Debate - Do you think sending mass memos is spam?

in #abuse7 years ago

What if they do not have a link in them?

What if they are a minimum amount of 0.010 STEEM/SBD or some other amount?

At what amount would they be classified as spam or not spam? What about with links in them?

What if you only want to send them to your followers? And, following?

What if you select certain accounts by different parameters such as Reputation, STEEM Power, STEEM Balance, followers/following, activity, duration, and so on?

Should users have to subscribe to receive memos from another account?

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Merriam-Webster defines spam as, "unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as e-mails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places."

If it's unsolicited, it's spam, and any amount of STEEM/SBD won't change that. However, I think most minnows would love getting some free STEEM/SBD and would end up helping you with what you wanted from them.

I think sending them a link would make it a little more spammy, but you could always ask in the memo if it's okay to send a link.

I wouldn't consider sending a memo to your followers spam at all. They followed you for a reason.

Subscriptions would be good. A user could send a small amount of STEEM saying they want to subscribe. You can send that STEEM back even and then it will at least be in "writing" that they want to sign up for memos.

When people create an account on the STEEM blockchain, they are soliciting communication through memos. As long as those memos aren't threatening or unethical, I don't think it qualifies as spam. If there was some scam getting run behind it, then it would be spam.

I disagree about the scam thing.
Even without scamming, a memo can be spam.
In my country I constantly receive shop catalogues in my mailbox (actual paper mail). It is not a scam, and sometimes it's even interesting... but most of the time it is used as something with which we start the fire in the fireplace, making it just a bit more useful than trash.

That's how I define spam - something useless that tries to grab your attention and steal some of your time.
But if you enjoy it, then it's not spam.

Right, that's what I'm thinking - "something useless that tries to grab your attention and steal some of your time."

I'm thinking of spam in terms of email marketing. I think with Steemit, since the only way you can send a memo is to literally provide value to them, the grey area is even more grey.

I really think that if they follow you then a memo is completely warranted. If the recipient isn't a follower, they're still receiving value and shouldn't have a problem with it as long as your memo is genuine and helpful. Back in the old days companies would send out physical mail to cold (new) prospects with a dollar bill inside to increase their conversion rates.

email marketing is still to this day the most effective way to build up relationships with people that have interest in a niche. When you buy from ebay you will get sent emails from ebay about related products that you have looked at. I use email marketing massively but its in exchange for value that I share and its through an opt in page so the recipient has consented before hand. I started an email campaign to bring in new steemians which also helps me to automate emails giving them guidance on how to get started. Here I would say if people have opted to follow you they can always choose to unfollow just make that option a clear choice @money-dreamer clear at the bottom of your memo and if you are interested in starting an email campaign come and have a chat with me. You could even put a caption page link in and build a list of subscribers and that way it does not matter what platform you are on your list is yours to update when ever you want. like I am about to shoot a quick email to my list to invite them over here to steemit. Anyway cut a long story short if you point out that people can freely unfollow if they feel offended then at least you made the choice clear and that's fair in my books :)

^^^this^^^

You gotta PAY to PLAY and sending a small amount is like a postage stamp, but the receiver gets the postage. Just how it is here @steemit IMO

I'm still learning the ins and outs of this Steemit thing, even though I've been on for just over 90days now, it's trickling in.
Love and light,
X

No, they are not. Your spamming also affects more than just the recipient. I assume that your creating an account on the steem blockchain solicits my communication in the form of flagging all your spam.

Do you think it is spam if I send mass memos to my followers?

hey @alecreed how are you? I seen your upvote but it carried no weight which actually uses your bandwidth. Im new here but for the last 4 weeks ive done nothing but study and get with some smart people. My advise whilst you are at almost the same rep as me is only upvote 10 times in a 24 hour period. I have a few blogs i have done recently that explain some of the stuff that you might not have been taught yet bro but here is a tool you would benefit from from https://www.steemworld.org/@yourusename this will show you when your vote power has gone below 0.001. Im guessing if you allow your voting power to drop below 80% your vote loses value. My profile has my FB link you are welcome to send me a friend request just trying to look out for the newbies :)

This is a good question for @steemflagrewards to answer also.

Hi @steemseph, thanks for the mention!

I think the one solution for those not wanting unsolicited transfers is perhaps an opt-out user attribute to be added to the code which would require consensus.

Perhaps, the attribute can require that the sender be followed by the recipient otherwise the transfer will error.

One good thing about transfers is they have a minimum cost which means their potential for abuse is indeed limited.

I recall last year there had been a lot of promotions for resteem services via SBD transfers. I think these would fall into the category of spam especially considering the scale. Another consideration if an opt-out attribute is added is maybe added a transfer limit per hour. This would effectively limit the reach of spam.

As a flag incentivization intiative, it may be possible to start flag campaigns against the links being promoted in the spam transfers but, as always, the community would need to be behind it. Definitely a good discussion.

