The definition of vote collusion @cryptopassion et Al.
Arrows size = Weight of votes.
Mr @Cryptopassion has his own Discord group with a very specific goal, vote collusion, for profit, irregardless of content.
Participants :
@adsactly
@jcornel
@amiramnoam
@vlemon
@d-pend
This is the exact equivalent of self-voting, for profit irregardless of content value. (using @freedom rented SP)
Mr Cryptopassion also an expert financial advisor, he predicted SBD rise. (or is behind it).
https://steemit.com/steem/@cryptopassion/steem-dollars-sbd-bullish-trend-continues
based on the chart and the decorrelation with the STEEM
we can see clearly that investors starts to prefer SBD than STEEM
Is it so wrong to give financial advises to people?
Someone somewhere is uninformed and getting scammed into buying SBD at $12+
Source : http://www.steemreports.com/votes-graph/?accounts=%40cryptopassion
Hi @transisto, sorry for the late reply, but this post only now came to my attention. I know you didn't request a response but I'd like to make clear the facts as simply as possible.
Why did I ever try such an arrangement?
As a relatively new user of Steemit (since June 2017) and believer in its potential as well as that of the STEEM blockchain, I have been heavily investing by buying SP, renting delegations, using bidding bots, etc since that time. I have basically tried every method I could find to help grow and develop my Steemit account. Some methods I have found unsatisfying (for example, I no longer use bidding bots, preferring to simply buy more STEEM with the SBD that I earn) but it has been a fascinating learning experience. At the end of the day, my main motivation in building on Steemit is the ease with which I can give support to the many amazing individuals adding value to the community.
Why I found vote-agreements unsatisfactory
As I mentioned, I have tried many things to help gain exposure for my content, including voting agreements. I found them quite unsatisfactory and no longer maintain any. The main reason is how nonmeaningful they are. They boil down to pure profit regardless of quality, as you stated in your post. I don't think this is the way Steemit is intended to operate, though I respect the right of any stakeholder to use their voting power in any way they see fit, including to produce pure profit. The best way to prevent the gaming of the system is to implement changes in the fundamentals of post/comment/curation rewards. I am willing to not operate based on pure profit because, philosophically, it is not fulfilling to me, but others may not agree.
Conclusion
The type of voting collusion you describe is extremely widespread on Steemit. Whether the agreement is explicit or implicit, it has to do with basic human psychology of tit-for-a-tat, and how Steemit is programmed to function. Both aspects encourage people to vote about the same amount for the people that vote for them. I find explicit agreements (unconditional, without regard to quality) very unsatisfying which is why I no longer maintain them. I tried them in the past in an attempt to get more exposure to my content and to help build my account so I can support more people like bigger whales can. Still, I am not against conditional arrangements (trading votes providing the quality is sufficient, though not for indefinite periods of time.)
Anyway, sorry for the monstrous reply! I respect the work that you do to keep rewards equitable in the Steemit ecosystem and hope I can do my part as well. I wanted to be fully transparent about my involvement here, as it has been my intention since day one joining the site to avoid drama and misunderstandings by being as honest and open as possible.
Thanks @transisto, let me know if you have any questions or comments. Have a great day!
@d-pend
Edit: self-upvoting to get top of the thread for historical reference.
The thing is - it is really lucrative to be a dick in crypto-world. Why invest time into creating valuable content when you can circle-jerk upvote yourself? Or why build a real business when you can scam people with a fake myetherwallet site, scam slack links or pump-groups.
And as a human being - seeing a wallet getting filled with hundred thousand or even millions of dollars - makes one think. Especially as a developer. Forking myetherwallet, buying a domain, setting up ssl - easy peasy. Instead - putting in months of development in a project and then seeing other shit-projects or scams generating a ton more money ...
But in the end - all of this. It's all a matter of personal characteristic. You wanna be on the good or bad side of life. Similar to star wars - the dark side makes everything look so easy and seems as if power (money) is reached easily - but the downfall is hard. Everybody is free too chose. But I'm glad that you seem to be on the right site, @transisto.
Your are right, as long as it is easy to game the system it will be gamed. The problem in my eyes is that none of the responsible users (for example witnesses) is trying to implement any technical solution to make self-votes (including multiple own accounts) or circle votes less attractive.
