The Difference Between Promotion and Curation, and Killing All Bots
View this post on Hive: The Difference Between Promotion and Curation, and Killing All Bots
View this post on Hive: The Difference Between Promotion and Curation, and Killing All Bots
Au contraire. The difficulty of distinction does not mean there is a lack of distinction so your conclusion that "all automated upvotes are advertising" does not follow.
The bots don't use steemit.com, so a captcha will do nothing, literally nothing, to stop bots, it will just annoy people here and potentially invading their privacy, depending on the captcha service used. I'm trying to figure out a way to have a similar effect in a limited sphere but to the best of my knowledge (and my extensive research) there is no solution for this. I would be very happy to be corrected on this point.
I'm not going to touch the censorship claims except to reiterate my position that flags are not censorship.
While I completely agree that lack of ability to distinguish between things doesn't equate to lack of difference, I yet point out that, regardless of whether or not we can distinguish between paid and unpaid autovotes, they both affect quality identically, which is to say, not at all.
A significant philosophical argument against votebots is that the appreciation of quality people apply in curation is not undertaken at all by extant bots. This results in the posts being upvoted by bots very different from those upvoted by human curators. It is incontrovertible that this is the case, and if there is consensus on any issue on Steemit, that is probably it.
There is a great deal of discussion, and a great many ways to change this, that can be essayed. Presently, however, I am aware of few that argue that votebots do push authors to produce quality posts. @markymark has pointed out instead that he can't be expected to police his bots clients. The thin margin of the industry precludes it.
Since you didn't follow the link to the conversation on @blocktrades recent post on making curation more profitable, in which @leotrap proposes including an 'authenticator' on posts, I will summarize here. The blockchain can be delivered a private key when a post is made. Votes on the post can then be required to possess a public key, just as votes you make require your personal key, or password.
A mechanism on the post itself can be used to provide the key, such as a captcha, which excludes bots while allowing people to gain the key. In this way bots can be prevented from voting, just as random people without a relevant password/key are prevented from voting.
Regarding censorship, making posts and comments invisible is censorship. There are degrees of censorship, from censorship with extreme prejudice, such as murder, to being demonetized on Youtool. While there are almost always ways to get the censored information, even from the dead, the fact that the blockchain still contains the information does not mean it isn't censored on Steemit.
@skeptic is now self-censoring the posts he makes in order to preclude being nuked - again - into negative rep. While very few would disagree that some of his posts were highly offensive, and that at least some of the flags were appropriate, he can tell you from his wealth of experience that being flagged into negative rep did indeed largely silence his voice, and that he now self-censors in order to prevent it happening again.
It is hard to understand, in that context, your position that flagging isn't censorship. It clearly is.
I always appreciate your insightful criticism. It is only through criticism that I am enabled to learn I am wrong, to change my mind, and become right.
Thanks!
Quality is inherent in a post, but subjectively evaluated. I can set my bot for example to vote for stuff that loosely fits my own quality ideals. It will be like me voting while operating at the brain capacity of a massive hangover, but it is not promotion, and the judgement is not irrespective of quality.
@denmarkguy made a good central point which I think you have failed to expand from just applying to pay4vote services to applying to all bots. That not all bots have any intelligence does not mean that some bots do not have some amount. Central to his argument too was the fact that pay4vote often (maybe nearly always, I don't have the data) goes back to the person paying for the vote, so it is an indirect self vote, which is best understood as promotion. I know this is a controversial topic we could get lost in, but to bring it back to point, using a bot does not necessarily make it promotion which is your assertion.
My apologies on not following the link, I saw it was an article I've already read with great interest several times, I didn't realize it was a comment you were linking to. I've read it now and I'm caught up.
However there is nothing there, and @netuoso is not even correct enough, it's shot down way easier than using Amazon's Mechanical Turk for a few months. Where it fails is "a mechanism on the post itself". What is this mechanism? How can it be a captcha, when posts are just text? So is it a link? If it is a link that goes to another site then that makes the blockchain dependent on that site to operate votes. And if people want to opt out / not use the captcha, do they still have to use a key? Do they just include it in the post? It is not implementable, never mind defeatible.
