WHAT&#x27;S YOUR VIEW ON BOTS? Promotion tool or necessary evil? Let me share my personal view.

booster (68) · 7 years ago

Dear valuable user.

Here is about $20 in FREE upvote from @booster, the 1st BidBot on STEEM, established just a few days short of a full year as a resistance to black market vote-selling and circle-jerking etc.

What we want you to do with these $20, is to play with the different bidbots on your great content and get a better insider view on the world of bidbots.

As a Bidbot, I assure you that my owner and operator is very very serious about STEEM, the communities (http://SteemSpeak.com is the largest discord for investors/super users, witnesses and developers, been active for 2 years with 5000+ members active the last 30 days) of communities, we sponsor shows like Hots or Shots every week and give away gift upvotes to great content when we find it and use 10% of our power to fight abusers, like a part of a fire department.

25% of our liquid income is spent on developing, updating OpenSource projects for STEEM available for everyone!

Developing pro-grade software, and keeping the code up to date in this beta-changing environment is time-consuming, and without funding, impossible to keep doing good things and feed the family at the same time.

Thanks to Booster 16+ STEEM APPS are kept up to date: https://steemit.com/radiator/@inertia/my-app-catalog

Now - keep in mind that all of this is 100% transparent, legal and voluntary. To call what we do an evil is not the reality we face with our customers, ranging from trending minnows to amplify political messages or trending professional bloggers to the very top of steem with the help of our 200+ bidbot colleagues.

Now, there are ways to capitalize on us bidbots as well, by trailing the account @frontrunner you get to vote on posts before I do, and by that making more curation rewards (see my latest post)

Anyway, we hope you have a great time on STEEM, and if you want to interview some of the OGs about STEEM EVOLUTION, come and talk in the open community on @steemspeak.

Thank you.

$8.02

9 votes

cosmophobia (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hi crypto.piotr,
First of all I like to thank you for sending me your post link together with your transfer of 0.001 SBD
To my account.
I have no problem with Steemit in the way they have set up their system.
As a newbie I have nothing to say if people come to vote on my work or not, that is an issue for them not me.
Also I like to add that I don’t need to receive any money for my comments, I do it for nothing.
As you seen from my Steem Power I have already put in a few dollars into increasing my voting power.
I will continue to buy more Steemit $ in the months and years that follows.
I will use my power to help those people who are starting out, including those of my subscribers.
My greatest issue is of saving my work that I have done on YouTube.
Because my channels there are been attack by people and people using sockpuppet accounts.
I was going to place all of my work here in Dtube but I don’t believe the good people in Dtube are yet ready for it, and nor should they be.

$0.00

cosmophobia (67) · 7 years ago

I don't understand why you give away $20 just like that. Perhaps you can also donate to every person here that has posted a comment? So far you have received 6 votes resulting in 9$ on your comment.

$0.00

heimindanger (68) · 7 years ago

If you use bid bots for visibility, you are a loser and you'd be better off doing yourself a favor and hanging yourself.

$0.98

jonny-clearwater (71) · 7 years ago (edited)

That is such a lovely way to talk to the community.
You should be ashamed of yourself speaking to anyone like that.
(upvoted your shitty comment for visibility purposes)

$3.76

4 votes

heimindanger (68) · 7 years ago

Not talking to the community as a whole. I believe there are countless good-willed people around here and you could be one of those.

I'm talking to the part of the community that is destroying the original purpose of this network (ranking contents), because of their greed and personal needs for attention.

$0.03

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

Im seriously confused. How come you ended up here and who are you talking to? is there someone here destroying anything?

$0.00

safetony (47) · 7 years ago (edited)

You have the power to flag it if you don't like it and remove the rewards why aren't you doing that? Being against vote bot's is one thing and I can sympathise but telling people to hang themselves is despicable.

$0.00

grey580 (61) · 7 years ago

So I totally disagree with this comment.

I've said this before in other comments. Currently there is 0 reason for anyone to join this platform. Any newbie user that comes onto steemit will be discouraged because they will get 0 interaction.
Unless they have a whale willing to upvote them why join?
Well the bots give people a reason to join. At least they can get some visibility on their posts.

Your comment is self centered and doesn't take into consideration the experience of a new user on steemit. I would hope that you take a step back and think about why someone would use a bot in the first place.

