I started to write a comment but it ended up being longer than initially planned so I am posting my response to a post so more people can see it.
The question by @inquiringtimes is "Please share what you feel is acceptable use of voting bots".
As most people know, I run @buildawhale and the Curation Digest so I will have a biased opinion but I also believe in my opinion.
Bots are promotional tools, every platform I have ever seen has advertising and promotional services. When I write a post on Facebook within a few hours I get a message "Your post is performing better than 95% of the posts on this page, do you want to boost it?".
The problem stems from the quality of content that is the norm on Steemit. Because it is so easy to game the system, the majority of the content is spam and low effort. It is extremely difficult to stop this completely and requires a lot of manual labor and automation can only help to some degree.
Then you have the fact most people using bots do it purely for the ROI and expects to make money doing it. I have never seen an industry where you can send money to someone to advertise your product, get advertising, then get paid back more than you paid immediately. This is the expectation here though. This isn't just coming from the fact I am a bot owner, although that does give me a bias, it is what mentality it creates when people create and submit content. Add in the SBD boost it has gotten exponentially worse.
I (@buildawhale) have been devoting hours daily trying to stop abuse and eliminate the garbage that gets rewarded by the use of my bots. I have noticed a dramatic increase in quality and it has made doing our daily Curation Digest easier but it is far from great. As fast as one user or network is stopped, another springs up behind it.
With the price of SBD, there are more and more bots created on a daily basis, and everyone is selling their vote now. The broken peg is creating a mentality and culture that rewards and encourages greed and minimum effort.
When I started @buildawhale I started with 20,000 Steem Power with my own cash, at the time it wasn't a big deal 133 Steem/week. I quickly doubled my lease every week and got progressively deeper into Steem until I hit around 2M Steem Power.
For the first couple of months, I lost money, the rent was just too high and the return wasn't as good people thought. There were a few bots that were heavily used (BellyRub & Booster) but for the most part, it was a struggle to even come close to break even. At one point I was at $40,000 USD/week and it was coming down to the last hours of the week to see if I could break even. I always paid up front and out of pocket for my Steem Power putting more money on the line each week than I made from all previous weeks combined.
I eventually got a better deal on Steem power and then the SBD boost happened. That changed everything, the amount of spam and low effort content created and submitted to @buildawhale was legendary. From the beginning of @buildawhale, I wanted to encourage quality content and not just submitting low effort content to get an upvote worth more than submitted. To do this I ran a daily curation publication similar to OCD to encourage and reward quality content.
I now spend a lot of time finding large spam networks and abusers and preventing them from being able to benefit from paid upvotes, at least from my bots. Unfortunately, they just use another, and boy there are others. Quality is subjective and I frequently know something is spam or low quality but I have to ignore it because I just can't prove it or there are much bigger abusers to tackle. When I do identify abusers, I am almost always flagged in retaliation or have to deal with tons of comments/messages asking to be removed.
As for directly answer your questions.
Are you less likely to vote on a post if it has lots of paid votes?
No, my criteria are heavily focused on time/effort, thought, originality, and of course if I like the person. Let's be honest, what you think of someone has a big factor in the equation regardless if you chose to admit it.
What is "Quality Content?"
You define that, let me know! I'll write a script to make detecting spam and shitposting a lot easier. This is one of the biggest issues I have trying to decide if someone needs to be added to the blacklist. I find myself very critical of content in general, and I find a lot of content low quality and low effort but I find I have to restrain myself to only choose things that I believe without a doubt is spam/abuse.
To me, the effort is a huge part of quality, just copying some article, copy pasting, creating a meme does not represent quality. I love memes, and I create them all the time, and they are great content, but as is sharing articles and videos. These are things I miss about Reddit, you could do this freely as there was no reward tied to every action.
With Steem, it all comes down to money. Every post, comment, and vote is rewarded. It has created a gold rush to produce as much content as humanly possible and gain the highest amount rewards as quickly as possible. Some do this by trying to create things I think people will enjoy and find interesting, some find the easiest way to create things that can be voted on and won't get flagged.
