@inquiringtimes recently responded to a post by @lukestokes regarding his take on using flags in an effort to contain spam and protect the reward pool. Luke was kind enough to take some time out of his day to answer a few questions on a range of topics.
In the following interview @inquiringtimes and @mikepm74 discuss with Luke some of his recent posts, including the importance of using your witness votes, the CryptoCurrency Market, and of course the issue of Steem abuse.
Join us in the newest installment in our "Save the Rewards Pool" series, as we have a chat with witness #26 Like Stokes (Witness account @lukestokes.mhth).
Interview
@newsteem:
On July 31 you published the post How Many Steemians are NOT Voting for a Witness?. Since that time you have provided frequent updates about Witness Voting engagement. With the voting percentages remaining as low as they are, can you talk to us in minnow terms about what effect our votes have on the platform?
Witness voting is an interesting concept. Dan Larimer explains how DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake) secures this blockchain and most of us non-geniuses still don't know what he's taking about. I'm not going to attempt to do a better job at explaining it. I can say, in a nutshell, that the witnesses are the people elected by the stake holders to validate transactions, and create blocks which leads to a secure blockchain. It's important they keep their servers running consistently and they evaluate and test all code changes to this place that we love. They are also the decision makers so they need to understand the community and be an active participant in it. If Steemit, inc goes in a direction the community does not support, for example, they have the power to not implement a hard fork.
I'd love to tell you differently, but minnow votes, technically, don't matter much when it comes to deciding who gets to be a top witness. As you can see here, the holders of the most Steem Power really get to decide. That said, do you plan to stay a minnow forever? As whales power down and cash out (I watch them do it every week with the Exchange Transfer Report I've been running for over a year) then new dolphins and orcas put some cash down on the table and decide to take their place. As a witness, gaining minnow votes is still important because they will often promote you and be your large supporters in the future if they are here to be an owner and not a renter.
I value every vote for my witness @lukestokes.mhth. I also value educating people on things which I think can benefit the world and create a place we all want to live in.
@newsteem:
One of the interests you blog about is CryptoCurrency. The last couple of weeks has really been a roller coaster for everyone involved in the Crypto world. People were encouraged to either Go into full on panic, or just HODL and wait it out. As Bitcoin rebounds, the Hodlers, of which I believe you are one, have seemed to been correct. Share with us a little about how you would manage your portfolio assuming you maybe bought in a little more than you could afford to lose. i.e. what is the message for the panic types out there?
That's a good question, one I try to address often with my posts (such as here and here). First off, if you bought in with more than you can afford to lose, you're already done. You're controlled by fear and emotion, through loss aversion, which turns off rational thought.
It's not just a saying, "Only invest what you're willing to lose." It's an important strategy. Long-term thinking requires reason and negative emotions choke reason out. My message is to understand from the beginning what you're investing in or don't invest at all. The post by Rick Falkvinge I link to here is what got me investing in bitcoin in early 2013. It's why I didn't sell in 2014 when it crashed and why later I was able to pay off my house. I understood early on how bitcoin is more disruptive than the Internet so I had no reason to sell. If you have that same understanding, you'll invest accordingly.
Flagging. Someone has to do it..
@newsteem:
Okay. So let’s get to the reason @inquiringtimes asked for this interview. Your post from 9/13 talking about the need to flag.
You gave a list of some of the users who you have felt the need to flag as Spam Bot Accounts. Steem is facing an epidemic of these vote farms, or bots who are trying to milk the reward system, and it seems like you have caught a few yourself. Why did you decide to go public with this list now?
Mostly because it's what I was thinking about that day. Some bloggers try to create a very specific niche for themselves and by doing so attract audiences who know exactly what to expect. I take a different approach which is more along the lines of this being my home on the Internet and if you want to come hang out and chat with me or read about what I'm doing or thinking about today, it's right here.
@newsteem:
Your efforts on this particular list seem to be working. I went to all of their blogs and the highest reputation I could find was 11, with most closer to zero. Do you think that flagging is an effective approach at this point, barring Steemit Inc deciding to get involved in shutting these accounts down?
Flagging is what we have right now, but I was encouraged to see @sneak there in the comments. It seems they are working on some solutions.