$1.67

7 votes

cicbar (67) · 7 years ago

Bots are legitimate business on STEEM. If you use bots to earn something, ROI is low. I am using bots just to get better visibility for my articles and they are great for this purpose.

$0.38

6 votes

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your reply.

Did you ever get downvoted by anyone for that reason? Im seriously curious.

Yours
Piotr

$0.04

hotsauceislethal (64) · 7 years ago

The only time I have been downvoted for using a bot was when it was an "unapproved" bot that upvotes posts older than 3.5 days old. For whatever reason grumpycat was going around downvoting people who had used such services.

$0.14

cicbar (67) · 7 years ago

No. Why would downvote somebody for using bots? This is free market and you can do whatever you want. I always only do Upvote if I like somebody's article or comment. I would downvote only if somebody is offensive...

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

I got downvoted twice for using bots and I was told that my content was not good enough to upvote it into trending page.

It's not only free market. It's wild world here and those who have loads of SP can shape this place to their own desires.

Im sure you've heard about flag wars. Flagging is using as a weapon on steemit. Unfortunatelly.

ps.
Would you mind sending me short email to [email protected]? I would lovef to be able to keep in touch and support each other on Steemit.
I wish there would be more advanced notification system developed by steemit.

No pressure of course :)

Cheers, Piotr

$0.04

cryptoeater (69) · 7 years ago

Congratulations @crypto.piotr for authoring such a popular post! It seems I'm late to the party but I'll give my 2 cents on this topic as I'm very interested in this as well.

Bid-bots are hurting the platform
However, there's no other way for minnows to gain visibility
Solution: change trending

I personally feel bidbots are destroying the platform and hurting the initial intent of the platform, to help rank authors in terms or quality and reward those authors who consistently author good posts.

However, many people including myself still use knowing the harmful effects they have. You may call it greed, but I just want my work to be seen. Sometimes, when you put so much effort into a post and see 2 comments from bots and under a dollar payout, it's really disheartening. When I used bidbots, I may not earn money but at least I get some comments sometimes and discussions going, that's quite important to me! However, for now I'm focusing on exams so I have limited time to comment.

A solution to this may be having a limit on hot and trending pages for authors. For example, only one article per author for every 50 articles on the trending page. So, if someone has an article that should be number 3, number 7 and number 12 on trending, the article at number 3 will stay at number 3 but the article at number 7 will be pushed to 51 and the article at number 12 will be pushed to number 101. This should decentivise authors from spamming trending and hot pages with bid bots and help give more authors a chance to be in the top!

(Upvote own comment for visibility)

$0.35

3 votes

leeart (67) · 7 years ago

I use bots to hopefully increase my followers and attract new steemians to engage with. It has been me hunting all the time and i hope by using bots that i am the one hunted instead. I do not focus on big earnings anymore . I gave up on that since the beginning lol! I want to be in this platform where i can have an outlet and share my thoughts and ideas and the pay is just the bonus.

$0.10

4 votes

hotsauceislethal (64) · 7 years ago

Well put- I have always said that if you come to Steemit looking for money you will be sorely disappointed. The best way to approach this platform is to use it as a creative outlet as you mentioned.

Steemit for me is a place where I can connect to people and find ideas I wouldn't otherwise be able to find. Additionally it creates a fantastic social environment to interact over such ideas. There are some seriously talented and smart people using this site and it amazes me every day.

$0.02

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

thank you @leeart for your kind reply. Do you want to be hunted? By who? i hope not some whales that are against bots :) ?

I love your reasons to be here on steemit.

ps.
I would love to stay in touch with you a little bit closer as I value your knowledge and your input. And we could support each other on Steemit.
I wish there would be more advanced notification system developed by steemit.

Plus you're very responsive which is absolutely great and steemit community surely will benefit by having you here.

