Example:
steemian A: joins and uses steemit casually, posting some spammy meme from google image every day and comments on a couple thigns, votes on a few things, etc.
steemian B: is extremely enthusiastic and starts by making a gigantic introduction post with 20 photos alongside their life story, the write giant well-thought comments, vote on a ton of things, and follow up with even more posts in the vein of 1000 word giant superposts with 15 images sources and everything else.
Who do you think is going to be hit with the bandwidth nerf bat?
Correct Answer: The enthusiastic person, the most valuable person, and the one trying the hardest to contribute. Steemian B hits the limit while the other continues to post junk.
As we know, it takes a minimum of 7 days to begin reaping rewards, so if they hit their limit in the first day or two it can severely cripple their enjoyment of the platform alongside their first impressions. The bandwidth recharges over time but if they have tiny account value the actual amount of bandwidth they are given is also very small. Making this even more dire is what happens after that 7 day period where they do in fact have some rewards coming in...
Did you know?
If you hit the bandwidth limitation:
-you cannot power up
-you cannot claim rewards
-you cannot buy STEEM with SBD
-you cannot comment or post about your issue
-you cannot upvote anyone discussing this problem
-you cannot resteem a post about this problem
-you cannot do anything, you're basically banned
You read that right. The limitation error tells you that you need to power up to use steemit, then when you try to power up, buy more STEEM with SBD, or claim a reward then the same error comes out saying you need to power up in order to do that...
And because people that are suffering from the bandwidth limitation cannot post or comment about the issue, there may be more people having this problem than anyone thinks, and the only reason you don't hear about it is they CANNOT TELL YOU that they have this problem. They are muted platform-wide and could be in a scenario where they cannot even invest money to power up.
I propose that bandwidth minimums be significantly raised by some flat value, and some other flat value be added to the act of posting/commenting unrelated to the actual size of the post, meaning new users will have more bandwidth for individual posting but spammers will also be considered as using more overall keeping the limitation roughly the same for them while allowing larger posts to be made for new users without hindering their ability to do everything else. As I said this is especially an issue for people coming in through anon.steem.network since they start with a tiny amount of STEEM.
If you have this issue and cannot post about it, please visit https://steemit.chat/channel/help and ask for assistance! This chat channel is outside the blockchain and will not be affected by your bandwidth limitation, so your problem can at least be known. If you think someone following you might have run into this problem, consider giving this a RESTEEM.
Thanks for reading, hope someone finds a good way to solve this.
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follow me, I post things sometimes
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Yep ! It's really good that you post things like this. Hopefully it will attract the attention of the site developers and they can tweak it next time along with the other things that they need to fix. I guess its in Beta stage, so a work in progress.
Yea, I try to post the occasional rant about stuff I think could be improved upon, in hopes that someone notices or word gets around and things improve. The way I see it, the best QA testers in the world are elite complainer people, and the most value a beta tester can have is through finding the problems rather than praising the good things especially when everyone is already aware of the good parts, so on I go complaining about random problems I find in hopes they change ^_^
I think they're on to it, i went away for 2 weeks and noticed a few things they had changed already, so they are pretty pro-active. They also have a vested interest too, and want to see the platform succeed. Hopefully i'm right.
Steemd is being reworked now and you already can easily see your Bandwidth Remaining and Voting Power
Upvote this for others to see :)
This post received a 4.3% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @morpheus03! For more information, click here!
There should be a visible bandwidth usage bar displayed on your account page along with a good description of how it works.
I agree.
Something to at least warn you are getting close to the limit would save people a lot of trouble
totally agree!!
I think that is a great idea. Maybe someone already has something like that off this platform. Or even something to describe what this means at all for technical idiots like me.
I found this post today that will give you a bunch of numbers about yourself. I asked the person to look at my profile, but when I get the answer I will need help to know what to do with it.
https://steemit.com/steem/@elautomatico/maximum-virtual-bandwith-at-0443
It looks like the post is renewed daily, so make sure you are on the current one.
So much of what happens here is unknown until you get hit by it. I upvoted everything I liked for about a day and had no idea I should limit that. Now I stay over 75% and check but in the beginning I had no idea. I see people with less than 30 reputation upvote me with less than 20% power sometimes now and try to get over there to explain it when I can.
On steemd.com bandwidth remaining is listed down on the bottom left, just under your reputation.
Thank you! So helpful. Now I can watch myself sink and swim. I just added a reward with some SP and then refreshed the steemd page and there it was! Now at least I can see where I'm at.
Do you have any recommendation for where to keep that percentage? I'm at 56% now - should I try to keep it above some range?
LOL. Now just sit back and scratch your head as the number climbs and drops while your account does nothing.
You are so right about that. At least I have something to watch now and it is very entertaining! I go from -700% to +70% and back again, and all over the place!
