RE: @SteemCleaners Useful, Fallacy or Wasted effort?
I haven't caught up on the entire conversation with logic so until I do I won't comment on that.
I did respond to your comment on the @steemcleaners report I posted earlier.
Flagging spammers as a general user without GOD POWER or sizable SP seems to to be ineffective at best and for the most part an outright futile effort.
Even with 100k SP @spaminator cannot handle all the spam. I stick to removing payouts within the last 12 hours. At some point they give up and either leave or create a new account.
I'm not a fan of 100% automated solutions. I check accounts to feed to the bots. The spam accounts you mentioned have been low on my list of priorities as they are just a few and out in the open for anyone to flag. I've been focusing on those who are draining the reward pool with hiding comments in old posts or this guy:
http://steemit.com/@viktor1959
Who has thousands of accounts and voting in collusion.
You can find me in chat if you'd like to chat about fighting spam.
It does seem to be an epidemic with no clear solution as of yet. Luckily we are only in Beta so there is still sufficient time to make changes. As i stated, I think that in some form or fashion, more aggressive action will have to be taken to weed these knuckleheads out; I'm not sure of the effectiveness of IP bans, or just adding into the TOS that a committee can simply freeze accounts for eternity if they are determined to be spamming. It seems all the rage with exchanges so I cannot see why STeemit could not accomplish something similar. Sure a few folks will get screwed over, that is the nature of big business, just provide an appeals process with and say a committee of 3 that can decide whether or not to release an account. I'm just shooting from the hip here. But as I said we are in BETA so I'm hopeful that positive changes will be made as we continue to work the bugs out.
I understand your frustration but steemcleaners isn't the solution for every problem. The people who created Steemit wanted a decentralized platform where people couldn't be censored. There is literally nobody who works for steemit that monitors content or even has the ability to close accounts, IP ban, etc.. Everything is left in the hands of the community to police itself.
Steemcleaners exists because of the good will of the people. It is just a group of users who got tired of seeing some of the blatant abuse and decided to get together to fight it in some way. Without community support we wouldn't be able to do what we do and because of that we have to be objective. Originally we did try to go after people just posting youtube videos without adding any original text or thoughts and got a lot of community push back from it. The problem is that it is too subjective, where do you draw the line? If someone posts 1 video, is that ok? We would have to pick an arbitrary number and try to enforce it and that is too much like making a set of rules policing what kind of content you can post. So long as the person posting the videos isn't falsely claiming that they actually made them then we let it go.
Not sure thats the answer you want to hear but I am at least trying to provide a little insight into the thinking behind these decisions. Some steemcleaners members choose to remain private but others are out in the open. I personally don't hide my association and don't consider us some shadowy faceless organization. Feel free to drop by in chat or message me and I'd be happy to chat further about any questions you might have.
I can certainly see your point. That said, I think that we have to look at the overall good of the community and what destination we have in mind for STEEMIT as a platform. While the concept of a UTOPIAN STEEMIT society wherein we live a state of perfect happiness and fulfillment or maybe anarchist would be better as it advocates self-governed societies seems to be a good idea; it unfortunately has a long established history of not working. I like the communal dream of STEEMIT and the image that we as STEEMIANS we are a combined collective consciousness much like ants all working toward the same goal. That said even Ants need the first ant to make a decision for the rest to follow, and a defined hierarchy in order for the colony to survive; worker Ants, soldier ants, gatherers, those tending to the queen, those tending to the eggs etc.
A platform wherein we are paralyzed by the fear of backlash that morphs into an inability to act is destined for decline. As I stated in my original article above, it is to be expected that there will be backlash, that a few innocent people or those that walk the line be creative and copy will take it hit. That is just the way it is, so long as the larger community thrives then that is the cost of doing business.
In regards to videos specifically, I think the current inability to act upon the issue is a reflection of society. Is Catlyn Jenner a man or a woman? Pretty obvious to me, has a wiener = a dude.. I don't care how he/she/it feels inside, he is biologically a man. He wants to wear dresses and paint his nails, cool.. have at it your a grown up... do what you want to do.. but don't expect me to suddenly redefine my inner understanding of biology to suit you. I can't suddenly identify as a 5 year old and expect you to call me a kid and get a discounted kids meal at restaurant. The same applies here, we are failing to call a spade a spade or simply call something what it is for fear of back lash or that we may hurt someones feelings etc.
