RE: How to get a post on Steemit Trending - What the data tells us
This is a really interesting analysis @paulag... apart from giving you many thumbs up simply for the sheer effort of the data scrape and information organization you also get resteem for that.
As a former data analyst and "keybreaker" type person something is massively obvious about your network chart and who's voting... those gray dots with black names are almost exclusively accounts that begin with "aa" or "ab," almost like those businesses in large cities that name themselves "A.A. Aardvark" services so as to be the first listing in the yellow pages.
A connected botnet? Owned and operated by the same person or group of persons as a "below the radar" co-op of some sort? WAY too off the charts to be "just a coincidence."
Whether it has any impact on what we're talking about here... that I can't say. But it definitely points to SOMEthing.
the grey dots are not really a big problem. I would 'assume' from the data that these are just voting bots...but many of they combined may be making a good reward curating.
I would be more concerned about the accounts that are voting for 3-4 of these authors time and time again and no one else....and also not posting....hmmmm that might be something.....but it would also be down voted......
I just have a suspicious nature... the person(s) who controls those accounts may actually control thousands of accounts... like dust, you don't notice it, but if enough grains of sand are poured into a bucket owned by a single person?
It'll be interesting to see what comes up... seems you and @dwinblood might be able to really help each other out on this one.
perhaps they exploit the very information which you have uncovered. and yes, obviously many of the names on the voter list are quite similar
If only the number of upvotes contributes to making the trending page, then it is sensible to make 20-25 bot accounts that each hold $1000 or so steem to upvote everything posted.
I'd like the system to reward engagement more than straight votes.
The incentives will drive people's actions; no conspiracy necessary.