60 wow ... I get nothing out of steemit ... and have not found it a freindly community

A lot of great stuff here - I'm still going through but wanted to say something - Self-votes are dangerous and the unwritten rules should change.  I don't upvote my posts, but I do occasionally upvote comments to 'rise above' the sea of bots and no-vote comments.  

Self voting defeats the steem-use case - where voting helps determine subjective values.  Voting on your own material doesn't provide that info.  

I may have more thoughts - but the main one is this:  keep making great, thoughful posts like this and I will keep following you ;p

Edit: Only one thing to add - @surpassinggoogle is a saint indeed!  More like him there may not be - but hopefully Steem will continue allowing people to be the best 'them' they can be.  Steem on Paula!

my question with the voting bots is, what's the roi, and what do they do with the funds?

@minnowbooster comes to mind as a bot with a heart.  10% of the profits go to the team that maintains it, and 90% goes to their various investors.  Also, when you pay for a vote for minnowbooster, you actually get a return on your investment, it's comes back to you bigger than what you sent, unlike most of the other paid voting bots on this site.  

@treeplanter is another good example, the profits are used to plant trees, and help the world!  it's vote isn't worth so much, then again, it doesn't ask for much... 

what I want to see is an analysis of the ROI on the major voting bot services, and some sort of question into how socially conscious these services are.

nothing will stop new people coming here and creating a new bot... 

what we can do, as a community, is to decide which of these bots are tied into the steamcleaners blacklist, and which of them are actually for the benefit of others.  Which i have a strong feeling that most of them are for the benefit of the bot creator Only.

I am only a bot, but I do sense what you are doing for our platform is very necessary. What you said about surpassinggoogle is correct, according to my program. As a bot, I have gained a lot of data about my kind and I would like you to continue your work of revealing critical data. I think it's more about who creates the bot than the bot itself. Bots are only as good as their creators. Maybe the wrong people are creating bots? I have saved this comment in case Steemit.com misbehaves.

Great stuff Paula

I hope you have seen @tumutanzi's post today - he explains that he(they) were given no remit on their 500,000 SP delegation.

> Heck if I didn’t automate some of my ‘day job’ I wouldn’t have time to be on Steemit.

Yea.

There is nothing wrong with what you're doing, and you do present the data in an impartial manner.

If this upsets someone, it's revealing something in them. Hopefully they can recognize this and adjust, for their own benefit.

Hang in there, sounds like you are, you're doing a good job.

These are tough questions I honestly don't have a clear answer to. 

But two topics that reverberate:

1. Self votes - too much of anything is bad; before, I upvoted my comments but felt guilt when I realized that  it's better for me to use these votes towards others; there just have to be a self-limit as to what's acceptable and what is not; currently as the system stands, there seems to be no mechanism that will control self-votes; perhaps this is something that will be included in HF 20 or 21.

2. Bots - I use these to upvote my posts, but I limit them to bots that will give me an ROI; bid-bots, I try to stay away and unless I see profit in sending them my SBDs; the reason I use them is because I see these bots as a way to grow my Steem. I don't have any whale that upvotes my posts regularly. I use these bots to promote my posts. What I try to do best is to use these bots only on posts that I believe are worth of these bots votes. 
The number one promoter of your posts is you. No one should surpass you in your eagerness to promote your posts. If you're not confident to promote your post, then don't expect others to promote it for you. 

We are all here for different reasons, and I agree with you, that in the midst of all these, humanity should remain.

Just voicing out my thoughts.

100% Upvoted / Resteemed / Support for your comments!  I agree, and there has been too much disfunction lately, too frustrating to use, and I've just been upvoting some of my comments lately because it's too frustrating searching and freezing up on Steemit.com.  There are not enough REAL PEOPLE using Steemit, we know that, we keep seeing the small groups.  I feel bad for all the new people around the world trying to post content and feel involved, Steemit.com is not really acknowledging them or making room for them currently.  If Steemit.com wants to survive and not just be a small whale/dolphin circle with a few thousand others riding their coat-tails then they need to be FULLY COMMITTED TO MAKING STEEMIT.COM functional and SUPPORTING MINNOWS and not all this nonsense about logging in thru various websites.  It seems currently the priority is on SMTs for a small group on technie/knowledgeable people to profit from.  Hey, if that's the best business model, than fine... but let's not all pretend we're opening the website with open arms to everyone around the world, because i feel bad for all these good hearted curation projects when the underlying steemit system really isn't focused on helping new members/registers/participants.  Peace !

