Also, just to add on to your second point re: payouts, I upvote my own content all the time without prejudice, and @steemcleaners provides a pretty good service.
They downvoted a few posts of mine when I was copying and pasting the entire article, but when I switched to summaries and added more commentary, I've received no more compliants or downvotes. I didn't agree with it, but it didn't cripple me either.
Just post good, unique stuff and you'll be in good shape. Don't copy and paste the same comment or one-liners. IMO, it is spam.
Why would copying my own comment be spam? Can I plagiarize myself? That would be new one for me, and what he does is just put the same comment he's not asking for an up vote or a follow, maybe he's not that good at writing because he does post articles mostly with pictures of flowers.
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear - I was just talking in generalities and wasn't saying you were spamming or plagiarizing at all (at least I think that's what you thought I was saying?)
IMO, copying and pasting that same one-line comment over and over again is totally spam: Really? EVERY photo s/he commented on has "awesome composition?" S/he can't make any other comments about what makes it a good photo, what s/he liked about it, etc?
Just because he's not asking for an upvote or follow doesn't mean it's not spam, but like you said below, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
Well I guess everyone has his point of view, I'm just expressing my own, I know you are in your right to think as you do, as for the self up voting I think steemcleaners is a bot why should he or she or it be programmed to up vote his own comments? You are a person you can decide for yourself whether or not to do it and I can respect whatever decision you make but not from a bot.
Yeah the self upvoting thing for a bot is a bit more questionable, I admit, though I'm throwing stones from glass houses cause I upvote my own stuff all the time. But all my posts are excellent and deserve my upvote. I might be a little biased though. :-)
As for @steemcleaners, I'm not totally sure on this, but I think it's part-bot and part-manual. The self-upvote from @steemcleaners is automatic I think, but the upvotes from @adm come manually. I think people report links to a chat group and then it triggers a review and action by the bot if it's deemed to be spam, plagiarism, etc. If @cheetah responds to you repeatedly, I also think it causes a trigger to their systems.
(Not saying I agree with it, just explaining how I think it works, but I could be wrong.)
Yup, we can all have our point of view, I've enjoyed the debate immensely, I'm interested to see what other people think about it.
This comment has received a 3.13 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @trending.