I made this video the other day and decided not to share it, because I don't like to complain and focus on problems unless I have solutions. Today, I am feeling more bold, as I see the trending page covered in trash. It's time to talk about this and I do talk a bit about solutions, but even though I might not have it all figured out, it is time to address this.
I have been doing a lot of preaching recently about making high quality content. I thought that was the goal here. People that I have been teaching about Steemit must look at the trending page and think I'm full of shit!
If the trending page isn't about high quality content, then what are we doing here? What's the sustainable value proposition?
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
I have been back and forth on up-vote bots. I recently tried them again and ran the numbers. It isn't coming out as profitable as they seem at first. Looks like I'm pretty much breaking even.
I have also been thinking about how it increases the concentration of wealth on steemit. These bots just make the whales richer while the minnows are left with pennies for gains. I think I'm done using most of them. I will still be supporting and using @treeplanter because I believe it is a good cause. I will be using it to upvote other people more than I use it on my own posts. How many people send a bid on behalf of someone else? Not very many. I think that is the tell that voting bots are being driven by the greed of the steemit user base.
The trending page is broken in my opinion. Need an trending page ranked by organic upvotes. On reddit stuff rises to the top because it is good.
You got it, and that second thing, not the damn trending page, is going to be the issue. Communities can't solve that inequality. From what Ned has said, the communities will have a choice, draw from the community rewards, and face the bot vote competition, or create your own coin you can sell for steem. And who will be in position to invest in those communities and have the largest voice? The way it's set up now, it will only continue to increase the gap. But, if whales were forced to earn through content, like everyone else, it would slow their growth considerably and bring more equality, which I don't think is what they want.
This is excellent, this dialog needs to grow, else SteemIt will be viewed as a shilly joke and eventually people will walk away. I'm still quite new and trying to orient myself here. I don't understand all about the different types of bots and tricks people are using to "game around" the idea of actually creating interesting, quality content. I do see the horrid shit on "trending" and it's clear that the workarounds are producing results unfortunately. Thus far my strategy to push my content forward (short stories, which of course are subject to personal tastes, but, do take me many hours to outline, rough draft, edit, etc - and it is not something I started doing last week....15 years in the making here), content I believe is thoughtful and of high literary quality, is to interact (as much as time permits) in the spaces where people who I think will like my content reside. I try to find the literature curators, provide feedback and thoughtful comments on their ideas/projects. My first story here was upped by curie...I looked through the content of the associated curators, interacted with them, introduced myself when appropriate, etc. The vote buying bullshit is certainly here, but we all need to push as best we can to get eyes on the good content - not only ours, but others as well.
Your point is very clear though. The whales selling votes are diminishing the value of their own Steem, they are defeating themselves. New, better methods for delegation needed? More Curie like projects? I still need to learn more in order to have stronger ideas. Anyhow, nice work here @richardcrill
I see most of these comments have entirely overlooked your point about the posterity of Steem, and what is best for it in the long run. Unfortunately I have seen this a lot with users, especially those only interested in posting and cashing out. Everyone loves/wants/needs money, I get it, but as you said, a lot of people are here for the community too. I too feel as though bots will tear Steem apart. That is a saddening thought, as this platform has allowed me to be the most social I have ever been. I love Steemit, I have met so many amazing people and I only want what's best to keep it around as long as possible. Thanks for your voice on this.
Thank you @bethwheatcraft! Well said!
Well, I've cashed out my SBD from the very beginning, but still want steem to be successful long term. If it's not, then I lose a source of revenue and audience building. I'm 100% opposed to the bots, so not everyone looking to maximize earnings is opposed to competing for community attention.
there are certain things as a steemian that we all know that is against the steemian way. even though we know we can shitpost, we know to atleast give it our best to create quality content. things like begging for upvotes and leaving weak comments like. "followed. follow me back" or "upvote for upvote. as a steemian we should all keep to the steemian code.
as with all creations. people might use them in ways that the creator never intended or had little knowledge of what users will do with it. nobody knows how the technology will be used until people play around with it.
but yea. even the whales should lead by example. i mean, i'm guilting of self upvoting and buying upvotes but i also feel like minnowsupportproject was designed to pump up accounts so they can eventually not need to pay for upvotes. i have 1,100 followers and i doubt any of them read my posts. only a small handful of people.
