Haejin has gone for downvoting rampage

in #abuse5 years ago (edited)

The moment I decided to downvote him, for his abusive behavior of spamming 10 posts per day and self-voting, I knew that it could bite me back. But I asked myself: "What's the absolute worse case scenario that could happen?"

He would flag all my posts, those with pending rewards and those yet to come, to zero, resulting with not being able to receive any Steem from author rewards ever again.

So I asked myself: "Could I live with that?"

Yes, since Steem is not my source of income.

It would be unfortunate, but I would still be able to earn via tribes, since token rewards seem to have remain the same. Curation would then become my main source of Steem.

Perhaps I should have not done it, perhaps having too much skin in the game wasn't a good idea. Perhaps I should've let the big boys take care of the problem. That's the easy thing to do: staying hidden. But I don't believe in yelling at other people to do this-and-that if one is not also ready to get his/her own hands dirty. Maybe I will not need to burn my fingers again though, since big stakeholders like @theycallmedan and @blocktrades seem to be taking action against Haejin's attempt to squeeze every bit out of the rewardpool. Even bidbots are now flagging him – which is great news – and I think these absolute worst type of abusers with revenge behavior are best left to projects like @curangel, @ocdb and others that have a big concentration of voting power via delegation – to which losing author rewards matters little to none – so that individuals won't get burned on the process.

He (and rancho) downvoted my pending posts, all to zero except the latest photography Drive episode that he did not have enough voting power to put completely on the ground. However this was because I used @ocdb, so now having received the downvote, it results with not getting that Steem back that was used for the vote. It is not a catastrophe though, since at least the curators will be getting something from that post, and despite "losing money", the Steem is going back to the reward pool which is in a much healthier state distribution wise at the moment.

I'm not sure what's Haejin's intentions long-term, but the only thing under my control in any case is to up my content to receive more support from others. Ever heard of synchronicity? Just during this photo shoot when I was branching my content to self-portraits – that I have never taken before with my camera – I receive the downvotes. Rather symbolic. It also drastically changed the original intention of what was supposed to be the "My first self-portraits" post.

But here's my most important message and plead for bigger stakeholders:

Please keep an eye on Haejin and counter his revenge downvotes on users who do not deserve them.


Looking at Steemd.com, I can see that on top of me, he has cast downvotes on @cwcost (GO GIVE HIM A VOTE to counter haejin's damage!), @likwid, @steemitqa, @firealiean, @adetorrent and @oracle-d.

I'm not looking for drama, nor am I planning to engage in any kind of toxic "war-like" Steem-drama that is associated with this revenge type of behavior. But I hope as many as possible will get this information so they can make their own judgment on the issue.

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Bro, don't stop. Keep flagging him. You'er a soldier :) I saw that you stepped up, and that's one of the reasons why I also stepped up. The more of us flag him, the more he drains his voting power retaliating. With me he's having to use both his Ranchorelaxo and Haejin accounts at 100%. This means he's missing out on upvoting himeself. He can't sustain it, the more he does it, everyday will cost him 20% and within 5 days he'll be down to near 0% voting power and will have to halt.

I hope he keeps flagging me actually. The more he flags me, the less he's upvoting is automated screenshots.

We will continue to flag him to zero everyday. I am in the process of buying more steem to up my voting power for the sole purpose of flagging him even lower. I wont stop until he's dealt with or he changes his ways. This is #newSteem and things have changed. Enough of the garbage reward pool rape.

Bro, don't stop. Keep flagging him. You'er a soldier :) I saw that you stepped up, and that's one of the reasons why I also stepped up.

Yo, that's so awesome that it was because of me!

Unfortunately, downvoting doesn't drain upvoting, because they are in a separate pools now since the Hard Fork. However, the good thing is that his rewards can be taken to zero and even he cannot downvote everyone to the ground with his limited downvoting power. And with the community having our backs in case of retaliation – he cannot fight all :)

downvoting doesn't drain upvoting, because they are in a separate pools now since the Hard Fork.

The downvote pool is of limited size though (2.5 full power downvotes per day). If someone wants to downvote more than that they have to use their regular upvote power.

Oh, so you can downvote after the (downvote) pool is empty, but from thereon it's taken from upvoting power, got it.

Yes that is how it is supposed to work and as far as I know does work.

Once your downvote power goes to zero, it is supposed to start using your regular vote power for downvoting. If you find that it doesn't, that's a bug, please carefully document the conditions and report it.

Thanks for taking this action. If enough of the community take on these abusers they cannot win or retaliate against us all.

That's what I was thinking, too.
I'm not big enough to get involved myself, yet. But I can act as "resupply" and "medic" for all the other troops, from the 2nd line.

There are plenty of abusers with little SP to take on. Even if we just take off a few cents each it adds up. We can let others take on the big fish, but they will appreciate some votes to encourage them.

If you downvote posts that already has larger stakeholders downvoting, nobody will notice you. I think you should use your downvotes.

You can start with this profile: https://steemit.com/@maykolcontreras. I am downvoting the oldest first (3 days old) After a couple of downvotes on my comments it is just passive now. It is a puppet-account milking the rewardpool.

You can also use this page to go after the trending page. If there already is large profiles downvoting you will be in no danger.