Making posts and comments less visible (they do not become invisible, even on steemit.com) is not censorship, it is deprioritizing them in the interface. It's not censorship to have to click again to reveal the contents of a post and it's images. If it were, then having to accept a terms and conditions page is censorship. It amounts to filtering of something which the community has decided is not valuable, literally not valued.
Side note but personally, and I've said this before, I think posts should be color coded instead of reduced in visibility, and that you'd be able to filter out posts that had low or negative rewards, but only by choice. It would be cool too because if you're the kind of person who likes to look out for posts which may have been down voted but that you might support, it would help you find them.
So we note that reducing post visibility is the consequence of negative rewards, it's all about the rewards. steemit.com chooses (they don't have to) reduce visibility and filter posts with negative pending paying. In the case of @skeptic the causality was largely economic, it was the same for @noganoo. They found out that what they posted was not valued by the community. I don't believe the reduced visibility was the clincher, although it no doubt played a part, but when you are not getting rewards for your posts you sit up and take notice. Now, I know that it was largely the actions of a few whales here that flagged him so much, hence the quotes, but conversely it's largely by the actions of whales that some posts get highly rewarded. I've argued for improvements to this, as have you, so I'm just stating the facts here.
They have to "self-censor", if you want to call it that, as it's the only way to be accepted by this community. A better way to think about it is them discovering what works here, what are people interested in discussing and what will they not tolerate. You can bet that @skeptic in particular is not censoring himself on other sites, if I remember correctly he went to another site with mind in the name and continued much as he had been here.
Thanks also for the discussion, as always.
I would prefer if it bots identified themselves as bots and humans identified themselves as humans.
Once that occurs, then humans can make an informed decision as to what needs to be done.
Can you think of a reason they might want to do that? I can think of plenty of reasons they wouldn't want that.
We don't need the permission of bots to decide what to do. People running bots can contribute valuably to the discussion, but their bots are incapable of it.
Bots can contribute to a discussion.
Bots are capable of identifying plagiarism.
I would say that adds value.
Bots are capable of almost anything a programmer desires.
I'd bet a bot could be programmed to identify bots, which could be quite useful!
While I completely agree that bots can be very useful, and perhaps are the penultimate expression of utility, which tool technology, from chipped rocks, to fire, to, now robots, has continually improved in utility, they aren't people.
They are just tools. While there may come a day when bots are more than mere tools, today, thank God, is not yet that day, and even such contributions they make to conversations are of but limited entertainment value.
All of the beneficial uses of bots exclude being accorded the rights and value of people. I can think of dozens, and more, uses of bots on Steemit I fully support. Not curating content, not voting, and not pretending to be people.
How many bots are there?
How many bots are "abusive"?
How many bots are " useful"?
Until this is known, we won't even know what we're dealing with.
Can they be identified and classified?
I believe a good start is to provide a way for humans to identify"bottish" actions of an account, then let humans decide what to do about them.
I don't advocate giving bots right (and I never have), but I do believe humans have the right to run bots.
When and if it is decided that the operations of an account are abusive, then the account can be hammered to oblivion.
I fully agree that people have a right to use tools - particularly tools they make their very own self, as many bot owners do.
I cannot agree I need to know how many bots there are - I don't care. As to whether they are good or bad, well that is determined by how they are used.
I submit that bots voting is bad. I'm 'agin it. I submit on philosophical and political grounds that potentiating bots to vote degrades human agency, and will lead down a slippery slope to places no rational person want to end up.
I personally feel that bots writing posts and comments is bad, but I'm not necessarily certain it's intolerable. Just as having a drone go to the store and pick up my groceries is a beneficial use of a bot, I might be persuaded that having a bot speak my mind for me could be a good thing. I'm far less convinced letting bots be programmed to promote or suppress viewpoints is safe. There's room for discussion there, and I'd like to have it before bots can write well.
