@SteemCleaners Useful, Fallacy or Wasted effort?
Over the last couple of days, I have taken issue with a couple of users that have made it their mission on STEEMIT to repeatedly post uninformative stolen video links hundreds of times over thereby blatantly abusing the use of tags and hurting the overall community here at STEEMIT.
For quick reference the users are: @labony @melindaa
My original rants about the issue can be found here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@pawsdog/steemians-need-to-downvote-more
https://steemit.com/life/@pawsdog/hey-you-reputation-50-or-whales-a-call-to-arms
So I did what a blogger and person with hopeful interest in the long term survival and improvement of STEEMIT would do; I wrote about it.
In fact my two original posts and now a third that will be my last about the same issue make me feel as though I am spamming and beating a dead horse. Regardless I did learn of few things and make some observations a result of my efforts that I would like to share.
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. It does little to dissuade them and point of fact costs me SP that I could more effectively utilize promoting worthwhile posts. This, however; is a double edged sword to some extent, as I enjoy cruising the new tag to curate and throw my .01 cent vote at promising content when I find it, but certainly miss quite of few promising articles that have been pushed off the list and into obscurity by users rapid firing spam posts and abusing tags.
The community is for the most part helpful, supportive and engaging though seems to be cursed with a nagging case of apathy. I say this not to slight the STEEMIT community as a whole, its just a typical human condition that individuals for the most part do not want to get involved, prefer to remain on the sidelines and/or are afraid to stand out. It is not a shocking discovery that people, are for the most part sheep-like in their behavior and prefer peace and harmony over conflict and discord. The problem arises when our desire to keep things harmonious allows an idea, community, etc. to slowly slide in a negative direction over a span of time due to our own inaction. The inevitable result is always that when it gets to a certain point wherein the negative aspects have become such that they are affecting the entirety of the community the sheep will start going BAA, BAA, BAA, "why didn't someone do something before it got to this point?" Failing to shoulder any of the blame for the situation they now find themselves in as a result of their previous inaction. I suppose we will just have to wait until STEEMIT gets to the point where post meaningful content proves an exercise in futility as it will be instantaneously swallowed by spam posts. To the point that new users are so turned off by their inability to get noticed and fight the tsunami of spam in the introduceyourself section, new etc. that they simple leave the platform for greener pastures or endeavors that prove to be more financially sustainable.
Many users suggested commenting on the offending posts, in much the same way the Cheetah would. This would alert new users that this is likely spam, stolen content and has provides no benefit to the community. The effectiveness of this is marginal at best and as you will see in my next point can be viewed negatively in some instances by those that are either inept or to lazy to properly investigate an issue.
Many users suggested the use of the @Steemcleaners tag, as they are rumored to be our knights in shining armor, coming to our rescue to banish spammers into the dark and unforgiving wasteland of a STEEMITless world. A secretive bunch little is known about them save they have identified their leader as @anyx, the majority of the rest of our band of heroes tends to fearfully lurk in obscurity for fear of retaliation and flag wars. Not very knightly in my eyes, more lurk in the shadows Assassin-esque if you ask my opinion. Regardless, they do walk among us, and apparently attempt to make an effort. Whether or not their inability to curb the systemic plague that is quickly consuming our community is due to lack of manpower, lack of ability, lack of intestinal fortitude, interest or the sheer volume of the adversary they face remains to be seen. Whatever the reason, I believe some changes need to be made and perhaps a more aggressive approach needs to be taken. I was also somewhat put off to find the chat channels list on the steemcleaners page are either unmanned or nonexistent. This could be a typo on that page or lack of manpower.
Apparently the only way to properly report abuse is through use of this page: https://steemcleaners.org/abuse-report/ The actual effectiveness of it I have as of yet not determined as I just utilized it this morning. The use of the tag in the comments section will likely go unnoticed so you must be proactive in your efforts and go the extra mile to report abuse of the platfrom. This would be inline with the information listed on the @Steemcleaners page stating:
"Due to the high volume of abuse on steemit and bugs in mentions those mentions of @steemcleaners most likely will not be received and investigated."
