RE: Open Letter to Bidbot Operators
Again, the bid-bot operators come in for criticism and perhaps, yes, they don't do enough to combat spam posts being elevated but as always, I can't understand why the auto-voting bots are never brought in to question.
THE trending posts are mostly exceptions with no one person sat on trending continually, yet all over this platform, dolphins are creaming in a fortune daily simply by being auto-voted by fellow dolphins daily. Their posts are barely read, and now we have lost the'views' metric, we cannot see how much true engagement there actually is.
I think this bid-bot witch hunt is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide deeper issues perpetrated by a much smaller group with more financial clout. Bid-bots are mainly used by minnows. Auto-voting, a much worse issue that removes a damn sight more reward is mainly used by dolphins and whales.
Why are so many people of influence here not prepared to complain about huge auto-votes ? Don't answer, we know already, the silence is deafening.
Are you talking about whales and dolphins using SteemVoter on one another?
Im not sure what your complaint would be here.
See there is quite a big difference between bot bought upvotes and whales/dolphins upvoting same people, their friends, etc...
Those that use bots, effectively decide: "My content is amazing, it deserves exposure, it deserves to be trending"
Who is trending, who gets rewarded should be determined by a consensus, and by human decision. I shouldnt be allowed to say "my content deserves and will trend today".
Trending : Currently popular( liked, enjoyed by a large number of people)
Basically, what im saying is that the current trending tab has a wrong name. Thats the bot side.
The other side you mentioned im quite ok with. You can vote for anyone that you want with as many VP as you want, its your stake. And sure some upvote friends. But why shouldnt they?
Their friends maybe bring them value. Who knows? Should they not be allowed to do that because they have more stake then you and me? I upvote my friends as well. I like them, i like what they do.
Right now, its not who gets read more, its does a high stake holder read my stuff... I agree, stake based system is very flawed in regards of determining what is and what is not high quality but its necessary to accept that currently that is how the whole system works.
What your comment seems to me like is: "Why dont whales/dolphins want to be friends with me".
I cant answer that question, but i know that the approach of making yourself seen by those same whales and dolphins, contributing positively to their discussions, offering value to them is much a better way to go about this then saying you shouldnt be upvoting who you want, what those do that you upvote is not that good
And no, bid bots have much more delegation then the small groups you mentioned. Its not even barely comparable. Bid bots hold almost 50% of all SP.
I get your frustration, I really do... that being said I have no answers, no "solution" sort of speak for the autovote (the giant ones) as you describe.
This comes with the free market aspect of our experiment.
Meno thank you for the lengthy post. This subject has interested me for some time. I think it may be a little unfair to call this a fair market here in steemit.
Let me expand. Just assume if tomorrow the US goverment and all state and local non volutary entities disbanded. How would our freemarket look? Im going to guess it would be the worst period in human history but not for the reason people might. Currently in the real world resources are so concentrated that in this situation everyone would end up far worse than they are now..except of course the owners(who got all the resources through government coercion). Which leads me back to steemit, something like 90% of steem is owned by very few. This is equivalent to an oligarchical system and can not be overcome without significant systemic changes.
Im sure steemit has been good to many people and its certainly a move in the right direction but it still retains many of the qualities we all say we despise.
Won't disagree with that observation, it seems to be the case... however, will it always be the case? is there an opportunity for people to climb?
Fun fact, anyone with more than 500 Steem Power on their wallet is part of the 1% on this platform.
These are valid concerns, very valid... but I'm not convinced they will always be an issue, at least not yet.
Sometimes there are no easy solutions and all we can do is highlight what we see as 'issues'.
I Just think there are many double standards here, dependant upon where we are on the Steemit foodchain!
This is a financially driven environment, not one led by content. When 'success' is measured by financial value and not by true engagement, many of the arguments about what constitutes 'quality' or not become invalidaated.
Let's just all accept that it's all about the money, accept things how they are and move on. At least we will be honest and see the this online community is nothing more than a reflection of 'real' life.
Great writing from you again fella :-)
Oh listen Nathen, you are not incorrect here...
Content does not make Steem go up in price, investment does. The idea is (or at least was) that the content would give Steem its relevance to attract investment.
Since we have not edificed content, great content, we have effectively not brought in the right type of investment. But this is a long war, not a single battle.
