A Steem Tool That Shows Reputation Scores by Excluding The Effect of Bot Votes? Can It Be Developed and Will It Be Useful?

I have been wondering about this a lot lately. How would the reputation scores look like if the effect of bot votes is eliminated from the equation? This thought has lingered on ever since the debate around bid bots became mainstream. I wrote my detailed opinion on the matter in response to a survey conducted @inquiringtimes. The comment section of that survey is full of opinionated views about use and abuse of bid bots. My opinion contained a section on how reputation score algorithm was one of the causalities of bid bots.

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I am not a programmer so my ability to tinker with codes is good as the longest living granny. I do know that Steem is full of coding geeks and dev monsters though. I do have an idea in my mind and I invite your attention to this idea and see if it can be implemented.

A Tool Which Excludes The Reputation Score Acquired Through Bots!

That's what I would like to have developed. It can be an enhancement in a current tool or a new tool itself. I don't know if it possible as per blockchain's code or not but I do have a theoretical layout of what this tool should be able to do, thanks to my understanding of how reputation system works. Let me share it with you.  

1. When an account is opened via this tool, it fetches posts data from the Steem blockchain. https://www.steemdb.com/@username/posts is a good source to fetch this data.
   
2. After fetching posts data, it analyzes the votes obtained on all the posts by the selected user. https://steemdb.com/giveaway/@ilyastarar/15-steem-giveaway-out-of-the-75-steem-i-won-as-prize/votes for example. This data will be fetched from all the posts (not comments) by that user.
   
3. From among the votes, it calculates the total Reward Shares pertaining to bots (a list of which is included in the code). Again, this calculation should include all the posts ever done by the user. (Does the blockchain permit this?)
   
4. After calculating the total reward shares, the tool subtracts this number from the reputation score as shown in on https://steemd.com/@username to exclude the effect of bots.
   
   
   
5. Finally, the tool perform log 10  function as per the reputation score algorithm and displays reputation score free of the effect from bot votes.
   
6. What would be more interesting is that the tool should display both the current and the now obtained reputation to have a comparison.

This tool can be a new website based app or an enhancement in the already developed apps. The Steem More Info plugin by @armandocat comes to my mind. There can simply be an option inside the app to show the reputation without influence if votes bought by the user. Devs like @stoodkev, @mcfarhat, @flauwy, @mahdiyari, @therealwolf, @anthonyadavisii, and more are requested to share their feedback.

Not Limited to Bots Only!    

The initial thought was only about negating the bot votes. But I have an even more interesting use case for such a tool. What if a user wants to see what his reputation will be if the most generous voters had not voted for him or her? This tool can help that user by showing the reputation score excluding the effect of his biggest voters that he may choose just like we add tags while posting. It will certainly make users more thankful and loyal towards their biggest supporters and a culture of gratitude will be developed.

Why Bid Bots Though?

Steemit was initially based on human interaction and the votes were mostly organic. Steemians of earliest generation (of 2016) are generally the most generous people on the platform still. They did not have bots and they used to get votes from humans. The reputation thus obtained was a nearly correct measure of how much value a user delivers to the community.

Bots arrived last year. Bid bots even after the initial bots like randowhale or minnowbooster. Most of the bots and bid bots were introduced after I joined in June, 2017 so a lot of the bot developments are very recent. Recent are the inflated reputation scores as well because the reputation is no more attained through human interaction in most cases.

The purpose of having such a tool is to determine how much difference the bots have made on the platform and what effect the bots have had on the reputation score algorithm. I know my reputation score will be shown as 62 or the early 63 from the current 63.927 because of fairly low bot usage. I am sure we will have significant number of cases where reputations scores will show a huge difference.

Anyone Interested in Developing Such a Tool?

As I already said, I am not a developer. But it does not stop me from sharing my ideas which could turn into tools developed for enhancing Steem experience. I have more ideas too and I will share them regularly. For now, I am interested in knowing if this idea can be implemented or not? More importantly, is it possible to account for all the reward shares ever added to reputation score of user?

I am excited to know what devs say about this idea. Non technical users like me can add their opinion and suggestions too. Do you think such a tool should be available? Will it be of some value to the community? Will it serve as an analysis tool to see the impact of vote buying on the Steem ecosystem? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Please resteem to help the idea reach more people.