After creating the new witness page at Steem Ocean it became apparent that @steemitboard and @good-karma are only really so high in the ranks because they operate vote bots that vote for huge numbers of accounts - which doesn't really reflect (in my way of thinking) an alignment towards personal community spirit so much as it is just an automated part of their 'business model'.
At the very least, having to be compared to such a bot powered voting pattern gives an unhelpful challenge to everyone else being ranked by the voter rank index at Steem Ocean. So for now, both of these accounts have been added to the 'ignored bot list'.
I have also added a standard position counter to the witness rank table.
Once the next index completes I expect the witness table at steem ocean to be more reflective of reality. That wil be at around 7pm GMT.
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
Vote @ura-soul for Steem Witness!
View My Witness Application Here
(Witnesses are the computer servers that run the Steem Blockchain.
Without witnesses there is no Steem, Steemit, DTube, Utopian or
Busy... You can really help Steem by making your 30 witness votes count!
Don't forget, there are more than the 50 witnesses you see on the witness voting page in steemit.com)
@ura-soul, thanks for expressing your way of thinking.
IMHO, many witnesses use vote bots. I you look at @pharesim for example, I doubt spreading 5165 votes in one week is done manually.
Could you describe what "personal community spirit" stands for you?
If you read @steemitboard's witness introduction post, is voting model (and not business model) is clearly to support newcomers and spread its power to create a win-win situation. Isn't that "community spirit"?
As stated on your about page, your ranking is defined as this: "Each user is awarded a ranking score based on their benevolence [...] and in particular to see how willing they are to support others."
Isn't spreading votes to as many people as you can (instead of selfish or circle jerking votes) a clear demonstration of the will to support other, whether the way of doing it is automated or not?
Not that I want you to bring @steemitboard back into your page, but to make you see that your reasoning, although based on good will, is a bit biased.
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The text on the about and ignore pages has been updated.
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Thanks for your input. To clarify what I am thinking here:
I have no way of knowing who is using an autovoter, for example, to upvote large numbers of accounts - but ultimately it generally doesn't make any difference to me whether an autovoter is used or not. The issue for me is not so much whether autovoting is occurring, but whether the number of accounts being voted for is reflective of a real intention to help people based on a real human connection that denotes interest in and support of the content being upvoted... As opposed to a robotic upvoting that has no human connection and/or is really just a business agreement of some kind.
It's obviously not so easy to prove who is voting in that way, but if a service exists that auto upvotes large numbers of accounts in the context of a service/business arrangement, such as - i understand - esteem to do and steemitboard does, then that is enough evidence for me.
I stand by the decision to remove these two accounts and will update the notes on the steem ocean website to make the grounds for accounts being added to the ignore list clearer.
That phrase includes within it the points I just made, in terms of the intention of one or more real people to upvote/support/help other real people in real ways.. As opposed to robots upvoting to achieve a numerical goal and/or to exploit the economics of Steem with no other intention.
Can we say that someone is being 'generous' if all they do is upvote everyone who comes and supports them? How is that so much different to just buying votes from a bid bot? Or selling them from a bid bot?
There is an issue within the algorithm used here that relates to the way that it can be exploited by those who want to get to the top of the rank table.. They could just autovote large numbers of accounts with almost no vote weight and artificially increase their position. Doing so is not necessarily a sign of benevolence, but could be said to be a carefully thought out PR move to increase visibility and respect in the community, while actually doing little of any use. It's not an easy issue to tackle, without massively more processing and complex network maths. I think that just removing services/accounts that blindly automate their mass voting is a reasonably fair approach.
Does it seem unbiased now?
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You have explained well. And earlier I see reasons with what you did.
Atleast it should have the terms and conditions
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🌈 Thanks for letting me know it: I’ll remove @steemitboard and @good-karma till they change their habits! 🙏🏻
Edit
@ura-soul please correct goodkarma adding a “-“ between good and karma! 😜
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I'm not sure they will change much as their voting is probably not a problem to them, but I would be interested to hear their input.
Thanks for the typo note - corrected ;)
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UR welcome, Ura! ;)
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I'm going to be diplomatic with this question, while making it obvious that I'm not being diplomatic. What do you think about crony capitalism?
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hehe.. well, i am not a cronie, so i can't see how cronie capitalism can be a good thing!
i've made a few posts exposing the denial involved in all forms of capitalism - but capitalist minded people tend to get angry and avoid the real issues involved, for the most part:
https://steemit.com/freedom/@ura-soul/anarcho-capitalism-voluntarism-and-alternatives-my-response-to-kafkanarchy84-re-dannyshine
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I don't think many capitalist minded people got angry about that linked post. I know I pointed to the social constructs built around capitalism being a problem. I don't know if it has been anything considered when you mention denial.
