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RE: 😨 Are You Scared Of UPVU Yet?

in WORLD OF XPILAR2 years ago

Yeah, he's one of the plaintiffs. I doubt if he'll have much to say, though. I always assumed it would end with a settlement and non-disclosure agreement.

Given the history, in principle, I would hope that any returned STEEM would be used to grow the ecosystem. We'll see.

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 2 years ago 

Given the history, in principle, I would hope that any returned STEEM would be used to grow the ecosystem. We'll see.

I'm not optimistic on this point. I think that if TRON were going to invest in the platform, they would already have done so and this is an opportunity to "cut their losses" a little bit more. I hope that I'm wrong.

I sort-of agree. The only counter I have to that is that Tron demonstrated some amount of investment and commitment when they deployed the TRX reward supplementation. I see four possibilities:

  • At this point, Steemit is basically on its own as a standalone entity with only nominal ties to Tron. Which means they are largely resource starved (although, they could still fund some decent development with the SPS if they choose to unleash it).
  • Tron has been waiting for clarity on this lawsuit before proceeding, and getting back 2/3 of the community funds is enough to restart investment.
  • Tron has been waiting for clarity on this lawsuit before proceeding, and will continue to wait until the final decision. This has two branches:
  • Steemit wins and Tron renews investment
  • Steemit loses and Tron walks away

I have no guess as to which, if any, are correct.

 2 years ago 

Tron demonstrated some amount of investment and commitment when they deployed the TRX reward supplementation

That's true - it crossed my mind as I typed the comment - there's potential to do so much more.

Steemit is basically on its own as a standalone entity with only nominal ties to Tron

I could be wrong but don't think that's the case. Underneath the hood, Steemit can be considered as 2 sub-entities working together. The steemcurator 01 and 02 accounts are run by the original Steemit team - everything else is run by the new Tron team. The developers and booming accounts for example are both run by Tron employees. So if we want progress with Steemit, we need Tron developers or... the original Steemit team run the project. This could be different since Justin Sun stepped away.

Tron has been waiting for clarity on this lawsuit before proceeding, and getting back 2/3 of the community funds is enough to restart investment.

I hope so... and there's huge potential for these funds to have a positive impact. It wouldn't cost a lot to get a digital agency with NodeJS experience to write a new front-end. They'll be able to work with the current codebase so that all of the existing security features can remain in place. In my opinion, this will provide the greatest differentiator between us and other blogging platforms.


I don't know if you can answer this... my perception is that new people who join the platform don't buy STEEM and then power up. They just blog and expect to earn STEEM. Those that do buy STEEM and power up delegate it to a service like UPVU (i.e. investors). So bloggers don't invest money. Do you know if this perception is accurate?


Related to the increase in votes per block - the scammy delegation abusers are back again so I'm back to smashing them down 🙄

The developers and booming accounts for example are both run by Tron employees. So if we want progress with Steemit, we need Tron developers or... the original Steemit team run the project. This could be different since Justin Sun stepped away.

Interesting. I knew that the developers (who don't seem to be very active) had Tron affiliations, but not that the booming accounts did too. That explains some things.

my perception is that new people who join the platform don't buy STEEM and then power up. They just blog and expect to earn STEEM. Those that do buy STEEM and power up delegate it to a service like UPVU (i.e. investors). So bloggers don't invest money. Do you know if this perception is accurate?

I have a similar perception, but I don't know. I have always thought it was a bad idea to expect authors to power-up, anyway. Creating and voting are two different roles, and IMO we shouldn't expect them to be done by the same people. Many people simply don't want to be bloggers and I can imagine that many content creators don't want to burn their time on content discovery. I think this is something that the Steem community has had mostly wrong from the day that I joined. IMO, a healthy ecosystem would have somewhere around 100-1000 times as many voters as content producers, and content producers would be free to "take the money and run" as long as they're producing attractive content.

On the bidbots, I've been thinking that it really wouldn't be difficult to fix the mess. Elaborating on the syndication idea from a few weeks ago, what if delegators didn't have to post daily tank pictures in order to get returns? What if they got their returns in beneficiary rewards, instead?

So, using UPVU as an example... They say that they currently dedicate 10% of voting power for community votes. What if they stopped doing that and, instead, dedicated 10% to a stable of quality content producers that they select? Then, they make the agreement with content producers to set 90% of beneficiaries to their delegators, in a proof-of-stake style rotation?

  • Eliminates the spammy content
  • Brings in quality content
  • Leaves room for passive investment
  • Theoretically, their rewards could even go up because the posts that they support might actually get organic votes, too.

Not that it'll go anywhere, but just thinking out loud. Maybe the problem isn't as intractable as it can seem.


Related to the increase in votes per block - the scammy delegation abusers are back again so I'm back to smashing them down 🙄

I wondered about that. Jumping from 6 to 8 in a day is a big change. Related: Do you happen to know if there is an account that's fairly reliable and actively downvoting plagiarism? I had delegated some to ac-cheetah, but I noticed that it seemed to have become dormant, so I pulled the delegation back.

 2 years ago 

I knew that the developers (who don't seem to be very active) had Tron affiliations, but not that the booming accounts did too. That explains some things.

That's right - the booming accounts are overseen by somebody called Joanna based in Singapore. Users who choose booming votes have access to her and I believe she then passes on a list of posts to the developers to upvote (which is why the votes are often clustered).

Did you see this post that I reblogged? - https://steemit.com/hive-101145/@happyberrysboy/happyberrysboy-posting-2022-03-27-19-36

It's by one of the UPVU developers with their ideas for future changes to UPVU. I suggest sharing some of your ideas with him and seeing what his thoughts are. He's suggested a few bits that could reduce the spam which will hopefully come to fruition.

Do you happen to know if there is an account that's fairly reliable and actively downvoting plagiarism? I had delegated some to ac-cheetah, but I noticed that it seemed to have become dormant, so I pulled the delegation back.

At the moment, no. papi.mati should be giving me the keys to ac-cheetah once his power down's complete - which I believe it now is. I haven't pushed him because I'm not sure I want the responsibility again (I previously ran @endingplagiarism and it was horribly demoralising).

Just repliedd to the developer, here.

Let me know if you start up with the plagiarism again, and I'll send a delegation back. I understand your reluctance. It's hard work without much reward, and people don't have much tolerance for the inevitable errors.

Aside from going back to the rewards algorithm, the only other way I can imagine it being sustainable is through a LifeLock style subscription service where content producers elsewhere on the Internet pay to have their content protected. That would be a major undertaking, though.

 2 years ago 

It's hard work without much reward, and people don't have much tolerance for the inevitable errors.

Those that have done it will echo that. In time, you mostly detach yourself from the emotion (although sometimes, somebody gets a bit of "special" treatment). Perhaps strangely, when it comes from the @endingplagiarism account, the warnings are accepted more than when they come from this account. Perhaps the other account appears more "official" but it's the same person behind it. When I do get it wrong (like you say, it's inevitable), most people have been ok with it. I'm very careful to be sure of the evidence before warning people though because I don't want to accuse somebody of something they haven't done. Often contacting them via another social media. I'm rambling. It's a hard job to get right and thanks for the offer 🙂 I think that the downvoting curation trail was a great addition and it's a shame that this wasn't offered to the original @endingplagiarism account.

The cases of identity theft on Steemit have increased a lot - often somebody who posts on Hive is copied here and sometimes vice versa. They'll always find a way to cheat.


Hopefully you'll get a positive response from the developer. He seems like a decent lad although busy so I don't know what you can expect 🙂