There is a lot of debate on Steemit about voting bots, and I would like to start this post with my opinions on why I think they are very needed on Steemit. Also, I would like to explain a little about the @ecotrain voting bot, why it is different, and how it deals with most of the criticisms made against voting bots.
Why We Need Voting Bots
Until a few short months ago voting bots were not an option for people to self promote their posts. Also people with a lot of Steem Power had few options as to how to use their voting power every day. Anyone who has a lot of Steem Power will know the challenge of curating! There are a lot of minnows who would like dolphins and whales to manually curate, but the thing is that is actually a very tall order! It is not really practical or feasible to ask people to spend their whole day reading and upvoting posts constantly. It is very hard work, and most people with a lot of Steem Power probably don't have the time!
There is of course the option of delegating to other users and let them do the job of curating, but standard delegation brings no rewards back to someone who has invested. Despite this there are several amazing whales such as @jamesc who have and continue to delegate massive amounts of Steem Power to others, but we cannot expect the majority of vested users to do the same. Most people either want or need a return on their investment, but don't want to spend all day having to curate. Because of this we used to see a lot more vote exchanging and self voting on Steemit, with the majority of upvotes going to the same people every day for posts that were often not even worth the kinds of rewards they received.
The Pro's of Voting Bots.
Voting bots have given us a way to distribute the rewards pool to way more people! They have also allowed individuals with very little voting power to gain support for themselves by using bots. Not only that but some people, including me, use voting bots to upvote other people with much larger votes than we could do ourselves. Voting bots have allowed me to create the Minnow Support Project, where I send several dollars to dozens of minnows each week to encourage them to keep writing and posting. This is a great thing because there are so many new comers to Steemit who post and get almost nothing back, and then give up. SO voting bots are an amazing tool for us to really share the wealth of Steemit and support the entire ecosystem.
Also, I have to be honest that when I look at the trending page of You Tube there is almost nothing of any interest to me on it, whereas Steemit's trending page is, in my opinion, much more interesting.. SO things are not a total disaster as far as boosting posts go. Also our protective whales spend time flagging those posts that are boosted too much and don't add value, which serves as a strong message for people not to boost low grade posts just to make money... and that seems to be working! I rarely see trash on Steemit's trending page!
The Con's of Voting Bots.
Now, I'm not saying things are perfect by any means! Voting bots are still relatively new to Steemit, and I believe will evolve quite soon to help deal with the problems that occur with them. My main criticism of nearly all voting bots is that they allow anyone to post anything they want, including really terrible or even copied posts, and get very large rewards for them. This is NOT what Steemit it about! Also it is a fair criticism that people with money can essentially buy a place on the trending page as well as boost their own reputation to artificially high numbers regardless of the quality of their posts. That is really not good and I do think that our reputation score should now be calculated in another way, such as by the number of upvotes we receive (not the value of them but the number of them 1:1).
The Solution!
We are now starting to see a shift in voting bots and how they operate. I am very proud that the @ecotrain voting bot that I run and manage is dealing with nearly all these problems! I have achieved this by enforcing whitelisting on my bot, which means that ONLY people who I approve are allowed to use it. The only other bot i know of doing this is @smartsteem. When someone asks to be whitelisted I check out their blogs and see what they post. If I am happy that they write posts with value, and don't copy or plagerise other people's work I add them to the whitelist so that they can send bids.
I also don't play games or try to be greedy. In my opinion Steemit should be a win-win-win for everyone, and we shouldn't allow for people to lose money when bidding! This is because it is quite technical and all too easy to use a bot that will allow you to lose 20-50% ROI and this leads to many people getting quite understandably upset. To prevent this, the @ecotrain bot has a fixed 11% ROI built in, so that anyone using it will always make a profit on it! This means that the whole system is fair to everyone, including delegators!
A message to delegators.
Now talking about delegators is a VERY important part of this post! As anyone who delegates knows, it is possible to delegate and receive 100% rewards of their share of the bids made on voting bots. The @ecotrain bot is NOT like that and only returns 65% back to delegators! I think this is very important, and would like to explain why. In the old days of Steemit, people voting with a lot of Steem Power would only receive curation rewards. These rewards were tiny in comparison to the kind of rewards you can make from delegating to voting bots.
Here's thing thing though... it is human nature that no matter how much we make we always desire more, and it is SO easy for people with a lot of Steem power to want as MUCH back as possible! I believe this is a short sighted attitude that is part of the capitalist model that has failed the world. I believe that it is our duty share our good fortune with others if we are to have an ecosystem that is fair for all, and allows others to benefit as well. If we want Steemit to grow and have a long and beautiful life we have to temper our desire for profit and keep sharing some of our ROI with others. That is why I offer delegators 65% return on their investment. So, what do I do with the rest? Let me explain!
Making Voting Bots Great (again?)!
