Steemit's Got Issues! - Bid Bot Abuse - Take 1
Steemit's Got Issues!
Bid Bot Abuse
Take 1
Bid Bot Abuse
Take 1
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Links to Topics Discussed Thus Far:
Today's Topic:
Bid Bot Abuse
Bid Bot Abuse
So, this topic has been hot lately. There are a ton of bid bots now and people are seeing it create some changes on the platform. Some for the better and some for the worse.
My intention with this post is to convey to you an ample description of the issue, in its entirety. There are many factors surrounding this issue that are being overlooked and/or swept under the rug. After reading this post my hope is that all of you will have a very educated understanding of the issue as it is today.
All that said, let's get started.
First of all, what is bid bot abuse?
Abuse of bid bots, put in simple terms, is using bid bots for sheer profiteering. Using them in a way that rapes the reward pool.
Some people have portrayed black and white definitions as to what constitutes bot abuse.
Here are some that i have seen:
- Using bots to upvote spam content.
- Using bots to upvote shitty or undeserving content.
- Using bots to upvote posts that are older than a certain amount of days.
- Excessive use of bots.
- Like people making 10 posts per day then using bots on all of them.
It is easy to look at this list, and on the surface, believe that each and every one of them is absolutely accurate. However if you dig deeper into them you will find out that that is just not the case with some of them. Life, as well as this issue is just not black and white.
I'm going to address these issues in a moment but I want to get something else out of the way first.
There are some people on the platform, that would like you to believe that people are just stripping rewards from the pool at an alarming rate. People posting a picture that is not even theirs and running to the bank with massive payouts. The first question i want to ask is are they?
So...
How much are the "abusers" actually profiting?
Well, lets just look...
In the last round of my bot, @sneaky-ninja, there were several people who bid and got a vote. Out of those I'm going to illustrate those that bid only 1 sbd because 1 is a very easy number to calculate and show.
![ninja round.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmYtqydcXye49UnVgyqKQDH6XaqpKyQ4PnwYcoN8XViz3Y/ninja%20round.jpg)
So, every person that had put in $1 last round for @sneaky-ninja received an upvote of $2.35.
Whoah! That seems like so much profit at first doesn't it?
That is until you start doing the actual math on it.
After taking out 25% for curation they are left with $1.76, still seems pretty good but let's keep going. So then this 1.76 will get split. They will get .88 sbd and the equivalent of .88 in steem. However, what is the equivalent of .88 in steem? Well right now since steem is worth just over $6 usd, this will decrease by roughly 6/1. Meaning that the remaining .88 will actually only be .15 steem once it pays out.
Ok so lets add that all up...
We have .88 sbd plus .15 steem. So, this person that has put in $1 gets $1.03 sbd/steem after payout.
Wow, this is some serious racketeering! These fuckin guys are bankin!!! Holy shit everybody, lets all start doing this and making a potential 3 fuckin percent!! Find the worst pics you can and start posting guys! We've got loot to make! LMFAO
Anyway, as you can see, even the people that are actually abusing bots, attempting to make large profts, simply are not. Now, I will say that just after @yabapmatt came out with his Steem Bot Tracker, there was a period of nearly a week where people were using this to gain profits of about double their actual sbd plus what they gained in steem power. That time is long past though and now the profits look much more like the example I just gave for most bots actually. In fact in some cases the bidder may even lose a small amount.
There is the occasional time that someone will bid during a round that far fewer people have bid. During these uncommon times you can see actual profit from them.
The bottom line is that if your idea is to use bots for pure profit it will not work the way you intend it to.
This basically leaves this issue of bot abuse null and void, though I will continue because there is far more left to look at.
All of that being said, they do find ways of making profit in the long run because some bids will profit and some won't. Also, even if they don't profit, they are pulling from the reward pool for spam or scams so it is something we want to stop either way.
One more thing...
Many bot owners, in fact all most all of us, have discussed this issue countless times to try to come up with some sort of resolve.
We do profit from them and it is a business for us. However, we are not the greedy, power hungry monsters that some would like you to believe. We are regular people. We want to see steemit grow and become great just like you do.
I personally have formulated a plan that will all but eliminate these abusers from using bots entirely. The plan is not the focus of this post so I will not be sharing it here. However, it is peaceful effective and will not spark more flagging wars as we have been seeing lately.
Ok, now lets get to the real meat of the issue.
I'm going to cover some of the more common things people see as abuse.
1. Using a bid bot to get a vote late in the 7 days allotted for voting.
I'm starting with this one because it is definitely the most talked about currently and there are many people here, like @grumpycat that would like you to believe that using a bid bot late is a black and white example of bot abuse...
However, it is not!
First of all, the system allows for votes to come in for posts up to 6 days and 12 hrs. This system was designed for a reason and it essentially is the actual law regarding it.
