Operation Clean Trending

booster (68) 7 years ago

Flagged for Hate speech and discrimination against public businesses on the blockchain, in favor of the black market who also operate in the same space.

Why don't you instead make great content and ask us or your friends for sponsorship if you are new instead of making false accusations?

Make sure you also tell these people that you work for d.tube and that you make 25% off of peoples content without contributing a cent to their creation. Should we act the same way? give 25% less on our upvotes to our customers who use d.tube to compensate?

Also - We SPONSOR as well as selling marketing votes for the masses and a lot of other things you seem to not have informed yourself about.

I suggest you think really long before you answer me because your answer will be forever recorded into the block of the chain you post in.

Team Booster
We give everyone a chance
We sponsor great content creators in being better
We give away 25% of our earnings to STEEM OpenSource Projects to stay alive and updated
We reinvest in STEEM to make more peoples dreams come through.
Prior to this, we upvoted absolutely everyone on the steem blockchain for about a year which indeed helped expand the userbase from what it was to what it has become.

What do you do, making one post about d.tube and another about what we do is evil?

You Sir, clueless.

$52.50

16 votes

beanz (68) 7 years ago (edited)

You already take much more than 25% when you sell your votes to the bidders.

Team Booster
We give everyone a chance

You remove everybody's chance when you throw in your own bid to upvote yourself.

We reinvest in STEEM to make more peoples dreams come through.

Only less than a week ago you confessed to stealing all your Steem from @adsactly.

Also dreams come *true not through.

we upvoted absolutely everyone on the steem blockchain for about a year

Voting for everybody with your stake had the same effect as voting for nobody. It was for one reason, which was to put your name in the upvote list of every post including the spam and plagiarists.

Heimindanger is a constructor. He has built apps that we needed right when we needed them. You on the other hand, only know how to be destructive. And that's the impact you will always choose to have on the world.

$0.00

fyrstikken (75) 7 years ago

Only less than a week ago you confessed to stealing all your Steem from adsactly.

No, @beanz, that was me who said that to your boyfriend as a joke when he complained about getting a flag and got angry.

You already take much more than 25% when you sell your votes to the bidders.

We have a @frontrunner guild who makes off with most of the curation rewards. Normal people benefits from that, plus our customers. We make nothing or very little of the curation rewards because we are the last one to vote.

Voting for everybody with your stake had the same effect as voting for nobody. It was for one reason, which was to put your name in the upvote list of every post including the spam and plagiarists.

No @beanz, voting for everyone had a great effect and your opinion is already in a hateful mood, so I wont continue arguing with you.

Also dreams come *true not through.

Had to throw that in there, wow - a foreigner made a spelling mistake according to native english speaker @beanz. Congratulations, I give you that as a win.

@Heimindanger is a constructor. He has built apps that we needed right when we needed them. You on the other hand, only know how to be destructive.

I am glad he is a constructor, however I am not happy with this steemwhale bureaucracy. As the gf/ex gf of the guy I flagged last week you are anyway to biased and emotional for me to take anything of what you say seriously.

Maybe @walden has something to add to it.

$0.03

beanz (68) 7 years ago

Heinindanger is not and was never my bf. So I fail to see your point in bringing up an ex irrelevant to this comment. And I wasn't talking about the curation rewards I was talking about the actual liquid payment for the upvote. Which takes back more than 25% of the reward from the upvote.

$0.00

fyrstikken (75) 7 years ago

@beanz, it would be much more profitable to make a quick 200 self owned accounts, re-delegate and just upvote myself 10 times per day with an autonomous feeder like someone else does.

If every single vote-window was full, that would be great - but that is not reality. People, ordinary people has made great profits on @booster since it started almost a year ago and people who have or will use him for shitposting will eventually find themselves in a bankrupt situation because they spent good token promoting bad content, like your current/ex boyfriend.

Heinindanger is not and was never my bf. So I fail to see your point in bringing up an ex irrelevant to this comment.

I was talking about @sirlunchthehost, @beanz. Why are you acting dumb when we know you are devious ans spiteful? Me bringing him up is absolutely relevant. @jonny-clearwater and @instructor2121 and others can tell you that. Heck, you even quoted his recording from that day so please, @beanz. Don`t act a fool for me please. I know your tactics, been seeing them for a year and a half and they never really seem to work.

Why so bitter, @beanz?

$0.32

felixxx (68) 7 years ago

How about a campaign to bring n^2 back ?

