Abuse of @bellyrub fix coming next round!

lays (67) · 7 years ago

@zeartul i think making 50 percent votage may not help it will drop your profit you are using dr otto system ask him if he can setup max bidding limit in bot

$8.71

3 votes

yabapmatt (69) · 7 years ago

@zeartul I don't consider sending large bid amounts abuse. It's a bidding system and people are free to bid as much as they want. Since everything is open and public others can see if there are large bids and choose not to participate in that bidding round.

For anyone that doesn't know, you can check this at the Steem Bot Tracker Site that I made for precisely this purpose.

If you want to add a max bid amount (like @minnowbooster) to encourage more use of the bot by minnows, I think that's a great thing and I would definitely support that, but I don't think you can call people sending large bids "abusers" since they are following the current rules of the bot which does not have a limit on the max bid.

I don't mean to sound critical, I have just sent large amounts to voting bots in the past and didn't consider myself an abuser, but I apologize if it has negatively affected anyone else.

I think the voting bots are an essential service to help people who don't have huge whale followers promote their posts and @bellyrub is the biggest and I have used it many times. So I very much appreciate you offering it and running it for the community.

I will update the bot tracker site to reflect the new 50% vote amount and 1.2 hour bidding windows.

$2.56

9 votes

zeartul (69) · 7 years ago

When I mean abuse I mean sending massive amounts of sbd to something you know is not worth it. and making others lose out on the %.

I have set it to vote 50% to not have such an impact on those types of posts, until we can find a better fix this will have to do, It seems though many others like this 1.2 hours a lot better.

@bellyrub is the biggest and is being targeted for that same reason, they see accounts sending massive amounts of bids to posts that are not worth it. Which I agree I am not saying every one that send in high bids are abusing the system just those individuals are making it seem so.

@bellyrub is meant as a promotional tool nothing more. There is no profit to be made really just a promotion tool much like the one steemit has.

That changes when high bids come on minimizing the others bids, I know it is an auction system but I see it as every one deserves to get some benefit out of it.

@bellyrub does not sell any private bids, I was like that before and it effected the time table which was stopped weeks ago. Before the new power came into play. 100% of the vote is meant for the users, no private bids no private deals.

Keep in mind this is not free delegation as some might think, it is being paid for, as far as users saying @bellyrub is abusing that power is plain absurd, it is not free SP it is being rented out, for the sole propose of the bid bot @bellyrub. Trying to stop high bids is not as simple as one might think and converting @bellyrub to a minnowbooster or a randowhale is not an option for us, hence the SP is being rented out.

$4.75

3 votes

yabapmatt (69) · 7 years ago

Thanks for the thoughtful reply @zeartul. I am definitely aware that you are paying for the delegation and as I said I do really appreciate you spending your money to lease that SP and offer the @bellyrub service.

I am also very happy to hear that you're no longer selling private bids. While it's certainly in your right to do so since you are leasing the SP it did mess up the voting windows as you mentioned.

I support your decision to switch to the 50% / 1.2 hour window system and I have already updated the bot tracker site to reflect that. I will continue to use and support @bellyrub and will make sure not to send any large bid amounts in the future.

Once again I just want to reiterate how important I think voting bots are to the community (since the built in post promotion tool is mostly worthless) and I just added a vote for you as witness to show my support.

$1.32

earthnation (65) · 7 years ago

Hi @zearful! There are people claiming on my wall that the maximum bid amount for bellyrub is now 25 sbd. However... i don't see anything about that cap here on this post. Will you please confirm or deny what the upper limit for bidding is?

$0.36

bellyrub (60) · 7 years ago

This wonderful comment has received a bellyrub 1.59 % upvote from @bellyrub.

$0.00

isteemithard (60) · 7 years ago

Nice info and I only used a couple times so far as I am new but have received great results so thank you for your service. Also thanks @yabapmatt for your wonderful steem bot tracker I am not great with computers but could only imagine how much time and effort it takes to makes something so complicated you sure do have some great minds you guys keep up the great work and I will enjoy being a simple user.

