Reputation Can Be Purchased Through Vote Buying - Does it Matter?
If you think reputation on Steem is earned and represents values like honesty, virtue, honor, integrity or trust, you will have to rethink how reputation is attained or earned.
Source
Reputation is now being purchased through buying votes from high STEEM POWER bots. That may not be the goal of people who buy votes, but that is one of the consequences.
Getting votes from accounts that have high STEEM POWER, not only gives you a larger allocation of the reward pool which means a higher potential payout on your post, but also gives you more reputation points.
Before vote buying which increased reputation for many, the way to climb fast in reputation was to get voted on by high SP accounts, who were not selling their votes for you to buy. That was normally based on people liking your content for whatever reason.
Even though reputation wasn't necessarily a representation of qualities like honesty, virtue, honor, integrity or trust, it had to be earned in some way by getting support from votes. Now, reputation can be increased faster by buying votes from high STEEM POWER bot accounts.
Thinking of reputation outside of Steem in the real world, it's supposed to be based on the substance of what we do, our actions and behavior. But it can also be largely based on appearances and false perception, rather than the substance of who we are.
Is reputation something we can trust in the real world? Maybe, to a certain degree.
If we could buy reputation in the real world, how much would that effect how we view reputation? Could we trust reputation at all then?
What do you think? Have your say.
- Does reputation matter on the platform?
- Does reputation influence you on Steem?
- Is it an issue to have reputation increase more for those that buy votes?
- What is the meaning, purpose or value of reputation when you can buy it?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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Wow, you are forever expanding my mind, krnel. I had never thought about that, but of course. If you get reputation from upvotes, then whenever you pay bots for upvotes, those upvotes count toward rep too!
That makes me think reputation on this platform should probably be using another word. It definitely doesn't mean what the word means in everyday life. Maybe more like "influence" or really more to the point "profit."
Personally, I don't think reputation matters much on the platform. It's just a number. A high number might mean a strong reputation but a strong reputation for what? Good? Bad? The number doesn't say.
It's the same in the real world. I have a weak reputation because not that many people know me while Donald Trump has a very strong reputation because everyone knows him. Whether our respective reputations are good or bad has nothing to do with the strength of them.
So vote buying to increase reputation is meaningless. What matters is whether your reputation is good or bad to those who know you. Or, whether you can project the kind of reputation that you want. Of course, I suppose some users will be swayed by the reputation value.
In any case, I don't think increased reputation is why people buy votes. It's money. People buy votes to make more money. And that, to me, is the issue with vote buying on Steemit.
Yes, that is why vote buying is done. Reputation is not useful to those who know what is and how it works, but for the majority, they are easily fooled into giving it a high value for no real reason...
This is certainly something that needs to be discussed.
The more popular are the bid bots the more easier it would be for people with money to buy their way into higher reputation, with all the credibility it implies.
And I think forbidding the votes from bid bots to increase reputation would be incredibly hard and no one will do it.
The consequence is reputation lost all of its meaning. It will stop being a representation of the quality coming from this user, and it will simply be a number showing how much money have the user pay to the bid bots, the higher the reputation the larger your payments, and the richer the bid bot owner.
Good points. It will be worth less than it already is :P People got high up in rep before not because they were quality content producers, but because they got whale support. Steemsports is an example, it's just a lottery where they got people to make them rich by giving them part of the rewards by picking a team.. .lol.
Well I don't really know the story about steemsports, but their account seems fine by me. Its good to have people talking about sports.
Now, do they deserve the higher reputation in the site? mmm I am not sure, but at least they aren't a toxic account, as far as I know.
Reputation certainly can be purchased in the real world. Hill and Knowlton is one of the premier mechanisms for improving reputation. They work just like the Steemit bots do. You pay them money, they improve your reputation.
They were employed to convince the American public that Iraqi military forces threw babies out of incubators in Kuwait so the Bush administration could attack Iraq.
Steemit bots are every bit as good and useful as Hill and Knowlton, IMHO.
Thanks!