I am running a pay it forward minnow support project that upvotes dozens of minnows every week with as much as I can using rewards from some of my posts as well as the @ecotrain voting bot. When people delegate to me they get a very nice return on their investment (sure, not quite as much as with most other bots these days). The rewards that I receive are partly given away to others who REALLY contribute to the value of Steemit but are simply not noticed. It takes a LOT of my time every day (at least 2 hours), and I am busy finding and supporting beautiful people who would otherwise get almost nothing and probably disappear before long! I also use my Steem Power to curate the @ecotrain passengers and spend hours every day reading and supporting them with my personal upvotes. The @ecotrain is the kind of community that I can only describe as amazing, and we add SO much value to Steemit just by the quality of our posts and constant engagement!
You can see my most recent minnow support post here: https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/pay-it-forward-minnow-support-project-week-3-41-minnows-supportedLet it be said that it is the people who post valuable content who drive Steemit, and without them there would be nothing to vote for and no way for delegators to make anything at all! I believe we MUST find ways to support those who do put a huge effort in, or else Steemit is just going to be a fully capitalistic model of self serving investors who basically reap all the rewards and leave the rest of the people feeling upset.
I am a person that believes VERY strongly in sharing and team playing. When I look at our world and see the inequality that we live in, it breaks my heart. When I see how many people live with almost nothing and are just victims of a terrible system of unrestrained savage capitalism it makes me very upset! That is why I am a part of Steemit, and why I spend SO much time on it, because it is a way out of that paradigm!
Do you agree? Then please delegate to the @ecotrain!
If you agree with me then I would like to ask you to delegate to the @ecotrain bot so that I can continue supporting people who really do make this world a better place. I am also working on a long term project of buying land in Europe and creating an entire off-grid community and am saving up some of my Steemit rewards to do this. Your delegation to the @ecotrain bot will help me manifest that goal much more quickly.
Also, right now I am quite limited as to how much I can give away to minnows because the @ecotrain voting bot doesn't yet have enough Steem Power to let me give to more than 5 people a day. With your delegation I can help many more minnows on Steemit, as well as return you a very fair and more than acceptable ROI.
Further Rewards to Delegators
If you are able to delegate a significant amount of Steem power (1,000 SP or more) and have a desire to one day live off-grid or self build then I will give you my consultation services for free! I will give you unlimited (within reason) advice and consultations on any eco building project that you are working on and do my best to support you and help your dreams come true. I have been eco building for 15 years and have a wealth of experience and knowledge about this, especially how to build something beautiful on a tiny budget!
If you would like to read more about my eco building projects and workshops please check out this compilation post.
https://steemit.com/earthship/@eco-alex/a-compilation-of-all-my-eco-building-and-workshop-posts-on-steemit
I hope I have inspired you to show your support and help make Steemit SHINE like a diamond in the rough. Together we can show everyone that this WORKS and that together we can start to make the real changes that we need to see in the world.
If you would like to delegate ANY amount of Steem power, you will receive 65% of your share of the rewards every day from the voting bot.
All you have to do is visit:
https://steembottracker.com/delegation.html
You can delegate any amount of Steem Power and you can withdraw your delegation at any time by setting the amount of Steem Power to ZERO and waiting a week.
IMPORTANT: Please keep at least 50 steem power for yourself as you need it to post and comment!
Thank you for being here. I would love to hear your view about what I have said!
The 8 Pillars of @TribeSteemUp
I strongly agree to you
Most of the blog in trending are valuable and only a few post like the one posted by username named haijin is the only one posting less valuable content as far as I know. The bid bots are helping more people to attract viewership wise and audience. I hope I can delegate and support you however I, myself are having charity works doing to support Venezuelan people with their crisis by upvoting their comment for listening the word of God. Please continue what you have made... Followed you from on buddy
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thank you.. im happy you agree and have seen you around and can tell you are a smart man! The fact that you would even LIKE to delegate to me makes me happy as I know that others may do the same ..
Happy to hear you are supporting worthwhile other causes too <3
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First, I would like to thank you @eco-alex for what you are doing for the Steemit platform because without people like yourself, I don't think it can make it. I was one of those new people on Steemit a month ago wondering why terrible content was getting so much money while my good content made less than $2 and only had a couple comments. Not that I was expecting to make a lot of money but the comparison did not make sense to me. I was on the verge of giving up many times because as we all know, writing good content is very time consuming. I had very few real followers. It was starting to feel like I was wasting my time and efforts. Then a couple of amazing people on Steemit used voting bots to help me boost my posts (without my knowledge at the time) and I was encouraged again to keep going.
I have only learned about voting bots a few weeks ago. I used them on a few of my posts and realized I was not always getting my money back. I thought I might still gain some new followers from using the bots, but really the only followers I was gaining were bots anyways. How discouraging!
