STEEMIANS need to DOWNVOTE More!!!!!!!!!
One of the areas where many of STEEMIANS fail to meet their obligation to the site is failure to consistently flag garbage posts.
STEEMIT for all its fun as a community and place to network is still competitive. As such "Making it" on STEEMIT can be tough, there is plenty of competition and even some of the more obscure niches are quickly becoming competitive as well.
I think we sometimes put so much effort into creating valuable unique content that we overlook the tremendous importance of flagging. The reality is that you need to work just as hard to clean up the trash and keep STEEMIT free of spam posters as you do creating your unique content.
Why? Pretty simple really, each spam posting takes up space in article listings that should rightfully belong to you; an actual content creator trying to make it.
For all of you STEEMIANS that consistently deliver engaging, creative, and well thought out postings you are most likely selling yourself short, by failing to provide even 1/10th of the effort to policing the ranks.
I know the frustration that comes with creating an excellent article, one you work hard to put it together, and post only to watch it slip into obscurity and vanish under a cascade of other posts, many of which are total garbage.
But if I can only get a following you say, I won't have this problem anymore. While that may be true to some extent, you still need to be noticed in order to gather said following to begin with. You will also need to continually add new followers with time, many of which will organically come across your articles. A process that becomes that much more difficult with the plethora of spam vomiting users that have no real interest in the site only the $$$ that can be made if they catch an upvote.
I would say it is almost epidemic in that some users have made repeatedly posting this garbage the entirety of the existence here on STEEMIT. Some go so far as to post STEEMIT related videos from Youtube created by other STEEMIANS. Essentially stealing the hard work of another STEEMIAN and trying to wrongfully appropriate it as their own.
Example:
This user posts nothing but Youtube videos from various Youtube Channels. That's it. If you look into his blog you will even see where he has taken another STEEMIANS Youtube video and attempted to rebrand it as his own. Aside from that just being a total dickhead move, it also takes up space. Perhaps anyone of these garbage posts pushed a deserving authors article into obscurity before it could be curated.
This is probably one of the most egregious offenders I have found today. I mean seriously, no content whatsoever and the entire blog consists of stolen Youtube videos; all of which dilute the gene pool around here allowing shit to linger at the waters surface for to long.
Let us unite, and begin to smash that little red flag in the upper right hand corner when we come across posts like these. Let's dump a big bottle of Chlorox right in the pool here and kill these parasitic organisms off.
There are so many hard working authors here, who's articles get washed down the list by this type of behavior..
Give them a read and a follow, these guys and gals bust their asses... @aussieninja @tombort @deanlogic @chelseajo
A valid call to arms but also comes across a little authoritarian. I am yet to use a flag but now I have read your article I will be more vigilant. Its also difficult to call out people because they post other youtube video's after all they are finding the videos and sharing for others. I get that they haven't made the content but hey, DJ's get paid too ya know.
They are not sharing videos, they are stealing the content of others and putting them forth here to earn a buck. They also do it at the light speed of spam... It's not sharing it's just filing up the article list with bullshit.. If I wanna find a particular youtube video about a particular area of interest I will go to youtube and find it. What makes a site flourish is unique content, not regurgitating the works of others or posting articles that amount to those annoying little inserts in magazines.
What if you made a youtube video, only to find some dickhead here making money on it? Content is original, provoking thought, it's is something you created.. even if it's one sentence long, or a photo you took etc. It's yours and if you want to share it on your blog go ahead. But if you are just harvesting youtube videos and spamming links of no worth then that's horseshit. Especially if people with a bit of rep reinforce it by voting up on it.. No different than those that just take tons of links from google news and make a post... "Bitcoin price goes up.. 5 links from google news".. that's a bullshit post, especially if that is all they do..
Also your analogy of a DJ is not necessarily valid, as they are being paid for their unique skills and creative talent, that being mixing, blending, knowing the room tempo, etc.. Actually quite complex.. Whereas dickheads like I mentioned are selling the DJ's mix on the corner like it was their own.
Okay I'll concede, you make a good point!
Just out of interest, I made a post using other peoples video content. Does this fit in with what you call "some dickhead here making money on it" ?
https://steemit.com/music/@thesimpson/quest-for-new-music-this-weeks-finds
Nah, I would not apply the dickhead moniker to you or that post as the videos you posted are relevant to your blog and apparent profession at the Brooklyn Music Factory.
You likely have a following of music lovers etc. whom take interest in those things. You are using your blog to 1) share your experiences (with content) and 2) share things you enjoy with others that enjoy your flavor and genre of posts. Most importantly though you did add content, context, actual typed text to explain why you posted the videos, why we might enjoy them, where you found them etc.
So no, that I would see for what it is and that is sharing of your likes and dislikes on your blog. Granted the financial aspect of STEEMIT in regards to youtube Authors could be iffy. Especially in the music business as artists and labels can be extraordinarily aggressive when they find their works being profited on in some form or fashion that does not reward them. Regardless, I would say what you are doing is cool..
However, if your entire blog was just videos, no context, no text, nothing.. and you posted one every 30 minutes for no apparent reason then I would at that stage call you a dickhead. If you went through youtube and just found videos with a high amount of views and randomly vomited them all over STeemit just for the sake of it, again with no content, context, or reason for sharing then again I would call you a dickhead.
As it stands now, I like your blog.. I'm more of a Reggae type myself.. folk does not do it for me.. :)
Yeah man, respect!
Did you check out Vin Gordon on that post, some really cool reggae going down! I love reggae, I come from the town where the original UK Bongo International was.
Sweet.. but going back to the subject here.. https://steemit.com/@labony He has vomited out 20 bird videos into the introduce yourself section over the last couple hours.. Spam city.. and nobody here does anything. They read this post, but do dick about it.. What he is doing is simply pushing down authors that take time to write a good introduction post with his bullshit posts.. He is the cancer that we want to cut from here.. Do your part, look at his blog and flag that shit, any with a payout especially..
Yeah I get ya, I have checked out his blog and found it to be somewhat shit! but from a bigger pov maybe those little penny upvotes he is making are all he has to feed his family back home. His content is not offensive per se, its just shit.
I'm gonna go light his ass up again.
Yeah. @pawsdog I 100% agree with you. Pictures and videos in posts must be used to improve your content. Comments of pics and videos are appreciated. But best it works as reminiscence of your content.
Here is one my example of, I think, good use of videos!
Check here.
you are totally right and i agree with you.
Its like the plague around here; lol. I also think that down voting should not count against your voting power. As it currently works, you are discouraged from down voting as that limits your ability to curate. Also voting up your own comments? Bad etiquette perhaps.. How about vote the article up, follow, reach out and I will do the same. This is another practice that I find somewhat iffy though there is nothing technically wrong with it. Regardless thank you for the post..
Until i read this article i only went so far as to flag 1 post, but it is not only true but very noticeable that some of these articles are complete crap, consisting of an image, 3-4 sentences, and 3-4 links, with zero effort.
I'm not the kind of writer that makes a rough draft, and plans it out, I only write when it pops in my head, and it feels important to say. sometimes it can be a couple paragraphs or pages long, but it comes straight from my heart.
the payout here is cool, and though it is the reason I initially began writing here, its not the reason I write, I believe information is extremely important, and to see people push horse shit by the boatloads irks me.
I have still grown to like steemit and am pleased every time I google some random thing, and I get a steemit article as a top result, there is great content coming in, and its awesome to see it grow!
I will most definitely begin flagging bad posts more often, even if it costs me a little steem power.
P.s. I up-vote my own post simply because the option is there lol i thought that was a funny addition too
I agree with you.. Hell the comment you just made has 1000 times more original content than the examples I posted. That said if you write something directly from your heart and find a following then you should be rewarded. If you are actually putting in the effort and "creating orginal content" then its a shame to see it pushed down the list and vanish because of high speed garbage posts like the links I provided... 1 penny for you, thank you for your views.
Voting down on an article that many other people downvote should boost your reputation and/or steem/power. Voting down on an article that everybody else is upvoting should bring voting power down. I'm sure this would make users follow a trend but there must be some mining technique to achieve the desired result of making downvoting worthwhile.
Agreed, also down voting should not cost voting power as that discourages down voting and cleaning up the trash..
\
i gave you a 100% upvote ...i agree with your cause but i disagree with your method..
My method?
Oh muh gawd dude. I am listening... you get a resteem and a vote for this. I completely agree with you and am taking note. This is the most frustrating part of steemit for me. I put work into what I do. I try to stay competetive, but I feel constantly drowned out by the garbage heap of stolen content.
Thank you.
I know, its pretty bad... but that said of the 55 views on this article only one person downvoted on the examples I provided. That is the apathy that I am talking about.. So what if a person that is spamming the fuck out of STEEMIT with garbage things I'm a dickhead.. Oh Well.. I must of pissed him off as he messaged me that he was going to "Kill Me'.. lol.. https://steemit.com/simple/@labony/3-simple-life-hacks#@labony/re-pawsdog-re-labony-3-simple-life-hacks-20171215t191208643z check the comments.. lol..Regardless his type of bullshit speed spamming of garbage needs to go...
let bust that bad asses HARD!!!
