Sneaky Ninja Strikes Back!!
How Ninja is Combating Bot Abuse!
How Ninja is Combating Bot Abuse!
I'm sure most of you have seen plenty of accusations lately from a certain pissed of kitty that Sneaky Ninja is acting irresponsibly. That I am somehow contributing to bot abuse on some grand scale. Also, that I don't care who uses my service and am just here to rape the reward pool for everything it's got.
A vile and disgusting villain whose sole purpose is to ruin the platform and skate away with unimaginable profits.
bwuhahahaha!
A vile and disgusting villain whose sole purpose is to ruin the platform and skate away with unimaginable profits.
bwuhahahaha!
Source
Well I am here to inform our entire community that these accusations are completely fabricated and
entirely untrue!
This is unwarranted defamation of the highest caliber!
entirely untrue!
This is unwarranted defamation of the highest caliber!
First of all, I'm just a single dad trying work my way back up the food chain after a disastrous chain of events that left my family quite destitute. Steemit and this bot have turned things around for me in a great way and have gave me the ability to change many things in my life and I want to make that possible for other people on here as well.
The truth is that I love Steemit and I see the potential here for wonderful things down the line.
What we have created here is much more than a social network existing on blockchain.
We have built an economic society here much like a digital sovereign nation!
A nation of people sharing their work and their lives with each other on a daily basis.
A nation of people from all walks of life. All races, creeds, religions and thought patterns have gathered to this great space to share themselves, and each and every one of them deserves a voice!
Starting here as a minnow you know that it can be extremely difficult for your voice to be heard.
Bid bots can help you get your voice heard.
They tip the scale of this platform so that smaller fish can get their posts seen in hot or possibly trending page which is the only worthwhile real estate here.
Furthermore, by investing into yourself by using bots to promote your post you are in fact investing in the platform unlike some upset whales would have you believe.
All of that said, there is a real issue on the platform with people abusing bots.
This issue lies in the people/accounts that are spamming and scamming the system with account farms and things of this nature and using bots to boost their plans.
The issue is NOT with people that are using bid bots after 3.5 days!
The issue is NOT with people that are using bid bots after 3.5 days!
In fact, the total amount (everyone not only bots, according to steemd if you can trust them lol) of last minute upvotes from the last 3 days has only been 298.33!
That number can hardly be considered abuse!
That number can hardly be considered abuse!
Understand that many people that vote this late are trying to scam the system. However many have a multitude of other legitimate reasons to do so. See Here
Now you may think that not allowing votes after 3.5 days will allow people more time to flag posts, thus returning more scam money to the reward pool (Which is basically the only moderately helpful thing about changing the limit.).
However, the amount of manpower it takes to comb through individual posts and flag them is unimaginable. Just ask @steemcleaners. Not to mention, as many have pointed out, we shouldn't have to. We simply don't have the resources to do it. If there were, these accounts would have been flushed out long before using bots.
If you look around, you will notice that this is true. Since so many people know it is true, making a limit of 3.5 days will actually only make the issue worse. Now the same scammers, who know that their posts will not be flagged because there is simply not the manpower to do it, will now start using bots at 3 days instead of six. This of course means that they will be pouring up to 3 times the amount of money/sbd into their scams. Thus, the plot thickens.
Also, this is now going to push people to see, and believe, that people using these bots between 2.5 and 3.5 days are abusive... Where will that end? The time of your vote is not abusive, what you are doing with a vote can be.
The only real way to combat bot abuse is to target the abusers, their accounts directly, not individual posts. Once an account is outed as being an abuser they can then be blacklisted. Once blacklisted this entire account simply cannot use bots at all... Done.
Not all bot owners and certainly not everyone agrees with me on this next part. However, having said all of that I want to make one thing perfectly clear...
I personally believe that it is the responsibility of bot owners to prevent their bots from voting on abusive content!
I've held this belief for a while now but the issue is much tougher to resolve than you think. There are simply to many factors to just start throwing out blanketed black and white rules.
I have personally been working quite hard on finding a solution to this issue. The thing is that unless I post about my efforts no one even knows I'm doing it. How could you, you are on the other side of a screen knowing only what is typed on it. When something has been removed before you see it, you neither understand it was there nor perceive the effort that was put forth to make sure it was not there.
Unfortunately when your focus is finding a solution, it is not on writing about it. This apparently has made me a very easy target for accusations and threatening assaults on my customers (to be addressed in later post).
This is why I am pleased to announce that I am now working closely with @steemcleaners to remedy the bid bot abuse issue!
This makes Sneaky Ninja the first (and only so far) bot to work directly with Steem Cleaners on this issue.
I had a private conversation yesterday with @patrice of @steemcleaners regarding the issue. As of last night Sneaky Ninja has already added 5500 abusive accounts to the blacklist and will be adding around 25000 more very soon. I then passed that list on for other bot owners to use as well.
Currently this team up is all manual but we plan to make it much easier and accessible to other bots and services that may require it.
Irresponsible?
But wait, there's more!
To all of you would be scammers, spammers and shit posters trying to use my service let this be my one and only fair warning...
If you have been blacklisted and send SBD you will not get it back... ever. You will however get a nice note back in your wallet stating that you are blacklisted. Just an unnecessary common courtesy. You're welcome! 😃
For the past couple weeks it has been being funneled into a new account, @kusari. It has only built about $110 SBD so far.
This SBD is now being used to help counter the thug attacks from @grumpycat. I have to do this manually but I will be transferring this SBD directly to some of those affected by his tyranny. This will not even come close to the amount of money he has taken from all of you but it is a start.
If @grumpycat can open his eyes and realize that I am not the man/bot that he has so maliciously made me out to be, and finally stops his senseless attacks of innocent steemians, all money that goes into that account will then be used in support of charity and humanitarian projects such as @youarhope.
Speaking of @youarehope, Sneaky Ninja is now donating a portion of it's proceeds to them to support all of their efforts to help people around the world.
If you don't know yet what @youarehope is, it is a decentralized charity designed by @sircork to help real people that are really in need around the world without the use of governments or massive institutions. Just people actually helping people from their genuine want to do so. It is entirely steem based and supported without the use of fiat currency until the very last moment when it must be converted to actually buy things for those who need it.
Personally this is the best and most well intentioned charity I have ever came across. The smiles they have already brought to our world community have been bright and excessive. It is the first and best of its kind and I certainly hope it will not be the last!
Many thanks,
Kozeni (小銭)
@sneaky-ninja
Sworn defender and protector of Sōsharumedia (ソーシャルメディア)
Trained by @michaeldavid,
Supreme Jōki (蒸気) Master and warrior for @thealliance