Are you on the Steemit @Blacklist?
What is this account for? How do you get added to such a list? And what does it mean to be 'Blacklisted'?
The other day I saw a downvote on a post by an account called @blacklist-a. The post received a downvote from a member of the Steemit.inc team also, and so this interested me enough to go and have a look at @blacklist-a.
I'll not name the post here, or list any accounts involved (other than @blacklist-a), but I will provide images below.
The Black List
Taking a look at @blacklist-a's profile https://steemit.com/@blacklist-a, the blurb is:
This is bot use many factors based on time and flags from serious members of the steemit community. A Flag from this bot stop other bots from auto-voting your post.
Immediately a few questions spring to mind!
Who are the 'serious members'?
Which 'other bots'?
And who wrote this text because it could do with a few amendments!
Also, on the profile page linked above is a URL: http://pastebin.com/h1unSks2 More on the contents of that soon.
Serious?
Serious source
Who are these 'serious' community members? I'm assuming they know how to code for a start. And, they've been here a while and seem to have a good view of what's going on on the Blockchain.
Hmmm, I wonder who fits the bill there...
No auto-votes from 'other' bots
So who are these 'other' bots? Bid-bots? I'm not sure about that because @blacklist-a was around before HF 17 (The delegation Fork) and so Bid-bots didn't exist back then.
How about curation bots? Potentially.
A recent report by @paulag reported a link between reputation and post worth.
The reward/reputation increase showed a really nice (almost programmatical) curve, whereas reputation increased, post payout increased. This got me thinking, I wonder if their are curation bots that support users as they rise up the reputation scale?
And, I wonder if being a member of 'The Black List' stops these bots from visiting your posts while you are present on the list?
http://pastebin.com/h1unSks2
At this link, there is more information on what the @blacklist-a account is, why it's there, and also, what do do if you want to be removed.
The Steemit @Blacklist uses a range of metrics to determine who's a repeat offender of plagiarism, hate speech, bullying, ongoing power-abuse and so on.
This does imply that the account is owned by Steemit, as only the Steemit account has the 'power' to take down the biggest whales, should they go rogue and fall into the criteria above.
Speaking of the criteria, I think most of us have an idea of what falls into 'plagarism' and 'bullying', but what about 'hate speech' and 'power-abuse'. This seems a bit more subjective to me, and indeed the post that I noticed the flag from @blacklist-a on, seemed to fall into 'hate speech' - at least from @blacklist-a's point of view.
The Blacklist is computer-generated and is updated irregularly to make sure bad behaving accounts get a quick flag so that other upvote-bots can avoid upvoting the blacklisted accounts and simply skip to the next post.
This could answer the earlier question: 'How about curation bots?'
It does sound like the 'other bots' are auto-voting curation bots. I would love to know the criteria/rules here!
The @blacklist-project is a much wider and further stretching authority than any of the singular up or downvoting guilds currently running on steemit...the black flag is computer-generated by a popular opinion from a wide range of always active members of the community.
Another question answered? Who can confidently state the above, I can only think of one team of people.
There are one way to get off the blacklist once you are on it, and that is to change your behavior from evil to good over your next 40 posts. Once you have reached that number you must send 40 STEEM to the @blacklist account with "REVIEW" in the memo. Someone from our staff will then manually look at your blog within the next 24-48 hours and remove you from the list if your account now qualifies for it.
40 STEEM! Damn! Somewhere in the region of $150 at the time of writing, and there are no guarantees your account will be removed.
The Blacklist contains between 200-500 accounts at any given time. The list grows or shrinks depending on user behavior (1) and user-reaction (2).
I'm going to look at how many and who might be on this list next. Good to know that if you react positively to the flag, it could well be rescinded, maybe!
Who's on The Black List?
The short answer, a lot of people!
A quick look at the Wallet for @blacklist and @blacklist-a, show no transfers 'to' of 40 STEEM. I'm assuming those who've been added either don't care, or are not aware they are on any list.
I've used the 'TxVotes' table in the SteemSQL DB to gather some statistics.
In the past 40 days, 1433 have been flagged by @blacklist-a. Assuming 1 (top level) post a day, all of these accounts are still Blacklisted.
Over 3000 accounts were flagged by @blacklist-a in the past 3 months.
Here is a list of the accounts, with a Reputation over 60 who have been flagged by @blacklist-a in the past 40 days:
See anyone you recognise?!
And a list of the top Steem Power holders who have been flagged by @blacklist-a in the past 40 days:
Again, more people you may recognise - there are a few on each list that I do and of those, I am surprised they are on a list which compiles users guilty of:
'plagiarism, hate speech, bullying, ongoing power-abuse and so on'
Summary
A user/some users with a large amount of Steem Power use @blacklist-a to tag accounts so they are not voted on by auto-curation bots.
Perhaps Steemit are supporting users behind the scenes, or maybe it's another group of whales who have a large stake.
The subjective nature of the criteria that can get you added to the list is not going to the please everyone.
