Drowningwhale - Steemit's First Downvote Bot? Not Sure I Like Where This Is Going...
It was only a matter of time.
Given the ravenous demand for pay-for-upvote bots, it was inevitable that someone try to fulfill the opposite need.
Personally, I don't care for upvote bots. They are really no different than vote4vote or follow4follow, circle-jerks, cliques, sock-puppets - really whatever form of buying/trading votes you want to look at. Their standing in the community as somehow much better than all the rest of what I listed is curiously inconsistent with logic.
Having said all that, they don't really bother me either. This kind of does.
Drowningwhale is kind enough to keep statistics for its input and output each day. It would appear that it is new this month, and it has not really gotten going as of yet. Interestingly, it has already been flagged down to 11 reputation. This doesn't come as a huge surprise, as I doubt this particular "whale" will make many friends.
However, even though that is a very small intake, that still a total input of roughly 9x the value of the account itself. I attribute that (optimistically) to a very small sample size, rather than voracious demand for the ability to secretly flag others.
There is some unusual behavior going on in the transfers. Drowningwhale's wallet is loaded with transgers to "rgau1985". They move in both directions, and are very small. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.
I'm an avid supporter of generally free markets, but that doesn't mean I have to like everything offered in one. I'm not sure I like this.
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
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Sources: Google, Steemit, drowningwhale
Copyright: Teepublic, Lost In Space, drowningwhale
Not good... However, there is probably not a lot of money to be made by downvoting. Besides, you already got Smackdownkitten, sad kitten etc.
All of the accounts sending them money recently - other than possibly “cheapwhale” - are apparently the same person/people. And all they publish is shitposts/spam. So it’s likely that @drowningwhale is also run by the same person/people.
https://steemit.com/@drowningwhale/transfers
If someone is not a fan, then they know what to do.
I came to similar conclusions regarding the post quality of "rgau1985", and frankly didn't find any rewards to speak of over a penny or two.
I do, however, worry just a touch about what a robotic Bernie might be like.
Thank you for stopping by.
I don’t worry about a robotic Bernie. I worry about the robotic nincompoops who upvote the same worthless users day-in and day-out...sometimes with their huge delegated stake. Kind of like what was just happening with Ned’s delegation. And what has been happening with other “popular” users for over a year now.
A robotic Bernie might actually help with some of that garbage. But @drowningwhale isn’t that, unfortunately.
"I worry about the robotic nincompoops who upvote the same worthless users day-in and day-out"
Would you say auto-voting is a net-negative for the platform? Or is the curation formula the problem?
I don't know enough to say if auto-voting can be disabled (my guess is no, not even mostly), so the only real solution would seem to be changing curation (substantially).
Dead horse, I know.
I blame the algorithm which determines value. Value is a subjective thing which should differ for each user and should not be so simple to exploit as mass votes or high SP votes. There should be far more complex subtleties in the algorithm, including logarithmic scales.
I find it highly ironic that a block chain app intended to be anti censorship has developed quite possibly the most incentivized platform for collectivization, which leads to wide spread censorship of its own curators.
Very nice read @lexiconical you bring up some valid points. The issue I have with all this is the fact that it is becoming more and more like the one thing it was trying to be different from. While I agree the whole bot system is annoying and it takes away from the platform as a whole, people are so quick to give in to something when they feel they can benefit from it. So I wonder will they target the ones who really deserve to be downvoted? Just seems like another way for someone to sucK the prize pool dry. Thanks for this wonderful information brother.
#circleoffriends
"Just seems like another way for someone to sucK the prize pool dry."
Indeed. If someone wants to attack a competing author, anonymously, this becomes a way to do it. That doesn't seem like a good thing.
This is actually the sort of stuff that some moderate regulation can sometimes really help with.
yeah, I think it would be better if it wasn't anonymous. if it wasn't anonymous, then it would be legit in the sense that users could afford to mitigate spam content that their vote isn't powerful enough to do, while still having that public record as a disincentive which would, I believe, make people think twice about it.
I suspect the claim of anonymity is exaggerated. If it takes payments on the block-chain, it's not really anonymous, is it?
Good point on the potential legitimate uses.
I think anonymity can be entirely achieved, simply by payments being made off chain.
Agreed, although, that requires trusting a down-vote bot. I was referring mostly to on-chain anonymity.
Fair enuf
I used the minnowsupport bots on my first month in steemit and ramdowhale once, Then I stopped. I'm not up or against bots at all. A vote always adds and a downvote subtracts so you must to be a very bad person or a very bad steemian to get those. With these anyone could downvote just because "I don't like you" without doing it themselves. "me no like this"
I did the same thing.
I have less of a problem with minnowsupport. I know they aren't always used on quality, but posts are near invisible when they are under $1. They can really help new users.
I stopped using them as soon as I could reliably get an early buck or two on my posts to make it to "Hot" on obscure tags.
minnow support also has incredible roi (lifetime of 50c upvotes from a number of unique users depending on market conditions). customer service, and spam prevention\ mitigation...
these are the metrics I use to determine if an upvote bot is "good"or "bad":
This could all could be wrapped up in two words:
Socially Conscious
(self upvoted, cause dammit, I approve of that message)
It's definitely great for it's customers, and those curating them.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@paulag/is-it-right-or-is-it-wrong-my-thoughts-around-steemit-and-message-to-my-trolls
Related Post
Huh..wow.. Yes, well, it's not totally surprising I guess.The way Steem is set up, economic warfare is totally possible. Maybe one day we will see a Coca Cola steemit account downvoting all the Pepsi posts?
I don't like this direction either. Downvoting creates as many problems as it solves, it seems.
That's a funny idea. If it is correct that downvoting has a higher coefficient than upvoting, it may actually become more profitable to attack your competitor(s) in markets with only a few large options.
I think it should have been a bot downvoter, not a people down voter. It does not matter how good, or how bad, it would be totally non-hypocritical and down vote all bots,including itself once a week on Mondays at High Noon. Then on Mondays just after High Noon I would give it an upvote for at least being an honest impartial bot.
Well the new front look has not solved this problem:
"TypeError: Network request failed DISMISS"
2nd Try to post.
Well, you could certainly create your own anti-bot downvoter if you like!
"2nd Try to post."
I see what you did there. You snuck in and deleted that second post. ;)
It put the first post in after putting the second try post in. It did the same on another post I did. I don't like seeing duplicated post, which seem to be happening quite a bit lately. At least not to long ago they gave us the option of deleting a post. Oh and I am not smart enough to make a bot of any kind so right now I just mute them as I see them.
It is really not my cup of tea as well, do not find the idea appealing at all.
Could however be amusing to see if it would down vote itself, unfortunately I do not have the funds to test it.
I guess you could have it target it's own comment that it leaves when it downvotes someone else, or you could target its own daily reports. Heh.
You've got the point brother @lexiconical. We're having this issue that the fact that it is going to be different from. Like leeches sucking blood(but more of them doing it to the one who is already anemic) hahaha .
Thank you for this information @lexiconical
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Just wanted to see if you were still working!
good post...