Is Steemits' ranking system being destroyed?
There is a natural order to the steemit ranking system which measures ones accomplishments on the platform and the value they bring to the community and it is being destroyed. This order is recognized as a profile score and labeled with fish names such as plankton, redfish, minnow, dolphin, whale. As you put more effort and good content into the steemit platform you become more part of the steemit community, in return you are rewarded by more upvotes from your peers and thus more profile points, your profile score then increases. Up until now the only way to increase this score was to put in effort on the steemit platform. Write great articles, make a lot of comments and replies, collect upvotes from your peers and slowly work your way up the ladder. That has all changed now with high dollar bid bots.
I took a few months off of steemit recently for some personal reasons and when I got back on last week it seemed as though many of the newbs I had helped on the platform when they first joined were way ahead of me in profile score. At first I was happy for them and proud that they had done so well for themselves, but when I started reading their articles something seemed very wrong. There was no way they should have had $50+ votes on these articles, I had wondered what had changed? Turns out the bidbots had really been ramping up, buying all the delegations they could get their hands on. Now brand new steemians are flying through to 60+ profile scores without even having an audience. It's destroying the natural ranking in the ecosystem of the steemit pond.
I joined steemit in Aug. 17'. At the time there were only a few bid bots to help upvote your posts, it was a nice little helper to get a dollar or two boost so people would take the time to look at your post which had been getting passed up because there was no money on it. It was just a little helper, nothing special. To be honest in the beginning a lot of these bots cheated you out of money before safe guards got put into place by @yabapmatt, so they weren't used as often as they are now. They also weren't giving out HUGE upvotes like they are now. (I actually remember using a site created by @penguinpablo at first to see how much return I was suppose to get on a vote from a bid bot, but @yabapmatt revolutionized it and made it what it is today with the steemit bot tracker).
source
Anyhow, back to my point. I don't mind people trying to get their content more views by getting some extra upvotes on their posts, that makes sense. However, I am seeing people who have $100+ posts that have zero real comments and 20 upvotes, 15 or more of them being bidbots. I get it, they are paying for advertisement but to be honest the articles are mostly SHIT! It seems as though they spend more time and energy getting bidbot votes than they do on their article. But once again to each is their own.
The real problem that I have is that these people who have been on the platform for less than a month have passed me up in profile score!?! I have worked hard for 9 months for some asshole to pass me up in under a month with no good content at all!?! Plus now when I see an article with $100+ dollars and a 60+ rep score it means nothing to me. I don't think it's anything special that is for sure, and I find that unfair for all the steemians who worked so hard to get those high dollar posts and those impressive reputation scores.
Steemit is set up a certain way so you can see who has put a lot of work into the platform. That is being messed with now by these HUGE upvotes these bid bots give out. I have seen people go from a 25 to 60+ score in less than one month on the platform with literally no good material, not one article that I would even bother to give a partial upvote to. They have like 15 Steem Power for voting, not that they bother to vote on other peoples posts. And zero dollars in SBD because it all constantly goes directly to the bid bot. They don't even bother commenting or replying, they just see steemit as a game to play for the biggest upvote regardless of material!
I for one see this as a huge problem. I find it discouraging to people who actually believe in the platform. I think it will end up chasing away so many more people than it will bring in. It really bothers me and I am a huge believer in steemit. The problem here is that steemit needs a community to work properly, and this community is being destroyed by people who think the bidbots are the answer to getting ahead on steemit.
Sure, I could also play the game and do this too but it doesn't seem right to me. I believe in steemit and the natural order that was set up here so I don't care to mess with that. So I will just keep on keepin on with what I am doing.
Oh yeah, another huge problem with bid bots is they buy up all the delegations which leaves people who actually curate good articles with smaller upvotes to pass out to the community of people who really try to put out good material on this platform, thus hurting the good content community even more. I can't compete with bid bots in buying delegations because those things are created to make money for its owner, I loose money when I buy delegations and share it with the community (are you seeing the issue here). I have to use my own hard earned money to buy delegations to hand out bigger upvotes to people who actually deserved it for good content. Unfortunately I can't afford to do that anymore because bid bots are driving up all the delegation costs for normal users, hence stealing bigger upvotes from the people who should be getting them for their hard work and good content which helps the steemit platform grow.
