The people casting votes are validating the value of that content
"The people casting votes are validating the value of that content by rewarding it with cryptocurrency"? - @steemitblog
Is that so? Really? It doesn't seem like things are working that way. Is that what buying votes does now?
Source
Here is the section in question:
Because of Steem’s unique characteristics we didn’t have to limit ourselves to regular, run-of-the-mill Bitcoin-type cryptocurrencies, and could consider cryptocurrencies like STEEM, which has special properties like Proof-of-Brain (PoB).
With PoB, tokens are created at regular intervals and distributed to those who submit content to the blockchain, based on the stake-weighted upvotes of other users. Through this mechanism, the people casting votes are validating the value of that content by rewarding it with cryptocurrency.
So STEEM has "special properties" like Proof-of-Brain, where the content being put out is being evaluated by others with brains to allocate rewards? Hmmm... Not much anymore. So many of the heavy-hitting high-SP accounts have sold their votes for others to buy through bidbot services, rather then actually doing what Steem was made to do: vote content that is evaluated by the voters brain.
People are validating the value of content? Not on the majority of highly rewarded posts, which are not validated by a high-SP voter to give those rewards. Those votes are bought for, not voted on by evaluation from the account holder.
Proof-of-Brain has a big boot on it's face. People casting votes to reward posts is mostly not being done in terms of the proportion of the allocated rewards on high-payout posts. Those people/account/users aren't voting, their votes are being bought. There is no evaluation being done by them. And it's not only high-SP accounts that can do that, but anyone an delegate their power to sell their votes and not even engage in Proof-of-Brain to value content that gets rewarded.
The result is the shit show of the trending tab. The trending posts are not determined by "people casting votes" that "are validating the value of that content by rewarding it." The votes are being bought by authors. The actual voting account doesn't do any validation on the content through Proof-of-Brain.
I've had issue with bots on the platform since I got here in 2016, as it diminishes the value of a social media site actually evaluating the content on it's site. If the bots are doing the voting, then people aren't. "The people casting votes are validating the value of that content", was failing to be true then, and it's even worse now.
Is Proof-of-Brian heading down death-row on Steem due to the power of buying votes for people to make easy-money? Will we ever see a return to curating content where it's actually being evaluated in order for rewards to be allocated to make posts trending? Or is it just the rare post that gets that privilege now...
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Proof of brain is expectation but not algorhytm.
Machiavelli and many other philosophers were right that people work for themselves, thus need to be convinced by promises of advantages to them not to the community. In one of the Ancient Greece conflicts, two polises asked one for help. One came with gifts, the other reminded of existing debt. You can easily guest who gained the military support. I don't see anything bot buyers / owners could ever be offered, so they would stop using bots.
The other way to initiate the return is through software development. I am not IT professional with with further blockchain expertise, so I can hardly say what is in the power of developers. But I guess they can' t do much about this, at least not at the moment. They would have already done it if it was possible.
Flagging campaign is unlikely too as it would cause the conflict on Steemit damaging to both sides with non-existing chance for win for any of the sides.
So my answer is no.
I have already started searching for an alternative to Steem and carry on using it when posting benefits me by either community members rate my language / grammar / plot etc. or I learn something when looking for the material and summarize my own thoughts.
If there is a chance, I will be happy to hear it. But I think Steemit will fall and be replaced by more modern service in the future (such as many products / companies in the past, its natural development of market), unless the issue is resolved.
I know you are a fighter against bots. Good luck with that.
It's quite easy to recognize AI for now. So probably, other windows to Steemit blockchain than Steemit.com may have Human-curated trending feed. The return might be possible then, but bot-recognizing software can usually be fooled with some effort later on...
Also as a newcomer, my big disillusionment with Steem had been with the energy and motivation draining bidbots and self-votes. Someone with no attention span and no desire to create anything can post a literary work consisting of the word "peanuts" and get several hundred upvotes; more than many serious writers get in months for really decent work.
Where is the incentive when you compete with that kind of competition draining the rewards pool? How can you compete for rewards when whales can upvote themselves once and get more from the pool than a serious, talented creator may earn in a year of real work?
