Great post my friends, upvoted, resteemed, followed.
Just after having spent hours writing a 1000 word article, choosing/editing pictures, spell and grammar checks and all of the other tasks involved, I click 'Post'.
....20 seconds later:
Very good post friends
Looks very very good :) Followed
Very nice, Will be looking forward to your posts. Up-voted: hope you will visit my blog @tarazkp
Great post, very informative, thank you. @tarazkp
nice post
good one
nice post . thanks for share . Followed you
Hello. It's interesting blog !
Amazing thing ....
This is just a selection from today.
Note: Some people that wrote 'upvoted', didn't. I checked out of curiosity.
Now, I have some questions regarding this, but firstly I have to draw a line somewhere. When people comment on my posts, I generally upvote their comment a few cents. If they comment very well, I may give them up to 100 percent. Not much of a gift in my case, but it is the thought that counts I figure.
I try to read and reply to every comment but with the notifications not working, I am sure I have missed some. Unfortunately though, I have to limit this to people that comment something in relation to the post itself and I urge others that upvote comments to do the same.
This is not out of annoyance or vote thriftiness. This is to try to make Steemit a more social and engaging place to be.
I am not an author that garners a huge number of comments and I do get a little kick when I see there is a comment there. But when I go to the comment and it has nothing to do with the post, asks for a follow, lies about upvoting or resteeming or when I see that it is cut and paste by visiting the profile, I feel cheated.
Getting caught playing the numbers game with me is unlikely to get my vote, a follow or any other kind of support. Well, that is not completely true, this is in support of those that do this. It aims to get you to stop.
So, the questions I have:
1: How many people can this work for on the platform?
I know there are some like @izbing that do this (as well as follow, unfollow, follow, unfollow) and seem to earn okay out of it by having many followers and then posting whatever net image with a title and getting a few upvotes. Sometimes, the bots find the posts too, likely out of the sheer volume. At time of writing, they have posted about 20 times in the last 24 hours. So much for a long-form, quality site if that is the future. He has earned about 75 SBD and 75 SP in the last 7 days. Pretty good. Good for the platform though?
2: Who follows these people?
I can't imagine the more mature Steemit members following anything like this but perhaps the new-in feel that this is how the site works. After all, many other sites work in this way too where people may even buy followers to appear successful. But, if similar minded people follow each other, they make a low level cartel but out of sheer numbers, can have significant impacts on both the look and feel of the content in site and the reward pool.
3: Will it pay off?
For some it will, but as this becomes more prevalent, it will require a continual ramping up of efforts to get noticed. Again though, if there are many of these people supporting each other or bots upvoting bots, it can definitely bring value to the members. This will be a massive spamming of useless comment and post material that buries what is quality. This will drive investors away and in the end, there will be nothing left but a spiralling cycle of insanity.
In the long-term, it will make the platform very unattractive unless something can be done.
4: What can be done?
This is the million dollar (or in my case, 4 dollar) question. How I see it there are some actions that could happen.
Possible now:
- Firstly, stop promoting this behaviour by supporting it.
- Commenting on it in displeasure as inaapropriate
- Downvoting/flagging it
- Not upvoting it of course
Possible later?:
- A filter that mutes anyone over a certain amount of posts
- A @steemcleaner type thing for it
- A bot that finds and flags cut and paste comments
- Communities that these people can be cast out from
I don't know what is best or not, just another thing to think on for me. I am hoping that there are some smart cookies on the development side that can find a way to curtail this behavior.
On a side note, when following one of the comments above ( @sunnypictures ), the account was upvoting every one of their own comments with @randowhale or @minnowbooster etc. That type of thing may lead to the end too as it will become a pay for vote site and everyone will start their own voting bot or using them. Shortsighted gains.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
I foresee a time when some sort of Captcha system has to be used.
Another thing I hesitate to mention but, it is painfully obvious:
Where are the new posters coming from?
I can only hope that this too is a phase. The new wave will find out that having 1000 followers does not equal upvotes . .. and upvotes from 1% of steem power is useless.
Oh well, I like your tag . . . "A Steemit Original."
Temporary wave of accounts . . . Then some other oddity.
If from an economically cheaper region of the world, these kinds of posters will make an okay living here relatively but are unlikely to ever really invest time or money into the platform. A large group will drain the pool though and the feed.
Thanks, I put it there so people know. In my byline, I have prolific thinker, occasional writer. I think I have to up the 'occasional'. I think that for some people seeing how much I write and how varied it is would question its legitimacy. I just work hard and a lot...
Great points @henry-gant. I completely concur with your view. And I agree so much on each one of them that I'm gonna write a couple of posts rising my cranky voice upon these annoying matters in two different tongues very soon to spread more awareness about this issue. So, many thanks for the inspiration. :)
And of course my dear friend @tarazkp that the entire content of this excellent article will be referenced in those next bilingual grumpy tirades of mine. }:)
And btw, I'm gonna also take the opportunity of this comment to answer a very welcome question that you kindly asked me recently.
¡Yes mate! Honestly, I can not find the right words to tell you how grateful I am for your generous help and that with it I am not only able to get one but sometimes even two of those nourishing vital experiences on my table.
Therefore, thank you one more time brother. Without you, I dunno under what stone I would already lie. :)
I am on my way to bed... but knowing that makes me feel good about myself. That is very dangerous, so I am not sure how I will sleep. ;)
Haha, Yeah! mate. For that and for many more virtues that you possess, you can feel extremely good and proud of yourself. Which in no way will prevent you from having one or another nightmare when sleeping. }:)
You are a victim of the bots. Before HF19, you needed several thousand steempower to deliver a few cents with an upvote.
