DISClAIMER: I'm not against bid bots or vote bots that are run responsibly with controls & limits to prevent abuse.
$100+ Low Quality Posts
I've been receiving a lot of reports of low quality posts receiving high payouts do to bid bots & other vote buying bots.
I did a quick query today with the largest bid bot & vote bot accounts (@minnowbooster, @appreciator, @upmyvote, @boomerang, @buildawhale, @booster) and I was shocked at some of what I found.
$177.45 ???
@brittuf thinks a lot of his own investing advice.
Copy/Paste text.. Add an image & title.
$228.15 to copy an article.
Summary round up from various news sources.
Highly values their own investing advice and upvotes after a few days before payout.
$104.78 ??
Why is this any different than my overvalued posts shit posts?
Yes, Someone asked me that today so I thought I'd give them an answer publicly.
The payout of a post isn't always about the value of the post itself. Some one recently asked how this is different than my overvalued posts with both @spaminator & @patrice. I know that I have had some very over paid posts in the past based on quality and content of the post itself. I'm not a great writer nor am I an artist. The time I spent writing this post I could have spent looking through these links for plagiarism & flagging them. That is what I contribute to the community and that is where the value of my posts come from. Not the post but the hard work I do behind the scenes.
Most of the posts above are nothing but self voting by proxy in my opinion. They are buying votes for content that would normally never see the light of day. While I haven't looked, I wouldn't be surprised if they majority of the accounts are constantly cashing out and powering down.
I'm Not Against Vote Bots or Bid Bots
Yes, I just said those posts are pretty much self voted and overvalued. That doesn't mean that these bots don't serve a purpose when they are run & used responsibly. The bid bots & voting bots seem easy to setup and run and delegations from @blocktrades, @freedom and others have made running them profitable. It doesn't seem that a lot of thought has gone into preventing abuse by some owners. Many of these bots are run by one person and do not have the time or resources to handle abuse prevention. Some seem to be abusers themselves.
I spent some time talking to @themarkymark in the wee hours of the morning.
Everyone has their own ideas of what is and isn't valued here on steemit. I totally understand the position @themarkymark is in when it comes to deciding what is and isn't acceptable when there is no clear abuse. There's a lot of grey area. I sometimes spend a week contemplating whether or not a group of accounts should be added to @mack-bot all while being harassed by members of the community demanding I do something now. 😹
I think what it boils down to is that bid bot & vote bot owners have to decide what content is acceptable and communicate it clearly to their users. Every bid bot, vote bot, & curation project I've seen has upvoted posts that contain abuse. What sets others apart is how they handle it when abuse is reported.
Cooperation, Collaboration, & Information Sharing
I'd like to see more cooperation and collaboration between projects when it comes to abuse. I'd like to develop tools to accumulate & share information on steemcleaners.org that can be used by anyone who wishes to prevent abuse.
Unfortunately I'm one person and short of resources myself. Despite some who erroneously report that I make $500+ a week, my income from Steemit according to SteemReports this year is probably around $11,000 USD including SP & witness pay (subtracting out my recent return of SBD I doubled).
I've reached out to a couple of people I know to help me develop the website and more tools but the costs associated with what I'm looking for is running into $2500 - $4000. So for now I'll be relying on my own limited programming ability.
If you appreciate what I do to help the community please vote for my witness.
Witness Voting
You can vote for my witness here.
Wittnesses I vote for and support:
Image by @atopy
Current Projects:
@steemcleaners 🙣 @spaminator 🙣 @steemsugars
My Delegations:
| Account | MVests |
|---|---|
| @msp-creativebot | 0.206 |
| @reveur | 0.211 |