An Idiot's Guide To Committing Mass-Steemicide
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Today I would like to share with you this most useful guide on "How to Commit Mass Steemicide." Enjoy!
Step One
Create Steemit.
Obviously no one can commit steemiticide until steemit exists.
Step Two
Incentivize fair voting and rewards distribution.
This can be achieved by offering curation rewards to the largest stake-holders who ultimately have the power to decide where the rewards are going.
Step Three
Make step two entirely redundant.
Continue to offer curation rewards to the largest-stake holders who ultimately have the power to decide where the rewards are going-- even after those large stake-holders decide not to vote fairly, and instead start selling the rewards pool.
Step Four
Start recentralizing all of the power to a select few.
Have an overwhelmingly blind community pay for the rewards that are already allocated to go to them through fair voting, which is why the curation rewards were introduced in the first place. Watch the large-stakeholders who are now selling the reward pool also continue to make curation rewards.
Step Five
Force others to have to pay for votes too.
Wait until the largest-stake holders have reserved a sizeable portion of the rewards pool for paying customers, and then act surprised when everyone isn't earning as much anymore. Wait until the largest stake-holders are selling so much of the rewards pool that they no longer have any need to curate decent content because they are earning plenty curation rewards still, but getting paid to do so. Watch as established members of the community, who have put in a lot of work to help Steemit get to where it was two months ago, have to resort to paying for upvotes too.
Step Six
Watch it go up in flames
Grab some popcorn and watch as the largest stake holders start increasing the disparity between STEEM distribution at an astronomical rate. Don't power down, because the largest stake-holders are not doing it. So everything must be good. Observe as the largest stake-holders siphon their account values out of the platform using the liquidity received by the selling of votes, yet never have to actually power down. That, or watch as the largest-stake holders become so much larger that no one will ever have the ability to negate any of their abusive actions. Enjoy Steemit's new slogan which is advertised in 2018 to the global community.
Were I in a more light-hearted mood, I'd laugh at this state of affairs @son-of-satire. However right now it makes me more sad than anything else. I've only been on Steemit for a couple of months and I was really excited to find something that seemed different and better than other social networking sites. I quickly learned that most people bought votes in order to bump their posts up in the algorithm, and that didn't seem so bad.
I was just amazed by the idea that one could create content that one was passionate about and potentially make a living out of doing so. So I researched more and more about the platform, and the dynamics of how it worked. I blogged every day and was really excited about it. I met cool people that were kindred spirits and was impressed by the general lack of trolls and spam.
Yet as the initial enthusiasm wore off and I was looking more realistically at the system, I began to see many of the darker aspects you mentioned. I was seeing mediocre content getting massively over-rewarded, and what's far worse, excellent content not even hitting the hot or trending sections.
Before I turn this into an essay, I'll just leave this as a cliffhanger. I don't have any definitive answer for how to turn Steemit around from the direction it's been going recently. But for my part, I'm going to keep doing my best to create quality, genuine original content, and support others who are also doing so. At the end of the day, if the platform crashes and burns, I'll be disappointed, but also grateful because it's honestly helped my creative consistency a lot, and introduced me a bunch of awesome people.
I must say, these words could just as well as of left my own lips. It seems my journey with Steemit is parallel to your own. I just try to do something about the problems I see rather than sitting back casually and watching a place I once loved become something that makes me feel embarrassed to be a human.
This is so accurate, and a major problem. I think you'd struggle to get a lot of minnows to stop using the vote buying bots since for many it is their only way of getting their posts some visibility. I'm certainly guilty of that. But this is an symptom of decentralised networks and unregulated economies. If there is a demand for it, it will exist.
The only way I can see to get rid of these things is to remove the demand, take away the incentive, but that is tough to do.
I think self voting posts is acceptable, especially for minnows like me (bit of self interest there) since many people wont bother looking at a post or voting on one that has no votes yet. I'm not so fussed by people who upvote their own comments, its like laughing at your own joke, but the ones that spam it are appalling. Especially when they dont even bother to upvote your post first.
Then there's this guy: https://steemit.com/ecology/@ecoworld/1942-2016-72-years-of-nuclear-part-1
The comments section makes me physically ill.
Holy fuck, man. I didn't know this type of shit was going on. This place is just propelled by greed now. I am leaving once my power down completes. These are most definitely not my people.
Its a prime example of the shit that comes to steemit. I wish there was some kind of an admin group on here that revoked accounts that do this, but it seems its in the hands of the users. We need more people exposing these turds and flagging them into oblivion.
I would say (though probably futilely).. please don't leave, steemit needs people like you.
Well put. I've posted a few comments questioning the way this platform works but never get very far. The points you make are spot on from my point of view & I don't see how things are going to get better. All we can do is hope that there are enough decent whales who can see the writing in the wall & combine in an attempt to negate the influence of the vote sellers & others who ruin the platform. The question is, how can you stop groups of users with combined SP going into the millions? The platform seems to be designed in such a way as to make the things you described inevitable. Was it part of the plan or am I just too conspiratorial? Upvoted & resteemed. You save the best for last with, "Earn rewards by being a whale, or by licking the arse of one". Too true.
