Open Discussion: Fix Trending &amp; Stop Promotion Abuse

ats-david (74) · 6 years ago

How about we actually address the real problem: the blockchain protocols that created the current shit show?

HF17 (post reward penalty and 7-day payout), HF18 (delegation), and HF19 (linear rewards and 4x upvote) stripped away most of the mitigation/protections that were in place for identifying and dealing with spam and other abuse. Combined with a reduction in SP requirements for bandwidth, this place has gone full block-spamming with no accountability...and has actually made it lucrative.

Continually trying to treat what are symptoms of the disease rather than curing the disease itself is futile. If nobody wants to acknowledge or address the actual problems with the blockchain protocols that have created this mess, then there’s no point debating the useless “fixes” that people keep proposing.

We all know the problems. Very few people, if anyone at all, is identifying the source. I think maybe it’s time to stop kowtowing to STINC and the incompetent witnesses that do whatever STINC proposes. This blockchain and the culture here is currently f***ed. Don’t you think it’s time to reconsider its direction?

Korean pumps won’t last forever. At some point, people will need to grow a spine and actually DO something about the vast incompetence and ignorance of those in “leadership” roles who control the direction of Steem.

$8.29

https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemit-winter-update-2017-reflection-our-vision-statement-and-mission-and-a-look-forward#@teamsteem/re-steemitblog-steemit-winter-update-2017-reflection-our-vision-statement-and-mission-and-a-look-forward-20180221t053905349z

teamsteem (74) · 6 years ago

Linear rewards are fundamentally flawed. I pointed this out many times. Here's one. I'll possibly make a whole post about it.

I don't necessarily agree with everything else you said but I do agree with this.

If nobody wants to acknowledge or address the actual problems with the blockchain protocols that have created this mess, then there’s no point debating the useless “fixes” that people keep proposing.

$0.63

7 votes

mastercoach (33) · 6 years ago

I agree, it's really important for humanity to start getting a blockchain social media right, it's even getting critical now.

I only recently joined, composed 2 posts that were not looked at by anybody, felt like a waste of energy. Wondering what i'm doing wrong and thinking about tipping a bot - how else will people even start to notice the contribution?

$0.06

valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

You have failed to realize that screaming into a void gains no attention. I've been here almost a year now, and for the most part 3/4 of my rewards come from comments, rather than my posts. I do post, but engaging in discussions is the actual point of social media, not content creation.

It isn't the quality of posts that most matters, but the quality of engagement. Making a post is akin to starting a conversation. Commenting is joining in. Usually the conversations I join are more profound than those I start ;)

Until you have a large following spending a lot of effort making posts isn't going to generate substantial financial rewards. Jumping on the bots doesn't produce useful engagement, and thus isn't much point, at least to me. I've never bothered, because I'm not here to make money, but to escape censorship and propaganda infesting other platforms.

If your only purpose here is to gain financial rewards, go mine some crypto instead of mining the rewards pool here intended to reward creators and incentivize Steemit society. Your question indicates otherwise, despite interest in rewards.

Seek out content that aligns with your interests and comment cogently when you have insight to offer, and you will grow a community that is interested in what you have to say. Then your posts will be seen by your followers, rather than no one. Except for appearing in new, which is chaos, only your followers see your posts in their feed--unless you pay for botvotes, which doesn't get you any attention from me, cuz I'd rather wander aimlessly through new than be annoyed by the panderers in trending.

Build an audience through participating in the community of interest and you will post to that audience. You haven't done that yet. You are now, by commenting here.

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surfermarly (74) · 6 years ago (edited)

How about we actually address the real problem: the blockchain protocols that created the current shit show?

I'd really love to witness that change @ats-david, but I guess if Steemit, Inc had any interest in fixing steemit.com they would've taken according actions. We're doing circles around the very same issues since months.

In that context I always remember those words from Ned during the 'blocktalk' two months ago (Source):

As long as steemit.com is not dwarfed by other applications built on the Steem blockchain, Steem will never be able to succeed.

