Report: Randowhale Self Upvotes - Some disturbing findings.
Hello, Steemians!
As I very recently alluded to, I want to do some Analysis in order to build some skills that I will be soon using day in day out. With all the controversy recently about people abusing the reward pool upvoting their own, sometimes inane comments, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if Randowhale is used in the same way.
So, Here's my crude methodology:
- Go to the @randowhale Transfers page.
- Grab all the data available there.
- Exclude any rewards that have been claimed, or transfers out from randowhale to the randowhale fund.
- Compare the user who sent the transfer and the URL
- Count the times a user voted on their own post.
- Present the data here.
The data set I have considered contains 4629 uses of randowhale over a period of approximately four days. Of this, 4,229 Uses of randowhale for self voting.
91.35% of the Surveyed data was a self upvote!
Then, through the power of PivotTables, I can quickly run reporting on the available data to see who has used @randowhale the most to upvote their own content.
Self Upvoters via Randowhale - Top 25
| User | Self Votes | % of Total Self-Votes |
|---|---|---|
| warn-a-brutha | 322 | 7.61% |
| sikklel | 154 | 3.64% |
| sepracore | 122 | 2.88% |
| thecgbros | 84 | 1.99% |
| sunnypictures | 70 | 1.66% |
| cryptopassion | 51 | 1.21% |
| musclenerd | 49 | 1.16% |
| gwapology | 43 | 1.02% |
| arthestically | 39 | 0.92% |
| sandrino | 37 | 0.87% |
| bhightech | 37 | 0.87% |
| ehujra | 36 | 0.85% |
| radioremix | 33 | 0.78% |
| elysiian | 32 | 0.76% |
| rkrijgsman | 28 | 0.66% |
| anton-kostroma | 23 | 0.54% |
| cyberblock | 23 | 0.54% |
| mxzn | 22 | 0.52% |
| inkedandsexy | 21 | 0.50% |
| digitalis | 21 | 0.50% |
| jwolf | 20 | 0.47% |
| wolo | 19 | 0.45% |
| isjw84 | 19 | 0.45% |
| zakariashikder | 18 | 0.43% |
| enazwahsdarb | 18 | 0.43% |
| healthyrecipe | 18 | 0.43% |
| cinemasins | 18 | 0.43% |
| dickdeepdog | 18 | 0.43% |
In four days time, I am going to rerun this report, and for the community and authors; this is what I would love to see:
- A transformation in the way in which randowhale is used, with:
- A lower percentage of self upvotes in proportion to randowhale's total voting output.
- An increase in people using randowhale to upvote the content of others (when your own upvote isn't enough!)
I am aware that @randowhale doesn't do all the voting, however it is the one that recieves all the SBD / Steem for the vote to happen. I may also crunch the data on booster.
Special shout outs to the top users of randowhale to upvote the content of others:
| User | Other Votes | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| noboxes | 26 | 6.50% |
| alexvan | 14 | 3.50% |
| btcvenom | 13 | 3.25% |
| miketr | 10 | 2.50% |
| chiefmappster | 10 | 2.50% |
| jack8831 | 9 | 2.25% |
| saffisara | 8 | 2.00% |
| ezblog | 8 | 2.00% |
| overkillcoin | 7 | 1.75% |
| mathworksheets | 6 | 1.50% |
| twirble | 6 | 1.50% |
| enazwahsdarb | 6 | 1.50% |
| aaronmda | 6 | 1.50% |
| karenmckersie | 5 | 1.25% |
| jdbry | 5 | 1.25% |
| dandesign86 | 4 | 1.00% |
| benjust123 | 4 | 1.00% |
| underground | 4 | 1.00% |
| ebejammin | 4 | 1.00% |
| stackin | 4 | 1.00% |
| binarie | 4 | 1.00% |
| carterx7 | 4 | 1.00% |
| acwood | 4 | 1.00% |
| kralizec | 4 | 1.00% |
Steem on!
