Last week I delegated some Steem Power to @steemflagrewards and joined the @flagtrail. What, why, how......
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Do you often see content you feel is hugely over-valued?
Do you wake up in the morning with 'spare' VP that could have been put to use overnight?
Are you fearful of a retaliatory flag if you down-vote content you disagree with for reasons relating to spam or abuse?
Would you like to be rewarded for flagging spam/abuse?
If some or all of the above are true, then maybe the @flagtrail is for you!
About a week ago, @imacryptorick put out a call to action post regarding @flagtrail, which is a service tied to @steemflagrewards with the goal of reducing the value of content considered spam/abuse.
Basically, it is now possible to automatically down-vote this type of content, which has been judged to fall into this category by the @steemflagrewards team.
> Doesn't @steemcleaners handle this sort of thing?
In a word, 'no'. Their remit mainly covers plagiarism and rarely are they involved with content that for example, holds no value to the community and is boosted by an array of bid-bots.
It goes without saying that spam/abusive content is a matter of opinion, but the @steemflagrewards team are an experienced bunch of cleaners and so far, the down-votes my account has given I have agreed with:
https://steemit.com/@metma/life-is-jici4j7z
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https://steemit.com/@vegawesome/spring-q5cbzic1
https://steemit.com/@esbjornbo/colorchallenge-friday-skyblue-ipci9v3b
Do you agree that these posts are spam/abuse?
How to sign-up
- Join the flagtrail Discord server
- Register your account via the following command in any of the rooms on the server
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- Give @flagtrail your posting authority via SteemConnect here: https://app.steemconnect.com/authorize/@flagtrail
What do the numbers mean in the registration command?
100 - Allow up to a 100% down-vote to be given from your account
85 - Only cast a down-vote when your Voting Power is on or above 85%
10000 - Only cast a down-vote on accounts with less than 10000 Steem Power
And so, the command you enter could be something like ?register abh12345 50 90 5000 which would mean a maximum 50% down-vote, only when your VP is on or above 90%, to accounts with < 5000 SP.
These settings are available to reduce the risk of using more Voting Power than you would like, and also reduce the risk of being flagged in retaliation by an account much larger than your own.
Note: I would suggest setting the 'max SP value' to be no bigger than your own SP.
FAQs
> What if I am flagged purely in retaliation?
Let the team know via discord and they will help! (no guarantees, don't bite off more than you can chew, etc)
> Can I pause/remove myself from the trail at any time?
Of course. To pause:
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To quit:
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And there is a reminder with a link to remove posting authority for @flagtrail to complete the job.
> Is there a commands list in case I forget?
Yes, this can be called on the flagtrail discord server by typing ?help
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> You mentioned being rewarded for flagging spam/abuse?
That is correct. When your account is used to flag a post, a comment is left under the lead comment that reported the content, e.g:
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This comment is then voted on by the @steemflagrewards account later in the day. My down-vote on the content was as follows:
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The reward ($0.47) is 38.2% larger than my down-vote value ($0.34), which if we deduct 25% for curation, means a 13.2% larger vote than I could cast on say, my own content. Not bad eh?
Delegate to @steemflagrewards
It is also possible to delegate to @steemflagrewards (the account upvoting the members comments), which if you don't fancy joining the trail, is a noble gesture for sure.
You can read more about @steemflagrewards on the posts that they put out each day, and here is one of the most recent:
https://steemit.com/steemflagrewards/@steemflagrewards/steem-flag-rewards-report---8-flagger-post---2019-04-13-1350
Summary
So far so good as far as I am concerned. I don't have to look for rubbish to flag, I get rewarded for flagging, and if I'm ever not happy with how my VP has been used, I can remove the delegation and quit the trail.
Cheers!
Asher
Hello again Marianne.
Firstly, thanks again for your reply here today, I appreciate it a lot and it tells me that you feel this to be an open forum where differing views can be discussed in a productive way.
To try to respond to the points you make, I'll copy your text and reply underneath. I don't really enjoy this too much as the comments can get quite short and come across a little rude, but here goes!
> I am so sad that you are starting to go that way as well.
