Steem Experience Hangout: Let's Talk about Paid Voting Bots...
Be a part of the Discussion!
I'm joined by @RichardCrill to talk a bit about the history, good uses, some not so good ones, and more importantly a few ideas that might just be able to improve things for the community as a whole.
In fact, in the last week about 250 Steem Dollars were paid to bots to bump up my post on "What is the Steem Experience" to the trending page! With the goal being to get more views, follows for me and people checking out the community...which we easily considered successful.
Love them or hate them...these bots are here. While I understand the potential frustration or monetary motivations that go along with paid voting services (...heck, can we just call them advertising already...), it's still important to look at they positive and negative effects they have here on Steemit.
So instead of getting inflamed and calling foul...let's sit down in the Steem Experience Discord and have a calm, rational discussion about the paid vote/advertising bots on Steemit.
Enjoy the discussion and please leave
your thoughts in the comments!
your thoughts in the comments!
To join the Steem Experience simply click the banner below!
[NOTE: If you don't have a Discord account yet, goto THIS POST for easy to follow instructions.]
► Listen on DSound
► Listen from source (IPFS)
Please upvote and resteem if you found this helpful.
Click HERE for a list of All my Guides!
Image Sources:
Robot Girl
advertisement is what it is.
If "Time Magazine" established themselves on STEEM blockchain, they would have to advertise just like any other magazine, video-channel and etc... It is what it is.
I've seen this argument time and time again and find it to be lacking. The problem is at first glance users don't know the difference between an advertisement and an actual post that has been upvoted organically. The payout number on the post is misleading indeed. Furthermore, there are more nuances concerning curation.
If I wanted to "game the system" as many profiteers have no scruple doing, I could just set up a bot with an algorithm that would monitor paid votes and undercut the bid bots with the highest bids for pure curation rewards. I, unlike many of the "leaders" of this platform, have a little thing called ethics that deter me from such a course and understand it is not viable for the long term. I'm sure some greedy asshole is already doing it and it is indeed tempting for the sake of fighting fire with fire but I am playing Steem the long game. I want it to succeed and am not thinking about lining my pockets from a short sighted perspective. We truly need to make it meritocratic in terms of rewards and get as far away from "pay to play" as possible. No, I don't want Coca-Cola, Deja-Blue and Gatorade circle jerking each other up to Trending. People are going to bail when that shit happens. If you want a corporate echo chamber, go for it but I will power down long before that shit becomes a reality.
Your equivocating bid bots to simple advertisement is an analogy that is sorely lacking. It's a tired anology that need to be laid to rest. If you want a commercial, there is a place for that. It's called the promoted tab.
I say as I have said before. Do we want to increase the value of Steem? We create art. We create beauty. We don't create a GLORIFIED BLOCKCHAIN BILLBOARD.
Nobody looks at the promoted tab, what's wrong in advertising our own content?
Exactly, because we don't want to see paid ads.
Believe me, if there was an option that I could use to filter all paid content out, I would click that checkbox in a second.
Nothing wrong with advertising but paying for votes is another matter entirely. Not the same thing.
In that case, I believe you always ignore hot, trending and promoted tabs and just read posts on your feed?
Not really. But I do ambition to create a front end that will do as I have said. It's on my todo list. People just might go for that sort of thing. I know I would.
Total agreement! Bots will kill steemit! I am here for 14 days... there is no way that the valuable (at least in my eyes) content I want to share with the steem community will get more than 10 views as it will just disappear in nirvana covered by voting bots, voting pools and funny cat clips... I am starting to believe that even FB would be better in delivering my words to the world...
The initial free market quality system based on monetization is great but its put upside down by abuse of bots...
Welc9me to our world
Yep, thats why we discussed marking them as ads like google does.
I thought that is what the promoted tab's purpose was. Guess they are ok with Steem becoming a billboard. Whatever.
The thing is, if steemit really becomes that big, trending and hot pages will be filled with adds from cocoacola, johnon n johnson, etc. here good content is anyways being screwed by the rich with 100000 SP, imagine these brands coming with a Million or 10 million+ SP? todays whales will be tomorrows minnows.. we need to do something about this..
Yeah, there needs to be a major change to the "Promoted" tab. No one uses it. It's the space that these posts are supposed to go. If you want to pay to get exposure, burn the STEEM for everyone's benefit. Voting bots are just a way to circumvent the established procedure for the sake of saving money.