Thanks for the link - got 'im!!

Cool!

He's got another account which is up to the same garbage: @erik-lopez

We need to gang up on all the abuse one at a time. I've used my daily downvote quota on bidbots, and my post with the Bidbottophant was killed by Booster last week (humour isn't taken well by people loosing their dodgy business). So I am a little split between using my daily 2,67 downvote on Hajin or bidbot abuse... Haijin has been on a list inside my head for a very long time as the least honourable steemian of them all.

This is cool.
It's like the dolphins have turned on the whales - the abusive ones, anyway.
I'm starting to feel more hopeful about the state of things here. We have a long way to go, but there have been a couple positive changes in the past few days.

He currently has the highest reputation on the entire blockchain, which is quite a problem if you think that reputation counts for something. I should point out though, that steemocean shows he is not even in the top 10 accounts for self upvoting: https://steemocean.com/

I can also see that he made zero downvotes during the last indexing period: https://steemocean.com/voter/haejin

which is quite a problem if you think that reputation counts for something

The obvious solution is to stop thinking that it counts for something or even remove it from the platform.

It was a very stupidly implemented feature in the first place, though it did have its intended benefit in being able to reduce the reputation of pure spammers below zero for hiding purposes. Other than that it should be ignored or removed.

That function is really the only reason it's here I think. I agree that it's pretty dumb and I complained about the soft censoring from day 1. Either this is an anarchy flavoured network or it isn't. In reality it's anarchy lite - but at least we can remove the nonsense. :)

I feel that if we remove that, a lot of people will start posting what's on their mind.

Then, only the people that care about rewards would hold their tongues.

There's nothing wrong with free speech. ;)

" everyone has the right.... to free speech...that is, unless you're dumb enough.... to actually try it..."

Paraphrased from The Clash.....

Seems quite apt, from what I see in these parts...

What do you think,would it be possible to do a better rep system with @steem-ua? Some claimed it is a dead project, but I've seen them using flags at least.

Sure better rep systems might be possible. To me that's a separate question from whether the existing one has any useful value. IMO the existing one really is so bad and has almost no value. As such, there shouldn't be any requirement to replace it in order to remove it or largely remove it.

Yeah cause ranchorelaxo does all the upvoting for him, he uses the posting account to self vote but also vote for others and downvote, although it has been a while since i have checked up on his activity

He currently has the highest reputation on the entire blockchain, which is quite a problem if you think that reputation counts for something.

What does it count for? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Look at #2, and the other abusers that occupy spots in the top 20. I'd put it at a solid 50%.

Great site btw! I didn't know that existed. :-)

Thanks, I made steemocean, but it doesn't make money and I don't have time to promote it much. Maybe I'll make a video advert at some point for my videos ;)
Reputation mainly effects downvoting and censoring. Once your reputation goes below zero your posts are soft censored in Steemit.com. If you downvote someone who has a lower reputation than yours, then you can actually lower their reputation. So the highest account has the potential to become a tyrant and censor everyone if they have the resources to!

Can lower rep accounts drop higher rep accounts, or is he cock of the rock until someone overtakes him?

Lower rep can never drop higher rep accounts.

Lower rep accounts cannot lower higher rep accounts, no - so it basically means he is 'emperor' for now.

Wow, really, do we need a Hard Fork to change the reputation system? xD

It's up to website operators to decide what they use reputation for - some don't allow it to censor posts but ultimately that is part of the design of Steem, to mitigate spam.
@dan at one point artificially set berniesanders to -15 but then over time he recovered and some people started upvoting him to help him recover.

So we need to nuke steamcleaners with some whalevotes to make them the tyrant, or the next in line @traf ahem @trafalgar... :-). hmmmmm

I've seen Steemcleaners be tyrannical and cause problems unfairly. The entire premise of a reputation pyramid is in opposition to the principles of anarchy that Steem was allegedly built on.. Well, except it is 'anarcho capitalism' which itself is an oxymoron.

So, he's emperor, unless we can raise up somebody larger than him, to take him down. A weapon.
But how to ensure the weapon doesn't turn back on us once it takes out the current emperor?

I hope not, that sounds like a bad setup.

Hi @celestial,

Thanks for the mention, you mispelled my account @cwcost, just wanted to get as many eyes on my post as possible after the rampage. We had set up to use @howo's flag curation trails, seemed pretty safe until we got flagged!
Here's my post that got flagged, hopefully it can make it back to color?
https://steemit.com/original/@cwcost/into-the-clouds-original

Ahh... Sorry about misspelling your username! Fixed it.

Here's my post that got flagged, hopefully it can make it back to color?

I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the help! Mahalo!

Whale power is great and all, but they don't have enough power or attention to fight all the abuse, so it's going to take all of us in the fight. The good thing about having separate pools, is that the good guys can rally in support when retaliation happens. He doesn't have enough DV power to retaliate against everyone, and he's just bringing attention on himself. Retaliation by large wallets is strategically the stupidest thing they could possibly do in this environment.

Good on you for not being intimidated!

Whale power is great and all, but they don't have enough power or attention to fight all the abuse, so it's going to take all of us in the fight.