True but I was hit with that bandwidth problem straight off coming back after a year off and steemd says I have plenty of bandwidth. Nonsensical???
I had this happen to me last night! I work really hard on here and spend hours (no, literally most of my day) on here creating what I hope to be valuable content, commenting on quality posts and overall trying to encourage the platform and help it grow and prosper... I just got done a post that I had been writing for hours and then I got hit with this. My heart sank. What did I do wrong I wondered? I started to freak out and ran over to Discord, luckily I was told it would pass (but my OCD did not like that) I kept refreshing and saving everything until somehow it was back on. I definitely agree with you and support the fact that this needs to be fixed. I don't want people to be punished for being an active, engaged user! That's the opposite of what we need to see her! I'm hoping they change this otherwise I see problems ahead :( Thanks for sharing this and bringing attention to the issue!
XO,
H2H
You are a perfect example of why I have a problem with this bandwidth limitation.
You make such good posts and a ton of people enjoy them, but the system tracks your activity as high bandwidth usage and acts like you're a spammer, blocking you from your next post or comment while the actual spammer making low-quality micro posts with 1 sentence and some random picture from google images isn't hit by the limitation because it uses less bandwidth, so in many cases it's hitting the people that are contributing the most!
I think this needs a serious revamp to work for its intended purpose.
How did I miss this comment? Thank you so much for your kind words :)
I agree with you, I think it's definitely in need of an update that solves this. Hopefully enough people brought it up that someone caught wind of the issue and is working on it. I haven't had a problem since, but that particular day, I was highly active so I guess I have no idea if anything has changed :S
Thanks again, it makes me really happy to know that my posts are being enjoyed!
XO,
💜2💜
I think if your reputation score goes way down then this might be a good time to start putting in some more severe bandwidth limitations. The system could be gamed to screw with people but that is beyond my current solution.
The bandwidth and rate limitation features of steem are very interesting concepts in the realm of "spam" and "attacks".
Because steem is weird and does not have transaction fees, the bandwith and ratelimits do an interesting job solving these problems.
In Bitcoin there is no such thing as a spam transaction: only fee paying and non-fee paying. If someone is sending a lot of transactions, but paying fees, it is not spam.
Really wonder if tx fees and the like would have been better for steem.
I had no idea this was a thing. It's certainly no way to welcome new users. It seems like the overall market of ideas should be handling the problem of spam rather than a centralized rule like this.
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
New Followers get 0.001 SBD$ and an upvote for free!!
Just follow @steemvote and...
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by alphacore (M2W) from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.
Wow - this is like a different world - old timers like me know nothing about this stuff and live in a different Steemit - thanks for the insight!
At first I could not understand this issue. Surly, after me being active for a month and earning some SP I would not have to worry about dealing with this mess. I was wrong. “Bandwidth remaining -37.75%.” How interesting.
Thanks much ... I had this happen to me for the first time today after opening my acct late June. Indeed once you run out of BW it seems to be steemit jail until you get it back.
I've been on Steemit for over a month, and I still learn something new everyday. I wasn't aware of this problem until yesterday where a few people told me they were having this issue. Thanks for clearing it up. I'm resteeming this for my followers.
Thanks for posting this, I am just coming up on 3 weeks on here and just got hit by this today and its been happening most of the day with short bursts i can post or comment
at least I now have an idea why and have resteemed this as I know its affecting some I follow on here
I guess best bet for me for now is to post less and with not so many photos in my post for a few days and hopefully I will build up a bit and not be restricted so much
thanks again
yea try to aim for less photos for a while and if possible avoiding really high-res HD photos could make a difference too, since their file size is large it could be impacting your bandwidth more than anything. I'm not sure why but lately this seems to be happening more often so any measures you take to reduce your bandwidth usage will hopefully just be temporary measures until this is solved.
Ok thanks I never post high red on social sites but may have been adding to many to recent posts
Thanks again
Sorry if low quality photos will be horrible. I think we should go for quality.
I had this happen to me today for a few minutes and like @fitinfun I've invited my blogging friends to try out steemit. They'll not be happy bunnies if this keeps happening as they all tend to write long detailed posts with photos. I better warn them so I resteemed this thanks.
Jay, this happened to me too and I post comments far less than you do plus I submit a story once or twice a day most of the time 1 photo per story. I was a bit confused and am even more confused after reading this article. Thank you for resteeming it...I have done the same. This learning curve we are all on is an interesting one.
Yes it is such a change from other sites without a doubt
I will have to slow down a bit with both comments and posts I think
Great post...I just ran into this issue....Im learning and this helped! Ive been on a lil over 2 weeks...it just hit me today...What do we do if it happens? just wait?
