On bidbots and EIP
Let me start by saying I already think that the EIP and SPS has been a huge success. Trending is drastically different, whales are re-engaging on the platform, we've already seen the first proposal start to get funding, and we've also seen proposals without community funding kept from receiving funds. My post rewards seem a little down, but my curation is way up. Seems like a great balance and these are great signs. While even some of the witnesses that voted for it didn't think it would make much difference I have been and continue to be a vocal proponent. It's good and this is better.
tl;dr
if a post adds value please don't flag it even when it's bidbotted, especially if it isn't excessively botted
Yesterday
Yesterday I put up a post about a lot of work I had done, showed results of a new working node for the ecosystem, put out some initial thoughts about ways to improve the ecosystem, used a handful of bidbots, and got some pretty large flags and also some pretty large support. I expected some flags. That's the nature of the beast right now, but I'd like to provide some thoughts on flags and bot use.
In the beginning there was vote swapping
It didnt' take much to figure out that vote swapping was rampant on the system. Mined stake and even steemit stake was being put back and forth on circle jerk posts. New users sometimes caught a rare vote, but the exponential rewards curve made that severely punished. If you voted on a new post by a new author your rewards were literally crippled. So, the voting was largely insiders helping one another.
Dr. Otto
A major change happened when @inertia coded up the first bidbot. As an alpha it was awesome. It took the vote swapping circle jerk out of the back rooms and made it so anyone could get the vote. Steeming went from a back room deal to anyone with money could get their post seen.
Linear Rewards
When linear rewards first hit there were no downvotes. So, now everything became about upvoting content indiscriminately. Get your return, get your money by posting, but that also affected the whales. For them to get their return they passively sold off all their votes and leased all their SP.
The resulting ecosystem became a shitshow of figuring out how to leech rewards fastest through the least amount of work possible.
Linear Rewards with Downvotes (EIP)
The biggest change to me is the free downvotes. Now people can freely determine what is good content and what is bad content. This is an extremely subjective field, and I would argue is really hard to pin down to any one thing. Generally speaking though posts about things or that are things that add value to the ecosystem are "good posts," posts that are about personal matters or only really effect a small group of people are "neutral posts," and one liners with a cat meme that are designed to leech rewards are "bad posts."
good posts add value neutral posts don't add much value, but don't harm the ecosystem bad posts leech rewards
Bid bot usage
Over the last week it's been startling to see bidbots with vote windows that go unused. Many in the ecosystem I'm sure will stand and say "this is amazing, fuck them, glad to see those fucking bots gone." I'm not one of them. Bid bots played a role in getting my posts seen and that of others around here. It helped me get the audience I benefit from now. It would be disingenuous of me to turn around and say "hey fucktards, don't use bidbots you'll ruin the ecosystem."
Bidbots have a place. They are the first businesses on the blockchain. It's literally a whole industry complete with tens of millions of SP. They can also be used to help posts, projects, and people get seen.
If your goal is to run off the bidbots I think that's equivalent to your goal being to run off whales who want a passive investment here. I prefer to keep investors on and in the Steem ecosystem.
Sustainable bidbot usage
Yesterday on my post about the work I had done for the benefit of SM and SE as well as trying to figure out how to make the ecosystem as a whole not be reliant on steemit nodes and how to make it easy for new apps I decided to use 3 bots.
I used minnowsupport, not so much as because I needed the vote, but because I wanted to support the community.
I used a relatively small vote from therising because it was available right that second, and I put upmewhale on it as a single large vote to get it promoted. The last one worked to immediately get it into hot. And then it also worked surprisingly to get it to the bottom of trending.
These days when I try to promote something to trending I'm typically aiming for spot 4. It gets it on the wall, and I don't have to get it all the way to the top.
I think this is a reasonable approach.
Bot usage wasn't zero, but it wasn't maxed out. The post was well written and details a lot of work and also includes a new tool to the ecosystem that others can start to use and Privex is already making available to others.