I think the only solution to this problem is to make posting low effort content more difficult and the penalty much harsher. We are on a decentralized platform without any form of authority. Abuse and spam will always exist, as it does on every platform. Without a way to stop it efficiently and quickly, and with a large penalty, it will just continue to thrive.
Does the timing of the vote purchased matter to you?
Yes and no. In itself, no not at all. But that doesn't mean this isn't being abused. I know some people like @acidyo who purposely wait till the end to give people the most time to get curation rewards, he doesn't buy votes though, but it is a mentality shared by some (although I think this is a very small minority that does it).
Before @grumpycat came around, I already had a discussion with other bot owners about reducing the max age. Prior to this discussion, I have to admit the thought never crossed my mind. The scenario of people voting at the last second to hide from flags wasn't something I thought of. Most people complaining they missed the 6 day 12-hour deadline and trying to offer good customer service I tried to make the window as close as possible so there is minimum chance they will mess up.
After the discussion months ago with other bot owners, I came to realize this attack vector and decided I would change the max age to 5 days. Unfortunately, I took a while to do this, I was doing refunds manually and the bot tracker made it difficult to change things as it created a huge flood of refunds as people adjusted. Then @grumpycat came around and made it a real problem. I immediately changed to 5 days as I completely agreed but didn't want to deal with a week of manual refunds 20-50 a day while people got used to it. The software to do auto refunds that linked to the Bot Tracker was too buggy and I didn't trust it and didn't want to put everything I worked for on it. I puckered up and changed the time to 5 days and manually did hundreds of refunds while people adjusted.
It didn't matter, @grumpycat didn't see it or care (mainly because it isn't one person) and I was attacked personally because I stood up and said my piece when others wouldn't. I stood firm because although I believed it needed to be done, I wasn't sure if 3.5 days, 5 days, or even 4 days was the right number and it was clear there was no way to reason or have a civil discussion about it. I stayed at 5 days for a long time and eventually changed it to 3 days, I have far better things to do than to argue with a brick wall and I didn't want to see more people flagged. It wasn't spammers getting flagged in the process, it was people @grumpycat considered "quality posts" and wanted to do damage. I also got tied up in the fact he was upvoting his comments endlessly and was doing more abuse than almost all my users combined. I agreed with the message but not the delivery.
I do believe the majority of late votes are abusive and it is why I ultimately changed it. It isn't 100% of the case though, but most legitimate votes do happen in the first couple of days and in the end that's the important thing.
How much is TOO MUCH?
Hell if I know, too much what? Too many paid votes, too many rewards?
I think this goes directly back to quality. I wrote a post a while ago that I frequently link You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it! because it goes to a root problem I find with Steem. Everyone believes their content is top quality, and just by doing so, they should be showered with upvotes. This mentality is extended to bot usage as well.
With the price of SBD the way it is and the rewards gained by posting, it is something that everyone is taking advantage of right now. While it is great for getting people to the platform, it is creating a very unhealthy economy that isn't sustainable.
Not sure if I rambled on or provided good answers to the questions, but it is how I feel.
You need to use bots because if you are newbie, even if you are writing great posts, nobody will see that.With bots, your article can be trending and more exposed. This should be changed by developers for Steemit become more successful...
Yep. I completely agree with you. As a new user it seems like using bots is manditory to find any exposure. Also writing posts in my local language means almost no one would see it no matter if they are good or not.
actually, I'd say, actively participating with other peoples content via the comments section is a much more effective way to get noticed, here.
True,but many people are not patient. You need to invest time and hard work to advance and at the end, hard work will payoff.
Quality Content needs just a few Quality Bot: in my opinion, if you use too much bots, the post's quality will be affected.
My next questioning poll subject will be on freedom and Steem... will you partecipate?
Thank you? 🙏🏻
This is a fascinating post.
I’ve followed you for a while and have often wondered about the contradiction between the work you do combatting reward pool rape whilst simultaneously running a bid bot. I could never reconcile the two. I was almost at the point of removing my witness vote from your account for this reason. (I’m not really that influential but hey! A guy can only control what he can control 😂)
Reading this post though showed me the discussion from a couple of perspectives I’d never considered before. It’s really opened my eyes to a few things. These kinds of discussions fascinated me and I think they are essential to the long term success of steemit. Getting inside the head of someone who is working so hard in the background to make the system better has been great.
