Streemian May Be Abusing Your Posting Key (With Explanation for New Members)
Streemian
The first part of the article is dedicated to the newer members of the platform. If you came because you were mentioned feel free to skip first two paragraphs. And for those of you who have no idea what Streemian is... It is a service that enables users to create curation trails and following of such trails. Usually a well-known and settled representatives of Steem are in control of such trails and users can put trust, in form of an “upvote follow”, in them. I have first got to know about the service like 5 months ago when I was being temporarily supported by @gavvet (one of the wealthiest trails). You do not only trust the user you are following though, but also the provider of the service with your posting key. Posting key can be used to…well…post stuff AND upvote stuff.
Curation trails
When I happened to be supported for some time by such a trail, I realized how important they are for the whole ecosystem. Basically wealthy users, or semi-wealthy users, with lot of followers, can support dozens of Steemians regularly, thus rewarding them continuously for their work. This can be done without all the followers being programmers that would be able to set up their own bots that would then follow those “curation lords”. This is extremely helpful because it literally enables those users to commit fully to writing for Steemit, thus increasing its overall value. Such a behaviour limits the possibility of a good writer that is doing a remarkable job for Steem leaving the platform for good because he/she doesn’t get rewarded continuously. Basically we all are trying to get into the spotlight of such a trail whether we know it or not:). Streemian has been doing a good job, because it enabled the “curation lords” to gather their followers rather easily.
Ethical miss-step
Streemian had some problems and announced its demise like a week ago. There were still other similar services like Steemauto, or Steemvoter. Suddenly a new post that instantly gathered around 4 000 dollars payout value (like 12 000 dollars with the current SBD prize) emerged. “Streemian is back up!” But how did it manage to do so with such a hype? Well…easily. It still had a control over our posting keys remember? All the owner had to do was to set all the trails to follow the post. But since the service has been used by SIGNIFICANT amount of whales, the article instantly became the current top Steemit’s post. The post can be found here
Now Steemvoter also does this, but they explicitly tell you that they are going to do it. Streemian might have had such a clauses somewhere in its temrs of use, but it has never done anything like that before. What has happened might have been an abuse of a HUGE AMOUNT of SP.
We (@sndbox) have opted for the steemauto. As you might have heard, we have started a @sndbox-alpha curation trail that aims to support a variety of topics (currently Music and Art). If you want to get to know more, or if you simply want to get upvoted (currently worth 30 bucks), you should read this article as well as follow the account for updates.
If you want to find a safe replacement for streemian, steemauto is definitely the way. Some of the biggest trails have already moved there. Also @sndbox-alpha is currently 12th biggest trail and you can always support our cause with a tiny vote:P!
You might have been abused
I was wondering who else migh have been abused and I have found several members of our community that I respect, call a friend, or simply work with for some time. I want to LET YOU KNOW what has happened and that your posting key might have been used against your will. Feel free to choose whether you want to leave the vote there, remove it or flag it. I chose the latter. If the posting key has been used against your will, you can revoke it by using this link https://v2.steemconnect.com/revoke/@streemian
- @gavvet (one of the reasons why I stayed on the platform…130$
- @anomadsoul (one of my favourite @sndbox college since I met him because of @sndbox-alpha…88$)
- @dragonslayer109 (same as @gavvet…20$)
- @roelandp (Steemfest lord…15$)
- @tarazkap (a great and consistent author…12$)
- @jesta (my favourite witness and developer…11$)
- @timsaid (also a good witness…4$)
- @dreemit (fellow author…3$)
- @felixxx (my second favourite witness…3$)
That’s it for the more or less significant votes. As I said I don’t want to see you abused guys…you decide whether you feel abused or not:)
I just revoked about 30 min ago and truly shocked. I muted them all because I don't want to hear from those people anymore. I rarely flag but I did flag their trending post!!!