While I understand that I may be overstepping the boundaries of my current STEEMIT socioeconomic class as a serf and complaining to some extent about the lords of the land. I'm simply making observations based on my experiences thus far. To that end I combined the suggestions of 3 & 4 and commented on one such offending post while simultaneously utilizing the @steemcleaners tag. I, but a lowly serf, posting signs, and shouting to the castle walls that bandits were pillaging the fields of grain. Wrongly clinging to the misguided hope that the gates would open, the knights would come forth and banish these deplorables from our lands. Instead the knight, or at least one masquerading as one @logic, came to my hut, admonished me for speaking beyond the limits of my peasant class, kicked my dog, stole my bread and took my peasant wife back into the castle with him to ravage.
See post and comments here: https://steemit.com/world/@melindaa/most-embarrassing-snapchats-ever-12-17#@logic/re-pawsdog-re-melindaa-most-embarrassing-snapchats-ever-12-17-20171218t141743624z
Now can I definitively say that @logic is a member of the @steemcleaners secret society? no, but based on his commenting behavior https://steemit.com/@logic/comments it would lead one to the opinion that he does have some association with them.
For what reason he chose to put me on blast and not put for the minimal effort required to actually investigate the abuse or respond to my comments is unknown. Perhaps that is the challenge we face as peasants, and much like society, those in power will rarely lend an ear to causes of the common man so long as the microcosm that is their existence goes unchanged and their pockets are continually filling. While I can be abrasive, it is a style that has worked well for me throughout life as I am the one that will call a situation FUBAR even if it goes against popular opinion. I have no issues standing out, or making myself known regardless the short term consequences as in the end it inevitably trends up toward the positive.
Not to put @logic on blast but in perusing his blog he primarily resteems and curates, both of which are beneficial to the community even if minimally so compared to original unique and engaging content. I say this based on the assumption that without meaningful original content there would be nothing to curate or resteem. In the last four month I believe I see 4 original articles posted by @logic. So perhaps he does not truly understand the frustration that truly creative authors face when they consistently work day in and day out to create new and engaging content for their fellow Steemians, only to see it diluted into invisibility by thousands of irrelevant, content-less, pointless spam posts of stolen images and video links.
That said he apparently does have a good heart and on some level wants to the those deserving reap the rewards of their good deeds for the community.
Perhaps worthiness is case by case, or relevant to the scope of issue or dependent upon whether or not he has had his morning coffee; I am unsure. Perhaps he was just having a bad day, was a little off, and chose to kill the messenger as opposed to investigate the larger issue. Regardless I am certainly open for debate and discourse with him about the issue and how he can justify the posting of 1500 content deprived stolen Youtube videos by one account over the course of 30 days.
I am hopeful that our fair knight sees this as an opportunity to engage with and learn about the peasants that inhabit the land surrounding the castle. That opposed to coming out once again, only this time to set my hut on fire.
In conclusion I am unsure what the proper solution to the spam plague is. I am sure that it is not putting reporters on blast, and I am likewise sure that more aggressive methods need to be explored permaban, ip ban, wallet forfeiture for ill gotten spam gains etc. The reality is that any great platform that truly succeeds needs aggressive and definitive policing of those that endeavor to abuse the benefits it can provide. In doing so, will some people get their feelings hurt, will some folks unfairly get lumped into the round up due to the nature of the content they post or its perceived lack of value; sure.. That is the way of things, in that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and the overall long range goals of the the STEEMIT platform as a place to find unique, creative and engaging content should come first. The better the content, the more unique and returning visitors, the higher the SERP results, and the better of the larger community will be.
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.
https://steemit.com/steemcleaners/@steemcleaners/steemcleaner-report-for-december-15-2017#@patrice/re-pawsdog-re-steemcleaners-steemcleaner-report-for-december-15-2017-20171218t215232643z
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.
#steemcleaners-public
Discord
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.
It is weird that when you mention a user they don't get a notification at all, which really limits the ability to flag someone or get their attention.
It always astounds me when admins, CEOs, politicians don't take advice from the ground more often... I understand you could get lost in the wave of noise if you appear to be listening... but one of the greatest things about Elon Musk as a leader is that he'll deliberately read and resolve issues with his customers. That is incredible for a company, let alone a CEO.
At this point, I'm confident that if we don't find resolution with this spam problem soon, the platform will be as worthless as a well-maintained Myspace account. Either that or we'll keep working away to become whales and fix this problem from the inside.