Second, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to vote on the sixth day. Here are but a few
- What if you simply did not have any sbd to buy a bid for your or someone else's post until then.
- Many of our users are from countries where money is hard to come by or simply do not have much. Steemit provides these people ways to make enough to survive, to feed their families. It brings them hope.
- You want to surprise a good friend or maybe just a stranger with an undervalued post by voting or bot voting their post on one of the final days.
- A simple gift.
- You want, or need a small payout quickly so you look for the most profitable moment and exploit it.
- Again, some people do not have much and a dollar or two guaranteed to come out tomorrow could be a meal for that day or help a person get medicine or something.
- What if you made a post, waited for it to be voted on, but it never did.
- This can feel very daunting, I know, I've been there.
- How could it possibly be wrong to want to see your post make just a little even if it is from only you?
- Using a bot for this can make you feel good whether you profit or not. There is much to be said about seeing your post have money on it vs. having none regardless if it is actually profiting or not.
This is not, by far, a complete list. My aim here it to show that the issue of voting late is not black and white. There is so much grey area that we cannot just put a blanket rule out there to shorten it. If it were 4 days in the system, you could bitch about people voting on the third day.
The truth is that voting that late in many cases is not smart because you simply may not get the return you expect as so much will go out to curators. However, it is not our job to punish stupidity or ignorance, only to root out abuse.
We have an economic society here on steemit. It is absurd to think that someone would not want to use this platform for profit. The line is drawn when they are using abusive means to achieve that. If you have a good post and want to invest into yourself for a small profit no one should be able to say otherwise.
A lot of people say, and I agree, that the best way to use a bot is to promote your post. Buying a vote when you first post as a means of getting your post to show in hot or trending. With how hard we all know it is to get noticed here this is a very great way to use a bot. However it is not the only way by any means.
I want to touch on something else here for one moment. When I started @sneaky-ninja it was meant to be fun. Fun for me and fun for the bidders. He was given a cool persona with stories and everything. In the very beginning I simply had a decent amount of power and would look for good posts that had not made much by their sixth day.
I would pick stuff that interested me and that I could enjoy reading. Then I would leave them a big vote with a comment from me saying "sneaky ninja attack!". I thought it was a real fun way to reward great content right at the end when that person was likely assuming the post they had poured their heart into would just not payout.
I made so many people happy by doing that, that I decided to look into making it a bot. So for me personally, I truly believe in allowing people to vote on the 6th day and even bid on bots on the 6th day. This is something I stand very firm on regardless of threats or insulting comments.
2. Using a bid bot to upvote spam content.
Alright, this one is a no brainer. The truth is that since there are no rules here on steemit, and that people power is their power, they technically have the right to create and vote on spammy content.
The greater truth is that basically none of us like it. Spam sucks and clutters up everything. I am very happy for teams like @steemcleaners that focus on uprooting this type of content as well as farms and other abusers.
That being said, in my opinion, spammers should not be allowed to use bots at all and should be reported to steemcleaners. This is why I actively build and grow @sneaky-ninja's blacklist as well as share blacklists from other sources. It is not perfect yet but is getting there. In the very near future it will much larger and more effective in fact.
This is also why there are people now working on building a shared and unified blacklist that can be used across steemit by all bots and other services that would benefit from it. It would allow many people to be able to add to it and would grow quickly without huge time involvement from any one person and basically eliminate bot abuse all together.
Eliminating these account from using bots is at the forefront of my plan.
3. Excessive use of bots.
What I mean here is the people that are posting like 10 times a day, usually also with spam content, then hitting all of them with bots. These guys are likely actually making profit as they are doing so many that it probably averages out.
Everyone has the right to post 10 times a day if they like. This in itself is not wrong or even grey. I'm not sure how they do it but I have seen accounts that create actually entertaining posts and still do it 10 times a day. However, if it is spam and clearly abusive then it should not be allowed to get votes from bots and should also be reported to @steemcleaners.
4. Using bots to upvote shitty or undeserving content.
I have to be candid here. This one is actually grey. Some people are simply not very good at this. Considering the many reasons listed above for voting late it is not really up to us to judge them for not being very good. However, as a community we can help them understand how to be better at posting quality content. There is also so much here that is subjective. We do not all like the same things. What is crap to one person might be funny as hell to another.
For this issue, my suggestion is a schooling system. Something that would alert them that their posts are not up to par and give them time to learn how to write better. Maybe even link them to posts with pointers on how to get better. Give them a couple times to start getting better and if they don't, temporarily blacklist them until they begin to get better. This allows the honest ones, that just need to learn, a second chance and the others will simply not be un-blacklisted, effectively eliminating the possibility for further abuse from them.
Thank you all once again for joining this discussion and adding your input to it. As a community we will grow and with one voice we will speak and create necessary change.