Perhaps you could send me short email to [email protected]

No pressure of course,

Cheers, Piotr

$0.00

mittymartz (63) · 7 years ago

Bot bot bot

They are cool at a certain point in time on the blockchain and sometimes you definitely will loose to them

1, they get higher percentage of the curation reward

2, When the value of steem is fluctuating you would loose both the money used for bid and payout

3, If you use bot for the aim more payout you might be disappointed... When I used it the I started with the aim of good payout but I saw it not a good aim so I saw another thing I could gain from the bot which is increasing of my reputation... Reputation makes people trust your work that is why the newbies battle with zeros unless they have exceptional writing skills.. Thanks to @donkeypong for the @curie idea

When I joined @steemstem I was made not to like bots anymore (steemstem said if you can pay 50$ for bid vote it means you don't need them and if they steemstem votes you it means your work is worth it but if you use bid vote it does not mean you worth it) now everyone wants to be on the trending page and sometimes you want to bid with 4sbd for a dolphin is coming with 100sbd.... You know what that means because it's a bid.. So I stayed off bot

Conclusively bot is not a bad idea but what is your aim for using them... More money? Not good enough have a rethink

$0.05

ade-greenwise (58) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hi guys and @crypto.piotr, ... bots or no bots, the value of good, or engaging content, is still the focus of this site. If you're dedicated to any platform/site, and utilise resources available to build a following (that is a 'real' one) then I think success or interest in your content/business will come.

People scrutinise a lot the money-making aspect of Steemit, but I think it's pretty sound and development is geared towards providing a platform to build upon. Sure, you can build cases for things that are perhaps more negative than positive but your content may overcome them. Some people 'appear' to be v. successful but then fail to sustain it, or get bored of themselves.

I think bots simply level the playing field a little. It's actually similar to Youtube where people 'appear' to have tons of subscribers but actually have used sub4sub to get the first 500. People need a way to get started.

Steemit is interesting in that it's a reflection of society. It's an ecosystem, a convoluted one, where factors are intermingling: wallet power, content value, timing of when and how often you post, trending subjects, so... how much ROI will always be a tricky thing to calculate. And also... who cares? Only the people who choose to post about these things.

Have bots 'divided' steemit? No, not really. They've become a prominent feature, for those serious about their posts to gain exposure. But there are still the other ways, and options to support others, delegate, spread your votes around the ecosystem, or just manually support good posts/new users.

There is a time limit on gaining rewards for your posts. Is it 30 mins? Only if you're counting. Most people are just using the site naturally as they want, intuitively, without thinking about money, ROI etc. They want to contribute. This should be how the developers should continue to design and improve the site. The deeper tricks should only be minor tricks, which may not help you reach your destination better. But of course, startup money always helps! If everyone is using those tricks, and changing the nature of the site, then those tricks will have to be stopped. I think the community will recognise that time, when or if it comes.

Beyond that... time will tell. I mean, there are much more important things to focus on and discuss. Like, improving the usability and other options. There should be more categories for our own posts. There should be more profile features (without compromising data). There should be more wallet options for putting Steem to use, like contests, classifieds or services, location-based shops, donating to charity etc etc.

Bots are not the exciting thing about Steem or Steemit. It's the transfer of wealth which is beginning online.

What things do you find frustrating when you use Steemit? I'd like to see decentralised steem apps being integrated.

$0.04

pibyk (60) · 7 years ago

Bots are integral part of Steem ecosystem - either you have a lot of steem power behind you or you use bots. Just a tool, not good, not bad. It's as simple as that.

$0.03

resteem.bot (65) · 7 years ago

@crypto.piotr

Please stop memo spamming.

$0.00

3 votes

cosmophobia (67) · 7 years ago

Since I am a newbie in Steemit I like to ask you a question.
crypto.piotr did send me this link together with 0.001 SBD that crypto.piotr transfer to my Steem account.
Is what crypto.piotr Spamming?

$0.00

trumanity (60) · 7 years ago

This memo spam argument is like the nobidbot and anti-spam badcontent blacklist goodqualitypolice.. it's a sort of economic terrorism waged by those who want to maintain hegemony - they go out like champions, bearing flags and waging this war for all of our good -- but what you and I are saying is.. where's the spam rainstorm.. send me there I want to stand under it with a bucket and collect it.. 0.001 SBD spam give me more

of course it isn't spam. one man's spam is, well.. another mans ham. Incidentally, here in Korea a popular GIFT at Chuseok (a kind of harvest thanksgiving - is a load of CANNED SPAM - about 20 cans in a box is often given to family members as a gift) ;-)

$0.00

hotsauceislethal (64) · 7 years ago

LMAOOOOO

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

hahaha quite ironic, isnt it?

