Steemit – We Need To Talk
Losing Steem
Ya know – I had high hopes for this platform. I really did. Now, just a month and a half in, I've gotta admit – I'm feelin' more than a bit discouraged.
By most standards, I've done pretty well for a newbie. I've played by the rules, drafting my posts with care, engaging with other Steemians, making sincere connections and attempting to beautify Steemit with interesting imagery, whenever and wherever possible. I mean not to inflate the significance of my offerings, but I've posted only high quality, original content and have (mostly) been rewarded for doing so.
All the while, I've been aware of the darker sides of Steemit, yet imagined I could simply find my niche and exist in my own little corner, without ever bumping up against its more unsavory aspects. How very naive of me.
I see so much potential here. Yet the truly good is summarily surpassed by the torrent of absolute shit posts, flagrant reward pool abuse and early-adopting whales who've decided they're the ones to decide the rules of engagement. Step outta line and they'll punish you. Speak up in defense and they can easily destroy you with no more than a passing thought and petty flag, or twelve, or precisely as many yet-to-payout posts as you have on your blog.
Holding Nothing Back
Six days ago I boldly shared a post that had taken me 3 days to draft. It is the most raw, intimate piece of writing I have ever made public – a vulnerable recounting of my life-long struggle with depression and recent, unsettling brush with suicide.
I proofread many times over, checking for typos, ensuring my markdown styling was correct and working, revising wordy parts, making sure the finished piece was clean and easy to read. I used my own illustrations as visual support. I offered resources for anyone presently battling their own depressive demons. As I do with everything – I gave all of myself to it, and published – despite considerable trepidation – choosing to trust that it was safe to do so.
Of course – as I'm certain every single one of us here is guilty of – I hoped it would do well. Not just in terms of my own potential earnings, but also because I know that only those that earn well show up in the trending feeds and I wanted this piece to land in front of as many eyes as possible – to reach all those who might benefit from its message.
I published, then gave it a little time to make its own waves – it barely made a ripple. So I began doing all I could to help it be seen, as organically as I was able. I posted in promotion channels, shared it with folks on the Steemit Ramble discord (huge thanks to @shadowspub for including it in one of her rambles) and I reached out to my new friend @aussieninja to invite him to read it, hoping he'd find it worthy of a @curie vote. He tried to submit it, and learned that someone else already had. Yet, I've received the curie before, and too recently – apparently, it's really only meant to be received once.
Still, he hoped I'd get it, as the guidelines seem somewhat malleable and he felt this post warranted consideration. So...I waited – just in case – hoping someone with a valuable vote might notice.
7 days? Try 3.5 – that's all you get.
By the time I accepted that I wasn't going to get that highly sought after support, my post was already 2 days old and sitting with an unimpressive $1.80 in potential rewards. Lemme tell ya – to have worked so hard on a thing – that hurt. Especially when one considers how much genuine garbage regularly draws in well upwards of $100. What can I say? I'm human – it's pretty much impossible not to feel deflated by that glaring discrepancy.
While I'm generally fine with earning mere pennies, I really cared about this post. So I added the #ocd-resteem tag. I tried to register for @qurator, only to have my coins refunded. I repeatedly transferred funds to @minnowbooster, yet each and every time they were returned, despite having carefully matched my values to the graph on their homepage. I'm pretty sure it's broken, yet no one in their discord is responding to my queries.
Not ready to give up, I begrudgingly started watching a few bid-bots when the post was 4 days old – already too aged to qualify for most. I was reluctant, as every single one was showing negative ROIs, so...again, I waited. I hoped @minnowbooster would miraculously work out in the end.
Yesterday afternoon, seeing that MB was still only available for bids .19 and under – amounts that would make no discernible difference, really – I finally caved, and sent $5 SBD to @sneaky-ninja.
Congratulations. You're a Winner.
While I've found @grumpycat's antics mildly amusing before this, having won his unfortunate attention, I'm seeing things from a whole new angle. It takes a lot to piss me off. This – this didn't just upset me – it made my blood boil.
Shame on me for not resorting to bid bots sooner – for doing absolutely everything else to promote my post and actually imagining that high quality content was still high quality content, even 5 days later. What a horrendous reward-pool abuser I must be with my whopping $5 SBD bid. I clearly deserved swift scolding to whip my ass into docile compliance.
