All bot owners need to have a disguise. Smartsteem has a star system, you have a blacklist... So what, creating a new account on the blockchain can be done in 10 seconds for 2 STEEM (or anonymously with BTC/LTC/DOGE/MORE through blocktrades), and this new account won't be in your blacklist.
I shouldn't have to explain anyway, the intro of the article explains my views perfectly
If your users can't get into trending because of your bot, you have nothing to fear, it won't get downvoted if it doesn't get into top 25 trending
It isn't a disguise, I work pretty damn hard to prevent garbage being rewarded by my bot. It's not just something I say, look at the queue of my bot and compare it to any other, you will find all the blacklisted users hammering other bots and you will see by their content why they are blacklisted.
They make a new account but they lose their votes/money they will stop. I frequently find networks with over 50 accounts and punish them all.
I'm sure many people in top 25 use my bot to get to trending, my bot didn't get them there though, and if it is garbage I will blacklist them myself if it is stolen content or a scam I'll even remove my vote.
I appreciate you putting in the effort to blacklist abusers. However do you think when there will be more people coming or even at the moment that you can do enough to stop all abuse. There is only so much you can do by hand.
In an utopia voting bots are able to stop all abusers, but that is not possible. The point with this all is that the voting bots are toxic and draining everyone's wealth from the platform.
The difference with real advertising is that using vote bots dillutes everybody's holdings and earnings. That is just in my opinion unethical.
If many people abuse the bidbots to be in trend recently, I saw a memes that was in trend, these incredible but true. The owners of bots like you should eliminate the votes to this type of publications, I know that it is not easy. your bot vote an average of 600 or 1000 daily publications and follow up is very difficult, but not impossible ...