Happened to me today too I just sold a few coins on bittrex that surprisingly I was in profits on then bought steem and transfered it to here was back up and running in 2 min
yea, it seems to be the only thing you can do right now is wait, and go very light on what you post for a while so it can recover. Then when you have some bandwidth power up as much as you can before hitting the limit again, and try to do a claim reward only once or twice per day unless there is a significant amount (don't claim 0.001SP curation reward for example, just wait until there is more so you don't push closer to the limit)
I was wondering about that reward claiming. Can we just not do it for a week or so? Or should we do it once a day only?
Resteemed and upvoted for my friends. I was asking on Twitter and got a response of another person affected.
Also - does "light on what you post" mean less photos or less text or both? I do a lot of commenting and usually two posts a day.
This place is highly confusing to this old lady blogger, but I guess you know that already. I am so glad I have held back on inviting my friends here. They would all be ready to murder me by now.
reward claiming can be done as often as you like, but since the limitation hits it there is some implied value of bandwidth being used each time you claim a reward, so unless it's a decent amount it would be better to do it less often. If you have larger amounts the SP you gain should counteract any bandwidth used so that's fine, just don't hit claim 10x a day on any random amounts of 0.001SP from curation votes :)
light on posting, I think it might be better to use smaller amounts of images and possibly avoid 4k hihg-resolution images that are large file size, since there is an upload involved it might be taking this into consideration so you would be able to post 10x as many small images as large HD ones. I think for every giant image you could have 10,000 words under normal computer rules, so they are probably the heavy hitter for bandwidth.
Hope that helps
Thank you so much - that really does help. I know I need a jpg for the first photo, but I can convert any others to pngs. That would help a lot with file size. It's not like we're talking about fine art here (except in my own mind).
And no more chasing after those pennies. I will just do the wallet thing in the mornings and it will be more thrilling if I do it that way. I thought I should unload it any time I saw it had money, but obviously not. Learning curve!
hahaha "They would all be ready to murder me" So, so true!!
As for your Q. "light on what you post" mean less photos or less text or both? ... I fear both. But that would probably mean about 10 posts a day instead of 20 - I'm just guessing!
All the best - you have a new follower!
Thanks so much for following! I'm just barely able to do two posts a day, but one recent one had a lot of photos so maybe that was it.
I was advised to comment more than posting, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it! (Until someone else tells me to do something else! I'm flexible.)
I had this issue earlier but I haven't been posting much the last few days so it didn't make sense before I made any post for the day, I rebooted my computer and the problem was gone. Someone else said they logged out and logged back in on another post I saw about this, and it fixed the problem for them. I fall into category B
According to what I learned at Steemit.Chat your "bandwidth meter" is tied to the amount of Steem you have or possibly even the value of Steem. So with the value of Steem tanking this past few weeks it probably has decreased the "bandwidth meter" as well. This bandwidth takes a VERY long time to recharge also so be careful not to hit it.
Thanks for the explanation. I went through this problem a few times during the day today. I wonder how long it lasts. It really sucks not being able to upvote and comment and interact with the community. I hope they rethink this limitation because it makes nonsense since it affects mostly people who just want to participate in the platform.
It's not supposed to last very long but seems to be happening more often lately. I am hoping it's a temporary problem that can be solved sometime soon.
I ran into that earlier on this evening, and was totally baffled by it. I did post a question over on the help channel, and have been able to make a few comments this evening. Not sure if my comments on the help channel had anything to do with it. Like most things about Steemit, I am totally confused. LOL! Thanks for writing about it!.
u have spelled my own experience here...thanks for the post.....
Hello, i'm new in steemit, i'm that entusiastic person.
Yesterday when i was to give a "like" emerged a little window and said me that i was exceed Bandwidth and that i had to buy Steem to solve. I had some Steem Dollars and i was to bought Steem, but when i did, i lost my Steem Dollars. That wasn't a lot, but because i'm starting is a very bad step.
If someone could tell me how to solve this problem i'll be very grateful. And give me some like, it could help me to recover that i lost yesterday XD
Thanks @alphacore, I didn't even know this occurred. I'm a new steemian, I like to put lots of creative & technical effort into my my posts & replies, & now I'm wondering if it's just a waste of my time.
I want to contribute valuable, useful, meaningful material & commentary to steemit, but not if it's devalued the moment I hit post.
Very discouraging, to say the least.
some fixes are already taking place, this post is mainly intended to draw more attention to the issue so it can be resolved faster
I'm not just upvote and resteem this post,
I also translate this post into Bahasa Indonesian.
With a bit customize, in order to be easily understood by users, for the Indonesian Steemit Community Growth.
If you like, Please support Us 😊
Here is the link
If steemit is going to punish people for being engaged, active and valuable contributors to the community, it has just fallen on its own sword.
