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A lot to think about, I just wanted to say that all is voluntary and me being part of the powerhousecreatives and a lot off other discords makes the upvoting an easy task because they many other accounts are in multiple discords and I get the support back. And for me newsteem is that we help eachother further on the steemisfere, let’s hope for a great future
I've noticed a few of our members are in multiple communities. I'm really only an active member of PHC. I find too many tags at the bottom of posts is just clutter, but that's a personal thing.
A lot of people like communities and they are great. Some people are concerned that eventually good communities will be targeted. I sympathize with their anxiety since communities make Steem great for a lot of people.
I just don't see things the same way with these vote subscription/exchange/buying communities, people are in it for the votes and ROI, not the community engagement or social aspect.
I just don't see things the same way with these vote subscription/exchange/buying communities, people are in it for the votes and ROI, not the community engagement or social aspect. Me neither but I don’t mean tribes I mean steemterminal and payitforward as groups that create content and chat in discord but who knows what the future will bring
The other way that Tipu has changed is to get a bunch of people to do curation for them to ensure they still get curation rewards for their delegators. The downside of this is that there's a lot of abuse with curators self voting using other people's SP so the curation rewards for Tipu and their delagators aren't efficient. The upside is that, curators can use other people's SP to reward genuine quality content in a much powerful way compared to their own upvote.... as you have seen already
Yes, I noticed that change as well. =) interesting to hear about the downsides. I guess they have a few kinks to work out still.
A lot of the old services have moved into curating. It makes the most sence, but a multiangled approach is good and allows innovation.
Their new promotion service is unique. I hope to see people genuinely interested in promotion taking advantage and I hope the flaggers recognize what is going on and give it a pass if it isn't being abused (ie. Circles or absolute junk and controversial promotions)
The problem is that Tipu doesn't verify any of the curators, anyone who requested got on, so there's a mixed bag of curators. Then any curator can call the bot, for their own post, or their alts, or for any shit post, again Tipu doesn't check. Who cares that Tipu doesn't get the best curation rewards, as long as the curator get a good payout courtesy of Tipu .....
Ohh I had no idea it was that random.
This decision seems like it is going to backfire. A follow vote is not an wxcuse to do whatever. I guess it's new but they need accountability sooner or later.
@cardboard it great to hear that that you're starting to remove bad curators, hopefully you can get behind the scene an deal with the inter main/alt voting.
You have covered quite a bit here @abitcoinskeptic each individual approaches life with different attitudes, discussion is good to resolve issues.
Staying within mind frame I avoid following people who basically do not get the concept of social media, steem platforms may make a little money however following people with nasty intentions is not my idea of being social.
Not having used bid bots, only ever delegating where I feel people are assisting others, or supporting a witness with a vote is done when proof is given or written that these are upstanding members in the steem community.
Needless to say another #powerhousecreatives member it takes a lot of dedication to keep everyone working together, another is #qurator who quietly go along supporting many, now I am speaking of established communities where I feel bloggers are able to move and grow.
I will have to return to read reactions once this post has been up for awhile.
I think genuine engagement is easy to notice when that is what you are here for. A lot of people passed by because it can be hard to notice, especially given some of the weird stuff trending.
I need to look into qurator some more. I know they are the other big one asides from phc. I follow and vote for their posts, but I'm not a member (if they ask say Im confused).
I also look forward to the reactions on this post. It's a discussion that needs to happen.
In reading comments, revealing insight comes into play, at the end of the day most are looking for fair play and honesty in content, "Content Is King/Queen", good content deserves good reward.
Those wishing to trade in crypto, navigate across to Steem-Engine or Exchanges.
Adding value to your content using bit-bots is much the same as trading, you paying into a kitty to hopefully obtain a good payout, it is trading/betting/gaming. Want to do gaming there is SteemMonsters.
Steem platform has developed quickly to offer many niche ideas, it is finding the right one. In reading many articles on down-voting perhaps one day I will use the button and leave a comment as to why, sadly too many arrive to make_ "money"_, not reading or possibly not understanding what is expected.
I think Steem's biggest potential is exchanging information, opinions, values and ideas on the blockchain. The second biggest potential is communities. Steem-Engine is just a sample of what SMTs are going to be. Perhaps even more interesting is what will happen if any particular token or SMT becomes extremely popular. The amount of people it could onboard (who may eventually walk towards other niches) will be very good for everyone.
A plurality of ideas and things to do is great. The key is to stay on top of things and make changes when they are needed. Being preemptive is best.
As usual, there is a great deal to think about here. I'm going to come back and have another read and comment. We're about to lose power and I have a few other places I must drop in. Will come back and have another read tomorrow...
Thanks for the wuick comment and I look forward to your opinion. I had to read the part about losing power twice because at first I thought you were talking about voting or steem power and not electricity. Hope it's resolved soon.
Hahaha! I had the same reaction to bits of your post which is why I want to come back to it. We're having scheduled power outages in South Africa. I have 10 minutes till the lights go out :D
I am back, and I'm glad I didn't comment straight away because I've come back to read the many other very insightful comments. I have, however, been ruminating on this over the weekend:
New Steem is basically the change in attitude and consensus after Hard Fork 21 and free downvotes were enabled. I know it isn't a consensus, but there has definitely been some change.
I have definitely seen a shift. Until recently, my expression has been that it seems to be a "kinder" place. The other thing is that although I'm not seeing much by curation rewards, I am seeing greater returns on my posts which are now longer and, this month, because of time constraints, limited to once a week. I've reverted to my old before Steem blogging ways which means from WordPress via @steempress and with a broader readership in mind. I no longer post about Steemit, per se. If I do, I now use something like @partiko or @steempeak because it's something about which my larger readership doesn't give a damn.
there are gangs and possies going around downvoting everyone who offends them.
and there's another bunch - Camillesteemer and crew - whom we both met prior to HF21/22 - that are still downvoting posts. All my recent posts have been downvoted by this bunch. Their votes are worth nothing, but it does make one look twice. Funnily enough, I now wait for them - a bit like the proverbial bad pennies. lol
That's just irritating.
However, the downvote revenge, of which one of our fellow PHCs has been a victim, is infantile. It's what has put a pall on my sense of Steem's being a "kinder place". It also confirmed for me that trolls and bullies, like leopards, don't change their spots. Not because they can't but rather because they don't want to. It doesn't suit them. They get a kick out of the vicarious power it gives them. I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift.
In the end, the votes from subscription services are directly related to the service and your balance, so there is no way to consider it organic.
This would seem, to me, to be the kicker.
I also wanted to add that not being a gamer, and being inherently collegial rather than competitive, I don't get SMTs and the gamification of Steem (and other things). This means I also don't get the tribes and the other interfaces from which to post to Steem unless they are like Steempress which is integrated with another major platform and is, IMO, a DApp that has a genuine value add. The addition of tribes as tags is a distractor. Again IMO.
I do, however, see enormous value in communities - like PHC, folk with common interests, like homesteading, etc., as well as groups concerned with onboarding plankton and the curation of quality like @curie, @c-squared, @quator. I'm also a supporter of the newly introduced #oc (original content) as part of @ocd (Ithink) which allows creators to self-identify genuine content. I have no doubt that if anyone uses #oc and has plagiarised, that community's powers-that-be will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
This brings me to my final point: quality. I, and a few others like @quillfire and @blockurator have opined on this ad nauseum, appreciating (and here I go again, mixing metaphors) that one man's meat is another's poison, and that it was not quality that featured on the old trending page. Incidentally, I was only prompted to look at because of this comment, and when I scrolled through the top ten posts, 8 were steem related - DApps, New Steem or Steemfest; one was about the future behaviour of a bot account, so also steem related. Of the remaining two, one is a post from a whale about WWII and the other from one of the curation initiatives I've mentioned. What I saw there, by and large, doesn't inspire me to return in a hurry. If I spent all my time caught up in Steem matters, when would I create? When would I have a life? lol
In conclusion, then, I think that we're still in a settling period for #newsteem and I'm encouraged by some of the comments you've received on this post; the value of communities on Discord that run alongside Steemit are invaluable and not to be underestimated.
Thanks for yet another thought-provoking piece.
PS I love the rose of sharon. I didn't know that it was indigenous to Korea. I grew a blue one, once, from a piece that I nicked from someone's garden. It's making me think that once our water is sorted, I should go in search of another. It's a beautiful shrub.
I'm thankful for your great reply. The comments have been a little overwhelming and overly civil as well which is great. This means there is a lot of value clearly to see here.
Your comments on revenge voting are very insightful. We share similar opinions.
It is interested how you are using Steem Press and your word press blog more often. I've always been tempted to get a domain and do it myself as well so I'm a true owner of my content and not at the mercy of a service blockchain or not.
I also wanted to add that not being a gamer, and being inherently collegial rather than competitive, I don't get SMTs and the gamification of Steem (and other things). This means I also don't get the tribes and the other interfaces from which to post to Steem unless they are like Steempress which is integrated with another major platform and is, IMO, a DApp that has a genuine value add. The addition of tribes as tags is a distractor. Again IMO.
This is very interesting. It is a huge issie with Steem and IT in general. They forgot to appeal to the masses you need to make semse for the masses. Gamers play games and live stream. Most of the games here are doing well, but these are native to Steem. I don't see Steem competing with Twitch.
Steem needs to male more sense and people need to stop treating it like a game....or at least need to think that there are various rules and when they conflict we have tools like flags to deal with it. I have interesting ideas about return on income I want to discuss in one of my next heavy posts.
Think of Steem like an auction or bidding game.
I do, however, see enormous value in communities
100%
If you think of SMTs as a way of tokenizing communities and allowing them to branch off of Steem but still be in the same ecosystem, maybe you can understand some of the changes that will happen around here. Why are we sharing the same platform and rewards with people we have no common interest with? If Steem value was independent of community value, it would solve the problem with flags because we would just boot the bad actors from the community and their ability to earn rewards overall would be fine.
This brings me to my final point: quality.
Again agreed. As someome who tries to imprive quality and engagement I see the frustration.
The idea behind curation os this is how people get rewarded from their stake. Posts are rewarded based on quality and value. My idea I hinted at earlier directly addresses this point. In brief, people could preset a value for their post after which rewards get sent to the dao or null or say steempeak. It would be optional, but it would give curators and authors a better sense of value eventually. I'll expand on this later and your comment is most useful here.
I agree with your comclusion, but would also like to use the word 'networks'
Glad you like the rose of sharon. I think it is native to Korea, it is their national flower so it would be odd if it is imported. However I understand some nations use mythical creatures of their national animals, so why not?
I'm sorry for waiting to long to get to your comment because I was waiting for your opinion.