We are working behind the scenes to develop some useful tools to help counteract the spam problem. Stay tuned; this isn't how it will have to be forever. -@sneak [from flagging post]
@newsteem:
So some of the people who comment on your posts are far lower reputation than yourself, with far less voting weight. Would you recommend those folks enter the fray by flagging with their limited vote power? There seems to be a risk/reward here, if there is a “Main Account” behind these spam accounts that could come and start flagging smaller minnows who are trying to help out. What happens then? What advice would you give to minnows who want to be a part of stopping the issue?
That's a tough one. I was once the target of a whale who regularly flagged all my posts right before payout simply because he didn't like me, and I didn't back down from calling out his actions as being harmful to the network and counter to the wishes of the community.
At first, it was really discouraging. I enjoyed being on the trending page and earning nice rewards. I got over it quickly because I had already decided a long time ago why I was here, and it wasn't just about rewards. I confirmed that by hiding the $ all together a while back. My advice would be to be true to yourself, but if you're not familiar with Non-Violent Communication, don't get involved. If you can't respond to irrational anger with understanding and compassion then you may just make things worse for you and them.
The other approach is to not be a minnow anymore, buy up a ton of STEEM and protect what you love here with your flags. At the end of the day, those who love this place outnumber those who just care about themselves and don't give a damn who they offend along the way.
@newsteem:
Recently Tim Cliff wrote an article about how the new Steem Whitepaper states that we are to look to our witnesses on the subject of abuse. How much has that changed your approach to the subject?
I think witnesses have always taken on the responsibility to secure the blockchain and that includes helping to deal with abuse. I don't think they should ever allow censorship on the blockchain, but they should take advantage of the tools we have such as flagging to protect their own investments and the value the community is building.
@newsteem:
Who are the witnesses that you know have been working to fight abuse, and if you can, breifly describe some of thier efforts.
Well the most obvious answer is @anyx. As the creator of the @cheetah bot and @steemcleaners, he's been effectively increasing the value of Steemit more than any other person I could name right now. Beyond that, it's everyone's responsibility to report abuse in the chat or flag it directly to keep this place what we want it to be.
We hope you enjoyed reading some of Luke's thoughts. There can be little doubt that this is a witness who cares about the long term health of the Steem Platform.
Feel free to show your support if you like what @lukestokes is doing, by voting for his witness @lukestokes.mhth
We'd like to finish this article by reaching out to our readers.
Are you a witness with an opinion on the reward pool?
Are you a minnow, dolphin, orca or whale with a mission like @sherlockholmes or @paulag who are working to better our community every day?
Do you have a community like @steemcleaners out fighting the good fight for Steem?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, We'd like to hear from you! Out of 300k users, we've barely scratched the surface! We rely on you to stay in the loop! Feel free to contact me, or @inquiringtimes, on discord.
Let us know how We Can Help.
References
- How Many Steemians are NOT Voting for a Witness? I Found the Answer!
- @dantheman - Dan Larimer explains DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake)
- steemreports.com/witness-voters
- Exchange Transfer Report 9/10/17-9/16/17
- be an owner and not a renter
- Market Correction. Should I Sell, Should I Hold?
- Short term profits and long term gains.
- Are you waiting to buy Cryptocurrency?
- I paid off my house today
- Why Bitcoin may be more distruptive than the Internet
- Flagging. Someone has to do it..
- Prove to yourself why you are here
- Non Violent Communication
Self Voting. Scammy Behavior, Rational ROI, or Something Else.
Previous posts in this series:
Support those working to expose abuse and save the Rewards Pool. Part 1 with @paulag
Support those working to expose abuse and save the rewards pool. Part 2 with @sherlockholmes
Support those working to expose abuse and save the Rewards Pool. Part 3 with @steemcleaners
Nice write up. I'm a big fan of Luke and glad I found his blog early on after joining steemit. His articles educated me a lot on the platform here and navigating the wading pool of crypto. I'm now enjoying a venture into the main swimming pool and settling in nice and cozy with steemit. Luke's writing educated me about witnesses and voting, so my decision on the first witness vote I would place was easy.