Search google for: "steemit content crusader", and click on the first link. You will see how much people don't care and mock those who value quality content. I have been mocked in my earlier time here, by that author, and others in the same "clic" in the steemit chat "price" channel that focus on money. I am pretty sure I was the main one being referenced in that post (because I was a highly rewarded author at the time), as I have been in others who mock what I stand for. Notice that at the time, that post was #1 on the trending page. #1. Few people care for quality content here it seems.
I don't look at the trending page, ever. Not once since I came back. It's the same deal as it was in the summer of 2016, winter of 2017, summer of 2017. It's always the same: mostly crap.
Hey @krnel, glad to see you here. I've been reading your witness server tutorials and they were quite informative!
And to what you just wrote:
You are correct. How many upvotes or how much rewards a post receives, says nothing about the quality of that post and even less about how important it is for yourself.
But I'm pretty sure that communities will change a lot.
And honestly - when people say that it takes too long for it to be implemented - why don't they help SteemitInc to develop it?
How will communities change a lot? They will have two choices, issue their own coin to sell FOR STEEM, with the main possible investors being the same whales gaming the system now, or continue to draw from the same rewards pool. If you read the white and blue papers and even listen to Ned's latest talks, he constantly makes reference to the quality of the content? Why? Because the quality of the content ESPECIALLY content that is internally promoted, is the value of the site, and the underlying value of steem itself.
Thank you for putting this in such perfect words!
I've been on this site a few days and really was shocked by the amount of lazy, badly spelt and worded posts were trending. Almost every post I have commented on so far and has had random bot accounts comment (i have nothing to do with them, they just keep appearing and commenting), one was called catbot and just started hyping off a load of cat facts on a picture of my cat...
I thought the whole purpose of this website was to stop the promotion of spam, but that's pretty much all i've seen on it! That's the human race those, a platform that offers to pay us, of course it will get abused as people are too lazy too put the hard work and effort in themelves to create decent content. Shame really :( I know it would be impossible for the website to moderate all of the bots and spam. It kind of ruins ir for everybody in the long run. I guess us hardworking, original posters will just have to work even harder to get noticed then, lol....
Vote buying already is destroying steemit. The only ones defending it are the dope dealers. They don't care about the neighborhood. That's why it was so easy to compare this situation to the impact
Crack Cocaine
leaves in it's wake.
Pretty simple stuff. Enjoy the post if you have time to read it and notice the comment section. People are sick of it.
The only way co tent should be trending is by users upvotes or number of resteems or views. Or by the authors own money paid as a form of advertising.
Bots are too confusing and put new users off ("come to our decentralised and free social platform.... Where most of the votes are bots and paid for. Where we pay bots and cheat the system to get random crap to the top").
This isnt how Steem.it can grow. I came here all excited, wrote honest posts, voted, read, just to see that the whole thing is controlled not by users and good content, but by a few tech savvy folks and their bots.
What we have here now is a nicely centralised platform that shows you junk on the landing page (hello new visitor, we're full of shit), and isn't curated by readers for readers.
Whats the point?
The trending page being “trash” will, thanks to the free market, if it remains, end up driving folks away from Steemit, which will be a good market signal to others that the behavior needs to stop, resulting in social consequences such as flagging and ignoring said trash, or the bots being abused.
I find nothing wrong with using services to boost one’s posts. It’s a great tool for good authors. What you are doing here is what needs to be done. Voicing your free market opinion. If these articles truly are trash, you should raise up a small group to flag them down, and even the bots they use, so they can be “blacklisted” from the services, if that is what you feel is right.
There’s nothing, however, fundamentally wrong with Steemit it even “vote buying” in my opinion, though. Let the market decide, and Steemians take action.
kafkanarchy84,
I believe that the majority of community members are adults. Having said that, I believe strongly in the idea of self-policing. I believe we have it within ourselves, but there seems to be a prevailing attitude that you post as much "trash" and eventually it will stick. I agree with you wholeheartedly, that if the "trash" remains on the trending page, it will end up driving folks away from Steemit. Yet, like richardkrill has done, posting about it, making others aware, is one step in the right direction.
Vote buying isn't illegal....as far as Steemit is concerned. Try that in politics or in business and its called bribery, influence peddling.