It's the most important question isn't it. I used to think Steemit was different from the outside world, something better. But, in actuality, it is probably worse. Outside of Steemit, the power really does reside with the many, and it is only an illusion of inferiority that prevents man from banding together and demanding change. But on Steemit, I am not convinced we even have the power to demand anything. Not if we want to remain here. We can only hope that eventually one of these greedy cunts has an epiphany and starts to care about people other than themselves. So in other words; refer to step 6. lol.
I don;t believe so. But, I am probably not the best person to ask such a question. But this has been a topic of discussion lately. If Steemit is in itself just a massive pump and dump.
The lack of any intervention on the part of Steemi Inc, with not even any words spoken against paying for votes being seen by me, I am beginning to think you may be correct. But, I don't know for sure yet. Part of me also thinks Steemit is destined to succeed, but when it does, I don't think it will be something I can willfully be a part of anymore. Not if this continues and greed becomes the lifeblood that keeps the platform running.
I wonder if something can be done about this. I saw a post yesterday about a potential new platform from someone who's got similar concerns about the platform. Today I saw a post that the user's been shutdown. To be honest I am one of those who started resorting to buying votes.
I feel a lot more people share this sentiments, but chooses not to speak up. You are out voice. Thank you.
We could start flagging people who are using them until people are afraid to use them anymore. But I really do not like this approach, because I know that a lot of people are using them out of necessity, and many of the posts they are used on should be getting rewarded. They are not the problem. The Steemit team are, because their silence is the same as consent at this point. And that is why the community continue to use them.
I appreciate the closing sentence. I can feel at times as though I'm just wasting my time, but comments such as this help me to remember why I'm doing this in the first place.
Someone posted on here about this? Who was it? Do you remember? Wasn't aware accounts could be shut down.
it's not so much that they can be shut down exactly, they just can be invisibled completely so people don't see them anymore.
All my poems have been about this thing, I am seeing, as it's a huge problem, that I myself have been slow to acknowledge in my own head, but it's been coming out in my poetry anyway, without trying for it.
This article was great...but these comments are fantastic! Steemit seems valuable if nothing more than a platform of open and free discourse. I'm new so I don't fully understand all of the ins and outs so I'm sure I'm missing some key info. I suppose unjustified flagging can be a form of censorship upon it? As of now I'm still really enjoying it 😊
Haha yes. The comment sections of my posts are often very entertaining. I'm not sure that I would call one flag censorship, but there is certainly a lot of what I would consider unjust flagging going on at times.
If there is anything you are curious about, as you say you feel you are missing some key info, feel free to ask and if I'm able to, I will provide you with some honest answers about the platform.
Thank you very much! Here's a question is there a way to send private messages? Or can you only talk to people in the comments?
On Steemit.com, no. However, many Steemit users use steemit.chat for that purpose. And many more use discord. If you see that "MasterDebaters Chatroom" Image at the bottom of my post, that is a link to discord. But that is just a server I created with not a ton of people yet, as it's pretty new. But, there are others you can find on there like SteemSpeak or PAL which have tons more Steemians. But you do also have the ability to send direct messages on there.
Another question 😊
When I first joined I watched a lot of you tube videos which stated that you need to upvote your own posts when you are new because people won't even try to look at your posts if there are no votes? Then in posts and comments I've come to find out that this is frowned upon? I've stopped doing it now but do you have an opinion on this?
And thank you for the chat info I will definitely check all of that out!
The vote buying needs to stop.
Reminds me of my post (well past payout) Steemit: Buy Votes, Get Paid.
We can get rid of vote buying by disincentivizing it. If enough people start doing what I'm doing (and it becomes well-known that users are behaving as such), people will quit buying these votes. That is - If I see that someone has paid for a vote on their post, I will NOT upvote that post.
This is an interesting idea. I spoke of flagging but recognised that was a bit harsh. Perhaps this could work. I already check every comment to see if the author upvoted it their self, so that if they have I can withhold my own. Shouldn't be much extra work to also check posts for booster purchases before voting.
Thanks for the idea, and I will do my best to spread it to those I am close with on Steemit too.
As for your post, I am simply too tired to read anymore tonight. But, I will check it out tomorrow. Goodnight-
It's a good thing hard Fork 19 fixed everything.
While I don't agree with many of your points, you do have a great sense of snark and also some good points. Steps 2 and 3 were great.
However, nobody has to buy votes (I occasionally do) and I support the voting bots, I think if every time you considered buying votes you bought some steem instead, that would be a good thing.
It is time for people to quit asking who is earning the most and start asking can SteemIt in it's imperfect form, can improve my life... Today. If the answer is yes, keep playing the game. There will be a new trend next month.
a+ on snark. I love it.
I'm glad you liked it, but I am at a loss to how you can be in support of vote-buying if you truly understood the post. Or fair enough, if you are for vote-buying, then you have to be against curation rewards surely? Because they are supposed to be for voting on good content, which is not what is going on anymore. If all the curation rewards were done away with, we would have a little more power to reward each other while the whales aren't voting on as much content. But, so too would the whales have more power.. so IDFK.
