Don't Like The Way Some Auto-Voting Services Are Conducting Business? Build Your Own!
It's been brought to my attention by a few users that a site offering an auto upvote service here on the STEEM network is beginning to show signs of forming a flag brigade with their entrusted voting power. One thing that struck me as off about the entire ordeal was that this service was more than capable of taking it's income earned through siphoning a vote or two a day from it's users and powering up to defend themselves against a recent bot powered flag attack..
Instead they chose to start gesturing towards using their borrowed voting power to flag their opposition. While I can understand the want to defend oneself the problem here is that they plan to use keys entrusted to them for upvoting purposes.. And no where in their TOS nor site would you be able to opt out of being part of their offensive flag fury.
Personally, rather than bring others borrowed votes into the equation I'd have simply been powering up my account to a higher level than my attackers. However I'm not the owner of the services in question here and after reading a bunch of community response have decided to share the scripts I could find from the back end of one of these auto-voting services to share with the community in hopes someone takes the initiative to make a free of charge auto-voting utility for our community.
https://github.com/klye-dev/steemvoter-scripts
From briefly looking over the scripts I noticed that this likely isn't enough to have a site set up as a turnkey and will likely need some work before it's able to be released. A GUI needs to be built as well as some dependencies installed such as Python and Piston in order to operate this script.
One thing I found interesting is the fact one of the services offering auto voting is actually charging people either a vote a day or a few dollars a month to access software that is essentially open sourced.. Hopefully with the sharing of this code we see a free to use auto-vote service come to life in the future.
Vote @klye for Witness!
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
A Proud STEEMbassador of Canada
No one should be doing it the way steemvoter is. Period. In fact, i even question whether steemit should do it that way if they could do it the steem connect way.
I'm looking to implement steemconnect into my services in the near future. It is an awesome project!
right now, im a couple days away from introducing steem private messages via steemconnect
~aroused~
That is sexy to hear! Can't wait man.
Thanks for the code, looks like it needs some work, but it's a starting point. As for having a free service, well, I don't know about that. If you're not paying for something, you're the actual merchandise that's getting transacted... I'd rather pay for a transparent service, which doesn't use my voting power abusively, and which gives me a lot more options. If I had something like this, it will basically save me time, so I'd gladly pay for me having more time.
With that being said, I'll continue to play with this thing: https://github.com/Kefkius/steemvote.
I was playing with it for a while, stopped when I started to test that service, now back to the playground. :)
QFT.
Not everything has to be free (which really means paid for out of the reward pool). One of the things about the steem system that really gives me pause as a businessperson is that no one really seems to have come up with a business model thats not "pay me with votes".
Which means that no one has really come up with a business model that can move money from outside the steem ecosystem, to inside the steem ecosystem.
I'd personally monetize the site with ads.. You'd expose users to the ads when they went to adjust settings.. Make them just a small part of the site and make money that way.
I've known Kefkius online for years now. Really solid guy.
True words here.
If a free to use (perhaps supported by ads) auto-voting service doesn't pop up here in the next month or two I'll add it to the list of things I need to do.
Cheers. :)
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 04. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $13.35 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 04 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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Add me to your bot, then I like your bot :)
I got rid of my bot.
Not supporting services that simply put are being run by people that shouldn't be in possession of that power.
It strikes me that 'bots' are a bug...not a feature.
Well, it's all automation really.. Which isn't a bug so much as a tool..
Think we should be upvoting ourselves or it defeats the objective if you are not reading the post
Well, If you post something and you stand behind it.. Upvote it!
What do you mean? I never read my posts but upvote them straight away :):) #kidding
Any Guild found Abusing upvotes - will be expose!!
They tend to upvotes them self.
Abuse?
I stopped using their service after it became apparent the one service is storing users keys in plain text as well as upvoting themselves without asking permission or making it apparent they would be doing so off the hop.
Can you name the service?
You can ignore this question ;)
While I'm not going to single out the service if you check out the link above to the source code you may be able to figure it out. ;)
you might not, but i will. Its steemvoter. And anyone who has given their keys to steemvoter would be wise, IMO, to change them immediately.
... Yep. It is.
I stopped using their service after it became obvious they are saving posting keys (likely in plain text) and have the ability to misuse these posting keys.
Well, thank you. I guess I wasn't really reading the whole of your post.
I will consider taking the alternatives to this service, thank you again!
No worries sir. Just doing my part. :)
All the Guilds are upvoting each other's with the upvotes given.
I will be independent accessing theirs accounts.
Mmmm. I think the term for that is a circle jerk but I may be wrong. XD
This is how you deal with issues - not incessantly whining about them and flagging users or content that you don't like.
Great idea and good job, Klye. I hope there are people who can take advantage of this and produce something useful.
Thanks David. A number of users felt I may have been too abrasive in the past dealing with issues so this morning I set out to write an article to help an issue I see without raising my voice or fist at the matter.
It's a different strategy than what I normally excersized in the past.. But if it's just as effective as getting mad about it I'll likely stick with the calm way of doing things in the future.
Thank you for the feedback. :)
Excellent. Just to be clear - I wasn't referring to you when I mentioned "whining." When you get worked up, you're more like Trigglypuff...or a rabid dog. :) It's entertaining nonetheless.
ROFL. Rabid dog., bahahahahah
That is kind of funny but I can see where you get that view from.. Some of my previous posts have been less than calm or professional when dealing with matters... But I'm working on it! :D
It seems I missed a lot during my offline period... damned!
HNY 2017 btw!
Same to you sir! Happy new years.
Klye man, I think that post about a paid flagging legion app was a joke, at least I took it like that.
I know that every time a post needs to be flagged based on legit reasons the #nuke channel on steemit.chat is the place to post the recommendation.
PS. I use streemian, don't tell me they're compromised as well...
Different service than the one mentioned.
I follow #nuke as well and lend my voting power to smashing plagurists.
I may go check out streemian actually here shortly!
The paid flagging legion app post I totally missed actually! Got a link handy to that one? If not no big deal. :)
https://steemit.com/parody/@joseph/announcing-steem-downvoter-plus-1-0-service-free-ios-app-included
Streemian is built by @xeroc so it should be ttly fine.
go go #smashingPlagurists
EDIT: also @anyx was mentioning something about a curation voting bot he created...
Thank you for the link sir. Checking out now. <3