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RE: Killing transparencybot - A message to spammers with no SP!
My sentiments exactly. I actually believe in TB's advocacy and I personally feel this is a sad day for the platform. Yet Steemit, as in the real world, is a dog eat dog world. Survival of the fittest is the mantra. But there are those who fearlessly take on the world for what they believe in regardless of the consequences. They have my respect and admiration.
"Survival of the fittest" is just a polite term for social Darwinism, from which you get the philosophical justification for eugenics, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, animal abuse, etc. Not saying that killing @transparencybot is at all equivalent to those things, just that that mantra brings out the worst in people and makes people feel okay about taking advantage of others because they think that their ability to do so demonstrates their own superiority. Anyway, that's a non-sequitur, but I generally try to look for a better explanation from people when they act like bullies.
the bot is bullying people by spamming their blogs.
it is the same as bots that hack wordpress blogs to spam them, its wrong.
I certainly respect everyone's opinion on this, but personally (and it looks like I'm not alone in this), I don't consider it spam at all, and I think @transparencybot is providing a service. I would like to know if a post has been boosted, and if so, by how much. I am much more concerned about the spam that hits our front pages because of the wrong people boosting their stuff, and what impression that gives to high quality writers who may want to join us. If the bot owners are proud of what they do and the people who boost them don't see anything wrong with doing so, then I don't see what's wrong with their work being out there in the open for everyone to see. Maybe a good compromise would be for @transparencybot to offer users the ability to opt out, the same way @qurator allows users to opt out of comments notifying members of what tier they are? That way, if people feel that their blogs are being spammed, they have the option to have their preferences respected.