$12.09

7 votes

gardenofeden (75) 7 years ago

This whole article takes into assumption that all bid-bot operators, delegators, or users, are all doing it for profit only, and have no intention of creating value in the network.

This assumption is false. We used bid bots to get exposure on the biggest news in Garden of Eden history and made it to the trending page, and unfortunately were down voted by your bot.

This is unsettling for a few reasons.

#1 We have never used bid bots to send a post to the trending page before this post, but we did here because it is the most important post we have ever made.

#2 Our important post announces the sale of our property which is a huge step towards the next phase of our humanitarian project, and we are offering the property for cryptocurrency. This is significant, and ideally the transaction will be completed in Steem! Obviously, the first real estate for Steem exchange could add great value to the network.

#3 As disclosed in every one of our posts, and more importantly as demonstrated by our actions over the last 2 years here, we are highly dedicated to the success of Steem and creating value in the network. We are extremely devoted to building a better world for ALL - and have been for close to a decade - and have appreciated and embraced Steem's revolutionary potential for furthering that cause since the day we heard about it.

#4 After reaching out to you in Steemit.chat because we feel your downvote per these justifications does not apply to our post, you did not consider these facts we respectfully brought to your attention. In fact, you told us you had not even read the post! You responded absolutely and held fast to your conclusion that the use of bid bots is abuse per se. While it might be true that many posts on trending are of poor quality and are out for profit only, to lump ALL posts together under that judgment is illogical, unreasonable, and tyrannical.

Of course you are entitled to whatever opinion you want as well as to using your voting power however you want, but with this kind of absolute judgment, mistakes have already been made - and you're likely to make more by using a bot to fight a bot.

$10.90

10 votes

coldbolt (45) 7 years ago

I'm just going to go through each of your points and deconstruct this argument because it's barely manageable.

1) We have never used bid bots to send a post to the trending page before this post, but we did here because it is the most important post we have ever made.

The trending section is for to find the best content on the blockchain. The absolute best content at the time and by buying the bids, you effectively kill more and more reason for people to look at trending because it's not the best content. Whilst it's good content, good content doesn't win rewards, doesn't garner real views and essentially rips the opportunity for real content to make it. You might be using it for exposure but this isn't a very good reason because it's not trending worthy and if it was, you'd have put the bids strong enough to get to hot and let the community determine it from there. You didn't. Who am I to call it not great content, well to be honest you've stated it's important but for who and what, let the community decide. You again didn't allow for that.

2) Our important post announces the sale of our property which is a huge step towards the next phase of our humanitarian project, and we are offering the property for cryptocurrency. This is significant, and ideally the transaction will be completed in Steem! Obviously, the first real estate for Steem exchange could add great value to the network.

If it's that great value to the network, let the community decide. Do your outreach, contact people, let people decide it. You rob the community the chance to decide upon it. Next time I have to sell a car I'll just say people can buy it with Steem and start selling everything with it and then switch to Fiat right? No you want people to know about what you're doing but that's all it is. Wrong means to do so as you are killing value for people to depend on Trending as a good means of finding the best content.

3) As disclosed in every one of our posts, and more importantly as demonstrated by our actions over the last 2 years here, we are highly dedicated to the success of Steem and creating value in the network. We are extremely devoted to building a better world for ALL - and have been for close to a decade - and have appreciated and embraced Steem's revolutionary potential for furthering that cause since the day we heard about it.

Great, that is absolutely fantastic that you are looking to help and benefit the network. I think it's fair to say that we all want this as it helps the blockchain and progresses Steam in the future. I can only hope you continue to do this as I have to gain from your actions. Don't really need to repeat my issue of using the Trending as a mechanic to incorrectly advertise via buying votes.

4) After reaching out to you in Steemit.chat because we feel your downvote per these justifications does not apply to our post, you did not consider these facts we respectfully brought to your attention. In fact, you told us you had not even read the post! You responded absolutely and held fast to your conclusion that the use of bid bots is abuse per se. While it might be true that many posts on trending are of poor quality and are out for profit only, to lump ALL posts together under that judgment is illogical, unreasonable, and tyrannical.

His reasons don't apply to your post but you still benefit from the ROI or actually ROV. However my issue with your actions is that you are being immoral and not fair to other content creators who might have spent the same amount of time as you but not have the funds to buy the votes.