There are ideas like for example diminishing returns (to make is less attractive to upvote the same accounts again and again) or introducing a sigmoid reward curve (which makes it less attractive to upvote own comments as long as nobody else has upvoted them, but at the same time gets flat in the end to prevent extreme rewards for single posts).
Also the idea of @scipio to implement a system based on UserAuthority is very interesting.
In my opinion a 'self-vote police' (even with good intentions) can't be the solution of the problem, but instead of that any intelligent implementation to make self-voting less attractive is required.
The problem has become even bigger since it is possible to delegate Steem power. Everybody seems to be so enthusiastic about this feature, but different than the majority I think it causes more harm (extensive self-voting with borrowed power + vote buying) than it helps.
While acknowledging that vote bots in particular are a real problem for the platform, I feel compelled to argue hard against diminishing returns. Full disclosure I have a lot to lose from that kind of paradigm shift. But so do other quality content producers who engender regular readers or write content within a given community.
My mycology posts are regularly upvoted by the steemstem account and its many followers - which in turn has been garnering a curie vote as well.
I would like to think - and of course reasonable minds can disagree on this - that my posts, although a niche topic, are generally of a high quality - both in terms of informational accuracy and, for those interested in learning about the topic, entertainment.
However, my posts garner almost all their rewards from repeat votes. These votes are not based on collusion or predetermined - they are the result of meticulous work to ensure consistency of production.
However, in a diminishin returns paradigm, content creators like myself would be penalized in effect for writing quality posts consistently for a specific audience on the platform. That seems like a result that would run counter to the intention of a diminishing return switch in the first place. And the ironic part is bot voters could fairly easily work around such a scheme by staggering votes among different accounts.
I offer no alternative solution but cannot support that particular option.
Voting power would recover also within a system of diminishing returns, that means of course the steemstem account could upvote you regularly with full strength, lets say three times a week (how fast voting power for accounts one had already voted for before would recover still had to be discussed). However, as soon as you started to write four mushroom posts a day (which actually anyway you are not doing because it takes some time to produce quality content), then of course every steemstem vote for you would be significantly weaker than the previous one - especially also if until now steemstem would also have upvoted every of your comments ...
By the way I think I can claim with the same right like you to produce quality content because every of my articles contains sources, own thoughts, often text in two languages, and I spend much time taking and then selecting the photos. I also would lose some of my rewards at a first glance, but I just don't care, because I think the platform would grow faster with the implementation of diminishing returns, and in the long run my earned Steem would have a higher value.
Exactly: because the circle voters need not to seek for new authors which they could vote for: it is enough for them to upvote the same persons again and again. If that would be less profitable than before they may for example find YOU and your mushroom posts and upvote them, too. :)
I think actually circle voting 'spammers' with a high (short post) frequency would be penalized, because it would not be worth it anymore to make a lot of short comments or minimalistic articles within a short timescale and then upvoting them themeselves or with their second or third accounts again and again.
Instead of doing that they were forced to curate content of other people than the usual ones as well.
I agree with this - and the fact that I agree with it weakens my original protestation substantially.
Moreover, I think I misunderstood the nature of the problem such that I've also mistaken the nature of the solution. I only ever post twice a week, in terms of substantive mycology posts, because to do more than that really isn't plausible while maintaining depth. It's only in this recent sbd bubble I've been posting other non science content as often as daily -and even that feels like a lot to me.
But i see the problem diminishing returns would address involves posting frequency on an entirely different scale - and I agee with you that actually the posting/voting patterns that would be affected are unlikely to hurt most quality content creators by virtue of the sheer amount of time it takes to create that content.
Nice to hear that I could convince you (maybe partly). I might be wrong, but I really think it should be as you wrote yourself now: diminishing returns (implemented in a correct way) would affect high frequency spammers more seriously than people like you.
You may also think about the advantages of a sigmoid reward curve: It makes self-voting on an 'empty' post less attractive as it is rather flat at the beginning. But it also prevents extremely high rewards (other than n^2 did), because in the end it is getting flat again ...
nicely said
If you create a fraudulent site, hack into a database to steal money and get caught, you go straight to jail. Your example and your way of seeing right and wrong are very relative.
Start to face reality, what these people do is not illegal and you talk to us about asshole, good, bad. So start creating Steemit's laws and Steemit's police because as long as the system will allow this to happen, everyone who gets in their way with such weak arguments will always look like people who hide their faces.
When there are problems, you have to find a "real" solution! And don't start whining like you do with childish actions and arguments.