The reason no one uses it, is the same reason we should have categorically rejected the use of voting bots, it doesn't lead to quality through consensus. We knew it would be stuff that didn't get any attention through regular channels.
The problem is many shit posts are trending. posts with just 2 lines or a photo are sometimes found on trending page. here are some of the points that needs to be done:
a) We need good content on trending page, and no 2 liners or only specific content related or of specific members only or just a dinner shot.
b) Bots should review the posts before upvoting.
c) Need genuine Meritocracy, not fake (Give Fair chance to everyone, not just the rich)
d) Meetups/Programmer related posts should be funded privately, and not by trending, This is not called good content. Need a separate page for it like an UPDATE or ANNOUNCEMENT page without votes.
e) Or You can remove Trending and Hot page, so people will only look for content they are intrested in, using search bar or tags, & not upvote only for rewards.
f) We also need Reward limits and Posts limit. I guess if we keep max 200$ per post and max 5 posts, that comes to 1000$ per day means 30000$ per month. Which is morethan enough for any one to live life in any part of the world. and obviously you can invest in steem/SBD or other cryptos. This will also limit greed.
g) Also a minimum reward like 50 cents to 1$ (more or less i leave to experts) for every post with a minimum content (bots can handle this im sure) will give a boost to minnows, and will also lead to genuine wealth distribution.
All the above points will eliminate the "Central Banking System for the Rich only" type scenario that going on on steemit.
If that happens, steem will be the medium of exchange, not a mere token as it is now.
No, sorry, all of these ideas are poor. The only way to get what you're suggesting IS A CENTRALIZED BANK and that's not what this is. It's not about those posts getting too much, or even the quality of those posts, it's that the community is not involved in the decision. I think the only solution is to begin labeling posts that have purchased votes and downvoting them. Then you'll see backlash from the whales, they'll suddenly have time to be back on the platform doing the work they should be doing now.
so what do u suggest? i feel money should not be the power on steemit, good content should..
I just told you my solution. It's at the end of my last comment.
Very true.
COMMUNITIES SOLVES ALL OF THIS.
Just how reddit is really.
When the elections were on sure the front page was littered with politics but you still had your selected communities where you were free to continue with the topics and discussions which you cared about.
ONLY when reddit went feral with the net neutrality crap did every community get bombarded with the same crap. So steemit DESPERATELY needs communities so everyone can congregate with their respective niche groups.
MAKE MANY POSTS ABOUT COMMUNITIES...
and the maggots sitting on their hands might get a light switch moment and go..
"Oh yeah... we DID PROMISE communities to these fucken fools didn't we... and we PROMISED TO HAVE THEM OUT BY LATE 2017... maybe we should.... DO... THAT ! "
I think communities could be helpful, but the devil is in the detail. Is there somewhere in particular that explains how they are supposed to work? Because if they are just like the specific tags we have at present, that won't work - many tags are also dominated by bot-upvoted content, e.g.: @pinacle in #philosophy. If communites are just goign to replicate that, I'd wonder why anyone would bother.
Well we can't predict the future but we can try with some applied pattern processing.
I do agree with you that communities will work similar to tags. The popular ones like SCIENCE and PHOTOGRAPHY will no doubt become popular communities. The one thing which I anticipate happening, apart from the usual whoring of rewards.. is that as each community will have an appointed (self or voted) leader, there will be WAY MORE responsibility for maintaining an honest community. In effect, this will work to clean up steemit somewhat.
The bad actors and actions will be easier to realize. So it will be an incentive for communities to become "THE GEMS" so to speak of steemit. As the communities with the most positive effect on say: sign ups, buzz generated, in-the-news, etc.. will no doubt become places of congregation for members of the platform that still hold on to the vision of a steemit where QUALITY & VALUE (voted organically) IS REWARDED.
As, some communities might not even want any bot-voted content. Giving those who detest their use a place to exist and develop without that element. Many ways in which the simple act of creating pockets within the system will give a real place for many who feel lost in a sea of chaos which is steemit. There is good here but it's all hidden under the giant pile of waste.
Spanish communities and Korean communities for instance will have an official place within the system where they can exist united and seek each other out easier to help with their growth. Communities will not be a magical transformation though. So it's important to note that it's THE PEOPLE that will determine their utilization. If the masses choose to continue with the same broken system then shiit.. can't do much about that. The ones who are whoring the rewards though will stand out like dogs balls and they might find themselves isolated if the majority of the communities are working to a more sustainable and "fairer" system of rewarding content.
