I have updated the selection algorithm for the dMania bot. Unfortunately the last version was susceptible to paid upvotes. Creating a good selection algorithm for the best content isn't easy and in this post I want to elaborate the approach dMania takes and how it differentiates from other apps on Steem.
Automated curation vs human curation
Most apps on Steem select a few people who do the curation and upvote content. There are some pros and cons to that approach. Humans can easily identify quality content. A bot on the other hand has no idea about the content of a post.
If I would just chose a few people who select posts for the bot to upvote, it would definitely improve the quality of content. I would be an easy solution to the problem, but there are some disadvantages. The first problem is that those selected few users would basically control the content of the platform. They decide what should be upvoted and more visible. That's very close to a controlled and censored platform. On an open platform the community selects the best content, not just a few users.
Another problem is that curation by a few chosen curators won't scale. With more and more users, a few human curators can't keep up with all that content. At least not on a platform like dMania, with a very high post frequency.
Another advantage of automated curation is that it's unbiased and incorruptible. A few chosen curators could abuse their power and upvote their own accounts. It's very difficult to monitor and prevent that.
My plan isn't to completely automate the curation and upvote random content. I want to create a platform that rewards content selected by the community. The community should control what the bot should upvote.
Finding the best content isn't easy
Finding the best content with some automated approach isn't easy on Steem. On other platforms, content is always ordered by the number of upvotes/likes. The top posts are the ones with the most upvotes/likes and resemble the conscience of the community.
Steem is a stake based system and content is ordered by the amount of Steem Power. Votes aren't equal on Steem. That means a single user with a lot of Steem Power can push content to the top. So selecting the highest ranked post won't work.
Using only the number of upvotes for finding the best content doesn't work either, because it's very easy to create multiple accounts on Steem to manipulate upvotes.
On the last version of the bot I used Steem Power in combination with the number of upvotes to find the best content selected by the community. Unfortunately upvotes can be bought on Steem as well and atm it's very cheap to do that. Just recently I created a post where I explained that reducing the delegation to paid upvotes bots would resolve that issue and prevent most abuse on Steem.
A new approach
The new selection algorithm for the bot uses dMania supporter votes. dMania supporters are the ones who provide all the SP and that SP generates most rewards on dMania. That's why I think they should decide how the upvotes from dMania should be distributed.
The more SP a supporter has delegated, the more power his vote will have. Like votes on Steem, it will be direct proportional to your delegated Steem Power. Spreading your SP over multiple accounts won't give you an advantage.
The bot will select a post from the trending posts on dMania with the highest average SP supporter votes. E.g.: A vote from a supporter who delegated 100SP and one who delegated 300SP will result in a 200SP average for that post. The voting strength won't matter, but has to be above 50%.
The bot won't just select the highest ranked one, but randomly select one from the top posts.
The post has to be on the trending page on dMania, but doesn't need a minimum payout or number of upvotes like before.
Excluding abusive supporters
If supporters upvote only themselves or a few selected users, their votes will be excluded from the selection process. Only supporters who regularly upvote other authors on dMania will be able to steer the upvotes of the bot.
That should prevent almost all abuse. If someone wants to abuse the dMania upvotes as a supporter, their upvotes will just be ignored.
Paid upvotes
Paid upvotes won't give you a higher chance for dMania bot upvotes. They will only give more visibility for your posts. I thought about banning them, but with the new selection algorithm there isn't much to gain by using them anyway. They have become a big part of Steem in the last couple of months and we have to deal with that somehow I guess. If I see that they are still a problem for curation, I might ban them on dMania.
Final thoughts
I think the new selection alogrithmn will improve the quality of posts and introduce more human curation to the bot post selection process. I think it will be very hard to abuse the new system. If people try to abuse it, they have to delegate a lot of Steem Power which will increase the rewards of everybody else. At the end it will be easier for them to just create quality content.
I will keep improving the selection algorithm and prevent abuse. Just tell me what you think about the new approach and if you have any ideas for improvements.
