RE: Self-voting user list since HF19
If you don't think your own post is worthy of an upvote, you probably need to put more time and effort into producing a post you would be proud to upvote. I don't have an issue with anyone upvoting their own content, it they believe it is worth an upvote.
Same for comments to posts. If you believe your comments are worth an upvote, then that is your belief and you can vote as you believe is best.
It looks bad in my opinion if more than 99% of your upvotes are for yourself, and you spend less than 1% on the community. That looks like greediness.
Best solution is probably the path you are already taking.
Publish a list of the greedy every week or month. Those folks are then free to change their behavior or not change their behavior as they desire.
With knowledge of who is behaving greedily, the community will have the information it needs to decide if it wants to ostracize or celebrate the greedy.
And that is all we need for a solution.
A decentralized solution based on information. Simple.
We won't need long extended debates or discussion, on different opinions of right and wrong in this case.
Just make the information visible on measured results for "greediness behavior", and the community can decide what it wants to do collectively, by each person using their own best judgement on how to handle.
STEEM On!!
DaveB
100% this, and also if you think someone else's content is trash and doesn't deserve rewarded the rewards it is getting, that's why we have downvotes.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with self-upvoting, if the content is good. One of the reason to buy SP is so you can boost your own content by voting for it. If others agree, great. If they don't then they should downvote it and your votes (and money spent buying SP to support those votes) will have been wasted.
It doesn't even matter if someone only upvotes themself, if their content is good. Maybe some people are mostly content creators and don't spend a lot of time reviewing/reading/curating other content. There's nothing at all wrong with that.
There is absolutely nothing that can be done against true abusive "self" upvoting (other than downvoting it to take away the profit), because malicious abusers will just move their SP into other accounts and hide what is going on.
The idea of creating 'lists of shame' and demonizing people is divisive, creates a hostile and toxic environment attractive to no one, and serves no useful purpose. There is no way to tell from these lists whether the content is deserving of the rewards or not. The only way to tell is by actually looking at the content, and if you think it is undeserving, downvote it.
On the one hand, I agree that lists like these are taking things a bit too far. I still found myself browsing through it though and checking a few accounts to see if I was following them and whether I even still liked their stuff. Why? Because if they upvote themselves for such amounts of money, I don't feel like giving them my support when I don't actually care about their topics. It's just one more way to clean up my list to follow less people, so I can actually keep up with the ones I feel deserve more support.
You're saying we could downvote content we find undeserving. I would love to, seriously, but how should I go about doing that? We've all seen the grief people get when they downvote a crap post that's earning way too much money. I feel like I would certainly ruin my own earnings and reputation if I start downvoting undeserving posts. Any author that holds a grudge and a lot of SP would downvote me into oblivion... I don't feel like I am truly, fairly able to curate bad posts, other than ignoring them. Not if I still want to have a shot here myself.
The only content I can (and do) safely downvote is that of newbies who post plagiarized content or copy/past comments...
Just a little comment to agree with you about the fear I feel using downvotes. I see so much about the grief it causes people. I'm grateful that there are accounts that go about downvoting plagiarized content so that I don't have to. And I'm also grateful that cheetah just comments, because sometimes it's accused me of plagiarizing my own content, when it was just an introduction or what-have-you for a contest.
The point is, there's too much stress around downvoting for me to engage in it. I think I've used it twice, and felt icky each time. There's an odd push-pull to the financials in this system. On the one hand, I think people are more conscientiously friendly when it comes to content that is original, even if it's controversial, on the other hand, people trying to game the system for profit are creating an ecosystem that doesn't inherently reward quality content (at least IMHO)
I agree with everything you said except that this is raw data with almost 0 analysis. It does more harm than good. My name is up there...why? Because I bought 12k Steem. Transisto's name is up there, he is one of the biggest proponents of anti self voting....but because his account is worth so much, he shows up.