BUT!.. Communities don't exist and may never!... so this was all just my opinion.
It gets worse: If Steemit gets big enough, during US presidential election campaigns it'll be filled with advertising from candidates and their associated super pacs. So yes, we do need to do something about this.
I will disagree with you on one point - if they play it smart, today's whales will probably still be tomorrow's whales - they will be the one's making a profit from the paid advertising after all.
we could create our own superpacs or maybe a SUper bot that downvotes those corporations to oblivion.
the thing is that i see one of those institutions taking the idea and building their own platform eventually. steemit is just a prototype and will likely go the way of myspace and blackplanet.
from my observation its not the first that survives but one of the startups that address the problms of the first platform.
google killed yahoo
facebook killed myspace
apple killed motorola/nokia
But people didn't have crypto locked into yahoo, myspace, and nokia either. That locked SP keeps a lot of people here.
^ i concur
i doubt, as it will only increase the price of steeem/sbd
This is not advertising. The promotion tab is advertising. In order for this to equate to advertising, you're saying the whales own that spot at the top of trending, it's theirs to sell, like a radio station's airwaves, or a newspapers column inches. That's not true at all.
Bingo. The bid bots = advertisement is a excuse for bid bots. Notice the one making such an argument. We've heard it before and the discerning reject the false equivalency.
Yep, I think so too, but until that idea reaches witness level and they decide to take action, it's not going to change.
ye marketing is a great idea same as a referral program, word of mouth is a great and powerful tool. I think not having ads on steem is amazing however allowing them could create money to promote the blockchain and share the profits.
nice.
Yep, and it gives you train wrecks like Top 40 music & Reality TV. The quality of content is now moot with paid votes. It just doesn't matter. Just because it's advertised doesn't mean it's good. The trending page is evidence of this. There's not really one thing on the trending page I care to read. #rewardpoolrape
Thanks for touching on the fact people are being misled by these advertising practices. That's my biggest issue. I don't want to vote for advertisements. I don't pay Walmart for dropping a flyer off in my mailbox. A simple icon that indicates the post we are about to read is a PROMOTION and not regular content would go a long way. Youtube keeps the ads separate, Facebook does it, Google does it... even the banners on websites now clearly mention how they are ads. When people advertise without mentioning the fact their post is an ad, that falls under false advertising. The only reason these ads on other sites are marked is so they don't get sued and end up paying fines.
Many who use the promo bots are attempting to mislead others into thinking their post is popular by placing money beside it. The honest content gets pushed down. If I vote for a struggling minnow, it's wasted the moment someone buys a vote and pushes that minnow away.
If the ads were marked and moved away from the trending page, at least other members can still use the platform as intended instead of feeling defeated within weeks and giving up.
▲▲ THIS! ▲▲
I'm fine with the underlying idea of bots existing, but let's call a spade a spade: If you are buying bot votes, it's PROMOTED CONTENT. As @fyrstikken said, it's advertisement.
So, when I buy placement on Facebook, twitter or anywhere else, it's clearly labeled as "Advertisement" or "Promoted post." So why don't we do the same thing here? That way there's no stealing of anyone's "freedom" and there's no "censorship," there's simply truth in labeling.
Of course, some are going to say "But then people wouldn't read my posts!"
Where's your loss? I see a bunch of posts with $50 in rewards, 13 upvotes... and 8 of them are from voting bots. Nobody's reading your stuff anyway.
Imagine the ratings and revenue a television network would get if they flip-flopped everything.
Just imagine: all of the late night infomercials(paid programming/promotions) get placed in the primetime slots and the actual programming gets pushed into the late night slots.
That is how you set yourselves up for failure in the entertainment industry.
That is what Steemit is currently doing.
That is why people are failing.
It is painfully obvious.
That is exactly what is happening.
...and unmarked advertising is what is convincing people this entire mess is a good idea. They promote their promotion services, disguise them as helpful blog posts, and people get duped...
Nearly every goddamn day.
Yeah, and to expand the TV analogy... the gleefully rub their greedy hands because TODAY the ratings were really good, while being utterly blind to the fact they will have no network on which to even run their stupid ads, a few months from now...
Bots are ruining this platform. I agree that some bots are good, but most of them are using the rules to hurt this platform.