As long as bots are tools people use, I think they're fine. When they become stand-ins for people, as in writing posts, or equal to people, as in voting, I reckon they're abusive.
We don't need to enumerate them. We can prevent them from interacting with the blockchain to vote, and post, and we should.
You seem to think we shouldn't. Why shouldn't we?
"We can prevent them from interacting with the blockchain to vote, and post, and we should."
There's the rub...
The genie is already out of the bottle. Bots are already voting, posting and curating.
How do you propose we stop account holders from running bots that interact with the blockchain?
Edit: whoops! I assumed you were @bot-or-not. I apologize. Please disregard the parts of my reply intended for them personally. The answer to your question is below.
I have to ask you to answer my question. I ask you to answer it substantively, and forthrightly, because I am not trying to trick, or mislead, or promoting an agenda.
I don't care about my rewards, and I've never spent a satoshi of Steem, nor have any plans to.
I spent more than 12 hours on @blocktrades post on making curation more profitable, and saw a comment that @leotrap made to @timcliff, proposing that an 'authenticator' be placed on a post that prevented bots from voting on it.
Basically, a captcha, or 2FA, reveals a public key which allows one to vote on the post. Without the key, the blockchain does not allow the vote.
@netuoso, according to @timcliff, says that captchas can be solved. I have no doubt this is true. I also note that they are in wide use across the internet, and greatly reduce the amount of spam, scams, and bots.
It isn't perfect, but it will pretty much end the overwhelming of human curation by bots.
Now, I have forthrightly answered your question. Please tell me the honest truth why you don't want that to happen.
Thanks!
Ummm, ban all the things isn't my first approach. Also, the major cause of the effed up distribution is how stake was originally distributed and then stake weighted inflation. The combination of both made this place Ben Bernake's wet dream.
It's not bid bots fault.
You're absolutely correct on all counts. My stance on bots isn't based on their economic effects on Steemit, but rather the philosophical and political reality that bots voting equates humans to things.
That being said, while bots aren't the cause of the problems on Steemit, I observe that neither have they fixed it, and they are become a primary vector for concentrating wealth here - despite efforts to use them to better distribute wealth.
Also, I have noted that self, paid, or automated votes aren't curation, but rather promotion. Have you thoughts on this?
As I recall, you were integrally involved in the recent work @stellabelle and @fulltimegeek undertook to delegate SP to human curators. I suspect this indicates you do have an interest in human curation.
I belatedly realize that much of your work has related to bots and promotion, and you may feel I disparage that. I do not. I think your direct experience and efforts will inform your insight into these issues, and that is highly valuable.
I have long advocated a different solution, and have never said that solutions others have undertaken were somehow malicious. I am confident you are motivated strongly by a desire to benefit the community, and that the valuable experience you have gained in your work to date here will only contribute to greater success henceforth, regardless of how you proceed.
This is why you retain my proxy. My confidence and faith in you is greater than that I have in any other Steemer (not even pandering. It's just true). Even in the unlikely event that you and others all agree to completely adopt all my proposals here, you and MSP will but benefit, and grow stronger, particularly as your experience provides specific valuable insight on these issues.
Edison learned 999 ways how not to make a lightbulb, and considered each attempt a valuable benefit to his research. I know you also do the same - unless you are jaded by too many too easy successes! =p
In any case, I point out that my proxy concretely demonstrates my continued and enduring confidence that you are, and will, do what you believe is the right thing, and further that I am certain you effectively benefit the community more than any other I could support, despite my philosophical disagreement.
Thanks!
Well said.
My 2 cents is that Bots will not go away (its the future so they're here to stay)
but we can minimize their effects.
Also, I am against ANYTHING that remotely looks like Advertising in any way.
That's essentially what big whales have become... Giant ADVERTISEMENTS.
And some of the Ads say "Stay Away from SteemIt!"