To conclude, I have absolutely no idea who you guys are or what you guys stand for and you won't know that of me also so that's out of the way. I however do not need to know who you are because what you are trying to defend is wrong. Your intentions might be great but because the trending operates in such a way, you are robbing everyone else the chance of deciding what the actual blockchain wants. If you feel that a whale might not see you, pay enough to get to hot and go from there but that is still unfair. How about network with people, contact whales and get to know them and find out what they feel. I mean if the cause is that great, people will upvote such content. I never seen @heimindanger having to ask people to upvote his content or buy votes for his Steem Dapp "DTube" never was needed because it was that good. People WANTED it and supported it. It was that fantastic that people just wanted to do anything. Your actions prove otherwise and it's absolutely why you had to use Trending to get leverage when something else should have been there.

If this bot is to work, ALL CONTENT must honour what is real curation and therefore we can all decide what is the best content. Does that mean Steem has to change how voting works again. I think it will but don't you dare try to say what you done is morally good for Steem because it adds to the problem. It forces more and more people to pay for exposure rather than finding the best content which is why PEOPLE USE STEEM. To find the BEST of the internet within the Steem blockchain and you robbed the community a part of that chance.

If you want to speak to me, I'll be on the DTube Discord as Coldbolt but this isn't right. I absolutely understand your good intention but ignoring how trending works, taints it badly.

Goodluck to the future.

$3.55

5 votes

whatsup (75) 7 years ago

Let's deconstruct the deconstruction.

"The trending section is for to find the best content on the blockchain."
According to whom?

So many assumptions and opinions stated as fact.

Note: You have a view of how SteemIt could develop, not "The View".

I think the trending page is more interesting and higher quality now with the voting bots. I was really tired of the "Circle Jerk" posts.

Now, I will not claim I am right and you are wrong, but your opinion is just that.

$0.00

cryptoeagle (65) 7 years ago (edited)

This is really about a monopoly (Steemit whales) kicking out the little guys like any other big corporation, they are protecting their interests. How else do you think this self appointed gestapo account manages to get $200-$700 for his crappy posts? It's a whale club, they vote among themselves and won't let the small fish play. The only thing you can do is power down and let these scammers fall on their own weight. I can't wait to see the prosecutions!

$0.14

mobbs (69) 7 years ago

This whole article takes into assumption that all bid-bot operators, delegators, or users, are all doing it for profit only, and have no intention of creating value in the network.

This raises a problem of subjectivity. For example, Suesa's post was very clearly not doing it for profit, but that can only be known if you knew the person. Context becomes an issue, quality and value becomes an opinion, and no investigation will reliably give you a true answer to this assumption in general.

With that in mind you inevitably end up arbitrarily flagging every post regardless of its context, and contribution to the platform. I agree with the sentiment on the whole, don't get me wrong, but a higher status of responsibility & regulation is going to be needed if it's to avoid backlash.

For example, as a curator, I don't just upvote things using our tag, nor do I upvote simply 'good' content. I have to visit their profiles and check their comments and previous posts to get a contextual picture of who they are so I know they're not just abusing the system for profit. Takes time.

$9.21

15 votes

heimindanger (68) 7 years ago (edited)

If you are not doing it for profit, there is an option to decline rewards.

Also, your friend Suesa (which got downvoted by my page) clearly got a very large % of his visibility and rewards from the bots for this article. I can see how it's a coincidence here as he doesn't use bots usually, but nonetheless his article should never have made trending. Without bots, it would have been near the 50$ range, as most of his other articles. The 500$+ he got from the bots, I consider as abuse, and I downvote it. I would do the same to anyone else.

I agree in a perfect world we would all waste our time to see if users are real and abusing or not. However, people who have time (i.e minnows) don't have the power, and people who have the power (whales), don't have the time.

Downvoting arbitrarily based on the % of value coming from bot upvotes is the best way to select and avoid personal wars. At least with this tool, it's clear I have personally nothing against all the people I downvoted yesterday. If we started doing it selectively, egos would come in and people would take it as a personal attacks.

$3.11

guyfawkes4-20 (65) 7 years ago

Well, it wasn't on profit, I agree with you on that one @mobbs but it's still a shitpost that doesn't deserve to be on Trending, it doesn't even deserve a dollar since it brings no value to the community. It's just a failed joke. It's a subjective opinion.

I know Suesa, she's doing good, but many other guys are doing good too and don't earn that much in half a year. Regardless of the quality, no post should make $800 unless it's a project update, like the ones that start with D.

Conclusion, even without taking into consideration the context we can clearly see that most of the Trending posts are overvalued and deserve flagging.

