The Necessity of Flagging
The growth of Steemit has been a good thing, but it has brought in a plague of quick-buck spam-locusts.
I see conscientious Steemers putting up posts explaining to the spammers why it is a bad idea to spam when they should Steem instead, but spammers being spammers, they do not listen.
Delicious teriyaki spam comes in a tangy sweet and salty flavor. Steemit spammers have no such yummy flavor
As much as I hate the use of the flag, the deluge of these stinging insects has not abided with calls to reason.
There is only one solution
Flag ruthlessly. Get over your courtesy and natural inclination to be nice. These spammers degenerate the value of our system.
I have spam comments on my posts a second after I publish...what is more annoying is that I don't even get an upvote from these leeches LOL.
How to flag honestly
- You should check out at least the first two comments that sound like spam on your posts
- Go to the commentor's page
- Check out his comments tab
- If all you see in his comments are the same phrase over and over...at least flag that comment on your post!
- How soon was the comment posted? Was there enough time for the commenter to actually read the post? (thanks to @unspeakableme for bringing this up)
This sucks, but it is necessary
Personally, I have a habit of upvoting my commenters; not all the time, and not those that snark or issue a blanket denial of my points w/o argumentation, but usually anyone who takes the time to make a comment.
It becomes hard to do that fairly when my comments are filled with "great post" lies, and begging posts (which are spam as well).
But if we don't start taking the personal time to slap these spammers in their naughty little typing fingers, they are going to continue to swamp our platform with useless, time-wasting drivel.
You don't have to go spam-hunting, or to go down and flag every spam post one of these leeches make, but please take the time to punish on or two of those that crap on your posts!
Thanks for reading!
[Edit: @freedomengineer reminded me of a post I wrote last month that may help new Steemers that might get caught in a spamhunt crossfire:
How to comment on a post past "Great Post!"
Make sure that you check out @sc-steemit's comment on that post, as it is a great addition to my own post]
Interesting. So I have never used the flag but i probably should from time to time. I have always thought that making sure that one upvotes good posts and good comments, it would be enough to encourage good content.
However, if spammers are making a living spamming, and 'draining resources' than I see your side of the argument.
It's certainly a huge issue that our little market of liberty will have to sort out.
I am very interested in who has the moral high ground here...? Thoughts?
Who has the moral highground? If we all hold STEEM we all own this blockchain. If Bob posts an article on the blockchain, is it wrong that Alice posts a comment "Nice Post!" On the blockchain under Bob's post?
What would a free-market @arbitrator do in a case where a guy with 100,000 SP gets flagged for a "nice post" comment... Then proceeds to flag the flagger down into oblivion?
I don't have a good answer for that. @mattclarke offers a nice partial solution elsewhere in this thread
If the only posts that Alice makes is "Nice Post", and she is hitting every post on the new tab with that comment, I'd say she is spamming.
OTOH, it is possible that Alice liked the post, and just couldn't find anything to write past that simple sentence...
so in the interest of helping Alice with her next comment, and hoping jerks like me don't flag her back to the Flintstones, I offer:
How to comment on a post past "Great Post!"
In fact, I will add that to the main post in the hope it can help new Steemers who want to contribute
encouraging good content = carrot
flagging spam = stick
it takes resources for each post/comment made; blockchain records require space, and electricity to spin
there is a difference between folks who are used to other social media, and folks who spam.
my perfect example is the guy I flagged on this post downthread; he didnt even bother reading the post LOL
My solution here.
that is a great idea.
Matt's post is worth a read, folks
Thanks mate, appreciate you having a look :)
Well said!
We need to improve the quality of content at Steemit, so that in the future we can overcome the "Fakebook".
you are right in a way, but going on and flagging people commenting on your post is going to decrease the engagements on your post, i would rather ignore them, you know which comment is spam so choose not to reward them, now am afraid you going to flag my comment as spam,lol, anyway i always read a post fully before i drop a comment.
