A vote for you and you and you! (but you have to pay first)
We can all look at Voting Bots and form an opinion on what they add or take away from the system. I just see them as a tool. When a shovel gets misused we don't blame the shovel. Blame the Spammer not the tool. We shouldn't take a valuable tool away because of spammy people. Isn't that the same excuse the government uses to regulate Crypto? It gets used for crimes. Blame the criminals not the tools.
I put money into Steem's Eco-System to buy votes:
Last night I wanted to get exposure for my #Adoptaminnow project, so I decided to use voting bots to promote it. This is not a first, but I wanted to promote it more than usual. Since I have been sending my SBDs out to Bittrex, I didn't have any SBD. I made a choice to go to Bittrex, purchase SBDs send them back to my account and use them to pay for some upvotes. When my post pays out some of those reward will be powered up and some SBDs may be used to purchase additional votes or to power up.
My post was of reasonable quality, had a mission and the project is good for the community. (While I realize good for the community could be debated, I see it that way) To me this seems like a valid user case that benefits the entire system.
Wealth Distribution is the reason for the high demand
The great demand for Delegation, Voting Bots, and much of the arguing that happens on the platform stems from the low number of accounts that hold substantial amounts of SteemPower. Since the beginning of SteemIt the users have watched the same group of people upvote each other nearly exclusively and it is still going on today. The voting bots were a way to get noticed despite the "circle jerk". Now some are unhappy, seemingly because they can't control who is getting the SteemPower and SBDs. Some of them would rather "Burn" it than see it distributed through our current system. That says a lot to me. I see the voting bots as a tiny way to level the playing field. I take no issue with developers and those smart enough to write, maintain, and run these tools making money. I've seen first hand the "Support" factor and believe me it is not free money.
Don't blame the tool, go after the spammers/scammers
Everyone is saying it, I've said it before and I will say it again. Somehow we need to make it safe for the community to use their flags. Most of us who do flag spam have received revenge flags and I will be the first to say, I haven't always done the right thing out of fear of messing up my account. I read that same concern over and over, and I have watched it play out, where it truly can lead to great damage when you flag.
The community is paying for a lot of Spam control, what do they need?
We have SteemCleaners, and Cheetah, and Patrice and Spaminator and more.. Yet I can scroll down the "New" feed for less than 10 minutes to find a clearly spammy and scammy looking accounts. So, what aren't we doing to support those programs?
There is generally a cost of doing business
To the Investors who want to say there is no financial incentive to flag so they don't want to use their stake for flagging. There are always unpaid elements to doing business. Investing doesn't always mean immediate turn around on the ROI. Sometimes we spend time and money on maintenance and development in order to keep our business model operational. I am having a hard time feeling to bad if you have to build some expenses into your ROI plan.
Your view on this issue might be different. I'm interested in hearing it.
I don't have a problem with voting bots; I don't have a problem with mega whales wanting to make money from their SP holdings.
I do have a problem with "shitposts" getting rewarded $400 for pretty much nothing, because the poster can buy their way to that. BUT...
That's not a "philosophical" or "ethical" problem, it's a functional problem. If you're a non-member, prospective member or simply not logged in, what you see when you land at Steemit.com is the "trending" page. And if the Trending page looks like a pile of shyte, that jeopardizes the entire ecosystem or rather, the future GROWTH of the ecosystem... and (to add my own selfish angle) that jeopardizes the price of MY Steem holdings!
So every time I hold up my hand in the "vote bots" debate and say "Yeah, but wait a second..." I'm also pointing at the mega whales who delegate SP to vote bots and suggesting they look more closely at the value of their 1.5mn SP in the LONG run. Even if your returns are slightly lower, wouldn't it be a more prudent investment to delegate-- let say-- 25% of that SP to Patrice and/or spaminators to help keep the site healthy and cleaner?
Now, the original round-robin vote circle jerks? That's a whole different beast.
Of course, there are things you can do with vote bots that most people do NOT. For example, I don't have a huge store of SP, but I might have some SBD that would allow me to purchase a $10 vote for someone else's particularly worthy piece of content...