After HF19, you were able to deliver 3 cents with just 130 Steempower.
So the bots spam posts with comments, hoping for upvotes. Even if a few people upvote out of the thousands of comments they spam, they make money out of it, because now minnow votes deliver value.
I really do think steemit took a wrong turn with HF19. Before that, long posts were picked up by the curation guilds and rewarded well. Now it's not worth them doing that, so the number of people voting has dropped, and quality posts are falling through the cracks. In the meanwhile the comment bots are spamming away, hoping to drain the pool a few cents at a time.
I pretty much nearly exclusively write long posts. Cure picked me up twice I think in the first 2 months but my content isn't guild favoured I think.
HF19 helped me vote as I am not able to read and vote a lot, so having less, more concentrated votes meant that I could use them more effectively. I didn't think people would use it to upvote their own comments.
i think one interesting long term option would be to have a field on profiles which denotes a profile as bot (or bot enabled) and normal.
the default for a new user would be to enable interaction with all bot profiles. however, as the user becomes more familiar with the community and believes a certain bot or bot enabled profile is not adding value to their blogs they could have either all bot profiles muted or specific profiles.
this type of filter would allow bots to be viable in the community but also allow for users to customize their experience.
in terms of identifying bots profile, i think the best would be for self-disclosure under settings. if a bot profile was not correctly identified other users could flag the profile and once a threshold was reached (minimum flags) the profile would be switched to a bot/bot-enabled profile.
That is an interesting method for the bots. Even a different coloured reputation flag might work. what of the humans that spam?
Edit: Not just spam, spam but spam useless nonsense.
I know there is currently a mute option on profiles. I haven't tried it but curious if that option would prevent the profile from commenting on a post..
I too am at a loss as to which method would work for the better.
These replies that usually have no mention of the content, only asking for a follow, upvote and resteem?????? (for what exactly?) really to put it bluntly...piss me off.
I really believe in steemit as a platform for quality content, and would be most disappointed for it to become a pseudo-Facebook with questionable drivel on it.
The other day I saw a post of a selfie with a dog nose and whiskers.......is this what it's evolving into? Only two days ago a friend mentioned that Facebook is full of selfies with stupid superimposed animal faces lately and he is finished with it. I felt glad that steemit is above that level of stupidity.....only to come across that photo!
What to do?
I am guessing that there will be a division of people where those that can only offer that kind of content wil follow each other in support. There are going to be many of them. Even though everyone could post something of quality, very few actually will take the time.
To bot or not to bot: that seems to be a big issue here. The whole point of Steemit, at least I thought, was to share quality posts, and have fun. Naive notion I guess.
I still think, in spite of the abuses, that one can succeed here to some meaningful degree with just doing good work. Best of luck to you!
I am trying the good work (my level) approach but at times feel drowned out. I do okay but I know that many aren't and it isn't their writing that is the issue.
Definitely have to flag it every time.
They are going to keep coming because it's human nature for the lazy to see Steemit as a chance to make an easy buck.
Definitely agree it's going to affect the value of the platform.
I still haven't used a flag. But, I think I am going to start if the people are high enough rep to know better. I am unsure what that is yet though.
Spamming isn't a new concept. If a new Steemit user is immediately spamming posts then I don't think you should refrain from flagging them just because they are new. They'll just be spammers from another platform coming here. They know exacty what they're doing and know that it's wrong.
Only way to discourage behaviour on a financially incentivised platform is to financially decentivise them. Flag away!
That makes sense. Why am I so flag shy? :)
These types of comments really are a turn off to the whole platform. For myself though I notice I read something and it's great and it moves me and I want to leave a comment to show appreciation. I would love to just quickly say "I love this" or "I really enjoyed your post" but then I feel like I am perpetuating the comment format I so dislike. The difference is though that I really did read the whole post and I really did enjoy or love it. So sometimes if I don't have time I don't comment at all for fear of it being taken in the wrong way and that kind of sucks.
When I run through reading like that now I wish I could drop a word or two. I actually do at times when it is people I have a relationship wit as they will know I did actually read it. For new people, I add a little more to make sure they realise I am not comment and running.
I've seen a few posts regarding this behavior. Yes, it's super annoying to get a "Very interesting read!" 40 seconds after posting a long, thought-out article. Ultimately I don't think the behavior is going to pay out. People want a short-cut and so engage in attention-seeking behaviors, write shitty posts, or upload regurgitated content, unaware that ultimately it's quality content and thoughtfulness that's going to keep people coming back.
Unfortunately, the people who already hate this behavior will agree with you, and the "F4f" crowd probably won't even read the post. Oh well. This behavior reminds me of those people who put so much effort into running scams that they probably could have launched a legitimate business instead...
It is a lot like that. Unless they are using a bot, this seems very time consuming. But, I often (and as late as last night) write about a lack of imagination and unwillingness to develop practical skills. Mauybe they are incapable of a thoughtful post.
Yeah no kidding... this stuff is annoying as hell. I do not upvote or follow any of the people who don't bother to write something thoughtful or at least show that they read my article. It's like begging for change.
I had a person cut and paste half of a random sentence from my article. That was it. It wasn't even a useful part. :)
In my town, it is getting dark. It is time to sleep. My habit is to lower my voting power to 90%. In this way I hope to find it refreshed tomorrow. In this evening ritual, I first vote for my replies. I then browse my feed to find value. Hopefully after this ,I am down to a manegable level.. This works for me.
I try the same but end up around 80.
In my town it won't be long until the sun is up...and it is 230am. It only went down a few hours ago...