I hope none of the bigger accounts are doing that because that is the kind of behavior that destroyed Digg.com. Digg was the big link aggregator before it committed suicide and was replaced by Reddit. Digg allowed it's power users to take control of content that reached the front page. It got so bad that some of these bigger accounts were being paid to push specific content to the top.
Digg killed Digg and everyone moved over to Reddit. Reddit has it's own set of problems that are starting to demoralize the userbase and every few months their is a mass exodus of users that have been disenfranchised by the admins. I hope Steemit learns from the mistakes of Digg and Reddit and avoids them.
Steemit won't learn from this because what you see from those 2 examples is human nature, not mistakes. Human nature killed those platforms, because too much centralized power and greed tend to corrupt people. Corruption may be the wrong term, as it denotes some sort of evil, which is not what I am trying to convey. But greed is an absolute part of the current human paradigm, and until we find a way to overcome this mentality, until Steemit finds away to overcome greed in favor of community, it will continue to perpetuate the same system it claims to disrupt. I think Steemit could learn a lot from the African concept of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu movement.
As users we need to have more "discussions" with each other than posts promoting the problem, but I don't think anyone knows how to get a like minded group together to get started and we end up with a lot of posts rehashing the same problems with some disjointed conversations.
You're right about human nature. What I try to point out to users is that Steemit is a community, not a website owned by someone and as such we control the direction either directly or indirectly.
I look at comments and see quite a few wanting to see the addition of simple link aggregation. I see them either as misguided in the direction they want to take Steemit or those looking for easy money thinking that a platform like Reddit could be monetized to reward the link aggregators.
Steemit isn't going to everyone rich or even provide and income, unfortunately that is how the world works. What it can do as the site grows is reward users for honest participation as well as awarding those with good/relevant content directly.
For that to happen, users need to understand that whales and dolphins are spreading the distribution of SP/SBD and growing the middle class community. It will trickle down as long as those rewarded like @rok-sivantehave an interest in seeing the Steemit community succeed.
Minnows have a direct impact on high payouts as well. While following a whale may get you more SP if they are upvoting content for no other reason than a whale did it then it contributes to the problem. I tend to look at a user's history including their, comments, upvotes to others, and their wallet before I vote on something that could be viral.
excellent contribution to the conversation. hardly a book. :-)
re: link aggregation... yes. this is not a "make-easy-money" platform. rewards flow to those who put in a LOT of time and energy into creating valuable content. neither much time nor energy is required to share a link, and such, not a lot of value inherent in it - unless perhaps the user has also done a writeup sharing a unique, valuable perspective on the content that furthers stimulating discussion.
re: >"users need to understand that whales and dolphins are spreading the distribution of SP/SBD and growing the middle class community."
YES.
And truthfully, I've begun finding that even more personally rewarding/satisfying than seeing the numbers in my account is upvoting and putting SBD in the accounts of those who I feel have added real value to the site, whom I appreciate for the perspectives they've contributed to me in exchange for the time I paid to their posts.
re: >"I tend to look at a user's history including their, comments, upvotes to others, and their wallet before I vote on something that could be viral."
I like this. It exemplifies the value of a long-term investment in the community - not judging a user based on one first impression, but digging in to understand more of what they're about and have proven themselves to contribute to the community over the duration of their time on Steemit.
I find that I am actually able to help others here and it is rewarding beyond the monetary gains. While sometimes discouraging when people don't "get it", when one does and says thanks it feels good.
There's also such a thing as putting in your 'dues'. I see that in comments and helping people I've been rewarded more monetarily than for posting. Not that I've had anything to post, but when I do maybe others will follow me and notice. Then again I may end up being a content helper instead of a content creator.
Complaining about the system just takes away from the time you have in trying to change the system.
Hey :) may u could start using other img for your next posts :) as a visual guy i would appreciated some variety of img. I know .. but.. don't get me wrong, i'm enjoying reading your posts! GO ahead
Shall keep that in mind. A couple of these, I did reuuse, and rushed a bit as was getting kinda burned out from spending so long writing and just wanted to get it published - but yes, thank you for sharing this feedback, so as to keep accountable to continually high standards on the visual aspect as well... 👌
Great post, thank you! I was also added to a bot list, and it made all the difference for me. Prior to that, some of my posts would get a dollar or two (which I was thoroughly grateful for as it's more than Twitter or Facebook ever paid me!) while others might get lucky. The bot bump makes all the difference as to whether or not a post catches some attention and moves up. I still find really great posts which have been missed or great authors who have more than a few hit articles while most of their posts are unnoticed. The curation bots are an important part of the ecosystem, one in which people trade risk to their reputation based on trust for time. The more I think about it, the more I think maybe even I should get a bot at some point and support the authors I'm seeing who consistently put out great content, but I miss due to lack of notifications. I'm using steemstats.com and my follow list (which is how I found this post, in fact), but I still miss so much great content I'd like to vote on. As you said, the "What is Steemit?" question is still being answered every day. It's an exciting time to be here.
to CLARIFY the reason WHY you have been put on the bot list:
You have been producing QUALITY, VALUABLE content.
I recognized that from the first posts of yours I saw, and was supporting them with my upvotes. You've proven you're an asset to the community, and such have reaped the rewards - while also being held accountable to continuing producing such quality content and serving well with the opportunity you've been granted.
and as was referred to in another comment with the reverse-crabbucket dynamic... with the higher rewards you're earning, you now have the opportunity to pay it forward by supporting those under-recognized authors you come across. you also have the opportunity to do some curation posts - like a "Top 10 Rising Stars / Top 10 Must-Read Underdog Posts Of The Week" type thing, helping using the spotlight shone on you to direct attention to where you feel it is well-deserved.
Truthfully, I don't want to be writing and spending hours per day on Steemit a year or two from now, the same way I am at the moment. I recognize there are contributions to be made to the community which I am in a position to make now - though I want to use my success to pass on the lessons, guidance, insight, and wisdom that will help new talent rise - passing on the torch, so the natural stars can rise to the position they deserve as they put in their work developing the skills and producing quality content to better serve the community, at which point I can invest my top talents elsewhere, where need at that time.
so yes, I agree that a bot to support the voting on users I'd like to invest into would indeed be an amazing thing. If you figure out the technical details of how to pull it off, lemme know... :-)
Thanks Rok. That means so much to me. I just spent the last couple of hours helping someone on the chat and going through new posts in different categories, feeling the thrill of voting up some $0.00 posts to $0.15 while also calling out the occasional plagiarist Cheetah somehow missed.
