The reality of self-voting and Steemit.

themarkymark (78) in steemit • 7 years ago (edited)

View this post on Hive: The reality of self-voting and Steemit.

7 years ago by themarkymark (78)

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davidconstantine (54) · 7 years ago (edited)

It is really complicated subject.
I hate self-voting, yet sometimes it is the only way for the comment or post to be seen.
ANd more-over sometimes you invest hours and no one read it...
Steem should show some low rating posts at top by random...
All those whale vottting need to end one day...

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1 vote

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lordneroo (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

@themarkymark I believe that since the platform allows it, one can upvote themselves all they want. However, with great power comes great responsibility so if a powerful account uses their own power to upvote their useless comments, other powerful users may flag those overvalued posts and bring balance. Everything mentioned is my humble opinion.

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2 votes

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

if a powerful account use their own power to upvote their useless comments, other powerful users may flag those overvalued posts and bring balance

Completely agree, the problem when this balance is brought, the tears and rage come out. People feel they are being attacked and call on others to help them 'fight back' and it never ends well.

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1 vote

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lordneroo (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

I see you, but if a user has read the terms of service they already know that one can flag content just because they disagree with its payout value. Nothing personal and nothing to do with hostile behaviour whatsoever. We just need to grow up as individual users and treat the matter with maturity and look at this from a community point of view.

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1 vote

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

You can hammer that point in until the end of our days, and some people refuse to accept it.

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1 vote

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aghunter (61) · 7 years ago

Thanks for this post. I’ve thought about this a lot myself. I’ve discussed it with a few people and the general consensus seems to be consistent with your article - it’s ok to upvote your own post, but it’s bad etiquette to upvote your own comments. I apply this thinking with my account.

One thing I’m interested in is your opinion on upvoting other people’s comments. You mention this briefly in your post. As a rule I upvote everyone who comments on my posts (assuming they are relevant comments). I feel that if someone has taken the time to make a relevant comment on my work then they should get rewarded for this. You seem to be more selective in who you upvote?

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1 vote

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I tend to only upvote comments that really add to the discussion, I also tend to be very low on VP a lot of times due to flagging spam so I don't always have VP to upvote as much as I would like.

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1 vote

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jakeybrown (57) · 7 years ago

Great discussion point, this is one of the things that, for someone like me who just got here, seems a bit off. Self voting when you have a $100 vote puts you right at the top of the hot section which will garner all the attention of the minnows and dolphins because they want to upvote and comment in order to try to get votes from people with value. I understand some people are well established and others are heavily invested, but the system makes it difficult to gain much traction starting out.

I think it would be interesting to see something like only allowing self votes after one day of being posted, or perhaps increase the rewards for curation and decrease the rewards for self voting. The first idea would make it so hot articles were actually more "viral" than just being self voted, and the second could promote more interaction where whales are working to upvote content they enjoy while still being rewarded in a similar way. Just throwing some quick ideas out, the solution isn't apparent, that's for sure.

There was also some talk about having users of similar levels be able to cancel eachothers votes.

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1 vote

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clivingston005 (46) · 7 years ago

While I am not a fan of it, I have less to gain by not doing it as you pointed out in your section on whales. There is more financial gain for them to self vote. My point of view might change if I had more of my skin invested in the system. I have not invested anything more content into the forum. For those that have invested processing power or purchased Steem to grow their account, there should be some expectation of return on investment. The nature of the platform is what it is, we have all signed up for it and we must accept how functions. We all have a choice, we can take our content to other platforms and try to monetize that content.

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1 vote

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taskmaster4450 (78) · 7 years ago

Personally I do not see a problem with self voting one's articles that are quality. Of course, this is subjective. However, if one takes the time to put in effort into an article and the person thinks it quality, an upvote is warranted.

I do not upvote my comments. Comments are made in response to the author and belong to that person since it is his/her article. If the author and other ones commenting thing my comment worthy, then they can upvote it.

Just my .2 steem.

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1 vote

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drotto (48) · 7 years ago

This post has received a 0.13 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.

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cryptonik (55) · 7 years ago

It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty darn close. I am both fascinated and proud of the way steemit exemplifies the true power of decentralization and self-regulation. It is up to us - every single user - to make it really shine.

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polebird (65) · 7 years ago

Hmm interesting to read on this topic since there are so many conflicting thoughts! I didn't really know some of those pros/cons/facts about it before I read your post either. Thanks picking such an informative AND important topic to share with the community.

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minnowsupport (70) · 7 years ago

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Malcolm Reynolds from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP. Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.

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georgemales (68) · 7 years ago

Hehe it's all about our human nature and our biggest virus which is GREED @themarkymark!
And this greed one day it will destroy all of us!
Regarding self voting i think it should be done with common sense and i don't see nothing wrong if its done when you make a blog for example, at least at the beginning when you are a red fish or a minnow... helps the morale to see a vote and digit there!
Have a great week-end!

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plantstoplanks (67) · 7 years ago

Thanks for this post! I think I have pretty similar feelings. I understand that a lot of people are trying to abuse the system, but if you are only upvoting your original content posts I do not really see it as a problem. I only post 3-4 times per week on average, so the amount I have self-voted is quite small. I definitely don't think I would ever vote on my own comments, and I may even think differently about voting my own posts once I achieve higher than minnow status. ;) I look forward to checking out other people's comments to see what the consensus is!