$0.00

bayuya (63) · 7 years ago

Hey @zeartul,

I placed a $1 bid yesterday, and got $0.1 upvote. What do you think about this? Is this fare or you gonna refund my losses?

$0.00

vindy (57) · 7 years ago

Yes I agree with your point

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splendorhub (61) · 7 years ago

Great point!

$0.00

onealfa (74) · 7 years ago

well well well...just got $0.66 back to my hard earned 1 SBD.
THANK YOU.

$1.21

webcoop (63) · 7 years ago

I used to love bellyrub but now it is returning less than what was given.

On my last post I gave 5 SBD to bellyrub and only got up-vote of $4.85 that's a lose of $0.15

$0.29

cryptopassion (79) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hello @zeartul

Can you define what is the amount of an abuse bid?
This amount is different for everybody so it would be nice you are more precise in your definition?
5$, 10$, 20$, 50$?

$0.26

zeartul (69) · 7 years ago

As far as I know, any amount now is fine, the $250 is out for right now, so it is just half.

@bellyrub was being targeted for users sending in super high bids on posts that any one can clearly see it was not worth it.

But I do not use the word abuse like any normal daily base, just trying to get every one a chance to get some promotion while not landing on the trending page just by using @bellyrub.

So others can benefit as well, at the moment their is no min bid, we just lowerd the vote % to 50.

$0.07

cryptopassion (79) · 7 years ago

Thank you for the clarification

$0.00

suikka (47) · 7 years ago

Hello @zeartul I just transferred 1 SBD has and I forget about the URL link of my post

$0.00

cryptonfused (46) · 7 years ago (edited)

Interesting; but it doesn't matter from which angle you look at it, this cannot be considered abuse ! It is unfair if you take into consideration the moral or ethical aspect but in terms of complying with rules of the bot; it cannot be considered abuse.

Maybe a way to fix this issue is to set the bot to place extremely high bids on Cue and thus eliminating it from that round until it is reviewed manually. If it fits the criteria based on quality of content; it will then be entered automatically into the next round, if it does not; 50% of the bid should be refunded with a warning message. A second abuse and all funds should be witheld.

$0.00

always1success (77) · 7 years ago (edited)

8 hours ago @bellyrub received 1.000 SBD from @always1success. By the link: https://steemit.com/photography/@always1success/bright-images-of-nature, there was not a vote and there was no return of 1.000 SBD! Help me @zeartul solve this problem!

$0.18

joalvarez (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

I had the same thing happening to me. I send 1.0SBD to @bellyrub and never got upvote or money back, that was couple of days ago.

$0.00

mprgrmmr (52) · 7 years ago

While I'm happy to hear something's being done about it, is there something stating a person can't do it? I don't remember seeing one (but I have so little SBD I could've seen it and ignored it because it wouldn't apply to me LOL).

I used the service twice for the first time this week and am not sure I'll get back what I bid; right now it's close but the payout amount keeps going down. The second time I paid more attention and the bids went up in huge chunks at the very end. Is it possible to simply put a max on a bid amount but leave it alone otherwise? Changing the 50% vote so it's only 1.2 hours wouldn't be my first choice. Neither is eliminating self votes.
Thank you!

$0.16

vm2904 (64) · 7 years ago

@zeartul - I welcome the steps to control abuse. I had recently started to use the bellyrub service and then noted abuse by some Steemians. It was very disheartening to see minnows with low SBDs (who need support from bellyrub the most) get sidelined and hardly get any benefit. Thanks for taking measures to correct the situation

Regards,

@vm2904

$0.13

zeartul (69) · 7 years ago

That is why we decided to lower it to 1.2 hours we might even lower it to 30 mins.

$0.00

hms818 (61) · 7 years ago

Blacklisting the abusers would be the appropriate action.

$0.12

4 votes

shello (62) · 7 years ago

^this guy gets it.

$0.00

zeartul (69) · 7 years ago

That is the hard part.

$0.00

https://steemit.com/science/@n3bul4/dwarf-star-with-exceptionally-giant-planet-discovered

n3bul4 (62) · 7 years ago

Hey @bellyrub / @zeartul, seems like I didn't get any upvote for my 3 SBD bid. Is this because of the mentioned bid abuse?