From that point on I stopped worrying about steemit.com because I realized that it's not a priority anymore. Yet I never fully understood their reasons. As you perfectly described, it's not a superficial issue but the consequence of a lacking governance.

The larger stakeholders would tell you now: Wait for Hivemind and SMTs. But then they don't tell you how long you need to wait...:-) Communities were announced in January 2017 and planned to be implemented in Q3/2017.

From my point of view, to abandon steemit.com and focussing on something completely new is as if someone wanted to fix a broken relationship by having a baby. How could an additional project built on the very same unstable ground, have a chance to succeed?

I've been powering down since November 2017 for the simple reason that I don't agree with how Steem is governed, and I never regret my decision. Since I only engage with my own community - both on the blockchain and on discord - I also sleep much better :-))

Now I perfectly understand your will to change something, I've been on the same track for months. But then there is a point of time when you realize that you're trying to fight against windmills...

Have you checked EOS.io already?
See you around 👊

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someonewhoisme (54) · 6 years ago (edited)

@ats-david You havn't really explained what the disease is and why those forks created a problem.

You said that these protocol changes have stripped away spam protection, spam to me is also a symptom not the disease. Spam is the consequence of a system that penalize its users for moderating it which is what the steem blockchain does.
There needs to be some rewards for downvoting too, for example if a post has more negative weight than positive after 7 days then all the rewards on that post goes 100% to those who voted a negative and the author and those who upvoted get nothing. I don't know how hard and gameable it's going to be to build something like this but it is absolutely necessary for the community to police itself.

Regarding OP, the first question we have to ask is :

Is vote buying advertising or not? We have to come to consensus to what it actually is. If it's advertising then simple UI changes can solve most of it. On a side note I'm also surprised how all existing steem apps display the steem content in the same way which has proved to be one of the worst discoverability experience for users.
To answer the initial question, I see a lot of flaws in the vote buying model for it to be the way advertisers promote on steem in the future. To name a few: advertisement can be downvoted, buying limits ( model doesn't scale ). I could be wrong but in its current form I don't see it being used on a large scale by serious advertisers.

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ats-david (74) · 6 years ago (edited)

You said that these protocol changes have stripped away spam protection, spam to me is also a symptom not the disease.

Of course. That was my entire point. The spam, the vote-selling, the shit content being “advertised,” the disengagement, the lack of accountability...this all became a bigger issue after the protocols were changed. They are all symptoms/consequences of last year’s hard forks.

I could explain in detail why/how the hard forks created these problems...which I’ve done many times over since last summer, including before they were implemented. And back then - just like now - nobody listened. But just for good measure, I suppose I’ll detail this again in a separate post. Too long to cover all of the various aspects of it here.

I'm surprised that all existing steem apps display the steem content in the same way which has proved to be one of the worst discoverability experience for users.

Are you really surprised by this though? Most of our “developers” here are hobbyists or first-timers developing in the social media space. They unfortunately don’t know the fundamentals of social media and user interests...and the users here aren’t typical SM users/content creators either, so both sides skew the metrics. Then we have the actual results of the voting/allocation and displays skewing it even further.

I could be wrong but in its current form I don't see it being used on a large scale by serious advertisers.

There isn’t even enough of a critical mass of users for real-world advertisers to even consider spending advertising dollars here. Anyone looking at the actual viewing and engagement stats - even for “trending” posts - would quickly look elsewhere to spend their money.

But even if we assume that advertising here actually gained visibility and returned some profit for businesses, it would be more beneficial to them to buy the STEEM once and use it repeatedly for self-voting or self-promotion, not rent space on the trending page for every post they make.

This is the mistake that current users continue to make as well. They pay for temporary advertisement and have nothing to show for it when the advertising period is over. So they’re stuck in this perpetual loop of paying for visibility over and over again when they could simply buy the STEEM outright and get perpetual use out of it.

