BEWARE - I&#x27;m FIGHTING Spam In My Comment Section From Now On

donkeypong (75) · 7 years ago

Wow, @cryptoctopus ! Such lovely photographs of nature and a fine introductory post you have. I am illuminated about the issue of spam and I commend you. This is one of the most rewarded posts of the day. Blessings be upon you. Please upvote my blog (link).

(Sorry, I had to do it. I hope the spammers read your post. They irritate all of us.)

$3.54

8 votes

jaraumoses (68) · 7 years ago

I am very sure the spammers have not read this and its why they keep spamming!

(Sorry, I had to do it. I hope the spammers read your post. They irritate all of us.)

Iam now stressing this commenting thing in my community,but some guys just don't learn however much i keep singing about commenting!!!

$0.75

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

You know my pains like you could read a page of my journal.

$0.75

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Geeks and blessings doesn’t really work that well. I don’t even think they know what that is. Since most Steemit early adopters now are mostly geeks. Should be more like may code be upon you. Oh boy some of these Steemit accounts it’s hard to tell if it’s a human or a Bot behind them. Very easy to get fooled. Steemit really needs some verify system that makes it easier to separate the Bots from real humans.

$0.57

hasbydiaz (51) · 7 years ago

HAHAHAHA Now they made me laugh both @donkeypong and @cryptoctopus
But seriously it shows that they did not even read the post to which they respond. Show that you are not interested in understanding Steemit's dynamics. And it shows that you try to abuse the system for your own selfish benefit. Greetings from Venezuela

$0.00

littlejoeward (54) · 7 years ago

Dang! You beat me to it! hahaha

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arslan786 (61) · 7 years ago

I Flagged you because you flagged me on a post which was like by author himself
I am sorry that i had to do that if you don’t do that I will also don’t

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littlejoeward (54) · 7 years ago

Revenge flagging is not a good idea. It will only make people angry. If you don't think my post is valuable then it is completely fine for you to downvote it. It's nothing personal, I downvote a lot of people who make useless comments. Yours looked to me like it was from a robot. If you don't have something to add to the discussion, it's best to just upvote the post and not comment. Hope this helps.

$0.00

arslan786 (61) · 7 years ago

okay brother sorry that I did that I am removing my flag but you should take care as my comment was value able thats why smartwallet upvoted that.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Ultimately, this is the only approach that will really work around here. We all have to take appropriate steps to keep our own conversation spaces worth engaging in. Decentralization is the key.

I'm often surprised how valuable the conversation space is on my blog because I've been doing a version of this for quite some time. I often take a screenshot of someone's comments page in my reply as I flag them so everyone can easily see, at a glance, how spammy the commenter is. If more people downvoted ("flagged") then it wouldn't be considered such a taboo and more people would then do it (even though it costs them voting strength). I highly value my voting strength because there are a lot of great content creators here I support, but I still downvote as needed to protect my overall investment and the quality of the ecosystem.

So how about we also start flagging automated bot comments? I'm getting sick of seeing a bunch of comments on a promoted post which are just spam advertising for some bot voting campaign. Let's all send a message to bot owners that we don't care about their spammy comments and they need to find other ways to advertise (and NO, I don't mean use the memo field in transfers).

$2.51

6 votes

lumpa (41) · 7 years ago

Ultimately it's a popularity contest, with those who are least popular aspiring to reach the lofty heights of you guys. It's human nature to want to be liked, upvoted, retweeted or whatever the digital platform trend of the day is. Having said this quality content needs to be promoted for this platform to reach its possible potential. Some of us also just wanna be 'social' and have some fun along the way? As a wise fictional character once said, with great power comes great responsibility :) Be happy & smile often my friends :)

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

very good points. Thanks @lukestokes, i'm glad to hear that I'm not alone having enough with this. I think the spam comment is at a point where new users notice and make them doubt in the viability of the platform.

$0.00

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Currently flagging is more hidden away. Had to Google search for it and I didn’t even find an article showing how to do it. This is also a big reason why people don’t do it since majority barely know you could flag bot automated comments.

Also it looks like it can be a bit risky to start to flag stuff how it may eventually get yourself in trouble. Especially since we are used to the big dictators over at other platforms how they treat you if you speak up.

Since it’s not just a red downvote symbol but a scary flag. But you said a good thing that it’s needed to keep up the quality of the ecosystem since we are all now invested in the Steem Blockchain and it’s in our best interest to keep this place being run well. But if they would tone down the scariness of the red flag I think more people would report stuff.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago (edited)

There has been an on-going discussion with Steemit inc about putting the downvote back as a downvote instead of a flag. It's tricky. But yes, there are still massive whales here who start flag wars and will make every post or comment hidden for someone they don't like if they so choose. It's a tricky thing. When it comes to flagging spam, I think the chance of a flag war is small. If you have concerns, you could also report the account in steemit chat instead of flagging it yourself.

As for the flag being hard to find, that's surprising to hear. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

reddust (71) · 7 years ago

Good idea! I stopped using up vote bots because of this😏

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cwise009 (47) · 7 years ago

It's a bittersweet pill to swallow, especially if you're a new content creator that isn't bringing an audience from another platform. I recently saw three comments on my review regarding a some faucets I was using for a month and I got excited. When I actually saw what they said it just left disappointment from a lack of possible tips and elaborations.

The comments I received were:

"Nice post."

"Great posts. Now look at my referral links!"

"Just followed you, do the same please"

What really bothers me is that it's so simple to show you're engaged. Asking questions, adding insight and short stories about similarities between your experience and the poster's isn't that much harder than a generic copy and paste comment.

Honestly they need to just show the author that they took more time actually looking at the content itself, than looking at the reputation score and then their wallet balance before they comment and they would be fine.

$2.10

4 votes

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

It takes a lot to make people realize that you no longer need that poverty mindset anymore. We are creating abundance here. You just need to spend some real attention on a comment / blog post before you send it away to the cloud. Attention and Time is real value in this economy. And we all have it! We should spend it more wisely.

Can we pull people up? Yes but it will probably take many years before we see it happen on a larger mainstream scale. But it’s starting to happen which is very exciting. Clearly most spam comments isn’t even real humans but just Bot accounts. But when we see a human spend real Time and Attention creating value then we truly want to reward that since it has real value!

$0.00

cwise009 (47) · 7 years ago

I actually saw an example of this on a comment chain. There was a person who made a bot that had a format of: emojis and two phrases telling the poster that they made a great post. However, he messed up somewhere and the emojis became numbers and signs instead which led him to be called out.

He actually replied, stating that he was unsure of how steemit worked and how he could get content out that would attract a lot of likes. He decided instead to flood posts with as many of these generic posts as possible and even had a separate account to like them. The poster decided to say that he could post about programming and his interests and eventually like-minded people will come and his standing would be in a much better position.

I believe if we could at least find a way to introduce a PSA upon a new signup, one that tells people that it's ok and expected to have a hard time gaining worthwhile earnings without a previous audience because organic growth doesn't come early because most of the high profile accounts I've seen have been here for a couple of months and most of the bots and users who spam have only been here for a few weeks.

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Great comment. Also think it would be good to implement some tutorial for how to write proper engaging comments. Something that is above the 1-2 line comments that adds 0 value. People are not fully aware of how much value that could be gained with proper comments.

I’m really hyped about the new Communities feature that they will launch in the future that will make it easier to connect with like minded people and reward content easier in the same specific niche. Since everyone then could feed faster on each others energy!

Would say it’s not that hard to start earning on Steemit if you connect with others. But people get used to new levels of abundance fast and wonder what’s next.

But earnings while connecting with others every time someone rewards you the likelihood that they will do it again increases. If you keep add value that will say. Until it becomes a automated habit.

$0.00

taskmaster4450 (78) · 7 years ago

I have noticed the comments that you allude to. Naturally, they appear to be getting worse.

The most perplexing are the ones that come from, as you say, Wikipedia. I actually give them credit for being novel in that regard, I would never have thought of that. For the first couple times, I even upvoted some of them...until I saw it over and over.