I know this post is past its payout, but things (as is currently the way) ran away with me, too.
The comments have been a little overwhelming and overly civil as well which is great
Well, perhaps people are realising that it's more constructive to engage around the issues than to attack the person. Long may it last.
On the domain issue and owning your content: do it. It's cost effective and if you are wanting to produce content that has broad appeal, using a platform like WordPress enables (not just allows) sharing to multiple social platforms - not just Steemit which is via a plug-in and not part of their standard service. If you want to pursue that route, you are welcome to DM me and I'll put you in touch with the folk that have been so helpful to me.
On appealing to the masses - I couldn't agree more. I am aware that I now fall into a particular demographic profile - one that is often silent and invisible. Female and over 55. I do, however, live in a country that has a youthful population which begs the question as to who are the masses? It depends which country you are in. This does, however, go to your point. I also think, if I may be so blatant, that many of the drivers and developers are male whose interests and preoccupations are often very different from females'. I am generalising, but there is a distinct difference in interests. It's neither right nor wrong. It just is. Perhaps what I'm suggesting is that there needs to be a more concerted effort to find out who some of the users are, and their interests. And no, being on a blogging blockchain is not a game. Another example is that folk my age are less inclined to selfies and making videos of themselves. Particularly women. It would take an awful lot for me to put myself in front of a webcam. My most recent post has a rare photograph of me.
I look forward to your expanding on the curation rewards issue.
And, on the issue of mythical creatures: South Africa beat Wales in the semi-final of the rugby world cup. Wales' Celtic dragon didn't quite vanquish the South African Springboks!
Have a good week!
On SMTs: Thanks for the explanation. I'll watch and wait. I've climbed on the bandwagon using the tags. I need to remember to redeem them from time to time.
I'm glad people are preferring to engage, rather than just have Internet shouting matches. I don't like the attitude where people refuse to even try to see eye-to-eye or even engage in civil discourse with each other. All the countries with the biggest political problems and nuttiest politicians suffer from this a little. On a side note, people who are trying to bring that style of debate to Canada are failing miserably, thankfully.
I'm fairly familiar with Wordpress, as I used it to make a few websites, I'm just a little unfamiliar with Steempress, but I'm sure it's fairly easy to use.
It's annoying to be in the demographic that is silent and invisible. However, I think for others who are really interested in onboarding and getting people on to Steem, they should definitely be more interested in discussing things with you than with me. I'm in the most common demographic for Steem anyway (male between 25-40). I'm not sure if Steem will ever have the teenager appeal or if anyone wants that but it will be neat if someone makes a community that appeals to young adults, or even more interesting, children. I do think Steem does appeal a little more to an older crowd and people who are investors or entrepreneurs. Blockchain in general does.
Touching back on the community thing, I do hope communities that are a little more advanced than tribes pop-up. For now I see many of them being little more than a hashtag that at best you need to stay on topic with. Maybe the purely Steem ones will be better or attrach existing companies that want a tokenized forum. I can see a lot of potential uses.
I was happy to see England win too. Not that I'm a fan, but New Zealand has been doing so well and England has had a really tough year in politics.
I know this post is past its payout
I've never had a problem with commenting after the payout, besides this discussion is still relevant. It's people who vote after payout that leave me scratching my head.
Confrontational and personality politics - I loathe both but it seems to characterise most things. Sadly.
I'm fairly familiar with Wordpress, as I used it to make a few websites, I'm just a little unfamiliar with Steempress, but I'm sure it's fairly easy to use.
Then for you, it'll be a doddle. A plugin and you just add your posting key and you're synced. Done.
On the demographic issue: it's frustrating. That said, I think that the Steemit powers that be should consider how many "developed" countries have ageing populations (where women are in the majority), and where they could onboard lots of people. IMO and I'm hazarding a guess that the majority of the quality content on the platform - with broad appeal - by and large comes from Steemians who are probably 35+. With the rare gems as exceptions.
It's people who vote after payout that leave me scratching my head.
Indeed.
Winning the RWC2019 would be good for both SA and England.
Oh this is very disturbing to me. Not knowing what a bidbot even is, I asked a few people if sbi is one and was assured sbi is acceptable by newsteem standards. Most of the shares I've accumulated in sbi were bought FOR me by accounts that appreciated my posts, so the origins of the upvotes are tied to value in posts, at least in my case. I just started buying them for others for the same reason, and am happiest doing this for the smaller accounts - it seems a much better reward for quality than my upvote, which is worth next to nothing now on posts with small payouts. Maybe some whales are abusing sbi, but for the tiny accounts, sbi upvotes are sometimes the only upvotes of any value that the tiny accounts get, no matter how good the posts are. So many of the changes have made it even more difficult for new users who have not invested in steem to make any currency at all.
SBI is a way to help venezuelan proyects to grow, is a point of view i was meditating all these days and now that i read this looks like is a problem, but i think that everything carried by the concious of the one would be good, keep things descentralized and by manual curation looks like the best, at least for me, as a content creator think that, blockchain well developed is a pithagoras teorem resolution so, let's keep growing and understanding the best path for all.
Most whales have found a balance, but a few have lost a lot of money and are trying to make it back in an agressive manner. It's pretty much up to the other whales or a large pod of orcas to keep them in check.
My thoughts are much in line with yours @owasco! There's so many contests that have a hard time giving out STEEM as rewards, but do SBI shares to help all the awesome people who join get something and also grow both accounts. I'm sure like any system, there are opportunities for abuse. But by and large the people I see using it are quality creators who really do support a lot of communities and other endeavors that make Steem a great place. I can see a possible need to adjust the system as @abitcoinskeptic points out, but I hope they do it in a way that doesn't alienate the many people who have put their faith in the program. (and invested hard-earned STEEM, as well)
I'm glad people are pointing out the positives. I hope these endure.
Community contests are great and it is a neat way to reward people.
However, I want to see more done to eliminate negative use.
As long as efforts trying to "eliminate" negative use do not make it even harder for the Littles to make a dime. No one talks about the upvote curve, but I feel that is terribly unfair to accounts with low sp, both producers and curators. That's where I would like some attention focused.
I do like the idea of taking a look at someone's average income per post (just add up the posts if they post multiple times a day ... their loss), and giving them a handicap if it doesn't look like they are just out there farming Steem.
There are a few large orcas and whales going around maximizing ROI in schemes like sbi, these people need to chamge and sbi should be less accomodating.
Normal users are fine.
I draw the line at comment voting and maximizing ROI by excessive use of their services.
I definitely see positive aspects in things like sbi and I'm glad you brought that up.
My idea is to make more positive things prevail.
thank you I hope you succeed. sbi is a great way to reward small accounts doing great work, the kind of posts and accounts that will make no one any money so they tend to be overlooked.
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Great article @abitcoinskeptic - one which needed to be addressed. Perhaps @theycallmedan would appreciate what you have put out here considering his post made yesterday.
Additionally, as the head of PHC I would just like to say thank you for representing us so positively in this post. And yes, you are spot on - we are an amazing collective of individuals - ALL of which have the best interests of Steem at heart and yes, this space would be all the poorer without communities like ours.
Thanks. I think I commented on his post from yesterday.
I felt a need to clear things up.
Saying genuine communities are next is a slippery slope argument. We aren't influence peddling or selling anything.....other than zord's fancy banners.
Well, changing a huge machine might require some huge time and effort. Or at least a lot of good planning. So I would be patient. But I think your articles help a lot of analysis and suggestions.
We know a lot of those sbi units were given as rewards and people thought long-term of them. In terms of years, if you do the math under the old circumstances.
Meanwhile, the world changed a bit.
Adaptation is only logical. Or the only logical thing? Who knows?
I remember when it first came out, after are 15 to 22 mpmths you'd get ROI, sooner if you bought for an alt. For delegations, it was always better than average and around 25% APR. When they added upvoting ROI it changed. That turned it into a instamt profit thing. You cpuld buy one share, do nothing but upvote their posts and comments and profit immediately.
Bookmarked and will have a look tomorrow.
Thank you for this, but we have never delegated anything to them.
Although I think someone has subscribed us.
Blessings!
Ah! Not guilty here my friend and glad that you know it.
Papillon has never used a bot and what you see is all my very own hard work.
Just goes to show that progress can be made in honesty.
Blessings!
This is awesome. I'm curious about SBI shares before HF21 was rolled out. If we gave shares then, we'll continue getting votes. Right? I haven't seen any downvotes as a result of that, but I think I'm still getting SBI votes and I haven't bought shares in a long time. I think I do have some autovotes going that way, but I can cancel that. Things seem to be improving all around.
The shares technically last forever so you will keep getting votes.
I don't think anyone will get downvoted just for having old shares.
Its the people who vote for their accounts too much that need to worry. You get around 1200% a day. If you are voting sbi comments and posts with more than 300% (three full votes a day), its probably excessive. Combine it with sending them a lot of steem to get shares using @ for your alt or buddy who is buyig you shares, and delegating them most of you sp...we end up seeing people who maybe should reconsider their actions.
I have to say I am starting to have a problem with how "NewSteem" is becoming a bit evangelical, and this is an example of it. I have a vested interest (I have a fair number of SBIs) but that isn't really the point (I don't really earn a whole lot from it). As you know I am a small time curator (ie I make no income from it, but I do it because it's right). I don't have a problem with this being the main model for Steem. But I am having a problem with people trying to impose their vision and shut down things they don't agree with.
"NewSteem" feels to me like it is becoming a little fascistic (NewSteem = New Order?) I loathe the term and I worry about the direction we are headed in.
I definitely see your point that some of the actions are becoming excessive.
I think curation has become much better. I used to make like 5 to 7 Steem a week curating. Now I make 3X this much and I'm not even trying.
I don't think there is anything wrong with sharing opinions and ideas. Some people may see this as imposing one's vision, but following my ideas is 100% optional. I pretty much follow the consensus. It was well known that free downvotes would destroy vote-buying. Nowadays, it's rare to see people with decent accounts buying votes because of the risks involved.
I haven't seen SBI make changes yet to optimize their platform for working with the changes since HF21. I think now it's been long enough that they should make changes. If they don't they risk becoming a target.
The biggest problem is a lot of whales that were just trading votes with eachother have now maximized their take in all of the things like sbi (another one I noticed now is steemyoda). This wasn't an issue before the hardfork.
Whether you like new Steem or not, I think a better way of looking at it is just call it what it is v.22 (there was a 22nd hardfork) or Steem October 2019. Blockchains in general are evolving so quickly and as a blockchain focused on a social network service (sns), I see Steem evolving a little differently. Community opinion and consensus is important. I think this is what new steem can also mean. It's the prevailing consensus or attitude. If you want to continue doing well, you have to consider it whether you like it or not. The new Steem evangelicals if you will are just trying to steer it into a direction they are more comfortable with. There is nothing wrong with trying to do the same to make it become anything you like.