Hey @denmarkguy, You nailed it man:
Excellent points.
I agree that I think it would be a great thing for every Steem User to either support a "Spaminator" or do their own flagging as they are out and about. We can all contribute to keeping the site clean.
I feel many are seeing the site as a short-term cash cow, and I sometimes fear they will "Kill the Golden Goose".
I keep hoping communities with individuals to manage them will help! Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Haha - the trending page is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I told a lot of people to take a look at Steemit and nobody - really nobody - joined. And I'm at a point where I'm really embarrased to promote it any further. There seems so little improvement.
I think it's impossible to ban bots - I'd rather see flagging incentivized. And we need to convince large stakeholders that the best thing that can happen to their stake is quality content on the trending page.
@whatsup and @denmarkguy, these are some of the clearest points I've come across on the subject of voting bots. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.
I think voting bots is good thing because minnows with low steem power needs these voting bots to get exposer. Totally agree with you , we need to clean spammers not the technology which could be beneficial to everyone.
Yeah well i do my best to use my stake that i have invested to have, for the better of this community I dont certainly abuse it like some do ! These people are just ill and need to stop thinking of their own short term profit and think of this new community which still needs to grow and develop into the potential we all see I hope ) nice post @whatsup )
Thanks gomer it was good to see you in chat today.
When bots are outlawed, only outlaws will have bots.
Meh. It all comes down to arguing about how others are choosing to use their stake. I fully expect handwringing drama like this to continue for as long as Steemit exists.
Perfect comment! It does come down to how others are using their stake.
That has been my main suspicion about the fuss about voting bots. Like any tool, there is potential for abuse, but like you, I agree that the bots are a good way for small users to compete with the "circle jerk" for exposure.
Look there is always a way to do any thing. If bots are their then why we are always looking for the upvotes from them obviously to give a rise to our posts. It is fair enough..!
But when we use them to devalue the Vision and Morality of the Community then it is totally unfair.
Spammers should be Hanged, as they are using the means of cheating. The community has Flags for them but still it is the need of hour to control the unrecognized accounts, to avoid mess.
Vision of the Community by @ned is to make this place a Welfare Community so that everyone can get benefit from it but yes at the same time everyone has to contribute at his/her end.
Thanks for the inspiration to make this very poorly constructed meme
Hang the Spammers!!!
What are you talking about @ned and a Welfare Community? I don't get that point at all?
Thats smacks of communism no @whatsup ?? surprising coming from a guy that clearly has millions )) Its just fashion to be a socialist and want to help those that cannot help themselves ! If this is what Steemit is for, then maybe time to power down because I am not here to hand my money to people that bring nothing with them to the table but there problems of money !!
I'm so confused. I am unclear on what @ned said that your guys are talking about.
"Vision of the Community by @ned is to make this place a Welfare Community so that everyone can get benefit from it but yes at the same time everyone has to contribute at his/her end."
this is what @salmanbukhari54 is reporting that @ned said ! Is this true I dont know as I have not seen this discussion personally ! But if he did i find that extremely strange and somewhat worrying ! What are your thoughts on this @whatsup ?
While I'm not in the "I hate SteemIt" group. I think Ned has a tough job, I'm not sure out of context I understand his comment. I love to speculate, but I don't know what he meant.
Regardless of acknowledging his job, where I do struggle with Ned is his inability to paint a clear picture of a vision and employ people who spread it.
I dont think anybody on this thread hates Steemit or @ned for that matter ! But this strange statement I do find worrying as we are not UNESCO !! We are private investors that believe in this concept and who have invested our money and time to make it work and to make it what it is ! But if @ned has fallen into this seemingly ever so popular " socialist marxist" movement and I would say disease its really very worrying as it is he who has the hands on the tiller of this ship we have boarded !!
Well, I think i just could not convey it properly. Actually 2 days a go i had a chance to read the @surfermarly blog in which he cited a quote from @ned about the vision of Steemit. After reading that blog i just put my thoughts to give you a feedback on this post.
