Draining reward pool with auto-votes by @dana-edwards (73 reputation)...We must stop it!
This is one of examples what is wrong on Steemit. Profile @dana-edwards draining reward pool on daily bases with copy/paste articles in form of "Here are news from Institute for bla bla, few copy/paste sentences (probably little bit changed so @cheetah woudn't mark her as plagiator) and that is it. Every article she posts gets auto-votes around 30$ whatever she posts. On top of that list is non active profile @wackou. If you need proof she is posting copy/paste articles just for auto-votes, here is proof... Just look how many articles she posted in last 24 hour! (pictures below) Who posts so many articles in 24 hour period? No one. But she does to get auto-votes/money.
On other hand, many people are trying to write original content and after receive only pennies for it. When they see examples like @dana-edwards they give up from Steemit because their original content is not appreciated, but copy/paste articles are. Until this don't change, Steemit will never become what can be.
I started flaging 'her' posts because this is draining reward pool and keeping people away from Steemit.
@dana-edwards you literally made 44 posts this week. You really can sit here and say these are all good content? You will make $1,276.00 off these posts. You are destroying the rewards pool.
You are averaging 6 posts a day. You have auto votes that are supplying you with a guaranteed $25 every post. Why don't you just post blank posts and stack up the cash? This type of behavior is what will kill Steemit.
So you have withdrawn $22,057.602 Steem in the last 24 days but that's not bad for Steemit ethier I suppose is it?
You also like to upvote yourself far more then you like to upvote anyone else on Steemit. Is this another good tactic for keeping Steemit alive and strong.
In the last 365 days over 66% of your upvotes have been for yourself.
Incredibly interesting to read both of your opinions and research.
Where do you think I'm "copying" from? Myself? I'm actually not a bot and actually posted those articles. Read them and see. If you think I'm copying them from somewhere else I challenge you to prove it by showing where I copy from.
As far as "draining the reward pool"., it's not free for me to post multiple times and costs me in time, research, editing, etc. Each post can take between 20-30 minutes, some take days of research, some take hours, depending on the topic.
The rule is, as long as my posts add value to Steemit then people (or bots) will care to vote them up and if my posts don't provide value or the quality isn't up to par then I won't get as many votes (or followers). So there is a feedback loop between me and my readers.
Feel free to make as many posts as you like complaining about my posts. I won't vote you down but will ignore unless you have something constructive to add.
All I can say is instead of being concerned that I'm draining the rewards, why not post more content and on more topics? There is no limit to how many posts you can make each day, and it's a matter of how much time you want to put into it.
Bla bla bla...it is so obvious that you post 90%+ articles just for money. Researching something is not writing few lines about it and reference link to it. You set up perfect system for draining money from Steemit. Here are news, few lines about it, reference link and 30$ is here.
What you don't understand is that people like you are keeping people from Steemit. Know many of them who wrote original content and give up after month because there was no upvotes and comments. One of them pointed you to me as reason he give up. But why should you care, you just need to write few lines and 30$ is in your pocket.
(Don't have anything against your articles, but comparing them to original content people write, 'your' articles don't deserve that money.)
I have commented on this post regarding your actions.
The fact is that good messages do not really get a decent payment. I'm afraid the reason is not in automatic voting.
It is one of the reasons. When somebody see same people getting auto-votes all the time and their effort pennies, they just give up.
If you are talking about @dana-edwards...It is because top upvoters on her posts are always the same.
But people have invested huge sums in the project. They want to get some of their money in this way. Would you do otherwise?
You want to say her auto-upvoters invested money in Steemit?...If so, she don't need to write nothing beside letter A, receive auto-votes and they have their money back.
@cmoljoe you have a valid argument and she is also in the right. Honestly, this point of your definitely adds value to steemit for a minnow like myself. I am only on steemit for 2 months now and as far as posts goes that is why I have not given up on posting. I don't expect everyone to say I have good post and I am new and all I know is upvote bots and auto upvotes etc... I was not here when they didn't exist so... I would love to be on people auto upvote that to me is a milestone for her and she deserves the recognition from her fellow Steemians. We all do who don't give up and keep posting things of our interest. Your post is very good @cmoljoe keep posting about what you feel will make steemit great again. I will be following with a bowl of popcorn.
If we notice someone is abusing reward pool, we must react. My opinion is that Steemit can become amazing platform, but before we must resolve issues like this. No question about it...few sentences and reference link are not worth 25$. I don't care if that bloger wrote million amazing original articles before.
