RE: The Number One Fix to Improve Steem's Chances for Mainstream Adoption
Bidbots are anti-social. Those are advertisers selling "visibility" while in reality; the operators and all those who delegate their SP to the bidbot are being paid to look away.
This was once called the "attention economy" and people are constantly talking about how the bidbots are becoming a problem; and nobody is paying attention to them.
These people cannot socialize with robots. They want actual eyes on their work, not 1000 eyes concentrated into one vote that isn't even worth the stated value beside their post. People have $50 worth of rewards next to their post and they don't even earn it. A massive portion of the reward pool dished out daily doesn't even go to these members who have it placed beside their work.
Hardly anyone is coming around to talk to them. The money seems fake and so do many of the members leaving comments. The actual feeling of being "rewarded" goes far beyond money and many of these people are being robbed of that experience. That experience existed at one time, before bidbots, and I know that because I was here enjoying it. I witnessed the negative anti-social impact of these bidbots since their inception and every step along the way.
That actual feeling of being rewarded and appreciated was one of the main contributing factors that kept me around for so long and I am damn lucky to still be one who gets to experience it to this day. That took hard work and dedication to maintain but many of these other members are not being afforded the same opportunities and ladder to climb. Many got duped into thinking this place was about easy money, they seem to think all they have to do is post and purchase their rewards to win, and they don't even give themselves a chance to learn about how hard work and dedication is a requirement if one wishes to succeed here. They get stuck between a rock and hard place and the anti-social elements caused mainly by these bidbots do not provide them with the incentive to stick around. They're performing in front of empty seats; and the audience that didn't even show up is earning more than the performer.
I politely disagree when you state bidbots are not a problem. They are a problem, but not the only problem. Maybe your cheeseburger will help. I hope everyone can put their heads together, combine everything we've learned here on Steemit so far through trial and error, and come to some sort of healthy solution that of course not everyone will agree with; but hopefully at least steer us all in the right direction.
You're right, it was part of the title I forgot to remove. Bidbots are a symptom of the dysfunctional economy. What I really meant was paying to get higher ranking like advertising. Now it's an issue because the cost is covered by the inflation, and even worse, with potential profit as well so it's at the expense of the network. Which all could likely be remedied as per proposal. Can't tell people to stop using or operating the bidbots, but the econs will find a new equilibrium that'll make curation groups more favourable, I think :)
I see now, you edited that portion out. They call it advertising. Mainstream media caught wind of our "advertising" and one of the first things they asked about was the obvious low quality paid programming style spam on our trending page. All that money that went to "advertising" shot us all in the foot.
The advertisers can have their money as well. Simply mark the posts using bots as advertisements, take them off the trending page and place them in the promoted tab. Then those who want to spend money on advertising can then pay ME, the content producer, to place a banner on my blog that leads to their promotion. Something logical like that works and there are far more winners. We see it on Youtube working great, daily.
I do see the potential there as well.
Great solution you've just proferred regarding bidbots, @nonameslefttouse.
I was a bit embarassed when the Bloomberg interviwer asked Ned Scott about how Steemit Inc. intends to solve the current problems of crappy content on the the trending page. Hopefully, most of the solutions would be considered by steem witnesses and core team members of Steemit Inc. for implementation soon.
@maryfavour.
Steemit was mentioned on the Joe Rogan Podcast as well and while watching on Youtube, I saw our trending page; along with over 1 million other viewers. We dodged a bullet that day. The content at the top was genuine and respectable. Two days before that podcast, the content was complete trash that involved members bickering and acting extremely unprofessional. Joe Rogan is a comedian and had he seen the trolling, there's no way he would have been able to resist making a few jokes.
This publicity is important. We need to get it right. We live in a time when cryptocurrency ads are being banned everywhere. One simple loophole to get around that censorship is to advertise Steemit, with no mention of cryptocurrency or any of the other wording they've deemed unfit for advertising such as "profit". That gives the STEEM blockchain another distinct advantage over all of the others; but not if people continue to fail at taking Steemit's potential seriously.
Steemit, Censorship Proof, Transparent Public Forum. I pitched this idea to the promo tag, nobody wanted to hear that, seems everyone in the Promo tag is high on @stephenkendal and mostly all about "MONEY!" and prematurely onboarding everyone under that empty promise of Making it BIg, instead of consciously stepping into the momentum of Facebook censoring as it's happening before the buffoons in Congress.
