Voting Bots - Don't blame the tools. (Opinion)
A vote for you and you and you! (but you have to pay first)
We can all look at Voting Bots and form an opinion on what they add or take away from the system. I just see them as a tool. When a shovel gets misused we don't blame the shovel. Blame the Spammer not the tool. We shouldn't take a valuable tool away because of spammy people. Isn't that the same excuse the government uses to regulate Crypto? It gets used for crimes. Blame the criminals not the tools.
I put money into Steem's Eco-System to buy votes:
Last night I wanted to get exposure for my #Adoptaminnow project, so I decided to use voting bots to promote it. This is not a first, but I wanted to promote it more than usual. Since I have been sending my SBDs out to Bittrex, I didn't have any SBD. I made a choice to go to Bittrex, purchase SBDs send them back to my account and use them to pay for some upvotes. When my post pays out some of those reward will be powered up and some SBDs may be used to purchase additional votes or to power up.
My post was of reasonable quality, had a mission and the project is good for the community. (While I realize good for the community could be debated, I see it that way) To me this seems like a valid user case that benefits the entire system.
Wealth Distribution is the reason for the high demand
The great demand for Delegation, Voting Bots, and much of the arguing that happens on the platform stems from the low number of accounts that hold substantial amounts of SteemPower. Since the beginning of SteemIt the users have watched the same group of people upvote each other nearly exclusively and it is still going on today. The voting bots were a way to get noticed despite the "circle jerk". Now some are unhappy, seemingly because they can't control who is getting the SteemPower and SBDs. Some of them would rather "Burn" it than see it distributed through our current system. That says a lot to me. I see the voting bots as a tiny way to level the playing field. I take no issue with developers and those smart enough to write, maintain, and run these tools making money. I've seen first hand the "Support" factor and believe me it is not free money.
Don't blame the tool, go after the spammers/scammers
Everyone is saying it, I've said it before and I will say it again. Somehow we need to make it safe for the community to use their flags. Most of us who do flag spam have received revenge flags and I will be the first to say, I haven't always done the right thing out of fear of messing up my account. I read that same concern over and over, and I have watched it play out, where it truly can lead to great damage when you flag.
The community is paying for a lot of Spam control, what do they need?
We have SteemCleaners, and Cheetah, and Patrice and Spaminator and more.. Yet I can scroll down the "New" feed for less than 10 minutes to find a clearly spammy and scammy looking accounts. So, what aren't we doing to support those programs?
There is generally a cost of doing business
To the Investors who want to say there is no financial incentive to flag so they don't want to use their stake for flagging. There are always unpaid elements to doing business. Investing doesn't always mean immediate turn around on the ROI. Sometimes we spend time and money on maintenance and development in order to keep our business model operational. I am having a hard time feeling to bad if you have to build some expenses into your ROI plan.
Your view on this issue might be different. I'm interested in hearing it.
I don't have a problem with voting bots; I don't have a problem with mega whales wanting to make money from their SP holdings.
I do have a problem with "shitposts" getting rewarded $400 for pretty much nothing, because the poster can buy their way to that. BUT...
That's not a "philosophical" or "ethical" problem, it's a functional problem. If you're a non-member, prospective member or simply not logged in, what you see when you land at Steemit.com is the "trending" page. And if the Trending page looks like a pile of shyte, that jeopardizes the entire ecosystem or rather, the future GROWTH of the ecosystem... and (to add my own selfish angle) that jeopardizes the price of MY Steem holdings!
So every time I hold up my hand in the "vote bots" debate and say "Yeah, but wait a second..." I'm also pointing at the mega whales who delegate SP to vote bots and suggesting they look more closely at the value of their 1.5mn SP in the LONG run. Even if your returns are slightly lower, wouldn't it be a more prudent investment to delegate-- let say-- 25% of that SP to Patrice and/or spaminators to help keep the site healthy and cleaner?
Now, the original round-robin vote circle jerks? That's a whole different beast.
Of course, there are things you can do with vote bots that most people do NOT. For example, I don't have a huge store of SP, but I might have some SBD that would allow me to purchase a $10 vote for someone else's particularly worthy piece of content...
Hey @denmarkguy, You nailed it man:
Excellent points.
I agree that I think it would be a great thing for every Steem User to either support a "Spaminator" or do their own flagging as they are out and about. We can all contribute to keeping the site clean.
I feel many are seeing the site as a short-term cash cow, and I sometimes fear they will "Kill the Golden Goose".
I keep hoping communities with individuals to manage them will help! Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Haha - the trending page is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I told a lot of people to take a look at Steemit and nobody - really nobody - joined. And I'm at a point where I'm really embarrased to promote it any further. There seems so little improvement.
I think it's impossible to ban bots - I'd rather see flagging incentivized. And we need to convince large stakeholders that the best thing that can happen to their stake is quality content on the trending page.
@whatsup and @denmarkguy, these are some of the clearest points I've come across on the subject of voting bots. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.
I think voting bots is good thing because minnows with low steem power needs these voting bots to get exposer. Totally agree with you , we need to clean spammers not the technology which could be beneficial to everyone.
Yeah well i do my best to use my stake that i have invested to have, for the better of this community I dont certainly abuse it like some do ! These people are just ill and need to stop thinking of their own short term profit and think of this new community which still needs to grow and develop into the potential we all see I hope ) nice post @whatsup )
Thanks gomer it was good to see you in chat today.
That has been my main suspicion about the fuss about voting bots. Like any tool, there is potential for abuse, but like you, I agree that the bots are a good way for small users to compete with the "circle jerk" for exposure.
