SteemVoter.com Update January 5th 2017
Update
Hi everyone, @marcgodard here.
So I have been disappointed in this community lately, but some of that has most definitely been my own fault.
When I started steemvoter, I thought it was going to get a lot of hate, so I didn’t really have a plan, was more testing the waters per say. However, to my surprise, I got love, and lots of it. Even an up-vote from @dan came my way on a post in the early days, giving me much needed encouragement. I should have made a clear TOS then and there, but I played it loose and easy. I shouldn’t have. I did have a page at first saying we take no responsibility and kinda like a TOS, not sure when that was removed, but I should have been more diligent.
Since then, a lot has evolved and things have changed. Many people LOVE steemvoter, many other users like us and many non-users are complaining about us and the reward pool portion that we get.
I have been reading the comments of late and think that it is time steemvoter grow up a little more.
I think the biggest concern that I agree with is the lack of a TOS agreement that is confirmed by the user. This has cause some minor issues in the past and right now is the primary thing that the complaining parties seem to be right on IMHO.
This is my plan that will only start when all the code is ready (sometime between Jan 14th and 20th):
- Everyones account will stop working (and stop being used by us) until a TOS is agreed by each of our users.
- This notification box will force the user to accept the TOS, or deactivate (not just pause) their accounts until they agree to the TOS.
- This notification window will explain the guild and allow them right there to opt-out with all their accounts.
- All users will get an email explaining the TOS and that they need to login and accept to continue using steemvoter. --edit-- We might make it easy with an agreement to the TOS link in the email. One for no guild, and one for guild. --end edit--
- We do reserve the right to amend our TOS upon giving 14 days notice and that will be in our TOS.
As far as the reward pool is concerned, I cannot agree that we are taking from the community. The community has so far decided that we deserve that portion of the reward pool, and the TOS will confirm that. Considering that over half our rewards (before all this negativity) were not from the steemvoter community, that we are still getting many sign-ups on steemvoter, and lost very few users lately (especially compared to normal), I think the community is on our side.
I apologize to everyone for some of my comments and actions lately (being rude in comments from my @marcgodard account and even that up-voted comment that I thought at the time was clear what I was doing, but it wasn’t—i was wrong). I felt personally attacked, however, I was wrong and that wouldn’t be an excuse for my actions in either case.
We will be working on the TOS and it will be in an update post so the community can discuss it before any of this is ready on the site.
Other News!
We have started receiving payments for our premium services already. Anyone who pays before Jan 15th gets a portion of a month for free (considering we add an extra month and start the timer right away), but we will only continue this for a couple more days.
Equibit, my other project, is doing an ICO. Only mentioning it here because maybe some of you are interested. The ICO website is https://ico.equibit.org/ (and if you are a steemvoter early sign-up contact me if you are interested). We have been working on the project for some time and we thought it was time for the ICO because so much is already done.
Steemvoter is a public curation bot with an easy to use interface, it truly is a bot for the people, making automatic curation on Steemit easy with just a few clicks.
This is a payment post! Thank you for allowing us to use your Steem accounts to upvote this post by virtue of your free subscription to our service!
Anyone not signed up for SteemVoter.com is welcome to do so or just vote this post to help the project.
upvoted. I applaud your responsibility and forthrightness.
Well, youre definitely taking, the question is does the value you put back in justify the amount you take.
I don't think that the answer to that question is necessarily "no". But i find sprawl troubling. I think requiring explicit agreement to changes in your TOS is a very positive step in the right direction.
The Steemit social petri dish is working. I am always impressed when anyone in here and life in general says, "I'm sorry. I was wrong." This makes me respect you. I've done it, and so have many others. It means we're growing, learning and making mistakes. Kumbaya!
I think it's especially important to start over with the accounts and give people the choice to decide to use your services again. This will help others be influenced not to abuse personal keys.
An openness to criticism is an essential quality of being open-minded. I'm glad you are weighing up the arguments presented for and against and moving forward. Every day is a new opportunity to make it better.
I think people are still learning how this sort of thing should work. I know you are just trying to provide a service and that should be encouraged. I mainly use it to vote up people I want to help. It's not like I make much from curation. Is is possible to estimate how much a person is making from the automatic votes? That may be a useful feature so that people see what benefit they are getting. I do lots of manual votes too.
Yes, if you looked into the logs a while back, we had started to work on the rewards so we can make an overall estimate (I have since removed the rewards column). However, a lot of progress has been delayed due to "all of this" and trying to make steemvoter profitable.
@marcgodard, Thank you for your time in chatting with me in discussing community concerns. Good to see things being addressed for the better of everyone. You have expressed yourself in a better manner with this. Agree that a TOS is needed. This will provide details so things are understood. How steemvoter vote using everyone's account option should be better examined to be allowed or not because of what has occurred as a result. Also suggest people optionally know about their option to get a voting bot so they know their choices. Keep up the good work.
@marcgodard here, thanks for your response. I will be chatting more with you in regards to ideas I have, hope that is ok?
You are most welcome. Yes of course. Look forward to it.
Hang in there bud. You guys are a force for good. Overall it's better for the community to have 1000 stories with $10 than 1 story with $10000. Thanks for doing what you do.
That's a very positive move @marcgodard. Resteemed.
I'm glad to hear this. I hope this hasn't caused you personally a lot of stress but it is necessary that we each stand up for what we believe while at the same time listening to other POV. I think this shows we can move forward from this as long as these words can be backed up with actions.
With over 100 apps built on the blockchain I just don't see how the reward pool could fund them all while also attracting non-business users ie. customers.
I wish the best for steemvoter and those associated.
It depends how much the reward pool grows. Remember it is only fixed in terms of STEEM. The value of STEEM is not fixed and the sky is the limit. Efforts to grow the community and make the platform more useful, if successful, will pay off primarily by making STEEM more valuable.
Also, in time I suspect the role of services like steemvoter will become more narrow, and with that the slice of the reward pool it would command even with support of its users will also narrow (as a fraction; as above, the amount could still increase). It is ultimately a curation tool and with a very large user base (unlike now), not all users will ever want to be curators. Many just want to be users, and will just vote to express their preferences and approval.
Looks like SteemVoter.com is down. :(
Yes, it was down last night for a short time. We apologize for any inconveniences.
This post has been ranked within the top 10 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 05. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $87.44 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 05 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Any guesses as to why that might be @screenname? You should examine your algorithm a little closer bud :D