No – I'm not about to sheepishly recoil with my tail between my legs like a reprimanded puppy whose face has just been shoved in her own shit. I genuinely don't believe I deserved to be flagged. I'll not keep my mouth shut just because speaking up risks a kind of childish backlash that could quite possibly ruin me.
Turns out I'm not such a quiet little bird, after all.
@grumpycat – I'm callin' you out.
I agree – the ugliness of bots being used in the eleventh hour to boost bullshit posts is a thing that desperately needs regulating. How to go about that is understandably tricky in a decentralized environment. At least you're doing more than most to try to squash that particular issue – I'll give you that.
What I cannot wrap my head around nor even remotely get behind, is you behaving like an untouchable bully – as though your word is the golden standard to which all Steemians must adhere. Just because you've declared yourself the not-to-be-crossed-nor-questioned Steemit police doesn't grant you the authority, nor preclude you from treating others with respect.
However valid the original issue, your chosen response assumes that everything is black and white – that every instance reflects one and the same indiscretion. It allows no room for the droves of people joining every day – the ones just trying to find their footing who know nothing of your strict protocols. Punishing newbies who unknowingly 'step out of bounds' sends the wrong message and is quite likely to scare them off. How can that possibly be good for Steemit?
Your unfortunate chauvinism aside, the thing that truly discredits you is your hypocritical habit of self-voting. Flippantly downvoting without so much as a glance at the post's content – then upvoting your own self-aggrandizing comment – reveals a marked lack of integrity.
Not only are you a self-proclaimed enforcer of laws you wrote yourself, you're no better than a crooked cop – the kind who pull you over, proudly hand you a citation, then take your wallet and empty it into their own, whistling as they walk off with a smirk, knowing you can't do a damn thing about it.
So – I'm asking you to clarify – how are you protecting the reward pool by flagging a post that was worth just a few SBD, only to reward yourself with >$80 for doing so?? Do you honestly believe you earned that? You're draining more from the reward pool than you're saving. Period.
If you're sincerely trying to protect Steemit, as you apparently claim, then I challenge you to behave accordingly – stop rewarding yourself so handsomely. Otherwise, you're no better than the pillagers you seek to dissuade.
Lastly – I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the upside to 'winning' your downvote. Turns out, speaking up yesterday about your lack of discernment garnered a fair bit of unexpected support and earned me some awesome new followers. For that – I thank you.
Turns out I am a winner, after all...
To those of you who so kindly showed up to mitigate the damage – You're the reason I'm stickin' around. Reading your words reminded me why I felt compelled to share in the first place. Your heartfelt comments doused the flames beneath me, quieting the painful whistle of rapidly escaping 'steem'.
Perhaps we've got a long way to go before we figure out how to collectively govern this space with diplomacy and fairness, but...I do believe its possible.
Full steem ahead,
xo Zippy
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Look at the ~95% garbage that @sneaky-ninja sell votes on.
https://steemit.com/@sneaky-ninja/transfers
I consider it more fair to let people who invested into Steem claim their respective share of the reward pool than to let vote selling bots, most of them just renting their Steem power, make money while attracting nothing at stake, opportunist spammers by selling them profitable votes that are harder to flag and currently provides near zero promotional benefits.
Sample chats from "The Resistance" Discord:
Michael David = @neaky-ninja
Did it ever crossed your mind that we can instead, at any time, send tips directly to the authors?
You two can't be trusted to think straight anymore.
Until I have any SP you will remain in my cross-hair.
Reward-pool doesn't suddenly empty out. Maybe a more knowledgeable person like witness @drakos can explain that to you.
Look at that spineless @MichelDavid, flagging this post but too moron to respond anything.
So in the name of "surprise payouts" this guy is unwilling to comply with the 3.5 day rule? Seems fishy.
ETA: Last minute upvotes (from everyone, not just bots) from the last 3 days total 298.33. Comment self-votes from grumpy during the same period total more than 1106.86. In the next 7 days, he's scheduled to make 3,697.65 SBD mainly from self-voted comments.
In all actuality, michaeldavid probably has more of a problem with the rule itself as it is being enforced without any discussion or input from him or anyone else for that matter. Why 3.5? Why not 3.6? Why not 3.25? Why not one? If this "rule" comes from the top of some unknown's head, what's to stop him from suddenly changing his mind? He is not bound to the people he proclaims to govern. Lastly, his solution will do very little by itself to stop the behavior he hopes to eliminate. He has not communicated or committed to any follow on actions on his part. he has not said "If you cut the votes to 3.5 days that will give me enough time to go through and downvote all of the spam." or anything like that to my knowledge. He has resisted efforts to work together with the bots for a solution. That's probably why sneaky won't simply cave to these demands.