Good research @holoz0r, thanks for the leg work and report.
I'm new on Steemit and was attracted to investigate because of the idea of working with something that is similar to a gifted currency. I find the emphasis of money equals influence to be something of a problem that creates a situation like we find with Rando-whale which is/was the same person as B-Sanders. On one side it looks like Rando is doing a favor for a group of people to be able to upvote someone but I see another side that Rando is taking advantage of a "rentier" strategy, that is making a profit from simply holding a moneyed position without any real production.
IMO creating an environment where this happens is counterproductive to creating an egalitarian economy. It is simply reproducing inequalities that we have in our present and to a large extent in our historical societies. I believe that we can do better than that.
Fantastic comment and an insightful response! Thank you for weighing in on the topic.
This is ridiculous, and if they truly cared about reward pool abuse, I imagine all of these voting bots could easily prevent people from using their service on their own posts, but they're not likely to. This study alone shows that @randowhale would earn about 90% less money if people couldn't use it on their own links.
I'm very against gaming the system for profit, as it violates the guidelines set forth in the Steem Whitepaper. Self upvoting is bad enough, but when you allow people to buy votes simply so they can profit, you create an environment that stiffles real engagement, and simply encourages more abuse...
Agreed. There would be way around not being able to upvote your own content via this technique; just add a 'man in the middle' who takes a cut before passing it on to randowhale.
I really want to see data since the inception of randowhale, and I'm working on collecting this now.
Woah the CGbros... They have a major YouTube Channel where they host other people's short films and such. It's unlikely its even them, given that it's purely just copying their YouTube videos.
No verification. I'ma go flag
There is a crazy amount of upvoting via randowhale for a lot of this stuff. Considering its over a four day period makes it very concerning. I'm really keen to see what this data will be like in another four days.
Good work, thinking to include the generous list. It's every bit as important to call out good behavior as bad.
I'm going to follow the top 10 of them.
And to think, it only takes 4SBD to make that list of the 'good people' :) 1SBD x 4 Votes.
I'd love to see that cost of entry increase.
Out of curiosity, what is the period you used?
four days.
That is some serious coin going through that account.... and coming out of the pool.
As someone who does use Randowhale to increase my profits some, I was just glad to see I wasn't on the list. I only use it when I have a special post that I'd like to give more attention to as well as increasing rewards (for contest purposes mainly) to allow for larger rewards and earnings.
Once I'm in the next level and can really afford to push some SBD to @randowhale, I'd really like to start finding my favorite posts from other authors to generate revenue for them.
Thanks for this very interesting peek into the numbers, @holoz0r.
I have a very Utopian view of the use of randowhale to allow me to upvote content more than a single 100% personal upvote will allow.
I think that this study shows that the "promotion" button is made redundant by intiatives like randowhale and booster; and perhaps we need to rethink the promotion functionality of steemit.
To me, a promotion button would be something that allows outsiders to the Steemit community to "upvote" an article. I don't know how it would work, but perhaps being put in a cyclical ad space might offer this, and then non-steemians can enjoy and donate.
exactly! why pay for promotion when user have to go click the button... it's like paying to hide a post.
There are, in fact... A lot of rich steemit accounts, that NEVER even upvoted once.
I stopped using randowhale and PAL because I don't think they do anything to encourage quality and I find it hasnt really hurt my payout except on a few posts which I don't promote much . Some people feel more willing to upvote a post with organic upvotes I guess.
Use the powers for good, not evil, i.e curate the content of others. :) that's my dream of randowhale.
so sad.
I am all for calling out and praising those who use randowhale to boost other peoples posts but there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the service on your own posts (comments - maybe a different kettle of fish). I do not think this kind of witchhuntery helps anyone, unless you separate out the voting on comments versus posts perhaps
I checked out @warn-a-brutha and he makes stupid comments and then calls in randowhale for a comment upvote.