$0.29

5 votes

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago

Sorry but that sounds a lot like "mob rule". When you write "it doesn't deserve a dollar since it brings no value to the community" you are implying that you are the one or among the ones who decide what brings and doesn't bring value to the community ... Who gave you that role or what makes you think you are entitles to it ? That there is only one way to define "the community" and it is obviously the way you (and those who think like you) define it ...

I guess this drama currently unfolding goes to show why anarchy cannot work - every guy with a metaphorical gun implicitly assumes that things are "right" or "wrong" according to a scale of values that he takes for granted and believes absolute, and also happens to be his scale of values ...

Also saying Suesa's post shouldn't make that much because other posts more deserving do not earn nearly as much is again a very "communist" way of looking at things (it implies "everybody should be judged and ranked according to one rule" - it basically ends up encouraging conformism and kills creativity)

Most of the Trending posts are "overvalued" - is one way of putting it that implies that there is one definition of value (and you are using it).

Paid votes using bots are a bad idea I believe but in this case the cure is worse than the disease, in my opinion

$1.56

11 votes

smooth (70) 7 years ago

you are implying that you are the one or among the ones who decide what brings and doesn't bring value to the community

Yes, everyone is. That's why we get to vote.

$3.30

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago

Another way of seeing it is "nobody is".

I can decide what brings value to ME. But I shouldn't judge on behalf of THE COMMUNITY, nobody placed any power-of-attorney in me ! I can only talk for myself. You can only talk for yourself, you cannot suddenly decide that, because YOUR PERSONAL JUDGEMENT says that it doesn't bring value to you then it automatically means that it doesn't bring value to THE COMMUNITY.

Actually, I'm not sure you even realize the enormity of what you've written ... We get to vote FOR OURSELVES. Your vote indicate what is valuable (or not) FOR YOU! You have absolutely NO RIGHT to imagine that you speak on behalf of THE COMMUNITY.

YOU and THE COMMUNITY are distinct entities. THE COMMUNITY as a whole cannot vote. What is valuable for it results from the aggregate of individual values. If you flag something that many people upvoted it means you are challenging the judgement of the people who upvoted, you are defying them, by annihilating the effect of their vote you want to deny them the right to express their appreciation. It is extremely destructive.

In case the value comes from bots then it means you are defying and challenging the current steemit system. You can do that indeed, I too believe the current HF19 could do with some tweaking, but I think downvoting is the wrong approach. We should instead plead with whoever can do something about it to change the system.

$0.16

guyfawkes4-20 (65) 7 years ago

What value does it brings to the community that it deserves to have such a humongous payout? Does it help people? Change someone's life? Does it develops the ecosystem?

The whole idea of this platform is that if the community find a post valuable enough they upvote it. If you upvote a post up to 800 with bots, 85% of the votes being bought then who is the one deciding the value? You or the community?

I have my definition of value and others have theirs, but that is the idea, if people find something valuable (whatever that means to them), they use their VP to upvote it, showing their appreciation.

For example, your post is in Trending on the tag Steem, way above mine but you bought all of your votes, and I didn't. The community upvoted my post because they found it valuable. So what does that mean, your post is of better quality because it has a bigger payout?

How's the cure worse than the disease? If someone from the community finds your post overvalued, they flag it. The rewards someone bought, go back to the reward pool and the whole community is benefiting from it one way or another.

$1.05

5 votes

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago

I agree with your analysis, I think the whole idea of self-voting and bot voting is extremly misguided and said as much in the beginning. But then everybody answered : "these are the rules of this platform, if you don't like it you can go away". Ok, if these are the rules and self-voting and bots are part of the game then what people are doing is just playing the game by the rules.

I agree the game is rigged (a guy from Nairobi or Aceh has little chance to be able to buy several hundred $ worth of bot voting) but the solution is not "opininon wars" that are ultimately destructive ("I think your content is not valuable so I harm you") but rather correcting the problem from its root.

The root of the problem is the "Sybil attack" that the Steem whitepaper acknowledges as a challenge yet it brings no solution, quite the contrary it lets the reader think that it is a good thing to have a system that is vulnerable :

The flagging was not intended for "over-valued" posts - especially when the guy paid for the exposure with his money, it was intended for spam, trolling, etc.

The cure is worth than the disease because it seeds discord and calls for revenge, it generates destructive strife instead of healing and community building. It distracts from encouraging constructive contribution and channels effort and energy into destructive behaviour.