Because Steem was designed for the rich to get richer with one dollar, one vote, it will untimately fail unless that is changed. Better still, just hard fork the proof of brain part away from the "vote bot for me, it's okay to get my ROI" crowd who are in self destruct mode.
Sad, because I saw a bright future for Steem; at least before I learned about the built-in, self-destructive behavior.
We have time to fix this problem. We just are becomming ware of it now. Action will be taken.
Repairing things that are structural can be real problems and always take longer than first thought. Meanwhile, the ship is sinking.
Hope for the best...and quick action!
I will do my best to try to fix those problems. I believe its possible. If we all try to fix them we can do it.
Mind that sometimes building a new house is cheaper than renovating the old one. I won't spend much of my time on fixing something, which seems to be unfixable by 13 Steem Power man.
I agree, especially in this case where the "house" believes it is in great shape and is very much against being fixed.
Fork it and create one that works by separating the proof of brain and the gambling casino.
I don´t believe that dividing the cryptoshpere is the rigth thing to do rigth now...I believe we got work with what we have...But who are those "12 Steem Power man"?
I meant myself, should have been "a 12SP man"
Decentralization is much about dividing. So I disagree once more. And competition can drive decentralized social networking to perfection.
Nah, there are many things that can be done, but they don't because the don't want to.
Yeah, Steem seems to be headed down, as it's not a real social content platform, it's a bot centered platform with humans trying to stay alive :/
Thanks ;) I've been against bots since I got here in 2016...
It seems there is no way to compel them to want to. I am not sure if we refer to devs, bot users, or both right now. Devs would probably act if there was a strong competitor threatening to eat Stemmit. But it would likely be too late in this case; I heard that community used to flag all bot supported posts back in time. If even this did not stop bot users, than I don't see a way to stop them now, when they only grew in numbers, after the first war.
I have only encountered one bot that I have found useful: @trufflepig they promote posts that seem to be decent but not enough to be on the trending page. I have found two blogs I now follow through that service.
I do otherwise abhor bots. Voting bots are a joke, it’s taking the whole concept of this platform away from the way it was intended. This is supposed to be about people creating content, others reading it and the reading validates the design; if someone likes the content they give it an up vote, if they dislike it they can not vote it, flag it(which I think is ridiculous but that’s another discussion) and comment. The engagement this process brings brings a level of interaction that’s not found at such at level elsewhere. But of course the bots have changed that game completely. It’s difficult to even get recognition by posting unless you go to other blogs and engage with as many people as possible without these bidbots.
There needs to be a cultural shift on the platform but a shift away from these bots is unlikely since there are heavy hitters that are invested deeply in the continued success of the bots.
Yes, that is supposed to be the way it is. Bots ruined the whole fucking social content platform model, it's a bot platform with humans trying to survive...
Yeah, change is like 0 likely to happen, since content and community isn't a care for many, as they just care about making money and are investors mindsets, and they have most of the SP int heir pockets to dictate the direction of the platform... booo Steem...
Ya man it’s just turned into another business unfortunately.
I can understand the side where people argue, 'bidbots incentive whales to lock up steem power' or 'it allows small users to gain exposure' but in true essence we are not bringing value and growing the community for the good we are just auctioning off the rewards pool.
It will only create this sense that your success hear on steemit lies purely in bidbots. I remember when I joined the posts which were in hot were 'all' upvoted by randowhale. Initially I was bemused and I decided to stay away from them. However those who did latch onto these bidbots early on has now become significantly larger here on steemit boasting 10,000+ SP. I'm not jealous of their success but we shouldn't be in a climate in which it is pay to win.
With the present implementation, 100s and 100s of users have less power than 1 person with tons of STEEM POWER. this is often the opposite of the preferred behaviour. the perfect scenario is that 100s of individuals are exptected to be far more reliable in curating content properly than simply 1 person.
Everyone has this greed to earn money. I'm glad high quality people like you exist but you have whales equally as big who shit post and they get huge peer engagement since people will try every avenue to make money. We will have to be forced to curate or behave in line which is better for the platform since no one has the power to suppress their greed.
I hope it pans out positively in the long term but I remain fearful for now @krnel.
Exactly. Rather than earning rewards by merit of the work does to be part of the social content platform, people are just buying their way, not earning it. And the bots, automation and 0-labor investors are laughing all the way to the bank...
