To vote yourself up, or not to vote yourself up, that's the question.
Is it OK to vote up your own post? What about your own comment? Let's discover the answer together.
This is an ongoing debate "in the minds" of steem users.
Is it okay to vote yourself up?
Is it not okay to vote yourself up?
Sometimes? Never at all? Who knows?
Before we begin this analysis of the problem let us get one fact out of the way:
The STEEM blockchain does allow you to vote up both your blog articles (root posts) and your comments and replies (posts)
Let's see why that policy is in place...
The idea is that if you were a retailer, I don't know, let's say Pepsi or Cola-Cola, and you wanted to write some posts about giveaways or contests on steem to reach this audience....
All you would have to do is create a steem account named pepsicola or something, and buy a TON of steem from an exchange, let's say $1 million dollars (much cheaper than a superbowl commercial)... and power up that steem account.
This way you could upvote your product brand's blog yourself, simply by purchasing steem instead of earning it.
So buying steem power to promote your business blog is a good policy. It brings demand for STEEM
...and we want that...
You can either buy your steem power to upvote your content, or earn your steem power to upvote your own content.
Where this becomes a problem, is how it is perceived.
Some people think it is greedy and selfish to reward yourself. In normal everyday life, it is normal to dislike people who pat themselves on a back, or take a bigger piece of birthday cake (unless of course it is your own birthday).
So what do we do?
What is right, and what isn't?
Until now, if I write something important... Something I really want everyone to see... I will upvote myself, not for the reward, but for the self promotion purpose. That includes both comments on other people's blogs and blog posts I make.
If I write something silly, or unimportant, or just casual, I never upvote myself because it doesn't carry a lot of weight, and isn't important to be seen as much as my other writings. So I never upvote that type of content.
This has worked well for me, until HardFork 19. Now everyone is paying attention to rewards and payouts more than they ever have.. if you're caught upvoting yourself with significant value, you will be shunned or called out on it.
What we need to do, as a community, is set a new defined precedent (that has a timestamp) that is perodically kept current.
For instance, like this:
This way, if you follow the suggested policy, as it is written, you can refer to it if someone chastises you publicly for self-upvoting yourself.
Also, it will also be used to help downvote and regulate obnoxious self upvoters who abuse it and take it to an extreme soley for greed purposes and nothing more.
By the way, incase you never saw it, Steemit does have a really great HELP DOC page here:
...but as this document suggests:
https://steemit.com/faq.html#Is_there_an_Etiquette_Guide_for_Steemit
There are no official rules for participating on Steemit.com
Perhaps we should codify some that affects all users exactly the same? This way we don't need to individually bump into this problem continually which does affect the reward pool vastly.
What do you think should be done?
Should we just codify it into the system that NO ONE can self-upvote "ever"? I might like that idea, this way all of are in the same boat, and we can adjust accordingly. Oh wait, what about our botty friends who will upvote their master instead of self-upvoting him or herself?
This is a difficult problem and a difficult situation. Probably why it hasn't been fully understood or addressed.
Help! I think the majority of us is interested in what each person has to say... Please share your comments.
Seems like you answered your own question why that rule shouldn't be codified into the system. I don't support any change to consensus that doesn't pass the Sybil test. Unfortunately, this is something many Steemians have yet to learn, since it seems like 99% of the changes I see requested on Steem by regular users don't pass the Sybil test.
The excessive self-upvoting problem is a difficult problem to solve that really needs to be left to human beings to try to find and deal with (via downvotes). It is more important than ever because of the linear rewards change, which I hope will provide more benefits than the abuse downsides, but we will have to wait and see how it turns out in practice. To help with this issue, we should try to avoid associating shame with downvoting (aka flagging) blatant self-voters who regularly give themselves too high of a reward (too high is of course subjective).
Downvoting is a healthy and necessary part of the Steem system to keep people in check and fairly allocate rewards to those who produce valued content. It would help if the UI separated out displaying downvotes for the purposes of too high rewards from the more menacing flag which could be reserved as a symbol for downvotes given for reasons involving fraud, scams, plagiarism, and/or hate speech.
Edit: Also, thank you @jesta for ChainBB which allows me to upvote with less than 1% voting weight. Although, it seems its estimated rewards calculation is a bit off.