Why not be worth $25 if her followers say so? But you have a very good argument because I would want to post what I like to discuss and if there is an audience that agrees with it I would want their up vote as token and if every post made $1000 why would you limit the amount of times you communicate and post if limit is unlimited? I wouldn't so I don't think it is fair to say she is doing a disservice when it is the opposite. A follower of hers even gave their personal point of view and their actions and I respect that. I also followed her because of your post. You made a really interesting post and I followed you too.
From 25$ it less than 1$ from manual upvotes, all the rest are auto-votes. I don't agree she is doing anything special to community. Posts she make can be do in 20min. Maybe I try to pretend I'm her and post 15+ articles per day just to show people how easy is do what she is doing.
This definitely needs to stop! Raping Steemit rewards is right.
@cmoljoe here's a short reply as to why I'm auto-voting dana. I see you joined in may this year, so you most likely haven't read the fantastic articles that she posted back in the days, showing an understanding of blockchains, complex systems, group psychology, etc. that few people possess, and even fewer people have the capacity to write about in a clear and detailed way. At that time, she was literally getting peanuts for these very long articles (most likely because the amount of people able to grasp the subject matters was very small) and I thought it would be a shame to see such a person go away from Steemit, as she was contributing (at least to me) a huge value. After having missed a few of her articles, I decided to auto-vote to incentivize her to stay.
It is true that since then, I have to admit that the quality (again, to me) of her posts went down, and the frequency went up, and I haven't changed my auto-voting. I have reconsidered that decision, and have lowered the amount of SP with which I vote her, but still see her as a person I want to support so I won't remove my auto-vote yet. IMO she has earned it, and unless she starts posting crap I don't think I'll remove it. She now posts more like a "daily digest of scientific news" rather than "rare, enlightening posts about complex systems and blockchains", which I still see value in. YMMV.
I appreciate your responce. To who your auto-vote will go is your choise of course. But must say that your auto-vote to @dana-edwards is on every post she makes, even simplest one like this. https://steemit.com/steemit/@cmoljoe/maybe-i-don-t-get-it-need-your-opinion
This post don't deserve pennies and not 25$. You are just one of same auto-upvoters on her posts. It's seems to me that she started using that just to take money from Steemit and not to contribute to the community. Don't know how it use to be, but it changed for sure. I followed her because I like some of her posts, but slowly I realized she is posting most of stuff with few sentences with reference link just for money. If that wasn't the case, she woudn't post 18 articles in period of 24 hours. Don't want to say some of her posts are not spreading interesting info, but few sentences and reference link are not even close to 25$. I don't have anything against her posts, but have against her post with few sentences and reference link getting 25$+ on regular bases. It use to be 50$+, your lowering of amount upvote explains it little bit. Don't know is there option you auto-vote only part of someone's articles?
Many people are trying to make it on Steemit. When they see people getting 25$+ for shit post and their effort not been appreciated, they leave Steemit. I didn't write article about her because of me. I did it because that is killing Steemit slowly and it is not fair. I saw many people complaining that same people are getting money all the time and their posts nothing. Who will keep writing on that site? To be honest, it breaks my heart to see people trying to write original articles for pennies and then to go on feed and see @dana-edwards getting 25$+ for few sentences. That is not fair and it is keeping people away from Steemit. If we want to build fair system, we must be fair...it's simple.
I understand your point of view, and understand that it can be disheartening for new people to see this. However, in my eyes dana has put a lot of work in the platform, and deserve to be recognized for that. If there was a way for me to support her directly (ie: by contributing SP directly to her and not voting on her articles), this is probably what I would do. I was very reticent in the beginning to set my autovote on her, because I don't like the concept of autovoting either, and feel that every vote made in my name engages me personally. However, I believe there needs to be a way to support authors, and until that way is found, designed and implemented, I see no better way to achieve this than autovoting.
Also, if people come to Steemit, write a couple of posts for pennies, and leave because they didn't make 25$ immediately, then so be it. It has been said multiple times, but Steemit is not a get rich quick scheme. Dana has been here for a long time, and never stopped posting, even when she got nothing from it.
Another point, I'd like to disagree when you say that she doesn't contribute to the community, when she's engaging in conversation on pretty much all of her posts.
And finally, on the subject of quality and fairness, you should remember that it is very subjective: the fact that someone spends a lot of time writing a post does not make it good automatically (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?) and vice-versa. So what I mean to say is that one should not judge someone, a post or the value that is displayed next to it after seeing it, but should rather look at it over time. Steemit is a complex platform, and although it is tempting to just look at the value in $ that is shown, one should strive to have a bigger horizon before making judgments.