But this happens in the real world all the time as well. People often rent for the wrong reasons and think that they’re coming out on top financially, but they truly believe that there’s no other way. They continue to do what keeps them poor...so they remain poor, even if it’s just relative to those who are “richer.”

And we have a ton of admittedly real-world poor people here on Steem/Steemit. Does anyone truly wonder why things are the way they are around here?

$1.80

5 votes

someonewhoisme (54) · 6 years ago (edited)

The last point you made is spot on. In the long run users are much better off using those SBD's convert to SP and build their influence. Very few understand this but the steem blockchain rewards very well those who invest in it, compound interest is powerful but users have to be patient, it's not an overnight get rich quick thing.
Same goes for self voting, in the long run this strategy is detrimental. Because users isolate themselves by doing this and will end up being the only ones voting for their post instead of many that they could have supported through their upvotes.
I believe most of the issues on steem are self correcting, some of them also comes from the fact that the user base is still tiny. The moderation one however is critical IMHO. Posts on steem only have likes, they have no dislikes. This is problematic because there is no balance in the system.

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felixxx (68) · 6 years ago

non-linear rewards

$2.56

4 votes

ats-david (74) · 6 years ago

If only people had listened to this last spring...

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freebornangel (73) · 6 years ago

Stinc wants things this way.
Its time to buy stinc stock, not steem, and vote the greedy f**ks out.
Are they public?

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ats-david (74) · 6 years ago

No. And if they were, their stock would be worthless. Ned would have been ousted as CEO about two years ago.

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freebornangel (73) · 6 years ago

Who holds the keys for changing the code?

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ats-david (74) · 6 years ago

Well, STINC, of course. And all of their STINC-ophants.

Tow the line or risk being labeled and blacklisted. That’s always been the game around here. It isn’t exactly a secret.

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whatsup (75) · 6 years ago

Here is my view, before the bots the trending page was the same 12 people. Now it is interesting to see who made it to the top.
It wasn't about content before, and it still isn't.
I love the idea that anyone can choose with their free will and Steem to get on the trending page.
Occasionally, something with low quality gets on the trending page, it can be flagged or blacklisted or accepted.
Get rid of the voting bots and you will get rid of a lot of investors and the trending page will be back to the same 12 people who were on it before.
If it is about the reward pool, focus on Haejin and Sweetsssj, that my point of view, you don't have to agree, but I wish you would consider it.

$1.70

5 votes

btcvenom (65) · 6 years ago (edited)

Why don't you guys just implement a profit cap? That makes the most sense to me. These bots are supposed to be used for promotion purposes and not to make profit (Directly anyway). By setting a profit cap of 0% all the people abusing the system will simply stop using the services all on their own.

VOTED FOR VISIBILITY

$1.43

therealwolf (75) · 6 years ago (edited)

That won't stop users from buying votes from 5 different bid-bots which pushes them to the top trending spots.

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erodedthoughts (66) · 6 years ago

Can you answer me what the difference is between buying or getting a large delegation and self voting post to trending or those who have little SBD and buy votes to get to trending. Shitpost are shitpost, why are delegated selfvoted shitpost not downvoted in the same manner as bought votes, they are 1 and the same!

$1.24

4 votes

ats-david (74) · 6 years ago

Yeah, pretty much. Buying a vote one post at a time or buying delegation for a series of self-votes is the same. All shitposters have to buy votes to be “popular.” Most people can identify shit when they see it. Steemit is a little different because of the voting/allocation system, but the fundamentals of social media and popularity are generally the same.

$0.10

looftee (61) · 6 years ago

I replied it on your comment on the grumpycat's post, I hope it is somewhat worth seeing if you don't read it there.

The posts on the trending page upvoted by bidbots don't deserve to be there!

That's what the real problem is, most of the people think that the low-quality posts dominate the trending page and they don't deserve to be there.

Now, as the founder and developer of the smartsteem, I know that you can't check each and every post upvoted by your service, and I definitely know that you want to make steemit a better place and help people here.