We need to solve the self-upvoting issue...but analysis is needed that takes into account the Steem power of an account and probably many other variables. Otherwise all we do is push people into selling their Steem and/or creating multiple accounts. Why power up if I'm going to be put on a list...while the author keeps pumping his Steem out of the platform. Which is better...powering up or selling Steem?
I know that some people are up there, simply because their accounts are really big. It's why I did not unfollow anyone I actually appreciate, because in their cases, I really don't mind that they show up in this list. I know they do a lot for the community and don't abuse their VP by only upvoting themselves.
The only real way to solve most of this is by getting rid of self-voting. However, the biggest abusers will just continue doing so by using an alt account...
... and that is precisely where the discussion must go over time; To how we can introduce better solutions against sybil/sockpuppets/alternate accounts.
@playfulfoodie a great point. To donwvote something you don't like is going to get you retaliation much worse unless its a noob account.
So maybe only down vote plagiarism, copy pasta and ligament "wrong" posts and just hopefully not to many people will up vote something that has a tendency to not be very valuable to the community.
Yes, definitely! I don't think downvoting something, just because you don't like it, is good practice anyway. Though I definitely do not agree with plenty of high payouts on crap posts...
Well the solution to that is not voting on them and maybe making comments on that post or talking to others who constantly vote on it. Lots of votes are auto votes anyways so might need to contact and discuss with people who are autoupvoting crap and maybe they will change their vote.
That's a good point. I wonder how active the autovoters are, or if they are even still around. Maybe their bot's the only one who's still active even!
yea well all powerful accounts use auto voters either for their sock puppets, friends or curation rewards.
Thats why authors who generally make a lot on their posts get so many bot up votes because they are reliable curation accounts without having to do ANYTHING at all.
Yeah, it's getting more and more frustrating to work for hardly any views or curation at all.
I think those with more power should be subject to more transparency. The only problem i see is that there might be far worse than this list shows using multiple accounts. As long as people don't go lynching everyone who self upvotes, I don't see any problem with this kind of post, and if they do, don't hoot the messenger, thanks @calamus056
You're definitely right here.
Doesn't it work the same in real life? People with more power are more visible and looked up against (the rich and famous), so they are held accountable for their actions more often than regular folk.
It seems like that but I think a lot of times we focus on he things they do that don't matter like who they are dating and what they tweet rather than how they make their money and who their true motives for doing things.
That's true. All about the juicy gossip. It's a world of extremes, where the fact that someone worked hard for what they got, or donates to a charity, is just not as interesting as what they did when they were drunk.
"so they are held accountable for their actions" - Are they really? Feels like the other way around at times. One example on how not to end up on this list -
Voting exchange: I see you have 100k SP as do I, we agree to vote one post from the other a day. You won't end up on this list, yet the end result is the same. This list will do very little in weeding out abusive voting. And this is something that came up my mind in 5 seconds - something far more sophisticated can be implemented with a bit of time. But yes, I do agree that this information should still be available and posted regularly.
I have the full list and all data. But it's wayyyyy too much data for 1 post so i have to filter it. In this case i just filtered everything under $100. Because, do we really care about people self-voting a few cents? Most people probably care way less about that than people self-voting thousands or even tens of thousands of Dollars each month, right?
Personally I care more about the percentage than the dollar amount.
I would love to see the list of people who self vote over 50% of their post.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@calamus056/self-voting-user-list-since-hf19-part-3-potential-comment-abuse
You're right. Thanks for providing this info.
right!
Fair point. The only people really able to battle a whale are other whales, so we can only call them out through lists like these.
You're right, there are a lot of ways to avoid getting on this list. Having multiple accounts is another one. I don't think there are any ways to catch every bad apple here, sadly. We'll just have to do what we can.
It shouldn't matter who voted for the post, what matters is if the post is over-valued.
Unless you're an owl. It's your only way to communicate, and I'd hate to shut you down. If you're an owl, there's really nothing else to do except hoot the messenger.
