Especially when the self-appointed Steemit police, aka @steemcleaners, also upvote their own posts and comments.
That being said and before I get crucified, that could be part of their ability to return a larger amount to the reward pool as @paulag has shown. Honestly, I'm too ignorant of it all to be able to process that notion.
Self-voting will always be a thing. I recently, as in the last few days, began publishing using DSound and to my dismay, noticed it upvoted my post for me. I have no clue how to stop it which reminds me, I need to look during my next upload.
All I know is, I'm here to share great content, and I'm getting shafted by those who aren't, but it's okay. I'm also not here to find these jerks. However, my flag finger is ready and available to help whenever needed.
The reason @steemcleaners was self voting their comments is a little complicated. When it was made clear to us that any of our reports that made the trending page would be flagged we had to ask our larger supporters to stop auto upvoting our posts and look for alternative support for our project. One of our supporters that owns @adm (who also allows us access through community members for flagging) started upvoting our comments instead and so did @steemcleaners.
Since our 1M SP delegation we no longer use the @steemcleaners account for upvoting and @adm continues to support us by upvoting our comments.
Currently @steemcleaners has 2 full time members (40+ hours a week) and several part time members (2-10 hours a week). We also payout a small reward in SP to those who report abuse to us.
Hey @patrice...thanks for taking the time to explain that. It makes total sense.
TWO people!?! Wow.
You know y'all need only ask to get a ton of help from the community. I'm sure this again a case where my ignorance kicks in because I'm sure the work is sensitive and vetting people is a factor. Just know, there are a lot of people who'd like to help.
Thanks again!
There are a lot of things that are not as transparent as we would like. Many of these conversations take place in chat and in the comment sections of posts on other accounts.
There is a bit of a problem with finding time to screen new members and incorporating them into the team. I'm looking at some alternative solutions to get the community more involved.
Thanks for your support.
Just two?! Oy. How can one join part time and help?
Oh for crimini's sake you are seriously a team of 2 and a few part timers?!? OMG I knew you were an angel before but holy jeebus. I am going to DM you on steemit.chat
Cheers - Carl
self voting is okay in the right context. If you write a comment on someone elses post and you want it to be seen the a self vote will raise it. I have also posted before on self voting your own posts. Again, to an extent it is okay, when you are new and your vote is not worth much 100% self votes are considered okay. But if you self vote and dont also spread the rewards, then there is a problem
That's why I really liked @bryan-imhoff's post below. Putting aside whether self-voting should occur, does everyone agree that ONLY self-voting goes against the spirit of Steemit? And can that automated and used?
@paulag This is not true. There is no such rule nor consensus on self voting and I've been on Steemit since day 1. The whole trending page has always been full of selfvotes and still is. That's the whole point of steem power and the attention economy. To give your posts more attention and send them higher or even reward yourself if you put in the effort. It is not just a curation game. If the rewards are considered too high then someone else may come to downvote, but noone contests the self vote itself for genuine posts that took time to make.
Self votes are always considered okay unless for spammy or low effort comments (Ned in a video even said he would like to see more people competing for attention as that would drive up the price of Steem).
but the case you presented in this post is indeed one of those cases that needs flagging as they are low effort spammy comments
@paulag btw if you are involved in flagging could you take a look at these 3 accounts.
This is what I call self vote abuse, though it is done by proxy and automation:
https://steemit.com/@newsteemians/comments
https://steemit.com/@hien-tran/comments
https://steemit.com/@coinlend/comments