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RE: Just another day on Steemit, why I feel helpless.
I think the reports you used don't display all votes in a correct way - @buildawhale has been used for both:
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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.
How many people one follows should have nothing do with how much they are followed in return. Why do I only have 9 followers, how do I build the community around me? Simple, I follow people I want to follow, not just follow for the sake of following. Hence I only follow 9 people right now, and I am engaging with a majority of their post. My ratio is actually pretty standard compared to those that have 5k+ and follow about 400 people.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with self-voting, and it is a reward for gaining higher vote value. This shows you have built something, and should be able to reward yourself; the hard work has paid off. I'm voting period. If I wasn't voting at all, I would say you have a point.
Again, I should have to engage in the whole "follow for follow" instagram mentality just to get support from people who followed me. I think that is disingenuous. If people only followed me to get a follow back, sorry... unfollow me then. Just because you liked my content and followed, doesn't mean I have to follow you regardless of what content you are making.
Right, and this is what I brought up earlier and I will say again.
If you remade an account now, it would be 100x harder to gain traction. Steemit was smaller, had a better mindset, and so on... What helped you gain a following in the beginning, would not work now, or it would be a huge tedious grind just like any other social media. If that weren't the case, no one would use voting bots to help gain traction.
Nice convo though. Cheers.
Nope. The complete opposite :-) Engagement isn't made through clicking the follow button, it's made through conversations like the one we're having right now :-)
This is still a social network and the reward is just an incentive to light up interaction. So my theory is that engagement is the ultimate key to success in a tokenized social environment.
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.
WHY ONLY IF U DO SOMETHING RELATED TO STEEMIT MAKES YOU BIG BUCKS? LIKE MEETUPS OR PROGRAMMING.
SOME MIGHT BE HERE JUST TO WRITE MAYBE HOBBY RELATED OR CONSPIRACIES OR NEWS OR SOME BEAUTIFUL STORIES OR JUST ABOUT LIFE OR INSPIRATION.
FROM WHEN DOES A MEETUP OR PROGRAM BECOME A GOOD CONTENT? ITS STUPID.
ANOTHER THING IS THESE STUPID YOUTUBERS POST HAVING NOODLES OR A CUP OF COFFEE AND MAKE 500+$$ THATS JUST BULLSHIT.
EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS NOT JUST ABOUT STEEMIT OR MEETUPS OR CRYPTO. IM A CRYPTO INVESTER/TRADER SINCE 3 YEARS, STILL I'M SAYING THIS, AS WORLD IS BEYOND IT.
THERE ARE MANY WHO DONOT KNOW PROGRAMMING OR ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN, BUT THEY CREATE GOOD CONTENT.
FOR ONCE CHECKOUT NEW PAGE, AND YOU GUYS WILL REALISE.
MAKE A COMPLAIN BOX FOR COMPLAIN BOXES. AS THEY MAKE MORE MONEY THEN THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT..
Why do you always talk in all caps?
lol @themarkymark I love it when you're funny and not pissed (better than being pissed on)
CAPS @veerall is considered yelling. Are you yelling here?
uhmm..tone deaf? hard of hearing?
@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.
Well in this case you are right.
But either the content is good or not...
And if it's not and they are avoiding their community...Do you think they will maintain?
But yeah.The bigger problem is the growth on the repututation.
Do i think right,that those things weaker the steemitpower (and the value of the dollar anyway...) of the others?
Don't see such things as a exposure,rather than the beginning of a nice "debate".Because in a debate you have the possibility to argue and make yourself understood.
Which is given in a good community c:
I guess it will be harder for vote trading services once communities are established. Not sure if you've heard about it. It's a new feature that will help to organize/group people according to their fields of interest.
Gerade in Deinen Blog gesehen: wir könnten wohl auch auf deutsch schreiben, aber dann versteht es keiner :-)
@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.
Marly, I must confess that I mostly gave up on the White Paper because it seemed to deviate ever more and more from reality.
You're probably closer to understanding what is really going on at STINC since you went to Steemfest and probably got to talk to ned, sneak and crew. Interpreting from a distance, it always comes across as if they really are far more interested in selling technological infrastructure (including SMTs) than a social content platform.
But I don't know.
Sure! Ned Scott said in his last interviews:
From that day on I understood why nobody cares about the situation on steemit.com anymore :-) Not saying that this would be my approach, since I believe steemit.com is like Steem's no. 1 store sign, but at least I got where it all came from.
I have to agree with @transisto
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.
The problem in my eyes is the drama going on and the way how people see Steemit. Is it a social media platform, a blogging platform or a promotion platform? Maybe it's all of that. But the frontend isn't made for all of that. I also don't like flagging. But there seems to be no other way, unless they change something.
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 :-)
I may have gotten myself in trouble tonight. Sorta lost my internal "don't say that" guy. :P Hopefully my rep doesn't suffer to much.
For promoting Curie? I don't know how this could have any negative consequences for you rep? It should be the other way around :-)
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.