I commend you for the intention to flag those who are spamming your comment section. The sad reality is, will it really do any good? From what I understand many of the "great post. thank you..resteemed" nonsense are just bots. After that, the copy/paste from Wikipedia I doubt will even notice....they throw up their post and move on.

Granted it will make your comment section a bit easier to scroll through with that stuff faded out. Nevertheless, I noticed those post and go so flagging them only might use up your SP.

But worth a shot.

$2.04

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

The Wikipedia bot/human sounds hilarious. At least the first couple of times.. Haven’t gotten that one yet only the “nice post” comments still. I guess they come when you hit it big. Yes that is actually kind of creative compared to the same old predictable ones.

I think flag or just raise awareness will do some good since it will start a larger discussion about how you could solve the low quality comment issue. Think a solution will come eventually especially when we consider all the hard problems the Blockchain has already solved with math. This should be no issue in the future when we come together to experiment and find a solution!

When someone is using an aggressive tactic like using bots any little resistance we could put up is good. Because that will make them be aware that there are limits on what you could do.

The scroll in the comment section speaking about that I think the website needs to look over that a bit since I noticed some real lag when there are super many comments. This is both on mobile and desktop.

$0.09

taskmaster4450 (78) · 7 years ago

I dont believe the WIkipedia posters are bots....but they are annoying. Every post they put something up that at first looks well written...yet after a while you notice it is too well written.

And yes I get a ton of the nice post resteem stuff.

$0.00

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Yes they don’t fit into the world that we want to create. Every second they take in attention from us we find annoying. Whatever steals time and attention needs to be solved so we could move faster into a better world with more value.

$0.09

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

A comment form that has somewhat alarmed me is the plagiarising of another comment while rewording it. For example:

A type of post that has given me pause is the copying of other posts using different phrases.

I don't see this a lot, but there are enough comments like that I do see (and I know I'm not seeing even very many of them) that there must be a particular automated, or standard method, for doing it.

Thanks!

$0.00

tonimontana (57) · 7 years ago

I agree that Spam in the comment section of Steemit is incredibly annoying. So I am very interesting to see if flagging spam in your posts will decrease the amount of Spam you will get in the Future. Currently i have the feeling that flagging is only a waste of voting power and does not really reduce the amount of Spam because there is just too much of it.

$2.00

6 votes

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

That's possible and we will see how it goes. I think that if I keep to my own blogpost, I will clean up my corner of steem. Maybe if more people do this, the message will be clear across the board "as a culture". Since I have 360,000 SP + a reputation fo 73, that should be enough of a deterrent. But let's ee.

$0.18

5 votes

nomadicsoul (68) · 7 years ago

I think you're right. It's not necessarily a total waste of voting power because if people get burned more than once, they will probably learn not to do it again. At least in your corner of steem, like you said. Like when you're a kid and you burn your hand on the stove so you remember to never do it again.

Sometimes I can't tell if people are spamming or if they are just from another country and their English isn't that great. Those ones I feel kind of bad for, because I feel like maybe they tried really hard to make their English make sense, but it just doesn't.

I'm sure after a little more time on here, though, I will be able to tell the difference.

It's nice of you to at least warn people about it so they have a chance to change without getting "punished" per say.

$1.05

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

Good point. Also, people from many non-english speaking countries have a very different idea of social media so there might be friction there. But hopefully, they will organize themselves like the Korean did with #kr and the french with #fr so that they can converse in their own language.

$0.12

nomadicsoul (68) · 7 years ago

Funny you said that, I had the same thought before! But then I thought "what if they're from some third world place where hardly anyone has access to internet and they can't form a big enough group?" And then I thought"at least they're not cat-fishing." But you make a good point. Who knows.

$0.00

hestiafull (46) · 7 years ago

ENGLISH: Hi, @Cryptoctopus I was flaged for you. That action lowers my self-esteem. I wrote you a comment in good faith. When I saw that, I did not know why. And I think I came to the conclusion that it was because I wrote badly, because I saw the video and I understood the post's message. I have been studying English for 2 years and since I came to Steemit it has helped me a lot to learn the language. What happened is scary to continue commenting because I am aware that my English is not all good yet. If this was annoying for you I apologize. Here I have an invoice from my student at the "Welcome" institute to certify this. See you. Hugs.

SPANISH: Hola @Cryptoctopus. Fui flageado por ti. Esa acción me bajo la autoestima. Te escribí un comentario con buena fe. Cuando vi eso, no supe porque. Y creo que llegue a la conclusión que fue por escribir mal, porque vi el vídeo y entendí el mensaje del post. Estoy estudiando ingles hace 2 años y desde que llegue a Steemit me sirvió mucho para aprender el idioma. Esto que paso me da miedo a seguir comentando porque soy consciente que mi ingles no es del todo bueno aun. Si esto fue molesto para ti te pido perdón. Aquí tengo una factura de mi cursado en el instituto "Welcome" para certificar esto. Me despido. Abrazos.

Factura Matias..png

4 votes

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

One thing I note regarding such spam is that it is generally from newer users, of which there are evergrowing numbers. While burning your hand on the stove if informative, it is also instructive to note that such burning is not informative to folks that didn't see it, or do it themselves.

With a tsunami of new users, I fear the flaghammer may prove necessary to wield forever. However, insofar as it is informative to each spammer on each post, I will hope that it has a salutary effect that benefits the community.

I also hope that it doesn't discourage too many newbs that just don't know better, or whose English hasn't reached a point where they're capable of knowing better, as it seems to have @hestiafull.

$0.00

hestiafull (46) · 7 years ago

Thank you man. I hope that flag does not affect my reputation. What do you think?.

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

The affect on your reputation is immediate. It did affect your reputation, but little enough if you note no numerical difference.

You're good, my friend!

$0.00

hestiafull (46) · 7 years ago

Thank you very much friend. I was a little worried. Because it was not with bad intentions.

nomadicsoul (68) · 7 years ago

Same! Hope it didn't discourage, which is why I think a warning would be nice first. I hope also that people don't get flagged for not having perfect English

slider2990 (63) · 7 years ago

Why does the reputation score matter when flagging? I understand the % of voting power * SP will lower the posts rewards by that amount. With so many different factors in Steemit it becomes confusing sometimes.

Anyway glad to hear more people are taking the spam seriously and hopefully a system is put in place that makes it more automated.

$0.15

7 votes

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

Their reputation will also be affected.

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slider2990 (63) · 7 years ago

Does reputation have any direct effect on the reward payments? Or just the fact that it makes your look good or bad to the community?

gniksivart (67) · 7 years ago

I don't remember the post, but someone did a study on reputation and post rewards. While it might not have a direct impact on post rewards once you hit a reputation above 60 your rewards from posts really start to grow.

It may just be time on platform, but the graph that was provided was pretty convincing.

$0.00

slider2990 (63) · 7 years ago

I will search for the post. Thanks.

paulag (73) · 7 years ago

thanks @valued-customer for the shout out.

I think this might be the article @slider2990
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@paulag/what-you-need-to-know-about-post-payout-correlation-steemit-business-intelligence

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

I believe it was a post by @paulag, and within the last month, IIRC.

Hope that helps!

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darth-azrael (67) · 7 years ago

When I flag spam, unless it is particularly offensive, I do so at a small percentage just to make it less visible.

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captaincanary (58) · 7 years ago

I don't think it will have a big impact but it's worth doing just to tidy up the comments section. If you have a lot of SP it won't take a big vote to hide a comment.

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princedone (11) · 7 years ago (edited)

@tonimontana thanks a lot on ur comment, cose u are making a point on @cryptoctopus writing, most ppl just want to be the first to comment, without taking their time to read through to enable them know what to reply. It always painful to see off comment. Thanks for this and i wish this message u drop with us will enable them know what is need doing well. @cryptoctopus.