Glad to hear there's a large focus on this abuse. I know that as a minnow it can be confusing while you're still learning what is abusive to the steemit system? The spam accounts are obvious, but what about these minnowboost, whale bellyrub, etc etc services that give upvotes for following or even paying SBD. When I first signed up I followed one of the services, but then stopped as I learned a little more. I never considered paying for upvotes, and I'm still not sure if or how these "services" effect the steemit ecosystem. I just decided its's not how steemit is intended to function, so I personally chose to avoid such upvote services.
Hey @aksounder! Yeah Luke was one of the first witnesses I followed. He's a fellow middle Tennessean, so I commented on his posts and talked about the eclipse we both experienced. I knew he had a high reputation, but I didn't really get the whole witness thing for awhile. If I can tell you a secret, I still don't really get ALL of it. haha
The upvoting bots are a mixed bag. I have utilized them, and may continue to do so. The way I look at it is I am taking my liquid SBD and investing it in having a higher upvote on my post, which hopefully means more eyes. In that sense, I am investing in myself in an attempt to gain visibility. At the end of the day, I'd rather have eyes on my content than the value of the upvote.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the reward system. I probably wouldn't be here without the promise of rewards, but good content and eyes on that content will lead to rewards. I've stopped using most of the voting services unless I have something that is a couple of days old that I really feel is undervalued. But at this point, I want people to find my content on their own and appreciate it for its own sake, not because other people have voted on it. Shrug
If you are interested in the voting bots and how they work I have seen several articles people have done comparing the different services. None of them really delve into the legitimacy of the service, it's just kind of accepted at this point. But you can at least learn more about them and pick your poison with more knowledge. haha
Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out our article!
I'll have to look up an article like that; it would help to know a little more about the different options out there. That's a good way of putting it too: not for the upvote, more for the exposure. And if I choose not to use them because my thoughts on the steemit platform, it doesn't mean I look down on someone who does. I know we want all the help we can get to grow influence here, I just don't know enough about these bots yet to conclude using them won't contribute to the abuse of our system.
I merely wanted to commend you on your ethical stance. While I strongly support MSP, for example, my own principles preclude me from personally using bots for voting, so I cannot in good conscience do so myself. I do feel that I have seen no better mechanism to achieve their ends given the extant environment on Steemit, so in no way should my remarks be taken as condemnation of how MSP and similar initiatives operate.
I personally feel bots posting, voting, and commenting as co-equal with people is unnacceptable, and will increasingly be dangerous to people, and free speech, as bots become more competent, and therefore do not myself do it, regardless of monetary rewards.
I find your own personal stance to be similar to my own, and want to strongly encourage you, as I find your comment has me.
Thanks!
followed
Thanks. :)
Luke was one of the first big accounts that I came across here on steemit and also one of the first that I followed
He has thought me a lot about the platform and the way things work. And through him I have also found the way to "behave" correctly and in grow with the platform instead of against it...
I really wish for him to become part of the 20 witnesses because this if there is someone that deserves this it is him...
really nice interview and its nice to get to know the man a little bit better...
Same here. I joined steemit, was browsing through posts and found an article by Luke. I read more and more of his stuff and he was one of my first followed accounts. Learned a lot from him and he made me want to learn more about witnesses with his post on why voting is important. I haven't fully utilized all my votes, but each witness vote I've placed I put thought into what I want steemit to become in the future, because I like this platform and plan to be here for the long haul. Luke received my first witness vote.
The long haul is the way to be. Thanks again. :)
You are right. He is an asset to the platform who really cares about the growth and future. He has the witness mindset and technical know how to serve as a top 20.
We really didn't get in to what it means to be top 20. Maybe that's another article! haha.
Thanks for stopping in! Great to have you! Keep following the guidance of good Steemians like Luke and you will go far!
Thanks so much for your support. Reading all these comments is really encouraging. :)
I've been surprised by how much flagrant abuse I have seen in the few months I have been here. Multiple accounts posting stolen and plagiarized content. I have employed the red flag on each of them and tried to notify account owners of the offense.
I don't care for the fact that it reduces my voting power, as I try and save that for worthy content. But if it can rid Steemit of abusive users, I can't argue it.
Thanks for checking us out @themerrylotus! You're right. The more the platform grows, the more flagrant attempts to take advantage of it will pop up.
It is amazing to me how hard people will work on finding loopholes and gaming the system just in order to not put in the work to use the system the way it was intended.