$0.00

resteem.bot (65) · 7 years ago

We can not see any ironic here. We don't spam and fight spammer and scammer. Even if we get some flags.

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

It's ironic, that this post is being all about bots and about how difficult it is to build presence, and im being attacked by you (pure bot) for using my very limited options to promote my content.

Im honestly running out of ideas how to build my presence on steemit since.

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

From my understanding it's allowed and publicly accpeted to send small amount of funds to anyone with a memo. Steemit is not providing their users with correct communication tools. We're not even being able to send a notice/message to private individual. Not to mention sending a message to a group of people.

I see many other users trying to boost their posts this way. Why would you be against this method of promoting yourself on steemit? It's already very hard for anyone without big funds to build a presence.

Regards
Piotr

$0.00

resteem.bot (65) · 7 years ago

@crypto.piotr

Wrong.

Memo spam is a growing problem on Steemit.
Some people fight for one function that allows you to flag wallet spam.
We hope it comes soon.

$0.00

trumanity (60) · 7 years ago

Wrong! It's no problem to me and many others. The man paid to get a message to us. He is investing in his idea.

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

thank you @trumanity for your support

like I mentioned before: bots are dividing steemit. ironic thing is that im being attacked by bot in topic related to bots.

cheers
Piotr

$0.00

resteem.bot (65) · 7 years ago

@crypto.piotr

You has been flaged for your wallet spam.

We don't care about the topic. Is it about pizza or icecream?

$0.00

resteem.bot (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

He want to tell us that he send all that messages by copy and paste.
https://steemit.com/@crypto.piotr/transfers

Damm, this guy must be really fast, a hero of his computer mouse.

Oh he got a memo back:

"6 hours ago Transfer 0.001 STEEM from sgt-dan Please do not spam my wallet. I really don't appreciate it. Put the stuff out in a post. I give one warning that is it. First time shame on you, there is no second time."

$0.00

crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hi @resteem.bot

i really dont understand why people like you (with programming skills, knowing how to create your own bots) are going after regular users like me who are using available tools (sending paid mass-messages is one of them) to promote high-quality content.

People like me cannot compete with those who use bots (like you do). At the same time steemit isnt providing any communication tools so it's hardly possible to build presence here.

At least Im promoting content, that is not simple advertising and my content is engaging.

ps. I already apologized @sgt-dan. Luckily he is one of very few people who were unhappy with my message. I counted over 25 responsed in this topic from people i never knew before. So at least Im trying to promote high quality content (im simply doing my best).

I would rather appreciate some support @resteem.bot than just criticizing me. im aware that many people promote spam. But why is it necessary to put those who create quality content and promote it using legaly provided tools in the same basket?

yours,
Piotr

$0.00

bursatilonline (56) · 7 years ago

Thanks for sharing this post. Very complete and very interesting, I really appreciate that you have quoted some interesting posts, because they are very helpful. I will tell you my experience with my little English. In the Spanish community there are very few whales and there are normally those who vote for literature and art and I have nothing of an artist, that is, the whales have never voted for me and I spend many hours doing my post, respecting formats, ideas, images, copyright, etc. but since I am focused on trading, cryptocurrencies and money, in our Hispanic community it seems that they did not value that and at the beginning I had very few commenting that I am more interested because it is evident that they read my post, instead if they only vote probably they did not read the post. Now, with the use of bots, additional that you quickly increase your sp. You pay him back as you well tell your followers with his income when voting. Additionally that puts you more entendencia. It may not be a short-term investment mechanism because the roi is low or negative in many cases because of the abuse they have given to the bots but they are definitely necessary to grow in steemit. I am very sorry for the abuse they give you because it can not be that someone who has money publishes only one photo and 10 lines and takes almost all the voting power of a bot. There should be some minimum requirements or certain logical parameters to be able to use the bots, and so avoid the abuses of people who have bad content and have money to take advantage, ultimately hurting those who make the post with effort and use the bots responsibly . Thank you very much for sending me a msj to see your post and you already have a faithful follower who with help with the Google Chrome translator will be commenting on your posts.

