Spam self-voting alert!
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed this erstwhile rapid siphoning of author rewards by tamim:
He was just posting links to youtube videos and upvoting all of them himself to exploit the self-voting loophole in HF19.
This should be the start of a frank conversation among us in the Steem community: what is to be done about this kind of blatant self-voting? Should we just live and let live? Are we ok with this?
I'm quite sure it's harmful to Steem at large, because it siphons off resources that could be put to use. Any use.
Having said that, I've voted for myself a bit (with my own funds, never with those I rent from others) since the hard fork as well. How much is too much?
I personally find it infuriating when people spam-comment my posts then upvote their comment so it appears at the top. This isn't quite the same thing you're talking about, but it's right up there with questionable/abusive practices.
Either way, it's stealing attention from valuable content/comments in place of low-quality posts. I'm avidly against it and hope the feature is changed before it gets even more out of control.
I never realized people wouldn't like this. I typically upvote my own comment if I want to bubble it up to get more attention.
For me personally, it's the difference between a thoughtful comment and a 2 word spam comment that bugs me in this scenario.
Thanks for sharing, @sharing :)
This is probably going to offend you, and it will perhaps be an unpopular opinion.
If I'm being honest, I think that's ↑ what bothers me. Whether it's a quality comment or not, upvoting your own comment is just amplifying a self-bias that your comment/opinion is one that deserves more attention than others.
I do realize though that sometimes a comment should get more attention than others. In certain scenarios, it would be beneficial if a user upvoted their own comment so others know the truth about an incorrect statement, etc. However, like you reiterated, it's the 2-word spam comments (or my personal favorite "Great post. Please upvote mine! (inserts link here)") that are overreaching.
No offense taken. :) We can agree to disagree. To me it is just one of the benefits of having SP. I also subjectively value and vote for other comments to move them to the top as well... and even sometimes I do this without voting for my own at all!
IMO letting the community decide which comment should rise to the top is how it should be. Then again, what do I know? ;)
I think so too. It's our collective voices that should bubble the best content up. I am one voice in a sea of many. This is also the importance of a wide and fair distribution. I think the platform will improve more and more as larger stakeholders divest over time and a wider berth of users rise to influence. Hopefully that will be the case!
Absolutely! Which just circles back to why it's not ideal for large accounts to upvote shitty posts all the live-long day. Makes the platform look bad. Buries the good stuff. All that jazz.
Agreeeeed. :)
Haha, I agree as well with that sentiment. A post should have some inkling of original thought in it for it to get my upvote. As for me? I'm just a dolphin that has been pinching my last STEEMs! ;-)
I suppose in the long run I would have a large account at this rate, being the 300 something largest stakeholder as of now. I powered down considerably to start funding my startup @agoric.systems so I have around half of what I had before.
At the end of the day this platform is stake-weighted, and it will be up to some users that have the means to, to keep their tokens for influence and amplify their voice. That's why I plan on keeping the rest of my tokens and only liquidating SBD for the foreseeable future.
There are situations where it can be useful to upvote own comments. For example when I offer one of my chess quizzes and there is a huge amount of suggestions how to solve it. Finally I post the solution (and who is the winner) ... and try to put it on top, so that everybody notices it.
Perfectly acceptable situation for upvoting your own comment. ;)
That is a great idea! There are always multiple ways to look at the same thing. :) I'll keep that in mind, if there is ever a need to alert others on my own comment.
If I wrote an article as an answer to a post, then I tend to upvote it to a higher place so that people can see it. Because I honestly think it is worth it. (Often my answers are even longer then the original lol)
I do the same thing @robrigo, when appropriate. I'll also use the slider so I just pop to the top.
I think as long as you upvote the blog post, its more acceptable to upvote your reply.
What is really annoying is when someone upvotes their reply but doesn't upvote the authors article.
You can just mute self-upvoter.
If we do so... many are going to quit Steemit.
steemit is a flawed...
Irony.
This was one of the problems with completely linear rewards. I would say that we should probably discuss it as a coding issue, but we already tried that...and Steemit, Inc. simply insisted that it wouldn't be a problem.
Once again, they thought they knew best. And once again, we are seeing the predicted consequences. I'm afraid any "community discussions" will simply fall on the same deaf ears.
Actually in my opinion the fourfold impact of 100 % upvotes is the biggest problem (while I personally appreciate the linear reward curve) as it makes it so easy just to write ten minimalistic articles per day and upvote them with full strength. You can observe that for example here:
https://steemit.com/@sandrino
I wonder why the option to upvote oneself exists at all? I know that preventing it wouldn't solve all problems because there is still the possibility of using many mutually upvoting accounts, but at least it makes it a little bit more difficult. Concerning the multiaccount problem one could think about preventing accounts with the same IP to upvote each other ...
I actually wrote an article about the problem of self-voting since HF 19 and hoped to initiate some discussions ...
I have bitten my tongue on this issue because honestly, I have been kind of duped myself. It's only human nature to give the most attention to the posts that have earned the most value and I have been conditioned around here pre HF19 to understand that value has been earned for a reason.
So, the past few weeks, when the same high value authors were spamming my feed, I was taking notice.
