Does courtesy following really work? And is it Good Practice?

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

I am reading a post about an interview with @joanaltres who uses a technique of courtesy following to gain her number one spot on how many followers on steemit. She claims that the sheer power of that can add thousands to someones post if she resteems them.

https://steemit.com/followers/@stellabelle/interview-with-joanaltres-who-is-ranked-1-with-the-most-followers-10-000-on-steemit

Does anyone have any opinions or insights into this?

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This COULD be a good idea - if it wasn't for the SPAM-BOTS that are active on this platform. You have, no doubt, seen some activity from bots - as there is already one bot that has posted in your comments so far: steemitboard. This is an example of a good/useful bot. However, not all bots are all that useful.

For example, take my post about "goodbot."
https://steemit.com/steemcleaners/@bi5h0p/everybody-please-join-me-in-flagging-goodbot-because-it-is-a-bad-bot
Now, to be fair, my opinion of @goodbot has been slightly revised since writing this article. I don't see it so much as a bad bot - I'm more neutral about it. It does have it's uses.

However, what you are suggesting will only make everyone who creates bots just go crazy with bots that comment on whichever posts they want to keep at the top of the cache - thereby totally defeating the purpose of what you are proposing, as well as spamming the hell out of everybody.

It's a very serious problem, and not easily solved - I wouldn't think - unless HF20 can also include some type of written-in code to prevent the bots comments from being considered, at all. Otherwise, we'll just have one GIGANTIC SPAM-FEST on our hands. o.0

So, at this point, I would like to introduce another idea into the SteemIt platform - which I'm sure has already been talked about somewhere: MANUAL CURATION ONLY. No upvoting-bots allowed. I hear there are "Guilds" of bot creators that regularly "conspire" to rape the daily rewards pool by upvoting each others' content with legions of voting bots. No doubt this has already been going on for some time, and TPTB are well aware of it. No doubt it has already been hotly debated before, in other posts, on other platforms, and behind closed doors where minnows do not swim. However, if SteemIt is to succeed in the long term, I see bots as a bad thing - unless the whales come up with some way to closely regulate their use and creation.

The thing is, I already know one thing about myself: if these bots piss me off enough - I have the ability to learn how to create and unleash my own bots. It will take a Herculean effort on my part to do so, and I'd probably rather be doing something else - but I have this excess reserve of manic energy that just dwarfs many others, by comparison. I do my best to direct that energy in positive and constructive ways, and I'm getting much better at it with the passing of time - but not everyone with these abilities is as magnanimous as myself. Herein lies the problem.

You are right, dishonest people will always try and find a loop hole. But what if a human verification was applied when commenting. It may make raise the quality of comments as lazy people would nit be bothers with their 2 word comments they then go and upvote themselves.

That would require Manual Curation Only. Sadly, we do not have this right now. I don't know if HF20 will address this issue or not - or even if they could. It would be nice, though!

https://steemit.com/steem/@l0k1/introducing-smackdown-kitty

I think this one might be something that fits the bill for what you are looking for to counter spam/circlejerk bots. Please do visit https://steemit.chat/channel/steem-coop-general if you want to talk with us about this particular issue.

Of course at present the development process has stalled, but as @personz, the guy doing the code for the bot, has been explaining, we are going to use it to attempt to neutralise some of the highest paying self-voted comments from users over 1000SP. To do more than this, it needs interested users to delegate SP to boost her ability to smack these wankers down (and I don't apologise for making an analogy between self voting yourself a $1+ reward on a comment).

Why I am referring you to this is, perhaps you can make some suggestions how we could expand the scope or refine it somehow so that we can also have her targeting these circle jerk bots, or lay out more clearly how you see the problem and what you think can be done about it. I am very good at exploring problem domains and discovering attack surfaces, so perhaps we can help each other.

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Thank you, hope I have earned a follow and most importantly a resteem so I can make more people interested in this concept. That would be good for all of us.

I have about eight followers. Great photo. You are beautiful. Yeah, the games people play here are a bit childish perhaps. Quality over quantity is better. Great. Wonderful. Thanks.

Lol that's not me, its just a chick using the app on a smartphone.
Hope I earned a follow and most importantly a resteem so more people may see this and give an opinion and hopefully make it happen :)

This will be a good idea. Quality posts must be recognized for its content and the impact value to the ones that commented, upvoted, and resteemed.

Thank you for your support :)

I like that idea. There have to be ways to help keep minnow visibility up and there's no way to overstate how important it is to both increase the total payout available and to make more of it accessible to the small players.

That would be one thing. My next post will address a bigger issue. So follow me and don't miss it. @yoda1917

And please please please resteem this for me as it will be invisible in a few minutes. Thanks :)

I believe I can handle that. Keep up the good work, and I'll be following.

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by yoda1917 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.

I think it would help to allow rewards to be earned continually instead of just for 7 days. It is certainly frustrating when you spend an hour writing something and it earns $0.01! However, I wouldn't be so bothered if it was a piece that I wanted to put out there for the long term and continually earn rewards on it.
The current system promotes a very short term view - throw together a viral article and earn as much as you can in a short period. That's not why I blog.

That is an awesome angle. I never thought of that. If rewards are on going and are paid every 7 days, and posts are bumped back up to the top when they are commented on, that would make a much better environment.

May I ask for a resteem to invite more people into this discussion?

Thanks :)

Sure fine with me. Ill resteem now.

I would second this. I like the idea that an old post might gain traction again. I don't necessarily think comments is the way for something to regain relevance, though. I think if individuals, in their interactions on this platform can find value in referencing an old post, though, and it can organically gain interest, that's better. Maybe there should be a comment feed in addition to a new, trending, promoted and hot feed, though.

I agree, there need to be other factors in ranking posts, beyond payout amount, at the very least, vote count, even if money is lower, those with higher vote count should also get more exposure.

That is a great idea, I never thought of that.

May I ask for you to resteem this so more people can enter this conversation and see these ideas. Thanks

ChainBB bumps threads to the top when they are commented on, much like any other forum. If you like that approach, you should consider using that interface more.

I have heard of this. Do you know what percentage of steemians are using it though? I was under the impression that it never took off.

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