Test Of Upvoting Bots - "Be, or not to be, that is the... post"

Single upvote (one-off) bots. Upvoting bots - actually, they are legal, but still, they are badly perceived by individuals and some communities (maybe all).

Disclaimer: please do not use any of the knowledge and/or ideas presented in the post as an investment advice and/or any kind of advice. The opinions presented are only my own views at the time of creating this post and should be considered as a part of a reading material and fun.

Is it worth investing in bots, if so, how and what are the potential pros and cons associated with this process?

1. Legal, moral?

Bots are often created by witnesses (@jerrybanfield 's bot, the second is @buildawhale bot of @themarkymark witness, etc.), if it is so, it looks like they are legal.

Are bots moral?
Bots are only programs that automate certain activities. We can assign morality, or lack thereof, to their authors. If you take into account that by the power of their votes they deplete the pool of prizes that other creators would get under "non-bot" conditions - yes, they are "immoral" in this respect.

Does Steemit allow it?
They exist and operate, also within the official framework (like witness' bots) and also promote posts that would not otherwise be voted. If such posts are valuable, if the people who write them deserve a reward that is not given by other Steemit-ians, it can be said that they are not so much moral or ethical, but certainly useful.

Do Steemit-ians allow it?
Many use them for various reasons; for tests, for being noticed in a tag, for potential profits. Steemit-ians who do not use them are not very enthusiastic about the people who use these bots. Why?
For obvious reasons, I will mention only one reason: "pulling from the pool" (there is another term, but it is too brutal for me). A number of tokens is generated in the pool. Distribution of their share to "investors" to paid bots voting, evokes emotions. One of the emotions (as I imagine) is the feeling of injustice. On Steemit there are more and "less capable" post makers, there are also "lazy" ones.
We can consider such a "lazy" and at the same time "incapable" one, and it is only a step to potential pigeonholing as ("this hopeless @ ... who only writes ... and does ...").
Does everyone deserve the chance to be noticed?
Certainly "copyers", spammers, multi-accounters, those who get upvots from Steemit-ians from the auto-voting automatons, having "low-value" posts upvoted by bots, all of them are unpleasant to us and they should not have such a chance.
Would each of us feel cheated (as one of the "shareholders") seeing the abuse of Steemit caused by such activities? I would.

3. A brief history of my test posts:

I decided to take a test of five different voting bots.


The tests themselves did not go without "obstacles".


That day I did not spend much time on this project (which may be a warning for the future for everyone). The second thing - my plan for the test was not well thought out at first, although the intentions were scientific and ethical, this rush led to mistakes in the assumptions.
I wanted to make a ghost post in a tag that is not listed. Unfortunately, even unlisted posts are in the general tag "CREATED" and thus noticeable by other Steemit-ians. Every follower who follows us has access to our blog and also sees what is happening. My post was supposed to be unnoticed: first, because I had other more important activities at that time than creating a post announcing the test, and second, to avoid external upvots that would ruin the purity of the test result). Someone always upvoted me on this post (which contained info: "do not upvote - it's just a test"). There were more emotional, reckless and quick decisions, thoughts such as: "maybe he would not see the next post", etc. There were too many of them. In the end I decided to do five tests in five posts, the ones that had the least upvots (one for each bot). Then there was a small "trouble" and finally after a week there they were - test results.

4. The tests.

Thursday, April 26, 2018.

Price of Steem = 3.69 $, SBD = 3.34 $


"Investment": 5x 5 SBD = 25 SBD

Bots put to the test:

1. @buildawhale,
2. @rocky1,
3. @boomerang,
4. @jerrybanfield,
5. @mercurybot.
   
   

I chose these bots because of their limits of the minimum one-time investment

(successively from the top: 5 SBD, 3 SBD; 1.5 SBD; 1 SBD; 0.1 SBD)

5. How did I "bot"?

In "Wallet", in the tab Steem Dollars, I chose "Transfer". In the field to whom I entered the name of the bot (without @), in the field amount: "5", in the memo field: link to the post, which was to be upped by a bot.
That's how it works.

6. Discussing bots (on the trial day):

a. @buildawhale,
b. @rocky1,
c. @boomerang,
d. @jerrybanfield,
e. @mercurybot.