It's a conundrum that promotional efforts on Steemit are causing users to leave. While such promotional efforts aren't exerted outside Steemit, so can't be used to attract users to the platform, at least until SMT's come online, the reality is that votebots, which folks use to improve their rewards, are causing rewards to be concentrated more, rather than less.
@bitopia has posted a great idea to improve the promotions feature of Steemit, which could replace votebots - but not the income bots produce for substantial stakeholders.
As many investments require patience, it may be that stakeholders in Steem need to forego immediate profits in order to generate capital gains.
I think this is pretty obvious, from the data. It is difficult to say when it's your ducats on the line, but cognitive dissonance has never improved an investor's ability to profit. Either user retention improves dramatically, which requires several orders of magnitude of improvement in distribution, which requires whales' dilution of their stakes, or the consequences will be diminution of those stakes, in terms of value relative to other currency.
Were you to ask me would I rather have $100 which was enough to buy an ice cream cone, or $1 which could buy two, I'd take the dollar. The problem isn't academic for substantial stakeholders here, and either the 38 yachts that need the fleet of leaky skiffs to bring them content begin to fix those skiffs, or they will quit getting content from the skiffs that sink or are abandoned (my rising tide floats all boats analogy).
Thanks!
Huh I guess I would strongly have to disagree that all automated voting is equivalent to paid vote services.
Services like Streemian and Steemauto and Steemvoter which allow users to automatically trail their votes either after a curation trail or a fan base trail (trail after a user's posting) are basically vote bots - they provide a web-front end so the average user can implement this, but there is no difference between those services and setting up a vote bot (fossbot for instance). And both of those things that I mentioned - curation trails and fanbase trails -are forms of automated voting that are vitally important to the success of this platform. What would you suggest somebody do who has a large stake of SP but does not have the time to vote manually? Delegate it all out (which yields zero returns for their investment)? Do you really think it is a bad thing if they choose posters that they know are quality posters and trail their vote after the posting automatically? Do you really think that supporting good manual curators by following their vote trail is a bad thing?
Proving your worth as a consistently good curator and parlaying that into getting a bunch of people to follow your curation trail is really the only way to make any kind of decent payout at all curating on this platform. The trailing votes add to the curation reward the initial curator gets.
I am speaking as a NOT-bot here, as I have 6 manual curators who vote for me (all 6 share my posting key) and every vote that has ever been cast by this account has been cast manually. I very much appreciate the good people who have put their trust in our curation by following the @r-bot curation trail and I can promise you that those automated trailing votes are doing the blockchain a world of good. Killing all automated voting is an incredibly shortsighted thing to propose.
Cheers - Carl "@r-bot" Gnash / @carlgnash
I am going to quote this and answer it separately here.
I do think they should delegate it to users that will share the joy, if they haven't the time to do so themselves.
And I vehemently disagree that it yields zero return. It simply encourages capital gains to produce returns, a mechanism that has worked since before history began. It just doesn't reap short term cash, like selling brooms out the back door would.
I think disregarding capital gains is terribly shortsighted, and is going to cause Steemit to fail. I think it's going to cause Steemit to fail because cash is king, and those who have mined the majority of Steem that exists are going to milk those stakes until they can't, and then move on.
That's not good for Steemit in the long run.
I think having a promoted section for posts with paid upvotes is a great idea. I'd love to hear any arguments against it.
As to killing all bots; I've seen it argued that without bots there would be little curation done, as there aren't enough manual curators. I dunno how true that is. It seems to me from the number of comments on posts that there are quite a few.
Not only that, but were bots to no longer deliver votes, all the rewards delivered would then come from manual curation. The same amount of rewards are produced either way.
Without bots, manual curation would become far more valuable. Bots demonstrably reduce human curation value, in terms of economic impact, by (I have seen but one estimate, from @everittdmickey) 95%. I submit that bots are decreasing the incentive to produce quality posts by an amount equal to their degree of curation.