He has said that by cutting the votes to 3.5 days that it will give curators enough time to go through and downvote all of the spam. He has said it.
It's not that 3.6 or 3.4 days or 1 day or 1 hour or 1 second. It's that curators would like more than 12 hours to stop plagiarists. It absolutely will make a difference!
A post does not need to be upvoted via a bid-bot on the sixth day. I know some honest people do it to give their voters better curation, as well as surprising unknown quality authors with a last-minute payout.
I watch plagiarists do this all the time. Having 12 hours to get the word out is not enough time. By the time any waves are made, the abuser has already been paid.
From the second a post is made, the community has 7 days to determine if it's original and not overpaid. When someone sneaks in and upvotes last minute on an obviously stolen picture or video, it gives less than 12 hours for a post that was buried and nobody paid it any attention. The plagiarist is not happy with his false efforts, so he pays for an upvote and benefits from the rewards paying out 12 hours later.
They would be less likely to use upvote bots, and more likely to find a different way to exploit so as to not get caught, but at least the bidbots would be cleaned up a bit.
Where is the discussion from the curators in which the 3.5 line was determined? Shouldn't the bot owners also have a say in that discussion? Also, why limit such a target to bots? Don't regular users like sweetsjj or whatever her name is do the same thing? What about solutions the bots have already implemented such as a 5 day limit? Is 12 hours enough time to get word to the bot owners themselves? I would think so. Has grumpy enlisted their help before trying to bully them into submission?
I am a curator and did discuss it with myself.
Self-curator discussing things with yourself?
My point exactly. You haven't proven yourself to be a rational decision maker in a vacuum. You need help. Just ask any of your victims.
His idea to stop the abuse is rational. His decision to take matters into his own hands, when nobody is doing anything about it is also rational.
Or are you saying that doing nothing is rational?
Once again. sticks head in sand
Although I can see the humour in the comment, do you think its worth 76 bucks?!
Did you know it takes 4000 100% self-upvotes to get your investment back instead of power down? Do you think @grumpycat should've invested the over 300k in SP into something else, a voting bot for example, to get more return from the scammers? Do your math, and stop complaining about self-upvoting.
I have a friend who is fed Friskies, I have tried to get her to switch to something better like Ziwi Peak but insists Friskies is the best.
Any suggestions on getting her to switch?
Well it's been an on-going debate/discussion for at least 2 months now. He obviously didn't give a sufficient warning as even to this day not everyone has heard of this new unofficial rule. Let's just call it a guideline with more potential as opposed to a rule. People around here seem to hate rules of any kind.
If I really spent the time I could find countless articles (as well as upvotes, indicating "hey, I agree with this" where people are saying what grumpycat is doing is both good and bad. Even I have said it. Yup, the bully approach sucks. I don't agree with it.
Seems any approach is frowned upon though....
When people are nice about it, the abuser typically laughs while he runs off with his unearned rewards.
When people are mean, wow he's so mean. How dare he act like this.
Sticks head back in sand
So if we as a community (or you) (or the bot owners) (we can exclude me if you want) can't come up with some kind of agreement, then this platform is screwed.
Don't change anything to 3.5 day. Everybody ignore the millionaire cat.
Just ignore the reasons, ignore the abuse. Ignore everything.
Just let him flag and maybe he'll go away after a year or two.
Here’s the thing, though — @grumpycat flat out refuses to work with anyone else to collectively address these issues and find viable solutions.
The abuse is most certainly not being ignored. As far as I’ve seen, no one disagrees that the problem he’s combating is significant — most everyone takes issue with how he’s doing it, particularly his insistence on self-voting.
If the ultimate success of this platform is truly a motivating factor, then why so stubbornly insist on doing it alone? Why refuse to even consider combining forces? When has that ever worked, historically?
I said something nearly identical to your above words just yesterday, in a comment to @berniesanders : if we can’t figure out how to unify around our shared goals, than I fear Steemit’s days are numbered.
Good point! Thanks for your response, I'm glad that I'm not the only one that sees that we need to be more unified. Great minds think alike!
I was being sarcastic when I said ignore the abuse or that it is being completely ignored.
