Case 10: Your wife loves to upvote your spam!
ATTENTION:
The culprits have responded to this case and are willing to make amends.
Please see the footer and the comment section for the latest updates!
Accusation:
@swelker101 from the @minnowsupport abuse team received an anonymous tip and brought this Lady Diana commemoration post to my attention.
Not because I am a loyal servant of the royal family, no, those days are long gone in my fictitious past. There was something more sinister happening here, of course.
Shane didn't have to say much about the situation, it is pretty obvious after all.
The Findings:
@kiporen212 and @kimor are posting tremendous amounts of spam, reciprocally upvoting each other.
There's not much to debate here, the case presents itself quite clearly.
But let's look into the past:
@kiporen212
signed up on June, 13th this year.
He's from Austin Texas and he started his journey on steemit with participating in a few photography contests. In my humble opinion, some pretty nice images, and from what I can tell, all original content.
He also posted relevant personal experiences, like talking about his struggles with getting quality medical attention for his special needs son. Honest words from the bottom of his heart I must suppose.
@kimor
is the account made by (or for) @kiporen212's wife on June, 22nd.
She made an honest introduction and started blogging normally.
Naturally @kiporen212 and @kimor upvoted and resteemed each other's content, and back then, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.
What happened?
It all looked like a great start for two genuine new steemians bringing original content to this platform.
@kiporen212 was even mentioned as a great producer of content on July, 29th:
Atxcane from Austin, Texas is a Graduate of Hillsdale College and a Husband. Joined the community in June 2017, gained 53 reputation score in a such a short time with 577 followers and 999 posts.
I am not entirely sure how this mention came together, at the time @kiporen212 had already started posting mostly low effort posts with images from various sources, but at least they were still kind of relevant back then.
But since, it went downhill quickly!
I can only speculate that either, witnessing how others enriched themselves through abuse became too much of a frustration, or some financial struggles, caused @kiporen212 and @kimor to resort to comment-farming spam on each other's accounts reciprocally, giving 100% of their votes exclusively to each other's spam!
Then again, there's this statement that I found on another forum:
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
So maybe after all, it was really just that: greed?
Time for flagging! please see footer for updates!
Whatever the reasons may be, those illegitimate rewards should be removed.
And this time, almost everyone can help!
@kiporen has been caught by @smackdown.kitty before, and they have since resorted to very small votes on huge numbers of comments. Usually there's not more than $0.06 on a comment, so even minnows with just a few hundred SP are able to reduce those rewards to zero.
Don't blame the whales for sleeping this time!
Let's show that we, as a community, do not tolerate this kind of behavior!
#MinnowsUnite, let's get together and do this!
I have already started flagging on the Lady Diana post, but there are countless more posts and comments on both @kimor's and @kiporen212's profile.
I am asking for your help!
yours,
Sherlock
A minnow alone is weak, but together we can change this platform!
Please flag @kiporen212 and @kimor
both posts and comments need their rewards removed!
I suggest to start from the bottom up, removing the most immediately pending rewards first!
Our culprit has started withdrawing their own upvotes and wishes to make amends!
Mea culpa. I shall cease and desist. You did your job. I will leave steemit but 100% upvote 20x per day on average until I go. I hope that that will make amends. I didn't know this was technically spam but it is no excuse and I will stop and try to do right in the community before I am out.
Thank you for stepping up and correcting the issue!
please do not leave steemit! that is not what anyone is after!,please continue to use the platform we have been given to help solve the social injustice ,and global problems!
We are trying to create a better world for all, and would appreciate your support and help!!!
honest mistake,or mistakes made and corrected are not going to be used to persecute you.
please stay and help!
namaste!
Many thanks and Namaste to you also.
Hello @kimor,
Thanks for taking note and bringing your voice to the discussion.
I respect this very much!
I do not think you would have to leave this platform all together! It is never too late to make amends! If you withdrew your own upvotes and pending self-rewards, I am certain that would sway the results of this offense in your favor.
You did have good original and relevant content to begin with.
What happened to make you resort to these tactics as of lately?
P.S.: seeing that one person tried commenting as both accounts but failed (see below), makes me quite a bit less interested in hearing their further explanations.
P.P.S: @kimor is making a genuine attempt at correcting the situation, please discuss potential remedies as a community in this thread. I am impartial to the solution but glad to see positive results here!
