[AskSteemit] - How many vote-bots is too many?
Are you tired of seeing a minnows comment section fill up with voting bots left and right? The poor little minnow doing everything in their power, paying from their own wallet, to try and get their post just a few more minutes of attention and a few more dollars of rewards. Maybe, if they are lucky, the post will even linger on the Hot page for the topic, if only briefly.
Oh wait, nevermind, you probably don't read a minnow's content at all, let alone their comment section. This poor minnow is only interacting with himself on this great social interaction platform. Heck, given the way Steemit prioritizes content, you probably can't even find a minnow's post...
So, keep it mind, using these bots is just a rational decision made by the minnow. They are seeking views and rewards, and this is one of the few paths available to them. Any informed minnow is almost forced to use these tools to aid their journey out of obscurity. (This means uninformed minnows will flounder even more than today.)
Now, I believe the makers of the bots are trying to help. Their motivations are in the right place, and the theory sounds pretty convincing.
- Premise - New Steemians have trouble getting attention.
- Premise - Bots help provide increase attention and provide small rewards.
- Conclusion - Bots are a net benefit to the minnow community.
Ultimately, I think the theory requires that the bots be temporary. The hope is that these bots are short-term crutches. At some point, the minnow will not need these paltry nickles and dimes. They will be able to swim and earn completely on their own, and they will have an avid following and glowing reputation. Maybe at that stage, they can delegate steem power to invest in bots themselves and to help the next wave of minnows. If they are truly temporary, then the conclusion is pretty sound.
However, these bots are too young and still untested in the Steemit ecosystem. Is there evidence of people walking away from the upvote bots? Or, is their use continuing to spike? While they exist, any savvy minnow is doomed to create a Comment section over-populated by robots.
Are they a net gain?
PS And this isn't even getting into the potentially selfish motivations of bot makers, which is probably a full topic of its own...
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The issue rests in bots being allowed. So long as they're allowed, they'll be used. I don't like a site populated by bots, but if bot comments could be separated for easy differentiation, that could be helpful
Different CSS for bot accounts? A profile flag that could be set and enforced for bot accounts? Those are pretty good ideas.
I agree, if bots exist, they'll be used. And even if the bots died away, there is nothing is really stopping vote-scripts from then being implemented.
good idea so we can tell .. I don't always know and probably look silly responding to them... LOL
I've been using a few of the bots for a while, mainly to get some visibility on my posts. It seems like posts with 0 upvotes get a lot less interaction than when there's already some upvotes, so it felt like I was boosting my visibility by getting some automated upvotes. I have not tested this theory, so maybe it doesn't even work as I thought.
On my latest post I got plenty of upvotes organically, so I let it run its course for a day. When I noticed the activity had dwindled, I succumbed and used only minnowbooster on it. That gave me a few extra cents (hardly noticeable on the $60 it already has) and seemingly no other activity than the upvote trail from the bot itself. Next time I won't be using the bots at all.
I agree, for the starting minnow it makes sense to use the bots, and that's a design flaw in the Steemit system. The supply of bots is there purely because there is a demand. I wonder how Steemit could be improved so that upvote bots aren't needed anymore.
In any case, even though I have used them, I'm starting to realize that they actually devaluate what Steemit is about. Automated curation is irrelevant curation. Bots make a post look weaker, not stronger. Still, before saying something rash as "ban all bots" I think we should all think really hard about how to solve the problem that is now solved by bots: the problem that minnows have a really hard time getting noticed.
Thanks for your insights and experience.
I've used a few in the past, and I've tried to avoid using some of the pay-for-vote bots recently, and have done okay organically, or with just the MSP trail bot.
I was hoping to open a dialogue around that question - what could Steemit do organically to satisfy the need that these bots are doing. Better discovery tools? Boosted voting among minnows? Special sections for curators to see minnow content?
I've just loathe to see 100s of vote-bots, paid or otherwise, filling up Steemit.
I got a bellyRub and this post has received a 15.06 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @somethingsubtle.
Interesting points. What if steemit put a criteria on who can use upvoting bots. Say for example a user who has 60 rep above can no longer be voted by bots.
Just a thought.
That could probably work if the bots start to get abused and Minnows continue to use them consistently even after they get a following.
Thanks for sharing.
There are other options, such as #whalepower, where someone actually reads your post, and, if it is good, upvotes it. I have seen a big bunch of people trying to gain prestige, power, and steembucks from promising to 'help' minnows by providing advice, and critiques (one even asked payment up front, as opposed to hiding under the banner of a resource group). This is sad. It is also clubbish, as in, 'If you are not known to us, we are not going to even bother to read what you write. We're saving our upvotes for our buddies, even if their content is crap'. Better to go it alone, join a facebook group (like Steemit Q&A https://www.facebook.com/groups/141980609711038/) where people actually try to help answer each other's questions and point everyone in good directions. What good an upvote if no one reads what you write? You produce content in order to have someone actually view it.
Great points.
Yea, its been fascinating seeing the rise of separate support groups for minnows. Whalepower, Whale shares, Minnow Support, etc. Part of me can't help but wonder if there motives are really pure, or if they are power (or witness-vote) driven.
It feels to me that if they worked together, they could add the help they are providing directly into the product of Steemit instead of separating it into different cliques with different solutions to the same problem.
And personally, I love each and every robot that reads my poetry. Ha.
I judge them this way: if they are also pedaling bots, we know what they are in it for.
Thanks for sharing! A link to your post was included in the Steem.center wiki page about Bots. Thanks and good luck again!
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1.89% upvote thanks to @ausbitbank - Hail Eris !