We all have an issue with how he's doing it. I can also say I had an issue with how it was being handled before @grumpycat started his...campaign.
It's a lot of bickering back and forth. If we want steemit to be taken seriously, we need to get serious.
I wasn't fully aware that he was unwilling to work with anyone.
Work with us who are at least willing to work with you, @grumpycat.
I'm glad I'm not the only person that thinks tipping is a more sustainable alternative to a reward pool allocated to authors and curators.
In it's current form, $65 Million USD is paid to authors and curators in a single year. I wonder how much of it ends up in the hands of abusers? I wonder how long is this sustainable?
Replacing the reward pool for authors and curators system with a tipping system could save the future of Steemit. I know it's a unpopular idea among authors and curators, but if the whole system collapses within a few years, you won't have any reward pool at all to receive a share from.
What would be the incentive to invest?
I see three stages of the tipping system.
Stage 1: Investors tip authors to incentivize the production of quality content.
Stage 2: General public is drawn to the quality content. Some of them buy Steem to be able to participate more than it is possible for the initial 0.50 Steem.
Stage 3: Corporations, institutions, even governments start using Steemit to influence the general public. They need to buy Steem to promote their content.
When conflicting interests start to battle on Steemit, it comes down to who spends more Steem to get to the trending tab and the homepage of Steemit. Think about the elections, candidates, and their supporters.
That interest increases the demand on Steem and higher demand results in higher Steem prices. That's how investors profit from this cycle.
I explained this in greater detail in a post called How to Solve the Reward Pool Abuse Problem Once and For All and that post ignited some discussions so far in the comment section.
I'll head over to that thread some time today. My initial questions and concerns are:
This site currently gives money away for free. I am skeptical as to whether content quality will draw more to it. Why would they need Steem to do this model? Why not institute it with FIAT?
Money is value. Quality content is value as well. Also, it takes significant money to make significant money here. Many newbies realize that after their first week here.
I think you underestimate the amount of people on here now because of the free money who have became crypto enthusiasts after joining Steem/Steemit. I wonder if they would have come if they were told "They give you a little of money to tip with, then you have to buy it yourself."
The incentive for me to invest in crypto for the purposes of giving it away are slim. I'd rather they just have a paypal account and I could send it to them directly rather than having to go through an exchange (fees) for the purpose of donating it to content I like.
The speculative nature of the coin can only last for so long before it levels out, when it does, so does the site.
It depends on perspective. I know a lot of people in other countries find the money earned to be rather agreeable. I consider my earnings so far to be rather significant considering my super duper small monetary investment. Of course, I do not depend on income from Steem in any way.
I agree that content has value, but not as much as relationships. The current system encourages relationships much more than yours would.
I know it seems like I'm being rather negative...and I guess I am, but I do appreciate this out of the box thinking. I just have my doubts about its feasibility.
Have you ever tried to get data from @tipu? They basically run a similar service here on Steem already. Perhaps they will be willing to give you data on their usership.
@grumpycat — hello again. I sent you a message on discord but you’ve gone silent there. Sooo — I’m bringin’ it here, in hopes it’ll reach you.
That thing I suggested in my last reply...about a public discussion — everyone’s on board but you. All agree that your voice is important and should be present, however, we may proceed with a panel, with or without your participation, to discuss the issues that I know you care deeply about. I realize you may be averse to anything that might reveal who you are, so likelihood is low that you’ll agree, but I really do hope you’ll consider it. You have valid motivations and reasons for acting as you do. Perhaps folks will feel less defensive and appalled if they hear your explanations — if they hear the human behind the meme.
I’ll say it again — ultimately, we all want Steemit to thrive — I’m certain we can at least agree on that. To that end, all this passive/aggressive back and forth via comments and replies is unproductive. Can’t we at least try to find the similarities behind our differences?
@drakos @michaeldavid @aggroed — thoughts?
There is no debate to be had, ignorant customers are paying for the stubbornness of a few greedy and irresponsible bot owner.
Take the sum of my comments and line them up again't these bots argument if you think there is interest. Would upvote that.
As I also said above:
Fuck you GrumpyCat. Hope your power down is going well. Someone is talking about you, and I overheard that you dug your own grave by posting that real GrumpyCat lawsuit article. Now they have been turned onto the idea of pressing similar charges on you....and look at all that profit you have for them to scoop up. Hmm....I wonder if the court could freeze your account until it's all settled in a couple years?
Something blockchain something something.