Both accounts have done a lot of unvoting/downvoting of our stuff this morning in response to your post. It can all be confirmed at the usual outside steem-related sites. Will do more today. The answer to your question above is: chasing returns. Put my hard-earned money into and was merely chasing returns. That and I thought the posts were interesting but if the community disagrees I totally defer to the community. I will continue to downvote our stuff from both sites, upvote at 100% for good content, will make the noted donation, and will consider delegating SP if someone wants to make suggestions.
Thanks for being so cooperative. I have edited the post above to reflect on your reaction!
P.S.: Also, if you revert to posting relevant original content, I don't think anybody will mind a few self-votes, and you may even gain a good following by being honest about THIS story!
Sherlock you have become a bully. :) don't hate.
I'd argue that a bully would act differently.
But I see your concerns!
I will start downvoting upvoted stuff today. I will also be making a donation of 250 Steem to various charity pages on Steem to make amends. That will happen next Monday evening. Everyone, send me your favorite charity pages and I will sprinkle the Steem around on Monday evening. I hope this undoes some of my behavior.
I have a better idea. If you really want to undo your behavior on Steemit, don't power down and delegate most of your SP to good authors who will use it for good.
I think that's a good idea. What does everyone else think?
Don't donate your Steem. That is your funds and you earned them. You didn't get pulled over running an amber. I agree with @sqamemal, delegate your SP to whomever you find worthwhile, which will improve the quality of Steemit in general.
OK. I will delegate a lot. Just need to figure out how. :)
Figured out how to delegate. We have delegated all the SP we are allowed to delegate for now. We will not make the donation per the wishes of the commentators here. We will just delegate out.
You can use SteemConnect, it is a bit complicated, but @timcliff wrote a great tutorial here
Another option is using the Vessel Wallet application by @jesta.
Good to see that you've considered the suggestion to delegate!
Once you undelegate from minnowbooster, you can delegate to minnowsupportproject.
Additionally, you could consider @steemcleaners or even @sherlockholmes to delegate. In the end, its your call on whom you delegate to.
Agree!, Don't leave just do the right things post original stuff!
I too shall stop immediately. I apologize to the community. I will also be using my upvote 100% until I go.v I have also reached out to conan about making a donation to a charity to try to make amends. I screwed up and am sorry.
I think you forgot to switch to the proper account here ;)
thanks for being apologetic, though!
Lol 😂
;)
Brilliant!
It really doesn't get any better than that...
Stop apologizing. You have done nothing wrong. OMG.
Don't be bullied.
Good to hear that you accept there was an issue. Lots of people here upvote their own posts, but creating dozens of comments on each post to vote up was excessive in the opinion of some. Share your votes around. Steemit is intended to reward good content, so let's make that happen.
I think you should stay and don't be bullied. But maybe create better content and create interesting exchange commenting. If the issue reaised is self upvote and upvoting each other, I think that is nonsense. SP belongs to you guys, and you should be free to use your investment whichever way you want, as long as no serious offense such as plagiarisma, illegal stuff, and abuse going on.
Don't give in. Fight the power. Let them flag, they waste their power. After some time they will give up. Common sense tells me self upvote is a right.
Lastly, in a long term creating good content and contributing to the prosperity of platform will bring higher and more meaningful outcome.
Again, don't feel bullied and stay. They can't bully you out, they will flag couple time and give up, because you know what they will need to upvote themselves. Lol.
Awesome
Mr @sherlockholmes is always try his best to share anything he knows and that's very help
Wow
That is very good post because the work that you've done here is amazing. Lot of detail informasi every sentences
I love it so much
I Will resteem it
"comment-farming" I almost wet myself with laughter. That's brilliant. I'm gonna nick that. :-)
I see an issue with this. I normally like usual @sherlockholmes discoveries of scammers. In this case I beg to differ. I understand many have issues with self upvotes. But I tend to disagree. They should be free to upvote each other, it is their SP. You can self upvote so much.
I would understand if there was plagiarism, scam, or id theft, or minnowsupport abuse, some real problems. It seems only issue is self upvoting here. SP power depletion should take care of that.
Instead I would just recommend creating better content when doing so. But that would just be it, recommendation.
That is my opinion.
Hello @geekgirl,
Thank you so much for bringing your concerns into the discussion!
Yes, you are absolutely right! The use of voting power is up to the owner, no discussions! One may discuss the economic effects of such behavior, but still, everyone is free to use their voting power as they see fit.
Now in this case though, there is more at play than just self voting. I'd even like to add, this wasn't actually real self-voting if we accept the authenticity of the two involved accounts being run by spouses.
So what's the problem about?