Normally I'd be focusing on my next post, but tonight I enjoyed just using the site, leaving comments, and voting for stuff I hope others find as well. I think an under dog post entry is a great idea. I was really, really happy about highlighting this post about the latest Steem Whale updates. It was about to pay out at less than $2. I used a connection who has the ear of a whale, and we got it up over $200. That felt really, really good. I use that site every day, and it's a great feeling to see them rewarded.
Thanks for putting out such great content and for connecting so many people together. You are truly gifted at this.
I am also greatful for the consistent quality you put out and am happy you have been put on the bot list to promote your content. People like you are the ones that have the idea of the system correct. You have a bit more time than some of the whales, so you are able to invest that time finding and supporting new people trying to create valuable posts and comments. It really is a pay it forward system. And by promoting other great posts within your own, you add visibility to them while also maintaining your status as a great curator. Many thanks for all you have done so far.
After the payout window switched to 12 hours ive also been considering this. I miss a lot of content by a few authors i regularly want to vote on due to the time difference (im in Australia).
if you look at the breakdown you will find that the whales liked what everybody else liked and vice versa. There is a discussion about the visibility gained from having a whale vote, but if you look at the ratio between whale votes and the dolphin votes, it is surprisingly in a narrow range.
if anything, the numbers show that minnows are not voting much at all and thus are losing their power to influence steemit content.
There is a security reason that whale votes payout so much, but it takes a whitepaper to explain the details. The important thing to know is that there is no whale conspiracy. I also did another analysis of whales voting for whales as some people think that is going on, but it isnt.
Now the way the math works, either the whales vote the big amounts and some people get disproportionate rewards or NOBODY does. So if you keep complaining about whale votes, then even when your post finally gets to the main trending page you will end up with $200 instead of $2000.
Be careful what you ask for! Only a small percentage of posts win the lotto each day, but everyone has a chance of being the lucky writer, IF you are posting.
Good luck and let us be happy that there is a system that pays out anything for you doing what you probably would be doing anyway
mining wasnt even the new mining. but k get the ref.
That said, it kind of is like a lottery, right? We all buy tickets to fund whats allegedly a public service , like a hospital or a $20K intro post or some dude saying "before i found steemit i couldnt afford underpants now im rich buy steem". And in return we get a miniscule chance to get a big jackpot.
maybe at first that is what it is, but as the userbase grows it will need speciality content and we are already seeing some of that, ie https://steemit.com/trending/science No nobelprize winning papers (yet), but I wouldnt be surprised if in the future serious papers are posted on steemit. I mean why not? it pays better than most other places even at $10 a post
how old is steemit? What percentage of its evolution have we seen? Sure it isnt perfect but I dont see anything else that is anywhere close, that is why I am here trying to improve it.
tl:dr babies do silly things, but that doesnt mean they cant create serious work given time
Pick a position. Either the system works OK now, which was your original point that i replied to, or its an evolving crying baby and itll be better one day.
And the user base won't grow, at least not the paid userbase. Because a dozen or so people like the op have the system locked into a liquidity trap, and TPTB are so committed to it at this point that they refuse to back out on principle.
And if its an evolving crying baby, isnt it harmful to say "everyone who wants it to evolve is just a jealous, greedy idiot (OPs exact point in this and other posts).
Also, im not sure what im supposed to be looking at in science. I see one popst by gavvet (who runs a little cottage industry where he charges authors to post their posts because they know that he has a better chance of getting upvotes with the same content) thats a picture of some rocks. And one post that s a summary of some magazine articles written last year.
as was pointed out in that post, its just as easy to attribute that effect to the exposure that they get from being pinned to the top of trending.
Now the way the math works, either the whales vote the big amounts and some people get disproportionate rewards or NOBODY does
If youre saying that it will result in a more even distribution of rewards, that i agree with. I just don't think its a bad thing. The only way to pay people like you and rok 4K every time you post is to pay everyone else pretty much nothing almost always.
Its easy to support a "lotto" when you win the lotto every time you play. But most people have to lose nearly every time they play in order to finance fixing the game in your favor. The lotto system is mainly going to attract people like you, who win everytime they play, and spammers, reposters etc, who want to get their ticket with as little work as possible.
Now yeah, its unfair. But thats not even the point. The point is most of these authors are putting out putting out low quality posts (IMO youre an exception).
Like that list you posted, its not even as bad as the money list but doesn't that make you cringe?
Look at my blog history, I have written an entire liquidity points system and it got a whopping $8. So i dont win the lotto everytime, far from it. I write 10 posts that get $10 for every one that gets more than $1000, I think that is better than most, but I do write deep incisive content of a fairly unique nature :)
from a systems point giving someone 25 bitcoins for finding the right random number that generates a good hash with lots of leading 0's vs. someone who writes a random post, it has similar distribution characteristics.
Look at my list again. look at the RATIO of whale vs dolphin vs minnow votes. While a whale upvoting gives a post more visibility and thus a larger expected return, it wouldnt give a disproportionate response. There are posts that have 1 whale vote others with 10+, generally speaking the distribution of other classes of votes follows similar ratios.
that tells me that what whales like, others like. what whales really like, others really like. whales are just normal people who won their form of lotto and if they are active, people get bigger awards.if they are inactive, they gradually lose their stake as it gets diluted by people who are posting.
also when you are a minnow, one big post and you multiply your Mv. when a whale, nothing you do will boost it even fractionally. while it does feel unfair to see low quality posts getting big payouts, it is identical to low diff hashes winning 50 BTC in the beginning. As more and more competition arises, the threshold for the high payout posts should go up.
Look at my blog history, I have written an entire liquidity points system and it got a whopping $8. So i dont win the lotto everytime, far from it. I write 10 posts that get $10 for every one that gets more than $1000.
Yeah, some of your posts don't do that well. And you probably know exactly why that is. Its the same reason youre a 7 (AAMOF, i suspect the bots use a similar profile to the rep system). You probably also know that the effects of that will wear down over time as you get more votes.
I get the bitcoin analogy. I really do. and ill admit to not being a huge crypto guy. But isnt the "mining world" super shitty in btc? Like basically everyone has been chased out except the big pools? You really think people will want to buy into that... come to steemit its just like mining bitcoin!