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journeyoflife (67) · 7 years ago

It’s so damn stupid ! I get mad sometimes and spam them too because

they don’t read my content I created with hard work
they reply within 30 seconds of me posting or later with bullshit comments
it’s jsut annoying overall

So you’re 100% correct for spamming nonsense . People crave attention the wrong way. Bad comments shouldn’t ever be rewarded

$1.97

8 votes

mejustandrew (58) · 7 years ago

Yeah, I hate when that happens! I had articles on which I have worked over 4 hours to collect accurate data/write/format properly, you know that articles of which you are proud you have written, and then see some guys (bots?) who comment on them within less than a minute from posting it...

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captaincanary (58) · 7 years ago

It amazes me that these people actually think that these crappy generic comments are actually an effective way of earning money on Steemit. As if anyone with the capability of accumulating SP is going to be stupid enough to not realise it's a spam comment...

$0.00

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

I suspect a lot of refugees from other platforms simply migrate what worked there. There is definitely a difference between how Steemit works and how Insta, Fakebook, and Twatter do.

There's a learning curve, and some people find it steeper than others.

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dedicatedguy (74) · 7 years ago

It does not only happen to big users, it happens to small users as well. Recently I have been getting some of those bot-like comments.

I saw an user that have a fun way of dealing with it, because for every "I like your post" comment, this user replied with "I like your comment" hahahaha it made my laugh when I saw that.

Still, before flagging I think we should check how old is the user, I mean, if the user is totally new, then I think the best would be to leave a reply explaining the need to change the behavior. But if the user has several weeks already, and still is doing this type of things, then I think a flag will be fair.

$1.61

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

I think I will flag and leave the link to this post. Once should be enough for someone to get he message.

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jaraumoses (68) · 7 years ago

Its a great idea indeed to check how old the user is on Steemit,but again even if they are 2 weeks or new,they need to read more about the platform before making those "nice post " comments.

I have realised that its just greed that makes people leave those generic comments in the hope of an upvote.

If more whales clean up their comment sections,we shall start enjoying Steemit hehehe.

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aweber (67) · 7 years ago

I think my favorite spam comments are the ones that you have to read about ten times to try and understand, to see if they were actually trying to weigh in on the topic at hand, and just hoping that English wasn't their second language.. but after rereading it ten times and looking at their other comments you find out they're just writing confusing crap all over. It's like annoying detective work, ha.

I've personally only flagged one person, when they put up a link to a fake Steemit site trying to steal people's passwords. Out of curiosity, if you flag someone at 1% (so utilizing 3,600 SP) that only affects their reputation, correct? So if you flagged someone who has a higher reputation it would barely affect them, but if someone had a brand new account it would basically wreck them, right? Thank you for your time, boss sir. ;)

$1.58

kartiksingh (65) · 7 years ago

Users are increasing day by day on steemit so that number of spams and spammers are also increasing with it. We need to take hard action against it . Most of spammers increasing because some whales and dolphin upvote without reading comment. If only valuable comment or post related comment is rewarded than spammers will automatically stop spamming because they can't get anything with this. This is good decision it will remove garbage from your comment section.

$1.44

fitzgibbon (61) · 7 years ago

I like this "Enter at your own peril" approach to your comment section. It's about time someone puts a stop to this endless mindless comments spam!

$1.15

builderofcastles (64) · 7 years ago

I really do not like to flag spam.
I have always been on the side of voting the good stuff to the top.
However, I see your point, and may be changing my voting habits in the future.

Or, in other words, cleaning up your room is important.
(even if it was the drunk assholes from the party last night)

$0.89

4 votes

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

I was of that opinion for a while, but the spam went out of control. I thought that the "carrot" would be enough...but seems like people need the "stick" too.

$0.00

fourfourfun (55) · 7 years ago

I just feel sad that you're forced to carve into your VP to address this.

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nonsqtr (46) · 7 years ago

Does a 1% flag vote drop the VP of the hammer-wielder by the same? Or does standing strong w.r.t. Steemit resources and rep(as does crypoctopus) make for a "stronger" VP?

My point being, spammers are usually still floating on the delegated 15 SP starter pack and losing even a fraction of anything feels pretty harsh. Could a cephalopod use 2% VP to rap 10 or 15 spammers over the knuckles?

$0.00

schrosct (44) · 7 years ago

Didn't think you could scale down flags. I think it's 100% or nothing, so you have to really disagree with them?

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nonsqtr (46) · 7 years ago

Cheers, so you do take a knock. Good to know.

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acidyo (80) · 7 years ago

Yep, I've noticed it happen so often lately.. so annoying especially when you are streaming and all the comments pop up on your dlive chatbox. I've started flagging abusers a lot more lately. Yesterday I flagged one user and noticed on his steemd he unfollowed and removed his vote + comment, lol.

Good riddance I guess, but the flags seem to be the only way for them to learn, I've had my fair share of trying to explain to people why spam commenting isn't accepted.

$0.66

mejustandrew (58) · 7 years ago

The problem that you are talking about is so common here that I have seen a lot of people who started to flag spammers. I am more than sure that spammers will be educated this way, and others are just bots who don't deserve visibility at all.

On the other side I really enjoyed your post because of these comments that you have selected, they are one of the most refined spam comments that I have seen by now :))

$0.65

castleberry (55) · 7 years ago

Let the games begin! hahaha

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rinki (52) · 7 years ago

A lot of other whales are posting about this matter. It's really a great place to write what you have in mind and what you learn. I have seen some people to comment right after posting. What can you even read in 1 minute when the post is longer than 2 pages! Hope this concern of yours will be fruitful and we will get more engaging writers here.

$0.64

rothberg (58) · 7 years ago

I completely agree with you. There is one thing I have always done on steemit and it’s to read the entire post of the author before making any coments. This issue is spreading. I'am only on Steemit for a very short period of time but I already have a feeling that there are bots are getting out of control on posts. Let's stop the spam and make Steemit great (again). People are promoting themself on unrelevant topics. Hunting for the profit. Not reading posts and commenting nonsense. I get it. People want money, who doesn't. But that is not how it works. THE CONTENT PROMOTES ITSELF There is no need for excessive spam. I don’t want to go into details or in to calling the names “as a matter of fact I just recently caught someone copying my comment” but you get the idea.

$0.64

eddy2cul (43) · 7 years ago

I must say that I was guilty of this a while ago. But I saw no benefit in it and now I take time to read posts and if I can, make relevant comments on great posts. Sadly when I go through comments I still see alot of spam comments and I wish they could see that
its of no benefit as I'm sure the OP can tell the difference between real and spam. I support this.

$0.64

gauttam (53) · 7 years ago

@cryptoctopus the powerful people like you on this platform can stop these spammers. They not only irritate the readers but also distract the new users who really want to do something good for this platform. Some greedy people comment without reading the article, they themselves don't know what they are writing. Yesterday I read your article "Sacred art in secular terms" but I was unable to conclude much that can generate a healthy conversation so I didn't wrote anything. I just want to say don't spam any good article only for an upvote.

$0.62

gabyoraa (58) · 7 years ago

You know, I recently talked about this with the friend that invited me into steemit. I only have a month here, but I've noticed that there is a lot of begging for votes. The new ones doing everything to flatter the big ones. I'm not even a big deal and I've had a couple of "I followed, now follow me" and a few "nice post". I hate it. And to be honest, I value more the good comments, than the votes itself, because I feel like my post is good enough to be read and commented. It's more personal. When people comment without reading, to me it's as rude as when someone is talking to you and you don't pay attention and just wave your head. Good luck with the flagging, hope it works out for you.

$0.62

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

Oddly enough, I followed a spammer reply to their blog to quantify the nature of their spam, and found they resteemed this post XD

I suspect there are many folks, many of those that speak English as a second language, that find it difficult to write effectively engaging and substantive comments. It's why I bothered to follow the spam to the blog, so I might see if engaging them and encouraging their commenting more substantively might be worth doing.

I hope you don't wear out your flaghammer fruitlessly, when a bit of encouragement might be more productive. Dunno what your experience has been already, so it's not advice, merely my wish.

I'd make the obligatory joke about 'f4f, great post dear, upvote my blog...' but @donkeypong has already conquered that hill.

Thanks!

