RE: Circle Jerks - Let's Talk About It
Let's take your example of two individuals buying stake and only upvoting each other. I think the problem in that case is that all they would be adding to this platform is an initial investment. They wouldn't be adding any network value, as they're only interacting with each other. I think it goes without saying that anyone doing that would be on constant power down/sell cycle, and this is what we see with a lot of circle jerks. By that I mean the obvious groups of people who are literally only swapping votes and the odd comment with each other, while ignoring the wider community. This is the thing that drives many many new users away. It's the thing I spotted here 2 years ago when I first started and I nearly left. I remember it well actually, I stopped posting for about 10 days and then woke up one day and thought, let's have another crack at working out if there is any way to actually get noticed organically in this place. Luckily curie voted the next post i made lol. My stubborn nature paid off 😂
This is what I see as the major problem with the whole issue of vote swapping (circle jerks), it's not that I can't recognise that they've invested money and now they want ROI. But I do have a problem with how off putting observing those closed loops is to intelligent potential new steemians. This was even worse when I joined as there were people getting upvoted to the tune of 1k in $ value for absolute dog shit posts... and honestly, there is still a core of that old school left here, although there are less these days. The person I'm thinking about as I write this is now averaging $4 - $5 per post, rather than $400+. This is proof that things are changing for the better as their posts certainly haven't improved in quality, but at least the rewards are closer to a qualitive standard. But to be honest, it's probably mainly because they sold a large portion of their stake along with the rest of their circle of 'friends'.
So what's my point? Ha ha, well simply that I think it can't go unchecked because that has, and will continue to, drive decent content creators away. The type of people who would become active, valuable contributers to the community and the network. To attract big investment and big advertising budgets to steem we need a strong network.
I can tell that you're of the same mind when it comes to the obvious over rewarded vote traders from what you've said in this video. Tbh, I'm just thinking outloud here. It's certainly not a simple Q + A subject 🙂
P.s. I'm following the OCD downvote trial now and have experienced retaliatory votes. But you know what, it was worth it. I checked on all of the posts OCD was downvoting in the first 3 days after I joined the trial and all of them were legit downvoting bidbot abuse.
I don't like the term circle jerks. Either the content is obviously over rewarded, or it's not. I would upvote a post I liked, regardless of who voted before it. Painting circle jerks makes it too narrow IMO and can lead to unwarranted downvotes.
Now, with obv vote swapping, and that content strangling others shot are being organically trending, can be countered with downvotes. That is simple reward disagreement, you think the post is overvalued, regardless if satan or Santa Claus voted them.
I get that you don't like the term circle jerk. Fair enough, I only used it for reference.
At the end of the day you're right about it essentially being a disagreement over reward value... and everyone has a choice to use their downvotes to try and combat what they see as wrong. That really is one of the successes of the EIP that the consensus so far seems to be one of sensible measures to incentivise proof of brain.
My main concern is the effect on new users watching very obvious vote trading circles. And I think it's a legitimate concern - as long as steem is considered a content creators platform - for the long term success of steem! The community needs to grow with a healthy dynamic... but at this point it just needs to grow to build the value of the network and the market cap!
I've personally seen the amount of people who've left steem because of either bidbots or vote swapping when curating for curie. Because I used to watch promising new content creators for potential submissions, I saw many who wrote final posts quiting within weeks of joining. In most cases they cited the reasons I mentioned.
I agree on the effects to outside viewers. I don't agree with downvoting people based on who voted on them. I don't see "vote traders" making great content, because if they did, they wouldn't need to trade votes. So, with vote trading comes greed, and with greed comes downvotes.
The system is self correcting in the end if people use the tools available to them.
One cocern is fear of honest voting due to retailiation. This is a subject I am brain storming to come up with possible solutions. I think without fear of realtionation, we would see a equalibriem on what content is worth what and get a more fair free market assement on what each post is worth.
Yeah, I agree with this completely. I'm not sure if I communicated that well in my comment.
Interesting. I'll think on this one myself as well, although I'm not sure if I'll come up with anything tbh, it's a difficult conundrum. It's definitely a legitimate fear for most users... simply because of stake and people not wanting to have their accounts destroyed. This is just a risk you take, but the fear is very real for lower stakeholders. I literally didn't downvote at all until about a month ago, and I've never been fearful about expressing my opinions about some of these issues in comments on posts where many people would have seen them. It's an odd psychological effect that the fear of hitting that downvote button sticks.
Anyway, interesting conversation... it has left me thinking.
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.
You forgot about one type of the reward pool abuse where term #circlejerk fits perfectly. Delegate and get upvote scheme. It works like this:
Maybe I'm wrong but in my opinion this is abuse and I call it circle jerk
Yeah, I understand what you're saying about the 'delegate for a vote' groups, but I think it's hard when someone is struggling to earn on steem after a long time, and huge amounts of content produced, not to feel they deserve some basic level of income.
But the biggest problem with these groups is they rarely have any quality control, and it's for that reason I think they could be considered reward pool abuse. If someone is creating decent content (I see plenty of minnows like that who've been on steem for a while), and not earning consistent rewards, then they're going to seek out a way to try and find some consistent reward for their content... but those delegate for a vote schemes do tend to encourage daily post farming as they're usually one vote/day.
It's an interesting distinction, and I guess a question of where you draw the line.