I want to see SBI survive, if you look at the comment they wrote on my post it seems they have considered this and are actually planning to do something within the next few weeks which is great.
The problem as I see it is why should SBI change? People bought into it (whether you personally agree with it or not) on the understanding that one steem bought you a bit of an upvote for life. If they change the way they operate what happens to all the steem that people have invested? I do agree with many of the HF21 changes. I agree with curation (I delegate much of my SP so I haven't seen a huge increase in my income), but I don't agree with the way bits of steem that people don't agree with are being targeted one after another. It is like the poem First They Came... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...). Initially, most people welcomed the tackling of the trending page abusers. But then they go for the next thing and the next, without any consultation just with the "belief" it is "NewSteem" it is good for steem (without any evidence. The value of steem isn't effected by the use of bidbots perse but by the selling of steem. And that is just - if not more - likely to be done by people who are curated - or curators, which is frankly a full time job if it is to be done properly).
Thanks for responding. I have left a number of comments (as have other dissenters) on other posts and they get ignored (effectively shutting down any debate). So it is difficult to judge what is the "consensous" if the people who have the power (and lets face it the big boys are still making a lot of money from singing the "newsteem" song) don't allow a debate, but just post constantly that "this is good for steem, this is bad". If they don't get involved in the comments section then where is the community? Where is the consensus? It is just the same powerful whales playing the same game but just changing the rules.
I think they should change because Steem is changing. The question for me is how should they change? You read my post. Also, they just published a post and I wrote my comment there. They want to eliminate rewarding people with more of a balance for upvoting all their posts. They said they will drop it by 10% a week until it's zero. Actually, I think that is excessive. I think they should reward 50% on their main account's daily post only to avoid people upvoting with all their VP.
I also think some people are getting out of hand targeting others. It's making Steem an uncomfortable place for some. However, for the most part if you don't downvote people or buy votes, you are left alone.
I'm familar with that poem. I do think it is an appropriate analogy in some cases, however it is a slippery slope argument in others. I think the worst thing that one can conclude is something like "Since there is a chance of escalation let's do nothing." Hopefully, we both can agree sometimes change and experimentation is worth the risk. Maybe you want this movement to stop a little earlier than I do. I want to see vote-buying and direct vote-trading/swapping end. I have no problem with indirect communities like PHC and would be sad if someone did (however anyone who has a problem, I would like to hear more about their opinion.
The value of steem isn't effected by the use of bidbots perse but by the selling of steem.
Definitely, this is true. I want to see the experiment run a little long. I look at the recent changes as trying to fix Steem while it is on life support. Steem fell in value because BTC crashed. It dropped in rank because many new projects joined.
However, SMTs were delayed and bidbots wrecked the trending page. One is being fixed now and the other is being tested. Let's hope Steem's value raises in the next few months. If not, we can always bring back the bidbots.
I do like the idea of being able to buy promotions and tipu's solution of only giving an equal vote seems fair for now (you are going to lose money to promote, but TIPU still makes a ton of Steem doing this). New Steem has only been going on for about 6 weeks and people have only had informed opinions and observations for around half that time (first few weeks were just too early to judge IMO). I want to see how it lasts.
I always like responding to people who put effort into comments even if I disagree with some of their opinions. I do tend to wait a little longer to respond until I'm prepared to give them the kind of answer they deserve. I think you should check out SBI's post that I commented on and linked above. I actually don't mind where the discussion takes place, but I prefer a lot of it is on Steem and not discord where all Steem users can see it.
there always is a way, and there always be folks who will find a way to game the system -- right? if they started using SBI to play the game, figurally saying, why we should shut down SBI, just to erase these folks.... should we?
I don't want to see SBI shut down. If I did, I would keep quiet or just join in on the abuse. I offer suggestions which will discourage abuse such as limiting what can be voted on to receive a voting bonus.
I want to see SBI survive and thrive, but the sharks are circling.
steem-ua is supposed to be a ranking service less prone to being gamed than the baked in system on the platform. If it has morphed into a subscription service I think most people are unaware of that.
As for SBI, one of the main reasons I give SBI away at PYPT is that it provides what amounts to small ongoing votes to those receiving it rather than sending someone a single steem. I also like that people can't just arbitrarily raise their holdings without raising the holdings of others.
SBI votes on comments when the member hasn't posted. I have seen this happen with myself. If I go several days without putting a post up, I start getting SBI votes on comments. They stop the moment I post.
As for the blacklists. Have you talked to @josephsavage to find out if SBI uses them? I know I would never sending an SBI for someone on the blacklists.
Steem-UA is a subscription service in the sense that you delegate to them in promise for votes.
The interesting part about it is how they have the ranking system work so it's not always the same amount of money you earn. It's based on how many followers you have and then the particular level of engagement on your post. It doesn't look like it's been updated for awhile in terms of how the model works. I see two issues with it personally. Althought it does look into engagement, I'm not sure of the degree of intelligence. Does it count people on blacklists commenting? Bot commenting? Is character length important? The other issue is considering the number of followers. Do people with reps below 30 count? What about accounts that haven't posted or commented for months? There are a lot of weird networks of followers that don't actually exist following people. In any case, Steem-UA doesn't increase their vote for you based on how much you give to them, it caps out at a very reasonable 250 delegation (7 votes a week) or 4 for 100 which is actually a good deal. I consider Steem-UA to be pretty harmless and doubt anyone is attacking them because they don't comment vote or give extra credit to people who vote for their posts.
I've just heard back from SBI (they commented here) apparently they do enable a blacklist, so I'm going to update that part. He also mentioned they are discussing making some changes and two of the issues I had with them are going to be considered which is great.
I also like that people can't just arbitrarily raise their holdings without raising the holdings of others.
This is fairly easy to get around. Lot's of people have alts or just trade.
Thanks for opening this discussion. We tried to open similar discussion with our member-base in yesterday's update. But as you correctly noted, not a lot of our members actually read our updates. Perhaps here is a better place to address these concerns.
I appreciate that you have been systematic in your discussion (and not all over the map) because it makes it easier to respond in a systematic and consistent way.
The way #steembasicincome works is if you send one still and say an account name, both of you will get 1 share. You can also get 1 share for every 2 Steem you delegate. The more shares you have the faster your 'subscription balance' increases. This is the balance that is used to give you votes. Also, if you upvote their comments and any of their 10 or so accounts, you can increase your balance by more than 100% of your vote.
We think of this as three separate value streams. While they aggregate into the total votes people receive, each stream has its own particular rules. In approaching this discussion, I would like to handle each stream separately.
If you send 1 STEEM and specify an account name, you each get 1 unit.
This is the original mechanism that has never been changed since SBI launched almost 2 years ago. This was designed explicitly to be an account-level curation. You sponsor an account for 1 STEEM worth of lifetime upvotes. In doing so, you essentially receive 50% curation (you also get 1 STEEM present value of lifetime upvotes). This feature attracts very minimal abuse because the time to ROI is very long. It's the mechanism that contest uses, and that results in SBI supporting many valuable causes and accounts. We still believe this model is net-positive for Steem, and we don't plan to change it.
You can also get 1 share for every 2 Steem you delegate.
There are pros and cons to this. It has been normal throughout Steem history for services to offer various levels of rewards to members that delegate. Delegation also allows members to support (and be supported by) Steem Basic Income without having to send liquid STEEM and trust us to keep delivering upvotes. While we have built a good track record of reliability, it's important to keep an open channel that allows members to support and benefit from our project without having to send liquid STEEM after initial enrollment.
Delegation is also a common way for whale accounts to get consistent large upvotes. We are considering making adjustments to the calculations to decrease the benefits of delegation some. My preference here would be for members to earn a fair return on delegation, while allowing it to skew toward supporting smaller accounts instead of whales. This is already happening organically because of the role our curation returns play in delegation rewards. If we decide more needs to be done after addressing upvoting bonuses, then we will.
Also, if you upvote their comments and any of their 10 or so accounts, you can increase your balance by more than 100% of your vote.
This is the area that is our biggest concern, and the area we want to address. This was introduced to help us build a sustainable SP base and to help other programs do the same. Before HF21, there was very little abuse here (although not zero), and the small abuse that we saw was usually addressed quickly by our blacklists. (We have followed @steemcleaners and @buildawhale blacklists automatically since our automation was released. This is covered in our FAQ.)
Since HF22, many large accounts have shifted from bid-bots to vote-swapping services. This has upset the balance of abuse, and my own concerns about our voting trends have risen exponentially. In many cases, the accounts we vote are not bad enough for blacklisting, but not good enough to justify the votes that our upvoting rewards are returning to them.
We would like to phase out upvoting bonuses completely over a period of 10 to 12 weeks.
We believe there is a role for stake-based rewards within the overall content-oriented curation schema, but we do not believe that having stake should be the sole determinant of who gets rewarded.
SBI's native sponsoring system was designed so that members could 'crowdsource' support, stacking it to that point where it would be equivalent to whale-level support... an internal patreon-like model that offers greater stability and reduced risk of subscriber-flight.
Since we do actively support thousands of accounts and over 1500 accounts benefit from our upvoting rewards, we do not think it appropriate to turn the model on a dime and cancel upvoting rewards without opening discussion with our members.
While many other programs were able to change quickly to 'manual' curation, they were able to do so because their systems were entirely transactional. They made no promises and, once each paid upvote was delivered, owed nothing more to their customers . We have instead built long-term relationships and a community of active supporters that use SBI as a tool to support their passion projects. It would be unethical for us to make major changes without public discussion and an attempt to build consensus.
To that end, we will cross-post this long-form response into tonight's update, with a link to your post.
One problem with downvoting to your hearts content is down vote revenge. Personally, I find it is the worst reason to downvote. It's even worse than downvoting because you disagree with someone's opinion.
We agree with this completely. We have never engaged in revenge downvotes, although we have sometimes been more aggressive in penalizing other forms of abuse when we receive revenge downvotes. We do sometimes mark accounts that downvote us to not receive upvotes anymore, but that's a separate response.
When we've been downvoted, we try to engage and discuss potential issues with that person. In most cases, they have at least decided that we are not harmful, or that we are less harmful than other potential downvote targets. In some cases they continue downvoting us and we let them do so without retaliation.
We have never penalized any member or cancelled their subscriptions for speaking out against SBI (though when people are publicly critical, they often request us to cancel their subscriptions or assign to somebody else). One reason we advocate a crowd-sourced basic income is because a 'universal' basic income is extremely vulnerable to political changes and censorship.
We also never downvote over disagreement with content.
I'm very thankful for your comment on my post. I also have no problem with you dropping a link to any post you've made on the subject. They do get buried so maybe you need a standout title and image or something.
I hope you find some of the discussions here useful. It's interesting to me to hear how small accounts, new accounts and charities really like SBI.
Thanks for clearing a few things up about how SBI works. I'm glad you are evolving and considering changes. I will edit my post to make it clear you responded and to alter a few things that were errors, or I've come to understand since writing it.
This feature attracts very minimal abuse because the time to ROI is very long. It's the mechanism that contest uses, and that results in SBI supporting many valuable causes and accounts. We still believe this model is net-positive for Steem, and we don't plan to change it.
I actually agree it's great in theory and actually looks quite good on a lot of those network webs you are posting. There is potential for abuse and I am sure you look into it case-by-case when it comes up.
Delegation is also a common way for whale accounts to get consistent large upvotes. We are considering making adjustments to the calculations to decrease the benefits of delegation some. My preference here would be for members to earn a fair return on delegation, while allowing it to skew toward supporting smaller accounts instead of whales.
I don't really have a huge issue with being rewarded for delegations. Delegations are a very important part of Steem and getting a reasonable return is fair and encourages people to power-up. I do like the idea that you are considering a cap, especially now that people cannot delegate to bid bots and you may be receiving more. It would be neat to see how many people want to get the maximum possible out of the service.
We would like to phase out upvoting bonuses completely over a period of 10 to 12 weeks.
I'm glad you noticed the account upvoting is the biggest issue post HF21. It did work out fine before and I don't think a lot of people were using all of their VP like this. I'm not even sure how you would notice unless someone reported. I think phasing this is a good idea. Maybe going down to an intermediate level of like 50% would be neat to see if it still attracts some people. I do know people use this to get rid of excessive VP (like auto votes when VP reaches 100%), so there will always be a use for it, even though there are other options.
Doing away with the comment/post vote trading alone will probably ensure that SBI is on top of things until the next major fork which I believe is SMT and I do know you are already collecting tokens which is great. When it comes to SMTs I guess you can change how you operate in a given community according to their consensus and mechanics.
Regarding the other stuff about downvoting battles, this post wasn't entirely about SBI. However, I'm glad to hear your reasonable opinions and history on the matter.
I don't know of any specific cases where you've been downvoted and didn't think you were the type to revenge. Curangel and OCD are in quite the war right now. I think you guys will have reasonable discussions before it comes to anything like that and would hate to see something like that happen any more than it already does with SBI or anyone with an eye out for the bigger picture for that matter.
I think it's good to ask when you are downvoted and your thinking is exactly in line with mine on that. I don't always say why I've downvoted someone (especially if it's clearly abuse and already has an explanation). However, I would definitely address the matter if I was called out (I do get a little annoyed when people call me out on unrelated posts, but I don't always check mentions.).
We have never penalized any member or canceled their subscriptions for speaking out against SBI (though when people are publicly critical, they often request us to cancel their subscriptions or assign to somebody else).
I think this is the most interesting thing for discussion here. I don't think people who want to quit are entitled to much, but it is interesting you consider moving the subscription in some cases. Unless someone is causing havoc ends up on blacklists or asks for it, they probably don't deserve their subscription to be canceled for expressing their opinion.
I find myself at the nexus of #oldsteem and #newsteem in that I’ve managed to acquire a large number of SBI units that are doing me not much good because haejin/ranchrelaxo is revenge downvoting all of my posts to zero.
Although I do feel bad for you because I really like your blogs and think you are fighting the good fight, I don't think this issue is related to SBI. I also don't think SBI will revenge vote anyone.
I myself am not downvoting the whales because I like to stay out of trouble, but I am doing my fair share of downvotes. I generally just look at steem flag rewards and downvote whatever they recommend. I'd be willing to look at other lists, too.
Great post, I agree that the adjustments for some of these projects haven't taken place yet and need to be coaxed. This post is a step in the right direction.
I don't blame them for wanting a little while after the hard fork, but it has been 6 weeks now and enough data and opinions are available to start making decisions.
I have delegated to Steem-UA the minimum amount just to get the info it provides and not really for the upvote that comes with it. Lately the info doesn't seem to be that accurate and there seems to not be anymore development.
I think the subscription of delegating 100 SP to them for 4 post votes a week is amazing, especially if you write that much. I agree, I would love to see an update. They consider how many followers you have and that doesn't mean a whole lot when many of them don't even read your posts or use Steem anymore for that matter. Also, spam comments like "you received and upvote from UpVoteBot courtesy of you" are not really engagement.
I think manual votes in general are better. However, only voting 1 time per day on their main account is reasonable. The problem is there are quite a few people on Steem who use their entire voting power only upvoting like 10~20 different accounts which is a little sad. I don't expect everyone to be as robust in their voting habits as me, but here is my most recent voting CSI: 2.6 ( 0.13 % self, 568 upvotes, 341 accounts, last 7d )
That self vote was an accident 10% follow on a curation project that got me. My curation rewards are a little below average, but I think the self-sacrifice is worth it. Some people look at this score and won't upvote people who are too selfish or narrow in their voting behaviors.
If everyone did this, I believe the benefits of posting would go up and so would the effort put into posts.
As I have not been as active on our Steem blockchain of late @abitcoinskeptic, I am only now seeing this (due to our recent exchange on your most recent post ...). I have bookmarked it (in SteemPeak, my favorite interface), to come back and read carefully through it, as time permits.
While I have a quick and almost immediate reaction (not typical for me ...), I will refrain until I have properly digested with you have to say, along with the associated comments. Then, I may have more to say later ...
I noticed you write sbi skip on the comments. I post enough that it isn't an issue.
Your comments are better than some people's posts and a vote on some of them wouldn't be embarassing.
I once had sbi vote on a comment that said 'yes'.
My main issue is not with sbi, it is with people that abuse sbi and only vote for sbi. They are the people that stick around here and take take take while complaining that Steem is low. I feel sbi doesn't do enough to prevent this. It wasn't an issue before the hard fork.
Even having “slept on it,” I am still challenged to produce what I would consider a positive, constructive comment to this post @abitcoinskeptic. Just “straight up” from the heart …
If you knew me better, you may well consider me a “contrarian” to the core. Much of which might be attributed to my age and experience in a long life of having “been through the wars” … I am fundamentally unimpressed with most of the “rah, rah, rah” aspects of “New Steem,” when I still see so much blatant abuse of it.
Have the “big boys” truly reformed and made this platform a substantially better place? Or have they simply “changed the rules of the game” and still in the process of madly scrambling to ensure they themselves are in front of the line to take maximum advantage of them? All while “stampeding” the rest to “sing the praises” of “All hail New Steem” with no “off key notes” allowed in the singing. Or else …
For the SBI program to be deemed a worthy “target” for what seems to be a far too zealous (evangelistic?) response to “New Steem” is at least one if not two or three steps too far for this Steemian. When there are far greater issues which need to be addressed. One man’s opinion and it is pointless and a waste of my time to go any further …
While capable of being a considerably larger stakeholder in our Steem blockchain, I have elected not to be, given the much greater negatives I see than most appear to, including apparently yourself. That is fine. We are all uniquely different and cannot possibly be in 100% agreement all the time ...
You do write well @abitcoinskeptic and I am certainly happy to genuinely give you credit for seeming to be considerably more thoughtful in your approach “in here” than most. And, taking pains to not be misunderstood (as much as that depends upon me), I will continue to comment on your posts in the future, as I view that as an essential role we all play in adding value (yes, which is deserving of “rewards” as well …) to the ongoing content creation. Without which the value of the content creation is greatly diminished …
P.S. For what it is worth, I found the most value in reading through all of your post’s comments in those from @felt.buzz and @fionasfavourites. Why? Because they openly question “New Steem” …
To be honest I was very reluctant to write this post. Before the changes, SBI was great, although unperfect. Mainly I wish people had to ask for comment votes instead of deny them.
My main reason for writing this post was to alleviate worries of various people I connect with on Steem who are concerned about new Steem going to far. I wanted to assure people it isn't the main target, and to suggest changes SBI can make to survive the purge. Whether the purge has gone to far is a topic hopefully for a dofferent day as that is a discussion that is too early to have.
I haven't changed my downvote habits at all after newSteem. I think I understand what is happening better than most. I still believe it is too early to jump to conclusions on the effects, but I think these measures are worth a try. I definitely think it is too early to see if newSteem has gone to far because as you mentioned, there are larger problems remaining.
Maybe they movement is starting to go astray? That will be worth discussing at some point.
I think my main disagreement with a lot of the people I agree with and respect around here is that it isn't too early to make conclusions, changes weren't necessary, it has already gone to far. I don't think we can answer these. We can debate if it was necessary, but was it detrimental?
I wrote this post to have discussions with people like you and those you mentioned and I am usually sure to pay close attention to people who have differing opinions and write meaningful comments that are worth addressing and replying to.
This is my 3rd or so post on NewSteem that is controversial and not conpletely satire. I want to see everyone stick around. I want to see the changes actually work as intended or close to it (improve value, engagement and userbase). I want to see services like SBI adapt and survive.
I think the most encouraging thing is getting to learn people's insights, and especially the response from Joseph and SBI. He is worried about his project obviously. He knows I'm not the one beating the newSteem drum and trying to attack everyone I disagree with. He agrees a cap on vote bonuses is necessary.
When they suggested how they would make changes, I even wrote I think it is too much and 50% should be considered for the main account posts. I don't think they've been too slow to change, but a few recent events makes me think now is the time to start changing. The closing of smartmarket's selling service and the changes of tipu to allow promotion were two of them.
People like SBI. It is sad to see that some people started abusing it once the bots were under attack. I'm not sure about you, but I feel that something is off when all accounts are voting certain users at 100%. The name basic income evikes something completely different, but I think its time for reasonable limits to prevent abuse.
I've always been in the camp that abusive users are most responsible, then enabling services, and not the normal or legitimate users. I hope that a good solution can be found that increases everyone's peace of mind and Inespecially hope the idea alreadybon the table is enough even though I think it's too much.
Steem-UA ... It is based on the number of followers you have and the level of engagement surrounding your post. You can only get 'shares' by delegating to them.
my 5 cents: I have a decent followers number (around 180) and sufficient 'engagement surrounding my posts' (it is all original, and rewarded content, people upvote it cause they like it, I believe)... amount of delegation to this service: zero. number of the posts upvoted by the service: zero. i.e. they curated not a single post of my blog.
due to these details, I assume this service is based mostly on the delegation. prove me I am wrong, hehe.
