Really? No One? (Vote-Buying/Selling Debater Requested)
With all the votes that are purchased on a daily basis, how can it be that I've still not found a person willing to debate me on the pros and cons of vote selling?
And if there is no one willing to defend a position, does that automatically make said position indefensible? I would argue it does, and so if no one in the community who is pro-bidbots is willing to assist in resolving this issue that has caused a great divide in the community, then perhaps all of you who have not entirely made up your minds should consider why that is..
I'm gonna get to making a pro bid bot defense later today, we taking bets on how many gonna show up before that?
Honestly though, you have to take it seriously. Do you think you will be able to argue the position (respectfully) without actually agreeing with it? If so, we shall do this tomorrow, because it's clear to me after what I just read that no bidbot advocate is going to be stupid enough to debate anyone with a brain.
https://steemit.com/debate/@baah/bid-bots-pros-and-cons
Have you not seen the battle/debate going down regards https://steemit.com/bidbots/@fyrstikken/bidbots-they-do-not-drain-the-steem-rewardpool
and
https://steemit.com/rewardpoolabuse/@freebornangel/bidbots-not-all-bad
?.
Fucking hell, dude. I just read a lot of the first link, took me quite a while. No wonder no one is debating me. I had to try so fucking hard not to call a few people dumb. Even the whatsup woman that someone recommended I should debate seems to be either 100% full of shit or completely delusional. I think we are gonna have to handle this a different way. These fuckers don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to a debate. I will have to look at the second link tomorrow; perpetual disgust is more exhausting than I remember.
This is getting really interesting - now two of my favourite Steemians are going to debate something that for once I don't have a solid opinion on!
At this point I'm less Bidbots suck and more bugger it if I don't start using bidbots my days of decent payouts are all over. I am a swing voter on the fence...
Well that's rather perfect then. But, who is the other person? Do you mean bah or whatsup? Because I do not think she is interested anymore.
I mean whatsup - but failing a live debate I'd really like to see your response to this post - https://steemit.com/discussion/@whatsup/another-dumb-story-about-when-i-was-a-minnow
I don't have it in me right now because I see ti would take a little while, as I disagree with almost every single thing she said about bidbots and steemit in that post, and so I will need to address an awful lot.
But if you're saying that this is the argument that's keeping you on the fence, then I will respond here to you tomorrow and hopefully bring you over to the side of reason
Why no cat by the way? Something seems off lol
Yes that covers a lot of what I'm on the fence about - everyone I'm following - including me and you - has taken a massive drop in payouts this year - even if bidbots are the cause of that, not using them is never going to fix the problem now. Is it?
But with every bidbot transaction, the community's dependence on them increases, and the one's willing to do this to us gain more influence over the network. We are forging oligarchs here, and look what happened when we allowed that in the world.
This is the simple way I look at it. Before bidbots, the STEEM was getting distributed across the network. Upon the inception of bidbots, The distribution of STEEM on the network was reversed, and is now being concentrated at a ridiculous rate into the hands of a few.
They advertised this place as a way to earn money by posting content, not as a place where you can pay to be given money.
Good to see you with your pussy out this time by the way.
The whatsup woman? lol. I've had you muted, and I can't remember when or why... I noticed your comments today on Steemd and realized it.
:) Cheers.
All legit pros are only pros from a perspective of buyers, not the community. At least as long as the buying works as it works. There could be a different way to make it work, but its too late to settle it.
But I will give you a pro for one bot in particular. Buying votes from @treeplanter helps reforestation. At least, I try to believe that.
I was thinking that I would love to be able to believe that as I read those words. I won't go and check it out though,. Today optimism shall rule.
I have said it couple of times before on steemit. If steem team wants to kill bid bots, its really easy, kill delegation. That will also help steem price and manual curation.
Having said that, I am neither pro nor against. I think steemit will better without bots over long run, but they do help buy visibility if you can afford it.
I have also seen them used for promoting new projects so they are kind of used for advertising.
Also, @yabapmatt posted a post and was open to discussion on voting bots. https://steemit.com/steem/@yabapmatt/on-voting-bots
I guess you can still leave him a message. I am a noob but he is someone who matters in this platform.
