The #nobidbot Tag is Growing at a Rapid Pace
Two weeks ago I wrote a post floating the idea of a tag for users who don’t use any bidbots and want to build a community that facilitates faster organic growth for users who contribute quality material. You can see that post here: Why don’t we all protest the Trending and Hot page? - #nobidbot.
I propose we make use of a tag (#nobidbot) for users who are not using any bidbots and encourage whales and dolphins to get onboard and support us. If we can get some good curation on the #nobidbot tag we can also encourage many of the users of those bidbots to stop and join our cause as they discover there are more ways to succeed without these kind of schemes.
even our bots are organic
Enter @transparencybot
Since then @bycoleman and I have had a kind of loose collaboration of sorts. We have worked entirely independently of each other but with a high degree of mutual support. I have been helping him spread the word about about @transparencybot while he has helped spread the word about #nobidbot and has even started using the @transparencybot upvote for posts using the #nobidbot tag. He’s just started a @nobidbot username and plans on working on a curation project for the tag.
This is exactly what I had in mind for the project, so I’m very pleased with the way it’s going. I’m spread quite thin between community projects, writing and music, and supporting all the great friends I meet here, so I’m glad there ar people who are really pushing this thing forward so I’m not doing all the work myself. There are a few things I want to say about it though.
Some important information and news about #nobidbot
We have a discord room
This is a community driven project
As with the other projects I’ve worked on (Be Awesome, Deadpost Initiative, #steemitzombies), I’ve made a point not to make any rigid hierarchy or rules. I am looking for collaborators who can stand on equal footing and who can work towards consensus through community discussion. I don’t intend on becoming a leader in the traditional sense of the word and I’d like to prevent anyone else from doing the same. I merely see myself as a gatekeeper to protect the community from those who would use it for their own selfish ends.
I trust @bycoleman’s intentions, I think he’s doing great things for steemit, but I’ve just reached out to him in the comments to urge him (and anyone else who likes this idea) to join me on discord start an open discussion on discord where we can build a consensus about the future direction of this and other projects and agree upon how curation will work and how the @nobidbot account will be used.
#nobidbot Tag usage is growing rapidly
Aside from the support of @bycoleman, @abh12345 recently made a post with the #nobidbot tag currently worth $256.20 , making it the most successful #nobidbot post to date. @k0wsk1 also made an open mic entry with the tag that is at $78.27. I image that these two posts greatly contributed to the growth of this movement. There have been at least 51 #nobidbot posts in the last 24 hours and I imagine it will only grow from here. @sivehead made Amun poem about #nobidbot too, check it out
Dolphins!
Among the users of this tag, there are at least 8 aside from myself with a rep of 60 and above. That’s great news. I want to encourage all these users to use this tag to find good content by smaller users to upvote follow, and resteem. Check out the new #nobidbot posts rather than just the Trending. Let’s spread the wealth and make more dolphins on the platform!
More info about the chat and the Community Catalyst discord
I encourage everyone to come to the #nobidbot chat and get to know each other so that we can decide together where this goes. The #nobidbot chat is part of a larger project called the Community Catalyst discord.
The goal of this larger project is to bring people together to collaborate on projects and ideas that solve problems on and off steemit in a casual and natural way, projects that benefit the overall community and many individuals within it. Users who want to put their energy or SP towards a good cause but aren’t sure which to choose or perhaps don’t like the hierarchy of some other initiatives are welcome to come and support existing projects. People with great ideas but without the large following or lots of SP to get much attention can come to brainstorm together, contribute to existing projects and start their own projects and community chats and find support if it’s an idea that the larger catalyst community can’t get behind.
Current projects include the Deadpost Initiative and #steemitzombies which both aim to find readers and payouts on undervalued posts which have past the 7 day payout deadline.
One last thing I’d like to say: let this be proof that anyone can really make a difference, that no one is small and insignificant. All I did was float the idea for a tag and show some support for people with a similar idea. This idea cascaded and it may turn into a movement that could change the culture at steemit. We all run into failure someies but if you insist on being the Chang you want to seek, eventually you will see the world begin to mirror that change in yourself. You matter!
If you don’t know where to start, you are welcome to come join us in the discord!
Join the "Be Awesome" discord community
The Be Awesome discord chat, was created with the intention of making deeper connections with fellow steemians. Come talk about "deep shit" and make friends.
Join Steemit Community Catalyst discord
Come join us look for ways to help minnows grow organically and create a greater sense of community on steemit. #steemitzombies , #nobidbot , the Deadpost Initiative and more project chats inside.
Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories
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by @skyleap
Thanks again @whatamidoing for having the idea of this great tag.
This morning there were 123 articles, 7 days or less old that used the nobidbot tag and did not use bidbots.
I do want to let you know that @transparencybot is a non-profit initiative and I will not be taking any funds from it.
In the interest of total transparency, the @nobidbot blog I have started, is however something I hope to profit from somewhat via upvotes, down the road.
