Live with complete freedom, the way to make it big on Steemit!

lextenebris (62) · 7 years ago

If nothing else, scams like this invalidate one of the central axioms of the steem protocol:

Proof-of-brain.

As has been described many times, steem is supposed to replace the trade of electricity-and-cooling-for-commodity (found in proof-of-work systems) with the trade of interesting-content-for-commodity, the idea that those who create content and share it on the blockchain would be rewarded in line with how much "everyone" found the content "interesting."

Scams like this expose a very painful truth. "Interesting" is not a systemically emergent property from focus of activity.

All of these accounts focus quite a lot of system activity on some really terrible content. As you've discovered, vapid commentary – not even blog posts – are perfectly valid loci of activity, which the system as a whole treats as interest. Interest equals more likely to receive part of the random payout. More likely to receive part of the random payout equals a steady income.

The problem is the assumption that steem activity actually denotes interesting content. I'm not sure that the system as it's conceived can work in the way it is generally described because of the way that creation content is decoupled from any sort of real valuation.

Because the value is assumed to be global and all actors are assumed to be seeking the same definition of "good," all activity is assumed to be equally good.

Clearly not the case. Bots, which never sleep and are much more reactive to new information, make it easy to vote up (or down) posts based on any sort of arbitrary metadata with the actual content being of no interest at all. Feedback loops of delegators make use of the easily observable economies of scale when it comes to maximizing your potential of catching some of the random rain of dollars from on high.

I don't actually have a solution for this problem. I'm not even sure I have a really good suggestion – and that part bothers me. It bothers me a lot.

Playing whack-a-mole with these scammers is always going to be a case of trying to follow the trail and knowing that you're only catching a small percentage. I'm sure there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, which aren't making enough ripple to attract attention.

I wish I had an answer.

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4 votes

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I don't actually have a solution for this problem. I'm not even sure I have a really good suggestion – and that part bothers me. It bothers me a lot.

This is the most important part of what you said. I feel like I am in the same spot. There are many suggestions I have but in the end, it's like fighting spam and security threats. It's an endless game and you have to win 100% of the time, they just need to win once to be successful.

The blockchain will evolve much slower than bad actors.

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lextenebris (62) · 7 years ago

The blockchain will evolve much slower than bad actors.

All systems evolve more slowly than the parasites which live upon. If we've learned nothing else from evolutionary biology and simulation, we've learned that. Put a pile of self replicating bits into a primordial soup, turn on the sun, and let the system have a bit of mutation and within the first 15,000 generations you have a fully flourishing parasitic and meta-parasitic population.

We knew that just from playing with Ray's Tierra simulation back in the early 90s.

I'm coming at this as someone who used to be, once upon a time, in the software/security threats business but who moved on to something that suited him better: game theory and game design. And from that very different perspective, I can only say with aggressive emphasis:

You get what you reward.

The steem protocol rewards activity at loci on the blockchain. And that's all it does. The assumption of content value at that locus is completely assumed and arbitrary. The designers assume that there is interesting and useful content there because "people" are active there – but that has nothing to do with the actual content.

In my gut, I feel like the problem is the generalized assumption that everyone values the same content.

If the system differentiated between locations on the blockchain that I am active in and locations on the blockchain that you are active in and locations on the blockchain that the bots are active in, then we could make reasonable decisions about the value that we ascribe to each of those potential states. You might think that locations where I'm active are likely to be interesting and that locations where the bot is active are less likely to be interesting. I might think that locations where your active are likely to be interesting and where the bots are active are likely to be interesting (and let's be clear, this is just for the sake of illustration – because that would be insanity). What the bots think doesn't matter to either of us.

It's the lack of individuation that seems to be the attack vector on this system. I'm not sure if individuation is a thing that can be brought to the network as a whole in a way that retains the current set of expectations that a lot of users (not necessarily ones that we would like to associate with, but a lot of users) currently hold. Many of those users have significant stakes in comparison to either of us.

I really would like to solve this problem. It seems soluble from a game theoretic point of view. Viewed purely as a game which involves a series of exchanges between players, this is a thing that we can make interesting for everybody.

I'm just not sure if people want that.

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shooter850 (48) · 7 years ago

Funny how people will always find a way around the rules...he has great pics, though....

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lextenebris (62) · 7 years ago

Any set of rules has an exploitable architecture. Even the simplest. And in a situation where min/max is a value that can be optimized? Someone will do so, and they will profit by doing so.