VERY HARD!!
Upvoted and resteemed because I very much share the same sentiment. But I must stress the importance of having a clear constitution regarding flags. I don't know if you were involved in the discussion but there was a case where some whales were flagging because they deemed the posts were earning too much. These were accounts like @dollarvigilante @sgtreport @michelle.gent
People should be flagged for what's objectively bad and not based on some arbitrary valuation on what a post is worth. I think @miti would find you reported list of offenders helpful.
Now here is the worst part: https://steemit.com/@simaroy/comments
A serial spammer with a reputation of 59. Since lower reputation flags won't drive this guys rep down, he's still at 59 even after @miti downvoted him. If you guys know anyone with 60 or higher reputation, flag the above cancer out of steemit.
Yeah that guy must be related to the same dude that I posted links about.. It's garbage, his whole blog is garbage.. I think the whole "FLAG" thing as it currently is positioned, labelled etc is dumb and mislabeled. Its just a down vote and should be moved down under the article and have equal real estate with the upvote button.. We should keep a flag but it should be reserved for users with rep of 50 or higher and for items such as illegal content, drug sales, porn, offensive content, racial content, that kind of stuff.. As for downvoting based on earnings.. I'm not sure the politics that went into that.. I'm not a fan of upvoting my own posts or comments to make a buck or push myself forward as I think that is questionable behavior. Did I do it previously, yes.. but at that time I was not seeing the larger picture in that my power should be used to benefit others.. If I have 1,000,0000 STEEM Power and am using that to vote up my own articles to make more then I think that could be gaming the system and abuse of power.. I don't know I will have to see what happens when I get there.. .
You are right and I would like to start / join this call to arms in whatever way. I think the hardest part is spotting the plagiarism. There goes a long way to do this, and flagging also costs voting power. I have flagged an obvious spammer that was posting the same post every 5 minutes before. There are so many posts coming in every minute that it can be very difficult to keep up and cycle through these posts.
Are we in agreement that there's a difference between a bad original content post, and a garbage copied post? I hope that we never get to flagging a post just because we don't like it. We must keep it original, that's what makes it valuable. Stay vigilant and keep your eyes peeled!
I totally agree, and I could care less what original content someone posts. If it is there original thought, then they are welcome to share it on their blog. People do occasionally ad Youtube videos and the like, me as well, but there is context behind it. On the ones that I have added, they are relevant to the post or add a comical anecdote to the point that I am trying to make. That said if a person just spams videos or copied links with no context, content or thought to go along with it then it is spam. The links I provided are the perfect example. He was posting bird videos stolen from Youtube every 15 minutes in the introducemyself area.. I run into a lot of content on here that I dont' like.. but opinions are like assholes, every one has one and they all stink. That said I don't or would not flag if I simple disagree as someone else may enjoy it. I will only flag when it is blatant what they are doing or they are obviously attempting to abuse the system..
Absolutely. I also did some further digging on this melindaa account. Created 30 days ago, I've skimmed through every page of that accounts steemd information. It has been spamming posts since day one, and it has yet to collect rewards for any of its posts. This tells me that this account is 100% bot. Someone set this bot up, and is yet to log in and collect rewards (and never set the bot to collect rewards?).
With that said I assume that if someone were to keep a close eye on this account at one point or another someone will claim the rewards and send them to their steemit account. I want to assume that there is an easier way to check when an account collects rewards and/or when an account sends his/her rewards to the "parent account". This would let us know who really owns the account. This person probably already know this, which is probably why nothing's been collected yet. "wait til no ones looking".
Good thinking to keep tabs on it.. I'll watch it as well.. I'm sure it's probably a bot network, as I see alot of the posts updated by other low level accounts...
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STOPNew here, Saw title and thought to myself "There's a downvote button?".
Pretty sneaky hiding it in the upper right, away from the other interaction buttons.
I agree, I think it needs to be more prominent..
I'm 3 days in, and your post is probably one of the minimal things I ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND about steemit! We do want this platform to be renowned for its high quality content!
So, just to clarify, downvoting is clicking the flag thingy, correct?
Yes, that is correct at the top right of the article.. Alternatively you can go to that users blog and hit the flag there as well. It will be to the right of each posting.. It's tiny, and should probably be much bigger with a label "This is shit, nuke it".. but I suppose we are stuck with the microscopic flag for now..