Have a look for instance at the ideas that are presented and inform this post from @lishu, especially the Ted talks he links to.

Every educator will tell you that in order to build and educate gently you need to 1. encourage desirable behaviour (obviously) and 2. ignore undesirable behaviour. Punishing should only be reserved for extreme cases.

To get back to solving Steemit abuse, I am convinced that the solution is to have true, real, provable identities.

As you hinted, the value should be indicated by the communities (plural, very important ! otherwise we go toward a mirror image of the "politically correct" that so suffocate our societies today). But you can't build communities when you don't know who you are talking about, when you cannot tell whether two accounts are of the same person or of two different persons or are bots.

$0.42

guyfawkes4-20 (65) 7 years ago

This platform has no rules, and this is the beauty, the people can decide what's acceptable and what's not thus the bots don't have to be part of the game.

It's not a vulnerable system, it has no central authority that can stop bad stuff happening, but the community can decide how to operate and flagging is the only way to stop bad stuff. When I say community, I refer to the whole blockchain as a community.

The flagging was meant for whatever the individual wants to use it for. We have plenty of low-quality posts in Trending that are just overvalued, bought most of their rewards and certainly deserve some flagging.

I don't think you're right; you can't just ignore the undesirable behavior, if you see bullshit, you have to call it out. Otherwise, if you ignore it, that person doesn't learn anything and just moves on with his life thinking he did the right thing.

I don't think that's the solution, far from it. Many people want to stay anonymous because it's a matter of privacy since it's a blockchain and everything you say stays here forever. In case something happens in the future, those people don't want to have their views linked to their identities here forever.

$0.03

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago

When I write "ignore" it shouldn't necessarily be taken literally. The usage of a strong word ("ignore") is to divert the reader as strongly as possible from "punishment". I do think that some gentle remark, for instance how to improve a post so it's not bullshit anymore, is more appropriate than simply "ignore". I try to do as much when some Aceh-based steemians come begging for upvotes :-)

Then about the anonymity: it's anyone's choice but someone who chooses to be himself basically makes an implicit pledge to all the other participants: "I choose to be myself, therefore I pledge not to behave like a d*ck or a moron in order to never be ashamed of myself in the future".

One can easily imagine the reverse from someone who choose, on the contrary, to be anonymous: "I wanted to stay anonymous because I want to keep the option open of someday behaving like a complete d*ck with impunity". Maybe that was not the motivation of someone in particular but those interacting with anonymous characters have, by definition, no way to tell beforehand !

$0.02

silentscreamer (69) 7 years ago (edited)

There is a very simple solution to this that will eliminate the mob rule, that will effectively stop the abuse in its tracks... And thats a simple matter of having the bot owners

review every single bot upvote request that comes in above a certain SBD amount

That way the decision if something is a justified upvote or not is completely in their hands. They still keep control of the trending pages, but guess what?! Crap content isnt going to get as much exposure anymore!Smartsteem has a 3 star rating and thats great, but thats not nearly enough to stop abuse. Even those with 3 star ratings start abusing the bot after time when they see they arent getting reprimanded. I tried to recommend this to @therealwolf but since im insignificant here it probably went by him.

I know this would be hard to implement and i dont know even how to go about that, but im sure there are people that could figure it out.

Yes... This will hurt bot owners profits and those who delegate to them but, cmon guys, this is hurting Steemit badly.. Take up some responsibility. People arent even checking the trending page anymore.

....a planktons opinion.... :D

$0.18

3 votes

antonchanning (59) 7 years ago

" you are implying that you are the one or among the ones who decide what brings and doesn't bring value to the community"

It is their Steem Power, it is precisely their right to use it to downvote content they don't believe brings value to the community. How is that 'mob rule'?

$0.05

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago

Think "worshipping different gods" (disapproven but sometimes tolerated) versus "witch burning" in ancient times. If you use your steem power to upvote whatever shitpost you want, that's your right and freedom. When you use it to harm someone, to do (financial) violence onto someone it's not equivalent.

I am convinced downvoting should be used very, very sparingly, only when there is a manifest abuse.

I also do think having bot voting and paying for upvotes is a bad idea and should not be possible but as long as their are allowed downvoting is understandably seen as stealing from the pocket of the guy who paid for his upvotes ...