This.
People need to stinking start flagging. "Negative-voting" (as refered in the whitepaper). If a self-voted post or comment is making more that you feel appropriate - flag. Don't complain. The entire steem system is founded on the principle that everyone is able to use their vests however they choose to make payouts align with their perception of value.
You can not just "make self-votes not payout" or "self-votes only count for page rank". The social contract behind steem is that VESTS are fungible. Vests are always vests. My vote is worth the same no mater if I vote on content that is good, bad, racist, sexist, pro-steem, or even critical of steem. Changing how vests effect post payouts in a discriminatory way fundamentally changes steem by by altering the fungibility of the underlying asset. This is not like just a 'block size increase' or a simple parameter change, this is a major game theoretical and economic change to the system that has effects much deeper than just self-votes.
Vests should be fungible.
When one down-votes, does that use VP? And does that mean that the value of their vote is then subtracted from the post? And does that mean that the value is therefore spread proportionately amongst all the posts according to upvote (so some tiny fraction will actually return to this post)?
From what I've read, it affects your VP % the same way an upvote does?
Makes sense. Down voting also hurts rep, doesn't it? Sometimes there might be a post I think doesn't deserve so much money, but isn't so bad that I'd want to hurt someone's rep.
The reputation system was introduced with the promise of being developed over time. Unfortunately it was left low on the priority list as long as it solved the main issue of spam. Personally, I would like to see upvote/downvote no longer impacting reputation and having it instead based on your followers and how much SP they are collectively backed up by.
With that, I would also like to see this number used to incentivise giving a boost to users with lower reputation.
Interesting. Are you a developer/you run for witness?
No just been here a long time lol.
That's a good point, and I wish there were a way to separate the two. I usually only flag chronic plagiarism if people insist on spamming my feed with copy pasta...and then, it still has to be pretty obvious to even catch my attention.
I agree with your comments. It does bother me when someone repeatedly upvotes their own comments while adding nothing to the conversation. I'm getting a lot of those lately from the dame actors.
When I check out their blogs the post no content of their own and appear to just comment on other's blogs with a generic comment like, "Good info. Thanks" and then they upvote their comment.
I have also been getting a lot of comments saying, "Upvoted and resteemed" but when I check they have done neither and only upvoted their own comment.
Bothers the hell our if me and cheapens the experience on Steemit. I think users like that should be called out
Better than calling them out, they should be flagged, primarily by the post's author.
Yes @luzcypher I agree and that is WAY different than what MANY on this list do. MANY of the people on this list are actually huge contributors and major factors in the success of this community. Also because they crate a lot of content and also invested a lot of SP they are paying them self for it.
There is a huge difference between what you just said which I think almost EVERYONE agrees is not pleasant and what many on this list are doing.
That's a good distinction to make and not clear by looking at this list.
Exactly. Thanks for your contributions to the betterment of this community as usual.
Thank you for sharing this enlightening input.
Or the ones who commit Upvoted and Followed, then they follow you 2 hours later they unfollow you, then you check their data and they do it all day long.
Bots. The place is riddled in bots.
I absolutely agree, nothing wrong with self-voting per se. The only helpful figure I can take away from this analysis is the total of the reward pool that apparently was allocated by self-voting. If the 8.47% is correct this is not something that should worry us too much - not worth all the drama. In particular if one considers that only a fraction of this accounts for self-voting that is outright abusive.
I haven't been here very long but I have to agree with you @smooth. This type of thing does create a hostile environment. Especially if there is nothing showing if the upvotes are somehow abusive.
I see a lot of names in that list that are people actually helping the steemit community also.
For some reason I've seen at least some controversy over self upvotes. I can see how only upvoting your own content does not help to grow the community. It seems to me though that people who are not abusing it far outweigh people that don't.
I personally upvote all my posts(it's the default setting in creating your post) and some of my own comments. I do however also support the community with many as well.