That's an inevitability of systems. Orders of magnitude more if we are talking about "money," even money in the abstract. Just the idea of money will find people working very hard to get some of it. (Chinese gold farmers and World of Warcraft come to mind.)

We'll have to see how things shake out.

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mattjack (51) · 7 years ago

Im leaving them for after the article ;)

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discernente (76) · 7 years ago

I think part of the rewarding pool should go to the most viewed and/or replied posts. Because it reveals how interesting to the platform it was.

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lextenebris (62) · 7 years ago

The problem with that particular rule – and I would generally support it under other circumstances – is that there is no way to determine the difference between a human looking at a post and I bought looking at a post. We already know that bots can post new content and comments; we see them doing it all the time. Driving the reward pool to "most viewed" and/or "most replied" would drive the bot swarms to sell views contentless commentary, which is already happening to some degree thanks to mutualism groups who vote up each other's comments, either via automation or manual.

Again, I think the core problem is trying to figure out "how interesting to the platform" a thing is, where the real question is "how interesting to an individual user is it/was it/could it be?" We have all the signals we need to start developing an answer to that question.

I'm still not sure it's a question that the platform wants an interesting answer to.

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theinsideout (52) · 7 years ago

I agree. Obviously the drive-by upvoters who just use the list to try to earn rewards aren't proving anything. Oh well, I'm a newbie minnow, so what do I know?

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markhalen (45) · 7 years ago

I don't get why we can't just flag their accounts off the platform?

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

You have to sacrifice rewards to flag, and most of us don't have enough stake to make a big difference, which means either a big whale or tons and tons of minnows have to do it. Plus voting power is a big limitation unless you have enough SP to be able to use small votes to accomplish it.

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markhalen (45) · 7 years ago

Me and a few Steemians discussed this yesterday on Steemit.chat. Is there plans to reward down voting? We think there needs to be, if down voting is not incentivized very few will ever flag.

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

There are talks about it, but currently no.

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markhalen (45) · 7 years ago

I think down vote rewarding and account creation are the two problems plaguing Steem's growth. Hopefully they'll soon be solved.

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elew (56) · 7 years ago

Would there be a way to limit the withdrawal, not only in the power down...but in how much could be sent to individual offsite wallets or accounts within a time frame?
I am not sure if I am saying it correctly, but if there was a way, then these multiple transfers to the same bittrex wallet could have been seen, and halted?

I know that would stink for people who just needed to shift funds for legit reasons...but if it could be done for a while maybe word would get out that steemit is not so easy to scam.

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elew (56) · 7 years ago

Or, to have things set up so that users could not transfer any SD they earned on steemit for x amount of time. Transfers off site in the first 6 months limited to only funds they personally invested into the platform. This way if they want out, they don't loose what they invested...but it would sure halt the pool draining scams.

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steempowerpics (69) · 7 years ago

Melons and Taco 😁 Oh my weak knees... Loving the Photoshop skills. lol

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6 votes

keishag (34) · 7 years ago

I too found it hilarious! What a sense of creativity. Thanks for bringing awareness to this issue. It's a shame that someone always has to go against the grain.

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kaliju (65) · 7 years ago

I was actually hoping you'd give people advice HOW to behave on steem and be rewarded. All that you complained about is already well known and there's nothing we can do about it. This post is 100% click bait.

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10 votes

noyon696 (52) · 7 years ago

so shameless this person how done this.we want money but don't be shameless.thank you for share this post.your content very nice keep it up.

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10 votes

tuck-fheman (74) · 7 years ago (edited)

If you want to see the original, you can find it here.

I knew we could count on you!

Here's what I want to know. How the hell did you find the original image of the blonde? I've google searched his original image and it turns up nothing but other "blondes". I suspect you knew of this porn star prior to his post. :thinking:

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3 votes

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

Nah, I got better tools :)

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steempowerpics (69) · 7 years ago

LOL - Maybe it's his next door neighbor? maybe?

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

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mizanur (8) · 7 years ago

Thank you, Steve Steemit

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tuck-fheman (74) · 7 years ago

Who's Steve and for what are you thanking me?

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evilest-fiend (47) · 7 years ago

Copy the image location and paste it into a search at tineye.com, but be ready for NSFW results.

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dontstopmenow (68) · 7 years ago

Nice digging!