Yes, indeed. "Image management" as they say ;) Appearances can be fabricated, but normally the majority of people don't pay for their image/appearance to be created by someone else ;)
I don't have any data to cite, but it seems apparent that using bots on Steemit to boost your apparent reputation is far more prevalent than in meatspace. Orders of magnitude more common I think.
"High financial rewards in worthless content is like the existential vacuum of winning a honeypot that does not have honey at all."
This consists in a big devaluation of Steemit on the long-term.
Yup. If the content is valuable, then it's ok to buy votes?
No, because our conscience will know and there is no fulfillment of our self-esteem.
We can't by the spirit with matter because it results in an empty soul.
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” John Wooden
I could have tried to express this in 3 paragraphs, but John Wooden already said it too well!
"The second is a voting system that leverages the wisdom of the crowd to assess the value of content and distribute tokens to it." -SteemIt Bluepaper
At this point, voting bots are not "illegal". It's up to "us" collectively to embrace or reject them. Embracing requires no new action above wider adoption. Rejecting them requires consensus in thought and deed. Not easy to achieve. Especially when you factor in the current distribution of SP and the monopoly of power resulting.
Good quotes ;) Consensus to get rid of them is near impossible... lol.
I'm torn. I feel an obligation to join a flag coalition, but nearly powerless due to the massive SP held by so few accounts. Almost as if it is completely at their whim whether SteemIt prospers or withers.
Reputation is not determined by a number next to your username. It's earned for better or worst just like in real life. No number can represent your reputation no matter how that number got there.
For people to think that a rep score has any real meaning is foolish.
That number doesn't really mean as much as what you do or say to earn a reputation for doing or saying something.
LOL, yup. Even when it's not a number, there is often little substance to who the person really is, with illusory appearances veiling the truth.
I spotted accounts that are made 'yesterday' and already have reputation above or almost 60. When I see someones post second thing I look at is reputation of author, because for me, it's sign that I will read something useful. Now if this become widely, reputation will not be sign of quality.
You are not alone. Sometimes if a title of a post doesn't appeal to me but I look at the reputation and it's high, I'll say to myself, "this person didn't attain this reputation by writing trash." Maybe I've been wrong. But now, reputation or not, if doesn't appeal to me, it doesn't.
It's true. Basically low reputed accounts and beginners provide low quality content until they figure out what they should do on steemit. That's one reason why we look at reputation before decide to read post.
chants give low reps a chance!!
Make some good posts, join minnowsupport, join steemfollower, post everyday in popular tags and watch your rep skyrocket. ;)
will do :)
xD
Damn, that's pretty flagrant crap, already at 60 with a few posts... !
We've seen the evolution of Steem change over the course of it's lifespan... @krnel do you think that there's a solution to your statement? Should Steemit ban voting bots altogether or some sort of programming solution?
I do believe your rep does matter but only if your posts deliver true quality content.
A large rep does influence me but only if I see that the author is contributing to the platform. If a high rep account votes my post, I check to see if it's a bot account or a real person.
This is a bit chicken / egg for me. If I do a post, I'm not that bothered about how beautifully set-out it is when there's a good chance no-one will read it. But as things develop, hopefully my account will grow and then I'll be motivated into making things look x much better. Language-wise, I've always been a bit of a grammar-nazi so hopefully most of my posts will be easy enough to read.
I'd love to see the end of all the bots, personally. Well, maybe not resteemable. Who I absolutely adore! ;)
I don't think they will make a solution unless the majority demands it.
That's a very good observation, now I see how some accounts move the reputation ladder quicker than others. I guess it's a side effect of allowing bots in the system. When you put some rules in place, people will work around them and 'bend' to perfectly fit the system. Steemit is an example, laws in countries are the same - a law of unintended consequences (or intended but not officially broadcasted). Anyway, Steemit, despite some inefficiencies, is still a very good tool and being the first of it's kind I can forget some issues. Also, this is only BETA version right now, isn't it?
It's gonna be better forever :P