@tipu curate x1
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 1/4)
~ Thanks!
Forgot to mention this aspect, but tipu has already been very responsive to newSteem
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
A lot to think about, I just wanted to say that all is voluntary and me being part of the powerhousecreatives and a lot off other discords makes the upvoting an easy task because they many other accounts are in multiple discords and I get the support back. And for me newsteem is that we help eachother further on the steemisfere, let’s hope for a great future
I've noticed a few of our members are in multiple communities. I'm really only an active member of PHC. I find too many tags at the bottom of posts is just clutter, but that's a personal thing.
A lot of people like communities and they are great. Some people are concerned that eventually good communities will be targeted. I sympathize with their anxiety since communities make Steem great for a lot of people.
I just don't see things the same way with these vote subscription/exchange/buying communities, people are in it for the votes and ROI, not the community engagement or social aspect.
I just don't see things the same way with these vote subscription/exchange/buying communities, people are in it for the votes and ROI, not the community engagement or social aspect. Me neither but I don’t mean tribes I mean steemterminal and payitforward as groups that create content and chat in discord but who knows what the future will bring
I will have to look into those groups specifically.
I posed my question as black or white, but its a spectrum and not even linear.
I think as soon as you promise someone a vote for something other than content, you are entering selling territory.
As soon as you ask for a vote for any purpose other than the content of you post, you are entering buying territory.
Obviously some actions are fine in these territories, but you are no longer flying under the radar.
That’s what open source information does and I like the transparency
Right in the end, if we say one thing and do another, it's pretty easy for someone else to look into it.
Steem takes the phrase 'talk is cheap' to the next level.
The other way that Tipu has changed is to get a bunch of people to do curation for them to ensure they still get curation rewards for their delegators. The downside of this is that there's a lot of abuse with curators self voting using other people's SP so the curation rewards for Tipu and their delagators aren't efficient. The upside is that, curators can use other people's SP to reward genuine quality content in a much powerful way compared to their own upvote.... as you have seen already
Yes, I noticed that change as well. =) interesting to hear about the downsides. I guess they have a few kinks to work out still.
A lot of the old services have moved into curating. It makes the most sence, but a multiangled approach is good and allows innovation.
Their new promotion service is unique. I hope to see people genuinely interested in promotion taking advantage and I hope the flaggers recognize what is going on and give it a pass if it isn't being abused (ie. Circles or absolute junk and controversial promotions)
The problem is that Tipu doesn't verify any of the curators, anyone who requested got on, so there's a mixed bag of curators. Then any curator can call the bot, for their own post, or their alts, or for any shit post, again Tipu doesn't check. Who cares that Tipu doesn't get the best curation rewards, as long as the curator get a good payout courtesy of Tipu .....
Ohh I had no idea it was that random.
This decision seems like it is going to backfire. A follow vote is not an wxcuse to do whatever. I guess it's new but they need accountability sooner or later.
Nope - every curation can be reviewed. The process of removing bad curators has already started :)
Great news. I do encourage the curators to comment and engage more. It's like adding ic8ng to the cake =)
@cardboard it great to hear that that you're starting to remove bad curators, hopefully you can get behind the scene an deal with the inter main/alt voting.
You have covered quite a bit here @abitcoinskeptic each individual approaches life with different attitudes, discussion is good to resolve issues.
Staying within mind frame I avoid following people who basically do not get the concept of social media, steem platforms may make a little money however following people with nasty intentions is not my idea of being social.
Not having used bid bots, only ever delegating where I feel people are assisting others, or supporting a witness with a vote is done when proof is given or written that these are upstanding members in the steem community.
Needless to say another #powerhousecreatives member it takes a lot of dedication to keep everyone working together, another is #qurator who quietly go along supporting many, now I am speaking of established communities where I feel bloggers are able to move and grow.
I will have to return to read reactions once this post has been up for awhile.
I think genuine engagement is easy to notice when that is what you are here for. A lot of people passed by because it can be hard to notice, especially given some of the weird stuff trending.
I need to look into qurator some more. I know they are the other big one asides from phc. I follow and vote for their posts, but I'm not a member (if they ask say Im confused).
I also look forward to the reactions on this post. It's a discussion that needs to happen.
In reading comments, revealing insight comes into play, at the end of the day most are looking for fair play and honesty in content, "Content Is King/Queen", good content deserves good reward.
Those wishing to trade in crypto, navigate across to Steem-Engine or Exchanges.
Adding value to your content using bit-bots is much the same as trading, you paying into a kitty to hopefully obtain a good payout, it is trading/betting/gaming. Want to do gaming there is SteemMonsters.
Steem platform has developed quickly to offer many niche ideas, it is finding the right one. In reading many articles on down-voting perhaps one day I will use the button and leave a comment as to why, sadly too many arrive to make_ "money"_, not reading or possibly not understanding what is expected.
I think Steem's biggest potential is exchanging information, opinions, values and ideas on the blockchain. The second biggest potential is communities. Steem-Engine is just a sample of what SMTs are going to be. Perhaps even more interesting is what will happen if any particular token or SMT becomes extremely popular. The amount of people it could onboard (who may eventually walk towards other niches) will be very good for everyone.
A plurality of ideas and things to do is great. The key is to stay on top of things and make changes when they are needed. Being preemptive is best.
@abitcoinskeptic
As usual, there is a great deal to think about here. I'm going to come back and have another read and comment. We're about to lose power and I have a few other places I must drop in. Will come back and have another read tomorrow...
Thanks for the wuick comment and I look forward to your opinion. I had to read the part about losing power twice because at first I thought you were talking about voting or steem power and not electricity. Hope it's resolved soon.
Hahaha! I had the same reaction to bits of your post which is why I want to come back to it. We're having scheduled power outages in South Africa. I have 10 minutes till the lights go out :D
@abitcoinskeptic
I am back, and I'm glad I didn't comment straight away because I've come back to read the many other very insightful comments. I have, however, been ruminating on this over the weekend:
I have definitely seen a shift. Until recently, my expression has been that it seems to be a "kinder" place. The other thing is that although I'm not seeing much by curation rewards, I am seeing greater returns on my posts which are now longer and, this month, because of time constraints, limited to once a week. I've reverted to my old
before Steemblogging ways which means from WordPress via @steempress and with a broader readership in mind. I no longer post about Steemit, per se. If I do, I now use something like @partiko or @steempeak because it's something about which my larger readership doesn't give a damn.and there's another bunch - Camillesteemer and crew - whom we both met prior to HF21/22 - that are still downvoting posts. All my recent posts have been downvoted by this bunch. Their votes are worth nothing, but it does make one look twice. Funnily enough, I now wait for them - a bit like the proverbial bad pennies. lol
That's just irritating.
However, the downvote revenge, of which one of our fellow PHCs has been a victim, is infantile. It's what has put a pall on my sense of Steem's being a "kinder place". It also confirmed for me that trolls and bullies, like leopards, don't change their spots. Not because they can't but rather because they don't want to. It doesn't suit them. They get a kick out of the vicarious power it gives them. I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift.
This would seem, to me, to be the kicker.
I also wanted to add that not being a gamer, and being inherently collegial rather than competitive, I don't get SMTs and the gamification of Steem (and other things). This means I also don't get the tribes and the other interfaces from which to post to Steem unless they are like Steempress which is integrated with another major platform and is, IMO, a DApp that has a genuine value add. The addition of tribes as tags is a distractor. Again IMO.
I do, however, see enormous value in communities - like PHC, folk with common interests, like homesteading, etc., as well as groups concerned with onboarding plankton and the curation of quality like @curie, @c-squared, @quator. I'm also a supporter of the newly introduced #oc (original content) as part of @ocd (Ithink) which allows creators to self-identify genuine content. I have no doubt that if anyone uses #oc and has plagiarised, that community's powers-that-be will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
This brings me to my final point: quality. I, and a few others like @quillfire and @blockurator have opined on this ad nauseum, appreciating (and here I go again, mixing metaphors) that one man's meat is another's poison, and that it was not quality that featured on the old trending page. Incidentally, I was only prompted to look at because of this comment, and when I scrolled through the top ten posts, 8 were steem related - DApps, New Steem or Steemfest; one was about the future behaviour of a bot account, so also steem related. Of the remaining two, one is a post from a whale about WWII and the other from one of the curation initiatives I've mentioned. What I saw there, by and large, doesn't inspire me to return in a hurry. If I spent all my time caught up in Steem matters, when would I create? When would I have a life? lol
In conclusion, then, I think that we're still in a settling period for #newsteem and I'm encouraged by some of the comments you've received on this post; the value of communities on Discord that run alongside Steemit are invaluable and not to be underestimated.
Thanks for yet another thought-provoking piece.
PS I love the rose of sharon. I didn't know that it was indigenous to Korea. I grew a blue one, once, from a piece that I nicked from someone's garden. It's making me think that once our water is sorted, I should go in search of another. It's a beautiful shrub.
Fiona
I'm thankful for your great reply. The comments have been a little overwhelming and overly civil as well which is great. This means there is a lot of value clearly to see here.
Your comments on revenge voting are very insightful. We share similar opinions.
It is interested how you are using Steem Press and your word press blog more often. I've always been tempted to get a domain and do it myself as well so I'm a true owner of my content and not at the mercy of a service blockchain or not.
This is very interesting. It is a huge issie with Steem and IT in general. They forgot to appeal to the masses you need to make semse for the masses. Gamers play games and live stream. Most of the games here are doing well, but these are native to Steem. I don't see Steem competing with Twitch.
Steem needs to male more sense and people need to stop treating it like a game....or at least need to think that there are various rules and when they conflict we have tools like flags to deal with it. I have interesting ideas about return on income I want to discuss in one of my next heavy posts.
Think of Steem like an auction or bidding game.
100%
If you think of SMTs as a way of tokenizing communities and allowing them to branch off of Steem but still be in the same ecosystem, maybe you can understand some of the changes that will happen around here. Why are we sharing the same platform and rewards with people we have no common interest with? If Steem value was independent of community value, it would solve the problem with flags because we would just boot the bad actors from the community and their ability to earn rewards overall would be fine.
Again agreed. As someome who tries to imprive quality and engagement I see the frustration.
The idea behind curation os this is how people get rewarded from their stake. Posts are rewarded based on quality and value. My idea I hinted at earlier directly addresses this point. In brief, people could preset a value for their post after which rewards get sent to the dao or null or say steempeak. It would be optional, but it would give curators and authors a better sense of value eventually. I'll expand on this later and your comment is most useful here.
I agree with your comclusion, but would also like to use the word 'networks'
Glad you like the rose of sharon. I think it is native to Korea, it is their national flower so it would be odd if it is imported. However I understand some nations use mythical creatures of their national animals, so why not?
