Haha, great gif! Thanks a lot @minerthreat! Maybe there will be more, seems this one resonated with a lot of people so may have to come back and do another one 😀
Downvoted can definitely make it feel personal. I hope many people can see your post and understand that it's a useful tool for the blockchain and not for starting wars.
Bid bots are always a touchy subject and one that I don't like to touch because of the various thoughts on them. I have seen how it helps people grow other people's accounts and I have seen the massive abuse from it as well.
So with that, my question is to everyone that sees my message, is it wrong to be downvoted because of someone using a bit to upvote another ones post and is it seen/wrong to downvote a post that gets rewards using things like Actifit, Partiko and creativecoin and palnet even? Or is it ok?
Definitely agree on the personal feeling with downvotes which is why I wanted to focus on why they are actually here and shouldn't be considered like the reaction buttons like Facebook and Twitter etc.
I have upvoted your comment/question to the top so that those who have more understanding and in depth knowledge/thoughts on the topic of bidbots can answer your question and help 🙂
From what I've seen from some of the high SP #newsteem people's perspective, it's basically all out downvote campaign against bought votes.
I know someone who got downvoted for using a bid system on an actifit post and they weren't very happy. I'm not sure how I feel about this as I know the person is a good, long term commited steemian. On the flip side, if we really want the hf22 economic proposal system to work, and proof of brain to work as it should, then realistically all vote buying needs to be stopped. If it isn't then some people will always find ways to exploit it.
For me, it comes down to one simple reality. The posts, like Nicky's here, that are well written, should be getting the big payouts, while shorter posts get less. This extends to different subjects/styles of content, vlogs, photography etc. It just makes sense that rewards should reflect quality and if the community can push this to be the norm then we'll have a functioning POB rewards system. Also, it would be a much healthier environment as new users wouldn't arrive here with unrealistic expectations of earning loads through posting a few pictures with a short paragraph.
To be honest though, to really cement a true proof of brain system, the next thing that needs to be addressed is the many circle jerks of questionable content that still proliferate here... and that will get really ugly for a while.
I agree with you, if the quality of a post is great then the rewards should match and won't need to be bought in. But that's in a perfect world.
The way I see it, things like creative coin and palnet (not sure if it's dead or whatever) encourage the quality, encourages the people to do great, even though some don't and abuse the system. And if people are willing to do that, then that's awesome, no? It gives to the people. In a perfect world, the people would use that extra to give back to more people etc.
And there's also the part of receiving encouraging upvotes by @appreciator because I have written quality posts and it helped grow my account which has helped me encourage others. And I've also been encouraged by @curie and @c-squared before as well and all the same has left me smiling from ear to ear and had me write more and more. Is this not the positive side to it all? (I don't know how curie and c-square work btw if it's bot or not).
Now I'm not saying I am encouraging this exactly because I do believe we shouldn't even need this, but things went.... well, the way it went and it became almost needed (I think 🤔) and people also became greedy and shit hit the fan pretty much lol.
Also, please understand that I am not all knowing in all of this and that I do seek to understand more. I do like to look at things in different ways, making me optimistic.
About the circle jerks, ya that definitely needs to go down. Although I don't want to be caught up in it or I will cease to exist lol. But doesn't it just want to make you shake these people to wake them up!!??
This whole platform needs to be treated that way, not just a few people.
This concept of buying votes for each other will quickly turn into people buying votes for themselves using alt accounts and then things get messy all over again.
'a never ending battle with no ending or beginning'
Couldn't help myself but drop a quote from The Wu.
I think that is the challenge for those who are committed to trying to keep this place even vaguely honest.
Once the vote sellers have all got on board curating manually, it's time to go after the circle jerks and the alt account self lovers. It's all visible on steem with tools to query the blockchain you can see who is using sock puppet accounts self voting.
Lol, truth is stranger than fiction, and this place certainly proves that proverb 🤣
Hi foxy, I think I can answer some of your concerns here. I work/ed as a curator for curie for 18 months now.
I've also been encouraged by @curie and @c-squared before as well and all the same has left me smiling from ear to ear.