100% agree, that's why I said that only in extreme cases (mainly this haejin case really) a small author might be better off staying out of the way. Luckily I'm noticing with this post that the community is backing those who get revenge flags :)

He doesn't have enough DV power to retaliate against everyone, and he's just bringing attention on himself. Retaliation by large wallets is strategically the stupidest thing they could possibly do in this environment.

Yup, the community is no longer turning the blind eye, so he's not getting away with it.

Good on you for not being intimidated!

Like said, I don't have my living on the line, so I can live slightly on the edge and try my limits :D

I feel the same way. I am much more interested in the contents of my wallet going up in value than buying top ramen with author rewards.

Also, take a look at others as well because there are who works like @haejin. Putting 10 posts per day and curate it, raping the rewards pool.

Yeah, I take a look when I encounter them. Already found @crystalliu, any others who're trying to drain the reward pool in a similar fashion?

A lot of us larger stakeholders are keeping an eye out on these things

I threw out a couple of votes at @adetorrent first and was going to do the same for you after my mana recharges tomorrow, but I see others have already got there.

With the new economic incentives in place we can all afford to fight abuse and restore honest voting onto the platform as the dominant form of behavior. If you're someone who generally votes honestly and has content rewarded based on organic (rather than bought) votes, even if it's only since the start of NewSteem, many of us larger stakeholders appreciate your efforts in helping to cultivate a healthier culture and won't stand idly by if you're subject to unfair retaliatory downvotes.

Btw, if you notice this, consider giving a counter vote to @cwcost (I first accidentally misspelled his username):

https://steempeak.com/original/@cwcost/into-the-clouds-original

Hey, great to hear you threw couple for @adetorrent! Yeah, I see that others have got my back and restored my rewards – and a lot more extra! Super grateful for everyone, the love is overwhelming :D

I did have the theory that after Hard Fork, bid bots would eventually be forced to raise their standards, but boy, they're starting to curate! Overall the change in culture has exceeded my expectations – we're living exciting times in Steemland!

I forgot to say thanks by the way.

Back in the day, there was a big flag war that @fulltimegeek and others initiatives against @haejin but last I observed he had reformed his ways.

But your report of counterflags seems to suggest that we are back at square one maybe. The agreement last time is he would use so many votes to curate and support good content which he seemed to have done for a season (that I noticed but he may have done the right thing for some time. Idk).

Sorry you got flagged. Maybe consider joining @steemflagrewards as we try to protect each other from retaliatory flags.

Also be sure to look into @freezepeach. They started the push to counter flag abuse and are a worthy project ran by @rondon. Check em out!

Yeah, I remember that drama between geek and haejin, but I can't see him curating - which makes me think that he's crazy because the flags will not stop coming, yet he keeps on self-voting - he would be making a lot more if he just delegated to @ocdb, for example, if he's too lazy to manually curate. But I guess he's gotten enough already by extracting from the reward pool.

Yeah, I already joined @steemflagreward's Discord.

Wow, such an abuse of power in the top tiers. I think that a lot of people are sick of this type of behavior on steemit and want to see someone stop it, unfortunately not many people are willing to give up their own rewards for it. So thank you for being that person, you truly are a hero (not all hero's wear capes)..

I think you should try to create a downvote bot that people can buy into to slam abusive power, I know I'd send a steem or two to a bot like that cuz my <1 cent vote doesn't hurt anyone! Or maybe a downvote follower that thousands of steemians can join and help combat this terrible behavior. I know I don't use my downvotes and I would love for them to go to something like this. If thousands of minnows, dolphins, orcas and whales all work together maybe we could change things as a whole. I really don't think you should have to go at this alone but I honestly don't know how to help with only 580SP.

I know as a minnow my time would be over on this platform if I dare stand up to hiejin or racho so I just keep my head down and watch them ruin the thing i love (steemit) while gritting my teeth.

Anyhow, I love your style bro and I wish you the best and in case no one else says it, Thank you!*

I think you should try to create a downvote bot that people can buy into to slam abusive power, I know I'd send a steem or two to a bot like that cuz my <1 cent vote doesn't hurt anyone! Or maybe a downvote follower that thousands of steemians can join and help combat this terrible behavior.

There's a curation project, that I'm also curating for: @curangel. But they also enable delegators to give suggestions on who to downvote with the delegated stake!

I know I don't use my downvotes and I would love for them to go to something like this.

Check out @steemflagrewards!

I know as a minnow my time would be over on this platform if I dare stand up to hiejin or racho so I just keep my head down and watch them ruin the thing i love (steemit) while gritting my teeth.

Luckily there are many big accounts taking turns at him :)

Anyhow, I love your style bro and I wish you the best and in case no one else says it, Thank you!*

Thanks, mate, and thanks for all your kind words!
Cheers!

Wow, thanks for the awesome reply and great information! I will definitely look into delegating to @curangel and @steemflagrewards because I like both those ideas.

But what I was talking about was (someone) actually creating a downvote follower tool, kind of like Steem Voter. But instead of using peoples upvotes it would use their free daily downvotes. That way even extremely small accounts can join in and help to combat abuse on the blockchain but not get singled out in retaliation from the bigger accounts. I know that is a big concern/issue with smaller accounts so many choose not to use their downvotes so they just to waste when they could be used by a responsible curation service like @curangel. That way they wouldn't have to only use delegation and upvotes to fight abuse, they could also use the the communities downvotes. (hopefully this all makes sense, lol)

Just a thought, don't know if it is actually even possible or not? What do you think about something like that?