I'm sorry for waiting to long to get to your comment because I was waiting for your opinion.
I know this post is past its payout, but things (as is currently the way) ran away with me, too.
Well, perhaps people are realising that it's more constructive to engage around the issues than to attack the person. Long may it last.
On the domain issue and owning your content: do it. It's cost effective and if you are wanting to produce content that has broad appeal, using a platform like WordPress enables (not just allows) sharing to multiple social platforms - not just Steemit which is via a plug-in and not part of their standard service. If you want to pursue that route, you are welcome to DM me and I'll put you in touch with the folk that have been so helpful to me.
On appealing to the masses - I couldn't agree more. I am aware that I now fall into a particular demographic profile - one that is often silent and invisible. Female and over 55. I do, however, live in a country that has a youthful population which begs the question as to who are the masses? It depends which country you are in. This does, however, go to your point. I also think, if I may be so blatant, that many of the drivers and developers are male whose interests and preoccupations are often very different from females'. I am generalising, but there is a distinct difference in interests. It's neither right nor wrong. It just is. Perhaps what I'm suggesting is that there needs to be a more concerted effort to find out who some of the users are, and their interests. And no, being on a blogging blockchain is not a game. Another example is that folk my age are less inclined to selfies and making videos of themselves. Particularly women. It would take an awful lot for me to put myself in front of a webcam. My most recent post has a rare photograph of me.
I look forward to your expanding on the curation rewards issue.
And, on the issue of mythical creatures: South Africa beat Wales in the semi-final of the rugby world cup. Wales' Celtic dragon didn't quite vanquish the South African Springboks!
Have a good week!
On SMTs: Thanks for the explanation. I'll watch and wait. I've climbed on the bandwagon using the tags. I need to remember to redeem them from time to time.
I'm glad people are preferring to engage, rather than just have Internet shouting matches. I don't like the attitude where people refuse to even try to see eye-to-eye or even engage in civil discourse with each other. All the countries with the biggest political problems and nuttiest politicians suffer from this a little. On a side note, people who are trying to bring that style of debate to Canada are failing miserably, thankfully.
I'm fairly familiar with Wordpress, as I used it to make a few websites, I'm just a little unfamiliar with Steempress, but I'm sure it's fairly easy to use.
It's annoying to be in the demographic that is silent and invisible. However, I think for others who are really interested in onboarding and getting people on to Steem, they should definitely be more interested in discussing things with you than with me. I'm in the most common demographic for Steem anyway (male between 25-40). I'm not sure if Steem will ever have the teenager appeal or if anyone wants that but it will be neat if someone makes a community that appeals to young adults, or even more interesting, children. I do think Steem does appeal a little more to an older crowd and people who are investors or entrepreneurs. Blockchain in general does.
Touching back on the community thing, I do hope communities that are a little more advanced than tribes pop-up. For now I see many of them being little more than a hashtag that at best you need to stay on topic with. Maybe the purely Steem ones will be better or attrach existing companies that want a tokenized forum. I can see a lot of potential uses.
I was happy to see England win too. Not that I'm a fan, but New Zealand has been doing so well and England has had a really tough year in politics.
Confrontational and personality politics - I loathe both but it seems to characterise most things. Sadly.
Then for you, it'll be a doddle. A plugin and you just add your posting key and you're synced. Done.
On the demographic issue: it's frustrating. That said, I think that the Steemit powers that be should consider how many "developed" countries have ageing populations (where women are in the majority), and where they could onboard lots of people. IMO and I'm hazarding a guess that the majority of the quality content on the platform - with broad appeal - by and large comes from Steemians who are probably 35+. With the rare gems as exceptions.
Indeed.
Winning the RWC2019 would be good for both SA and England.
Oh this is very disturbing to me. Not knowing what a bidbot even is, I asked a few people if sbi is one and was assured sbi is acceptable by newsteem standards. Most of the shares I've accumulated in sbi were bought FOR me by accounts that appreciated my posts, so the origins of the upvotes are tied to value in posts, at least in my case. I just started buying them for others for the same reason, and am happiest doing this for the smaller accounts - it seems a much better reward for quality than my upvote, which is worth next to nothing now on posts with small payouts. Maybe some whales are abusing sbi, but for the tiny accounts, sbi upvotes are sometimes the only upvotes of any value that the tiny accounts get, no matter how good the posts are. So many of the changes have made it even more difficult for new users who have not invested in steem to make any currency at all.
SBI is a way to help venezuelan proyects to grow, is a point of view i was meditating all these days and now that i read this looks like is a problem, but i think that everything carried by the concious of the one would be good, keep things descentralized and by manual curation looks like the best, at least for me, as a content creator think that, blockchain well developed is a pithagoras teorem resolution so, let's keep growing and understanding the best path for all.
SBI helping charities is another good point about their services. I think they should do more.
It's helping the whales too much, that's the problem.
yes, whales need to find balance, has to be a way to valuate always good content
Most whales have found a balance, but a few have lost a lot of money and are trying to make it back in an agressive manner. It's pretty much up to the other whales or a large pod of orcas to keep them in check.
My thoughts are much in line with yours @owasco! There's so many contests that have a hard time giving out STEEM as rewards, but do SBI shares to help all the awesome people who join get something and also grow both accounts. I'm sure like any system, there are opportunities for abuse. But by and large the people I see using it are quality creators who really do support a lot of communities and other endeavors that make Steem a great place. I can see a possible need to adjust the system as @abitcoinskeptic points out, but I hope they do it in a way that doesn't alienate the many people who have put their faith in the program. (and invested hard-earned STEEM, as well)
I'm glad people are pointing out the positives. I hope these endure.
Community contests are great and it is a neat way to reward people.
However, I want to see more done to eliminate negative use.
As long as efforts trying to "eliminate" negative use do not make it even harder for the Littles to make a dime. No one talks about the upvote curve, but I feel that is terribly unfair to accounts with low sp, both producers and curators. That's where I would like some attention focused.
I do like the idea of taking a look at someone's average income per post (just add up the posts if they post multiple times a day ... their loss), and giving them a handicap if it doesn't look like they are just out there farming Steem.
There are a few large orcas and whales going around maximizing ROI in schemes like sbi, these people need to chamge and sbi should be less accomodating.
Normal users are fine.
I draw the line at comment voting and maximizing ROI by excessive use of their services.
I definitely see positive aspects in things like sbi and I'm glad you brought that up.
My idea is to make more positive things prevail.
thank you I hope you succeed. sbi is a great way to reward small accounts doing great work, the kind of posts and accounts that will make no one any money so they tend to be overlooked.
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nice reasonable read, good point of view, looking for a good balance and armony.
Exactly~
Great article @abitcoinskeptic - one which needed to be addressed. Perhaps @theycallmedan would appreciate what you have put out here considering his post made yesterday.
Additionally, as the head of PHC I would just like to say thank you for representing us so positively in this post. And yes, you are spot on - we are an amazing collective of individuals - ALL of which have the best interests of Steem at heart and yes, this space would be all the poorer without communities like ours.
Thanks. I think I commented on his post from yesterday.
I felt a need to clear things up.
Saying genuine communities are next is a slippery slope argument. We aren't influence peddling or selling anything.....other than zord's fancy banners.
Well, changing a huge machine might require some huge time and effort. Or at least a lot of good planning. So I would be patient. But I think your articles help a lot of analysis and suggestions.
We know a lot of those sbi units were given as rewards and people thought long-term of them. In terms of years, if you do the math under the old circumstances.
Meanwhile, the world changed a bit.
Adaptation is only logical. Or the only logical thing? Who knows?
Cheers!
I remember when it first came out, after are 15 to 22 mpmths you'd get ROI, sooner if you bought for an alt. For delegations, it was always better than average and around 25% APR. When they added upvoting ROI it changed. That turned it into a instamt profit thing. You cpuld buy one share, do nothing but upvote their posts and comments and profit immediately.
Sorry, you cant subscribe to receive votes from @tipu ;)
I think I'm going to clarify tipu a little more. Its a hybrid voting service, not a subscription.
I think the main take here is that tipu is changing and adapting and communicating which entails a bright future.
Bookmarked and will have a look tomorrow.
Thank you for this, but we have never delegated anything to them.
Although I think someone has subscribed us.
Blessings!
Nothing wrong with getting a subscription.
It's the people who buy as much as possible and voting too much on their accounts I'm looking at.
Ah! Not guilty here my friend and glad that you know it.
Papillon has never used a bot and what you see is all my very own hard work.
Just goes to show that progress can be made in honesty.
Blessings!
This is awesome. I'm curious about SBI shares before HF21 was rolled out. If we gave shares then, we'll continue getting votes. Right? I haven't seen any downvotes as a result of that, but I think I'm still getting SBI votes and I haven't bought shares in a long time. I think I do have some autovotes going that way, but I can cancel that. Things seem to be improving all around.
The shares technically last forever so you will keep getting votes.
I don't think anyone will get downvoted just for having old shares.
Its the people who vote for their accounts too much that need to worry. You get around 1200% a day. If you are voting sbi comments and posts with more than 300% (three full votes a day), its probably excessive. Combine it with sending them a lot of steem to get shares using @ for your alt or buddy who is buyig you shares, and delegating them most of you sp...we end up seeing people who maybe should reconsider their actions.
Okay, gotcha. My upvotes are capped, in percentage and by number of day, so it's relatively small. Thanks! Great insight.
Thank you so much for sharing us your point of view
You're welcome.
I tthink it is something that should be thought about and discussed.
I have to say I am starting to have a problem with how "NewSteem" is becoming a bit evangelical, and this is an example of it. I have a vested interest (I have a fair number of SBIs) but that isn't really the point (I don't really earn a whole lot from it). As you know I am a small time curator (ie I make no income from it, but I do it because it's right). I don't have a problem with this being the main model for Steem. But I am having a problem with people trying to impose their vision and shut down things they don't agree with.
"NewSteem" feels to me like it is becoming a little fascistic (NewSteem = New Order?) I loathe the term and I worry about the direction we are headed in.
I definitely see your point that some of the actions are becoming excessive.
I think curation has become much better. I used to make like 5 to 7 Steem a week curating. Now I make 3X this much and I'm not even trying.
I don't think there is anything wrong with sharing opinions and ideas. Some people may see this as imposing one's vision, but following my ideas is 100% optional. I pretty much follow the consensus. It was well known that free downvotes would destroy vote-buying. Nowadays, it's rare to see people with decent accounts buying votes because of the risks involved.
I haven't seen SBI make changes yet to optimize their platform for working with the changes since HF21. I think now it's been long enough that they should make changes. If they don't they risk becoming a target.
