Every social network in the world is a meritocracy, even the best ones like reddit. It's always the same users making the karma and who know 'how to trend'.
The fact that everyone can buy itself to the top of the trending on STEEM, is a symptom of the manipulation that goes on. Sadly, if minnows can get to trending easily, it's the proof the system is rigged. You wouldn't go register on Instagram and expect 1000s of likes on your first pictures, unless you are already a superstar. Should be the same on steemit, getting to trending should be a long quest that takes months of hard effort. Not a few hundred dollars...
I also believe it's pretty bad psychologically for the minnows. Instead of having the feeling of slowly growing up their influence, week after week, they can instantly boost themselves to the top for a couple of days. It's basically a cheat code, that ruins the game experience. I doubt all these bid-bot users will stay on STEEM once the cheat codes are removed or less powerful.
@heimindanger
So what is your alternative then? Should buying votes be banned?
Or we could go back to the n2 with the whale experiment set at 100mv.
Until the whales stop sucking up the rewards with their sp advantage in the math we will never attract minnows.
The 800k dead accounts demonstrate that the newbs think this game sucks.
Most list the whales not letting the minnows earn rewards as why they left.
Its a clue, ya greedy bastards.
@heimindanger the only people that got hurt is average users
for whom they really fighting if they want a good content to be on the tranding page , how can this be possible if they just downvoting every single content for the name of "good content" from the tranding list without looking at people content?
for my opinion the only thing they do is that they can't downvote whales because whales have a lot of steem power and money to invest into bots so while the whales stay on top, the only people they hurt is average steemanians that don't have a lot of steem power or money to invest, correct me if I wrong but their fight is exactly for average users power just like me, but downvoting posts without reading a content for the name of "good" content isn't that hypocrisy?
the only thing you did is the poor get poorer and the rich get richer
you don't even have a link to user blog or post so people can check what they downvoting
Since the content flagged is only trending because it was upvoted without consideration of quality, merely for money, it is not hurting anyone. It is directly attacking the root of the problem, which is substituting rewardability for quality.
This is a dirty trick, and degrades not only Steemit by infesting it with pandering and pay for play and ponzi schemes, but the hearts and minds of those that get sucked into believing they are improving their lot by buying rewards, rather than earning them.
They're being tricked into substituting money for things that actually matter.
A toddler that gets their hand swatted away from a hot stove is discomfited. As sad as they are at the time, it is only because they do not understand the danger, and how they'd be hurt worse by being allowed to stick their hand in the flame.
There is a metric that drives the flags, and it's percentage of rewards from bot upvotes. IMHO, this perfectly targets the hands in the flames.
The real power of rewards for being upvoted is the elimination of trolls, and the strength of engagement it drives. Those rewards being doled out on the basis of the thickness of the wallet doing the voting poisons the society, however, and warps power into right, which is bass ackwards from what it should do.
@valued-customer
but by downvoting average steemanins only whales will stay on top because they have SP and than once again we will see the same faces on the trending page
I think the bots operators they the once who need to focus on
because people who have money will stay on top no matter the downvotes
@heimindanger The strategy of the curation reward is good, but you get the same result. The most of it will go to the whales. They have the high upvote value and will earn the most of it. It is really complicated, but there must be a solution. We are dealing with many problems here.
Spammers! And yes you see them more active than the other users. We flag them and they loose their reputation, but whats the point! They are still here. My opinion is to remove every account that looses the reputation after checking it.
Scammers. They are stealing accounts everyday and nobody can do anything for that. I can tell you about some acoounts and you can see it yourself. They transfer money out of Steemit and it is visible in their wallet. We must have more security. Maybe block that account and transfer the money back to the owners, otherwise it is not gonna stop. I mean their doing their job and very comfortable here, while thousands of other users are pissed off.
I agree with you. It is correct to downvote posts from the trending page, but not all of them. If someone shares a stupid photo and gets 300$ for it thats wrong. But There are users who write good posts and you can see from the comments that many users follow them and interact with them, then nothing wrong with that.
We should try our best to help Newbies and give them a chance to be on the trending page. The problem is that the most people are not coming online and instead using services like "Steem Voter" to upvote other users. So nobody has time to discover what Minnows are sharing or read their posts. But as I said if we limit spammers and remove their accounts after they loose the reputation, things will look a bit better.
But dont forget that everyone needs to invest at least 100 SBD to be on the trending page. That means if a minnow invest 10 SBD for a bot and get 20 SBD for the upvote wont really help much. Yes some people will see it, but there is a big difference between 200SBD and 20SBD. I see many Minnows with excellent posts and photography, but not getting there :(
Also dont forget that there are many Dolphins using upvoting bots as well. I mean if you check every post on the trending page you will find 70% of them using different bots.