Great work @themarkymark. Keep it up please! We need more like you!
:)
Great post!! I have recently discovered the vote bot world. It can be addicting playing the game to get the highest vote possible for the money spent. I also see the value in my reputation growing. I was worried about the use of bots and what people would think, but then I saw a lot of high reputation people using bots. It was encouraging and disappointing at the same time. It seemed okay to use bots, but those high rep people weren't making the money I first thought they were either.
I do one post a day that I spend a lot of time on. It is all original, my writing, and my videos. I think I was featured in your curation digest a couple times. I have a blog with 450 articles, but I don't copy anything from it. I also do my best to share my posts on facebook and Twitter, which have 63k and 24k followers.
To be honest i love reading your posts and without meeting you i believe you are a stand up guy so please don't take this personal. I think the bots are bullshit. I truly believe it takes away from finding "quality content" and rewarding it. It makes it more of a game of , i can buy a big swinging dick and shove it in everyones face. I am very new here but in my 1 month of being here i have totally stopped looking at trending and rarely look at hot because i know they are mostly all bought and paid for trash articles. i stick with new and what comes up on my feed that i have verified are good content providers by following them. I have seen a LOT of good articles in NEW that end up with like $1.25 by the end of the 7 days and you can tell they poured their heart and souls into it. So i give you my idea as a new guy that has a different view point and is by all aspects probably just a dumb ass. My view on it is that the bots are part of our lifes now, no going back. The solution might just be right in front of our faces and you said it yourself in your post. Promotion......We have a promotion section that no one looks at anyways. Why not bump a post over to the promoted section once it becomes promoted by a bot?
You answered your own question: "We have a promotion section that no one looks at anyways."
Like it or not, bots are advertising, and advertising is everywhere. If there are no bots, the steem power would be used and sold privately under the table using circle votes (which already happens now).
that is what i was trying to accomplish was get them to where i don't have to look at them :)
Well said @doomsdaychassis. I concur with your opinion 100%.
Well @themarkymark, then, just for throwing something non-flammable in your bonfire. In order to keep in control the height of the flames of your biased opinion and belief in your opinion that bidbots owners are doing a great service to our community. I also believe you prolly would like to read a post of a good friend to complement your bias with something else. Check this out! }:)
Yeah! Click & Read. Everyday we have something new to explore and valuable tidbits to learn from. :)
Interesting post, not sure I understand all of it as I am still new to Steemit, but I am learning fast!
I agree with your points regarding the need for quality content and pushing out those after a quick buck. People like that will ruin this social platform.
I have mixed feelings about steemit after spending a month on it so far.
I spent a week writing an original peice about the future of money (I am an accountant by trade), got it reviewed by a bank CEO and others. And earned 0.07 SBD
I then copies a tweet about steem being on binance and earned 4 times more.
I think if those like you really want quality content writers to stay on this platform, you really need to find a way to give new genuine people on steemit some help.
I am happy to upvote or flag posts if you want to lend me some steem power. Or any other way I can help. I really like the principles of this network. But we need to make it better of we want people to leave Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and come here.
Kabir
That means that ppl. should get to read stuff first, in order to upvote... not count on bots, they cunt read... but then again,writers are not readers, someone need to Upvote them
...
i created a bot on twitter @FBPE_bot to help with the stopbrexit campaign. So I am not so keen to totally dismiss them. They can have a part to play, but maybe we need to create a parallel reward system for them to avoid people simply gaming the system and up-voting everything.
It seems odd that every account has unlimited up votes, maybe this can be limited and additional upvotes have to be purchased (with higher score users having more votes etc)
I try to break it down to simplicity, the buying of votes.
This is something you do not want your politicians to do, use the voting power you give them to who will pay them the most. You wish they would use that vote for the greater good and security of a preferred way of living.
Buying a vote is buying a vote, at what point do things change?
When whatever happens around the world in politics we call it corruption, but in US we call it lobbing.. When u understand ...then you get the answer...
to call a bribe by any other name is still a bribe. And we are not only talking about the US, There is more to the world then the US.