So, instead of concentrating on all the users, how about you concentrate on the users bidding for big upvotes?

I mean nobody cares about if anyone gets 1$ upvote from any bid bot( small abusers can be handled easily by making guidelines and rules, blacklisting) but the ones who make it to the trending or hot page, everyone has got eyes on them, and it is your service that will be held responsible for taking them to the top of hot/trending level.

So if you check all the users who bid big( which would be about 1 or 2 in every 2.4 hours, that makes a maximum of 10-12 posts a day), you can considerably improve the quality of posts upvoted by your service that makes it to the trending page

Everyone downvotes trending posts upvoted by bid bots because of its mediocre quality, that results in loss of the users and gains hate for your services. But if the quality of the posts is good, people will upvote the posts, it will be beneficial for both the user and your services. The scenario will be completely opposite to the current one.

You said it yourself that it took more than half a year for you to develop smartsteem, now I know that you don't want it to end in a way that people will remember it as a service that supported abusers. A service hated by a lot of people.

The whole thing depends upon how inclined you are to find a solution to improve the quality of posts upvoted by your service. That will help everyone, the investors, users. And more people will support the users in future if their post quality is good, that makes a long-term benefit for the user for the one-time investment, rendering your services more useful.

In the end, I believe that this is quite an opportunity for your service to make this a better place not just for the content creators, but for content absorbers too, as of now, most people create content, very few read it.

$0.76

7 votes

tarazkp (80) · 6 years ago

I think @abh12345 asked a valid question in What if all users delegated to bidbots? I don't think the response you gave to the question was adequate.

Since I run and develop Smartsteem.com - I'm in charge of a big stakeholder bid-bot & promotion service and I'm open to hear your feedback of what needs to change and possible solutions!

It seems that there is an extreme unwillingness for the owners/delegators/operators of bidbots to actually engage with any part of the community who sees what they are doing as harmful for the larger community. None seem to want to actually explore let alone find a solution because it is going to likely cost them profits.

When people do not respond it means they are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions which in this case likely means they know the harmful nature and their claims are nonsense.

There has been a mountain of data showing the harmful nature of bidbots, where is the data showing their value to the community? This is blockkchain and you guys are experts, rather than make claims, show proof. I am open to be convinced to the benevolent nature of bidbots once all the numbers are added up.

$0.21

therealwolf (75) · 6 years ago (edited)

@tarazkp

I think @abh12345 asked a valid question in What if all users delegated to bidbots? I don't think the response you gave to the question was adequate.

I don't see the point of that question and I will def. not get forced to answer it. There is no reason (!) to think about that case. If you are against bid-bot delegations, then say it - but don't ask ridicioulus questions which are simply trying to put fear in people.

It seems that there is an extreme unwillingness for the owners/delegators/operators of bidbots to actually engage with any part of the community who sees what they are doing as harmful for the larger community. None seem to want to actually explore let alone find a solution because it is going to likely cost them profits.

You shouldn't put everyone in the same pot. @themarkymark and me are doing more than the rest combined.

And just because nobody else is doing anything, doesn't give you the right to put the blame on me.

I feel that since I do care about Steem - people are willing to put the blame on me and find the mistakes I do, instead of looking at those who are doing nothing.

When people do not respond it means they are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions which in this case likely means they know the harmful nature and their claims are nonsense.

Possible. But I personally won't respond to personal attacks and ridiculous questions.

There has been a mountain of data showing the harmful nature of bidbots

Show me the data.

Anyway - thanks for commenting @tarazkp!

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diebitch (62) · 6 years ago

The best step would be to move any posts that use bid bots to the promoted tab.

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abh12345 (76) · 6 years ago

I believe this will take place when developed into other condensers, and/or when communities come into play.

However, at present, managing a bot list is a daily task as these services continue to appear.

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freebornangel (73) · 6 years ago

I wouldnt hold my breath on communities or smts, stinc is just lying to extend the time for growing more bag holders, imo.