Support 
dMania
dMania supporters receive 15% of the rewards on dMania and control the upvotes of the dMania bot. The dMania bot uses the collected Steem Power from supporters to upvote posts on dMania. To become a dMania supporter, you have to delegate some Steem Power to dMania. The minimum is only 5 Steem Power. The more Steem Power you delegate, the higher your rewards and the more power you have on dMania. By delegating Steem Power, you are lending your Steem Power to dMania. The Steem Power still belongs to you.
Supporters
There are already over 300 dMania supporters:
@misterdelegation
@snubbermike
@lafona-miner
@xeldal
@cnts
@zombee
@inertia
@elgeko
@picklejar
@vonabell
@neworleans
@mat1973
@datapotomus
@northeast
@spotlight
@whatsup
@raggaemuffin
@zyberzerk
@cloudconnect
@chef.cook
... and many more
If you have any questions join our Discord server
Please upvote, post and comment on dMania to support this project. Every single upvote counts. You can contact me on Discord if you find any bugs or if you have ideas for new features. Please resteem and upvote this post and tell everyone you know who likes memes about dMania. Follow @dmania and @zombee to get the latest updates about this project.
I like dMania..
😁😁😁😁😁 !
@zombee, my child likes the card watching a zombie movie.
@jesca dMania is the best 👍
I really like the new system! It makes the abuse with upvote bots much harder and less effective. This is a great step forward to good quality content upvoted by the dmania bot.
I have a few questions: I am not really active at dmania at the moment. But when I upvote memes, I upvote them with maybe 10% in the "new-section". Does my dmania-supporter-delegation get calculated to the post then? It is not really clear to me.
Few examples:
If I just upvote my own posts with 100% and nobody else will my "dmania-supporter-delegation-SP" be ignored? Does that count as abuse?
If I upvote my own posts with 100% and posts from other people with just 10% or lower, will my "dmania-supporter-delegation-SP" be ignored? Does that count as abuse?
Or do I have to upvote every post with 50% or more from now on?
You have to upvote other posts with >=50%. Otherwise your votes won't matter for the selection.
If you upvote your posts a lot and other users rarely, you will be excluded from the selection. Again the voting strength has to be >=50% for everything to be considered by the bot. If you upvote your posts with 100% and others with 10% it will look to the bot like you only upvote your own posts.
that is something that maybe needs a rework. I am an active SteemIt-User and we all just have 1000% Vote a day. I upvote my own posts with 100% so there are 800% left a day. And I have to split these 800% among all my followers and good content creators. I can not just upvote every meme with 50% or above. That will drain my Votepower pretty hard.
And I am sure that whales wont do that either. Imo this system needs a rework.Maybe something like 25% or above when 25% > 0,02$ upvote
You are probably an exception. Most users don't vote over 50 or 100 times a day. Probably like 10-20 times. So 50% is good for now. Most users can't control their voting strength anyway.
I know it isn't completely accurate but it makes the calculations a lot easier. Otherwise things will get a lot more complicated. I will probably consider the voting strength later on . For now you will have to upvote some posts with >= 50% if you want to control the upvotes of the bot. That's 20 upvotes a day and I think that's quite a lot.
It would be quite a lot if dmania would have its own blockchain or something like that, but at the moment I have to be active at steemit too and every vote on one platform reduces the potential upvotes on the other.
Upvoting my 2 posts a day and 16 dmania posts means I can not upvote anything else at steemit which is not cool.
The actual version is far better than the old one but it has to be changed in the future in my opinion so you will have to go the harder and more complicated way in the long run
@zombee I have the same problem, as I upvote pretty much any good comment on my posts as you can check out on my dmania posts and the other ones that I make. I strongly believe in upvoting good content and good comments and I think this is the purpose of steem's platforms. And also to raise quality. I will try to balance everything out with voting 50%+ on good content from dmania, I hope everyone else does that. This way, the platform will improve quality wise.