If you post 1500+ videos from Youtube that you did not create, that do not contain any content simply for the sake of making a penny here or there you are spamming. You add nothing to the community and in fact hurt it quite severely. There is also the somewhat precarious issue of making a profit from the works of others that will at some point come up when the wrong video is posted here, someone makes a few bucks and someone with horsepower (record label, media mogul) etc get's pissed about it.
STEEMIT to me is a place where one can find unique, new and engaging content; the emphasis being on unique. As without unique content created by its members it's nothing more than a search engine to regurgitate links, videos or stuff I can find elsewhere. Also in order for STEEMIT to survive it needs GOOGLE, as does pretty much ever other platform. It needs to rank highly in the SERPS, it needs its articles to show up when someone searches for a topic. I know I rank first on hundreds of pages for things related to websites I operate. STEEMIT needs organic traffic to keep interest, members, and new money coming through the doors. GOOGLE takes a somewhat dim view on copied content and ranks the pages accordingly.
That aside and just using common sense. If I want to numb my brain watching generic videos, I'm going to Youtube as is the rest of the free world for the most part.
But onto how it hurts the platform. I see it as such. Those 1500 and growing by the hour videos that were posted have done nothing but potentially pushed down or erased 1500 unique new videos created by STEEMIT users in the hopes of building a following. I have to examine my own feelings on the issue. That said, the way it stands now, I would not waste the time to produce a video for STEEMIT, introduction, or otherwise unless I already had a substantial following of 2000 or more. Why would I? Whats the point? It would be a total waste of effort and time as I know that before it could potentially gain any traction, attract users to engage with me etc. It will be gone from visibility within 45 minutes do the the continual abuse of the video tag by accounts such as the one I mentioned above.
Now you as a steemcleaner have to ask yourself, when is a problem a problem? When the actions of one user or a few engaging in a pattern of abuse are negatively influencing the decisions of other potentially more creative users. More creative users that would actually benefit the platform through content creation, higher SERP results, more visitors, more STEEM Dollars for all . Take a second and read through my blog, I can write, I create good, solid, unique content that is only posted here at STEEMIT. Content that will at some point, once indexed catch unique visitors through the SERPS'. Content that generally inclines users to interact with me and I with them. I answer all replies and am for the most part an up and coming STEEMIAN whom puts the overall needs of the platform above my short term goals. I look at the end game. Sure its fun to write articles and make a penance of what I do trading, but as an investor I am currently cautiously bullish on the platform, going a bit more bearish everyday as I learn more about it's lack of leadership and policing to some extent. Looking at the end game, I have a vested interest in the platform becoming a social media hub as that will make what I do (writing and engaging here) profitable as well as entertaining.
In order for that to occur, strict guidelines as to what constitutes solid original STEEMIT benefiting content will need to be established and adhered too. Those that cannot due to nefarious intentions or lack of ability will have to be culled from the ranks. I understand that this is a social media site, I understand that some content is ehhhh.. at best and that is o.k. as long as it is original then I say let it stand. Even if someone cannot write to any appreciable degree and posts pictures with captions of their daily activities; let it stand so long as it is original and adds benefit to the platform. I come across content on STEEMIT all the time that I don't like, or feel is of minimal benefit, but if it is original then even minimal benefit is a benefit; as such it must be allowed to stand.
However when I come across articles that are just stolen videos like the subject above or a conglomeration of news links with nothing else, then that is of no benefit and must be culled from the ranks. My take is that if a user is not capable of creating something original, and debases themselves to simply aggregating links, or stolen videos then we as a STEEMIT community don't need them. As a business you have to screen your customers just as customers have to screen a business. Cut them out, tell them its not you its me.. and set them adrift for the betterment of the long term goal and success of the enterprise.
There is a certain issue that I seem to have with the term culling users. Apart from that, I totally agree with you. Decentralization brings problems and this is one example. Not that I don't want spammers to go away. I do, but many of these spammers are just bots. You also can't stop users that may get culled from creating a new account. I think that a possible solution is some kind of universal blacklist of users to mute but again this would still be monitored or run by users and would probably require yet another bot to help automate some processes. Once your account is on the blacklist, your accounts Steemit career is as good as over. It shouldn't be easy to accidentally end up on this list either. Especially if you make a few mistakes. This is where automation and bots could be an issue. Problem is that legit users would have to come across said list to mute bad apples. This is a difficult problem to solve. I just think that being able to remove users or accounts might also hurt the decentralized aspect. I would be interested in how a strict guideline would be enforced though. This strict guideline should be effortless to follow if you're posting your own thoughts.