I have updated the selection algorithm for the dMania bot. Unfortunately the last version was susceptible to paid upvotes. Creating a good selection algorithm for the best content isn't easy and in this post I want to elaborate the approach dMania takes and how it differentiates from other apps on Steem.
Automated curation vs human curation
Most apps on Steem select a few people who do the curation and upvote content. There are some pros and cons to that approach. Humans can easily identify quality content. A bot on the other hand has no idea about the content of a post.
If I would just chose a few people who select posts for the bot to upvote, it would definitely improve the quality of content. I would be an easy solution to the problem, but there are some disadvantages. The first problem is that those selected few users would basically control the content of the platform. They decide what should be upvoted and more visible. That's very close to a controlled and censored platform. On an open platform the community selects the best content, not just a few users.
Another problem is that curation by a few chosen curators won't scale. With more and more users, a few human curators can't keep up with all that content. At least not on a platform like dMania, with a very high post frequency.
Another advantage of automated curation is that it's unbiased and incorruptible. A few chosen curators could abuse their power and upvote their own accounts. It's very difficult to monitor and prevent that.
My plan isn't to completely automate the curation and upvote random content. I want to create a platform that rewards content selected by the community. The community should control what the bot should upvote.
Finding the best content isn't easy
Finding the best content with some automated approach isn't easy on Steem. On other platforms, content is always ordered by the number of upvotes/likes. The top posts are the ones with the most upvotes/likes and resemble the conscience of the community.
Steem is a stake based system and content is ordered by the amount of Steem Power. Votes aren't equal on Steem. That means a single user with a lot of Steem Power can push content to the top. So selecting the highest ranked post won't work.
Using only the number of upvotes for finding the best content doesn't work either, because it's very easy to create multiple accounts on Steem to manipulate upvotes.
On the last version of the bot I used Steem Power in combination with the number of upvotes to find the best content selected by the community. Unfortunately upvotes can be bought on Steem as well and atm it's very cheap to do that. Just recently I created a post where I explained that reducing the delegation to paid upvotes bots would resolve that issue and prevent most abuse on Steem.
A new approach
The new selection algorithm for the bot uses dMania supporter votes. dMania supporters are the ones who provide all the SP and that SP generates most rewards on dMania. That's why I think they should decide how the upvotes from dMania should be distributed.
The more SP a supporter has delegated, the more power his vote will have. Like votes on Steem, it will be direct proportional to your delegated Steem Power. Spreading your SP over multiple accounts won't give you an advantage.
The bot will select a post from the trending posts on dMania with the highest average SP supporter votes. E.g.: A vote from a supporter who delegated 100SP and one who delegated 300SP will result in a 200SP average for that post. The voting strength won't matter, but has to be above 50%.
The bot won't just select the highest ranked one, but randomly select one from the top posts.
The post has to be on the trending page on dMania, but doesn't need a minimum payout or number of upvotes like before.
Excluding abusive supporters
If supporters upvote only themselves or a few selected users, their votes will be excluded from the selection process. Only supporters who regularly upvote other authors on dMania will be able to steer the upvotes of the bot.
That should prevent almost all abuse. If someone wants to abuse the dMania upvotes as a supporter, their upvotes will just be ignored.
Paid upvotes
Paid upvotes won't give you a higher chance for dMania bot upvotes. They will only give more visibility for your posts. I thought about banning them, but with the new selection algorithm there isn't much to gain by using them anyway. They have become a big part of Steem in the last couple of months and we have to deal with that somehow I guess. If I see that they are still a problem for curation, I might ban them on dMania.
Final thoughts
I think the new selection alogrithmn will improve the quality of posts and introduce more human curation to the bot post selection process. I think it will be very hard to abuse the new system. If people try to abuse it, they have to delegate a lot of Steem Power which will increase the rewards of everybody else. At the end it will be easier for them to just create quality content.
I will keep improving the selection algorithm and prevent abuse. Just tell me what you think about the new approach and if you have any ideas for improvements.
Support 
dMania
dMania supporters receive 15% of the rewards on dMania and control the upvotes of the dMania bot. The dMania bot uses the collected Steem Power from supporters to upvote posts on dMania. To become a dMania supporter, you have to delegate some Steem Power to dMania. The minimum is only 5 Steem Power. The more Steem Power you delegate, the higher your rewards and the more power you have on dMania. By delegating Steem Power, you are lending your Steem Power to dMania. The Steem Power still belongs to you.
Supporters
There are already over 300 dMania supporters:
@misterdelegation
@snubbermike
@lafona-miner
@xeldal
@cnts
@zombee
@inertia
@elgeko
@picklejar
@vonabell
@neworleans
@mat1973
@datapotomus
@northeast
@spotlight
@whatsup
@raggaemuffin
@zyberzerk
@cloudconnect
@chef.cook
... and many more
If you have any questions join our Discord server
Please upvote, post and comment on dMania to support this project. Every single upvote counts. You can contact me on Discord if you find any bugs or if you have ideas for new features. Please resteem and upvote this post and tell everyone you know who likes memes about dMania. Follow @dmania and @zombee to get the latest updates about this project.