Are Bid-bots Good For Steemit? - Yes or No? - Best Argument For Each Position Wins 5 Steem!
Are Bidbots Good For Steemit???
This is a question that's really been causing a lot of tension within our little, growing community for a while now and as such, I think it's a subject on which we should all be allowed the opportunity of having our voices heard.
Some of us are pro-bid-bot, some are anti-bid-bot and many of us are in bid-bot limbo, not really knowing what our position is because we don't have all of the arguments for and against in order to come to any sort of logical conclusion.
Which is why I thought it would be a good idea to create a post that would allow us all the opportunity to set out our position and reasoning for why we're for or against bid-bots.
In order to encourage as many opinions as possible from the community, when the seven day reward period for this post is up, I'll award a prize of 5 steem to whoever I feel makes the best argument for each position.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post outlining your position as to why you think bid-bots are good or bad for steemit.
I look forward to reading them. :)
Some of us are pro-bid-bot, some are anti-bid-bot and many of us are in bid-bot limbo, not really knowing what our position is because we don't have all of the arguments for and against in order to come to any sort of logical conclusion.
Which is why I thought it would be a good idea to create a post that would allow us all the opportunity to set out our position and reasoning for why we're for or against bid-bots.
In order to encourage as many opinions as possible from the community, when the seven day reward period for this post is up, I'll award a prize of 5 steem to whoever I feel makes the best argument for each position.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post outlining your position as to why you think bid-bots are good or bad for steemit.
I look forward to reading them. :)
Sale of votes happened and happens behind the scenes, where people contact one another, offer payments and come to agreements.
The best bidbots only make this more transparent, orderly and accessible for most users.
One need not be a connected or reputable or charismatic personality in order to buy votes.
Did you mean vote selling, or did you only refer to bidbots?
Vote selling is a harder question.
You got upvoted from @adriatik bot! Thank you to you for using our service. We really hope this will hope to promote your quality content!
You got a 28.57% upvote from @sleeplesswhale courtesy of @stimialiti!
This comment has received a 90.91 % upvote from @steemdiffuser thanks to: @stimialiti.
Bids above 0.1 SBD may get additional upvotes from our trail members.
Get Upvotes, Join Our Trail, or Delegate Some SP
I run @moonbot , which is a non-intrusive subscription based upvote bot.
I tried to make it so anyone can have a simple small upvote over 31 days, giving
them a chance at some dollar costing average on the SBD value. It is different than
a bid-bot. Which leads me to go into what I think about them.
Bid bots I always felt were for people looking to get an ROI on their posts.
In other, words profit. I didn't like that aspect for whatever reason it seemed
gamed and unnatural. Well, it turns out its more of a marketing tool then anything.
You spend to get reputation, followers and yes, exposure to your post.
Spend $100 on a bid bot and you spend $5 on marketing at the end of the day. This
is the line of thinking of I'm seeing more and more. But,your SBD is getting 1 to 1 I believe.
Self voting is interesting for sure. I do it and I do it with comments.
Good debate!
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts with us @moonbot and for the excellent explanation of your position.
I hope your day is going well mate
I will do this tomorrow, though it will likely be lengthy so I will do it in a blog post.
Cool bro. Just link the post in the comments for me please.
Just let me say upfront I appreciate the effort here to try to bring all opinions to the table. Also, I'm just here to offer up an opinion, so no need to consider me for any STEEM please.
I don't know what using bidbots ultimately does to the reward pool or doesn't do. I don't know how much people spend, make or don't make. I don't know how much owners make or the delegators to them. I just know what people post, and it sounds like by and large the bid users get mixed results and the bot owners/delegators range from shady to kind of generous, while the biggest bots make the most money.
That said, here's why I don't use bidbots:
I don't want to spend hard earned SBD.
The only so called advantage I can see to using bidbots is to get to the top of the trending page, which on any given day takes $500 on up to do (and I don't have that kind of SBD to spend). Meanwhile, I'm also told the trending page is highly regarded as trash, which no one looks at. Why would I want to spend time and effort getting to it if no one (presumably) looks at it.
I don't want to skew the numbers and misrepresent my earnings. What ends up on the posts is a gross amount, but it doesn't factor in what I would pay to the bidbots to get there.
I've got better things to do than figure out each time which bidbots to use and when in order to increase my ROI.
If I use bidbots, I feel like I'm telling everyone else that my post is good, rather than letting curators decide that, even if visibility is lousy here.
Bidbots affect reputation ratings. I know reputation isn't that big of a deal anymore, but it's because people use bots and self-upvote so much that the reputation is out of whack, along with circle voting and delegations and everything else.
I don't think bidbots should have large SP and high reputation ratings, but both can happen. Bidbots have been used, in at least one recent case, to flag another bot account for commenting on posts that use bidbots with the amount spent.
Bots can take the optimum position to upvote for curation, blocking the humans. I root for the human curators because I am one.
Hunh. I thought there might be more reasons, but I guess I've ran out. Maybe if I think of more I'll add them. Those are my reasons for not using bidbots.
