Automated Content, Article Spinners and Other Artificial Things — I'm Not Brave Enough!

in #writing6 years ago

I like Sunday mornings because pretty much everyone in the house sleeps in and things are quiet. I tend to be (mostly) a "morning person" whose brain functions best between my first cup of coffee and about lunchtime.

Sunset
Fog bank on the ocean...

These days, I spend more time with Steemit in the morning than with my "other" blogs. To me, this is still very much a "community" foremost, as well as a blogging venue. 

In this morning's rounds, I decided to do something new: I went to the "SteemBotTracker" and spent a while looking at the type of content Steemit users are paying to upvote.

There's so much controversy over these bid bots and how "garbage is upvoted to trending" and on and on... but many of those voices are based on hearsay and "me too" piling-on, rather than direct observation. 

Four Major Groups?

My brief journey suggested four primary groups of users:

First, pretty well created posts — by newcomers and old-comers alike — that someone decides WILL go to Trending, no matter what. So they throw hundreds of dollars at numerous bots to get their upvote total up in the $500+ range.

Rhododendron
Getting up close and personal!

Second, established "senior" Steemians who use bidbots to add another $20-$50 to a post that's already organically earning as much as $100. Often, they don't buy a vote till several days into the life of the post.

Third, lots and lots of mostly new users who pay to use bots to take pretty "marginal" content from being rewarded less than a dollar with a tiny number of "organic" upvotes, to being rewarded as much as perhaps $50.00. But they are NOT really the crowd who's "buying their way to trending."

Fourth, true "shitposters" of every color and stripe, who take content that's barely recognizable as "content" and upvote it to sometimes ridiculous levels. A blurry selfie at $320.00? A nonsensical paragraph with no images, clearly run through a translator, upvoted to $200.00? A string of "naked" (as in, no description at ALL) links to YouTube clips, upvoted to $175.00 each? Clearly "re-spun" articles copied from the web, voted to $250.00? Yup, saw all of those.

As many argue, Steemit is a "free environment," so I'm only trying to point out these user groups, not to pass judgment on them.

We Now Welcome Content Spinning

What mostly inspired me to write this post was that I had a little "flashback" this morning, to a time a few months before the late great Squidoo content site (at one time an Alexa top-100 site) crashed, and again not long before social-media-that-pays site Bubblews crashed. 

What was it? 

Lilies
Bright yellow lilies

Automated content spinners!

This morning, I actually saw a Steemit post that was basically a promotion for article spinning software. It basically promised that you could either enter a keyword, and the software would automatically write an article around that keyword, OR you could copy any piece of text (from an article, news site, or whatever) and the software would "re-write" it in such a way that it would be unrecognizable to any plagiarism software.

Shortly after that, I came across a rather nonsensical post that clearly was a "segment" of something else, that had also been run through a translator, and now posted as "original content."

I remember back in 2010-12 when Google really started cracking down on so-called "content farms" which were little more than eternally re-spun paragraphs of nonsense, posted to web sites over and over using "black hat" SEO techniques to gain visibility in searches. 

Some of you might also remember a time when you'd search for something, and most of the search results where merely links to more search results, not actual information

No Reason For Existing

I remember, back then, thinking how most of this content had no reason for existing, other than to facilitate some content farmer's ability to collect fractions of a cent from advertising revenue. 

Rhododendron
Getting close to a rhododendron

The content added zero value to the overall web experience, it was annoyingly clogged with advertising, and in most cases just annoying to any user who might be lured into looking at it. 

What's more, it robbed revenue from legitimate bloggers and webmasters who provided real content... their ad revenues were "diluted" by the vast number of "empty clicks" that were diverted from real content.

I also remember — back then — thinking of the analogy of a town where you'd drive down Main Street and there'd be lots of stores with advertising banners and flashing neon "OPEN" signs, but if you stopped and actually went into one of those stores, they'd all be empty... and you'd learn that the only reason they existed was because someone had agreed to pay the shop owners 10 cents for every person through their front door.

In fact, there was no actual selling of anything, just "the ILLUSION that stores exist."

Of course, that's just an analogy.

But it does make you ponder... "Who could be BOTHERED to visit such a town?"

Maybe I'm Just Not Brave Enough...

What I find rather mindboggling — and what keeps bringing me back to the idea that I may not be brave enough for the world — is that there are actually lots of apologists for such systems. 

They seem to exist across almost all sectors of life. 

Trees
I'm just trying to Zen with all this...

Some part of me accepts that; the part I am less accepting of is that the net effect of their presence tends to be akin to that of a swarm of locusts: There is a brief explosive feeding frenzy, followed by complete dereliction and famine for ALL... both the locusts themselves, AND the people who legitimately were growing crops.

The other mindbloggling thing is that people never seem to learn from history. That is, they may learn and change their approaches to how things are done, but they tend to forget about Human Nature... which seems to be eternally unchangeable. To continue the analogy, locusts don't "stop being locusts" just because you plant the crops in a different field, in a different arrangements. Nor because you "ask them nicely" to not show up. They are still going to come in and rape the land, UNLESS you install locust-proof netting around everything. 