Thanks in advance.

$0.08

raserrano (63) · 7 years ago

@treeplanter recently banned self-post and self-comments votes, do you think it will do goo to implement something similar in @bellyrub ?

$0.08

fbslo (70) · 7 years ago

That's great :)
I think that @earthnation send too much and abuse this and other bots.

$0.00

nc-mgtow (58) · 7 years ago

I sent 1.000 SBD 3 hours ago & have not been up-voted or refunded, so what is going on?

$0.00

robert31 (54) · 7 years ago

great post.Thank you for the belly rubs.

$0.00

thatsweeneyguy (61) · 7 years ago (edited)

What kind of abuse exactly? Cutting the vote by 50% will punish those who actually use bid bots to upvote others' posts, and those who only have the 'minimum bid' to spend. If it's "too much" self upvoting that is the problem, just prohibit it all together.

$0.00

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

" just prohibit it all together."

That would be like Budweiser refusing to sell to alcoholics. The whole target market is "self-promoters".

$1.35

nazarwills (55) · 7 years ago

Very good. .

$0.00

hmushtaq (58) · 7 years ago (edited)

I used to love those gentle rubs, but then like you said in came these massive bidders, after which I stopped using your service. But if you correct the problem, I would love to get those awesome rubs again :)!

$0.00

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

"in came these massive bidders"

Not a fan of competition?

$0.81

gniksivart (67) · 7 years ago

Nice to see that bellyrub is being monitored for abuse.

$0.00

bwar (66) · 7 years ago

I call this getting bellywrecked.

$0.00

mawit07 (66) · 7 years ago (edited)

Wow +2.6mil for steem power is insane. way to go zeartul! If it was not hard enough for minnows to earn steem...

May I ask what the limit is for a bellyrub bid? Thanks.

$0.00

shreyansh (54) · 7 years ago

As a result of the abuse, the smaller investments are in fact a loss. I experienced that in my last bid. Please mention, what would be the highest bid.

$0.00

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

If any bid is a loss, they all are.

$0.00

ansarikamran (7) · 7 years ago

nice i will be part of this

$0.00

zonguin (61) · 7 years ago

Sorry for you :-(
I love your bot ! Thank you !

$0.00

kingyus (59) · 7 years ago

I was commenting at buildawhale the other day
It was going smooth till I asked about the abuse of a user bidding a high amount taking all the shares and leaving other small bidders practically robbed...

silence?

I never got a response
this is a big problem of transparency and that's why I quit, am glad u r addressing it though..

I would like to "book" my spot in the pot sort of speak...like if your vote is worth 100 dollars then you shouldn't accept more 70 dollars in bids so every one profits

I dont know the math but even if I bid more then it should be the first on next round ..

sorry my english

sometimes I bid just for my personal analysis and to get a feel all together about it...because it is not transparent!
I want to be able to bid and forget about it knowing that I won't go in negative...
If I want to bid at a 100% then I need to knw how long I will have to wait on the list for a whenever a round is free of bids!

I think that's fair to everybody and it won't affect your growth in fact it will increase it because now with this system you can accept very small bids too like even 0.001 because it will get the equivalent in proportion , that simple!

@zeartul

$0.00

nainaztengra (79) · 7 years ago

Indeed Admiral. Noticed this and wanted to share my observation with u. Also i have noticed that bellyrub is now not as much a profitable bpt as it used to be earlier. A few times i just barely managed to get my amount back. Please do something tp make it attractive for all steemitians. Glad u r making changed to curb these unhealthy practices followed. Upvoted and following u as always.
Regards Nainaz
#thealliance

$0.00

steemflow (72) · 7 years ago

Agree..need to have some rub from bellyrub and get the abuse controlled

$0.00

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

Removing votes on posts pretty clearly abuse (plagiarism, etc.) without refunding might clean this up rather quickly.

Thanks for providing this service. I'm trying to free up a witness vote for you...

