Vote sellers and the whales selling them SP rentals are welcome to think their conduct is not detrimental to the platform.
Steemit, Inc. is welcome to ignore the fact that the "trending page" on its flagship platform is dominated by (objectively) shit posting, which is in fact paid (crap) advertising that is not marked as such.
Users who disagree with the above state of affairs are welcome to highlight these issues by commenting on posts that receive large payout from vote buying.
I personally 100% support @transparencybot and can only say that I truly wish it was not necessary.
Much love - Carl
Thanks for sharing. Happy to have @transparencybot on board to help raise awareness about the bidbot problem.
This is a big problem, one that could potentially mark the death of Steemit as it attacks the foundational concept of the platform (proof of brain).
I personally didn't join the DLT movement with a desire to see the best projects destroyed by the same stupid human forces (greed, avarice, etc) that have destroyed every other economic system in the world. Hopefully the tech wizards will find a way to solve this problem and others (technically preventing ourselves from destroying ourselves is a happy evolution). In the meantime, I haven't and won't pay for bots to boost my content.
I'm here to create not destroy.
Great closing line :)
Absolutely!
Look at all the other projects, including @curie, that people can delegate to: https://steemit.com/steem/@roelandp/introducing-solicitingpower-com-a-gallery-of-steem-projects-worth-supporting-with-your-delegations
Long term people, come on now!
Thanks for highlighting that Asher. I think it is a great initiative and I hope people take advantage of the tools it provides to check vote history. You will see Curie with 98%+ unique votes and no self votes.
No problem, I've used it to delegate and will be keeping an eye on the stats 😊
Carl,
You summed it up pretty succinctly!
Thank you for taking a stance on this and of course for your long term outlook, even if it is not popular with so many of the bigger players who at this point are conflicted by their huge delegations or direct involvement with these bot, that they simply do not want to hear that their platform is being destroyed by their own hand.
It's great to have support from an earlier adopter.
FUR'd
Blessings!
The best thing about @transparencybot is reading the flame wars.
Source
Love it!
I'm with you 100%. It's good to see the @transparencybot comments showing up on the trending page posts.
I have to use bidbots. I have no choice. My work with curie helps but its not a guarantee and as you see I haven't had time to even really try to find curie worthy posts. But my goals are not going to be realized until i have a lot mors money and i cant sit around waiting for a whale to see the work of @teamgirlpowa or the #teamgirlpowa members
I have resisted since i started in October 2017. Thats 5 months. And everytime we come down to "how to become more successful " its always $$$ and with hood reason as this is why ppl come here. And those who believe in our mission have been working their asses off and only now am i finally able to start paying but really im not cuz im just barely keeping up with the funding.
Most of its coming from my sbd and steem savings
Do I want bidbots? No. Do i think that myself and my members produce quality and offer a space thag didnt exist before we fought for it ? Yes.
Am I gonna do what I can to keep it alive and make it stronger? Hell yes.
Im cool with @transparencybot hell you can look and see the promotions.
But I'd love a better solution. How can we get more whales to delegate their votes rather than sell them?
How can we impose socialist solutions on a fully anarchocapitalist platform?
Lets also be honest about curie, how can we create sustainability for the artists we discover? We cant all become curators. Even at that the art suffers if you have a day job and live in an expensive country/city.
So kudos to @transparencybot , boo to those who cant admit they used them, but lets keep talking aboug REAL solutions cuz no ones biting on delegated curators...for fear of low/no ROI
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I have been here less time than you, and even 1 month ago I was saying the same thing. I had to use them for visibility. But the truth is I don't. There is another path to visibility, which is to connect with others on their posts. Not only can you have a meaningful exchange with the author, but others of like mind who comment on the post.
I think it comes down to expectations. Do we expect instant success, or can it take awhile and grow naturally? To achieve your goals here, perhaps you feel you have no choice, but you do have a choice as all of us do.
We can't, and it is unrealistic to expect such a thing. Whales have free will as all of us do. So the questions that could be asked is how can I make this grow without ever being noticed by a whale? Is this worth doing if it takes a long time to grow?
