That is one hell of a comprehensive post Nicky. I shall be sure to direct anyone I can onboard to it... if I ever manage to onboard anyone 🤣
You've got the psychology of steem spot on m8.
I recently started trailing OCDB downvote trail as they're particularly going after bidbot abuse and I've been criticizing bidbots for nearly two years, so it kinda felt hypocritical not to use my free downvotes to action what I'd been saying. But, yes you've guessed it... I've got myself a revenge flag stalker.
I've followed your ethos with this, shrug and move on. Although the user has not gone after theycallmedan or any of the other larger accounts on that trail (I smell a cowardly custard 😂)... they've gone after little old me and another smaller SP steemian. But, despite their 100% downvote whacking $0.40 off my posts, I'm still happier than I was before, when every man and his dog could get away with devaluing steem by buying shit content up into trending.
It's something that takes a bit of effort to adjust to psychologically, but when you get your head round it, it's ok 🙂
Great post btw, worthy of the reward!
@raj808
Hey Rowan mate, haha thanks a lot for checking it out. Quite an important topic that needs to be covered and wanted to give it the respect it needed whilst trying to cover many viewpoints. Hopefully you can get more people on board, maybe I'll slowly but surely chip away at more Bluffer's Guides and have a comprehensive Steem Book/Blog Series to help newcomers (and even seasoned veterans) out.
I have had discussions with acidyo and I see what's going on. There really is no discriminating against anyone, it's just a blanket policy of downvoting any bought upvotes but I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect. New users will likely be horrified when they receive a downvote after doing something that was likely recommended - I lost count the amount of times I have seen buying votes being recommended to grow one's account to minnows and plankton. Hopefully reading this, that will change.
The way I see this whole thing is like an oscillatory graph, right now, we've overshot with downvotes and we might still nor be making our way back to the equilibrium line yet as knowledge about what the rewards pool is is still limited. That was the motivation of this post - to bridge the gap somewhat.
As always, appreciate the in depth response from you, that alone is like a whale upvote in my book and to get the raj808 seal of approval, great honour!
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Yeah, I personally think that they'll never do that due to the fact that those people who set up bidbots have huge stake (SP) of their own. I questioned theycallmedan on this one in a comment on one of his posts and he straight up said he's not playing the blame game. Translate that to mean, 'i won't attack the Bernies, markys and frystkens of this world because they have too much skin in the game.' (all people who run/ran bidbots)
And although I was angry with this attitude of basically letting them get away with what they've done to this place, I see the logic from a purely business perspective. Most of those people have closed down their bidbots or switched them to manual curation. If all of those people sold their steem, it would probably crash the price beyond recovery. So it's a fine line between trying to force them to do what is right, and using methods to remove their market that doesn't threaten their standing on steem lol.
And then there are intelligent people out there who see through these bullshit games of ego, PR and power and understand exactly what has gone on here on steem. So far as I'm concerned I've let it go, but I know who has benefited massively from the bidbots on steem... the owners!
But you have to be positive, newsteem and downvote trails are working slowly to clean things up. What I think the result could be is that we have a much more functioning proof of brain system when the next bull run hits. If that plays out things could be just as impressive price-wise as last time. Unfortunately, we're gonna lose some people in-between then and now.
This is the way I see it anyway. The EIP was always going to be a make it break move. Without it, steem would have died quickly. If Stinc stop their monthly sell off of hundreds of thousands of steem, everything could recover quickly in a parabolic market, and with all the development here steem could surprise the whole crypto world. We shall see 😉
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Good point about the big accounts, it makes sense really as to why they won't go after the source so the next best thing is go after the customers. Yes, there's only one winner in the bid bot game and that's the owners.
But hey, if they all sold their steem and brought the price down, I'm sure there'll be many people waiting in the wings to pick it up... like me! I'd continue buying up until prices started recovering again, which they will because we're still so early on in this game that a lot of things need to be tried out.
I've read on nonameslefttouse's post that this is rather like trying to re-build the damage caused by a massive illness over the last two years. The latest HF has been a vaccine that is giving the ecosystem some of the tools it needs to fight off the germs and then we'll hopefully be cured in time for the next bull run.
I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution! My account is so small my payouts could be wiped out by a 1% downvote from those I feel like downvoting. It seems to be a tool that only an elite group can use. The gnats (I prefer "gnats" to "mosquitoes") are hard to ignore even though they are harmless.
Yeah, it's a concern for sure. I don't blame you owasco. I've had some blowback from it the past few weeks I've been downvoting and someone tagged me on their post today calling me a thug.
Tbh I can't even bring myself to enter into the drama of explaining to this person how if I'm a thug for downvoting them, them they're a thief for using a bidbot. It's difficult because a lot of people don't understand the basic fact that the daily reward pool is a limited amount, so by them boosting their payouts using bidbots they're literally stealing from everyone who doesn't use them.
I've been on here for just over 2 years creating only high quality content and spent many depressed days because my 3000 word short story made a dollar or two. All this time my chances of getting honest, fair curation based on quality has been diminished by vote buyers as most of the whale steem power has been locked up delegating to bidbots. This is now changing, and I think it will level things out as time goes by.
This is why I have no regrets about following a downvote trail. If people don't want to learn how the reward mechanism works on steem, and want to continue stealing from everyone else, they deserve what they get. What's ironic is that those who are creating decent content would have a decent chance at higher payouts in the long term if they stopped using bidbots. I think there are only 4 or 5 bidbots left operating. Not sure if I'm right about that though.
These are just my thoughts on it all. I was getting ready to leave steem if the EIP didn't work. From what I can see so far, it's going in the right direction. Time will tell.
I'm not even sure what a bitbot is. I don't know if I'm using one. I know I never paid for upvotes, except sbi which I just started buying as a contest sponsor. Is sbi considered a bidbot?
Thanks for that explanation of the rewards pool and how it is affected by the bidbots.
I still have so much to learn! It doesn't help when big changes come along and pull the rug out from under me.
Haha, if you don't know what a bidbot is and you've never bought a vote you are safe ;-)
P.s. as nicky said in a perfect world the powers that be would go after the bidbot owners... and the people purchasing the votes wouldn't have to worry because their would be nowhere for them to purchase them, but we ain't in a perfect world... mores the pity.
SBI is safe owasco. I wouldn't worry too much about it all. It sounds like you have been doing exactly as I did on steem when I arrived and just acting in a decent way.
Far too many people on this platform have seen the exploits and ways to leach value and thrown the moral compass out of the window in the pursuit of money.
Just like the outside.