Introduction
Bots are a vital part of Steemit.com ecosystem, and they are not going away, but, can or should i use one?
What is a Bot?
A bot Is a machine, that follows certain instructions to perform a task in a determinate amount of time; in this case for Steemit.com, at up-voting bot is a software that votes for you a determinate amount of times to determinate authors or rules, and if we look very closely to the basics concepts that a bot follows, we can say we humans are bots themselves.
You don't believe me? Go to paid ads sites to see humans bots working. I had being there, and it is not pretty.
A bot can do what we humans can not, they can be active all day long, up-voting at least one article of the authors we like and by doing so saving us time that we humans have little of, while guaranteeing a safety income for the authors that put content we found useful or to our interests.
What is difference between us and bots
I know what you are thinking, we have a brain right? Wrong! bots also has a brain of their own, and that electronic brain can jugged articles very easily and tirelessly, maybe even better than we humans, nevertheless, being able to feel tired, make us different from bots, maybe irreconcilable different, but thanks to how the system in Steemit.com works, a tireless bot can't get much advantage of this, but, they are still very powerful voters, and yet, that's not the problem with up-voting bots.
Humans can accept bots that can do a good job in their tasks, because they are doing something useful, and they are good at it, the better they are, the more benefits we get at the end as content creators and curators.
I think the biggest argument against bots for Steemit.com, is against "mindless" dumb bots, that only know how to vote, without holding any regard for the content, quality or the sources of an article, they vote goes to the higher bidder.
With smart bots, we can put our trust in the author, and this is not a bad thing, we still need to support good authors, but it can be damaging to the new starting people like myself (shamelessly self-promotion, wink wink hint hint), that need to fight a ocean of up-voting bots first to thrived in Steemit, or to use a bot ourselves that will make us loose face in the quality of our content and we will be frown upon. Smart bots can help a lot more to this site to making it more reachable for everyone, not just me or you.
The second argument against up-voting bots would be that Steemit.com is a site for humans not for bots, we only need human as curators
I am new to Steemit.com/@m3mt (only a few days now), but since day one, bots have being present in the site, doing all kind of tasks we don't even know, so, yeah we need bots because, bots already are a part of Steemit.com community
Can i use a voting Bots, in Steemit.com?
Now, we can go to the real question of this post, Can i use a bots in Steem? Is there no risk of having my account closed because I was catch using up-voting bots? Can I use a bots and get away with it? Is there any penalty of using bots for up-voting or just pure unfiltered reward? (I need to remind you, that nothing comes without a cost attached).
Where are the morals of using bots ? In a previous post, I had already talk about morals in Steemit, but lets over again.
Steemians want to do a something they like and be rewarded by reaching their set of goals. A lot of people have different reasons for being in Steemit, I am here because I like to write and i need the money, but the many reason there could be, all of those can be resume in Steemians want to live a long successful life. If we use dumb bots too loosely we all going to loose at the end, and yet we can't not use them as of yet.
Now that we put that of out the way, lets go to see what the rules of Steemit.com have to said about using bots.
But before we answer that, we need to answer another question, having a bot most of the time means, having another account, luckily, we have the answer to that question thanks to the FAQ.
Taken from FAQ Am I allowed to create more than one account?
Am I allowed to create more than one account?
Each user is allowed only one paid-for account created via Steemit.com, however users are allowed to create multiple accounts on the blockchain. Creating additional accounts on the blockchain requires users to pay their own account creation fee for any additional accounts.
Now that we know we can have multiple accounts, then let's see what Steemit.com TOS had to said about bots. Taken from Steemit Terms of Service
17 User Conduct
17.1 When accessing or using the Services, you agree that you will not commit any unlawful act, and that you are solely responsible for your conduct while using our Services. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you agree that you will not:
17.1.3 Use any robot, spider, crawler, scraper or other automated means or interface not provided by us to access our Services or to extract data;
So, under TOS 17.1.3 I can use robots only provided by Steemit.com to accesses the Services or extract data.
Does that means that using up-voting bots not provided by Steemit is going against the TOS ? and such actions are penalized and your account can be terminated?
26 Termination
Steemit reserves the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to terminate your license to access and use Steemit and to block or prevent your future access to, and use of, Steemit.
Well it seems i can't up-voting bots, because the use of unofficial up-voting bots is not allowed
Conclusion
I am do not want to do the job a bot can do for me, so I am in favor of using bots for Steemit.com, nevertheless, i am in favor of bots that could make Steemit.com a better place for us humans to enjoy, but for now, the TOS said we can't use them unless they are an official bot. (Btw a list of official supported bots should be out there too, i invite anyone to posted it in the comments).
Giving a bot a mind capable of doing much more than just voting because they were told to is a must, and allowing the users to judge the bot's performance can make the life of us Steemians a lot better.
Any current bot is far from perfect, but I high hopes for the future.
Do you think bots should not be used at all? Or do you think there is space for bots in Steemit.com? Are afraid of giving them to much more power?
Bots are a great tool for Steemit.com, automation of the world is unavoidable, it can't be stopped, because, it is the future after all, good luck stopping the future, they tried before and failed, nevertheless, we need do it with great care, and we need to learn how to use bot the correct way fast, because, if we are not ready for it, we will be Steemrolled.
Thank you for reading so far, if you are a up-voting bot, please give it a up-vote so I can take a rest.
