It has been three months since I have discovered steemit. I am still learning and figuring out more details and principals about this incredible social network. Apart from this profile @kedjom-keku, I have also established my personal one @martin.mikes to present my own opinions and experience and together with @personz (actually he did it) developed voting bot called @treeplanter. It works pretty much the same as other voting bots with one big difference. Half of the „profit“ is going to be used (we are still at the beginning of fundraising) to save and restore Abongphen Highland Forest in Cameroon. The second half is used to increase STEEM POWER so it helps her (the bot is she) to be able to plant more trees in long term. @treeplanter has already received donations worth over 1,000$ in the past 2 months which allows us to plant 500 trees (and supporting our program in general).

Everything was moving smoothly (with some minor problems with a code which were always promptly solved by @personz.) I really have to appreciate what he has actually done for free for our conservation program.

Thanks a lot, my virtual friend.

A few days ago @personz wrote me he has bad news for me. He said he will not continue to administer the bot because of moral issues he gained after a serious discussion with his friends. I found his reasons really interesting and I would like to share with you his opinion about voting bots and why he does not want to participate in such a fundraising project.

Before starting with the interview I would like to introduce you to our program and our current situation:

Abongphen Highland Forest in Kedjom-Keku, Bamenda highlands, Northwest region of Cameroon, belongs to Guinea forest, a world-impact biodiversity hotspot of the highest possible ecological and societal value. Moreover, the waters of Abongphen Highland Forest supply two major African basins, the basin of Niger, fifth largest in Africa, and the Sanaga river basin, the largest one in Cameroon. The current level of destruction of this forest is alarming and has led to a serious decrease in water availability for the whole region. This water shortage is directly threatening livelihoods of thousands of people and, if sustained, could cause an ecological, economical and societal catastrophe. On the top of this, the small remaining fragments of the forest provide habitat for the most endangered subspecies of chimpanzee Pan troglodytes ellioti; several endemic species of birds and extremely high diversity of amphibians and plants. The main threats to the forest were defined as: the pressure of fast growing population, poor educational system, inefficient and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, hesitance and poor effectiveness of certain local offices and authorities. We intend to restore Abongphen Highland Forest and its capacity to catch and provide water and, in turn, we want to improve livelihoods of locals by means of forest-friendly micro-economic approach and grant them access to quality education. To ensure sustainability of our program we will establish the first 100% transparent cooperative in Cameroon to associate all stakeholders and participants into the conservation business structure.

Fast deforestation of Abongphen Highland Forest in Cameroon

We started with the program in 2012, since then it became more complex including many aspects of human wealth and their dependences on our environment. Currently, we are not only fighting against deforestation and its direct consequences on humans but also facing difficulties of political unrest in the Anglophone region of this country. The attempt to achieve equal opportunities for the English speaking minority of Southern Cameroon (the country is ruled by the francophone majority) ended in terrible outbreaks of violence provoked by the government, an unknown number of arrests, disappeared and deaths, no school since nearly one year and extreme economical losses that influences all of us.

At this very moment the tension is worsening and especially financially we cannot give up on any help. Since we see ourselves as a trusting model NGO that acts transparent and governmentally independent, we rely completely on private funds. While we are improving our fundraising strategies we are exploring new ways of regular and long-term funds to cover small parts of our complex conservation program. We discovered steemit as a unique opportunity to not only gain funds for our activities but also share our experiences, spread our knowledge and to be transparent.

For more information about our program check http://www.kedjom-keku.com

@treeplanter: Hello @personz, first of all, I would like to thank you again for your effort and the time you spent to develop our best fundraising tool which we ever have. When we were talking about your reasons not to support us anymore, you have mentioned the interesting term money making machine which I actually always use while talking with my friends about @treeplanter. Could you describe more what you exactly think by that?

@personz: Thank you! It was a pleasure working on this with you. I have come to see vote buying, pay for a vote, boosters, or whatever you want to call them, as a neat way to get around some of the constraints of Steemit which are there to keep the platform fair. If you have a lot of SP that’s great, you can do a lot with it. But one of the things that contribute towards Steemit’s long term stability and worth is the lock in period for SP, i.e that it takes 13 weeks to fully power down (this used to be 2 years! but was reduced). Another is that you can only get up to half of author and curation rewards in a liquid tradable asset (SBD). When you sell votes you are able to get 100% of that in liquid assets (usually it’s SBD but it could be Bitcoin or anything else) plus possibly whatever you get as curation rewards.

When you sell votes you skip this process and so the incentives for the platform change. It upsets the ecosystem and sellers gain disproportionately.

@treeplanter: When I realized that our bot is actually a money making a machine I have stopped using other bots. Do you know where all the donations for other bots are going? If it goes all back to the community to help minnows, do you still have such a big problem with it?

@personz: I am perhaps a little radical in my views in that I firmly believe that the ends cannot justify the means. This is an ethical position. So I can neatly dismiss this. It doesn’t matter that some few of the many thousands of minnows will get a leg up from vote selling, the entire premise of it is negative. In my view we should support the aspects that will lead to good content providers being rewarded in the social aspect of Steemit. In other-words, that the trending page has popular stuff on it that is genuinely popular.

@treeplanter: Are there any conditions that need to be fulfilled to motivate you to participate in some other (or the same) voting bot project?

@personz: I’m not sure, I like to think about things in a case by case way. I can say in general though that promoting genuine outward votes are how I think Steemit will thrive as a social media platform.

@treeplanter: You are reporting a lot about self-voting. What is worse, self-voting or voting bots? I guess if you use a voting bot to get vote for your own article.

@personz: I would label self-voting as broadly being uncooperative, in that only the self-voter gains. Voting bots, and even vote selling bots, can also be used for self voting so there is some overlap there. But self voting is certainly worse than vote selling if the vote it to someone other than the vote buyer.

@treeplanter: Thanks a lot for your time. I wish you the best in your fight against self-voting.

Since, we, unfortunately, lost our reliable admin of our bot, we are searching for someone else who will help us to make her 100% functional 24/7.

We believe that our voting bot @treeplanter, even though it is assumed as a money making a machine for a good cause, could also serve as a self-fulfilling tool for all STEEMIANS with the great chance to contribute to solve environmental issues together with us.

Thanks a lot!

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Save Abongphen Highland Forest and its inhabitants together with us!

You can choose from many ways:

1. Donate to our NGO’s account @kedjom-keku any amount of STEEM or SBD
2. Use our voting bot @treeplanter. Plant trees and get paid for it!
3. Donate BTC to our blockchain wallet
4. Donate Solarcoins to our wallet
5. Send donation to our bank account
6. Use Crowdfunding portal of our new website www.kedjom-keku.com

Read, upvote and resteem other active articles of me @martin.mikes, NGO @kedjom-keku or voting bot @treeplanter

@treeplanter

1. I have new icon! But still, need more Steem Power to satisfy your demands. Please delegate some to me to be able to plant more trees!

@kedjom-keku

1. Let's save Abongphen Highland Forest: Newtonia camerunensis (Critically Endangered)

Follow us: @kedjom-keku, @martin.mikes, @treeplanter!