But what I was talking about was (someone) actually creating a downvote follower tool, kind of like Steem Voter.

@steemflagrewards does run a flag trail.

https://flagtrail.herokuapp.com/

@howo also made a tool that does something similar. There are other people who simply follow a flagger. I know a few people follow @whatsup's downvote pattern.

There are options out there, just gotta find what works for you.

Good to know. I appreciate the quick response :0)

Well, check out this, might be what you're looking for.

Oh yea, nice photos too :)

(and.. it's been 16 hours since Haejin's last post. I think he might be getting the message).

Oh yea, nice photos too :)

Haha, thanks!

Great courage to stand up ! With HF 21-22 and the downvote pool,

I believe Hardin has already lost. Thank you for making me aware of the situation and I will try to join the « real Steemians » to stop this abuse !

On the other side I think that he unfortunately has every right to post 10times a day and as long as rewards are not outrageous, should we intervene?

Best luck to you and here is a small upvote from me

On the other side I think that he unfortunately has every right to post 10times a day and as long as rewards are not outrageous, should we intervene?

Of course, that is his right. It's tricky to say how much he should be earning, but that's open for the "collective negotiation", if you will, via downvotes/upvotes according to people's conscience – that's how proof-of-brain is supposed to work.

Best luck to you and here is a small upvote from me

Thanks, it's appreciated :)

@adetorrent was catching me up on this yesterday. Good on you guys, this even reminds me of my people in Hong Kong who are currently fighting for what's right.

Thanks for doing this man

Posted using Partiko Android

Oh the love I'm receiving right now to counter haejin's flags – it's unbelievable!

All the best for your folks in Hong Kong, too!

I agree with you, we have to let the big and fair stakers to fix the problem better than exposing ourselves, small accounts...hope haejin stops downvoting you soon

I'm assuming it was just a one-time snap in the fingers, since I don't have anything personal against him. But if this is some permanent sentence, then I have no choice but to be so damn good of a Steemian that I'm attracting more upvotes than what haejin's downvote is worth :D

I don't think this is a permanent sentence, if he didn't have enough power to downvote everything you had pending to the ground. Just keep posting (but save for the best content for the time he's no longer after you).

Anyone interested in downvoting whales from safety should delegate to @curangel. The project allows delegators to suggest content to be downvoted via the projects's own interface off chain.

Man that is a shame. A witness scorned is a dangerous thing!

I try and walk softly and let the fighters fight their blockchain fights and support the content creators I like.

Perhaps this will settle down when the fork is a couple weeks old and the flag slingers get tired of it?

Posted using Partiko iOS

We will not stop till the issue is dealt with. Downvoting haegin IS supporting the creators I like. We are removing the rewards he's giving himself and putting it back in the pool so your upvotes can give more to your favourite creators.

Perhaps I like to play with fire :D

Perhaps this will settle down when the fork is a couple weeks old and the flag slingers get tired of it?

@thecatfiles, associated with the sweetsssj circlejerk, has already stopped posting. I think the same will happen with haejin until he stops posting or changes his behavior. He is a tougher nut to break though... But even he would be crazy to continue if all he gets is zeros for his spam.

Good to see various whales using some of their voting power to upvote this post.

@ocdb is very powerful with 3.8 million SP delegated to it. It and a few other curation projects and whales in acting in concert will be able to flatten even large abusers.

Good to see various whales using some of their voting power to upvote this post.

Grateful for everyone who's showing some love :)

@ocdb is very powerful with 3.8 million SP delegated to it. It and a few other curation projects and whales in acting in concert will be able to flatten even large abusers.

Yes, one whale cannot fight against multiple who co-operate.

What's great about @ocdb or @curangel is that anyone can delegate. @ocdb offers better ROI but @curangel offers an opportunity to suggest content to be downvoted.

I don't even know who this Haejin is. I guess I know as much as Jon snow.

You haven't been deep enough into Steem-drama then :D Probably a good thing. He just produces 10 technical analysis posts on serial production per day and self-upvotes them with ranchorelaxo up to $20 each, that is with today's prices... He has drained dozens of thousands of dollars from the reward pool.

I have to say, though, his technical analysis posts are actual content that may have some value while not perhaps $20 per post. There are other whales who self-upvote posts and comments that contain one letter at best - and I really mean at best. Haejin is also not the only revenge downvoter. Hundreds of thousands of dollars is peanuts compared to the millions of dollars the worst abusers have drained from the pool.

It's all copy and paste spam. There is no analysis in his posts at all. He has been doing this for the past 2 years and nothing else except reward himself for spamming the same crap daily. he has also targeted other accounts that have flagged his spam and wiped them out as well. It's nothing but account abuse.

One time he used to make videos that did have analysis and they were even useful. I haven't checked out his content for a long time, though.