I don't see how this method work, because whales would simply sell votes from accounts they loaded with STEEM power.
I think delegations are useful and that they have been - though rarely - used in productive ways.
I don't think that when you delegate to someone you should lose the curation rewards. This way, if the whales don't want to curate, they could just delegate to someone who is a good curator, and they will still have their wallets grow in value for doing nothing. That's the only incentive investors need.
Also, I have just checked out this link. After reading the first paragraph, I can see it is something I want to read in its entirety- after I take my dog out for a walk.
But, I want to say to you personally that this is not someone that matters in the community. Not anymore than you or I. It is simply a member of the community, like anyone else. I do not even know they're username, and I have been here quite a while, so even if you word it as "this is someone in community whose voice is valued" I think you would still be -half- wrong.
They are a level 66 and this often looks as though someone has been here a while, but I suspect given the nature of the post you showed me, that this 66 has been acquired through the purchasing of votes, and so it doesn't mean that anyone had any interest or places any value on what they have said here. It - if true - would simply mean that they value their own voice - or that they value the money they can pay to earn for writing.
You should think more of yourself. It only takes one person to get through to another. If you manage to talk an abuser out of abusing today, then tell me you do not matter.
I said he matters because he is a witness. I think very highly of myself in real world. To the level of being arrogant :) .
For the curation thing, i see everyone with 100 or more sp are now delegating. If delegation are stopped then minnows will atleast start curating.
I do love me a paradox. If you believe yourself to be arrogant, then that sounds like you think lowly of yourself, and that you're unworthy of the credit you often attribute to yourself.
You don't have to respond to that, I just found it an interesting comment and wanted to write that down because it's harder for me to forget things when I have written or typed them, and I feel I may revisit that observation in future.
What do you think of this approach to a fair voting system that I offered to the community over a year ago; and that of course no one listened to because it would actually work.
Remove all curation rewards.
Create a new portion of the site where one can select a tag (it is very important that it be one of a not so huge list of tags; perhaps 20 or less, and that these tags serve as primary tags on every post made on steemit) and then be shown a stream of random content with no indication of an authors username until a vote or flag has been placed.
When voting on this random content section of the platform, the curators will receive 50% rewards, as do the authors.
Any other votes that are cast anywhere else on the site , 50% would go to the author, but the other 50% would not go to the curators - for one shouldn't be rewarded for voting on their friends work - but would go back into the reward pool - or, it could go towards a secondary pot that is used to distribute funds to posts older than 7 days.
I wish someone would make a platform that operated in a way closer to this. Ironically, I would have made it myself by now if I had ignored all the bullshit on here and kept getting decent upvotes. But now, because I am the type to challenge the current way of doing things, and offer better ideas, I do not earn enough to realise the many ideas I have.
Let me give you a hint on that paradox. I am not a panda in real life. My online persona is different that my real life. I will post that in my introduction post which I plan to do in 15 days.
For the curation thing, the problem is not with the current logic. Current logic is fine but its set in stone. You can calculate everything down to last cent. How about it had a random multiplier. Bots won't be able to replicate that. Not huge but something that can sway curation by 10%. Also give priority to the number of views and comments and chain of comments. If a post is really good, it should have conversations. Like we are having now.
Steem had the objective of gamification of social media. That is going well but now everyone understands the rules too well. Shaking it up will make it interesting again.
Forgive me but I do not so easily trust over the internet, so for all I know, you truly are a panda are now trying to deceive me- which is exactly what a panda pretending to be a human would do in this situation, which is even more evidence that I don't think I should ignore so easily.
With that said, you have some great ideas for a panda. I can see how the multiplier angle could suppress abuse, but it might also turn this place into a casino.
I wish we would stop with the gamification, because it leads everyone to believe this is a game. It is what perpetuates this feeling of competition, and what makes us adversaries who are so easily able to steal from or make selfish decisions that hurt the rest of us. If we remove gamification, and remind people that life is not a game, perhaps then we will all remember that we're on the same side.
Thats hilarious.