Let them crash the price, when folks finally catch on then we can rebuild without allowing the greedy f**ks to make millions from our doing it.

$0.09

abh12345 (76) · 6 years ago

Yeah I'm not holding my breath, sometime before Xmas is my current thinking!

The 'rebuilding' can start yesterday, we just keep voicing our opinion - it's worth 'something' don't you know 😊

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hanen (64) · 6 years ago (edited)

I can understand that it is a big problem here, but what about Minnows! The most of them dont have enough Steem Power and nobody notice them or upvote their posts. If they dont promote their posts they have no chance to survive here. Everybody needs a chance and the trending page is their only hope. Personally I dont see any other solution for this problem. And this way whoever is rich becomes richer and Minnows give up and leave :(
The most users are following users with high upvote value to get some benefits. Everybody looks at the reputation before opening any post. So we need to change this. We need more dolphins than Whales and Minnows here to get the balance.
Moreover the most people are using bots now a days and it is not more like before. It became a part of the Steemit platform.

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heimindanger (68) · 6 years ago

Every social network in the world is a meritocracy, even the best ones like reddit. It's always the same users making the karma and who know 'how to trend'.

The fact that everyone can buy itself to the top of the trending on STEEM, is a symptom of the manipulation that goes on. Sadly, if minnows can get to trending easily, it's the proof the system is rigged. You wouldn't go register on Instagram and expect 1000s of likes on your first pictures, unless you are already a superstar. Should be the same on steemit, getting to trending should be a long quest that takes months of hard effort. Not a few hundred dollars...

I also believe it's pretty bad psychologically for the minnows. Instead of having the feeling of slowly growing up their influence, week after week, they can instantly boost themselves to the top for a couple of days. It's basically a cheat code, that ruins the game experience. I doubt all these bid-bot users will stay on STEEM once the cheat codes are removed or less powerful.

$0.13

4 votes

therealwolf (75) · 6 years ago

@heimindanger

I doubt all these bid-bot users will stay on STEEM once the cheat codes are removed or less powerful.

So what is your alternative then? Should buying votes be banned?

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heimindanger (68) · 6 years ago

For the trending, I have already expressed what my suggested solution is: mass downvote once a day all the abusers in the top 25, until they learn to stay out of trending, or bot owners implement protections for their users.

For the bid-bots issue, I think it goes way deeper. Let's consider the ROV (return on vote) of different strategies on steem for big stake holders. And what happens if everyone starts using this strategy.

100% : Self-Voting / Trails. You get back both curation and author rewards for your votes, basically turning Steem's DPOS into POS like Ethereum.
~75-90% : Delegating to a bot. Lower ROV than self-voting but you get full liquidities instead of SP. Users give up 50% of their share of the inflation (the SBDs) to whales against visibility. Steem becomes a pay-to-win game.
~25% : Normal human curation. The way steem was originally designed to be played, where users are incentivized into curating the best contents in and out of the trending for rewards.

Now I'd be happy to see what happens if we raise curators rewards to let's say 80%, and we improve a bit how curation works (downvote rewards, fix the sub-30 min curation rewards going to authors instead of being burned, etc) in a way that gives the best curators a big enough of an edge to turn these 80% into 100%+ ROV.

$0.48

toresto (55) · 6 years ago (edited)

@heimindanger the only people that got hurt is average users

for whom they really fighting if they want a good content to be on the tranding page , how can this be possible if they just downvoting every single content for the name of "good content" from the tranding list without looking at people content?

for my opinion the only thing they do is that they can't downvote whales because whales have a lot of steem power and money to invest into bots so while the whales stay on top, the only people they hurt is average steemanians that don't have a lot of steem power or money to invest, correct me if I wrong but their fight is exactly for average users power just like me, but downvoting posts without reading a content for the name of "good" content isn't that hypocrisy?

the only thing you did is the poor get poorer and the rich get richer

you don't even have a link to user blog or post so people can check what they downvoting

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valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

"... how can this be possible if they just downvoting every single content for the name of "good content" from the tranding list without looking at people content?"