If his content is copy and paste spam, it definitely deserves to be flagged. But I'd say pictures of turds or other types of images engineered to be as revolting and disturbing as possible are even worse. All such abuse deserves to be eradicated from this platform. If certain curation projects and a few good whales have 10 million SP put together, they should be able to do it. Any dolphins or large minnows will be able to take on low-level vote farmers.

I have to say, though, his technical analysis posts are actual content that may have some value while not perhaps $20 per post.

Yes, that is a fair point.

There are other whales who self-upvote posts and comments that contain one letter at best - and I really mean at best.

Well, I guess that has to be brought into the public too, and let people judge their behavior.

Haejin’s TA posts helped me buy certain alts at just the right time in December 2017.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Has anyone kept track on what's his success rate on predictions? :P

I think he's quite extraordinary; his predictions are always 100% right

It's just that half the time, the market gets it wrong and goes the other direction

👍
~Smartsteem Curation Team

Thanks a lot!

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D’oh! I just fat-fingered upvoted one of his posts, before downvoting it. Well, that’s one way to burn through VP. 😅

LOL. I accidentally flagged my own comment just now hahah. It happens.

Haha, well rancho had a similar accident :D

mistake.png

Those little buttons are awfully close.

Ever read his crap? I went there one day to see if it's worth him behaving like a Steem hog only to find nonsense on his timeline. He engages with no one like you would. And he's the last giant of that selfish crowd... I am hoping people who can drain him down would because regardless of whether this platform is your income or not, you deserve your rewards for everything you do!

Keep the fight ⚔️

Posted using Partiko Android

Thanks for the nice words, @tezmel :)

It is a bit of a questionmark why some abusers are so arrogant that even with 50/50 rewards they continue to self-upvote only. If rancho/haejin started curating, people would love them and ethically earn rewards at the same time.

I am mad that I don't have the capacity to demolish those accounts. And I would if I could. And that's because you are among the people that are so consistent on my timeline and you have worked so hard to get where you are. They should be ashamed of themselves for flagging the content this community fighting so hard to keep!

Forward :)

We need to have a whole month (or maybe even more) where everybody just downvotes him. There is so much to do vote-seeling, circlejerk, milking farms. I kind of had hopped we could start with the bidbot and then move on to other causes. It takes a large coordinated effort.

At least someone is doing something! Those of us crawling in the murky rewardless sea are fighting to share our 0.01 vote with other struggling creators and those gluttonous souls are downvoting those who inspire us to stay. May they get what they deserve!

True words. That this is happening at all is something I wouldn't have imagined before the fork. I wrote this post: *Stopit, Steemit and was preparing to leave.

I think everybody should use their downvotes. Find posts where larger SP holders already are taking the abuse.

Agreed. Gladly followed... I think we can get along and a quick peek on your bio affirms that. I love art :)

Now to reading that article.

@steevc the most idealistic and nice gentleman on Steemit, had that done to him some time ago, because he had spoken up against Haijin. There's only one perspective to this: It's abuse. I think coordination is key to these things - it is like tidying up a teenagers room. Either you start finding the hidden cheeseburgers, or you clear the floor.

I'm just a dolphin and you already get my vote. There's nothing we can do but carry on - either we loose Steemit and our investment here, or we slowly tidy things up.

Every vote is appreciate :)

There's a lot of effort by bid bots, individuals and projects to attack abuse – something I think the magnitude of which not a lot predicted, so there's a good reason to remain optimistic.

Some of the bidbots are getting in line which is good. It is like when the western town in a western film has had enough with outlaws.

As for the portraits, I was wondering about the iconography. What do the owl and the clock symbolise? Resigned wisdom and death by downvote?

First one to comment on pictures :D

What do the owl and the clock symbolise? Resigned wisdom and death by downvote?

They just happened to be part of the decoration, so all hidden meanings are accidental – you decide what they mean – because the downvotes came while I was shooting :D

I might have to wade in as I'm not really posting atm, good effort!

Posted using Partiko Android

Yeah, it's a good time to take on abuse if being without pending rewards!

Fair play for taking on one of the worst abusers of the whole blockchain. Everybody knows about him and yet very few would stand up to him.

I've been on that side of it as well when a lot of us were flagging his crap last year. Unfortunatly i don't have huge stake for doing this but there were plenty combining to wipe out his rewards. After that he would go back for the full 7 days to wipe out any rewards for each account that had dared to stand against him.

It didn't really bother me as I don't earn much anyway but with the hardfork it's great to see larger accounts getting involved to try and clean up the abusers and hopefully the curation accounts will do the same. Well done.

I've been on that side of it as well when a lot of us were flagging his crap last year.

You went after him without free flags – that's honorable!

but with the hardfork it's great to see larger accounts getting involved to try and clean up the abusers and hopefully the curation accounts will do the same.

Yup, even bidbots are now downvoting, so are curation efforts like @curangel where delegators can suggest users to downvote.

What can I say. I was young and naive. Full of youthful enthusiasm and paid the price for it. Need to be done though.

Gotta do what you think is right :)

He zeroed my posts ages ago when he was actual visiting Steem and there was another active campaign to deal with him. The community got me most of my rewards back then. He has been quietly milking the system since then, but that may change now. Claiming back hundreds of dollars each day from people like him helps us all and is good for Steem. I am trying to build up my SP now, so may not take on people like him, but there are plenty of low SP accounts that are using bots to take dollars from the pool. We need to use the power of the community to deal with them and let the whales take on people like Mr H.

