RE: Proposal for New 'Promoted' Function
Yeah, I don't use Upvote Services and my posts die, but I don't want to use those services.
This is the issue that all minnows are facing now with nowhere to turn.
Would readers be able to select targets as well. If a promoted post appears in the People I Follow tab, how will Steemit know that I want to see promoted Gaming posts but not Promoted Conspiracy posts, for example. I understand that someone promoting their post can select tags, but there needs to be a way for readers to choose what they want to see promoted in their feed. It is awfully annoying to see promoted content for things for which I have no interest.
The posts that will turn up in your "People I Follow" tab, will only be post of which based on your personal activity, will determine what type of content you'd like to see.
So given that you follow a bunch of food bloggers, you are more likely be shown food blogging posts.
If you engage with a specific post, by upvoting and commenting, you will be shown content similar to those.
Now, will this system truly get rid of Upvote services? How will it ensure that people will not continue to use Upvote Services. I predict those same people will promote their posts, use upvote services, and ti won't solve the problem for content creators who don't use upvote services or promotional tools.
I believe the current Upvote Service do not really provide for what content creators really need to get their work out there, however it is the only available option if a better system were available, it would be taken seriously and at least a good chunk of people would stop using Upvote Services.
Secondly, where the money goes is very important, if you use Upvote Services, it is taking out of the rewards pool, if you use the promoted service, you are aiding the development of Steemit.
As such, this will breed a culture where Upvote Service are considered "scummy" and we easy for the community to punish with flags.
It's not so easy to deem Upvote Services as bad behavior if it is the only viable solution and everybody uses them
By the way, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer all my questions to help me get a feel and add my input :)
My pleasure! I'm glad to see you are interested, so I put in the time.
Ok, I get it. So based on those whom I already follow and posts that I usually look at, like food and gaming, those types of promoted posts will show up in my feed. That works.
Well, we can't say that everybody uses the Upvote Services, unless we're including the free ones. I can say that for myself, Upvote bots don't interest me, and I kind of started taking pride in the fact that my account is growing organically, with humans behind my upvotes.
Now that I understand better, I think this promoted thing will help a bit, but I'm not sure it will remove the Upvote Service habit that people have. There needs to be something, perhaps included with this new promoted system, to not only entice people to want to use the Promoted service rather than the upvote bot, but to also make them NOT want to use those bots. Something that will truly make people be like "Ok, no more bots."
Maybe after an initial transition period, where people start to use more the promoted service, bots will slowly die down, but maybe they won't and not much will have changes. So something needs to be figured out to help steer people in the direction that is away from these bots.
Exactly!
I don't include free ones, as a matter of fact, even services like @qurator are pretty much fine by me. It is really the bigger players like @booster, @buildawhale, which, like I've said, I don't think poorly of them at all, both @frystikken and @markymark are doing great services for the community, it just so happens that their services are negatively affecting the ecosystem is all.
I believe when users are provided a system far superior to the existing one, it is only natrual that they start to move away from the inferior one. The additional fact of where the money is going will tip the scale even faster.
You know, I was talking about our exchange to my husband and Frank said something interesting, he suggested we find a way so that if bots do continue to exist that they scan content, based on reputation, previous posts, key words, and such, so that the bot does not upvote content with less than a certain number of words, and content that it not worthy of an upvote. I wonder how that can actually be possible, but something like that could also help. Not that I want bots to stay, but the main problem I see with bots is that they don't have a way to check the content and so anything gets upvoted. It tough to see how such a change to bots could be implemented or even possible, but it's a thought.
However, personally, I do prefer no bots. If this new promoted thing makes people stop using bots altogether, then bots will have to find something else and they will die out. Until they come up with something superior and then something else needs to be done to remove them. It could be never ending, but hey, that's part of trying to improve.
And we're going to need a new page soon before the Steemit reply system has our replies down to one word per line LOL ;)