Steemit Bots and the value of
For the definition of what a bot is I looked at the wiki, I do not make much use of bots here in Steemit (personal moral choice).
An Internet Bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.
The use of bots abuse with bots and the value of bots in the Steemit is under debate in some circles at the moment. My own view they profit the creator to a much greater degree than the user.
To break this debate down a bit and in an effort to avoid one point been used to demonstrate a wrong in another.
- Type of bot.
A. Assistant bot.
B. Resteem bot.
C. Voting bot.
Not all bots will do the same thing in the same manner. All bots are not designed with the same function.
Assistant bot:
You may have a bot which alerts you when someone posts a comment to your blog or replies to a comment you have made. The bot may notify you of when someone you have particular interest creates a new blog or a blog is posted to one of your favorite tags. This type of bot I view as assistant type bot, it is kind of like your PA and keeps track of incoming mail for you. On the use of I feel it should be a 1-time purchase. Conditions of limitation of use can be imposed by the creator.
Resteem bot:
Resteem bots although assist the user, are more of a promotional tool. And again I believe a purchase should be a 1-time thing. The problem here with these bots lies in what they resteem. They do not rate the value of the content you wrote. This offers the potential for continuous resteem spam hiding genuine posts of good value, the more which use will create larger quantities of spam. Much similar to the junk mail you receive daily in your mailbox at home.
Voting bot:
A voting bot does not read what has been posted, Interpret it and make a response or decision, according to the subject or content. It is automated, it recognizes one thing, a name. Based on that it upvotes the content. It has no opinion and if the bot is programmed to leave a response, that response is generally an advertisement. You are not rewarded for the use of your profile to promote this profit-making bot. The upvotes from a bot also provide us with the same issues a resteem bot can. The spamming of bad content along with the promotion of. It takes rewards away from genuine articles which offer more than just a hi hello look at this pic. We see this same thing in our daily lives, where the more money you can throw at something the greater chance to have things your way and make more profit. This buying of a vote is exactly the same thing behind politicians taking bribes, I can grow richer quicker this way. The community they are in is forgotten and what ty can personally gain from the community is primary.
This is in the FAQ section here on Steemit.
Plagiarism, Spam, and Abuse
What is considered spam or abuse?
Selling or offering to buy votes/resteems/follows, or schemes that facilitate this.
Scams or Fraudulent offers.
Is that not what these bots do?
How good is a post or the topic you write about if you have to buy votes for your content to have a monetary value?
Are you responsible for the votes of your bot has not yet become an issue, It will with time though?
I can see a time arriving where one person posts a blog which is outrageous totally wrong racist sexist degrading promoting slavery why one race or religion is better than the other, And your bot upvotes the comment automatically, does that mean that you support the words your bot upvoted? Are you of the same midframe as the Poster? What if it was If you vote me up 100 upvotes I will kill the neighbour's cat on camera. Now the pet owner see the blog and notifies the authorities, they see your upvote and come calling on you. Can you really deny you did not encourage that behaviour when your vote is clearly seen there?
Now while that may be an extreme case, it is not beyond belief.
The only thing an vote bot does is apply a vote. It adds nothing to the community except taking community rewards and filter them to a paying user along with self-promotion.
I do not think this thought or mind frame will prevent any user from using a voting bot. It is just my view of bots.
Hi @jan23com ...welcome to steemit.
I hope will enjoy your time here.
Thank you.
It is an experience I will tell you that.
I agree on upvote/vote bots. They are only in it for the money. They are all losing propositions for the person that buys votes in a monetary sense. If a small meaningless post with no effort put into it wants to make the trending page, teh buying votes is the only way. But it will cost a lot of money to get there, will you get more followers, will you get more votes on your next 3 post to make up for what you spent on getting to the trending page? Not likely.
Proof of a bot not caring about content is upvotewhale bot owner. he was informed of plagiarised content, and he let his vote stand. You see when you remove a vote, it cost the same as placing the vote in SP, so he would have had to spend some of his SP to remove his vote. Here is the link. The only words from the Author of this post were added after I pointed out the problem and they are "References-", upvotewhales owner response as to why he did not unvote was he did provide a link. That is I feel pretty typical reaction of vote bot owners, any excuse to not undo a vote.
Giving bots rights to your vote is every control you fight for governments not to have
I can't upvote this because well, you know why. I'm still in upvote timeout. :) But I can comment. Somehow something is upvoting posts that I have never seen and don't know the author. So, vote bots are a little scary to me. I didn't know there werre resteem bots, but I can't imagine using one. I use Gina bot as a PA and it is wonderful. It lets me know when anyone upvotes or follows me and if certain people post. It has made everything about steem much easier. I want to try one of those bots that upvotes yourself by a lot, but I don't understand it enough to try yet. I do know they're expensive, so I won't be trying them until I get to minnow, anyway. Have a great day!