I like your projects and have used the EcoTrain voting bot a few times. Thank you for making it to only upvote whitelisted people and have a positive ROI. I think bots have value and are probably here to stay. Appreciate you starting a bot that can actually help the community.
From personally experience on Steemit, I can say the voting bots did not help me or make me want to stay, it was joining communities such as the EcoTrain community that really helped me see the potential and gained real followers. Thank you for all you do. I know it's VERY time consuming!
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thank you for this comment.. you explain so well why i do what i do! much love!
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Can I just ditto what you said? So articulate and well expressed. 💜
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haha, you are funny. Thank you!
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What you are doing with the Ecotrain bot is taking an active approach to combat all the negativity surrounding it. Whitelisting seems to be a great way to ensure that the bot doesn't become abused. Personally I love to use it to upvote other's posts. It's a great way for me to help since my account's vote value is so low.
Thank you for being an awesome being it is clear in all your missions that you really do contribute so much positive energy into making, not just steemit, but also the world a better place. Thanks again for everything you do. :-)
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thank you so much, and for being so awesome yourself!!
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😊😊
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Bots having a whitelist is the future of the success of bots in my opinion - although I wonder whether other bots will follow suit? Whitelisting and checking blogs takes time, and time = money. However for the longterm success of Steemit it is in everyones interest to ensure more quality control of what is being upvoted by bots.
Maybe there could even be random checks of posts that are being bidded on - if they are pagarised or not up to a certain standard then the upvote could be declined and no upvote given - this might be to subjective though, but it would make people think more about what they are trying to buy votes for!
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glad u agree! thank you for your comment!
My feeling on what would be BEST for Steemit to take things forward in a positive way is:
People with high voting power can delegate to one or even better, several 'new age bots' that whitelist (as well as curate manually! .. read on).. Delegators can choose bots that promote niche content.. which would give bots much more meaning.. like the ecoTrain bot.. That would be much more intersting than all bots promoting more or less the same content.
Since bots make money its not hard to have someone either employed or rewarded to keep checking on the whitelist.. and I'm sure the community can self regulate plagiarism and bad posts organically.. SINCe that isn't a consideration or requirement right now no one does it..
So it is my GREAT vision right now that this approach could lead steemit in the right direction.. and would not require changing the rules of the game to try to fix the problems (and create new ones) that we have with them now..e.g. by increasing curation rewards to incentify manual curation!
Those with most Steem Power have WAY too much upvote strength to curate by themselves and NEED others to help them.. By using voting bots they can relieve the burden of that by delegating to people/bots that they respect and entrust to do the right thing.. which is what I am basically doing..
In my view we can have a win-win-win situation because
So in a sense it can be something like a hybrid of what Curie does combined with bid votes. That is why I offer 65% ROI to delegators so that a significant amount of the profits go right back in to curating organically. In fact this approach will IMPROVE organic manual voting as it puts a lot more voting power back into the hands of bot owners who will also be curators.
I realise many people who have read my post really DON'T understand all that I have said.. or the power and potential of whitelisting.. @smartsteem get it, and I get it and right now we are the ONLY people doing this as far as I know..
With all the negativity around voting bots I HOPE I am able to get this message out.. that there is a way to make this system work so much better, .. but in my opinion the responsibility of doing that rests with delegators and bot owners and NOT the Steemit developers (@ned) .. I really believe in minimal rules and changes, and letting the community take things forward.
I DO believe in Steemit because it's full of amazing people.. and we have to be patient also and let it evolve.. IT takes TIME, and we have to just stay positive and see the AMAZING potential! Evolution takes time and can be ugly, but in the end can end up to be quite glorious!
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Love the idea! It does currently seem that bot owners dont take the responsibility that they should be and its having a pretty big affect - the way I see it that if they dont put the effort in and Steem falls down (if quality of posts being upvoted get worse, and thus people dont join invest) then bot owners are partly to blame.
I agree that whales have to much SP to manually curate properly and should be delegating to those that they trust can curte well - @curie does a fantastic job!
I wish there were more people on Steemit who thought like you! There needs to be a change in mindset where people are thinking about the longterm success of Steemit rather than just what profit they will make in the next week/month - with the whitelist content quality on trendint etc will go up - which will lead to more potential users and investors which will increase the price of Steem - Happy days for everyone :)
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SO happy you agree ;-) thanks for inspiring me to write this comment!
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I personally am not a huge fan of vote bots and I have never used them until you created the Ecotrain one, the reason I use it is because it is a community minded bot, it is was created with the idea to help the ecotrain community and also the global community at large as it will go towards helping to finance sustainable building projects and on top of all that you are now using it to help minnows get the recognition they deserve when they write good content, I will not be using another bot but I am very happy to using yours, I see it as a great way to support the steemit community. Thank you @eco-alex for being you and doing all you do xxx
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thanks for the recognition and support! very happy that wonderful people like you use it to help us all .. <3
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Yay, the advent of the new ethical bots have arrived.