You're right... Glad you wrote. Notice I did say botty friends because some of these bots are indeed healthy for the system even if people take time to warm up and learn about them. :)
I often hear the term Sybil, but I'd like to define it for our readers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
@arhag is correct. Humans can want things, but sockpuppets and bots will usually find away around the system. So if you implement changes, you better be sure it passes the Sybil test... (Otherwise you could be jumping out of one fire, and into a nastier fire instead)
I especially like this part:
I would love to see that in place.
Seconding this idea of "downvotes" being separate from flags. Maybe downvotes would be half-power flags or something?
IT's tough though, there are times when I wanna downvote something but I feel really awkward about sticking my neck out and looking like a jerk.
Great post BTW - not something I think about too much. My general strategy is to upvote my own original posts, but not comments - which means I'm only giving myself about 2 upvotes per day.
Problem with down votes is, that it ends up being a tit for tat. I as a minnow, down voted a popular article from a whale, so he picked my best article and slugged me. He lost a tiny fraction off is $1000+ article, while I lost a huge bite from my $100 one.
Ya!! I would not have the balls to flag a whale. Sorry that happened to you.
Tit for tat is childish in my opinion and bullying should not be tolerated. Might does not make it right.
Sure, but it does not stop it happening, right or wrong.
No, but as a society, if we all agree on certain etiquette or rules and someone breaks those rules, then as a group, that person is chastised. If (and that's a big IF) we can ever get everyone to agree, then things get solved.
I did see that applied to one of the Steemit scammers that had his post flagged out of existence.
I totally agree that simply disabling self-up-voting can never work. There are too many ways to get around it, bots, sock-puppets, delegation, multiple accounts. So any option there is right out.
To expect it to be handled by community distribution is tough, because that requires people to give up voting power to remove rewards from someone else. Even if their goal was to increase rewards for other content, they could do that more directly with their power by voting that content up (probably).
It's a tough situation to tackle, but people will definitely generally act in their own financial interest. So expecting down-vote curation to stop it could be tricky.
This guy gets it.
Thanks for your point of view.
Actually I think the bigger problem than the linear reward curve is the higher impact of fewer votes. Some people are now writing exactly 10 short articles per day (as they have 10 heavy 100 % votes available) just to upvote them all with 100 %. This is an example:
https://steemit.com/@sandrino
Apart from that I think the fast growing number of Steemit users would require the exact opposite of a few high impact votes (whereby big accounts tend to reserve their fewer but heavier votes for other 'big fishes' because of the expected heavy upvotes in return).
Instead of that many small votes for many different users would be a much better idea ...
You have to remember that when people are upvoting themselves, they are using their own steem power which they have either earned through SteemIt or have purchased. Either way, they have every right to use it as they wish.
Being able to upvote one's own content, whether it be posts or comments, encourages people to engage with SteemIt and to write more that they might do otherwise. I have not seen an increase in "junk" since the hardfork. In fact, things appear to be the opposite.
Also, when people see that an article or comment already has value they want a part of it. It's as simple as that.
I upvote my own content and also reserve some of my voting power to vote up people who comment on my posts or comments and also for other content I see on SteemIt. I see nothing wrong with this balanced approach.
Agreed!
I have stuggled with the same questions.
As a newbie, I realized that some comments on my posts were earning more than my original post, without all the effort that went into the post. I started upvoting my stuff about a week ago to earn more STD's & SP since I havent made much yet (I am not complaining because fb never paid me a dime). But I do think about how it looks to others.
I just learned of a Steemian who has two accounts, and one votes for the other. I'm not sure if that is allowed, but it is similar to your pepsi example.
One thing I like to remember is that everything on Steemit is transparent, and I stick to original content and ethical behaviour because once I'm a whale, my past may become scrutinized; just like Presidents.
I justify voting for some of my own content and comments by how much effort I put into them and the fact that I don't really have an influencial group supporting me. Whether that is right or wrong is a good question.
I would be fine if self-voting wasn't possible, it would take the morality question out of the equation.
I was afraid to even put a reminder to upvote and share on my posts until someone told me its fine to do that. They clarified that you shouldn't go to other people's posts and ask (beg) for resteems and votes.
I'm still not even a minnow yet, so I can't support you with my big votes, but you are welcome to enter my weekly contests to try and win some SBD. Last week the prize pool was almost 25 SBD. Not everyone wins, but you have as good a chance as anyone. The contests are geared towards the small frys to help them along and is supported by a generous donation to make sure the prize pool is not too small.
You bring up a great point. A really great point. It is something we should all consider. Thanks for that!