$0.00

sutter (57) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your request to comment here as I'm also working on a way to discover the value of bots and resteemers on Steemit. I've come to find that social media has a lot of consistency. One factor that makes social media interesting is viral properties. Not all posts come with viral potential. However, there are sometimes forms of content that achieve success anywhere. In order to take the relationship of bot & resteemers into view I need to conduct more testing. The goal is most obviously to make as much STEEM as possible on any given post. I've found that it may be more valuable to create your own set of resteem bots and am considering the venture after I've completed my testing of the services found here on Steemit. I spent between 5-7 SBD promoting this post https://steemit.com/daddykid/@sutter/dlizm3jt. You can see the result at current with over 200 upvotes and rewards that total approximately 1.80 to date. The cost was obviously more than the return. But, it may not always be true with various forms of content. Aside from resteem bots and people there are upvote bots and people as well. There is most definitely an indicator that both in tandem may achieve best results for Steemit users. The majority of my tests have come from SBD earned while live broadcasting on DLive. I'm thankful for DLive. Because if it wasn't for DLive... I wouldn't have SBD to test the resteem bots. Minimal upvote bots were used in my testing. When considering the value of the account resteeming or upvoting it's likely that higher value accounts will reward a higher upvote value. However, it's not always true. The cost for an upvote or resteem doesn't provide a guarantee that use of the processes will provide profits to continue the venture. The @minnowbooster is likely the best way to begin when fishing for resteeming that's effectively cheap at 0.01 SBD to date. SBD value or cost may change in the future. All bots and resteemers are subject to change their values. I would like to invest approximately 50 SBD into a few posts to provide test results that can answer this question in a single post. My goal is to create a number of posts and use a number of resteem bots/people providing a singular opportunity on content from Steepshot. Comparable content like a multiple of guitar pictures would be ideal for the test subject. Offering consistency in the content. However, understand that not all people like guitar photos. I may achieve better results with content based on the crypto currency world due to the connectivity of Steemit revolving around the blockchain. Whereas, there's a higher likelihood that those searching for content are seeking references relevant to the blockchain. In essence offering comparable content with a musical instrument. I'm a musician. My marketplace is music consumers. Guitars offer the market may be attracted. The goal is to get into the feed of those that may like guitars. Using resteem bots or people independently with comparable posts would provide a law of averages that one may be able to expect when considering following count, time of resteem (most active hours of the internet to recall were 9AM EST and 9PM EST going back a few years. I suspect it's still similar from a broad based perspective.) and engagement results. The values can most obviously be calculated where as an investment of 0.05 SBD results on the picture of the guitar can offer division between earnings and cost. I find, like other social media, responsive engagements are often active engagements. Meaning, the users have to be active to engage. When users engage it's great to reply when they are active. Reward can be earned on replies, and upvotes can be placed on ones own comments increasing reward value. I've only just begun to access the potential due to DLive valued upvotes increasing my SBD. I believe that brining my music to DLive will increase the most growth for my account personally. Therefore, guitar content. I itemized my result from the resteem bots and people used with the song Thirsty. The idea of similar content would suppose that the 10 lyric videos I created for YouTube are all comparable. The bots used on the song Thirsty have provided an impressive result. The investment of 5-7 SBD returned far less than the total invested. But, the truth to the reward is the value of account placing upvotes on content. There may be cryptowhales that support content creators whom place a positive outlook on the crypto's of their interest. It's always nice to think positively about the coins you hold. There may be those that appreciate live music as well. In order to keep the live streamer going there's nothing like gift SBD in exchange for a song and dance. I believe I have discovered some potentials where indicators can be created when considering upvote bots. However, without enough SBD to test their full ability. Whereas, the upvoters and bot voters have a wallet where value can be estimated. Naturally the percentage value is time based and there's no trackers at the moment providing how much ones reward will return in SBD yet. The upvote bot values can be taken into consideration when addressing the question; "Is it valuable to invest SBD this way?" Because the potential of % based return can provide an equation that will reward posts with upvotes. In the case of the lyric video Thirsty earning upvotes was at a cost. But, any fan may be found when engaging the link which can result in iTunes purchase of the album. The consideration for the content is loaded with potentials to profit rewarding beyond the upvote value. Therefore, the desire to