Is all this Bot Delegation a Selfish Act?
Today I checked out someone’s profile using https://steemworld.org. It’s something I use frequently but I can be rather nosey at times and had a look at someone’s delegation.
The reason why is because I knew the user was an established one and yet the 100% votes from this account always amounted to nothing.
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I noticed 98% of their STEEM Power was delegated to Bots designed to up vote themselves leaving a very minute amount usable for voting others.
The name of the user and the voting ‘service’ will remain nameless.
Is this a selfish act? I think it is as that persons vote is going to be worth a big fat $0.00, yet every time they post they are guaranteed votes of a substantial size regardless of content quality.
I too have thought about using these services. Are they a form of paid votes? Are we all hypocrites while denouncing paid votes, but then we use these kinds of ‘services’ which are all but the same thing?
I would say there is a line between using a huge amount of your SP to the level of 98% and delegating say 5-10%. Steemit is about giving and not just taking.
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I have a single delegation which supports a passive account that votes many people up everyday; the rest is mine for manual curation and that’s the way I like it, at least until I get a job again!
It gives me a form of satisfaction to give someone that ‘buzz’ when they get a $0.14 vote or even a $0.05 vote and yet so many simply don’t see it the way I do.
When I started Steemit, I got that buzz when I got something substantial, it promotes, it encourages, it inspires struggling new Steemians to write more.
Feeding yourself will not grow this platform. If this person would cut their delegation to half of their SP then they could give something back instead of using this 'take' mentality.
Not everyone has the same ideas as me but when I see an account like this that is simply using all the SP for itself, then you can bet they are going to lose my support.
If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, resteem, engage me or all of these things.
Many have chosen for the largest ROI with the least effort, without giving too much thought to the longer-term effects on Steem and Steemit.
We don't have the exact numbers, but we guestimate about 7000000SP has been delegated to bidbots, and is not being used for proper curation.
It goes against the concepts of stake, accountability, content-based curation, and active social participation Steemit was supposed to be about.
So yes, it is selfish, but it is also caused by the perverse incentives built into the current system, and many will say it is all working as intended.
It does, and I'm not totally against it, but there is a line to be drawn against 'reasonable' and extreme.
I have SBI shares that give me a daily vote, I'm a member of @qurator too, both of which I have had to pay for, but neither use any delegation. I do vote @qurator everyday to boost my vote but it doesnt use a lot of my SP.
@qurator has a delegation system, as well as this 'other' one I'm referring too, and thats fine.. but 98% delegated? You see my point?
Yes.
It is quite ridiculous and selfish, but bidbots and delegations opened up this opportunity, and such opportunities will be used to the max by opportunists who don't care much; it is unavoidable.
As much as these people suck, as some say, there appears to be nothing fundamental we can do about it apart from forking delegations out again. Saying they suck does not help at all; they will still be laughing all the way to the bank.
Hopefully all they will get is their delegated votes and nothing else. Its still crap but we cant do anything about it, as you say.
That is pretty crazy that they are doing that. While I am all on board with the idea of a self sustaining account using delegation, I also want to be able to delegate to projects that help other people grow. I am really excited about the day that I will be able to give back to some of the groups that encouraged and helped me out when I was starting. I agree with you. The thrill of getting that $.50 or $1 upvote is awesome. It really does spur you on!
I can't blame you one bit for feeling the way you do about that situation. I think what goes around comes around so you might as well slide your little voter tab to 1% when you vote that person, if you vote them at all. Maybe then it might start registering with them.
I could do the 1%, but after noticing this I wont be voting at all for this person. I like the fact I can give bigger votes out when my VP is high, it makes me feel good I'm helping a bit.
My husband and I leased delegation back when that practice was brand new and the prices weren't obscene. It was absolutely perfect timing, too, because it was a matter of days before the huge run-up on Bitcoin and Steem and the price of SBD's. (I don't think you were here, then, but there were a few brief days when SBDs were worth $17+.)
The next month blocktrades doubled their prices -- but for one more month it was still worth it. There were days when my vote was worth over $.60 and that other guy's was worth $.45 - $.50.