@equ1libr1um, @fcusedguy and All sorry i bother you, i want to join with you. Regards @launglilawangsa dMania
How much SP do you recommend to delegate to dmania so my votes can be taken into account?
Do you use discord?
The more SP you delegate, the more value your vote will have. It's direct proportional to your delegated SP.
Yeah we have a discord channel. The link is in the post.
The memes whe upvote need to be from the new section, or we can choose any meme from trending or hot section?
I vote plenty of times a day as well since i'm part of many groups so i feel ya haha :P
My VP hasn't touched 80% for a long time..
@howtostartablog, sorry i bother you, i want to join with you. Regards @launglilawangsa
I do comedy on the steem blockchain and it's hard to get curation......I like your mindset very much...and is there a limit for posting on Dmania? I read that, with the other bot, you couldn't post a lot ...how is it with this bot?
please keep coming to the platform to avoid abuses...don't let everything in automatic pilot...I plan to delegate back to dmania a big portion of my earnings from dmania but I have not a lot of vp right now.....I have a bit delegated to dmania anyway
Yeah. I also loved them...
Good @booster, regards @launglilawangsa in dMania
Excellent man! :) I can assure you that a system like this one that you implemented works quite well, as I have a similar one implemented in DSound bots as well and it is rocking! I faced all the problems you describe as well and with the amount of copycats, paid votes and the invasion from people of certain countries that just want to make an extra buck with whatever they can throw to steem, and it makes it a huge task to prevent the abuse. I tried to flag the abusing posts, even asked my community to help with flagging, have blacklists implemented, but it is just a lost battle... We need to acknowledge that they exist and we cannot do anything to prevent it, otherwise we will be building a huge system just to prevent abuse, and instead not putting our effort in favor of what matters the most, which is our community of real content creators! :) Would be very happy to chat with you about these ideas, so that we can help each other to bullet proof our bots! Good work buddy! :)
Ooh so you guys use bots as well? I thought it was all manual curation. Haven't submitted anything on DSound yet. Hopefully in the future..
DSound has a similar system? I thought it uses a few selected human curators. Yeah we should definitely chat sometime and exchange some ideas. Would be very interested how the curation on DSound works.
Yep selecting the best content on Steem is very hard. So much abuse, reposts and paid upvotes. Creating a fair and unbiased system is very difficult. I hope this new approach works better.
The dsound ceiling supports a potent art ,good job @zombee
Hai @prc, cryptocurrency @launglilawangsa
'If supporters upvote only themselves or a few selected users, their votes will be excluded from the selection process.'
what if they will additionally vote for a few random ones and still upvote themselves?
They can upvote themselves but not too much and only within reasonable limits. Regular users who upvote their posts and others as well won't have a problem. Only selfish supporters and abusers will be excluded.
@zombee i dont like the system as it is going. because every one use bot votes and thus there post go to trending and then upvoted by the bot is this fair ? my voting power is zero what are chances for yo be selected by bot vote od dmania ?
The new system will change that. People who use voting bots won't have a higher chance to get upvotes.
How can a post be in trending when those posts are the ones already voted by dmania?
Trending and Hot are swapped on dMania compared to Steemit.
That's a good idea and it is best for dmania suppoters....The more he/she supports the more he/she get the reward!
@zombee This is a better system that the old one. Still susceptible to some factors, but better. Glad you managed to change it. I just saw this and posted earlier without knowing that the system has changed. I like that :
I don't have to use a lot of bid bots. I was using a lot of them, just so my content gets noticed, because of the other users who used many accounts with a lot of bid bots. But this was allowed and it's still allowed. I don't have a problem with that. Now I can use less bots just so my content is visibile, not only for the bot but mostly for the users.
The platform will not be abused anymore by users creating multiple accounts, it will be still susceptible to this but not to such a high number. You can easily track this after some time and I hope users will report the abuses, even if they are made by the suporters, because this will be likely the case if that happens.
Copy paste content and reposting same memes or gifs over and over will not receive upvotes. If that happens it's easy to detect who is abusing the platform.