$0.00

zeartul (69) · 7 years ago

I really like all your responses.

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steemflow (72) · 7 years ago

A favourable step to support minnows by restricting on big whales(huge amount). Another transparent step for the community welfare.....good o have such control... Thanks @zeartul

$0.00

zakir43 (60) · 7 years ago (edited)

@bellyrub is not vote my post yet. I sent 2 SBD yesterday.
Please to vote my post or give me back my SBD.
Or, @bellyrub having problems now?
Please to process.

$0.00

khenbee (58) · 7 years ago

I will try this next time.

$0.00

vindy (57) · 7 years ago

Its a very good approach to stop Abuse....

$0.00

mitchhunter (60) · 7 years ago

Hi @bellyrub I sent 13SBD an hour ago but did not get an upvote. I later realized that I already used you on this post before. I did not get any automatic refund :(

$0.00

mitchhunter (60) · 7 years ago

Hi. I tried to contact you through twitter, sending message here and in memo. Could you please check this issue or at least reply so I know that you read this. Thanks

$0.00

yogesssh (54) · 7 years ago

Hi @zeartul ... I have noticed the powerup and also bid for upvote one time and saw some users bidding huge amounts which is misuse of one of the supporting system for minnows like us.
One upvote session takes place in 2.4 hours which is quite a long time and in my view even 1.2 hours is quite long. May I suggest that voting session start at about 30 minutes or similar time which will probably be around $50-$60 worth of votes at a time which shall curb the misusers and give proper users upvotes without waiting longer time period. I think doing so will bring better curation rewards for @bellyrub as well.

$0.00

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

"bidding huge amounts which is misuse"

Why?

"the supporting system for minnows like us."

I must have missed the minnows only stamp.

$0.93

yogesssh (54) · 7 years ago

I don't care what you bid for upvotes! Good luck with your journey! You want visibility of your posts which can be achieved with much lesser bids. So basically you are taking away the chances for others to go visible as well which i believe is rigging the system. That is why I called it misuse.

Why not bid for whole 100% upvote from @bellyrub instead of just 40 or 50 percent, seems like you can afford it and have monopoly on bid based upvote bots.

$0.30

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for your reply. Please realize my response to your comment is nothing personal, I appreciate the discussion and have upvoted you, but disagree with basically everything you said.

"rigging the system. That is why I called it misuse."

Again, I ask you to define how bidding in an auction, which is the VERY design of an auction, is rigging the system? I am literally doing the thing I am supposed to do. Is drinking water abusing water? Is breathing air abusing air?

"taking away the chances for others to go visible"

Not only am I not doing that (because it is impossible to prevent others from bidding), I am helping to keep the service running by increasing @bellyrub's profitability. That delegated SP will leave and find a better return if the bot is getting paid $40 for $240 upvotes. The free market is a bitch.

"Why not bid for whole 100% upvote"

Well, first, this is impossible. I can't prevent other people from bidding.

Second, I wouldn't want to. I don't want/need 100% of the upvote, and the more I bid the worse deal everyone gets anyway. I frequently take a loss on my bids after curation. Most of my Bellyrubs have been on several-days old posts, and I only started using it this week.

Which brings me to one of the main reasons I bid in the first place. One of my main goals is to get very high curation payouts for everyone who votes on my articles, so they will be game-theoretically incentivized to continue supporting my (imo underpaid otherwise) work. Larger bids = more curation for my followers, even though it makes my return go down. (Smaller bids have much better ROI usually, do the math.)

"have monopoly on bid based upvote bots."

If you think you can have a monopoly on an auction, then you don't even know what an auction is. Which is probably why you also call bidding abuse.

$5.80

3 votes

yogesssh (54) · 7 years ago

Hey @lexiconical ... I was quite impressed by the argument you made in the previous comment that is why I was quite becoming unable to answer your questions and your second comment was not even necessary for me.

There is no doubt that auction market works the same way you have justified. In fact, I am supporter of free markets but while practicing in my first comment in this post, I have shown the exact opposite, the same attitude practiced by most of the politicians who show victims to gain polpularity. I am quite ashamed of the act because I vented out my feelings without thinking about both sides and for practicing exact opposite of what I suppprted and I have nothing personal against you.