I will say, I have not used a flag once. I haven't really thought about WHY, but I guess I don't see the same names often enough to have to worry about more than just ignoring them. I'd rather use my SP (which is leased) to reward people whose work I appreciate.
Thanks again! Keep discussing, we need to be talking about these things!
Yeah, I'm not easily offended and if I am, I still just keep on scrolling. It's rare for me to act. I frequent the homesteading area mostly in Steemit and saw an account posting several of our "circles" videos as their own. Others thought they were new and lots of resteeming happened. It really did burn my butt, to see folks hard work pilfered like that. That can not be tolerated here. I'm very interested in this series you are doing and will be following you closely. Thanks for the response.
I appreciate that. For something as blatant as plagiarism like that of the videos, make sure you use the steemcleaners report tool. They will make sure that ample flags are thrown at that user to make them learn their lesson. haha
I follow a couple of people in the Homesteading community. @papa-pepper of course and @pennsif, @aedroberts. Probably more I can't think of. I'm a suburbs dweller myself, and my yard is mostly limestone that I can't even grow grass on, so there's that. But sustainability is a really cool idea! More power to you!
Maybe I have misinterpreted your comment, but if I haven't, I'd like to point out that resteeming gains the resteemer NO rewards. All resteeming does is post the original to the followers of the resteemer.
Resteemers gain no rewards from resteeming.
I think she's saying her plagiarized content posted by a thieving account was resteemed, not her original post. I'd be pretty irritated if my photography or an original story was ripped off by another user and then gained more attention than my original post.
Correct, the stolen content was resteemed by others and therefore rewarded the thief when it was seen by more people and upvoted.
That's unfortunate. I can imagine your frustration. Hopefully as steemit progresses more of this kind of activity is squashed. There's already a lot of work being put in by users of the platform ( @anyx ) and it seems developers are aware and working on some solutions as well.
Can't wait to see what the future holds for steemit!
If I misunderstood, and I reckon I may have, then her ire would be more than understandable.
I have seen some re-steemers who are resteeming multiple articles in multiple laguages in a very short space of time. Based on the wide range of topics that they resteem - non consistent on any theme, it looks like their activity is indiscriminate. What are they hoping to achieve by this?
Sounds like they are trying to harvest curation awards. By putting their vote on a post and then resteeming, if the post they resteem gets a slew of upvotes, they get more of the curation pool.
Just a guess, but they are probably auto voting and auto resteeming top authors who are going to make a lot out of each post anyway in a hope to get a few extra pennies in curation.
Perhaps you have noted the commercial resteemers at work. A cottage industry is erupting.
Nice post. You've convinced me to endorse luke as witness. Keep up the good work guys.
Thanks for stopping by @buggedout!
On a personal note, I am glad you were moved to use a witness vote for @lukestokes, I believe he deserves it.
From the viewpoint of the "impartial journalist" I would just point out that you should continue to follow Luke's blog and what he is doing and saying there. Continue to judge for yourself if he continues to be worthy of that vote. Unlike with political elections, you can always change your votes for witness, and are encouraged to do so if and when your mind changes on a given representative.
Thanks again for checking things out here! Hope to see you continue to check out @newsteem!
Thank you for your support!
@lukestokes
I like the cut of your gib.
You wrote:
"It's not just a saying, "Only invest what you're willing to lose." It's an important strategy. Long-term thinking requires reason and negative emotions choke reason out. My message is to understand from the beginning what you're investing in or don't invest at all."
There is another very important point when investing: "Know your own psychology". If you don't know it, then your investment advisor will know it after 20+ years.
The point about psychology is this:
An investment may be right and appropriate as part of your strategy.
You may be, financially, able to withstand 100% loss.
You may know everything about the investment, and understand it's good and bad points and its prospects and risks.
BUT...............
'How will you feel if it drops 10% or 20% or 50%... in the months after you bought it. Will you panic and sell everything because the sentiment has changed, global war is about to break out, and you fear investment prices halving again?'
When investing, especially for others, I always put psychology into the equation. For those who don't know their own psychology, I recommend buying a little of the investment and adding more over time. With daily price fluctuations you will soon know if the price changes bother you.