Maybe I'm just too old for this (Ironically, the title of my introductory post from January 2017...), or too old-fashioned, in that I believe that in order for something — ANYTHING — to be created and exist, it ought to add some measure of value to our lives. But I could be wrong.

Well, that's about it, for the Sunday ramble-- hope you all have a great rest of your Sunday!

How About You? Are you familiar with "spun content?" Do you remember the days where searching for (for example) "digital cameras" would land you on a site with LINKS to more searches about digital cameras? Did these things annoy you? Do you think spun content might become a problem on Steemit? Would you ever use a "content spinner" instead of creating your own posts? Have you ever done so? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!


Animated banner created by @zord189

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180603 11:25 PDT

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I look that the bidbot tracker also. lol, I get what you meant and I concur with your findings.

I just want people to remember to use flags when content is doesn't bring value!

I also smiled, when you talked about feeling old. This generation gap feels like a big one. I feel old here nearly every day. :)

Yeah... I confess that I limit my flags to obvious spam and copy-pasta, simply because I am still a pretty small fish. I might serve the community better by flagging some FUTURE potential problem than knocking 50 cents off someone's $80 post.

Thankfully we have 20-something and early 30s kids... they keep me from completely fossilizing...

Yup.

I've often wondered what it would be like if there were no 'middlemen' and deadwood in our economy. Only those who produced actual product/content/services...and those who consumed it.

No regulators, regulation enforcers, (their endless 'assistants'), circle jerk paper pushers, spammers, advertisers, preachers, journalists (of the gossip variety), evangelists, various flavors of activists , politicians or other locusts...

Imagine how rich we would all be without the wasters

I have wondered about that, too.

My dad was a corporate manager. I remember being a little baffled when he tried to explain "doing business" as he and his peers did it, at their level. I couldn't quite grasp the VALUE of a bunch of suited guys signing papers and smoking congratulatory cigars and getting mounds of money for that... while some guy busting his butt to actually MAKE whatever was in those contracts was struggling to feed his family...

I was a trucker as you know.
I was greatly annoyed that freight broker got as much as more money for the load that I carried for only making a two minute phone call...if that.
I HATED oversized loads from brokers.
They were always WRONG.

Yep. Sadly I remember the days of content spinners and I've reported posts to Steemcleaners that are clearly created with them @denmarkguy. I think they are pretty easy to spot as they make no sense.

Your analysis of the bot users was interesting and useful.

All in all this makes a depressing read. I probably should save such posts for the morning when, like you, I am at my best and, therefore, more resilient. 😁

P.S. This is in no way a criticism of your post which, as I said, I found to be both interesting and useful. 😍

No worries, Gillian!

I've been playing this online writing gig for 20-odd years, and so far Steemit has shown itself to be far more resilient than most of them... perhaps because the community members who care are empowered to take collective action, rather than "request" that some overworked centralized structure take action. And that's definitely an upside.

I sincerely didn't mean for this to sound depressing... but I also realize that "realistic" often comes across as "depressing!"

I sincerely didn't mean for this to sound depressing

Yeah. I know that @denmarkguy. You are not one who is prone to moaning. It was just the time of day and my mindset! 😁

Everything I write is mine, all mine, and I would never hire someone else to write for me. I just love writing too much for that. I wouldn't bother with a spinner since I could write 600 words in 15 minutes and post, if I wanted to.

Thanks for your informal survey of the bidbots. I was feeling guilty for using them. Maybe not so much anymore. I think I will go back to using the resteem, though. I want more exposure.

Everything I write is mine, too... and that's the point (I think!) here; I'm creating various types of content here because that's what I enjoy doing. People who use article spinners could care less about writing... their sole purpose is to use "whatever" methods they can to wring every possibly penny out of the system.

Amen, brother. Write on!

And because of that its hard for us new comers to grow oganically.. people aree joining steemit more and more everyday.. But the more crowded it will get the more it will be harder, chaotic and somewhat disgusting... i know im not experienced enough to say this but steemit should also be a learning experience for everyone included..

Definitely a learning experience... many of us had LOTS of posts in the beginning that made no more than a few cents.

I think part of the problem we have these days is that people come here with the expectation to earn income to replace their jobs. That's NOT how it works... maybe 100 people out of one million users can end up doing that.

Steemit is just a blog...well more than that in some cases but this isnt going to make anyone millionare in days...growing slowly with the community is a part of it too...its not some shabby wall st hedge farm where you put millions and earn millions.....

But if you also earned cents at the beginning than i think im on the right track😊😊

Article spinning is a bad habit because it is something like to stealing contant of some one . Steemit should take seriuos action about it.

Indeed it is. It's a bit like stealing a car, painting it a different color and trying to persuade everyone that it's a different car. It's not.

really agree with your opinion

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excellent photography..

So much love to share,.. and Yes,... with the one who appriciate it everytime

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