$0.00

smooth (70) 7 years ago (edited)

I am convinced downvoting should be used very, very sparingly, only when there is a manifest abuse

Good then please commence downvoting regularly because there is manifest abuse on a huge scale including as described in the post. If you don't agree then that's perfectly okay, but those of us who do see it that way are going to express it with our votes.

$3.40

carlgnash (69) 7 years ago (edited)

"downvoting is understandably seen as stealing from the pocket of the guy who paid for his upvotes ...". Huh. That is the exact opposite of how I see it. I see buying a huge upvote to put your own post in trending as stealing from the pocket of everyone else who is posting without paying for votes. The reward pool is finite. Buying your way into trending decreases the payout going to other authors. If anything, the community coming together to flag an author who bought huge votes is stopping theft.

$0.04

antonchanning (59) 7 years ago

Voting to prevent reward pool rape isn't financially harming anyone. It is voting to determine how the current reward pool is divided. An upvote is an upvote in favour of giving a post/comment a slice. A downvote is a vote that a given post should be paid less.

Not really sure what any of that has to do with religious persecution.

$0.02

sorin.cristescu (71) 7 years ago (edited)

"Reward pool rape" needs defining. When someone with a lots of SP and consequently a lot of VP publishes obviously shitty posts every 6 hours and upvotes himself, as I believe haejin is (was?) doing, I believe that qualifies as "reward pool rape".

When a guy pays with his own money to get his post trending he's only getting back what he has put in. He pays X and the bot upvotes for a value of X. If you downvote Y he only gets back X-Y < X so you are financially harming the guy who paid the bot.

You can indeed argue that it is the bots that are doing the reward pool rape and I will agree with you. But then you should "punish" the bots, not by taking money from the guy who paid the bots (for as long as the bots are officially allowed at least).

You can argue like grumpy cat that, for instance, one shouldn't use bots for posts older than X days but, when steemit allows bots, that basically means that you are making up your own rules (on top of those of the system). You become a kind of vigilante: you take your own gun and start dispensing what you believe to be "justice" of your own accord, following whatever rules you edict.

That is what I call "mob rule". I was comparing this with a village that suddenly decides that a lady living alone is a witch and then proceeds to burn her at stake of their own accord (ok, my analogy wasn't very well formulated in the previous post, I hope now I got it a bit better)

$0.03

mobbs (69) 7 years ago

Sorry I'm so awful at keeping things succinct:

it's still a shitpost that doesn't deserve to be on Trending, it doesn't even deserve a dollar since it brings no value to the community.

This is obviously your opinion - it's a subjective statement and that's my point. Your idea of value appears to be website projects that start with D.

It depends what we want from Steemit. Do we want a trending page to just be a list of steem dates and steem promotion and steem analysis and steem complaints, or do we want something 'trendy'?

If we're to have a trending page of 'trendy' posts, currently the only way to do that for the vast majority of cases is to either be a team of very skilled coders with huge delegations, or be someone with enough money for bot promotion. Right now there's just no other way.

$800 is surely excessive, but on the flip side I upvoted a single post of mine to $150 once, partly for international women's day, partly because I got flagged by some haejin goon, but that $150 post was totally invisible, I had to scroll several loading pages to get to it past all the haejin crypto jargon, posts like today's 'Double Bubble Analysis: update' and'Monthly Steemit Top 200 POWER UP List: March 2018' The post awareness of the hell women go through around the world went by comparatively silently.

Of course, mainstream adoption nis going to want to see things like inane april fools posts, travel blogs, philosophical discussions, political views, pranks, games. Natural social media material. So whether or not you personally find the post funny or clever, the fact that a high-rep individual contributing a lot to the community had some fun and somebody else got it into trending, to me, is totally fine and really one of the few good examples of bot usage.

Again, 800 could have been halved with the same effect, but much less? Back you go to obscurity, replaced by crypto steem bull patterns, 'Steem experiment: Burn post's and so on. (Actually today isn't a bad day for variety, but you get the idea)

$0.05

guyfawkes4-20 (65) 7 years ago

I said that only the projects with D, the big projects that help grow this ecosystem, the ones that have countless hours of work behind them are those that deserve 800. But I didn't say that they are the only ones of value, the only ones that deserve big rewards.

The way I see it, it's straightforward, does a particular post helps the community? Does it brings any value to people? Does it help the people? Does it change something for the better? I think you see where I'm going and if the answer to some of the questions is affirmative then that post is valuable.

Now I'm asking you, what value does that post from @Suesa brings to the community that it deserve to have such a huge payout? None. Let's even say that the post reached its whole purpose of being funny but that still doesn't mean that it deserves so much since we have plenty of other posts a lot more valuable.

