Testing... Testing... Is this thing even on? Week # 4. The Trending page!
Welcome to a very scientific investigation of the steemit ecosystem. For the last 3 weeks, I have been conducting experiments to see just how things work here. The biggest thing I need to make my research legitimate is your comments. I don't know how many humans read this page until you let me know you read it by commenting!
Let's recap what I have learned so far.
Week 1:
I wrote a post. I used no vote bots and no resteem services.
I had 13 upvotes, 4 confirmed human readers, a payout meter reading 0.81 and an actual tally of 0.011 STEEM, 0.352 SBD and 0.191 STEEM POWER (I copied that straight from my wallet page)
Week 2:
I wrote a post. I sent 20 SBD to 4 vote bot services.
I got 16 upvotes, 6 confirmed human readers, a payout meter reading 51.29 and an actual tally of 19.705 SBD and 6.653 STEEM POWER (I also copied that directly from my wallet page). I would need to subtract 20 SBD from that tally, so... somewhere around 6.3 steem power is what was made on that post.
Week 3:
I wrote a post. I spent 5.7 sbd on 6 resteem services.
I got 215 upvotes, 12 human viewers, a payout meter reading 5.95 and an actual tally of 2.702 SBD and 0.694 STEEM POWER (I hope you know the drill by now). I would need to subtract 5.7 SBD from that total... meaning that this post lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.3 (ish) SBD (I don't want to mess around with converting the 2 currencies... I am doing scientific research, not super scientific research).
Let's analyze the data thus far.
Writing a post and leaving it at that got me a few views and a few cents. All in all it was fun and not super lucrative.
Writing a post and spending 20 SBD on bid bots got me pretty much the same results (since a lot of commenters were my regulars) but paid me a little over 10 times better (after subtracting my investment). Not good for getting more viewers, much better payout results.
Resteeming my post got me a ton of very tiny upvotes and pretty much doubled my views. If you are looking for more views, this is a good way to go. It seems like it is an investment to build your readership, as I lost almost half of what I put into this post. It is also worth noting that my top vote was from someone who sometimes reads what I put out and gives me a decent upvote... without that vote, the resteem services would not have even come close to paying me back.
Why am I doing this?
I am curious about what is really going on here. I think that there are a lot of robots here and want to know if my posts are really getting read. I got over 200 upvotes in my last test, but only 12 confirmed viewers. That is a big spread and I don't want to write all of these amazing posts for a bunch of robots mining cryptocurrency. That is not my idea of a good time. You will see me replying to all of the "good post, please upvote me and follow me" comments... never. (Unless it is a scientific experiment and I need to confirm their humanity or roboticity (that should be a word, but the spell check is telling me it is not).
Ro - bot- i-ci-ty - the qualities making up a robot, qualities or traits that confirm a being is a robot.
I also want to know if the vote bots have a purpose other than mining steem power. From my first test, it seemed like that was the only thing that changed from my initial test. I got more steem power and the same amount of views. I was told that this test was not really a good conclusion on the vote bot usage because I only spent 20 SBD. I would get a lot more views if I got onto the trending page.
That is this weeks test. I have powered down and exchanged steem for SBD (I don't recommend that move BTW... but this is for science). I have allotted 100 SBD to conduct this test. I am not sure if that is enough to get me into the trending page, but that is all I have, so, it will have to do. I am sure I will at least be "hot" for a while. This might get me more human views.
I don't know if I got a human view until you comment... so please, help me with my research and leave a comment.
It is also worth noting that I am controlling aspects of this post to keep the experiment consistent. There was no photo on any of these posts, and that will remain the same. They are just text. This is controlled to not give any post an advantage over the other, and to gain a more accurate set of results. This week, we want to see if getting into the trending really does anything for my viewership, or if it is just a good way to mine steem power. The tag lines are remaining the same as all other weeks and I will be upvoting this post the same as all other weeks.
The trending page.
Steemit is a beautiful thing to be a part of. I have made some pretty good digital friends and have made a few bucks too. Steemit also has a lot of problems, a lot of these problems hang out on the trending page. Whales with enormous amounts of steem power upvote garbage, and writers with a lot of disposable SBD pay for huge upvotes all to end up on the trending page.
I have never really wanted to end up on the trending page, but for science, it is my goal this week.
What I want to know from this experiment is if there are more human views because one hits the trending page, OR, is it just more mining of steem power?
What do I expect?
I expect to be flagged because of my massive vote buying and the clean-up trending initiative (which I also appreciate). I expect @transparencybot to show up and provide his statistics about my massive upvote purchase. I appreciate @transparencybot, mostly because he shows us how much the bid bots make on curation rewards. This is something that I have not really thought of. That is a massive source of income when you are swinging around a $200 upvote every 2.4 hours.
I also expect to get a lot more readers and likely a similar payout to week 2 (if I were to multiply it by 5 as I am investing 5 times as much into the post).
I am not really for or against vote bots. I feel that they are a rather neutral force. I feel that they even the playing field so that not only whales can benefit from large upvotes. I feel that both vote bots and whales are responsible for the state of the trending page (both good and bad). I am not sure what the solution is, or if steemit is just an experiment itself. That is a crazy thought, conducting experiments within an experiment... Half of me thinks that this steemit thing is going to last another year and a bit before the free crypto machine runs dry. The other half of me thinks that this is genius futuristic society emerging and we as a community are just working out the kinks. That leaves me very torn. Should I mine the shit out of this steem power while the getting is still good or should I save the future by standing up for what is right? What is right? The steem blockchain is heading in the direction of being an 'advertising blockchain' (page 57 SMT whitepaper) where poeple will pay to get into the trending page... if this is the future of steem, then, that futuristic genius society is maybe just an idealistic dream, so, is the dream worth fighting for or should I be mining steem power with all of the daily trenders (usual suspects)? My head hurts.