So Hanged them does mean make some strict rules to minimize the spamming, just to bring the quality here on steemit ( It was just a suggestion )
Although i am a new addition to Steemit ( I joined it last month) but i always try to grab the knowledge and inspiration by following the Great Authors like you and many others. I am always in the favor of learning @whatsup :)
How much extra exposure does it get you? I think a lot of people do it to make more, but it's those selling the votes who make the real money. I may not see the effects as I don't refer to the Hot and Trending pages much. I guess it's different when you don't have much of a following, but you have to build that.
WE don't see Trending or Hot by choice... but the default landing page for some random person who perhaps has "heard about Steemit" and lands on Steemit.com sees the trending feed by default. So "trending" is effectively Steemit's "calling card" to potential newcomers.
So that leads to the question: "Is that what we want to REPRESENT Steemit?"
There's some stuff there that does not give the best impression. There are some little wars going on here and those people have the power to really boost their posts, even when they complain about others draining the pool :(
I don't know if I am qualified to contribute here owing to the fact that I may be less than a minnow, but your comment really drew me out of the box.
I am very new to Steemit, and my early days were marked by going through an e-war on the trending feed between very powerful individuals I don't know the implication of mentioning them here.
I am of the opinion that 'Guns don't kill people, but people kill people'. Bots may not be bad but can be used for bad at the wrong hands.
Thanks
I agree with you the trending page is a tragedy and way more important to me that some poor person snaking out a few bucks here and there.
I think bots are fine. When used for visibility, for higher discovery.
But I would love that their impact is limited. By which I mean, let's call a spade a spade and call it advertising. And allocate a limited number of slots for them. These slots can rotate more than even the hot page does.
A very basic targting system, yes targeting but as simplistic as possible think top 5-10 used categories, would even allow slots in personal feeds.
My main issue is that we now use the promotional element, but that's a fallacy. A fallacy because without a limited number of slots it becomes like the Trending page. It takes a lot to even end up on Hot. It's basically a case of if you can't beat them, you join them. Which serves and feeds only one side of the market: the bots operators.
The Wild Wild West, as is now, is not interesting a concept for the investors we want either, those with a mid- to long-term thinking. At this point, the Steem blockchain still exponentially rewards short-term profit guided actions.
Until that is fixed, discovery will always suffer this promotional issue. The blockchain world, and specifically (user generated) content centric ones like Steem right now still face many hurdles and upcoming, compulsory regulatory implementations (think copyright and DMCA), bidding bots and promotion may be one of the easier issues to find solutions which work for everyone.
That is not to say that anything is fool proof. After all, I'm Belgian and we have a moral civic duty. The duty to find a loophole in any (new) regulation, law.
Even seemingly awesome solutions like Proof of Worth still leave much room open to be gamed. But that's something which will always happen.
Laws, just like principles, exist to many to be thrown overboard or gamed.
TL;DR: promotional tools are fine, but we need to make sure Steem doesn't become a covert FB where without promotion nothing works anymore.
This is actually a very interesting idea, regarding the advertising and potentially limiting the spots.
This problem with a platform with out a central authority is we can't really control who uses it how, unless we take responsibility for it as a community.
I do think communities will help, especially if different communities allow for various shades of moderation.
We have a central authority: DPOS could decide on such a system. As such, after a HF, it could be required via the license that the advertised slots not be stripped from the feed.
I am convinced that midterm such a setup would be even more profitable, and also less of a customer support nuisance, for the bot operators. Because of scarcity.
Communities would also be a viable targeting model for topical ads. They could be the most basic version of targeted native advertising, but I am not sure communities will be a blockchain feature. They will (initially) be platform/interface specific only.
Although I also use the voting bots for more visibility, It's a bad idea right now to use them because grumpeycat is aggressively flagging down everything on the bot tracker's voting window. There was this youtube creator who had over 200$ in rewards but got flagged and dropped the value to 7$ yesterday!