No one is against them or ocd which is another curation guild. These groups are vital to steem and were formed to counteract the culture of 'group voting' or circle jerk behaviour that had always been bad on steem, especially among the orca and whales. I can only speak for curie, but basically what you have inside the guild is a bunch of people who've a proven track record for finding and the best content. You have to go through extensive training before being accepted as a curator for curie. I had to train for a month before I was let in and I'd had loads of curie votes on my creative writing which is my speciality. They're very serious on quality control and making sure that curators are seeking that quality from all over steem.
As a curie curator you have to follow strict rules to ensure that the focus is on newer steemians to encourage quality content creators to stay, if you have too many posts that you submit for a curie vote rejected by the reviewers that do not adhere to the guidelines, then you can lose your place as a curator. That's how it works anyway. And curators are paid for their time based on how many accepted posts they get.
Curation guilds like this are far removed from vote selling entities such as bidbots because they're actively promoting the proof of brain system. They have been fighting a losing battle for years trying to make trending full of good content, but now, between them, bidbot accounts that have stopped selling votes who're now curating, and random curating whales, the trending is mainly full of high quality content.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that although some vote buying services may have been used in the past by one friend to encourage another when they wrote a good post, this was a minority of how they were used. The vast majority of their use was for value extraction.
Here's how people bled steem dry of value while giving nothing back: People used a system called vote stacking. They make multiple bids to 5-10 bidbots and because of the way the reward curve works, as their post went up $50 - $80 - $120 etc, they compounded the gains they make from the bidbot votes. So what a lot of dodgy people were doing was using this method to garuntee $10/$20+ on posts that were utter garbage! Some were doing this multiple times a day. This is why imo the best thing for steem is simply to push bidbots out of the system.
The way I see it, things like creative coin and palnet (not sure if it's dead or whatever) encourage the quality, encourages the people to do great, even though some don't and abuse the system. And if people are willing to do that, then that's awesome, no?
Absolutely you're right. There is nothing wrong with pal, creative coin and most other tribes. I don't think anyone is against them 👍 I'm certainly not. I do think that certain tribes are trying to bypass the whole EIP campaign against vote selling by offering to sell steem votes for their tokens and this is where their may be a problem. But neither cc or pal do this to my knowledge and they're the only tribes I use at the moment.
I hope all this helps foxy, it's all just my opinion apart from the stuff about curie which is an accurate description on how the guild works 🙂
Epic reply!! Thank you so much! I appreciate it, that you took the time to elaborate in order for me to understanding.
I didn't know there was so much included with curie and I can say that there is an even higher respect for them than before. (I already had huge respect!)
I'm so happy that things are starting to all fall in place. I hope Steem does climb to the top like l once was.
For those of you that are fighting the war to get it back in place, thank you 🙏🙌🤝
Wishing I had a stronger account to also make an impact. I'll get there. No worries. Spreading posts like this is definitely one way go and using the tools the way we were meant to will also help.
WOW - this is almost a book you're writing ... and a good one it is!
This should make a lot of things clear for people who have questions about all the topics.
Hahaha, well this one was just over 3k words total and could have been longer than my undergraduate thesis but I think this should be enough to get things going 😀
Thanks a lot for the awesome support @pundito and the beer too of course! I'll be digitally drunk by the end of the night at this rate 😜 🍻 💪
That is one hell of a comprehensive post Nicky. I shall be sure to direct anyone I can onboard to it... if I ever manage to onboard anyone 🤣
You've got the psychology of steem spot on m8.
I recently started trailing OCDB downvote trail as they're particularly going after bidbot abuse and I've been criticizing bidbots for nearly two years, so it kinda felt hypocritical not to use my free downvotes to action what I'd been saying. But, yes you've guessed it... I've got myself a revenge flag stalker.
I've followed your ethos with this, shrug and move on. Although the user has not gone after theycallmedan or any of the other larger accounts on that trail (I smell a cowardly custard 😂)... they've gone after little old me and another smaller SP steemian. But, despite their 100% downvote whacking $0.40 off my posts, I'm still happier than I was before, when every man and his dog could get away with devaluing steem by buying shit content up into trending.
