SPAM! BOTS! & CHEETAH’S OH MY! Community Opinion Survey
This Steemit community is growing and it’s great!
There’s been some learning and teething issues, but overall nothing that couldn’t be handled…but now it’s approaching the terrible toddler years.
We all love this baby, but let’s face it…it’s not always a darling.
The recent growth spurts have sent waves of new accounts .
(image courtesy of @arcange https://goo.gl/2QTkvS)
And you’re probably feeling the extra company – and it’s not always good.
SPAM!!! BOTS AND ABUSERS!
Did someone hang a sign out front of Steemit saying beggars, cheats and desperados welcome?
I don’t know, maybe someone sent the wrong memo.
There’s a problem. And a lot of people are pissed. After all, many spent months building a follower base, earning a solid rep, making a few good SBD’s here and there – but mostly putting it back into Steem Power and investing in the future, believing it was going to be bright.
But now feeds and comments are being overrun by spam. What’s worse, many spammers are making more money of hundreds of accounts and not adding any value at all…diluting the rewards pool for everyone else.
YOU’RE FEELING IT
The value of Steem Backed Dollars is near all-time lows, making payouts lower. Poor quality content makes curating quality content harder. And the sheer volume of incessant spam drowns good posts, blocking deserving authors from upvotes. What’s more a lot of big accounts are drawing down their Steem Power. Is it a sign?
I know you’re feeling it because there is an ugly, frustrated undertone out there. I’ve seen a lot of posts on this…but nothing truly comprehensive.
So, I want to open it up to the floor. Vent some steam (shameless pun intended).
Experienced and new users welcome. Please share your thoughts on overcoming these challenges.
Do we already have the tools we need? Eg Cheetahbot, downvotes etc. Or could the development team give Steemit an upgrade to tackle bots, low quality content and spam accounts.
Here are somethings to consider;
- Spam bots and accounts
- Does reputation score go far enough?
- Vote bots
- What features would you like to see?
- Minnow support, Randowhale, it’s a bot…but is it acceptable?
- Self-upvoting?
- Where is the line between spam and promotion?
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Just leave your thoughts in the comments section. In a week’s time I will review and publish a new post with a collective summary of thoughts and opinions.
I hope this can be a useful behaviour code for new users, and old.
Full disclosure, I myself decided to stop being a Steemit wallflower just this month. I love this community and the deep thought so many contributors put into their content. I don’t want to see it devolved into another Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
I expect many new users will be joining soon and I want to help them understand what behaviour is good for the community, and what will earn them respect from Steemians. I have found it’s not always a clear line so here’s everyone’s chance to lay it down on the table.
From what you suggested, the biggest issues are:
As I mentioned it before (and maybe it was a comment on your other post), a higher quality content gets currently lost in the ocean of many posts that literally waste the resources. While there is no way to get rid of such posts, it would be a great to be able to, for example, easily add users that I follow into groups by categories or at least bookmark the favorite ones.
The line between spam and promotion is, I believe, when the content has a real chance to provide some value to the users reading and/or commenting on the particular posts.
If I promoted my book about startups in this answer, it would be more of a spam. If I promoted a bot for Steemit that would automatically identify spam comments (this is just an example, I don't have any), it would be a relevant promo.
Hey there, I appreciate this post. I agreee in a lot of ways. I think a lot of this issue comes from blatant misunderstanding how the platform works. People get it in their heads that any upvote and follow matters when that's not actually the case. I talked about this a lot in my recent post as I'm sure you noticed. Nice link drop, this was worth reading. I don't have a lot of solutions, but I'm sure those will come about in time. Addressing there is an issue is important.
Thanks for your time Lily :)
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STOPReduce available bandwidth. Cant spam the blockchain if you don't have any bandwidth. Probably an unpopular idea.
I'd say 100 comments, 5 posts, 200 votes, 25 transfers per day per account would be a nice starting point.
Spam has definitely increased recently. I think the only solution is that people make it clear to the spammers that it won't be tolerated.
But what classes as spam? That's were I find the is a grey area. For example some agree with self upvote and some white hat voting bots. Others don't. Some agree with reach out and link sharing, others feel it is a nuisance. Newbies specially don't understand what the best long to approach is. Should we be down voting over eager minnows or should that be given a set of guidelines?
There is little grey area here. These things are all common sense and a matter of good etiquette and courtesy.
Guidance on this has been written multiple times. It is up to people to find and educate themselves.
If you don't get it you shouldn't post anything until you do. Just a few examples would be:
Posting unrelated links is spam. Asking for upvotes and follows is spam. Copy paste commenting is spam.
These are the same kind of things that are considered spam on other platforms.
I don't buy that people don't get it - they do, they are just hoping that they will get away with it because they can and do on other platforms.
Excellent post you're a big on this platfoorm