Self-upvoting Whales
I have a quick question for you guys -
What's to stop a whale from creating a new account and upvoting everything on it? Seems like a quick and easy way to earn some easy money without actually contributing.
Alternatively, we could also have two whales just agreeing to upvote each other, again resulting in easy money.
Am I missing something, or is it really that simple to earn money just be being a whale?
Is there a solution to discourage this type of behaviour?
this is the exact issue we're seeing with @ned upvoting his own three word comment and giving himself $2,000
This type of behavior kills community successfully with the consequence of Steem price going to zero ) And at the end a whale would have a lot of Steem worth nothing. Also, of course, some would go for a quick $ , still many would prefer act in not so short -sighted way. Since the way someone is voting is completely transparent you could see that many would upvote good posts even after first payout, and that mean getting no curation reward at all.
Here you can see some examples https://steemit.com/steemit/@lukestokes/the-second-payout-christmas-in-july-or-second-chance-door-prize
I'm pretty sure they do this all the time... But how is this different than anything else?
It's getting paid for being rich, I can't think of another example which is as direct and open about making the rich richer. It should definitely be prevented as much as possible...
How about large stockholders paying off politicians to constantly create more regulations for businesses. This makes is a lot harder for smaller businesses to start up, driving out competition. Or how about all of the tax exemptions or bailouts they get? Those are pretty good examples. This is just how businesses work, whether it is Steemit, or Walmart...
What's to stop it is the community. The bigger the whales are and the bigger the collusion is the more easily noticeable it is. Then people just in mass unfollow, don't upvote, and flag the whales that are colluding.
That's a good point, so it's up to the community to sniff these guys out?
Still seems like doing this is possible, you just have to be a little subtle. But it will definitely be discouraged...
I'm sure its being done
Question. Rada you upvote your post.... why should a whale not upvote his or her post?
Isn't upvoting your own post different? I always assumed that upvoting your own posts doesn't pay you, in which case it's perfectly fine
Upvoting your own post does pay you
It does?? That's absurd!
That just makes this an even bigger problem...
Someone more versed in Steemit needs to answer that one. I believed that if my vote gives someone 5c, then if I upvote my post I also get 5c. Otherwise what is the point of having reputation and steem power?
How about this:
A Whale self-upvotes only to give ALL back to the small minnows and redfishes?
This is one good whale, wrong or right?