It's something that takes a bit of effort to adjust to psychologically, but when you get your head round it, it's ok 🙂
Hey Rowan mate, haha thanks a lot for checking it out. Quite an important topic that needs to be covered and wanted to give it the respect it needed whilst trying to cover many viewpoints. Hopefully you can get more people on board, maybe I'll slowly but surely chip away at more Bluffer's Guides and have a comprehensive Steem Book/Blog Series to help newcomers (and even seasoned veterans) out.
I have had discussions with acidyo and I see what's going on. There really is no discriminating against anyone, it's just a blanket policy of downvoting any bought upvotes but I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect. New users will likely be horrified when they receive a downvote after doing something that was likely recommended - I lost count the amount of times I have seen buying votes being recommended to grow one's account to minnows and plankton. Hopefully reading this, that will change.
The way I see this whole thing is like an oscillatory graph, right now, we've overshot with downvotes and we might still nor be making our way back to the equilibrium line yet as knowledge about what the rewards pool is is still limited. That was the motivation of this post - to bridge the gap somewhat.
As always, appreciate the in depth response from you, that alone is like a whale upvote in my book and to get the raj808 seal of approval, great honour!
I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect.
Yeah, I personally think that they'll never do that due to the fact that those people who set up bidbots have huge stake (SP) of their own. I questioned theycallmedan on this one in a comment on one of his posts and he straight up said he's not playing the blame game. Translate that to mean, 'i won't attack the Bernies, markys and frystkens of this world because they have too much skin in the game.' (all people who run/ran bidbots)
And although I was angry with this attitude of basically letting them get away with what they've done to this place, I see the logic from a purely business perspective. Most of those people have closed down their bidbots or switched them to manual curation. If all of those people sold their steem, it would probably crash the price beyond recovery. So it's a fine line between trying to force them to do what is right, and using methods to remove their market that doesn't threaten their standing on steem lol.
And then there are intelligent people out there who see through these bullshit games of ego, PR and power and understand exactly what has gone on here on steem. So far as I'm concerned I've let it go, but I know who has benefited massively from the bidbots on steem... the owners!
But you have to be positive, newsteem and downvote trails are working slowly to clean things up. What I think the result could be is that we have a much more functioning proof of brain system when the next bull run hits. If that plays out things could be just as impressive price-wise as last time. Unfortunately, we're gonna lose some people in-between then and now.
This is the way I see it anyway. The EIP was always going to be a make it break move. Without it, steem would have died quickly. If Stinc stop their monthly sell off of hundreds of thousands of steem, everything could recover quickly in a parabolic market, and with all the development here steem could surprise the whole crypto world. We shall see 😉
Good point about the big accounts, it makes sense really as to why they won't go after the source so the next best thing is go after the customers. Yes, there's only one winner in the bid bot game and that's the owners.
But hey, if they all sold their steem and brought the price down, I'm sure there'll be many people waiting in the wings to pick it up... like me! I'd continue buying up until prices started recovering again, which they will because we're still so early on in this game that a lot of things need to be tried out.
I've read on nonameslefttouse's post that this is rather like trying to re-build the damage caused by a massive illness over the last two years. The latest HF has been a vaccine that is giving the ecosystem some of the tools it needs to fight off the germs and then we'll hopefully be cured in time for the next bull run.
I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution! My account is so small my payouts could be wiped out by a 1% downvote from those I feel like downvoting. It seems to be a tool that only an elite group can use. The gnats (I prefer "gnats" to "mosquitoes") are hard to ignore even though they are harmless.
I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution
Yeah, it's a concern for sure. I don't blame you owasco. I've had some blowback from it the past few weeks I've been downvoting and someone tagged me on their post today calling me a thug.
Tbh I can't even bring myself to enter into the drama of explaining to this person how if I'm a thug for downvoting them, them they're a thief for using a bidbot. It's difficult because a lot of people don't understand the basic fact that the daily reward pool is a limited amount, so by them boosting their payouts using bidbots they're literally stealing from everyone who doesn't use them.