I am new here, and I, like richard and I assume you and others, enjoy steemit for the community and the decentralized system, the self ruling, rather than being ruled. I guess it is an issue of awareness, and what's good for steemit as a whole, rather than just the individual and their desire for wealth, fame and power. It didn't start with steemit, and it won't ever end.
I will continue to generated quality posts and choose to let the merits of my work, speak for me. I won't use vote buying, just because to me, it indicates I don't believe in my content, I believe I need help. If it's good, it will eventually be recognized and rewarded. Is it a harder route to go, sure, but more pleasurable, because it is results that I produced alone.
Great thoughts and an interesting discussion item. I have mixed feelings about the vote buying and renting. All of my votes are used for good content and for people who are working hard as curators and community builders to build this ecosystem. Even from a self-interested perspective, as a Steem holder, supporting good content and growth builds long term value and is a much better use of my voting power than simply selling it.
However, not everyone wants to engage with the content all the time. There need to be good reasons to hold Steem and some want a faster return. Also, the biggest issue here from Day 1 has been the imbalance in voting power. Kevin, you and I have spent the last 18 months or so supporting good content but also helping Steem climb out of that hole by giving under-rewarded users a chance to earn rewards for their work (and hopefully save some of it to increase their own voting power).
So I am sympathetic to those who want to rent or buy votes on their posts. I did not need to go through that, but only because I was fortunate to start here early. It's not easy for most people to get votes and rewards. I can see how renting or buying would be quite tempting, especially in the beginning when it's hard to get noticed.
I would much rather see good content get curated and rewarded for its merits rather than votes being sold and rented to anyone, but everyone deserves a chance and not everyone has been getting it, absent those services. So they do fill a need. That probably results in some lower quality content, but I also feel that we need to move beyond the expectation of only long posts getting rewarded. We need to reward people (at an appropriate level) for short form posts, links, memes, photos, videos, music, comments, and other activities and participation, not just long writing. Hopefully, we find those organically.
Finally, it's a free market. If voting power has a value, then that indicates a gap in the system, and I think people should be able to trade in it. We may see the same thing in the future with bandwidth as that becomes a desired item. And in the end, 😊 I don't know what effect all of this has on the content, but as long as people are engaged and participating and attracting others, then we'll see where it goes. @richardcrill
The length of a post has little to nothing to do with its value in the community. Is it creating conversation? Is it adding to the overall value of the community it was aimed towards? To me, it goes back to the foundation, the "proof of brain" concept is the only thing separating our steem, from every other shit coin on the market and if we don't defend those principles, soon it won't matter.
Well thats what im seeing, 1 out of every ten trending is worthless. We have lots of excellent bloggers on here getting completely ignored why 2 min read posts about daily market trends make hundreds from vote bots. Your concern is not just yours. Steemit needs to grow and i hope @ned is right and that smart media tokens should help even the playing field over time.. otherwise your concerns become problems and problems make global adoption impossible.
but, who will buy those tokens, when they're only sold for steem? The same ones who are driving the current trends on the platform today.
Well until fiat is no longer a thing we need to create more fiat gateways and I guess inflate until its to expensive to stop the progress. Who knows, everything feels very 50/50 these days. Too many crooks too few dreamers.
IDK if I'd call them crooks. it's all within the rules. Hard to know if they'd try to do it the same if it weren't. Some would, some wouldn't.
Wanna see crooks though mark this is the kind of stuff that can happen.
https://steemit.com/scam/@dizzyjay/scam-alert-do-not-send-them-sbd That is criminal, that is yesterday. We have to self police a little here. But you are mostly right with where you stand on it its these rare cases that get me going
Well, I think as we move toward a totalitarian collapse of world govts, this kind of stuff is going to need to be handled by the citizenry, in the digital and real worlds, they're going to be too busy trying to enforce compliance, until they finally implode under their own weight.
But, part of me says, if you're gaming the system, you get what you deserve from guys like this too. LOL
True! I agree, as you said the system will collapse and thats why we need to focus so hard on creating distributed ledgers so when these centralized organizations collapse we dont have another 2008 financial crisis. Thats what satoshi nakamoto gave us. Not just bitcoin, but an open-source ledger system that makes the world able to keep the value when worlds collide, there is no race, religion or country to it. Its just an observer, and a protector. Based on mathematics and not politics. Leaving the policing to us as a society. Cool right? Actual liberty.
I found the Hot section is more valuable than the Trending section.
