Everyone knows that it's probably not in your best interest to anger a whale on Steem. They can simply flag you into oblivion without so much as a second thought. This, of course, is ridiculous. It's a form of censorship and abuse that everyone is aware of.

Every flag should stand alone on its own merit. Engaging in flag wars is completely antithetical to how this platform should operate. If you think a particular post or comment deserves a flag for whatever reason, flag it, but don't go around flagging every single other post that person has written. Don't start flagging that user's supporters and engage in "guilty by association" tactics. These are the actions of self-righteous power hungry users who don't respect their responsibility and duty to the platform.

Sup?

Why do I bring this up? Yesterday I blogged about how all of us should be investing in the coins that we actually use. That was the main point, but I opened with shutting down my SmartSteem account because it was trolling me by selling multiple votes at the same time. I was met by this response from therealwolf:

I've developed the system and I can tell you one thing:

Smartsteem is already checking before each new transfer if the votingpower is above the threshold. But in some cases, this doesn't work and votes are cast regardless (e.g. 3 times in 9 seconds).

This is an irrelevant argument. It would only take a few lines of code to fix this problem. If the Steem blockchain isn't updating quickly enough then you simply check what your own bot is doing.

if ( [Did the user just vote recently?] == true ) {Well then maybe don't throw out another vote instantly.}

Problem solved. The answer has nothing to do with a query to the Steem blockchain.

In fact, I think @fulltimegeek shows that he's already come up with and implemented that exact solution:

Just give me 12-24hrs to make sure I resolved the problem and I'll be more than happy to add you to my bot list if you desire to do so.

I gave @fulltimegeek my posting key and I am on his bot list. Ironically enough, I don't care if he accidentally uses too many of my votes. @fulltimegeek's votes bring value to the platform, while vote-selling services are exploitative centralized leeches.

There's a reason why I was messing around with SmartSteem for so long. I liked the idea of a vote buying platform that was used to upvote quality content. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The problem here was that my votes were still getting sold to bad content, but I was getting paid so no big deal right? Wrong!

First of all, I was getting paid 0.05 SBD for a $0.10 vote. If you upvote yourself after instantly posting something (zero curation) you're going to get half SBD. From this perspective, SmartSteem was clumsily "losing" half of my money. Some of it was getting distributed as curation and some of it they were pocketing for themselves.

Seriously though, how many hours of work have gone into creating all these bots that all do the same thing? They're all just providing a basic rudimentary service and skimming mass profits off the top for themselves. It's incorrigible. Where would Steem be right now if all these people were actually making useful apps for the blockchain instead of trying to exploit it?

Steem only needs one vote buying service: a decentralized app that anyone can download and become part of a network of buyers and sellers. This would be a free market where no one is charged a fee by centralized services like SmartSteem.

therealwolf:

Also, @edicted - you've written:

No longer will I get trolled by this service.

It is not my or Smartsteem's intention to purposely go below your set threshold.

So be very careful, when you make accusations like that.

Sounds like a threat to me. I've already seen other accounts try to speak out against smartsteem and they were flagged into dust. It's hard to say that these accounts didn't deserve it. They may have been spreading misinformation about the service. Still, this action gives me pause, and If I get flagged I certainly did not deserve it. You'll notice that I've purposefully not tagged smartsteem or therealwolf in this post. I'm not trying to start anything.

In fact, getting wrongfully flagged by a big account is the ultimate backfire. They are giving you a massive amount of attention by doing so. I am an honorable Steemian, so I would not fight back. I can only flag content that I believe deserves a flag. Retaliatory flags are a clear sign of lack of maturity and abuse of power.

If someone punishes you with a flag there is no need to fight back. You've already fought back by diminishing the voting power it took to flag you. Flags deserve a lot more respect than they receive. Someone conscientiously made a decision to diminish their stake to take away yours. When you think about it, this action is very significant and should be respected. If someone is simply trolling you, the absolute worst thing you could do is give them what they want and throw a temper tantrum.

Honor Bound

Now that I'm making like $10 per post I can no longer justify upvoting myself. I can also no longer justify selling my votes. My votes have to be used to support quality proof-of-brain and decentralize Steem. This is how real progress will be made. It is so ironic that the best way to increase the value of a cryptocurrency is to give money away. The problem is that you have to give money away in the smartest design possible. I believe that Steem, regardless of all it's issues, is still way ahead of the curve on this front.

Sometimes it's hard for me to find content that I want to upvote. As I get closer to 100% voting power I become increasingly incentivized to self-vote. Now that I'm on @fulltimegeek's bot-list I don't have to worry about it. Clearly the content he is upvoting is much more beneficial to the platform than any vote-selling service. Considering I receive far more payout from the bot-net than I could ever hope to return I'd say this deal is extremely tilted in my favor.

I want to prove to this community that I am a dragon. I'd like to bring real value to this space and roast the leeches that are attempting to bleed us. Sometimes when I look at this Wild West atmosphere I come to the conclusion that it would be so easy to make real progress, but conjuring the time and self-discipline to get there is no trivial task. Perhaps an awakening is exactly what this whelp needs after all.

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