RE: Operation Clean Trending
This is a difficult one, I agree that bots are kind of a plague in the steem ecosystem and it can really go sideways as we progress.
However, I also agree that some solutions can be worse than the disease. It will take a lot of finesse in dealing with this, and out of the box thinking.
The idea is that forces that counter themselves will result in a lot of power being used for this conflict, while forces that complement themselves build on each other and take us further. Sorry, but this subject is one for which I have no practical proposal yet. Maybe the communities should take a moral stance at least and communicate to the users that bit-bot-ing is shitty behavior that might lead to exclusion from certain groups, but this can also go sideways really quick.
In my opinion bot voting and multiple accounts shouldn't be allowed.
"One person, one account". The blockchain is powerful because it can mediate and allow real people to find consensus and built trust. If you allow fake accounts then it's all useless and we are back to FB and the rest.
How that can be implemented, I don't know.
But for as long as bots are allowed and the Steem whitepaper says, black on white "Eliminating "abuse" is not possible and shouldn't be the goal." (page 15. I disagree, but who am I?) then downvoting people because they have used the system as designed is destructive and harmful
Yep, bit-bots might be to cost of uncensorability. Personally, I would prefer a level of abuse rather than censorship or the need for identity.
But the fact we are having these discusions is the way to aproach this problem :)