I feel what you mean mate, but if people didn't abuse the bots anymore there would be a lot more room for the quality, valuable posts to make it to the top. I had in the past some of my posts upvoted organically to 100-200 even 200+, and they did not reach the top because there were too many posts upvoted by bots.

The discussion is not even about that post from @Suesa but a reflection of what's going on on Trending. So yeah, the page is filled with shitposts that are outshining the quality and organic ones just because they paid for votes. The solution? Either stopping the bots (not going to happen) or flagging the posts, so the users don't abuse bots anymore (doable).

$0.00

mobbs (69) 7 years ago (edited)

Sure, although don't see why the 'trending' page should be filled with 'helpful' stuff. It should be filled with 'trending' stuff. You don't see twitter trending tweets about twitters dev team or how they've helped speed up tweet times, you see people's every day lives and loves and adventures. That is inherently what I see as 'valuable'.

But you're right, it's not entirely about suesa, we both agree that the bot situation is a big-ass problem, and as I said, I don't even disagree with this idea, I'm all for it. I just think there should be methods to prevent arbitrary and blanket flags, something more objective than simply 'this post is shit and presumably just for profit based on my opinion'. Perhaps you are right that things over 800 bucks should be only for big projects - perhaps bots can set tiers for such things; registered projects having the highest/unlimited bid limits, everybody else capped at, say, $400.

The problem with flagging is at best it makes a temporary statement. Even all the activism on steemit made haejin's posts go from, at the peak value time, $450 down to about $400 a pop. Flagging is almost nothing more than a symbolic statement at this point until people learn to band together via powerful communities (flag-a-whale being a hopeful example of that)

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valued-customer (67) 7 years ago

Well, the problem @heimindanger is facing is that the posts in question are upvoted by the very non-subjective methodology you complain about his flags being flown by.

Essentially you both are in agreement that votes ought not to be based on profitability. IMHO, @heimindanger has the better argument, since his flags are only flown in response to purchased upvotes, which discourages purchasing votes.

I reckon that best forces personal and informed curation by attacking the mechanism that causes the problem directly.

I do believe an additional metric that included frequency of purchasing botvotes would better target the most egregious effectors of the problem @heimindanger intends to impact.

This would have precluded @gardenofeden's flag (if their comment here is factual) and also your contention.

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mughat (56) 7 years ago

The rewards are paid by investors in the STEEM token. If investors are not able to generate a ROI by seelling votes they can't justify investing because of the inflation. If you scare away investor you undermine the token price.

$7.74

valued-customer (67) 7 years ago

I am not entirely sure that is mathematically accurate.

Were rewards to be distributed more widely, more people would stay. Last I checked Steemit has ~10% YOY retention rate, meaning 90% of new accounts are abandoned within the first year.

Steem tokens gain value by being used by many people. Those massive stakes mining the rewards pool aren't contributing to the price of Steem rising by broadening the market. Instead they're decreasing the rewards creators receive by profiting from voteselling, which decreases the encouragement creators receive to continue to post and receive Steem. This fails to increase the market for Steem, thereby reducing capital gains, which BTC showed last year can return far more to investors than rewards mining.

There is risk that Steem might not appreciate anyway, and the ROI from delegations and self-votes is assured. Cash is king, so that's how whales generate ROI. That's not investment, as investment depends on risk. It's profiteering.

It is noteworthy that AFAIK only Steem permits investors to generate ROI other than through price appreciation and capital gains. I believe this is depressing the price of Steem by discouraging creators such that almost all of them bail, instead of sticking to it and generating utility for the token and thus raising the price.

$0.00

https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/2wq69g-buildawhale-blacklist-update
https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/2wq69g-buildawhale-blacklist-update
https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/2wq69g-buildawhale-blacklist-update

themarkymark (78) 7 years ago

I spend a lot of time and effort maintaining a blacklist for @buildawhale even when it means I take a lot and lose the best customers.

Almost 1,100 accounts on my blacklist, all personally research and verified by hand.

I run one of the few bots that blacklist people, and even fewer who spend 10-40+ hours a week finding and punishing spammers without funding or benefit and frequently results in retaliation and harassment.

I also run one of the few bid bots that actually have a reasonable cap to their maximum bid (50 SBD) so my bot cannot be used to abuse trending. I am not against people using bots to get to trending, I am against trash getting to trending. Spending money to get to trending (which is usually at a loss) is no different than using advertising on any other social media platform on the Internet.