Max. investment in SBD.	Level of reputation of the bot.	Max. upvote value of the bot.
a: 78.6	67	653 $
b: 115.6	62	522 $
c: 38.6	53	160 $ ​​
d: 8	74	169 $
e: 11.7	50	47 $

7. Overview of rewards, part 1:

The day of the receipt of "Rewards":

Thursday, 3 May 2018.

Price of Steem = 3.69 $, SBD price = 3.34 $




a. @buildawhale,
b. @rocky1,
c. @boomerang,
d. @jerrybanfield,
e. @mercurybot.

The value "under the post" ($).	Author / curators ($).	Reward: SBD / SP
a: 14.76	11.12 / 3.64	5.557 / 1.414
b: 11.62	8.76 / 2.86	4.377 / 1.114
c: 12.44	9.36 / 3.09	4.676 / 1.190
d: 12.23	9.20 / 3.03	4.601 / 1.170
e: 9.97	7.50 / 2.48	3.746 / 0.955

The percentage of rewards for curators was between 24.61% and 24.9%

8. Overview of rewards part 2:

a. @buildawhale,
b. @rocky1,
c. @boomerang,
d. @jerrybanfield,
e. @mercurybot.


Value of the Steem price ratio to the SBD price at the beginning of the test (first day): 1,1048
Value of the Steem price ratio to the SBD price at the end of the test (eighth day): 1.1573
Price increase in this period: + 4.75%

The value of the "investment" in Steem.	The "Reward" value (in Steem)	Relative profit in Steem / in %
a: 4.217	6.216	1.999 / + 47.4%
b: 4.217	4.896	0.679 / + 16.1%
c: 4.217	5.230	1.013 / + 24%
d: 4.217	5.146	0.929 / + 22.03%
e: 4.217	4.192	-0.025 / - 0.58%

I remind you that the increase of SBD to Steem prices in this period was: + 4.75%

9. Location:

A full list of voting bots and their descriptions can be found in [this address: steembottracker.] (https://steembottracker.com/) This is an active website that allows you to classify bots using different parameters, which you can see there for yourself if you are interested in it (I do not want to discourage you from reading this article with too much information).

10. Worth / not worth it?

Against:
a. "pull from the pool" by persons who use various types of scams, and / or place posts of "very low quality";
b. individuals and communities on Steemit often negatively address the above (flags, no upvots, etc.);
c. please add in the comment which "against" which You see here.

For:
a. with a sufficiently high upvote, valuable posts can be noticed, read and / or upvoted by more people;
b. thus: the "potential" real value of Steemit will increase;
c. new Steemit-ians can potentially have more opportunities to be noticed with their valuable posts which otherwise could never be noticed - and often are not;
d. if a Steemit-ian reinvests the "Rewards" earned into new "valuable" posts (or Steem Power) in the development of oneself / and / or community of Steemit, then everyone benefits of it;
e. please add in the comment which "for" which You see here.

10. A golden thought?

I am not Socrates or Benjamin Franklin, I leave the golden thoughts to philosophers and presidents ;)

My observations tell me, that if you are someone who wants to share your values, if your posts are your copyright, if you bring something interesting, something new to the Internet, add value to people's lives, it's better if you have a way of how to do it.
You may reach people (perhaps due to the votes of bots), I do not see much evil in such a way to reach recipients.
At the time of "acquiring" the public, which will provide upvots worth the author's work, bots should only be a marginal option for such an author to raise the value of already appreciated posts to the threshold of allowing them to be displayed in international tags at the top of "Hot" and "Trending" tabs in which we find a lot of "lower value" posts (supported by "circles of mutual help and adoration"), but also "good" posts.

At Steemit, we currently have nearly 1 million registered accounts, active daily posting Steemit-ians about 250,000. The most popular social media network has about 1 billion of users. Steemit has a great potential to develop, but for healthy development it needs "healthy" authors and posts, if not supported by the "stronger" Steemit-ians, at least initially, by the boasting bots.
The authors invest their Steem Dollars, their time and emotions, and rewards for their posts are not for nothing.
Bots should have better algorithms of "recognition" a relative value of posts for upvotes, for now, we must rely on the honesty of Steemit-ians.

Thank you for reading this post. If you think that it brings something nice to Steemit - please comment, upvote, resteem.

If I can improve my posts, please write how.


All the best and have a nice day


Peter



Thank you :)

Disclaimer: please do not use any of the knowledge and/or ideas presented in the post as an investment advice and/or any kind of advice. The opinions presented are only my own views at the time of creating this post and should be considered as a part of a reading material and fun.