Drama alert... I repeat, drama alert.
Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been posting as much on my personal account. Some of you being friends, some of you being 'The Steemit Police'.
THE FIRST WAVE
Let's jump back to a month ago when this all began. My very first downvote.
Out of nowhere, an account called @aloader downvoted a handful of my posts (29/05/18). It was alarming at first because I couldn't see any valid reason for the flagging. I'd put time into the posts, all images were credited and sourced, all content was either original or fair-use, payouts wern't unreasonable.
Weird.
Anyway, I didn't dig too deep into it until there was another handful of downvotes from a questionably named account.
The name alone was a cause for concern and instantly gave the impression that I was targetted for something. The concerns where confirmed as soon as I opened the justpaste link that is stated in the blogs location & link tags.
Go and have a little chuckle at this... https://justpaste.it/1jpbl
I brought the topic up in the PYPT afterchat to see if anyone else had heard about the 'Steemit Defense League' and luckily they hadn't. Nevertheless, @ancapbarbie helped out by highlighting the problem in the steemit.chat abuse channel which brought some attention from @themarkymark.
They were already on the case and had @randohealer and @neutralizer on the case to counter the downvotes. They were also in the process of negating the SP of the accounts due to abuse.
They succeeded. The 'Steemit Defense League' was neutered and the abuse was shut down.
Take a little peek at some of the recent resteemed posts shared on the accounts above. Keep them in the forefront of your mind, you can have your detective moment soon enough.
This account seems to be the main by the looks of the reputation and the replies/comments.
Now, there is a definite human being behind the screen of this account. Someone who started this with the intention for good from their own perspective. Unfortunately, it seems like the effort has been flipped on its head and the targetter has become the target. For anyone involved in this who may be targetted (yes it's still going on, this section is still the first wave), please be a rational human being.
Take a step back and consider the thoughts that could be going through @camillesteemer's mind. Some of you are just throwing wood on the fire.
(Massive respect to @calluna for this comment 2 days ago: https://steemit.com/contest/@calluna/re-camillesteemer-re-stimp1024-29th-april-trueflip-ticket-33-of-winnings-up-for-grabs-20180625t141312372z)
THE SECOND WAVE
The 'Steemit Defense League' was squashed and the downvotes were reduced to nothing. There was a moment of peace and quiet, no more notifications from GinaBOT letting me know about the flags.
It was quiet...
But not for long.
The squad was back and disguised. I have to say, the display pictures and cover photos speak wonders.
The 'Steemit Defense League' was now the 'Tits, Generic Wallpaper and Horror League'.
There was some serious effort put into these accounts and a change of tactics implied to try and differentiate themselves from the former accounts. Unfortunately for them, the mastermind behind this didn't realise that they are directly correlated when you resteem the same posts across all accounts.
Including the previous accounts from the first wave.
I'd shared some of these accounts with @guiltyparties via the steemit.chat abuse channel but the accounts kept piling up and it seemed like this tactic was a waste of my time and theirs.
Time to go off the radar for a couple of weeks on my personal account.
THE THIRD WAVE
Today.
So we are pretty well aware right now how to spot the Ass, Wallpaper and Kruger Squad. I've grown to enjoy the notifications by now, the cover photos always bring a smile to my face. I think it's a nice trade off for the $0.001 downvotes.
The problem I have is when the downvotes aren't even to do with unreasonable payouts.
Today my post from 2 weeks ago received a downvote enslaught and it appears there is a bunch of new accounts on the case (I received downvotes throughout the writing of this post too).
Well that is all I have to say really.
There isn't much to say to you @camillesteemer, it seems like you are having fun more than anything else because this would bore the life out of me after a day or two.
I urge you to keep going.
Power up those accounts and grow a real attachment to them.
Carefully pick out the best cover photos you can to brighten my day when you stop by to visit.
And don't get bored... we need you in this fight as an example of what can happen when you try to police a decentralized platform with a delusioned sense of perspective.
Also, check out this post that you resteemed on one of the accounts. It looks like you are supporting bot spamming.
Aaaand now we have @lostkey somehow cleaning out Steemit accounts, including @thealliance.
https://steemit.com/@lostkey/transfers
What the fuck ...
I only just saw this, I am glad other people are thinking about the human behind behind the mask they have chosen. I really hope they are ok, and my offer will always stand, it is easy to feel backed into a corner and all that is left is to lash out. It might take time for this user to come around, but I really hope one day they do, and get to be surprised by the warmth they are welcomed with. At this point they are more succeeding in creating a community of people they have flagged, who find each other like this.
Some people do just enjoy trolling, and I can understand that, after they down voted the comment, I figured eh, someone having fun, not going to get in the way. If it makes them happy, good is coming of it. However seeing that they have updated a flag bot to have my banner image and some nice boobies for a profile pic, even updating the text, I can only think that is still an emotional response. I must have in some way hurt them with the comment, so they want to hurt back. I sincerely hope they don't think it was some kind of trap or ridicule. I am genuinely open to trying to understand this person and help heal the wound that has opened here. I just wish there was some way to have an actual discussion with this user and understand where they are coming from. I am not the only person who tried this though, and back before this all started kicking off, someone did try and talk with them. I guess I just wanted to try again, just in case they were getting tired of this. Whack-a-troll can be a fun game for the troll I guess, but I have become more and more convinced that isn't what is going on, and this person is really hurt.
It is amazing the amount of time they have put into serious targeting, back tracking like they did with you, it makes it feel a lot more personal. The other side of this is I really do worry about the effect is has on other users, I just hope they don't succeeding driving anyone off. Seeing so much of it together like this is really something.