STEEM WHISTLEBLOWER: Whale Bots Are Devaluing STEEM.
This is a "Calls It As I Sees It" article and in no way should be taken as fact or fiction, merely observations.
A troubling new pattern seems to be emerging on Steemit and the need to address it in a post has finally gotten to the point of making it a reality. With what one could perhaps describe as unintentional or intentional systematic colluded voting on certain accounts producing content that in my opinion is either translated, plagiarized or poorly written. I'm not talking about simple copy and paste jobs either. These seem to look intentional. In most cases images were lifted from multiple sources with no credit given until after someone had mentioned something. We aren't talking posts that made $10 or $100 Steem Backed Dollars here... We are talking THOUSANDS.
More Troubling is the Fact That Whales are Supporting These Posts
I'd first off like to come outright and say in no way is this a witch hunt against any one user and anyone listed in this article as an example is only a suspect in my own mind and unless you agree with my point of view and raising of this whistle blowing then please do not view these users any differently. It IS entirely possible I am wrong in all of this, but until otherwise irrefutable evidence is brought forth by the users given in example here perhaps entertain the possibility of this infact happening on Steemit.
I do not wish to harm anyone's reputation here. This is a thought our community on Steemit.com is having and we need to address it before it becomes a commonplace epidemic. While I am not against whale botting their curation and automating voting from multiple accounts... I DO have a problem with high powered accounts blindly following and upvoting users either because they believe they will do well or seemingly do not understand proper article writing etiquette and refuse to not reward what could be described as "filler" material.
The tipping point for me personally was watching account @mrron make a handful of basically "fluff" articles and receive thousands in Steem Backed Dollars and Steem Power. Now by "fluff" articles I'm not meaning he wrote heartfelt tales nor featured any kitties, puppies or pets. Check out this guys posts..
What part of any of those posts is worth that type of money? Are they inspirational? Has the user given proof he's been there or even actually tasted these things and been these places? Where is the value in their content? Has the user done a verification post? Has the author given proper credits to the images used?
Before we go pumping accounts full of rewards and shares in the future of Steemit. Please consider the above.
I give a list of high value accounts below that seem to upvote this type of crap and make it seemingly acceptable to not only pollute the Steem network, but get paid handsomely as well for doing so:
@berniesanders - @steemed - @itsascam - @complexring - @kushed - @nextgencrypto - @wang - @silversteem - @steemroller - @silver - @justin - @slowwalker - @steemservices - @juneaugoldbuyer - @cyber - @nabilov - @dashpaymag - @charlieshrem
Other users that should be aware of this sort of thing and it's potential to happen:
@dan - @ned - @dantheman - @smooth - @steemit - @stellabelle - @summon @addwhalenamesincommentsofdevelopersandotherwhalesplease<3
If you made the list above do not take it as a personal attack but more of a call to action to make your own decisions rather than having code do high value decision making for you. As much as I promote coding and the automation of menial tasks as we evolve as a human species, some things like curation really shouldn't left to blindly followed rules set by numbers and code. Many of you are fans and supporters of mine and I'd like to address this with you on a public forum so we can speak about it as a community rather than discuss things privately amongst ourselves. This is what blockchain based social media is for, right?!
The users I suspect of gaming the steemit system's latest "masterpiece" you can find here: @mrron/desi-foods-in-karachi-to-try
Ask yourself for a moment.. What part of that post is worth over +$1000?
Now I do admit that I do at times make posts that have little value besides a doodle and a laugh. When that is the case I tag them accordingly. Certainly I see a time and a place for short little meaningless blurbs for laughs. But when we as a community start shoveling a whole crap ton of money into unverified users, with unproven and unimaginative articles, we're doing it wrong.
Please check your curation bots guys. This is getting a wee bit out of hand!
@mrron give us something to work with here.. A verification when it was hinted at rather than calling me a racist would have been a fair easier way null suspicions.. :/
User @justinlaak has taken it upon himself to flag this post and drop this gem on us:
You don't deserve the reputation you have here @justinlaak if you side with those that wish only to put in little effort. I believe that folks don't often get the recognition they deserve here on steemit.. Then I see posts with next to no meaningful content making thousands of dollars and I think to myself.... "Is this how they envisioned it when they were drawing up the white paper and coding the first versions of Steem?" Low value content being artificially inflated by poorly maintained or thought out automated curation lists is the problem here!
Bonus Journalism! User @cjclaro finds some strange votes on Steemd.com
Not sure who this badger guy is.. But I bet he's got some insight into why them posts got all pumped perhaps?
GOOD FIND @cjclaro - You are an asset to our community sir!
Badger has replied in the comments below, Turns out he is a miner!
Go upvote his comment below please. Both he and I would appreciate it!
Thank you to @dantheman for looking into the issue!
Want more info, humour and tales from @klye !?
in the top right corner.This way you get to see my new posts in your feed tab on your blog when I submit them!
Alternatively if you're a chatter rather than a reader come join me in the klye room.