A few weeks ago 
"Something needs to be done by the community to reign in this abuse. We need to not only put pressure on the abusers by removing their payouts but the owners of these boosters. Get them to check who they are voting on. Get them to add protection for voting on accounts that are on
. Get them to not vote on posts that have been identified as abuse by
. Get them to not vote on low rep and especially 0 rep and under accounts. Get them to remove votes on posts and accounts identified as abuse."
Within the first 6 hours following this post having been published, 
This shows that 
Currently I'm co-ordinating with
Also, 
There was an extensive discussion in the comments section of that post, so I've collected some of that material here.
"We have a daily and weekly limit that slows down abuse. We have a blacklist for minnowbooster specific abuse. We are in contact with the steemcleaners and report spam we notice while checking minnowbooster votes. Multiple team members are even helpers in the steemcleaners discord. We disabled voting on comments, And I am using a big chink of my personal voting power to combat abuse by flagging away rewards."
"These upvote bots may not only be bad for steemit as a whole, but sometimes also for those using them, at least for those producing good content. If used early, they discourage upvotes by real users as they make posts overvalued and destroy possible curation rewards. So there are cases where users don't get upvotes precisely because they are using these bots. I think for many of them it would better to produce quality content and wait until they get discovered, because that's what curators are looking for: undervalued quality content."
And there is something that can be done apart from not upvoting and downvoting: not voting for witnesses who operate bots that might be harmful. I make it a personal policy not to vote for such witnesses, including those involved in the heavily promoted minnowsupport project (MSP), before I see some evidence that the overall effect of these bots is positive."
Before I share
MSP Anti-Abuse Team
MSP-AAT is in their 8th week of operation and @Discordiant is doing an exemplary job of responding to these concerns(way before this post by fubar). He is the MSP liaison with
MSP Anti-Abuse Team. Weekly Report #8
If you want the quick version you can read this post by 
Now, back to ReggaeMuffin:
I made minnowbooster to give the botting world a good example of a bot. And that includes proactively mitigating abuse of it.
In the end botting is not preventable, so instead I am trying to establish a well-meaning bot. should steem change in a way that makes voting bots stop working then I will be glad. Until then I hope minnowbooster is the better alternative.
...
I hope you evaluate my witness work separate from my minnowbooster work. If you decide against voting for me because of minnowbooster that is something I have to live with :) Should you ever be in need of support or if you have any questions about how steem works, in detail, I am available in my duty as a witness to assist you :)"
I will note, here, that I've seen this sentiment from
"Since minnowbooster is crowd-funded, most of it's earnings are actually going to all the users who invest in us and how much they earn is all visible on the blockchain in daily payment transfers with detailed memos. We plan to develop graphs that show earnings and daily payout in a parsable format (json) and in a human readable format (plots and tables) so you can see everything without having to query the blockchain. But that process is still undergoing.
We show all upvotes the bot did on our website: https://www.minnowbooster.net/upvotes and offer other features there that should improve transparency. Obviously the blockchain is the tamper-proof way of verifying what our website displays.
@Buildteam is doing a monthly bidding process for the BUILDTEAM token that allows everyone to invest in the team and get a share of their earnings. We use this token to pay all our team members, who work hard to provide all the services we provide. More infos on this here:
"Here is a list of projects where I have offered my support with a donation and the possibility for a salary in BUILDTEAM tokens:
- https://steemit.com/steemdev/@armandocat/steemit-more-info-1-2-chrome-extension-firefox-extension#@reggaemuffin/re-armandocat-steemit-more-info-1-2-chrome-extension-firefox-extension-20170929t121405680z
- https://steemit.com/deutsch/@quincho/steemworld-challenge-deutsche-version#@reggaemuffin/re-steemchiller-re-quincho-steemworld-challenge-deutsche-version-20170928t125550788z
- https://steemit.com/deutsch/@leroy.linientreu/neues-sensationelles-steem-tool-steemworld#@reggaemuffin/re-steemchiller-re-leroylinientreu-re-leroylinientreu-neues-sensationelles-steem-tool-steemworld-20170927t102122524z
- https://steemit.com/steem/@jedigeiss/steemworld-is-here-impressive-new-tool-all-informations-at-one-glance-check-it-out#@reggaemuffin/re-jedigeiss-steemworld-is-here-impressive-new-tool-all-informations-at-one-glance-check-it-out-20170927t101054266z
- https://steemit.com/steem/@dehenne/lets-turn-steemit-into-a-mmorpg#@reggaemuffin/re-dehenne-lets-turn-steemit-into-a-mmorpg-20170927t103527347z
There are way too many challenges to count that I am supporting. Also multiple community projects like
or
I hope it is clear, now, that 
Another post is forthcoming, highlighting
DISCLAIMER: These are my own views and not to be considered as official releases from either of these witnesses or projects. Any weaknesses in this post are my own. Any strengths this post exemplifies, are a reflection of the amazing community that makes up
References
- Minnow Booster's discord Chat Server
- Welcome, MSP Anti Abuse Team
- Steemian of the Month. Witness and Rockstar-Developer @reggaemuffin (Part #1)
- Steemian of the Month. Witness and Rockstar-Developer @reggaemuffin (Part #2)
- @minnowbooster - Abuse Cases Defined
Thanks for reading "The Inquiring Times" by #newsteem
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