$0.59

https://steemit.com/life/@meesterboom/comment-spam-an-animation

darth-azrael (67) · 7 years ago

Feel free to use this gif by @meesterboom in response to any spam:

$0.33

meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago

Hehe, I do like that one :0)

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jaraumoses (68) · 7 years ago

This gif is classic,i laughed the first time i saw it and have enjoyed it again.I really wish all whales go on a mission to clean up the comment sections by flagging and leaving a link for them to read more why they were flagged.

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

But it's a little bit flawed since you could leave a nice long comment with something you agree with in the comment section but you may not want to upvote the blog post. Since comment without upvote the post is not spam if it’s a real comment. This animation could get tweaked to correct that since now it comes across as if you are a bad person if you leave a good comment without upvote.

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darth-azrael (67) · 7 years ago

To be fair, the gif says if you comment "without reading or voting" I took that to mean that you left a comment that doesn't say anything at all about the post and adds nothing substantive to the conversation AND you also didn't vote on it. E.g. the comment says "Great post" and there is no upvote. I'm not going to flag anybody who leaves a substantive comment even if the don't upvote nor will I flag anybody who says "great post" if they also upvote.

Honestly, they usually have to be a little more spammy than that before I flag but it depends on my mood :). I also usually only flag at a low percent just to make the comment less visible and move it to the bottom. Again, depends on exactly how spammy it is.

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meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago (edited)

Unless you disagree with the post then you have no reason to not vote if you leave a comment.

In fact to not vote on something you agree with shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the platform as a whole.

There is absolutely no need to change it because I would say that almost all people who comment but do not vote usually do so, so as to post some fascile complimentary nonsense in the hope of getting an upvote and have a million reasons why they did not vote. All of them tripe.

Spammers the lot of them

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Yes you are mostly right. But what I mean is there is so many good posts on Steemit so perhaps you save some of your voting power to see exactly what you want to upvote on.

Sometimes it’s nice to stick around and read the comments, interact a little and then maybe vote. Already if a post has gotten your attention then you pay respect to the blog poster since attention is actual real currency in this age and the more you look at something eventually you will probably invest some in a person. Yes it doesn't pay off in this second but in the long run it will usually.

Sometimes it just perhaps takes a few days or weeks before you decide what you think. But once we have decided a person is solid we tend to start automatically upvote them on a regular basis.

But you can also agree with a post but save some of your voting power for mainly comments. Eventually we will read more from that blog poster and reward with upvotes. But for new people we usually stick around to see what they produce more of. We are humans after all not AI drones yet! Haha. Will be interesting to see how we could work on the spam issue in the future.

meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago

I see what you are saying and I understand that is your point of view.

I do however entirely disagree with it :O)

I think that that is what the voting power slider is for. That way you can reward those posts you like by however much you like and if you are unsure you can vote a little less, if you are really sure a little more.

For me and for a lot of steemians that I am in regular contact with, commenting but not upvoting is spam because it looks as if the person doing so is only commenting in the hope of getting an upvote.

It is worth pointing out that most of the commenting without upvoting happens to those who coincidentally have a reasonable amount of SP. Funny that eh ;O)

phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago

Yes we are talking about the same thing just with slightly different tweaks. But if it’s a long comment then it never looks like spam. Since that person gave away something of real value. His time! All these digital tokens could be made more of. But oh that time.. Never coming back!

But clearly we see very fast if someone invest or if they stand back and doesn’t. Even a comment of extreme high value adds to the blog post since more people will come in to read the comments the next time since they see the value being created!

Clearly the most amount of text value is being created with the comments and not the actual blog post most of the time. Which is kind of cool!

YouTube for example saw this and tweaked their algorithm so they now look more at watch time than clicks on videos. Same applies on Steemit. The more seconds people spend on you the more upvotes and rewards you will in the long term gain automatically!

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

"In fact to not vote on something you agree with shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the platform as a whole."

Well, for users without the slider, particularly those that dive in deep quickly, as did I, they can discover their vote will not recharge and becomes meaningless if they vote too often.

This became an issue for me, as I was upvoting over 100/per day, and found commenting without upvoting rude, for the reasons you point out. I actually had to back off from Steemit while I recharged my VP, because I was so uncomfortable commenting without upvoting.

While I don't want to blow my horn, I do feel this was a (slight) detriment to Steemit, as I feel my comments are substantive. I think this is an issue that can be addressed, although I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference mathematically whether your VP is diminished due to voting at 100% more times than you can recharge daily, or whether you diminish your VP due to using the slider.

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meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago

Your VP never goes to zero though, or at least you would have to vote many hundreds of times a day to get that to happen. If your steem power is less than 500 then your vote won't really be worth much anyway. The whole point is that you are showing your appreciation. If I see someone had voted on my post and commented I don't go totting up how much their vote was worth before replying and more often than not upvoting their comment.

It's the principle of the thing. When your SP is under 500 your vote is worth cents at the most and you can't control (unless you use busy) your vote strength so you should just vote and not care.

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

I found it distressing. Also, as a newb, the intricacies of how it all worked weren't readily apparent. I sympathize with folks that want their vote to be worth as much as possible, and may not have made the intellectual leap I, and you also, seem to have eventually made that it's best just to upvote, regardless of VP.

I find it difficult to get my VP back up to even 80% nowadays, much less 100%.

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meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago

I struggle with the very same issue. I don't like how I have to manage my VP as well as my posting and commenting. I would have preferred it if they had left the vote power per vote the way it was previously. Just in case you didn't know a full power vote used to be worth 25% of a full power vote now.

Unlikely to change however!

theguruasia (67) · 7 years ago

@cryptoctopus,
Fighting against spams actually a good idea! Specially with your SP it's an easy task to do! I think I am not going to say much, coz I am little bit confused about my yesterday comment on your post and your reply! Language barriers some how happens and hope I will never Feel Your Wrath ( I assure it's a very bad dream for anyone)

Cheers~

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shawnvanderveer (51) · 7 years ago

Kill the noise! Hahaha. Its very clever to flag such people / bots. In my experience with for example, Dmania, people tend to comment things like;
"Great video, thanks for sharing" and I am like, what... this is a meme, not a video. Clearly there are many bots on steemit commenting random stuff in the hope somebody will upvote it.

This way some of the bots or dump people will lose interests incommenting on your post and that is great. I hope that slowly everybody will use the flag more for where its intended to do things.

AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR YOUR USELESS AND CARELESS COMMENTS BOII

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emmyem84 (56) · 7 years ago

I understand why you are doing this, most of my comments are spam and I am new, I can't imagine what its like to deal with them for years. I read somewhere a couple weeks back that these spam comments do get a return of an upvote about 25% of the time which is not a bad chance actually. I think that mostly though the upvotes come from people like me who are new and are just happy to see a comment at all in the beginning. I have begun ignoring them, I'm extremely non confrontational, lol.

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danieldyemusic (63) · 7 years ago

Nice post dear sir lovely it. I keep living spam is not good no? You inspiration much certainly. Minnow upvote me me.

danieldyemusic (63) · 7 years ago

Sorry I couldn't resist! On a serious note, your post is needed. Things are getting weird around here, that's for sure. I've called out a couple of people, and thankfully they've responded pretty well, and now I've been teasing them some, but hopefully folks get the point.

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yumyumseth (66) · 7 years ago

Haha! Classic! I totally agree.

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shaikatkm (54) · 7 years ago

Now people do not want to see any post and reading, Not everyone is following the success, they want more money.
Because of this, newcomers like me are not successful. I know success is not easy

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

I followed you here, because you engage in spam comments frequently. I hope you find this post instructive, and more often do, as you have here, comment substantively.

I was actually surprised to see that you aren't a bot, given the comment that prompted me to have a look at your comments, to see if you just copy/pasted it and spammed it everywhere. You don't do that, and I'm glad =)

You are clearly capable of substantive comment, so I will hope that in the future, you follow the example you have set here of engaging comments responding particularly to the post you are commenting.

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arslan786 (61) · 7 years ago

In today's steemit world people are using easy way of earning like to post 10 times a day and then giving it a self vote.

tronthetechie (56) · 7 years ago

Good to see, I kind of quit popping in on the comments because of all the spam. It's hard to reward your most engaging followers well without fostering that "wordsoup" I've come to call it. I believe last I saw you and the wife made it back from Italy from the baby moon. Glad to know the trip ended well.

