To Bot Or Not To Bot?

in steemit •  7 years ago 

I'm new to the platform and it's been an interesting first week. Well, technically I signed up months ago but I got side tracked and didn't start posting until now. I've finally spent some time learning the way things work, reading posts with high reputation, viewing videos and tutorials. I'm starting to get a sense of how it hangs together.

But I'm curious about The Bots. There are quite a few of them and I have to wonder if they are well accepted by the community or if they are a cancer eating away at the purpose of Steemit. As I see it, Steemit is supposed to be about user curated content. The idea is that good content gets recognized and rewarded by the community.

But don't vote buying bots subvert that? These clever little daemons promise to pump up your reputation. I suppose if your content sucks they won't help all that much, but being able to buy your way up the ladder weakens the feedback loop of users getting rewarded for good content and so they generate more good content. Bots don't give a damn about the quality of the content.

Are bots good for Steemit or a scourge? Do they change the purpose of Steemit from a content creation platform to an upvoting, clickbaity free-for-all? What does the Steemit core community think? The Witnesses? The leadership?

I'd love to hear you opinions on this.

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I'm new to the platform too. It seems like the vast majority of content on here (at least in the new section) is trash. I scrolled for 5 minutes before finding anything worth clicking on.

Perhaps the system needs a way to report spam?

I noticed a lot of the content was "fluffy". Even the trending and hot feeds have a lot of weak content. I wonder how much of this is because the incentive to use the platform is skewed towards upvotes and rewards rather than generating good content. Another issue is that there are no sophisticated algorithms applied to the feeds like on Facebook.

To answer you, depends on your purpose. Bot can bite sometimes, because there are people who jump in the last minute and throw a big chunk of SBD ask the bot vote. Now the bot can only vote 100% each time, if the money sent in larger than the vote value, then everybody make a loss.

Now having said to boost your post to the hot/trending section, that does make - S O M E - difference. People may not engage with you, but they start to see your post pay out is high and they start to follow you in the hope you upvote them back.

I'd say, first of all, make sure you know how to tag. This topic can easily slot in another 3 different tags to attract more views. I think this post may totally change if you put in #life #blog, which is also related.

Tag it in life? Never would have thought that. I think you are right about knowing what tags to use. But I'm a newb so I'm not gonna beat myself up too much.

Not here to beat you or ask you beat yourself. U can use up to 5 tags on each post. And posts created can only have less than 5 seconds air time on the tags before it gets crushed down by other new posts. Hence, changing tag doesn't really give you a boost in audience. Anyway, don't feel too bad about it. Perhaps better luck next post 🤗

I was being a little facetious. I appreciate the tips.

No worries. Upvoted you as support. Cheers.

Hi there

How have you been doing lately? Thanks for engaging with my posts lately. I appreciate.

it's hard to build reach on any social media without using bots. that's simple as that.

Im trying to build a group of like-minded people and I would like to keep in touch with you and support each other on steemit.

So since we were already following each other, then please let me suggest reading this post:
https://steemit.com/contest/@mslifesteem/6-contests-to-follow-to-grow-from-minnow-to-dolphin

For many new players those kind of contests are great way to start.

Take care, Piotr

Sorry for 2 separate posts in one topic.

I just noticed that you still really have very little steam power. Try to consider powering up.

I've been following many new members of this community and @achim303 wrote today quite a good post which would explain "Why do we need steem power?"
https://steemit.com/steemit/@achim03/my-first-progress-report-about-steemit

How to purchase steem power (old article but still valuable):
https://steemit.com/steemit/@oaldamster/how-to-buy-steem-power-the-quick-and-easy-way

Hope you're gonna have a good weekend :)
Cheers, Piotr