I fully support what you are doing @eco-alex and being able to help and encourage minnows to stay the course, especially as the ones you pick have value to share and deserve to be seen by more people.
I think the whitelisting idea is awesome and solves a whole host of bot problems.
And I am careful not to upvote the few competition entries or low content posts I do, only the good stuff, so a little self-regulating still required.
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you rock @hopehuggs! xx <3
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Love the idea of whitelisting to prevent the voting bot being used to promote terrible posts. Kudos to you, @eco-alex, for fixing the very real problem of bot abuse.
I wish more bot creators would take that idea and run with it, as that would seriously curtail all the junk posts we have to wade through in order to find the gems. There is SO MUCH great content on Steemit, but it is time consuming trying to find content worth reading.
I really appreciate all your efforts on behalf of the Steemit platform, and particularly for helping newbies, as I have no doubt we regularly lose great people posting great content simply because they are being drowned out by the noise.
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thank you .. happy you appreciate this endeavour! Im so happy to support amazing people on Steemit and make everyone smile ;-)
much love!
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Great job addressing the negative aspects of bots and remedying them with ecotrain bot! Can’t beat a positive ROI and high quality posts from a group of people making the world a better place. That’s a sweet offer Alex to share your expertise. Thanks for thinking bigger than yourself. Your minnow support is very inspiring!! Well done; so glad you’re here!
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Thank u so much mountainjewel!
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Excellent post Alex, great project too. It seems as though bots are here to stay. Many bots are used to upvote low value posts - that cant be changed, but if there are enough whitelist bots, like ecotrain, upvoting and supporting quality posts, then they could help over shadow the low value bot upvoted posts. With all the quality original content posts upvoted by ecotrain, it is a tag and bot that I am proud to use. The 11% ROI makes it a win win. Many thanks to @eco-alex, the ecotrain delegators, and everyone on steemit supporting quality content.
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thanks a lot for your kind words and support @jackdub!
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Respectfully, I was with you until you mentioned limiting ROI and got a little anti-capitalistic. While I agree that wild, savage capitalism can do much harm and may eventually destroy the steemit economy if left unchecked, I disagree with your strategy. I would like to grow my account. So would others. The responsibility to help others does not rest solely on you, it rests on all of us who feel the same sadness you do. Wouldn't the entire system be better off if there were more people in position to help, instead of just a few benevolent bot accounts? I may not have all the answers, but please consider another approach. Perhaps your bot can provide 100% ROI up to a certain account value, then it drops? Why wouldn't that work? In any case, I do believe you have noble intentions and I wish you the very best outcome.
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thanks for your respectful comments and question.
From my perspective it seems to be that I am doing just as you suggest. By limiting ROI to delegators I am able to take SOme of the rewards and pay them forward to other minnows, as well as support external projects that can be quite impactful in the world...
By giving some of these rewards to others who have no ability to grow since they don't have SBD or support.. I am able to help them grow their accounts and be in a position to upvote other people and spread the wealth a little bit more..
The way I see it that this is therefore putting more people in a position to help as otherwise they would not receive the upvotes and support that I am able to give them.. I am helping dozens if not 100s of minnows get more SP!
You can see in yesterdays post I was able to give significant upvotes to 41 minnows last week, and as a result they are empowered.. You can see that post here:
https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/pay-it-forward-minnow-support-project-week-3-41-minnows-supported
I am not anti capitalistic.. but I believe that 100% ROI is more than necessary and causes a lot more inequality on Steemit.. especially since many delegators who will receive those rewards may well not spread it out.. and indeed even remove those rewards from steemit.
Bare in mind that anyone investing their money in the normal fashion would be more than happy to receive 15-20% returns per year.. so even with a less ROI on delegation i feel that it is still an incredible return that will also give Steemit a much better reputation amongst none investors..
I hope I understood you right and that makes some sense!
very best to you @nofiat!
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Thanks for the reply. I am happy to disagree on tactics and methods while agreeing on goals! I guess I'll come find you when I've grown my account sufficiently enough to feel I can make a meaningful impact on others. God Bless!
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sure! i see you write some great posts! whilst i cant upvote them from my account (my vp is getting VERY LOW) if you tag ecotrain you could get some pay it forward upvotes from the @ecotrain bot and that will help your account to grow and get some more engagement..
<3
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I will keep that in mind and I really appreciate the compliment!
Thanks!
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what about us ??????
we dont have much steem power nor do we have dollars 😥 ...
would someone upvote us ????
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Yes! That’s exactly what I do with rewards and the minnow support project!
Please see my latest post for more info
https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/pay-it-forward-minnow-support-project-week-3-41-minnows-supported
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You xactly doing the same .... wow .... m stunned ......
Would Love to be among those who get your rewards and you would surely get my blessings .......
Go @ecoTrain Go
#peace #blessings
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thanks!to get rewards you DO need to post.. i notice you havent posted anything yet.. perhaps consider writing a little?
very best of luck to yoU!
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This is really nice Alex, as soon as I have a little more than 500 (undelegated) steem power I will delegate some!
I think like you on the whole capitalistic greed that makes you upset... I'm not against capitalism, but I am against greed and the lack of care for others some people have in that matter. There is plenty to go around, so let's please take only what we need. We can think about future generations again... I'm going a bit into a different direction (food, nature, healthy world) but it's a similar kind of thought!
I love that you're looking to build an off grid community in Europe, next time we're there maybe we can land a hand if you have found the property, that's what I live for! Sister communities, perhaps one day?
Great post and thank you for the eye opener on the pros and cons of voting bots. I think the way you are doing it may be the way to go for sure with them.
Cheers
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Thanks mate! I hope to be a part of helping you get tonthe 500sp! Steem on brother!
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Steemin on!!! I just got over it, thank you @Eco-Alex! I'll work on that promise soon!
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Amazing that there are initiatives like this. I can only thank you because you generously contribute your time and energy here. SO THANKS!
I actually only use resteem services to gain followers. I see it as a small investment with the ultimate goal of obtaining a little visibility of my posts. I have bad experiences with voting bots (ethically, it just didn't feel right).
The feeling started when I realized that more than half of my followers are probably bots (man, I was so naive). you can imagine how demotivating this felt. You become skeptical. You see hundreds of posts coming back with the same message: how do you become successful on Steemit? Give me 1 SBD and I will resteem your post. How do you increase your visibility? Etc. Everything centered around one specific word: money. Money is what brings people together here. And then I ask myself the question: aren’t we creating the devil himself? Innocent looking 'likes' already have such a huge impact on society. Replace those 'likes' with the word 'money' and you get a very dangerous combination.
But then you realize that you only have a bad day and that a lot of good happens on this platform. You just have to use it in the right way. There are tons of creative, loving, respectful and smart people here. You just have to find them.
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Can't agree more. Sometimes I forget that Steem is still in its infancy and will require a lot of changes until it gets to something most people are happy with. It's trying to solve a problem that I don't think many people appreciate as being incredibly complex.
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yes, well said.. EXACTLY!
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i understand what you are saying.. it can be really frustrating dealing with the dark side of things.. and thankfully there is SO much light and amazing people here doing fantastic things that it really changes everything.. we just have to find them!
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Very Good arguments for both sides of the house, you always out a lot of well thought out content in your posts.
Resteeming to share the love.
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THANK YOU! glad you noticed ;-)
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Hi @eco-alex, I'm certainly new to Steemit, since March of this year and I can not spend much time reading the published articles. This information is excellent. Thank you!
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cheers! and welcome to the party! Best of luck to you! keep posting and engaging and you'll have a great time!
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Hi @eco-alex , nice to hear about your project and the idea of whitelist . Can you tell me how do i apply to approve me as a white list user? i do not copy any content of others, try to write as far i know. i write about my life , technology, website features. if you get time then please do check and consider as a white list user. Thanks in advance :)
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you just ask, and i will check.. ill get back to you soon @aaarif! please join us on the ecotrain discord group so we can communicate there further. thanks a lot!
https://discord.gg/9pzkCTm
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Hello all. I'm kinda new to this. Bit of an old fart trying something new. I was thinking about using bots to upvote posts and starting to look at that side of steemit as I'm unsure if it's better not to use them and try and grow naturally. Or give them a try to gain real followers. I've been doing Dtube fishing & boating videos and only recently figured out @ginabot. I've now realised that some of my followers are bots. How disheartening. I'm at that point. I feel that the time spent editing and filming is a waist of time. (I think one video made it trending once. Not even sure how. )
Anyway as you describe in your post some of these bots are not good to use. Which leaves an old fart like me confused. Maybe I should try them to gain a few fellow fishermen followers.
Any advice steemians ?
Also any way of getting rid of bot followers. Or should I leave them ?.
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😂👌😁
To be honest my friend, if you're serious about your video creation and other form of content marketing, you shouldn't be using this platform as your main home. Anything can happen in a matter of weeks. You'll never know how long this platform can survive.
By that time, when all witnesses are gone for good, you'll have no way of recovering your contents you've crafted for hours or even days.
YouTube was and still is the best platform for video content while Medium for written ones. Upload your creations on there before sharing it here to tell search engines which one is the original material.
They might be centralized platforms but make no mistake they are far more stable than the Steem ecosystem with billions of funds at their disposal able to handle the twist and turn of internet disruptions.