Since the content flagged is only trending because it was upvoted without consideration of quality, merely for money, it is not hurting anyone. It is directly attacking the root of the problem, which is substituting rewardability for quality.

This is a dirty trick, and degrades not only Steemit by infesting it with pandering and pay for play and ponzi schemes, but the hearts and minds of those that get sucked into believing they are improving their lot by buying rewards, rather than earning them.

They're being tricked into substituting money for things that actually matter.

A toddler that gets their hand swatted away from a hot stove is discomfited. As sad as they are at the time, it is only because they do not understand the danger, and how they'd be hurt worse by being allowed to stick their hand in the flame.

There is a metric that drives the flags, and it's percentage of rewards from bot upvotes. IMHO, this perfectly targets the hands in the flames.

The real power of rewards for being upvoted is the elimination of trolls, and the strength of engagement it drives. Those rewards being doled out on the basis of the thickness of the wallet doing the voting poisons the society, however, and warps power into right, which is bass ackwards from what it should do.

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valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

I agree with your sentiments, but honestly cannot agree with your points =p

First, I have become a minnow after almost a year here. I have never used a vote bot, or paid service of any kind, because I seek criticism--which is in no short supply here XD--rather than emuneration. The problem is many people focus on emuneration. They don't care about being right or wrong very much, as long as they're accepted and financially rewarded.

If I was focused on money, I would have been long gone, this is true. But I have survived here without ever trending, or buying access to views from those that seek to raise their curation rewards by stacking on the right posts. IMHO, giving two shits about who has and gets how much from the ducat bucket is the actual problem that drives quality down.

Trending is not only NOT my only hope, it isn't on my radar. I'm not here to be popular, oddly enough. I'm here to engage with folks that introduce me to critically important ideas, and to share those I find important. Popularity and encomiums are nice, if you get them for the right reasons, but don't stem from, or create, what is important: the quality of engagement, the ferment of good ideas, and the felicity of those whose good company we keep (or want to).

The last point you make I have to disagree with is that everybody looks at reputation before opening a post. I confess I tend to be interested in reputation--as, if it isn't purchased, it relates experience, and thus lends credence to the statements of those with high rep regarding topics informed by experience on Steemit.

Otherwise, I don't care. I don't look at reputation before I open a post. I consider reputation when giving their views thought, for the stated reason.

One thing you say I do strongly agree with is that we need more Dolphins than Whales. Nothing I can do about that, but it's true nonetheless. The stronger the middle class the stronger the society. Societies highly stratified tend to violence and aggression, since the absence of the middle class demonstrates that there is no upward mobility, except for violent seizure of the assets of others. Since we can't seize other's assets here, we just get ragequits and rants, maybe some fleabite flags, when people confront their incapacity to progress up the social ladder.

We live in a world that money lords power over peons in, and dramatically increase that dynamic on Steemit by making power directly dependent on the phatness of the wallet.

This terribly discounts various matters that are far more important than mere money. Society suffers as a result, and Steemit and the trending page is a wonderful representation of why that sucks to do. Society is people, not their money.

Society, including on Steemit, is far more important than SP, and VP being based on SP is a foul twisting of our attention away from those things that matter more.

I haven't figgered out a way to base our VP on how much we love our families, however, so dunno how to fix it.

Thanks for your forthright comments that come from the heart.

That is something I value highly.

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zyx066 (72) · 6 years ago

I've just started here on Steemit and like it very much up to now; really nice folks to talk about topics I'm interested in, and a chance to make my opinion known too. But I was immediatly bombarded with new followers, even before I ever wrote an article of my own. When I click on these users, I see they all offer some kind of promotion-, resteem- or upvote-service for money... I don't use them (at least I don't pay them; I have had "free" upvotes from some of these "services", but that was 1 time only I guess, just to lure you in). Should I go even further and mute them?

When it becomes possible to buy power to influence... It would be a shame if the level playing field is destroyed in this manner and I would like to help combat this in any way I can as a total noob.