I've been on here for just over 2 years creating only high quality content and spent many depressed days because my 3000 word short story made a dollar or two. All this time my chances of getting honest, fair curation based on quality has been diminished by vote buyers as most of the whale steem power has been locked up delegating to bidbots. This is now changing, and I think it will level things out as time goes by.
This is why I have no regrets about following a downvote trail. If people don't want to learn how the reward mechanism works on steem, and want to continue stealing from everyone else, they deserve what they get. What's ironic is that those who are creating decent content would have a decent chance at higher payouts in the long term if they stopped using bidbots. I think there are only 4 or 5 bidbots left operating. Not sure if I'm right about that though.
These are just my thoughts on it all. I was getting ready to leave steem if the EIP didn't work. From what I can see so far, it's going in the right direction. Time will tell.
I'm not even sure what a bitbot is. I don't know if I'm using one. I know I never paid for upvotes, except sbi which I just started buying as a contest sponsor. Is sbi considered a bidbot?
Thanks for that explanation of the rewards pool and how it is affected by the bidbots.
I still have so much to learn! It doesn't help when big changes come along and pull the rug out from under me.
Haha, if you don't know what a bidbot is and you've never bought a vote you are safe ;-)
P.s. as nicky said in a perfect world the powers that be would go after the bidbot owners... and the people purchasing the votes wouldn't have to worry because their would be nowhere for them to purchase them, but we ain't in a perfect world... mores the pity.
SBI is safe owasco. I wouldn't worry too much about it all. It sounds like you have been doing exactly as I did on steem when I arrived and just acting in a decent way.
Far too many people on this platform have seen the exploits and ways to leach value and thrown the moral compass out of the window in the pursuit of money.
Thank you for spending time writing this guide.
It is thoughtful and easy to read and explains a lot
You show great writing skills and are good at sharing your thoughts on how the system works.
I'm glad we got in touch and you're not one of those with a different agenda
I read a lot a day on the various posts that have to do with the essence of the case. I am amazed at many who just preach shit and leave comments to people they do not like and when people with big accounts do it and in addition use their power to give downvote it becomes on the wrong ground. Then they do it to harm people as much as possible.
I hope they with another agenda read your post and opened their eyes. If they could only think like you, the problem would be no problem
Heya @xpilar, thank you for checking it out and leaving great feedback.
I've appreciated our conversations about this whole topic and they have opened my eyes to things I didn't previously consider so thank you too!
Unfortunately there will always be bad actors in any system but if the majority of people have a civil discussion around some of those "grey areas" I mentioned then I'm sure we will be flying.
I don't think I'm on my own when I say we all want steem to succeed but there is still a way to go before the fog after hf21 clears.
Again, I'm really grateful we had the chance to meet on steem, hopefully next time it will be in a more positive situation 🙂
Unfortunately there will always be bad actors in any system but if the majority of people have a civil discussion around some of those "grey areas" I mentioned then I'm sure we will be flying.
Yes that's exactly why I shed light on this, I hope so too 👍
Thanks for checking it out @slobberchops! It's been a tough 6 weeks being involved at the deep end and flash points with some of these issues and speaking to quite a lot of different groups - it has been very thought provoking and I hope that this blog can help everyone.
No more sleepless nights about it all moving forward I hope 😂
This was a great post
Haha, great gif! Thanks a lot @minerthreat! Maybe there will be more, seems this one resonated with a lot of people so may have to come back and do another one 😀
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I like your style of writing lol. Will be forwarding this post to anyone asking why they've been receiving upvotes...
@kevinwong
Hehe thanks man! Have to inject some humour in to a deep topic such as this one and keep it "light".
Yes please, forward away to whoever! I'm not sure anyone's asking why they get upvotes but at least they have some reasons for it here 😁
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Should be required reading on acquiring a Steem account.
I should do a multiple choice quiz to go with this post based on what reactions should you have when you get downvoted without a comment etc 😁
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Downvoted can definitely make it feel personal. I hope many people can see your post and understand that it's a useful tool for the blockchain and not for starting wars.