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this is true.. for now! ;-)
the tide IS turning against youtube though.. and many who use dlive, dtube etc are BELIEVERS.. what you say is a WORST case and may never happen..
my main criticism of them right now is the lack of performance.. for the rest this is a new space and im watchin it!
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If the current trend is any indicator, please note that Alexa chart is not the same as cryptocurrency chart, Steemit is accelerating towards a downhill motion. For me, this pretty much says a clear indicator where this platform is heading. While YouTube is sitting pretty occupying the number two slot, second only to its big brother. The writing on the wall is crystal clear now.
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lets see! im in for the long haul! right now everything crypto is on a down trend... and i have to say that steemit is absolutely amazing with all its faults.. i see a bright future.. but hey im not a prophet
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Hello. Thanks for the heads up. I had figured that steemit may not survive in the same way, so have indeed recently started puting everything to YouTube aswell.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoLVezfHYg9BQnQoVjC_UxQ
I do what I do because I love doing it. If steemit or youtube took off would just be a bonus.
Any fishermen out there SUBSCRIBE. I need 1000 of them. Seems impossible right now. That's why I thought maybe get in there early with steemit.
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Please read this post I wrote which should really help u to understand.. boosting your video posts will help to gain more attention and authentic followers.... best of luck!
https://steemit.com/money/@eco-alex/a-primer-on-how-to-use-up-vote-bots-and-not-lose-money
Also bot followers dont hurt u at all.. the more the merrier!
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Interesting points, but I don't think better bidbots is what we really need.
I'm worried that bidbots break down the economic engine of Steemit by re-inforcing rent-seeking behavior that doesn't build out the community in other ways, and overall, bidbots ultimately devalues Steem and the platform.
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its a HIGHLY complex issue.. but i think it defiantly drives the desire to Buy Steem so that alone is a good thing.. better bid bots DO build out the community, like mine in many amazing ways.. so there is a LOT that can be said for them ... Further more,, people with high VP do not usually want to spend all day curating.. it is not possible also for 1% of the SP holders to even attempt to curate 99% of the posts in an ever expanding ecosystem. We NEED delegation and voting bots to allow the reward pool to be shared out.. previously there was WAY to much vote exchanging and self upvoting happening.. and those things are far less prevalent now..
more importantly if it werent for bid bots i could never have upvoted SO many minnows and encouraged them to keep posting!
thanks for your comment!
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The same could be said during the 2008 housing crisis when more and more people were driven to buy houses and an entire unsustainable economy was created over people chasing over-valued assets in unsustainable ways.
This is definitely an argument for distributing the VP around in a more equitable way. I think the bots are a poor way of doing that. They are consolidating voting power and then distributing it for a fee. This is just like the banks in 2008 that were happy to give mortgages to crappy lenders. Most bots are indiscriminately giving value to any posts, regardless of merit.
So, again, the banks (bots) are happy because they are selling loans (votes). The delegators are happy to fuel those loans because they are getting paid, and yet everyone is digging a bigger and bigger hole which is fueled by more and more people wanting to get into the Steem ecosystem - not for the content an community, but for the ROI provided by bots.
If Steemit really wanted to share the reward pool in a different way, we shouldn't need middle-bots taking their cut. I think it is a poor solution to a systemic problem.
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i appreciate your comments, but they don't really stand up against a guaranteed ROI and whitelisted people .. i.e. there is no 'fee' as you say if you make more back than you send..!?
plus
this bot is ALL about content and community.
I DO wonder if you REALLY read this post from your comments?
do u have a better idea?
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Please keep in mind, I'm not commenting against your bot, specifically. I'm glad you are taking steps to try to make bots a bit better. They obviously aren't going away any time soon, and I appreciate that people taking positive steps within the bot world.
In general, I do think Steemit should discourage bots overall.
Below are some possible corrective ideas:
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thanks for these ideas.. its been a Long day so pls excuse me for not continuing this thread right now.. THANK U for your inputs!!!
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After experimenting with it, I've realized bid bots will spell doom for steemit. Individuals are delegating to earn more money rather than curating. No amount of argument can justify it.
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i think i have covered that in this post! individuals cant curate all day long so they really need to delegate.. so using whitelisted bots is great way to ensure votes are well placed!
Meanwhile i also upvote every day from my own account .. as well as use my own money to send upvotes using my bot to minnows who need support for free as part of my minnow support project
more info on that here:
https://steemit.com/ecot/@eco-alex/pay-it-forward-minnow-support-week-2-28-minnows-supported
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So people can get vote when you like them otherwise no?
Supppsely I don't like urban lifestyle, so because of I'm not agree with urban lifestyle they won't be on my white list, right ?
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well, i get a general sense of whether people are posting something decent or whether they seem to just be posting to reap rewards. Those who are posting well get whitelisted if they ask.