Without a doubt (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?) @cleverbot also, hard work pays off and she has found her niche. @cmoljoe I hear where you are coming from but she is established firm and it is what it is. If I was to post it or a lot of minnows who you say post quality then they deserve your upvote if you like it. I am not a developer of have auto upvote set up yet but it is fair to say that if I did I would want people I auto upvote to earn and have a nice group of followers. Also, what is the solution to the issue at hand. I guess discussion and bringing it to light will eventually help find the solution.
I'm not totally against auto-votes if bloger deserve it. In opinion of some she did deserve it and they gave her auto-votes. But does that mean she can then post only articles in form of few sentences and reference link? My opinion she got little bit greedy and saw Steemit as job where her job is to make the most money as she can. Don't saying she posted bs, but form of articles she posted can be made up to 20min. There are news from bla bla few sentences and referal link...it takes no much time. Anyone can do it and post 20 articles per day...do they deserve 25$ per every article? Everybody will say no. If they don't deserve it, she neither.
If someone is established bloger, that doesn't mean he is sacred cow who can't become greedy. 18 posts in period of 24 hours is saying a lot. Every post 25$+...you do the math. 64% of her votes are self votes. Long story short...she become greedy little bit and started pumping articles only for the money.
You make valid point of an issue with no solution. Why go back to 4 limit post when multiple posts are better but the real issue is why use auto vote to allow people to do what you are complaining about. I am also guilty of self voting and it is addictive.
More manual voting is solution. Also auto-voters need to check people they upvote more frequntly are they abusing it.
Self upvote in pennies is not big deal. I saw people like @craig-grant upvoting his comments with7$ all the time. That is abusing reward pool. He also made posts with one sentence so he can upvote it with 20$+. Don't know does he still do that because I unfollow him.
You don't have eyes, I do.
I agree with everthing you said. I said alredy that I don't have anything against her posts and not saying that she don't contribute to the community (I see I said it previous reply :P). Few sentence + reference link article about something she thinks it is important people to know is great. But that article can't be worth 25$! If only few of that kind of articles made her 25$ that will be ok, but all is bs! Don't care who wrote those few lines, it is not worth that money! I can pump 20 similar articles per day if I wanted to. It is so simple, you read the article somewhere, write few lines about it + and reference link...and it's done.
Not saying she has bad intent with her articles, but when someone is pumping 20 similar articles in peroid of 24 hours, it is only for the money. She has perfect system for taking money from Steemit and was using it quite well. I'm sure she was doing that. Sometimes greed for money take over someone.
Interesting
Now to be fair you did make one valid criticism, that I post based on news feeds, which is true. I do see news articles and do post my commentary, but the content in my commentary is entirely original, as are the discussions in the comment section. I'm guessing you don't really read my posts and just see that I post a lot on a particular day.
Anyone can read lots of articles and post original commentary, just like anyone can provide book reviews, movie reviews, top ten lists, or tell personal stories. Why don't you try that?
The reward pool is shrinking, but it's not because of me. The price of Steem goes down and there are less rewards to go around. People who post (including me) get less for each post. Our options are to either post less so as not to drain the reward pool or post more.
Originally Steem had a rate limit of 4 posts per day. This rate limit was probably to address the exact problem of some people posting frequently. Your solution to the problem is to punish the productive posters, which will only result in them not posting at all because why not post elsewhere for a guaranteed fixed rate per post?
Yes you are correct that we need more original content, but if my readers want more original content from me specifically (not from new posters) then they vote for me. New posters can and do make money commenting on the blogs of others, but if there is less reward pool money to go around what do you suggest we do about it? Should the established posters stop posting so as to be fair to the new posters?
You are missing the point. Your every article gets same amount of money no matter what you post. What I saw, you didn't write longer article in your words. Some people do write longer articles and after few articles they see few bucks or pennies. Who deserve more money? Who made greater effort to make article? You or them?
I wrote 4 long articles in last 10 days. For all 4 I woudn't get 30$. When I see one your 'here is news' article getting 30$, I don't want to post it because that is not fair. This is not about me, this is about a lot of people giving up after seeing same people getting all the money all the time and their effort not being appreciated. You are perfect example of that because you don't even write original article.
And there are people who get hundreds of dollars per post, and who post content which I don't find particularly interesting, but who am I to complain? They have thousands of followers and someone thinks their content is interesting enough. Steemit has always been where established bloggers have the advantage, or Youtubers who come from different parts of the Internet come to Steemit and bring their people and make a lot with each post, but this problem isn't such a big deal with the reward pool is large, yet when it shrinks people complain. This is not new.
You wrote 4 long articles but how many followers do you have? How many years have you blogged on Steemit? Do you have more followers than you have posts? I post long and short articles in the same day and you only post 4 long articles over 10 days.
