>>> Free SBD Offers <<< the Abusive Approach !!! or Not ???
Free SBD (bot) Posts!
There is nothing wrong with Steemians being creative to get votes and followers. There is nothing wrong to offer free SBD, or Steem, or whatever.
But some forms are crossing the line of acceptability and becomes abuse!
This morning I discovered a whole list of accounts, posting nothing else than the same posts every single day offering free SBD.
An example...
...and another example with decent payouts...
...and another one...
The later is discovered by one of our whales @adm and @steemcleaners who uses its flag to tell the accountholder to stop this behaviour, as well as to take the pending rewards away.
List of Abusive Accounts
@lotterysbd
@littlehelper
@precision
@fogel
@simplemoney
@minnow.helper (seems it got the message)
@helperbot (seems it got the message)
Some of these accounts are already flagged by @adm and @steemcleaners. The later two accounts posted 'feeling badly treated' posted in the last 24 hours - boohoo sniff sniff. They lost (some) of their reputation and most to all of their pending post rewards by the flags they received.
I only listed those account that I discovered and posts the same post everyday, and nothing else. Some other accounts I discovered posting very similar messages every single day, but post also other articles, I did not include in the list. I have no idea how many accounts having this behaviour, but it may be quite a number.
What Do You Think?
Abuse or Not?
- Do you think the accounts I've listed are abusive to our community or is this just another creative way to earn Steem Power?
- Do you think such accounts shall be flagged?
In case you know other accounts with very similar behaviour, you may drop a reference in the comments below.
I have been posting on steemit for a year now and while I may be a little bit naive to believe this, I feel that it's the quality of the post that should determine votes it receives. I find all the bots and groups and vote getting schemes to be a distraction to what steemit should be all about. I sometimes feel myself feeling stupid for not trying to search out the latest gimmick to help improve my vote counts, but then I just say screw it because it's not about how well you manipulate the system, it's about how good your posts are, even if they aren't doing as well as others.
I'm like you, I like to believe it is about the quality of the posts. At least a post shall add some value to the community. Like you, I also find myself stupid at times because others adding no value at all with their posts and comments may get equal or higher earnings. But I find it very difficult to get on the use and abuse train and try to create my own (although small) community around me who appreciate what I contribute to the community. For sure it gives me a good feeling, and that will keep me here.
Depending on your goal, I dont think a good post makes it successful. Its more dimensional than that because of how steemit behaves. Inherently, your post will get buried and no one will ever see it. The very fact that no one sees it, prevents anyone from judging it. So who is to say if its a good post if no one sees it? It's the classic example of, if a tree walls in the woods and no one is around to hear or see it, did it fall? Well yes, but who cares.... that was where these bots come in. Someone saw an inherent flaw in the system and created these bots. The reality is, if these upvoting bots didn't exist, it would be much fairer, but you would still have the issue with finding an audience. The trick to that, I think is interacting. Atleast that's how I want to approach it. Not going to lie though, I have thought about those bots.
Quality is subjective, I agree. That is why I also mentioned: Add Value is something I find really important, and that can be anything. But I have my boundaries and some of the posts are simply not adding any quality, actually they are spam, like all (or maybe most of) the accounts I listed in the post.
I do agree that in the end it is about interacting, I can even say that when I interact well, I spend time to read the post carefully and create some meaningful comment, I may even get more rewards than creating a post, using the same amount of time. And the good think of interacting is that it makes a community, interacting is not send and forget.
Thank you so much for bringing your views across!
Those who leverage the use of those voting bots will also be the ones who climb to the top fastest. No one will remember how you got there, just that you did. So while it is cheating the system to reach that point, does it really matter? If everyone used it, then those bots would be making all the money while everyone fights for the fastest way to reach whale status. That's the part of steemit that I really do not like.
Good point on interacting though. I think its much easier to get paid for your comments than creating new content in terms of effort and time. I've spent many hours creating my videos but no one watches them because they get pushed to the bottom so quickly. I do it anyway, because I enjoy it, but sometimes the motivation to keep going dwindles. As a result, I rather just enjoy life rather than spend my time in the digital world.
"As a result, I rather just enjoy life rather than spend my time in the digital world." Although I spend quite a bit of time on Steemit, I do prefer the none digital world better, in general. Steemit allows me to have conversations with those I may not meet that quickly in real life. I'm learning from my interactions with a good bunch of members here.
thats for sure! I've met quite a few friends through the internet. Actually,once you discount friends from high school and college and gym, my next source of close friends are from the internet! Largely because its easy to strike up a conversation with someone if it relates to something that you find on a hobby forum.
Indeed, the digital highway adds to the personal life in terms of friends, I also gained some good friends that way.
I have often felt that steemit needs professional content editors within the various tags, not high ranking members supporting their friends but honest evaluators. An editor would have the authority to promote quality posts to give them visibility. It's like when you submit work for publication, the editor says yes this is good and something that will fit the image of our publication, or no this is not who we are. The editor would not give votes, but put things in view they feel deserve a chance
You touched on a very interesting topic, I do to believe we shall have moderators, independent and not use their powers to game the system. But although we feel this is the right way, we will have to face a lot of resistance because the opponents will argue it is all about networking, and time users spend on that...when done sufficiently, votes and with that rewards will be given to those who spend the time. Another argument the opponents will use is the one of trust of the moderator!
That is sort of the PoW and DPoW model. Its very difficult for a minnow to get support from a whale since the whale also needs incentive to help others. If you get 3-4 whales in a group they can propel their group forward more than a group of minnows could.