FLAGGED! ;>
if it's a spam comment, I mean one that I verified as spam, then I don't see it as actual engagement
I mute the people and that's it, I think it is better than flagging .
If I had the time and energy, I would flag, but leave the comment explaining the flag, and offering to remove it as the spam was changed
that would teach the spammer how things work here while giving them the opportunity to fix things
but I have a bad reply ratio when I do this, and I don't have the energy to do it on a constant basis
Hmmm yes, I understand you perfectly. I also did not get so much of this.
bot comments and copy/paste spam are not engagement.
Good point, the worst case is the F4F spams but I guess that it is mostly done by new people and they tend to stop after sometime..but it continues with another new gang..haha
maybe muting is the more polite strategy...on other social media platform the F4F is pretty standard etiquette
otoh, I have flagged several times while leaving a comment that I would remove the flag if the origianl comment was edited to remove whatever cuaght my eye as spammy, and about 3/4 the spammer never responds /smh
Good point...I prefer muting an annoying person than flagging which will cause me voing power and harm the person...
Sometimes the person dont mean harm and will stop if warned
I forgot whether the mutee knows whether he has been muted or not
in any case, the spammer that doesn't repond to a flag-comment will take no note of a muting
Haha, good point. I havent tried any yet and have no need for now. Lets hope that the spammer will check his replies and respond.
I agree with you here but this doesn't really effect one's "feed" per say due to the choosing of who they follow. Of course the "new" is just bogged down with it but that's where you go to look for something different anyways right? I'm not against flagging but I've yet to do so. If my personal feed were like this then yes I'd be a flag o' holic! Thanks and enjoyed.
flagging kills payout when done with a higher SP holder, and rep when done by someone with a greater rep
obviously, you cant get a lower payout than 0, but rep matter a lot here, too; there are a lot of conrtests and such that minnows can use to build SP...you can't do that with low reps
When someone leaves me a comment, I always show interest in his blog. But the comments like "I follow you follow me" simply lead me out of balance ( OK! The truth is they make me angry!
F4F, UP4UP? Just kiddin :P Yes a bad tactic to get yourself noticed lol
What is this Spam teriyaki....?
The ground up remains of spammers with some soy, sugar, and sesame?
LOL
it is gooood!
If you like spam, you'll love the teriyaki flavor
they also have bacon flavor
Spam FTW!
You've got a hell of a lot of nerve man! You read this post and yet your entire comment section is nothing but spam - pure shit - and then you complain to me because you left a spam comment on my post and I flagged you!?
If you ever leave a crappy spam comment on my post again I will follow you for a week and flag you until your profile has a negative reputation.
Don't argue with me, don't complain, just stop spamming!
You want war man? You're flagging my posts now? Because I flagged you for comment spam? You got it buddy! Here I come! :)
I don't need a war..
Well said!
I've been hesitant to use the flagging system, but you raise some good points.
I started out a few days ago, and I started doing this with a sick stomach...it doesn't feel right, but these spammers are going to hinder our advancement and suck up resources
flaggin is wrong in so many ways.
mute is all that is required.
if everybody used mute, yes that would work too
otoh, i dont mind smacking someone with a flag if they dont even bother to read the post...like the guy below that spammed the anti-spamming post LOL
can't fix stupid...just mute and move on.
Heh, I must be stupid. He muted me because I didn't agree with him on something. You know me. Think about that for a moment. I've used mute maybe 3 or 4 times in a year. I usually just remove support, but I leave the window open that people can change. Expecting people to instantly agree with you and change their mind is unrealistic. It rarely happens. They typically need to go off and think about it and when they do change their mind they may not even remember that a lot of their new ideas came from you.
I hope you don't mean me when you said "he" ;> Not sure of your context
Nope. Talking about the person here who recommended use of the flag. It inspired me to write a post which I just finished. I won't ever mute someone for disagreement, so definitely not you.
Oh... and mute doesn't actually change anything. It just makes you oblivious to any of it.
keeps it from aggravating YOU ;>