Thanks for trying to be a good example for steemians.

kouba01 (81) · 7 years ago

I hope something is done to fix this soon, because without being able to think and create your own answer to improve ideas, the whole platform is useless and a waste of everyone's time.

komischername (56) · 7 years ago

Nice to read that a whale share his love with small steemians (: We need more whales like you :D

unclehermit (54) · 7 years ago

I got my first spammy promotional comment on one of my articles yesterday. Wasn't sure what to do with it as you can't delete them. What does flagging actually do?

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

Flagging reduces any upvotes they may have received, and can reduce their rep, if your rep is higher. If you flag hard enough, you can make their comment invisible, where someone has to choose to reveal it.

However, flagging also uses your VP, just like upvoting does.

Edit: it can be good to remember that flagging someone invites them to return the favor, particularly if you are thinking about flagging someone with higher rep, or more SP than you have.

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pipokinha (62) · 7 years ago

I understand you @cryptoctopus, to much spam nowadays. But, don't you feel sometimes that you are losing your time flagging spam, instead of enjoying the time to write and comment? I don't know... I'm kinda divided here, on one hand, is important to fight spam, on the other hand, it feels a waste of time.

cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

Well...the comment section right now is more enjoyable to read and I will only keep to my own bloposts...I won't start policing the whole platform. Also...I think I'm actually enjoying using the flag in this case. ;-P

joebrochin (63) · 7 years ago

I don't know why people even feel like they need to spam. The best part of Steem is the interaction you have with others. I have already started building some good relationships with people on Steemit that I have never met in person, but would love to. I might not always have a lot to say (I'm not a talker or a typer), but want to always ensure I make some type of comment that is relevant, although it may be short, when I spend time reading or watching a post on Steem just to let the author know they are appreciated.

tolustx (64) · 7 years ago

This is really coming at the right time for me. Earlier today, I discussed this issue with my brother @dorth. People spam the comment section in hopes that they might get an Upvote if the author of the post sees their comments on time. Some authors have however proven them right but upvoting commenters on first-come-first-serve basis.

Many meaningful comments are usually pushed down out of sight or lost in the junks. One of the ways out of this is for writers, especially those with high voting powers to take time to read their comments and upvote rewarding ones or they should just stop upvoting and see who really wants to sincerely respond to the content of the post.

The issue of self voting comments for visibility is another prevalent issue, but I guess that might not change, even though it is not encouraged. I'm glad you pointed this out. According to @dorth, steemcleaners cannot do it alone. If each person decides to clean his posts like you have decided to do, then we can restore some sanity into the community.

m-ssed-t (57) · 7 years ago

I agree completely re: a lot of good comments getting pushed down. The new comment boosting option from MinnowBooster is not going to help in the comment spam regard, but that's another topic for another day.

One thing I will point out though...if you think it's bad now, wait until the platform grows, with 1, 2, even 10 million users. What will the comment spam look like then? It's a problem whicih won't go away.

I think it'll need addressing in the same way traditional (pre-Steemit) bloggers have done - and many turned off comments altogether.

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kay1 (50) · 7 years ago

I'm actually less than 2 months here so I haven't really experienced spammers , well probably because I have nothing to offer them .... but I believe whenever you want to comment on someone else's post... IF you don't know anything about what the user just posted, it's better to carefully move along without "making a noise" but some users don't just know that, all they care about is the upvote .... even IF you have no idea what the user is talking about , the best is to go and make your own research after understanding it , come back and comment ... users believe upvote is given on a first come first serve bases
I saw your video yesterday but since I know nothing about art I moved along, I will actually advice all newbies to emulate this !!!
Believe me you don't want to get flagged by @cryptoctopus 😂😂😂

steevc (73) · 7 years ago

I've been flagging spam comments for a while. I just use a few percent to move them to the bottom or possibly hide them. I hope it discourages them from this activity. I know what you mean about 'WTF' comments. I have no idea what some are trying to say. Some seem to generate a comment from whatever tags I use. I suspect these are automated. If we flag them enough then nobody has to see them.

BTW I'm only giving your post a small vote as you did so well from your self vote and others need my vote more :)

captaincanary (58) · 7 years ago

It's funny that people actually think that these kinds of spam comments are actually an effective tactic on Steemit. It's so obvious when somebody hasn't actually read the article and has just written "nice post" or something similarly generic or irrelevant. I too have flagged these kinds of comments on my posts, not necessarily because it's annoying to me but just to move them away from the genuine discussion (like you said).

It's not hard to try to write a good comment, or read a post if you are genuinely interested in it. It might take more time, but a good well-written comment is more likely to recieve an up vote than 50 pointless generic ones.

trendo (58) · 7 years ago

Yeah, sometimes I even laugh when I see those spammers come up with 50+ words of pure nothingness and spin those words throughout every post they find.

Plus, I noticed that a lot of people now simply copy some text from other websites and post it as a comment. Worst of all, I notice a lot of them actually getting decent upvotes. This seems to attract even more spammers to do the same, because it's actually working and they earn money this way.

It's sad to see that majority of the comments are spam. But I guess we couldn't really expect anything else, since the possibility of getting rewards will always attract spammers.

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eqko (61) · 7 years ago

I was going to say, maybe you should only flag comments that are a) nonsense and b) upvote themselves.

But I realized the reason for flagging would be to hide the bullshit from your active followers and readers. Flagging bullshit posters-nonvoters is even cheaper, since you wouldn't have to counter a self-upvote ...

Thinking ahead, seeing as the minimum manual vote / flag is 1%, would it be worth investigating a flagbot of some sort where you could input post & usernames you want to flag so you could flag with even less than 1% (which would save your votingpower if you could flag a 0 upvote bullshitpost with 0.1%, or 0,01% even)?

It would still mean manual curation on your own post (which is a good thing) but help fight the good battle(by saving SP) ...

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m-ssed-t (57) · 7 years ago

The flagbot would be a good idea, but you need to be careful I feel when downvoting people, especially where they're non-English speakers trying to comment on an "English" post. Being too heavy-handed, especially with new users will only serve to drive away the potential growth of the platform.

Having said that, for the worst offenders, and those who continue to spam, the flagbot could add their name to a global blacklist, which could stop the upvote button appearing next to their comment.

Maybe something to suggest to utopian-io??

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hestiafull (46) · 7 years ago

I made a comment about that. I had that problem and it's sad.

eqko (61) · 7 years ago

Well I call it a flagbot, but calling it a flagtool would’ve been more accurate I suppose. It would preferably still involve a manner of manual curation / input. The main goal being able to flag with lower than 1% (if applicable) as opposed to any kind of autoflagging

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

@blacklist-a does this. Flags from @sneak invoke @blacklist-a, and apparently a horde of upvote bots then will not upvote your posts. While you could inquire for more details about how this works, I think this is a covert program, and have had to piece together this much information about it from various sources.

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spiritualmax (64) · 7 years ago

This is the best post on steemit, check out my blog. I will grateful for your support.

LOL! I KID! DON'T FLAG xD Couldn't resist...

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cryptoctopus (74) · 7 years ago

I had my mouse over the flag icon for a second...

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spiritualmax (64) · 7 years ago

Good to know my Spam-English is on point, I forgot "sir" though

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moneyinfant (56) · 7 years ago

If everyone would take this stance and police their own comments section I have a feeling that many spammers would simply go away. While I get nowhere near the amount of spam I'm sure you get, it has begun to creep in, and my own comment section is where I've placed my first flag just a couple days ago.

It's actually really simple folks. You don't want spam on Steemit, start by cleaning your own blog. Sometimes the simple answer is the best answer.

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charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

I feel like for a lot of authors, if they were to clean house then the average comments per page would plummet and site activity would look a lot worse than it does now on the traffic metrics. That plus the userbase would shrink exponentially if the thousands of spammers discovered they had 0 chance to earn, so it may have been a conscious decision on the part of many whales to allow such behavior as it boosted the site's stats to the unaware.

