Everyone being able to create bots will ruin Steemit.
I have seen at least 10 of these bots around. Apart from the Almighty and popular bot Wang, of which i believe was created by Steemit somehow, and a few other bots who ensure the good running of Steemit, how is it legal for everyone to be able to create bots. I understand eventually Steemit will regulate that, but sometimes it makes responses to your post very in-genuine. How is it possible for someone to read 2 pages of an article in 2 seconds and comment, "Keep up the good work"? Even Howard Berg, the World's Fastest Reader won't be able to do that on his best day so what's up with all these bots ruining Steemit?
I blurred the name of this person among others just to kind of protect him/her if you're truly indeed a real person but please if you really are, please stop and curate accurately. Wow just realized curate and accurately actually kind of rhyme together :D Anyway...
Unless these bots were officially created by Steemit, of which i don't think so, i don't think it should be allowed for anyone to create a bot and use it, otherwise Steemit will be like an artificial place full of fake bots impressing fake responses instead of a genuine community that honestly and accurately curate content. I would love to see a stop to this if possible. If any of the decision makers of Steemit is reading this, please consider regulating this or even better, ban it in some way or the other. An example will be anyone who uses bots, looses some kind of privilege. Something to put a halt to that. Steemit is a great community and i don't want to see it ruined with these bots flying around except the bots set out by the Steemit team to regulate Steemit and keep it a very welcoming environment. For example, i heard on a blocktalk interview by Dan and Ned that there's a downvote bot that downvotes double posts and other false content. That is a good use case for a bot and not trying to make more money.
If you see any of these bots and you realize it's not for a good use or used for selfish gains, downvote/flag them to discourage that on Steemit. We all want to see a community full of great humans with beautiful stories and knowledge and not a bot nation.
I won't be surprised if these bots start attacking me right when i post this. Shaking my head.
UPDATE 1: Just when i posted this (within 2 seconds, I'm sorry to point out the name this time, but this same person/bot posted again. I'm glad the community is responding positively and downvoting/flagging these bots. As evidenced by someone who just downvoted and flagged him/her/it lol. To whoever did that. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We really want to see Steemit as a pleasant place.)
UPDATE 2: I feel Steemit should make good use of the introduce yourself posts and have a verified icon of some sort on each individual/user to make more transparent the difference between a bot and a user. So that as soon as we see them, we flag/downvote them. And there should be some kind of punishment for people who are downvoted consistently. These are my thoughts on starting to trying to find a fix for this chaos.
Steemit doesn't have the ability to dictate what steem allows user's to do. The reason there is an opportunity to create bots is because the blockchain allows anyone to access it. If you disable this, you will be taking away the ability to have people create apps for steem like steemit. If you removed that functionality that steemit dictates steem which means that steem is centralized. I think we should create ways to allow us to see more curated and original content, but removing the ability to interface with the blockchain will create more problems then it will solve.
The good and bad sides of the blockchains. Well I really consider the transparency of the blockchain to be a great thing. With the blockchain, you can't really delete stuff from there once you post it, but according to Ned and Dan in their interview on blocktalk, they were able to manage ways to be able to update content whilst still keeping every previous version prior to the update available. I'm trusting them to find a way to regulate this and ensure accurate curation. Your post makes a lot of sense and centralizing this will be just like facebook or any other centralized platform
Thank you for your reply! We have to be careful in putting our trust into 1 or 2 people, we should be the ones getting involved! I am glad to see you reading some interviews about what the developers are doing. Keeping informed is the best way to make a decentralized blockchain.
Your name is ungratefulchump but yet you start with "Thank you for your post". What an epic mismatch :D ... Absolutely, there are a lot of behind the scene faces that are doing a great job and deserve all the recognition possible. Ned and Dan are the founders and why I'm referring to them as drivers also. When i use them, I'm referring to every soul who's helping make Steemit and pleasant place for all of us. We deeply appreciate all of them. You guys are Superheroes. I recognize them in my posts https://steemit.com/steemit/@kakradetome/if-this-is-how-ned-scott-dan-larimer-and-entire-steemit-superheroes-are-going-to-handle-hacks-then-we-re-in-safe-hands-everyone , although i don't know them all. I would love to know and meet them all if possible and start by saying a big thank you to them. Thank you for your reply and post too.
Ha, I got that a few times before as well. My name is that because that is how I view myself. I am told other things by others a lot of the time, but it is based off of my own views. I think we all can be a little more grateful in life for what we have.
I had no idea bots and the blockchain were so intertwined.
Idea bots are created so easily like you describe because of everyone being able to access the blockchain. It is decentralized, so we have the same influence on the block chain as a developer for steemit. And you also have to keep in mind... steemit is a web app that allows interfacing to steem, steem is a crypto with a blockchain that stores our posts and are approved by miners.
Yes we need to demolish the bots!
Absolutely. If we can leverage a way. That will be great!
I think the bot market will be like any other market. The good bots will be appreciated, the bad will be flamed into oblivion. I feel like if everyone actually made bots, we could more quickly sort through this issue and move on, but I like that anyone can... as long as the fellow Steemians can keep things on the up and up
I wish it was that easy for it to dissolve that way. Ultimately a great structure will ensure that but i'm trying to figure out a way of doing that without creating a big mess and affecting Steemits future. For example, new user signups etc.
Wait until AI takes over.
AI too? replicating what these bots are doing? No no no! It will be total chaos lol
If it's as simple as deleting the accounts then I would certainly like to start seeing that happening. I'm not sure how this BOT issue will be addressed but I'm certainly anxiously awaiting.
Great write.
"this is not the bot you are looking for"
Yeah me too. I hope there is a very feasible way to stop/mange this. And don't worry, you're cleared. You're officially not a bot haha ;)
From what I've gathered from @ungratefulchump because the blockchain is decentralized there isn't much that can be done about a bot accessing Steemit on the chain. Even though we see the bot, we know it exists, we can't just remove it so easily from the website part of Steemit, because it's accessing it from the blockchain and verified by a miner, it's basically here forever.
Unless I missunderstood.
No you understood very well. That is why I'm hoping just like Steemit was able to leverage "updates" on the blockchain, Steemit is able to leverage weakening the power of these bots.
Excellent, I buy you!
Thank you. Hope you're not a bot :D
Only 10? Did you notice how many votes you got within first minute of making your post? Almost all bots going for curation rewards.
I was surprised myself. I was like huh? But it so happens that as of this point. We have 1 confirmed bot and 1 unconfirmed but potential bot.
This is an interesting issue. For the comment bots, I suppose there could be a way to flag if one comment is identical to another one. Is there a way a writer could block another user, and not accept that user's upvotes? If so that would be one way to resist voting bots.
The only thing I've seen close to what you're saying is mute another user. But I'm sure the user can still upvote your posts. I think that only prevents the users post from being seen by you.
Keep up the good work !
Something tells me you're just being a stubborn cookie. Or maybe you're a bot. My goodness, now telling the difference between a real human and a bot has become a humongous task.
keep up the good work!
Just the fact that you "keep up the good work!" starts with a small 'k' makes me realize you're a stubborn cookie number 2 :D The real bot starts it with a big 'K' ;)