a way to create better, more intelligent bots? IDK - I don't play with bots very much. I'll use them here and there for a resteem or an upvote, because they are there to be used and I have a tiny bit of money to use on them.
Certainly, losing sleep over this situation is not a good circumstance for you. Now I think I understand why God had to send the great flood to wipe out his corrupted creation and start over again...
That blacklist is getting too long. Can you make a google text and have the link at the end of your posts?
It was to make a point.
Where is a code to join the discord server?
Also, you better add @hotpacks to the blacklist
https://steemit.com/@hotpacks/comments
https://discord.gg/yv2TMPu
Thanks for the report.
You are really trying. Your response was a bit harsh though.
According to me it's a game that is not healthy. I'm not like them. I wrote positive so far. I'm not looking for a money steemit
The list of accounts that you personally went out and identified is insane. Funny how some people have such ambition and energy and others not so much. Alas, I'm not of the former.
I don't think this platform is working or will work as intended with bot curation. I'm pretty new to actually using the platform and it's painfully obvious how this has all gone very wrong through automation and delegation. I will not be surprised when steemit developers implement captcha and/or other anti-bot mechanisms.
I can understand your frustration. So often I see post with big rewards and so little valuable content. I gets me thinking the steem community isn't much different then our current system. Where the rich get richer and the poor get nothing. Just because they can.
Thanx being a fair person. And I will keep supporting your work.
Wow. Seems like really lots of work :/
I thought there's a bug or something on Steemit, then I saw that there's just too much space? I had to scroll for 4 seconds to get to the comments.
Anyway, you're awesome, Mark.
Yes me too, I thought there have been a lot of comments already after just a few minutes posted. And the long list that @themarkymark has posted as well added that enormous length. hehehe!
Ooohhh...sorry. I think there is no reason of down voting them if they used their own content. After all, steemit is decentralised and everyone has his independent account.
Let them be free if they used their own content, I repeat.
Man don't worry! And don't pay attention to those who judges you!!! You are in the good side!! Blessins
Now counting, First, the spammer, second, the plagiarist, Now the trending top 1&2. It really gives me a great for of a nice read everytime I see @themarkymark doing all these. Probably they really didn't use @buildawhale and tag you along with it since they would know for a fact that you will bust them out if you find anything fishy. Again, definitely leaving a mark in the steemiverse.
You got a 41.07% upvote from @upmyvote courtesy of @themarkymark!
If you believe this post is spam or abuse, please report it to our Discord #abuse channel.
If you want to support our Curation Digest or our Spam & Abuse prevention efforts, please vote @themarkymark as witness.
You made an amazing post ! Upvoted from @antobrampu. I followed you.
exceptional & remarkable!
I think you are right , there is people that just don't think about what they are saying , like that individual on the screenshot. People that is just not happy being themselves and need to create some kind of drama to other person. Don't worry man, you are doing an awesome job, don't let other people with some high level mess with you haha. Greetings from Venezuela!
There's so much you can do, but keep doing it anyway, cause otherwise we'll drown in this shit!
I don't understand why you are being blamed for something you're not even responsible for? Is it because you've been blacklisting abusive bot users and people thought it's your responsibility to police the platform? Your anger and frustration is undertandable, after all it's not fair to blame you for this abusive use of bots just because you operate your own bid bot. Cheer up @themarkymark you didn't do anything wrong and have nothing to be ashamed of.
It’s because I spoke up and all of a sudden it’s my fault. It’s not the first time this week I ran into the same situation.
Because your "service" ruins the meaning of having actually good quality content.
Now, because votes can be bought, a picture of catshit can trend.
Votes will be bought with or without bots, they will be done privately without any transparency (which they already happens, what you think trending is?)
Every platform has advertising, and those who buy advertising do better. There is no way around it, give it time and there will be sponsored content from big brands all over the place.
Oh Jesus, I guess you are right. Is there really nothing we can do against it? Maybe I start liking the flag then.
50/50 curation might get people to vote for others more. But I think the biggest issue is spam and abuse, that's why I spend so much time on it.
There is so much going on that is being rewarded that just drains the credibility and resources from the platform. For example @auctionator, it will just go on forever, and this isn't even the big ones and it doesn't use any voting bots.
There needs to be strong anti-abuse with more resources and power to penalize it. Voting bot abuse would easily fixed if when it was discovered it was easy to counter their rewards to make it a loss for them.
I agree. How could that be done? I guess there is no lobby for that on Steemit yet? Could voting-bots be made to detect abuse automatically? Or should bot-promoted posts be highlighted as promoted? Or should the height of bids or bot-votes be regulated? What's your opinion?
Just don't worry, haters will be everywhere. I think that it is acceptable as long as some people invest their money into this place, to be able to use their stake to buy votes for them, especially as they are not plagiarizing spamming and upvoting in the 6'th day. You are doing a great job adn should not get discouraged!
Ow my!
Kuddos for keeping your cool in that reply
Why can't people be happy for all the good work you do allready?
well said.. i don't blame you for using bots.. if you can't beat em join em! :)
Personal responsibility is on the person. How does one instill that in an adult if they aren't taught the import as a child?
I was just pondering the word greed and all its facets last night as I was pouring over the abuses of chicken producers in the USA and how they treat the farmer.
People have to really care about the topic at hand. They have to do their own research. They have to get off their distraction devices of choice and search their souls on the daily. None of this is easy.