With your justification I apologize for calling high bids a misuse as I have seen people bidding more than market value in a different place which must have some purpose of doing so which I have not been able to understand yet. Also, your justification of rewarding your curators has made it somewhat clear for such kind of act even though the bidder is bearing loss. Regarding your second question, I haven't studied the rules and maybe there is no such thing that says bots are for minnows only and it does make sense as minnows do not have sizeable investment or funds that they can afford the bids which starts at about 1 SBD at least.

Further, the bot will always earn whichever sum is bidded than curation rewards from upvotes casted and as you said the delegated power will move somewhere else that has better ROI, that is free market and principle of capital which will make the bot less powerful. I guess you were actually supporting the bot to maintain its earnings for its investors if viewed in this perspective.

I apologize again and have changed my views in regards to this subject because you have opened my blind eye and if possible i take back my words which didn't needed so much explanation after your previous comment.

$4.75

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

I really appreciated your reply. Thank you! Have a full vote.

I wish you the best!

$5.67

yogesssh (54) · 7 years ago

Thank you for clearing my views and the kind gesture of upvoting my comment even though you were against my views! Best wishes for you too!

$0.96

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

Thank you for the reply.

"So basically you are taking away the chances for others to go visible"

So? If we both bid on an Ebay auction, I'm taking away your chance to get the item for cheaper. That's how a free market works. This is a good thing.

"Why not bid for whole 100% upvote"

This isn't possible the way Bellyrub works, and my goal is not to monopolize the bot nor prevent others from using it. My goal is to increase the curation rewards for my followers and increase visibility for my (extremely high quality) posts.

"have monopoly on bid based upvote bots."

Far from it, my friend. I've been using them for 3-4 days as an experiment so I can write about them from personal experience.

You still didn't answer my first question, how have you arbitrarily defined bidding in an auction as abuse? That is literally the whole point of an auction. You are just calling it abuse because you stand to gain from the results of doing so.

$5.79

hmushtaq (58) · 7 years ago

That is also a good idea. Or maybe do something like Minnowbooster, where there is a daily limit as well as a weekly limit.

$0.00

revaz (44) · 7 years ago

welcom to steemit

$0.00

adnanmajeed (53) · 7 years ago

I am also suffering this issue, i didn't got any upvote from bellyrub when i submit a bid. Please fix it soon, thanks for sharing

$0.00

richforever (59) · 7 years ago

hey @bellyrub
@richforever from alpha syndicate. im following ya now.
nice meeting ya

$0.00

bigdizzle91 (62) · 7 years ago

@Zeratul hey mate, just in case you werent aware, someone undelegated a massive amount of sp from @bellyrub :/ wish i noticed before i sent le SBD but what can ya do.

$0.00

steemity-beauty (48) · 7 years ago

Hello @zeartul. I sent 1sbd to @bellyrub but i get only 0.11 in upvote! I think there are a problem in belly please fix it and i hope you re upvote my post. This is the link: https://steemit.com/food/@steemity-beauty/traditional-chinese-breakfast
All the best.

$0.00

kid4life (68) · 7 years ago

2.500 SBD was sent to @bellyrub. Upvote worth 0.20 cents dude lolz?=! Anyways, it was this link, https://steemit.com/gaming/@kid4life/what-if-i-tell-you-there-is-a-college-that-gives-you-a-scholarship-to-play-video-games-how-much-usd-education-time-is-more-value . And feel free to check my wallet for the BID as well. Cheers

$0.00

andre3301 (65) · 7 years ago

Hey man, can you check if i'm ok? I'm still learning this bot-bids thing and trying to find the optimum sending amount... not sure if i'm doing it right...

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camendes70 (57) · 7 years ago

I just have had a lost of about 4 SBD, if no return of SDB to my wallet I will not use @bellyrub again in my existence in steemit. Bye bye :D

$0.00

johnwjr7 (53) · 7 years ago

How does this @bellyrub work?

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