Yesterday I did a brief analysis of who the whales are and how to become one. I also mentioned at the beginning that I did research on the lowest rated users as well; I took a sample of 25 of the lowest reputation users on this platform.
How Reputation Gets Lowered
Reputation is the number in brackets beside your username; this shows how reputable you are as a user in the Steemit community. The reputation increases by upvotes, the more upvotes you have, the higher it goes.
The opposite of an upvote is flagging, accounts can get flagged for various reasons like plagiarism, and once your flagged the reputation is lowered. Not everyone's flagging will affect an author if a whale flags your post your reputation will probably drop to 0 or lower. The more you get flagged, the lower the reputation goes.
What is the Lowest Possible Reputation?
So, the reputation of a user can drop to as low as -25, although there has never been anyone to drop that low as of yet! Some of these guys have gotten this low due to flagging wars with whales, but most of them are for shocking reasons.
I will briefly list the general things that will get you flagged by users:
- Posting copyrighted material
- Plagiarism
- Spam posts
- Using bots to follow thousands of people
- Harassing/bullying other users
- Misleading tags
- Misleading Titles
The 25 Rebels of Steemit
Now, we know how reputation can be tainted and lost, these are the 25 accounts I examined to have the lowest reputation.
Not All are Evil
Amongst this list of 25 rebels, there are three whales in it, one of them is legendary Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders flagged the other two. I will elaborate on the great Bernie Sanders in the next post, today we will focus on only the rebellious users.
From the other 22 users, there was a bunch of things they did that got them flagged; I will list them and elaborate on each one. I will not mention which user did what "crime" so this is a general list. I saw ten main "sin's" they committed. (The three whales did not do any of these!)
The 10 Unwritten Sins of Steemit
[1] - Racism
Some of these users I found had posted extremely racist posts, attacking certain religions, races, ethnicities. The community here does not tolerate racism and racist posts so that those posts would get flagged by whales and many minnows. Eventually, all their posts would become hidden, and no one would see them anymore.
[2] - Telling Followers to Dump Steemit
Amongst these users, some of them would spread FUD in the community. Trying to encourage others to drop their STEEM as well to drive the price lower. They would manipulate the market with their followers. The community disliked this and flagged them down to the pits of Steemit!
[3] - Scamming/Scam Links
When you gain followers it becomes an opportunity for abuse; many users did abuse their power over fans. They would rack up a thousand fans and make a blog about this new website or exchange, and the link would scam them and hack them. This is disgusting behavior for the community, it angered the users, and they retaliated.
[4] - Making Ranting/Complaining Posts
Imagine you're following an author and all they do is complain about how "bad" Steemit is and causing all this drama for no reason. They would only post about how they hate this and that every day. No one likes a complainer; I already mentioned that in my "How to be loved by everyone" article. Eventually, their fans left them, and they got muted.
[5] - Attacking the Creators of Steemit
I think at this point everyone knows the creators of Steemit; they also have their accounts where they post updates and articles. Some people feel the need to go onto their accounts and spread hate and attack them for no reason; this encourages the general public just to flag you down.
[6] - Posting Anti-Steemit Blogs
There are always haters and advocates; then there are trolls. Some of the posts I was were just trolling, attack Steemit claiming it's a scam. Some of them went as far as to tell fans to quit Steemit along with them. They thought everyone would be on their side, little did they know that not many agreed with them.
[7] - Boycotting Other Authors
Boycotting other users were more common than I thought it would be, the Steemit community is very healthy right now. Many of these rebellious users have been silenced, in the early days, they were free causing havoc. There was a trend going on at the beginning of Steemit where users would boycott one another and make hateful posts about each other. Some would go as far as releasing photos of their families and personal information. This behavior is intolerable within this community, and they have also been silenced!
[8] - Whale Drama Posts
A few of the trolls felt the need to harass the fellow whales and influential users on Steemit. Trolls would look for things to black mail the whales and create drama with in the community with it. Unnecessary drama is not needed, and those users would eventually quit what they were doing because of their reputation dropping continuously.
[9] - Posting Videos of Murder and Death
I told you guys things are going to shock you; the behavior gets worse with number ten. Some have a sick perception of gore and violence; they post videos and images of these things.
Even though it will be displayed as NSFW, even those users will flag these posts. The platform may be decentralized, but it is not a place to lose universal human morals.
[10] - Under Age Nudity
I bet you thought nothing could top off number nine, well, think again! This is the worst possible thing a person could do on this platform; they were taken care of by the Steem cleaners. I would like to take a moment to thank the @Steemcleaners for their hard work even though it is a bot.
Their account was far below 0 in the slums where they deserve to be, the community also muted them, and fans unfollowed. Posts like this have zero tolerance and will not stay up. All of the images were turned into the code so no one can view them in the future, to ensure a healthy environment.