No worries now, because I'm adapting my browsing habits. Maybe others are as well?
I mean, just remove the upvote button on posts that belong to whatever account posted them, right?
EDIT: Of course after posting this do I realize that having multiple accounts can circumvent that.
The fact that the "upvote post" checkbox still being available in the "Submit A Story" page kind of implies that it's okay to do, which I've gone back and forth with, frankly. I'll have an internal moral dilemma with it and stop doing it, then I'll see tons of people doing it, so herd mentality kicks in and I'll start it up again. I don't think it matters much for accounts like mine that only have $1 upvotes at 100% voting power and on the slider. But once you get to where you can generate more than, say, $5 in a single vote... then things just start feeling questionable.
Indeed, I think that the behaviour is always questionable. But I agree with you: if the effect is quite small, you would probably say "well, it doesn't bother anybody" but if it's large, many people see abuse. It is kind of moral dilemma wheter you should be able to push youself on starting here or if just nobody should have (or use) this option.
If the option would be removed, maybe the voting power is set free to support other users?
I can agree with that, its there so, people use it. I think its being taken advantage too much though.
I get how exponential rewards would discourage a big hitter from sending half his SP into a sock puppet account, then have the two accounts upvote each other; but I don't understand how it would stop him from opening a sock puppet account with nothing in it, then upvoting from his whale account?
I made the post as a counterargument to self-voting problem. You can check it out if you're interested.
https://steemit.com/steem/@pal/self-voting-is-not-a-problem
Maybe it is problem on the ui level, that self upvotes counting as measure of popularity. We can just hide them.
THIS. i was not able to articulate my thoughts. thank you for voicing them.
i agree with the concern. im glad someone picked it up. i will stop doing this. i have unvoted these posts.
Well, that's spectacular. I'm impressed with your responsiveness!
of course, i want steem and steemit.com to grow. these holes in the vision need to be addressed and covered so as to save the whole project.
85 Authored blog posts in the last 5 days, the vast majority of them are still massively personally upvoted as of posting this.
Good decision @tamim! I'm proud of you.
Great! I think that's a wise decision concerning the longterm growth of Steemit and the value of Steem.
Unfortunately there are quite some others doing the same since HF 19 without noticing (or caring!) about the long term perspectives of the platform. Here is the most blatant example I am aware of:
https://steemit.com/@sandrino
Thanks for un-voting the big ones @tamim. I flagged some of the smaller ones; that is not an attack on you just a disagreement with the rewards since you're essentially reposting content with no text.
a lot of growing pains as a community, and we'll have to do it together. :)
Agreed, thanks for understanding!
Flagging is an act of free speech and it's refreshing to see community members take one with grace. I will not hold it against someone if they flagged my posts either.
I do see how it can zap the fun out of the platform if everything you post is flagged immediately to zero, however.
steem and steemit.com are amazing. we have to play with it in order to find the flaws within this social media site. so, it's a bummer, but for the whole community one has to put their self-interests on the side.
after this, what comes to mind, is one thing, among the many, that we have to do is to define spam, as a community. what is "spam?" this way we could clean up the platform from unnecessary problems that has to do with the rewards distribution.
I agree with that. I think it's good to reward effort; and so to me, you've seemed to curate the videos you're posting and people enjoy them, but it's not personalized at all with your own thoughts, views, comments, or even a little tidbit that explains the contents of the video. To me, consistently doing that many times a day is a form of "shitposting" (I use this term technically, not to say your content is bad).
As a large stakeholder you do have a vested interest in the success of the platform, and it's good for you to point out flaws (even by gaming the system). Large stakeholders also have a interest in respecting the power they wield!
Thanks for chatting about this with us instead of continuing to game the platform. :)
He unvoted a few, but the majority of the 85 posts he authored in the last five days are still massively upvoted as of posting this.
are you on steemit.chat? if so, i messaged you. i hope i got the right robrigo.
You did! I responded to you.
i like your definition. i will keep that in mind.
those who know me know that i want this platform to succeed, so if i am a person who is hampering the progress of this platform, then i do not have a problem if someone points it out to me or brings the notice of the community towards my actions.
Oh wow! I didn't see this response coming. A part of me is so happy with the way you handled this. I'm not so sure I could have done the same if I were in your shoes.
awww...thank you for this comment.
Kudos to you, sorry to be the one to downvote you, but it was nothing personal. I'll remove my flags so your reputation doesn't take a hit.
thank you. this is kind of you.
im glad, we, as a community, can take each other's hand and help each other help this community grow. :)
Wow. A noble gesture, indeed @tamim. Many would not refuse money of any sort.
You earned my respect with this comment and shows the heart of a true Steemian. I know I am new to Steemit but, the people are what make this a platform for others to emulate.
Thank you for respecting the community. There are some big users who are draining the rewards pool by self upvote. But they don't understand that this will harm the whole community negatively and decrease the price of steem.
I fully agree: we have a serious problem here!
You may check this similar case:
https://steemit.com/@sandrino
I also wrote an article about the self-voting and other HF 19 issues, but there was not really much feedback from powerful members ...