I have decided yes, and modified my approach here. Modified it from a month ago when I too insisted I had no choice.
I have 300 + women from various parts of the world and a long term goal.
but thanks for your input ☺️
transparency bot is only commenting when a post has spent something like 50 SBD on promotion, or some cutoff that I should probably look up before commenting - but the point is, it wouldn't be commenting on your posting or the posting of the vast majority of bid bot users. It is IMO something that should be added on the platform level - if I ran a front end for steem, I would include a tag on posts that spent over X amount on promotion and treat them like paid advertising, which they are. The site would append an "ADVERTISING" label or whatever to the post short description in the feed and they would be excluded from "Trending" to keep the brain in proof of brain. In the meantime, this bot is providing the service to us in the comments. Sure anyone can look at votes, but it is not apparent at all what those votes mean in many cases when a post used a combination of different services each with vote trails.
Yours is the first idea that I have read which actually makes sense! "Paid Advertising" is actually a BRILLIANT idea. People can't come to a platform where earning money is literally the perk that drives it's new member signups and then complain that capitalism exists. (It's like... Noooooooo you don't say? You mean to tell me people like money and those who don't get it are hating on the ones who do? I never would have seen this coming in a million years! That's almost like... everything else in life!) There are plenty of different sodas which taste great but when I go to my favorite chili place I have to drink Pepsi Co. Products because they pay the cost to be the boss and poor little Faygo and Big K can cry all they want. People may give transparency by saying Pepsi spent 30million USD in advertising last year and it's like "Thats why they are running things, if you spent 30million in ads you would be too or atleast a strong competitor." I agree.... Paid votes can leave the Trending page but the worst thing is to join a platform based on open speech and money, then pretend its not about money. We (we are a team) personally do not sell to make any profit on this platform but we do believe in good business and only a child thinks that you are not dealing with business when you are handling money but our business in particular is not Daycare so moving on.. Your idea is wonderful and may become an actual solution that can be implemented into a H.F I personally have been friends with a witness on here in real life since childhood and we have had discussions about this very topic on MANY occasions in various chats/get-togethers and not once have I heard anyone mention something as sensible as what you just have. If you can afford to invest on a higher level, why do broke people get to cry that it's not fair because while you were working hard sacrificing for the future they were "enjoying life". If everybody got their way on here... everyone would get paid everything and we all would get nothing (figure that one out ^ ^) How are we EVER going to get investors here if people whine when you make $50? Do they not understand that the actual monetary value of steem still comes from real money? Cold Hard Cash of investors and a few lines of code are THE ONLY difference between a steem dollar and a facebook like! If people want their visibility I say give it to them and restrict the marketers from those areas such as Trending.. There are only so many slots on it anyway and everyone wont make it to it and they will whine about something else but Whales wont delegate their votes for free now that they have tasted the warm fresh cash flowing from the necks of the steem users... ohh so warm. Tell a vampire not to be a vampire but instead to wait in line at a blood bank until someone notices him and wants to give him some blood and see how well that one rolls over. Sorry for the book of a message but GREAT IDEA that might satisfy a lot of individuals plus @transparencybot will be out of a job.... .... I digress. I would LOVE for transparencybot to announce large winnings for the week in a community-approved marketplace/steem exchange!! The only complaint that we would have is that it doesn't use big enough text and spam more people to let them know how well we roll. Give steemit something for everybody, rich, middle, and poor beggars alike! (now ur talking) We have not cashed out anything from here (and won't as of now... we are here to stay) but as a Day-Trader I would love to bring my marketing skills here and bust those steemy chops wide open, you haven't heard a real cry yet ;-)
It doesn't have to be implemented on blockchain level through hardfork and in fact not sure it could be anyway. Makes more sense for it to be implemented at the front end level. It would be trivially easy for Steemit, Inc. to adjust the algorithm in Trending on Steemit.com to exclude the payout from bought votes while calculating trending posts. Likewise for busy.org, or any other web front end. How a website displays blockchain information doesn't need to include witness consensus at all. Posts can be labelled as advertising or whatever.
