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RE: Operation Clean Trending
Agreed about 'Promotion', I have said as much elsewhere. Also your point about neither being curation.
The difficulty is in how would the platform add a feature to distinguish between bots and humans? Who has the authority to determine the difference, and how do we ensure that authority is not abused?
AI has not attained competence to pass the void-comp test yet, and fairly simple automated means of verifying humanity are extant. Captchas, 2FA, etc. These require no central authority that isn't already necessary to have keys, nor any additional layers of complexity on the blockchain.
Just add one to the module that verifies keys. Should be easy. If Yahoo! can do it, I am sure @ned can do it better.
Yahoo is centralised. The various sites that access the steem blockchain do so via a stateless API. Same API used by bots. Doing a captcha would mean doing so for every comment, every like, every share...
How can the system circumvent that without a massive rethink about how the API works?
The system requires no rethink. Each of the transactions that occurs requires the system verify the authorization of the transactor, the key used. This simply needs to have an additional authorization metric for votes added to it, a captcha, 2FA, whatever is chosen to mitigate non-human actors on the blockchain.
It would dramatically impact Steemit users, who would have to solve the captcha, or reply to a txt, every time they vote. It would also dramatically reduce the number of bots, and make bots unable to vote unless they were able to solve captchas, or reply to txts appropriately. Those are very expensive features to add to bots, and few bots would be able to undertake them.
Further, those mechanisms bots used to surmount the secondary authorization validation may also be attackable, allowing them to be eliminated as well, with additional features.
It requires no further centralization or great changes in how the blockchain operates, simply adding an additional verification module to the one that operates now. It requires human intervention to authorize votes by the voters.
Unless this is done, Steemit, perhaps Steem itself, may lose all value to people, outside of the ability to mine rewards. Investors should carefully consider how that will impact their holdings. I have no doubt they are, and presently the bots are increasing their holdings.
Once the tipping point is reached, there may be no way to recover Steemit or Steem utility to people, and investors will lose what holdings they cannot extract in time to capture nominal value through exchanging Steem for other media. Stinc will be far more vulnerable to this than individual investors, as Myspace shows.
Presently Stinc is practically servile to whales, as a matter of necessity. In this matter, the interests of Stinc and the whales are not aligned, and Stinc may need to unilaterally act to preserve it's market, even over the objections of that market. Each whale also has common interests with the others, but also points of divergence from the group, concerning their own increase relative to the group, for example.
If I have misunderstood anything regarding the implementation of botproofing mechansims, please do make every effort to enable me to understand. I am not intent on any particular means of reducing bot competition with people. I just am certain it needs to stop.
Thanks!
If I had to solve a captcha or enact a 2FA just to vote, I would not just stop voting, I would leave the platform, as it will have turned into a horrendous nightmare of a user interface. I really don't think what you are proposing sounds like a workable solution.
If anything, it would create a situation where the cleverest bot writers would gain a significant monopoly (perhaps attaching the 2fa to an automated sms responder, or the captcha to a web faucet), whilst simultaneously drastically reducing the number of votes from actual humans.
It would also create significant centralisation of user interfaces, by introducing significant barriers to interface designers, be they web interfaces like busy, dtube or utopian, or mobile apps like esteem. Chainbb has already called it quits, how many more projects would collapse if such a significant barrier to entry was introduced?
You are quite correct in your criticisms.
I also point out that I would sooner expect the pope to convert to Islam than I would expect Stinc to seek to limit votebots. It's their bread and butter.
Yet, the alternative is the eventual destruction of any socially redeeming value Steemit has. Bots suck the value of upvotes out of the users and increasingly concentrate it in the accounts of whales.
This is ongoing, but there is a limit to how much longer it can go on. Presently Steemit has a ~10% YOY retention rate for accounts. 90% of users give up before a year is out.
The bots are getting worse, and making the problems that are already insoluble for 90% of folks worse.
Bots or people. Steemit can live without bots, but it cannot without people.
While I mentioned captchas and 2fa, I am no specialist in botproofing, and others may have better ideas on how to manage it.
As to impediments to additional interfaces to the blockchain, again, you are correct. These impediments aren't necessarily insoluble. Impediments aren't roadblocks or unbridgeable chasms. Dunno why Chainbb gave up, so can't comment. 90% of new accounts gave up too, though, and that might be why.
Even without you, as long as the bots were gone, Steemit would be a better place.
I'd miss you though!
A bad user interface would drive everyone away, not just me. No-one wants to face a capture every time they click 'like', leave a comment or make a post. I understand your concern about the platform, indeed I share it. I just define it in different terms. To me the problem is not bots verses humans, but good actors verses bad actors. Both sides have bots and humans. I think we need more bot good actors to use downvoting to counter the bot (and human) bad actors. It is a bot arms race and downvoting is the weapon good actors have to discourage bad faith actors.
I can appreciate your sentiment regarding good and bad actors on the platform. Or anywhere.
Unfortunately, people are facing an existential evolution in automation, and bots of any kind being afforded human social value are going to necessarily be intolerable. For various reasons you can discern for yourself by considering Moore's Law applied to AI, bots cannot be allowed to compete with people in society. I parse the reason for this principle as people are sacred (even when profane), and bots mundane.
Even good bots open the door to bots that are less good, and in time this effects bad bots through the door, and where AI is going, society cannot tolerate that.
It may seem trivial today, but it won't soon.
Bots aren't the one flaw in Steemit. Getting rid of bots won't make Steemit perfect, Steem moon, and terrorists surrender. It is necessary to prevent bots from voting on Steemit all the same, as they will preclude actual human society eventually if allowed.
I reckon stake-weighting is far more harmful, and without it, there'd be little reason for votebots. Dealing with that would buy us time to deal with bots.
Like I said, I dunno what the solution is, only that if we don't get one, Steemit will eventually be destroyed. Bots can't be allowed to vote on Steemit much longer if Steemit is to survive.