Funny how the bigger upvote on this post comes from an account with Freedoms delegation 😂

Captura de pantalla 2017-12-01 a la(s) 17.44.30.png

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3 votes

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I sent $20 to MinnowBooster to help make it more visible to @freedom. I could have boosted it $50 or even $100+ but I don't want to abuse it. The vote is the result of that.

I tried to privately disclose it two days ago without fanfare.

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battleaxe (69) · 7 years ago

what happens if all of us sick of this just upvote every single thing 100%, all comments votes , posts, what do the seemingly two sources of a lot of this then have , asking for a friend, being serious....drain it so there is nothing for some to feed on, b.a.

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7 votes

tony10 (56) · 7 years ago (edited)

As a newbie I would love to learn more about the reward pool you spoke about. Still trying to learn all the moving parts of steemit. (And its hilarious you found the original porn star pic... Great research.)

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gniksivart (67) · 7 years ago

So what you're telling me is the person who is going around downvoting posts because they're worth more than what he thinks they should be worth acting (in my opinion) as the hero of the reward pool. Actually has a system set-up that drains the reward pool the fastest.

That makes sense to me.

mikepm74 (66) · 7 years ago

To get to the bottom of all this, don't we have to find a way to get to @freedom?!?! I mean... reward pool abusers are going to use the tools that are made available to them. If @freedom doesn't give a shit what these delegations are used for, then of course they will be abused!

So instead of stopping each individual person offering payments to freedom, how do we make a plea to the big account itself? Obviously someone is paying attention to the account to dole out these delegations and shut them down.

Stop the flood at the crack in the damn rather than trying to catch each individual drop of water.

Or maybe that's just a pipe dream...

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I think @freedom does care, or he wouldn't have removed @askquestion & @funny-gifs delegation. I just wonder how aware he is of what is going on, many of these things are not obvious without research.

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abh12345 (76) · 7 years ago

Perhaps a daily analysis post titled 'hey @freedom this is what's happening to your Delegated SP' might work?

At the price he leases (and It is his choice), it's impossible to make your $ back without employing these techniques discussed above.

A quick check on the wallet tells me $60 a day for 100k SP is around a $9.60 vote at 100%.

So 10 self-votes on comments would be about $90 (?) a day assuming you were taking all the rewards.

It doesn't make sense to lease daily at that price unless you are selling or self-voting... but what's a man gonna do with 7,000,000 SP!

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fechaugger (48) · 7 years ago

That's why we need inflation, voting rings will eventually dry up if they don't publish quality content.

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ecoinstant (68) · 7 years ago

Keep up the Great work Marky! CLean this community up - the only part I dont like is the sarcasm in the titles misleads me - I was expecting one of your kick ass guides - but this is good detective work!

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

It's a play on words. I like creative headlines, as they are 90% of a post as you only get 3 seconds to get attention.

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ecoinstant (68) · 7 years ago

True that! I didn't mean 'misleading' as in 'curse you forever!' instead like - 'aw bummer....whats this now?'

I would read the Marky Mark's guide to catching people's eye with headlines in 3 seconds!

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

Oh I know, I just was just explaining myself.

Headlines are very powerful tools, and I would say they are more important than anything when writing a post/article. If they don't get past your headline, then the rest is pointless.

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ecoinstant (68) · 7 years ago

I am definitely struggling! I have had pretty good success with two things - properly using tags and cultivating community/network, and they generally go together.

Actually getting randos to look at my articles - I'm not at that level yet. But I'm not aggressively looking for new strategies yet - steemit is still exceeding my expectations - although things like this do worry me - great people like you and also the #bisteemit community and others are doing very important work making sure the whole ship doesn't crash.

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I remember when I used to blog and write content for my site, the headlines would take longer than the article at times.

There are actually tools to write headlines and give you lots of ideas. Most of the time, I just come up with something quick and dirty. For posts. I want to really do something I'll spend a little more time brainstorming.

Whenever I get around to starting my workflow series, I'll write on brainstorming. The key thing to know though, your brain has two states, open and closed. While brainstorming your mind is open to new ideas, when you start focusing on details (like implementation) your brain is in more of a closed state and is not very receptive to new ideas.

When thinking of headlines, or ideas you want to just keep thinking and write them down, don't try to rationalize or justify, just get it out of your head and close the open loop so you are receptive to a new idea.

I'm no expert, I just no the theory. Most of the time I'm lazy and don't put much thought into it.