There are certain authors and contests that I really enjoy reading and upvoting.
I'm also very open to suggestions on how I could use steemit better both for the community and for myself.
If what I'm doing by upvoting some of my own things is somehow wrong I would want to know it so I did not continue.
I couldn't understand the reason why you flagged this post until the very last paragraph on your comment. I now understand your concern when it come's to 'lists of shame', however I found this information to be very useful.
My curiosity gets the better of me sometimes, it's one of the reasons I really enjoyed this post.
Do you think that steemcleaners report is another example of a 'wall of shame'?
If so, do you think it should be flagged as well?
Would obfuscating the name with a generic link like steemcleaners does make it worth removing your flag?
I think the information is very useful to the community.
Maybe the name "shame" is inappropriate.
Steem blockchain explorers are not fully featured and data like this is helpful.
Steemcleaners focuses on actual abuse such as well-documented plagarism. It has clear guidelines as to what constitutes plagiarism, identity theft, etc. I know this because I helped write those guidelines.
This post is nothing like that. There is nothing in this post to indicate whether any of those authors have engaged in any form of abuse, or are actually contributing a lot of value to Steem/it (both are possible).
Yes, I understand now and can see the potential flaws, thank you.
"It doesn't even matter if someone only upvotes themself, if their content is good. Maybe some people are mostly content creators and don't spend a lot of time reviewing/reading/curating other content. There's nothing at all wrong with that."
If everybody acted in this manner, do you think it would damage the success, potential and reputation of steem/it?
I don't find that hypothetical to be plausible, though if it were to happen (lots of lots of high-value content being posted and no one other than the poster bothering to vote on it), I'm honestly not sure whether that would be good or bad. It's actually quite complex to work through how such a situation would arise or persist (considering incentives, investment flows, web traffic, etc.)
Good debate guys!
Cg
I don't think flagging is the solution.
Upvote+Flag=Zero is not a recipe for growth or harmony.
I have recently written Mining Steemit With A Teaspoon and the actual solutions in Proposal for New Rules Regarding Self-Votes and Voting-Rings.
Precisely. The @smackdown.kitty should not be considered the full solution. It is merely a tool in the toolbox on the way etc.
Exactly...Steemcleaners is on a different level of reporting. The report in this post, in my opinion, is raw data with no analysis.
The list reflects two types of actions. One is the self-upvote. The other is how much vote power is expended on other people. People that are voting a lot, at high power, for other people will not reach a high percentage on this list. Folks with a high percentage on this list are keeping their vote power high in order to keep their own rewards high, or to feel powerful when they are able to give someone else an occasional high reward. Neither are community-focused actions.
This list is helping me adjust my strategy. Before the HF19, my vote was worth 6 cents. Now, even if I take my vote power down low, down to 20% low, I can still give a lot more, roughly 4 or 5 times more than prior to HF19. Rather than trying to keep our voting power high, we should be trying to have a low voting power all the time. The problem on Steemit isn't lack of quality content. It's that not enough of the quality content out there is being found and rewarded - not enough to keep people enthused about creating quality content over the long run.
In the limit, someone could still make 100 posts per day and only upvote themselves, but the overhead for that takes all the satisfaction out of the effort. If the community comes to appreciate people who keep their voting power low, not high, the self-upvote problem will take care of itself.
I agree with you on this. You can tell a lot about how one feels about the community of steemit by their voting power. Check mine out. I haven't had above 30% for I don't know how long. I have tried to watch my voting, but I follow a lot of good content creators and I am an information junkie so my given rewards are lower, but more frequent.
Using steemnow.com, I was able to watch someone upvote all the time at 100%, but with a low voting power in the 20% range, and still give 15 cents for a comment, every time, and they had less SP than me. And here I was, using a 10% voting percentage to save my voting power, but I was only giving rewards of 4 cents -- how very big of me, lol -- not! That's when I began to question the goal of keeping a high voting power. There are a lot of good content creators!
