Welcome: MSP Anti-Abuse Team
Helping To Combat abuse of the BOTS!
One thing I'm learning on Steem, as a new user, is the whole "bot" thing. Having some computer background, I soon realized once I got signed up that some users would attempt to take full advantage of this privilege.
The way bots work, in general, are you sign up for one (or a few) of the different bot services that are offered on the site. Then, you get an upvote every 12 hours or once a day depending on the stipulations of the bot. Well, it appears a few people can't live with just one upvote and are attempting to circumvent the system by creating multiple accounts.
Totally unfair right!??
Well, fear no more!
Our own guardian Steem angel @discordiant has created the Anti Abuse Team as of August 28th. In the first post, it is detailed what exactly "abuse" is:
- Any method that may allow an individual steemit account to repeatedly receive more than a single @minnowsupport upvote inside the 12 hour cool-down.
- Any use of multiple accounts, all receiving their own upvote, but owned by a single individual.
- Repeated use of the bots to upvote spam, plagiarism, or copy/paste content.
@discordiant goes on to also outline how you as a user can help identify this type of abuse by submitting information via the Discord app in the 'msp-abuse' channel. A sort of "tip" line, if you will.
The article explains further what the punishment is for getting caught. Punishment includes bans and being put on a blacklist.
This isn't a tyranical group of Steem moderators though. It is made clear that an investigation will be conducted and the user(s) in question will have a chance to explain. Having conducted thousands of investigations myself and working as a police officer for nearly decade, this seems very fair and reasonable. I'm glad to see this is a thought out and careful process whereby the culprit will have a chance at a defense.
For a full introduction to the Anti-Abuse Team by @discordiant check it out here:
On September 1st, the Anti-Abuse Team hit the ground running by conducting the following "prune".
- 4686 Members before this week's prune was run.
- 30 Day Prune has removed 324 dead accounts.
- This leaves our count at 4362 Members after the prune.
~400 Concurrent users online at 10:30 EST (We believe this will be a better metric for our community going forward.)
@discordiant also found and removed a repeat user who was in the midst of creating a bot army of 19 accounts!
To see the entire list of stats and what to expect in the future head on over to the article written by @discordiant.
Week two was also a busy week as the Anti-Abuse Team judging by the stats they released on September 8th.
- 4604 Members before this week's prune was run. (242 new accounts since last week)
- 30 Day Prune has removed 231 dead accounts. (93 less were removed this Prune)
- This leaves our count at 4373 Members after the prune.
~485 Concurrent users online at 13:30 EST (+21% from previous)
Also reported are 508 Discord bans and 261 Blacklisted. Apparently, the Blacklist is mostly a group of about 70 people who have multiple accounts.
For a complete report see:
Hats off to @discordiant and @steemcleaners for working behind the scenes to keep Steem spick and span!! This group highlights just how valuable the Minnow Support Group (MSP) is to the overall Steem community.
If you'd like more information on the Minnow Support Project or the Peace, Abundance, Liberty network please see this article I wrote a few days ago.
References
"This team of sorts, being led by me, is intended to help return the value to the free upvote available to all members of the Minnow Support Project. We watch for abuse of the bots that might lower the value of the upvotes this service offers for free."
"Starting today, I will be doing a weekly prune of accounts on Discord that have not logged on in 30 days or more, and have not received a Role of any sort. This will help us to keep a better eye on the level of activity the community is seeing. I ran the initial prune last week, removing 888 accounts from the server that were simple dead weight. We will now set a mark in the sand this week with the current stats, and track from there."
"We now have some data to look at in regards to the efforts of the Anti-Abuse Team this past week. We are going to be looking for even more ways to streamline our process and make it easier for all of the Moderators to help with this initiative."
"...dont be afraid to analyse the data and question what is happening on steemit. we need to work together to keep this platform clean and free from scams and rubbish" - @paulag
Thanks for reading. From "The Inquiring Times" #newsteem
Join us in the SteemitBC Discord Server
This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond
Thanks for doing this. I think one of the biggest challenges we face as a community is combating abuse of the reward pool. Rewards should be given for quality content, hence the idea of the platform. It only take's a few different people with there own bot army to put a substantial drain on the reward pool. By next week I should have a bit more SteemPower, as I will be investing this evening. With that I plan to help reward members like yourself, who are protecting the platform. It won't be a massive increase, but it will make my upvotes worth more than there current $.01. Thanks again!
You're welcome. We are starting small by helping to protect the voting power of our free upvote bot, but while working with the other types of clean-up crews on Steemit, it will add up to a bigger difference.
i'll be more then happy to report copy cat upvotes if i come across it , already report a lot of those to steemcleaners isn't there a way that you can share each others blacklist ?
@discordiant would have an answer. ???
Steemcleaners deals with most of the regular stuff on steemit, AAT is mostly MSP related
i just checked the discord channel seems the 2 parties are already communicating a lot :)
"Starting today, I will be doing a weekly prune of accounts on Discord that have not logged on in 30 days or more, and have not received a Role of any sort. This will help us to keep a better eye on the level of activity the community is seeing. I ran the initial prune last week, removing 888 accounts from the server that were simple dead weight. We will now set a mark in the sand this week with the current stats, and track from there." What exactly does this mean? What do you do when someone hasn't logged on in a month? You know guys, if Steemit is to be really successful it has to accomodate everybody. Not just the tech guys and the people who log on every day, but everyone! A month is not a long time in the real world for people who dabble in digital. And even for people who do use digital regularly but have something else going on in their lives. Be careful that the 'helping Steemit' doesn't turn into 'keeping Steemit for people like us'. The 'dead weight' of today could be a slow burner, a power force of tomorrow. And as for keeping steemit free of scams and rubbish - fine, but be aware that you are taking on a role of policeman, where you and not the platform decides what's a scam or rubbish. One person's rubbish online is another's delight. In my opinion (and it's only my opinion), for Steemit to be really, really successful all every member has to do is contribute their bit to the content - in their own way, whether it be a photo, a quote or a detailed political essay - and comment and reply to things that interest them. That's it! You could add downvoting things they really have a moral issue with along the way, but I mean along the way- not going out of the way to look for them. In that way the platform becomes truly free and everyone can contribute and find their tribe. We attract what we put out. Let's make that a positive attraction rather than a search for the negative.
As a note. This is only a kick, and they are welcome to rejoin with zero effect on their status on the server. Any of these accounts that I am removing have gained zero roles on the server, which means they also never bothered to even do the initial register. It's just a way for us to be sure we only count statistics for the active members at the time.
A very short reply to a long and detailed comment: many of us are heavily invested in this platform. Maybe financially, many be we spent 14 hours a day to make steemit a better place. Maybe both... So, we are cautious to prevent abuse of the rewards pool. Don't plagerise, don't abuse the bots, don't scam, if so, no problem. Those are the type we are working to prevent
There is a particular bot called sad kitten that downvotes people that self vote. This needs to be eliminated. No reason for it. Self voting is investing in yourself and how can you expect to invest in anyone else with confidence knowing your own votes for yourself, which you by rights have earned hands down (and I know it's opinion...all the more reason to nullify such a bot) are being degraded? Just saying, you want to expose manipulation of power and bots...that's a good one to target.
I have yet to look into thier metrics
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Narconaught from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
Hi @narconaught, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Thank you!
This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond
Delusional police robocop wasteland. Good luck with your warfare.
Obviously you are confused
Sorry you feel that way :(
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