Bid bots are always a touchy subject and one that I don't like to touch because of the various thoughts on them. I have seen how it helps people grow other people's accounts and I have seen the massive abuse from it as well.
So with that, my question is to everyone that sees my message, is it wrong to be downvoted because of someone using a bit to upvote another ones post and is it seen/wrong to downvote a post that gets rewards using things like Actifit, Partiko and creativecoin and palnet even? Or is it ok?
Thanks for the thoughtful comment @foxyspirit
Definitely agree on the personal feeling with downvotes which is why I wanted to focus on why they are actually here and shouldn't be considered like the reaction buttons like Facebook and Twitter etc.
I have upvoted your comment/question to the top so that those who have more understanding and in depth knowledge/thoughts on the topic of bidbots can answer your question and help 🙂
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Thank you.
It will be interesting to see what people say.
Hi @foxyspirit
From what I've seen from some of the high SP #newsteem people's perspective, it's basically all out downvote campaign against bought votes.
I know someone who got downvoted for using a bid system on an actifit post and they weren't very happy. I'm not sure how I feel about this as I know the person is a good, long term commited steemian. On the flip side, if we really want the hf22 economic proposal system to work, and proof of brain to work as it should, then realistically all vote buying needs to be stopped. If it isn't then some people will always find ways to exploit it.
For me, it comes down to one simple reality. The posts, like Nicky's here, that are well written, should be getting the big payouts, while shorter posts get less. This extends to different subjects/styles of content, vlogs, photography etc. It just makes sense that rewards should reflect quality and if the community can push this to be the norm then we'll have a functioning POB rewards system. Also, it would be a much healthier environment as new users wouldn't arrive here with unrealistic expectations of earning loads through posting a few pictures with a short paragraph.
To be honest though, to really cement a true proof of brain system, the next thing that needs to be addressed is the many circle jerks of questionable content that still proliferate here... and that will get really ugly for a while.
Imo, we're going in the right direction though 🙂
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I agree with you, if the quality of a post is great then the rewards should match and won't need to be bought in. But that's in a perfect world.
The way I see it, things like creative coin and palnet (not sure if it's dead or whatever) encourage the quality, encourages the people to do great, even though some don't and abuse the system. And if people are willing to do that, then that's awesome, no? It gives to the people. In a perfect world, the people would use that extra to give back to more people etc.
And there's also the part of receiving encouraging upvotes by @appreciator because I have written quality posts and it helped grow my account which has helped me encourage others. And I've also been encouraged by @curie and @c-squared before as well and all the same has left me smiling from ear to ear and had me write more and more. Is this not the positive side to it all? (I don't know how curie and c-square work btw if it's bot or not).
Now I'm not saying I am encouraging this exactly because I do believe we shouldn't even need this, but things went.... well, the way it went and it became almost needed (I think 🤔) and people also became greedy and shit hit the fan pretty much lol.
Also, please understand that I am not all knowing in all of this and that I do seek to understand more. I do like to look at things in different ways, making me optimistic.
About the circle jerks, ya that definitely needs to go down. Although I don't want to be caught up in it or I will cease to exist lol. But doesn't it just want to make you shake these people to wake them up!!??
This whole platform needs to be treated that way, not just a few people.
This concept of buying votes for each other will quickly turn into people buying votes for themselves using alt accounts and then things get messy all over again.
Ha ha, yeah possibly. It's certainly gonna be...
'a never ending battle with no ending or beginning'
Couldn't help myself but drop a quote from The Wu.
I think that is the challenge for those who are committed to trying to keep this place even vaguely honest.
Once the vote sellers have all got on board curating manually, it's time to go after the circle jerks and the alt account self lovers. It's all visible on steem with tools to query the blockchain you can see who is using sock puppet accounts self voting.
Lol, truth is stranger than fiction, and this place certainly proves that proverb 🤣
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Hi foxy, I think I can answer some of your concerns here. I work/ed as a curator for curie for 18 months now.
