Flagging Bot Users Arbitrarily Is Like Arresting Those Paying Protection Money To The Mob
Yet another "reward pool argument" is brewing on the trending pages of Steemit.
After failing to make bot owners the villains publicly responsible for the nature of the garbage in trending, the pitch-fork mob is moving on to attacking the customers (or victims, depending on one's view) of these "promotion services."
It should be obvious to everyone by now that if you want your work to be seen by anyone, you are forced to use the bots. The amount of organic votes and views being handed out these days is next to none, and often confined to narrow tags like "Dmania."
Now that the bots have mastered preventing their customers from accruing hardly any of the profit they deem should rightly be theirs (ROI caps, post age limits, post age max-time, adjustable votes dependent on curation, etc) , they are pretty much just a toll you have to pay to get on the "highway."
So, now we have a scenario where misguided users are attacking those paying protection money to the Steemit mob. Hilarious.
Now, with posts like this one: (https://steemit.com/steem/@fzek62442nd3/i-am-new-here), some of these users are definitely asking for it.
Targetted downvoting is not what we are seeing here, however. What we are actually seeing is formally respectable members of the community creating arbitrary downvote tools to flag user's posts (and encouraging others to do so as well) for no reason other than that they are on trending and have used a bot.
Let's take a look at this misguided initiative, that apparently wants to see Trending re-dominated by circle-jerkers like @BookingTeam, repasting the same marketing schlock they posted a week ago each day to hundreds of dollars of rewards.
Uh oh. Here there be Flagons.
"This article is based on false assumptions that are easily disproved, rendering it logically unsound and a waste of everyone's time."
This is going to get me to lunch faster.
This entire article is predicated on:
- A demonstrably false assumption.
- A personal opinion with no data or support.
Hey Heimin, how about you go back to taking cuts off of other people's content - I don't much care for yours. Keep it to yourself.
Shit, I think we're done here. Next.
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 10,000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: Google, Steemit, Heimindanger
Copyright: SmartSteem, PALNet, SPL, ContentJunkie, Heimindanger
Using bots is a choice. Most of us are here because of a choice. Otherwise we could have been twitter/facebook slaves, but we chose Steemit.
Forcing opinions about using or not using a bot here is turning steemit into the very thing we left behind.
I notice plenty of porn here on steemit, that doesn't mean steemit is a porn site. Similarly using bots does mean artificial AI promoted content platform.
Of course all of us need to be conscious of the fact that to hurt the platform in the long run wold be hurting ourselves.
Enough said.
I believe bots are integral part of the steem design. If they're causing more harm then good then would it be even possible to remove them? I guess not
Trust me, if I could get away with not using bots, I would. Like others and you have stated, pretty much the only way to be seen is to use it. Even though I don't break even, I still to get new users to follow me. I do really think these bid bots need to cap the ROI at 0% so we at least break even.
Would you use bid bots if you wouldn't get SBDs and SP 7 days later? Prove it to me by promoting your content for the same amount of money via other tools like Google Ads or Facebook, consistently, not just once.
Bid bots are not promotion tools, they are reward siphoning tools, fueled by monkeys like you using them.
By the way your post is trash, your writting style is pathetic, and putting my avatar on top of the world's most famous dictator's picture is not exactly the best way to make me your friend or create a sane discussion here.
Flagged for defamation against my username and avatar
What @lexiconical and you say are not mutually exclusive things. Bid bots might well be "reward siphoning tools" as you say, they are also an effective promotion tool which is
If bots are available and everyone is free to use them then those who don't should contemplate changing a poorly designed system.
Also, regardless of the provocative style of the author, his arguments remain sound.
As long as bots are permitted, flagging the users is akin to punishing the victims of the Mob. With the current setup where "eliminating abuse [...] shouldn't be the goal", Steemit Inc. has created a "Mob-ocracy" and what you are doing is the modern equivalent of "turf wars" between mafia clans.
source
It's a real shame that the "promote" function is so useless, otherwise all this could be avoided. Right now you basically pay to get your posts thrown in the ghetto of the Promoted tab, which no one in their right mind would ever visit to begin with. I mean who the hell likes ads? That's as if Facebook had a news feed option that only shows ads lol who would use that ever?
is there a possibility of making two trending pages, one with an organic only trending, or a limited amount of bid bots used, and another trending page with no limits on the bot? That way it would give the reader some control on which trending page to personally support and read, upvote or share, and vice versa?
There are several ideas being floated around. One would be to simply not have a global trending page. You could still have trending "per tag". Another would be to have trending linked not to rewards but to views×votes (regardless of rewards). A third has been implemented, a bot (Steem Sincerity I think) that comments on posts with high rewards from bots and informs readers that the post "trends" artificially thanks to bots. A fourth is the SMT thingy that's in the process of being implemented where you have several currencies, one per community if I understood well.
You do realize that no action taken to prevent serious flaws is a platform killer. If everyone delegated all their SP to bots, that would be the death of manual curation and quality control. The blockchain would end up filled with worthless garbage. Guess what would happen to the price of STEEM and SBD in USD? The more SP you have, the more concerned you should be about what's going on the platform as a whole.