I see one downside to banning bots, and that is that it would impact the 38 whales ability to profit from their stakes right now. I point out that they really have two choices. 1) continue to concentrate Steem in their wallets, and drive users away, or 2) begin to drive at least 30% of rewards to the 99+% of accounts that do not have mined stakes.
Really, the choice is theirs, and the consequences of their decision will be their responsibility. If they want to convert their flash mined stakes into actual money, they're going to have to use them to create a market - and they're failing to do that now.
@blocktrades proposal to make curation more profitable, so he can profit better from his stake now, won't improve that market. It will concentrate more Steem in his, and other paid delegation and votebot services, wallets.
This is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen for him to actually realize a profit in actual money, rather than imaginary tokens.
Thanks!
First of all thank you for making a suggestion. There are so many people giving out about the problem and so few actually putting ideas and suggestions together to overcome it.
I like the idea of a captchas to reduce the bot activity :-)
Thanks! I value your contributions and analyses very much.
Do you think you'll be able to make the Steempanel? I really think you, @arcange, and others with valuable data analysis skills are essential to these issues.
I really wish I could but saturdays i have football matches, dancing and all the things that go along with kids
Well, better spent time =D
We certainly cant stop the activities of bot its like having human right, however i believe this can also be done at the right way. Instead of abusing the bot system. Thank you for writing this
I fear that what you are saying is the bots have rights. I cannot agree, and further the very thought of it is actually terrifying. A robot has been granted citizenship by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and this did not give the robot rights. Rights cannot be given.
They can be taken away. Granting a robot the same rights as citizens doesn't elevate the robot - it degrades human people to the same legal rights as have toasters.
A political scenario more potential of horror cannot be imagined.
Bots have no rights, just as your shoes have no rights. People do have rights, and therefore it is an evil crime to disassemble them and strip them for their parts, unlike bots and toasters.
relegating advertising to the promoted feed,
If I serialize a book which I have on Amazon...then what?
killing all bots, and preventing censorship
yes definitely
and propaganda on Steemit
how is preventing propaganda not censorship?
One person's propaganda is another person's 'raising awareness' or 'educating the masses'
By strict definition of the term YOU would have to delete most, if not all , of your posts..
Excellent reply!
Well, are you self voting, buying votes, or receiving automated votes on it? If you aren't doing those things, you're not eligible for the promotion feed, IMHO. There are obviously more complex repercussions of such a policy change that need to be discussed, and I am incompetent to think of all of them, or get them all right even when they're brought to my attention.
You clearly know that publishing on Amazon isn't publishing on Steemit, and that publishing elsewhere has, so far, on Steemit been simply considered something that should be completely supported.
As to propaganda, many people would agree with you regarding opinion posts being propaganda. However I am intending the word to be used in the sense of paid promotion, or suppression, of opinions.
There's gonna be some disagreement about what is or isn't propaganda, but I maintain that an individuals opinions aren't propaganda, unless they're paid to have them.
On Steemit, as we're paid to post (at least theoretically =p) this is a bit of a tricky question. Clearly we can't say 'he's only posting that because it's popular, and he'll get upvotes!' and call that, even it's true, propaganda.
@bloom receives regular payments from some outside source, and labels himself a 'professional flagger'. I submit there's a qualitative, discernible difference, that is actionable.
I'm open to discussion on the matter. I am even (warily) willing to drop it. Astroturfing, the kinds of psyops that are exposed in 'Weird Scenes from Laurel Canyon', by Dave McGowan, and such, are dangers wherever free speech exists.
Thanks for your incisive questions!
Poor John Henry!
and still we do not learn... compete against a machine/slave ,become one
Excellent insight!
It further illustrates how tools, and bots, can be a blessing. Replacing John Henry's need to mindlessly swing a hammer all day is wonderful. Replacing John Henry's wife - well, maybe not so much (although John Henry might disagree XD). Replacing John Henry at the voting booth is sacrilege.
I'm 'agin it.
Curated for #informationwar (by @openparadigm)
Relevance:Steemit and Bot Warfare