Do Not Do What They Did!
If you want success in anything in life, avoid all of this filth. Never imitate their actions, and you will be well on your way to succus. This post was dark and disturbing, but I had to mention it, awareness is the first step to prevention.
In the next post, I will be going over the legendary whale Bernie Sanders and his legacy in the community here on Steemit. Some hate him, and some love him.
RESTEEM for others to be aware and educated!
If you enjoyed this post, please upvote this, it helps me continues! RESTEEM for other to be aware and educated! Leave a comment on which "sin" shocked you the most and how we could improve the community on Steemit.
The community now is very healthy compared to the early days of this platform.
All images are royalty free from Pixabay.com, link is below
https://pixabay.com/
Looking forward to the @berniesanders blog/post, as I have been hit by him and his house of cards, or whatever he call his downvote bot. 52 downvotes for one comment.
I am glad that you believe that @cheetah bot, and steemcleaners are needed.
Yes ahaha, he is very interesting. The bots are so helpful, they keep these scammers and perverts off the platform. :)
Well done!!
Steemit is a place where positive gray matter must brighten.
Unfortunately, enough said!
Keep on steemit!
Thank you! It is true, many users were unaware of these people so I hope i shined a light onto the reality of what happens so people can avoid this.
most of them probably does lot of "self upvote"
So, with the self-upvoting, the only issue arises when they post spam and upvote their post to farm money. Then whales see this and they flag them to stop the spam and money farming.
I didn't see number 10 but I heard about it. I didn't verify but I added my flag to the person that posted that stuff. I didn't verify because I didn't want to see the image
I found the user from there super low RP, in their comment section Steemcleaners mentioned the nature of their offense. Thankfully they took care of him!
Very nice post, following you as i am curious for the Bernie Sanders review.
It will be interesting :), Thanks for the follow! I try my best to keep the quality consistent!
Another very interesting profile is @ mind hunter (without the spaces, i don't want his attention), risky for a downvote as he has high rep :-( but circular comment voting whale, makes almost 20.000$ a month
Oops, checked it out myself, don't get it really, profile got my attention because of Jerry Banfield's post https://steemit.com/steemit/@jerrybanfield/meet-steem-s-1-author
Haha He beat us to it 😂, no worries I will do one on Bernie Sanders his story is very interesting. His account was worth millions and he disapeered.
Thanks for posting this! I've seen A LOT of it go down, but never thought of researching it all, although a long time ago I did do a post on How To Commit Steemicide, which touched on a few of these. Thanks again!
Ahaha that's a genius title. Wow, that proof of the Steem platform growing, for me it was researching "history" of what happened, and you have seen it all happen live.
Wow.. I didn't know there are people like these here on Steemit. I'm quite new so I didn't encountered yet, but I'm sure to watch out. This post is very informative, thank you @distress2success - great help for the newbies like me 😊
Thank's to the team of bots they keep things in order, now they are not as common as they used to be. I hope you benefit from this post :D.
Same as with other social media platforms, including and especially Facebook.
But it's good that Steemit has this flagging. It's rather early days and Steemit (plus dtube) create hope of a better deal for people who create content. Better to set these reasonable ground rules from early on. There will always be jerks and similar on the internet. But push them to go elsewhere.
Yeah. Facebook is polluted and I see Steemit as a clean community.
Exactly, that's why YouTube is having a huge backlash from ad sponsors, they are pulling out because of inapropriate content so now the guidelines are changing for them too.
Thanks for sharing! Links to your post were included in the Steem.center wiki articles about Reputation System and Flag. Thanks and good luck again!
WOW, I feel honored :D Thank you! Im happy it the article was that helpful!
You have hooked me up for your posts ... eagerly waiting for your next article!
Upvoted and resteemed!Hi @distress2success! Thanks for the informative post! Such sins comitted deserves to be punished wherever it takes place! Thanks to steemit community and users who are active to keep this platform secure.
Thank you!! It makes me so happy you enjoyed the articles! You guys keep me going day after day! 😊
@distress2success got you a $1.61 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)
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This post has received a 4.51 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @distress2success.
This article is so well written and put together that I just have to Resteem & Upvote it.
I take my hat off to you Sir!
Upvoted and Resteemed
Thank you! I appreciate it, most of my posts go unseen and I hope this one helps people!
Just a small detail. I don't think the word rebel goes with the behavior described later in the post.
I agree, eventually, It turned into crime rather than just rebelling. It disturbing.
Very informative and very interesting article thanks for sharing, your article serves as a dos and donts on steemit. I would encourage people to upvote this to really get the awareness out there, especially for us newbies.
Thank you very much for your support! People like you keep me going strong!