Post frequently, try to post high quality, gain followers, eventually you become established, I've seen it happen on this site. Some are doing better than me by far, some worse, but keep posting. Post until you find a niche which people appreciate and if you think I don't write original articles you must not actually read my articles.
Look at some of the long articles I post if you prefer long articles. I wish there were a larger reward pool but again you offer nothing constructive to improve what you complain about. Finally the length of the post does not determine the value of the post to the reader, but the content and at some points the usefulness and timing do add value.
Also to note, there have been times, where I posted long articles on Steemit and only got less than $10. I could have complained about posts getting $100 or $1000, or I could have quit, but I kept posting adding value to Steem even through the recession, even during those times. When rewards are low people will still post, and when rewards are high people will still post, and months or years later those posts will remain.
It's not always the case that I get a fair reward for my posts whether I post one really long post and get way too little, or I post a series of short posts which some person thinks I get way too much, it's always going to be someone who is not satisfied. Now if the quality of my posts were not good enough to add value then I would have a problem.
Hahaha It's so funny to read someone's opinion who don't want to admit he was draining reward pool. You and me know you did that, no matter what you say.
(If you didn't know, writing good in-depht article sometimes take days. That is not 15 min. you need for 'Here is news' article for auto-votes x 10 per day)
You say it as if "draining the reward pool" by posting content is something the blogger isn't supposed to do. The reward pool exists to reward bloggers who post, including posts like these comments.
As far as how long it takes to write even a short post, it takes around 30 minutes. First you have to find an interesting article, then you have to read and understand it, then you have to write. It can take 20 minutes just to do those steps.
Then you have to provide commentary based on your understanding of the article. Some of the topics I provide commentary on are health related, or research results, which can involve reading academic literature or additional research beyond the article. Then of course there is time spent editing, responding to comments in the post, etc.
Honestly it probably takes more than 30 minutes for each post if I include responding to comments like I'm doing with yours.
And of course I know writing a really long deep article can take days. I've done it hundreds of times. At the same time if what you say is true and I'm capped at $20-30 then do you really think I can spend 12 hours or more on a single long article for $30? You're not being realistic.
I'm sure there are people somewhere in the world who can afford to spend 12 hours on a long article for $30 but if you have to choose between writing 12 articles for 1 hour work each or writing 1 article, which would you choose? Same amount of hours spent on your part either way so you'll adapt to the market.
When the payouts are high, I do tend to write much longer more elaborate articles. When the payouts are low then I have to compete with the bloggers who write shorter articles. That is just the market and not a choice. Either way it does not change the fact that if I don't put in those hours I won't be able to write many short or one long article.
"And of course I know writing a really long deep article can take days. I've done it hundreds of times. At the same time if what you say is true and I'm capped at $20-30 then do you really think I can spend 12 hours or more on a single long article for $30? You're not being realistic.
I'm sure there are people somewhere in the world who can afford to spend 12 hours on a long article for $30 but if you have to choose between writing 12 articles for 1 hour work each or writing 1 article, which would you choose? Same amount of hours spent on your part either way so you'll adapt to the market."
You said it all with this lines. :)
I clicked on your last 10 posts. There is no one that is more than one-minute read. That so great, you did some amazing research!
Just because the post takes a minute to read doesn't mean it's not concise. For example in my post about insulin resistance I explained plenty in that one minute or so you took to read it. Then if you look in the comments I was discussing whether Metformin should be solder over the counter.
It seems to me you are jealous or something. You gave no advice on how I can improve post quality other than to say make it more original and longer. So I show you that on the same day that you complained about I made original posts too, and even a fairly lengthy post, yet you still complain.
Can't make everyone happy.
Reference
Don't have anything against your posts, but have against reward you receive. Auto-votes to be precise.
By the way, I don't know about you but I don't find it wrong if bloggers adapt to market conditions. That is normal. If bloggers make $100 for their long posts they'll keep making long posts. If the reward pool shrinks so that the amount of reward per post decreases then bloggers will have to post more frequent concise yet valuable content.
Just like you can't expect a blogger to post a book or dissertation in one long post when they can break it up into 20 posts. The people interested in following the research will still read these posts so the content has the same value whether it's in one large post or divided into 20.
The same with news commentary. Many video bloggers do exactly the same thing I do with news commentary but it is in one post as video. They pocket perhaps $200-300 in that one post, and post a few of these in a day, and that's a good day. If you blog by writing you have to write frequently because generally you find people don't have the attention span for long posts.
With every comment you show money is on first place for you.
Is not the only one problem here in steemit.... look at this:
UPVOTE BOTS as form of abuse...
We can join forces and use a fantastic instrument: DOWNVOTE!
Glad to see another good post.
I've resteemed your post!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by cmoljoe from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.