Yeah actually that's where I found this video. Lol
yup
Interesting. I'll have to give that a try instead of Trending.
You are right .I personally think that there should be no process of buying votes becaue i have seen a lot of articles that have only one image and got alot of upvotes.I believe that only quality content should go to trending page :)
I have been having a few of those thoughts recently and im new here since new years eve ad have recently touched on this in a few of my blog posts so far. I'm doing my best to use my social media skills to attract new people here and educating them but then I just constantly see a whole heap of whales that just seem to have monopolised this platform and don't really care about the long term new blood. I know the introduction there is a whole bunch of how to get started tips but there is certainly to much crap rolling downhill from whales that make a few thousand from some of the worst quality posts I have ever seen. It is such a huge effort right now it seems that those that a re winning right now have to create some kind of lottery fund to be seen. Not enough help at all from those at the top sadly and I know there are those whales who do help and look to educate new people but I have certainly met a lot who came here and gave up because they put so much effort in their posts and can't justify why some piece of crap made a couple of thousand. I do believe that the long term building genuine relations sharing value etc will work but it seems like a place where only the strong will survive. We are all human its hard not to think of the financial benefits but its hard to focus on just the fun when you see the growing amount of trashy posts in the trending. Would it help if more people exercised their downvote or does that leave us vunerable because some one with a higher reputation could wipe us out?
Yes, I think that could help, especially if whales did it. But like you said, it's risky for non whales, and not effective unless enough people join the effort, including whales.
The culture is changing. I fear unless we change the culture or the code, the problem will persist. However, I have not lost hope.
I love this platform and thats the reason for this conversation. I will continue to focus on creating quality content and improving myself and helping others do the same.
It is us eating our own tail as we often do. I feel like in history because we moved slower in our societal evolution, the creation of new societies and then the subsequent problems unfolded over the course of several generations. People have short memories, even with our written and oral histories, the majority of people are not aware and repeat the same mistakes. The good news is since things move so much faster with the tech, anything we do gets to the problems really quick. The U.S as a global civilization -> weeds took just about 200 years, not 2000 like Rome for example. Now with global internet the blockchain societies like this grow and get into the problems in just 2. Because it is happening at a speed most of us can see, we will FINALLY have a larger portion of humans aware of it, which I believe is how we will finally come to grips and solve it. It won't just be well read philosophers and teachers trying to sway society of an unseen possible problem. That is our only saving grace, as we have seen the teachers/spiritual leaders/philosophers cannot move fast enough to save a majority from themselves. It is why I actually still feel excited about blockchain/decentralization and places like Steemit . There is hope, and I see many people undertaking actions and solutions <3
Nice Richard, good on you for being so bold. This will definitely drive people away if they see what's happening here, in my opinion.
Post a picture of a coffee table, get a payout of $200.
Post good quality useful content, get paid out $1,26
This has to stop!
Upvoted
You are absolutely right @richardcrill, this is destroying the steemit
and this must be stopped. . .
I have seen some low-quality content on trending page and some high-quality content that Even don't have enough views. . .
and I have also noticed that here Everyone is voting for the author Not for the content
Vote buying leaves the platform open to becoming a lot like other platforms clogged with ads. How long before McDonalds is buying votes? Or Coca-Cola?
Oh my gosh. That concept terrifies me.
This comment sponsored by Taco Bell.
Seeing how it's not terribly expensive to get on the trending page, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.
Or is it? Maybe it is. It definitely will before too long, if Steemit keeps growing.
exhilarated & extraordinary!
it can destroy steemit for sure if the buyer of these up-votes makes a bad quality content but I think it will be positive to the community and the author if the author is really making good content as this will give him a better chances that his good quality content be seen by more users on the community and I think in this case it won't be harmful
that's just a point of view
I respectfully disagree. The best chance for good content getting noticed is when that is the clear driving force like it used to be, before you could buy upvotes.
yes, you are right but all I mean is there are some users with high quality but don't have a chance to be seen by other users because nobody looks at the new page and they will be hardly seen and maybe never seen but if you think a little, you will know that I agree with you not disagreeing because those minnows with high quality lost their chance to be seen just because the shit trash on the trending page with bad quality who just got there before their high SP and bought upvotes with big amounts
so, we are at the same direction not the opposite one
People make post and they don't get any votes and so they are forced to use bid bots.
