Fight against SPAM: No more Votes on Posts older than 3.5 Days and an OFFER to UPVOTE-SERVICES!
Hello everybody,
Starting now - only Posts that are not older than 3.5 Days are eligible to be used for @smartsteem and @smartmarket to buy votes on.
If we detect that your post is older, your transfer will be refunded.
Why?
This change is based on @grumpycat's request to not allow Vote-Selling on posts older than 3.5 Days and the warning that Vote-Buyers would receive down-votes (loss of rewards) if they were buying from Vote-Sellers who are not conform with this rule.
While we are against the display of power through threatening with down-votes - we do believe that @grumpycat's request has solid grounds - since only posts that are not older than 3.5 Days are displayed on STEEMIT / BUSY & Co. through the main Trending and Hot Categories.
There are cases where older Posts are getting shown in lower-popularity tags but most of them after 3.5 Days, the up-vote is purely for profit generation. Which is not bad per se, but our primarily goal is to give users the possibility of publicity through buying up-votes.
Through this change we want to give our users the feeling and certainty of safety while using @smartsteem and @smartmarket.
We also want to use this post to mention that both @smartsteem and @smartmarket were developed from the ground up by @therealwolf and are thus completely customisable - even for future changes to STEEM(IT) through HardForks and/or community decisions!
Last but not least
In the beginning, the basic idea about @smartsteem was to build a platform for users who are whitelisted - proven to produce good content (no spam) - to be allowed to exclusively use it.
However, after months of development on the platform - the amount of big upvote-bots went from around 4 (the original few being randowhale, minnowbooster, buildawhale and also bellyrub) to over 20, at the launch of smartsteem - and now they are even more.
This created the problem of having a lot more competition and for users to have a lot more possibility from where they get their votes. After a few weeks of testing we decided to open up the platform for everyone - which was a great decision, as this allowed us to grow.
We still think that the Whitelistis a great idea - especially for users on STEEM who want to sell their votes via smartmarket but only to verified users.
However, the more experience we get with STEEM the more we think that it is more efficient to forbid bad-users (who produce SPAM-content - without investing time making it) to make STEEM a better place.
Problem: the Hydra
Now - the problem lies in the sheer amount of Bots which continue to support bad content - even if smartsteem bans all of spam-users.
Similar like a hydra - you cut one head and the next is growing.
That's why we had the idea to create a public list of users who are forbidden to use vote-bots. Like a codex of bot-owners.
Especially with services like @steemcleaners and @spaminator - this could help fight the fire by not allowing it to break out in the first place.
There is no need to downvote as much if those users aren't getting the possibility to upvote their SPAM-Posts.
What is SPAM?
SPAM doesn't mean that those posts which you personally don't like or think those person have invested not enough time into.
SPAM is when a user creates 1 or more posts every single day which are clearly copied from the internet - with a bare minimum amount of text.
But we need support
We can't do this alone.
If we would make smartsteem and smartmarket exclusive from tomorrow on - nothing would change in the grand scheme - as those Users who produce SPAM-Content would simply use other services.
So what we need is support and uniformity from bot-owners to say no to SPAM.
Especially with sites like the bottracker from @yabapmatt and @aggroed and their bot-hosting service, since they are already managing quite a few bots.
Your Feedback
So - what do you think about this?
Do you believe this would be a good way to fight SPAM on STEEM?
We know that it would be important that those people who select users for the blacklist - are doing this neutrally and accurately - otherwise it could be exploited by putting people on there for the wrong reasons.
But maybe we could create a system where multiple Votes are needed for a blacklist-entry.
Please tell us your thoughts about this!
What does smartsteem offer?
Bid-Bot through smartsteem - send URL as MEMO to @smartsteem - votes are every 2.4h - both SBD & STEEM accepted - check on bottracker for current status.
Buy Instant-Upvotes through smartmarket - profit guaranteed - send URL as MEMO to @smartmarket or go to smartsteem.com and use our own Tool. Both SBD & STEEM accepted. You will also see the currently available vote-values for smartmarket on smartsteem.com.