The theme that @ecotrain really supports is
"Things and people that make the world a better place".
It is quite a broad topic and I don't really censor any specific topics.. but rather encourage good posts that are well written and add value to Steemit or the world.
Im afraid to say that you are someone who, for example, i would not whitelist as you just post ONE image that is grabbed from the internet (copyrighted) and don't write anything.
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someone is finally taking these up.Kudos
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so how do i start?
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well you dont have enough Steem Power to delegate as you need to keep at least 50 so you can post and comment.. You can join us in discord to ask to be whitelisted
https://discord.gg/9pzkCTm
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that true i did more animation 3D and this take from me more time to do that but i take few or not upvote , this good idea to do more
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Very interesting, I congratulate you!
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I think the concept of whitelisting is a great one for sure!
Very simply stated, it should not be possible to gain more than the inflation rate of Steemit by simple delegation. The reason this is possible is because we have a lot of passive accounts that are very big, e.g. SteemIt, Ned, etc...
That means that the reward pool is much bigger than the inflation rate.
My main problem is that i see huge SP accounts that are taking advantage of that and many of them i would classify as bad players. I delegate all of my SP now to 100% bots to avoid them taking all that extra initial money and because i consider myself a good player in the long term.
I agree 100% that curation doesn't make any sense with the current reward distribution towards curation. A zillion Steemians have proposed to raise that curation % and it would solve so much but it just doesn't happen. I am waiting on the next HF since i joined, it is just ridiculous and i hope the coming competition will wake up the Steem Devs
Good luck with your bot though, it is for sure different and your minnow support is also a fantastic initiative.
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thanks for your inputs Bub! i think voting bots deal with the problem of curation rewards .. BEST because i don't think raising the 25% curation reward any more is fair to people who create content!
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Opposite, there would be incentive to vote again and good content creators would get more valuable votes again.
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Speaking as a good contect creator, who has been a writer for decades and spends a LOT of time on my content, my typical post still makes less than a dollar, and I've been posting daily for over four months.
Cutting our already pitiful rewards is NOT going to promote good content, it will simply inspire more content producers to give up on Steemit, meaning that you'll have nothing to upvote.
Where will your curation rewards come from then?
It makes far more sense to expand the rewards period back to 30 days, rather than the current 7 days. 30 days is still light, especially for evergreen content, but it was far more fair to those providing content, as the platform can't exist without us.
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I agree with the 30 days
Rewards for content producers were a lot higher before the bid bots came as curation was the only way to get some return for steemians with loads of steem power. The steemians with no time were following curation trails like @curie whose 1 vote would be +100$ because of that. I was voting away 20$ a day and i spent an hour a day doing so. Now i get 20$ a day and i don't have to spend 1 minute, huuray for the bid bots? Hell no, i truly don't like them but my philosophy is going the easy way as water does. Bid bots away or more curation and we are back giving votes which would all go to you, the content creator. Believe me, you would be better off with one of these ways.
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Ah well, it will sort itself out in the end, one way or the other.
There have been a lot of changes just in the short time I've been on the platform, so it will be interesting to see what the "final" version is when they finally roll it out to the masses, and we cease to be in beta.
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what you say is absolutely spot on.. VERY few people have enough time to curate.. so we NEED bid bots..
what IF bit bots were all whitelisted and niche.. and delegators sent some SP out to the ones they respect. at.. got back 80% or whatever and EVERYONE is happy! WHen you build in ROI to the bots (like mine which is 11% firm), people will happily bid on them to get upvotes.. and they can STILL get random upvotes as we see now..
you see the numbers surely.. even 1000 whales cannot ever keep up curating 100,000 people.. so we must have delegation, and i believe bit bots to address this issue.. This then is a win-win-win rather than doing things like elevating the curation rewards which i agree with @crescendoofpeace is a terrible idea! It makes way more sense to let curators make way more from taking rewards from bids..
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opposite because people will be incentified to vote instead of writing great content..
note that there is way more voting than good posting happening!
go TRY find good posts in the NEW feed!
whereas voters get amazing rewards now if they delegate to decent bots..
manual voting with high VP is a rare thing on steemit because its a full time job
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So where can we be whitelisted?Where can we use the @ecotrain service?Any link?
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you basically just ask.. most people who ask are already in our discord group..
you can use the service at www.steembottracker.com or just send $1.2 of SBD or less with a memo as the URL of your post to promote.
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Ok,so could you please check my blog if it is eligible to be whitelisted?And what is your discord link?
I'm just checking your Current ROI -60.50% ??
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i have checked and you have been whitelisted..;-)
please send any amount less than 1.2SBD to ensure an ROI of 11%
Also please read this post to learn more about using voting bots
thanks!
https://steemit.com/money/@eco-alex/a-primer-on-how-to-use-up-vote-bots-and-not-lose-money
Today there was some kind of glitch and the bot got stuck, and it caused this -ROI. I sent the affected person a free upvote from my own account to compensate.. The bot isn't always perfect! if you do have problems you can let me know and I will always assist. we are working to fix a few bugs in the system as im the first to whiltelist!
thanks!
