We have all seen the rise in power of the dark schemes that are selling their votes. @randowhale, @booster, WhaleShare come to mind first, but I am probably missing a few. These exploits work for a simple reason: you get an about equal return on your investment 7 days later, and as an added bonus you get more exposure in the hot / trending tabs, which usually results in even more generic upvotes/money. Fantastic...
I'm sure I'm not alone to believe that we need to reduce these exploits. And offering a better, more honest alternative could be a solution. The promoted tab in steemit.com is supposed to be what people use to promote their posts. Many users probably don't know it, but the price you pay to promote, gets burned. This is a good, sane way to promote posts on STEEM, and it grows the reward pool. Today, instead, people use the vote-selling bots that give a better near- instant return on investment.
Introducing @promoted
I ended up doing this because my genius friend @fabien recently created the account @promoted, and was looking for someone to run a voting bot with a twist... Instead of selling the votes, it upvotes if you promoted your post normally and burned your SBDs. The bot doesn't make any profit, it just boosts you if you burn money. As an added bonus, you also appear in the promoted tab!
Bot Details
- Maximum: 10 SBD burned => 100% upvote
- Minimum: 0.001 SBD burned => 0.01% upvote
Very easy to understand I believe.
EDIT: Actually, we are constantly changing the settings for the best, soon the @promoted account will post with more information
How to get upvoted by @promoted
Just use the promote button at the bottom right of the post you want to boost.
Step 1
Step 2
Voilà. You will receive your upvote within the next 10 seconds.
At the moment the bot upvotes give much less (about 15%) than the promotion amount. That's because @fabien delegated only 40K SP to the account, which is very low compared to other voting bots.
Helping the cause
- use post promotion instead of vote-sellers
- delegate SP to @promoted (feel free to contact @fabien about it)
- run your own similar bot -> github source
Current Delegators
| Delegator | Time | VESTS | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| fabien | 2017-07-09T16:07:51 | 81522927.660326 VESTS | 0.43209491860150334 |
| robrigo | 2017-07-10T17:42:33 | 5000000.000000 VESTS | 0.02650143551650834 |
| ekitcho | 2017-07-10T18:38:15 | 50000000.000000 VESTS | 0.2650143551650834 |
| arhag | 2017-07-10T19:35:00 | 52146098.000000 VESTS | 0.27638929071690493 |
If we manage to raise the power of @promoted, and offer a better alternative than the vote-selling bots for users, they will burn their SBDs instead of sending it to people manipulating the current hard-fork's weaknesses for profit. By using the promote button, the burned money will go back into the reward pool, to everyone.
As usual, feel free to comment about how this makes you feel, good or bad.
Ungreedy bot, that's cool! :-)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Would be cooler if they didn't misrepresent themselves as saying they make no profit when they very clearly make curation rewards while simultaneously condemning Whaleshares as "vote buying" when we only release the whaleshare tokens through contests and rewarding people who have benefited the community and the beyondbit token as a means of creating funding for various crypto projects by giving them tokens to upvote their posts and only make curation rewards too. Furthermore, since our tokens are only released to minnows participating in contests as a means of helping the community instead of whatever posts are being promoted which is clearly an effort to maximize those curation rewards I find the remarks about being not for profit incredibly deceptive.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
personally, I kind of hate the fact that promoted posts "burn" money. enough crypto is burned off already just by people losing their keys and such, so why "accelerate" the process. perhaps this made more sense when the annual inflation rate of STEEM was 100% or so annually.
I think I might appreciate the promoted feature more if at least those funds went towards perhaps some sort of community stake-weighted vote on how best to use the funds (projects, charitable efforts, etc). And by "happenstance", that's sort of what it seems whaleshares is trying to achieve! :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I'm just reading this now - I am new to all of this crypto stuff as well as to steemit. What does the term "burn money" even mean? Trying to learn and constantly lost here :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
as if you would destroy a dollar bill by burning it, you destroy crypto by sending it to an address (in this case @null) where it's basically lost forever, and cannot be used by anyone else.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
That is a completely new aspect of this world to me. Thank you for the explanation but I'm not sure I get the analogy.
Are you saying that @null will never spend it and so it is lost? Why will @null never spend it, or by what mechanism does he/she/it destroy it? How would that be different from someone who is just holding steem money of the various kinds without spending it to boost their power or whatever?