When are Steemit Police and Steemit Justice? As long as there is none, I advise you to remain silent because you are making a fool of yourself. Brain evidence = human slave of the blocking chain. Leaving the work of machines to humans is a choice that must be made. Without established rules, we will never all agree.
Look at the comments here, everyone is silent because they are afraid of being flagrant by a whale or losing their support forever. Your comment takes $6 because you're going in their direction, I'm the only one who thinks you're talking nonsense? No, but the others are scared and don't want to get noticed in this kind of story.
I am free and I see that on Steemit there is no pure freedom. freedom is exchanged for a few dollars. Money is power, wake up instead of licking asses like the lobotomized people in the brain, you must have smooth tongue when it is. And that is not the way to find a real solution.
haha - wait what? Did you smoke something? I won't waste my time going into your gibberish - but you should be careful who you accuse of being an ass-licker.
Hahaha ! You're right, I'm going to smoke a little bit, it'll do me good to celebrate the Litecoin explosion towards the moon. Fortunately, I didn't put my money into this platform bullshit, so many more profitable places than this potential dictatorship.
Sorry to have offended you but know that in life people have the right to express themselves; -)! And I am not going to lower myself to your level and flag your comment even if it is clearly threats, you see me I respect the freedom of all !
Oh mais tu m'as tuée 6h20 je dors pas encore enfin la je dormirais plus lol c'est quoi ce post de fou ah ah @vlemon est complice !!! Non mais allo t sur Steemit et tu n'as pas de cerveau ?!? Et en plus 240 $ d" récompenses...
He siphons money to the @zer0hedge account on the 6th day on the regular, not to mention the massive self votes on all his accounts he owns that have gone on since he's been here, yea real crusader alright.
well said
Did you at least ask me how we can work together, as you copied past my message? First of my questions would have been :
How many automatic upvotes are done via STEEMVOTER without being read at all? Will you downvotes all the articles also?
Yes I support people because I know which kind of content they are publishing and they are supporting me also because they like my content. There is nothing imoral or forbidden with that.
What about this article Transisto :
On a total of currently 180$, you self upvoted for at least 120$ ! I hope you will downvote yourself soon also!
From where is coming all your SP? Publication of articles or investments done when Steem was only some cents? From where do you think you have the authority to harass other users because they have more success than you? You are using the excuse of the plateform to just harass people here since months...
You are just sitting on all your fortune and playing here like a dictator. When will the downvote function been reviewed to avoid that kind of attitude. It allows to dictators to make their rules on that platform which should be safe from the censure, except for illegal things.
I suggest you to do the same analysis for every author in the trending page and see the results. I hope you will downvote also all of them with all your accounts as most of them are very similar to me.
And yeah by the way, So I'm powerfull enough to pump the SBD... wow such accusations... Because I can analyse it and predict it I would be the initiator.... If I can only do that... so a shame to see this kind of anaylysis. Again on a normal plateform, you would be in justice case for such accusation without any proofs. But at least, you do a good promotion for my analysis as indeed, I was right, the SDB increased a lot and lot of my followers have earnt nice money.
Yes I would.
I upvoted my post because I want to bring attention to it. I also happen to post about once a week, or when I feel like I want to share something valuable. (Not as a business like you guys are doing)
How much easier is it for your internal accounting that you consistently post exactly 6 posts a day?
Most people using auto-voters are speculating for the curation reward based on voting pattern (which is also very bad!).
On the other hand you guys are upvoting each others 1:1 as if you all agreed your content was equally valuable.
If it make any difference to you, I brought it at a much higher price than it is now in BTC terms.
Anything better to propose?
That you can predict that currency designed to be pegged to USD will pump much beyond 1$ using charts only is hard to believe.
I did not know you were @tamim, the boldest example of self-voting I consistently refer to, as the second best paid author on Steemit in August 2017. I must say knowing this definitely changes how I view your actions, and this post.
Simply being amazing isn't a crime. If you have evidence of involvement in a pump and dump, I reckon you'd have presented it. Making the accusation without evidence is bad form. I note you did not actually accuse, merely raised the possibility, but clearly @cryptopassion feels accused.
I will just say that if @cryptopassion has the skill and capacity to pump SBD's to 12x their value, I should be following them. That's a lot of ability, and if they did forecast it to their circle, a damn profitable friendship.
I will say this circle jerking is sleazy, and I avoid most of the accounts mentioned in the graphic because I associate them with moral hazard, but then, I find self-voting verses from the Koran no less so.
Srsly. Coulda used something less inflammatory to monetize than that!
The code permits such monetization as @cryptopassion and crew practice, and as you have as well. I cannot call it criminal, but I cannot call it without moral hazard either.
I won't do it. Were you more concerned with altruism and protecting the community from it, you wouldn't either. Stone, throwing, glass houses, and all that.
I do thank you for this post. I learned a lot I did not know, and should.
Thanks!
I'm not Tamim, I convinced him that using his SP for the betterment of Steem as a whole would be more profitable in the long term than self-rewarding. He's a busy person and doesn't have time to dig the undergrounds of Steem to find good initiatives to support and fight abuses.
Welp, Imma shut up now, rather than continuing to display my ignorance.
I shoulda just lurked moar.
That'll teach me =p
Thanks for being concerned and asking questions. There was no way you could have known, he didn't make a specific announcement on the blockchain about it.
Explanation for high upvote : https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/temporarily-pausing-my-anti-abuse-efforts-while-sbd-is-off-the-chart
hey transisto can you look into brittuf? he is always in trending with shit reports 200$ posts
What about the upvoting that you do of the copy and pasted zerohedge stuff on the @zer0hedge account right at the 6th day mark right before it pays out likely to avoid detection by others? Pot and kettle?
And what about the self voting you used to do on your @julianita account? Was self voting allowed then but not now? Serious questions.
You gat him where you want him to be
You can speculate all you want but I don't think two wrong make a right.
@julianita ?
I would like be able to analyse more cryptos and do more publications.
But YOU guy, are already complaining about 6 and downvoting quiet often them.
So what is the goal to do more?
I repeat it and confirm it, you have a dictator attitude here and you have specific targets here and don't touch to friends and some other people who are too much powerfull for you.
All this must be known also.
I would like so much do as much publications as @haejin to share my knowledge with everybody.
But you are on me since weeks now and it becomes impossible to provide all the content I would like. So yeah you are doing censor on a platform which should be free.
And you are able to do that, not because you are a good author, but because you invested money at the good moment when STEEM was very cheap..... and as you use often the expression : This is also bad....
You can analyse as many crypto as you want, You've been posting exactly 6 for months and I didn't flag or say much of anything back then.
In my view you are still upvoting yourself on those because you have a 1:1 vote collusion partnership with these other people.
How is this any relevant? Who is @haejin ?
Your last defense was @kingscrown is also doing it too so go after him. What's next?
BTW Kingscrown get ~1700 views for 200$ while you get 40 views for 100$ (99% of it collusion).
Just have a look on his posts
@haejin is also another crypto analyst that you will call also scamer when he is saying some cryptos will increase.
Another user which is doing 10 publications per day while you are complaining about my 6 publications, another user who is upvoting all his publications.
But yeah as I said, you just focus on some people and ignore or have agreements with others ;)
You will have lot of work soon my friend because you have unrealistic expectation and the day you will lost your power of downvote due to a code change, I hope you will still be able to find interest in your life...
Point to me to another vote collusion scheme as large and obvious as your and I'll be off your back for at least a few days.
I don't have to defend myself, you are not the owner of that platform, you are not the creator of it, you are not the developper of it, you are just someone who was lucky enough to buy at the good moment and who is taking pleasure now with downvoting people you don't like.
It is all, dictator is really the good word. The goal of your life becomes to stay here and downvote people you don't like.
You're trying very hard if you don't have to. Anyone owning Steem is to some extent owner of the platform as they have the power to decide on it's fate. I only lost BTCs so far with my steem investment, not sure how that makes me lucky.
Hopefully purging reward suckers like youself will reallocate the money to more deserving and contributing people and will increase the value of Steem.
Everyone dictate to the extent of their stake, that you think my stake deserve the title of "Dictator" is your pejorative.
As you use our private convoy, I will use it also.
Only one sentence from you is enough to show which person you are :
cryptopassion : you are not there to make the rules....
Transisto : I don't make THE rules I make my rules
This becomes really a problem on that platform but I'm sure it will be solved one day and with the help of your attitude ;)
Yes I said that and that's not making a controversial statement as much as it is explaining you how steem functions.
Regarding kingscrown, he has gotten a free pass because he is friends with the right people, including you apparently.
He never had that many views compared to rewards until he started getting on trending every single day because of guess what, VOTE COLLUSION by him and his friends.
A blind eye has been turned there though, and don't even get me started on his "quality" vs. reward ratio. Probably one of the worst on the site tbh.
You and I both know that if a post doesn't get on trending, the views number is way down, so that is just a terrible argument to make. Cryptopassion never gets a post on trending, put one of his posts on trending and watch what happens to his views/rewards numbers.
Nobody has flagged @kingscrown more than me, If I upvoted him a few time lately but we might still be 10:1 Downvote:Upvote.
I agree with you, trails need to be broken.
Views don't come only from steemit trending, They also come from outside promotion. Which is what I'm trying to promote and incentivize with my top of Reddit challenges.
Collusion means cooperation and mostly in unwanted activities. Businesses collude to keep prices high. Like in Pakistan, Toyota, Suzuki and Honda collude and bribe politicians and authorities to prevent entry of any competitors in the market (Nissan, Renault etc).
Collusion on Steemit too is for unwanted purposes. Mutual voting by whales deprives community of flourishing and depletes reward pool at an unprecedented level.
We need more people who are acting as investigative journalists, sort of, like @littleboy. You, @transisto, go one step further and downvote people who are harming the ecosystem. We need to report this type of users, so that they lose all their following and responsible people handle their collusive practices with might of Steem Power.
More power to you!
Problably they are only making what is possible, the problem is the system allowing it. Where is downvoting power to neutralize whales?
That there is a collusion can Not be unseen.
In real life such type of cartels would Directly get punished, but since it is the Blockchain, there are no Prohibitions or aditorial control.
So WE (every single one of us) is dependent on the safety und surviving of the platform.
This behavior definitely demages the reputation and sense of the platform.
We should stop supporting these people who do pool rape in big way.
Thank you for letting us know @transisto.
Great that you crack down with such behavior!
Sadly that is the problem with the blockchain.
How to keep discipline in a decentralized place?
How can we think that a place like steemit will be free from corruption whereas even most of the saint places on earth turn out to be corrupt?
How can we ensure that the ecosystem of steemit is not destroyed? Simple. By providing power to those who have been doing great for the community like @transisto.
Vote collusion is a serious problem which can only be handled by one and only one measure. That is User verification via ID and not from mobile numbers and emails.
I recently made a contribution in utopian where i suggested that every user on steemit has to be verified. Specially those who are destroying the ecosystem by making spam accounts and then transferring their own SP to make those spam accounts even stronger..
I got a sting from a lot of people, which was obvious.. since they all were operating more than 1 accounts and were not in favour of verification.
So until that happens, whales should be given charge to personally curate content and upvote or flag them as they go because they have a better vision regarding vote collusion.
Good job @transisto
How would that even affect collusion? I don't even see a link between identity and collusion.
I am not operating more than one account, and I hate the idea of verification - in fact I would not be on Steemit were it required. I am here because I can be. I could not be were I required to be verified.
And why do whales have a 'better vision' regarding vote collusion? Because they can do it better? Or are you just pandering? I don't even understand what logic you might be using.
The reason corruption is unstoppable in centralized societies, is that those who are wielding the power in the society are the corrupt, and the rest of us can't flag them.
Here, as @transisto shows, the corrupt - unless they are whales - can be flagged. As @berniesanders showed, whales cannot be remonstrated. What this teaches us is that money is power, and money is not decentralized on Steemit.
What is keeping money so centralized on Steemit? Inflation should decrease the centralization of wealth on Steemit, but instead, wealth is becoming more concentrated.
The only thing we can do about it is vote with our feet, since our little flags do not matter.
Steemit is only as decentralized as Steem, which is to say, not much. Expecting whales to do something about that is kinda like expecting the CIA to quit dealing smack and crack. The few, like @berniesanders and @transisto that do anything are inadequate to resolve the problem - and I don't know that is their goal.
I'm not gonna confuse either with Che, in terms of their views on equitable distribution of power in society.
Not sure I agree with that, I've had flag back and forth with Blocktrades for example, There isn't a single whale that I would not down-vote if it was deserved. The difference is that if it ever happen it will very unlikely result in long term fight, we'd resolved our difference or maybe one of them will cash out and move on.
Explanation for high upvote : https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/temporarily-pausing-my-anti-abuse-efforts-while-sbd-is-off-the-chart
Nice!
Priceless.
I may have to alter and plagiarize this! lol
I was talking about vote collusion through own spam accounts. Do you realize that a whale can create almost 10 spam accounts and make them all whales too and then all those accounts can start voting each other on every post which is basically being operated a by a single user.. or 2 whales can join hands to do this on a massive scale. Who would stop them?
This is another form of colluding..
Verification through ID would stop this practice.
And normally people dealing in cryptos verify themselves at exchanges all the time. I don't see how verifying yourself on steem blockchain should be a problem?
And i also used to have same ideology as you have that in a decentralized space, you should feel free and be actually free..
But then please explain to me that why for the love of god, i have to verify myself through posting pictures while holding steemit signboards or why do i have to come infront of camera and post a video about me being the actual me?
If that werent the case then why so many whales have written "how-to" guides on verification of new users??
Who is gonna verify the whales? Just because somebody has been on steemit for a year and has 100,000 SP with 3000 followers cannot be verified as an authentic user.
My idea is simple. Level the playing field. If verification has to be done then it should be done for all at the blockchain level.
If not, then no one has the right to say to a new comer that please post a picture with your username and steem logo so we can judge you from our own perspective..
There is no financial difference between splitting your SP into multiple accounts which circle jerk, and just self-voting. None. Since both are allowed by the code, verification doesn't impact either practice. Not at all.
And as we see, this is being abused by the US IRS to plunder those customers of exchanges that have had to reveal their identities. Anonymity is the only defense against plunder by institutions wielding force to extract your money from your wallet, and further, that defends ME from being censored with extreme prejudice in the real world to silence me here. My anonymity keeps my kids safe from being harmed to silence me.
This is a very real security matter, and as censorship burgeons across the web, it is becoming ever more important - and potentially profitable - to provide a safe haven from censorship, and only anonymity provides that security.
ID serves no useful purpose, and presents significant and dangerous attack vectors for Steemit users.
If you want to preclude self voting, that's a code issue, and doxxing is irrelevant. While circle jerking with multiple accounts is sleazy, it's also able to be dealt with in code, without doxxing the rest of us.
In any case, doxxing is far worse than the problems you want to solve. Lives are at stake, not just cryptocoins.
To drive this point home, I am currently under threat of death from private parties connected to corrupt government agencies. Only being able to post anonymously has protected my family from criminals that would eagerly harm them just for fun, and shutting me up would just be a bonus.
I will oppose ID verification until my dying breath, because allowing it might cause my family to draw their last breaths, and it won't do a damn thing to affect any problem you have brought up.
Your all points are valid and i respect them totally.
Circle jerking and self voting is allowed by the code.. true. But ID theft and posting same content under different usernames to receive upvotes from all sorts of followers is a crime. I am sure of that.. which is what i meant by "spam accounts".
And let us set aside this debate because your arguments are valid when you said that you fear for the safety of your family.
But i wrote something in the last paragraph of previous comment that playing field should be levelled then.. if there is no verification then there should never be any verification for anyone..
My short video and my picture holding steemit signboard will now forever be part of blockchain for all times to come that i cant even delete. So why did i have to verify myself in front of public?
Why cant i be trusted as an authentic user from the get go? That was my point.. would you consider my argument valid for this part?
I didn't verify my identity in the way you describe. Neither were you forced to. You didn't have to do it, and if you thought you did, you were mistaken. I cannot unmake our choices, so it is best to be circumspect from the get go.
Also, there are mechanisms in place that are directly confronting ID theft as it is practiced on Steemit. This can be done, and is being done, without ID. Reposting the same content on multiple accounts is considered plagiarism, and is also handled without resorting to ID.
ID is not necessary - and endangers all users, even if only by enabling their holdings to be plundered, or themselves to be classified by their words as more or less 'desirable'.
I'm agin' it.
I reckon we prove who we are by our words and actions, and I have let that be the case for me.
I respect your opinions and they are right. I wasnt forced to upload those pictures.. but its quite natural that when your post payout is 20 cents even with 100 views, one must take it as a sign.. that public is not ready to trust you, specially when it is said in the comments section by someone having 60+ reputation. And once i verified myself, payouts started to roll with values ranging from 6-10$ (in some cases, even more).
I am the biggest fan of anonymity that you will ever see but i was truly dejected the way steemit community was behaving towards me before verification.. may be things used to be better when you joined steemit back in May. Things were certainly not good in October and has even started to roll further down. My wife joined steemit 2 days ago and she was greeted with demands of verification from the get go..
But nonetheless, your idea is right. Wish everyone had the same mindset here. I am glad we had this conversation.
I admit I practically ignore payouts. I am only here for the interaction.
This has certainly colored my acceptance of payouts in the $.0x range =p
I don't think that on it's own would make a big difference, but combined with a diminished incentive when voting frequently for the same people it could create a base level of fairness. I'm personally intend on building my own whitelist and blacklist to be able to augment real people's voting strength / influence.
Would you create an algorithm for that ? Or would it be just on paper?
Doesn't matter how you do it, your step to create whitelist and blacklist is appreciated for implementation of fairplay across the platform..
That's a good question, parts of the process would definitely stay private. It could look like a subsription to multiple list services. The end goal to be a convenience to curate automatically by mirroring my vote with the wisdom of the "real" people.
Explanation for high upvote : https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/temporarily-pausing-my-anti-abuse-efforts-while-sbd-is-off-the-chart
As far as I understand, this is exactly why @andybets created @steemreports.
Let's shine a light on this!
And if these people, or any of them, are helping SBD pump by bringing investors in, it is terrible because Steem is the solid and stable investment. Someone buying SBD $12 will be burned when SBD comes back to its pegged value of $1.
And they are guilty of treason to the platform that makes so much money if they could have brought investment into Steem but chose to pump SBD instead.
It remains to be seen how it all unfolds. I do hope that people's money is not burned in the dump.
is it really terrible since we can exchange sbd for steem and bring up the value of steem while sbd pumps?
before the pump we were sitting around 1usd.... so now the total value of the steemisphere has grown.... not sure what the big problem with speculators pumping sbd, obviously they do not participate in the platform or they would know that steem has the long term value
I'm actually not sure SBD aren't without long term value. They're notes, debts, like fiat currencies.
This may have implications for investors I am ignorant of. I am NOT the smartest guy in the room in that respect, I am sure.
The whole reason for SBD, IIRC, was to ease folks into crypto by providing a token pegged to the dollar, which they could then more easily grasp the value of. I know of no intrinsic harm that comes from SBD being valued more highly, other than the failure of that ease of familiarity.
I think SBD are a target for sophisticated speculators because of the very small supply of them, which potentiates the pump and dump.
Further, I have heard top witnesses say that the peg wasn't so much to keep SBD from going up higher than $1, but to keep them from going lower. It was this feature of the peg that could help cryptonewbs to have confidence in the token.
Great comment, I absolutely agree!
It is as it mostly is.
The rich get richer and the poor (uninformed or newbies) get poorer, because they follow a trend not knowing that the SBD price is surreal big and probably will go back to $1 again.
I think there are various reasons which lead to the high prices.
On one side I think this is manipulated of whales or big investors who want to get the big money.
On the other side there are I think the Koreans amongst others who put much money into SBD.
Maybe they didn't understand the system yet? Or it is clear intention..
I don't know, but something definitely is going wrong here..
I don't know why it is that as soon as there is "money involved" people start to behave badly. OK, so by "badly," I mean self-serving, typically to the detriment of others (or a majority).
I love the idealistic roots behind Steemit, but not so much the ways there immediately is an invasion of people who exploit the system. But we have a system here where you can get benefit through a legitimate approach ("create worthy content and be social")... so WHY focus on exploiting the system with groups like this?
In a sense, it's shades of the same issue with whales delegating their SP to paid upvote services for profit. I have nothing against investors wanting to profit, but why the hell not delegate that same SP to trusted manual curators, also for profit?
Why are these people always choosing to profit from the lowest common denominator, when they can also profit from a higher common denominator? It feels really sketchy to me...
So is @patrice and Co. aware of this group?
It's too hard for many to see bigger picture. To understand that by behaving socially they benefit more than by reaping present-day fruits.
yeah agree with you
Not sure what the big deal is here? This is going on widespread all across the platform from just about every user on here. They vote for their friends, nothing new here. It seems you could look into just about any account and find similar patterns if you looked hard enough.
Heck I just looked into your account and see you upvote @zer0hedge right at the 6th day mark just before posts payout, should we look into that a bit more.
Not to mention the self voting you used to do on some other accounts you owned from a while back, looks like it was @julianita, ring a bell?
Accusing others is easy to forget your dirty deals are also public.