My whole following (of 5 people) is built around dissecting and beating the system so I would hate for it to go. That's really the only reason I post here (except for the money of-course) because I like figuring out things. Competition is kind of unnecessary, because no one is putting their own money in. Everyone is getting paid from a reward pool. But perspective is hard thing to get right.
I kinda talked about it here
https://steemit.com/steemvalue/@truthforce/open-letter-to-steem-stakeholders-what-adds-value-to-steem
Bidbots or SMTs can cause more centralization. At some point an un-optimal amount of centralization is reached and that is when there can be problems.
Of course that is only if the centralizing forces want to harm steemit,if they never do a 51% attack or take servers down or go after anyone then it isn't exactly causing an issue.
I am more worried about SMTs than anything else. For example, on Ethereum 80% of ICOs are scams and like 15% completely fail due to incompetence. We will see some huge scams happen when SMTs come out.
On Ethereum there are projects that make 100s of millions of USD pretty easily. Semi decent looking website, lots of shilling(they pay shills in tokens), "dev updates" frequently, etc. Then they turn out to be scams or just trying to make money. A few hundred million USD worth of SP is a lot.
Perhaps they would have shown up to defend their beliefs, only if they weren't practicing them at the moment, lol...
I do think it's a non-moral issue though, unless if pure capitalism can also be dragged into morality. It's simply a matter of choice; go with the flow and join the free market competition, or play the role of the individual who, guided probably by Hegel's universal spirit, strives and changes the system...
Thing is, after you've succeeded, we'll start debating the morality of curation accounts, delegations, and community discord servers...
Let me ask you something;
Would you disagree that there are hundreds - more likely thousands - of content creators on Steemit who have families?
Would you then agree that, in many of those cases, the quality of life for the user and for their families is impacted by their earnings on Steemit?
How then can it be anything other than a moral issue for members of the community to be abusing a system that was supposedly designed to reward content creation?
In my opinion, if something is not a moral matter, then it's not worth debating.
and I would also very much like to do this..
i gave this some resteem...
bidshit is worse then bullshit
If you cant find a person I will take up the challenge. I am against bid bots, I get debate and I understand the pros of bidbots and the negatives. So I think I can argue somewhat convincingly the pros.
I will also say this is the internet so though the debate may do something. Clarity for all is smoke and mirrors lol. Perspective is too strange of a thing.
My position is that like Bitcoin will eventually be centralized by the miners. This system the way it is now will become centralized around the people taking the biggest chunk of the reward pool. These vote bots will take up bigger and bigger portions until those of us who have power and curate posts get no reward and are not able to give rewards really. So we admit defeat and sell our power to them, then once that happens this is a webpage full of advertisements and self promotion. I would have made much more money selling my power to minnow booster instead of taking time to upvote and curate manually like I have. So Steem aligns the investor, the user and the company since we all use the token. Crypto is speculative and most people are investors who want profits. Selling voting power is too enticing. If the few remaining unpaid votes get sad, and sell their votes too. The platform is not social media the way it was intended. Now that I say all this I can't argue against it, I don't know what hivemind is going to do and what SMT will do well enough and I think they might be key defenses to this argument. Unless they come out and they aren't.
I as an investor find value in bid bots though, since the SBD and promoted tab is broken.. it's the free market solution basically.. sadly.. advertising runs the world, it has even pushed the blockchain world forward is announcements and partnerships, paid shills and sponsored coindesk ads.. Naturally it will be all over on blockchains.
I think bots are a great way to slowly trickle your sbd into steem power. I have never bought sbd from my own money. So I dont see why bots are so bad, i get why people dont use them, and i respect that. But hating on bots I fell is unwarranted. Heck if it wasnt for buying votes the SBD would be a dollar, maybe even less, so maybe people should be great full for the bot buying. I do see that most of the people that are against bots have reps above 60 and been here for a long time and got in on steem when it was really low. Heck if I was able to buy steem on 20 cents maybe I would never have to use bots.
Also I use bots for post of other steemians since my upvote is nothing. I never here people bringing that up. What a easy way for someone with very low steem power to show love to another steemian.
I think you make your against bid bot arguments here in your posts as others have done who are pro bid bots.
And I am sure you will get befitting counter arguments.