The bots are getting out of control, and it's kind of tainting Steemit for me.
I've been here for over a year now. This activity makes me want to use Steemit less. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
In my last post, I announced that the first roll of film in my 35mm photo-per-day project was expelled and ready for processing. I posted a single image of the film roll itself to go along with it. For any intelligent person who actually read the 2 whole sentences that I made in that post, you would've realized that the image of the roll of film was not intended as a showcased or artsy photo in the least. It's just a cell phone pic of the roll that came from my camera. That's it. But all the replies I got were canned bullshit that appear to be programmed replies for posts that show up with the "photography" tag. I don't think a single one of them was an actual human being.
Here was my post - I mean really, you don't have to read TOO carefully.
And here were the responses I got.
If even a single one of those were a living, breathing human being, then their reading skills are severely lacking. Otherwise, 100% bots. I mean seriously, one of them mentioned how beautiful the hat was. DO YOU SEE A HAT IN THAT PICTURE?
This is incredibly discouraging because genuine comments are ammunition for good conversation. I can't reply to a single one of those comments, because either A) none of them are human, or B) none of them understood this simple post at all and starting a conversation from that foundation would be nearly impossible.
This is a consequence of HF19 - the comment bots are hoping for an upvote from an unsuspecting minnow who is delighted that someone, anyone, voted and commented on their post.
A minnow with about 130 steempower can deliver about 3 cents. So if your bot can spam thousands of photography posts and even 10% of them get upvotes, then it's kerching!
Agree with this completely, Its boiling my piss, I can tell you. This, and the people just posting pictures that they have pulled off stock photo sites and trying to pass them off as their own. It just de-values the quality of the geniunly talented people on here. Any old idiot can copy and paste an image from google.
I don't know if this is a common saying where you're from, but consider it stolen. I LOL'd.
Nice teeth bro! I talk about Leonidas here haha :D.
@styleyfrancky got you a $0.98 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)
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it is a nice hat. lol
When the price of Steem started climbing a couple of months ago I thought to myself "here come the money grabbers"
Meeee too! Bot world domination is on the rise....
Nice pic. Awesome post, love it. Thank you for sharing with us. Follow for follow?
:P Just had to poke you a bit there ;)
I've replied to some like "You commented after just 1 minute, why comment if you didn't read?". One of three was actually a real person :O
See, and I can't actually do that because most of what I post is just an image, maybe with a little bit of text. So someone could feasibly have a response typed up and posted within a minute or two. I think I'm just going to start looking at replies from each user to see if they have a pattern going, indicating spamminess. If they fit the bill, I'm flagging it.
I don't even think its bots its just a bunch of people trying to get a quick penny and not understanding that quality over quantity is what matters. What we need to do is police this and flag it when needed and only vote on people that give good quality comments and post good quality content that is what gives steemit its power we the people.
That's something that could even be turned into a slogan:
"Don't want to be labeled a bot? Then don't act like a bot."
Agreed, these are just as likely to be hapless minnows.
Nice car bro. Just kidding. I never thought about people using bots. That explains some of my comments I received from my posts. It makes me wonder if something deeper more sinister is going on regarding this platform. I am afraid to share what i think is really going on with Steemit
There is nothing sinister going on just your "good old internet money grabbers" trying to make a quick buck with bots.
I guess they tag you to try and get more attention. I'll be flagging persistent offenders. That may deter them