BTW Cool photos

He zeroed my posts ages ago when he was actual visiting Steem and there was another active campaign to deal with him. The community got me most of my rewards back then.

Yeah, katharsis mentioned it, fortunately community had your back!

BTW Cool photos

Thanks, second one who says something about them :D

There are some people who have zero interest in being part of the community and he is a prime example. He has not commented for months, but people still ask him questions. He went off to set up his own paid service for crypto 'analysis' that I have not even looked at. I guess he just auto-generates posts for Steem. He is powering down his own account, but his other one still has loads of SP. I would be happy for him to leave.

The reputation algorithm should be changed. Multiple votes from the same account should have diminishing effect. I don't even care if that lowers my own rep.

Wait. So you downvoted a person for gaming the system, yet you pay bid-bots for upvotes yourself?

To me that doesn't make any sense. But okay.

Wait. So you downvoted a person for gaming the system, yet you pay bid-bots for upvotes yourself?

Bid bot, I don't use any other than @ocdb, the reason being, that is a non-profit bid bot meant to distribute rewards for whitelisted users who have history making quality posts (and been curated by @ocd), and they have guidelines that obligate users to not use it on bad/low effort content or otherwise you risk being banned from the whitelist altogether. I use @ocdb with consideration to posts that I think are good with some actual effort. Of course, being my own author I might be biased to think more highly of my own content than what others think, but thus far I haven't received claims of abuse or too high rewards. Of course, if I did, I would take a better look at my content and raise my standards.

I used it on this one, the other pending posts that have @ocdb votes there, I believe are because of @acidyo (the creator of @ocdb) calling it to counter haejin's flags.

I just try to understand what people see as abuse.
Hajin do properly fall into this category same as Crystalli and should be countered.
Crystalli is way worst than hajin in my opinion and I am still not sure about the selfvote thingy, I did it for a while and stopped after HF22.

So, meh not sure about what abuse is seen as from other steemians and also, I do think your content is worth the rewards same as this post is worth the 45 bucks :D

Crystalliu is very strange. He's not making any money at all. He's just making a loss on the bots and moving money around for no apparent reason. He's making a net loss. Not like Haejin who's milking the pool for thousands of dollars every month.
I seriously don't understand what Crystalliu is actually doing to be honest. I think he's just taking the piss.

Ye I have notice that aswell. It makes no sense at all xD

Oh, crustalliu, I assume you meant, yeah, that looks horrible! Thanks for giving something to flag, since that is not even attempting to be legit.

So, meh not sure about what abuse is seen as from other steemians and also, I do think your content is worth the rewards same as this post is worth the 45 bucks :D

Yeah, abuse gets somewhat in the grey area once the obvious spam and bid botting shitty content cases are cleared. Haha, I didn't quite expect the amount of countermeasures from the folks! Perhaps I should thank haejin :D

Yes I meant Crystalliu. I was on the phone and its not the easiest place to use steem :P
A lot of people are downvoting him.
Ye but its still hard to see whats abuse and whats not. I use 1 steem daily on tipu and 0.02 to treeplanter and I dont see that as abuse :D also I get some big upvotes from actifit from exchanging tokens, would say thats abuse either xD So I think its hard.

At least you had to work for those actifit tokens, so I think it's fair :D

And everybody is talking about your pictures which is some very nice portraits.
But I wanna know what kind of tea you are drinking :P

Ye thats what I am thinking :D

Its weird haha. It should be easier going forward, when the dust settles :D

Well done mate. He did a full week of my posts twice last year after I called him out and flagged his @dcommerce scam.
It's good to see people with clout finally attempting to take him down a notch or two but sad that they never did it a long time ago.
Best wishes to you and thanks for having the bollocks to not only flag him, but brag about it to!!

It's good to see people with clout finally attempting to take him down a notch or two but sad that they never did it a long time ago.

Better late than never. Now that we have the separate downvoting pool, it will be there in the future, too, especially when it is being observed to be such an essential tool to attack abuse.

Good for you. That's actually very inspiring. I think eliminating the abusers of the platform is the only way to ensure steems future and to bring in new users as well. It's not good when new users see shit posts making large sums of money and thinking they can do it too only to find out that they can't. We dont want to attract those types of people to the platform nor do we want to create unrealistic expectations or people. Anyway, keep it up!

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100% agree with what you said! We need people to know that with effort and quality they can be rewarded.

Badass post your latest one, btw!

Oh well. This whole self-voting business could be completely abolished with just a few clicks and you would no longer need an executive. Or users who want to throw themselves into battle or see their purpose in fighting abuse. A decision by Steemit Inc and the witnesses. It may be that in the beginning self-voting was necessary due to the accumulation of enough VP, but that could have been changed a long time ago. Which one could find already quite questionable.

If the work of the witnesses and the willingness of Steemit Inc. is about functions that can be chosen by the users, all this could have been brought to the fore long ago.

I therefore consider this fight to be quite pointless, above all to spend my time and energy on harassing someone until he disappears from the scene.