Pay to win, pay to play, is antithetical to an honest social content platform. It's ridiculous.
How do you force people to curate instead of buying votes? The easy solution is to remove delegation. This would not have happened easily without delegation.
I am worrisome of the future of the platform too :/
Amen, bro! Nowadays POB is about milking it all for what it's worth, which means selling, getting sold, so your money can work while you're trading your assets for other assets.
I actually see a new definition of POB around, which is slightly different, than the ideological one, and it's something like that: "Don't whine if you can't make it, and whales don't give a shit about you, they can do whatever the fuck they want with their money. INVEST! You don't have money to invest? Well, that's your problem".
Let's be realistic, steem blockchain allows for bots to thrive, it's the easy way out, and people always choose the easy way out! Banning bots is out of the question ATM.
I don't even wanna get into this argument anymore, cause it's a waste of time as any change to the blockchain demands consensus of 21 witnesses and they all profit from the bots, so they have no actual incentive for any change to happen.
Yes, the rise of bots started early, and just got worse over time... :/ I think Steem will have a fucking hard time growing into a real social content platform because it's largely run by investors, not content and community focused people.
Money people all the way. As someone said, it's not that something's wrong with code underneath the blockchain, we just have WRONG people pulling the strings and coming here to get rich in a month as advertised by Jerry!
exactly, and it is the main reason why we manually curate. Thought we do find ourselves very rarely upvoting content thieves or copy/pasters we do eventually detect it and blacklist/mute them.
With bidbots I know they do have that going on, but from what I have seen only some bidbots actually ban people from upvotes while the vast majority do not.
Yeah, and even then, it's still a bid bot, not earning a vote on the merits of the content but buying a vote because you can pay for it.
PoB is done, steem is just a dpos coin nowadays with people trying a variety of stupid different schemes to gain their part of the inflation.
Creating content and bring value seems to be dying on the trending pages. But there is still a lot of god content here, we should be building apps that apply different filters to the content. I would immediately support an interface that filters posts by manual curation, removing all known bot votes.
I agree. Investors run the show, and people who care about content or community are marginalized as SP runs the whole platform... :/
Good idea, I think I'll try to make my app/site again that I abandoned last year that was gong to empower manual curation ;)
Oh yes absolutely agree with you. I’m new to the platform and can already see this. It’ll either deter people from creating quality posts and join the bot bregade or they’ll just stop posting because what’s the point. I don’t even look in trending any more.
Yup. Most can't compete with vote buying, so why bother to try, or just sell out by buy votes too... It's lame what Steem has become... so much potential and it's turned ugly :/
I'm not at all a fan of bid bots. The next thing that will happen is bot will write the articles, do all the voting and then The whole thing will be automated; no people required...
I have watched scores of high reputation bloggers on steemit post and they already have several hundred dollars of earnings without many comments at all. Frankly, I wish we could do away with bitbots. If this was done, then the down flagging bot networks wouldn't exist ether.
Yes, the death of an actual content platform to reward actual HUMANS doing work! That's a 100% scenario, but introducing bots was making it 50% automation, and 50% of a crap model for social content platform is still 50% crap, even if it isn't 100% crap...
Well said!
I think manual curators validate the content, autovoters validate the value of the author and bots validate the value of the Steem blockchain and the work that bidders put in.
I think you should try using some bots especially small ones like @speedvoters and other .01 ones. Even the .10 bots are not really generally worth it I don't think unless you are in a country that has a $1 minimum wage.
Steem votes have value so I think the buying and selling is here to stay.
No... they don't. There is no positive correlation there.
If the Steem Blockchain was worthless I would DEFINITELY not waste my time doing the bot bidding. lol I think some people convert their fiat into SBD just so they can hire bots.
If people were hiring bots on Facebook to give worthless upvotes would anyone care? I think it's pretty rare that people buy upvotes/likes on Facebook since the votes are pretty much worthless.
Yes, this is definitely a problem. The reward is not in writing good content, it is in the strategy in getting your content, whatever it might be, as high on trending as possible so that the feeding frenzy can begin.
Yup, it's just a feeding frenzy of latching onto the popular posts and being part of the fad, hoping to get curation rewards fro higher paid posts... :/ "Feed me STEEM!"