If you buy votes, f**k you.
That's all there is to it. You are rendering quality content meaningless. When shitty, blurry, absolutely 100% non-creative cell phone photos are burying actual, professional quality imagery, something is very very wrong. And don't give me this "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" bullshit.
You have no originality that gets votes, so you're buying them. Seriously, fuck you.
And if you're selling votes, fuck you tenfold. You're ruining this platform by encouraging bribery.
Buying votes is one kind of promoting, I don't think it is bad. However, I do think selling votes is bad, because it makes everyone selfish and votes only for profit. I would suggest that the official team sell the votes and burn all income.
I don't agree at all that buying votes is a kind of promoting. I believe vote buying to be no different than buying answers to a test rather than actually studying for it. It puts unqualified people at the top.
@winstonwolfe And people on here that upvote their own comments? What about them? ... And no I'm not talking about you , but my point being maybe there are a lot more issues out there than just buying votes. Would paying yourself for your own comments not be in the same boat? Multiple accounts all upvoting each other? same boat?
Also I get your frustration , but honestly, what do you expect these people to do? Some people probably spend a lot of time making a post and in the end it's just like posting to the wind. They are frustrated that no one sees or cares what they post , and they've been given a method of changing that (sort of anyway) So ... really ...what do you expect them to do?
Maybe they need other ways to progress on steemit instead of someone telling them 'f you' ... I personally think the contests and challenges are a good way to progress on here ... especially when you are just starting out. Provide a method that's easy to use and anyone can do ... and people will use it ... no matter what the method is.
Now don't get me wrong ... I'm not defending 'shit' posts and I have used bid bots two or three times since I've been here (so I'm sure I will get an 'F You' from you) , but honestly I don't like to use them and I don't for the most part ... Also I don't even think they work in all honesty ... I think a poster would be pretty damn lucky to make their money back when using bid bots. And it would seem the ones benefiting the most from them are the people that run them.
And as I read your post the first time (soon after you posted) I wasn't sure how to reply or even if I should ... but one of the first things that came to mind is that it's definitely not about quality all the time ... and leave the bid bots out of it ... I'm talking about people on here that can pretty much post anything and it'll make money and get upvotes. Hypothetically let's say that the most popular bloggers on Steemit post an image of a steeming pile of dog shite ... Do you really think that it wouldn't get any votes because it's not a quality post?
And besides that ...first of all ... Why? ... I think you have to ask why do people upvote in the first place? Do people upvote because they actually like that posts? (look at upvotes vs views) ... or Do people upvote because they want to support the poster? ... or ... Do people upvote popular posts from popular bloggers that they think will do really well?
I don't know the answer ... but I think it's certainly something to think about... And maybe they are other ways to encourage people to use other methods to progress on Steemit.
Even in an election, the official who is running for office is allowed to vote for him/her self. That's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Sure, it stings a bit to see when someone who has REAL voting power upvote themselves, but it's a fact of the system.
Yes, buying votes is ALSO a fact of this system, and that's incredibly unfortunate.
HOWEVER, I don't consider those things to be nearly the same thing at all.
Voting for yourself DOES NOT = buying votes. So although you're trying to deflect my argument about vote buying, it's not very effective here because you're saying,
"Apples? But what about those ORANGES!?"
Well wait a sec now ... It wasn't my intention to deflect anything .
And I meant upvoting ones own comments not posts. I've seen people on here trying to get others to reply just so they can reply back and upvote their own comment (and I'm talking a few dollars per own self upvote here not cents) ... and multiple accounts owned by the same person all upvoting each other? Personally I think that fits in the category of 'rewardpoolrape' ... but we may have to agree to disagree there.
Just to be clear though , I don't actually disagree with you about the bid bots ... and do agree that they are not good for steemit ... but in the end i was just trying to say in the previous comment that there must be a way to help the minnows / plankton from getting lost in the ether. Steemit changed quite a bit when they had that massive influx of new users last year sometime. It was a lot easier to be noticed , ... now not so much imho. I'm not sure if Steemit would retain new users if hardly any of their posts get noticed.