It took me being sick for several days for my voting power to recover because I, too, tend to be generous with my upvotes. I guess I'd rather spread out the live than concentrate it on a few folks. It probably has a lot to do with only "knowing" one person on here who posts infrequently, too. I'm sure people with large social groups on the platform do it differently to reward their friends (and that's perfectly fine), but I have really enjoyed just shotgun blasting my VP at any quality content I enjoy.
This report does not show how much vote power is extended to other people. It shows how much vote power was used on your own posts vs your own comments.
A report that did show how much a user upvoted others vs themselves in terms of SBD would actually be a really nice report.
@smooth If hypothetically i would remove the user names, would you undo your flag (or at least be fine with the content)? (I don't care about the money, it's about the principal and i don't like to see people unhappy)
I just want the data to be published so people can come to any conclusion they want or do further research and expand on it. In the end we should all work together to make this platform come as close to it's full potential as possible. No need to further divide indeed, let's just objectively look at the data and determine what elements of the platform can be improved upon.
The data is published, nothing anyone can do about that (even if deleted from the site it is still on the blockchain). I don't even think there is anything wrong with the 'data dump' as you call it. I just dont think this line of inquiry deserves to be rewarded. That is my opinion, we're all entitled to one.
The irony is that your post is really about a form of disagreement about whether some subset of rewards are deserved, which is something I believe should be addressed through voting. I'm acting on that here.
There's no reason to take the downvote personally, nor a need to remove it on account of principle.
Well you're right that people could solve it with flags (to some extent at least), but currently less than 0.1% of all actions are flags. It must be because of greed (it loses them rewards). It's one of the many problems of the platform :(
Good to see that people like you at least aren't completely about the money, but more about justice.
I updated the disclaimer because of all your feedback, thanks for making me realize people can easily misinterpret things.
the problem i that our steem power is given to participate with the community. I am part of the community, but if I'm not upvoting other peoples posts, and primarily upvoting my own content, it just becomes a mining activity. I hope that anyone who is concerned with the issue will check out @rycharde's blog Proposal for New Rules regarding self votes
It's not a mining activity if the author (and self-voter) is contributing valuable content that is appreciated by others and helps grow the platform. Contributing valuable content and using the SP that one purchased to support and promote (and even reward) one's own content is not abuse in any way shape or form.
Someone else suggested that a good test is whether the self-voted content is also voted by others (in which case the self-vote is legitimate) or is only self-voted (in which case it is more likely abuse). I somewhat agree, although that is trivially gamed by splitting stake into multiple accounts to make it look like 'others' are supporting it.
That's the elephant in the room.
You just drive it underground.
Could we focus on the positives and look at those who upvote themselves the most sparingly?
I'd like to brag about being high on that list.
Great point. Let's reward what we feel is positive behavior. Publishing a list that makes no sense does nothing but make people like myself (who is on the list above) think why the hell did I buy $20k of Steem? All it does it get me on a list while others who are actually abusing the self upvote don't get flagged because they didn't buy much Steem.
This! I think if we have a list of most generous whale upvoters, this would create a positive feedback, perhaps encouraging that type of behavior.
I see why you flagged but maybe it is the name that should be changed?
I think someone sharding this type of data is very important for the community. Not everyone is doing the math here.
He didn't create a list of shame, he created a list. Clearly self voters don't feel any shame ;) Also, just how fabulous does your comment need to be for a self-upvote of $10 or more? There is evidence of gross abuse of the reward pool in this list.....in my opinion. It goes against the spirit of the intention behind the system. Showing this information has the potential to change people's behaviour and approach whilst informing the discussion with solid data. It is an issue worth discussing and wrestling with.
I just test flagging you and removed it. The only effect of me flagging your comment was a payout deduction of $0.13. if you flagged me, you'd wipe out any payout, destroy my rep, and cause my comment to be hidden. How on earth is that fair?