Upvoted & Resteemed
Fantastic post buddy @distress2success... Looking forward in knowing more about the @berniesanders case :PIs it also true that a user with rep 40 can not flag a user with rep 60?
You are able to flag anyone, but the catch is it probably won't affect a higher reputation user. I was flagged by a 25 rep troll twice, nothing happened. Their accounts are too weak. If a whale flags another whale depending how powerful they are, they can ruin their reputation.
Good info I didn't know, and well written, thanks,
Thank you, I hope it helped!
It's too bad there are bad apples but we can all learn from their mistakes, I suppose. Thanks for the great post @distress2success! I am happy to be on Steemit and have enjoyed my brief time here.
It is sad, but that's how laws were put in place also. People would do things the general public did not approve of and they started creating rules so it won't happen again and if it does they get punished.
Thankfully most of these users get so low in ratings they end up being muted! :D
Im happy you enjoyed it!
how does someone with no followers or not following anyone with 13 posts gets the estimated account value of 600+ sbd?????
So they usually invest money into their accounts, they sent Bitcoin to the Steem market and buy it. Even though they have no followers or posts.
ohhhh.....
They probably got flagged for harassing people in the comment section also, so thats how they have such a low reputation too.
Well written. Some people are just sadist, while some people are just immoral. They can't see pass negativity. No matter how decentralized a community is we will still have a cleaner and they community will be at steak if we do nothing about these category of people. But now steemit is a community which order is made.
Exactly, in the beginning it's difficult to guess these type of people will show up. Thanks to the cleaners and Cheetah it keeps thing's in order and we rarely see these cases anymore.
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Thank you :)
learn something new everyday! nice article, will resteem and upvote.
Thank you. I appreciate it!
your posts are so helpful.... all i can say is that .. stay blessed for ever... pls explain what you mean by saying... using BOTS to increase followers..
Thank you, Im so happy they help you! So, when I said they use bots to get followers is they would create an auto follow bot that would go and follow 70,000 or more users and they would wait for a follow back. So they would get flagged for using those things.
thank you again....
This post has received a 11.87 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @distress2success.
@distress2success Excellent... Motivating and it will make me joyful to check out effort and resolve prevail. Adore it..
Thank you! You guys keep me motivated to continue! :D
good researching!!
Thank you :D
This post is dope. I am completely new to Steemit and this helps me learn what not to do. I can see that the build in system realy encourages postive, benificial, non hate bullshit. I love that. Thank u.
Im so happy it benefits you! Hopefully, this community continues to grow :D
I'm a new steemian, this can be a useful guide so I don't end up doing the same mistakes. Its kinda lonely here with few followers, I'm like in monologue mode and spending more time observing and learning in Steemit.
Thank you I hope it benefits you! Don't worry eventually you will grow and gain followers more and more. You will have people comment and it won't feel monologued anymore.
Presented very clearly!
Thanks for the energy you've put in.
Thank you for taking your time to reach it!
someone alawys like darknesssss.........nice post😍😍😍
Ahaha thank you!
this is a very informative post thank very much
Your welcome I hope it helps you!
for real ? i dont know theres something like this
Yup ahah, but thankfully we have the bots who find these people and mute them.
yes it helps a lot
Shared for others to read and learn!
Thank you!!
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I was curious how ones reputation could drop so low as we all start out at 25. I have noticed some of the folks who reply on my posts have low rep and reply with a simple "nice" or similar word. It's a bit disheartening after you work so hard on a post.
Thank you for explaining this to me. I feel it is very important info and have resteemed. Looking forward to your next post.
Thank you! The way it works is everyone starts at 25 and if they get upvotes their reputation goes up. Although, if they start getting flagged by users for lousy comments, spam, and anything disliked their RP will drop lower and lower. The lowest RP possible is -25! 😂
thanks for sharing this info.. i got lots of info..
Thanks again upvoted n resteem
check mine blog too n help me grow
@sanzrasp
Thank you!!
Crazy that some of these guys have accounts worth over 125K. How did that happen?
I know right! So they invest their own hard earned cash into their accounts, so they buy STEEM and transfer it into their wallets.
Just to become a mega-troll? Man some people have way more disposable income than me.
Hahaha literally, now that's dedication to trolling. I wish I had $100,000 laying around to put into steemit :D ahah.
So glad to hear that content can be written over if needed!
Yup! It's a life saver! :D
Great analysis on Reputation versus value.
Thank you for sharing this. I wish I read this before I found the resteem button. I didn't know about the whale rants some people are posting. Well, I know now.
Great article! Now I understand the reputation system. I always thought it had something to do with STEEM Power :D
Wow, that sucks! Now this is the reason why we need a regular dislike button on steemit that won't affect the money or reputation, flagging is an extreme opposite of upvoting there should be something in the middle/