Here on steemit, I'm what you'd call a curator.

Many of my posts are written to promote great content on certain tags. I spend hours reading posts, and combing through tags to find relevant content to share. This is getting harder and harder to do because of the recent influx of people who are using the "wrong" tags on their posts...

For anyone who might not know yet, which I doubt is anyone, a hashtag is a way to categorize your content so when people search for something, the search engine can find exactly what that user is looking for. However, sometimes it doesn't always work that way, and it's mostly because people see a benefit in using tags that do not belong on their posts, often for sheer exposure.

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Let's talk through an example of hashtag spam.

If I search through steemit for 'Apples', I obviously am not looking for your post about 'Oranges'. Your post about 'Oranges', no matter how well articulated and informative it may be, is spam in the 'Apples' feed, and should be treated as such. Now, maybe you were just trying to get more fruit enthusiasts to see your post, maybe you don't know what an 'Apple' is, and you've accidentally used the wrong tag. Maybe you see that posts on the 'Apple' tag are receiving generous upvotes, and you want to get in on some of that money, because if they like 'Apples', maybe they'll like 'Oranges' too...

That last reason is the worst. It is incredibly unscrupulous to try to game the system for profit.

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Here's what I plan to do about it:

Since my voting power is better used on valuable content, and I try to keep myself at a 75/25 upvote-flag ratio, I'm going to start writing a series of posts to call out hashtag spammers. I will choose a different tag for each post, and comb that feed, recording statistics on relevant vs irrelevant posts. I will be tagging any and all users that are using a specific tag incorrectly, my way of pointing out the amount of abuse, as well as publically 'calling out' the offenders.

Some tags are pretty vague, offering a lot of wiggle room when it comes to the type of content for that subject. Others, however, are very specific, and are used for only one type of post. The latter is more what I'll be focusing my post series on to start. People are seeing big money earned on certain tags, and are using them on posts that have nothing to do with the topic, in an effort to attract upvotes from people/bots who may just be upvoting everything on the tag.

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Gimme some feedback!

What do you think about a post series that calls out spammers? Again, sometimes it's accidental, and people just need to be educated. Sometimes, people need to be publically shamed for the behavior they knowingly exhibit.

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