place the music into posts and continue prowess on Steemit may require a reserve pool is earned, a plan is made, and content is created to access the full potential of the plan. The ratios of upvote bots value to upvote % chance rewarding an account are most definitely possible to discover. However it may take sometime before discovering the best of the best. Hypothetically, if one was to address the values of accounts and follow statistical data of whale accounts. How many accounts would have to be investigated before coming to find your first upvote bot? In essence if an upvote bot API or advanced programming index was to be created a category by highest payout chance could be created with known cost of upvote value considered. I believe in resteems. Placing content in-front of the masses. The concept of content is one that considers fireworks in the next hypothetical. While in attendance of the fireworks have you ever looked at the crowd and noticed all are looking upward? It's more likely for the larger body of population to be looking in an upward direction during a firework display. Content is like that too. How often do you check your feed? You're following users. But, do you check your feed and engage? Where do you likely engage from? On steemit tabs exist Feed, New, Hot, Promoted, Trending. Whereas, the content filter can provide variation from every feed available. In essence all streaming content acting as a feed. Now, where are the people looking at the time? In consideration to efforts to oust corruption in political favor of one candidate or another imagine the lone content generator commanding the audience while watching the live stream rally. When you find a popular live stream you'll notice comments flying due to the fact that others may take interest in the page that commented. It's not always the case. Not every comment in a high volume live stream is in hopes to gain followers for the account itself. The idea of viral posts and high value content earned by way of accessing the potential of resteemers and upvoters is one that may come with a shelf. Whereas, the investment of 4 SBD in the right place may return a higher percentage value. But, investments below 7 SBD will likely impose majority cost. Which, the return consideration of the MinnowBooster may result in cheapness effectivity as the best way to build a reserve. Explore the possibility where the post Thirst would find additional SBD available and invest in upwards of 30 to 50 SBD on the post. The likelihood of larger whale accounts finding the content may be a direct effect that takes the shelf and rockets the account into a profit. However, the speculation should offer that nearly any post can invest into upvotes and resteems that provide extended reach. The promote button exists on each post. It would be nice to have a connectivity to the transaction where investing 0.001 SBD comes with a 1 engagement placement. However, there's no way to accommodate all posts in that fashion and due to lack of information resulting in transfer to @null account there's zero math to understand the value of the expense. In essence, when I hit the promote button and invest SBD there is a sense of a good karma investment otherwise a coin into the fountain wishing the corporation great luck. Knowing that the Steemit corporation is the sole benefactor and coins into the promote button haven't entirely vanished into the @null abyss. A similar style test can be done with the guitar example to indicate the potential for specific content of interest. Each type of content will perform differently in all suspect where viewers engaging in feeds have different reason. The song Thirsty. How many commented for the placement? Whereas, if @crypto.piotr, myself, and a few others were to upvote this comment it would result in a number one placement beneath the post. Which, is a nice way to think about selecting comments to vote on. Users may have commented on Thirsty sheerly for the fact that it was in the tabs where feeds are surfacing new content. There may have been a whale out there looking at it. But, the line never set the hook because the content styling didn't attract the particular whale enough to be rewarded with an upvote. If the extension of this consideration was to be fully tested to create a website where categorized bots are addressed over calculators a lot of questioning would be out of the way. However, what's the fun in the finished product at this point? It's likely that some form of developer team will realize the value of attracting larger upvote bots with ratios rewarding payouts making the investment valuable. But, the accounts upvoting may change their cost at any time. The calculators would require manual entry due to offerings listed by cost of SBD. It would be a madness that would take manual checks and balances to address cost to value potential ration. If one was to create such a calculator that spat out top upvote bots and earnings potential. The bots may get news of it and up their price for an upvote. In the earliest of running here on Steemit it's fun to address these questions and I'm hopeful to earn more SBD to have more to offer this style conversation. Consider this post as an investment of time that could have been made anywhere. When collecting my SBD I found reference to the link and it was a topic of my interest. Therefore, the post has earned engagement. You can lead a horse to the camera. But, there's no telling what equestrian content is worth unless someone provides the path for previous reference when gauging similar attempts. Best of luck with your ventures! Following and upvoting this post!