No one is against them or ocd which is another curation guild. These groups are vital to steem and were formed to counteract the culture of 'group voting' or circle jerk behaviour that had always been bad on steem, especially among the orca and whales. I can only speak for curie, but basically what you have inside the guild is a bunch of people who've a proven track record for finding and the best content. You have to go through extensive training before being accepted as a curator for curie. I had to train for a month before I was let in and I'd had loads of curie votes on my creative writing which is my speciality. They're very serious on quality control and making sure that curators are seeking that quality from all over steem.
As a curie curator you have to follow strict rules to ensure that the focus is on newer steemians to encourage quality content creators to stay, if you have too many posts that you submit for a curie vote rejected by the reviewers that do not adhere to the guidelines, then you can lose your place as a curator. That's how it works anyway. And curators are paid for their time based on how many accepted posts they get.
Curation guilds like this are far removed from vote selling entities such as bidbots because they're actively promoting the proof of brain system. They have been fighting a losing battle for years trying to make trending full of good content, but now, between them, bidbot accounts that have stopped selling votes who're now curating, and random curating whales, the trending is mainly full of high quality content.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that although some vote buying services may have been used in the past by one friend to encourage another when they wrote a good post, this was a minority of how they were used. The vast majority of their use was for value extraction.
Here's how people bled steem dry of value while giving nothing back: People used a system called vote stacking. They make multiple bids to 5-10 bidbots and because of the way the reward curve works, as their post went up $50 - $80 - $120 etc, they compounded the gains they make from the bidbot votes. So what a lot of dodgy people were doing was using this method to garuntee $10/$20+ on posts that were utter garbage! Some were doing this multiple times a day. This is why imo the best thing for steem is simply to push bidbots out of the system.
Absolutely you're right. There is nothing wrong with pal, creative coin and most other tribes. I don't think anyone is against them 👍 I'm certainly not. I do think that certain tribes are trying to bypass the whole EIP campaign against vote selling by offering to sell steem votes for their tokens and this is where their may be a problem. But neither cc or pal do this to my knowledge and they're the only tribes I use at the moment.
I hope all this helps foxy, it's all just my opinion apart from the stuff about curie which is an accurate description on how the guild works 🙂
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Epic reply!! Thank you so much! I appreciate it, that you took the time to elaborate in order for me to understanding.
I didn't know there was so much included with curie and I can say that there is an even higher respect for them than before. (I already had huge respect!)
I'm so happy that things are starting to all fall in place. I hope Steem does climb to the top like l once was.
For those of you that are fighting the war to get it back in place, thank you 🙏🙌🤝
Wishing I had a stronger account to also make an impact. I'll get there. No worries. Spreading posts like this is definitely one way go and using the tools the way we were meant to will also help.
Thank you @raj808 and thank you @nickyhavey!!
Very helpful actually. Thanks.
WOW - this is almost a book you're writing ... and a good one it is!
This should make a lot of things clear for people who have questions about all the topics.
Great work and for sure worth a !BEER :)
Hahaha, well this one was just over 3k words total and could have been longer than my undergraduate thesis but I think this should be enough to get things going 😀
Thanks a lot for the awesome support @pundito and the beer too of course! I'll be digitally drunk by the end of the night at this rate 😜 🍻 💪
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No more online racing games today ;)
Haha definitely not, I'll be getting the online uber back home from the pub 😁
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That is one hell of a comprehensive post Nicky. I shall be sure to direct anyone I can onboard to it... if I ever manage to onboard anyone 🤣
You've got the psychology of steem spot on m8.
I recently started trailing OCDB downvote trail as they're particularly going after bidbot abuse and I've been criticizing bidbots for nearly two years, so it kinda felt hypocritical not to use my free downvotes to action what I'd been saying. But, yes you've guessed it... I've got myself a revenge flag stalker.
I've followed your ethos with this, shrug and move on. Although the user has not gone after theycallmedan or any of the other larger accounts on that trail (I smell a cowardly custard 😂)... they've gone after little old me and another smaller SP steemian. But, despite their 100% downvote whacking $0.40 off my posts, I'm still happier than I was before, when every man and his dog could get away with devaluing steem by buying shit content up into trending.