Please share your thoughts on the entire steem ecosystem, trending pages, vote bots and the future of steem, I would love to hear from you about it... plus... you get to contribute to real live science!
To recap: I am going to spend 100 SBD on vote bot votes in an attempt to get onto the trending page. I want to see if the exposure on the trending page will get me more views or if steem power is the main objective of hitting the trending page.
The results of this experiment will be posted sometime after I claim the rewards for this post and have all of the data tallied up. Thank you in advance for your comments!
You got a 28.57% Upvote and Resteem from @ebargains, as well as upvotes from our curation trail followers!
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I am also in the testing business. But something in me tells me the easiest way to get more steem is to buy low and sell high, then buy low and sell high etc. I also try the hyip steemdelegation principle. Not as profitable as LaserOnline, but at least it works :-)
The real life investigations
If typing on steemit can be considered real life.
I like boobs too :-)
lol... humanity confirmed.
Oh my, how much have you invested in these voting bots? Oh 100? Is this the final of the testing testing saga haha. I'll wait for the result of your experiment.
By the way, there's also a growing tag called 'nobidbot', you might even find me there. We are there to hope that non-bots will drop by and give us some upvotes loll.
I think I will have a few more things to test. Likely no more bid bot tests though. I have never bought votes to this extent... it is a bit ridiculous. I like the tag and I will look for you there...
You are the most organic steemian I know... Just write and let the votes fall where they do... repeat. Much respect.
Awww thanks. I think people/good whales will find you eventually...just have to build trust and loyalty.
Few more questions if you dont mind:
"I have powered down and exchanged steem for SBD (I don't recommend that move BTW... but this is for science)."
Would you mind telling us why you dont recommend that move? In order to be able to use bots we need to have SBD so we will be forced to power down sometimes.
Why is it bad move?
I dont understand that part about mining of steem power. Could you please explain what do you mean?
ps
so far you were not downvoted by anyone :)
Steem should always be more valuable than SBD and as such, it is not a good trade. It sometimes is a necessary trade as you stated and as I went through with.
Essentially, what I mean by mining steem power is this: If vote bots have a use, they are either to get you more views, or get you more rewards or a combination of the two. Since when you pay with SBD and essentially get back (most if not all) of the SBD, you are rewarded with steem power. I just call it mining steem power to stick with the crypto theme.
I hope that clears it up.
I did not get flagged... but I also did not hit the trending page. That is one costly move!
i'm very sorry for such a late reply.
indeed hitting trending page is very costly.
do you break even on using bots?
Well I got my $0.02 vote in before the bots are here! I'm interested in seeing what happens. I'll stay tuned.
Awesome! That 20 minute window is short.
what window?
Most bid-bots have a 20 minute limit before you can vote. So a post cannot get a vote from a bot until after it is 20 minutes old. That is most bots, not all of them.
I give guarantee that I'm definitely not a robot, and everything I voted for, I read in person.
As for @transparencybot - then this whip has two ends. On the one hand, it can attract new readers to your blog, but more often than not it attracts various fighters against bots and their users. These idiots can downvote your post and take away a substantial amount of money from you.
Thank you for reading and commenting! It is always a risk posting on steemit that there is someone who wants to fight. Especially when money is involved. There are many entitled people here that feel it is all theirs.
Many whales do not hesitate to talk about this (they have nothing to fear). They say that if everyone will earns here - then the project will quickly turn into SCAM, and in order for it to live - someone must constantly lose large sums of money.
And between the line of text in their words I read: "constantly someone must lose large sums of money so that we can acquire large sums of money"
that is exactly why "new" people are always being recruited
Man does steem really have to be this convoluted ? I always thought we were working towards mainstream adoption and once that happened we were going to be able to monetize the content from outside sources.
Ya... I have no idea how this thing is going to play out.
Hopefully someone steers this ship in the right direction. We need to move away from the idea of everyone needing to be investors and focus on having investors and content creators. That is a much more sustainable and organic business model.
The fact that you can game the system has gotten a lot of people in a mad dash to get all that they can. There are a lot of people who see the ship sinking because of it (I am one of them). Being able to socialize online and not get marketing profiles built around you like on facebook, and get paid something, is great in and of itself. There are holes in the system and it is being exploited.
If you are watching the boat sink, do you bail water out or fill a lifeboat with as much loot as you can and try to get out before it is too late. That is the steemit dilemma as of now.
It sure is. I just hope that all those steem pro's don't milk it dry and starve steem of its true potential by doing so.
There is a really healthy population of good steemians who care about it. I just don't know what it will take to make things right. As always, steemit is like a mini example of the world. There is mad corruption and shit could blow up tomorrow... but we need to savour the good things in front of us. Lol.
Great analogy. Steem was seemed like it was a lot more fair of a place last year. However, over time it has morphed into something a little more sinister and clandestine. In my opinion, it all started when dan left for eos.
I think you are on to something there... and I am also looking forward to the EOS version that is promised to come out.
Ya... I have no idea how this thing is going to play out.Well I got my $0.02 vote in before the bots are here! I'm interested in seeing what happens. I'll stay tuned.
Awesome! Thanks for commenting. I am interested to see how it plays out too.