Unnecessary Spam on the Steem Blockchain
I'm sure many curators have come across this particular account, or most likely many others whilst scouring Steemit and the Steem Blockchain for good quality content. I noticed this account about 2 months ago and simply added it to my 'ignore list parameter' of my block explorer, I thought surely others would notice and start flagging the trash, repetitive and ultimately useless junk this account was posting, but nothing has happened either because we're all to used to it or because no one wants to take action.
The Account I am mentioning here goes by the name of @markboss , and he/she/it seems to be posting automatically; the combined top posts of every tag with a new post for each tag
Source
This leads to about 12 posts every hour, or ~280 posts per day! Which is absolutely ridiculous.
This behavior is not what the Steem blockchain was intended for and this is reflected by the user's clear lack in rewards. However this behavior and allowing it to continue promotes an absurd over-use of the Steem blockchain, one which I think we should quash.
What can we do to prevent this continued behavior?
Instead of sitting on our hands and let users like this use up valuable bandwidth and other resources which could be distributed to more deserving minnows, we can use our flags as intended. From today on wards I will be flagging @markboss and any other accounts with a ridiculous amount of posting (>25 posts per day) which seems to be automated, and you should too! Remember no matter how small you think you are, people like these (and the allowing of the continuance of this behavior) are directly negatively impacting your position, posts, etc on Steem.
A message to accounts like these
If you're the owner of accounts which post as frequently and similarly to @markboss take this post as a friendly message and take on board what I've said, note that your posts ultimately are junk and are basically the garbage of the Steem blockchain, you're not doing anything valuable by posting things like this and your time would be Much better spent doing something worth while, rather than running bots that make you nothing for creating garbage. If you do not stop your behavior, then you will eventually find yourself hidden.
End Note
Please leave me a comment, or flick me a message through steemit.chat If you have any queries, or information regarding other spam accounts and accounts which abuse the Steem blockchain.
I have been muting these kind of bots. I think they don't offer any value and are annoying for curators. It is like those traditional ads you are forces to see on websites. If flagging make them post less I would be in. Otherwise I am just muting for now. There several same kind of bots out there.
Whilst muting is an option, and it is something that everyone should do for most spam/crap content posters, in the cases of the extreme (like this), we should work together to reduce the bandwidth of the user (by flagging) as their frequency of posting is restricted by bandwidth.
I have noticed this particular account in the past. I will begin flagging too. We don't need these types of posts clogging up steemit.
Well,, what you said is something cool, but somehow, i don't think downvoting will solve the problem. i've in many occasion come across an account with 2 reputation and post very frequently ... maybe the developers should find a good approach to solve this kind of problem.
The spammer @locikll mentions, still has about 700 followers. And gets a few upvotes on every article.
Currently you are allowed to post every 20 seconds I believe. So this guy publishes a lot. But it isn't necessarily against the rules.
That being said, I doubt that this behavior will do steem any good in the long term.
I agree that it still occurs, but by down voting we reduce the bandwidth of these users such that they physically cannot post as much every day which reduces the spam. I agree that the developers need to do something, but until they do I cannot see any other way to limit the bandwidth of users like these other than to downvote.
Hi sir best regards from me @locikll
Thank you for sharing!
He does provide a service, albeit a very small one. He puts all of the tabs in one post filtered on a category. So I could see how his posts may save some time for a few Steemians.
Does downvoting decrease your voting power? If so, steemians might be better served to have you direct rewards to more valuable posts.
This is also on the post:
If you think your posts are good quality but undervalued, please do following:
a) send links directly to us as we will try to curate
(upvote & resteem) as much as we can
b) use our special tags: markboss / markboss-promo for your posts - we will upvote / resteem for free
c) use one of following popular "booster" services to upvote your posts and earn more money:
I don't know if he has taken such actions, but he at least claims to have that as an intent.
Please don't downvote; instead, give us suggestions how we can make this great service even greater.
He seems to be calling out to you specifically. Have you tried to engage him directly, other than downvoting?
I'm not trying to be critical of your actions, just trying to rationalize all of it
I will take this into account from now on, I will start using the brand to help the community
Hi,
First, since you are the curie tech guy, I think you might be more likely to appreciate the work I have been doing on Privacy Workshop, this is #3 but I just finished #5 today. I have put in a full 40 hour week on this:
https://steemit.com/surveillance/@mindhawk/privacy-workshop-3-you-are-a-channel
In the course of reaching out to other people who might be interested, I ran across The Conscious Resistance and Disobedient Media/Suzie Dawson. When I asked both more about their operation, origins and how they handled surveillance by authorities, they were absolutely rude and evasive and I got 0 questions answered, and several flags when I was only asking questions and not being rude.