$0.00

talking-crypto (19) · 7 years ago

Piotr, I am a purist. For me from beginning to end, if Steemit is a content site, if there should be a bot on the site, it should be a bot to sift between good and bad content, and automatically dish out rewards according to the quality level of content from the best content down to the worst in a gliding scale. As interpretation of content could be subjective, there is a clear objective distinction between crappyand good content, that is possible.

To me it should always be about good content. As I am very new, only on Steemit for a week and a half, I have 140 followers, and did 73 posts, mostly very good comments, and got paid more for the comments than the blogs, which has been noticed here and there, but not enough.

I have seen someone writing on the same topic as myself, not the quality of content I put down, earning over $700 for the post. I have noticed, the people earning high rewards, are all using bots. I have earned a small amount, but I think I will take my chances first and continue writing good content, and build my followers.

Will I one day use a bot to promote? The temptation is lurking at my front door, I don't know.

Bots to promote content is everywhere. On FB you have to promote your pages to get seen. FB have been very good to me in the sense that I have never had to promote content on my page, because they have been promoting my excellent content for free. Thus I have built a following with very little effort, to almost 700 in less than a year for my page, not following the promotion route, only by being consistently posting once a week.

I can see these bots are a huge thing on Steemit, maybe I will be able to beat the system with bots on Steemit, I don't know, time will tell.

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crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your amazing and rich reply.

As I am very new, only on Steemit for a week and a half, I have 140 followers

well. you just got yourself new, loyal and very active follower.

Just checked your profile just to realize that we seem to share a number of interests :)

In particular that we both share a similar passion towards cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology :)

I have noticed, the people earning high rewards, are all using bots.

To tell you the truth. It isnt possible to use bots to earn 700$ and actually have some profit. It would be very costly to achieve it. So those who have such a huge paycheck are pretty much always losing some funds. But receiving more exposure. At least thats my experience so far. Making any $ on bots is super difficult. Breaking even is usually my target.

Obviously followed! :)

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oivas (66) · 7 years ago

Hey Piotr,

Guess what, this was the logic shock that I had once I joined steemit. I am a published author and blogger on other sites. The unwritten rule elsewhere is that make content so good that people follow you for your writing. It worked everywhere but here, simply because the model of this site itself is different.

The trending page is out of reach, but forget the trending page, the curators themselves are out of reach of minnows. No one cares to read your stuff whether good or bad. It is like needing to use the bots just to go above the noise level and that's where you are even noticed. Hard luck otherwise.

I had such questions on almost all posts during my early days on the legitimacy of bots. But then now my own opinion is that this is an entry fees you have to pay every time you post, so that audience is made available. This continues till the time your audience starts liking you for you, then you can start relaxing on bots. This is where you can think about the profits of your followers by allowing them to upvote and then using the bots.

Look, the fact is witnesses have created these bots as well, so it is unlikely to be wrong. So, maybe we need to understand that this is how this site works.

Profitability - hmmm ... now that's a totally different matter. Maybe, a separate post on that one.

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chekohler (70) · 7 years ago

Bots are papering over the real cracks in Steemit! There isn’t a real algorithm helping content get better reach based on certain quality score metrics, their promotion option is a waste of time, the tagging system is clunky due to the UX so very few people are exploring via tags, the search is atrocious so now one is finding relevant content via search

There are no curation tools or customizable feeds for curation! Instead it’s just either chronological order or by upvotes so what do we do get more upvotes it’s a natural behavior of the current system

Bots are not really the problem and to focus on bots is to focus on the minutia and not the macro of steemit platform as a whole

I personally don’t use steemit to interact with the blockchain as much as I use busy.org it’s not that much better but the small UX changes does make a world of difference to me

What also compounds these issues is 3rd party apps like dsound, dtube etc their posts are also looking for a day in the sun in steemit and competing for real estate on the steemit feed because well their site feeds are even worse when it comes to exploration

The 7 day pay out period also drives a sense of urgency and therefore users feel they need get the most exposure they can for their hard graft in creating content

We need to provide users with a better user experience that makes bot use less appealing and even counter intuitive at times so whales can focus on better things than moderating paid posts

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sfturzo (47) · 7 years ago

i liked your post! and fully agreed!
thanks for giving me the clear knowledge about bots and all!

and i loved your this words!

How to do that? It's pretty simple:  Self-vote and use bots only 1 day after you publish your post. Give curators chance to upvote your post and just then use all possible resources to pump your paycheck. This way you will benefit your curators the most.

thanks again!