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moneyinfant (56) · 7 years ago

That does make some sense that the whales would want to increase the stats by allowing this to continue, but for how long?

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egotheist (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

This is definitely a useful approach - especially since you are one of the users who actually have the necessary SP to make a difference. People will hopefully think twice about spamming at your articles - and maybe they are avoiding it at others as well.
Personally, I still don't get it, what those guys (if they aren't bots) are trying to achieve. If you have nothing of value to add, why would you write anything? Just doesn't make much sense to me.

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dominicbasulto (42) · 7 years ago

I applaud your efforts to cut back on comment spam. I've noticed a number of other people I follow on Steemit taking similar types of steps, so maybe it will develop into a trend or even (dare I say it) a movement.

My only caveat would be that some of the nonsensical comments posted might actually be the efforts of a non-English speaker trying to write something of value and earn an upvote. (and, in fact, I've seen some non-English speakers posting that they move in/out of Google Translate to write comments in English) So maybe go a little easier on non-English speakers trying to make a go of it before showing them the wrath of Thor...

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clixmoney (76) · 7 years ago

I really understand you because I own a big steemit group in facebook and I am blocking people there almost everyday, people are just crazy about spamming, it's better sometimes to not share your post in facebook. Facebook is full of spammers and now they moved to steemit, we have all to fight them together, and never reply them and just flag. The bad thing is that when you talk to spammer and try to show him the right way he doesn't even listen to you and begin just to insult you. I even consider those who post only picture or a video as apammers because they don't provide any value but just copy past that from the web and share it here in steemit.

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tarekadam (67) · 7 years ago

It might be good to add a little disclaimer at the end of your future posts so that people also know about your guidelines who didnt read this post. In general I think it is a good idea for people who obviously just copy paste random text to upvote your comments. In some contries it is standard to address people with Sir (not sure about Boss though) so I would tolerate those personally.

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nomadicsoul (68) · 7 years ago

Oh good point that some countries it's standard to address with Sir!

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charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

It seems to be a standard way to address people. I really like that elbow phrase the Nigerians say a lot, it's like a play on putting elbow grease into it, I forget how exactly they say it.

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genxrev (52) · 7 years ago

I appreciate your willingness to at least try to clean up "your corner" of Steemit. I do hope that it doesn't just become a cost against your wellbeing in using your voting power as a down flag rather than as an up, but at the same time, it seems that unless there gets to be some way of disciplining "bad" behavior, nothing much will change. The macro issue seems to be "how to encourage / enforce socially BENEFICIAL behaviors in a decentralized system?" I've chosen to attempt to encourage "beneficial behaviors" from a tack of spiritual formation / character development and feel its the part I can play, but feel like if my "stick" were sized a bit differently, I likely would use it more akin to your description to try to reshape how people functioned from an external stimulus as well. (I fear my paltry .03 doesn't do a whole lot in sending much of a message.)

I'm really curious to see what your tack may produce, because I cannot help but think it will in truth both require "interior boundary setting" (the arena I'm trying to encourage) AS WELL as external reinforcement to begin to alter the course of this big ole' Steemit ship.

I wish you nothing but the best in your efforts as I am certain that if you and others (who happen to have the kind of clout that may actually be felt... something about "when in doubt, get a bigger hammer" comes to mind) were to begin to create a better expectation for normalized behavior, we will ALL benefit tremendously.

(Incidentally... I was watching the video you are referencing just last night, but only got half-way through... you'll see me on that comment section after I've wrapped up... it is an absolute gem, with so much worth thinking through! Jonathan Pageau is one smart / insightful cookie.)

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charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

I don't have much power right now but part of my effort involves reaching out to spammers who I assume are actually people and telling them that I'll sign them up for my UBI if they stop spamming. Unfortunately without a team of people who speak the major languages of steemit I have quite a language barrier to overcome in many instances, google translate doesn't seem to work well at all for quite a few of the more popular languages on steemit. That and my SP is tiny and I have to compete with bid bots for delegations, rofl.

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genxrev (52) · 7 years ago

Sounds like quite the task before you. I really like the idea of trying to encourage them to go onto UBI - Are you working through something like Mannabase for that? Are you finding any willing to take you up on the offer?

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charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

I asked gtg about it and he said the only way it'd be feasible here is to do it on the blockchain as a feature of our coin, which makes sense and I think has been proposed by some others who want steem to be on the forefront of UBI. Personally I just have a list of autovoted persons for now, I asked mahdiyari of steemauto if he could implement something that would give a balanced amount of VP per day to everyone on a list and he said he could work on that, which I was extremely grateful for and will use immediately once it's out.

I looked into manna, I can see why they would want everyone's address to make sure people aren't UBI farming with multi-accounts, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a program that seems to have such an emphasis on a referral program (which skews the income to the spammiest people or those with already large social network reach, which I don't think is what a UBI should really aim for) and physical location data gathering, among some other things that make me go hmmmm. There are some other UBI coin projects out there and I should probably research them heavily, I do not like shilling coins or icos and would feel terrible if anyone got their security compromised etc. on one of my recommendations through a leaky wallet or something.

Yeah, there have been some, but my SP isn't attractive enough to make a lot of them reconsider their actions, or maybe they don't understand what I'm trying to say.

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slayer10 (56) · 7 years ago

In the present world, almost everything is a pirate front pirate. This is everything. Food, beverages, clothing, games, even science ... While this is the case, some people do not give up piracy when commenting. This easy profit seems more attractive to everyone. Unfortunately, this is very bad. Steemit is a very high quality platform. And I think the quality should increase even more. Thank you very much for addressing this issue ...

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wa2qr (58) · 7 years ago

Absolutely it's important to clean your house from the dust and dirt. Seriously who would want to waste their voting power if it wasn't that annoying.
I feel pity mostly for those who keep appreciating like great post etc like stuff without actually reading the post. These people must be flagged for sure. Spam is a waste of the receivers time, and and sender's optimism. Anyways do what you have to do to keep your blog clean. Cheers

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mirshamin (43) · 7 years ago

.... Sir! It is your choice to flag a comment if u find it spam... All categories listed by u are fair enough to get flaged . . As a blogger u have the right to do that as u spent quality time writing it... Fair enough move...

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fakeinternetnews (56) · 7 years ago

Never been more happy about the coming wrath of someone!

Yes, to make this a better and fairer experience for steemians, we need to all use your methods.

And, I wrote a slogan for you while on this campaign. Ready? Here goes!

None will escape the seething wrath of Cryptoctopus' constriction as it's tentacles ensnare spammers.

See what I did there?

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xzandara (27) · 7 years ago

Hi @cryptoctopus, I have read your article. Since I am new here, this type of article help me to realize that this kind of issue do exist. Well, it is kind of annoying when you really want to engage in a conversation with your readers but have to read comments that are actually just spams. Thus, I am supporting your action against spammers.

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t-flames (57) · 7 years ago

I feel spammers actually have a misplaced priority. Most of them are not interested in what you're saying. They just want to hype you, comment nonsense... Their only goal is upvote. It's pure selfishness.
When authors start this movement, it would really help the steemit community. It's supposed to be value not just upvotes

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littlejoeward (54) · 7 years ago (edited)

I don't have much steem power but I always flag spam comments I see as long as they don't have more steem power than me. :) I think people are too scared to flag (downvote) but it is an important part of the steem ecosystem. I wouldn't recommend going after whales, but if you see spam from a smaller "fish", flag 'em!

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francispalo (56) · 7 years ago

(pardon my english)
I get sad when i post exciting things then spams just litter the whole thing so i feel you @cryptoctopus but the one thing that i didnt thought before reading this is other people thats not on steemit can see them too!

Cos of this i will also flag spammers even tho im just a minnow but maybe thats the more reason to do it because im essentially creating a good habit for me and if people will follow itll be a great tradition for steemit.

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pacxiu (52) · 7 years ago

I strongly approve such moves, especially from person who is well-known person here.

