From now on I am flagging spam comments.
The amount of upvote-begging, follow-for-follow and spam comments is horrifying and has been the whole summer. From now on I flag comments that does this with -4.
When I started posting here it took me several weeks to earn more than 0.02$ and that was high quality professional content. Begging and Spamming and lifting things from other websites is not just annoying, it is ruining the whole platform.
I have seen @steevc, @rossenpavlov and others do the same and sadly it seems to be the only way.
Thank you for doing this, and for posting about it, and for the Caravaggio :)
I've been on here only a few weeks and after making the effort to post original and useful content I quickly became disgusted at the sheer volume of worthless, dishonest, generic copypasta that all too often involves fraudulent claims of false authorship over works by other people thieved from elsewhere and submitted here for reward and recognition. And they're getting paid for these acts.
It has discouraged me from creating any more original content here because the ROI on effort is statistically negligible compared to payouts for c&p. So...
In the last few days I have begun randomly checking posts that consist mainly of images with little or no words. With some effort I have been able to determine a number of them to be stolen works falsely claimed as original works by the submitter, track down the original and the original author, and reply to the steemit post with these details including links to original in-situ and web sites/social media of the original author.
You can peruse my comments here or I can give you some links to specific replies if you prefer. I'm also happy to take advice on a better way to gain more exposure for these and future investigations.
I'd rather be producing guides on photo editing, technology, etc et al, but for now these activities and voting/resteeming/commenting on quality content like this will have to suffice.
Thanks for the long comment - I think that you might find it worthwile to help in the steemitabusechannel. I did so for a while last year and they even pay you for your efforts. The Steem comes from the steemcleaner reports.
They do a great work and I think that you can use your time in a worthwhile fashion there. It's of course a place with a lot of drama, but also exiting detective work :)
I used quite some time because it was exiting to catch plagiarists and because I had some skills in doing it.
I am also frustrated by reading all those beggar-like replies, posted by automatic bots. I believe that the value of Steemit comes mostly from the quality of the content, and such "spam" activities do not improve the situation. Vote-begging (and: likes, thumbs, +1's) is what has kept me off Facebook and other platforms, in my eyes it is a mindless hunt for the "likes".
I hope this does not happen here!
Completely agree!
I've made a little "copy/paste" message which I use from time to time on spam. Sometimes it even works. I understand the frustration and the irritation, but flagging still seems aggressive to me.
Yes, I have done the same, and for a long time I have been thinking like you. But -4 is not going to ruin anybodies rep. overnight. Now I flag them a little bit to move them to the bottom of the comments section - and I do it instead of writing warnings which is more and more annoying for each time it happens... but maybe I should have a copy/paste explanation like you.
I agree, I wouldn't have the patience to type out warnings constantly. I saved mine as a document, but try not to use it too much for fear of it being regarded as spam. Here is mine:
"Some friendly advice: If you would like to achieve success on Steemit you should drop the follow me, follow you or upvote me/upvote you thing. You need to state WHY you think it's a good post and if the person reading the comment likes what you have to say they might follow you. Also a large number of followers don't determine your success on Steemit if they don't actually vote for your stuff and engage in conversation. Some users are also offended by these kind of comments and may flag you, lowering your reputation."
(I am an online seller so I am in the habit of saving messages I use regularly!)
I do that too. I use it for my footer-image with link for example. I will create a polite one to explain my aggression :)
hahahahaha, love that!
For comment spammers, I'm still getting enough people responding and saying they'll stop when I send them a screen capture of their comment page to warrant continuing doing that.
And you can always drop a link with steemcleaners on steemit chat.
That is of course another way to do it, but I have written long comments to people and they still continue. I think that a micro-flag like this is just as efficient and much easier for me.
I have made a lot of work for Steemcleaners and I wouldn't bother them with this. Normally you should write a warning to the spammer yourself. When Steemcleaners start flagging it closes the account which is not my intention.
My patience & understanding do have limits.
If someone makes the decision to ignore the warning and continues, I'll drop a link to steemcleaners.
Ignorance can be forgiven, willfully trying to game the system is another thing, especially if you've already been caught.
I just tend to ignore these people. IMHO most of the comment bots are no better either. Many newbies are suckered into responding and upvoting.
I have been tempted to downvote, but generally don't want to give precious time to it. Perhaps if they are pesistent, yes. I have however found, that after once or twice of me ignoring them, they never come back.
I do upvote comments of value on my posts, so these spam comments end up buried on the bottom looking the rather sad pointless things that they are.
Yes, I ignored them too, but yesterday I just got too annoyed. It does take away voting power, but not that much time.
I upvote and answer all comments on my posts, so I have to read them anyway. I hope that a downvote can scare them off.
I look at upvoting the comments on my post as bringing out the drinks and snacks when visitors come over. If you like your guests, then of course you'd want them to hang around a bit longer. ;-)
thank you! I think I may join you in this as much as I hate to do it.
Yea...
I resteemed your post. Although annoying, I always prefer mute/ignore to reporting. One makes me feel like a god, the other a snitch :D
I am not reporting either. I used to help out in steemcleaners and they have enough to do with plagiarists and the like. I did not think of muting them, actually, but somehow I will rather flag than mute. Muting (and this is just my personal feeling, not a rational thought) is like turning your back to the problem, and I think that it is a problem for the platform as a whole.
In some cases, yes, you should not mute. I myself come from a online gaming background, and the ammount of trolls I have encountered helped me learn the beauty of muting people. The "click my link" kinda guy I simply ignore, no need to press any buttons, but for rude or trolling behaviour, I hit the ignore button without a second thought.
Wish I could do that in real life sometimes :D
Yes, I see your point. Never was trolled much myself. I guess I will only flag serial spammers. Flagging is just as unnatural for me as muting :)
I am new at the Steemit community and i am also a visual artist, i use collage as my medium, i see a lot of spamming and a lot of copy paste. In my opinion, good orinal content is the only way to succeed and all the spamming in the end comes back to your face. Very interesting article and the Carravaggio painting is one of my favorites. When i started collaging i ve made a study based on it.
I hope all go soon ok ... same time it makes sad.
I think that there will always be somebody trying to do it the fast and faulty way. When I started here there was a lot of plagiarism, and I helped out in the Steemabuse channel. I only flag if I am sure the poster did not read my post, and that he/she/it posts the same spam-comment elsewhere.
Sure ... I have to think too this .
Under one my post, there is one very strange commentary, this is the most strangest approach I have ever seen. :)) But now it is ok :))
I still get DMs on Steemit.chat which are always awkward for me. I think it's worse when the first comment you get is a huge sparkling header saying that you should check out their link! 🙄
Yes, it is kind of depressing.. guess that was why I just had enough today.