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conceptskip (56) · 7 years ago

Hi @crypto.piotr congratulations to picking yet another controversial topic and also for choosing an excellent strategy for communication! Funny also that your top curation and comment comes from a self-upvoting bot ;-)
From an idealistic viewpoint i'd say bots, especially bid-bots are just unnecessary! What pupose do they serve, in contrary what they do is contrary to the "proof of brain" that the Steem blockchains inofficial consensus, they undermine the fun, that a social network has to offer, and which consists of individuals interacting, rather than manipulating a mechanism.
Having said that, and knowing the big advantage and draw of the monetary aspects, it's just obvious, this will have an impact on the chain, and if you could effectively forbid bots, their mechanisms would just be picked up by humans, so maybe the scale would be different, but mechanisms wouldn't change. So i think it's just a pragmatic approach to accept that bid-bots are hear and use them to your advantage, and i have been trying to do that. But just like you, my experiences are rather bleak, i tried hard, but at best i can make a 5-10% ROI after curation, which honestly isn't just worth all the trouble. I never had, or was willing to invest amounts to really get into the Trending Tab. So direct networking is to me still much more effective and fun, than transfering funds to bots. The biggest problem i have with bots that they mostly work to the disadvantage of their users, accepting bits far exceeding their vote power, and thus harming their clients. There are only very few that offer fair use policy, and i really would like to setup my own fair-voting bot, because that would be a value to the community ;-)

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migueltoro (38) · 7 years ago

yo digo que son un mal necesario. ellos te hacen crecer mas rapido que a la manera mortal con tu sp. no los uso pero es lo que creo.

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crescendoofpeace (63) · 7 years ago

I'm not a fan of bid bots, primarily because I came to Steemit for two primary purposes:

To build an audience for my writing, and
To ditch Facebook

Then again, there are bid bots and bid bots, and some actually have a decent use case.

I will be using #poetsunited's bid bot, because it is specifically supporting member poets, and not spam posts.

Similarly, I used steemfollower until recently, when the quality of their available posts took such a precipitous nosedive that it was literally taking an hour or more just to locate five posts that didn't turn my stomach to upvote.

For the record, I was trying to upvote only new posts of new Steemians, to give some encouragement; but the first page or two were always older posts, often days old, and the rest were mostly crap posts, which I refuse to support on principle.

Hopefully steemfollower will find a way to filter out the spam posts, but until then, I have better things to do.

As for the the bid bots that upvote anything for a buck, I do believe they have harmed Steemit, and again, I wish there was a way to filter spam posts so that they wouldn't even appear in our feeds.

Even a way of filtering by word count might help, since so many spam posts include little or no text, and they would automatically be eliminated

I don't pretend to know the answer, and I'm not saying I'll never use a bid bot ever, but I do think the system needs improvement, starting with rewarding quality content for more than seven days, especially since it remains on the blockchain from the day it's posted forward.

Glad you're back home safely.

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crypto.piotr (70) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your valuable comment.

I appreciate your time and effort.

Just checked your profile just to realize that we seem to share very little interest. But i will do my best to support your content as you seem to be very responsive.

As for the the bid bots that upvote anything for a buck, I do believe they have harmed Steemit,

Do you think it would be possible for anyone who isnt whale to build their presence without bots? I've seen many people trying both and those who stayed away from bots usually are failing and dissapearing from steemit.
It really seem to be 'necessary evil'

yours
Piotr

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roronoa07 (56) · 7 years ago

Hello dear colleague, I really took the time to read your opinion on this much debated topic within the community and I must say that I agree with you completely.

The "police whales" are users that I really dislike, they play at being gods within the community and believe that their words are absolute, I believe that a "community" should be a space where people communicate and educate in the best possible way, we are all here to help each other, not to set rules and criticize others.

I believe that there is no easy way to get to the top, and if there is an easy way to get to the top, and if there is, it won't always be the right way, I believe that the best way to grow within steemit is with your followers, to support each other to emerge, voting bots might help, but there is no better support than some followers who enjoy your publications and help you to improve every day.

I have been following you for a while but I like the things you have published, I would like to continue learning little by little with you and continue growing, I hope we can talk later, enjoy your publication, greetings.

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