As I am scrolling through some comments, not only here, but on some other popular posts it is disastrous. Sometimes Minnows do not know how to interact with Steem, or those are just some spammy bots. It is sad but well, this platform is new, if it is struggling, be it, but make some initiatives to fight it - like yours.

As I am going through posts I see that more and more people who have influence here are not happy with such things. And I am happy with that, because they will do something about it.

Gl in your, kind of challenge! :)

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gvincentjosephm (59) · 7 years ago

I feel you man! It's really kinda annoying when people praise us in words but did not recognize or respect our efforts by at least reading the posts that we make. I'm against spam comments too and I hope we can win this fight without flagging innocent people. Let's make steemit not just better but the best social media platform for everyone
( excluding spammers ).

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josediccus (75) · 7 years ago

What can I say, I for one has one has always told people it's not just about commenting alone, it's about interacting and getting to prove a point or pass a message, if I know I won't watch the video, I see no essence in commenting then.

People should have this mindset before being on steemit, it's a community too and not a factory of money, I was hoping somebody would say this, and you did, thank you so much.

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phoneinf (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

Good that you are bringing this up. Since I have seen this too on my Steemit page the standard Bot comments that comes in that makes you very annoyed since it’s just 1 line comment that just takes up space. Also takes up your valuable attention that could have gone to something else that is more productive.

Someone should create a software that could quickly filter these things out. I know you could use the mute button but it’s not super effective since the comments still comes in. It’s probably a bit complicated to fix this when the Blockchain consist of mainly text and anyone could post. And now we have a new era of Bot use which is brand new for humans to experience.

I think we need someone to create a software that teach people how to write Intelligent comments that adds amazing value. It doesn’t take that long to learn. Maybe someone could also create an app on top of the blockchain that gives more incentives to people who write longer comments. Perhaps a way to automatic give longer comments value. Of course you would need to filter out Bots here too so they don’t abuse it.

In the future I see an amazing world with only intelligent comments at the top. I think we eventually will get there but it will take some time. For example YouTube still hasn’t fixed their comment section it’s a complete disaster 10 years in. Steemit is slowly improving it by empowering people to upvote higher quality stuff. But you still need to teach people to upvote with care so they don’t upvote low value stuff.

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chetan9 (48) · 7 years ago (edited)

@cryptoctopus
Yup its very annoying to to see ppls spam comments
Authors takes hours to create a quality content and they expect a healthy conservation with readers on perticular topic. But when u see "nice blog, i like ur blog, thankyou for sharing, i will re-blog.. Etc etc..
This really makes disappointing to authors..This ppl dont spare time for reading the blog and go on with useless comment thinking author will reward us...

I have soln
A group can b made of 5-10 ppl(whale) & lets spare few min in flagging spam comments...
Generally what happens when we see 75+ comments on blogs.. We pretends that having comment after reading whole blog will b not visible to author as he may or maynot get scroll till last comment.. Go generally many of they avoid to comment...

Spaming useless comment will really help to get u quality readers..

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hanief (49) · 7 years ago

I'm a reputation 25 and I understand what spamming isand there are people over 40 who are still spamming..
That just means one thing
Greed for money makes you an idiot

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kangsukin (62) · 7 years ago

I watched the article with your thoughts.
Up Boat and Follow.^^

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martiniman (7) · 7 years ago

I'm flattering you in hope that you will upvote me.
Sorry I couldn't resist it lol.

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shahaan (52) · 7 years ago (edited)

omg ... I m scared... somebody is goin to get flagged :p

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lordkingpotato (60) · 7 years ago

I have seen a few people doing this but for you to take an initiative in raising the issue by writing a post, I think it will spread the awareness faster which is beneficial to the community. It might be somewhat indirect but spam comments in a sense is continuously devaluing the platform.

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phgnomo (64) · 7 years ago

Damn these spammy comments... First time i heard about the wikipedia copy paste though... never noticed them.

I wonder if the people realize that these spammy comments hurt their reputations?

To those that do this, do enough spam, and soon you will have your account rep reduced to 0 and no one will see what you write anymore...

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titanik (14) · 7 years ago

spam is the reason for eating.@@@titanik

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jvanman (51) · 7 years ago

Maybe you will be one person that actually reads comments that had thought put in to it (probably because, like you said, there is so much junk to sift through). I was about to make a post about a very similar topic, but hardly anyone reads my content due to my low rating, I'd rather wait until I have more "say". One point I will highlight is that comments are meant to be comments. Disagreeing is good, it's scientific (if backed up by reason). I have not seen 1 comment disagreeing with anyone since I started steemit. Everyone seems to give hypocritical brown nosing comments clearly stating their intentions to get an upvote. It drives me nuts. Also, another thing that drives me nuts is when people use Wikepedia as a reference, or just say "internet", and then use the "science" tag. I see newbys and oldies use this. Wikepedia wrote almost nothing on Wikepedia. The internet too, we need to state the authors, or at least give the link to where you found your work. Will be interesting to see if this post will be read.

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perry1 (59) · 7 years ago

I truly don't prefer to signal spam.

I have dependably been in favor of voting the well done to the best.

Be that as it may, I see your point, and might change my voting propensities later on

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majidawan (51) · 7 years ago

Good decision, this action will encourage only genuine writers and ghost will vanish soon from comments section. Everyone should follow start to appreciate only original contents, Appreciated.

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hornblende (61) · 7 years ago

This is a nice way of curbing out those who spam the comment section. Most guys don't read a post before commenting while most of them just drop generic comments. A lot of articles have been written by various authors about spamming the comment box but lots of steemians won't adhere to the warnings.

I read a post on steemcleaners blog about spamming and they are working towards reducing the amount of spammers on steemit. Maybe you can work with them to help reduce the the generic and unsolicited comments on your blog.

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clweeks (54) · 7 years ago

Oh, thank God! I wish everyone would follow suite. Other people have already said this but I think it's the only hope we have for making Steem a serious platform. I'd also like to see more flagging of posts for tag-abuse.

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adson (60) · 7 years ago

For now very many users who do spam, even do automatic comments, this is really not good, they participate without reading the content or video, all comments are not related to the content ..
They only expect a vote from the content owner.
Hopefully thanks to your spammers or auto comment can be reduced or even lost ...

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aowal202 (45) · 7 years ago

Whatever and surprise that. I have follow to your post and like to all opinion great

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meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago

I can't agree more. I have been going this for a while. The spam commenting is having such a detrimental affect on the platform. All these accounts just speaking gibberish on every post.

Every single one of them angling for an upvote.

The good thing is they do seem to learn by a bloody good flagging :0)

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charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

I can see why they do it, they're obviously desperate for an upvote and let's be real here they have more of a chance of getting automatically voted on by accident in a whale or dolphin's comment thread than posting their own stuff in new. The only reason why they bother at all is because it works sometimes, even I am quite guilty of harvesting votes from comments in the attempt to gather funds for my own steemit endeavors.

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meesterboom (78) · 7 years ago (edited)

They have much more of a chance of getting a good upvote if they read what they comment on and make it even slightly relevant.

They don't bother doing that because it's the laziest way of getting an upvote and involves the least effort. As far as I am concerned if their entire motive in being here is to make money any which way they can then good riddance to them if they get flagged into invisibility

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steemfirst (50) · 7 years ago

Truly ,i personally hate spam comment ,infact it irritate me .once i see a post and check the comment on that post and found that there is a lot of spam comment , it makes me not to drop any comment because the probability of the author to see my comment is low.spam comment is too bad for my liking.how i wish i fit fighting for this particular challenge in this platform .i would have been happy.

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steem2000 (46) · 7 years ago

@cryptoctopus Its very interesting post for me...great dear go ahead
information##Upvote/Resteem###

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

You are practically begging for flags.

0_o

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teutonium (62) · 7 years ago

Damn now i'm scared to even comment xD
I also hate spammers, i usually just mute them and go on with my life, i could start flagging them, i never flagged anyone before, do i waste VP with flags? I'm already a upvoting maniac that gets his own VP down to 50%, if i also become a flagging maniac i would need more voting power xD
Can't we just report them to steemitclearners or something?