The biggest problem is a lot of whales that were just trading votes with eachother have now maximized their take in all of the things like sbi (another one I noticed now is steemyoda). This wasn't an issue before the hardfork.
Whether you like new Steem or not, I think a better way of looking at it is just call it what it is v.22 (there was a 22nd hardfork) or Steem October 2019. Blockchains in general are evolving so quickly and as a blockchain focused on a social network service (sns), I see Steem evolving a little differently. Community opinion and consensus is important. I think this is what new steem can also mean. It's the prevailing consensus or attitude. If you want to continue doing well, you have to consider it whether you like it or not. The new Steem evangelicals if you will are just trying to steer it into a direction they are more comfortable with. There is nothing wrong with trying to do the same to make it become anything you like.
I want to see SBI survive, if you look at the comment they wrote on my post it seems they have considered this and are actually planning to do something within the next few weeks which is great.
The problem as I see it is why should SBI change? People bought into it (whether you personally agree with it or not) on the understanding that one steem bought you a bit of an upvote for life. If they change the way they operate what happens to all the steem that people have invested? I do agree with many of the HF21 changes. I agree with curation (I delegate much of my SP so I haven't seen a huge increase in my income), but I don't agree with the way bits of steem that people don't agree with are being targeted one after another. It is like the poem First They Came... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...). Initially, most people welcomed the tackling of the trending page abusers. But then they go for the next thing and the next, without any consultation just with the "belief" it is "NewSteem" it is good for steem (without any evidence. The value of steem isn't effected by the use of bidbots perse but by the selling of steem. And that is just - if not more - likely to be done by people who are curated - or curators, which is frankly a full time job if it is to be done properly).
Thanks for responding. I have left a number of comments (as have other dissenters) on other posts and they get ignored (effectively shutting down any debate). So it is difficult to judge what is the "consensous" if the people who have the power (and lets face it the big boys are still making a lot of money from singing the "newsteem" song) don't allow a debate, but just post constantly that "this is good for steem, this is bad". If they don't get involved in the comments section then where is the community? Where is the consensus? It is just the same powerful whales playing the same game but just changing the rules.
I think they should change because Steem is changing. The question for me is how should they change? You read my post. Also, they just published a post and I wrote my comment there. They want to eliminate rewarding people with more of a balance for upvoting all their posts. They said they will drop it by 10% a week until it's zero. Actually, I think that is excessive. I think they should reward 50% on their main account's daily post only to avoid people upvoting with all their VP.
I also think some people are getting out of hand targeting others. It's making Steem an uncomfortable place for some. However, for the most part if you don't downvote people or buy votes, you are left alone.
I'm familar with that poem. I do think it is an appropriate analogy in some cases, however it is a slippery slope argument in others. I think the worst thing that one can conclude is something like "Since there is a chance of escalation let's do nothing." Hopefully, we both can agree sometimes change and experimentation is worth the risk. Maybe you want this movement to stop a little earlier than I do. I want to see vote-buying and direct vote-trading/swapping end. I have no problem with indirect communities like PHC and would be sad if someone did (however anyone who has a problem, I would like to hear more about their opinion.
Definitely, this is true. I want to see the experiment run a little long. I look at the recent changes as trying to fix Steem while it is on life support. Steem fell in value because BTC crashed. It dropped in rank because many new projects joined.
However, SMTs were delayed and bidbots wrecked the trending page. One is being fixed now and the other is being tested. Let's hope Steem's value raises in the next few months. If not, we can always bring back the bidbots.
I do like the idea of being able to buy promotions and tipu's solution of only giving an equal vote seems fair for now (you are going to lose money to promote, but TIPU still makes a ton of Steem doing this). New Steem has only been going on for about 6 weeks and people have only had informed opinions and observations for around half that time (first few weeks were just too early to judge IMO). I want to see how it lasts.
I always like responding to people who put effort into comments even if I disagree with some of their opinions. I do tend to wait a little longer to respond until I'm prepared to give them the kind of answer they deserve. I think you should check out SBI's post that I commented on and linked above. I actually don't mind where the discussion takes place, but I prefer a lot of it is on Steem and not discord where all Steem users can see it.
Fair enough. You argue well, and have good points. Like you I would like to see more of this debate out in the open.
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I agree with you regarding SBI ... any equating them with bid bots is a stretch
It is starting to look more and more like people searching for targets and less like supporting the platform.
there always is a way, and there always be folks who will find a way to game the system -- right? if they started using SBI to play the game, figurally saying, why we should shut down SBI, just to erase these folks.... should we?
I don't want to see SBI shut down. If I did, I would keep quiet or just join in on the abuse. I offer suggestions which will discourage abuse such as limiting what can be voted on to receive a voting bonus.
I want to see SBI survive and thrive, but the sharks are circling.
steem-ua is supposed to be a ranking service less prone to being gamed than the baked in system on the platform. If it has morphed into a subscription service I think most people are unaware of that.
As for SBI, one of the main reasons I give SBI away at PYPT is that it provides what amounts to small ongoing votes to those receiving it rather than sending someone a single steem. I also like that people can't just arbitrarily raise their holdings without raising the holdings of others.
SBI votes on comments when the member hasn't posted. I have seen this happen with myself. If I go several days without putting a post up, I start getting SBI votes on comments. They stop the moment I post.
As for the blacklists. Have you talked to @josephsavage to find out if SBI uses them? I know I would never sending an SBI for someone on the blacklists.
Steem-UA is a subscription service in the sense that you delegate to them in promise for votes.
The interesting part about it is how they have the ranking system work so it's not always the same amount of money you earn. It's based on how many followers you have and then the particular level of engagement on your post. It doesn't look like it's been updated for awhile in terms of how the model works. I see two issues with it personally. Althought it does look into engagement, I'm not sure of the degree of intelligence. Does it count people on blacklists commenting? Bot commenting? Is character length important? The other issue is considering the number of followers. Do people with reps below 30 count? What about accounts that haven't posted or commented for months? There are a lot of weird networks of followers that don't actually exist following people. In any case, Steem-UA doesn't increase their vote for you based on how much you give to them, it caps out at a very reasonable 250 delegation (7 votes a week) or 4 for 100 which is actually a good deal. I consider Steem-UA to be pretty harmless and doubt anyone is attacking them because they don't comment vote or give extra credit to people who vote for their posts.
I've just heard back from SBI (they commented here) apparently they do enable a blacklist, so I'm going to update that part. He also mentioned they are discussing making some changes and two of the issues I had with them are going to be considered which is great.
This is fairly easy to get around. Lot's of people have alts or just trade.
So if I post on discord and get upvoted on that post, is that considered the same thing @abitcoinskeptic? Or only when I use my Steem or SBD's
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Do you mean just posting a link to your post in hopes someone will vote for it?
I don't think that's abuse at all, I consider that unpaid promotion which is a positive thing.
The problem would be sending someone a link to vote for and either Steem or some other promise (a simple vote exchange) or payment.
In my opinion, it's way too indirect to be a problem.
Thanks for opening this discussion. We tried to open similar discussion with our member-base in yesterday's update. But as you correctly noted, not a lot of our members actually read our updates. Perhaps here is a better place to address these concerns.
I appreciate that you have been systematic in your discussion (and not all over the map) because it makes it easier to respond in a systematic and consistent way.
We think of this as three separate value streams. While they aggregate into the total votes people receive, each stream has its own particular rules. In approaching this discussion, I would like to handle each stream separately.
This is the original mechanism that has never been changed since SBI launched almost 2 years ago. This was designed explicitly to be an account-level curation. You sponsor an account for 1 STEEM worth of lifetime upvotes. In doing so, you essentially receive 50% curation (you also get 1 STEEM present value of lifetime upvotes). This feature attracts very minimal abuse because the time to ROI is very long. It's the mechanism that contest uses, and that results in SBI supporting many valuable causes and accounts. We still believe this model is net-positive for Steem, and we don't plan to change it.
There are pros and cons to this. It has been normal throughout Steem history for services to offer various levels of rewards to members that delegate. Delegation also allows members to support (and be supported by) Steem Basic Income without having to send liquid STEEM and trust us to keep delivering upvotes. While we have built a good track record of reliability, it's important to keep an open channel that allows members to support and benefit from our project without having to send liquid STEEM after initial enrollment.
Delegation is also a common way for whale accounts to get consistent large upvotes. We are considering making adjustments to the calculations to decrease the benefits of delegation some. My preference here would be for members to earn a fair return on delegation, while allowing it to skew toward supporting smaller accounts instead of whales. This is already happening organically because of the role our curation returns play in delegation rewards. If we decide more needs to be done after addressing upvoting bonuses, then we will.
This is the area that is our biggest concern, and the area we want to address. This was introduced to help us build a sustainable SP base and to help other programs do the same. Before HF21, there was very little abuse here (although not zero), and the small abuse that we saw was usually addressed quickly by our blacklists. (We have followed @steemcleaners and @buildawhale blacklists automatically since our automation was released. This is covered in our FAQ.)
Since HF22, many large accounts have shifted from bid-bots to vote-swapping services. This has upset the balance of abuse, and my own concerns about our voting trends have risen exponentially. In many cases, the accounts we vote are not bad enough for blacklisting, but not good enough to justify the votes that our upvoting rewards are returning to them.
We would like to phase out upvoting bonuses completely over a period of 10 to 12 weeks.
We believe there is a role for stake-based rewards within the overall content-oriented curation schema, but we do not believe that having stake should be the sole determinant of who gets rewarded.
SBI's native sponsoring system was designed so that members could 'crowdsource' support, stacking it to that point where it would be equivalent to whale-level support... an internal patreon-like model that offers greater stability and reduced risk of subscriber-flight.
Since we do actively support thousands of accounts and over 1500 accounts benefit from our upvoting rewards, we do not think it appropriate to turn the model on a dime and cancel upvoting rewards without opening discussion with our members.
While many other programs were able to change quickly to 'manual' curation, they were able to do so because their systems were entirely transactional. They made no promises and, once each paid upvote was delivered, owed nothing more to their customers . We have instead built long-term relationships and a community of active supporters that use SBI as a tool to support their passion projects. It would be unethical for us to make major changes without public discussion and an attempt to build consensus.
To that end, we will cross-post this long-form response into tonight's update, with a link to your post.
We agree with this completely. We have never engaged in revenge downvotes, although we have sometimes been more aggressive in penalizing other forms of abuse when we receive revenge downvotes. We do sometimes mark accounts that downvote us to not receive upvotes anymore, but that's a separate response.
When we've been downvoted, we try to engage and discuss potential issues with that person. In most cases, they have at least decided that we are not harmful, or that we are less harmful than other potential downvote targets. In some cases they continue downvoting us and we let them do so without retaliation.