I'm not sure I understand how the money is created in the first place and this is another side to it. I really appreciate your replying. Thank you.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
because @null doesn't actually exist as a user, any money sent there is forever inaccessible to anyone! And that's also my point, it's no different than someone just holding STEEM, EXCEPT that they can eventually choose to spend it. Unless they lose their keys, of course, at which point it's also as good as "burned" (ie. completely inaccessible forever, or until quantum computers figure out how to crack it)!
Regarding money creation, think of the STEEM blockchain as a new sort of "blockchain government". And how do governments create money? They "print" it into existence, out of "thin air". That's basically what the STEEM blockchain does as well. However, it is done very precisely according to a specific algorithm agreed upon by the community and the witnesses they support.
All new STEEM and SBD go into the reward pool and are delegated according to the rules of the system. So, unlike say the Federal Reserve, each of us actually has a say in how that newly printed crypto money will be distributed to the stakeholders in the community! How great is that?! :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Anything that diversifies me out of fiat is fabulous to hear! This is why I am on barter platforms as well. Thank you for that very good information and I am pasting into my long doc of info to understand.
What is the benefit side of the destruction for null or for anyone else?
Why would null not want to spend the money?
How to you get to be a non-existent user in the first place?
Are many users non-existent like null, or just is this one or one of a few?
Why would this system allow the destruction or is there no way to stop it and that is just a risk in this type of currency?
So many questions!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
@null is having so much money at the moment that his wallet can't be even loaded :) :) :)
But i agree and i understand concept of @null, non-accessible account with wallet defined in config for steem blockchain.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
HAAHA Funny I BUMP into YOU here! Anyway, thanks for the explanation, so it is frowned upon by part of the community to use the upvote sellers it seems. I just realized how insanely easy it is to take advantage of and I was thinking of using vote selling to promote a guy on youtube to come to steemit with his 80,000 followers, if using vote bots helped me snag him and his 80k followers would that still be considered as a "net" negative to the community? I am essentially advertising that which is disliked by the author I think, but with the caveat that it potentially could strengthen the steemit user base hmmmmmmmm.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
And who is going to decide, where this money go ???
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
New steem is created every day and will be forever. Burning steem is just to put upword pressure on the price. When more is created, the value goes down, when more is burned, the value goes up. Of course, that is only the supply side of the equation. You have to factor in demand as well.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
^this
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks very good post !!!!
Awesome Work!
Keep it up!!!
@cryptoinvestinfo
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I like this !!!!!
I am celebrating 2002 followers and just gave 11000 SBD Back to @null and therefore to the community @edje
Just for a nice feeling to say thank you
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You kind of missed the decimal point haha
it was 11 SBD :D
grüße aus Wien
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Its great to see the vote bots diversifying and increasing competition in that space. A really interesting dynamic introduced by the last HF.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Cry me a rivier.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
randowhale is just one part of the problem, just the most charismatic one. There's others doing it, and there will be more, nothing can stop it. We shouldn't blame the people, we should blame the exploit and try to fix it.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Part of the problem, eh? Why is this? Because you didn't think of it first?
Also, just to note, your bot has had 0 effect on people using @randowhale. In fact, traffic has increased.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
STEEM's traffic is growing organically for a while now... And you advertise your service very well. I must say you anticipated HF19 quite well. I wouldn't have been able to do it myself because I don't have an absurd amount of steem power, and I don't think my friends or other current delegators would delegate power if it was a greedy bot like yours.
Please though as I said before, don't blame the people. I never attacked you, or anyone directly through my article, so I hope you are not taking it too personal. STEEM changes a lot and I'm sure you would find another better way to use your power once we get rid of the current vote-selling exploit.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The fact that you call it an "exploit" is absolutely ridiculous and shows your blatant ignorance of how the platform works.
Again, you sound like you're just sore because you didn't come up with the idea and don't have the SP to support it. Your jealousy is not flattering.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
^ Exactly
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It's a great job..........
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
For the record, Whaleshares doesn't sell votes. We don't sell anything. We are a community and only release the whaleshares token through contests and by rewarding people who have helped us. Beyondbit was created purely to fund various projects and aren't "sold" or traded on the exchange by us either. The tokens that are traded on the exchange are ones people acquired through these means that chose to trade them. We believe in libertarian free-market capitalism so decided that they are free to do with them as they wish. All we get out of it is curation rewards so essentially it is a means of delegating curation while creating synergy between Steem and Bitshares, 2 similar blockchains with different use cases that we love. With that in mind, saying that this doesn't earn a profit when it will clearly make profit off curation rewards is also misleading. I see no problem delegating the curation of your SP to benefit the community as this is exactly what we are doing too and think this is a wonderful idea that might actually get people to use the promotion feature. Would have been nice if you didn't condemn us as "vote selling" when we have never sold a single token and promote yourself as "non profit" when you are earning the same curation rewards we are though.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Many good points here
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Very, very good idea for 4 main reasons.