I've flagged plagiarism, comment-farming, and on posts I've disagreed with the pending awards with for a long time - this system is more of a convenient and methodical approach.
> All that valuable voting power could be used to support people who actually produce good content on the blockchain
My flag total as a percentage of my total Voting Power for the week will be < 1%. When A flag is applied, the pending reward goes back to the pool in the hope that other votes have landed on good content which will then be earning that little bit more. The 'issue', as ats-david pointed out, is that this returned reward in the case of flagtrail, is being redistributed to the down-voter, myself for example, and it is being given on an automated comment. I understand this is not perfect, but the question I put forward is, would you rather the original account take the reward, or me?
> I am so against this flagging business and find it very ego driven and hurtful to the community.
I hope you have learned enough about me over the past couple of years to see that my ego rarely drives what I do here, but I do concede that some flags are not always given for the 'right' reasons.
> Hundreds of good content creators leave because they are not seeing their posts rewarded.
This is unfortunately the way the system is designed. There is a finite pool each day which you could considered to be 10 full votes (up or down). The rewards cannot and will not ever reach everyone.
> The flagging community is growing the problem of lousy content by diverting their valuable possible up-votes for good content.
As above, it's really not the case and indeed the opposite. A flag replenishes the pool allowing extra rewards available for that good content. 305 different account have received a non-dust vote from my account this week, and 3 have been flagged.
> And no matter how "experienced" the people are that decide who gets a downvote - it is still censorship.
Censorship is an incorrect word associated with flags. The content may be hidden from a particular window onto the blockchain but is still view-able with an extra click. Censorship would be removing the content altogether, which does actually take place when accounts upload the likes of child porn. This is not done with a flag, but at blockchain level I believe.
> initiatives like that have made me consider more than once to give up on Steem.
I'm sorry to start your day negatively, but I honestly believe that flags (if placed correctly) are not a reason to give up on Steem. When you visit a blog with 300 comments that have been voted by the same account and their numerous alts, this is a bum start to the day. Having an account large enough to combat things like this is good for Steem, and good for good content, providing other curators reach it.
Flags make up much less than 1% of the daily voting, bought votes somewhere in the region of 20%, and climbing - I do not believe it is flags that are the reason good work isn't being manually curated.
Thanks again, I hope their is at least something to consider in the above.
Until the new system is in place, each spam post gets a ton of spam comments that are being upvoted so you are not returning that reward into the reward pool.
>One of the key 'selling points' of STEEM, is, high quality content is produced & rewarded here.
It's being produced, all right, but rewarded? Sometimes.
Blaming the bid bots for it and that guy that invested $80 is absurd. Each and every day I see a ton of good posts that don't go over $1, hell even over $0.10, and at the same time I see a total crap, a shitpost of the kind that you'd flag going over $10. The only difference being that the good content has been produced by a nobody while that shitpost is being produced by somebody. There's a social aspect to it and I don't mind it.
If a whale farts, the upvotes are there. A lot of it. That's just how it is.
I know that in an ideal world the whales would be out there rewarding great authors, but the reality is a bit different. There are only two ways a nobody can get any visibility (or earn something from the posts):
- Get lucky and get the support of some big account
- Buy some upvotes from those that sell it
The first scenario is not that common, so the only realistic approach is to go with the second one.
>Which extracting money from the reward pool: is not...
The reward pool is the key STEEM's selling point, to be more precise, the ability to profit from it. If by some chance that goes away the users and investors would leave the platform en masse.
We need those guys that trying to convert $75 into $80, and from what I'm seeing, he wouldn't get flagged if he put in a bit more effort in that post and made it look high quality.
I know that you disagree with me here but look at it this way. You spend $75 usd worth of STEEM/SBD buying the upvotes. At the time you've got those upvotes you're $5 usd in profit, but what happens if the price of STEEM/SBD goes down? You lose $$$. Add to that the fact that half of the payout will be in SP and he'll get just 50% in SBD (depending on the price movements he may not even get SBD).
By the time he gets the post-payout, a lot of things can change, and he can lose $$$ even if he's been in the profits at one point. I'd rather see people circulating that SBD/STEEM within the system than seeing them sell their liquid earnings the moment they've got it.