Something bittrex something something.
And what are you going to do?
That may hide his identity, but it doesn't stop steemit from being forced to freeze his assets. Guess he would have to show himself if he wanted the assets to be claimed as his/her own.
Hey lickass why are you getting involved in something that is not your business, I am going to start flagging you from my other account that has more that 35,000 followers, so that close your mouth, or open it and go lick the Korean's ass for pennies.
Chinese Scammer @haejin Is A Little Japanese Fudge Packer (Flag @haejin Jackass)
https://steemit.com/life/@emmajoy/chinese-scammer-haejin-is-a-japanese-little-fudge-packer
p.s. Go freeze the Korean @haejin Jackass.
Grumpy,
I know you probably want to protect your position in the witness ranks, but at some point you have to stand up for what you believe in. You can't do that cowering behind a fake personna. At some point, you will have to take the honorable route. If you believe in your cause, don't be afraid to stand up, put your name on it, and engage in the debate. State your piece. Stop running away and hiding behind your money.
Smart...
https://steemit.com/serious-security/@fyrstikken/the-joy-of-flashing-the-steem-account-value
So you ARE a pussy, I got that one right.
ChumpyFAT
lmao
No cat, spineless is plagiarizing somebody's famous cat pic, and being an anonymous fucking coward like YOU bitch!
@grumpycat
This is from the Steem Whitepaper:
Maybe a more knowledgeable person like witness @drakos, or me, or just about anybody who took the time to RTFM before appointing themselves chief of steem police could explain that to you. If you had been more proactive in your investigation, you would realize that most investors lose on their investment but like @zipporah chose as a last resort to buy anyway in hopes of some exposure. See, though equal, in order for us to "claim our respective share of the reward pool" we need collaboration from other users. Since you whales are too busy claiming your shares to worry about us, we must resort to such tools in order to gain exposure for the equity we've put in.
When you use bystanders as pawns in your ill-planned scheme to change behavior, you can expect that they take that as an insult. So you should trust that they will be inclined to insult you in return.
ETA: upvoted for visibility. I will reverse my upvote in a few days. Feel free to remind me.
Posts get near zero extra exposure by buying votes after 2 days, imagine at the 3.5 to 6th...
Will for sure remind you.
It depends on how you're looking at it. If I were checking out @zipporah's blog 8 days ago, I would probably notice that "Choosing Life" was considerably higher than her other posts at that time. Seeing that, I might be inclined to look at it more deeply. I'm not saying it's always right, it's probably wrong more than right, but I'm against such sweeping reforms which sweep up the insignificant innocent along with the weeds. Anyway, my point was that you could get rid of the bots altogether if it wasn't so difficult for good content to get noticed. You're fighting for a bandaid to use on a small cut instead of searching for a pressure point to stop the bleeding.
No need. It's done. It would be nice if you did the same. I personally feel the sweat equity for my comment far outweighs any value added by yours. You lose a lot of credibility talking about abuse when you are steadily upvoting such small comments for 80 bucks. Frankly, I'd rather reward the scammers, at least they're likely to increase usership.
Upvoted for more visibility
FD.
We "can't be trusted to think straight anymore"? Funny cat, your hypocrisy amuses me. Why don't you become a witness and share you magnificent wisdom with the rest of us. We'll see who will vote for you.
P.S. I'd like to see you flex your muscles against someone bigger than you who is using the same bid bots like the rest, and upvoting shit posts every day. You know who I'm talking about. But you are spineless and prefer to bully the weak.
no
Show your face, coward pussy fucktard, come on, pussy, you can even bring your mom to hide behind, tho she too should be fucking called out for not aborting you.
Yeah cowardly little child, as repeatedly demonstrated.
NO BALLS is why we call you a PUSSY!
Oh so you are an admitted moron?
See – I knew you were a reasonable human beneath your gruff exterior. Thank you for showing up – for answering me – for demonstrating your ability to avoid being petty. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to clarify.
This whole thing has taught / is teaching me so much. I've got a lot to learn about how this all works and how best to conduct myself on this platform. Still, I do think it's dangerous to take bits of a private chat and share them, out-of-context – regardless who's 'right' or 'wrong.' That is true no matter the platform or circumstance. It's far too easy to extract only the bits that support your argument, while conveniently leaving out the parts that don't.