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Will do a little experiment right now.Just sent 1 SBD to @ecotrain with a URL,can't wait to see the math :-)
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ok.. it might be playing catch up on the glitch.. lets see..
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still -60%
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ive sent you a refund as the glitch is taking 2 rounds to fix itself.. My bot programmer has promised to fix this problem asap...
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I see the refund,thank you.
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Hi @eco-alex.
Could you please whitelist me on @ecotrain?
Thank you very much!
A big hug from @amico!
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I must say that I'm pretty happy with the bots except for one that did vote after I paid the service fee..
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i think you mean one that did NOT vote back!?
Normally they perform well.. but sometimes they glitch out!
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exactly..
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Plz upvote back
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pls write good comments first!
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Perfect xx ;)
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Hey Eco-Alex,
I have a question....
Why do I need to leave 50SP in my own account before delegating my SPs to EcoTrain?
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Because u need Steem power to give u bandwidth, which is needed to post and comment more than once a day.. else u will get a message that u cant post!
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Well you don't need 50SP to make comments.
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it depends how many comments you make.. as far as I know yes you do!
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ive had a look here
https://steemd.com/@greenbeans
and it seems you have LOADS of bandwidth even with 20SP.. so maybe you dont need SO much.. i thought you needed 50 to give you enough but it seems even 10 or 20 SP is sufficient..
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ok thanks!
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what i have to here......
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just type ecotrain there .
thank you!!
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ive just checked and you barely have any SP so please don't delegate! best to keep 50 or more for yourself so you can post and comment
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Good exposition! Its a great project you're undertaking. Welldone
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All aboard the @ecotrain!! :P
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Very helpful explanation @eco-alex! Thank you!
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Me parece increíble tu manera de pensar en pro de la comunidad de steemit, saber que existen personas como tu me hace querer seguir adelante en la plataforma, ojalá pudiera delegar algo al @ecotrain pero mi SP es bajo, pero me gustaría unirme.
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gracias por las palabras tipo! Si puede publicar en inglés, siéntase libre de usar la etiqueta #ecotrain. Entonces puedo apoyarte un poco y tratar de ayudarte a obtener Steem Power. ¡La mejor de las suertes!
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Have you discord channel?
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yes it is here
https://discord.gg/XwAmRWW
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Congratulations @eco-alex!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:
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So you buy 153$ Votes (not including @smartsteem's 80$ bid-bot vote) from Smartsteem.com - which is one of the early adapters of whitelist-only vote buying and you don't even have the decency to mention it?
That's not very eco-like.
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to save you the bother of actually checking that you can look here and search smartsteem on the page..
https://steemit.com/money/@eco-alex/a-primer-on-how-to-use-up-vote-bots-and-not-lose-money
omitting them from this post is not intentional.. but just happened as these things do sometimes!
ps. i dont remember you patting me on the back when i DID big you up!
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that is true.. but i was referring to steembottracker .. smartsteem are amazing.. i have NO issue bigg'ing smartsteem up! and have done so on other posts i have made on this subjet.. hey im not perfect what to do!
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I understand. Then for the next time, when you're doing such a big advertisement post and promoting it with Smartsteem: writing something of the lines of "ecotrain is a whitelist only voting-bot similar to Smartsteem.com" is totally sufficient. It's not about advertisement, but about ethics.
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ive edited this post.. to include a reference to you guys..
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Love your bot!
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and my bot loves you too! ;-) <3
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I'm delighted to see that your bot only upvotes quality content. We need more bots to switch to a whitelist system. I know that some bots have a blacklist.
The explanation of your bot and the process is clear and concise. I read that Jerry Banfield shut down his bot and is switching a new system. But, his explanation of the process was confusing. It also sounded weak as to the issue of improving quality.
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thanks! yes jerry has been working hard to simplify it.. hes now stopped the ICO JBC coin.. and is just doing delegation with upvotes.. he JUst posted on it and its crystal clear now!
https://steemit.com/steem/@jerrybanfield/delegate-for-10x-daily-upvotes
thanks for the support!
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Hi @eco-alex.
Could you please whitelist me on @ecotrain?
Thank you very much - a big hug from @amico!
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hey amico,
ive had a look at your posts and they are mostly about The @blocktrades World Cup.. which may be important to you but are very short and dont really fit with this bot.
best of luck!
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Thanks for the reply.
I'll try again when I'll produce some more "quality post".
However, I point out that I do not consider football or the World Cup at all: I participate only to make myself uniform to the crowd! ;)
A friendly hug from @amico!
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