If you delegated the work of upvoting good content to a group of people, you've now allowed a set panel of people to do the judging. Ultimately you end up back at square one, centralization.
Aside from that, who would have the time to sort through that many post? you would eventually need so many delegates that you have to incentivize to do something the network would do for free. In that regard, I don't think editors is a good idea for this type of platform. Instead the communities features which is coming in the next update, will solve that problem because it allows you to create a microenvironment within the steemit ecosystem.
fyi, im about to fall asleep so if that doenst make sense, reply and ill try to clear myself up!
@beginningtoend My 100% due adulation on such a meaningful comment. Though, i am relatively "New" here, but, Its really like a mirage to me, I keep on thinking and then rethinking to get attracted to these bots. But none can be trusted. Daily, I see, some not so appropriate posts/content getting weird 100% bot attention and support. I get sad and depressed. How do I get to make my post worth, for which I have put in so much effort & energy.!!!
Yes, even if you do write GOOD, purposeful and meaningful, the chances of your post getting lost in thousands of posts, is reasonably very high, especially when there are steemians running behind these Bots for upvotes, like crazy, I too wonder to do the same! But then, guess not! or sometimes, may be...(keep pondering over!!!)
This is indeed and unending topic and not good as an exercise for stronger Steemit Community and for those who spend so much time writing creative and then sharing it through their post.
I wonder, In the long run, this practice, may make Steemit lose its Steam!, if not stopped sooner.
God Bless us all !
(Following you, Now!)
I agree with you 100% @beginningtoend! All of these upvoting schemes and "minnow" help groups leave a bad taste in my mouth. So many people trying to game the system, but not put the time and work into creating great content, that would make Steemit even better. These people don't realise that by promoting sub-quality content to the fore, they are actually hurting themselves. If Steemit becomes dominated by poor quality content, it will never grow, along with their long term earnings. Typical short sighted selfish profit making that is destroying the world.
Just report them to @steemcleaners , they know what to do.
Good suggestion, thanks.
To me it's a case of people taking advantage of people wanting something for nothing. Content ultimately suffers and the network basically becomes a HYIP IMHO. If you are going to give something it shouldn't be dependant on somebody liking your post
I agree with you, add value to the community by giving something, and since we are a blogging site, it is about content, whatever it is, but not just this call for votes and follows in such a none blogging way. Thanks for your feedback.
Steemit depends on quality content to thrive. These type of posts does not contribute towards Steemit at all and may in fact be harmful.
I do agree! Thanks for your feedback.
@edje Just one such Brilliant post, of bringing a burning issue to the forefront. I am relatively "New" here, but have been thinking of all these "BAITS" that are prevalent on Steemit and are absolutely Non pertinent to the Real Steemit objective of building a healthier Community. Its has to be 100% fair practice for all, to make Steemit attain greater heights, with purposeful/meaningful/interesting and exciting posts. But Alas !!! :(
Upped and followed!!!
Much Love!!!
Thank you for your comment, and I do agree with you. We have to fight those spammers that are most harmful to Steemit to progress as a blogging and social media services. Although I'm afraid we may have challenges to not let bots take over the community.
Abusive or not, I think such accounts/users are a reflection of our increasingly "entitled" world. People want things "now" without working for them, and they want "rewards" without putting in the time and effort.
Just look at all the "upvote services," as well. People send their 2 SBD, get an upvote worth $3.00, by the end of 7 days, the value has declined to $2.50, then 25% goes to curation and in the end... they paid 2SBD to "earn" $1.90. The only gainer in the equation is the already-rich "whale" who's running the scheme.
All we can do, I suppose, is choose to NOT participate in these things and then point to-- and promote-- our own successes as "a better way" to build success on Steemit.
Sadly, a lot of people want "money for nothing."
You are probably right, and we see this more and more on Steemit.
I did some tests with these services in the past. The net result is most of the time loss making. Some users explained to me they buy the upvotes to get a couple of dollars on their post so it looks better and they hope more powerful Steemians, or a whole bunch of minnows will vote because of the couple of dollars on the post. I think it doesn't work like that, since I think the more powerful Steemians do not vote on posts that got (a lot of) self votes through these 3rd party services.
Others are explaining me they rent SP for some time to gain more followers and hope to get more traction with their account and posts when having more followers. My own experience is that followers doesn't count at all, I have more than 1.300 followers and still get only a couple of votes on a post from others than those who support me for (almost) every post.
Those who have a follow base of more than 15.000 or 20.000 Steemians and offer their account for ReSteem, generally got me 5 to maximum 10 newbie / small account votes that for sure does not make up for the 2 SBD spend.
I suppose it is the low level of knowledge of many Steemians that causes them paying for all this nice looking service, upvote/Resteem or whatever.
For a little time, I used some of the services, time to time. This was more or less a test to see what actually brings value and what not. In the end, I decided to not use them anymore 1) they are direct loss making 2) indirect effects are hard to quantify, but have a feeling it does not bring the value in the mid to long term.
Somehow we need to educate the community. That may result in lower usage of all these paid services and remove the business case for the owners and managers of these services. But that will be a though journey. Not sure how to start, maybe we all should start writing posts about it.
It is clearly abuse, spam. It adds nothing to Steemit and clogs up people's feeds. I come here for interesting content, not advertising. I some times use my Steem and time to flag spam to do my bit and help out.
Thanks for your feedback. I do agree, and also I use from time to time my power to flag spam, scam and other abuse. I'll report these accounts to the cleaner teams we have.
yeah report them followed u and upvoted ur post
Thanks
This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond