Are We Seeing The Death Of Voting Bots On The Steem Blockchain???
@ned's announcement of a new SMT created token by Steemit was huge.
He introduced the idea in a Telegram group. Called the Good People's Token, this new token will use account based voting. Also, it is going to be available only to verified individuals. This means that voting bots will be excluded from voting totals, rendering them useless for this token.
Is this going to change things?
STEEM is still the base token on this blockchain. Also, the way Steemit functions using this token will remain the same. Hence, anyone still opting to have posts pay out in STEEM will see no change. Bid bots will still have a place in this area.
The question is how many will still opt for this path?
There is still going to be a lot of STEEM distributed each day. If everyone migrates to the account based voting, does that not put more STEEM in the hands of those who already have it who, I presume, will still use the present system? Will this not create a situation where the rich do, indeed, get richer?
Until we see the final details, this is all speculation. However, we do know the new token will offer a completely different voting system in an effort to find quality content.
But will it work?
Time will tell on that one. The one thing that will happen is the more popular content creators will be the ones who are upvoted the most. Since each vote counts the same, one is not rewarded more for having a large pool of STEEM or for being on the site longer.
To be eligible for the token, one must be put on the whitelist by Steemit. This list can be used by other SMTs if they do not want to go through the process of doing it themselves. This means that voting bots could be eliminated there also. From what I understand, this could apply to any application that opts for account based voting.
Of course, there is a downside to this. While voting bot abuse is a problem, they do serve a purpose. Automatic upvoters enable one to reward an author even when not online. It can be a great time saver. This will not be allowed when using the GPT.
The goal is manual curation. The latest announcement by @ned appears to do that. Will this result in "quality" content being pushed to the front. That I cannot answer. What I can say is that it will turn into a popularity contest. Hopefully, the fact that one is popular is the result of creating good content.
At least there is a better chance of that than one with a lot of SBD buying votes.
The good news is both systems will be in play. Over time, we will see which one works better. Those who are happy with the stake based voting can still use that on Steemit. Anyone who wants to use the account based system is free to go in that direction.
To me, this is a win all around. Voting bot abuse is one of the causes of division on the STEEM blockchain. The idea of putting an alternative out there and letting the community opt for the direction it goes in speaks to what this is all about.
Blockchain is about choices and a different way of establishing things. I commend the development team for this approach. It addresses one of the major flaws that Steemit had. It also makes the SMT protocol more attractive since developers of applications get to choose which system they want.
Perhaps this is a way for Facebook to get rid of its bot problem also. Anyone have Zuckerberg's number?
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This is going to be one of the best economic experiments I’ve seen play out with a front row seat. So many people on here complaining about stake weight voting, but now we’ll get to see them put their money (or time) where their mouth is. If this does in fact increase rewards for stake weighted voting, it will be the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen. I think grass is greener for a lot of users here. Be careful what you wish for, right? Options are always great to have and I give Ned and his team major props on this one. Can’t wait to see it roll out! Thanks for the share!
Do you suppose there will be a SMT that either expands or eliminates the 7 day voting window? I know it was made to counter potential abuses, but a wider pay window could encourage higher-quality posts, particularly animation, films, etc etc... projects of a larger scale.
That’s an interesting thought. The pay window is an important factor for sure. When content has such a short time horizon to earn rewards, your thought process when writing an article reflects this and discourages you to take more time or increase quality. Evergreen content is less desirable considering people reading and engaging with the post will not be able to support it after a short time. I almost feel like this quest to find quality content may be misleading. Steemit may work better if we all know that we’re here for our own “selfish” reasons and not put so much weight on quality. I do believe that it’s possible to find and curate quality content on Steemit, but the rewards functionality is really the unique value proposition here.
This sounds the perfect to kill the voting bots.
If votes continue to have value I think there will continue to be voting bots.
Exactly. There will be vote farms that pay cents to use real people's identities. Just like Rhett Creighton paid MTurkers to claim free Stellar Lumen coins.
So far steemit seems to have done ok and I have heard of bad users losing their delegations but it is something to be wary of.
You don't self upvote? You might want to sign up for @dustsweeper.
Just saw @dustsweeper mentioned on another reply. Clever idea! Luckily, I don't need it.
You don't want upvotes from people like me to count? If I upvote your comments it doesn't count.
I don't know what you mean. I thought we were agreeing.
My vote is worth more than 2 cents and I don't vote for my own comments because it would be tacky.
My vote is not worth 2 cents so if I upvote you it doesn't count.
Ok so I don't know if I got it right but you are saying that Steemit might shift from STEEM weight based Voting to Account based Voting.
If this is right then we have another Big Problem.
There would be no reason for us to Hold STEEM Tokens. There would be a massive Sell off.
Account verification is a good Point as by doing so we can Eliminate almost all Fake Profiles and Duplicate Profiles.
@taskmaster4450 could you please reply about my first Point as I am a bit confused.
There would not be a massive sell off. You hold STEEM tokens to be able to pair with SMT Tokens. And you need Steem to power the Blockchain. Steem will always be in demand.
Correct!
your comment is great...
So basically you are say steem tokens will pretty much be useless
You know it's in their best interest to not make Steem useless since that is what they primarily own?
Which can change in a instant.
In theory yes. Same as everything else in the universe.
Not at all. STEEM is the main token on the blockchain.
Every single SMT is going to need STEEM since it is how bandwidth is paid for.
I have to say, that @ned's hair has never looked that good. Even without hair, his hair is just perfect. If everything on the blockchain would work out so perfect as @ned's hair, what would we complain about? It would be boring....
Oh, and SMTs - well, let's wait and see - did I already mention that @ned's hair looks gorgeous?
Just one example - I use @steemdunk to vote for @qurator posts and then they in turn upvote me. I assume that is bad in every way possible to this new idea.
I'm good with manual voting and do it but at least 50% of my votes are done automatically now. This took a big job off my plate a few months ago and also gave me better consistency in voting.
I've been thinking about this a lot actually...
I think it will all come down to the process of 'verification' - will it be a photo with a name on it, a twitter account, will it be extremely difficult, incredibly easy or somewhere in between.
I can't help but think that the introduction of the GPT (if we're all right on how it will work) would have to decrease the value of STEEM.... or, will we essentially not care about the GPT because it's not valued on the market place? It might be nothing more than a digital collectible.
I also can't help but think we're a long way off from this.. as far as I know, it's only been presented in that Telegram group and not on any official Steemit Inc communication avenues.
I think Self-upvote is an other type of abuse as well, as many users use it the wrong way. It is very difficult to get rid of bots, as they are a part of the system, but something should be done about the Trending page. At least bot promoted posts should be pushed to the "promoted" page.
That's a great idea. It would be simple to do and makes sense.
Hopefully they will apply it :) Everybody is complaining but nobody is taking action :(
Steemit test a persons moral standards.
Absolutely!
I think this is a step in the wrong direction.
Exactly. This has already been done before on other platforms. I like to see something innovative and new. Back to the ol' think tank.