I agree with you. Bots are not bad in themselves, it's some of the users rather.
I actually feel and think these voting bots are a good thing because it helps newbies here on steemit earn a little from their posts. Yeah you are also right we need to clear spammers. Nice post!!
As the expression goes! Sometimes you need to spend $ to make $. I see it as a way of advertising. Wishing everyone the VERY best of health and happiness! Warm Wishes! Positive Energy! Blessed 2018 my Friends! :)
@whatsup...voting bots is a good concept but some times we get a profits and some time lose..if we send 1 sbd they offerd 2 sbd vote in this 2sbd 25% curation reward gone and 50 %steem power and 50%sbd this means we will get a 0.7sbd ...some times this much is also not getting....in my view some bots are better and some bots are not better in some times..in our community most of the bots are spam the proples bro....
I don't see anything wrong with voting bots. Especially now that the cost is so high for SBD to use them. If you want to spend $16 to get a bot to vote you up and hope for a good Roi then all I can do is say good luck.
Totally agree with you , we need to clean spammers not the technology which could be beneficial to everyone.
I love this blog you shared however.I think bots are a necessary companion. I'm fairly sure there are auto comment bots. They won't be engaging in conversations, but they do appear to be spamming comments across threads.I wonder how that like if more bots on steemit. There are already bots that can vote for you. You can set it to vote for your favorite authors. The bots are there as a tool for us to use but I don't think they can take away the social interaction here on steemit.
Yeah, every tool can be "bad" if you use it for bad purposes. I think voting bots are good and should be used but for better purposes. And I agree, using your stake to flag spam shouldn't be something everyone tries to avoid, because of no ROI. Sometimes you gotta pay to keep a place clean :)
@whatsup - Ma'm you are correct, bot tool is not the problem, the way we use them is the problem... You talked to the point... Nice work Ma'm...
+W+
Totally agreed @whatsup. Bots using the way things have been its pretty much important to use in any worthy post to get any decent visibility. Also then will be decent looks this platform.
The whole system is more complicated than it has to be. The solution is simple. Steem becomes a Proof-of-Stake coin. Coins are distributed according to one's Steem Power. If you want to reward a post, you pay it out of your own wallet. Self voting-then becomes useless and nobody would post crap that they don't think has any value.
I still say get rid of the bots:
@whatsup,
Voting bot is a great concept! Most of the whales are not generous to upvote posts, but they like to click flag with or without intention! This is how I feel about their work! Therefore, vot bot concept is an useful tool to most of Steemians! But the problem is some of the vot bots are just scams :D Like bellyrub did few months back, not profitable in every time!
Did you check ROI by using votbots? Is that okay? If yes, let me know I will use them on my posts too!
Cheers~
I agree that:
However, for more flagging/clearing/manual curating to happen, there would have to be more serious group efforts, like SteemCleaners. Although what you're doing (raising awareness on an individual level) is great, I think that group efforts have much more long-term and practical application. How to initiate a group effort, however, is well-beyond my Steemit knowledge.
Cheers! : )
I think voting bots are useful for beginners. It is very difficult to rising without using a boat. The shares of beginner are disappearing and nobody notices.. Usually, no matter how good your content is, it does not get the respect it deserves. Sad but true. Ofcourse there are some exceptions but the number of these people very low.
Getting votes for valueless posts is one issue but the posts that are written very professionally and has lot to offer to the users and still are undervalued is another important issue. Steemit is still in beta version. It's through evolution and I'm very much hopeful that they will make it better with the passage of time.
Steemit is still my most favorite platform in the crypto and non-crypto world. Excellent post @whatsup.
Steem On!
I think that everything in excess is bad, in particular I do not use bots, but if there are people who use these, there is a point where they become spam, I think it is better to go slow with important material for the community and win the votes for talent and not for paying .. because it would really be an emotionally empty payment .
Generally, everyone buys bots for post build-up. Which is why steem is damaged.
