⚠️ More Booming Abuse?

in Mosquito Squishers3 years ago (edited)

The question mark in the title is no accident.

I spent this morning reviewing a couple of communities that are connected via their creator (admin) and what I considered to be suspicious usernames. Upon investigation, everything felt wrong - details of which can be seen below.

But before I hit submit, I checked a few things - specifically, the rules for booming support:

  1. 2 upvotes per user per week
  2. Use of #steemexclusive
  3. Cannot have been upvoted by steemcurator01 or 02
  4. 3-4 upvotes to community accounts per week
  5. No bid-bots.

It turns out that what I considered to be abuse, was allowable within the rules of booming.

I had made the decision earlier, not to share the post because it would be unfair to those who despite in my opinion are abusing their booming privilege, are technically innocent.

So I have removed all usernames and direct identifiers of who the users are and which communities I'm referring to.

I hope this is an appropriate prompt for the booming rules to be updated.

Here is my original post, followed by some thoughts...


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Source

The story is becoming a familiar one. Users slowly build their way into a position of power, get access to a steemcurator or booming account and become corrupted - abusing it for their own use.

This user's slightly different, he was caught plagiarising almost a year ago - seeing him get banned from Community A. Today, he's the administrator of 4 communities, 2 are part of the booming programme and I have no doubt there are plans for the other 2 to get added too. He's also recently been appointed to one of the steemcurator teams.

The user in question is "Mr Administrator" and this is when he blamed his wife for posting plagiarised content:

ok, no problem, there was a little problem on that page since my wife helps me with the publications, I did not realize that she had made that type of publication, she made a mistake and well I accept my mistake, thanks for your collaboration, but it is my responsibility and I assume it. (Translation)

I've highlighted 2 communities in question and will highlight some of the accounts that have received booming support in each, thanks to February's support data.

Plagiarism aside this post is about booming abuse, my focus being on the top accounts and I have selected a handful of users (for reasons that will become clear later). I shall keep each table separate.

Community 1

AuthorUpvotes
communityaccount111
User 18
User 27
User 37
User 47
User 54
User 62
User 71
User 81

Community 2

AuthorVotes
communityaccount212
User 18
User 47
User 27
User 37
Mr Administrator5
User 64
User 54
User 81

Ok, so not unusual for a community account to upvote itself more than any of its users... and Mr Administrator has shown restraint in only upvoting himself 5 times. So a combined 28 votes to Mr Administrator in his various guises.

Shared Wallets

You'll be familiar with this bit by now so I'll be brief.

User 1, User 5 and User 8 all share wallets.
User 2, User 3, User 4, User 6 and User 7 all share wallets.

Also notice the pattern with usernames. A minor detail.

So we've been through the wallet debate before. It's good evidence but we can't expect community leaders to check wallets when selecting posts for booming.

So here are their club5050 / booming eligibility for the months of December and January - I've chosen to exclude February to avoid the argument that they left club5050 after receiving their upvotes.

User 1

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User 2

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User 3

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User 4

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User 5

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User 6

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User 7

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User 8

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Credit to @starlord28 for the charts


I've been reliably informed that club5050 isn't mandatory for booming support though, it's just preferred.

All of the accounts listed above post exclusively in communities run by Mr Administrator.

Hopefully Mrs Administrator isn't responsible.


I have not reviewed the accounts that have received fewer votes because this type of analysis takes time and I've spent too much time recently writing posts about people abusing the power which Steemit has entrusted upon others.


Obviously, I'm recommending that Steemit removes booming support from these 2 communities with immediate effect.


Thoughts

That was my original post.

It's worth noting the following:

  • No users are in club5050.
  • No users are powering up.
  • Money is being withdrawn.
  • Posting exclusively in communities run by this admin.
  • 8 users share wallet addresses.

78 booming upvotes to these 8 users in February.
28 booming upvotes to Mr Administator and his community accounts.

Every user has their rewards sat in their wallet, untouched. Here is one example.

image.png

The delegation is noteworthy too. Every account has delegated to the community account, earning them a "⭐ delegator" label - giving them the right to larger community account curation and increased booming "potential".

In addition, the community accounts upvote each other.

To quote somebody else:

No wonder some users get sad, frustrated, power down and leave.

Sort:  

It is very useful post and it is important for ordinary users to know that people see abuse and it is not anymore possible to hide. There are some people who will try to do their best to get more from system if it allows, I would say they are "creative" people, like in that case when people create two communities and manage to get two booming accounts for both. Those people do not have respect for other ones, who working hard, publishing and waiting for Booming or Steemcurator support but in the case of corrupted administrators it will not happen.