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shencoin (55) · 7 years ago (edited)

well you again ready to fight against spammers,, i see many persons here who dont read complete content and only see heading or first 1, 2 lines and start writing coment and try to post it fast to get author attention for some rewards they think the author only read the some first coments and upvote them but in your case i think you read all coments mostly and its true yesterday's post got many abuse coment only the name of christian art
hope after your flaging to spamers they all will care and dont try to play others feelings only for some rewards because author alwasy share some thing with comunity to know all others reviews and opinions to think all them his beloved and good friends
hope this fight will decrease the amount of spammers in your blog and also in steemit comunity and hope also will give them a good advise and way to make thier work better as a good and resposible steemian

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reddust (71) · 7 years ago

I’m glad you wrote this, I’m been working on this issue as well and no matter how many times I warn certain accounts to stop they won’t until I flag them and then they promise never to do this again ... broken promises..

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briercrest (0) · 7 years ago

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Reveal Comment

kargath (30) · 7 years ago

Just ignore the spammers and eventually they will give up? :D

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nonameslefttouse (74) · 7 years ago (edited)

I did a little experiment awhile ago. I get a lot of comments coming in, usually, and I respond to most if not all of them. If I leave shortly after posting or if I simply can't respond in a timely manner, I'll end up seeing far more spammers. Names I haven't seen before will suddenly show up. I'm not sure if it's just me or if I'm going crazy or what, but it just seems they like to bother me when I'm not around.

I don't mind flagging. My favorites are the ones who parrot other comments within the post, or maybe alter a few words. That's a big fun flag for them. I enjoy it, and it's what they deserve for attempting to con me.

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bigtom13 (64) · 7 years ago

Two hours and only 2 removed comments? That speaks volumes. I had always presumed that most of those were copy/paste and didn't even look at the post title. Seems I was wrong.

Which now really pisses me off. That they have at least an understanding and still do the deed.

Thanks for fighting the fight. This crap is a pox on our house and needs to be eradicated.

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mindtrap (74) · 7 years ago (edited)

And you should.All those who post shit comments like this is just because they don't want to work and hope for charity.And to be honest there were a few posts you made the past 10-15 days that i commented on,but got no response because they were buried under tons of these shit.This discouraged me from commenting on your posts.Not because you get dozens but because i try to get in your position and i understand that after 2-3-4-5 shit comments i would stop reading too.(i still remember that post about Pompeii)So i understand you completely my friend.This is probably a way to clear your comment section and see who is actually reading...

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bookrak (59) · 7 years ago

In my personal case I found that steemians who wrote a comment like good post, great article, etc, are those with the reputation between 25 to 30. That means the spam comments might be from the newbie steemians. So I think it is not a wise decision to punish them by giving flag to their comments. I think better to discuss it with them, but if they repeat the same mistake then they deserve a flag. It different from those with 30-above reputation, they tend to appreciate other's content with qualified comments. But there are also several cases where some good reputation steemians do not know how to comment wisely. This kind of steemians deserve to be punished.

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m-ssed-t (57) · 7 years ago

Good news. I think everyone from Dolphins & up should take this approach - but tread carefully at the same time. Maybe end your post with a footer to warn legitimate readers/commenters of your approach.

But anything to reduce noise on Steemit would be a good move. Comment spam has been around since blogging was invented, but Steemit has a built-in defence against it (flagging).

What will be funny, is that even on this post, talking about downvoting spam comments, you'll still see a fair number of them appear.

Having said that, please don't be too heavy handed. I always try to leave something to add to the conversation, but there are many non-English speaking users on here, and they might contribute what they can. Don't punish these people, especially when they're very small users.

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yumyumseth (66) · 7 years ago

Haha I love it! Spam comments are so annoying and I only get a few of them each post compared to the dozens that you get. I seriously have no idea where some of the comments come from. I wonder if some of them are people who don't speak English and just put a sentence into Google Translate or something and hope it makes sense? Glad you're cracking down on it though, I'm going to start doing the same.

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mkmohit (45) · 7 years ago

i told you once in your post about your upvotes and how people are manipulating it you give them upvotes blindly and they keep on spamming i used to follow you but have to unfollow since then but finally glad that you watched your comment section atleast

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yaan (59) · 7 years ago

Sometimes I have to use "sir" when I address someone much older than me. Even though they might not want me to, but I just can't help it, because of the respect)

Holy crap, you're already at 360k. So many upvotes will go to waste because of the spam, that's sad(

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aisu (42) · 7 years ago

Spam comments are a big problem. A lot of the time if you look at their account, they post the same exact comment on hundreds of posts.

Your flag might be worth more but there are some accounts dedicated to spam and other forms of abuse. They can be useful for people with less SP.

Some examples:
@abusereports @steemcleaners

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daan (68) · 7 years ago

Besides the fact that these spam comments are sad, it's also somewhat funny to think that someone probably spends hours each day just writing spam and nonsense for a couple of dollars. Seems like a very pitiful existence to me...

Some people are just so desperate for cash it seems.

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resteemia (56) · 7 years ago

Here is a comment that prove that the person didn't watch the video but pretended that he had. It's just a bunch of words made to kind of sound on topic without addressing the topic or engaging with the content.

yes, i didn't watch the video while commented on the last post of yours. but i read the article & tried to give a valuable input. watching a 55 minutes video is not even possible with my limited internet connection. but i never write a comment without reading an article & i didn't try to pretend like i watch the video. respect to your ideal plan to fight against spams. i don't think you'll categorized myself as a comment spammer. after all, it's an useful warning to all steemians who'll go after your reward clicks. ***@cryptoctopus**

@resteemia

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ainie.kashif (65) · 7 years ago

Hi @cryptoctopus, for me if there's nothing better to say, it's better to keep quiet rather than posting irrelevant comments that irritate anyone. I have always been softer at approaching spammers in my page, in the hope they will understand and change their way of commenting for the good of everyone. I would understand how you must have felt because you are very serious about people reading and understanding your posts and leaving good comments on your page, but again some people just don't get it and either they just don't bother or don't care what will happen when they get flags from you. Those spammers better beware and fear your wrath... for receiving your wrath would only mean to be flagged to oblivion... phew very scary. I will stand by you in this fight. Stay Blessed and Steem On!

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cryptopie (81) · 7 years ago

Some users are just too frustrated that they tend to spam in an effort to collect as much little upvotes as they can. Some does it unknowingly out of ignorance but some are just blatant spammers who needs the Thor hammer.

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crypto-econom1st (57) · 7 years ago

Perhaps we can make a deal? you can send all these "great post" commenters to me. As newbie I would be happy if my posts receive more then 3 comments 😋

Seriously, I also get really annoyed by posts with 25 comments, where 80% of the comments contain a maximum of 5 words 😥

I wonder if flagging will really help?
To be honest I don't know the exact result if you flag someone. I checked the faq section, but could not find a decent answer (anyone to explain it for me?).

I assume that flagging will only cause a minor decrease reputation. I don't think those commenters will even notice that.
Even if those comments get flagged by several people and don't get any pay out, it could happen that the poster doesn't notice.

Perhaps you could try to flag plus write a reply to inform that they are flagged? Or only flag people that upvote their own crappy comments? To try to kill their reward.

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vidafitnessfeliz (61) · 7 years ago

Good morning @cryptoctopus from Peru, I am a reader that I learn a lot when reading in every article that publishes and I always take a message of learning, now with regard to spam I agree that you have to clean because the brand steemit must be synonymous with Quality and learning so it is time to fight against spam and does not provide any positive message and also for my part will make me more to have continuous improvement in your comments and contributes quality. I say goodbye to have an extraordinary day

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gikitiki (60) · 7 years ago

In an POS ecosystem such as steemit, where we get compensated for our time and/or investment, it only makes sense that users get penalized when they waste other users time.

I am curious to know if the voting power of the comment bots currently outweighs the flagging power of the users. I truly hope not.

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andybets (62) · 7 years ago

I think it would be good to require a certain minimum number of words in the comment too ;) Sometimes the hardest ones to evaluate are the really short comments. If something is worth saying, spend more than 3 words on it.

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