A look at transparency and hiding beneath the surface

This morning I came across an interesting new bot in my feed, @transparencybot. You can see their introduction post here.

The basic idea is that it leaves a comment on posts that have been upvoted via known bidbots past 50 dollars in value. It shows the bots that they use and the amounts that they have been voted.

For example:

The post currently has ~$105 on it and I randomly selected it. Is it worth 105 from the pool? You be the judge of this introduction post. Now, this person who's first post on the platform was 3 days ago now has a reputation of 50 but by the looks of things, if left to the organic votes on the post, they would be lucky to break 30. Also note, the misspelling of the tags. It is a Spanish post sure, so it is possible but, it is also a common way for bidbot users to avoid detection as the misspelling reduces the odds of getting views. Remember though that the claim is for more eyes on. Keep an eye on tags.

This is an introduction post. I have been skimming the introduceyourself tag the last few days (spelled correctly at least) and finding that many introduction posts are bidbot voted. These people are new to the platform (or have started a new account) and not only know about, but use bidbots freely. At what point did they try engaging with the audience? This brings up some other questions for some other time perhaps but you have to question what they know about the platform and their expectations on how to use it.

Back to @transparencybot. The comments section is the most important part of the bot at the moment since for the most part, you are not going to see these posts otherwise. $50 dollars is not large enough to get them into trending and if their tags are misspelled, they won't even make it into a tag trending page other than their misspelled tag. They will fly under the radar, hidden from view. This is where the pool is really pulled.

@transparencybot has 247 comments at the moment in the last ~3 days. At the bare minimum of 50 dollars, that is ~$12500 SBD worth of upvotes. At the bare minimum. Now, remember that all of those trending posts are much higher plus, everything in between. Now, how many votes are cast below that 50 dollar mark?

People talk about distribution but remember that about 80% of the value is paid in liquid SBD to the bidbot and its owners/delegators and what they pay back to the author is from the pool. Blind. From that return, the bots also earn curation. Like always they can say value is in the eye of the beholder and this I think is the point of the @transparency bot.

I myself cannot judge what has value or not other than in my own view but, remembering that the number one reason for flagging is disagreement on rewards, transparency needs to happen. However, many of the people who are using the bidbots don't have adequate peer review because, they don't have peers. I have looked through a few now and they have low follower counts and when I look at the lists, I do not recognise one name. Sure, it is a big system, I don't know all of my followers either but, this points to something.

All of these lower rewarded posts are not going to be seen by the parts of the community that might care and have the power and willingness to review and therefore have almost no chance of being flagged. However, the transparency bot comments section offers that chance and I recommend people take the time to go through and review some of the posts in comparison to the payouts they are getting. Also remember that it is content in regards to payout, regardless of whether a bot was used. If you think a post is worth more than the bot votes, vote it up further. If not...

This happens all the way down to the smallest bidbot payouts. Yes, the largest are visible in Trending but that is likely the tip of the iceberg. This is why they want to focus attention on the trending section as there is still a massive amount of value below the surface. It is likely that even as we speak, people are adjusting their bids so as not to cross the $50 threshold and bring undue attention to themselves. Funnily enough, the operator of @transparencybot has used bots himself. Radical transparency?

The transparency of the system is necessary for a whole range of reasons, not just flags as it encourages uses to interact more honestly rather than be hidden in the shadows. But, just like governments and shadow governments, transparency of action is not the best way to enact nefarious plans. It is all about flying under the radar. Right now, the bidbots are in the spotlight and they are finding ways to take the focus off themselves. Just like a lizard that drops its tail when threatened, they will cut off Trending.

People might not like seeing all the dirt but it is necessary in order to clean up. Sweeping it under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. Perhaps as time goes on, the transparency apps, bots and actions of actual community orientated people might be the force that drives changed behaviours in the long term.

It used to be very difficult to find the content gems buried under the trash and give them the value they are worth. That problem has been made infinitely harder by the trash taking large chunks of the pool that might go to those posts. On top of that, the trash taking that value are finding ever more ways to take all they can and hide their trash amongst all the rest of the trash so there is very little chance to claim it back. The gems are buried, trash rewarded.

It is a trash fest as the real content that would pass a decent peer review gets lost and the content that already has eyes on and consistent quality gets left out in the cold value-wise. I don't have the solutions to all of these issues but we need to be able to see them as issues if we are to do anything about them at all. That takes transparency. Perhaps in time, there will be options that actually help to uncover, promote and support quality community authors instead of blind voters but right now, all we have is the potential transparency of the current situations and if you have a decent look, it isn't very pretty for the most part.

What would you think if this post had $1000 dollars on it? 700? 500? 200? What is it worth? Should I be the judge on how much it takes from the pool you drink from?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]