Those people once they are revealed they need to be stopped. I hope more people will read your post and it would be really good to see more responses to the article. Thank you for your hard work!

Is the suggested change of rule for Booming votes that votes should only be given for #club5050 (and above) posters?

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the Booming votes go to posts/authors not in the #clubs.


It is too late in the night to sift through all the clues.

Is WenTV on target in his (unedited so far) comment?

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the Booming votes go to posts/authors not in the #clubs.

steemchiller added the "community" to the API that I'm using which means I've got more processing power to analyse other data - my thinking being to include #clubs as you suggest (using the calculations I use within the front-end that coding-gorilla's produced).

What time period do you use to calculate clubs? Is it 3 months or only 1?

  • #club5050: 1 month, (March 28 to Febrarury 28)
  • #club75: 2 months, (March 28 to January 28)
  • #club100: 3 months, (March 28 to December 28)
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Yo dure un tiempo sin publicar porque no cumplí con el club 5050 y espere con concursos hasta que pude hacer un equilibrio, hago constar que no cumplí con este requisito por ignorancia y usted mismo me llamo la atención, me sentí avergonzada y en mis siguientes publicaciones no coloque la etiqueta para no caer en este error nuevamente

Sin embargo revisen los requisitos para que les otorguen los votos auge ...

Club 5050
Etiqueta #steemexclusive
Otorgar una contribución a la comunidad
Cero plagio por supuesto
Que no haya hecho power down

Pero existe algo que aunque no se coloque considero deben revisar y esa que si no tienen delegación en esa comunidad no se toman en cuenta para los votos auges.

Entonces son tantos los requisitos que la frustración es evidente y se ve reflejado en los monederos.

En conclusión revisen si se están apoyando a los usuarios por la delegaciones que otorgan y sin han hecho power down yo solo leo y me informo no tengo suficiente poderes no soy delfín ni soy moderadora pero son dudas que surgen en mi y seguros que muchos se identifican conmigo.

Yo tengo un año publicando y tengo mucho que agradecer incluyendolo pero solo expreso las dudas que en mi surgen cuando leo todo esto noto que el malestar en mucho más grande de lo que pensaba es más pensé que estaba equivocada con esos pensamientos sentía que luchaba contra ellos pero me atrevo a escribir porque seguro al igual que yo tienen las mismas dudas.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the Booming votes go to posts/authors not in the #clubs.

Interesting?

Many users are already out of the club thanks to the "centralization of votes" to which we are subjected.

With all due respect, I think you are asking for irrelevant information, the underlying problem of all this goes beyond that information.

I HOPE YOU FALL IN REASON.

Hi : @steemcurator01

I will share in detail the report of the names, club categories, post links of the users that I want to be voted by the booming account on a weekly basis in the SteemFoods Community on the @steemitfods account and added to the Google Spreadsheet. This way, your job may be easier.

I was sharing a report like the one below, you can check it out. About 7 months ago.

SteemFoods x Booming Support Program Week : 2 Report | Between 09-08-2021 / 16-08-2021 }

I'll post the weekly report on it, adding the integration of the Club tag and other information.

This can help you.


In addition, each content needs to be shared in the appropriate community. Many communities do not target a specific topic and accept any type of content. Actually, isn't that wrong? If there is a community suitable for the category of the content that users will share, isn't it better to share it here? I have prepared a post about it, I would be glad if you share your thoughts. In this way, we can ensure the categorization of the content.


Best Regards...

Que triste es saber que algo así suceda en comunidades en las que como usuarios ponemos todo el empeño por hacer un buen trabajo. Espero que los problemas sean solucionados por el bien de quiénes allí realmente trabajan objetivamente.

Within this report, you can assess which users are supported within each community and see if there's a bias towards a particular group (e.g. the admin or a circle of friends). Similarly, you'll be able to see the communities that support everybody, with a fairer distribution of votes.

With this transparency that we've never had before, things can only improve.

I come back from a short family vacation and again I find abuses, abuses that we all know exist and we are tired of seeing them, I think and I have said it many times "VOTE CENTRALIZATION IS KILLING US".

Not only booming has this problem, I have written this knowing that maybe I look bad but I think that the ruthless centralization that there is with all the healing accounts has caused much damage to all of us, first time I stay out first time I stay out of the club5050 because I have not had support and so many users either, the distribution of votes is a mess right now in steemit.