I am not saying that bid bots are bad, I actually like the idea behind them to be honest. Trust me, I definitely understand how hard it is for a new minnow to get your post viewed, I still struggle with it sometimes and I have been on the platform for nearly a year now. I just feel like they have gotten out of control once again and something needs to be done to bring the upvotes back down to a reasonable limit so it doesn't mess with the natural order of things on steemit, things like the ranking system.
Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as problem? Maybe I care to much about my steemit ranking and the steemit community as a whole? Maybe I'm crazy? In any case I feel like if this continues the way it is going that it will be really bad for the steemit platform as a whole. What do you think?
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D^mn. Just wanted to send you a little tip as an extra, to thank you for your article. But somehow I didn’t check the URL and now the whole world thinks I’m stupid for self-voting with loud bots - - lol
I’m sorry. I’ll make sure the tip will finally arrive, by using the good old-fashioned way of wallet-to-wallet
Hi @moderndayhippie, nice opinion post! I must admit I use some of the automated services on the platform. I feel like a sinner everytime I do. This since I really enjoy upvoting someones article when the content is well written and interesting! By voting sich articles I feel like contributing to the general posting quality even without writing myself. Yet, on the other hand, I rmember getting very sad and demotivated when I just started on the platform and hardly getting any votes. Especially when a lot of time was spent on writing the article.
I think the bots can help keeping new users motivated to stay and be active on the platform. It would be an idea to limit or scale the amount of bot-usage relative to the amount of sp or reputation level. This way, in the long run, only the trueley motivated writers will stay while the newcomers get a little help to get momentum.
Do you habe any sighestions? Also, Im curious what your opinion is on @steembasicincome.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! Useful!
I know how hard it is to put a bunch of effort into an article to only get a few votes worth next to nothing. The truth is that happens to everyone tho. Even the whales here now started off with the same problems. No one starts off at the top, this platform makes you work hard for you payouts, it is not a free payday by any means.
I agree, bots can help new users stay motivated but the problem is that they are now putting more time and money into the bots than they do into curating and upvoting other steemians, and that messes with the steemit ecosystem. If all the money people give to the bots went into Steem Power to give bigger upvotes to other steemians then there would be bigger upvotes going out by so many more people. Also, people like me would buy delegations and help out new users with decent content, but the bid bots buy up all the delegations and make that impossible.
I honestly don't know how to fix this problem, I am not that smart. I just like bringing up problems when I see them so it gets a conversation going.. Eventually that conversation will reach the right people and hopefully something will be done about it.
I have never used @steembasicincome so I don't know what that is about at all :/
I fully agree with all you say! The situation now is somewhat depressing when you think about how people exploit the system for fast rewards. However, thinking about the possible future situation where, as you say, SP ends up at the right place makes me really excited! Now, let's hope indeed that this discussion ends up at the right people! :)
As someone who has been writing here for nearly 6 months, I can DEFINITELY relate. I have been busting my ass and really honestly putting full time hours into not only writing posts every day, but also interacting, networking and making friends.
Sure, it's not ALL about the money. Hell, I've blogged for nothing for a long time... but at the same time, come ON. The potential to make this a paying job is one of the HUGE selling points. I DON'T want to do it by playing some game of bidbots and seeing how fast I can leap frog over everyone else.
I am proud of my writing talent and I am proud of the work I put into this every day. I was so stoked to think that I might be able to actually make an income doing something that I love and that I'm good at... and yet watched as people writing cut and paste/one photo/shit posts jumped higher and higher while I'm slogging away.
I'm not saying I"m the best writer out there, or that I'm doing everything right, but damn, I'm pouring myself into this for little return. I've gotten the curie votes often and I am ALWAYS thrilled beyond belief, but it is still disheartening to see people making $100 on every post while I'm thrilled to see more than $1. on most posts.
You make some GREAT points and I wish I understood the whole blockchain thing more and if there was any hope whatsoever.
My husband was writing on here for a while @serapium but he has since had to go back to work outside the house and just doesn't have the time anymore. He wrote a post How Steemit Becomes Irrelevant and Dies - A Newcomer's Perspective on Why STEEM is Today's MySpace that is older, but you might find it interesting.
I love his writing, it is SO vastly different from my own. I hope he is able to start writing again.
I'm really loving your blog and can relate to so many things. Keep on keeping on!