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atmemestable (54) · 7 years ago

@plantstoplanks, I'm in agreement. I've always been confused about how self-voting works. If this post doesn't exactly bring clarity, it does invite discussion. And that, in and of itself, is a good thing.

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1 vote

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plantstoplanks (67) · 7 years ago

Absolutely! I think lately I have seen more of the negative about it--almost shaming everyone who does it. I agree with you that having open dialogue about it is a much more positive approach. I am still learning every day on here, so I love seeing posts like this where the author (thanks @themarkymark) provides a well-thought-out post and then other members add enlightening comments. :)

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yairdd (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hey @themarkymark, Do you allow me to translate this to Hebrew and post it? I run the project for Hebrew guides to new Israeli steemit users @hebrewguides . our goal is to have everything everyone needs to know about steemit and I think it can add a different perspective about Steemit and self-voting that new users need to hear.
thank you!

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I prefer to keep my content my own, sorry.

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yairdd (67) · 7 years ago

It's all good! thank you for answering!

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viktoriyani (65) · 7 years ago

THIS IS REALLY GOOD INFORMATION

hmm I don't even know what are my personal thoughts on it

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deliberator (63) · 7 years ago

I still have very little understanding of how this whole thing works, I upvote someone, they get zilch it seems, it was 0.01 before, now nothing, so my vote no longer counts

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

The early days on steem are very tough. Persistence is key. Produce awesome content people want to reward you for. Early on, commenting and networking will yield better results.

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1 vote

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deliberator (63) · 7 years ago

superb, will try that

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jrswab (66) · 7 years ago

I do not self vote anything I create on steem. That goes for comments and posts. I like to use the number of votes and steem received as a gauge to how well my work is doing.

That being said, there have been a few time where I thought, "hm, if I upvote this the author would have a better chance to see it."

It's a tricky subject for sure...

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

Number of votes is not a good metric as it becomes quite arbitrary. Views is a better metric but not perfect.

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1 vote

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jrswab (66) · 7 years ago

That is a good point. Forgot about the vote trails that we have here.

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teacherpearline (63) · 7 years ago

Interesting read. I’ve learnt something new. Followed. Upvoted

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spiritualmax (64) · 7 years ago

I think self-voting on your own comments is rarely good, but upvoting your own posts, if they are good and you slaved away at writing them, is perfectly fine.

I write long text based posts and I spend a lot of time on each one of those, I feel like my upvote partially helps me be rewarded for my work, and since it is my stake it makes sense.

On the other hand, I upvote myself on those posts because I think it helps with visibility.

I see what you're getting at in what concerns to Whale, and frankly I still am not at a point where I think too much about it... ,maybe one day.

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mawit07 (66) · 7 years ago

Like in the real world money talks. The more money the bigger the voice. I wish all whales would share in their wealth among all minnows and therefore lifting everyone's bottom line. But the reality is most whales got to where they are by strategically investing what they see as best ROI. So wrong or right they see this as a business transaction and a self upvote is collecting their interest.

But personally I feel this will ruin steemit if we allow the biggest investors the majority control of the reward pool. Why is there not a limit on how much one can upvote themselves or limit on self voting pyramid scheme? Where minnows have unlimited self upvotes but when you reach to a whale limited to once a day? Not difficult to do and there would be a better distribution of rewards. The drawback is this would seem to not be a decentralized system because users are being limited and less willingness from users to invest money into steem.

Yet I thought the main goal of steemit was to be a social blockchain where everyone has their own words shared to all. The earnings should go to the ones who perform the most toward benefiting steemit. Not the ones who has the deepest pockets.

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theinsideout (52) · 7 years ago

Right, I agree that it's OK to self-vote comments sometimes when you really want to get some visibility. Maybe if you're self-voting more than 10 percent of the comments you make, you should think about it. As for voting on your own posts, well as you said, a minnow's got to do what a minnow's got to do. As for dolphins and whales, I can certainly understand why they would want to.

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I think 10% is probably high, I probably upvote 1-3 comments a week and I make a lot of comments.

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1 vote

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mr-easyfix (48) · 7 years ago

Now this has been an interesting read. I'm not totally new here, but I am still in the process of figuring it all out. The funny thing is I was contemplating hitting that upvote check box on a recent post I made, but then didn't because it seems the community frowns upon it, so why the heck is the option there???
After reading this I do believe I will be following your lead and upvoting myself on a minimum scale and only my posts I put up as I think they have value for the steemit people.
Thanks for the insight.
Do you have a post explaining the author/curation or is it curation/author voting system thing right above that upvote yourself check box. Just don't know what to do with it, lol. 50%/50%
Do I change it? is that frowned upon, lol. so much to learn and trying not to screw it up is a challenge!

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barge (61) · 7 years ago

Goodness @themarkymark, I came here via a resteem link on so's blog and had wondered why this post was hidden - now I see hi-gin's pal the rancho at work, down-voting this post - I presume as a result of your (to my mind reasonable and interesting) content which the whale user finds offensive; or perhaps it is some other battle where you put your head over the parapet and got shot at! Either way, just commenting to show a bit of support, and to say that I've read some of your other stuff and like it :)
Namste!

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