RE: ✍️ The Priest and The Contest-Monkey - Episodes 5 & 6: Determining Breakout Points
I suppose the relationship between Vicky [surname TBC] and Simon Nwigwe doesn't really matter anyway given everything else I've shared today.
Well, it matters to Vicky, so I'll play devil's advocate. I'm not (completely) sold that this is an alt account. The orange-border dish doesn't suggest much to me since they both acknowledge knowing each other, and we find a similar dish again halfway down with the fish that Vicky cooked - including (I think) in the dish rack; Common design in the area?
I see 3 feet in the cooking photo, and the sandals on 2 of them look like women's sandals to me (though I know nothing about fashion, especially Nigerian fashion, and I don't wear sandals). Also, Terra shrimp cubes are a Nigerian brand, so that photo seems potentially authentic.
The same wedding photo is also on Vicky Jay's fb profile; and I know plenty of people who use alternate forms of their name (such as maiden names or middle names or even just made-up names) on fb. So, it could be that public photos found their way from fb to here, or it could be that the same person posted the same photos in two places. I'm bad with faces, but to me the FB profile photo and the Intro post photo do look like the same person, as do some of the other photos in the Steem account.
As to Iliya vs. Vincent, I note that her husband's first name is listed as Vincent, and their child's last name is also listed as Vincent. Possibly a Nigerian custom where the wife adopts the husband's first name? Dunno, but it seems odd that someone would use a fake last name that matches someone else's first name in the same paragraph. Although... I am still puzzled as to why the last name would not have been "Vincent" in the intro post.
OTOH, FB Vicky: "Studied at Govt. Secondary School, Ƙofar Hausa, Keffi" (I don't even know what that means) whereas Steem Vicky: "I attend Nasarawa state college of Education in 2014/2016". I'm not sure how we reconcile those statements, considering that the FB photos appear under the Steem account?
That's way more time than I intended to spend, and it's all I have time for right now, but so far I'm keeping an open mind on that particular account.
Update: But then, there is this.
Update 2: If she is the owner of the FB account, it would be easy enough for her to clear up any doubts by posting a link to Steemit from FB. She could even delete it again after giving the SC or Abuse Watcher accounts the opportunity to observe it.
I’m on my mobile so won’t research any extra detail right now…
I agree with the dish and I’m in no doubt that somebody from Nigeria cooked that recipe. They know each other and on the day Simon bought the fish, he says that he cooked it with a neighbour. If I cooked a meal with another Steemit user, I can 100% guarantee that I’d tag them. The same photo of the fish appears at a later date from a different user. It’s strange but the advocate would think it irrelevant.
On subject of the sandals, we’d call them flip flops and I prefer flip flops to sandals so it would be difficult to determine gender (assuming that I’m male). I put very little value in this anecdote. I know there’s an image of Vickyson holding the fish dish, perhaps the original photo will show her footwear.
She does say in her intro:
Which correlates with the idea that she sells street food. For me though, all of the "characters" require a real world person to support it so I have little doubt that details like this are true, even if they get other details "wrong" sometimes.
Some of the suspicion surrounds the use of the publicly available Facebook photos. If you have the Facebook account, you have access to the photos so why not use them instead of a half arsed screenshot? I only found this Facebook account through being friends with one of our protagonists - I’d never have found it through names alone.
Like the wasa account, I have no doubt that there’s a real person who is aware that the account exists and helps to support it through the use of photos (and maybe even a video call) when requested (see my reply to Simon for more on this). Including Facebook accounts - Facebook being a key tool in recruitment. (I.e. the prospect of making a few dollars and all you have to do is provide photos when requested).
That’s why it works and is so convincing. Users in Pakistan have been doing it for some time in their local villages. It’s also why once these errors are corrected (which they will be), it will be impossible to know if any newcomers are real. Which is a sad point that we have been approaching for some time.
This is the reason everything took so long to investigate and subsequently explain and present. And why it’s presented as a whole, rather than just one component.
Hence, the sadness in writing all of this down. So much of the emphasis of rewards evolves around “proving that you’re real” and then entering contests.
Also commenting from my cell, so this will be brief. General topics that occur to me for later follow-up (if time allows):
I know how long I spent just on pieces of this, but I can only guess at how much longer you were digging into it, so thank you for doing that.
You are right about overvaluing posts. There is no point in chasing each specific case if the system allows overvaluing posts. STEEM has many clones. Most of them try to position themselves favorably against STEEM, noting that they do not have bid bots, only manual curators.
I think the best option would be to make manual curation more profitable than automatic and more profitable than content creation (for large share holders). The current algorithm had this goal, but in practice it doesn't work very well.
I've seen that attempts to make manual curation more profitable than delegating to bid bots have already been made. But it didn't work. This is a complex question that requires long and thorough brainstorming. A special discussion thread could be created for this. But all this has no meaning. Even if we managed to invent the perfect formula, these changes would not be implemented.
Despite everything, I believe that we need to involve all those who are willing and still reach a common opinion on what needs to be changed to implement the principle of fairer distribution of rewards. Then, having a ready-made decision, perhaps someday the appropriate circumstances will arise for the implementation of this decision.
Compare the time spent on manual curation vs automatic curation and the cost of human time, and the cost of possible Steem rewards -- then, the answer becomes obvious which way development WILL NOT GO.. imo.
By the end of it, I think I knew some of them better than they know themselves 🤣
Seriously though... you're almost certainly correct that the reward mechanism is at the heart of this...
Perhaps the solution would be as simple as never displaying voting power or who has voted on a post, thus reducing the incentive to chase the vote of a whale. Imagine that. Perhaps this is the seed of my next post.
Or it will lead to even more fraud, since nothing will be visible immediately, and in order to expose the fraudster, you will have to dig even more in dirty laundry.
Besides that -- we are on the blockchain, right? The info may be hidden within the Steemit front-end interface, but still be visible in the block inspector, like the steemworld. Right?
I think you are right.
Good point 😪
sounds quite curious! that idea never came even once to my mind.