@Lahvista
you are still upvoting lol @ you
No, I commented. I didn't upvote. I have to auto upvote Steemengine and steembasicincome to qualify, but something upvoted a random post today. It wasn't me. Am I being hacked?
steemd.com/@lahvista yes you are still upvoting things
it might just be your bot
It says I upvoted @shadowbot and I did not. And I definitely didn't upvote @LarryDavid4 The importance of having faith. I don't know where these are coming from.
keep an eye on that steemd page it might help you figure it out
maybe you're following a curation trail?
The problem with most bots is that the people behind it are only in it for the money and that they indeed upvote anything that is sent to them.
For the last week or so, I didn't use them, and it was shocking to see how small the amount generated by organic votes was...
I'll probably start using them again (if I manage to get up early enough, that is. In my experience, at 6 or 7 am GMT, the bigger part of the Steemians is asleep, and you have a bigger chance to actually make a profit.)
It'smore like a psychological thing: if I check http://steem.supply andI see there's some money on the way (like about $25/day - I'm not spending hundreds on bots), it somehow motivates me more than when it says there's $1/day on its way, even though I know I've probably paid for those $25 myself and there's big chance I lost money on it. Th mind is a strange thing, isn't it.
Once, I started to track my earnings and losses I made by using bots, but I stopped, because I didn't want to see those numbers - lol
@spiritualmax has conducted an experiment on the use of bots a couple of days ago. I think it's an interesting read:
My Bot vs No Bot Experience: The Conclusions
I can see the benefit to why people use bots, if even at a cost to themselves initially. The votes received to increase the power of the individuals' can be reclaimed later with some self-voting. Th reputation shoots up faster making the person appear more attractive to follow.
I also see that according to Steemit in their advertised FAQ that voting bots are classed as abuse, as they ask payment for a vote. When abuse is permitted to run rampant and free, the promotion of rivalry is amplified. At what point does abuse become a crime? I feel there is a greater positive outcome from no bots to the community, then bots offer.
There are more things of which the the FAQ stated its abuse, but which are blatantly ignored. An example of that is a required upvote for entering a contest.
The problem is that nobody really checks whether the rules are followed.
The harsh truth is that if you want to get your quality content seen, you have to play along...
Long term I think it will ruin the platform and devalue the currency. Leads to a platform where I will do what I like cause it is profitable.
I agree. It’s one of the many ways SteemIt is killing itself.
That’s why I want the Minnow Votes Project to succeed (if not this week, any of the following weeks), to show that it can be done without the bots...
Unfortunately, that method been used is a selfish one and not designed to promote newbies and assist them. It is designed around growing the creator. Providing a platform should not give entitlement to the major part of the profits, if that was the case we would earn less from our posts on Steemit. The use of the platform to boost other minnows would have a greater positive impact. The method being used is to promote the creator into a power position.
On the surface, it sounds great when you look deeper it is self-promotion. A greater attraction to taken part would be to ask all participant to write a pre-blog on a specific topic or from a pre-selected group of topics. the pre-log would be a paragraph or two of what they would like to address. The school can then choose one of these articles to promote from a second blog the creator does to list which will be upvoted on.
This method provides a much better interaction between all members of the group and provides an opportunity for a minnow to gain a jump start. As it is now, you have a creator and the administrator both been the same person. These two accounts along with two other family member accounts, return very little in votes to followers in comparison to what they receive and vote on each alternate account.
The goal is admirable. Any means to achieve a goal is not. If a user is seen to support other users projects and not their own goals. It shows more support of the community. As it stands it is the community supporting one user.
We might just have to agree we see this particular project differently.
No, I see what you mean. And I agree on the fact that the project is set up for personal gain - I’m completely aware of this. still, I think - or maybe I should say thought, ‘cos I started wondering these last couple of days - that there is a thing or two to learn from him.
Most definitely, I would be of the opinion the most foolish of us can ask more questions then the wisest can answer. but should your opinion differ from the creators. Your comments become flagged or downvoted if another has upvoted your comment. This I have knowledge of from the experience.
The my way or I beat you down with a red flag even tho you have supported and upvoted me in the past.
Does look too much like dictatorial leadership to me.
Saying all of that is against this particular project or more so the manner in which the project is performed. I did not unfollow either name and I will browse some posts now and then. My own interaction tho will be limited to viewing and the collection of information which may benefit me in future times, With receiving 4 or 5 downvotes which were provided to me by another, plus red flags to posts which had no votes, on a personal level I can not share my voting in that particular circle. It would be like rewarding him for a punishment on me for my view.
I agree with this one hundred percent.