Looking at the lists above again, who has the potential to get added to The Black List?
I guess!
Questions / Theories / Answers?
Cheers!
Asher @abh12345
I noticed a flag come in the other day.
Why myself and @gmuxx are on it is beyond me.
I don't have a clue how I have attracted the attention of whoever runs it. I don't use voting bots however the post that got flagged did recieve a @buildawhale vote from someone else I think.
I recieved a big downvote from a member of the Steemit.inc team too!
Seems like a random list to me, interesting that @dan & @ned are on there. A psy-op maybe ;-D
Thanks for looking into this Asher.
I observed the above yes and this was where I noticed the @blacklist-a account.
So what 'rule' do you think you broke of the above? 'and so on' is my best guess!
Why did that cross my mind too?
No worries, sorry about the flags.
It is what it is I guess, it's a shame because I've broke none of the rules.
I've never plagiarised, always give credit for research/pictures used in posts, don't abuse people even when I've been abused , I only ever post 1-2 articles a week and always provide long informative articles that take a lot of work to put together, I've never used a flag myself not once in all the time I've been here again even when it would be justified as I believe in not rewarding something I don't like or agree with rather than removing rewards for a difference of opinion.
Only one of flaggers left a comment on the post Which was a personal insult that someone else flagged
I did contact another one and asked for the reason for the flag and was told 'disagreement of rewards' and 'don't worry about it' so that was that, nothing I can do.
I personally don't concern myself with other people's rewards, it's none of my business, I don't always agree with some of the lower content/quality posts earning high rewards however the owners of the accounts have either worked really hard to get where they are or have invested in Steem heavily so who am I to judge what they do?
What disturbs me the most though is that Steemit is being seen as a place that the alt-media and truthers can come to disseminate information being demonitized and censored on other platforms now and while I understand that not everyone is going to agree with all the information given in posts of that type I feel it's starting to look like there are some here that would use the standard reasons for flags as a way of censoring or punishing those who want to try and help create a better world. If that is the case it will stop the explosion of quality journalists arriving or make them rethink their presence here which would be a sad day.
Personally I would do away with the flag system in its current format and change it so it only affected reputation plus the flag would only work if a comment explaining its reason is left, remove vote buying and self voting. At least that way it would hopefully stop tit for tat flag wars and potential 'jealously or difference of opinion flags'. I'm not very technical so I don't even know if that is possible it's just my take on it.
TP
You work very hard on your posts, and imo there aren't enough of them! You only post once a week at the maximum. You deserve the rewards that are bestowed upon your blogs. Sorry this is happening, it's such bullshit.
Thanks babe.
@tremendospercy, I concur with @lyndsaybowes. The work you put into posts along with the credits is stellar. If anything, this has put you back on my "little VP for now" radar as someone I need to do a better job supporting. I always leave your posts with extra creases in my grey matter. LOL.
Thanks @abh12345 for sharing the nuances of Steem that you discover with us and for always being there to answer my gazillion questions.
yup, that is every bit as pernicious and the shadow bans at Twitter
Exactly
We need a conspiracy theory bot to go upvote all the conspiracy theory posts as much as that bot downvotes them
You did not make any violations, but you, all the same, were blacklisted. So, before writing the truth about the Steemit system, now all users need to think carefully. For such comments they can be punished - entered in the black list of Steemit. Hence, here, as in real life, there is no freedom of speech and scoff at innocent users. I'm unpleasantly surprised. If users themselves do not try to change this situation, Steemit will turn into a hidden virtual dictator: ((
The flag system is definitely broken, because it encourages tit for tat, agreed. (Followed.)
We simply need more quality curators with high SP who can upvote other content, to decrease payout to low quality content. The rewards pool is fixed, after all. (I'll try to get the MathOverflow community on here, if LaTeX via MathJax or KaTeX is enabled.)
That said, I have some idea why Ned and Dan implemented flagging originally; it immediately, rather than over time, decreases the rewards for poor quality content. (Like this blacklist itself! If Steem, Inc. flagged it, good. That blacklist, with Ned, Dan, Jerry, you, other well known members on it, is clearly extortion of some sort.)
very interesting post Asher, and though provoking too. Just wondering if you checked to see at any stage this blacklist account received delegation? the SP is very low so the downvotes not really worth much. but if the idea is to alert other 'bots' then I guess SP is not needed. Code from one bot to another.
Thanks :)
Yeah they dont have delegation, and dont care about rep. It seems to be a 'marker' bot that others then use.
Who's in charge, and will I still get a bigger vote when my rep goes up? :)
Who are these other bots that votes based upon Rep....
And where do I find them? LOL
I seemed to not make their list.
That's the secret! How do you know you ain't on the list?
Who owns them, and which curation bot/rules do they use?
Answers please!
Since both myself and @tremendospercy are on there shortly after we got targeted by a certain someone on one of Percy's posts, I can make a good guess, although it could be pure coincidence - or maybe not. Hard to tell as they like to wield the power yet not respond when called out.
