**Are you in favor of New Steem?**(Use vs. Abuse)
Are you in favor of New Steem?(Use vs. Abuse)
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://andybowers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/no-bot.jpg)
As most know the Steem price has tanked drastically and one of the reactions to that is the new movement called #newsteem.
This new group is comprised of whales (those who hold allot of Steem Power) and their followers. The basic idea of #newsteem is bidbot usage is bad, if you use them and get "caught" doing so downvotes will plague your topic.
Those downvotes will likely come from (among others) @ocdb and @ocb and the trail of downvote followers linked to each account.
They use the reasoning that good content will find its real value on its own. They view bid bot use as stealing from the rewards pool and they aim to put those "stolen" funds back where they believe it belongs (back in the rewards pool).
Some of the reasoning they use to tell these downvoted users is that you can't get ROI on advertised content anywhere else so why do you expect to do it with STEEM and other comments that follow similar logic.
The faulty With Their Logic & Actions
They are combating abuse with more abuse which is never a good idea. The reasoning they use for the downvotes conflict their own actions (more on that later).
Some (like me) think there's a difference between bot abuse and bot use. For example a clear case of bot use would be a Steemian finds an article that he likes but with the STEEM price so low their upvote isn't worth much and they would like to contribute to the article with a larger upvote.
The only way for them to do so would be sending a bot that awards a higher upvote then their own can give, so they do so. Under the rules of #newsteem that article now has the risk of getting downvoted because a Steemian that seen value in its content sent what they deemed as an appropriate sized upvote to contribute to the content creators rewards.
As noted, "you can't get ROI on advertised content anywhere else so why do you expect to do it with STEEM ", is one of the lines #newsteem likes to use when explaining downvotes to their victims. Sure the line sounds nice but too bad its a blatant lie. I have done affiliate work for many years and you absolutely can get ROI on advertised content.
You also can advertise for free on many other platforms. For example, I can create a Reddit account at this very moment and begin advertising any product that I want and it wouldn't cost me a dime. Anything that I may earn doing this would be 100% positive ROI.
Rewarding Themselves For Fighting Abuse
Lets get back to the statement I made earlier, "The reasoning they use for the downvotes conflict their own actions". As noted #newsteem aims to put stolen rewards back in the Rewards pool but did you know they are profiting from reporting abuse?
I see no reason why this should be the case. If you are following the #newsteem movement then do so without having rewards being given to you for doing so. If protecting the rewards pool is the goal then protect and stop taking from it, fighting abuse should be its own reward.
Example: @downvoter
Downvoter is a Steem account that has been created this month (October/2019) and it looks like its main (possibly only) function is hunting down any topic that has a bid bot used on it.
While I have no issue with someone wanting to spend their time hunting down and fighting against something they think is wrong the problem with this account is that its flagging every bot used topic it comes across (Including bot use, not bot abuse topics). Its not an authors fault if they created content that was good enough that someone else deemed it worthy of an upvote. Stop downvoting such topics as it underminds what could be an otherwise decent movement that is #newsteem.
The other issue I see with this account (and others) that are following #newsteem is the automatic upvotes their spam comments get. Just take a look at @downvoter's comment section and you will see that every single one of his spam comments has 3/4 upvotes coming from the same Steemian accounts.
This is blatant abuse and is taking from the rewards pool (something that #newsteem claims to be fighting). Downvoter isn't the only Steemian that follows #newsteem that does this. I don't wish to point fingers at anyone but since the account downvoter was only created this month and for what looks like the sole purpose of spaming and abusing I thought I would use it as an example.
Example of #newsteem (@downvoter) flagging posts that the auther hasn't used a bot on.
@maneco64 topic Shanghai Physical Gold Market in the Ascendancy that has a 14 minute video posted in it received a bot upvote from @tipu from one of his readers. @downvoter proceeds to spam and flag this Steemians topic while simultaneously getting rewards for his (@downvoters) own spammy comment.
Even the tiniest of upvotes aren't safe. @agrostis sent a minnowbooster upvote to a topic, (NESTBOX CAM UPDATE), created by the Steemian @mikenevitt. This topic has $0.14 of rewards on it and it got flagged.
Here's a crazy thought, if you want to put rewards back in the rewards pool so badly that you are flagging $0.14 topics then how about you deny payment for your spammy replies you leave in everyones topic @downvoter. That would put allot more then $0.14 back in the rewards pool.
Some of these users don't even have a clue how to use a bot but yet they are being downvoted because one of their readers deemed the contents of the topic they just read worthy of a bigger upvote than they themselves can apply. #newsteem could have been a great movement with just about everyone on board but its the abuse like the above that is not limited to the @downvoter account that has some against the implementation of the movement.
With all that in mind, if you so dare answer, I leave you with the question, Are you in favor of New Steem?
Dpoll doesn't allow me to vote on my own poll but for transparency my vote is for option 3. If any of the Steemians I used as an example for wrongfully getting flagged would like their topic and/or names removed from this topic please let me know and I will do so ASAP.
- Yes
- No
- Yes BUT not how it currently is being implemented
Answer the question at dpoll.xyz.