But, I don't know you can be in support of this. This is supposed to be a decentralized network, yet vote-buying is sending most of the wealth into very few directions.
I think it is a trend and a fad due to some current situations. As more people try to get into it, it will bring the profits down and distribute the reward pool.
I like economies and money we need smart people who create things. I want to find out who the smart people who create things are. Then I want to invest in them.
Have you considered thinking about it the other way around? What if the other issues such as self-voting and hardcore spamming are a direct consequence of locking down a huge portion of the rewards pool for sale. Then what if because even established authors have to resort to self-voting in order to be adequately rewarded for their time invested in Steemit, they then don't have enough power to vote for minnows. So, the whales stop voting for minnows or dolphins who won't pay for it, and a lot of the dolphins have to start using their power on themselves because of it, and then no one is feeding the little fish at all.
I consider traffic to be the most important indicator of how we are doing. Despite the internal battles we have from time to time the site is growing.
No formal marketing, crappy features, and wallets that are unstable and still we grow.
The people who want to come in and earn are not investors, many of them are not content creators either. Keeping everyone who wants to post memes in not on my agenda. (Neither is getting rid of them)
Your point is not lost on me, yet, the minnows at the bottom need to learn how to feed themselves (not saying we shouldn't help minnows) If they can't invest and they can't create, or write a bot or make attention grabbing posts.. I am okay with them churning.
My background is a technology company that thrived by ensuring we did not have churn, so that was a difficult place for me to come to.
I can get behind that. I have no problem with spammers and shitty authors making pennies. But, I have a massive problem with excellent content not getting deserving rewards.
I know that the lifetime of posts right now, in terms of visibility, is all but evanescent in the grand scheme of things. But, in the future, there may be entirely new tools for exploring the Steem blockchain, and all of that amazing content will be revived for a new generation to consume.
Clearly people who are filling the blockchain up with crap deserve no rewards. But was the whales' job not supposed to be, at least until there was a fair distribution and others could do it, to reward great content that is being added to the blockchain? I know it certainly wasn't their job to ransom the rewards pool..
Other than my videos that I have been putting some effort into, even I have started to get lazy with the presentation of my posts recently. Because, why work hard? I already know what it's going to earn, and it isn't worth going to the effort to make my post look amazing. How many others share this sentiment? And how long before the block chain becomes 99% horse shit?
Put simply, excellent content needs to be getting rewarded, to incentivize the continued production of excellent content. What is happening now is, people are coming to the realisation that it isn't about creating good content, and so soon there won't be any.
But perhaps that is the point. Perhaps the goal is to end up with something more akin to facebook. Memes and slutty selfies. If that's the case, then I wish someone would just tell me so I can fuck off right now.
Name a successful website with millions of users based on quality content.
Though I am sure there are some out there, that is a pointless request. We are talking about Steemit, not anything else. We were told this was different, the first of its kind, better. So, why is it surprising that many of would expect more from what we got from the places we left to come here?
Edit: In case you respond while I am gone, I will be afk for an hour or so. But, you raise some interesting points and I will be happy to continue the discussion when I return if you'd like to.
This sounds exactly like a post of mine from a little over a week ago. It's so true, and so terrible. Upvote Bots are going to destroy Steemit, as are the Resteem for a price people ... Please can't we just end the madness!?
Everyone says that "it's too hard to stop the bots", and therefore, implying, that it's not worth trying. That's the WRONG attitude.
We ALL need to work together to stop this epidemic before it destroys the platform, and more importantly COMMUNITY, that so many of us enjoy on a daily basis!
Since my old post is lost a bit down my blog, this is a link. I also talked about the Re-Steeming epidemic. Feel free to take a look, or ignore.
Cheers!
I think the resteem shit won't last. People will use them and won't make anything from it, because most of the followers are bots on these accounts. Eventually they will be seen as unprofitable and people will no longer use them. However, vote-selling-bots provide the illusion of profitability, because so few people are examining the bigger picture, so that will likely continue until we are wise enough as a community to simply stop using them. And when we do, because the whales won't be using that power, all of our votes will become more powerful, and we will be able to reward one another enough that people won't need to use them anyway.
Also, I agree that Resteem SHOULDN'T LAST, but then again, there shouldn't be 10+ highly successful upvote bots either.
Everyone needs to remember that for every vote made, all other votes are valued less. There is a finite rewards pool, and it decreases for every vote that is made during the day. Too many votes from these bots will only decrease the value of your reward from the bot.
By everyone using these bots, and some people to a ridiculous extreme, it's a guarantee that your received votes will all count for less at the end of the day!
Yes that is true. It wasn't so noticeable when the payouts were on 1 day cycles. I still think it was an awful idea to change to 7 days before resolving the post-lifetime issue. Now it's like, you spend a few hours on a post, then a few hours later it's on like 5 dollars, then for the rest of the week you watch it slowly go down to 3. Makes no sense at all to be using 7 day cycles when only trending posts really get seen for longer than a day.
Dude, wrap your lips around that juicy whale dick and be part of a team!