Speaking of total noobness, I just wrote only my second real article here on Steemit, and I would love to hear your opinion on it, if you can find the time :-) Who Do You Trust? Full Disclosure!

Thanks for a very informative wake-up call! Upvoted and resteemed.

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reazuliqbal (67) · 6 years ago

I support bid bots but I'd like them to have more caution and be selective about what content they are promoting. I know they are bots and can't comprehend post contents like we humans do. But bot owners can check what contents are getting high percentage of their votes and take action accordingly.

I take the bid bots as advertising service like FB, Google Adsense. I am paying them to make my content visible that I can attract curators/readers to vote me, gain followers or make my presence known. Sure not everybody will appreciate my contents, but there are some they may do. There is nothing that gets support from everybody. I think Hivemind will fix this problem or at least I hope.

If you remove bid bots who will get to trending more frequently? People with lots of SP or friends and acquaintances of whales and dolphins. Because people will always want their or their friends' well-beings.

Some people are concerned what the social aspect of it when everybody can use bid bots and boost their contents. I do not know about others I sometimes read articles from trending and hot, and most of the times I read interesting articles from my feed (I came here from my feed).

So, my suggestion would be a global blacklist which willing bots will follow. I want bots to be more responsible because people won't be.

I'd like to here others' opinion too.

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valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

"If you remove bid bots who will get to trending more frequently? People with lots of SP or friends and acquaintances of whales and dolphins."

This is true, and that it is demonstrates that bidbots are a symptom of the underlying problem that degrades Steemit as a society: stake-weighting. Money isn't virtue. Virtue matters in society, and substituting gross mammon for virtue is perhaps the most degrading thing that could happen to a society.

Steemit suffers as a result.

I have strongly advocated substituting rep for SP as a metric for weighting VP. While rep is still gamable, it is far less so than SP, and would result in a far more equitable distribution of rewards, while vastly improving the responsiveness of rewards to quality of content. Most things valuable about Steemit as a society would be greatly improved by this.

Investor participation is not one of those things, however. The problem is that those with substantial financial assets tend to be folks focused on financial matters, and the worst of them are naught but whores, pimps, or pirates, without anything substantial to offer society.

I but rarely stray from my feed, except by following links from posts I discover in my feed, as I did to get here.

New is chaos, and trending is a swamp of profiteering. I find discord a better source of #tag specific posts than the #tags themselves.

There are some UI issues Steemit could improve, and that is one of them.

The most important, IMHO, is that bidbots are promotional/advertising services, and posts and comments availed of them aren't appropriately tagged, which is degrading to society, dishonest, and stupid. It's stupid to allow advertising to masquerade as honest opinion because it is a lie that misleads people into valuing the paid opinion equally or more than actual reason and understanding, which is difficult to overestimate in the degree to which it contributes to harming people and society they comprise in fundamental ways.

A crappy hypothetical example of such harm: being microwaved is bad. At a certain point it is fatal. How bad it is at lower doses is unknown, because paid advertising/pr/promotion of microwave based goods and services substitutes the interests of such services seeking profits for the interests of folks trying to raise kids that survive, and does so using every subterfuge possible, including lying.

Posts claiming that microwaves are perfectly safe, or even beneficial, surreptitiously made by gaslighters using bidbots can trick people into believing such claims are widely supported, when in fact they're venal profiteering by businesses that may well be killing people without regard while seeking nothing more important or valuable than financial rewards.

Society is far more valuable than mere money. Stake-weighting not only disregards that fact, but obscures it by making the only metric of value economic.

That is why there are votebots. They're not the cause, but a symptom of the underlying problem of substituting for the real blessings of society mere money.

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manolisthan (37) · 6 years ago

Hello!
I am a steemit user since Oct 2017. I have never seen my post upvoted by users.

Maybe they are bad , OR maybe upvotes are only gained by Bots.

If i see any indication of upvoting of my post i will continue using this platform.