What does this have to do with politicians?
Steemit probably has nothing to do with politicians, However the buying of votes does need a reference.
It's more about advertising than politicians. I mean I like eggs but I wouldn't blurt it out.
I am not against you, I follow you as a personal choice. My opinions can be controversial and outspoken. This does not mean the things I write are for or against a position, merely an opinion.
If everyone used the same bots all of equal amount, everyone would get the same advertisement for their post. This would leave everyone with the same level of exposure for their post. However, the use of a bot does not reflect the quality of a post. Been automated it will vote on anything. Something typing good morning in the AM , Afternoon at midday, evening and later goodnight while using bots can generate as much as another who spends time writing the content sourcing images and compiling those things to fit together. will get the same. Bot's offer the chance for easy money, expecting this system not to be abused is blinded vision?
I have no problems with not liking bots, but I just didn't think it had any comparison to politicians (assume there was some reference to witnesses here) as it isn't quite related is my point.
As for bot and easy money, right now they are not profitable. So using them is best for content you believe is quality and will gain organic upvotes (which is how it should be).
If people spend their time and effort on the content they post, than they should be entitled to reward themselves with upvote bots.
The thing is there are lots of tutorial on Youtube that promises people that they could earn 100$ a day by posting article upvoting, spam commenting. It damages the credibility of the platform.
Really?... "If people spend their time and effort on the content they post, than they should be entitled to reward themselves with upvote bots"
That's like saying... If you have a hardon.. ur entitled to jerk off... Makes bunch of sense, It's like I'm gonna write a letter to myself... then I'll read it, and I'll cry, but I should make money on it..
well said!
Great post !
Thank you for sharing !
I like your articles, and I follow your account thank you for sharing dear❤❤
it seems like i should try to learn bots. i want to wear and see the result. if it works it will be great for the donation program we want to make
Most of bots have negative ROI's most of the hours of the day, -15% to -20%. Why do you say most of them have positive ROI?
It's only this week and a half they went negative, they almost always were positive ROI. Still are for many windows, the demand is just so high right now.
That means they're no longer profitable. And in long term, they won't be: there will be way more demand going on.
However, how is it possible that some bots have more voting power than bids yet they end up with neg profits? Thanks.
Because the bot tracker site factors in curation % (25%). So profitability is based on 75% of the vote. I still see lots of windows still profitable on the site.
It's not 90% of the windows anymore though as it used to be.
Bots are good for promotion and not for earning. People should know that. If my content is not good. I mean I just wrote it in two minutes and then post, with that I can't use both. But if my content is really good, talking a general or particular problem or solution, then I make my level best to bring it far to reach on top and everyone to hear me talking.
That mindset should be changed. Yes, there can be a slight profit but expecting much can't be s good idea since there is no quick short cut in making money if it's not through hard work and determination.
@jona12
That should not entitle you to bribe, using bots is just that... If you really believe in your material, than have the guts and spend your resources to Promote it, then... if is good you will know...
Wow! Thank you for this detailed and well thought out response. I posed some really difficult questions, which are hard for anyone to answer.
One of the hardest parts, I think, is that there is a disincentive to downvoting. Until there is a separate pool of "flagging power" so that we can all combat spam and plagiarism without loosing out on curation rewards, I think we will continue to see our "rewards pool justice league" taking as much (or more) from the rewards pool, as they add back into it via flagging.
I'm not so optimistic about the separate flag pool. I don't think it's much to ask to give up "curation" -- most of us suck at that anyway. If we aren't using flags now I don't think we would use it in the new system either. If we all just took 1 of our daily votes to flag something, I wonder what it would look like. Hmmmm....
well, it doesn't cost me very much to flag, and I do when I see things that I can effect. The issue is for users with a large stake, who could get as much as 20sbd in curation, they have to give that up in order to flag, and those are the users who can really make a difference, but end up responding with spammy selfvoting as a result.
I think that reinforces the point though. If they can't be trusted with their stake not to spam, I don't think they can be trusted to flag responsibly either with an entirely separate pool.
