Life With NewSteem: That Growing Army of Pesky Downvote Bots!

in ART LOVERS5 years ago

If you've been part of our community for any time at all, chances are you've been "flagged" by some "person" you have never heard of, who gave you a 10% downvote with their approximately 15SP weight.

These days, it seems like I hardly ever post without getting at least one of these, but sometimes as many as 4-5, on any given post.

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How does flagging sit with you?

Functionally Speaking...

The bare facts of these miniature flags is that they have very little relevance... you're looking at a downvote from an account with a 25 reputation, about 15 (typically delegated) SP, downvoting at 10% with about 5060% of their voting power already used up.

If you're curious, you can always take a moment or two to examine the "actions" of one of these on @steemchiller's excellent SteemWorld.org app.

As you can see, this "robot account" does one thing, and one thing only: Engage in a systematic — and automated — process of downvoting 100's of accounts.

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White Lavender

Steem Sustainability and... Psychology

These days, we talk a lot about the future of Steem, and our hopes that new developments in the pipeline and close to being rolled out — Communities/Hivemind, SMTs, and so forth — will help create a more sustainable and solid place for content creators, developers, investors and others.

I suppose one should not be too surprised that there will always be forces that want to see any given project fail, for whatever reasons... as seems to be the case with this small army of (usually) new accounts that serve no functional purpose other than to issue a stream of flags to everyone nearby.

I can't speak to why someone would put so much time and energy into abusing a system in order to seemingly try to break that system.

The sad thing is, though, when someone arrives in our community as a genuine new user, these little "nicks" can be very discouraging.

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Snow on twigs...

The Dark Corners of a Decentralized System?

I suppose it is simply part of life that the strength of something can also be its weakness.

We often laud the benefits of a decentralized platform where there is no central "owner" to police speech, content and such... but the possible downside to that is also that there's no central owner to stop toxic activities.

It's a bit like having a public water well that nobody owns and everyone is responsible for using and maintaining... but because there is a lack of "rules" there is also nothing stopping something from slowly dripping a little poison into the well every single day while we all stand by and ponder why people are never feeling QUITE healthy.

Of course, it is easy to simply point to the functional end of what's taking place: Value-wise, this is all too insignificant to have an impact. True enough!

The question remains, however, of what the psychological "taste" left in people's mouths — especially newcomers' — might be.

Not claiming to have any solutions here, but I do find myself pondering the impact... Think about it!

Thanks for reading!

(Another #creativecoin creative non-fiction post)

Have YOU been "flagged" by one of these bots? How did that make you feel, even if the downvote was meaningless? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200116 15:12 PST

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Home Run right here @denmarkguy ...!! I am an example of what this post is about. I find myself not wanting to post as I average 20+ creepy stalker bot DV's per post. Sure I get it, no financial effect on the rewards, but it is ugly and discouraging. I will resteem this post as it is the best one so far about the DV's and how they are "poisoning the Steemit water supply"

Thank You..!!

Screen Grab of what i see on every post i put on here... And many posts are 20+ DV's qv2w46858e.jpg

Wow... that pretty much rots, and that's excessive!

It's all very junior high I fear... you must like/follow someone the bot operator truly hates.

I'm really sorry man... it's very ugly and discouraging, fer shure. Dang...

I have been flagged by these bots, and it's silly to say but I often think, "why?"

Cause it bugs me seeing a downvote. I try to make significant and thoughtful and even personal content. Therefore a DV is crappy. Regardless of whether it hurts me financially or not.

Posted using Partiko Android

I agree. I always try to create worthy content that is of value to readers... and what bugs me about these downvote bots is that they leave their marks with absolutely NO meaning other than to be a random irritant to people.

Yes, they have no quantitative impact, but they do have a psychological impact, on new people and others. It even irks me that a number of them appear to be using delegations from Steemit, Inc. to do their down-voting. But, to be fair, I see some pretty nonsensical downvotes in other places like YouTube, too...

I guess some people just get their jollies out of being a thorn in others' sides. Or buzzkills. Or just plain trolls.

The thing about this group is that they keep creating new accounts and then use that 15SP delegation from Steemit, Inc. to downvote eternally... but if you use one of the blockchain viewers for a closer look, you'll discover that they ALL — directly or indirectly — can be linked back to ONE account that has some sort of personal vendetta against "all things Steem." I think... because they got busted for extensive plagiarism/spam, a really long time ago.

So it's basically juvenile grade school revenge, automated...

As long as I get my 3 regular fans on my posts I'm happy. I do it for TTS, Partiko (yes I still use this dead app) and now my new fan city of truth..

Posted using Partiko Android

Yeah, there are certain followers I'm always happy to see... and I try not to let the negative vibes get to me.

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If one person spoils a well and dump its trash in it to poison the rest of the users, those users will act and teach that person a lesson since water is needed to stay alive.
If all are too scared I do it alone since I am not.

This platform is not the water well or pond we need to stay alive so why care? We are all scared to be downvoted, be the next one losing our rep! So we let our "friends" drop dead.

It is the writers we need to invest in first. Without them there is no need for any investor to be here. Sqeezing them out is not the way.

The downvotes give by certain people are way higher and do not come from just started accounts only.

you're looking at a downvote from an account with a 25 reputation, about 15 (typically delegated) SP,

All these accounts are powered by @steem. He is the one that has delegated to the accounts. Some of these accounts set witnesses, and recieve 0.001 steem in the wallets, which is transfered to @camillesteemer that account now has 90.876SP. If you look at the incoming transfers, (two of them yesterday), he is still receiving those tiny witness/resteem bot wallet donations.

To solve the issue is simple, @steem needs to remove the delegations from the accounts that do nothing but down vote. So in a sense @steem is the Commanding General/Financier of the Army of down vote bots, and @camillesteemer is the president/king/queen/emperor or what ever you want to call it.

We are SO proud to have you as a member of our
FANTABULOUS Power House Creatives family!
upvoted and resteemed!

❤ MWAH!!! ❤

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Posted using Partiko Android

The army of gnat downvoters is a frequent topic of discussion on PYPT and most feel the same as you .. while they have no actual impact on their targets they are irritating and off putting for new people.

There are some others who hit new people and are actually taking rewards from them. Some of them were pointed out during yesterday's show.

People have worked to get those delegations removed from the gnat army but it appears as fast as a bunch are removed new accounts are created. It will likely be more effective to attempt to inform newbies that the gnat army is a platform irritant to be ignored as much as possible.

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