I'm not trying to change your mind on the matter ... and I'm not trying to argue with you ... I'm just trying to provide another point of view. That might be somewhat helpful .. maybe ... I dunno ...
Anyways I do appreciate you reading my comment and replying so ... thank you for that.
Sorry for that. Had someone else pull up a graphic of my main supporters and it was mostly me voting myself. It's hard to say that's a good case for reward pool rape when my vote is worth about 6 cents. I'm a bit fuzzy on how I feel about self-voting. There should be a cap, perhaps.
Well, lets look at where that voting power comes from. It comes from holding a certain amount of currency. That currency was bought either with some other currency or with sweat. So you are in effect buying votes. I'm not mad at you though. The whole community has the ability to review your work and determine if your self vote is justified or not. The same holds true for people who buy votes. They have to have money in order to buy votes. That money must come from one of two sources; sweat or outside currency. If they earned SBD by making 20 posts in order to upvote their content, that's sweat. If they converted BTC, LTC or Fiat to Steem in order to be able to purchase votes, they did it with money. Just like you, a self-voter, they have paid for their privilege.
The solution to the problem is a revamping of the algorithm that determines trends. It really sucks because it depends on whales to curate steemit...and honestly, I don't think they do a great job of it. Some definitely do, but most don't. And I don't necessarily blame them. Does a milllionaire really have time to go through 50-100 posts a day to find something to upvote? I doubt it.
Disclaimer: I self-vote too, but I never feel right when I do it.
It is ultimately not the responsibility of Steemit Inc to dictate morality, that's what the community's job is. In the actual world of social animals, communities will take part in ostracizing members of that community who step out of line or cause harm to the community. In other words, good luck getting Steemit Inc to change anything. There are certain functions we need to be grown up enough to take care of ourselves - as a community. We can bury our heads in the sand - which I'm guilty of until recently - or we can take part in cleaning up our own community.
Or we can be lazy and say, "If you can't beat em, join em!"
True, but don't underestimate what we can do on our level without steemit. The blockchain is just a database and we can present the data any way we see fit. We just have to convince some website designer that there is a demand for it.
To clear this up a bit, what I mean is that other websites such as busy.org do not have to display the same data the way steemit does. They can come up with their own trending algorithms. It won't change post payout, but it will change the focus of new users. They can do the same thing with rep. On steemit, rep is based entirely on the amount of upvotes earned. On a different site, there could be a rating system based on opinions of those with whom you interact.
Those are just two examples which would require no change to the blockchain. No hardfork necessary, just innovation and a lot of advertising.
PS
Morality can never be legislated successfully, but there's no harm in giving citizens more information upon which they can base their morals.
Whats the difference between buying upvotes and doing ads? Arent terrible content creators or badly run businesses allowed to run ads? This platform needs money in. How will it survive if people arent investing in it?
I really don't know what you mean. I don't consider any of what is happening here "advertising". I post because it's a blog. And those posts make me money. And that money is everyone's who wants to take it. So here we are, all of us, on our hands and knees coming to get it. This wild-west "but the system is setup with the ability to game it" excuse is bullshit.
This place is upside down. The original intention behind it was to get the best content bubbling to the top. It's the complete opposite. I mean, is that what you want? When you come here, do you want to see shit posts like that trending?
It's like,
And what's more is I know I'm probably fighting a losing battle. And I'm not sure what irks me more:
There is also another side to paying for votes. Some people have to pay for votes because others are doing it, even if one has quality content, people just don't look at what you write unless your post has done well. My content is a good example. I usually get 10 views during the 7 days. If I get 10 views, I get 3-5 upvotes. So 30% of people like my posts which is a rather high percentage, of course it might be that people just vote on random stuff and no one likes my posts. Now if I pay, then suddenly people notice my posts and I get more views, more votes, and more reputation. Now that I haven't been paying, I average $.50 when I write a post that takes me a long time to write.