Also, there is a new social media thing coming up called Ono that is supposed to have some significant changes. I still need to check it out more myself, but you might be interested.
The struggle is real here on steemit for those of us who really want it to be more than a game :/ I will definitely read that article your husband wrote, I don't mind that it isnt recent, I like reading good material.
Thanks for all the kind words and being so supportive! Its nice to hear about other peoples stories that can relate to my life. Also, people from the midwest tend to be the nicest and most honest group of people I have met. I definitely feel a connection between us with our similar stories and life trials, so I am happy we found each other here on steemit. I will try to be more supportive of your work in the future :) For now I am just gonna keep on keepin on with steemit and see where it takes me ;)
I will consider looking into Ono, but I don't know if I have the energy to start all over on another social media platform. I am just trying to save up steem right now because I think the steem network is going to go to the moon, although I am not to sure how far steemit itself will go.
Don't forget, they're not really earning $100/ post, most of that goes to the people who delegate steem to the bid-bots.
You are defintely not the only one who sees the problem, @moderndayhippie.
As I see it, the use of the bid bots is not only destroying the ranking system, but the entire SteemIt platform.
In the beginning it was all about good content. And just like on other social media, you had to earn your audience and build up the number of followers over time. Not that I was here back then. I only joined in November 2017.
Then greed took over. It’s not about quality content anymore, but about who has money to buy his way up to trending.
And it seems like the only people who have enough money to throw hundreds of dollars at the bidbots, are the ones that are not capable of creating quality posts.
The trending page is like the SteemIt billboard. I think that there are lots of people who are potential content creators that check out SteemIt for the first time, are confonted with the trending page and just turn away.
If you don’t have the money, it is hard to get your content seen.
IMO, I wouldn’t mind if all the bots would disappear one day. Preferrably sooner than later...
I guess that’s just human nature: when money is involved, greed takes over.
SteemIt is killing itself, and there is little we can do about it, but try to raise awareness...
Wow, you nailed it with this comment. I totally agree with everything you said here. Greed is a huge issue for sure and like you said seems like the people with huge posts payouts have crap articles. I think ur right about the trending page too, i don't even bother looking at it anymore but if I would have found steemit now I probably wouldve not even bothered to sign up. I have convinced 10 of my friends to sign up since new years and none of them stayed on the platform..... Thats a huge problem in my eyes. If they cant even keep 1 out of 10 people here on steemit, it will not succeed!
May big guys keep voting each other, or keep flagging each other. If they would spend 5% of their voting power to upvote quality posts of the little guys, the situation for us minnows would be completely different.
There are exeptions of course. There are big guys who are being very supportive, but still, we minnows are stuck upvoting eachother, which results in 60 upvotes worth $1.50.
Selling and buying upvotes is not allowed in the SteemIt FAQ, but unfortunately Steemit Inc has abandonned the sinking ship...
I have been on steemit for more than half a year now and I get your struggle. I have been struggling with this for a while and have not yet come to a full conclusion, but what I do know is, is that blockchain social media will replace original social media and we'll have Steemit to thank for. It might not be the last one standing, but it will be here for a while.
That said, these days any other social media platform is after your money, we have a Facebook page with more than 12k followers (something we have build through years of hard work) and now we get barely 12 likes on a relevant story. That is 0,1%! It used to be a lot more and our content and quality of our photos and stories has only increased... Instagram is a lot better, but this will change in the near future. I read an article saying that it is a good thing that we start using paid Instagram posts to promote our own life. I personally think that is way over the line, but I might be getting on a side track...
Anyway, you want to know the reason? It is quite simple; money. My personal Facebook feed is filled with ads by Facebook saying, you can reach 4000 people if you pay 22 euro, etc... There are 12.000 people that want to know what is happening with our brand, we didn't force anyone to click on like my page... Yet almost no-one sees our content anymore, because we don't want to pay. It is ridiculous.
On steemit (I really feel there is a huge potential here) we have to start all over again. And you are right, growing your brand could happen organically, through years and years of hard work, but if no-one notices you, how the hell are you ever going to get anywhere? So, everyone is turning to bidbots and there is no reason not to navigate all the possibilities the system has to offer. I want to create a brand on steemit and I am obviously not going to get there being unnoticed in the sea of crap that is being put out there every day, so I am using smartsteem at the moment (amongst other ways like commenting and entering competitions), not the bidbot (because I believe there are better ways to fix this), but their 'buy votes service'. I sell votes as well, but only to accounts that have been rated two stars or more and I know how hard it is to get those stars, because we only got two.
