Turning A Blind Eye To Suspicious Activity On Steemit?
This is a response to this "intro post" by mined account @livingthedream, that managed to get 220 dollars in 2 hours, despite being the first post by an unverified account.
https://steemit.com/life/@livingthedream/technology-and-society-my-thoughts
I'd like to ask you, fellow Steemians, how you feel when you see such suspicious activity?
https://steemd.com/@livingthedream
If you feel the need to tell me I'm just jelly, let me assure you I'm absolutely not. To be clear: Every day I see posts getting high payments, posts that I don't consider particularly great, however it doesn't bother me because I know they are from unique, verified accounts, and people who are making a genuine, long term effort to contribute.
It's just so conspicuous, seeing a first-ever-post with very little meat (IMHO) getting no comments, and a chunk of instant whale love.
Am I barking up the wrong tree, or putting my nose where I shouldn't?
Perhaps it's simply a matter of whale votes being followed by bots, but surely an unverified intro post isn't worth this kind of cash? It's up to 257 dollars, and growing, as I write this.
Speaking of suspicious
Completely unrelated to the above, but @omotherhen alerted me to an account earlier with a plethora of spun, plagiarised content. Unfortunately, that is not very unusual. What was unusual was the advanced method used to avoid detection. Special characters which look just like regular text. Some of them stand out, such as the bold q in the text, but others require spell checking to highlight their "textual camouflage". More worrying still, some of the articles received copious Upvotes.
https://steemit.com/@silvershadow111
I have no qualms about asking you, dear readers, to give that account your fullest scrutiny. That is not a witch hunt. That's a fox, caught in the hen house.
I remember one of the whales in an interview describing Steemit as nothing more than a "Social Media Game". Sometimes I'm reminded of that, and it's very disheartening. Maybe I should just pretend I didn't see it.
Luckily there are people asking questions, watching the watchmen, as it were.
Frogs image from https://pixabay.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys
Nobody is obligated to verify their account here (apart from through registration) and if we go about insisting people verify themselves before we reward them then this website would just feel hostile for new users. I read the post and think it's worth the money. But I understand your concerns.
It's not the post people take issue with -- it's the curation.
I often wonder what would happen if the effort used to plagiarize and steal was instead invested in original work.
If someone has the creativity, knowledge and know-how required to use special characters that mimic text in order to not get noticed as a submitting a plagiarized article, couldn't the same person share something original and interesting with us?
I'm sure that they could at least pick up some scorpions and rattlesnakes... That seems to be working well for me anyways.....
hehehe. epic :D
I think there will always be little guys like @silvershadow111
The case of the Introduction is more alarming to me. I watch the new list, and I constantly see posts that start getting big upvotes almost instantly. (When I say always, I mean often a few times a day) But, it is obvious no one had a chance to read it before the bots start voting it up.
I am concerned about the integrity of this whole SteemIt "thing".
Beautiful frog.
maybe it's somebody berniesanders knows personally ...
Regarding the intro post. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone specifically. You can see the order of voting from steemd. People are entitled to vote how they want, even if it looks unusual.
just wondering ...
Doesn't the order go by the size of the account?
The plagiarism issue is a plague and a pox on us if we allow it. It's simple enough to prevent, both in our own writing (obviously!) - but also in posts we publish by proxy for others. I just did a post on this topic, including a few easy tools people can use to check their work for quality and to be absolutely sure it's original... and I've used them anytime my spidey senses start tingling as I read posts on Steemit, too.
Spidey sense goes a long way.
also curious how they have a rep of 51 and no curation efforts to speak of and 2.0xx SP at the moment
If their post has gained traction financially the rep will jump. I have had one post that gained financially and it brought my rep from 38 to 50. And now I'm back to pennies to the rep doesn't grow much :)
it's only 200 bucks. what difference at this point does it make? the state is stealing TRILLIONS from us all. if i get mugged for 200 dollars, it sucks, but i'll live. i do understand the sentiment but, i see all kinds of legitimate accounts, full of garbage, making enough money to live on. i work hard on my writing. i've only just started here, though. i can't complain about a few who take advantage. if people don't respond to quality soon, though, i'll have to start pushing out crap, that seems to be what most people want, so i can live. there are thieves among us but, there always have been. if it irks you enough, throw the flag on the play.
If you saw my last post I think you know how I feel about it.
Yes, when I see someone making a lot of money for similar posts over and over, and who hasn't really introduced themselves (as some claim that is a necessary criteria for upvote)...I think it is just favouritism or a friend or relative or someone...maybe even a 'sock-puppet'.