Voting Your Favourite Authors?
I’ve been watching some of the turmoil that has been going on in the Steemit community over the last while and have decided to change course on autovotes. I was using the service at SteemVoter.com to autovote my favourite authors.
My preference is to read their posts, upvote and maybe comment but I don’t always see them post and don’t always have time to check to see if they have posted. So, using the service was a way to make sure I at least upvoted their posts.
For me, it’s not about the curation rewards. They are nice to get but they are small enough most of the time that I think it is more important to contribute to community. Contributing to community is a strong motivation behind me writing the Steemit Rambles.
I Deleted My Steemvoter.com Account
This morning @steemvoter put up a post indicating they are going to form a sort of “flag police” type guild. This post was a response to some nasty crap that has been going on around Steemvoter.com in recent days. I get they need to defend themselves but this response is wrong IMO.
Part of the ‘cost’ of using Steemvoter.com is their right to use one of my votes per day on average. They have a paid service which would mean their right to my vote is removed but I decided I don’t want to go down that path and I do not want to take a chance that my vote would be used as part of this flag police action. So, I have deleted my account.
Now, How to Keep Track of My Favourite Authors?
Even though autovoting is convenient, not doing so doesn’t mean I can’t track my favourite authors. I am on another service called Streemian. While most people know the service as a site to join or creating curation trails, there are several services available there both paid and free.
Use RSS Feeds From Streemian
One of their services is providing RSS feeds. I use the Chrome browser for my activity on Steemit. I installed one of the RSS feed extensions called Feederto provide me regularly updated RSS feeds.
I tried a few before settling on this one. I like that I can organize my feeds as I want either into folders or how they are listed. I have two folders, one to track tags I want to follow and another to track my favourite authors.
Join Streemian
So, if you’d like to use their RSS service, you’ll need to join Streemian first. If you need an invite code to get setup, I have about nineteen available. Once you get setup, you click on their RSS service and find the URLs you’ll need.
Setup Your Feeds
Once you have the URL you need it’s just a matter of adding the user or tag you want to follow when you enter your feed. For example for me to follow myself I’d use https://streemian.com/rss/@shadowspub
So, not so hard to setup. As long as my browser is open, the feeds keep updating. I know when my favourite authors publish and instead of just autovoting, I read, upvote and even comment.
Isn’t that what the site is really about anyways?
If you like this, please follow me and upvote the post.
If you’d like to see the other days I’ve posted, just visit my profile
If you’d like to be notified when I post next, join my mailing list here.
Just the other day I decided to quit auto-voting entirely. If you get a vote from me it means I read your post and I liked it. Sadly this means I'll miss upvoting some quality content, but at least I won't be upvoting content that I otherwise would not have had I actually read it.
Right on.
The ones I was autovoting on had a track record of consistent material I liked and I would usually try to actually get to reading their posts. I read a lots of posts of varying quality in order to do my Steemit Rambles
I always read what I vote for, sometimes I upvote even if I don't like the article but van see the author put some work in it, and I never flag, I don't like an article I just ignore it.
I believe I have only ever flagged a post once. The author took a private convo of mine and posted it without my permission.. I told her I objected and she told me to go fly a kite.. I did.. and attached a flag to it.
I actually didn't know that's what streemian did... I thought it was just about autovoting. That sounds like something I should have signed up to long ago so thank you for this review.
Resteemed :)
Edit:
I went through the process of confirming my email and confirming my steemit account to find that I still have to give my posting key to use any of the services. I'm very reluctant to do that now after my experience with steemvoter.
I do however get notifications on an app called steemwatch. It might be a nice alternative for anybody who similar to me is reluctant to give away their key as I didn't even have to verify my account (if I remember correctly). It sends me whatever notifications I set up on it through steemit.chat / slack and I spoke to the developer and they put up a github issue to get it on discord too.
I haven't had any concerns with Steemian but then the service is free without attaching a claim on any votes. The key is more for the curation trails I believe. I'll have a look at Steemwatch, thanks
I tried Steemvoter.com but after a day I realised it's not working for me. What's the point of giving your votes to a group of people that can change their mind depending on how much power they have. It is true that with great power come great responsibility.
I feel much better when I personally read, upvote and comment on a post. Isn't this the point of a social media?
That is the point of social media. Maybe one bit of good that can come out of steemvoter and his so called 'flag police' proposal is some people moving back to the core principle of reading, upvoting and commenting rather than just upvoting cause we're too busy for the rest.
I think auto voting is great but also only if manual curators do not go extinct, Balance is key. Glad you are reading content maybe people will set their bots to follow your manual curation if ur good enough
well, I've had some people enjoy the 53 editions of the Steemit Ramble where I share comments on posts I liked. Would that count as 'good enough'? LOL
Welcome back to the manual voting! Humans over robots! :D
Yes, I have to agree. Took me a while to wake up that I could follow my favourites and not autovote
i've never used any auto voting scheme... i'm interested, what's the benefit? better curation? a tool doing it for you when you aren't around? and is it easy to do? i feel like it's easier for me just to vote myself lol
I believe that most people have good intentions with using bots. Whether it is to upvote or downvote or anything, they are doing it thinking that they are not online all the time and want to have their voice, or vote heard anyways. Maybe they like or dislike any particular poster so much they believe it's just better to upvote than not. I don't get it myself, I don't want a bot to do my work. I also fear the people profiting from these broken bots https://steemit.com/cheetah/@tsxbox/my-curiosity-and-detective-work-on-cheetah-about-content-detection-robot-bot
actually @cryplectibles you received a very comprehensive response about @cheetah and its purpose from @sykochia on the post you quoted above so there was no reason for you to spam this post with your 'issue'.
