This is a post i have wanted to write for a while. Ever since bots started taking a back seat and slowly were eliminated from the trending page.
I found myself seeing what has happened and asked myself:
Well, what now?
When bots were a thing and the drama could be found where ever you looked, you had an obvious enemy to honest voting for everyone to fight. They were omnipresent and easy to spot.
Getting rid of bots was the essential
STEP NO.1.
There were some that assumed that once that happened we could say we reached our goal. No.
Other problems were still present. Monetary circle jerks and topic circle jerks.
We completed the first step, or are close to completing it, but with the elimination of bots and with the dust slowly settling we start to see the current state of things and its not ideal.
What is ideal is us getting to this point, but the state of things isnt ideal.
That brings me to
STEP NO.2.
Once bots have for most part left the trending page, except for the burn/SPS botted posts we should focus our attention to another issue.
Circle Jerks
This problem is a bit more ambiguous one. You cant really put a definition on it. Is a circle jerk someone supporting a group of people? How many people do need to be inside the group for us to determine it is indeed a circle jerk?
That is a tough call.
When you are faced with that problem, what i do is simply downvote for disagreement over rewards.
For a while now i have given the "@slowwalker CircleJerk" as an obvious example of something you can downvote without having to ask yourself if he indeed he is just supporting his community.
If i had to give an opinion on his content i would say it was low effort, repetitive, uninteresting and simply exists to act as a "collection basket" for the people he votes.
That is my opinion and in no way is that proof that what he and his "CircleJerk buddies" are indeed doing.
They could genuinely like his posts. Who can say?
And if it was only for that i would simply downvote him based on MY OPINION and not based on FACTS like we have downvoted the bots in STEP NO.1.
So how do you determine if what they are doing is a circle jerk???
Simple.....
You listen to what they have to say!
.... and indeed, they do not deny it but rather embrace the fact that they know that what theyre doing is shitty but continue to do so because they think theyre too big to fail and they genuinely think they are entitled to the rewards they are getting.
If it wasnt them who admitted it you would have a hard time proving a circle jerk as big as this so here are some quotes from them admitting it.
I am in the red hole so bad on steem its sick!!!! BUT BUT BUT.....I'm still here everyday pushing tokens around, making my own original content and helping the platform grow in my own way. Sure i get a few traded "circle jerking" votes everyday,shouldn't i get a little cushion to earn and protect my downside? I believe i am right to do so.
Not only does he admit to circlejerking he thinks that because of his poor investment decisions his actions shouldnt be criticized and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he does.
I think hes pretty much completely wrong.
WELL
If you invest 4-500,000 dollars in buying steem and pay1500dollars a month for the trip to collect the data for your study.
and curate for the accounts who also invested in steemit and suffered serious loss, in my guess you can get more than 60 dollars.
Again in the case of Slowie. He clearly states that his voting behavior isnt based on author merit or content quality but he rather votes those that invested a lot and lost money like him.
All that is great and well but the problem is that such behavior ruins honest voting on this platform and hurts legit creators just because "His" circlejerk thinks that they shouldnt be targeted by flags for leeching STEEM from the reward pool to maximize their returns.
I dont think that is what Steem was envisioned as, guys.
I made a poor investment so ill circlejerk to pay myself back.
THATS NOT WHAT STEEM IS OR WHAT STEEM SHOULD BE!
Anyways...
Lately i have seen @transisto, @ocdb, @smooth target Slowwalkers posts to get him off his "secured daily" trending spot.
I would also like to see @blocktrades, @theycallmedan and a a few other abuse fighters enter into this because these guys literally admit to what theyre doing. You dont need to dig deep and think long and hard to see whats going on. THEY TELL YOU.
This is the next step on the path of taking Steem to the next level and even if Slowwalker and the gang dont believe it, its for their own good.
Right now his curation game is pretty bad. 30% efficiency. If he is in it only for the ROI then there are other options, much better ones that are as profitable, but those options require a bit of effort and he isnt willing to put in effort when he THINKS he can run this game indefinitely.
All that needs to happen is whales hitting 
If theyre only in it for the ROI why would they waste their votes like that???
They wont.
If their behavior is steered in the right direction not only is the community better off, theyle be better off as well.
Time to take that next step and stop some more nonsense.
Peace...
50% payout of this post will go to @steem.dao