It is important to know what design someone who founds a company or develops a product has in mind from the very beginning. The design, to vote for yourself at all, to integrate into this system, takes into account that abuse becomes part of the game from the birth of the platform.

As soon as the price rises, you have the same problem again. New ones would come and do the same: self-voting, set up multiple accounts and use bots to keep it running.

The second essential point is to provide the possibility of multiple accounts. With only one account, there are fewer ways to commit circular abuse. In "the rest of the Internet" multiple accounts meanwhile are abolished when a provider wants to offer a good reputation system, is what I perceive (could be a subjective perception, though). The crypto platform Pi, for example, says it explicitly:

The network has a strict rule of one account per person. Pi uses a multi-pronged strategy to ensure Pi is not mined by fake accounts. source

One just can't have everything. An egg-laying woolly pig, which also produces morally ethically correct participants. Where opportunities are given, they are used. This is a reality of life. If I don't want that, I don't offer such opportunities. It is that simple.

If self votes weren't allowed, the abusers would just use different accounts to post and upvote. It makes absolutely no sense to forbid them on the code side.
I think I've seen you proposing things like this several times now, and always someone explained to you why it is as it is and your suggestion doesn't work. Do you actually overthink your opinions when someone gives you an argument?

If self votes weren't allowed, the abusers would just use different accounts to post and upvote.

That's what I actually said in a different expression.

Why shouldn't I make suggestions? Do you think you speak for the entire usership here if you claim that my proposals don't work? And to what proposals do you actually refer?

Can't remember that we ever talked about this topic. I don't understand what arguments you're talking about.

It's also not possible to restrict people to only have one account. Trying it is pointless, even centralized platforms like Facebook fail trying.
It doesn't work because it's impossible, not because I say so. You can of course ignore reality and propose it, it's just pointless. And blaming Steemit and the witnesses to have it designed wrongly while it could easily be abolished is hilarious to anyone who understands that.

I hear this argument for the first time that multiple accounts are impossible to avoid. As long as I read something to the contrary somewhere else, you can't tell me different sources outside of Steemit that prove it, it's exactly your word I'm supposed to believe. Especially since, should that be true, the quote I used from Pi is therefore a false announcement by the operators of Pi?

Apart from that, my statement regarding the simple change referred to the self-voting function.

Then I ask you concretely: How high exactly would the effort be to abolish the self-vote function? What would have to be technically changed?

Questioning the design you perceive as blame?

Blame as in it's their decision that self-voting is possible, and if they wanted they could change it. They just can't.

For the self-voting function, we're running in circles there. That would only make sense if you could guarantee that abusers cannot have multiple accounts.

The quote from Pi is definitely a false announcement. You don't have to take my word for it, just think a bit how that should work.
Every possible option has flaws which render it useless. IP addresses aren't static. Device identifiers can be changed, cookies deleted, and most people have multiple devices anyway. Phone numbers are easy to obtain. ID documents don't prove you're the one sending it in.

Online banks use post ident, where your identity is verified in person by the mail man, or video ident, where a person checks that you're really the one with the document. Those are basically the only two more or less secure ways. And even there fraud is happening. Accounts can change owner once they're verified - with a bank account that'd mean trouble for the one who opened it. With a blockchain account - who cares?
Besides, it's not a good idea to store ID documents on a public blockchain ;)

There's the old meme "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog". It means you can completely make up your identity. And you're not restricted to one. Trying to enforce it will only affect the technically ingenuous.

Yes, the mechanism between the verification of a person and an account is possible, although with some difficulties. I'm still skeptical about the initial design. From my perspective it must have been clear to the developers and programmers, because if I code the technical possibilities, I'll know what problems I'll encounter. Abuse in the digital world isn't new.

At Steemit, there are no particular hurdles to registering multiple accounts. I see a difference between "completely impossible to get 100% protection" and nevertheless efforts in strong protection to at least keep away the first abusive intentions. Of course, anyone who really puts criminal energy into it and wants to hack a system at all costs will, it seems, find ways to cross these borders. But I don't necessarily have to leave the window wide open. Please correct me, if I am wrong in this but I have the impression that it's quite easy to start many accounts here.

To fight the abusers and then one day it would be finished, I may even understand. But for how long does one want to fight and put up energy with all necessarry excecutive actions when the design can't be changed for more security?

This actually turns people down.

All the flagging aside.. these photos are extremely powerful and stopped me in my tracks.. just wow.

Keep standing up for what’s right, we are all in this together ❤️

All the flagging aside.. these photos are extremely powerful and stopped me in my tracks.. just wow.

Oh my, thank you, Justine! 😊

Love the self portraits! Very urban domestic with a splash of intregity. Good on you for fighting the good fight!!

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Thanks, mate! My friend also said that I had a very urban look when wearing that same t-shirt.

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Your UA account score is currently 4.489 which ranks you at #2182 across all Steem accounts.
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Your hair is cool. You should smile sometimes, though!
It'll be interesting to see how things shake out. When you flip the board the way HF21 did, just about everything can change. It's a wildcard move. Stay on your toes.

Your hair is cool. You should smile sometimes, though!

Thanks! I'm not very natural with smiling by myself, unless I happen to have happy thoughts. I smile much in company though!

