An appology to the STEEM community (re: Streemian auto voting)
As many of your might have noticed, the platform streemian.com didn't receive a lot of upgrades during the last 1.5 years. The reasons for this was mostly due to lack of time and the lack of an actual business plan for it that makes sense long term.
Some of you may remember that back then, I engaged heavily with the approach of other businesses that approve their own low-quality posts, every day to fund their business. Back then, I took a major hit from the community as being greedy and received close to zero support for my believes in the rewards pool not to be drained by fraudulant businesses. Back then, a flagging was considered a massive intrution into an individuals life and should only be considered in the most severe cases.
Those dicussions made me add a slider to streemian.com that allows its users to pick how much they would like to support through auto-voting of actual announcements and upgrades to the software. Since then, I made use of that feature on seven (7) occations which are (of course) logged in my database:
- [streemian.com] New options to give more power to the users
- [streemian.com] Build your own guild with 'FanBase'
- Python STEEM 0.4.0 - Massive changes to greatly simplify onboarding - Merged Steemtools
- [streemian.com] Further updates, curation statistics, max post ages, bugfixes and partnership with curie
- [streemian.com] 3M votes milestone, curation statistics, max post ages, bugfixes and partnership with @curie
- Shutdown of Streemian.com
- [Negotiations] Succession of Streemian.com - Reactivation
That means, streemian has used its customers' voting power only a few times to fund its own businesses, which is kept for free for the last 2+ years.
Being less active on STEEM for the last year, I was suprised to see the effects and comments caused by the last two auto-votes posts. Maybe I expected people to be glad about streemian.com to be continued by an actual team, maybe I thought they would approve that post anyways, maybe I was greedy after running a service for free for over 2 years that made its customers hunderds of thousands of STEEM in curation and posting rewards (yes, I tracked those payouts for over a year, too). Maybe I thought streemian.com (which has caused over 17M votes on STEEM) was considered an integral part of the STEEM community. Maybe I was all wrong looking for a successor and instead should have taken it down silently, instead.
Either way, the situation is what it is and I feel the need to appologized for the trouble caused by the last two posts.
The be honest, I am proud of the community since they (finally) figured out how precious of a gift they have been given with the reward pool of STEEM and that they do need to take care of it also by flagging/downvoting posts.
Looking forward to see if the community continues to appreciate the service offered of streemian.com indendent of who actually runs it.
Kind regards
Fabian Schuh a.k.a. xeroc
ChainSquad GmbH Management
I can't understand all the stress. This is typical "Everything must be free attitude". In the meantime, it must have reached everybody: if you're not paying for a service, you're the product. How can you use a service for months or even years and assume that you don't have to pay for it? That doesn't make sense to me at all.
From this point of view, it is a very bad sign for this Steemit "community".
Those who don't read the ToS should turn off the laptop and keep their hands off the Internet. It's that simple.
I have never used this service, but I have listened to the debate. And there's only a shake of the head. But don't worry xeroc, there are also enough Steemians who can look at the whole thing in a differentiated way.
This is a very typical Shitstorm behavior, the majority of them just go blind on it without differentiating.
Some people should question themselves.
Edit: I don't usually make upvotes on my own comments. Selfvoting is for visibility.
Thanks for the apology. xeroc you have done a lot for the community and am sure this will continue. I think it comes down to such a large amount used on a single post. A lot of users rely on your service and I think the use of the vote could have been handled better. As a result that post received hundreds of dollars worth, if not a thousand, in downvotes. I hope this isnt taken as disrespectful but as a adjustment of such huge rewards. I see you have reasonable feelings in this regard..
Please continue to be an important part of this community and continue to contribute.
I'm thrilled Streemian is back, and I appreciate the priceless assistance you have provided my steeming experience.
It's absurd to me that anyone who has used the Streemian services FOR FREE would be offended that you use a single, ALSO FREE upvote to fund said services. Nonetheless, I appreciate your acknowledgement of the reaction.
Here, have another one of my 100% upvotes!
I understand the load of carrying out such a service for the community for more than two years for free and helping thousands of people make good amounts of curation rewards. This takes time from your business, effort and investment. Naturally there should be some kind of reward to keep the service up and running and to ensure the quality of your brand. I'm glad you made that apology post to clear the issue and restore trust and credibility. I don't think most people with upset with the fact that your company made money, but rather using their voting power to a 100%. This might be mentioned somewhere in the fine prints of the T&C, but the fact is that people were not aware of it. I recommend that you make it clear that you need to raise some funds to keep your streemian service up and running. You need to maintain, upgrade, invest in the system which costs money. So, you need to find a clear and transparent process, including upvoting your content, but everyone needs to know about it and thus willingly do it. Thanks for having the courage to write this post and the commitment to the community.
"Maybe I expected people to be glad about streemian.com to be continued by an actual team, maybe I thought they would approve that post anyways, maybe I was greedy after running a service for free for over 2 years that made its customers hunderds of thousands of STEEM in curation and posting rewards" This real opinion ,thats important for we because I agree with you ! @chainsquad
A very insincere apology. If you were really sorry, you would use the keys to remove the votes, but you didn't do that.
"maybe I was greedy after running a service for free for over 2 years that made its customers hunderds of thousands of STEEM in curation and posting rewards"
Basically you are saying "sorry, not sorry", whatever.
People, don't give out your keys to others!
Abusing the Keys is a No! No!
What a Load Off! ,
Supported @neoxian
This is good. If your negotiations fall through contact me. I have a team of mods and devs that could be willing to pick this project up. I'm usually around on Discord. Lastly, I know you've made a lot of code for Steem projects and not just Streemian. Thanks for your hard work.
Upped.
It will only be an honorable and nobel act, if you can openly burn the funds you accumulated in the controversial post which resulted in this post.
I'd highly recommend you sending the funds from that post to the @null account after you make your claim and post back to the community. So as to win back the heart of the community, if it means that much to you.
I agree with your sentiment and that of @neoxian. The "apology" is insincere.
The fact that he did not reply to my modest post, only speaks for itself. :)
It is interesting how many of the whales here are patting this guy on the back and saying ok, you did a lot for the community previously, so we won't do anything or much, but over look the fact that @chainsquad did not ASK the community first. It is an abuse of trust. So many Whales with their hands in the cookie jar, but who's going to stop them? Rules certainly don't exist along with conscience.
Fabian, over time, I know that you gave much more than you took from the pool. Things aren't always as they first seem.
I first learned that my vote had been used by a pm about it.
When I first saw the post I was wondering where the reward was going and who triggered the vote, whether it was you or the people taking over Streemian.
So I guess a big part of my reasoning of removing my vote was I didn't knew who our votes was serving and why.
Take care Fabian!
Your opinion so good.Maybe next days ,we knew who our votes was serving Mr @teamsteem .I believe !!! @chainsquad
I did not know there was such a community. I have now seen the text by chance. It really looks like a great place. I will now go and become a member. I hope I can be a member of this community. Thank you for showing me this community. @chainsquad