While I appreciate your mission, you are vastly mistaken that the ROI of running a bid bot is close to self voting at 100%.

This is very far from the truth, on good days you might average 75% of a full vote, if you run a blacklist and stop the best customers (spammers) you make even less. When STEEM drops, you make even less.

That being said, most bot owners give off the majority of their earnings to delegators in many cases 95% of liquid rewards or more.

There is a big difference between using bid bots to promote trash to trending, and using bid bots to promote quality original content.

$7.59

13 votes

heimindanger (68) 7 years ago (edited)

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

$2.33

themarkymark (78) 7 years ago

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.

$2.11

jonny-clearwater (71) 7 years ago (edited)

Are you opposed to legitimate content using the bots?
Or just abusers?
I'm a user that has decided to invest in my content and pay for said advertising...but I also believe the content I'm creating deserves this investment.
I don't use these services on all my content either, just one specific project.
I'm curious where you stand on that.
(Self voted for visibility)

$4.01

heimindanger (68) 7 years ago (edited)

It's very hard for content creators to judge their own work imho. In my experience, some people will undervalue it, some will overvalue it, but very rarely will someone accurately define the value in his own work.

If you believe your content is way better than your average content, I believe you can boost yourself to a smaller amount, like lets say 50$. It would be enough to give a lot of visibility in the hot, and tags. If the content is truly good, the organic votes will follow and you will reach trending with less than 50% bid-bots upvotes, and my tool won't downvote you.

$0.00

smooth (70) 7 years ago

some people will undervalue it, some will overvalue

Nearly all posts on Steem are overvalued. They generally do not evidence significant contributions to the platform or community (with a few exceptions for posts about meaningful development efforts and/or marketing) nor do they pay their own way in generating traffic and promoting the platform. A fair value for the traffic generated by most posts would be a few dollars at best, maybe less.

Stakeholders are paying for all this and it is just a rip off, but worse, with all the botting and bidding it is weighing down the blockchain to the point where it can very easily become unusable. It is already difficult to use.

$0.34

therealwolf (75) 7 years ago

I appreciate your efforts @heimindanger.

But I do think that downvoting content based on bought votes is not the right way and will result in punishment of innocent steemians and will profit most of all the circle-jerkers and self-voters.

This will also result in people upvoting just as much to stay under the radar.

Instead of your current initiative - how about you focus on circle-jerkes like @me-tarzan

Ever since I've joined Steemit in August 2017 - that guy is posting the same complete trash content day after day multiple times a day.

While it was only 4 times a day in August 2017 - it went up to 10 times per day now.

$2.55

heimindanger (68) 7 years ago

Hello there @therealwolf, you were expected

I believe self-voting and curation trails to be a lesser evil than bid-bots.

You are largely involved in the @smartsteem bot. Congratulations on the work done by the way, you are one of the few bidbots using a different codebase. I hope more follow your ways and create different features and diversify the offer of bid-bots to users.

$2.18

therealwolf (75) 7 years ago (edited)

Hello there @therealwolf, you were expected

Hey @heimindanger - just saw the article few minutes ago.

You are largely involved in the @smartsteem bot. Congratulations on the work done by the way, you are one of the few bidbots using a different codebase. I hope more follow your ways and create different features and diversify the offer of bid-bots to users.

Thank you @heimindanger! I've much respect for @dtube.

Ever since the creation of smartsteem.com - my goal was to reduce abuse and give users who create quality content a way to promote their posts.

Now, after months of running, developing and improving it - I feel that there is a limit of what smartsteem is able to to do. Part of this reason is also because many many many more bid-bots have been popping up in the last 1-3 months - of which 99% run on an open source codebase and are simply not giving any f* about stopping abuse. (afaik only buildawhale is actively blacklisting users besides smartsteem)

Even if smartsteem were to blacklist ALL spammers and restrict users who are abusing our services (by pushing posts to global trending every single day) - those users would simply go to another service.

Don't get me wrong - I will still personally blacklist all spammers and abusers I see - but there is a limit on what smartsteem can restrict as long as all other services allow it.

Nevertheless, I will brainstorm about ways to stop the hijacking of global trending spots in an excessive way.

I believe self-voting and curation trails to be a lesser evil than bid-bots.

I don't miss the times where the same 5 faces were on global trending every single day. But of course, real bid-bot abuse is just as bad.

$0.02