A New Evil Plunders The Reward Pool
It's like something from an HP Lovecraft story - The Old Ones emerge from their slumber to claim dominion over the Earth, leaving mankind doomed!
Except in this case, it's possibly Steemit that's facing doom. At least, there's a major problem that may doom what the platform is supposed to be - quality content.
The Newest Plunderers
Two new accounts have appeared - @rewardpoolrape and @eatsrewards - and they're upvoting themselves and each other (as well as the occasional junk post. The Old Ones (i.e. someone) have delegated large amounts of SP to these accounts, so their plundering of the rewards pool isn't something to be ignored.
What makes it all the more unpleasant is the expressed opinion of other members of our community.
The Reward Pool
A finite amount of new STEEM is created each day. 75% goes towards rewarding authors and curators, 15% goes to witnesses and 10% goes to people who hold SP. I wouldn't call it a fair system, but that's what we've got.
Obviously, the more people take from the reward pool, there less there is for everyone else. But it gets a bit more complicated.
You may have seen someone give you an upvote worth a certain amount, let's say $0.10, and after a while that same upvote is worth only $0.09. This could be due to fluctuations in the price of SBD, but it could also be because the reward pool is being plundered.
Naughty!
They probably waited until after Christmas to do this so that they could evade Santa's naughty list. By Jingo, they'll be on it next time!
A form of plunder which is almost as bad can be seen in the comments section of posts by @davidpakman. David has done a good job of bringing other people onto the platform, but he has been persistently upvoting his own comments at 9-10 times the size of his upvotes on other peoples comments!
I've already tried pointing out to him that this is bad for the community, but he's either missed that message or ignored it. (Random thought: perhaps we need to create a badge of honour for people who point out reward pool plunder? Unless that would be too annoying...)
Bots
I've written several posts about bots already and pointed out that people are abusing them to get upvotes on junk posts. My most recent post on the subject shows that they can often get it wrong and end up costing bidders a lot of money, so only the bots (and the people who delegated SP to them) benefit.
I don't have a problem with minnows using upvote services if they're producing good content which isn't reaching much of an audience. They need to be careful about not losing their money, though. There are some ethical service providers who will only upvote content that they've vetted as quality, original work, but their SP is rather small right now.
Anyway, my personal opinion is that it's acceptable for minnows to pay for upvotes until their SP reaches 500. By that point, I think they'll have what they need to gain an audience for their work.
What Now?
Besides having people like @berniesanders flag these plunderers, I'm not sure. Please share your ideas and opinions in the comments.
You close this with saying what can we do besides having bernie flag these plunderers... I thought bernie ran the reward pool rape account? Is that not correct? My take on that account in general is it was calling attention to the problem and redistributing the money it generated through this in the form of mass upvotes distributed to lower SP users. I could be way off.
There have been multiple times when I saw a junk post with just a photograph or meme that wasn’t made by the person who made the post and someone in the comments tagged Bernie so that he could flag it. I thought I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that he was flagging trash.
well he certainly flags all kinds of stuff yes :) I was just under the impression that the @rewardpoolrape account was one of Bernie's projects but I do not know that for a fact.
So, in relation to cosmic fairness and a possible case of tribal reformation (hehe) I want to share something relevant:
Checked out the beatbattle entries for this week, and guess who upvoted the entry - giving a 'random upvote' to the post. It made me smile. Of course they upvoted each other's comment again but they also hit like on the original post^^
It was odd because it happened the same day I read this article here. While the article may still be accurate, the two have actually helped a minnow and his music in this case. Probably neglegence^^ Or rather - resonance. <3
I'm going to post this when I see them...
hehe. people talk and reputation is reputation ;)
Accounts like this just are a loss to me I just dont understand the logic and thought behind them and what they do
Thank you for pointing this out!
While it may be challenging right now it's a good opportunity to learn how to deal with these attacks. There may come a time when other people with billions get in on steemit just to bring it down.
With large exposure come odd people eventually.
If there are things like cheetah, why can't we make a mechanism that would list the top rapists of the pool & broadcast their names regularly? Shouldn't the reputation mechanism make these sort of behaviors less of an issue?
What do witnesses say about this? I think with their rate of influence they would be prime candidates to counter abuse of steem power in that way. And actually have the reputation, reach and vote power to do something about it.
resteemed
If you dont like it and the reward is to high in your eyes just flag it.
Here you go!
https://steemit.com/flag/@tuvokhl/to-all-spam-flagers
You want to talk to them? Just flag and tell why you did it. This is my advice.