My ignorance does not allow me to investigate the percentage of votes of a curator account but I am a thousand percent sure that numbers of votes to the same users is also an evil that afflicts the main steemcurator accounts, here in Venezuela there are users who are voted daily and they are not CR or anything, they have made them grow in recent months in a disproportionate, selfish and rude way.

The fault of all this that is happening goes beyond users or administrators, the fault of all this for me is the rules that have emerged from club5050, club75 and club100, have caused a division in the ecosystem of preference and abuse, the clubs are at this time and distinction of preferences, is the closest thing to racism, because if one does not belong to club75 or club100 is marginalized and not voted. The support, votes, the desire to publish, quality publications, new entries, comments and everything that keeps this ecosystem is diminishing.

Hopefully vote centralization will end, the abuse won't make much change or much impact, but if vote centralization ends, steemit will once again be a decentralized social network, while I don't even know what it is.

@stef1
@steemcurator01
@alikoc07
@daytona475
@inspiracion
@alexarelatos
@eve73
@wentv

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@endingplagiarism I know you have a lot of work, but I would like to know if you can collaborate with us in the community Stars of Steem, We are making several improvements and I think your support regarding cases of abuse and plagiarism would be very helpful. If you accept please notify me and I will add you as a MOD!

Hi @sampraise, thank you for the offer and I would be happy to become a moderator.

I don't spend much time reviewing individual posts any more so please don't rely on me checking the contents of each post. If I see anything untoward though, I'll flag it and let you know.

It's what I'm waiting for, plus the capabilities you have can be very useful to us. Please subscribe to the community to place the role

I think there is an error in this


But before I hit submit, I checked a few things - specifically, the rules for booming support:

2 upvotes per user per week
Use of #steemexclusive
Cannot have been upvoted by steemcurator01 or 02
3-4 upvotes to community accounts per week
No bid-bots.
It turns out that what I considered to be abuse, was allowable within the rules of booming.

I have always read these rules from @steemitblog

image.png

https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/booming-support-for-communities-december

If it were as you say, no one would power up and everyone would only seek Booming's votes.

Posing this suggests that everything bad that has been done to the ecosystem is right. So, if I am wrong with this comment, then I will be more than surprised.

I think it should be a rule that communities make a daily and detailed report of healing with Booming mandatory. And at the end of the week, a complete report with the total count of the week, taken from the daily information. Including of course all the details of curator ship. If you think it's a lot of work, I think this might be a solution to this disastrous situation on the platform.

The rules I've shared are those which are specified in the spreadsheet that community leaders submit...

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Source

I was convinced that club5050 was a requirement but as I've just replied to sc01, I don't think it would change much.

What's interesting with the "powering down" element is that the users I highlight here aren't powering down - because they've never powered up! A nice loop hole that they can take advantage of.

I think it should be a rule that communities make a daily and detailed report of healing with Booming mandatory.

I think that this is a good suggestion. Looking at the communities which I know do this already, there appears to be a fairer distribution of votes - with the community accounts and admins nominated far less frequently.

The community leaders already have to complete a spreadsheet in order to submit their booming nominations so a post could be created at the same time and shared with the community.)

One way to make the use of Booming transparent, and stop abuse, is to make the management of these votes public. Post the chosen ones.

In Steem Venezuela, a daily selection of 5 publications is made and each day it is published who are the chosen ones and who is responsible for doing this.

This saves work and makes the management of the resources granted to the communities as transparent as possible.

In Steem Venezuela, a daily selection of 5 publications is made and each day it is published who are the chosen ones and who is responsible for doing this.

I think that it is great that you do this and it is reflected in February's report - Steem Venezuela has one of the fairest distribution of votes out of all the communities,

I agree that transparency is crucial and perhaps it would be worth considering going further and producing a report on who the community account has been supporting (justyy's site can make this a simple process).

Similar to the booming votes being used to primarily upvote the community account and admin (the same person getting 2 slices of cake), the community account primarily upvotes the admin too.

Amigo muchos de nosotros vimos el nombre de las Comunidades involucradas, ¿Por qué ocultarlo? Si tienes suficiente evidencia.
Te agradezco una vez más por ser parte de la solución.

According to the rules of booming, the user has done nothing wrong so I wanted to keep the user anonymous and ask the wider question of how booming should change.

The community I looked at was the only one that I've "investigated" - you'll see that almost all communities have chosen to support themselves, through both the community account and personal accounts.

