Can You Smell The Stench Of Dead Steam Accounts?
Sounds a bit dramatic, huh? But think about this.
There are over 1,000,000 Steem accounts, but there are only 50,000 to 60,000 active accounts. Sorry that I cannot remember who I heard this from. If you know the source, let me know so I can give credit.
What Makes A Steem Account Dead?
The answer to this question is a bit subjective. So instead of telling you my definition of a dead account, I think it is best to mention some variables I used to help me reach my definition.
- Last Known Steem Activity - Time and Type - Has the account be active in the last month? Last 6 months? Last 12 months?
- Current Estimated Account Value - Is the account valued at $10 or less? Or has someone left a significant amount of Steem or SBD in their account?
- Recent Powerdowns - Is the account currently powering down? Is the most recent activity on the account a power down?
- Ongoing Investments - Is the account receiving ongoing payments for Steem Power delegation or other investment opportunities?
Examples:
- Dead - If you find an account whose last activity was over 6 months ago and was successfully powered down at that time, you have found a dead account.
- Alive - @hendrikdegrote has not posted, commented, or resteemed in over one year, but the account has a high estimated value and actively votes on posts that have been curated by @curie.
Steem.Agency
I recently stumbled upon a great resource, called Steem.Agency - big shout out to @SirCork.
With Steem.Agency, you can check the activity of Steem accounts that you follow with a feature that is affectionately called "Following the Dead."
Steem.Agency allows you to determine if an account's last post or vote occurred ...
- 1 month ago
- 2 months ago
- 3 months ago
- 4 months ago
I took this information and ran a "following" audit.
- First, I set the drop-down box to "post" and " 4 months ago."
- Second, I investigated the lists of accounts that was provided.
- I "unfollowed" all accounts that were truly inactive for more than 8 months (based on my definition of a dead account).
- I continued to follow some inactive accounts because I had enjoyed the content that was created, and I hope the creator comes back.
- I continued to follow some accounts that are not actively posting or commenting but are very active in regards to delegation and voting.
- I reached out to two or three content creators who were inactive because, but they had left breadcrumbs on how to reach them and asked how they were doing.
What Do You Think?
I want to hear from you.
- Are you concerned about the inactivity of Steem accounts?
- How many inactive accounts are you following?
- Have you ever performed a "following" audit and unfollowed Steem accounts that are not active or not relevant to you anymore?
Thanks for stopping!
Awesome article! I've been searching for a tool like this for quite some time so thanks for sharing. I'm going to have some fun performing an audit myself - it'll be nice to clean things up a bit.
It's somewhat concerning to me that there are so many "dead" accounts on Steemit, but I think that this was in large part due to the surge in prices last year, with many hoping to come here just to make a quick buck. Hopefully at least some of these accounts will come back from the dead when the STEEM price recovers, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
Looking quickly, it appears that of the 366 accounts that I currently follow, between 30-122 of them could be "dead" depending on the exact parameters I use. Time to say goodbye to at least a few of these!
I was surprised by how many "dead" accounts I was following. I guess a dead account does not clog up my feed but at a personal level, I want to make sure my activity on steem is as clean as possible.
Glad you are using this great resource. Have a blessed day!
I have written articles a couple of times about the importance of unfollowing. The most important thing about it is... Following less people keeps your feed interesting. If you get a ton of updates of no use to you, there's less chance you'll be sincerely engaged with steemit. Resteem accounts are a plague.
I mostly don't care about dead accounts. If they're completely inactive, why should I even care anyway. I do leave comments on some of the authors to encourage them into posting again, though.
A good feed page also makes maximizing curation rewards easier, more enjoyable and, well, honest.
Great points. If an account is really dead it will not clog up my feed, but I just like to know and clean things up. I like your comment about having a clean feed so that you can curate better.
It is nice that we can now hide resteems on individual blog pages. I wish we had the same feature for our feed.
Me too! Sometimes I end up unfollowing someone because they resteem too much, specially when it has content I'm simply not interested in. Which is sad, because their actual posts are usually good.
How many accounts are 'newly dead" because they are being created with 0 SP and therefore have 0 RC? This is something that I would like to know...
This is a valid point. As I researched more about steem.agency, they mentioned that it can not tell the difference between a dead account and a new account with no activity.
I just used the information as a guide, but then I personally/manually investigated each account I was following. Great addition to the conversation!
This was super helpful, thanks! I'm going to have to cull the dead accounts I follow...
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It is always good to periodically check the accounts you are following. Glad you found the post helpful!
Good idea to unfollow "dead" accounts. I should do that.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Interesting!
Question: does it matter if you 'follow' dead accounts? Does this take from something?
Is there a limit to how many people you can follow? Just curious. I know I am probably 'following' some dead accounts, but i never worried about it, since if they are dead, they arent cluttering up my feed anyway.
Technically there it does not matter if you follow dead accounts, because they are not clogging up your feed. But I periodically run an audit to make sure that the accounts I follow match up with my Steem goals.
For me, it is important that all of the information I show to others in the Steem community is the best representation of my current situation within the community. That is just a personal preference.
I don't think that there is a limit to the number of people you can follow or can follow you.
Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Oh okay, I see what you mean!!
Thanks for the info. I still have a lot to learn about Steemit. :)
Hi @sumatranate!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.141 which ranks you at #2996 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 10 places in the last three days (old rank 3006).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 471 contributions, your post is ranked at #432.
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