Quality content on which you can see that the user has put work in will be upvoted more often and improve the platform's overall performance
Congrats again on this change. Now let's have some fun 😎
PS. : Upvoted this comment with low % of power to get past the spam
Wow this post is BANGING @zombee. I'm amazed by the speed at its growth. You have a fantastic network. I hope to be able to do work like this one day..
I think this a good idea @zombee.
My suggestion is that if you can look for a way to spread the votes not only on trending page, I think that will be cool.
I delegated 10sp, I don't know whether I stand a chance of getting voted.
I thought about it but for now Trending is the probably the best place to reward people. It isn't very hard to get into Trending atm. There are posts with < $0.50 on the Trending page.
The bot can't upvote posts that haven't received any upvotes by other users (New page) because the bot doesn't know if the content is good or bad.
OK.
In the trending I only see posts with dmania votes.
This sounds good! It seems new algorithm will absoultely increase quality of content. I think it may also increase supports and bot's voting power.
But of course there are some important points; we will probably see lots of abusive supporters with new algorithm. They will try to delegate more Steem Power and will vote for themselves or their friends group! But no problem as you said "their votes will be excluded" :)
We are happy with update of dMania Bot v3 Thank you @zombee
Yeah. I also loved them
This is help new people to get a chance to win. Thats Good work. It will also reduce the buy of upvoting. Thank you sir @zombee.
I delegated 100 sp for dMania.
Hi - I've made a few posts on dMania with comedy in mind and see that you actually appear to have flagged me today. I can't understand why. I've ironically made several mentions about @dmania in my posts motivating people to adopt the system and I'm confused/disappointed to see this. Post is here.
I've seen a lot of posts get heavy upvotes from dMania that I'd argue didn't deserve a dime, but that's ok. I just don't understand why you'd elect to flag me versus endorse my post to encourage adoption by a very active member or the #punchline and #funny tags. I didn't self-upvote and didn't use any upvote bots. It was a simple joke, which I viewed as a funny advertisement for @dmania.
Thanks for any reply with feedback.
I flagged a lot of posts about dMania, dMania upvotes and the dMania bot. There were just too many lately. There weren't funny or interesting at all....
Just post something funny or interesting.
In that case, why not simply reply to the people you feel you should flag because something isn't interesting or funny to you to give them constructive advice? Flagging people trying to make jokes that you don't like or find interesting, when adoption is important, seems like a negative approach that will send the wrong message to people actually trying to use the platform with good intentions.
the dMania bot just up-voted the same kind of memes for a while, they were exactly about the subjects you mention. So it was a "cant beat 'em.. join 'em situation.. like @steemmatt I also assumed that dMania appreciated the exposure, to bring new people in, so in turn I made some posts featuring the logo. Sorry. I won't mention dMania in da dank memes anymore. I do really like it when someone posts an actual LIT meme and not just some gibberish. I will continue to delegate to dMania as I acquire more SP. Thank you for your most excellent service!
I love the change. Before it seems the only way to get the bot for you was to spam uvpote bots. I just delegated some SP because i want ot be part of the site. Even if im not active much lately.
yes, this is what I expect and another if the rules have to be tightened, do not just buy the upvote who gets the votes from the bot dmania, if only the customers in dmania will be reduced and will be bored because they do not have the capital to buy votes. sorry this is just my advice, i just want more advanced dmania only. thank you.
i have troubles uploading memes to dmania . what ,s the problem ?
heyy miss you. make quality content more often!
Good pos @dmania 👍
Hello updater,,, thanks for the update algorithm post on Dmania bot.
It's a another great job...
Love to read and love to learn.
Upvote
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@zombee
not sure if u can call it abuse but @kalvas gets one @dmania upvote per day always from self voting
maybe a bit less weighting votes from the top (15~ supporters?)
now looks like u NEED a vote from a top supporter to get dmania vote
im not saying it's a bad system now but it needs a bit of love
thanks for share this news.good work.
Very nice post. I am knowing many important thing by reading your post
Great news. Congratulations @zombee
We should start creating good and quality memes then!