We have never penalized any member or cancelled their subscriptions for speaking out against SBI (though when people are publicly critical, they often request us to cancel their subscriptions or assign to somebody else). One reason we advocate a crowd-sourced basic income is because a 'universal' basic income is extremely vulnerable to political changes and censorship.
We also never downvote over disagreement with content.
I'm very thankful for your comment on my post. I also have no problem with you dropping a link to any post you've made on the subject. They do get buried so maybe you need a standout title and image or something.
I hope you find some of the discussions here useful. It's interesting to me to hear how small accounts, new accounts and charities really like SBI.
Thanks for clearing a few things up about how SBI works. I'm glad you are evolving and considering changes. I will edit my post to make it clear you responded and to alter a few things that were errors, or I've come to understand since writing it.
I actually agree it's great in theory and actually looks quite good on a lot of those network webs you are posting. There is potential for abuse and I am sure you look into it case-by-case when it comes up.
I don't really have a huge issue with being rewarded for delegations. Delegations are a very important part of Steem and getting a reasonable return is fair and encourages people to power-up. I do like the idea that you are considering a cap, especially now that people cannot delegate to bid bots and you may be receiving more. It would be neat to see how many people want to get the maximum possible out of the service.
I'm glad you noticed the account upvoting is the biggest issue post HF21. It did work out fine before and I don't think a lot of people were using all of their VP like this. I'm not even sure how you would notice unless someone reported. I think phasing this is a good idea. Maybe going down to an intermediate level of like 50% would be neat to see if it still attracts some people. I do know people use this to get rid of excessive VP (like auto votes when VP reaches 100%), so there will always be a use for it, even though there are other options.
Doing away with the comment/post vote trading alone will probably ensure that SBI is on top of things until the next major fork which I believe is SMT and I do know you are already collecting tokens which is great. When it comes to SMTs I guess you can change how you operate in a given community according to their consensus and mechanics.
Regarding the other stuff about downvoting battles, this post wasn't entirely about SBI. However, I'm glad to hear your reasonable opinions and history on the matter.
I don't know of any specific cases where you've been downvoted and didn't think you were the type to revenge. Curangel and OCD are in quite the war right now. I think you guys will have reasonable discussions before it comes to anything like that and would hate to see something like that happen any more than it already does with SBI or anyone with an eye out for the bigger picture for that matter.
I think it's good to ask when you are downvoted and your thinking is exactly in line with mine on that. I don't always say why I've downvoted someone (especially if it's clearly abuse and already has an explanation). However, I would definitely address the matter if I was called out (I do get a little annoyed when people call me out on unrelated posts, but I don't always check mentions.).
I think this is the most interesting thing for discussion here. I don't think people who want to quit are entitled to much, but it is interesting you consider moving the subscription in some cases. Unless someone is causing havoc ends up on blacklists or asks for it, they probably don't deserve their subscription to be canceled for expressing their opinion.
I find myself at the nexus of #oldsteem and #newsteem in that I’ve managed to acquire a large number of SBI units that are doing me not much good because haejin/ranchrelaxo is revenge downvoting all of my posts to zero.
Rock, meet hard place. 😅
Although I do feel bad for you because I really like your blogs and think you are fighting the good fight, I don't think this issue is related to SBI. I also don't think SBI will revenge vote anyone.
I myself am not downvoting the whales because I like to stay out of trouble, but I am doing my fair share of downvotes. I generally just look at steem flag rewards and downvote whatever they recommend. I'd be willing to look at other lists, too.
Great post, I agree that the adjustments for some of these projects haven't taken place yet and need to be coaxed. This post is a step in the right direction.
I don't blame them for wanting a little while after the hard fork, but it has been 6 weeks now and enough data and opinions are available to start making decisions.
That's a reasonable evaluation.
I have delegated to Steem-UA the minimum amount just to get the info it provides and not really for the upvote that comes with it. Lately the info doesn't seem to be that accurate and there seems to not be anymore development.
I think the subscription of delegating 100 SP to them for 4 post votes a week is amazing, especially if you write that much. I agree, I would love to see an update. They consider how many followers you have and that doesn't mean a whole lot when many of them don't even read your posts or use Steem anymore for that matter. Also, spam comments like "you received and upvote from UpVoteBot courtesy of you" are not really engagement.
You have me convinced to stop auto upvoting SBI.
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I think manual votes in general are better. However, only voting 1 time per day on their main account is reasonable. The problem is there are quite a few people on Steem who use their entire voting power only upvoting like 10~20 different accounts which is a little sad. I don't expect everyone to be as robust in their voting habits as me, but here is my most recent voting CSI: 2.6 ( 0.13 % self, 568 upvotes, 341 accounts, last 7d )
That self vote was an accident 10% follow on a curation project that got me. My curation rewards are a little below average, but I think the self-sacrifice is worth it. Some people look at this score and won't upvote people who are too selfish or narrow in their voting behaviors.
If everyone did this, I believe the benefits of posting would go up and so would the effort put into posts.
As I have not been as active on our Steem blockchain of late @abitcoinskeptic, I am only now seeing this (due to our recent exchange on your most recent post ...). I have bookmarked it (in SteemPeak, my favorite interface), to come back and read carefully through it, as time permits.
While I have a quick and almost immediate reaction (not typical for me ...), I will refrain until I have properly digested with you have to say, along with the associated comments. Then, I may have more to say later ...
#sbi-skip (<= 😉)
I noticed you write sbi skip on the comments. I post enough that it isn't an issue.
Your comments are better than some people's posts and a vote on some of them wouldn't be embarassing.
I once had sbi vote on a comment that said 'yes'.
My main issue is not with sbi, it is with people that abuse sbi and only vote for sbi. They are the people that stick around here and take take take while complaining that Steem is low. I feel sbi doesn't do enough to prevent this. It wasn't an issue before the hard fork.
Even having “slept on it,” I am still challenged to produce what I would consider a positive, constructive comment to this post @abitcoinskeptic. Just “straight up” from the heart …
If you knew me better, you may well consider me a “contrarian” to the core. Much of which might be attributed to my age and experience in a long life of having “been through the wars” … I am fundamentally unimpressed with most of the “rah, rah, rah” aspects of “New Steem,” when I still see so much blatant abuse of it.
Have the “big boys” truly reformed and made this platform a substantially better place? Or have they simply “changed the rules of the game” and still in the process of madly scrambling to ensure they themselves are in front of the line to take maximum advantage of them? All while “stampeding” the rest to “sing the praises” of “All hail New Steem” with no “off key notes” allowed in the singing. Or else …
For the SBI program to be deemed a worthy “target” for what seems to be a far too zealous (evangelistic?) response to “New Steem” is at least one if not two or three steps too far for this Steemian. When there are far greater issues which need to be addressed. One man’s opinion and it is pointless and a waste of my time to go any further …
While capable of being a considerably larger stakeholder in our Steem blockchain, I have elected not to be, given the much greater negatives I see than most appear to, including apparently yourself. That is fine. We are all uniquely different and cannot possibly be in 100% agreement all the time ...
You do write well @abitcoinskeptic and I am certainly happy to genuinely give you credit for seeming to be considerably more thoughtful in your approach “in here” than most. And, taking pains to not be misunderstood (as much as that depends upon me), I will continue to comment on your posts in the future, as I view that as an essential role we all play in adding value (yes, which is deserving of “rewards” as well …) to the ongoing content creation. Without which the value of the content creation is greatly diminished …
P.S. For what it is worth, I found the most value in reading through all of your post’s comments in those from @felt.buzz and @fionasfavourites. Why? Because they openly question “New Steem” …
#sbi-skip
To be honest I was very reluctant to write this post. Before the changes, SBI was great, although unperfect. Mainly I wish people had to ask for comment votes instead of deny them.
My main reason for writing this post was to alleviate worries of various people I connect with on Steem who are concerned about new Steem going to far. I wanted to assure people it isn't the main target, and to suggest changes SBI can make to survive the purge. Whether the purge has gone to far is a topic hopefully for a dofferent day as that is a discussion that is too early to have.
I haven't changed my downvote habits at all after newSteem. I think I understand what is happening better than most. I still believe it is too early to jump to conclusions on the effects, but I think these measures are worth a try. I definitely think it is too early to see if newSteem has gone to far because as you mentioned, there are larger problems remaining.
Maybe they movement is starting to go astray? That will be worth discussing at some point.
I think my main disagreement with a lot of the people I agree with and respect around here is that it isn't too early to make conclusions, changes weren't necessary, it has already gone to far. I don't think we can answer these. We can debate if it was necessary, but was it detrimental?
I wrote this post to have discussions with people like you and those you mentioned and I am usually sure to pay close attention to people who have differing opinions and write meaningful comments that are worth addressing and replying to.
This is my 3rd or so post on NewSteem that is controversial and not conpletely satire. I want to see everyone stick around. I want to see the changes actually work as intended or close to it (improve value, engagement and userbase). I want to see services like SBI adapt and survive.
I think the most encouraging thing is getting to learn people's insights, and especially the response from Joseph and SBI. He is worried about his project obviously. He knows I'm not the one beating the newSteem drum and trying to attack everyone I disagree with. He agrees a cap on vote bonuses is necessary.
When they suggested how they would make changes, I even wrote I think it is too much and 50% should be considered for the main account posts. I don't think they've been too slow to change, but a few recent events makes me think now is the time to start changing. The closing of smartmarket's selling service and the changes of tipu to allow promotion were two of them.
People like SBI. It is sad to see that some people started abusing it once the bots were under attack. I'm not sure about you, but I feel that something is off when all accounts are voting certain users at 100%. The name basic income evikes something completely different, but I think its time for reasonable limits to prevent abuse.
I've always been in the camp that abusive users are most responsible, then enabling services, and not the normal or legitimate users. I hope that a good solution can be found that increases everyone's peace of mind and Inespecially hope the idea alreadybon the table is enough even though I think it's too much.
communty > community
my 5 cents: I have a decent followers number (around 180) and sufficient 'engagement surrounding my posts' (it is all original, and rewarded content, people upvote it cause they like it, I believe)... amount of delegation to this service: zero. number of the posts upvoted by the service: zero. i.e. they curated not a single post of my blog.
due to these details, I assume this service is based mostly on the delegation. prove me I am wrong, hehe.
They are not a curation service. They are a subscription service. It seems like you are not subscribed.
The number of followers one has meant very little, if followers never upvote, mention, resteem or comment, their value is unclear.
I would rather have one follower that engages than 100 who don't.
exactly that I considered, my example is underlining.
Ahh. Makes sense.
Their stake isn't huge and it's difficult to abuse.