I do believe a very substantial reason the tag took off this last week was due to the nearly 500 upvotes that @looktothefuture has done creating a large splash of discussion. Due to the very low VP, @transparencybot has, it has not been able to do many upvotes on its own, it has had to use most of its VP protecting itself from downvotes this week. This has settled down thankfully.
So far we are committing around 60-100 SBD per day on promoting the tag via upvotes (via bycoleman and looktothefuture). I am also spending 10+ hours per day with the programming and support, so I am hoping to recover some of this later down the road, but even if I don't I'm happy to do it, but again, I do hope someday to make a profit on the @nobidbot blog.
I have several curators now and a simple way for many more people to get directly involved. I will be posting on this subject in @nobidbot soon.
I am hoping someone with greater talent and lots of time and energy will create a new front end for Steemit that filters out boosted articles, this will actually alleviate the need for a @nobidbot tag and/or blog all together. I believe there is already a movement to do this and I believe it will be wonderfully successful. So @nobidbot is just a temporary solution but a first step to something so much grander.
I'm sorry, I don't spend much time on discord (nearly none), but am happy to discuss any issue with anyone directly via steemit.
Thank you so much for all you do and your forward thinking, I do hope I am doing a worthy job for you and for all in proceeding with this project at full speed.
Blessings!
You are doing a great job and I appreciate all your shoutouts and support for this idea, but don’t you feel like you are basically hijacking it at this point?
I don’t have a problem with you earning money for your work. I don’t even mind you earning more than I do off this idea. What I really mind is that I wanted the community to decide together through discussion (and not majority rules) about how to grow the tag and at this point, I feel like you are just going to do what you want with it.
I’m happy with most of the decisions that you’ve made and the support the tag is getting, but I believe the community should decide together who curates, whether community bots or resteem bots are fair game and how a @nobidbot account gets used, including where it’s funds go.
Also, I understand you are trying to recoup money that you’ve spent and earn from time that you’ve spent but I think your self voting is rather excessive already.
I can understand your position.
If you feel the tag is yours and want me to stop, I will stop all activity and promotion and use of the tag and let you handle it completely. I will turn over the @nobidbot blog to you.
Otherwise, I need to keep on trucking. Just let me know. ASAP.
The only way I have found it possible to get things done, is to start, form a plan, grab some talent and go for it. I have done that.
If people like what we or I am doing, then they join in. Even with transparency bot, there was a lot of excitement and offers to help, but then within two days, I had to enlist the help of a $9,000 USD delegation. So it just takes a major personal commitment of both time and money and that is going to be very hard to muster in this space since, the users here are the ones NOT using bidbots, so most of them have less SP. If you don't move very fast, it will die.
So far I have several hundred hours in tranparencybot and @nobidbot. You or your team will need a MAJOR commitment to make it work, but as I say, if you have the programming talent on board and funding, then again, the blog is it is yours, I will send you the keys.
I do self vote myself. On my voting on @transparencybot, I do this only to restore visibility to the comments. These funds leave me and will not return, it is truly a non-profit venture.
Here is the very rough draft of the NEW list. It needs a LOT of work, but if you want to take it over from here, I will give it to you. I don't have a way to turn over the code, since it is built on a custom library I created years back. But any bot programmer can create what I have so far, using the standard Steem API.
Please let me know quickly. I will be on hold until I receive your decision.
Blessings.
I was hoping we could all be a team, but seeing as how you want to run things, I guess that’s not really the case.
I’d be happy if you keep doing what you are doing with a more democratic decision making process rather than whoever has the resources deciding for themself how it gets done. If you are not keen for that, I’ll make a post about it and see what people think and get back to you. If people would rather have someone in control of this project than I’ll step back and let you have it but I want them to know that it was envisioned as a community project where we made decisions together and to have that choice about how it moves forward.
I do not want this to be my way vs. your way, I think there is a happle middle but if you want me to decide between my way and your way then I’ll leave it up to everyone because I believe in decentralized power.
I’ll support the tag either way as long as it’s helping minnows grow into dolphins
Yes, that is understandable. I will certainly support a community decision on this. I believe the community will want the community to be in charge, but then who will get it done is the question that needs to be asked.
I do not want to be in charge of this #nobidbot movement, not at all. But I do have a vision for the @nobidbot blog. And that I would manage with a curation team (which I already have partially assembled), very similar to @curie. @curie is a great asset to the platform, but it is not "run" by the community, yet it is of course for the community.
I absolutely do not want someone thinking I've hijacked your concept. I do believe I am building on it and they are not mutually exclusive. Yet, again, if you (or the community) feel the @nobidbot blog should be run by community, then it is yours.
When you write your blog, please share this entire comment thread.
Sounds good! What I’m most uncomfortable about is that that username, as it allows you to represent what seems to be turning into a movement however you want, and I’d rather see that responsibility shared.
I don’t know if I agree with some of the ways you utilize your upvote but as I think you are doing way more good than harm, I’m not going to fight you on that. I just don’t want the direction this tag takes to be so heavily influenced by one person.
I’d like for you to profit from your work as well, so I don’t fault you for having plans to profit, but if you want to use an account with that precise name,I believe you should leave it up to the community how it is used. If you change the name, I’ll be happy to leave it alone for now.