Sell your Votes with @smartmarket and earn profit with your voting-power (up to 98%) - you can enable it here: https://smartsteem.com/features
Delegate STEEMPOWER to @smartsteem and earn profit-shares of the bid-bot proportionate to your delegated amount. We pay out 90% of our profits! Go to https://smartsteem.com/sponsors and check out this post: https://steemit.com/steem/@smartsteem/guide-how-to-delegate-to-smartsteem-and-earn-profit-shares
Our amazing Sponsors who receive 90% of our bid-bot profits:
@doinglean - 9400 SP
@motoengineer - 5.000 SP
@drorion - 4000 SP
@decebal2dac - 1000 SP
@Holbein81 - 500 SP
@c0ff33a - 300 SP
@yanosh01 - 250 SP
@ohamdache - 100 SP
@jpederson96 - 212 SP
@marty-art 100 SP
@felander - 100 SP
@doqstrader - 90 SP
@vidafitnessveliz - 50 SP
@detlev - 50 SP
@haxmat - 50 SP
@yogesssh - 50 SP
@plushzilla - 50 SP
@gyrosean - 50 SP
@juanv - 40 SP
@braveheart29 - 20 SP
@chnorris - 18 SP
@danielwong - 15 SP
@fatkat - 10 SP
@reko - 10 SP
@baroen96 - 10 SP
@abuzenk - 10 SP
@here-could-be-your-name
Join us on discord
If you have any questions, feedback, want to collaborate with us or something else you want to tell us - come and join our discord! :)
Yes!
I think this is a great idea! I personally have been given the access by two groups to unvote posts. (I rarely use it, and when I do it is for clear abuse such as plagiarism.) I really don't like being the sole judge of what is and isn't spam when it comes to 'human' members or accounts that are not tied to spam rings.
I'm working on separating out my lists of spammers and will be making those lists available to bid-bot owners to add to their blacklists.
I'm also working on the idea of a blacklist of sorts for @steemcleaners. That is a bit more complicated since there are a number of accounts that have made simple mistakes or are reformed.
Whitelist vs Blacklist
You're right that a blacklist is easier to manage than a whitelist. I think both have their place. If a bid-bot has a large upvote I would like to see a white list for bids over a certain amount. This allows you to prevent someone from using the bid-bot to get a $100 upvote on a low quality post.
I think its a great idea. I didnt heard before much of smartsteem. Used it the first time and was really happy. It was one of the services they did what they promissed. Iam happy that you help to create good content and try to prevent scam. But please go more after the whales who misleading their power. When the heads growing you need to cut the body of the hydra.
You might need to reconsider the grumpy compliant due to unexpected consequences and change it when you deem to. First and foremost, grumpycat is not doing it out of the kindness of his heart. Steem blockchain has a record of that. Second, if he wants to be a strong armed vigilante, let him do it, the idea of a decentralized blockchain is consensus, not imposing self-righteousness. If one single account with million of dollars can arbitrarily create a law (suggestion, recommendation, advice are fine), then we are no longer decentralized.
In term of smartsteem itself, I can see 3 problems.
You're not curbing the spam, you're just making them pushing it out in higher frequency. Instead of having a 6 days period, now they're doing in 3.5 days.
You either need to actively filter spam for your bots or good content providers will suffer due to higher activities from the spammers. Spams are plenty, small but good content providers can only compete bidding in so many rounds. They'll eventually get outbid and discouraged.
Last and most important, having a white/black list will eat into your time regardless. Because now you are the gateway to upvote bots, you are the one who get spammed.
I know it's easy to criticize instead of coming up with a solution. I think your solutions are valid but I also think you shouldn't just focus on preventing spam. Another way to reduce spam is to reward good content. A stealth, unannounced front/back runner who would reward post after reviewed might be what you need to differentiate smartsteem from other upvote bots. This helps in 2 ways: You only have to deal with those who use your service instead of reviewing every single account history. You can focus physical effort on 10 posts per 5 hours period, find a few good ones, reward them for it.
If you can set smartsteem as the standard for quality content upvote bot, I think other bot owners would likely follow suit.
I totally agree with you. In the longrun this would be the best but for a start I like what they do now.
If I find it great to control spam and want to win SBD easily.
This is a good idea to curb spaming
Because some steemians might want to outsmart the community and the system by waiting for the last hour/day before request to buy vote thereby made it difficult to detect as spamming by steemcleaners. Let all the bot managers take care of this idea and we will have a better community and the good and original content creator will have their ways to the top
Appreciate works and very excited to be it's part and help you sir love to be it's member
I disagree with your definition of "spam". Spam is unlimited intrusive adverting. Copied text is plagiate. I see a spam in steem comments. For example, bot comments are spam!
I think a lot of us have adopted a broader definition of spam as it pertains to steemit. With the UI and tag system we currently have I consider plagiarism and other forms of abuse spam as they flood the blockchain & feeds with unwanted posts.
@steemcleaners comment
I guess a closer definition would be web spam:
just heard about this / going to try it out /peace and thank you / new follower
what you think about videos spam? for example right now 50% of bids in appreciator,upme,buildawhale are 1 video random (funny ,recipe or any other) from youtube without a text and just 20 posts per day like this. I hope you will fight against this too