Voting bots... A problem or a resource?
So recently I have thought about this multiple times...
I have seen several bots that you transfer funds to for an upvote and ways to buy upvotes. Prior to joining communities on steemit, it was the first way I learned how to to gain an increase and was a fan of the occasional upgoat!
Am I missing out on an opportunity for growth over a little pride? Or am I sticking to trying without buying votes because I believe in the community?
Now it seems voting bots are popping around all over and everyone is making them so it's hard to tell which ones are worthy of any and what the results of this overflow of bots is going to have on the community.
What are your thoughts of voting bots?
If you are for or against them why?
What voting bots would your recommend over others and why?
I really hope to hear some great insight on the various takes.
I don't use bots that sell votes. I don't do it because they deplete the reward pool, and because I'm here to get paid for my blogging based on how much people appreciated it.
I realize I make this judgement from a position of relative privilege: I came to Steemit as someone with friends on the platform who support my work, and who have meaningful SP. But believe I'd be willing to put in the grind and make friends and create a brand new audience. Long term, that's how I build my little platform on Steemit, and that's how we, as a community, build Steemit as a platform.
I have no problem with voting bots that automate curation. I'm also okay with community bots that give a small boost to many, many people, such as @minnowsupport's bot.
I agree that growing steemit with people you believe in around you is exactly what this is for! I appreciate your dedication towards creating content that people will enjoy and no doubts you will find that community here. I love meeting the interesting and motivating people of steem it.
What are your favorite curation bots or perhaps ones you've ran across? Also what do like most about what minnow boosters voting bot?
I use Steemvoter to vote for two rl friends who consistently create quality content (@techslut and @poet). Minnowbooster and minnowsupport are different bots. I like about minnosupport (aka reg-msp) that it's a part of an overall community effort to help planktons and minnows. And that it gives, at most, one modest upvote per 24 hours per user, so it's not a drain on the reward pool.
Hiii @brandyb, how are you and how is life going on, I hope you enjoy this platform as a first #adoptaminnow of @whatsup here on this community. you always create a useful and neat articles here. Today here you point out a hot issue about the usage of bots. mostly people confused about them. I Think for new comers, who have not enough followers can use bots for boosting up their posts to get attention of high profile peoples. But we should checked their ROI first then take a vote from bot. Content should be real and original, no copy paste, no plagiarism. i think by using these bots no much profit received now because of changing payouts scenario (50/50).
Thanks @brandyb for sharing and My best wishes and prayers always for your success. keep it up.
Thank you for your well thought-out and well crafted comments. It's a very interesting question and yes I think that people copying posts and posting plagiarism does present a problem in the whole bot situation
I think we'd be better off without them.
I was a little dissapointed after making my first post a couple days ago when I noticed that even writing a fairly well-received and completely original post, my chances of hitting the 'hot' page without an upvote bot were basically zero.
But in this case if you can't beat them, join them! I'm probably going to use one for my next post. Just take pride in the fact that you're at least one of the real people posting real content.
This is an excellent point & exactly why I raise the big question. The thing I love about steemit is the lack of censorship. Original work being a huge factor of the success. What bot will you use ? Do you have some you prefer over others ? Are you a member of any steemit communities?!
Nice snapshot
Questionable lol!
if there will no use of bots in steemit then plz can you tell me who will buy sbd and for what purpose they will buy sbd ?then what will be the price of sbd
You can use SBD for other things... for example on blocktrades you can by other cryptocurrencies using your SBD or you can use it to buy steem..
well sir blocktrade trade on bittrex so if there is no buyer of sbd on bittrex then how can you change it to another cryptocurrency or buy steem ,bots has a very good importance in steemit specialy in sbd price
I have a hard being agreeable that bots control the price of sbd... it is my understanding that steem is to be more valuable than sbd. So powering up with your sbd gives you more influence on the platform. Investing in other crypto, you can even turn your sbd into a Visa card. There are lots you can do with the sbd.... Voting Bots take away from getting votes from real people ... @whatsup once said and this is what really got me thinking is someone could just pay for votes on their content and never actually have a vote from a real person. So they could have the worst content ever and be earning.
I have never used it, I only know that they do offer that service. But there is an internal steemit market where you can buy and sell SBD and Steem. Right now the price is in favour of steem but back in december the price of steem had fallen to 0.12 sbd - 1 steem. I only had 4 sbd at the time but i got about 33 steem for it!
That was a great move! To my understanding steem is meant to be more than sbd and this is a market correction.