@biophil Thank you very much for bringing up this important topic. @jaki01 I agree completely. The problem is huge and as usual there is no communication about it. The developers are way too silent on this issue. I'm really wondering how they plan to solve this in the future.
We'll see how this will play out. The situation we are facing is that we have people being upset about other people "exploiting" a broken system. Now.. who is to blame? The angry people because they shouldn't be upset about others enriching themselves? The people abusing a system without actually technically abusing it because the design is just broken? Or the system itself? I would definitely go for the latter...
This really is a big problem. Its kinda nice when you reply to a post and someone upvotes it because they like what you said. Now though, there is not much upvoting on other members comments because so many people are too busy upvoting their own replies. It's ridiculous.
I fully agree!
Pardon my ignorance, but with self-voting at higher reputation levels -- doesn't it become very obvious what is going on?
Isn't there a practical limit to what can be achieved with this loophole?
I only ask because I'm trying to understand how all of this works. I don't condone the practice because it doesn't strike me as honest, ethically speaking.
It's not the reputation levels that determine vote power or vote payout. That's going to depend on how much Steem Power is in the wallet. For example, I'm a 69, but I don't have NEARLY as much in my wallet as other 69-level accounts on this platform.
Appreciate the reply -- just trying to wrap my head around how it all works.
Thanks!
I wonder if it will be worthwhile to explore this- when a user reaches a certain SP, curation rewards will be greater than the self-upvote value. In that sense the community grows together, as good communities should.
That would be cool. I don't see an easy way to do it, but it would be cool.
Yeah, might be too challenging to implement (what do I know? Lol). Will remain a great dream for now.
I don't really have a problem with self-voting by itself, but when you couple it with spam, that becomes a problem.
Brainstorming
Short term:
1.) Name, shame, and shun
2.) Mute repeat offenders and manually add them to bot blacklists.
Long term:
1.) Someone build a reporting system to publish information about voting diversity, voting reciprocity, and voting cliques (I have considered doing this, but I sort of doubt if I'll find time. With the number of votes being cast, I think it's not as easy as it might sound.)
2.) Automate bot voting to support authors who support the platform and to blacklist self-vote spammers based on that reporting data.
As steemit grows, I think the amount that an isolated self-voter will be able to siphon off will be reduced dramatically, so the key is to deny them access to community support.
also add to that list what a definition of spam would be. we need to define what spam is, or is there a definition out there?
On obsecenity (or spam)
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [spam], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so"
"I'll know it when I see it."
-Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
hahahaha...cute. yeah, i see you point. thank you for sharing this. :)
Yeah, that's a hard one. I was intentionally vague on that point. I think the competitive marketplace will have to sort it out.
I know that when I'm voting manually, I don't even follow a consistent standard with my own votes. I can say that I'm not going to vote for any youtube videos with no accompanying text, and I usually won't, but every once in a while someone posts one that surprises me, and I wind up voting for it. It depends on who does it, how often they do it, and a whole bunch of intangible factors. After all, the voting system is designed to be a subjective measure of value, so by definition it's hard to define objectively.
If I'm going to vote for my own post, though, I'm going to be pretty darned confident that no one will consider it to be spam. If I don't put substantial effort into creating it, I'm probably not going to vote for myself.
Edited to add: One thing that I've begun doing recently is voting near the end of the payout window when I self-vote. That way: i. I already know if other people found value in my post, so I can avoid voting on my own posts that might be considered low-quality; and ii. I give a tiny reward to the curators who voted on my post - a little bit of a "thank you for your vote."
good point. your approach seems fair.
This is a very important point your raising. Sounds like a prime case for downvoting.
I just checked his account and oh my god am I shocked!
I've seen many people do this actually, I've seen one account make over 40 posts within 24 hours, usually small posts of very random things and each post earned about $10-$25.
So this could be considered as legal abuse as there's nothing officially against it and nothing to stop it.
You can flag to stop it. Flagging negates rewards; if the community collectively disagrees with an outcome, it can be flagged by some SP holders to reduce the rewards.
It would take maybe hundreds of flags to downvote a post by a whale who holds 500k+ SP..
Or 5 flags by 100k SP holders. It's all proportional to SP, so it will be variable.
That would work for sure but it won't work every time. I have rarely seen a post upvoted with 5 accounts with 100k SP.. let alone downvote/flag. Some people would be even afraid to do that, fearing they get downvoted/flagged as well by that whale.. makes sense?
IMO it's a coordination problem, not one that can't be solved via some automation and a set of agreed upon rules.
I also understand the fear of being bullied by a whale, but that too is a similar coordination problem that could potentially be solved by different "guilds" that implement their own "ethics" as automated voting rules or something.
I don't disagree there isn't a problem that should be addressed, just that I think it can be solved or at least mitigated.
It can be solved of course, but I don't think it can be done without automation. I mean, look at some of these posts, who would sit there all day watching for these kind of posts? And certainly there won't be 5 other whales finding the same post and downvoting/flagging it..
So if there's some kind of bot like @steemcleaners to take care of this, I would be really happy. But that'd be very hard to do... I mean 500k SP? That's a lot..
It's not a lot if you can convince a lot of people to delegate just a little bit to the cause!