You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Circle Jerks - Let's Talk About It
I don't see a big difference between trading and buying votes.
A good post by a minnow who bought a vote may also not be overrewarded, there are a few examples of not too shabby, not too good, creators who are upset now because their content never had a chance to get up without bought votes, and now they are downvoted.
Both are selfish transactions which only benefit those who are involved in the deal, and the end result of both is off-putting for new users who see they can never reach something without participating in some kind of deal.
That everyone uses the derogatory term circle jerk is an unfortunate development, the whitepaper speaks much more clearly of "colluding groups".
If it is literally voting trading, in the sense of an agreement (which, to complicate things a bit, could be implicit) to exchange votes, and not just friends voting for each other a lot, then it is identical to vote buying/selling.
If A buys from B and B buys from A, no payment needs to change hands but this is either a vote trade or two vote buys. Exactly the same.
You summarised the problem well here pharesim. And I see the issue as being where we draw the line?
For example, I support quite a well known funny Scottish writer on steem... the reason being I'm primarily a creative writer myself, both on and outside of steem. I now earn a large part of my income from writing (not on steem lol), and I appreciate good writing when I see it. I read most of his posts, and comment on one or two a week. He also comments on some of mine. We both vote each others posts, but there has been no collusion, i.e. I haven't spoken to him saying 'hey lets vote each other'. It has happened organically. I'm very confident this isn't vote swapping because it's based on a mutual appreciation for each others writing. Also, at the end of the day I've been on here for 2 and a bit years putting up only high quality written posts, and I deserve to grow. But you're right in what you say here:
And it might seem slightly disparaging to a new user looking at my posts sometimes. However, if they asked me how i built up my account on steem I'd always answer them; discord networking, getting involved in projects, years of consistent quality content creation, making friends by reading/commenting others work and generally a lot of hard work. Also, I always go look at anyone's blog who has commented on my posts, not everyone does that on steem which has pissed me off in the past and made me teeter on the edge of quiting myself many times.
I think with the 'vote colluding groups' it's very obviously a different dynamic. They rarely vote outside of their circle and often won't even respond to comments unless it's from someone at the same SP level as them. It's this type of elitism which drives people away every day, and I'm sorry to say that some of the higher SP holders are guilty of this.
So what is my point? I think it's important to consider many factors and look at a steemians conduct when considering this issue. Time spent on platform, how they've interacted with others, what they produce (their content), projects they've been involved with etc. It's important to look at it on a case by case basis rather than just going on a witch hunt and arbitrarily downvoting anyone who uses an automated voting service. Otherwise it's basically going to end up as a bunch of high SP individuals and curation services driving away established steemians. This is why it's important to look at it case by case, so that those who've actually added value to this place don't get targeted. At the end of the day, not everyone can put the monumental amounts of time in on steem as others, and that could be why they do a certain amount of automated voting.
I've seen what's going on at the moment with a group of 'vote swapping' people and I agree that they're a pretty cut and dry group who've been leaching this place for years. One of them shouts loudly about how great their content is (it's not, I've read it) and how they've helped many people on steem in their discord. But it's easy to see that all they've helped people to do is learn how to network with each other. They still judge everyone based on SP, and this is the defining factor, they've rarely voted anyone with lower sp than them. This is the problem, these types of people who see this as acceptable, and to be honest, they're shooting themselves (and all of us) in the foot long term because steem's only proven mechanism for price increase is to increase the size of the network (speculation)... and their behaviour is actively decreasing the size of the network.
This is why curation groups like yours are essential. I've been a curie curator for years now and I see this as my way, being relatively low SP holder, to give new users a leg up. I always leave a comment on the posts I curate for curie, and not one saying I'm a curie curator either, just a decent encouraging comment about their post. Curie is literally the reason why I stayed on steem and kept creating long form content as my 5th post got hit with a curie vote, so I feel strongly about them from a personal level.
I'm hopeful for Newsteem tbh. I think it's changed behaviours in regards to the bidbots much quicker than I could have ever imagined. But there's still a lot needs doing, and I hope it can be timed to coincide with the next (if it ever happens 😆) alt bull run, so that we can attract, and retain, even more new steemians. I remember how exciting this place was in 2017, I'd love to see that again!
Nothing to add, I fully agree.