As @pfunk so eloquently stated:
"My stake in the Steem network gives me the right to judge someone else's post."
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I don't have money to invest in steemit.com. What I do have is time invested. And I think my time is valuable. This isn't me being a "vigilante" flagging posts for the slightest infraction. I'm not the sheriff and I'm not here to police the quality of anyone's post. I'm here to protect my interest and the value of Steem.
I would like to invite anyone to look at my comment and upvoting/flagging history. There are a lot of times that I'll simply leave comments for new users warning them that plagiarism, copypasta, and tag spamming could result in flagging.
Some take offense to just my comment and commence flagging, some ignore me. Others don't realize that this isn't quite like facebook or twitter. They thank me and even ask for advice. I find that those users have the power to make my day a bit brighter when dealing with others who simply don't care.
In one hour today I found 4 accounts less than 24 hours old that were created and immediately start posting plagiarism or copypasta. It's like playing whack-a-mole. If we don't whack them though, their would be 8 tomorrow instead of just 4 new ones. Sometimes, the moles get tired of being whacked and give up. Unfortunately there always seems to be more moles to take their place.
The day after someone is rewarded for their copypasta & plagiarism post the number of accounts I see created and posting the same type of abuse increases.
A few days ago there were a 180+ accounts that posted one youtube video a piece that I found. Many don't realize this but these accounts follow one person who is probably trying to increase the steem power and reputation of his "upvote/flag for hire" army of bots. I believe they are still creating accounts, and now has another 200+ accounts. That would put the total number of possible "known" accounts for this one user over 1,000. They are creating around 25 new accounts a day that I can identify if they are the same user.
This statement is brought up quite a bit from the whitepaper in regards to anti @steemcleaners & anti #steemitabuse posts:
Eliminating “abuse” is not possible and shouldn’t be the goal. Even those who are attempting to “abuse” the system are still doing work. Any compensation they get for their successful attempts at abuse or collusion is at least as valuable for the purpose of distributing the currency as the make-work system employed by traditional Bitcoin mining or the collusive mining done via mining pools.
What I see ignored is this part of the same paragraph in posters comments:
All that is necessary is to ensure that abuse isn’t so rampant that it undermines the incentive to do real work in support of the community and its currency.
I don't interpret that as a suggestion that the community should ignore abuse all together because they are only benefiting the system. Let's say we stop playing whack-a-mole and stop telling the community that a post is plagiarism, copyrighted material, spam, or identity theft. Abusers go unnoticed and get rewarded. They open more accounts, post more abuse.
What then is the incentive for users "to do real work" tomorrow if a 1000 accounts post 4 abuse posts each? And those you have called a goon squad of vigilantes decide to take the day off. Today's number of active users was around 5k, posts around 4.5k. That would make tomorrows posts around 8k -9k with just about 1 out of every 2 posts being "abuse". I wonder how many will make a mint if they aren't pointed out? Ah, but they've done the community a service! Hmmm.. How many will create more accounts the next day? After all it's free money for nothing? Information is free and abundant. Hmm.. If the next day is the same or worse, are the abusers still providing a service?
Is that really what the developers of Steem have in mind? Simply ignore the problem and see if rewarding abusers will teach them the error of their ways? As this post points out, we should just tolerate them right?
There's also the other side of the coin many may not be considering. @steemcleaners is set up with a set of rules that we must abide by or be removed from the group. Until now it was a "free for all" in the true spirit of the wild west as one user pointed out with all users acting as individuals and sometimes coming into #steemitabuse-classic to discuss abuse and calling on others to help.
There are a lot of users out there trying to do a good thing on their own and doing so respectfully. There have also been individuals that have went on a crusade or witch hunt targeting others in such a way that would deter new users. One thing I've come across in the past is users demanding other individuals post a picture of themselves (when no picture was provided) to prove they are a real person and denying them the right to their anonymity.
We not only spot and report abuse, we police ourselves and help other-non members that are misguided in their fight to discourage abuse to do it responsibly.
As the whitepaper also points out:
When people are recognized for their meaningful contributions, they continue contributing and the community grows. Any imbalance in the give and take within a community is unsustainable. Eventually the givers grow tired of supporting the takers and disengage from the community."
If nothing else I would think that users would support @steemcleaners in their own self interest to ensure that "people are recognized for their meaningful contributions" so that the givers don't get tired of the takers and stop giving.
/End Rant
Thank you to everyone that supports @steemcleaners. Remember that each of us is human, and not perfect. We are bound to make mistakes. If we do, simply leave a comment and we'll rectify it as soon as possible. You can also visit steemit.chat and leave a DM for me if I'm not available, @patrice.
If you're a new user and need guidance on avoiding "abuse" just ask. Someone will point you to some good posts on the subject. You can give me a shout out in your post by adding @patrice anywhere in it.