Look at my list again. look at the RATIO of whale vs dolphin vs minnow votes. While a whale upvoting gives a post more visibility and thus a larger expected return, it wouldnt give a disproportionate response. There are posts that have 1 whale vote others with 10+, generally speaking the distribution of other classes of votes follows similar ratios.
Unless the additional whale votes moved it further up the page (they do) or kept it near the top longer (they do)
So you get one decent sized whale vote and that puts you on the front page... two gets you moved up a spot. until you get to a certain threshold where you get enough to be at the very top. Now, additional whale votes can keep you there for a whole month.
If it wasnt for a couple huge posts it probably would have banned you outright.
nice try with the brute force analysis, but wordplay isnt going to cloud the issue.
Its not a comparison between whale on whale and non-whale on whale thats relevant. Its a comparison between whale on whale and whale on non whale. its a cute tounge twister though.
I dont know why I am a 7, you got me there. bitcoin mining is dominated by big miners, that is kind of why steemit is cool. anybody can "mine" a lotto post. no need to be able compile unix daemons and setup a miner to get free crypto
I already did a brute force statistical analysis and whale on whale voting is below non-whale for whale voting, except for a few accounts that I think have bots, like wang
thanks for your insightful contribution to the discussion, @jl777.
I haven't been in the crypto scene too long, though recall your name sticking out as being a highly-respected figure in the community, having been a key player in a number of significant projects - as such, your input is greatly respected and appreciated.
The thing is that currently I see "whales" as guard dogs of steemit.
They decide which content is deemed good enough for the front page. It's good and bad. I wrote about it on my blog about "true power of whales" where their hidden agendas can impact the content we see and don't see. simple example is @berniesanders votes for weed topics.
I think that currently it's good because whales understand their powers and they are heavily invested in the platform so they decide to reward quality content that gives value instead of meme like content that can succeed in reddit.
I don't know how many whales bots are there bot that's one way of spreading the wealth he has. if he doesn't have the time to vote with 3 users and search good posts everyday so he decides to reward good content writers. by doing so those writers will act as his proxies and keep spreading the wealth.
I can see both sides of the issue. Steemit reflects the real world in the distribution of wealth. I suppose the difference here is that the people at the top are trying to and are encouraged to redistribute the wealth using their votes. As time goes on the inequality should go down. It is unlikely to go away but I don't think we can expect a platform like Steemit to solve a problem that is as old as civilisation. That would simply be unrealistic.
I have been critical of @steemed in the past, not because I have anything against him rewarding a certain group of writers which he likes but more for the issue of using bots. This is my personal opinion though and I suppose as long as he at least reviews the choices of his bots to make sure that people aren't posting complete garbage or copy paste posting other people's work I don't think any great wrong is being done.
I think part of the problem here is that there are a few people who are whales. They are not super human. They have limited time like the rest of us and there is a limit to what they can do or see.
That's why in the past I have suggested giving people the ability to delegate their voting power for short periods. A whale who is short of time could nominate someone whose opinion and curation they respect to use their voting power for say a week.
This person would then be able to vote as if they were that whale. This would not only bring fresh perspective and diversity but would also help to fight accusations of favouritism. I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement as I'm not a programmer.
I sympathise with those who feel frustrated as it can seem that good material is getting overlooked. Like I said - this happens all the time in real life. There are probably millions of great writers, artists, musicians who will never make it big or have their work appreciated to the degree they deserve.
Steemit is trying to improve things but it can't and won't ever be perfect. It is a work in progress. As long as we all do our bit to up-vote content we like and reward (no matter how small it may be) good material we are all helping to move things in the right direction.
Also I have been reading work by both @rok-sivante and @stellabelle and I have yet to come across anything that I would deem to be of low quality or not deserving a like. If they did post something like that I must have missed it.
I personally think there is a big future for Steemit that's why this last night and this morning I doubled my SP from around 1000 to 2000. That may be laughably small to most people but it is a lot for me and shows how much I believe in this platform.
Anyway sorry for the long response. In summary I think we all need to be realistic everyone can't become rich overnight in real life and it isn't realistic to expect that in Steemit.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. To me, the word "whale" just means someone who owns a lot of Steem Power (in the trading platform trollboxes, it tends to mean someone who owns a lot of whatever coin was being discussed), so I've never meant it to be derogatory in any way.
I'm in learning curve mode right now, trying to figure out how to break in. I'm experimenting with different types of posts, and I'm also reading and commenting on other people's work. Hopefully I can figure out where I fit into this community soon.
I don't have a problem with the way it's set up. Most innovations come with a tremendous early adopter advantage. I've been fortunate to have that advantage with some of the other innovations in the Cryptosphere, NEM being a good example. I don't happen to be an early adopter of Steem, but that doesn't mean I don't see lots of potential upside ahead.
Still, I did have some questions, many of which were thoroughly answered in the article, so thank you very much for posting it :)
Keep experimenting. sometimes, there's no shortcuts to mining the gold within yourself - just persistent effort in testing out several different approaches, learning from every bit of feedback. Become a student of VALUE and consistently work to pack as much value as superhumanly possible into every piece you write, keep improving your skills, and eventually the investment in yourself and the community will pay off - as long as you keep your integrity in order. ;-)
I haven't yet talked to @steemed or the other "whales" using bots, so don't know the details of how their algorithms are setup. But not all my posts get the bots' votes. There are more detailed criteria to be met for a post to be upvoted than just an author being on the bot list.
And granted, if I or any of the other authors on the list were to slack off, take the opportunity for granted, and start posting absolute shit - we would no doubt, fairly, get removed from the bot list.
No offence, though i suppose youll take offense, but yes. Most of the "bot bait" authors posts are very low quality, including this one, and many of your other posts. Most of your posts read like get rich quick informercials. And youre not even close to the only one. Maybe it was different at one time, but when someone gets paid thousands of dollars for every single post, regardless of quality, it stands to reason that theyll continue to post low quality content even when they have nothing substantive to say. This phenomena is called a liquidity trap.
Your point seems to be that you and these other "chosen" authors are better and smarter than the rest of us, and bring more value to the site. Fair enough, but i seriously doubt you could find any objective third party that would look at the quality of posts from them and see anything special, on average.
Some posters paid by bots don't even post original work, they made thousands reposting other peoples copyrighted pictures. A few have been exposed as catfish. More are C+P spammers.