But you are definitely right that people paying for votes is shitty. I'd rather have it so that it isn't possible. Someone might actually notice that I have quality content. And I'm not afraid to say I have quality content, because I see so much utter crap here on steemit. I even gave up writing, because I couldn't see me paying for votes something that could last. Anyway, my intention was always to get to reputation 50, because that used to be the level at which people started to be recognized. Nowadays, it seems that 60 is the new 50, so I'll just have to grind until I get there, never.
Anyway, I haven't paid for votes for a long time, probably half a year. I tried to last week, but something went wrong and then I realized that what I was trying to do is just wrong. So I didn't continue.
''Rendering quality content useless''... oh.. content like this... i see the quality you mean now. a picture and a paragraph. pfft.
LOL ok dude
You think I'm competing with those posts here? No, I'm ADDRESSING those posts.
Sorry you're missing the point by trying to deflect. You must be buying SHITLOADS of votes.
BRB, gonna go see....
Holy hell, man. LOTS of smartmarket and smartsteem. No wonder you got so defensive. You're one of the perpetrators.
well dur. i use em to enhance my visibility in an overcrowded market, you know that part about getting noticed? over half of all the upvotes are from natural visitors after they see my posts higher up in the 'hot' catagory and to be fair, i am posting to not only earn, but to be able to buy the tech i have to review and post about. otherwise, i wouldn't have much to post about. i ain't no tart with a camera thinking im a pro. im an idiot, with a lot of random knowledge. but i must be doing something right to have gained a good rep and income inside of 6 months of being on here.
just stop being an ignorant arse. you put up a shit post like this, saying you dont care. this post has already earned you a few quid that you could have forfeited if you ''really'' wanted to send a message. and 3 posts with an image and a paragraph. one being a piece of shit?
i think you are just a very jealous and angry little man with nothing better to do than provoke a reaction from everyone so you can earn some cash. quite frankly, i feel sorry for you.
and yeah im gonna defend what i do. it makes me some extra cash that comes in handy. so what? i don't care. my readers dont care. why should you..... oh and i sell my voting power too. which also earns me more mulla.... ;-) try it. you may find your so called ''quality content'' will do better.
I fully agree 1000%! Upvote 100%!
I wrote the same a few days ago!
obviously thats true people wan fame and for fame they are doing this bul shit, so who cares bro they are shits. restreeming upvote 100% wish i can upvote this 1000%. dude we should build a community for this anti upvoting bots. only original users contribute to this community and these shits should be ban for this community
Easy for you who has 70 reputation, 400+ Steem Power and almost 3K followers. A minow like me who started a little bit more than 2 weeks ago has no visibility. I'm lucky that some curators and a whale noticed couple of my posts but that's it. So thank you @minnowbooster and @minnowsupport for making my posts going a but higher for more visibility and giving me few cents (I can't even bid more than 0.1SBD at a time...).
Also I can buy vote for someone else’s post because my upvote is worth nothing.
Maybe if there were no bots at all, then I would fight even with the other and not get drown amongst plagiarists and copy/pasted stuffs. But bots are part of the landscape so if the others use them then I'll use them too until I get enough followers and SP.
My reputation number and my steem power are both things that I worked for. I didn't buy my way to those numbers. Also, 420 steem power is not very much.
That wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t even thought you bought your way up there. What I wanted to point is thinking that all bot vote buyers are producing bad content is not correct. I’m probably not as good writer as many but my content is decent, however in a topic that is not yet popular on Steemit:
https://steemit.com/trending/vermicomposting
https://steemit.com/trending/wormfarming
I have made my way to become admin or moderators of several worm farming groups on Facebook, one of which is 12K+ members and another is for commercial worm farmers. I know my stuff and want to share the knowledge. By the time my audience gets into Steemit, all my important posts would have been more than 7 days old.