Yea I have to admit that really didn’t expect such a behaviour from well know services with quite some history here on Steem. It’s good that something like that happened, because it opened our eyes and taught us that we should never leave our posting keys on a platform that has changed hands.
Huuuuge lesson!!!
The Streemian user gets to choose how much voting weight to give Streemian posts, 0-100%.
It's pretty standard that these services fund themselves by using upvotes.
Is it true that user preferences were overridden so that everyone gave 100% in this situation?
This has never happened before therefore easy answer is either "no, streemian has never ever used the support that has been lying there for the whole time up until now" or "yes"... I feel abused that’s why I say that abuse has happened when not directly talking to other users. I merely wanted to inform about the fact that their 100% vote has been used, possibly against their will...this just looks really weird from my point of view.
@streemian and/or @chainsquad rarely make posts, but disclose the most recent uses of user upvotes, literally right under the option for voting weight - 5 autovotes used in a bit over a year.
Further, per their post Shutdown of Streemian.com: "...all operations and services are halted. The login will be kept available, as well as the Lock/Unlock App, so people can safely remove authorization to post on their behalf from their account." (italics added for emphasis)
Streemian gave disclosure.
If you never changed your voting weight, then YOU GAVE CONSENT for your 100% upvote to be used.
If you never removed authorization, YOU GAVE CONSENT for your upvote to be used.
Whether explicit or tacit, consent is not abuse.
"I feel abused" is not abuse.
"this just looks really weird from my point of view" is not abuse.
"Streemian Is Abusing Your Posting Key" without factual evidence to prove your claim IS abuse.
"You have been abused" [by Streemian] without factual evidence to prove your claim IS abuse.
IF Streemian overrode user preferences for vote weight, they broke their agreement with users. IF that is what happened here, that IS abuse. But that hypothetical has to be supported by facts.
Very good to know. I am still learning about curation trails and how they work and what not. Its good to be informed about the risks. I suppose this could happen to any of the similar sites as well?
I recently started @sndbox-alpha - whoop whoop! I'm excited about it but still trying to figure it all out. I'm not even really sure how to check where my vote goes lol. I assume I check that on the steemauto site?
Yes this can happen on every site where you have posted your posting key.
https://steemd.com/@leaky20 here you go.
great. thanks for the link
Thank you very much for explaining that to new user because I had no idea what was up with comments under their post
steem on
Glad i could have helped:)
Nope, I'm stoked that they're back up, and they can have my single 100% upvote for their GREAT service for me over the last 6 months.
That also is a way how to look at it...I think that they have fucked up their business plan and have done a move that will have an effect of hundreds of users revoking their key and removing the vote from the post or flagging it...Competition in this sector is real and they were in no position to do such a thing (from my point of view...let the market decided).
Viva la free market, but it is imperative for all agents to conduct themselves honorably.
Making a post that says "I think Streemian made a tacky and greedy move that fucked up their business plan" is way more honorable & accurate than declaring Streemian is abusing users.
If users gave their consent (by not changing upvote weight or revoking authority) then there has been no "abuse".
If you cannot prove abuse, then this post is actually libel & slander and you are contributing to their damages.
I’m gonna react here for both of your comments, for what I’m going to say pretty much answers both of them anyway...
Constructive criticism taken. You’re right that I could have chosen completely different approach. If I only had that idea when I was writing the article right:).
I definitely could have chosen better words for what I was trying to say. The whole point though stands. I felt abused and lot of other users felt that way too. Truth is that the fact was hidden somewhere in the terms of use, BUT the truth also is that it could have been explicitly stated (more honourable as you yourself said), that they are going to use the key for such purposes (like steemvoters does for example). I merely just informed users what has happened, though truth also is that in biased way, because I to was informed by someone about it. Spreading the info is important.
Streemian has also apologized for what has happened which indicates that his/theirs conscience is not completely sure whether it was ethically a good thing to do.
I’m going to change the statements to “may have been abused”.
Good...!!!