I think the issue is they feel they are missing out on curation, and are trying to make up for it. I think if there was a separate flagging pool we might see a lot more flagging to a positive effect.
Excellent write up, and I'm with you the whole way.
Not sure completely, but it's my perception that bots are getting much more difficult to "come out ahead" and that's a good thing. It means it's really not worth it for you to shit post, you need extra momentum. It's not entirely true since there are times where I think you can make profit still with bots, but I suspect that because more people are using it, it is less reliable.
Also, is it just me, it is the trending and hot pages an improvement over what I've remembered in the past?
Thank you also for the extra work you do in dismantling abuse networks and publicizing their existence. I actually think the bots are the wrong focus in general, in terms of abuse priority. The priority should be eyes on the highest earners, if they are clearly abusing their stake on (comparatively) crappy content. But I think you are already on that as well. Cheers.
What is appropriate use of upvote bots?...
The answer is simple... NEVER
Unfortunately that's impossible to apply, since they already exist... therefore they will be used, one way or other way... These are just simple excuses /reasonings for why I should or shouldn't... The best way to control this is to become fascist... you can do anything, if ur allowed... If you wanna fix this, we need to find a way not to allow scrips on the platform... Other then that.. It will be a forever issue... but what do I know..
Ohh... I find it funny..right now 164 Upvotes and 7 comments ...
Then again... I know I look stupid again.... but think of IE (internet explorer) platform that didn't allow scrips... You get the idea..
Well written post on a really thorny topic...use or abuse the system...max gain for self vs max gain for community...that's always going to be argued about. But, the coolest thing is that you're standing up for what you believe in, which is all anyone can ask for. And you're doing it for what you think is the best for the community. Thanks for doing you best for all of us :)
My idea behind it? If you have to use a bot to upvote your posts, that automatically tells me that your own content just isn't that good. If you pay for a bot to upvote your post, that also tells me that you personally down even believe your own content is worthwhile.
It is a different story if some other user entirely uses a vote bot to upvote your content, provided you're not also said user as an alternative account trying to game the system. If someone were to really like something I wrote, as to decide to not only reblog it but also vote it and use a vote bot to vote it up as well, I'll consider it a good job.
But I'm only able to tell if said bot is being used on me, because I only control this one singular account, no access to any others. So if a vote bot happens across me because someone paid or bid or whatever, it tells me they think my content is good. But alas, to your perspective, it could very well be me using an alt to vote myself.
That's how I see bots. I'm very iffy on them. And since nobody can personally tell if I own an account that's using a bot to upvote something of mine, I'd personally rather them simply not use a bot to upvote my posts.
You are free to think that, but the entire world works off advertising.
Yes, I'm fully aware. From what I've seen of the community at large is that using bots is considered a huge no no. Some people worship bots, some are ambivalent, others it's just outright toxic that fuel flagging wars and I'd rather not get involved in any flag war.
Except for the grumpycat incident, I have yet to have a single person come up to me and say they were flagged for using a bot in over 6 months and ~1000 votes/day.
People getting flagged are generally posting low effort, spam, stolen content or in some sort of feud.
All the same, it leaves a very negative impression on newbies, and I'm still a newbie here.
"Newbies" typically have a lot of impressions, not all of them are accurate.
I'd rather be safe rather than sorry, what with all this talk about how terrible BernieSanders and Grumpycat are, among others here and there, I don't want to risk my presence on here. Granted I'm not solely here for the money, but it is nice.
You got a 53.33% upvote from @ipromote courtesy of @themarkymark!
If you believe this post is spam or abuse, please report it to our Discord #abuse channel.
If you want to support our Curation Digest or our Spam & Abuse prevention efforts, please vote @themarkymark as witness.
Ohh i just found out that you're the owner of @buildawhale. I used your bot yesterday for the first time. What do you mean by maximum 5 daysof age of post? You mean, you'll upvote post within 5 days since the post was created? Pls. correct me if im wrong. Am sorry I just joined here last month. Thanks and have a nice day. I loved your thoughts on this one.
We can only vote on posts that are less than 3 days old. So promoting posts that are old won't work.