Would love to invite others to continue the discussion on our Steem Moderation discord channel and maybe we can plan how flag incentivization may help address the problem.

The wallet interface should have a user specified setting to hide messages below the specified value. It could aggregate transfers of lower value so the user can check them if they want, like checking your spam folder. At the top level it would just show transfers above the specified value with their memos, and a cumulative total received in the last week in transfers below that value.

This is a great idea and seems like it would be easy enough to implement on the front end. Who would we need to bring this up to? @ned, maybe?

Probably @ned for Steemit and various others for each different interface/website @good-karma/eSteem might be a good fit initially. Someone could even build it as a standalone messenger app. Just build in encryption/decryption and the spam filter into a minimal wallet and you've got a minimum viable product. I've been meaning to get into app development for some DPOS chains if I ever find the time to get bootstrapped.

exactly

I saw you get that downvote. I think ultimately some people will view it as spam unless they request the message and some appreciate the gift even if its a promotion.

Personally I see it as a promotion that gives something for free with no strings attached. Like those food stalls that let you eat a tiny piece of food.

Lot's of whale accounts have their idea on what everyone should do and if they don't do that they down vote sometimes down vote everything they do until they quit steemit. I guess they think they have some sort of authority. What you doing is fine, don't worry.

I do not like the authority we are all here because we do not like the authority and that some say what is good and what is not, we are decentralized (theoretically) but some begin to want to be the police or politicians and impose their opinion based on flags, this has to end, we can not impose on anyone, there are some who are abusing too much of that and want to have absolute power in the platform, this platform will not go far if we let this happen, without realizing they are harming to themselves.
I curse that kind of selfish thinking that some have that want to impose just because they can impose themselves.

I don't like it either, my hope is if more and more people join hopefully they won't have the power to control so may people and the percentage of the platform they can control will decrease. Ultimately though power is brought on this platform so the early adopters and rich will always have disproportionate power. Yes it is also gifted in upvotes but mainly brought.

I agree with this, you have a new follower @money-dreamer

Whales gonna whale

I would vote for subscription.

What do you think the best way to opt-in or opt-out of memo subscriptions would be?

Opt-in. This way you won't bother anyone.

How should they opt-in?

By having a button or something...like the subscribe button from youtube.

Follow = opt in
Unfollow = opt out

Mention this in all your posts, this way if someone follows you, its implied that they actually 'read' your posts, right?

If not then they are spamming the network anyway with pointless follows...

That's a lot of questions

I guess it is a survey.

Absolutely @money-dreamer, it was a great post to know how far steemian contribute on it

I was talking about that with @takeru255 , who have limit because of the amount of text on the boomerang´s transacctions , but if it was like textless we agree that it would not be spam because it would be like a donation.

Is like your gift , but well maybe just this "<3" would be enough dont you think ?

<3

It depends upon the perception of the receiver of your memo and the type of memo sent. Say like for example ,you've sent them 0.001 steem. kinda like you're asking them to follow you in exchange of that steem but it depends upon them.It is not mandatory for them to follow you. It is their free will if they want to. That is how I see it.

I agree with this.

Someone sent me 0.001 Steem when I first joined. I didn't even know until this year when I started to take Steemit seriously.

Speaking about which, lemme check out his blog now

  1. Minimum amount of 0.010 SBD/STEEM wouldn't be that great.
  2. User subscribing to receive memo from other accounts isn't really a bad idea.
    Just my opinion
  1. 0.010 SBD/STEEM is a lot of money for some people. I remember people throwing around 0.01 BTC back years ago - me being one of them - when that valued $1. Some people might find a 0.001 SBD/STEEM gift in their account in a few years from now and be more than grateful.

  2. What do you think the best way to subscribe is?

Agree with 1 as it is limitation for legitimate use. For instance, when we diatributed flag rewards last campaign.

There was a user that merited 0.001 SBD rounded up for offering the downvote according to the reward shares. Yes, it's a trivial amount of SBD but they did earn it.

Adding a minimum transfer would hnder the ability to reward plankton and minnows for flag rewards. I could maybe save the amount until it reaches whatever threshold but that requires more accounting. If necessary, that is what we would do however.

Opting in or out is a good idea. I was suggesting perhaps opting out to only receive messages from those you follow for example but affording the user more flexibility would be a good thing.

My program finds recent posts with a lot of words and written by people matching a reputation filter. It sends them 0.001 SBD with the memo "a gift"
That happens roughly every 30 minutes.
People seem to like it.

The question isn't "what is spam?" but "what pleases people and what annoys them?"
My transactions are indeed a form of spam. But they please the people being spammed, instead of annoying them.

It's so subjective. I don't mind tbh but I guess, for those that do, it would be good if they had options.

Sure it's spam, but I don't have a problem with it and rather like it.

Creating an account publishes a way to be communicated with, so it is solicited and not spam.