Flagged anyway
These guys have a right to flag. I actually support the flagging. I'm even happy to get flagged myself. This is how this shit works now. But I think the standards of the whales aren't exactly right just yet. That's ok, we're a week deep into EIP and honestly the fact that they are voting at all and not just being completely passive is a huge win.
Here's my ask though. Not all bidbotted posts have to get flagged. When flagging ask "did this post provide value to the ecosystem." If the answer is yes, and especially if the botting is outrageous then please let the post stand. If the answer is "No, I don't see value here" then please nuke it.
Good curation is about discriminating between posts with and without value
Indiscriminate upvotes don't differ that much from indiscriminate flags to me. So, just flagging everything because it's botted seems like the opposite of linear rewards and just flags everywhere instead of votes everywhere won't help curation much.
Bots investors are stakeholders and wear a ton of risk
I agree that having them get 90% returns versus holding your own stake and voting reasonably would be bad, but I trust the downvote economy to prevent complete gaming of the bots anymore. I'm hoping for an equilibrium where bot investors can be here, invest in steem, remain passive, maybe get slightly more for their curation rewards for their risk and their stake, but not have it be automatic. Bad bots that indiscriminately vote should see small returns. Good bots that force standards and practices should get higher returns.
There's a reasonable zone where bots, whales, flags, and promotion can coexist. I think the trick is asking "did this provide value." Please take that one question into consideration when botting or flagging.
tl;dr
if a post adds value please don't flag it even when it's bidbotted
I see the value of the new downvoting system, but I am yet to use my downvotes due to lack of time since I spend 24 hours a day playing Steemmonsters. Is there a downvoting pool I can delegate my downvotes to?
I think there soon will be many such initiatives
Check out @howo for example, I think he runs a downvote trail
EDIT: He created and maintains a tool that allows everyone to easily trail the downvotes of others here https://downvotecontrol.com
Downvotes are a very healthy part of the ecosystem and act as a check and balance to keep post rewards honest. People who are unable or unwilling to directly participate in downvoting are strongly encouraged to use one of these new services.
I don't run a downvote trail but maintain a tool to easily trail people :) https://downvotecontrol.com
Even better
Sorry I actually knew that, I just got lazy and inaccurate with my explanation.
Edited. And it's a fantastic tool. We definitely need stuff like this to keep everyone honest for this place to function
Because as we already know, either we successfully keep pretty much everyone honest, or over time no one is going to be honest and that just completely undermines any value this platform has to offer.
Thanks for the kind words :)
I think we need to have as many downvoting tools as possible because there is a ton of sp in small accounts with 500-2000 sp that don't care about downvoting themselves but if they all start trailing people, this sp can quickly add up to be a huge force.
Love the problem, not the solution.
People holding on to the idea of bidbots are not trying to solve any problems that Steem has or move things forward, only clinging to "solutions" that brought as least as many new problems with them as they solved... (The fact that things sucked more before bidbots is not an argument for bidbots). Bidbots as we have known them over the last 2 years will habe to adopt or die.
And no, there are 0 reasons to think that the millions of SP delegated to them would be dumped if that happened. And yes, it would be better for Steem long term of the few "investors" who don't see any reasons to be there other than the "passive income" they get from delegating to bidbots (it is not btw) were to dump and be gone. Else they will by definition need to dump more STEEM than they brought in for their "ROI" to be positive, so what's the point? A Steem where bidbots as we know them is a "major industry" is effectively just a ponzi where entrants depend on more people coming in after them to run a system that has proved to produce no value...
I am curious if you read the comments to your previous article?
In short: Yes, there is room for paid promotion on Steem. And yes, we need ways for people who want to get seen to break through the ceiling of the same circle-jerks on trending. So let's focus on building the most value-adding, sustainable solutions to those problems, rather than holding on to bad "solutions" that contributed to sending STEEM from #20 to #80 in marketcap in the first place.
Hear hear!!! it would be great to see some engagement from the original poster.. 🤔
Posted using Partiko Android
This...
He did read them ofc. Hes ignoring them and trying to power through it repeating his narrative and ignoring the responses, even if he might reply to them.