It'll be interesting to see how things shake out. When you flip the board the way HF21 did, just about everything can change. It's a wildcard move. Stay on your toes.

It's a much more dynamic experience now, I'm loving it :)

"I'm not very natural with smiling by myself"
Okay, perhaps that just means you are a genuine person. I can appreciate that.
I'm glad you're enjoying it! The more of us that enjoy it, the better it will be. I'm seeing a couple signs of hope, myself. :)

I have to admit I was incredibly tempted to downvote him as well. But that threat of being downvoted into oblivion with not many active wales following me these days could've meant the death of the account if there were any retaliation.

I don't rely on whatever I make on here, most of it just goes straight into SP. But it would be nice to keep the account alive and growing. Either way, my tiny upvotes will counter future downvotes you receive if I notice any.

Either way, my tiny upvotes will counter future downvotes you receive if I notice any.

:)

Hey buddy, could you tell me exactly what's bothering you about publishing 10 daily posts and upvoting them with your own Steem Power?

Frankly, I think that goes completely against the idea of a social blockchain. Not just that, I think such behavior is actually devaluing Steem. Think about it: we want users here, because users bring value, because Steem is needed to operate transaction on the chain. More users bring scarcity to Steem and drive the price up. How do we bring users? Definitely not by each of us voting ourselves 10 times per day.

We should be increasing the value of what we have instead of focusing to maximize the amount we can extract from the reward pool.

Now I get your point! I think cases like Haejin's are very few and I suppose there is no direct threat to Steem if only a very small number of users do it. I don't think that belonging to Steem means that we necessarily have to bring new users, I mean, it's the ideal and what we need to get ahead, but we can't force users to bring more users either (I'm deviating a bit from the subject).

Honestly, I don't think he'll stop, but for now I don't think he'll have a direct impact on the whole Steem economy. (Nor adding to the few other users who do something similar)

I think cases like Haejin's are very few and I suppose there is no direct threat to Steem if only a very small number of users do it.

Abuse is the minority of the users, yes, but they are good to deal with now that we have the tools. Haejin and probably the @sweetsssj circle jerk (broken down by now though, now she's actually diversifying her votes) were probably the biggest extractors I know of.

I don't think that belonging to Steem means that we necessarily have to bring new users, I mean, it's the ideal and what we need to get ahead, but we can't force users to bring more users either (I'm deviating a bit from the subject).

I agree, we don't have to force new users. But the next Hard Fork will feature lite accounts. What this means is that new users can interact with a dapp, and the dapp creates them a wallet address when they sign up with email or other social media account (I think 3speak already uses this kind of method). They will be able to accumulate rewards right away and take custody of their account when they have enough Steem Power. This coupled with SMTs, and the ability to create a custom token reward system for an already existing community (like a Reddit subreddit, for example), means that people will be onboarded to Steem without them even knowing about it.

Yes, not sure why he DV me it is all interesting to watch.
The good new is powering down at 15 k each time with 40 k left so eventually he'll be out of here on liquid.

Yeah, rancho still has bunch of power though, not sure what he's gonna do with it.

Well the self-portraits look nice, I can't reward you much steem but I'll give you some pal and creativecoin :)

Thanks! Pals and Creativecoins are much appreciated :)

I have seen your comments on that in the Curangel Discord discussion channel. Thanks to you guys for taking action.
I didn't expect him to make it to 85 actually. Everybody I know is still wondering whether he could get higher (and that was when he was at 81 AFAIK).
Steemit Inc. probably has enough things to care of themselves than a war between users.

I didn't expect him to make it to 85 actually. Everybody I know is still wondering whether he could get higher (and that was when he was at 81 AFAIK).

Yeah, the rep system is completely broken in that regard.

Steemit Inc. probably has enough things to care of themselves than a war between users.

Steemit Inc. has never taken an active role on flagwars, which ultimately, I think is a good thing, because they have a lot of stake, and if they started to use that to downvote and control users, they would quickly get painted as centralized authoritarian tyranny.
They're busy preparing SMTs for the next Hard Fork right now :)

That sucks to hear man, I hope he burns out and moves on soon! Love the work you do, keep the chin up, I'll help in any way I can buddy :^)

That sucks to hear man, I hope he burns out and moves on soon!

It's alright now, since people stepped up and countered those downvotes big time!

Love the work you do, keep the chin up, I'll help in any way I can buddy :^)

Thanks, appreciate it :)

Hello!

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Don't let yourself be discouraged @celestal

My latest post also attracted number of strong flags, coming from abusers similar to haejin. However I received also huge support from others and I strongly believe that in long term those abusers will finally give up.

Strong upvote on the way
Piotr

Don't let yourself be discouraged @celestal

Oh, definitely won't – the community backing has been overwhelmingly positive!

I strongly believe that in long term those abusers will finally give up.

Working together we can counter few bullies :)

Thanks for stacking with your vote, appreciate it!

@celestal cuenta con mi apoyo desde Venezuela.
Estas en tu derecho a defenderte contra la injusticia del sistema steem

...also, you just made art out of drinking a cup of tea! It gave reading this post a whole different twist! :)

Having a cup of tea for self-portraits just felt like a very natural thing to do :D

He is now recovered from the downvote :)