Anyway, in my eyes this system is the best there is at the moment and I will be supporting it till someone figures out a better way to fix this bidbot problem.
As a conclusion I would like to say that there is no right or wrong, but that bidbots need to be delt with.
All the best!
I definitely see your struggle and understand your position on this. Like I said, I don't mind bid bots I just think the amounts are out of control and its messing with the natural order of the system.. I use paid monthly upvote services so my articles don't sit around with only $0.13 (my upvote) forever. But I only get a few dollar boost to get it circulating. I honestly get most of my upvotes from being part of a community in discords, I have to read and comment on a few articles to drop my article in these better discords and it really helps my article get seen and comments on it.
I guess the thing that really pisses me off is all the shitty content that is getting rewarded because of vote buying.. I don't think there is a way to change that, it is just demoralizing for people like me who have put in so much effort into the platform only to see it get washed away by people who don't care about good content, only a score or a post payout amount.
I am on the fence about bidbots myself. I've used them and found them wanting. I use resteemers to cast a wider net. I found bidbots to be less than satisfactory as I have to keep pumping money from outside of Steemit to them in order to make regular use of them.
As to the "shitposts" that are present on Steemit, I only have to be better than them with my writing. In the end, Steemit is about doing what I love to do. I can do that longer than someone can continue to post low quality content and use bidbots to get paid for it.
See, eventually, the novelty will wear off and those kinds of people will get bored. They might even find out eventually, that they wasted their time gaming the system rather than building up a useful skill.
I can see the enthusiasm in your writing because you write about what really matters to you. This is why we write. There is no other reason before that. If we get paid, well, that's a bonus. I don't even do it for the applause. I do it because I love the state of my mind when I write. "Shitposters" are never, ever going to see that joy of writing or creating something that other people can enjoy. For them, the high is in gaming the system. For me, the high is in writing. The former is simply not sustainable.
The programmers of Steemit seem to be aware of this trend and I have faith that they are working out the "beta" bugs. Steemit is still in beta. I also have faith that just writing what I want to write, hanging it up for all to see, and waiting for the response is enough.
You have the writing bug. Write on.
So true! I do love to write. And that is what is keeping me on this platform more than anything else. The biggest issue I have with bid bots is that they are ruining it for new people as well. If I were to come to steemit now I would take one look at the "trending" page and turn and run! I agree, people are spending more time and money on bid bots than they are on their posts and in the end they will realize its not even worth it, but that may take a long time.
Hopefully you are right with steemit seeing this problem and fixing it with the next hardfork or whenever steemit is out of beta. I just hope the platform will continue to grow with all the issues that have been popping up lately. I would hate to put all this effort into a platform that ends up falling apart :/ I'm excited for HF20, hopefully it happens sooner rather than later.
following you cuz I need follow more people who just love to write, screw all the bullshit! :)
I don't know much about the logistics of it but something has to give. In the 2 months since I have been here it is getting worse and something needs to be done... it's DEMORALISING!!
Demoralizing is exactly the word for it! I have been on steemit for about 9 months now and I only have a 57 score. Sure I took a few months off but other than that I have been steady putting out quality articles everyday! I use to be proud of my score, now I look at it and feel ashamed because I know people have been on here for a month or two who are at 60+ and they don't write anything good.
Try to forget about that. I keep my morals up by not thinking about others misbehaving, but about the fact that I’m ‘clean’ (well, not entirely, I use the bots for about 6sBD max every once in a while if I want to get more attention to a (quality) post of mine). But I know I’m doing the right thing, and I can look myself in the eye in the mirror at night. And there’s a whole new generation of steemians who do have the right mindset. Once they grow bigger and have some influence, things might change a bit. I only hope SteemIt will live that long..
When I started in Steemit I had a very vocal anti bot stance and through time had softened my stance on this as I have been using them.
I agree with you though on reputation. I no longer get awed by someone that has 60+ reputation and the highest reputation account we have in Steem currently haijen was achieved by a circle jerk and self-upvoting so clearly reputation is worthless.