I do however find issue with this:
I have never done any of these and would dearly love to be enlightened. My guess is that this is used to target people for personal reasons as a way of
bullying, ongoing power-abuse.Pot kettle black.
I go out of my way to help the community rather than try to tear it down. This won't stop me but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Nice post
no, I'm joking lol. ( even though it was indeed a great post )
I honestly don't think it's owned by Steemit inc, but I do have a question.
How can they ask for 40 STEEM to be removed from the list? what happens to people that are on the list? because it doesn't seem to affect anyone.
It's a fair question, and one that makes me think its not a Steemit owned account.
It seems that if you are on the list you wont be privvy to any special vote treatment by the accounts that check this list before auto-voting on the posts.
Very informative and thought provoking @abh12345. There really seems to be a lot that goes on, on the platform that most of don't know or have heard about. It is kind of scary to know that you can just piss someone off and they can get you flagged seemingly without proof.
In away it doesn't surprise me the ones that are listed. Most have their opinions and yes do piss people off one way or another. Others seem to not even be real people. There is one I have noticed that posts roughly every 6 minutes. There are some that post just plain garbage they have taken from Google or memes.
I am also disliking bots more and more. To me it's not a way to build a good following or a business. In a way it's cheating. I know in gaming if you use a bot, you get banned and people look down on you, because you're either lazy or don't know how to play so you have to cheat to get a head. Or I could just be really off base with my thinking.
Sounds like a fair assessment to me.
There are good and bad bots, this one/these ones are open to debate :)
This was discussed quite some time ago. See this and this.
At the time, there was a very high volume of one-percent voters who were voting on nearly every post, and I believe that the program driving those voters was configured to ignore posts marked by the blacklist accounts (as well as cheetah, steemcleaners and perhaps a couple others).
I doubt if the blacklist accounts are having much of an impact these days, if they ever did.
Thanks for the links!
It seems the answers are held within, and it does not look like a Steemit account.
I think this is one of those subject that will continue to go around as long as they are there and there can be concern for misuse. There are so many that set out to make money at any cost, it doesn't phase them. Like one of @themarkymark posts where he uncovered 50 bogus accounts tied to 1 or 2 genuine accounts. I don't know if there is an answer. I agree that there are good and bad bots. It ultimately means that we ourselves have to make sure we don't encourage or patronize others that we know for certain are posting garbage or abusing bots mainly to maintain the integrity of the platform. That is ultimately what I get from posting such as this one.
Along with what you're saying that very well could be. I really think the major reason for making all of this an open topic that everyone is aware of, is because it affects the main pool and it trickles down someone like me, meaning I either get missed, or pennies for what could be a very good post. Where as someone of your ranking I would hope you're making a larger portion of the pool than I am.
I like how this was approached. For @abh12345 to do something pretty comprehensive and breakdown when it is good to use a bot and when it's not with the suggestions of which ones are good.
Very interesting... I think I may have been flagged by them way back in the day after posting a referral link and getting SteemCleaners attention, but I’m not positive... Perhaps SteemCleaners is involved? All I know is it’s weird that the account has no steem power... really just a way of creating a list...
A list which excludes you from other benefits it seems. But yeah, could be of little importance right now.
Cheers!
Oh boy.... what if they roll out some super cool update with some super cool features and none of us blacklisters are allowed to play with them
I wonder if the account is Steemits after reading some of the comments.
check out the links remlaps has added...
Wel as a matter of fact ,I am not surprised at some of the names I see there. Most of them there might not be guilty of plagiarism , but hate-speech, bullying and power abuse? I have seen them a lot here and so I must say that some of them there deserve to be there.
Another thing you might not know is that other steemians can recommend you name on the blacklist. I have chatted with someone on steemit who told me he gave up someone name to be added on the blacklist. So we all need to be watchful.
You are right, I didn't know that.
'Someone' huh? :D
Hahahah...trying to avoid name calling bro. Trying to be watchful myself :-D
hehe, fair enough!
I smell the hand of berniesanders here!
I was waiting for someone to mention bernie!
Sounds like too much admin for him though?
I note he was one that was flagged. That might be overly subtle for bernie.
Maybe @noganoo. Didn't recognize any of his alts in the lists.
He has several accounts. I didn't notice any alts either... noganoo has a running feud with my friend ausbitbank who's one of the best people on Steemit.
It's possible he may be out of jail again, so folks that have had trouble with him can look forward to running into him again. Of course, jail changes you. Maybe he won't be as much trouble now.
I have to agree about @ausbitbank. He's on a discord I lurk, and I've been able to learn about his work and intentions. Can't find any fault with anything he's ever said.
Honestly, with that level of English it's hard to take the account seriously. But if it is really true and their flagging works even on the big whales then it's great. I've seen a lot of flagging wars that goes to trending just because of upvote bots
😁
Maybe the largest accounts are there just to be excluded from Random curation bots, and not because they have done wrong? Not sure!