You have been here since 2016, there was no much shit writers here like we have now. I understand that it was still a challenge and all respect to you to get that high reputation. But if you have to start with a fresh account today without anyone knowing who you are, how long do you think you can get back to this level? I don’t want to wait that long to start getting something, I will stay that long probably but want to start getting something right now.
420 SP is not very much, but it is still much higher than my 18SP. I have upvoted your reply making it worth... $0.00
I have written a long detailed post on my topic and it was not visible, not many upvotes. I’ve written another tutorial, many upvotes but super low payout.
I would like to power up and make most of what I can share with others before I burn out my pool of knowledge in the topic and have to start writing about something else that is popular but I don’t necessarily enjoy.
So when you flip “me” the bird because I’m trying to keep my head above water in this new environment, I had to respond.
Even @teamsteem approves the use of upvote bots. @jerrybanfield has his own upvote bot. Are they ruining the platform? They have vested a lot in the platform and done a lot for it outside of the platform.
Well, if you buy votes, fuck you. So yeah.
THIS is not worth $600:
And THIS is worth more than $2.
I can't get any more clear than this.
And if you're DEFENDING buying votes, you're fucking muted. I don't want to know you.
A lot of my posts are also worth more than $0.50 and yes the second photo is worth much much more, I used to do portrait photography for 6 years back in the UK and I appreciate good photos. But i still stand for what I said. As long as bots are not banned and other people use them, I will use them too to be fightig equal rather than sitting and looking them making $$$ for shit content.
And it’s funny to hear you talk about damaging the platform when you seem to milk it. Being here since 2016 and having 70 reputation, you could have been a whale right now. But no, you just keep milking the SBD (and that’s your right) and leave only 420, enough to upvote and make more $?
Anyway, enough arguments.
The sad thing, I have no way to defend myself (though I only buy what I think my posts deserve, since I'm I now have too much "rep" for curie.) I can see your argument and I wish I have a rebuttal...
I can only say why I'm doing it, and not that it's justified... Seeing all the abuse I feel like I'm better than most of them, but not less guilty.
Sadly it's a really common thing here, I've seen so many article between 6 and 10 USD only with buy votes !
Ban the Bots I see a day when the humans will be outnumbered by AI bots and upvote bots just circle jerking each other to maximise profits.
I get what you're saying, but if you look at the transactions from the post you recently commented on, you'll see he's actually losing money on that post. That's not sustainable over time, and eventually people will realize that the ROI just isn't there. Especially with the unpredictability of the crypto market lately.
Your point furthers mine.
I agree. I will say that there is a use-case for vote purchases aside from rewards, which is promotion. As the promoted section here on steemit is hit or miss, in some cases it may be worthwhile to promote your post through the use of purchased votes. For example, if I were to work with a client to promote their product on steemit, I may use some of their advertising dollars to promote one of their posts via purchased votes. Having said that, the ROI there is even sketchier than before, but it's a possible use.
I don't agree that buying votes is the same as promotion. That's the difference between researching and studying to pass a test VS buying the answers to it.
Fair enough, I think we agree, but for different reasons haha.
What? Lol. There are no requirements to run an ad. You are perfectly free to pay any amount to run a shit ad for your shit company. Will it nesceserilly make you money? No. Will using uovotibg bots here guarantee a positive roi? No. Same stuff different wrapping
Someone's son getting sick, giving him coffee, and him liking it with a couple crappy pics thrown in is not an "ad". Paying for someone to vote a shit post like that to the trending page is not "advertising". So I don't know what you're even talking about.
It is though. Do you enjoy the content of all ads you see?
The philosophical debate about what constitutes an advertisement stops here. You know my standpoint about it. From now on, I will be taking action against those whom I feel are abusing the system. Good bye.