I was actually present during the above dialogue and the breadth of it did not read as negatively as these screenshots seem to insinuate. Of course, I'm not nearly as invested as you are here, so my perception is perhaps not as fueled by a need to protect my stake, as yours must understandably be.
To be honest – as someone just entering into this game, one who retains something of a broader perspective – I think my lack of stake may afford me a decidedly less emotional view.
No – I don't really know either of you (GC nor SN), but...I sincerely believe you're battling over a misunderstanding of one another's motives. I think you're actually on the same team. Perhaps you approach things from different angles, but – to a humble redfish such as myself – you appear to be far more alike than you are different.
All this peripheral bickering isn't really productive. Perhaps it's time for some kind of public gathering of apparently opposing sides – to directly address and confront the issues together? Maybe a debate style panel on @msp-waves? I know I'd be the first to show up and listen to that. Think of how far that could go to even the playing field – to openly discuss options and hash out differing ideas about best practices.
I just can't shake this feeling that, differences aside – we all want the same thing – for Steemit to continue growing and become a tremendous success. Whatever we can do to unite around that truth...let's do that.
Maybe I have too much faith in our collective humanity. What can I say – I didn't earn the nickname 'the ziplomat' for nothin'.
There is no debate to be had, ignorant customers are paying for the stubbornness of a few greedy and irresponsible bot owner.
Take the sum of my comments and line them up again't these bots argument if you think there is interest. Would upvote that.
To clarify — it’s not the issues themselves that require debate, but how best to combat/handle them. As no one is technically in charge, shouldn’t we collectively be proposing/agreeing upon solutions? If our underlying goals are the same, which I sincerely believe they are — wouldn’t we be wise to combine our efforts rather than fight over who’s approach is best?
Not interested.
Not interested because...? You believe you’ve found the only and best way to deal with ’the bad guys’? Or...you disagree that we all want Steemit to succeed?
ps — there’s a marked difference between argument and debate — the former is petty and unwilling to consider alternatives — the latter is (ideally) much more grounded, open to hearing perspectives that may not reflect those of a given side.
The sum of your comments still produces a divide by zero error, you fucking ZERO.
The sum of your reward pool robbing ignorance is STILL ZERO brain cells and a stolen name because you are nothing but a shitfaced thief and scumbag piece of rat fecal matter.
In your last 10 comments you sound like that dumb old cat.
Qapla'
LOL
Hey cat add another witness to the list out to ensure your early demise. Fuck off maybe "pussy" ?
Your point? Are you also too clueless to know that the reward pool doesn't just empty out because @Grumpycat makes so many valuable comments?
Hey, I'm not the anonymous pussy scaredy cat, assfacecat, My name and face are here for you, so show your face or get the fuck out fucktwat. You are a pedantic, petulant little fuck with what, some money? Like I give a flying FUCK about your money?
Show your face, pussy. Show it.
OR SHUT THE FUCK UP.
LOL
@grumpycat, this is a real constructive idea! Since you have such ideas and people that are ready to listen to you, why all these destruction?
Why the terror methods and robbed minnows?
With all these ongoing, how can you expect people to respect you to consider your ideas?
Unless you stop hurting innocents you only will find The Resistance.
FD.
Do I earn a Nobel prize for thinking of transferring money from one account to another?
Sometime I wonder how you manage to tie your shoes in the morning.
I just thought I sensed some kind of reasoning in a cat but I was wrong.
Just fallacy...
I really wonder now how I tie my shoes lol...
FD.
hi @grumpycat
I new played steemit.
I do not understand the rules that apply in the world of steemit.
I have much to learn.
If you want to reply to my comments, I'm very happy.
is there anything we can trust to buy votes?
and who should we choose?
thank you very much @grumpycat
By the way, we're not flagging your "posts", but your self-upvoted "comments". You do know the difference between those two words, don't you?
Contexts, just your point of view.
He doesn't know how to fucking tell the difference between his ass and his face. But then again, frankly, I cannot tell the difference between his ass and his face either. Both of them just have shit coming out of them.
Thank you for upvoting her! You have brought back her faith in steemit.
You didn't seal your own coffin afterall. Just continue being you and keep up the good work. Smiles
thanks @frankabelle. ;)
You are welcome
I am struggling to understand how you say you are trying to reduce abuse yet voting your comments up with huge amounts? I genuinely don't understand. Not making accusations.
Facts are not accusations, yer good. It's just that this pussy is a hypocritical piece of shit and a stain on our planet that needs a nice short stay in a Kill-Shelter.