That could work. I really wish it would, I am so tired of people whining about money on here. A little info (transparency ^ ^) about my past... Once upon a time I had to sleep behind a pizza place in an alleyway... My friends ditched me because I appeared "needy".... Later, They were ready to be friends again when I had a small apartment in the ghetto because I was "Just the right amount of broke" that made them feel good about themselves to have me around. Now I Day-Trade and those same friends are no longer friends because I'm not broke so to them it's not fair that I took my money and put it into Crypto while they got their tax returns and blew it on expensive restaurants and such that they could not normally afford. When people complain about money, 90% of the time it's because they don't have any. You can't make something from nothing and if you aren't willing to even put money into your own ideas why should someone else? I'm not going to stand on the corner with my leg out hoping that a whale will notice and want to mate with me in exchange for an upvote. When I was homeless i didn't wait for someone to feed and cloth me and here on the Blockchain I follow the same values. "From Nothing comes Nothing" so since you have the first idea that I've heard which will possibly fix some of this while at the same time bring investors (new money) in, I presented your idea to one of the witnesses last night who I know has the coding expertise to see if this is really doable.
Hi There! You have just been upvoted by @justinadams Witness. You will always recieve a free upvote on every post you make on steemit as long as you keep your witness vote. Thanks For Your Support.
Thanks
Hi There! You have just been upvoted by @justinadams Witness. You will always recieve a free upvote on every post you make on steemit as long as you keep your witness vote. Thanks For Your Support.
Its literally already what they do. In fact you can go to @originalworks now and find "contests" that are about writing copy and "reviews" 🤣😂 For free and maaaybe you get paid, lol.
Sure they are but tbh im only doing 5 dollar bids to pay my mods and i have been considering doing bigger ones 🤷♀️ I would be mad too. I think its a step in the right direction but i feel is more punishing the users rather than finding solutions for the platform to curb bidbots and whale self votes
This isn't true.
You demonstrate your principles.
I am more sad that you drag Curie into the cloud than that you reveal your personal lack of principle.
Good luck.
Drag curie??? Lol 😝 are you a curator or a reviewer? Ive only seen you in MSP so apologies if I find your response silly.
Curie is a great org and a good job if you have the time. Still tho, not sustainable on either curator or author end. I wish it was. I love curie. I have made that clear many times of you had a clue who I was. :)
Thanks for your luck but i bust my ass even if luck is not on my side.
I have a lot of respect for Curie. I don't relate your mercenary principles to Curie. That's what I meant to imply.
I have been aware of you, from PAL.
I cannot agree that treating your conversations with peers on a social media platform requires advertising. It's false to state it does. You only state it is so because the principles you have accepted aren't sound. This is why I mention it.
Curie isn't about that.
You aren't understanding what I'm saying. Please ask questions rather than making asssumptions. Might be "fruitful" ? 😂 or perhaps you should get a second job.
I don't need more money.
I work plenty.
I'm making no assumptions regarding your statement that you have no choice but use votebots.
That's simply false. It's also mercenary, and treats people as cash cows.
Those are pretty awful principles.
I'm not being unkind. I'm being honest.
:o)
I personally don't think we need to attack the character of the individual user of bid bots.
You clearly demonstrate that. I'm not so sanguine about ignoring why mistatements of fact are knowingly written.
I reckon that matters.
What "fact" was misstated, exactly? Mr. "I believe kindness is underrated"
People think they’re smart because they “found a way to play the system”. Well, then they shouldn’t mind if the world knows how smart, genius and totally original they are.
This is an absolutely deadly tool. There are people who are beginning and they do it out of desperation and they’re slowly driven out of steemit by desperation. I’d honestly share the conversations I had with this Indonesian guy about a week ago but I don’t want to share it without his permission. But it would explain what this incentive is doing to people. I’ve lucky enough to lock up with great people who didn’t cheap out with guideness. But those who haven’t would easily leave tomorrow. I know that because that would have been me just few weeks in.