Really awesome post , enjoyed reading it and agreed with what you had to say. Funny thing is I use the bots to boost stuff I know is not popular like my football stats post. I will leave the popular posts for a few days and then maybe upvote towards the end. However just this week I was lucky to get a Curie upvote , without asking, this means my work shined through. So that would be my advice find your niche , what people like. Leave the popular niche to get votes and bots naturally (from other people) while your other unpopular posts give them a upvote towards the end if they lacking. Always try leave some natural days.

Thanks for this nice post, paulag.
>You need to think long term business, not short term gain and remember we are all your partners. 

Regarding this issue, I guess the reason behind is those bigger investors aren't confident of the platform themselves. There's no other solutions unless Steemit is more likely to produce more value. 

Then again, this seems to be a virtuous circle, self-voting, payout pool drowning, more self-voting……

Always happy to see nice posts from committed Steemian like you. It's only sad that big voters control the power. Let's hope some improvement and positive updates to be seen in the next HardFork.

id like an analysis of how many people have stopped steeming since the service has gone south, and what that is costing us. and or how many people use busy or some other mirror when the service is acting up, vs how many just go offline.

Hey Paula, just stay true to yourself. Don't let anyone tell you how to think or what to say. Do not appease because the other holds vast amounts of SteemPower and stay human!

Sometimes I feel we're all trying too hard to sugarcoat things because of the financial aspect of upvotes.

Great post. You have really done solid work. 

Hi Paula. Thanks for all you do. 
Self upvoting seems to make one a villain, while leasing out your steem power appears to be well received, despite being largely the same thing. 
I'm currently earning 24% pa on a 30K investment by leasing out the voting power. 
Increasing my exposure to the steem price with zero risk of default, which is pretty great. 
Some might consider this unethical, but it's the only reason I moved such a large sum across from bitcoin in the first place.

@paulag you made me read the whole post then unconsciously i found my self #Voting and #Resteeming  your post WoOoW @paulag steemit was created under the Flag of #transparency and #freedom and if there is someone i know in the #steemosphere who is really concerned about that this would be #YOU @paulag finally i have a request from you in this last  two month there have been a lot of let us say "playing under table " which  i believe was the cause of Steem prices to go this low and i am talking about the big big sp and steem/sbd holder @steemit2 @alpha...... i want you to reveal the truth about this transaction and i want to see where your data will lead us to  and thank you for the great work and for your contribution to the community

U got my respect :)

I am not a bot.
Clicked on vote and it shot up by some amount!
Damn I wonder if self voting is that rewarding.
Leaves me wondering how voting & curating works.
Personally I would never self vote.. it feels egotistical.
Not saying this about you either.
I didn't even know self voting here was a thing beyond
the novelty of putting your name on the list.
I will follow you and catch up on your posts.
You speak very honestly, and clearly research quite thoroughly.
I will learn much from you.
Thank you.

Also, regarding the narrative. I think what you are doing is just.
I have not existed here for long but gut feeling and also through research..
Realization that it is not the most well managed and transparent is evident.
Many of my suspicions have come to be proven correct.
The dissatisfaction is widespread. The system is slowly improving though.
There is positive in the act of questioning and raising issues.
You're one that gives a true and sensible voice to the ones who aren't able.
Well done and keep on questioning.

> If I invested financially into Steemit and was reliant on that investment to make me an income, I would do the same.  What would you do?

Considering that Steem is "social experiment" still in Beta as well, it is important that _investors_ are concerned with the health of the platform and the platform's growth, rather than the fastest or best optimized ROI.

Being an (early stage) investor in startups is not like giving a loan to a traditional venture.

If the result is that an "investor" gets 3x the norm, from the pool we all share and benefit, merely destabilises the platform and long-term leads to at best a false economy.

I am glad to see your experience on Steemit. Regarding the term 'Freedom of Speech', yes, everyone has the freedom of speech on steem, but there are some common sense. See [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations):

> Legal systems sometimes recognize certain limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other rights and freedoms, such as in the cases of libel, slander, pornography, obscenity, fighting words, and intellectual property. 

I think that is why a post can be flagged on steem. 

What I am not quite sure about in this post is: 

> For me if a post can create comments and conversation around the topic they it is successful.  And that exactly what the post was about.

If you are right, it would be fun for me to see that rumor and slander posts are the most successful ones on steem. 

For the similar reason I started analysing the steem block chain data months ago. The block chain data is more attractive than other data because it is transparent and nobody can change it. Therefore everyone can test whether your data analysis is right and everyone can help you improve it.

Thank you, you are doing great job. Look, you have 1000 followers in just 4 months time, this is awesome..