We at @moonbot have a subscription based model for upvoting. It's a small upvote amount over 30 days. If someone were to implement this on a higher scale ( which we'll be doing soon ), it might be a worth option for people. It solves the only use bots for monetary gain issue. It is a clean system ( no comment spam back ), and you ( the end-user) doesn't have to do anything for a whole month. The bot just upvotes your content for a whole month. Bots, will always be around. It's a matter of which kind can you stomach.
I think this is all related to the "economy" of Steemit. Payments to authors are due to new buyers of tokens, buyers are attracted to the possibility of obtaining additional income from renting SP. In fact, many people just need passive income, and they buy tokens for POS-mining. Available to all boosters is the least evil here. Without redistribution of emission to investors, the entire pyramid will quickly collapse.
This is the true explanation for boosters. Almost no one actually wants to pay authors out of their own pocket for their posts.
p.s. I heard that in new forks of Steem the distribution of emission is 90/10 in favor of investors (curators). With such distribution, you can probably do successful project without boosters. But with boosters the percentage of shares in distribution is regulated by the market, this is correct I think.
Thank you for sending the link earlier and was able to listen while at work (helped me not sleep at work! :D ). It was nice to hear @RichardCrill and your perspective on this. I can see that both of you are concerned for the long term good of Steemit. :)
There were a lot of insights that I got and I would like to comment on how new users or outsiders may perceive Steemit when they see the trending page. It's true, they wouldn't know most are because of bots. When I was new and saw them I thought they were organic and then I learned about bots (had to correct my expectations on rewards when I realized this). I guess they're okay if something has to be promoted like Steem Experience discord or for an important announcement. But that's not what's happening not just in the trending, I have seen more people who seem reliant on bots and more whales who delegate to paid bots. I hope to see more whales who manually curate. I had this discussion with @tanishqyeverma before and he has a good point when he said that whales should support more curation groups more than paid bots.
I also wonder if you've decided to use bots to promote this post about paid bots :D It's a timely and relevant topic that concerns all of us so for me I think it's okay to promote this. I just wish whales support this post so you don't need to pay :)
I'm always hesitant to tell others how to spend their money...but personally I'm with you, rather seeing their SP put into supporting the curation groups...or to at least still get some payment, the paid delegation seemed like a good middle ground in my eyes. But even this can be tough to ask...I haven't crunched any numbers, but I suspect running the bots pays a lot better than any of the other options (bots still own the SP, get curation rewards and get paid for each vote they cast.)
I did decide last night that even if just for the sake of irony, I'd use the bots on this post. Personally I'd only done it once before...months ago...just to get a better idea of how they worked.
I also read that running bots are a good way to earn for them. And I agree, can't really tell people what to do with their money, it's their decision and investment. Whatever they do, I hope they think of the long term good of the platform, that will greatly benefit them as well.
Yes Bots pay far more than any project. Look at @thejohalfiles wallet, he get around 650 SBDs everyday delegating to Bots. Nothing is better than delegating your power to bots all in the name of advertisement.
I have stopped suggesting the minnows to comment, create great content etc etc. I think that doesn't work, you want to reach the trending page buy votes simple. Everyone is doing that, spammers are doing that, memes are trending with far more rewards than a good thoughtful post. If you still want to be visible invest in SBDs and buy votes. Whales/dolphin are delegating to bots and missing the big picture, but who cares and who is listening? Instead of empowering projects/communities they fulfilling their greeds. People would stop powering up, instead they would just keep all the money in SBDs and invest that in buying votes. I do the same and I suggest others to do the same. I mean people working hard on their post and earning pennies, I don't want to give them fake assurances, commenting doesn't help , it helps gaining followers but not rewards.
IMO Bots will affect the business model of steem as well, people needs to accumulate STEEM to push the prices up. Simple supply and demand.