I completely and utterly disagree that being wealthy should allow you make shit loads of money from upvoting your own comments and give you the power to censor those poorer than yourself.
Likewise, I dont find any problem with self-voting, like what you said, its their rights. I think the issue here is that people are jealous of what others are getting.
How are you sir @smooth? Its been a while.
I am doing well Mr. juvyjabian. Hope you are too.
Im fine too. I just lost a job a month ago and still looking for a new one.
By the way, if its not too much can you resteem this post of my wife. Her father died and we have not yet provided a coffin for his remains.
https://steemit.com/need-assistance/@dianargenti/i-need-assistance-for-the-burial-of-my-father
Sorry if I have to ask you this. Its just that we have no choice. Thanks in advance.
Seems like you enjoyed the message in my post on self-votes. (Subjective Proof of Work: some rational comments on the self-voting trend)
Putting your money where your mouth is.
The best thing is information and thanks to @calamus056 for sharding the data. This is what allows people to make the decisions they need.
You can't stop self voting. Vests should be fungible.
Correct, and I have said this many time, one cannot stop self-voting (or if self-voting is not allowed then sock-puppet-voting) but the rules can be changed so that it has less effect on the whole ecosystem - and still allowing the investor-self-voter to earn a very good income over a year.
I think @jrcornel had good ideas, did you read his article? :
https://steemit.com/steemit/@jrcornel/my-ideas-on-how-to-create-a-thriving-steemit-com
Yeah interesting- definitely following you for more.
The thing is anything that changes fungibility is really hard and usually does not solve the problem at hand.
I can understand for the newbies who churn out articles to be paid less than $1. I've pumped over 1k steem into powering up, I'm far from breaking even.
But the amounts on that list.. some were crazy.. I wonder what they get from other users as well
You can use https://steemwhales.com to see what authors earned.
an interesting list to add would be a list of the most generous whales......
I like your thought process.
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, etc.
Keep steemit positive by focusing on positive reinforcements
STEEM On !!
DaveB
recently, I encountered @originalworks bot who upvotes posts that are original content. He's brand new so I sent it a donation.
Thanks for this post Dave..should clear a lot of questions about self-voting...You've got my vote and resteeming.
Keep in mind some of us write 150 blogs a month on here for content and those are all upvoted, I went into that on here too.
Perspective is important along with the engagement we try and create in the community.
150 quality blogs, I don't have any concerns if you upvote the best, or choose to upvote them all if they are all good in your opinion.
Yes, I have been spending a lot of time replying to comments and engaging as much as possible..Thanks for all the good advice and tips.
Agreed...or some people have much more Steem power than others. These factors should be considered
Just upvoted my comment..lol
So did I so it was at least twice as good of a comment as you initially thought, LOL
I think that I agree with you on this. I do not have the system figured out so I am not able to be positive. Thank you all for the input. Take care.
Good stuff my man, I replied in this thread in a LOT more detail before I saw this reply of yours LOL
--
Keep in mind some of us write 150 blogs a month on here for content and those are all upvoted, I went into that on here too.
Perspective is important along with the engagement we try and create in the community.
Nice comment Dave, give yourself a pat on the back... And an upvote.
Thanks for comment. Back has been patted.
STEEM On!!
But Dave you still didn't upvote yourself.. Don't you like your comment??
Ahh crap, missed that upvote chance. I'll go back and fill it in later, LOL
How?
Very good comment. I think you nailed it!
Full power upvote for you, in support of this great community.
Cheers! from @thedamus
Upvote, first of all for starting the conversation. But I don't only vote because I think my post is worth it. The only thing that matters is that I can make more money. There are expectations of course but the general is not like that, and this is allright. You have to take care of it by financial incentives or obstacles. Voting for yourself, this is ridiculous. But as long as it is possible, I will do that, exactely like most of the others.