Putting a Stop to "Masturposting" - A Solution is Currently Being Discussed and Why You Should Consider Being More Judicious With Your Posts
It doesn't take a long time to be a member of the community around here before you notice endless feeds of copy/paste posters that leech original content off other websites or other posters pumping out seemingly hundreds of posts per day. Yes, masturposting can feel really good at first to get your thoughts out there and earn a quick buck or two, but if you do it enough you should probably just feel dirty.
There is currently a five minute posting rate limit which is awesome, and the community does band together with flagging posts to help with reputation. But very smart people out there are figuring out how to game this system, and are earning money hand over fist with their masturposting actions. And, why not? Every single post put out into the steem ecosystem has a chance of going viral and earning a very high reward. Users are splitting their risk across many posts, hoping for the generous whale upvote.
Tales from the Git
Thankfully a solution to this is being discussed currently by the devs over on the steem github, specifically Daniel Larimer (@dan)(bytemaster). You can check out the entire conversation here, but below are some highlights:
Changes are potentially on the horizon, and that is awesome!
Look, everyone is here for the attention economy, it is what sets steem apart from other social platforms. This doesn't mean though it should tolerate community abuse. If this proposal is committed, spam posters would have their earnings capped and the information market would have to adjust to reflect these changes.
Good post. I think one or two posts a day is a bit restricting. Maybe 4 or 5 would be more reasonable. Either way, I think members should use the MUTE button more. Spammers will have their voices fall on deaf ears as they reach a smaller audience, the more they spam. Another thing I think would be very helpful would be to make the flag icon more conspicuous, so people use it more, and so people will be alerted to bullshit posts more readily.
Posting limits based on amount of steem power
Agree, it's not unreasonable for a blogger to blog 3 or 4 times in a day.
For instance I usually post once a day, even less. However today, I spontaneously posted twice. I had something to say , relevant to today so I said it (the @katecloud situation, the STEEM dollar price situation). I plan to do my daily Chronicle tonight also. I guess I could shoe horn everything I want to say into one post. However some content warrants standing alone.
I agree that Spammers need to be addressed, however one post a day is too far the other way in my opinion.
This was my gut reaction too from reading Daniel's comments. I don't want a "quality post" variable to cut earnings in half just because I felt like making two posts. There has to be a happy medium.
I've no doubt in my mind the system will be refined to the point that spam and bullshit becomes less and less visible. Quite impressed how good of a job it's doing already, considering how new it is.
some thoughts:
The system probably needs to focus more on rewarding quality bloggers (blogs) over rewarding single content. Should center more around crediting the blog account for number of subscriptions, kind of like Utube subscriptions. However In this case the blogger would received an automatic number of (weekly??) up votes based on the number of subscribers and the SteemPower that those subscribers hold.
The second thing is that there should be a more granular system of up- voting.....something like High, Medium, Low. This will insure that the up votes apply more appropriately. Right now the up votes are binary. Ether you get the vote or you don't. However quality content is judged on a number of varying perimeters. ie.... the quality of information provided, the time and effort invested, the intent of the blogger. Therefore curators should have the ability to award, for example 25%, 50%, or 100% of a vote. This will help to more equitably and precisely allocate the organizations resources.
All that said. Steemit management is an A class team. I'm sure they are working on some excellent solutions.
Happy to know a solution is being discussed to solve the nightmare that is currently happening on the steemit/new timeline
I agree
Right. Quality over quantity is always the best approach.
Thanks for the sneak preview!
You are right, quality, creativity and innovation should be encouraged here! But I agree with the posts that maybe two or three would maybe get the full reward and perhaps it diminishes below that. However I still like your model even if it was just 1. My only question would be that, you can post quality content and if it isn't noticed but 1 is, then that really effects you. It's hit and miss sometimes with posts if that makes sense. This model works under the assumption that each quality post get's exactly what it is worth, rather than the harsh reality that sometimes a quality post isn't noticed for some reason. I hope that makes sense?
Well, to be clear it's Daniel's model, I'm just reporting on it to steem as it could change some malicious behaviors. I do agree with you that some quality posts do not always get what they are worth, but it is a free market after all.
Sorry yeh my bad, his model. Very tired I apologise!
Leave it to @dan to think of logical solutions to these problems. Perhaps we need a "Posting Power" metric to go along with "Voting Power"
Fantastic to hear the developers are trying to solve all problems, EVEN THOUGH they are potentially hurting themselves!
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. How are they hurting themselves?
I like your post a lot. You may be interested in mine.
https://steemit.com/money/@mrzazaful/mainstream-media-influence-in-steemit