I have stopped looking at my own rewards and just hopeful to get curated every once in a while. Still early for me to expect rewards anyway. Hopefully, I don't need to resort to paid upvotes if after some time of trying to grow organically, I still get pennies. We spend so much time and effort here and I hope that gets rewarded somehow. I still know a lot who consistently create quality content despite pennies so I'll just keep my eyes and support on those. :)
That's like saying: I live the politicians to make laws and i hope they will not make any laws that will be bad for the society or that will affect me in a bad way. Of course you can't tell them what to do with their money; but if their actions start affecting the society/community in a bad way, it's your job as well to get involved and do the right thing. I will exagerate a bit saying the following, in order so that you understand the real gravity of this whole situation: Is like someone, a person, would go in a house and rob it of its goods. What you are saying then is: I can't really tell people what to do with their time, is their decision. Whatever they do, i hope they think of the long term good of the neighbourhood. So the thing is, you can't really stay away just because your house wasn't robbed by them. If an negative action is instilled upon the community whether intended, meant, or any other reasons, then it's your duty as its ''citizen'' to take an action to reverse and prevent from happening again .
You have really exaggerated my comment there. Who are you to say that I do not care or I do not do anything for the comnunities I'm involved in? Who are you to say that I am not affected by all these? You can check my page to see the pennies and tell me I am not affected. Read this post that I have written a month ago Organic Growth in Steemit: Is this the right path for me?
You can see on that post how I have been so emotionally affected these and my health has been affected too. And now I have just decided not to stress myself too much on this issue. I have decided to focus more on what I CAN DO for the communities where I belong.
Sometimes i use bots to improve the value of some posts where i spend lots of time an effort to made it and maybe i can't receive good upvotes so when i use that bots i can't feel the real value of them because when i receive my rewards i recieve less of what i invest so @sykochica if you have any recommendation about how to be more viewed but without use bots i will thank you. Regards
At worst, your reputation always increases and assuming you don't power down, so does your voting power.
It can be a bit tough and take a while to build up a following and support on here. But I have a ton of different tips on things to try to achieve this more 'organically'...just look at my 7 part guide series called "How to get more votes" over here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rt2Uon6wL-83InlWaV1VfdRr0QSsLFGqnCRvBR_5tx4/edit?usp=sharing
@sykochica thanks for share your knowledge with us. Regards
@sykochica Going to check this out as well! It's a bit bothersome that the bots exist but I understand, although I don't fully support, the notion.
I'm really happy to have listened to this podcast, we have to remember this is a cryptocurrencie and services are simply an answer to a need. People who are here maybe 99% are here because they want to promote their brand or make some money or both.
If they are not here for those reasons, if they don't get how investments work they should probably start a non profit and leave this platform.
I appreciate this type of honest content...
all the best
@chbartist
Are you saying I have to start paying so people look at my work, or leave?
I came here to help prove to the world that you can be artist, earn an income, and not sellout all at the same time. Patrons come to my virtual online art gallery(my blog), I don't charge admission, they can view my work and talk to me about whatever they want, and many of them leave with more money than they had before they arrived. It's the exact opposite of selling out and I'm 100% independent. I'm one of the first in the world to do what I do, the way I do it.
You're telling me to leave? I should go work for nothing?
Interesting conversation! I'm relatively new to Steemit and pretty much from the start saw the bots as a different name for advertising - which has its ups and downs, like everywhere.
Speaking of quality - I have some feedback about your post (based on my own experience). If you're making a podcast by uploading audio from an internet call, you might want to edit out the blank spots where your call was interrupted. It makes for a better listening experience. I have done it myself and typically, it's easy to edit it out because you need to restart the conversation anyway after you've reconnected. Anyway, just my 5 satoshis ;)
I have never used a voting bot and will never use one because to me the value in steemit is drawing an actual audience of people, not bots. I personally feel that steemit is losing its luster and compass by not adhering to the rules which made steemit such an awesome community to begin with. What happened to people verifying that they are real... now you can set up fake accounts to vote for fake accounts. So between fake accounts and voting bots it eventually will alter the very core of steemit.
yep, as a new person here, i am trying to learn how the system works, and whether if i actually do post content for a year straight, what is in it for me to do all that work and get nothing for it? its seems odd they allow bots to skew the game?
Agreed. Disillusioned. What's the point???
.. Glad there are people who feel the same way.. 🙂
Yes! Wholeheartedly agree. I am very new to this so please forgive my ignorance- but can't there be bot to downvote the bots? Is this not successful?
Bots cost alot of money from what i can see... but the issue of fake accounts is bothersom too.
I understand it is still in beta mode, but it's not user friendly, it's complicated to understand, and it seems very difficult to have a chance to have your content seen unless you already have a large following elsewhere. I suppose I'm just used to seeing how google, FB, twitter and you tube works with the search function.
yes the good content stay pennies coz all of the voter go with biz. :D.