At the end of the day, your logic is circular. You claim that these individuals have chosen to pay you all this money because of the quality of the content you bring. Yet the only evidence you cite to support that conclusion is that they choose to pay you.
and yes, looks like every single post of yours gets upvoted by the same people, but you already knew that.
ok, i mean i feel like this is a good explanation, but at the same time it still seems unfair that its the early adopters that stand to benefit and i can totally see why some people are pointing fingers and saying that there is a conspiracy. @rok-sivante can you really put your hand on your heart and claim that all of your posts were worthy up generating as much steem and upvoting as they have received?
I fail to see how it is relevant how @rok-sivante may feel about his own posts because others have found value in them and have rewarded the posts appropriately.
Early adopters in Bitcoin got their coins for tens of dollars. Are we calling unfair the advantage this has given the risk takers who believed in BTC? I mean, I guess you could make that argument, but I'm not sure it would hold much water.
I enjoy @rok-sivante's writing and I often upvote his work. Are all of his posts worthy of generating that much steem? I can't answer that, but I can definitely say he writes well and overall I don't think he's overcompensated on this platform.
I'm definitely not trying to be harsh, but this isn't a free money give away, it's a social network. I'm of the mind that he'd be as popular on another social network as he is here, based on the threesome story alone... Those who think he's getting over somehow should study his work and let it inspire them to improve their writing skills and to build their reputation.
Agreed. Early adopters always have an advantage. It's not fair but it's the way the world works. Nobody has come up with a better way of doing it. It is no different from if you invested $1000 in a share of Apple when it was operating out of Steve Job's garage - by now it would be worth billions, whereas if you invested $1000 dollars now it would get you a couple of shares. In this case Steemit is at least giving out mini-shares to everyone.
But taking ego out of it, I can see why some got more and some less. And thankfully, I've had posts where the bots DIDN'T vote, for which I'm grateful.
And at the end, its a humbling blessing - one that's made me take it even more seriously about what type of content to produce. It's a high degree of accountability, and a certain pressure to live up to the higher standards - which is cool, because creating value for others is what it should be about; though also stressful at times because sometimes there is stuff I might like to write about that I don't think would be worth that much - but then the ego's gotta go out the window again, refocusing that the effort is better spent focusing on what IS of the highest value...
And thankfully, I've had posts where the bots DIDN'T vote, for which I'm grateful.
link please? because it doesnt look that way.
Also, ftr this is the same guy who said that the reason most authors don't make any money here is that theyre so stupid they dont know theyre stupid. just ftr... so the leave the ego at the door thing.
re: " this is the same guy who said that the reason most authors don't make any money here is that theyre so stupid they dont know theyre stupid. just ftr... so the leave the ego at the door thing."
can you please provide the direct quote and link to where this was stated?
lol the game. its worth noting that not only did you make more money than most ppl do, you did so in spite of tag spam, which is probably why you got no sweet sweet bot love.... the two top ones were when they started cracking down, then after that the UI started stripping off the extra tags.... then it stopped and that was the ICO one. I only note this because us mere mortals get flagged for that.
ill look for the article it was the one about the dunning kreiger effect though... i know you made the glib little disclaimer that "oh im not talking about you" but the point was clear, and also shitty imo.
I wouldn't view it as spam, as kept the tags relevant to the content. though very good to know if there's been some changes to crack down on using too many tags.
that dunning kruger article also damn good. kinda got my head spinning. (a good thing, really - breaking down some ego). :-)
I think your ego-out the window approach is very sound. But I must say, in the extremely short period I've spent on Steemit, lots of content that hit trending was honestly sub-par and NOT deserving of the value it made, from a business and marketing point of view.
Since trending seems to be the be all end all to a post being visible and 'sticky', a few authors dominating it through pure SLOTH on the bot owner's side seems like an absolute failure of the system's integrity.
That's one of the things I love most about steemit. The draw is initially the money, but it really is so much more than that, and at the end of the day the money becomes secondary to helping others who have become your friends. Just like the whitepaper says, it is a sort of reverse crab in the bucket analogy where each crab helps push the the other up and the crabs that have made it out reach back and help to lift up those who helped them in the first place. If you can name another site where this occurs, I'm all ears, but I doubt one will be found.
I did go through my own phases of being swayed by dollar signs. But as I persisted through the discouragement of seeing some intro posts getting thousands of rewards while mine got $32 and kept refocusing on creating VALUE for the community, something shifted in my brain and I began seeing much greater possibilities for what can be created here, that is totally separate from the financial side of things.
Many people will bitch about not making money and how unfair things are. But if you dig into their post histories, you will find a very predictable pattern that such people do not understand the fundamental principle that VALUE is rewarded. nothing else.
there are essentially five types of value. you could analyze posts all day long and break down why the highly rewarded posts get what they do, based on how highly they rank in the 5 different types of value. it's not chance. it's a science.
and in the end, the finances flow to the VALUE - value that enhances users experiences, is informative, inspirational, entertaining, original, and is well-delivered. in the end, it's all about providing VALUE. ;-)
I'm leaving Steemit as soon as my account is powered down over this crap.
Right now due to the way everything works, Steemit operates like a ponzi scheme for enriching the early whales and their friends.
It also causes the entire platform to be stagnant - the same threads from the front are still there from a week ago. Due to the way vote-weighting works, only the threads that whales upvote are even seen at all.
It's the same with everything though. The first people who mined bitcoin are multi-millionaires for running what at the time was a relatively low power app on their laptops.
I hope none of the bigger accounts are doing that because that is the kind of behavior that destroyed Digg.com. Digg was the big link aggregator before it committed suicide and was replaced by Reddit. Digg allowed it's power users to take control of content that reached the front page. It got so bad that some of these bigger accounts were being paid to push specific content to the top.
Digg killed Digg and everyone moved over to Reddit. Reddit has it's own set of problems that are starting to demoralize the userbase and every few months their is a mass exodus of users that have been disenfranchised by the admins. I hope Steemit learns from the mistakes of Digg and Reddit and avoids them.
Steemit won't learn from this because what you see from those 2 examples is human nature, not mistakes. Human nature killed those platforms, because too much centralized power and greed tend to corrupt people. Corruption may be the wrong term, as it denotes some sort of evil, which is not what I am trying to convey. But greed is an absolute part of the current human paradigm, and until we find a way to overcome this mentality, until Steemit finds away to overcome greed in favor of community, it will continue to perpetuate the same system it claims to disrupt. I think Steemit could learn a lot from the African concept of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu movement.