Hello Sir @whatsup I read all of your blogs. You write very informative things for us. I was totally unaware about cryptocurrency, but reading some of your blogs now I have good knowledge on it. Recently, I heard a war on bot's upvotes. Being a minnow I was so confused on it. As I was planning to buy some votes for my blogs in near future once I get some earning. But after reading your post, I am relax now. You cleared some points. I am so happy Sir and support your points.
Yeah, I completely agree with you.
Bots are necessary.
According to me, when new people comes on this platform it helps to gain the power and give the confidence and happiness.
Bots plays a very important role on this platform.
Stupendous post @whatsup!!
Thanks for sharing this post.😊
Upvoted and Resteemed your post.
Boots are indispensable for steemit.But unnecessary flag-takers are the ones who need to feed the actual spam. @whatsup
Bots are a good occurrence for us. There are risks like damages. But everything is already a little risk. Sometimes there are really unnecessary people talking. I feel sorry for this and I am angry. @whatsup
bots are very useful for beginners.they make money out of the bots when they have not found a community where they can show their share.but lately the boots have given very few votes.they are harming@whatsup
some bots enhance useful chetah post authenticity. In order to think that this bota is useful though. Although I got caught twice when I first started.
after that I took my classroom and gave importance to the original content. But the upvote bot is ridiculous to me. How accurate is it that a person is putting a posture trendy by paying money? This is legal and can be used in steemit. so we leave ourselves steemit in arms :))) @whatsup
This post has received a 4.05 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @whatsup.
There are plenty of comment bots, while they may not be AI and able to engage in discussion they're still able to comment, especially when its in something like introduceme it auto posts things like "welcome to steemit". Bots that comments like "nice post/ Good article" will just get flagged for spamming.If people are getting upvotes from bots all the time they are unlikely to bother with social interaction.
That's true. Never blame the tool.
You got a 0.72% upvote from @upme requested by: @whatsup.
Send at least 2.5 SBD to @upme with a post link in the memo field to receive upvote next round.
To support our activity, please vote for my master @suggeelson, as a STEEM Witness
Voting bot should be taken as a tool to bring your post to the hotline and not as a ROI based investment.
These days voting bots are very congested, so I am not using these days. There is lot of demand in using bots these days.
Thanks
For minnows, voting bot is the only tool to give an exposure to the post other wise with less SP power it is difficult to float a post to the eyes of whales.
Thank you...steem on and stay blissful....
bots are useful but not for self satisfy @whatsup
@resteemia
This helps a lot of friends, I do not know what a bot is, but I know it's kind of a machine to upvote us. Thank you guys have given me some useful knowledge, I am very happy to be friends with you.
@whatsup you are right .... A flag can damage our reputation .
Steemit have SteemCleaners, and Cheetah, and Patrice and Spaminator and more...why we made a politic in steemit...flag is not a politic...dont misuse it...
Voting bots are not the very effective solution
-cheers-
I've heard mention of the idea of having anonymous flagging as a solution to the fear of flagging.
My current take on this is that it would be detrimental and possibly lead to an anonymous turf war where only minnow and possibly dolphin accounts (the bulk quantity of content on Steemit) would close down and only whales would be left using the platform. Possibly worst case scenario, but given some of the whale bot army flagging going on already it seems like a plausible doomsday for Steemit if actual anonymous flagging were implemented.
thank you sir for sharing
A very detailed blog post on a very crucial time. It was worth needed dear @whatsup. You did a tremendous job and cover almost every aspect of the trending topic "Voting system by Bots" with very intelligent way. I'm 100% agree with your thoughts, specially this statement is very true:
Don't blame the tool, go after the spammers/scammers.
Also I do agree with the points of @denmarkguy. He is really a very intelligent guy. I respect his views too. All the best dear @whatsup and stay blessed!
Well its great article @whatsup Further use the balloting bots for over visualness, It's a bad meaning straight away to use conservatives due to grumpeycat is aggressively welcome the entirety at the bot tracker's balloting window.
All the best & keep it up
Yeah! you are right, i agree with you.