RE: On Turning 70: Circle Jerks, Communities, Onboarding, Downvoting & Other Random Thoughts
Congrats on turning 70. And thank you for the cool bird pics.
I have been on a hiatus from Steem for a while, decided to get back on the proverbial horse and started posting again recently. Turns out there are now armies of automated troll accounts downvoting posts without any reason or rhyme.
Almost all of those troll accounts were created end November 2019 and they have all voted for the same 2 witnesses here on Steem. I'm not sure whether this is due to the politics you have alluded to in your post but I reckon it's a sad state of affairs through and through.
This does not bode well for the future. Especially since newcomers to Steem would either become discouraged from all the downvotes or abandon the platform altogether due to all the trolls and what-not.
Sorry to be all doom and gloom on your birthday post. Hope you enjoy your upcoming travels.
Cheers!
Yeah, that's what I was alluding to. It's sad, but I think it's tempered by the bid bots being knocked off the table which means better reward distribution, and the 50/50 split - all our daily rewards have gone up for good content really so a few downvotes won't make much difference. It makes it even more important to grab new users and adopt them - delegate a little, give them encouraging words, upvote them - and let the people who are dealing with the downvoters deal with them in their way. Honestly, I don't see a lot of trolling as I don't get involved with the crap - my experience is positive by and large, because that's all I focus on. If I was hanging out with the people moaning about the trolls, I'd probably feel differently OR if I was downvoted that much it hurt me. Again, gotta encourage people to ignore the f**ckers - they exist all over the tinternet, not just steem. My 70 year old mother in law was trolled on a post the other day and she was in tears. We had to explain how petty and insignificant they are, and how to shrug them off!
The downvotes by the trolls don't really matter rewards-wise since they don't really make that much of a dent. It is the discouragement that comes with the downvotes. Most content creators are sensitive souls and we put so much of ourselves and our hearts out there with every single post. And it hurts when our hardwork is trampled on and disregarded or trolled without so much as a by your leave. I'm all for constructive criticism but automated downvote trolls are just indiscriminate in the hate they dish out.
They do not take into consideration the feelings of the person they are downvoting and I'm sorry that happened to your mother-in-law. But yeah, sometimes, we just need to help explain to the victims that the troll downvotes have as much significance as a random mosquito bite or bird poop.
Exactly- tell them they're valued and we care and those downvotes mean NOTHING coz they're not even THINKING about how the person feels or the work that went into it. xx You've made me think that every time I see a downvoted post on a newbie or a decent bit of writing, I'm gonna personally go in and give some love!