These community accounts are also used to primarily upvote the person who created it. That's not why community accounts exist. That's not why they were promoted. They weren't created so that admins could delegate their power and then self-upvote without the stigma of self-upvoting.

Many communities even demand a delegation before they'll upvote their members.

This is all wrong. The system is wrong and I hope we'll get some ideas on how to improve it.

Disculpa mi insistencia, muchos vimos los nombres de estas comunidades involucradas. Es evidente de acuerdo a las pruebas que muestras, que su intención de lucrarse está ahí, burlando la legalidad.

Creo que usar esta información solo para mejorar las normas booming, sin que haya medidas al respecto con los involucrados, hará que los vicios detectados queden impunes.

Gracias por el esfuerzo en todo esto, pero debe haber justicia como se han hecho en otros casos recientemente.

Al menos por fin leo que están claros que es necesaria una delegación para ser votados aún a pesar que no está escrito en ningún lado

Otra cuestión que quiero agregar... Es que si con esta confrontación lo más normal que pase es que cierren esa comunidad y empiezen a repartirse los steem entre el equipo de trabajo, y como me dijo una amiga esas es su comunidad y ella la formo tiene derecho, y yo respondí pero no solo se crecen están comunidades con nuestras delegaciones que esas al menos tu la retiras y regresan a tu monedero pero y el quince y hasta el 20% que exigen en las comunidad para que sea un aporte, es que acaso alli no contribuimos para que crezcan en poder y liquidez? Para mí escribir estas palabras era necesario porque las tenía atrapadas y por mucho tiempo, no me atrevía pero veo el descontento en general, gracias por permitirme esto como catarsis y drenar

No, no, no, no, no... The communities that DEMAND a delegation to receive a vote are abusing their community account. It's no better than sending your money to UpVu or TipU.

@steemcuarot01 - this is a practise I've seen across numerous communities and some with significant influence. Do you share my opinion that this practise is wrong and must end?

Donations to a community account should be voluntary.

We have taken action on two communities already that were being particularly excessive in this area.

We are reviewing others.

That's good to know, thank you 👍🏼

Wow wow! Everything I have read in these comments is impressive. You know, reading your answers, I have learned a lot about the platform. Users like you should multiply! I congratulate you!

No, no, no, no, no... The communities that DEMAND a delegation to receive a vote are abusing their community account. It's no better than sending your money to UpVu or TipU.

I did not know it..

I think that these types of debate should exist more often, so that users better understand the functioning of the ecosystem. In addition to elucidating the failures that lead to possible solutions.

In addition, we read the different opinions, ideas, approaches, possible solutions arise and, perhaps, we begin to see a greater percentage of improvements in the ecosystem.

Perhaps these scourges cannot be completely eradicated, but at least try to keep their rate down.

Thank you!!

Since I joined, I've been curious about everything. Why people use certain tags, why certain posts are posted at certain times, why certain users upvote others, etc. I've learnt a lot. I saw so much plagiarism when I joined, that I asked if it was acceptable just to copy and paste other people's content! I was relieved when I was told that plagiarism isn't tolerated.

There's so much to learn and understand. All the while thinking "how can I make that better".

Often the solution is a "delete user" button.

Some newcomers, even though they have not fully explored the platform, have used success-kr tag. How do they know about it? Maybe multiple accounts? Or maybe coincidentially all the newcomers know about this tag?

It's spam-central. Create hundreds of accounts earning $0.02 per post per day equated to a fairly good return 🤷🏼‍♂️

Amiga la delegación no es obligatoria, pero puede traerte otros beneficios como votos y unos cuantos centavos de Steem. Eso dependerá de los criterios de cada comunidad.
Y al cerrarse un canal es muy difícil, más no imposible... Esperar que te devuelvan algo de tus publicaciones, no he leído de alguna que haya hecho algo similar. Saludos, somos muchos los desconcertados con esto, pero hay la intención de poner orden, sino no se hubiera expuesto esta información.

Estoy sorprendido con esta información y deseo ver el trasfondo de todo esto porque realmente es algo que no esta nada bien.

I totally agree and hope that we can change some behaviours - stay vigilant 👍🏼

Ya lo hice, igualmente si hay algún abuso espero que siga con esta investigación.

Excelente trabajo, los usuarios publicamos nuestros post y cuesta mucho recibir votos importantes, yo me siento decepcionado y tomé la decisión de apagar mi cuenta.