Its politics at its most basic. He has a following and will try and push the agenda on them, after time with his following attract a few bigger accounts, etc. and try to make his vision of breaking up the core downvoting group a reality.
That way bots will get a chance to be profitable again.
You made absolutely no valuable points here and all of them have been already tackled in your bidbotted post, in the comment section.
Again, youre trying to power through the answers given to you and ignore them by relying on your reputation.
Your choice, i just hope people dont buy it.
Dont go soft folks.
I do agree that they were addressed in that post, especially in the conversation between smooth and thecryptodrive
I fail to see the argument. Bidbots were generally accepted, but as they actually do ruin the Steem eco-system they have to go. The SP will have to be invested in new ideas.
People who used horse-carriage never told themselves they were ruining the carriage industry when buying a car, neither should they, nor should you.
Sustainable bidbot usage is standing with one leg in the past, better to invent some better way of promoting posts that does not undermine the proof of brain concept.
I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on what you consider posts of value, or not.
I am not a judge of art and many posts that we consider short, or simple, are art. AND they do bring value to the ecosystem.
Some might consider Actifit or posts about Steemmonsters to bring no value to the ecosystem.
Who are they to judge?
Seems to me, the ecosystem voted to give ALL USERS, two free downvotes.
thinking more on it, there is value when a post is extremely poignant, even if it really only reaches a small group, or as you say, neutral.
It's valuable both to the content creator, and the small group. AND deserves upvotes there.
Sometimes the author was the one being upvoted and not the post. But if the post is not spam then it has to get flagged but if it is not then it is okay to promote it via bidbots but subject to the terms of the bidbots.
The value of a post is subjected but the problem is that not all agree in the same opinion about that factor. So with that a common sense should be observed.
Surely it's clear by now that you can't have a voting market scheme that on the one hand pays people to promote, and on the other hand pays vote sellers almost as much as fully self voting without the entire system eroding over time.
If you use a bid bot, you're by definition obtaining a vote that would not have come your way had you not paid for it. This puts you at an unfair advantage over those who rely purely on organic votes which undermines the proof of brain process.
Economically, it's far more harmful. If I could make more selling my vote than curation, then what the hell would I be curating for? Then if over time every stakeholder decided to sell their votes, who's going to vote for actual worthwhile content? If no one votes for them, why would anyone bother to create them? It's just a downward spiral that leads down the same shit's creek which we're far too familiar with already.
There's a place for promotion but the method can't involve directly out-competing the very process that provides this blockchain its core value: honest curation.
Something similar to what you said about burning to have your post features is likely fine, as is literally an infinite other set of ideas that don't undermine curation. Bid bots or other vote selling networks however, are not among them. They're just glorified self voting/circle jerk groups and need to stop if this place is to have a chance to function at all.
if the content on the platform is going to contribute to bringing the 'masses' to the platform the variety and depth is what is going to make a difference.
Any well written post which serves to draw a group of people's interest and keep them here contributing adds value to the ecosystem.
You might consider personal posts or posts that serve what you think is a small niche to be 'neutral', the fact is those are often the posts that draw the largest response from mainstream audiences.
The type of post is not near as important as them being well written and well presented.
Sure, but the value isn't in the personal post as much as the ability to gather a larger audience. I accept eyeballs as a good indicator of value. So, if the post is about something personal that then gets a lot of attention rather than say it's a neutral because of it's content I'd say it's valuable because of the attention. Either way I think we get to the same point. Eyeballs = value.
the eyeballs don't get onto the content without the awareness of curators which is what drives content discovery on this platform. Referring to posts like that as neutral sends the message they should be treated less by curators. The quality of the writing aka the presentation of the message is important. When curating with an eye to content discovery for larger audiences, that needs to count strongly.
On Medium which manages to attract 93million visits a month with a paywall beyond 3 views a month for non-members a post about Medium has to be really well written to even get curated. The team of curators focus on well written content in each topic. They are well aware that is what is bringing eyeballs to the site.
I think you meant to say:
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