It felt marvelous being able to give those kinds of votes to people. That's what I missed most about letting our delegation leases expire. (But it was the right thing to do, and again, perfect timing.) I look forward to being able to do that again someday -- on my own.
I don't know that I'll ever delegate SP. I like doing my own rewarding and curation work, thankyouverymuch. One group I belong to began demanding SP delegation and I'm sorry, but that just didn't go down well. Maybe I'll feel differently at some point in the future.
I too like to do my own rewarding, though I may have to automate some soon as I'm starting work again in September.
It does feel good to give out big rewards, I know what you mean!
I wish I had got on this scene earlier, I feel I missed out on the 'good times'.
I personally think it's a bit selfish, especially if you don't leave enough SP to cast even a $0.01 vote.
I've delegated 300 SP out of 1550 SP to Helpie and Thesteemengine. Still got enough so my regular vote is worth something and I'm indirectly supporting other users as well.
Thanks for sharing this perspective-a thoughtful critique of bot delegation. I delegate quite a bit of my SP to a handful of users, including one bot, so I'll chime in with the perspective from the other side.
(Note: I don't use the bot as a proxy self vote. I have used the bot I delegate to once, by sending it some SBD, just like everyone else. Otherwise, my upvotes come from other Steemians.)
Personally, I have used Steem to blog and earn cryptocurrency by doing so, which was a huge motivator for me to keep writing. I like writing, but as a father of four it competes with a lot of other tasks. When writing on Steem came to be a source of actual income, I bought more Steem, powered up, and got on board the Steem wagon. This was last August...ish.
I've meandered a bit on what to do with this platform, and explored some of its uses, like Steepshot, which are very cool. Once I discovered I could make passive income by delegating my Steem Power, I was hooked.
Early on, a great deal of my daily rewards from delegating went back into Steem Power. Lately, I'm selling Steem for other cryptocurrency (as I'm heavily allocated to Steem in my portfolio) and even dollars, as an extra source of income.
One of my biggest delegatees is a content creator, who I think does a good job of using his SP to build his brand and award engaged followers.
I've been alerted by people in the past about abusers, and have removed SP delegation from those upvoting their own comments on day 6 after making them. These last minute upvoters are, I think, the worst abusers of Steem.
Even so, your post has made me pause and think more carefully about my delegations. I'm considering pulling way back from my bot delegation, and after I get the SP back, to delegate to a project like SteemPress or SteemSTEM or something similar.
Thank you again for the thoughtful post!
That's a big reply, I guess people could vote on their own comments on day 6, I have never really taken the time to look but as I don't delegate its really their business.
A couple of people who are in my feed do this up voting on their own comments but the general thought is its 'not acceptable', yet they still do it. I do wonder if they know they are really not doing themselves any favours?
As regards the bot voting, I don't have any problems with it.. but in this case there was nothing left for others, it was extreme.
I like my daily votes as much as everyone does, but I want to give others my big vote if they do something good, not a $0.00 one.
I have no problem upvoting my own comments to get them above the noise on posts with a lot of comments. I also consider voting late to be better form than voting early, since I reward all my voters with curation instead of robbing the curation pool on my post.
Obviously, both of these things, when abused, are obnoxious and bad for the platform. But I don't believe they are bad acts in and of themselves.
I delegate a lot, in fact to some of the same projects you do. My stake is my business. But you can tell a lot about a person by what they do with their stake. Everything is public here on steem, as you know with the steemworld tool :)
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I always get torn as to if I should describe Steemit and anarchy or pure capitalism, on one hand, there are innumerable accounts both big and small that hold their own steempower for the same reason as your self they want to build a community.
On the other hand you have the accounts that realize that it's their steempower to use however they wish basically its just like the real world
I would say its both, maybe that's why its got some appeal? I don't know anything quite like this place!
'anarchy or pure capitalism' as an anarcho capitalist i would say these two things are inextricably linked.
I hope to see problems like this sort themselves out organically. If not I fear for the platform.
Yes, it is definitely a selfish act... but unfortunately, it isn't against the rules of Steemit either. So, there is nothing that can be done about it. I personally have some of my SP delegated, to various groups/community and bots, so I'm not sure I'm 100 percent on the high ground either, but all were not chosen on the basis of ROI...