Fighting abuse with abuse and hate is like fighting guns with guns. It just created a slaughterhouse. IMO steem is centralized by bitchy whales. Newcomers have no chance at exposure especially with featured whale accounts now. I used bid boys to get exposure. When a good article of mine got to the home page I would then get organic upvotes. Now what's the point of me making a nice informative post to have it seen by no one. I have a ton of followers and still I'm just going to push out C+ material that doesn't take much time bc I can't get it seen. So the bitchy whales have just made the content worse. Steem is pretty much dead to me, but I'll keep pushing out automated dtube posts and I won't take anytime to make the post nice bc it has no chance of getting exposure.
I think the downvoting crew need to read and then reread your response. You have been very active here with creating engagement on the Steem blockchain. Its content creators like yourself that this platform needs but instead are slowly being driven away.
There's a clear difference between abuse and use of bots but the current downvote crew don't want to see that. I can attest to having lots of followers and the toughness of getting noticed. It isn't easy and I agree that bots do help with getting eyes and eventually meaningful upvotes on content. Bot use is almost essential for any new account to grow.
For example, I spent a significant amount of time creating this topic. I then spent another significant amount of time advertising it on various discord servers. Regardless of all that my topic still hasn't got much of a reply from the ones who like downvoting and has only reached $0.26 cents. My poll has also only gotten 12 votes. Usually my next step of advertising would be to push a small $1-$3 upvote on the topic to make it look more desirable thus getting more eyes/upvotes and poll voters but doing so would be considered bot abuse which I think is absurd.
Voted for
1 - on the account access to which I lost a series of articles which in the game made our alliance the best. Only now that account has not left the 15 delegated incentives. :) Unique and really high-quality articles - well, the flags did not support them.
2 - 10% of the flags from you know who it is in general a circus.
3 - A person who is not capable of not knowing the language, on the basis of the presence of a bidbot, decides that the content is not worthy of a reward?
How would such a person react to the phrase "It is a pity that your father was so dumb that he could not use a condom"
Threat I suspect that after this comment attack morons will increase. Well, this will only lead to one thing; I will stop writing. What I get from the stimulus will be displayed in the cache.
There was already such a Robin Hood in his voice.
Investors are gone, there are less than 1000 users left. Chain has fallen into two parts ... Go ahead, let's kill Steem :)
Thanks for stopping by and voicing your opinion.
Voted for
It's a crock and money grab by whales and witnesses.
It will lead to the death of the blockchain as a social media blockchain!
Dear @rentmoney
Thank you for sharing link to you publication with me.
#newsteem seem to bring wave of optimism and is helping to create new mindset within steem community. So far I like what I'm seeing.
In a long run I believe that newsteem will be good for all those who still remains on steemit. However it seem to be obvious that our community is shrinking and Steemit is becoming 'platform for privillaged'.
In my opinion it's not a bad thing really. Mass adoption is not the only way to be succesful. Creating valuable tool for users with money - perhaps that the way to go?
I fully agree.
The biggest problem with downvotes is the fact, that more often than not those who are being targeted do not even know what did they do wrong. That should change.
It's worth to mention, that we all do not have any tool which could allow us to fight back with downvote abuse.
What do you mean?
Upvoted already,
Yours, Piotr
Thanks for the thought out resonse @crypto.piotr.
I'm not seeing the optimism, So far only 2 on my poll have voted for YES they like the current movement. I think if #newsteem dialed things down a bit and consider not downvoting bot use but continue to fight bot abuse then allot more would be on board with it. As is, to me it looks like mostly just the whales (who don't need bot use) and those who follow them are the ones who support it (and a few others of course).
I agree that the #newsteem movement may work if the goal is to only have investors on the platform. Keeping STEEM(it) a niche group and the token in the hands of the few could possibly make its USD value increase again.
Users get rewards via flagging content and calling on steemflagrewards. This leads to people hunting down content specifically for getting rewards themselves in return. I'm of the opinion that if you want to fight such abuse and put money back in the rewards pool then fighting abuse should be its own reward. Taking rewards for removing rewards from someones topic seems a little counterproductive to me.
The below topic has some information you may find interesting.
https://esteem.app/cleansteem/@abh12345/all-aboard-the-flagtrail
Another thing some of these flaggers do is have automatic "warning" messages after they flag. These message never or rarely change, they then have X amount of automatic upvotes sent to it and then profit from posting the same spam comment over and over again. I left an example of this in the opening topic.
No.
I wasn't sure I wanted Dpoll to be able to do posting for me so I didn't vote in the actual poll.
If it wasn't for Steemleo I think it would have been time for me to leave Steemit and just have my autovoter running.
I don't like to give permissions away either but I figured I signed in to an abundance of Tribe sites / used steemconnect so I went ahead and decided to use Dpoll. Using a poll seems to help with engagement on posts as people in general like participating in polls.
My content creating and attempt at helping user retention are going to be slowing as well. Steemleo seems to be getting popular, it will be interesting to see what some of these Tribe sites tokens will be worth a year from now.
Voted for
Voted for
Currently it seems like a new way of fighting for the rewards pool, nothing more than that
Well put, in its current state #newsteem sure does look like that to me as well. Lets hope some with significant amounts of SP start pointing STEEM in the right direction soon.
Voted for
Voted for
Voted for
And they wonder why active steemians keep reducing daily