We are just in the pits, and take a bullet or two on the shoulder for disagreeing on how to reach solutions, that is all.
I would have to completely disagree with you here. :D
This is a completely content driven economy. Without content there wouldnt be any economy on Steem.
Steem is a reward based economy, meaning you need to have something to reward, that being content.
Economy constitutes of production (content), consumption (of that content) and the supply of money.
Be that content bad, average or amazing, doesnt matter.
We might be talking about the order that we think these dynamics play out. In which case, Its probably accurate.
Users with Great Content brings Investments which in turns produces great rewards for the users.
So its like a little cycle...
How the wheel gets started, that might be our point of disagreement.
But unfortunately Steem reputation is slightly stained due to many things.
All of that affects the investments, and the price.
You forgot the ninja mining... some people can't get over how this whole thing started.
I remember bumping into a post by @inertia back in the day that made a lot of sense to me... and honestly as simple as that, I got over the ninja mine thing.
That was far before my time, so id really need to read up what exactly was happening to understand why people are mad at it.
I only heard you lately mention that.
Well i think the wheel got started because there was a belief that the founders and creators of the idea of Steem would deliver what they promised to.
When it comes to attracting investment, the token that shows it has the ability to fulfill its core goals (and offers value) will do better.
Had Steem completely succeeded at its goal i think we would be looking at a completely different picture in the market cap list.
No.
You were absolutely correct to that point. There was a point you didn't touch on, and that is what ties bidbots to autovotes: people. The purpose of social media isn't to wind up bots and have them spout verbiage and vote for us.
Take the issue back to the principles @meno speaks of. The essential purpose of social media is to engage with people, not their avatars. Trails, selfvotes, bidbots--all automated voting--defeats that purpose and degrades society.
We don't need to give up because there's a problem, and that's what the quote advocates.
I'd like to point out that I believe this problem has solutions that I see being approached with the same effort that is dealing with stake-weighting. Oracles are going to have to be able to certify with some degree of accuracy that an account is a person and not a sock. This not only makes 1a1v possible, but the elimination of votebots.
While curation trails, autovotes, and etc., will still be possible, oracles will also be able to suss out this behaviour, and communities that choose to will be able to disable SMTs from being dropped to accounts that autovote.
It's always darkest before the dawn, and I hope that soon the dawn of SMTs, oracles, and communities potentiate leaping the predatory sharks and lazy asses that feed autovotes off the rewards pool.
While there will be communities that various dedicated profiteers and folks that haven't quite connected the basic social function principle with the harm that automated voting does to society, I expect that the benefits to communities actual social engagement exert will quickly make it obvious that allowing automated voting of any kind degrades communities and weakens society.
Millions of people around the world face the scourge of war, and believe it or not Steemit can do something about that. There are groups and posters that assiduously reveal details they gather through their careful research about Ukraine, Syria and the ME, and many governmental and institutional propaganda campaigns supporting war around the world.
Steemit is trying to do something about these evils, and the qualitative leap in societal power that SOC (SMTs, Oracles, and Communities) enable will reveal new ways Steemit and social media empowered by SOC can impact evils in the world.
That won't happen if we're phoning it in, just automating and letting our bots do the voting.
There's a change coming. It will get better in ways we can't imagine, and power to do good things and stop bad ones from happening is about to increase by orders of magnitude on Steemit with SOC.
I have to say that I am a user of bid bots as I am new, but your statement regarding who is "mostly" using bot bots is completely inaccurate.
That is simply not true from empirical experience. As OP stated, the trending pages are just "bid bot whores" (my words not his) to be frank.
The beauty of the blockchain is we can see and trace every transaction, I encourage you to take a look and verify. I do not want to "name and shame here" but I see the same posters day after day with +$600, all having a reputation value over 50. These are clearly not minnows by definition.
I am not trying to stir the pot but misinformation must be corrected.
If you could do the maths, you would see that the bidbots are mainly used by minnows, it's just that the most visibility is to the whales who use them occasionally to score a big trending post. You would never notice the likes of me, and thousands like me who use them with small amounts daily but over time add up. MY rep is 56, but thats from the increase in rep from spending money on bidbots, NOT because I am a great content provider, which Im not lol !
Look at posts from any of the 60+reps, in their list of upvotes you wont see bidbot votes, you will see auto voted upvotes.
It's time for a whole lotta this...