I just want to say here that I am firmly opposed to this project. I believe that you have chosen to take it upon yourselves to be the up-vote police of Steemit, and I do not believe that this is your right. You disagree with self upvoting, that is fine and IS your right. What ISN'T your right is to punish those who use this system in accord and abidance by the rules that are set in place within it. In my opinion smackdown kitty will be an abuse of the flagging system, as it will punish behavior that is not intended to be punished. Furthermore I believe that you are being disingenuous by intentionally not posting in kitty's page, deliberately in order to avoid her being flagged to death. You know that this bot will be unpopular, you know that a significant portion of the community will not agree with it, so you are shielding it from the inevitable backlash it will face.
I believe that you are trying to force your opinion of what is moral and immoral onto this community, and I don't accept your proselytizing to me or anyone else that utilizing an ability I have earned through my investment and hard work is now morally wrong because you disagree with it.
I know this opinion will not be popular here, but I need to say it. As a note, I did upvote a few of my comments when the hardfork came out, because I wanted to, but I don't currently. I DO upvote every single one of the posts that I put up here, because I work really hard at making them, because they are ALL completely original content that I have created, and because I have absolutely ZERO problem with self promotion if this system allows it. I upvote my posts because I believe that my content is worth something, and it is my right to upvote ANY content that I believe is worth my upvote. I don't care if your bot goes after spammers, and pointless comment self upvoters, because that's not me, and I don't abuse this system. I do care if your kitty grows up to start attacking those who choose to throw one single vote at themselves when they finish a post that they worked hard to create.
I don't want any of this to sound aggressive or to be misinterpreted as a threat in any way, and that is not my intention. I have absolutely no intention of flagging, downvoting or in any way actively opposing or attempting to disrupt your kitty, in fact I don't know if I have ever flagged a post in my life, and I have never taken the time to voice my opinion in this manner before, but I truly abhor vigilantism, and that is what I see in this project. I also abhor name and shaming, I think it is pathetic, petty and dangerous. It leads to dog piling and group attacks, and more often than not ends up completely ruining those that it desires merely to shame into following the dogma of those that utilize it.
I truly do believe in this place, and I want to help make it better and improve it so I would love to have a discussion with you about it if you are interested in discussing further, you may even sway my opinion, but for now I just needed to make it clear that I am not for this bot.
With all due respect and sincerity sir, I object.
It is your right to disagree, and express that on my post discussions, and I find it interesting as a contra #project-smackdown you need to say that you don't think your view is popular.
The bot account will be posting daily statistics, under the title "The Daily Kitty: Statistics from the Catabase" which will list the top 50 self-comment-upvoters, as well as the overall statistics of the distribution of self-upvoting in roughly the standard dust-minnow-dolphin-orca-whale categories.
The flags the bot gives make next to no difference to rewards, except that as time goes on the percentage will rise until it hits 100% - this makes me think of a factor that I need to discuss with @personz about the escalation process, that it will automatically scale if more SP than the current 1200SP she has been delegated is added on top.
It's a shame you don't want to try and fuck with the bot, because that would be fun. I might even dip my toes into coding with node.js if the playing gets interesting. It shouldn't be intimidating if your position really is that strong in your own mind.
I am not interested in dogma either. Dogma means ignoring the natural laws and fighting people for questioning it. I am not fighting anyone here, I am playing. You would not believe what incredible satisfaction I am getting from starting this.
"I find it interesting as a contra #project-smackdown you need to say that you don't think your view is popular."
I said I know my view won't be popular "here" as in the context of this post and the ones who upvoted it.
"The flags the bot gives make next to no difference to rewards, except that as time goes on the percentage will rise until it hits 100%"
To me this is the equivalent of someone slapping me just a little bit harder every time I tell them that I disagree with them, and eventually the make a fist. Why not just make a fist from the very get go? Or better yet, use the book of steem according to you to thump them with?
"It shouldn't be intimidating if your position really is that strong in your own mind."
I don't think I ever said that I was intimidated?
"Dogma means ignoring the natural laws and fighting people for questioning it"
A dogma is a set of guiding principals or tenets that a group adheres to, usually having to do with morals or faith, and usually in fear of punishment. I believe you are trying to force what you believe to be virtuous principals onto those who don't agree with your viewpoint, and if they disagree or run counter to your principals, you will use your bot to punish them. You say you are playing, and you are finding incredible satisfaction in it, but I don't view being punished by someone who has a different opinion than me as playing, and I doubt many will.
If the idea that self-aggrandizement and conceit are positive attributes and behaviour in a person is your position, then sure. Self-vote away.
Meanwhile, in the real world of every type of science and knowledge, no claims originating from the inventor of an idea about its effects can be accepted as useful theory to develop a technology from.
There is a lot of bad people in the world, and one of the things that is common amongst all evil is the key characteristic of Psychopathy - Narcissism.
At this point I expect the barb that I am being egotistical by saying that I know better than you.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but in the real world there is this thing called 'facts'. These facts do not depend on your, or my, or anyone's opinions. I am not interested in representing opinions about anything without a way to show that there may be, or is FACTS backing up my viewpoint. If I don't think I have a logical foundation to what I am saying, I will tell you.
Yes, what I say, about myself, is as meaningless as a self vote.
Let that sink in for a while.
Oh, and by the way, I don't fear punishment. I fear not understanding the rules of the system I am interacting with.
Go outside and find a 2 foot drop, close your eyes, and step over it. Do you want to live your life in fear that you cannot see the ground in front of you? There is an easy solution. Doubt yourself.
I doubt myself almost at least 20 times a day. I depend on this to make sure I am checking up on the world around me. I have fallen into a blissful state of satisfaction too many times and then smashed my head on something, literally, more times than I can remember. I probably smack my head jumping up without looking first, at least once a week, at certain times, I remember days when I just didn't seem to be able to avoid smashing into the sharpest possible corners that I could have.
I take no insult in any expression of doubt about my capacities. You don't know me, or very much of my history. I doubt everything, until I see at least 3 things that are coherent with the initial suspicion. But I also don't wait for 100% certainty. I don't believe it is possible to be that confident. I act, at the moment that my gut, and my mind, are telling me that the ground is shifting. I get better at this the longer I live.
But don't take my word for it. Test me. I invite it.
I never said that the idea that self-aggrandizement and conceit are positive attributes, but that is obviously contrary to your moral stance, good for you.
I never claimed to know anything about science, knowledge, evil or bad people, psychopathy or narcissism, but again, if you do, good for you.
I don't care about what facts you have learned in whatever books you have read, I doubt you have taken the time to research every argument about every fact in every book you have ever read. Your egotism doesn't come from thinking you know more than me, it comes from thinking that you, and your facts, are correct.
I don't think what you say, about yourself, is as meaningless as a self vote, I think it has much much less meaning, let that sink in for a while.
I don't care what you do or do not fear, I care about other people trying to force their viewpoint (whether it is based on facts or not) onto a person who disagrees.
I don't know what all that stuff about stepping off of curbs with your eyes closed and constantly bashing your head into things has to do with anything that I have said, but I think it's stupid and reckless to not look before you leap, and I don't think it fits in with your apparent affinity for facts. I don't live my life in fear, and I don't doubt myself. I don't care what you think is possible or how you act according to your gut and mind, but I'm glad you are getting better at it.
I don't understand what you mean by asking me to test you.
7 paragraphs denying everything.
Good, at least you are not certain. But you should at least understand that you have to act, the clock ticks, and the resources slowly drain away.
It is reckless to leap before you look. It took me almost 40 years to learn that lesson. But it is foolish to stand still when the wind is blowing to favour after the pressure drops and your opportunity has come.
Sure sure, let me know if I'm wrong about, or denying anything else, after all it only took you 40 years to learn that it is reckless to leap before you look. I'll be waiting 100 years in the future, let me know when you figure this one out, but don't bother letting me know about all the doubting and insecurity in between.
I won't waste my time on deaf ears or blind eyes.
I am having another one of those loss of faith moments right now.
Good for you to be so brimming with certitude that you don't even think to question. The one who is gonna be looking at the gravestone is me, because I pay attention to the world around me.
And if I was wrong, I would be grateful for no longer being in a world inhabited by someone like you.
"no claims originating from the inventor of an idea about its effects can be accepted as useful theory to develop a technology from."
On what possible basis, and with what evidence, can you make this claim? It sounds ludicrous. It would literally call for ignoring Einstein on E=mc^2.
Wow, I guess you are so defensive because your position is so weak?
You admit yourself that you made an error by eliminating a word that totally changes your meaning and argument and I'm the troll for pointing this out civilly?
ROFL. No wonder you want a bot to "smack" other people with. Must be easy to debate when you call everyone else a troll when they point out your errors, make sure you put the word "logic" in every post 6 times so you must be using it, and then just mute people when you get defensive.
By the way, most snake oil salesmen aren't really known for being inventors, they are hucksters. This should be pretty obvious.
Good attempt trying to claim the logical high ground though. Pathetic though it may be, it's a nice shot at optics, in a Machiavellian-intellectual-dishonesty sort of way.
You, sir, are the troll. Or a biased idealogue.
Why don't you get back to "drawing so much satisfaction" from creating flagging bots to control people's behavior? That's a totally healthy, totally non-statist activity to focus your efforts on.
PS - This: "...what rock you have been living under if you never heard the term 'Snake Oil Salesman'."* is called a strawman fallacy (we'll set aside the ad hominem for now). I never said it, nor did I imply it. If you're such a champion expert of logic (we know you are, cause you used the word like 5 times, right?) you must know this? So you just argue intellectually dishonestly on purpose?
https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Niccolo-Machiavelli/dp/1548070688/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499417573&sr=8-2&keywords=the+prince
I think you'll like it:
"The Prince has the general theme of accepting that the aims of princes—such as glory and survival—can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends."
"self-aggrandizement and conceit" such as deciding that people who don't use SteemIt the way you want them to use it deserve "your" punishment? And then to go and create a bot to automate this punishment based on a set of rules you devised, outside of the rules of the system?
You've appointed yourself judge, jury, and executioner mate... leaves no room to talk about others participating in self-aggrandizing and conceited behavior.
hey, i left that project as soon as a whale joined to fund it, and this whale couldn't believe that Dan was self upvoting to promote his jibber jabber. I'd seen it long before that but nobody I talked to remembered it. Doesn't mean it didn't happen and the fact it repeated says a lot.
So in fact, I did no judging, jurying or execution, it was other people.
And who exactly is qualified anyway? I think it should be a community thing. But that's not possible because of the distorted stakes of the whales who got their stake by mining before anyone knew there was a steem at all.
The most vicious vigilantes on this platform are actually @ned, @dan, @berniesanders, and others whose accounts you will be able to identify by being created before april last year.
Yet you punish without consensus. Have you polled with your bot to see percent of users overall who selfvote vs those who don't? Shouldn't majority rules if you wish it to be community based?
"You would not believe what incredible satisfaction I am getting from starting this."
This is a scary comment. This is the kind of thing I expect from a SJW meddling in their chosen identity politics block.
I guess we know what part of your motivation appears to be now - the thrill of controlling other's behavior via coercive measures.