RE: If you could change one thing about STEEM/Steemit, what would it be?
Most days the biggest problem we have is manpower and funding. While @anyx & myself started out with @steemcleaners just looking to avoid personal flags,reward the community for their efforts, and coordinate abuse fighting efforts to be more effective @steemcleaners has evolved into a full time job for myself. I spend 40 to 60 hours a week here working on both @steemcleaners and the sister project I started @spaminator.
@steemcleaners has invested STEEM in developing a new site that will allow us to process reports faster and allow us to have more individuals working at the same time.
With the decline in the price of STEEM/SBD we always see a decline in those participating within the @steemcleaners group and those reporting from the community. No to mention the quality of the reports. We now get large amounts of spam reports that really aren't worth the time or effort and reduces the amount of time we have to find real abuse.
While a lot of us love steemit.com and do this out of our belief in STEEM and Steemit.com everyone has bills to pay or needs to be met.
Since @steemcleaners has had to keep their reports off trending to avoid being flagged the number of organic votes from the community has dwindled and funding outside of our supporters has dwindled. Not only that, the lack of awareness that there is an anti-abuse group has increased the amount of Spam & Scam that is happening by individuals.
hire two, three, or even ten people that are dedicated to finding, identifying, and punishing spam.
Current man hours by the steemcleaners team is between 150 - 300 hours a week depending on availability. That's almost 4 -8 full time workers. I'd love to have 10 every week. Unfortunately not many are willing to work for a few dollars an hour. The more we add to our group the less everyone gets rewarded. Same goes for those that report abuse. The more abuse reported the less SP distributed to the community.
I have processes in place to proactively identify spam and low quality content. The problem is time... I don't have enough of it right now. Heck, I rarely post or respond to comments like this because it takes time away from work.
If I had that power, I would empower an organization like @steemcleaners
Everyone is trying to build a better mousetrap instead of asking how they can help @steemcleaners & @spaminator clean up steemit.com. Users or groups come in, get some attention, then find out it isn't as easy as it looks and definitely not rewarding and quit.
There is a lot more that can be done. Unfortunately without volunteers to work for free or funding to do it - it's not going to get done. Whether your talking about @steemcleaenrs, individuals, or other groups.
When I said "hire two, three, or even ten people that are dedicated to finding, identifying, and punishing spam." I meant employed by Steemit Inc and funded. They have the funds and resources to make this happen. $500K/year should be enough to fund a good size team dedicated to the task.
When you require volunteers to do it, they will get burnt out and demotivated. When you add rewards and incentives, it gets gamed. Having employees with a fixed salary and job description would produce consistent results. Once a dent is made and it is clear spam will be punished, it will be far easier to maintain it than to initially change it.
Same as my other response, my point is we need a strong anti-spam group with the man power and funding to accomplish what needs to be done. If that means @steemcleaners 2.0 or outfitting @steemcleaners with the resources needed. My choice would be empowering @steemcleaners so you have the tools to change the status quo.
I agree with you. I just don't think Steemit, Inc will get involved outside the support they are already giving in the form of delegations to flag. We're left to look for support elsewhere.
I face this a lot personally. It's the support of the community and appreciation for what I do that keeps me going.
@patrice Check out your downvotes on each of your posts in this thread. In our local vernacular, I'd say that these guys are now just "taking the piss". ninjapiraterobot, banjokid, somenick, roccofalcone, heather2000 and thinkingtime appear to be linked to galactic123, who also supposedly runs the service echowizard
Thank you for all the work you and the rest of @steemcleaners put into making this platform better for all the rest of us, @patrice! I for one am very grateful for everything you guys are doing for the community.
Could you elaborate a little bit about what you mean by this? I sometimes report, but now I'm starting to wonder if those reports have even been worth your time, since it's been pretty small-scale copy+paste spam that I have been reporting.
Stop by our Discord if you have time and check out #community-notices as well as asking questions of team members. We also have a couple volunteers there that are happy to help if they can.
Right now because we are backlogged (because of the latest phishing attack) copy/paste unless it has payouts or multi-account abuse with volume are low priority.
Cool, I'll make sure to stop by and check out the community notices :)