Money ain't gonna buy you friends, nor will money speak the truth on your behalf, and money ain't gonna reason how can you have any online or otherwise community without Moderation, fuck me even TPB has moderation AND curation.
I thoroughly enjoy your posts when I catch them and I couldn't agree more with your bid bot assessment @nonameslefttouse, I may be biased after all my proposal was to give even more power to the POOR bastards that hold nothing but REP but ain't anyone want to hear that, the only noise made was from @pharesim when he chimed in to tell me that REP doesn't mean shit. Well then I guess my entire proposal for a separate flagging system is shit, right @pharesim? JK, if I could give a fuck all about some nonsense like REP doesn't count as if code is some mythical creature that needs to be tamed.
I had seen it with my own eyes a couple months back when @dantheman told @the-ego-is-you that they were working on a separate flagging system apart from upvoting, and that was when I knew I had hit the nail on the head so hard that nobody could get a cat's claw under it and will remain there even if Stinc tries to scrape the entire thing because I realize one simple thing a long time ago: you cannot moderate with money as that is the equivalent of giving justice based on people's pockets.
https://steemit.com/blockchain/@dantheman/re-the-ego-is-you-re-dantheman-the-problem-with-byzantine-generals-20170130t142618756z
Insert whatever euphemism you want for shit coming back to bite you in the anus because @ned, ain't any SMT gonna solve moderation and ain't any moderation going to happen here without implementing something similar to what I suggested a year and some ago, which unbeknownst to me at the time that the man behind it all had divulged a telltale of being on top of the issue I shouldn't have even bothered to contemplate not even a month or so later, had he not ended up leaving this project. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that as long as anyone can spam and abuse the platform, wealthy or poor, the rest of the world will shake their heads at the car without brakes which is the perfect analogy for this contraption.
Don't worry, to put the reality of consequences into everyone I plan on revisiting my post from last year and including some caveats, such as Restoring/Recovering Steem through the flagging system, either that was lost (poloniex will get the boot at the curve) or hacked or misplaced, and outright freezing accounts and founds (poloniex will get the boot to the curb, along with hijackass and all other spammers and name sitting assholes @bah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and not only disabling accounts from spamming (@noganoo and his alter-dimensional trifecta of @gullible, @TIMOM and @notgayporn).
Wild West mothertruckers, if you plan on being a pathetic non-thought in your actions, with your stake, reap the consequences, because @dantheman when he said "Thanks. I can tell you that we are working to separate moderation (flagging) from curating (voting). This issue will be improved in time." to @the-ego-is-you's flagging appart from downvoting comment it was LOUD and CLEAR the age old issue of wealth dictating justice and not the blind justice we have.
Yeah, justice is a harsh word for this crowd to stomach, keep dreaming that anyone will enjoy this ride anymore once the masses dawn on the horizon with their no holds barred spam, plagiarism and outright abuse (can you scrub child porn from being automatically uploaded once dragged into the comment section and the comment not posted yet the link be used regardless? amazon doesn't care..)
I share the same opinion with you @nonameslefttouse on bidbots.
I joined last July and there were no bidbots and Steemit was awesome and i would feel good when people interact with my posts!
I could really feel rewarded for my content and btw its an awesome experience,however little the money besides the post was.
You could know a real human being read,upvoted and commented on your post,i felt encouraged.
The actual feeling if being rewarded is really now being missed by the new people as you say.
Its really rewarding to start from zero and grow on Steemit,make 10 posts and earn a combined zero,work harder and earn as you grow on the platform!
I have a challenge with the new people i bring to Steemit in Uganda(i am a Steemit promoter).
Whenever i tell them of the organic way of growth of commenting and starting small,most of them do not want to believe.
In fact am shocked when many ask me about Bid-Bots! I tell them to try as much as possible to grow organically as it is more rewarding than getting votes on a post which are all bidbots!
Anyway many people here are for the money(which is okay),but to me and may be others,we feel happpy when real people read and comment on our posts.
I also like the idea of 50/50 payment....it will make more people start reading and discovering more great content.
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