Bots are on the downfall. Quality of content is up. The reputation system is working exactly as intended.
These thoughts are in response to @laonie, who posted a brief article expressing concern over a fall in 24-hour active users...
The Bots Are Under Serious Fire
The most likely cause of the decrease in active users over the last 7 days is the substantial changes that have been put in place by the devs over the last week. Bots, over the period of the last (which is my first!) week here, went from being a serious problem... to a nuisance... to a complete non-issue.
The reputation system from my perspective has been nothing but positive. It has been a huge boon for helping to filter out low-quality users (and thus content) at a quick glance. An interesting title or image from low-reputation users occasionally catches my eye, but I rarely end up upvoting it.
In other words, the system works. It's eerily accurate already. And that's a very good thing, because it means the bots have no incentive to post at all. It's gone from "Great Post!" and "Upvoted" to (-5) and (-6).
Show comments hidden due to low ratings? Mm, no thanks.
Overall Activity and Quality of Content is on the Rise
There is no shortage of activity or lack of quality of content on the site, and the number of accounts registered are sprinting towards 50,000. There will very likely be 100,000 accounts well before the end of the year.
But the numbers don't matter.
Higher numbers of active users is not a good thing if those users are producing low-grade fodder. Most of those "active users" are simply spammers that are being snuffed out thanks to the changes that have been made.
Those who put out quality content once or twice and leave forever because they don't get paid well enough...are not users worth paying at all!
With the Reputation System in place, Steem continues to move closer to being the perfect incentive engine for genuine, unique, high-quality content.
Steemit is not a get-rich-posting website. It's a magnet for authentic entrepreneurs, celebrities, influencers, authors and change-makers.
As more success stories sprout from the Steem ecosystem (as well as public exposure to some of the crowdfunded advertising campaigns I've seen hit the front page) word will continue to spread that Steemit does in fact offer a very legitimate way for high-quality writers, producers, artists and entertainers to earn an income and living.
Is it obvious I'm bullish?
Thanks for the post! I am very pleased with developments regarding the bots. The measures implemented as described here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dantheman/notice-to-bot-spammers
have made my experience on this platform very enjoyable! Well done administration!
It's made a huge difference this week, for sure.
I agree. I saw his post also, just a minute ago. I saw same things from the dates since both the hardfork and bot day (what we calling it?). It mirrored the changes pretty well. Drops in automated stuff I won't miss.... @cheetah was a good one.... sorry for the victims :)
The bot-owners have already gotten paid well, which I don't mind because at least a few of them were very public about it and helped improve the system.
Yep. read several post earlier where it talked about things like that happening. System oversights causing payouts for some while being addressed. I like one post (will try and find link) where it was asked that be looked at as a bug bounty of sorts. Drew attention to a flaw, it was fixed, they received some compensation.
It's a relief to me before deceive and did not understand me, so I posted something already appeared 45 upvotes of robots, now everything seems normal.
The upvotes are a bit annoying but really have no influence on the system since the accounts don't hold any weight.
As more success stories sprout from the Steem ecosystem you'll have widespread user frustration as the abstraction of "value" is pushed as a condition to make money on the site. When that's not the case. One of Steemit's unique innovations is to actively encourage bot automation. What does this mean? High value botlists make money, not willy nilly upvoting. People who tell you otherwise either are unaware, naive, or are deliberately dishonest. Hopefully, dolphins and whales will lease out positions on botlists, because that's the only way newbies will have a valid chance (i.e. newbies that don't understand the dynamics of Steemit success).
Upvoted
This is not true at all !
I haven't seen any reduction in most bots. They are still spamming away just hidden.
Out of sight out of mind
Seriously! Spammer's posts are getting grayed out immediately, that's good enough for me.
They certainly arent going to get any rewards for their posts. No rewards = no incentive to continue spamming. The problem will work it self out, and we all have rep to thank for it.
So what do you consider a spammer post? Where in the rules of this site does it define a spam post? No basically it is a bunch of people who can code who interpret what should be posted and what shouldn't. I see a lot of great content that goes un- noticed. Where is the truth behind we pay for great content. More like come help boost our community so we can get rich and in the end there will be a Magical DOS attack where everything will disappear. Same story different cover
You're right. I put out a bunch of not so quality articles to test the system. I quickly learned that if I want to stick around I have to put out quality content. Articles like this are great, this is an innovation in social media so there is a lot to learn.
I've seen some only OK content getting upvoted to oblivion sometimes, but more likely than that longer, higher quality posts tend to do well. If effort is put in and you have something unique to offer you'll eventually get paid.
..also a magnet for plagiarists and scammers
Likely weeded out eventually via rep. If nothing else it's a great start.
Its great but buggy. there is a whole sub-community of people who's posts get blocked because of the reputation system. If you've ever been flagged by a whale, just one, no matter how long ago, you are give a terrible rep. Lots of people have the same problem as me. I've seen bots with higher rep than me and I've only been downvoted once according to steemstats.