As users we need to have more "discussions" with each other than posts promoting the problem, but I don't think anyone knows how to get a like minded group together to get started and we end up with a lot of posts rehashing the same problems with some disjointed conversations.
You're right about human nature. What I try to point out to users is that Steemit is a community, not a website owned by someone and as such we control the direction either directly or indirectly.
I look at comments and see quite a few wanting to see the addition of simple link aggregation. I see them either as misguided in the direction they want to take Steemit or those looking for easy money thinking that a platform like Reddit could be monetized to reward the link aggregators.
Steemit isn't going to everyone rich or even provide and income, unfortunately that is how the world works. What it can do as the site grows is reward users for honest participation as well as awarding those with good/relevant content directly.
For that to happen, users need to understand that whales and dolphins are spreading the distribution of SP/SBD and growing the middle class community. It will trickle down as long as those rewarded like @rok-sivantehave an interest in seeing the Steemit community succeed.
Minnows have a direct impact on high payouts as well. While following a whale may get you more SP if they are upvoting content for no other reason than a whale did it then it contributes to the problem. I tend to look at a user's history including their, comments, upvotes to others, and their wallet before I vote on something that could be viral.
Ughh. I wrote a book again. :/
excellent contribution to the conversation. hardly a book. :-)
re: link aggregation... yes. this is not a "make-easy-money" platform. rewards flow to those who put in a LOT of time and energy into creating valuable content. neither much time nor energy is required to share a link, and such, not a lot of value inherent in it - unless perhaps the user has also done a writeup sharing a unique, valuable perspective on the content that furthers stimulating discussion.
re: >"users need to understand that whales and dolphins are spreading the distribution of SP/SBD and growing the middle class community."
YES.
And truthfully, I've begun finding that even more personally rewarding/satisfying than seeing the numbers in my account is upvoting and putting SBD in the accounts of those who I feel have added real value to the site, whom I appreciate for the perspectives they've contributed to me in exchange for the time I paid to their posts.
re: >"I tend to look at a user's history including their, comments, upvotes to others, and their wallet before I vote on something that could be viral."
I like this. It exemplifies the value of a long-term investment in the community - not judging a user based on one first impression, but digging in to understand more of what they're about and have proven themselves to contribute to the community over the duration of their time on Steemit.
Thank you. I enjoy a good conversation. :)
I find that I am actually able to help others here and it is rewarding beyond the monetary gains. While sometimes discouraging when people don't "get it", when one does and says thanks it feels good.
There's also such a thing as putting in your 'dues'. I see that in comments and helping people I've been rewarded more monetarily than for posting. Not that I've had anything to post, but when I do maybe others will follow me and notice. Then again I may end up being a content helper instead of a content creator.
Complaining about the system just takes away from the time you have in trying to change the system.
Steemit is basically Digg v4 from the beginning: all for power users to get their advertisements seen.
Hey :) may u could start using other img for your next posts :) as a visual guy i would appreciated some variety of img. I know .. but.. don't get me wrong, i'm enjoying reading your posts! GO ahead
Shall keep that in mind. A couple of these, I did reuuse, and rushed a bit as was getting kinda burned out from spending so long writing and just wanted to get it published - but yes, thank you for sharing this feedback, so as to keep accountable to continually high standards on the visual aspect as well... 👌
Great post, thank you! I was also added to a bot list, and it made all the difference for me. Prior to that, some of my posts would get a dollar or two (which I was thoroughly grateful for as it's more than Twitter or Facebook ever paid me!) while others might get lucky. The bot bump makes all the difference as to whether or not a post catches some attention and moves up. I still find really great posts which have been missed or great authors who have more than a few hit articles while most of their posts are unnoticed. The curation bots are an important part of the ecosystem, one in which people trade risk to their reputation based on trust for time. The more I think about it, the more I think maybe even I should get a bot at some point and support the authors I'm seeing who consistently put out great content, but I miss due to lack of notifications. I'm using steemstats.com and my follow list (which is how I found this post, in fact), but I still miss so much great content I'd like to vote on. As you said, the "What is Steemit?" question is still being answered every day. It's an exciting time to be here.
to CLARIFY the reason WHY you have been put on the bot list:
You have been producing QUALITY, VALUABLE content.
I recognized that from the first posts of yours I saw, and was supporting them with my upvotes. You've proven you're an asset to the community, and such have reaped the rewards - while also being held accountable to continuing producing such quality content and serving well with the opportunity you've been granted.
and as was referred to in another comment with the reverse-crabbucket dynamic... with the higher rewards you're earning, you now have the opportunity to pay it forward by supporting those under-recognized authors you come across. you also have the opportunity to do some curation posts - like a "Top 10 Rising Stars / Top 10 Must-Read Underdog Posts Of The Week" type thing, helping using the spotlight shone on you to direct attention to where you feel it is well-deserved.
Truthfully, I don't want to be writing and spending hours per day on Steemit a year or two from now, the same way I am at the moment. I recognize there are contributions to be made to the community which I am in a position to make now - though I want to use my success to pass on the lessons, guidance, insight, and wisdom that will help new talent rise - passing on the torch, so the natural stars can rise to the position they deserve as they put in their work developing the skills and producing quality content to better serve the community, at which point I can invest my top talents elsewhere, where need at that time.
so yes, I agree that a bot to support the voting on users I'd like to invest into would indeed be an amazing thing. If you figure out the technical details of how to pull it off, lemme know... :-)
Thanks Rok. That means so much to me. I just spent the last couple of hours helping someone on the chat and going through new posts in different categories, feeling the thrill of voting up some $0.00 posts to $0.15 while also calling out the occasional plagiarist Cheetah somehow missed.
Normally I'd be focusing on my next post, but tonight I enjoyed just using the site, leaving comments, and voting for stuff I hope others find as well. I think an under dog post entry is a great idea. I was really, really happy about highlighting this post about the latest Steem Whale updates. It was about to pay out at less than $2. I used a connection who has the ear of a whale, and we got it up over $200. That felt really, really good. I use that site every day, and it's a great feeling to see them rewarded.
Thanks for putting out such great content and for connecting so many people together. You are truly gifted at this.
I am also greatful for the consistent quality you put out and am happy you have been put on the bot list to promote your content. People like you are the ones that have the idea of the system correct. You have a bit more time than some of the whales, so you are able to invest that time finding and supporting new people trying to create valuable posts and comments. It really is a pay it forward system. And by promoting other great posts within your own, you add visibility to them while also maintaining your status as a great curator. Many thanks for all you have done so far.
After the payout window switched to 12 hours ive also been considering this. I miss a lot of content by a few authors i regularly want to vote on due to the time difference (im in Australia).
I can dig it.
We can call it sponsorship or employment, I like to call it a 'patron' the way an artist has a patron, but it's pretty much the same thing.
I did an analysis of the top posts in July based on a compressed ranking system of 1 minnow, 2 dolphin, 3 whale, 4 megawhale: https://steemit.com/steemit/@jl777/top-posts-for-july-rank-calculated-by-minnow-1-dolphin-2-whale-3-megawhale-4
if you look at the breakdown you will find that the whales liked what everybody else liked and vice versa. There is a discussion about the visibility gained from having a whale vote, but if you look at the ratio between whale votes and the dolphin votes, it is surprisingly in a narrow range.
if anything, the numbers show that minnows are not voting much at all and thus are losing their power to influence steemit content.
There is a security reason that whale votes payout so much, but it takes a whitepaper to explain the details. The important thing to know is that there is no whale conspiracy. I also did another analysis of whales voting for whales as some people think that is going on, but it isnt.
Now the way the math works, either the whales vote the big amounts and some people get disproportionate rewards or NOBODY does. So if you keep complaining about whale votes, then even when your post finally gets to the main trending page you will end up with $200 instead of $2000.
Be careful what you ask for! Only a small percentage of posts win the lotto each day, but everyone has a chance of being the lucky writer, IF you are posting.
Good luck and let us be happy that there is a system that pays out anything for you doing what you probably would be doing anyway
Also, seriously? trying to distract people from economic disparity with a lottery. kind of a bad guy cliche. im just sayin
lotto as in SHA256 hashing when mining, since blogging is the new mining
mining wasnt even the new mining. but k get the ref.
That said, it kind of is like a lottery, right? We all buy tickets to fund whats allegedly a public service , like a hospital or a $20K intro post or some dude saying "before i found steemit i couldnt afford underpants now im rich buy steem". And in return we get a miniscule chance to get a big jackpot.
maybe at first that is what it is, but as the userbase grows it will need speciality content and we are already seeing some of that, ie https://steemit.com/trending/science No nobelprize winning papers (yet), but I wouldnt be surprised if in the future serious papers are posted on steemit. I mean why not? it pays better than most other places even at $10 a post
how old is steemit? What percentage of its evolution have we seen? Sure it isnt perfect but I dont see anything else that is anywhere close, that is why I am here trying to improve it.
tl:dr babies do silly things, but that doesnt mean they cant create serious work given time
replying here due to nesting.
Pick a position. Either the system works OK now, which was your original point that i replied to, or its an evolving crying baby and itll be better one day.
And the user base won't grow, at least not the paid userbase. Because a dozen or so people like the op have the system locked into a liquidity trap, and TPTB are so committed to it at this point that they refuse to back out on principle.
And if its an evolving crying baby, isnt it harmful to say "everyone who wants it to evolve is just a jealous, greedy idiot (OPs exact point in this and other posts).
Also, im not sure what im supposed to be looking at in science. I see one popst by gavvet (who runs a little cottage industry where he charges authors to post their posts because they know that he has a better chance of getting upvotes with the same content) thats a picture of some rocks. And one post that s a summary of some magazine articles written last year.
as was pointed out in that post, its just as easy to attribute that effect to the exposure that they get from being pinned to the top of trending.
If youre saying that it will result in a more even distribution of rewards, that i agree with. I just don't think its a bad thing. The only way to pay people like you and rok 4K every time you post is to pay everyone else pretty much nothing almost always.
Its easy to support a "lotto" when you win the lotto every time you play. But most people have to lose nearly every time they play in order to finance fixing the game in your favor. The lotto system is mainly going to attract people like you, who win everytime they play, and spammers, reposters etc, who want to get their ticket with as little work as possible.
Now yeah, its unfair. But thats not even the point. The point is most of these authors are putting out putting out low quality posts (IMO youre an exception).
Like that list you posted, its not even as bad as the money list but doesn't that make you cringe?
Look at my blog history, I have written an entire liquidity points system and it got a whopping $8. So i dont win the lotto everytime, far from it. I write 10 posts that get $10 for every one that gets more than $1000, I think that is better than most, but I do write deep incisive content of a fairly unique nature :)
from a systems point giving someone 25 bitcoins for finding the right random number that generates a good hash with lots of leading 0's vs. someone who writes a random post, it has similar distribution characteristics.
Look at my list again. look at the RATIO of whale vs dolphin vs minnow votes. While a whale upvoting gives a post more visibility and thus a larger expected return, it wouldnt give a disproportionate response. There are posts that have 1 whale vote others with 10+, generally speaking the distribution of other classes of votes follows similar ratios.
that tells me that what whales like, others like. what whales really like, others really like. whales are just normal people who won their form of lotto and if they are active, people get bigger awards.if they are inactive, they gradually lose their stake as it gets diluted by people who are posting.
also when you are a minnow, one big post and you multiply your Mv. when a whale, nothing you do will boost it even fractionally. while it does feel unfair to see low quality posts getting big payouts, it is identical to low diff hashes winning 50 BTC in the beginning. As more and more competition arises, the threshold for the high payout posts should go up.
Is it?
Yeah, some of your posts don't do that well. And you probably know exactly why that is. Its the same reason youre a 7 (AAMOF, i suspect the bots use a similar profile to the rep system). You probably also know that the effects of that will wear down over time as you get more votes.
I get the bitcoin analogy. I really do. and ill admit to not being a huge crypto guy. But isnt the "mining world" super shitty in btc? Like basically everyone has been chased out except the big pools? You really think people will want to buy into that... come to steemit its just like mining bitcoin!
Unless the additional whale votes moved it further up the page (they do) or kept it near the top longer (they do)
So you get one decent sized whale vote and that puts you on the front page... two gets you moved up a spot. until you get to a certain threshold where you get enough to be at the very top. Now, additional whale votes can keep you there for a whole month.
This is why youre a 7, and probably why you don't get as much bot love as some. https://steemit.com/money/@jl777/steem-price-might-double-next-week-liquidity-awards-to-be-temporarily-suspended-new-supply-of-liquid-steem-to-be-reduced.
You had a post killed by a high power voter.
If it wasnt for a couple huge posts it probably would have banned you outright.
nice try with the brute force analysis, but wordplay isnt going to cloud the issue.
Its not a comparison between whale on whale and non-whale on whale thats relevant. Its a comparison between whale on whale and whale on non whale. its a cute tounge twister though.
I dont know why I am a 7, you got me there. bitcoin mining is dominated by big miners, that is kind of why steemit is cool. anybody can "mine" a lotto post. no need to be able compile unix daemons and setup a miner to get free crypto
I already did a brute force statistical analysis and whale on whale voting is below non-whale for whale voting, except for a few accounts that I think have bots, like wang
thanks for your insightful contribution to the discussion, @jl777.
I haven't been in the crypto scene too long, though recall your name sticking out as being a highly-respected figure in the community, having been a key player in a number of significant projects - as such, your input is greatly respected and appreciated.
The thing is that currently I see "whales" as guard dogs of steemit.
They decide which content is deemed good enough for the front page. It's good and bad. I wrote about it on my blog about "true power of whales" where their hidden agendas can impact the content we see and don't see. simple example is @berniesanders votes for weed topics.
I think that currently it's good because whales understand their powers and they are heavily invested in the platform so they decide to reward quality content that gives value instead of meme like content that can succeed in reddit.
I don't know how many whales bots are there bot that's one way of spreading the wealth he has. if he doesn't have the time to vote with 3 users and search good posts everyday so he decides to reward good content writers. by doing so those writers will act as his proxies and keep spreading the wealth.
If this were true, it would be great. Its not. I invite you to take a look at the top 100 money earning posts and judge the quaity for yourself.
I can see both sides of the issue. Steemit reflects the real world in the distribution of wealth. I suppose the difference here is that the people at the top are trying to and are encouraged to redistribute the wealth using their votes. As time goes on the inequality should go down. It is unlikely to go away but I don't think we can expect a platform like Steemit to solve a problem that is as old as civilisation. That would simply be unrealistic.
I have been critical of @steemed in the past, not because I have anything against him rewarding a certain group of writers which he likes but more for the issue of using bots. This is my personal opinion though and I suppose as long as he at least reviews the choices of his bots to make sure that people aren't posting complete garbage or copy paste posting other people's work I don't think any great wrong is being done.
I think part of the problem here is that there are a few people who are whales. They are not super human. They have limited time like the rest of us and there is a limit to what they can do or see.
That's why in the past I have suggested giving people the ability to delegate their voting power for short periods. A whale who is short of time could nominate someone whose opinion and curation they respect to use their voting power for say a week.
This person would then be able to vote as if they were that whale. This would not only bring fresh perspective and diversity but would also help to fight accusations of favouritism. I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement as I'm not a programmer.
I sympathise with those who feel frustrated as it can seem that good material is getting overlooked. Like I said - this happens all the time in real life. There are probably millions of great writers, artists, musicians who will never make it big or have their work appreciated to the degree they deserve.
Steemit is trying to improve things but it can't and won't ever be perfect. It is a work in progress. As long as we all do our bit to up-vote content we like and reward (no matter how small it may be) good material we are all helping to move things in the right direction.
Also I have been reading work by both @rok-sivante and @stellabelle and I have yet to come across anything that I would deem to be of low quality or not deserving a like. If they did post something like that I must have missed it.
I personally think there is a big future for Steemit that's why this last night and this morning I doubled my SP from around 1000 to 2000. That may be laughably small to most people but it is a lot for me and shows how much I believe in this platform.
Anyway sorry for the long response. In summary I think we all need to be realistic everyone can't become rich overnight in real life and it isn't realistic to expect that in Steemit.
Thanks for reading:)
no apology necessary, mate. your contribution to the discussion is very much appreciated. :-)
Thanks:)
Thanks for the detailed explanation. To me, the word "whale" just means someone who owns a lot of Steem Power (in the trading platform trollboxes, it tends to mean someone who owns a lot of whatever coin was being discussed), so I've never meant it to be derogatory in any way.
I'm in learning curve mode right now, trying to figure out how to break in. I'm experimenting with different types of posts, and I'm also reading and commenting on other people's work. Hopefully I can figure out where I fit into this community soon.
I don't have a problem with the way it's set up. Most innovations come with a tremendous early adopter advantage. I've been fortunate to have that advantage with some of the other innovations in the Cryptosphere, NEM being a good example. I don't happen to be an early adopter of Steem, but that doesn't mean I don't see lots of potential upside ahead.
Still, I did have some questions, many of which were thoroughly answered in the article, so thank you very much for posting it :)
your welcome.
Keep experimenting. sometimes, there's no shortcuts to mining the gold within yourself - just persistent effort in testing out several different approaches, learning from every bit of feedback. Become a student of VALUE and consistently work to pack as much value as superhumanly possible into every piece you write, keep improving your skills, and eventually the investment in yourself and the community will pay off - as long as you keep your integrity in order. ;-)
That is great advice, especially the last part about keeping the integrity in order. Thanks :)
No offence, though i suppose youll take offense, but yes. Most of the "bot bait" authors posts are very low quality, including this one, and many of your other posts. Most of your posts read like get rich quick informercials. And youre not even close to the only one. Maybe it was different at one time, but when someone gets paid thousands of dollars for every single post, regardless of quality, it stands to reason that theyll continue to post low quality content even when they have nothing substantive to say. This phenomena is called a liquidity trap.
Your point seems to be that you and these other "chosen" authors are better and smarter than the rest of us, and bring more value to the site. Fair enough, but i seriously doubt you could find any objective third party that would look at the quality of posts from them and see anything special, on average.
Some posters paid by bots don't even post original work, they made thousands reposting other peoples copyrighted pictures. A few have been exposed as catfish. More are C+P spammers.