And u just got it bang on mate..How do newcomers like us trend with content because we got absolutely no one here..Just on our own..We got no huge backup which can really vote us and make our thing trend here..There are very few who support the content, and in fear to that we dont even feel like posting anything, thinking it might go waste..So we just try to share our views at other posts just to give other ideas about ourselves.Thanks for bringing this out
very good post, we come to the same conclusion steemit is characterized by its quality content and with this vote buying what it does is infect the platform with bad content and discourage people with good content to follow on the platform
It’s not black or white. It can be used for good and used for evil. I think a great solution is to actually have the bots approved and screen content that’s being upvoted. The good content should get whitelisted and the crap content should get blacklisted and even flagged.
Original content that is meaningful and adding value to the community should have a fighting chance and these bots allow that.
They already can and do refuse or pull upvotes for abusive or scammy content and blacklist users that do that. But they can't really do that just because its not good enough. where would the line be drawn?
I think these bots actually work against that. Meaningful, original content that adds value does have a fighting chance here and it used to have a lot more of a chance, when whales where looking for ways (like trails and guilds) to upvote good content instead of just selling their upvote.
Yeah I do agree with that and it'll be a tough line to draw...I'm conflicted about it too because on one side, it can help people out who are coming onto the platform who have a sincere desire to add value...on the other side, some spam punks can just spam a gif and rape the pool.
I like the idea of whales delegating their upvote to others who are actively searching for good content. Like the way @Ned delegated steempower to @dtube - I think that was a great move. Now DTube is actually growing and people are challenged to put better content and have better video quality in their videos...I hope it doesn't destroy steem and the optimistic side of me thinks that it'll somehow work out, especially since we're having conversations about it. The whales are listening. At least the ones that care about the platform and their investment.
Either way, super thought provoking post. Thanks for sharing.
yes it can be true but i believe won't happen but nowadays lot of comment/vote are already bots.
Does seem to be a problem. I post decent videos here with thumbnails, tags, etc. But no one watches them at all unless I push people from other platforms here...
The problem is from the outside its starting to look like a complicated ponzi scheme, since the only way to be on this platform is if you buy steempower or buy votes from people with steem power. Or scheme the system with bots which most people wont want to do morally...
Maybe Im missing something and just dont understand the system... but thats the problem, ive been around a while, learned alot, but it still doesnt make any sense, gonna be hard to develop a mass market with such a confusing barrier to entry, and people blatantly gaming the system...
I'm new here on Steemit (1 month), I wanted to post so many things as an artist, photographer, composer, videos, blogs about nature and hiking adventures, but something happened to me that I find myself now spending more time learning about Steem and everything involved. I find it fascinating and blockchains and other crypto currencies in general. I've been thinking a lot too recently, but still very new to this and I still plan to post many things, but thinking a lot. So this is why I like this video of yours too. Thanks!
You are definitely right. I feel like I was "born" into this awesome ecosystem that is steemit and now before I know it it's changing into what is more representative of lamestream social media! Resteemed.
I’m glad that someone with sufficient heft has spoken up on this pressing issue. The 1st priority of Steemit should be high quality content. The second should be wealth inflation.
Hey @richardcrill is there a really definitive difference between vote buying/selling as the "promote" ability for anyone's post here on #steemit?
yes im agreed with you.
The best way is to change the hot and trending page... some kind of algorithm like facebook :)
Thank you, @richardcrill, for daring to care about this platform, demanding quality and taking the unscrupulous to task.
Just earlier, today, I posted this notice on the wall of a witness who was guilty of, precisely, what you speak of:
"I wish on a platform like Steemit, with its noble values, money didn’t talk so loudly. This in a sense is what we escaped from in other places, real and virtual to try and pursue an ideal experiment, here.
I wish, too, that bots were seriously looked into. How can quality content providers or artists like myself, who might have talent but no money, compete with money-hungry, unscrupulous folks who buy votes & upvote themselves, regularly, to the top of trending lists?!
I know the world is not fair, and I don’t believe in complaining, but I believe in the promise of Steemit and have only been here a few months & hope to stay & grow."
great post upvote and resteem have done
I think it's worse than just the trending page In fact, i think it undermines the entire mining process, which makes steem less valuable. Here are my thoughts. I wasn't as nice. https://dlive.io/video/markrmorrisjr/958f7b21-24f1-11e8-ac93-0242ac110002