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ecoinstant (68) · 7 years ago

You drew me into a frog eating contest months ago with that same line - 'I'm getting around to writing my workflow series...' ;p

You come up with some great stuff, and its nice to hear your thoughts. I too often put great advise into comments. I'm working to make a comment mining tool functionality to add-on to our current opensource tool - coffeesource.net

Its just a play-tool, but we have to learn somehow right?

But I think comment mining could be a game changer for harvesting ideas - how much value did you just give me here in the comments? Will you copy paste later or re-remember and rewrite?

Thanks for the interaction ;p

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I sometimes put more information in my comments than my posts. That's the great thing about engagement.

mindhawk (52) · 7 years ago

out with the shlls and bots, in with the humans

well done cleaning up the scum so we can have an actual community, i hope one day to assist in this.

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max1994 (1) · 7 years ago

As a newbie I would love to learn more about the reward pool you spoke about. Still trying to learn all the moving parts of steemit

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i-follow-wine (25) · 7 years ago

I was thinking this platform based on money will end up promoting scams, but I won't give up on this platform I think great content is out there and actual writers with potential will use this to train themselves, or at least this is how I see it for myself.

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paulag (73) · 7 years ago

nice find.....

another detective in the making

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musicfromsoul (44) · 7 years ago

Completely agree!!!
We are the generation of witness, where we can make our own freedom and self power.

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denisechips (55) · 7 years ago

Glad you're on it @themarkymark. Thanks for your sleuthing skills to keep steemit healthy.

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qurator (76) · 7 years ago

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	This post has been upvoted and given the stamp of authenticity by @qurator. To join the quality content creators and receive daily upvotes click here for more info.

Qurator's exclusive support bot is now live. For more info click HERE or send some SBD and your link to @qustodian to get even more support.

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aksdwi (53) · 7 years ago

This post has received a 11.49 % upvote from @aksdwi thanks to: @themarkymark.

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eliashossain (63) · 7 years ago

your photoshop skill is excellent very nice picture, thanks

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jeksaturday (60) · 7 years ago

Incredible! HAHAHAHAHA! No kidding, it was really worthy to read! :)

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sandrina.life (58) · 7 years ago

Oh! Wow!You really spend incredible time to find out this situation and people have really a lot of time to waste while they don't work?!?
Also, I always wondered when I saw something like "sarahlouise transfer 58 SBD to bittrex 5ae9ebf1220a45cdbbf", and I would click on it and the account would be empty, now it is clear: it is someone having more than 1 account.

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bl23c (44) · 7 years ago

I don't even want to know how long it took you to find and track all this usage and data. Good job though.

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bitgeek (62) · 7 years ago

Congratulations @themarkymark, this post is the third most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 850 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $3971.76. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.

If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.

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odochartaigh (32) · 7 years ago

Be still my fast beating heart, did you have the scammers in there that say for only £299 one of payment we can get you 15 million followers and make you number 1 in google search page!!!

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askquestion (70) · 7 years ago

Hello @themarkeymark .
you also selling upvotes but if some one other selling upvotes and earn some money then why you Make a post just for earn money ?? and First of all Daviding and @sarahlouise is not mine account i d'nt know who are they but you say its mine account ? yes i have just 3 accounts 1 @askquestion @animal-lovers @funny-gifs But Now a Days i will never work on Steemit Cause of you . Bro it's not fair you do same work like votes selling on Shit post but if others can do you say they are scammers .
Thank you .

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hatsekidee (58) · 7 years ago

Some good policing @themarkymark! For this platform to work out we need people like you keeping it tidy.

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mohsin01 (60) · 7 years ago

It's make as a creative one, from that we got bluster info, it's the best way for fresher, carry on to doing this @themarkymark

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xabi (71) · 7 years ago

Wow man you did a lot of research...I myself personally abhor these people..They are just spoiling our amazing platform, where real creators/real persons get rewarded.... not the fake monkeys.

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nazmul1996 (64) · 7 years ago

Reading your post I think we should use steemit with honest and legal ways.Selling upvote is a bad work in steemit.And yes I learn more from your post. Thanks for your good content post.

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appreciator (66) · 7 years ago

This post has received gratitude of 7.45 % from @appreciator thanks to: @themarkymark.

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natord (66) · 7 years ago

Well, it is inevitable. Where money is there and the crooks, who use the system to benefit themselves and harm the system that feeds them.

But thanks to such fighters for honesty and freedom, like you, there is a chance to prevent this all. Thanks you!

_{Ok Google: Katerina Hovorkava...}

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reyadapon (47) · 7 years ago

exellent content bro.I like it.love you bro.

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