RE: Last Minute Upvoter Accounts (2018-02-19)
Thank you for your efforts to prevent abuse. I appreciate it.
I see that you're reporting suspicious upvotes above $10 USD. How about similar practices with less than $10 USD?
The ROI of abuse is the same for all levels, but by focusing on abuse with larger $ values, we are missing the big picture.
If we keep flagging posts above $10 USD, those people are going to find ways of limiting their upvotes to $9.99 but increasing the number of posts. As a result, we'll end up with more junk posts.
At a certain moment, we'll reach a point where we end up with so many suspicious cases that we won't be able to distinguish which is abuse, which isn't. And some genuine users will be trampled upon, which is already happening.
I don't think we can prevent abuse just by flagging as long as the author and curator rewards amount to $65 Million USD a year. That type of reward pool will always draw abusers.
The only way to solve this mess is to get rid of the rewards for authors and curators and introduce a tipping system. Otherwise, Steem won't be able to sustain its price levels for long.