The promote feature is not that great and is haphazard, you can spend 50 SBD and get nothing in return.
It was very difficult to tell exactly HOW the promote button helped your post.
It was underused because of the above two points.
This initiative now gives people a reason to use promote, plus there is direct correlation with their investment and the vote they get.
In its first incarnation, @randowhale was great, because 2 SBD, even at the lower end of the voting power, gave a good return. However now it seems unlikely that you will even get your 2 SBD back.
Anyway, I'm not against vote buying, but I am for fairness, and that's why I like this, is it is fair, and at the same time helps the overall system.
Well done!
Cg
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yeah i just used 1 dollar and it was all i had and only got .35 cent... the randowhale is much better.. but its like sustainability you gotta make sacrifices..
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I don't know if I agree with your opinion on the good/evil that these vote selling bots present. I'm curious to know why it's any worse than any of the other things that happen surrounding whale accounts with large votes.
Why do you see these as a problem? How is it any different than whales voting for their friends constantly, huge curation trails, or gratuitous self voting?
At the moment I'm fairly indifferent on the morality of selling votes/voting power/delegation, and interested to see how the markets evolve. I however don't see anything worse happening now than in the past year.
Edit - Just to add a comment about this bot itself - glad to see the others getting more competition and you've got a nice twist. I do however think the post promotion system is somewhat worthless - and I doubt anyone even really reads it for the most part. Would love to see data on trending page views vs promoted page views.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I believe the vote-selling to be less of a trouble than past exploits (voting games for example), but it is one nonetheless. It is unnecessary service that only exists because a hole in the system exists. @randowhale added a random factor in the thing, which was smart, but I don't believe people use it for gambling when there are dozens of more entertaining gambling methods online.
Self-voting/friend-voting is easy to detect and is a consequence of the brutal change on the last fork. It's pretty bad in my opinion but it can be fixed easily by changing back to another non-linear reward, or something 50% HF18 + 50% HF19. Community can point fingers too but I don't think this is a viable long-term solution, we don't want to have useless contents just to 'flag' abusive users.
Curation trails I'm unsure about it. I don't think it's great for promoting the best contents but in the end this is how the world works... L'union fait la force. Still, I don't use it personally.
About the exploits on STEEM, I believe that this will be an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. We improve the mechanics of the STEEM game with updates, then someone will find a new exploit, until we find a solution and make an update, for someone to exploit again.
It is very similar to online game cheats that need to perpetually evolve to not get detected, and how anti-cheats need to perpetually improve their detection as well.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi mate, sorry that comment suggests a real ignorance of market mechanics. Voting bots exist and are incredibly successful because they are necessary ie because there is an incredible demand for them. The fact is, it is incredibly hard as a Minnow on Steemit, HF19 may have even made it worse as people sit on their VP now. For many people just starting out, the only way to get anything from a post is from a voting bot.
Having said that, I think people milking the voting bots for every drop by upvoting their own comments is a real problem. This is why we introduced the selfgoat on MinnowBooster. If you are upvoting your own comments, people are going to see a picture of a goat licking it's own ____ all over your comment section.
At the end of the day, a post can only get a single vote from any one bot. I think comment upvoting in general is a much bigger problem and drain on the rewards pool, and should be removed all together and replaced with a tipping system.
Either way, I think this bot from @fabien is a really cool idea and finally makes the Promotion feature actually worth using. We welcome the competition.
Full disclosure: I am a mod on MinnowBooster Discord server and have around 170 Steem invested in the project and 200SP out on delegation. I earn a daily slice of revenue from my invested Steem and daily dividend payments from my delegation.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well said. I'm still not sure I'm concerned with people selling votes (it's probably the best incentive to power up I've seen to date...), but I understand where you're coming from.
Best of luck with the new bot and it'll be interesting to see how this all unfolds :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is what I've been saying since the first time I saw Steemit. The promoted posts feature is a complete waste of money due to the current way it's setup. If they want anyone to put money into that, they need to figure out a way to get eyeballs on the promoted posts. You're better off running a Facebook ad to a post and having an outside monetization method on the post to make money from it then you are throwing away SBD on a promoted post here. Maybe if they made promoted posts as sticky posts in the trending section then you'd see people pumping more money into using it. Or make the default page after you click a tag go to the promoted section instead of trending.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I tend to agree with @jesta to be honest, but this really could work if you were to get a mega crap ton of steem power behind it. I'm willing to try it just to see how it plays out, and you do get the added bonus of being on the promoted page, but I think the attraction of the other bots is not only the instant return but that it is (potentially) worth it. I just promoted my post for 10sbd and got a (just barely over) $1.00 upvote from @promoted. There will likely be some residual votes from being on the promoted page, but that probably was me literally just burning my money. Most people (especially noobs who don't have anything to burn) are not gonna be into that. I'm curious to see how this progresses though, I think in general it's a good idea and a good thing for the platform.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I agree with you, but I cannot fund this myself, I'm far from being a whale. Anyone can delegate SP to the account to help the cause (or run the bot yourself)
A lot of people were already using the promote feature regularly, we just gave it an extra boost. It isn't much yet, but it's better than nothing in my opinion.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I like your bot! I will start using promote feature now!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I used these bots weeks ago, and I can tell you that I'm at the bottom i have a loss, do not waste your time and money making the rich richer. Thank you for this wonderful initiative, unfortunately there is no way to stop these bots unless some pretty influential whales take action. Yet steemit is a decentralized network and it is normal for people to provide such services, the only way to stop them if we do not buy these votes.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I couldn't agree more. For the current state we just want to offer a saner alternative to greedy bots. If they disappear, I would see no reason to keep running @promoted.
If any whales want to help, they can delegate SP to the @promoted account. We are making a public list of the delegators and will give the curation rewards back to delegators.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I used this now.. It's cool!! @heimindanger
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Where upvotes from promouted bot?
https://steemit.com/@promoted
I made several translations, but 0 upvote!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Awesome it is a very good idea from @fabien to improve the value of Steem in the long term.
However, I think the most important improvement is to give a custom vote close to each user's SBD burning. If someone is burning 4 SBD he or she deserves to receive an upvote close to that value. Calculating it is already possible and as long as SP pool allows it , that could be used.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
............... you for real , is the 5th things like this i see today ... ! All of you pretend is non profit but when i told the last one go lend some more vote power he told me ,,,,is not profitable ! You are free to do whatever you want with your power ( USE IT , SELL IT , DONATED IT ) just dont try to get advantige making everyone else to look bad ....................
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Think you are right patelincho! SirKnight.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks for stopping by my post @heimindanger. I came by and glad I did thanks for the info! @coffeedrinker51
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hey there. Is there an issue with the bot? I've had 2 instances where I've burned at least $1 and gotten no vote from it. I just spent $1.297 and haven't received a vote for my most recent post after a few hours now. I'd appreciate any info you can give, I'm just genuinely curious if there's a specific time where the bot stops for a bit or anything like that. Thanks!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I just fixed a bug, the @null account received an unprobable transaction that wasn't a transfer... And it threw an error as it should have. In my mind the @null account could only have transfers. I fixed the bug, reran the bot from where it stopped and the missing upvotes were all done.
By the way the unprobable transaction was interest on 0.000 SBD. Weird
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Great post, @heimindanger. But I don't really understand what you mean by: "Burning money". What happens when we pay to promote our content? I think it just goes to a user on Steemit which is called: Null
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
null means nothing. This @null account automatically destroys any money that is sent to him. Nobody can control this account or do anything with it.
That's the STEEM blockchain mechanism for 'burning money'. Any burned money, get reprinted shortly after in the form of author rewards / curation rewards / witness rewards.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
@heimindanger What is the best amount to promoted, to get some result on promoting ? Thanks @coffeedrinker51
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you for posting @heimindanger.
Just tried the promoted feature you have explained above and for one SBD....the post recieved about twenty-five cents.......not too good....what should bleujay do differently next time?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
At the moment the bot doesn't give a positive return on investment. We lack sufficient STEEM Power to do that. Just think of it as a bonus on your promotion :-3
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
great work bro
although there 're few points to optimize to make it a killer concept to contribute to the ecosystem and economics while promoting content
the
Maximum: 100 SBD burned => 100% upvote Minimum: 0.001 SBD burned => 0.01% upvote (rounding up) Very easy to understand I believe.part is not working in my pov.There s a voting power issue considering the bot activity it could rapidely go to null and a 50%vote with 100%power could be more efficient than a 100%vote with no voting power left.