Great! Thank you Mark. youll have my vote as my witness. :) have a nice day
I wanted to promote and use buildawhale for my recent post but it was 3 days ago. Will it still work? I just want to make sure. Thank you in advanced.https://steemit.com/family/@sarahdandridge/what-makes-one-a-great-father
No, the post has to be less than 3 days old to receive a vote. You will get your money back automatically if it is too old.
You got a 55.80% upvote from @upmyvote courtesy of @themarkymark!
If you believe this post is spam or abuse, please report it to our Discord #abuse channel.
If you want to support our Curation Digest or our Spam & Abuse prevention efforts, please vote @themarkymark as witness.
your post is educative,i liked the flow of the essay ,so inspiring, i can't leave, i feel like reading it again and again and again, thank you for that achievement
Spot-on, man! I've been following these fights on and off and although with my current SP I'm not able to improve anything I agree that spam and low quality content is killing this platform... and I also side with you on the expectations that new users have here.
I haven't expected to make 100,000 STEEM myself after first month and the only thing I've been trying to do was posting well-researched content, that I personally identified with to probe my potential.
But there are plagiarised, ridiculous, spammy posts coming from every direction, that get absolutely unjust rewards and I can't say I see a lot of action to combat them or accounts posting them!
To state the obvious, on a decentralised platform such as steemit, where SP is crucial for your influence, the only way to change things is to unite whales wielding it against the abuse. Maybe by delegating the power to a downvote superbot or maybe by caring to upvote and resteem the good content instead of upvoting yourselves.
Well anyway, you're doing great work here, so please don't stop!
I am still calling myself a minnow; I started out without using any upvoting bots since I trusted that excellent content would rule. As you write, in the early days this was most likely the case, as of today the exposure time is so limited that all your content is diving into Nirvana as you wrote it.
This situation is (call me meme) frustrating since you need to put some hours in identifying content and writing it nicely. For me it is not all about direct payback, it is about being recognized and having your content read by others.
As of today I have two choices either stop "wasting my time" and end steemit or invest some more money to get visible. More capital would incorporate adding steempower and pay bots to assist. I will try some bots before leaving though since I do believe in the opportunities of steemit.
I believe upvoting bots have their spot in the ecosystem, but I also trust that the type of content that is upvoted needs to be controlled. My respect for you doing this, it is undoubtedly a lot of work to scan the posts.
I agree with your thoughts, can not you change his own. because steemit is on the road by people around the world, and will very much not follow your opinion, maybe few will agree with what is written. an example of a comment in this post is what you think is true and honest in giving an opinion, and you appreciate their comments commenting on your post, maybe they do not expect the rewards you give, but their own initiative to argue, tapih you ignore itand do not reply to their comments. , You should be able to reply, or redeem your reward, to show that you really value writing, good post and honest. here's my opinion, and sorry if I'm wrong in our opinion. All of us who are in steemit may argue with good and honest opinions, thanks for sharing this post, which may be the target of everyone .sorry if English I'm not good because I'm not too smart English @themarkymark
dear@themarkymark：I am not a robot，but why I was in @buildwhale 's blacklist.please help me .
Recently I've noticed this topic occurring quite a bit; I saw this as your response for @inquiringtimes survey, and @ilyastarar's response turned into his own blog as well; mine was as long so I'm currently turning into a post too:) Like you, I'm not sure what the answers are, but I too believe that it is an "unhealthy economy that isn't sustainable". Perhaps if there is enough dialogue surrounding the use of bots, there can also be some kind of guidelines created for their use. Otherwise, there will be abuse by some and common sense by others, but the divide between the two will become greater.
guidelines are difficult to make. Spreading awareness of exactly what are community values are does help. At least for those who really are interested in being a part of the community :)
Thank you for addressing this issue. Ive finally started using voting bots like it or not, i guess its a neccesary evil. Takes money to make money,
This is a great post, @themarkymark! I often think about this, and appreciate reading through all of the comments.
I'm upvoting you to witness / thank you for the hard work on our behalf! I was sent over to you by @jrswab's post :)
Thanks ;)
Very welcome!
I'm going to start polling like this soon weekly/biweekly. This is such a great topic of discussion