A last point: If you lose money, will your wife divorce you and your children hate you?
Before I made my first bitcoin investment, I discussed it with my wife. Over time we watched some youtube videos, and discussed it. When she understood what other people thought, and what it is, she asked me to do it.
I also asked my 8 month old baby what he thought. He said "Daddy, I'll be your bitcoin baby". See my blog "bitcoin baby".
Hahah! Nice. Yes psychology is extremely important to think about.
I think this turned into a great post, but I guess I would say that if it's all about me talking about myself. haha! Thanks so much for thinking of me. I had fun as they were really good questions.
I'm glad we did you justice Luke! I try to put together questions that engage with what my interview subjects are doing in their blog, and are relate able rather than have a pocket set of questions for everyone. Why set up an interview if all you are going to ask is "How long have you been on Steem" or "What's your favorite color and why?" One can easily be found out on the blockchain, and the other has very little real world application for the reader. hahaha
Please feel free to refer anyone who might be interested in talking to us over. We'd love to work one of these out for anyone who wants to share their opinion!
Thanks again! It's been a pleasure, and I enjoy following your blog!
@lukestokes I have a question for you on Witness Voting. As I gain Voting Weight, does this improve the value of my vote or it just like voting on blog posts and comments? TIA
The influence of your witness vote directly relates to how many VESTs your account has. VESTs are an internal representation of your Steem Power. Also, if you delegate, I don't think it impacts the weight of your witness vote. As you power down or power up, your vote influence will change as well.
Thank you most kindly for your reply. Your interview with Mike has motivated me to invest in SP as soon as I'm done with my travels ahead.
Excellent!
I apologize for the small upvote. I'm low on VP since I have been flagging phishing posts with my own account when I'm away from my PC. The joys of steemit scammers!
I did re-steem it! Great post!
Oh man! Never apologize for upvoting! Geeze! I appreciate you stopping in to take a look. I know how many demands there are on your time!
Thank you so much for the Resteem! The eyes that bring to the post are at least as good as an upvote!!
Thanks @patrice! Your support is greatly appreciated!
I notice one member with 72 reputation milking reward pool every day with few copy pasted articles on which she gets 40$+. Meanwhile know many people writing articles in their words and getting only pennies.
If you see Copy/Paste articles and can provide a source for the original material that is being profited from, report it to Steemcleaners. Or slip a note to @sherlockholmes. Abuse is abuse, whether you are a 25 reputation or a 72.
If you don't want to get personally involved, send me a message on discord or steemit.chat. My username is the same on all three platforms. I am happy to look at the profile, and if I see what you do I will make sure people who can do something about it are notified.
thanks for joining the discussion!
Is there a guide for those who would like to be guardians of the community? Here are some questions that I hope to find answered in the guide.
I see a user who writes loads of very short replies on random aricles, like "Great Post - keep it up". This kind of spam post irritates me. Often the original poster (OP), replies with a "Thank you" and upsteems or rewards the spammer. What can I do?
Do I lose anything if I flag a comment or down-vote it?
Someone took umbrage at one of my comments. He wrote abusive comments on several of my articles, used foul language and he went through many of my posts, downvoting or flagging them. What can I do? (This really happened. He also abused lukestokes for no reason at all when he came to my defense). So far I have not flagged or downvoted the abuser.
I am on steemit for the reading, writing and learning pleasure. I am not here expecting to earn money, although, that does have "bragging" advantages. I would be willing to pay money, (e.g. To Buy influence on Steemit), or to lose some of the Steemit money I already earned, in order to increase my influence andhelp keep Steemit clear of spammers, abusers, trolls, and those who are only here to milk the rewards system with no effort on their part. Can this be done? How? What safeguards are in place to protect the community, if such a whale just pays money to become an excessively over-powering influential troll?
Some people respond to an article with a short comment and include a link to their own article. I have no problem with this, if it is pertinent and relevant. Indeed it is often very useful. However, at the other end of the scale, we have those who are doing it habitually and randomly on lots of articles where the motive seems, not to to join in a discussion about the article where the reply occured, but rather, to divert users, or the OP, to another topic. Sometimes it's a fine line. The OP and replier might be good friends, and always let each other know when they posted. Sometimes it's obviously spam. Is there any way to grade, or reduce the worst of this behaviour?