It is fully up to you and the community. Just let me know if you want me to hand over the keys to this blog. If you feel it is yours or the communities, then it shall be.
Blessings!
You won’t stop your plan to curate or your support of the #nobidbot tag, right? Your work has been extremely helpful and I hope you keep trucking on with it!
Hi @bycoleman,
It seems to me that you have a great opportunity for a collaborative relationship with @whatamidoing here, and you're wasting it. I hope you will reconsider. If you're unwilling to include others who are interested in taking some personal ownership of the project, it seems unlikely to develop very far.
I know my opinion as a (non-bid) bot user probably doesn't mean very much to you, but I am very interested in any project that focuses the rewards of the platform on content creators rather than whales. My method and your method may not have much in common but I still see promise in yours and feel like it would be substantially better with @whatamidoing included in the leadership of the project he envisioned.
Both nobidbot and transparencybot gain credibility from the idea that they're there to keep small users from being pushed out of participation by larger users, rather than just a vendetta against bots. It seems odd that you would risk that credibility by pushing out the creator of #nobidbot because he is smaller than you.
Thanks for listening.
Your point is well taken and I appreciate it.
I believe I am possibly not being able to properly articulate my position.
I really do not want to take any type of ownership away from @whatamidoing or the community. Not at all. I simply saw a way to expand on this by creating the @nobidbot blog. It is my intention to pour myself and my resources into this blog. And if it makes a few pennies that would be grand, but honestly, It will take a massive amount of work and the pay will probably be meager. Proceeds were to be split within the team so curation could be realized long term. Similar to @curie, curators are paid. Without this payment, curation would probably suffer. We also expect many volunteer curators.
But one way or the other, I fully support the #nobidbot tag and will always listen to community feedback.
This is a great movement, with or without the @nobidbot blog.
The important point is the blog and the tag are not the same. But if the community or he feels they are, then I will turn over the keys to @whatamidoing.
I really do not want any controversy to destroy the movement. It is too important.
Hope this makes sense.
If I may suggest a solution, it seems to me that all this could go away quickly if you recognized that not making @whatamidoing the first person you invited to your curation team was a mistake, and rectified it.
It’s ok. Honestly, I want to see what he does with his plan and I am not looking to work as a formal curator, I just want that account to represent the collective will of everyone involved and it seems he has agreed to that. If he uses a different account name for it, I don’t see any problem.
I'm content if that is your choice.
Fair enough, yet that was not actually the intention to exclude, but instead include.
Since, I already have a curation relationship with several individuals due to running one of the largest writing contests on Steemit here. I first picked from this group, as I felt very comfortable with one person in particular and knew I could both trust him with curation as well as keys to the site. We had already established a very fine working relationship and friendship.
After this, the mission was to put together a team of curators, that was to be his job, not mine.
But none of this matters any more, I am turning this over to @whatamidoing. I simply do not want any hard feelings or controversy to destroy this movement. I will move on to a different concept. WhatamIdoing and the team can pickup and run with it. I believe you folks will do well.
Blessings!
i thought and hoped you'd keep going with the concept, just change the name of the account
I don't use bid bots myself, but as of yesterday right when I started using the tag I noticed that I was added to a bid bot group for people who write about freedom and spirituality. I thought the increase in votes was coming from the #nobidbot tag. But it looks like all of my posts are going to be automatically upvoted by this group now. Should I still use this tag?
Is it a small one where the votes arent worth too much? I think small community "bots" like that can be forgiven, a lot of them are automatic, I get votes like that sometimes
That’s not a bidbot, a bidbot is where you pay for your own upvotes via another account.
Thanks
This is a great idea and I plan to be using the nobidbot tag from now on. Looking forward to the lists on the nobidbot blog, as well as any other innovations you might have. It's way passed time to see just what organic growth can do. I hope this grand experiment brings thousands to use the tag. :)
Amazing idea and I will be using this tag starting with my next post. As a proud non-botter, I love this.
a have use the tag sins the beginning its a lot of post now this is great. :)
Thanks for keeping the tag alive long enough for other people to notice!
there you go ;) ... covered you for awhile!
I like the idea - I quite often have spare tag so thisll be useful.
Odd that half yr content went missing. Personally I write everything in google docs first. Although maybe you do too and itz the Pain of formatting thats taking the time..?!
I often save my files on the memo but since I’ve upgraded iOS it’s been slow as hell so I just rely on steemits auto save, this is the first time it’s let me down, had to rewrite the whole thing!
Tag away!
Was so happy to see @abh12345's post about the #nobidbot tag doing well and have now started to use it myself. And to see your collaboration, all be it loose, with @bycoleman.
Hope it's all enouraging you to keep on keeping on. Seems like a very exciting time for you. Brilliant! 😍
It’s going to be a really exciting time for everyone if I have anything to say about it! Loose collaborations are nice too!
Interesting project
Love this initiative! I am going to start using this tag. I remember Steem before delegations and bid bots....so nice!
Sounds up my street