The social constructs of a system that can be gamed in many different facets by various 'bots' may be demonstrative of such a point.
Person to person exchange of value is a considerable distance from automation doing something.
Automation produces this same problem in the physical realm(outside of the digital). Person to robot exchanges lack subjective value within the robot. The robot doesn't value as a human values.
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The 'average' capitalist thinker, in my experience, has adopted the thinking because it is so prevalent and it serves their purposes in their immediate reality - so yes, you are right - many will not be angered as they are not so heavily attached to the thinking as others who directly advocate for it publicly. I have mostly only discussed the points I am making in anarchist type forums which tend to be heavily polarised (artificially) between anarcho-capitalists and pretty much everyone else... They were really who I was thinking of when I made the comment about anger.. Although actually fear is the predominant emotion, with anger being an optional extra layer on top that is intended to protect against what is causing the fear.
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Ah, i see. What do you think is driving the fear?
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My understanding is the fear is the emotional response to beliefs of not having enough power.. So logically, they fear 'having their stuff taken' - which is pretty much what they have said, except they don't say they are scared - they typically either say that they will shoot anyone who takes their stuff or just accuse me of being a communist ;)
Ironically, since anarchism has long been identified by many well known and respected authors/thinkers to be fundamentally incompatible with capitalism (in a purely ideological sense) it appears that these anarcho-capitalists are actually afraid of anarchism and what it might mean! In order for this denial to take place, there has to be a denial that the fear exists and a denial also of what the alternatives are - which is why I repeatedly find that those who claim to oppose what I am saying tend to run away or just 'forget' what was said and carry on talking as if I never said anything ;)
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I have some similar thoughts about power, but also about control. I think there is probably more to unpack in the area of 'means of existence'/'means of production' and how that relates in a epistemology sense. Mostly in the form of how aggression looks.
Anarchism appears to have forked many years ago, best I can tell, it split between social value and subjective value. In a subjective value context anarcho capitalism is consistent of capitalism in the sense of person to person value exchange and the recognition of subjective value of personal/private property.
Social value anarchy (as I am sure you are aware) has taken many forms and has moved in and around the social constructs of different eras. Communism being only one of those social constructs, but remains a influence even today. Communism by its own manifesto is a power politics aggression model, and continues to be so today.
I am still not real clear on the 'fear exists and a denial also' part. That is something I would like to know more about what you observe.
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I have been quite ignorant of communism, despite having studied Soviet Russian History at college for a year. I was ware that the version of communism that was sold to 'the people' was very different to the reality that was delivered.. And also aware that Lenin and Trotsky were funded by Wall St. Bankers in America - possibly to deliberately derail the original communist intent. What I didn't know is that the Marxist ideal was to create a post capitalist world that was a true evolution. I didn't know that, partially because of the derailing and partially because (from what little I know of Marx) he appears to have been an intellectual type who (just like most other people at that time) had little understanding of real balance and the need to respect it.
The comment about fear and denial referred to the contradiction that 'anarcho-capitalists' fear anarchism, yet claim to be anarchistic. By denying their own fear of anarchism (fear of real freedom and of themselves and their failings) they essentially throw pieces of the situation into a black hole and pretend it doesn't exist. This denial of reality is the only logical way that anarchy can appear to sit and play nicely with capitalism, I think.
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Right, but from where I'm sitting, that's what it looks like atm.....just being honest. I know that's not such a popular thing amongst some people. I am happy to make some enemies with my opinion, because I didn't come here to make money in the first place. Problem is, if you don't post anything, a lot of folks assume you're a bot!
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Are you referring to Steem in general? And the way that those with the most money upvote each other to increase their wealth?
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Yep. At the same time, I'm not complaining from a personal point of view. I'm not coming at this from a self entitlement angle. Anyway, I think you get my drift.
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Thats is good you spread some awareness about these bots..will helpful in future.
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Its assuring to know that there open eyes in here. to make the site as fair as possible
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Thanks for the up date
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its very importent update,, thanks for share
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Thanks for your information , i like it . Keep good work .
I resteem your post on my blog .
Your post is always different i follow your blog and upvote everytime , your post is so helpful . I always inspire of your post on my steem work . Thank you for sharing @ura-soul
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I have just selected a few people as witness, and I am awaiting good input and good judgment from other steemians as recommendations of eligible witness.
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This post has been just added as new item to timeline of Steem Ocean on Steem Projects.
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