Welcome to another edition of "Daily Discussion," a community engagement initiative designed to stimulate more interaction on Steemit!
To learn more about the Daily Discussion initiative, please visit the Introductory Post for a full description and participation guidelines.
The Paid Upvote Bots... part 573-b-12A
Colorado landscape
So, clearly this is the "hot topic of the moment" around here. Are they "good," are they "bad," are they the savior for minnows or the evil that will destroy Steemit?
What do we DO about them? Outlaw them? Restrict their usage? Change the rewards structure? Change the curation rewards back to 50/50? Lots of options...
On my post yesterday "Are Upvote Bots Necessarily the Enemy of Quality Content?" there was some active discussion and in a comment @themarkymark observed:
Buying votes is like advertising, I run a few communities on Facebook and half the time I post I get a message not long after: "This post is doing better than 95% of other posts on this page. For $5 you can boost it to 3,200 people." In any medium, if you want to reach a greater audience you need advertising.
In essence, that is 100% true.
Calling a Spade a Spade: What if we Just Reclassify Posts with Purchased Upvotes?
Mountain sunset
I understand the value and importance of promoting yourself, as someone who has been in ecommerce for almost as long as it has existed. And I know that building a social media identity-- creating "Brand You"-- is all about marketing.
So let's call posts with purchased upvotes exactly what they are, then: PROMOTED CONTENT
Stick with me, here.
We even have a separate feed called "promoted" which-- last I checked-- is only being used by @zappl, not by anyone else. Why IS that?
I propose we add the super simple solution that at the moment someone buys an upvote, their content automatically vanishes from all other feeds, and is now listed only in the "promoted" feed. Because, in a sense, that's where it belongs... this is now self-promoted content.
That way, we don't have to curtail or outlaw any services... but we do remove ambiguity over which content is popular through "organic means" and which content is "paid for."
NOTE: I am only talking about the upvote services you PAY for here, not individual curators' curation bots.
This is just one more possibility I'm putting on the table for discussion.
What do YOU think? Would the Paid Upvote issue decline if any post with a paid upvote became classified as "promoted content?" Does this seem like a viable alternative solution, given that "promoted" is already a thing on Steemit? Leave a comment-- share your opinions and input-- be part of the conversation!
Have at it! I want to hear from you-- and others want to hear from you, as well! Share your thoughts and experiences below!
And remember... the purpose of the Daily Discussion initiative is to interact, and however little or large your contribution might be, it does matter! If you write an entire post as a response, remember to use the tag #dailydiscussion and include "Daily Discussion No. 5" as part of your title, then share a link to your post in the comment section!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171204 17:20 PDT