The thing is the standard procedures for voting is what mist people are really asking, since it's not a written content, they want to know the criteriad for judging a quality meme
And well this system will certainly be good, when will it be implemented?
Already online
Great, thanks for share this news.. 😊
Very good post, this information is very useful for the crowd and especially for myself. Thank you for sharing and hopefully you will be more successful to work.
Are there different rules for getting to the trending page now? And will the normal user be required to cast several upvotes/3 days like it was until now in order to qualify for the bot upvote?
I really like the new changes, I hope it will improve the platform :)
Getting to trending is the same as always. You have to receive some upvotes.
You still have to upvote other posts as a user to get upvotes from dMania.
Just to clarify, only votes from those who delegated is counted?
And since we have to vote 50% and above, is there a min requirement on how many votes to cast a day?
And does the bot's voting weight vary according to the SP delegated by the users who voted on your content? I wasnt clear on that part. Thanks!
Yep only people who delegated to dMania can control the bot upvotes.
There isn't a minimum for dMania supporters. It only matters how dMania supporters distribute their votes. They shouldn't vote selfish, then they are fine.
Nice your post @zombee saya restem
Honestly all I could say in this comment has already been said by you
1• Bots can cover larger number of people in votes but how do you program a bot to recognize good content
2• Humans can identify quality posts but won’t they die working like a bot someday
3• The best I think In my own knowledge is bringing together AI {Artificial intelligence....the bots} to ease the work of humans afterall that’s the sole aim of AI.
• Final thought
More curators are needed
This seems like the best way to approach curation on dMania for now.
Thannk's @zombee great idea
nice info
Great post at list i learn alot from this
Okey. Im like your post. How tell somebody to have knowladge tha DMania. Happy nice dya
I am really happy to see that changes :-) and will delegate again in next week
I really like this new rule, but one thing I do not understand. bots dmania only choose a trending post, it is very difficult to achieve without buying upvote, for example there are some delegators who vote in one post, maybe vote him only $ 0.500 it will not lift the post to the trending page. there are 300 more users who delegate steem power to dmania, but not all delegators are active in dmania, so it's very hard to get upvote from them. although our content is highly qualified it will still be difficult to get upvote from the delegator, we are just plankton looking for big vote from dmania. this will be very difficult for us. hopefully dmania more successful.
There are posts on Trending with < $0.50, so it's not that hard to get into Trending.
More supporters will be active now on dMania and vote content. That will improve the curation and quality overall.
i am sorry to say...please add discord
edit my post..
please sir join this dmania(discord)
perfect update sir @zombee let's rock dmania..
dmania will reach 1,000,000 + sp soon.. delegating my 98% of steem power now..
Cheer$$$$...
Me too cheer 😂😂😂
good job ...
Hi @zombee. I will follow all your rules.
I see this rule posted about 2 hours ago. and I am glad to know this new algorithm that will apply to bot dmania. But in this case there is one thing that I feel is unfair / proper in acting. Many people who make payments to bots to boost post to the tranding, whereas previously there is no this rule. Okay .. now we stick to the new rules, but I regret, you do a downvote to every post you encounter that is indicated to make bot payments only within the span of an hour after you publish this new rule. and we know that most of them do it long before this post rises. But because we can not do much, I will appreciate all your decisions. Thanks
Great job with dmania, keep up the great work! Over time everything will get better and better :)
I think so far dmania unjust. even the not funny in the select because their memes in trending when it was the result of buying bot. so how dmania really be a guide to the actual meme
I appreciate this system and it will improve @dmania reputation. Original sharing will be scoring high and genuine posters will be encourage. Paid Upvote now discourage and maximum chance of boosting good content. Although I have low Steem Power supporter but proud to be @dmania supporters.
Thanks for doing great job of New bot @zombee
I support complete automaton, perhaps people like us might get noticed at some point. But in the end whatever you choose, I am sure it will be for the best. You guys are doing a great of help for the community. Thanks.