Please look at the Lady Diana post this case started with. A single post with a few images from the web, followed by dozens of nested self-replying comments with another single image in each. This wonderful arrangement exist in not only the linked post, but a many others, too.
The issue is not so much the fact that the 2 accounts linked to this behavior are using 100% voting power exclusively on themselves reciprocally. The issue is the spam and obfuscation scheme that is used here.
I would not want to stop anyone from openly self-voting exclusively, be my guest, be selfish and counterproductive to this site as a community, but playing tricks to hide the behavior, that I can only judge as ill-intend.
Thank you for explaining in more details. It makes sense. It seems everything is worked out now. Sorry for my earlier criticism.
Your criticism was much appreciated. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on the situation and my reasoning!
New users realize their genuine posts get ignored and simultaneously see the amount of pure shit that gets a high payout. It's all downhill from there.
Great job to all.
@Sherlockholmes, great investigation as always.
Thanks to @kimor for stepping up to admit wrongdoing and working to make amends to the community.
Lastly, thanks to the Steemit community who were constructive, compassionate yet firm, and open to forgive when someone admits their mistake and works to correct it. Many online communities would not have shown such admirable qualities. I think most would be breaking out the pitchforks and torches.
Stand proud Steemians! Well done.
Sherlock you still haven't looked into this case which is similiar: Girlfriend upvoting the "welcome" spam bot of the boyfriend:
https://steemit.com/@steemik/comments
https://steemit.com/steemit/@simoneighties/welcome-bot-proxy-self-vote-abuse-in-introduceyourself
It's been goin on for months and no wonder people are starting to emulate them. They made a considerable amount with 0 effort.
Hello Simon,
Sorry if it appears like I am slacking, but unfortunately this is not my only occupation and the backlog of leads is growing daily.
I'll try to look into it soon!
I've confronted the vote abuser myself. it caused a bit of commotion but since then the welcome spam proxyvote abuse stopped.
https://steemit.com/travel/@inuk/10-and-11-destination-spain-and-france#@simoneighties/re-adsactly-re-inuk-10-and-11-destination-spain-and-france-20170916t023716259z
4 days with no spam upvote abuse but may be worth keeping an eye out.
https://steemit.com/@steemik/comments
tips hat
I am impressed how you handled that in a civil but straight forward manner.
Maybe the point did indeed come across, but probably worth keeping an eye on this for a while, though!
no worries Sherlock, you're doing an amazing job as it is!
I know I'm a few days late here, so I may not get a response. This seems like the proper place to voice a question though, with many people on this thread seeming to know their stuff! I'm a week into writing, and enjoying the wonderful community of steemit and I really want to do my part to maintain the wonder of this platform. Is downvoting a post that is a photo I can trace to google, or a post that is just a youtube video helpful? I feel odd downvoting, but will do so if it adds value to the community. Additionally, am I doing any harm continuing to vote on quality posts once my voting power is drained? Thank you in advance to anyone that can help me get a better grasp on how to be helpful in our growth!
It really depends, first of all, your downvote will only be as strong as your voting power allows, so flagging a user who is more reputable and "stronger" than yourself will have only a minor effect. But still, you may use your voting power freely to down- or upvote content based on your own judgement. Sending a message to spammers and copy-cats certainly isn't the wrong thing to do.
No, no harm done, but without voting power, you are also not contributing much either.
Thank you very much for responding, and for the awesome work you do to keep steemit great!
Good afternoon Mr Holmes
Seems you have brought to our attention a peculiar case, and perhaps more open to debate than some of the others.
If you are sharing photos which are relevant to the subject, does that really count as spam?
And if it doesn't count strictly as spam, then is it not OK for your 'partner' to up-vote this additional content?
I think this is a more cautionary tale than what you normally report, but I certainly deem it worthy of investigation.
On a similar note, my partner @osmosis signed up recently, and I have to beg her to vote for my content at times! Yes, i will re-steem and up-vote some of her content/comments, but i think we will escape action (following your potential visit) now I have added this :)
Thanks for your work
Asher
No, it doesn't, but if you post hundreds of them it most likely is!
Oh yes, that's generally fine, but again, hundreds of times over and exclusively so, it is obviously nothing but farming for money then!
As I've noted in the case: "Naturally @kiporen212 and @kimor upvoted and resteemed each other's content, and back then, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that." That is absolutely not a problem. Only when you start posting spam exclusively and just for reciprocal upvoting, like our culprits do in this case, then I'd argue it is clearly an offense!
A good example of relevant content spam would be @cryptomonitor or even @goga
Thank you for your detailed response Mr Holmes. Have a good day.