Decentralized platforms running without a central authority must rely on voluntary community policing and self-governance against abuse. Who gives a fuck what the current system specs allow or the whitepaper says? If the system does not work, it needs to be fixed.
Absolutely, that's why I keep leaning in in the debate :)
Absolutely. What I'm trying to say is that "no action taken to prevent serious flaws is a platfrom killer" DOES NOT IMPLY (logically speaking) "any action is better than no action". There are actions you can take that can be WORSE than "no action" (basically speeding up the death of the platform ...)
Yeah but let's face it, that is not entirely the case of Steemit. And frankly I think it's a good thing, too. If Steemit Inc proposes something sensible and a handful of big witnesses approve then it can be implemented. We are at HF 19 after all, not at HF 1 or 2 ...
Well, that is a very misguided position I can tell you. It's like the tail who says "who gives a s**t what the dog's head wants to do? I say I need to wag!"
On the contrary, the glue that keeps this place together and prevents it from descending into a destructive free-for-all (or most likely "all-against-all") is precisely the fact that this place has a mission (emanating from the whitepaper) and a history, a past from which to learn. These are the fixed points that should always be used as a guidance when looking for consensus not about "whether it needs fixing or not" (it does) but about the next question, which is FAR more difficult: "what is the right fix to apply?"
Your entire article is based on unproven opinions. It is the literal definition of garbage. It has no value.
Your response is to wade in here crying like a baby.
Amusing how you storm in here making demands (and missing the Grumpycat joke), yet denying that you are a dictator. You are literally dictating.
Nobody has to prove shit to you, cartoon-dog boy.
"Bid bots are not promotion tools, they are reward siphoning tools, fueled by monkeys like you using them."
More opinions blathered with no support.
"By the way your post is trash, your writting style is pathetic"
I was trying to write down to your level. You don't post anything of value, period. You're just another reward-pool-SJW rabble-rouser who runs around opinion flagging like a naive crybaby.
Ps - You argue like a bitch.
You didn't answer the first serious part of my comment, where I am trying to defend my assumption. You are clearly trying to argue here and not create a discussion.
Making an assumption is part of the scientific method, if you don't believe in the assumption then feel free not to read the rest of the article. That's why I clearly mentioned this ON TOP of my article.
By the way, since we're covering fallacies, your whole argument is one. The burden of proof is on you, since I cannot prove a negative ("that I am not solely here to farm rewards"). Your silly little tasks you demand would prove nothing.
Maybe it would help if you didn't present your opposition with an impossible, fallacious task as a precursor to arguing disingenuously.
"Proving Non-Existence
Description: Demanding that one proves the non-existence of something in place of providing adequate evidence for the existence of that something. Although it may be possible to prove non-existence in special situations, such as showing that a container does not contain certain items, one cannot prove universal or absolute non-existence. The proof of existence must come from those who make the claims."
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/145/Proving-Non-Existence
"where I am trying to defend my assumption. You are clearly trying to argue here and not create a discussion."
You mean, where you provided no actual data to defend your assumption?
Yeah, didn't find you doubling down on your opinion too compelling.
The scientific method is about formulating, testing, and then adjusting hypotheses. Not by starting out with an assumption and trying to prove it.
Here, unlike you, I'll provide SUPPORT:
"sci·en·tif·ic meth·od
noun
a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
You literally just demonstrated you don't know how to apply the scientific method, and it shows in your work.
PS - Since you clearly missed the joke:
You'll note that no dictators actually appeared in the image I used to modify, just a uniform and a cat. Technicalities and all.
agree. i have suggested several times that a mandatory limit on how much people can upvote a post should be set. anyone upvoting over say 10sp should have a mandatory content check by the bot owner. I see way too many shit posts being upvoted for 20-30 sp without a blink. these are the people that should be flagged. arbitrary flags are just that, without reason.
At least one dog around here has its head on straight. Thank you.
Watching steemit in fighting is entertaining YES!
But it's also liken to watching the inhabitants of a concentration camp fighting over the fundamentals of gas. It's clearly the thing that WILL destroy you all (by destroying your world) but rather than work to possibly break out...
I don't know... maybe a FORK without bid bots...
If VICE can take the steem chain and decide.. "we will do our own thing"
Then why does not a group of you true believers of a steemit without the RAPE take similar action?
Instead of this ongoing attack on each other?
Keep fighting though.. as I said... this shit is riveting and insightful!
(Was going to use shocking camp imagery but realized some sensitive fck would end up flagging it.)
Anyway.... more pitchforks!!
As much as I don't like garbage post being upvoted to popularity by bots, I think they're here to stay.
... and it is a good thing.
All big changes are very painful. To understand that Steemit is a big mess, every single person should face it and then have an opinion about it. So, lets enjoy it.
Upvotes @lexiconical
Generic comments could be mistaken for spam.
Tips to avoid being flagged
Thank You! ⚜
@lexiconical I completely agree with you. If people WANT to spend their Steem on bots so be it, but if you look at what those bots cost these days and the ROI - the bots aren't such a good deal.