I am a member since June 2016!
Guess how much I made for my last post.
I tell you
A little over 15!
Do you know how many articles I wrote where I made only a few cents?
Do you want to know how many hours I spent socializing on this platform?
I suggest to continue your path, enjoy writing and be patient!
I made 15 more than I would have ever made on Facebook. That’s a success by itself! Right?
I upvote this comment for visibility!
I use 2 bots occasionally in recent times ( @upme & @appreciator (made even a mistake and send over 180SBD by mistake) also for visibility.
Agreed. The OP started in February and makes nice content. It was a little hard for those of us who earned pennies for a year.
Excellent comment.
A little hard?? Hahhaa! Very hard but heyyyyy We are still here and Now I allow myself to even just post one quote or pay a bot or just enjoy a few autovotes....you know that we deserve i! Right @whatsup I do remember your first comments on my articles. Hope all is good with you.
Congrats on being in a handful of us who stuck with it! :) I am always happy when I bump into you on SteemIt.
Meeee toooo hahhaaa !!! Not many know what we went through. People think it’s easy
lol... well we going thru this now, and as hard as it is, it's best to just enjoy the process.
@pangoli... with a friend's account
How're ya?
Damn true!
😁😋😉
wow 180 SBD. That's up there with my oops moments in the crypto space. Live and learn right?
Upppsss 10x for sure but now My last post shows over 330 USD in rewards 🙀🙈 Looks super nice! Haven’t seen this kind of amount since months.
Which you deserve, since you’re constantly around putting your all in!
But I had to pay for agrrrrr
You are very charming and it feels good I have to admit 💛💛💛
Rock on sista-lady. That is a blessing. Makes me feel motivated to get mine back over the $1 level. Haven't seen those much myself without promotions.
Hang in there!! All will be just fine 🍒😭
Great reminder @mammasitta! Honestly, since joining Steemit, I hardly visit any of the other social platforms. It all feels like a waste of time compared to investing myself here.
180SBD!?! That's a rather painful mistake! Although, I imagine the return on that would've been pretty decent, yes?
It turned into a very interesting experiment so far 🙈 I haven’t been anywhere near to trending page, since many months.
I still switch around various platforms because on steemit I always feel bad if I don’t put enough value into an article, hesitated to post short articles. I don’t always feel to write a lot. Recently, I just started doing it also on steemit. So what, I thought :) why not?
Exactly – why not?? ;) I'll be sure to check out your blog to see what you're up to.
I don't have time to spend on other sites, spending all I can here surfing and reading. But I do advertise steemit.com by re-posting Very Good posts to those of my acquaintance who might be interested in the content, such as @kawaiipower 's Introducing My Sailor Moon Cushion DIY Nerd Girl's Blog!, the which I sent to three sewers that I know would be very interested. So far, one Thank-you reply. So fb still useful if only to stay in touch occasionally with locals who I can communicate with also by txt.
Keep on keeping on. 😇
I think I'm only going to do 1 blog post a day. I think it's more fun doing comments anyways. Comments are WAY easier. Although this site is better than Facebook it is similar in that a lot of posts are not going to be seen by many people. The page views per user are not that high so people are not looking at that many posts on here.
I agree – commenting is definitely much more gratifying here than on FB or elsewhere.
Thank you for your words.
Of course, one of the ideas was, to gain some cents here for good content.
And day by day I vote up, comment and do some posts about my trading or other stuff.
And I think that´s what everybody should do: Just create good content.
The rest will follow.
Keep it up and have a nice day.
True, true. And...I've been doing just that. This was a special case that, in the end, has become quite the unexpected gift. • Thanks for stopping by. ;)
patience has always been the key
It happens sometimes we just have to exercise patience
I see you are New around here Just like me...
But there is one thing i quickly realized: Steemit is a game. Not Very different from other social platforms, but with some "hidden" rules that to be effective we need to learn.
We all are in a total New enviroment, and people like me and you arrived a bit late on the game.
A game where some players already established some dominance on the board.
But make no mistake. Other social platforms also have the big players, but the difference here is that anyone can reach the big player status, be It by putting money on the game of grinding it.
For the small to thrive, we need to underst these "hidden" rules.
For good or bad, those who have the bigger Stack on the game establishes the rules, and until we reach the big player status, we have to play under or around these rules.
@grumpycat actions do have some fundaments, but unfortunately some colateral damage always happens.