Well I am sure there would be many more questions like the above. The main point of this post is to ask for a link which answers these kinds of questions. I am sure there must be many such links, but my searches seem overwhelmed by links to other kinds of guides, or to discussions - like this one.
Try steemit.chat and ask around in the steemitabuse channel. We don't have a perfect system here, but it is what we make of it.
Wow! This is a great list of questions. I don't know if such a guide exists at this point, though it should. Maybe someone else could share a link to such a thing if it exists.
I've got some things to get to today, but I will check back this afternoon, and if no one has dropped a link for you with the answers to these questions, I'll try to do some research and put something together to address them for you!!
Message sent on steemit.chat
Hi cmoljoe, did you send the Steemit.chat message to me, swissclive? As far as i can see I did not ever receive a private message from you, nor from or anyone else ever. I sent you one to test if it works just now.
sorry. that was to me regarding someone who needs to be checked out.
message received.
No I didn't.
Man-o-man, you did quite a bang-up job. This interview filled in some intriguing gaps which previously I only had theories on how they might play out.
Being a Witness is quite a serious responsibility. I get the impression that it is nearly a full-time job.
Hey @aedroberts! Thanks for having a read!
Yeah, the witnesses are what keep Steem up and running for us. If they all decided to quit at the same time, we would be in trouble.
For many of them it is a full time job, and their only job. For a lot, they have a full time day job, and then put another 6-8 hours of their "free time" into Steem, plus all of their days off. For one such example I would encourage you to visit the following post from @sircork and listen to his interview with @timcliff who is currently witness #1 and has an additional full time job.
https://steemit.com/mspwaves/@sircork/timcliff-2-hour-interview-replay-monday-night-minnow-school-on-msp-waves-radio-with-your-host-sircork-and-featuring-special
Great post highly informative. Luke is such a great guy to interview on this platform. Up-votted and following! -Dan "World Travel Pro!"
Thanks for the kind words @world-travel-pro! Thanks for stopping by. Luke was very generous with his time in answering our questions for us. We hope that more witnesses will be willing to do the same, as we think there is an opportunity here for us to provide information to the Steem Community that is beneficial to their existence on the platform. And very few people know the platform better than our top 50 witnesses!
"know the platform" Exactly! I'm four month's in and I'm learning new things about this place every day! It's like an evolution of Social Media, banking, and earning. An animal which can take on many forms and do many things and is equally complicated internally as well. Great job interviewing those in the know and bringing out info we can all learn from! So glad I'm following you! Keep up the great work! -Dan
had a great time reading the article and getting to know some insights on steemit.
Love this platform. I was looking at this vote for an witness option in my profile, but never got to see what it was. Now i'll go and vote for one to be a witness.
Thanks again! Cheers!
Thanks for reading! there is a lot more than most of us ever delve into going on with the platform. We're hoping to help fill in some of those gaps with @newsteem!
You have up to 30 votes for witness and you can change them any time you want to. Make sure you are checking the witnesses you vote for and follow their blogs, make sure they are continuing their work in a way that you support, and if they don't then remove your vote.
Great interview! I now understand a little better what witnesses are doing. As for flagging, I don't understand the flagging for disagreement of rewards. I get spam, plagiarism and hate speech.
I also agree that it's better to have flagging than nothing at all but look forward to a better solution in the future.
Yeah. It is the tool we have. Fortunately or unfortunately it is an indiscriminate tool that doesn't care if your use of it is legitimate or not. It's left up to human nature to use the tool correctly.
Fortunately, in my limited experience, the majority of people would rather reward each other than get into flag wars just because they disagree with one another. Obviously that does happen, as a couple of commenters and Luke himself have mentioned. But hopefully it is not something that a base user has to worry about too much.
Glad we could help you understand witnesses a little better! Let us know what questions you have and we will try to help continue to increase your understanding!
Ron Burgundy Approves!
nice post..
follback :)
Glad I got in just before the close of voting. Another most interesting interview @inquiringtimes and @mikepm74 - keep them coming. Thank you.
This is an amazing tool! I needed to vote it up to the top of the comments so everyone would get to see it.
Of course if you don't have a slider this doesn't help a lit, but for anyone who does, definitely need to check this out!