This model can definitely be improved
Delegators should have an incentive to delegate their power to @promoted
this incentive could be just a top-ranking list for delegators (fame), or even an economic incentive with shared curation rewards
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yes that's fair, we will give curation reward back to SP delegators.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hello @fabien, I've tried the promoted button on two posts. The first time it worked but the second time it didn't do anything... I put in 10 steem dollar but nothing happened. I checked nulls account and saw that he received the money.. do you know what could have went wrong? I think I am not the only one with this problem though.. thanks in advance.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
There shouldn't be bot voting and voting trails and steemvoter. Is this social media or robot media?
Manual voting and manual voting only is the way to fix the problem here.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I agree. This bot will be become useless once all the other greedy ones have disappeared ;)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
That ain't gonna happen. I promise you that.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I agree @vivacrownking, I'm so tired of everything being gamed on social "robot" media... I thought that was one of the reasons to create decentralized social media, to give the individual more freedom/an equal voice. I wonder whether it would be better to have every vote count as one vote equally, so it's less about who is voting and more about how many voted and in what time-frame (viral), using SMS verification to weed out multiple accounts, and some sort of algorithm to identify "voting networks" to limit groups of people from gaming the system on a consistent basis (a friend of mine belongs to a group who does this on Instagram). I think @heimendanger is doing good here and being transparent.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It's an interesting idea, I often promote my posts along with using @randowhale, so perhaps this will be a more affordable way to achieve the same effect since I'm only spending the money once, anyway best of luck.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yes, you are basically getting a better incentive to promote instead of using @randowhale since today, and we hope the incentive will keep on growing. Right now it's about a 15% discount on normal promotion.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Is it currently working now or planning to :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yes it is running
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi, I have no experience with randowhale, is the main attraction the lottery aspect of it or help in getting your post trending?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well, to be honest, I haven't used it in a while because they seem to have changed their algorithm. I used to always get between 20-50% votes which meant that I would always break even, and sometimes even make a few bucks, but recently I've only been getting <1% votes and thus stopped using it. So to answer your question it was the fact that I would almost always either break even or make a profit.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I donated a SBD to the cause and also tried the promote feature for another SBD
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
What has happened with this bot? Still running?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It feels more fair, adds value to the idea of promoting post and simplifies it. I think it's a brilliant idea. Resteemed.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Good idea! I try
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This bot is getting getting abused by @hrsagar and is totally drained. Check it out here:
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks for the info. I had coded a fix for this a while ago but totally forgot to pull it into production. Should be fixed now! I have set the minimum weight that the bot can vote at 0.5%, which is what lower votes give anyway.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
There is a need for queuing requests in a way that it doesn't exhaust the voting power below 50%. Yesterday it was around 20% and obviously it wouldn't satisfy people to use it over any other renting bot like randowhale. Also one user shouldn't be able to take away a lot of voting power for itself. Some suggestions so it wouldn't lose the competition with other bots :-)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hey I promoted my post with 10 sbd and only get 3 sbd upvoted, this is not fair vote
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I have had the exact same problem a number of times. This bot really needs a lot more SP if it's going to be able to meet the demand...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is the real altruistic bot guys. So glad I found it!!!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
If only the top promoted posts would get shuffled in to the trending tab - trending tab should start showing promoted posts every fifth spot. This is how other platforms handle it. Any opinions? Personally I never visit promoted.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Everyone who recognizes the problem, just should browse the promoted tag from now on. It seems to be on the right thing to support from now on!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I'm uncertain about it. For other platforms they usually take this decision for monetization reasons. Here, SteemIt.com or any platform that would implement this change wouldn't directly make money from it...
It's a complicated economic subject, I wouldn't be able to rationally argue about it, but I dislike the idea of the trending getting polluted by 'promoted'...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The ratio could be always tweaked. And the monetization would be the main driver here also except everyone would benefit rather than just the company itself. We can't ask users to "please browse promoted for support" -let's be real.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
For example dvery 10th spot could be reserved for top promoted posts in the trending feed. Wouldn't feel polluted. And they would be marked as promoted.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Innovative thinking, right there. Great suggestion, @igster!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Let me try this badboy out 😬🙌🏼
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
There you go! @stackin
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
@heimindanger... Feeling absolutely ripped off right now.