By then, i will strongly believe that Steemit is only about the guys that own bots.

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toresto (55) · 6 years ago (edited)

I think it's a war and in a war, their no winners every one has some losses
and I think it will never end people will keep paying for bots , and people keep downvoting people that paying bots and this game will never end it must have another solution an especially in a platform controlled by people, where everyone who got so SP can somehow controls the system
(talking about both sides the people that using bots and people that downvoting for that )

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valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

"people that trying to play a "police" role with hunt average steem users
that spending their last money to promote their good content since there is no other way and unfortunately upvote bots are part of the game that we must play in order to succeed on steemit"

This isn't true. The actual problem is that you are convinced that buying votes solves the problem, when it only makes the problem worse.

Stake-weighting, substituting financial holdings for societal virtue, is the underlying mechanism that degrades Steemit such that people turn to votebots to gain attention to their ideas. By doing so they're surrendering to the power of money to command influence, and this makes the problem worse.

Targeting posts that gain most of their rewards from botvotes directly attacks this exacerbation of the underlying problem, so it's good. It just doesn't go far enough in directing it's impact to the substitution of money for virtue.

Some people will whore out their mothers for money. Attacking the financial rewards they get when they do that may discourage them from whoring out their mothers, but it won't teach them to value their mothers for more than the money they can get for popping their pussies.

This is exactly the degradation that results from substituting money for virtue, if the extreme end of the scale.

The substitution of money for virtue is what hurts the average Steemian, not @heimindanger's flags. @heimindanger is just swatting their hands away from the far more harmful hot stove they are trying to stick their hands into.

Substituting botvotes for actual curation is like offering people who need gloves hot stoves instead. If you don't want to get harmed, don't stick your hand in there. Find actual gloves to use. Seek actual societal virtues as the rewards you care about, rather than being fooled by greedy profiteers that financial rewards are the point of society.

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toresto (55) · 6 years ago (edited)

@valued-customer I hate the idea that you need to pay for your own content in a place where you need to be paid for that, that is stupid its a Ponzi scheme
but I understand that this how the system work and I just play along
and that's not good I admit so what do you suggest and I absolutely serious
you think I should never use bots in any of my future posts?

but now I understand the other side as well and why they don't read posts before downvoting and that because:
steemit community need to be educated not to use bots
and it doesn't matter what good content you have,
if people not educated it will never be stoped and all the steemanians will be used to fact that the trending page is only for money

I now understand that

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valued-customer (67) · 6 years ago

You can't solve the problem, since you don't impose stake-weighting. That's the essential mechanism that devalues all societal virtues by imposing stake as the sole virtue determining power on Steemit. All you can do is act to mitigate or exacerbate it.

One thing you can do is simply refuse to provide upvotes to posts that don't have 'promoted' or 'advertising' as the primary tag. This can help folks to sort posts that actually have value per their interests, but it won't be a profitable endeavor.

If all bots did this (which will not happen), things would be some better, but it doesn't restore the various actual true benefits of society that are vastly more important than money by rewarding them commensurately to their real relevance.

I don't think Steemit will fix this. I don't think @dan is going to make a platform that does either, from my assessment of his considerations of the matter. Dunno if you can, or even want to.

That's the real problem, though, and stake-weighting is the disease to be cured, rather than following the example of allopathic medicine by continually and expensively treating the symptoms rather than curing the disease. It's more profitable to treat the symptoms, and maximizing profits in medicine is an egregious example, notorious, universally reviled, and utterly endemic in the world because of stake-weighting.

This principle underlies practically every problem that confounds society and costs inestimable lives and treasure, from our legal system being the best money can buy, to censorship by Gargle, Fakebook, and Twatter, to the last profitable industry in America, surveilling people for fun and profit.

Basing power on virtues other than financial holdings is essential to functional society. That it is continually inversely done is why we're increasingly facing global war. It's also why trending sucks.

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murhadi9 (50) · 6 years ago

Nice post

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