It's something that takes a bit of effort to adjust to psychologically, but when you get your head round it, it's ok 🙂
Great post btw, worthy of the reward!
@raj808
Hey Rowan mate, haha thanks a lot for checking it out. Quite an important topic that needs to be covered and wanted to give it the respect it needed whilst trying to cover many viewpoints. Hopefully you can get more people on board, maybe I'll slowly but surely chip away at more Bluffer's Guides and have a comprehensive Steem Book/Blog Series to help newcomers (and even seasoned veterans) out.
I have had discussions with acidyo and I see what's going on. There really is no discriminating against anyone, it's just a blanket policy of downvoting any bought upvotes but I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect. New users will likely be horrified when they receive a downvote after doing something that was likely recommended - I lost count the amount of times I have seen buying votes being recommended to grow one's account to minnows and plankton. Hopefully reading this, that will change.
The way I see this whole thing is like an oscillatory graph, right now, we've overshot with downvotes and we might still nor be making our way back to the equilibrium line yet as knowledge about what the rewards pool is is still limited. That was the motivation of this post - to bridge the gap somewhat.
As always, appreciate the in depth response from you, that alone is like a whale upvote in my book and to get the raj808 seal of approval, great honour!
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Yeah, I personally think that they'll never do that due to the fact that those people who set up bidbots have huge stake (SP) of their own. I questioned theycallmedan on this one in a comment on one of his posts and he straight up said he's not playing the blame game. Translate that to mean, 'i won't attack the Bernies, markys and frystkens of this world because they have too much skin in the game.' (all people who run/ran bidbots)
And although I was angry with this attitude of basically letting them get away with what they've done to this place, I see the logic from a purely business perspective. Most of those people have closed down their bidbots or switched them to manual curation. If all of those people sold their steem, it would probably crash the price beyond recovery. So it's a fine line between trying to force them to do what is right, and using methods to remove their market that doesn't threaten their standing on steem lol.
And then there are intelligent people out there who see through these bullshit games of ego, PR and power and understand exactly what has gone on here on steem. So far as I'm concerned I've let it go, but I know who has benefited massively from the bidbots on steem... the owners!
But you have to be positive, newsteem and downvote trails are working slowly to clean things up. What I think the result could be is that we have a much more functioning proof of brain system when the next bull run hits. If that plays out things could be just as impressive price-wise as last time. Unfortunately, we're gonna lose some people in-between then and now.
This is the way I see it anyway. The EIP was always going to be a make it break move. Without it, steem would have died quickly. If Stinc stop their monthly sell off of hundreds of thousands of steem, everything could recover quickly in a parabolic market, and with all the development here steem could surprise the whole crypto world. We shall see 😉
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Good point about the big accounts, it makes sense really as to why they won't go after the source so the next best thing is go after the customers. Yes, there's only one winner in the bid bot game and that's the owners.
But hey, if they all sold their steem and brought the price down, I'm sure there'll be many people waiting in the wings to pick it up... like me! I'd continue buying up until prices started recovering again, which they will because we're still so early on in this game that a lot of things need to be tried out.
I've read on nonameslefttouse's post that this is rather like trying to re-build the damage caused by a massive illness over the last two years. The latest HF has been a vaccine that is giving the ecosystem some of the tools it needs to fight off the germs and then we'll hopefully be cured in time for the next bull run.
I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution! My account is so small my payouts could be wiped out by a 1% downvote from those I feel like downvoting. It seems to be a tool that only an elite group can use. The gnats (I prefer "gnats" to "mosquitoes") are hard to ignore even though they are harmless.
Yeah, it's a concern for sure. I don't blame you owasco. I've had some blowback from it the past few weeks I've been downvoting and someone tagged me on their post today calling me a thug.
Tbh I can't even bring myself to enter into the drama of explaining to this person how if I'm a thug for downvoting them, them they're a thief for using a bidbot. It's difficult because a lot of people don't understand the basic fact that the daily reward pool is a limited amount, so by them boosting their payouts using bidbots they're literally stealing from everyone who doesn't use them.