@anyz, @steemcleaners and @cheetah put a lot of time and effort into this platform to trackdown the plagiarism and abuse that goes on. You may not like it, but a lot of writers appreciate their efforts.
That is just a few links, there is more. He did not acknowledge or accept that there are more than just me who sees the name of the bot as "cheetah" giving a direct negative implication. I believe they put a lot of time and effort into this platform, which could be taken a step further by responding in a non negative way to questions or criticisms. I had been very polite with @anyx and will continue to be civil with him. I do not believe we are on different pages in knowing that people appreciate the efforts put forth, and I am, I believe that the bot needs work is all. My first requests was only to be white listed as my posts specifically have copy/product description text. It wasn't until later being ignored I seen other users complaints. The post you call "spam" is not even my own, these are other users links. I appreciate your response on this and hope @anyx could take time to respond as well.
I didn't call the post spam.. I called your putting the links on this post spam. They are not relevant to the topic of this post. They are thus spam.
What drew my attention to your comments, other than your spamming links on this post, was your less than civil attitude towards @anyx. When I saw you had received a response and a good response, I was even less impressed.
It really doesn't matter if you like the name of the bot, it does it's job.
I have no issues with your opinion as I know you are not alone in it as I know I am not alone in mine in the renaming, but it is not doing it's job as well as it could and it could definitely use some better support. I believe we both wish for something to be in place that works right a lot, I think you just believe that is already in place is all, I think that it needs work to get there. Thank you for responding with respect.
I saw a comment that I saw in another place , seemed awfully suspicious , but all I had to d as laugh , I don't really mind , but I do think that it's a sidetrack that is besides what makes Steemit great as you've said.
I'm not a fan of the bot voting. My hunch (could be wrong) is that many do it to attempt to get curation rewards for upvoting blogs they have not read or commented on. I don't think that's in the spirit of Steemit.
upvoting blogs they have not read or commented on
The new page view function verifies your hunch...
I typically get 5 page views per 100 votes
I appreciate the votes BUT...it's rather depressing.
I believe it is literally the reason people enjoyed using Steemit in the first place, is the personal connection with users.
I think there is a mix of reasons why people use autovoting that ranges from purely wanting curation rewards to simply wanting to make sure their favourite authors receive upvotes. There are some who misuse bots by auto downvoting.. they are sort of like automated trolls.. the scrouge of every site .. do not feed the trolls
What trolls , have you watched South Park by the way their whole season is about trolls , some bots too :D but not that much , It's a bit lacking for me , but there are some golden moments in there. I will spoil one for you a tiny bit , what would people do if they lost the internet and their phones: Go to the park and talk to one another, :D , oh yeah ave (long live) Caesar aaaam STeem :D
I never watch South Park. I know it is popular but just not my cup of tea. As for losing internet... bite your tongue LOL
Oh and thanks for the support , really appreciate it :)
HAHHA , well I'm having this feeling that because I'm spending so much time writing and commenting out of a sudden might be because I'm used to talking with a screen all day. :D
About south park I will spoil the season for you :D , Hilary vs Trump (Hilary is a robot) (Trump is a Fuck them all to death (and the hilarity :| ))
The world is in shambles because of the illusive memberberries, that make you remember the good times , like when start wars was good and when the national anthem and some bs ,
And trolls run rampant on the internet wit h a Danish startup company vowing to shut down trolling by releasing everyones history. Trolltrace , ran bu the biggest troll , that just wants to see the world burn . Thats it for the most part , ad gender divisions because of trolls :D , there are a lot of funny moments, Tesla , SpaceX , Girls vs Boys aaaaaaaaaaand thats it :D the Trolls
Same here, @doitvoluntarily. I have never joined any automatic voting service. I do all my curation by hand and I am happy to keep it this way in the future.
for the most part voting myself is easier ... but there are a few authors I really like to make sure i support so the autovote made sure they got posts voted on if I didn't notice them ... with the RSS feeds, I will see they have posted and can read and upvote.... so, I'd say a better choice
I heard a lot about this and not once did it crossed my mind to use a service to vote for me. My vote might not be worth a lot of money but if you get my vote it means I read your work and I really honestly liked it. There are days I vote a lot and there are days I hardly vote because there is a lack of time in my life. I do not only vote for curation reward, not at all to be honest because most posts I like do not even make the trending page. I try to keep track of my favorite authors as much as I can and I will always do it this way, by hand and with my own eyes.
I rarely look at the trending page for posts, especially for the Steemit Ramble. For the most part for that while anyone is a potential favourite.. I try to look for less known people to give them some exposure. Not that I'm exactly well known but more views are more views.
Great post, I hope others do the same and start actually hands on reading content and upvoting themselves. Better to upvote the things you want only and miss a few things than upvotes happen automatically and people falsely thinking their posts are being viewed or worse, having your upvotes go to posts you may not have wanted to upvote.
Or just have everyone autovoting and loos the edge Steemit has over other media , that would b the actual people that care and share good news , informative blogs , developing and growing. (Bots aren't bad ) I'm not using one tho. I'm a bit behind on the logic of it, sure rewards are nice but creating is more rewarding in itself, I've been up another 5 hours to testify to that :D 4 hours past the reasonable time
I believe you are correct ... I do a lot of reading on the site even with doing some autovoting. On a busy day I may only find time for about 20-25 posts .. while on a better day I'll get to 50 or more
I had neglected to remove my SteemVoter account. I still think they perform a valid service, but I am using other methods now. Thanks for the reminder and for your post.
thank you for your comment. Are you going to remove the account or just leave it dormant?
I took it down. Like you said that payment vote is expressing my involvement so I don't want that. There are things I don't want to condone.