Steem Comment Contest Script: Released on GitHub! A Productive Alternative to the SBD Lottery racket!!
The following script has been developed to address a problem on the blockchain known as vote farming and provide a productive alternative.
https://github.com/anthonyadavisii/comment_contest
Steem-Python libraries are a prereq and respective account keys imported.
The vote farming issue was originally brought to my attention by @troglodactyl on the following post:
https://steemit.com/abuse/@troglodactyl/shortsighted-reward-farming-spam
What is that problem you might ask? Let's recap
Freesteem is a tag that contains many upon many posts that offer free Steem/SBD in exchange for upvotes. Here is an example.
Really?
What is the problem? This activity essentially diminishes the value of curation on this platform which would otherwise be serving as a quality control mechanism for the blockchain. The more quality we yield on the platform, the more favorably we are perceived from the outside.
What exactly do I do here?
Freesteem is not FREE!
Running these freesteem lotteries may be perceived as noble by some in the manner in which they frame it as some sort of tool to help struggling minnows but, make no mistake, freesteem is not so free because what it costs is voting power that could be gainfully employed in supporting underappreciated content with merit or for flagging abuse. I understand the appeal of free stuff. Who doesn't love free things? But this... this is not free because it is not without consequence. We need quality content on this platform. We DON'T need GIMMICKS nor do we need MARKETING ploys.If we keep bringing exceptional content to the table, Steem will sell itself.
If we keep bringing exceptional content to the table, I am a firm believer that Steem will sell itself. As a matter of fact, I believe creating exceptional and exclusive content for Steem should be the CORE of our marketing strategy.On the other hand
If we continue allowing the short sighted profiteers to gain further ground, we allow our platform to be further milked or worse if they gain significant power. What are you willing to do today to change this? Please, comment any further ideas you may have. Let's work together!
Here is a screen capture of freesteem operators notification upvoted with @steemflagrewards for visibility. Hopefully they get the message and stop exploiting the blockchain.
Definitely one form of abuse that is taking place and I've had a small retaliatory attack of troll-flags for agreeing with this as a form of abuse. There are already "FreeSteem" giveaways in the form of upvotes for getting the right answer, as well as little contests that are fun and actually add to the value of the platform as opposed to just "upvote and be paid a portion of the curation rewards"
That is a very lazy and backwards way of making money on this platform and I find it hard to believe that the participants of these particular lotteries are unable to come up with one original thought to help grow the audience.
I've seen plenty of people with very expensive accounts that haven't even made a single post yet because their contributions to the platform are through proper curation and commenting on good posts. So you don't have to be skilled in creating content, you just need to be able to have a conversation.
Seeing as to how this is a pretty decentralized platform, there is not much we can do but flag these kinds of posts. In doing so, come the retaliatory flags to those who try to stand up for what's right.
I've mentioned a discord or channel dedicated to this but haven't had any luck finding one. There's gotta be a protocol for getting an abuser to change his ways before his account is blown up into oblivion.
Trying to convince folks to consider a different option is a good approach and I appreciate your effort! This is a very valuable contribution because many people probably don't have the skill to write this code.
One major obstacle is laziness, and we have to hope that they can be clever enough and motivated enough to create a worthy contest to use your comment contest script.
Informing them is a good start, but how long would we want to suggest this to an account that is being uncooperative?
There is also a "I want to make money too" mentality, that even I am guilty of. Wasting my fully charged voting power on flagging when I can curate better content, or even my own to help my visibility or exposure for that small window I have after making a post.
Just as there is a heavy price to pay for freedom (human sacrifice), there is a cost for every fight you believe in. I agree, these accounts should be identified and flagged, and if it does cost a little VP along the way, so be it. With enough firepower, we can drive them off. Remember Good always beats Evil, but we can't all have our cake and eat it too!
Indeed. I am starting to try to make a habbit of flagging a little bit every day. Even if I use 2-5 flags it is worth it. If we all did this practice, even to flag at least 1 bad post every day or every time we sit down to browse Steemit, a lot of rewards will be reallocated to the pool and given to the right people, not the abusers.
Hi @bitfiend, thanks for being part of the fight. I wanted to remind you about @steemflagrewards using mentions to give back to those flagging.
All you need to do is, when you flag, include a comment as to why and @steemflagrewards mention. I am working on a script that should be able to pull all this data to be tracked and rewarded.
This is a great project. I think it would be easier to fight this battle if when one account was flagged, we could all be notified and all swoop down on that account like a bunch of hungry vultures! Maybe with a @steemflagtewards mention, it could launch a bot "notifier" to notify everyone involved in the fight!
Yes. Working on implementing something like that. Having a few issues with the Steem python blockchain stream method to grab mentions as they hit. I also would like to create a function to pull previous mentions. So much to do. There is not enough time in the day.
I've seen this... is this your project? I hadn't quite looked into it yet. So I flag an abuser, comment the post as to why I flagged with a simple mention and the rest is taken care of? This is great, I love it.
Yes, I did get the ball rolling with @timcliff's help but I would consider this project to be owned by the contributing community of Steem, those that fight the good fight against abuse.
We would like for more community members involved on the Discord.
It will play a big role with approving flags using bot commands in the future. What we are going to need are people willing to screen flags to determine if they merit rewards. Whats more is we will be making it so jurors/screeners/approvers receive a % of rewards for flags approved or alternatively a post is created to fund their reward. That isn't quite set in stone yet.
Here is the Discord invite link.
https://discord.gg/fUg8Uy
I did not get back in time to click this, and the link has expired. I'm also on steemit.chat if you care to resend the invite. Thanks! I look forward to helping in any way I can, as this is more or less what I was looking for!
Try this one @bitfiend
https://discord.gg/aXmdXRs
Done my friend we are now supporting each others lets keep it that way!!! hehehe :D
Beep! Beep! This humvee will be patrolling by and assisting new veterans, retirees, and military members here on Steem. @shadow3scalpel will help by upvoting posts from a list of members maintained by @chairborne and responding to any questions replied to this comment.
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All,
Due to community concerns about the project being repurposed for spam. The repository has been deleted. A closed source alternative is in the works by another party. Thank you for your patience.