Your post says
"Maximum: 10 SBD burned => 100% upvote" - or is this something you're changing as per a couple lines later?
I promoted for $10.
I got a 33% upvote according to:
promoted upvote @badastroza/interesting-people-20-louis-castle-on-… (33.34%)
I see other user @raul3820 received a 50% upvote just two hours before. Why the discrepancy, and why such a massive drop in vote received compared to what your post says?
Surely a 100% upvote is a 100% upvote, not 33.34%?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hey @heimindanger - so, when can we get an update on how the bot is actually working? As I'm pretty sure I've not had a 100% upvote once, despite twice sending $10 is.
Here's my latest post
https://steemit.com/gaming/@badastroza/interesting-people-24-brian-fargo-and-scott-bennie-on-star-trek-the-25th-anniversary
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Sounds like a good idea to me! I will be trying this out. Thanks!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is an awesome initiative!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Great project I feel completely good about it @heimindanger
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Lol thanks for using my picture. Finally some fame! jk. Thanks for the notice though, that was kind of you
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
No problem you saved me a few minutes of time without even knowing ;)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
this is great !!! Why were you down voted !? 👍👍👍NEVER MIND ! I read and found out in the comments!
I use randowhale and booster a lot!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I promote anyway and just received this service. Thanks :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The @promoted bot is behaving strangely :
first I burned 1SBD to promote a post and I've got 5% vote,
than I burned another 0.1SBD and the bot updated its vote to 0.5%, not 5.5%
Here are the transactions :
https://steemd.com/tx/47817e8d5e6082c859a96ace1ad4cbc7a15ab763 (first burn)
https://steemd.com/tx/9b150c34bb541283016c66fe3e911d22a34f8c43 (first vote)
https://steemd.com/tx/4661a8d174096853d09e065252a8fb012ed9354b (second burn)
https://steemd.com/tx/5bb73754e6bb28affac2ee5825bfc4f0b0bea358 (vote update)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Great post ... a lot of science that I get after I read this article ... greetings success.
Follow @nafazul
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
this really is great thing
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi @heimindanger - where can I find more info about this bot and its current upvote rewards? I just promoted my latest post for 10SBD and received way, way less than what a 100% vote's value should be according to https://www.steemnow.com
When I check https://steemd.com/@badastroza, I see I only got a 33.34% upvote, so essentially running at a huge loss.
Would be great to hear from whoever runs @promoted (is it @fabien?) on how we can get greater returns. I'm happy to delegate some SP to the bot as well, as I like what it's setting out to do.
I am concerned though - in the case where almost everyone is promoting their posts, does it not mean very little benefit for those using it? And a reduction of SBD if the @null account really is just a black hole for any transfers sent there getting eliminated from the Steemit economy.
Thanks for explaining! :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
is @promoted still valuable? the voting power is too low
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
great idea i raise my hat for you:)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you for alternative
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi heimindanger,
I just read your excellent post from last month - would it be useful publicity for the cause if I cut and pasted/adding full credit to you and posting the story again?
thank you for excellent work!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
no problem my friend!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you heimindanger for your speedy reply ... is that a yes? or do mean no problem - not needed?
please clarify
all the best
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You can do it. Any type of promotion for @promoted is greatly appreciated. However, people will complain that 'its not worth it qq' because we are lacking the sufficient steem power to give positive return on investment, unlike other voting bots.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Ok heimindanger thanks!
Is there a solution in the pipeline to your low steem power? - perhaps to be delegated steem by the whales or even @ned?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I wish :((
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Haha ... have you asked? If you make the promoted category actually work I think they would be very interested in helping!
Thank you for all your work
keep well
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I haven't but I am sure the original article got a lot of visibility already. If they wanted to help they would have I think. I don't like asking people around and look like a beggar
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This Is Definetly A Great Idea, Although It Doesn't Seem To Be Very Profitable At The Current Delegated Power @promoted Has But This Bot Works Wonders For The Community Because Not Only You Get (Currently %90 ROI) But You Promote Your Post To More Exposure And The Burnt Money Goes To The Reward Pool :), Which Are Things That @booster And @randowhale Don't Offer !!!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Strange, I followed the instructions and promoted for 1.000 SBD, and no bot upvoted me afterwards. Is this still working? have I lost 1 SBD like an idiot?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Will there be any tutorial on how to set the bot up for your own account?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You check the source code I linked on github and if you already used node/npm you should have 0 problem getting it running in no time ;)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Alright, I'll be on it! Is it fine if I write a step-by-step setting-up guide for dummies?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Apparently, this stopped working for some reason @heimindanger? Shame......I'll go back to using @randowhale then.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
OK wanted to give this a go - as you promoted this it as some sort of community spirited initiative.