All this time on steemit and I didn't know this. I'm sure it's in the whitepaper somewhere. How is the 10% distributed? Is it distributed daily? @ironshield
I'm not sure if it's daily or if it's done with every new block. Given that most STEEM is held by a very few people, the benefits for the likes of you and I are too small to notice.
This is and will always be a touchy subject. Whenever there is money involved people will always disagree with how it should be allocated. People upvoting their own comments for several dollars each time can be very detrimental to the system. Hopefully we get a solution sooner rather than later
I can think of solutions to real-world inequality growth, but they wouldn't work in a decentralised system.
Da fuq is this nonsense? I think maybe a real account verification system might work, so that accounts called reward pool rape dont get approved lol. I think that although they may be trying to plunder the system, in the end, not much will come out of their efforts!
We give our phone numbers when we register, but I suppose that's not really for any good reason, after all.
Yeah, it would be nice if they added an extra level in there, such as ID verification, along with the phone number. However, this would probably start upsetting people as it would be their private information out there. Though with how open much of Steemit is, it might not cause much of an issue overall.
I think we a going to see more and more of this as time goes on. There is just too strong an incentive to upvote yourself. I agree with you in saying that the current system is not particularly fair, but its what we have at the moment unfortunately. We could remove the ability to upvote yourself, but people will simply set up voter accounts to bypass this minor inconvenience.
I don't know what the solution is, but I know a change needs to happen.
Great post mate.
Removing the ability to upvote oneself on Steemit would merely incentivise people to go to another platform that uses the same blockchain or, as you said, create more accounts so that they can keep on plundering through reciprocal upvoting.
I can't think of a solution that doesn't involve some degree of centralisation.
The n2 was removed to facilitate this, we are here by stinc's design.
I'm not familiar with this. Do you have a link?
I got this by using the search: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://steemit.com/steemit/%40steemitguide/steemit-hardfork-19-equality-overview-linear-rewards-curation-weight-curve-and-increased-vote-impact&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwi4h-GG1LrYAhUE6oMKHRqiAAYQFggGMAE&client=internal-uds-cse&cx=011445933062884569876:-jmpkfnkicw&usg=AOvVaw3j8GAz11cc0n1YOQ0bzKFF
Steemitguide and steemitblog should have posts.
The new word is sigmoid curve,..
I also cannot think of a solution that does not require some form of centralisation. To suggest centralisation on a platform built on the ideal of decentralised self government/regulation is treated as akin to blasphemy.
So we reach a catch 22. Decentralisation has created an anarchistic system that almost all involved agree is not working. Centralisation however is anathema to the ideals which most Steemians hold dear.
So we reach stalemate.
@aghunter, @ironshield, @jasonshick and @freebornsociety, I came across this really great post by @felixxx where he gives background information on n^2 and an idea for a solution. It's worth reading.
Thanks for the share. An interesting read.
@penston
This is a very thought provoking piece. Until recently this topic was off my radar as I was focused solely on trying to get anyone I could to read my posts. As I have become more involved in the community of late I have read more and more on this issue, and it fascinates me.
Unfortunately I cannot see a solution to the current problem of plundering the reward pool. We exist in an ecosystem that is governed by a set of rules. Those with the motivation and intelligence to do so have figured out a multitude of ways to game these rules in the cause of self interest. Without some form of centralised arbiter to adjudicate disputes these individuals will continue to find new and creative ways to enrich themselves through clever exploitation of loop holes.
There is however no mechanism for the formation of a centralised authority, nor is there a desire to move in this direction.
I will be interested to see the evolution of your thinking on this subject and would value further posts as your opinion evolves over time.
Upvoted, followed and resteemed.
We need something other than leaning on @berniesanders to flag people for abusive behaviour.
I'd never intended to get involved in writing about this stuff - I want to write about solutions to real-world problems. I get distracted by unfairness, which is everywhere.
I have written this several times over the last couple of days. Unfairness is everywhere! Its everywhere in the real world and its also everywhere on Steemit, because all those people that you know in the real world are on here two. I think its an idealistic but widely held belief that Steemit should be self governing nirvana. Unfortunately though arseholes are everywhere so it doesn't surprise me to find them here as well.
I like you though, have been far too distracted by this stuff over the past couple of days. The system is what it is and no one cares what a new guy with a (50) rep has to say about it. I need to get back to writing good content and let the whales sort this out amongst themselves.