RE: Boost Posts on Steem with Upvote Bots!
Upvote Services were created due to the gap in the market, especially for minnows to effectively promote their posts. In that sense, it does help smaller authors get their content out there, and is currently the only and most effective means of doing so.
However, I am a firm believer that Upvote Services are a net Negative on the Steemit ecosystem from a number of reasons.
I have written 2 in-depth articles on the matter, one on the identifying of issues of Upvote Services and how they are negatively affecting the Steemit ecosystem and the other, as a Utopian.io proposal for the proposed solution which includes a link to your proposal for funding projects.
You can find them here :
Growing Unhappiness with Upvote Bots on Steemit
Proposal for New 'Promoted' Function
I sincerely believe my proposed solution would bring a positive impact to the entirety of the Steem ecosystem as well as solve the current issue with Upvote Services cause a rift in Steemit itself.
It is upending the sorting algorithm, taking funds out of the rewards pool necessarily and creating an uneven playing field especially for minnows.
I am doing my best to bring awareness onto the proposal and if anyone has the time to take a look at it, it would really mean a lot. If you do agree with my proposal and would like to see it come to fruition, a resteem would absolutely be appreciated.
I'm with you @bitopia , I'm still relatively new to Steemit and Cryptocurrency in general but I've learned so much simply by joining this community. I've definetly noticed the use of bots to give a few post a competitive edge and as a tech person myself I figure maybe I should look into but, but one of the reason I love Steemit is its crypto-reddit style honest blockchain community and even as a rookie I feel like using bots to control upvote power is completely unfair to creators who are trying to come on the rise like myself. I makes me feel like whats the point in spending to much time on a post when someone is cheating eh system to rise up. This will definitely destroy the ecosystem. I read through your "Growing Unhappiness with Upvote Bots on Steemit" voted and resteemed.
Edit** Removed the "Screw this bot crap. Just no." Felt it sounded a bit rude and again maybe I'm missing the positives about this if there are any. Anyone care to break it down?
Your negative sentiments towards the Steemit experience thus far is exactly what I am aiming to counteract. If the system stays as it is, newer users like yourself will soon enough find themselves to frustrated and leave when they could be contributing good work and earning good money accordingly.
Thank you very much! You may also want to read my full proposal which I posted alongside that post as that is where I describe my solution to the problem.
The positive of Upvote Services, is that it filled a need in the market for authors to have their work seen more often. So that's what the whales did, they filled the gap in the market. Obviously, having to play within the confines of Steemit's capabalities, and that's what they came up with. It is simply a unintended side-effect that it is causing a negative impact right now which needs to be rectified.
I agree with you, in my opinion bots damage the ecosystem. I dont feel angry when someone uses them, but I do feel that steem would be a better place without them!
Absolutely, Steemit would be better off without them, and that is why I am putting in my best effort to rally more support around my proposal in hopes that it may actually be implemented.
I went to your blog and read your proposal about the promoted function, I'm definitely going to support that! It can be the solution for the voting bot's crisis.
Thank you for taking the time! I definitely believe it has the means to do so. However, based on how much traction it has gotten so far, it is far from being taken seriously.
I will be working upon a proposal 1.1 where I refine some points and add a few new things. I don't know what it will take to have it implemented but everyday that I see that it isn't it just makes me uncomfortable.
This post has received a 9.36 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @bitopia
@boomerang distributes 100% of the SBD and up to 80% of the Curation Rewards to STEEM POWER Delegators. If you want to bid for votes or want to delegate SP please read the @boomerang whitepaper.
That's a great comments I appreciate it 👍
@bitopia so you're against upvoting bots but used one yourself to upvote your comment?
You're absolutely right. Because there is no other option available. I actually put in the time to create a solution and am not sitting around bitching about the situation.
Moreover, the situation is a more an issue of posts and not comments. I absolutely found it necessary to use an Upvote Service to get seen so that affirmative action may be taken so that Steemit may grow.
As a matter of fact, I will continue to use Upvote Services on my own posts as well. Unless I want to spend good time and effort writing a post and proverbially throw it in the bin.
Yep. That's the problem. The amount of content (including spam content) makes it pretty much impossible to get noticed without using any service.
That's why I've developed @smartsteem (we just launched yesterday) - a votingbot-ecosystem which has a strict upvoting whitelist. Means: user apply and are then reviewed by moderators with our own rating metrics - called SmartScore.
You can find more info here https://steemit.com/steem/@smartsteem/smartsteem and at https://smartsteem.com