You are wrong. After a certain pont of success and in these bullish times its a necessity. 100 .02 cent upvotes gets me 2 dollars. One buildawhale vote got me 5 times as much for 5 sbd. Granted i gave all my money to my mods rather than myself but its my baby so i need it to succeed.
Some people go too far i think over 50 sbd on one article is really out of hand for the amount of work one article often takes.
We put a lot of work in so i might start doing ten if i can afford it
A phat wallet is not a necessity.
Your definition of success betrays you.
Nothing is so worthy of succeeding that the abandoning of it's underlying principles is merited. If you're not abandoning that underlying principle by buying botvotes, your underlying principle is without merit as well.
Your entire line of argument is specious and void of accord with reality.
If you'd like, I can provide you with a list of things you can to do financially support an initiative without buying botvotes, many of which would be more emunerative. Frankly, I am without doubt that the fact that you can clearly do many other things rather than buy votes is immaterial.
You want to justify what you are doing, and you will.
What you say has nothing to do with the truth.
Please provide me with that list! Id ne happy to read it. Money is a means to an end. Righg now i dont have time to write but it would help , some, although much talent exists with 1-5 dollar upvotes while whales poop and get 200+ by upvoting each other
I'll be brief.
For ways to make money for your project, you can take on a second job, sell stuff you have, buy stuff or get free stuff from Craigslist, and sell it, trade up. You can certainly think of others yourself.
Explain to me how a site on which you can remain completely anonymous could have gender and race inequality problems?
No, don't. The actual fact is that on a site where you can be completely anonymous, there can be no such problems that aren't deliberately instigated.
I've done my best to provide incentive for you to re-examine your principles. What you do is all you.
I will end by saying that sacrificing principle to expediency destroys the very reason for the endeavor expedited. It doesn't even matter what the endeavor is, nor the principle.
Enjoy the fruits of your endeavors.
👍😂🌈
I think he wants you brainwashed into his way of thinking... There are many views on any subject. It does not make any single view 100% accurate.
I use bidbots and will continue as long as they exist. I use them some for myself, but more importantly I use them to aid charitable organization or people in need. If I give donations directly then I am harassed with all kinds of spam. Using a bidbot the organization or individual gets needed funds by me paying for them. They also gain greater exposure and increase in their followers.
The way some talk you would swear it would bring on Armageddon.
Btw we will be paying all of our members a living wage if our goal is successful. Right now i send half of the author rewards when a member writes a post.
We also pay for contests to encourage the type of content we eventually want to publish, this is not to mention managing the discord group, spending countless hours debating with other steemians about whether there is a gender and race inequality problem on steemit let alone the hours spent figuring out how to tackle it.. then dealing woth all of the insults thrown at us for not being "nice"
All my mods and members and myself frankly are severely underpaid.
As im sure many are on steemit.
If bidbots dissappeared tomorrow id be find as long as we had a fair and just system for earning the money. But tbh i think its pretty obvious that there wont be as this is "decentralized " led by and for anarchocapitalists.
So here i am figuring shit out the anarchists way. :D
Whats that they say to me always "there is no safe space" maybe. But me n my crew are gonna get paid or ima die trying.
;)
Bidbots are a temporary solution. I'll wait for your longterm one.
Since English isn’t my first language. I’m willing to take blame for you not getting what I’m saying. Regardless, what you said has little to do with what I’m talking about and the type of people who I’m talking.
What you are describing is a less risky, less rewarding lottery. Sure there’s a chance of a whale upvoting. There’s always a chance of that happening. Just like there are chances you get hit by lightening and you... again... winning the lottery.
blinks
Hahahahahahahaha perfect!
The punchline is this: A comedian at 50 rep who makes memes and talks badly about women "takes blame" while insulting my intelligence yet fails to comprehend what I am saying.
😃
...
Blinks
I'm starting to hear things about competitors to Steemit, perhaps with directors who care more about transparency and less about lining their pockets for personal gain....