At the end of the day, your logic is circular. You claim that these individuals have chosen to pay you all this money because of the quality of the content you bring. Yet the only evidence you cite to support that conclusion is that they choose to pay you.
and yes, looks like every single post of yours gets upvoted by the same people, but you already knew that.
links to the posts that were NOT upvoted by the bots provided in response to your request for them in the other comment.
ok, i mean i feel like this is a good explanation, but at the same time it still seems unfair that its the early adopters that stand to benefit and i can totally see why some people are pointing fingers and saying that there is a conspiracy. @rok-sivante can you really put your hand on your heart and claim that all of your posts were worthy up generating as much steem and upvoting as they have received?
I fail to see how it is relevant how @rok-sivante may feel about his own posts because others have found value in them and have rewarded the posts appropriately.
Early adopters in Bitcoin got their coins for tens of dollars. Are we calling unfair the advantage this has given the risk takers who believed in BTC? I mean, I guess you could make that argument, but I'm not sure it would hold much water.
I enjoy @rok-sivante's writing and I often upvote his work. Are all of his posts worthy of generating that much steem? I can't answer that, but I can definitely say he writes well and overall I don't think he's overcompensated on this platform.
I'm definitely not trying to be harsh, but this isn't a free money give away, it's a social network. I'm of the mind that he'd be as popular on another social network as he is here, based on the threesome story alone... Those who think he's getting over somehow should study his work and let it inspire them to improve their writing skills and to build their reputation.
Agreed. Early adopters always have an advantage. It's not fair but it's the way the world works. Nobody has come up with a better way of doing it. It is no different from if you invested $1000 in a share of Apple when it was operating out of Steve Job's garage - by now it would be worth billions, whereas if you invested $1000 dollars now it would get you a couple of shares. In this case Steemit is at least giving out mini-shares to everyone.
Some yes, some no.
But taking ego out of it, I can see why some got more and some less. And thankfully, I've had posts where the bots DIDN'T vote, for which I'm grateful.
And at the end, its a humbling blessing - one that's made me take it even more seriously about what type of content to produce. It's a high degree of accountability, and a certain pressure to live up to the higher standards - which is cool, because creating value for others is what it should be about; though also stressful at times because sometimes there is stuff I might like to write about that I don't think would be worth that much - but then the ego's gotta go out the window again, refocusing that the effort is better spent focusing on what IS of the highest value...
link please? because it doesnt look that way.
Also, ftr this is the same guy who said that the reason most authors don't make any money here is that theyre so stupid they dont know theyre stupid. just ftr... so the leave the ego at the door thing.
https://steemit.com/writing/@rok-sivante/how-neilstrauss-changed-the-game-my-life-and-impacted-millions-through-his-writing-why-this-man-deserves-a-standing-ovation-and
https://steemit.com/steemit/@rok-sivante/the-top-seven-tips-for-steemit-newbies-to-overcome-discouragement-keep-your-head-in-the-game-and-get-on-track-to-earning-top
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@rok-sivante/the-ico-of-icos-the-raw-dirty-low-down-on-ronny-boesing-s-decentralized-conglomerate-s-latest-crypto-catalyst-icoo
re: " this is the same guy who said that the reason most authors don't make any money here is that theyre so stupid they dont know theyre stupid. just ftr... so the leave the ego at the door thing."
can you please provide the direct quote and link to where this was stated?
lol the game. its worth noting that not only did you make more money than most ppl do, you did so in spite of tag spam, which is probably why you got no sweet sweet bot love.... the two top ones were when they started cracking down, then after that the UI started stripping off the extra tags.... then it stopped and that was the ICO one. I only note this because us mere mortals get flagged for that.
ill look for the article it was the one about the dunning kreiger effect though... i know you made the glib little disclaimer that "oh im not talking about you" but the point was clear, and also shitty imo.
can you please provide the direct quote and link to where this was stated?
goddamnit. im HOP today
https://steemit.com/smallpost/@andrarchy/why-your-post-isn-t-getting-any-love-the-dunning-kruger-effect
though it wouldnt be so easy to get all you guys confused if you didnt hit up the same talking points.
hmm. thanks for the head's up on the tag issue.
I wouldn't view it as spam, as kept the tags relevant to the content. though very good to know if there's been some changes to crack down on using too many tags.
that dunning kruger article also damn good. kinda got my head spinning. (a good thing, really - breaking down some ego). :-)
I think your ego-out the window approach is very sound. But I must say, in the extremely short period I've spent on Steemit, lots of content that hit trending was honestly sub-par and NOT deserving of the value it made, from a business and marketing point of view.
Since trending seems to be the be all end all to a post being visible and 'sticky', a few authors dominating it through pure SLOTH on the bot owner's side seems like an absolute failure of the system's integrity.
Thanks for replying and this post, its helped me to see a more human side to things and show that its not just about $$$
That's one of the things I love most about steemit. The draw is initially the money, but it really is so much more than that, and at the end of the day the money becomes secondary to helping others who have become your friends. Just like the whitepaper says, it is a sort of reverse crab in the bucket analogy where each crab helps push the the other up and the crabs that have made it out reach back and help to lift up those who helped them in the first place. If you can name another site where this occurs, I'm all ears, but I doubt one will be found.
YES.
I did go through my own phases of being swayed by dollar signs. But as I persisted through the discouragement of seeing some intro posts getting thousands of rewards while mine got $32 and kept refocusing on creating VALUE for the community, something shifted in my brain and I began seeing much greater possibilities for what can be created here, that is totally separate from the financial side of things.
Many people will bitch about not making money and how unfair things are. But if you dig into their post histories, you will find a very predictable pattern that such people do not understand the fundamental principle that VALUE is rewarded. nothing else.
there are essentially five types of value. you could analyze posts all day long and break down why the highly rewarded posts get what they do, based on how highly they rank in the 5 different types of value. it's not chance. it's a science.
and in the end, the finances flow to the VALUE - value that enhances users experiences, is informative, inspirational, entertaining, original, and is well-delivered. in the end, it's all about providing VALUE. ;-)
I'm leaving Steemit as soon as my account is powered down over this crap.
Right now due to the way everything works, Steemit operates like a ponzi scheme for enriching the early whales and their friends.
It also causes the entire platform to be stagnant - the same threads from the front are still there from a week ago. Due to the way vote-weighting works, only the threads that whales upvote are even seen at all.
It's completely broken and irredeemable.
your pessimism will not be missed, once you do leave. :-)
and your honest feedback IS still appreciated. pessimistic perspectives do have their value, too.
It's the same with everything though. The first people who mined bitcoin are multi-millionaires for running what at the time was a relatively low power app on their laptops.