So I posted about my experiences in detail, I would appreciate knowing what you think and also how we should deal with these accounts that appear to be, at least, shills gang-upvoting each other and flagging anyone who says anything they don't want to hear.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@mindhawk/invitation-to-disobedient-media-and-suzie3d-to-answer-basic-questions-about-their-work
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@mindhawk/why-i-think-the-conscious-resistance-is-bullshit-or-worse
I came to steemit so that I could challenge this sort of thing, which is, of course, endemic to reddit/facebrk and such. The POINT of the blockchain is that people who want to propagandize can be challenged in such a way that the usual tricks of forum sliding/obfuscation/shill armies does not work.
Please, tell me these accounts are not running some kind of operation that is dishonest and intended to deceive. I'm reaching out to people who appear to me to be actual humans and here for more than s-posting, so you're on that list.
Also geez what does it take to get noticed by curie lol oh well.
Thanks for your consideration to my work and these issues.
Pot calling the kettle black? Below are just a few of the comments @mindhawk has been leaving under @dbroze's posts. This is why the TCR team isn't taking him seriously.
For more, see the 'comments' section on @mindhawk's Steemit profile.
Just read all the comments and I've seen two outright, seriously psycho people during my lifetime and @mindhawk's behavior and complete 180 switching of language use and emotionally raging to instant calm demeanor were the two main similarities i saw in real life. It wasn't pretty. Creepiest thing ever, in fact.
I made one comment after him on a post and he proceeded to tell me that I wasn't shit and I was fake apparently because he was too lazy to do a simple search where my username will show up all over the Internet for years with a lot of personal stuff actually ( it's been my gamertag for over 15 years). I work in the industry.
But I'm a figment of his imagination apparently. Let's go ahead and keep it that way okay, @mindhawk?
I stand by all of those comments, all of which, to date are unnaddressed.
I am acting skeptical, and I am a member of a culture that defends itself from infiltration and people who are not forthcoming about who they say they are.
Cherry picking things that make me look a certain way, waiting weeks to respond, flagging without actual reason, acting like a baby, like these comments actually hurt your feelings or that of your master/owner @dbroze are simply new layers to the game of manipulation you are clearly playing.
I am unphased, the facts clearly point to 'The Conscious Resistance' being a police operation.
Also, wrong thread dude, this is the disobedient media thread. Can you read? Why didn't you post over there where I actually invited you to come at me with your best stuff?
More tactics of course.
Will you address my actual question and point to any actual anarchical theory, or any actual resistance other than filming protestors? Will you point to any actual investigation?
Notice how your post is really annoying and stupid and out of context and yet another evasion, yet I still don't flag you.
People actually interested in discussion and not being deceptive act that way. Try it out sometime unless you are being paid to do otherwise.
Here I'll help you with the correct link, dumbass:
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@mindhawk/why-i-think-the-conscious-resistance-is-bullshit-or-worse
mute...and erase him from your world..
muting is very possible but erasing is kinda difficult as its permanently saved in the blockchain.
I don't see the problem.
@markboss is ranked 149 for the number of posts he has made by Steemwhales.com. That means that there are 148 people who post more often that he does.
@markboss is ranked as 18,198 in account value.
the @markboss account is getting 0.0002% of the reward pool
note the numbers...
according to this the account is only posting thirteen times a day..(NOT per hour)
This leads to about 12.5 posts every hour, or 300 posts per day! Which is absolutely ridiculous.
It's also impossible since the software prevents posting more often than once every five minutes...that's 65 minutes...
(math is hard)
with an AVERAGE revenue of one penny per post..
Thanks for the calculation. It´s always good to see both sides.
Thanks for clarifying, there might have been a bit of a time-skip over on Steemd, but he is posting at the very limit (If you check his Steem profile, he's posting every 5 minutes), and it is much more than 13 posts per day (He's posted more than 13 in the past 1.5 hours already!)
The problem isn't about revenue, it is simply about the absurdity of posting so frequently, and if there are 148 accounts that do the same or worse then they also deserve the same treatment. Flagging reduces a users bandwidth on the platform and hence restricts their posting frequency, which will prevent further spam on the platform. In the future Steemit needs to address this issue, but as it stands right now as users this is a way for us to do something about it.
then you should flag him to your hearts content.
enjoy the experience.
"he's" a bot....destroy all bots..
Thanks for spreading the word. We need to make sure only valuable and original content is promoted.