Hmm im skeptical . Also we put sooooo much in here!!
yes, we have, but after 8 months I see no real desire to make the necessary changes that will address the issues. loyalty is one thing, insanity is another. if PAL switches, I will follow
With Aggroed as a witness and whale im confused how that would happen?? 🤷♀️
not sure either but im sure there are ways
whispers "Don't do it... the cyanide pill is easier......" (voice fades)...
😂 actually if all of MSP left we would be pretty screwed but I honestly dont see it happening unless he makes his own website
And certain peeps are taking too much out :(
Many certains imo. If every whale and dolphin had to survive a curie reviewer theyd be fucked. Except a few like stella n im not just up her ass cuz shes a woman
Yea.
Taking too much isn't just 100 upping yourself any more, its upping yourself and your meme alts while you serve as a witness and own a bidbot. Stay tuned...
Examples? Ship's sinking, I'd love to lay eyes on a lifeboat before it's too late.
ONO, pronounced oh nooo!
Sad thing is, Steemit itself is designed to encourage this behavior. It's optimal play that achieves the ill-disguised goal of funneling as many tokens as possible upward to bot-controlling whale accounts.
I very much doubt the witnesses have the guts to fix this, because to do so would require things like account bans and asset confiscation, which cryptocurrency's "decentralized" libertarian ethos abhors. (Centralized power is of course Good when it's delivering ROI to already wealthy asset-holders.)
The thing is, game theory doesn't really cover the present situation here as far as the conclusion that this abuse is inevitable given the current system. There is so much power concentrated in the hands of the few that it would really only take a couple or even possibly only one of the largest accounts (hello @freedom) to remove their delegation(s) from vote sellers and use thatSP to flag vote buyers. I doubt it would even take one week before the whole thing crumbled. Major vote selling could be stopped in an extremely short amount of time. The question is just how bad will things have to get before the biggest guns wake up and smell the coffee. Obviously a fundamental flaw of Steem is the assumption that the largest stakeholders will act with the best interests of the network at heart to protect their investment. But they have been so ridiculously succesful in concentrating power in the hands of the few that they do indeed possess equivalent power to a centralized governance like Facebook has that could easily prevent this kind of abuse. They just have to choose to do it. I think at some point the present course will present an iceberg that the biggest whales cannot avoid. It is just not sustainable.
And that's exactly it--they have no incentive to take that kind of action. Long-term sustainability is only something that matters to people who haven't made it yet on the platform. If the winners wake up and smell the coffee, as you put it, the play that gives them the most bang isn't to sacrifice their stake to make things better for the plebes, it's to cash out and move on to the next thing.
you may be right. But most of those players actually have other ways to realize large return on their investment here, many of the biggest funders of vote sellers are top 20 witnesses, and also earn a large chunk of the reward pool just as a payout based on their stake - the short term profit from delegation is MORE than these sources of income, but those sources of income are not trivial. If they have another "thing" to move on to that is more attractive, of course you are right. The thing is though the system was already set up heavily on the side of rewarding stake in the first place. I am not sure it will be so easy for the major players to find "something else" more profitable than Steem even if they are not profiting from delegating SP to vote sellers.
To be clear, I'm not working from a pure philosophical game-theory perspective here--more a psychology-aware one, where we recognize that humans SUCK at gauging long-term vs. short-term benefit. If your system is set up to subtly favor long-term success but has obvious short-term potential, the short-term strategy is going to win out even if it's "irrational".
You hit the nail on the head with "the system was already set up heavily on the side of rewarding stake". Minnows exist only to feed whales; the imagery there is pretty overt! And if getting people to buy votes is an effective way to consolidate stake, even if it's not the best, just a satisfactory and easy one, that's what we'll see happen.
This outcome should be no surprise, really. Cryptocurrency in general, and Steemit especially, are capitalism in code. And the thing that capitalism does best is pillage labor to make a few people rich, sustainability be damned, even to the scale of the whole planet.
We should probably rename "minnows" to "krill" to be more accurate ;)
Yeah. I wish I could disagree :(
Great points. I don't like that people are profiting off useless Technical Analaysis, poating coin prices, submitting links to others content with little content of their own and trending because of jokes or other low quality content.