I just spent 2 SBD as an experiment - and it looks like I have been voted up a mere 50 cents worth? WTF??
Am I missing something or are you simply running a dodgy gambling bot like the others you claim to be more noble then heimindanger?
SirKnight.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hello friend ! Good 😊 luck !
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
https://steemit.com/@nx4440
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
wow
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
@heimindanger why i'm not getting votes form @promoted? did you guys change any settings to the bot's? when i promoted any content the amount will be deducted and send it to @null account but not received my vote form @promoted account so could you please let me know why??
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Step it down a little bit for new comers please...i will love to get a grip of what goes on in here any kind hearted human in here to assist a brother please???? thank you so very much in advance.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Dude, this is the kind of thing I was hoping for! Okay, it isnt perfect, but its still way better than the exploitative methods that seem to be the only way to make headway around here. Thank you!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Good idea, but just one thing. I have never bought votes from Whaleshares. You can win them
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
hope this helps me , i need to build up steem...@ chuxlouis come and cheeck out my posts i assure you ,u will never be dissappointed.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is a pretty interesting idea.
I'm looking forward to hear more from @promoted.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks for this post, I have been wondering about all these self voting bots
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Great idea to promote the internal functions by using this bot. This gives a double boost. Will try it out. 👍
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi - I didn't even know about this, but just promoted my post and saw the benefit almost immediately. There are lots of initiatives to improve visibility and as a newbie, you get sucked into trying them all out - It's hard to get noticed, so thanks for this great new scheme - Am a new fan - Thanks for your help with my post xxx
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Great idea! Unless I missed it though... I'm curious how it'll continue to work without additional support from Steemians. @randowhale works because it's constantly getting more and more power from payment, so the increased usage is offset by a larger voting share. As more and more people begin to promote their articles in order to get a vote from @promoted though, eventually the the vote won't be worth anything. They'll be burning 10SBD, but only getting pennies worth of an upvote. Right?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well recently I used randowhale and it didn't upvote almost at all! I was annoyed. So yes, I agree that we need something more.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is an interesting idea
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Good post and yes ungreedy as well.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
please guys do follow me and upvote me i'll do tha same
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Easier solution is to move promoted posts into the normal feeds of /trending ect. No one takes "promoted" seriously because it is paid advertising. Why would you look there? You wouldn't. Advertisers pay to have content displayed along with normal content, just like in Google search. This is the model that has been proven to work online, it's how "promoted" should function. You just run it like Adwords where the top couple spots get fed in promoted posts using an algorithm to cycle the right ones into it based on what people are paying.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks for sharing! Some info and a link to you post were included in the Steem.center wiki pages about Promoted Posts and List of Bots. Thanks and good luck again!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
good job, hope this works out. If I understand correctly we are all tiny stakeholders of steemit so a healthy platform is to our benefit.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I think this idea is brilliant. I often thought that the other voting bots were a bad idea, as you're just giving your money to other people to get rich. I hadn't had much luck with promoted before but I'll have to give it a try.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I tried using the promote button but it won't work for me
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I must admit using randowhale did seem a bit suspect, so from now on I am going to be doing it this way.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Nice. I've always promoted my posts, it just never really did much good. This is already way better IMHO. Thanks!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Now I don't usually agree with killing whales, but on this occasion I say let's turn rando into lipstick :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is absolutely brilliant. This is a great idea. I personally have never purchased an upvote and today I used the promote tab for my first time. Thanks for this and I hope that everyone uses this instead.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Support you
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Sounds like a great idea.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
you are a true altruist, good work
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Bots feel like a symptom to a greater problem.
That problem, in my opinion, is 'How do I get my content noticed?'
If Steemit could solve that problem independently, than we wouldn't need the bots to buoy up content by whoring out Steem Power.
Content discovery on Steemit is poor at best and non-existent at worst, which means every post has a very tiny window of effectiveness. Knowing that, many users boost themselves with bots.
Fix content discovery, and the bots will be less useful.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I think it's getting better with new apps using STEEM. Some will have search, and different discovery types than just new/hot/trending.
I think interest in vote selling bots increased with HF19 greatly.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi guys, I think your vote % is off. Its only voting half of what your post says.