The real power is on Steem power and you can either get a ton load of money and power up or try to get the occasional curie or OCD vote.
Most of the time you will need to wait 3 weeks to a month before you are eligible again except for the smaller community curie vote.
I have seen that so many time posts that have more than 200 in value and you realize you stumbled into a bid bot graveyard of a post full of just comments from bots saying it has been upvoted. Welcome to a golden shit post.
The one or two comments made by a human may be done in hoping that they wold be given an upvote not knowing the person barely has SP since everything is just paid to bots or cashed out. There is absolutely no intention to curate or be part of a community.
I fee you for delegations because it now costs an arm and a leg to rent out. I know because I rent delegations as well to get me to the SP i currently use to curate good posts and comments.
Its sad that some people have worked so hard to get a high rep and it is ruined by some assholes who don't care about the platform or content at all!
Lmao, I love it, it is so suiting!
Your right tho,
That is a huge problem too.. they all want to be superstars without the hard work and commitment that steemit takes. :/
You are right. The big upvotes from bidbots ruin the quality of content. New people on steemit now invest a little money into SBD or STEEM and start buying upvotes for posts with little to no quality content. I believe in the community and the way it could work with only small upvotes or with a seperate system to determine the "natural" evolution of a steemian.
I am probably not the one to point a finger because there is still a lot of work on my writing skills too buth that is the whole point.
With an independent leveling system, more expirienced steemians sometimes have more respect for less perfect articles when they can actually see that you are pretty new to steemit because it is normal that you still have to learn a lot.
I try to avoid bidbots myself. I have to admit that i bought some small votes in the past buth never more then $0.50 worth/post because it didn't feel right.
As a newb on steemit I definitely see the benefit of using bid bots just to get a few dollars on your post, but it shouldn't be more than a few dollars to get your article seen by people. You are right tho, more experienced steemians don't mind if there are spelling errors and things like that, most of them are just excited to read an article with some substance considering all the shit content that is out there.
I am not a great writer either but I have improved a bunch since I started 9 months ago, so just keep on keepin on my friend. Being part of a community is what steemit is really about, that community will help to support you and make sure ur articles are seeing some action... It just takes a long time, so don't get discourage! ;0)
At this point, the only real thing that the reputation ranking really does is help to fend off flags. With the higher ranking, you can lose rewards without being knocked back to 25 or below, where you can't really do much.
Otherwise, it's not been a trusted source for good content for a while now.
I don't look at the trending page. I look at what's in my feed, I look at what's in the nobidbot tag, and I will go looking at some others. I also go looking for posts from those in the curation and engagement leagues. Between those things, I typically find plenty to read and curate.
It's helped a lot to avoid discouragement. I don't know how to solve the abuse or misuse or whatever we're calling it of the bidbots, especially by the larger accounts who supposedly don't need the boost because they're the larger account. The dirty little secret apparently is, unless you have people who regularly read and curate your stuff, or have you on autovote, it's not a guarantee that you will get much out of your work even with high SP.
I wasn't aware of the #nobidbot tag either! Thank you! I will try to remember to use it from now on.
It's not been around for very long, two to three weeks, I think? It could definitely use more posts. I'd guess there's probably less than 50 people who regularly use it now, or at the very least, I see a lot of the same people posting regularly. :)
I know a high rep isn't a good source for content but atleast you use to know who has put in time and effort on the platform, now that doesn't mean shit.
I didn't even realize there was a #nobidbot tag! I will be using that one on some of my upcoming post for sure, and its somewhere I will go to look for posts too..
As far as looking at my own feed, I do that often too but that doesn't help me to find new steemians with good content, I also like to help out new steemians so they have a better chance at staying on steemit.
I don't know how to solve the problem of bid bots either, I don't think they are bad all together, I just think the abuse of huge upvotes is getting out of control. I just think starting a conversation about issues is better than avoiding them. Hopefully the right people will see it. :)
Yeah, hopefully. I think the bidbot discussion is well underway, and there are people who are doing a few things. We'll see where all that goes.
Yeah, it's tough to know longevity anymore, and the bots do have a lot to do with that.
Have you gone looking at the ASAPers stuff or Newbie Resteem Day? There's a few newbie related things associated with them. They try go get through as many of the newer people's posts as they can.