The real problem is with the search tool, I'd like to see it altered so it is very difficult to promote junk. People could also just avoid the trending page all together like I often do. I am also upset that when I search by English words, non English content pops up. There is much tag abuse going on here.
Good luck with making Steemit a more equitable place!
Vote sellers and vote buyers are free of course to do whatever they want. I don't agree, but this is an uncensored network, mixed with money, we all see expected human behaviours. I think people come from other networks where they were used to buy votes, followers, visibility etc... fakebooks and such... and they still don't understand the original nature of Steem and try to work in the same way. A bit sad in my view, but understandable. The only way it couldn't happen is if it is not possible to happen. But Steemit Inc, doesn't seem to care, which I find strange. Meanwhile I'm looking for the next interesting network.
An idea I had is for example, I can imagine a browser add-on that users can install to automatically hide posts from your timeline, if they are purchased posts. But it is not a great idea to really fix the problem. transparencybot idea is good!
I was super encouraged when I started, but I've been a bit recently discouraged with many things, but I still like the original idea and I still see good people here. I still like Steem. I like the transparencybot. Not all bots are bad :)
Yeah easily accomplished through browser add-on, but also easily accomplished on the front end level. It is beyond me why Steemit inc. hasn't adjusted the trending algorithm for steemit.com. Or why all of the other 3rd party front ends have followed so closely in line with how steemit.com presents the blockchain information.
I agree. I think it is maybe they are so busy with communities, and SMTs and they believe all will be solved then. So it is not appealing to try to fix something when working on the next thing. They could easily move the bidbot posts from Trending to the Promoted category if they wanted.
But still, it wouldn't fix the issue of reward pool purchasing. That's more complicated.
I was discussing this precisely. There is such a difference between use and abuse but with no moderation people tend invariably to the second. I have not used them but it is frustrating how people who have genuinely good quality feel finally compelled to join them because they feel all is rigged. I could understand someone wanting to promote a special post,a cd release, a new videoclip, but plaguing the trending with poor content speaks poorly of the platform and discourages newbies. No bots are bad we have gentlebot who rewards random acts of gentleness and ruffle who makes your day telling your post deserves better, we have curie and ocd, we have some shows dedicated to manually curate and surprise underrated, still it is not enough, even close friends push you to them as if you are out you lose this game. But real engagement cannot be bought. At least there is that. Not ranting or trying to make anyone guilty for having used them or using them, but it is like feeding a vicious circle. Will try a little longer the old traditional way so far. Looks tempting, cannot foresee future, but I would like to see I should not need to sacrifice my naive feelings. Steemit should do a column of "advertised content" or give chance to measure real engagement. Just my two cents, oh no, just one ;) but hope it counts. So I am not so into "punishing" bidbots, how can it make a difference between someone abusing the system or a frustrated minnow trying to break through. On my behalf I am out of them, but I see good people falling for them out of discouragement and frustration.
Agree 100% wrote about this the other day, working on part two now.
Love the line "I only wish it was not necessary" the most accurate to put it, def will be quoting that from you.
I'm in agreement with what you've said here.
If people are free to build and/or use bid bots, then others should be free to not to use them. And if some want to know what others are spending when they're using the bid bots for visibility, or to better pay their curators, or whatever other reason people might have, then I think they should be able to do that, too.
That's how a system with very few rules works. It's actually how every system should work, but hey, I don't want to get to carried away here. :)
Yes I am just stating the obvious, and sadly felt it was necessary to do so
Well, no worries on my account. I know I pretty much restated what you said. I find what I think is obvious is not-so-obvious to others too many times, too, so as you say, it needs to be said. And often more than once, by more than one person, until people start realizing how obvious it is. :)
this quality post, as new knowledge in taking speculation
Wololo!
(This post has been healed to counter malicious downvotes!)
You screwed up. @brandonfry allowed me to purchase his bids for the next round so that we could show you guys this this isn't true. You're going to recieve a downvote which is going to hurt like a mother fucker!! Sorry guys.. but get your facts straight HAhahahah
Yeesh. Well I helped make the latest update visible at least. Cheers