Steemit Will Survive - How Only You Can Make it Happen!steemCreated with Sketch.

in #steemit • 7 years ago (edited)

Can a Little Minnow Like Me Really Make a Difference?

Yes.

Now let me quickly explain why it matters, then I'll share how easy it is to do..

Why It Matters

One of the best parts about Steemit is that it is decentralized. This means that there is no "governing body" who controls everything that happens on Steemit. This is Amazing! No more censorship!

This wonderful fact about Steemit also comes with a risk. The risk is that "bad actors" can come onto Steemit and there is no single body that can stop them. But that doesn't mean that nobody can stop them!

How You Can Make it Happen

This is the part where you and I come in.

As we all know, Steemit is a place where people share content through Posts, Comments, Re-Steeming, and Voting. The more votes that any content receives, the more that content is rewarded (speaking at a very simplified level).

We all need to be diligent in the uses of our Votes.

Before you upvote a person's comment on your posts, or a new person's post, take a quick look at their account. (Click their account name, then click the account picture).

  1. Open Their Blog Page. Do you see any Blog Posts? Do they look like a real person wrote them?
  2. Open Their Comments Page. Scroll down the page through some of the comments. Do you see the same Comments repeating in a pattern? Do you see the person only posting "I'm Following You, Follow Me Back"?
  3. Open Their Wallet Page. Do you see any activity that looks unusual?

All of these steps shouldn't take you more than 30 to 60 seconds, but it could be the difference between providing a Spam Bot or Spam Account with part of the rewards pool, and therefore justifying its existence, and promoting its harm on our community, OR making a difference and Fighting Back!

How We Fight Back

If you are 100% certain that the account you just looked at is a Spam Account, and is hurting or deceiving the community, I want you to now Flag The Post.

Do you remember the part where I mentioned that there is no governing body on Steemit? We have to each, individually, be the RESPONSIBLE governing body to protect the community.

Some Rules of Thumb:

  • If you are not 100% Sure that an account is Spam, DON'T Flag it. We Are NOT trying to censor the community here, only protect it from TRUE SPAM.
    -- You can always leave a comment on the posts / comments which you're unsure about.
  • Do Not go around flagging EVERYTHING from a single account. If we all do this the right way, there won't be a need for that.
  • If you disagree with the content, but it's Not Spam. DON'T Flag it. That's not what the Flag is for.
  • Consider Adding a Comment for WHY you Flagged a Post. This will allow a reasonable person to respond.
    -- If the person responds to you and has a legitimate reason for why they posted what they posted, and their response is HUMAN (not some automated reply), You Can Always UN-FLAG a Comment or Post!

While it may be tempting to flag all the new users who are Real People and using the "follow-for-follow" or "upvote-for-upvote" methods, I am NOT asking you to target those individuals. I'm hoping that time and apathy toward those people will discourage them soon enough. We know that is not a sustainable practice, but we shouldn't be Flagging Real People (unless they are Plagiarists).


Be Vigilant.


Be Skeptical.


Help the Community Fight Back.


_____________________________________________________

Thanks for reading, I hope you have a great day!
_____________________________________________________

If you want to read more, please take a look at some of my other posts:

My Crypto Updates:

#blog #minnowsunite #steem-help #writing
7 years ago in #steemit by
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     7 years ago 

    We all need to help out to make this a better place!

    @spaminator does a great job of finding the spam bots and the community will flag to remove their rewards!

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       7 years ago 

      I agree, it's a community effort!

      The more people that make the effort, the better off we will all be in the long-run.

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         7 years ago 

        I think flagging can be dangerous a bit, as some people tend to overreact on some parts, and newcommers will be confused and flag bots even.

        Maybe flagging should be a feature that becomes available when reaching a specific level instead, as by then people should have a good idea about what to flag and what not to flag.

        thats just my 2cents on this.

        But yea surely, check what you upvote and whos blog it is, takes no time at all.

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           7 years ago 

          Thanks for your comment.

          I agree that flagging can become dangerous in the wrong hands. We have seen even whales abusing the flag feature, so I don't think that reputation or age of account should be a specific factor for flagging capability.

          There are many ways to prevent abuse (in general), however, most of them seem to require a "centralized" body. By allowing all users to flag, or not to flag, it encourages individuals to use their best judgement. Also, you must be aware that if you are flagging inappropriately, unless you're the biggest whale on Steemit and can fend off all of the other whales who might oppose you, The Community Can Punish Inappropriate Flaggers.

          I have seen several cases where inappropriate flaggers were handled by groups of individuals who stood up for the victim of inappropriate flagging. WooHoo! The System Worked!

          I have also seen cases of inappropriate flagging hurting helpless individuals with no recourse. *sigh * The System Failed.

          Using flags decreases your Voting Power, so it's not an unlimited resource. I think this consideration was a very intelligent addition by the developers. It also means that no single individual can control all of the Spam.

          Until there is a better system created, I think that encouraging the flagging of REAL SPAMMERS is the best thing that we can do. We need to all work together.

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            [-]
             7 years ago 

            I like Your ideas on how to identify a spam account. From my experience, you can not teach everybody on how to behave if they are not taught that in childhood. And it is impossible that everybody is going to follow your suggestions. People are lazy. They see a button and click on it.

            Probably creators of Steemit should make it more visible for users the information you just wrote. It is not so hard to add this information to the user profile.
            screenshot 2017-08-24 at 14.42.47.png

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               7 years ago 

              Thanks for your comment!

              Which information do you think should be more visible? I mentioned a few things, so I am curious which part stuck out to you the most.

              Thanks!

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                 7 years ago 

                This is my second day here. I have a very limited amount of information about how this system/network works. Here is how I see Steemit from being here for two days.

                In two words: a place where a greedy people try to get noticed

                If you already have identified the problem then you should define the things you are going to measure. Then implement those things, measure and see what works and what does not.

                I do not know your goals on what you are trying to achieve here. I was looking at it from a user perspective on what I would like to see here - a blog content site that could compete with platforms like Medium.com. Or maybe a platform that offers possibilities to third-party developers to build their businesses. In both those cases the user is the king and you should start to value the users you want to succeed.

                I liked the idea on checking the user comments, blog posts and other user generated stuff. If you value the quality content then it is useful to make a badge (it is silly but it works) and put in face. If you suggest to see the posts and comments of user, then why not putting them as a clickable links under his username.

                If you fight comment spam then make a downvote and see how many users and in what situations use it, is it useful fighting spam or not. Those are the measurable things that matter. Posting suggestions and trying to teach users is useless. But maybe I'm wrong and you can succeed. That is what I would like to see. 😉

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                 7 years ago 

                Ok. I think I understand where you're coming from now.

                Steemit is a Social Media platform that rivals (or relates to) a combination Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc. The differentiator for Steemit is that instead of simply liking posts comments on these other platforms and getting nothing out of it (besides seeing more and more Advertisements where each of those other platforms are making money off of you - the user), Now you - the user - are in control of where the dollars are earned.

                As a user of Steemit, you get to create your own brand (i.e. Blog / Comments / Upvotes / etc.) and have the opportunity to be rewarded for the content that you're creating, or "curating". You also are the decider on where money from the platform is provided (you have the ability to upvote content, your upvotes are worth money to the recipients).

                Everything in Steemit is stored and transacted on the blockchain and there is no centralized "admin" group. All of the users on Steemit are both the content generators, payment distributors, and platform admins.

                If you click someone's username, then click their picture, you'll be directed to their blog. Their blog gives you more options to see all of their Blog Posts, Comments, Replies, and Wallet (containing all of the financial transactions a user has performed on the blockchain).

                The system is well thought out, and well implemented. It's the users who are "breaking" the system by using it for purposes that it was not intended who are the problem. As a software engineer you can only plan so far ahead for how people may try to manipulate your beautiful work of art into a self-profiting machine before you over-engineer everything.

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                   7 years ago 

                  I'm starting to understand what is what. I found the source of it Steem. And all the projects like steemit.com, busy.org and others are just apps that use this Steem blockchain. So, for example, if I do not like steemit.com, I can use another implementation, created by rivals or build my own. 👍

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