I agree, and what I find even more egregious is the absolute and total lack of consistency combined with an inability to admit when one is wrong.. go here: https://steemit.com/world/@melindaa/most-embarrassing-snapchats-ever-12-17#@logic/re-pawsdog-re-melindaa-most-embarrassing-snapchats-ever-12-17-20171218t141743624z you can see the convo that I'm having with an apparent @steemcleaners member. He just seems bullheaded, and basically apathetic or inept. I'm not sure, but I still cannot understand how 1500+ and counting videos stolen from youtube and spammed in here do not constitute abuse.
It's pretty simple really. I have no interest in posting videos now as I no that they will just get swallowed up by bullshit like that that is occurring there. Whats the point to put in the effort if some dickhead is looking to make a penny here, a penny there by posting 1000's of videos under one tag and essentially diluting and destroying the category through dilution. Also there is no point to bring it up as the powers that be, I don't even know what to say in that regard.. It's pretty blatantly obvious what is occurring..
@logic basically said he doesn't care about the thousands and thousands of videos clogging up the tags... he only cares about the occasional video that users use bots on to get a large portion of the reward pool.
Okay, fine, if that's the @steemcleaners scope, then there's not much we can do about it... but then something else is needed some sort of @tagcleaner or something? @cheetah should be commenting on all of these videos, but doesn't get to everything and doesn't actually do much, just leaves a comment so other users could flag.
The @boxmining videos make quite a lot, and I believe it is the creator Michael who is putting these in (he's talked about Steem a couple of times) but I don't actually have any proof. Someone else could be doing it and making more money than Michael might be on YouTube. That, would be infuriating.
I appreciate your effort even tho it seems to go nowhere. Not sure why the logic guy said your posts seemed like spam when you explained everything so well. We'll just have to get super powers. Since Steemit is still in Beta phase, maybe some programmer will figure out a solution before it goes out to the masses?
Maybe I don't know, I tried my best to make an eloquent point in regards to that type of conduct which hurts steemit users by filling categories with useless garbage in the hopes of making a penny here and a penny there. As I explained to him, as an actual content creator there is no way I would make a post and label it video as it will just get swallowed up in the garbage. When potentially valuable users start making decisions not to post content based on the abusive actions of others... Well at the point it is time for someone to pull their head out of their ass and stop acting all high and mighty. Especially when they are the one clearly in the wrong. As of yet, he has yet to explain to me in any from how 1500 videos of garbage is not spamming or tag abuse...I suppose it goes back to the thing about folks being afraid to step up, or hurt someones feelings.. oh well. I will keep banging away, but I'm seeing now some of the issues with STEEMIT and why new authors would find the platform discouraging..
We've discussed it before... but there are so many easily programmable solutions to this as well. C'mon Steemit Devs...
I know right.. exchanges can ban you into nothingness and freeze your funds at will. I would not object to a similar policy for serial spammers.
Ha. I'm literally going through that right now. I bought some Steem a week ago in Bittrex to buff up my account... but you can't move anything out until you're "verified". They claim 10 minutes wait time, but it's been a few hours and Redditors claim it could be 30 days.
Be more like Bittrex Steem!
Also, I thought you needed a phone number to get a Steem account, how are people creating all these spam accounts?
yeah, I'm glad I got verified there eons ago with my id etc...
Great post that really covered a lot. While this is a pretty serious topic, I enjoyed reading the bit about
I really laughed. As a "minnow" that is an absolute perfect way of describing our efforts to try to stop the spam posts. He mentions that it's only one cent, but in reality, it's not one sent. It's one hundredth of an SBD. If 1 SBD is at $13 then it's giving away 13 cents every 5 minutes to spam bots. Makes for a decent automatic dollar at the end of the day.
While "flag" brigades seem to be discouraged, I think it should be encouraged for instances like this. Problem is, how effective is flagging one post 100 times by 100 whales if the next 100 are going to go unflagged?
Good point on the math and if you see my comment above to @fingolfin you will see what I'm talking about in that regard and why I view it so dimly and I why I think it hurts the community.
I used to post every day for a long time, so I well know your frustration about YT video spam.
It's not in our scope as we don't have whale community support to fight that. Many consider such posting acceptable and if we fought it, we would be accused of content moderation/censorship.
Especially since "4 post per day" limit was removed in one of the hard forks couple of months ago.
That's it.
Check my response above to @fingolfin, I acknowledge your comment and covered my thoughts on the issue in great detail above and don't want to spam copy/paste that long of a comment. :)