I've been on here for just over 2 years creating only high quality content and spent many depressed days because my 3000 word short story made a dollar or two. All this time my chances of getting honest, fair curation based on quality has been diminished by vote buyers as most of the whale steem power has been locked up delegating to bidbots. This is now changing, and I think it will level things out as time goes by.
This is why I have no regrets about following a downvote trail. If people don't want to learn how the reward mechanism works on steem, and want to continue stealing from everyone else, they deserve what they get. What's ironic is that those who are creating decent content would have a decent chance at higher payouts in the long term if they stopped using bidbots. I think there are only 4 or 5 bidbots left operating. Not sure if I'm right about that though.
These are just my thoughts on it all. I was getting ready to leave steem if the EIP didn't work. From what I can see so far, it's going in the right direction. Time will tell.
I'm not even sure what a bitbot is. I don't know if I'm using one. I know I never paid for upvotes, except sbi which I just started buying as a contest sponsor. Is sbi considered a bidbot?
Thanks for that explanation of the rewards pool and how it is affected by the bidbots.
I still have so much to learn! It doesn't help when big changes come along and pull the rug out from under me.
Haha, if you don't know what a bidbot is and you've never bought a vote you are safe ;-)
P.s. as nicky said in a perfect world the powers that be would go after the bidbot owners... and the people purchasing the votes wouldn't have to worry because their would be nowhere for them to purchase them, but we ain't in a perfect world... mores the pity.
SBI is safe owasco. I wouldn't worry too much about it all. It sounds like you have been doing exactly as I did on steem when I arrived and just acting in a decent way.
Far too many people on this platform have seen the exploits and ways to leach value and thrown the moral compass out of the window in the pursuit of money.
Just like the outside.
Hi @nickyhavey
Thank you for spending time writing this guide.
It is thoughtful and easy to read and explains a lot
You show great writing skills and are good at sharing your thoughts on how the system works.
I'm glad we got in touch and you're not one of those with a different agenda
I read a lot a day on the various posts that have to do with the essence of the case. I am amazed at many who just preach shit and leave comments to people they do not like and when people with big accounts do it and in addition use their power to give downvote it becomes on the wrong ground. Then they do it to harm people as much as possible.
I hope they with another agenda read your post and opened their eyes. If they could only think like you, the problem would be no problem
Thanks again for the post you wrote
Re-steemed
Heya @xpilar, thank you for checking it out and leaving great feedback.
I've appreciated our conversations about this whole topic and they have opened my eyes to things I didn't previously consider so thank you too!
Unfortunately there will always be bad actors in any system but if the majority of people have a civil discussion around some of those "grey areas" I mentioned then I'm sure we will be flying.
I don't think I'm on my own when I say we all want steem to succeed but there is still a way to go before the fog after hf21 clears.
Again, I'm really grateful we had the chance to meet on steem, hopefully next time it will be in a more positive situation 🙂
Thanks for the resteem too 😊
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thank you @nickyhavey for your nice feedback
Yes that's exactly why I shed light on this, I hope so too 👍
Good to see something like this, I really didn't want to write one!
Thanks for checking it out @slobberchops! It's been a tough 6 weeks being involved at the deep end and flash points with some of these issues and speaking to quite a lot of different groups - it has been very thought provoking and I hope that this blog can help everyone.
No more sleepless nights about it all moving forward I hope 😂
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Smiling whilst reading through. Nice post👍
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@abdex9 thanks so much for the awesome words, made me smile as well and appreciate you stopping by, have a great weekend hey 🍻 💪
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You're welcome. Have a wonderful weekend ✌
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This post is Steem Pope Approved!
Goodness, I didn't even realise there was a steem Pope! Haha, Thanks a lot for the approval 😁
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Yes.
There are two, actually. I am the self-appointed Steem Pope, and then someone else created an antipope, @steempope.
2018 actually. It's been going on for well over a year. lol
Well, time flies then 😀
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