It was lucky, but unfortunately I had sold about 50 sbd the week before at a much worse price 0.7 ish. I still got some decent stream out of it but I could have made so much more had I waited.. but there was no way I could have known. I think you are right about he market correction but I am keeping my eyes peeled for the next time the value of steem drops like that :)
our co owner @ned and @dan fighting each other they power down and sell steem at bittrex and also who ran steemit.chat @riverhead power down and selling steem soo its difficult for steem to grow bcz sellers dominating buyers
This comment has received a 0.31 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @jassi.
I have been asking around Discord about this for days - it's like you read my mind! I have been researching various topics on Steemit and voting bots, circles (or pods), etc are a major source of interest for me.
While I'm unfamiliar with specific voting bots, I have mixed opinions about the concept:
It's still a self-driven act and that's where I get hung up. Curie and other curation programs seem like the natural antidote to the need to pay bots for exposure (smaller accounts are what they focus on), but you're still relying on something centralized (voting body with rules) and are limited by time as to how many of your posts can be curie'd.
Overall, I believe humans want utopia but get the wild west, whatever we try. And in the wild west, there are expressions of utopia and expressions of chaos. Finding a personal balance and doing what you believe is right for the greater good seems like the only way to proceed.
Self curation was originally my first leap over this hurdle. When I really thought about it, this platform is designed for you to do so. You have the option of upvoting your own post before you even post it. Thinking in that term make it very justifiable in my mind, although I don't do it all the time because I like to give my maximum voting power to others.
If you think about your content as your business, why wouldn't you promote your business? If you wouldn't why would anyone else?! So I feel it's mandatory for minnows especially to self promote.
I love what the communities are doing to keep it people oriented, bots help maximize efficiency and it would be silly not to capitalize on that as long as you're down for the rules and direction of the group.
Getting back to bots I think the biggest challenge right now isn't using them, it's how many of them are actually bringing in roi and how many times are you not getting what you invest? Which bots are better than others ?
Just found this post on bots! https://steemit.com/minnowsupport/@fuhreresu/6-bots-to-trust-when-thinking-of-upvoting-your-post
My feelings exactly. I appreciate the way you presented these thoughts so succinctly!
I came to Steemit hoping for exactly this utopia that you speak of, while being sceptical due to the fact that we know this "wild west" springs up instead. And yup, it definitely has.
There's still a hierarchy based on "wealth" and only that wealth can help you to do better for yourself. Such is any form of society, in the end, right?
It has disappointed me that quality posts don't often make it up to trending without the help of the "powerful". It further disappoints me that posts that tend to do well are often posts about Steem or Steemit (and I get why this is, at this point in Steemit's life, but I wouldn't want to go onto FB and read posts ABOUT FB as the most talked about, you know?)
As a final and lesser point, upvoting my own post or comment makes me cringe every time. I hate the idea of it and have never done so on FB or Insta, for example, but out of some form of desperation, I do it here.
I personally don’t use the bots or the rare time I donits on someone else post to give it a boost
But many swear by them for increased visibility I am not sure if it’s that or increased payout
I have no issue with people using them I see it as personal preference
You can do well with some and loose on some from what I have seen
Have you seen the bot tracker site very useful if your going to use bots
https://steembottracker.com/
I love that you mentioned using bots to boost other people's posts! I have done this several times but not something that was in my mind atm.
What an incredible resource!! I have never seen this before and for sure will be messing around with it!
Thank you for your usual abundance of knowledge & awesomeness!
LOL with the way my day is going today I think you must be thinking of someone else i am severely lacking in both knowledge and awesomeness right now LOL
Well then consider it a reminder to get back to it then! High five!
High five 🙌 and I will try
A resource as long as you do it right
I like where you are going with the feedback! What is doing it right entail?
You can't use bots for evey post , if every ome will do so it's will have on effact
You should use it when you have something very importent to share
Also you nèed to know how to choose the right bot to get good ROI
Okay, but why can't you ? What will the effect be? How do you decide what is important? What bots do you use or recommend?
It's important to calculate with a voting bot if it's going to give you a good return on your investment.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using them necessarily but I do think that sometimes you don't get as good of return as you might expect.
Indeed, are they Resteeming? Are they upvoting? If so are the followers "dead" followers ? What about curation rewards they are reaping from your content? Do they incorporate this into the price? How do we determine what the best bots on steem it are ? How often would you use them ?
Have used a couple but didn't find them that effective as promoted but didn't lose out on them more a less got back what i invested.
I found @minnowbooster to be the better one @randowhale sleeps to much...lol
But really i would like people to rate you not machines that's why i don't use them anymore :)
You are the first to bring up promoting! I have never used this feature personally and would love to join know more about how it works.
Incorporating the final payout you feel you broke even, does that include new followers & steem rewards or the amount of sbd?
What about Steemit communities?! Do you find them helpful?