Look there is always a way to do any thing. If bots are their then why we are always looking for the upvotes from them obviously to give a rise to our posts. It is fair enough..!
But when we use them to devalue the Vision and Morality of the Community then it is totally unfair.
Spammers should be Hanged, as they are using the means of cheating. The community has Flags for them but still it is the need of hour to control the unrecognized accounts, to avoid mess.
Vision of the Community by @ned is to make this place a Welfare Community so that everyone can get benefit from it but yes at the same time everyone has to contribute at his/her end.
Thanks for the inspiration to make this very poorly constructed meme
Hang the Spammers!!!
What are you talking about @ned and a Welfare Community? I don't get that point at all?
Thats smacks of communism no @whatsup ?? surprising coming from a guy that clearly has millions )) Its just fashion to be a socialist and want to help those that cannot help themselves ! If this is what Steemit is for, then maybe time to power down because I am not here to hand my money to people that bring nothing with them to the table but there problems of money !!
I'm so confused. I am unclear on what @ned said that your guys are talking about.
"Vision of the Community by @ned is to make this place a Welfare Community so that everyone can get benefit from it but yes at the same time everyone has to contribute at his/her end."
this is what @salmanbukhari54 is reporting that @ned said ! Is this true I dont know as I have not seen this discussion personally ! But if he did i find that extremely strange and somewhat worrying ! What are your thoughts on this @whatsup ?
While I'm not in the "I hate SteemIt" group. I think Ned has a tough job, I'm not sure out of context I understand his comment. I love to speculate, but I don't know what he meant.
Regardless of acknowledging his job, where I do struggle with Ned is his inability to paint a clear picture of a vision and employ people who spread it.
I dont think anybody on this thread hates Steemit or @ned for that matter ! But this strange statement I do find worrying as we are not UNESCO !! We are private investors that believe in this concept and who have invested our money and time to make it work and to make it what it is ! But if @ned has fallen into this seemingly ever so popular " socialist marxist" movement and I would say disease its really very worrying as it is he who has the hands on the tiller of this ship we have boarded !!
Well, I think i just could not convey it properly. Actually 2 days a go i had a chance to read the @surfermarly blog in which he cited a quote from @ned about the vision of Steemit. After reading that blog i just put my thoughts to give you a feedback on this post.
So Hanged them does mean make some strict rules to minimize the spamming, just to bring the quality here on steemit ( It was just a suggestion )
Although i am a new addition to Steemit ( I joined it last month) but i always try to grab the knowledge and inspiration by following the Great Authors like you and many others. I am always in the favor of learning @whatsup :)
I think bots are fine. When used for visibility, for higher discovery.
But I would love that their impact is limited. By which I mean, let's call a spade a spade and call it advertising. And allocate a limited number of slots for them. These slots can rotate more than even the hot page does.
A very basic targting system, yes targeting but as simplistic as possible think top 5-10 used categories, would even allow slots in personal feeds.
My main issue is that we now use the promotional element, but that's a fallacy. A fallacy because without a limited number of slots it becomes like the Trending page. It takes a lot to even end up on Hot. It's basically a case of if you can't beat them, you join them. Which serves and feeds only one side of the market: the bots operators.
The Wild Wild West, as is now, is not interesting a concept for the investors we want either, those with a mid- to long-term thinking. At this point, the Steem blockchain still exponentially rewards short-term profit guided actions.
Until that is fixed, discovery will always suffer this promotional issue. The blockchain world, and specifically (user generated) content centric ones like Steem right now still face many hurdles and upcoming, compulsory regulatory implementations (think copyright and DMCA), bidding bots and promotion may be one of the easier issues to find solutions which work for everyone.
That is not to say that anything is fool proof. After all, I'm Belgian and we have a moral civic duty. The duty to find a loophole in any (new) regulation, law.
Even seemingly awesome solutions like Proof of Worth still leave much room open to be gamed. But that's something which will always happen.
Laws, just like principles, exist to many to be thrown overboard or gamed.
TL;DR: promotional tools are fine, but we need to make sure Steem doesn't become a covert FB where without promotion nothing works anymore.
This is actually a very interesting idea, regarding the advertising and potentially limiting the spots.
This problem with a platform with out a central authority is we can't really control who uses it how, unless we take responsibility for it as a community.
I do think communities will help, especially if different communities allow for various shades of moderation.
We have a central authority: DPOS could decide on such a system. As such, after a HF, it could be required via the license that the advertised slots not be stripped from the feed.
I am convinced that midterm such a setup would be even more profitable, and also less of a customer support nuisance, for the bot operators. Because of scarcity.
Communities would also be a viable targeting model for topical ads. They could be the most basic version of targeted native advertising, but I am not sure communities will be a blockchain feature. They will (initially) be platform/interface specific only.
Although I also use the voting bots for more visibility, It's a bad idea right now to use them because grumpeycat is aggressively flagging down everything on the bot tracker's voting window. There was this youtube creator who had over 200$ in rewards but got flagged and dropped the value to 7$ yesterday!
I agree with you. Bots are not bad in themselves, it's some of the users rather.
I actually feel and think these voting bots are a good thing because it helps newbies here on steemit earn a little from their posts. Yeah you are also right we need to clear spammers. Nice post!!
As the expression goes! Sometimes you need to spend $ to make $. I see it as a way of advertising. Wishing everyone the VERY best of health and happiness! Warm Wishes! Positive Energy! Blessed 2018 my Friends! :)