Last night for the first in a long time I decided to post valuable stuff. With valiant effort I creted a steamy little post. And can you believe this bandwidth thing begins hitting me?! It was so shocking, so frightening. I though that effort was lost in time, until I returned thirty minutes later and sent it through. I even reset my WiFi, believing it was that bandwidth lol!
That the reason why exchange are for! Steem and steem dollars are sold for new steemians to purchase and increase power. More power to vote, comment, resteem and more reward move happiness 🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗
if you run into the bandwidth limit you can't power up, so even if you buy from an exchange you have to wait around in purgatory
Steemians who been in steemit.com should advice new steemians who follow them to increase their steem power and its benefits. Bandwidth limits only occur to me in few minutes. It replenish on its own.
Good
I had this problem yesterday. I had to buy 1 more STEEM in order to fix it.
NOT GOOD UX!
This post received a 2.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @alphacore! For more information, click here!
I ran into that problem for the first time this morning but only for a few minutes. I wonder if it was for playing with the meep bot the other day, if someone took offense to one of my posts, then I started to wonder if it was the steemit servers were low on bandwidth, because of the short duration I thought maybe it was just a server hiccup. Lots of theories about what that bandwidth limit thing is all about. I'll accept what you say is true. Thanks
THANK YOU! I've been trying to find this information, but with no luck. Then this popped up in my feed!
One thing I noticed: It's written kind of poorly, but if you read it carefully the warning doesn't say you need to power up to post, it says you need to wait to power up or post. Wish I had a screenshot for reference... but I really hope I don't get the chance to screenshot it in the future.
This post got a
4.35% upvote thanks to @alphacore - Hail Eris !Hi @alphacore Its happen to me yesterday i was about to post a article i have written just before and the message come Exceed bandwidth limit so i made some search and answers were like you don't have enough power or you just pissed off a whale. I was thinking how do i know what's happen and if i piss off a whale what can i do and also how long this will last? I try to convert some SBD to STEEM but no chance to do so. I was really piss off by the way if it runs for days what will happen, also i cannot get any rewards, comment, votes nothing works. I have try nearly everything but all was just a big fail. At the end i was thinking lets try again to convert some SBD so i go to my wallet and again no chance than i notice i have only 1.059 SBD and 0.229 SP in my redeem rewards it was so small but i try to transfer it to my balance and the magic happen everything works again and i can post and everything goes well. So my advice about this issue as it is today is try to keep some SBD and SP to redeem just in case it happen to you. Peace to all of you
This happened to me a few hours ago. Its very annoying!
Interesting info, was not aware of this, thanks
Ran into this a few times today and it is infuriating!!!!
Thanks for the advisory post - I had no idea this was an issue. At least now I will know what is happening if I run into it. Cheers
Wow, this is really valuable information. It seems like this would be addressed from the very beginning just to make everyone aware. Although, I do understand that this is a Beta but still. Thanks for sharing this, resteemed!
This post has received a 1.56 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @alphacore.
I did not know about this, thanks so much for this post:-) Resteemed and upvoted.
I wasn't even aware that such a thing could happen until I was making a comment earlier today. Kept getting the same error message.
Rebooted and it worked fine. WTF?
I had no idea that there was such a limitation. Is it possible to view track your own bandwidth usage? Sees strange they can limit you without telling you what that limit is, or how close you are too it.
I found this post today and have entered myself into it to get this nice person's report of where I stand. https://steemit.com/steem/@elautomatico/maximum-virtual-bandwith-at-0443
But I have read the replies to other people who have gotten the help on the post (a bunch of numbers) so when I get the reply, I will have to find a place to ask what it all means and what I should do to improve.
I'm doing 2-3 posts a day and 20-50 comments/replies a day. I have had the problem on and off for about 24 hours now. One of my posts yesterday was the most photos I have ever put in a post.
I got the ability to post for about 30 minutes earlier, emptied my wallet and replied to a few people - no posting of my own. Then I got kicked out again for about 4 hours. So now I am answering replies again :)
I have been advised to:
Needless to say I am highly confused now and I am not endorsing any of these answers since I do not know if they are correct.
Thanks the info. It seems that as a user of a "social media" platform you'd have to manage bandwidth. I can't imagine this will help the overall growth of the platform.
nice job
I got a bellyRub and this post has received a 4.55 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @zeartul.
nice post information @alphacore
follow me @hattaarshavin
This is good information and insight, as usual.
I had the problem yesterday. I could not participate for about 5 hours. I believe it is because my voting power went to 72% or samething, quite below the supposed threshold of 80%.
I am voting much less now. Makes the experience less interesting, though. I do not feel well commenting on articles and not voting them. But hey, that´s life (I´m voting this one, it´s very early in the morning here, I´m just starting, and the post is particularly valuable to me).
Didn't realize that this could happen, thank you for the info
Hey, I had a problem to get my WIF after I regitered.
But thank god I'm here now :)