But dont be discouraged by this. What i have seen around here is usually when people that have post good content usually get a lot of attention when flagged, and end up recovering the loss.
But yeah, the big comment self upvote sucks to see when our vote is worth less than 0,05 steems. But i have already seen worst.
But its like It is written on the whitepaper: bad players can be reduced by the community, but they Will never be erradicated.
And It Will only kill the platform If there is only bad players around. While there is still quality content around here steemit Will survive.
Dont give up! Learn and adapt.
Thank you @phgnomo – Indeed, this has turned out to be an incredible gift. Writing and posting this was cathartic, more than anything. I just had to get it off my chest. I certainly wasn't expecting such an outpouring of support.
Not giving up, not by a long shot. Adapting....yep!
Debates like this are great! It's a shame that it took your terrible experience to bring this up but now we have different points of view and let's hope that whoever steers this ship takes notice and makes the correct course adjustments!
Alas....it is all of us who collectively steer the ship. Therein' lays both the gift and the problem – how do we come to a consensus about how best to do that?
I've been here a long time, and this is a fantastic summary. Please repurpose this as a full blown post about the game.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will do it soon. I am working at this moment on an article about the Steem Economy, wich is the hidden side of how things work around here, and many people don't take time to understand.
But i will write around this idea of Steem as a game.
Thank you.
Witness follower earned. I'll watch for these posts.
I havent written about the game aspect of Steem, but the economy post is already up!
https://steemit.com/guide/@phgnomo/steem-economy-guide-part-1
Would be nice to know what you think.
I feel your pain. I've definitely been disheartened with the dark side of Steemit over the last few months. However I keep posting hoping to be proved wrong, but I'm afraid you're right; you don't get rewarded for quality content anymore.
It never used to be this way and sadly unless things change I only see it getting worse...
It's disappointing, for sure.
To be fair, I do get rewarded for some of the things I post. There are folks on here who've been absolutely amazing and consistently supportive. As I said – they're the reason I'm here.
I'm not ready to give up just yet. I suppose we'll see what kind of retribution I just invited. I could very well have just sealed my own coffin...
I hope not, but the fact that people are very aware that there are repercussions for saying things that they can clearly see speaks volumes about where we are at right now as a platform.
This platform is still a great place to be, it's just slightly lost it's way like we all do sometimes. There is a great community that keeps the place afloat, and I definitely don't want to abandon ship just yet, but it's extremely difficult to ignore the obvious faults that are happening and carry on with a fake smile pretending that everything is perfect...
I love the fact that you care though, like we all do. If we didn't care we would have disappeared a long time ago. Keep doing what you are doing and be honest to yourself, just remember that everyone on this platform may not have the same integrity as you...
You go girl !
@thekittygirl brought all this to my attention, I read both related posts of yours and upvoted [too late for this one unfortunately], joined Diplomacy and let's see where this goes.
I'm a total newbie with bots - I never used them, besides randowhale at my very beginning and that's it. I am against abuse 100% so I support your vision and will try to follow as much as I can!
Thank you @meanmommy33. 🙏🏼 It’s been quite the unexpected adventure. I’m just as curious as anyone else about where this all will lead, but I’m in it for the long haul. Grateful to have you in my corner.
This is my favorite written post of the week. Showing his 1 (self-generated) up vote that took 80 plus dollars from the reward pool to reward his policing says everything.
It's certainly alarming, that's for sure. He/She has since given me her justifications for doing so. Can't say I agree with them, but...at least he/she showed up and actually talked to me about all this. Didn't see that comin'...
Yeah that was pretty cool that they showed up, but I think their justification was definitely lacking. Again I think the $80 says everything. 😎
Zippy, can you find me on Discord? I have something for you!
I've looked, but need your 4 digit tag #! How do I find you?
I guess I brain farted a bit... hahahah im inside Pal.. MSP
https://discord.gg/vA9knk9
click here... im actually monitoring the radio right now, so you will see me in the audience... click on my face!!!
Glad you are sticking with us, the longer you do the stronger we will be. Unfortunately this happens to some degree on every platform, youtube has been messing people up a lot lately too. Ironically driving people toward places like steem.
I fully agree there are a lot of meh posts out there getting rewards that don't make sense to me or many other users. It's really up to us and everyone to call them out and I thank you for doing just that.
See you for your next post, SteemOn!
Thanks @macmaniac77! Does seem to just be the way it goes.