@michaeldavid
Master of @sneaky-ninja
and
proud member of:
@michaeldavid
Master of @sneaky-ninja
and
proud member of:
![michaeldavid alliance footer](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmXBYDtdB9k2PGNmKrmc7LtDtukudr5cpLz9zkTKv6enJa/The%20Alliance%20footer%20Michael%20David.png)
https://steemit.com/@steembotcleaners
Are you the owner of this Account?
In my modest time on this platform I have seen and experienced many things, few touch me quite so much as your own journey. I wish in many ways we could make it required reading, for new and established members of the Steemit community to learn and understand just how much you sacrificed to help and support this growing community. It is easy to miss this post on your blog https://steemit.com/thealliance/@michaeldavid/what-the-alliance-means-to-me but also essential reading because to understand any one person you have to understand their journey. Regarding content, I'm the worst my content is weak and to get my posts noticed I need the bid bot's to boost them. They are a life line for those of us who post something, it might not be an incredible literary story, an incredible picture set or insightful musings - but being able to get some one to notice them can make a massive difference.
Wow, thank you so much.
It has been a struggling journey here. I'm still facing adversity here even.
Yes bots are super helpful for many of us. I still use them as i am not nearly as noticed as it seems lol.
Thanks for your commitment to the Steemit community and serving others. I connect with your message about there not being "black and white" rules.
Admittedly, I do not agree with everyone but it is not my place to police everyone's actions and behavior. There are some actions such as scammers/spammers that we need to address as a community, but it seems like we should be able to work together to make those types of changes.
Well worded response. I totally agree.
Unilateral policing is not worthwhile. However acting as a community about obvious things is great.
We don't have to all agree, only coexist :)
Like most controversial issues there is more than one side to it, and a lot of grey matter rather than black and white! Good description.
That's really true.
Thanks!
I certainly hope that soon, there will be a peaceful solution and the crazy wars, flagging and all that stops...
Thank you for all you do!!
I really do also! It may involve changing the reward structure.
Great Start, @michaeldavid!
Perhaps we can come to a reasonable solution with people like you leading the way ;) I have an "OP-ED" piece brewing in my mind, maybe it will see the light of day... Time will Tell!
M.D. ... Is that why they call you "thedocta" :D lol
A reasonable solution is all we need for this issue and many more to come. It's all about bringing them to the table and opening the discussion from the start.
As far as being called The Docta:
Hmmm... I'm sure if you pay attention to the steemitcomics from @enginewitty you may find the answer you seek. :)
I have a plan to create a bot that only accepts bids from accounts with more than three numbers in their names, like hammakaresh34856. I'll invest like five grand and pay out huge for the first week. After that, all bids will go directly into my unfortunatley out of control alcohol budget. I'll get to finally die of alcohol poisoning while also bankrupting all the abusers. All I have to do is learn how to code to create bots... or whatever the process is to do that...I have no idea. I can't get my fucking remote control to work. I tried to sell drugs but I suck at fractions and don't know how the metric system works. I can't do anything right. Are you happy Dad? I can't do anything right!
Fucking hillarious!
Bwahahaha! I needed that.
Awesome wasn't it? Lol
You are my hero :)
haha, thanks
Hi Michael,
It was a great read. I read till the end. Some fantastic points in there. Some I agree with, some I don't. But it's a discussion so I should add something useful.
Voting late happens on crappy content because receiving big votes on older content doesn't bring it much visibility. The trending and hot feeds prefer fresh content. There is a lot of grey in this activity.
I was looking for a point on reputation score algorithm abuse but I sadly found none. The way reputation system works, bid bots are massively responsible for tearing apart the very fundamental reason of its existence; distinguishing those who add value from those who don't.
Would it be not iteresting if the blockchain, for one week, shows reputation scores not including the effects of bid bots? Can we imagine how many users will drop by how many numbers? I'll drop to 62 I know. I know some who will drop from 63 to 40 may be.
I think the only abuse happening right now is the working of bid bots itself. I prefer content promotion services like @minnowbooster and @smartsteem to bid bots simply because they promote your content at an expected return rate. Bid bots have been profiting a lot due to excessive bids because they do not return the bids when their capacity to vote for existing bids is filled. @honestbot is a ray of hope in this regard. It returns your token if it can't vote with enough value.
I know people, including me, who are tired of reporting spammers and scammers. But as a community, we need to keep doing this. @themarkymark goes to great lengths to find out and cancel abuse of reward system. You care about it too. Anyone profiting from the gift economy of Steem should care.
Please add your opinion on reputation algorithm abuse as well because it is important. Thank you!
Thanks for joining the discussion!
minnowbooster is a bid bot with a fancy name and different coding lol. you bid, you get a vote, bid bot. Also, the return from minnowbooser is all over the place and you have no way of knowing what it will be. I love reggea and what he does, but it is one of the reasons i dont really use it anymore. Way to unpredictable for me personally. Other bid bots you can get much closer to knowing what you will get back using @yabapmatt's bot tracker.
Though it used to be a big issue a couple months ago, the issue with excessive bids has been solved also ever since @yabapmatt created his bot tracker. People very very rarely over bid now.
Bid bots are clearly not the only abuse here. the worst abuse on steemit comes from spam accounts, account farming and unnecessary self votes of large whales actually. Far more coming from these places than bid bots. In fact I was just going through steemcleaners blacklist yesterday of over 5500 accounts and as I went through it was clear that they were largely account farms and spammers, most seemed to be farms.
Bots have had an impact on the rep system this is certainly true. However it is really flawed to begin with. You can get a good rep just from being friends with a whale and getting one or two votes from them I've actually proven this physically. That clearly should not be a show of real rep. This needs updated somehow. Possibly to include the idea of bid bots being here.
I don't see bots as having abused this, instead i feel it is simply flawed to begin with. You can bring an account with nothing posts to a rep of 50 super quickly by just voting a small number of times on posts from it using a higher rep/sp account. I've seen accounts hit 45 rep in their first post actually from this exact thing. I've also not seen much benefit from having a high rep other than what it can do for someone if you upvote them.
Currently we share blacklists among several bot owners and I believe @themarkymark is a part of that. I'm also about to start using @steemcleaners entire list of abusive accounts (currently over 5500). I'm actually converting it into a form I can use right now and will also be sharing this list with other bot owners.
The only abuse I see from bid bots is the abusive accounts that have had the chance to use them, which myself and many other owners are actively remedying. In reality they are helping minnows out a lot. It's actually helping re balance some of the older issues we've had here with many whales simply not helping minnows in exchange for only helping themselves or friends. Which is potentially why certain whales are upset by it lol.
I know what you mean about being tired of reporting spammers and scammers. I also believe that when it comes to bid bots, we as owners of them are responsible for rooting them out of our services since we are the ones voting on them. This is why myself and @sneaky-ninja will now be working with @steemcleaners. We will be on air discussing this tonight at 12pm utc (7pm est) if you want to listen in.
There is definitely a lot of grey area in voting late. It is for that very reason that we cannot make a blanket, black and white rule that it is bad. Some are abusing it and some are not.
Actually, fun little side note... There was an account called @abusereports just started that is showing anyone voting on the sixth day. I was pleased to see that since that account has started there have only been 2 votes from @sneaky-ninja on their lists. :)
I cannot agree more. Absolutely true. No form of abuse is bigger than spammy content getting rewarded and vote farming.
I meant that people are using bid bots to tear apart the essence of reputation algorithm. Having higher reputation certainly helps because it is a social signal. Any social signal helps users get attention (and votes). I would still voice my opinion for upholding the purpose of reputation system.
Regarding having a shared blacklist if you will, I think it is an absolute need at the moment. Any people who are handling abuse should collaborate. I know @therealwolf is using blacklist of @themarkymark for regulating SmartSteem. More collaboration is needed. Steem Cleaners' 5500 strong list is gold for fighting abuse.
I really appreciate your thorough response. I also appreciate your concern for the integrity of bid bots and reward system. I share the same concern but you well placed to make things happen. Best of luck!
I totally agree in having a reputation system. I just feel it needs altered/ tweaked so it's better.
About bid bots, I would really like a little honesty like the @honestbot. Return what you can't vote for. If 100 % vote is worth $230, return bids after 100 SBD have been sent (supposing the bot is designed to vote worth at least $2.3 per SBD). I would really appreciate that.
That is just advertising man... the truth is that ever since @yabapmatt created the bot tracker no one ever over bids.
Its not like it was when bellyrub was here anymore.
I agree and fully support your decision in this case, i just recently started using bots and find it massively helpful and encouraging to get good post i literally spent all day on to have some type of value and help with curation with the people who support me. Its hard and i know you know the struggle and happy to have you and your talent on the platform bro.
be well
@michealdavid
It's really true. They help so many people.
Keeping them free from clutter and spam is essential though.
so true, full support here
I disagree. You still get the benefit of increased reputation from any upvotes. You are effectively able to buy reputation by using bots.
This is true. however the rep system is clearly flawed anyway. You can get the same thing from charity votes from whales or any account with a good rep that votes on you even if your posts are shit.
I've actually seen this in action. You can take a nothing account and get it to over 45 from only one or two votes from a high rep/sp account.
This was an issue long before bots and needs to be updated somehow.
True, it is also very vulnerable to Sybil attacks.
I'm not sure what sybil attack is?
People make multiple account that use their upvotes to just upvote each other, artificially increasing their reputation.
Oh, I've seen that called account farming