Thanks for providing a forum for this. :)
Thanks a lot for tge kind words @glenalbrethsen abd also for taking tge time to so ckearly and eloquently set out your views on the matter. Its definitely a divisive issue right now and one I think we need to resolve between us before we and steemit can reach our true potentials and youve made some excellent points that others should consider when coming to tgeir own conclusions.
Have an awesome day mate. :)
I gave bots a try over the last week and had mixed results. I suspect that Bots become better the longer you are active on here and the more money you can spend on them, but let us put that to the side.
Overall, I am not fond of Bots existing because I feel like they have an unhealthy effect on the community. I don't want to go through my entire train of thought, but I feel like Bots existing diminish the quality of overall postings and demotivate people to leave comments which hurts the whole aspect of forming a community.
I also dislike the rhetoric behind bots. They make it sound like they are here to help, but in the end, they are just made for free passive profit. While not something I am against by default, I just dislike the way it is delivered.
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts @paparodin.
You make some good points which I'm sure will help others who happen upon this post to better form their own judgements and opinions on the matter.
Enjoy the rest of your day my friend. :)
It's 23:20, so my day is pretty much over at this point.
It is an interesting topic, especially for new people around here. Discussion on it should be encouraged, I am thrilled to see where this is going in the near future.
:) Have a great nights sleep then my friend and thanks again for adding your voice to the discussion. It definitely is a area of our little decentralised community that needs more focus, consideration and resolution as soon as possible.
The question being; Are Bidbots Good For Steemit???
My answer would be no they are not. My reason is simple; here is what the Steemit FAQ pages say about Reputation:
Reputation is built by the number of votes received, whether natural, curation trail, or bid bots. With the first two, I view those as honest votes, and valuable votes toward the reputation of an individual. Bid-Dot votes are bought and paid for votes. There was nothing reputation wise earned. Just a politician buying a vote.
All that being said, The votes purchased by bid-bots are allowed to be sold. The use of an individual's vote is entirely up to them. I have no problem with people who want to sell their vote, I do not even care if they cheat the buyer, (life sucks when people can sell and buy votes), if you try to buy a vote and they cheat you, I honestly do not care.
In conclusion Bidbots have destroyed the reputation system of steemit, therefore they are not good for steemit.
Hi @bashadow. I hope your day is going well my friend.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts on this divisive issue. I have my own opinion of bidbits and their pros and cons but for tge sake of tgis post Im trying to remain as neutral as possible but I think you raise a very important point in terms of the reputation of all of us individually and as a group.
If it was just a person selling a vote, or a person buying a vote, it is their vote, but what a lot of people do not realize is that buy votes is also buying reputation.
Thank you for making my Sunday start off with a bang. It was a pleasant surprise.
You're welcome mate. :) Thanks again.
Thing I don't get is self voting being considered reward pool rape and using bid bots? Its basicly the same only with bid bots your feeding the whales as well
Thanks for sharing your thoughts @eddard.
Hope your day is going well mate. :)
hello @tonyr, in my opinion, no matter how much income from every post we though little should be thankful, because from there we learn comparison, why posting people have a lot of results ??, sometimes if we use the bid-bot also sometimes can harm us with the amount of SBD we give to the amount vote ybg given inappropriate Bid-bot.
keep the spirit with the work it self do not be shy though look a little from jasil we get.
I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts @chaidir082.
The most negative effect I've experienced is lots of artists and creatives that Ive been following for almost a year, leaving the platform. Bidbots devalue everyone else's time while making a profit from a gambling system. I might be wrong, but won't investors get worried if the main system on Steemit is earning money through possibly illegal gambling? Loot boxes got enough attention so governments had to do something about it. It's a risky game for short term profits for only a few.
Hey Kristy. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts on the subject. I'm not going to express my own opinions on this post as I have already done so in the past but I just wanted to agree with you about the artists and others who've come and gone in the time since we've been here. There's definitely something that needs addressing in terms of retention of users. :(
I'm missing a lot of familiar names in my feed these days. I'm not sure whether it has anything to do with bots or not but it is a shame nevertheless. :(
I actually stuck around coz it's a hobby for fun and to de-stress :P I still hope to see some artists return, just like I did. I had to take a break for personal reasons, so I guess some others did too.
I will be trying out the upcoming ONO social media for creatives. Apparently I can even revive some of my old Steemit posts :)
The thing I hate most I guess is that posts are dead and useless after 7 days. On ONO it should supposedly be different.
My brother is enjoying Steemit, but I totally lowered his expectations before he joined xD
There are enough people on this planet living life in robot mode. So, I don't think we need robots doing the same.
Assuming that the humans using SteemIt are like other humans, I suspect that people will discuss politics on the platform. As soon as political candidates start using it as part of their campaigns, the Steemit Community will find itself pulled into nasty political discussions.
Is an upvote for a political candidate a campaign contribution? Is the purchase of bots a campaign expense?
The bots will be a major bone of contention along with the international flavor of the community with people yelling that Russia is trying to interfere with the election through Steem.
The widespread use of bots makes will amplify the political use of the platform.
Thanks a lot for adding to the conversation and sharing your thoughts with us @yintercept. You make some really interesting points concerning a possible and potential future for steemit that many would do well to consider. I like the forward thinking. :)
Hope your day is going well my friend.