We all make mistakes. We all are human. Greed is everywhere and even promoted. Infighting just makes the group weaker.
I can see the problems but do not have all the answers. I have seen others change because the other person took the time to discuss the situation and then listened to the person fully. Any sort of belittling is only going to make the other person dig their heels deeper in the sand.
Just some thoughts. I am truly sorry about these abuses. There are some really amazing posters on this platform. I try to be very thoughtful in my votes and time on Steemit.
Take care and God bless!
I’m with you @markymark, I know you are doing your best❤️ I have supported dobartim in the past, however because of excessive bot use I am hesitant, even though he has only done what every other successful steemians has done, post contests and supported Steemit through outreach. Now because the big accounts are complaining I don’t want to get in the middle of a flag war....one account that has complained is going on vacation, how nice to have the cash to do that😏
:-)
@themarkymark don't take it to heart, you do a brilliant job and care about the community and keeping it clean. @surfermarly also cares about the community and wants to keep it fair and clean. You are both fighting to achieve the same objective, both aiming to get to point B from point A but both taking different routes...instead of the pair of you coming to blows, you are both whales and both capable of making a difference so get yourselves into a virtual room and talk it out. The pair of you alone are great, but together could be awesome...I will post this same reply on her most recent post on the off chance she reads it.
In the meantime for what its worth. You're a superstar here whom I respect. Its not worth getting stressed out about. Best wishes.
Thanks for your efforts, but it's all good.
As @themarkymark admitted he was tired and frustrated when editing this post, so I don't take it personally. I'm here since 18 months and know how to handle such situations. Mostly I ignore them :-)
If you enter controversial debate you have to be prepared for the rebound.
If I slept I wouldn't have changed it and I was frustrated because you have been a dick to me repeatedly this week. Then you tell me "don't be jealous" and that your 10K posts in 1.5 years is somehow a bigger deal then my 3K in 6 months. But if I work as hard as you do, "someday you can go on vacation too". No account of the thousands I do under @buildawhale rewarding people who actually produce quality content. 6 months without fail I have produced a daily Curation Digest thanks to my curation team going through hundreds of posts a day to find five good posts and featuring them daily.
How's that powering down treating you?
I don't know why you are so aggressive against me and always need to use words such as dick just for me having a different opinion than yours.
Very good. I've just bought a piece of land with my Steem :-) I even did a video about it which became my most successful blog post so far. Quite a milestone both in reality and on the blockchain: https://steemit.com/dtube/@surfermarly/x2zm8s26
Maybe one day you will learn that different people have different opinions and that in business you can't take things so personally... All the best for you!
Difference of opinion is a discussion.
You were rude, snarky, and condescending. Hense dick.
That's your personal perception then. If you need such words to express yourself, combined with the word helpless in the title then maybe you didn't choose the right job. If you enter debate, you need to deal with rebound. If you can't manage it, then maybe you should let other people do the communication instead. Accusing and exposing others in public the way you've just done tells a long story about your professionality and self-confidence. Crossing my fingers for you :-) My airplane's ready for boarding! Have a good time
I feel helpless because no matter how much spam I stop I got to deal with people talking trash like you while everyone has their head in the sand and nothing changes. This platform is going to die if the amount of garbage produced and rewarded continues to grow like it does. The elevated SBD price just makes it even worse and accelerates our fate.
I didn't expose anything, it's a public blockchain and I just made people aware of the thankless condescending nonsense I deal with on a daily basis while spending hours daily trying to stop abuse.
I see you mention accusation a lot, yet only accusations I see are yours but feel free to clarify that if I am wrong.
I won't be getting that job at the UN peace corp then............:-(
Where's that peace loving @aggroed when you need him
Did you really just call her "dick" here? Boy this is proof of brain.
Edit: Sry, but using such words really makes me angry. Can't we handle this in another way?
Yes, yes I did. Rightly so if you saw the comments made to me.
There is no "rightly" in calling someone a dick. That is literally a punch below the belt. ^^
@surfermarly you know I love you! Dear @themarkymark, I respect you! At the moment both of you are losing their respect. We all are humans.
Take a look on your post @themarkymark... how would you feel about being exposed in this way in a Trending-post like you did it with her?
Both of you: read your posts and comments and ask yourself, if you want to be treated that way yourself.
THEN come together again for talking.
We are a community. There is no right or wrong. Noone is "righter" than someone else. And Trending-posts don´t reflect the opinions of most of the users of Steemit. In fact I believe most of the "avarage users" are shitting their pants, when they think about giving their opinion on a controversial Trending-post.
Make peace!
Maybe you could find a solution for the topic then.
I call it as I see it. We are all grown-ups here, if calling someone a dick for being a jerk is too much, then I think this might be too grown-up for some people.
I mean, this is totally mature.
I would think you would have three times the post as me when you have been here three times longer and comment non-stop. I guess that's an important metric so I'll try to contain my jealousy.
I'm trying to stop the abuse, something I see very few doing and I got to deal with this every day.
lol - don't go down on that level of conversation, you really don't have to...:-) Let him call people names if this is where he feels safe at. I have really no problem with that. It's his way, not ours.
To be fair reading what you wrote, I can understand him feeling unjustifiably attacked. I don't blame him for coming out swinging.
In China a sack of rice just fell over btw.
Bugger off on holiday ;-)
Recharge
Return
take care :-)
Thank you :-))
This post has received a 30.06 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @themarkymark