"to earn more STD's??" You meant SBD's I guess. ;)
Haha, yes indeed I meant SBD. 😊
Лучше не скажешь..))..good
It is an interesting dynamic and something I have personally struggled with, but lately I have gotten comfortable promoting myself when earned/applicable. (as in comment votes)
As for post votes, I have always has the upvote post box checked in my submit a post screen since day one so had not even thought about it.
Now that I do though, hell yeah I am voting myself up. Worked my butt off for 11 months to build up some SP never having a big pay day post or one viral or even sniff the trending page.
Plus, 90% of my posts are value add not fluff. I aim to provide value to the community. Hard work equals a good steak dinner from time to time, now I can afford to finally buy one. :-)
A very honest and upfront description of your habits. I'd love to thank you for sharing this... I've been following you a long time @scaredycatguide and you're one of the best curators of content I've found. You don't just blog. You run around commenting and I've been doing it too... I suppose you might be one of my inspirations long ago, and I'm sorry your steak dinners took so long.. but the next one you get, you eat it up good.. and enjoy it. You deserve it.
It's not bad to upvote yourself. It is when a Steemian self-upvotes irrelevant posts that we know that is a selfish act. Steemit doesn't have specific rules in regards to that and I would support a policy that limits the amount of self-upvotes one can get in a day.
i suggest, upvoting yourself in any way has to be forbidden! upvoting my content should be a tool only for others to like or judge it, not for myself.
Showing yourself a little self love isn't going to be a bad idea. Is it?
sry, it's not about love, it's about money!
Hahaha 🙌. Money rules.
That might be the must easiest and effective course of action in the short term. I agree.
Oh yes, it is 😊
A self-upvote always is a selfish act LMAO. The word "self" should have given it away ;)
I don't like too many rules and regulations so I'm fine with individuals choosing to upvote or not their own posts and comments. Until I read your post on this I hadn't checked to see if others have been upvoting their own but now I've done a quick search and it seems most whales do this. It's probably one of the reasons they are whales, and that's fine with mini-minnow me as long as I get a piece of the rest of their big Steem pie. I don't think I've ever, other than my default setting introductory post, upvoted my own post or comment, but I like having that option if I want to exercise the opportunity in the future.
Thanks for posting this, great to read others opinions on this.
This. I also dont upvote myself, but wouldnt shun anyone for doing it. More regulatians would also mean more complications later on when you try to make a case for every situation. I just think its not worth it.
No I say we don't need rules to govern every little bit of our lives. I think you got it right...up vote yourself to get something important noticed especially in a busy post.
I have mentioned this before, but it is worth a mention again.
Many early adopters were users of other platforms, and likely regularly engaged in self promotion. As the followers of the Witness/Influencer crowd migrate to the Steemit platform, this group of "new" self-promoters will have to cut their teeth on what it means to 1) create quality content, and 2) self-promoters in a way that also promotes others in the community.
Your post demonstrates a "lead by example" approch to helping others understand the "why" of self promotion.
If we against the self-voting rule, what will happen?
As steemit have no admin to check every comments. Even we have set up the rules, people do not know it. Especial in steemit there are many people from other country who cannot read English!
I know, but a lot of people are looking for tips and ways to get bigger votes (even if they do not speak english). A lot of new people will have more experienced friends already on here (including friends who do speak english even if that particular user does not) who can explain it to them.
Even me, I speak english, and I am not new, and even I was unsure how people felt about upvoting yourself until we had this discussion. That's why I suggested maybe a community guideline be set, like in an FAQ (which can be translated to other languages)....
What we did accomplish though, is that most people understand upvoting important comments, or important posts is ok. But upvoting every single thing you write, even if it is not important, may not be seen to be very nice. At least that is what I see from all these comments.
I was hoping if the blockchain devs came in and looked at this long list of user feedback, it might help to decide if this needs to be addressed or not. I also wanted to take some of the confusion away for users too.
As an example, if a debate ever comes up again about this same subject at a future time, I can link back to this post as a reference now, and show them how people feel about the issue.
Together we built this nice informational resource page about upvoting yourself...and I couldn't do it without all of the visitors help. I'm glad we at least talked about this...
I upvote all my posts, do you now why? because I rarely am a target for trails, when I see a post after 5 minutes gets more than 150 upvotes and under 10 viewers, and my post after 3 days gets 50 viewers and 9 upvotes(I am talking about the ones that take time to make and are informative in my opinion), I am not going to even think about not upvoting myself.
The problem is that curators aren't incentivized and penalized properly. If that problem is solved, you don't feel the need to upvote yourself anymore :)