Yesterday I did a $10 promotion and it only voted 50% and today a $5 promotion only did 25%.
This is half of what your above post says it will do.
Thanks guys.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The promote button doesn't show on my pages, what am I doing wrong ?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
interesting!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I don´t get the idea. If I spend money promoting a post of mine, I get my post listed in the promoted area for how long and how? And on top of that, I will receive an upvote from @promoted of how much and how? Man, is this Steemit world complicated!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I know, right :)
I believe the promoted tab posts to last for 7 days. And yeah, @promoted as well as myself (and hopefully more people in the future) will upvote you depending on how much money you burn. If you burn 1 SBD, you will get a 1% upvote basically. 5 SBD burned -> 5% upvote.
New users honestly don't need to worry about these bots or schemes. They shouldn't exist in the first place I believe...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Well, I beg to humbly differ... I was stuck in 45 for days, could not figure what else to do. And then, bum, I found @randowhale. I used a tiny fraction of the Steem I had (which I had not bought myself, had not cost me anything) and in a few minutes I had climbed to 47. I believe augmenting one´s reputation is essencial in this game, ain´t it?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I had never even considered that myself, as reputation goes pretty slow after 50...
But do you think it is normal that you can 'buy' reputation? I don't. Should people be allowed to make real money off it? Even less.
In the end, it's the whole users of steem who pay for these abuses, even if it's indirectly.
I've recruited a few people on steemit recently and as far as I know, none of them used the randowhale and they are doing decently well (see previous my article to find their names).
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You are right. It is pretty strange. But the selling of votes is the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a normal newcomer is dependent on the whim of a very very reduced group of people. If they first see his posts, then decide to vote them, he does well. If any of those two things does not happen, then he is stuck.
The initial idea that quality is the name of the game is very hard to believe. Success does not seem to be related with content at all. Does not matter what you write about, or how you do it. It´s just that you get some big guy to vote you. And the way the little newcomer has to achieve that is called @randowhale.
It´s not that I do not agree with you. It is funny to be buying votes. But it is a funny solution to a previously existing funny problem.
Excuse the philosophy. I just got carried away. I do appreciate your post and your concerns, and this post has been very useful to me.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is an interesting idea. I don't like promoting myself, it makes me feel weird, and I don't like the idea of buying votes either but I might give this a shot at some point.
Although, having said that I don't think I ever look at the promoted page and I doubt I'm the only one that doesn't look at it either, so promoting a post might end up being a bit of a waste, I don't know.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I would like to support your efforts @heimindanger and @fabien. How do I delegate SP to @promoted? I don't have much but I still can give what I can. Resteemed! Thank you for getting this info out, following you to stay updated :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You should follow @promoted, we will soon post with the account with more informations, including how to delegate to the cause easily.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! I will follow now ;)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I would like to delegate some SP to the cause, how would I go about that?
I think it's a good idea and I have been promoting the idea in this post
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations! Nice post @heimindanger. I agree 100%
Upvote and resteem :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is a great idea. I've been wondering about the long-term success of "pay for vote" systems when so much of the early days around here involved flagging posts which were trying to buy upvotes with giveaway promises and such. The promoted tab might become much more interesting with this bot around. I think I'll check it more often now. Thank you!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I like
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations @heimindanger! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about this award, click here
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks so much for info !
For a noobie like me, these posts are priceless.
Cheers! Upvoting and resteeming
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I'm trying @promoted! Great idea! Thank you.:)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Interesting - will have to try it out. SirKnight!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This I really like
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
For what its worth, a new user to Steemit is a likely target to services such as randowhale, which do a better job at explaining its benefits in simpler terms. Although this idea seems "sound" and a better alternative, its that lack of understanding that perhaps could be clarified in simpler terms. In short, maybe a follow up post directed at that user base (such as myself), that clearly defines the benefits, rather than comparing it against other methods like randowhale (causing confusion). Just my 2 cents.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I've burned cash by promoting. Where is this bot? What is the process? I don't see an upvote from @promoted. How does this work?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
nice post sir @ heimindanger
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I just read it toay, cool! I didn't know that randowhale is not nice, thx Edit: What is your opinion about crowdfundedwhale?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I used promote bottom and send 0.5SBD to the @null, but nothing happend
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Tried it, but didnt see an upvote.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Didn't work as far as I can tell. I didn't see any upvote from the bot yet.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit