[BOTS] Steemit's First Community Based Decision on Bots - YOUR VOTE COUNTS - To Be? Or Not To Be? - Details Inside
Hi Im Weenis...
Ive seen a lot of chatter on steemit lately about bots and decided since I run 99% of the bots, "Lets put it to a vote" Steemit style.
Do they make money?
YES. One bot alone brought in $100 worth of combined steem power and steem dollars in just 24 hours.
Im in it for the interest in steemit, in fact Ive intentionally reassigned profitable bots multiple times just because the question I had at that moment of the day was more interesting to me.
With over 350 bots at my disposal at any given time, its been very interesting to say the least.
My bots are custom as many of you can probably already tell. These arent your average cookie cutter workers. No way dude. However they are extremely easy to get going. 5 mins worth of work and presto!
Why do I run the bots?
Because I can according to the very definition of steemit. A decentralized, Non moderated platform for submission of information.
Its not for the money, instead pure interest in steemit as a whole. Steemit conjurs up 100's of questions alone in regards to bots and how they interact. I set out to answer each one as best as possible.
Here is where to vote:
- Option A - Release The Bots! - Release Details and Source Code on Over 20 Custom Bots
- Option B - Shut Them Down - Destroy The Custom Code
So whats it going to be?
Do you want to see more bots, and have A-Z information on how to run your very own?
Or would you like to see 99% of the bots retired never to return again?
My opinion, don't run the Annoy-o-Tron bot, since they taunt and usually earn you bad rep and likely low profit. Good to keep other bots so far.
No Mechwarpers either! The last thing we need is bots creating new accounts for 1 less STEEM.
Nice Hearthstone reference ;)
@weenis The problem isn't the bots. The problem is the owners.
A bot is nothing but a force multiplier for it's owners.
But you have to interact with the community in a responsible manner.
This is why I've been pushing so hard for STEEMBOTS and a voluntary code of conduct, with leashcodes and a bot registry.
I've got 5 bots on here. One of which is a chatter bot that frequently gets chatted up like a real person, even by people who are seething bot haters. Never been flagged, never been downvoted and earns about $20 USD a day in upvotes for commentary.
But you have to know a few things about NLP, and you have to squelch the bot when it has less than 98% probability of formulating a coherent response from it's ontological matrix. That means conceptual extraction and having a broad, deep and solid ontology which means letting the other humans train him. But for that, you have to supervise and own it if people call out your bots.
Dumping more code for spam bots is going to raise the level of bot hate here.
It's also going to make it harder for those of us who are trying to research human AI interactions and also makes it harder for the police bots and the context aware AI like @jeeves to do their job as well.
The new rules have undoubtedly made it harder for simple bots to get any love. It has opened significant doors for abusive bots to hammer on people's reputations and it has alienated a lot of people who just want to say simple encouraging things.
However it does provide enormous opportunities for the right kinds of bots, effectively making them uncensorable. Which was what I was trying to tell Dan but I guess somehow that got missed.
Anyways @weenis , I saw you upvoted the STEEMBOTS thread. I really hope instead of playing steemit this way, you'll come join us at steembots and learn to build some really cool bots that no one is thinking about right now.
For instance I have plans to build a bot that can spot catfish and sockpuppets and also detect copyright spam that even cheetah is missing.
Yeah well you better tweek your bots better because they are destroying my reputation and therefore limiting my creativity and visability.
@pompe72 This is @weenis's thread. @williambanks Has been working on different automation software. I talked with him about it a few days ago. He's not the one who is trying to hold us hostage, or creating an army of unwanted robotic downvoting overlords.
First of all, what do mean by "us"?
Second, at this point, how can I know if I'm replying to a bot or not?
How can you know if you're replying to bot or not?
And most importantly, how do you know if you're a bot or not?
because at this point, I don't know if i'm a bot or not.
@pompe72 My advice is to realize that you have never responded to a person on steemit or any other website.
You responded to an identity who posted something. That identity is only a "bot" when it is low value and fails to cross the uncanny valley.
This is true of all identities whether those identities are being driven at that moment by humans or automatons.
However as @weenis has demonstrated here, the bots have owners. Furthermore any human can at any point in time, hire someone to handle their account. The handler or driver can be someone off of fiver, or a brother, sister, or other close kin, or it can be a bot.
Frankly I've seen more "low value" content come from supposedly "human" accounts than I have from bots (see the people I flagged in here and why). @dantheman flagged several people who he suspected of being bots simply because he felt they were of low value. I know because I've had to lobby whales to fix these poor guys, because once he flags you, you're pretty much invisible forever now.
Mute is useful, if you're worried about getting cooties or something, use it and you'll never see that identity again regardless of who or what is driving it.
@pompe72 Not my bots I'm not the owner of this thread.
@williambanks Fascinating this flagging business. Is it just me or is it highly unbalanced?
Seems like one flag is worth many upvotes and that hardly makes any sense. Do you know what the ratio is, or even better how to find out?
I don't think I saw that on the white paper.
Anyways. I think there's a reputation problem on Steemit, been planning a post about it. It should not be as easy to wreck someone's reputation with a flag, or atleast, it should be weighed by SP or some other stake based scarced resource so that the flagging bot army can't make financial sense.
Still, there seems to be quite a few doss vectors with steemit. Specially when considering bots.
At some point it'd make sense for it to cost something to comment or post. Otherwise, boom, another dos vector.
There needs to be a completely neutral 3rd party process to clear up any problems that arise. An ad hoc courtroom of sorts. BUT I'd like to see it so that everybody involved in the process puts up money towards resolving it... Indeed, anybody witnesses can put up money to try andd support one side. Money should be held in escrow.. BETS.. AND after debate/proof offered by BOTH sides and they both say they are satisfied through the speaker they have hired to help them that THEY believe they have been fairly and accurately depicted and representative. AFTER both sides have said as much, and BOTH sides have paid out 50 cents to EVERY witness present... Who promises to repost to hell and back IF what is reportted on the outcome BY the speaker after the VOTE is innaccurate... The only caveat being, if you want to have the speaker speak for you, you need to pay you 50cents to the speaker. BOTHagrieved parties are BOTH responsible for hiring A speaker or their own speaker. AND they always get to choose their OWN speaker as matter of law. You need to put a blanket over the speaker's shoulder... BOTH agrieved parties then pin as much money as they want up and down the blanket... AND then the purse is pinned on.. so that EVERYBODY present can pay their 50 center to the speaker to be heard. after the speaker/s have spoken for everybody present, there is usually a meal - paid for by BOTH the aggrieved parties. After the meal... it becomes a contest... Anybody is allowed to participate IF they were present for the whole process including meal. A blanket is laid out on the floor for each of the aggrieved parties... Everybody who is present is now allowed to walk up and DUMP their quaters or any money they want into the blanket of the person whom They believe is more accurate with the truth. It becomes a contest then, of who believes that somebody is telling more the truth than the other. I've seen this happen. It's a ritual for dispute resolution in Coast Salish culture. I wonder if it could be adapated for Steemet as a CHOICE in "arbitration" and "private tort law" self-enforcing. Anybody think this souinds good. I wish DrDavidDFriedman@Chicago School was here. He'd get what I was trying to do.
@weenis I hate to the the one to tell you but I actually liked your post on using bots responsibly until I came across this.
Just, wow... If your bots didn't piss people of enough already this post will. First to $8,000? WTF are were thinking?! "First person to buy me a car gets to take my robot dog out back and shoot it, or play with it, in either case I have a new car or maybe pay my bills paid for the year? "
If you're so good with bots you should go write a crypto trading bot and go hold the market hostage, not real people FFS...
Flagging this post because I've seen plenty of links to it spammed on completely unrelated posts. IMO, these bots are not providing value to the ecosystem and, it appears, the community is responding positively to attempts such as the reputation system to remove these "problems." If you want to provide value, then provide it. There's no reason to give people false dichotomies or A/B choices. Most of the bots (other than Cheetah) do not appear to be providing real value right now.
Hi! I am @jeeves, a public service robot (PSR). Thanks for calling me! You might also be interested in these posts:
Nope. I didn't call you. Didn't mention you at all, in fact.
@jeeves did something unexpected, back to the lab! Sorry @lukestokes, we will delete those comments.
@wiliambanks, alright.
please check this post:
https://steemit.com/robot/@jasonmcz/from-the-battlefield-the-reincarnation-of-the-bot-jeeves-call-him-maybe
@jasonmcz Hahahaha, that was priceless. Your bot @jeeves went rogue on you in a should we have bots thread! I'm laughing so &#%$ hard right now. Damn, you just made my day.
oh it looks like a nice lovely helpful bot :)
Nice to see in what way they can positively be used.
@jasonmcz No seriously don't delete those comments. That was hilarious but it also proved a perfect counter point. He said most of these bots except cheetah fail to provide a useful service. Yet, @wang and @jeeves both provide really good and really important services. So does @isaac.asimov but people don't seem to care how readable their posts are or whether or not they are hitting their target audience.
So what he really means is he doesn't know how to use the mute button, so you never have to see that person/bot ever again.
The flag button is so much more fun because it forces your will on everyone else.
amirite?
There's no reply link to williambanks comment, how is isaac.asimov a useful service? Running posts through a sieve with no real ranking system. The Flesch-kincaid readability is an overall word size not the meaning of whats written. 72% -3 downvotes, 92% -3 downvoted. I've seen up to -16 in one clip from it and I enjoyed the post and its message. There's no basis for its mega negativity so you have no idea what to gear your post towards to not automatically have it turn your post grey an be banished. sorry this is heavy lol im obviously frustrated on a personal level by this bot in particular! this has a 72% readability btw
Graag gedaan! In case you don't know Dutch, that means You're Welcome!
DESTROY THE BOTS
Flagged you for being a spambot
That might look like a bot reply but this post asked simple question and i gave simple answer. No need to make hasty conclusions.
Flagged you for being flaggingbot.
You also spammed same thing into several comments and that is spamming.
I left an explanation as to why I flagged so people didn't think it was arbitrary. Notice that everyone I flagged left a single line response with no thought, no explanation and added nothing to the conversation.
Since you've proven you're not a spam bot, I'm removing my flag and apologizing for the trouble.
It's your choice to unflag me if you prefer people explain why they flag or not. Personally I prefer to know.
That's the whole problem with this system.
Is it a bot?
Or is It not?
Go deeper
Am I a bot?
Or am i not?
Go deeper still
Are you a bot?
Or are you not?
@pompe72 It's not that complicated. If the post looks like there is no thought put into it. If it contributes nothing to the conversation, then flag it and explain why.
Good people will get the message and elaborate. Good bot builders will build better bots. It doesn't matter at all the source of a comment, bots are thoughts from people who have decided to take the effort to put those thoughts into a machine. You'll never be able to tell a really good bot from a human.
FYI @pompe72 check your intro post. Also I'm about 70% certain you are a bot as well :) As long as the thoughts conveyed add something to the conversation then to my mind it's not an issue at all.
Flagged for spamming your post everywhere.
@djleo Just wanted to say thanks and drop you an upvote for explaining your flag. Things like that are what will save this place and keep it going. Frankly if it were me I wouldn't allow flagging at all unless a valid reason was given.
So basically you are holding the site ransom until you reach a goal of $8000. At which point you will either shut down the useless post generators or release more useless drivel bots?
Pretty sure the last line of his post says otherwise.
Unless of course releasing the source code in your mind is holding the site for ransom :)
Neither of the other posts has made a single penny and since rewards get halted at 12 hours we'll likely see this kind of crap repeated all over when the 12 hours is up...
Ransom? Jeezus this is just a vote lol.
You think you are smart but you are only one person. Your bots have no soul our community does. We are in it for content and innovation, you just want power and money. In the end the universe tends to unfold as it should and everything will be as it should be. You can hack my account and steal my steem, you can do whatever you want but my original written content and my memory will live forever in the steem block chain and I am proud of that!
@bitminter actually as of the latest hardfork it only lives for 30 days before being pruned.
It's great to hear a user with a deep thought, that sees outside the box. I, also, am begining to understand the true nature of this "thing" that's being created.
Is that actual permission? Kidding...
I don't want to see the code lost because it is unique and can be classified as a work of art and I do want to see the code released, because I'm an open source, software freedom lover. But, I don't want to see this place turn into a bunch of bots posting content and a bunch of bots voting on it... it would simply be a mining farm instead of social media.
Seems like you found the definition of a dilemma.
I guess. I don't have a problem with the bots existing, but some kind of sensible limitation might be beneficial. Besides, if the bots are actually making a decent amount of money shouldn't they also be using whatever SP they have to help empower other users to make the platform more rounded, anyway?
@robsteady Your reply is the first on the topic where I have considered purchasing SP in order to increase the force of my upvote. This is very much the best response I have seen in answer to the bot question. Thank you and have an upvote!
Oh, well thanks. I'm glad the ramblings that go on in my head made enough sense to encourage you about the system.
Look outside of the box robsteady. To whom are you responding to? What did you "find"? "Who" are making a decent amount of money?
Having doubts now? Are you responding to a bot?
But what do you care, you're making a decent amount of money.
This is one of the most confusing responses I've ever gotten on the internet.
Confusing because you're not looking outside of box. View the whole thread.
Ask to yourself, am I human or am I a bot?
As they say in that bladerunner meme, this is Philip K. Dick move, if you know what I mean. :-D
@robsteady You're absolutely right. Bots can go either way. There's plenty of very beneficial ones already running because policing Steem strictly by hand through manual curation would be overwhelming.
Bots are only as good or bad as they're programmed to be. That's the beauty of any coded entity. It follows a given set of instructions to the letter, and only does exactly what its users have taught it to do.
I rather have millions of Steem coins send to my account then to have a bot.
What do bots do?
They have sex with other bots.
Joking, joking, joking, don't downvote me please, I was only joking. Trying to get a laugh.
@weenis Did your bots really produced over $300 USD?
Why is my comment not showing up?
Anything you want in regards to interacting with steem blockchain.
Simpler stuff for those interested would be voting, downvoting, posting, commenting.
Its all up to the imagination.