Cheaters & Bots
Or why I haven't blogged since Sunday
I knew that I would not be continuing to post every day but right now, I don't feel much like blogging at all. For me blogging here is kind of personal, it is very much tied to me. So, if I don't feel okay then I cannot write.
Today I decided to switch that around and in true blogger form write about why I don't feel like writing a post right now.
Where to start? Since you're here you likely know that I am mostly a photography blogger. And as such every now and then I enter one of the many different photo contests here on Hive as they give me a nudge to take photos or look through my extensive photo library and - most importantly - publish a post.
My favorite photo contests are Monomad in the Black&White Community, BeachWednesday, and SunThursday by @uwelang. A few weeks back I got double lucky because the two judges of Uwe's photo contests independently from each other chose my photos as the winners - a double-whammy 🤣 yay me!
Being the winner meant that I'd be the next round's judge. That is a pretty tough job yet I think I got some really nice winners, at least for BeachWednesday.
I was a bit more limited for SunThursday since there weren't that many entries but I did my best and picked three. They were regular participants, and also previous winners. Only to learn a couple of days ago that two of them are cheaters.
They are one and the same person, multi-accounting to farm Hive from photo contests and probably sharing the same photos after extensive editing. I wonder if those are even their own photos... Both accounts (kohsamui99 and tinman88) have been downvoted and also blacklisted by Hivewatchers.
But - per other comments from long-standing Hivians these two were are part of a bigger group of multi-account cheating. The problem is - the cheaters will be back in no time I am sure. New account - new luck. And this is making me very sad, and just the thought of it blocks my creativity.
Then today I learned on Discord that @davemccoy 's SPL Spring Training which really is a fan and fun-driven SPL tournament had to be put on hold after the discovery of some bots and/or multi-accounters were able to enter the tournaments.
WTF - people! Is really everything just about the one thing? Money??
And these Spring Training tournaments don't even pay out money, the only thing you get are NFTs residing on the WAX chain. Of course - you can sell those and make money... Le sigh!!
Bots taking the fun out of playing Splinterlands
Cheaters taking the joy out of entering photo contests and blogging
What's next? And what am I doing here?
Yeah, so that's why I am having a bit of a hard time posting right now. Some may think that I am overly sensitive, and, yeah, I guess there is truth in it, I should just shrug it off and say f*** it! But sometimes I just can't. And today is one of those times. So I thought instead to rant a little here in this community 😀.
Here's hoping for a better (post) tomorrow!
And since yellow is the color of hope I will leave you with one of my photos. Thanks for listening!
Best,
(Ocean) Bee
Unless otherwise noted, copyright for all photos, dividers and gifs ©Oceanbee|ImagesByCW
Hey @oceanbee I read your post and hope you cheer up. While you are right in general for the "le sigh", do not worry about this getting fixed (at least in our tourneys). I have found the culprit and have given him an opportunity to do it right (and return the tokens and commit to not doing it again in the future). He either will or won't. We will move forward either way though.
I hope we have him cooperate and not bot these tourneys, but if not then there is a Plan B and Plan C. Both of which will make it incrementally harder for them to do this.
But most importantly I wanted to tell you that I appreciate you playing the tournaments and glad you feel they are cool enough to merit a post about them. To me having someone enjoy the tourney and want to play it is far more important than the negatives that come up along the way. So thank you!
I hope your day gets better and I hope you get some really good stuff in the Friday weekly tourney coming up :)
Hey Dave, thanks so much for reading my
postrant. I so enjoyed your Spring Trainings last year that I stayed in the TS Discord (though I am in a different guild) and I really wanted to be a part of it this year and was happy to find your separate Discord server for it. These tourneys to me are just fun. If it weren't for the fun of SL I wouldn't own any more SL cards and play the game- honestly. I have been thinking more than once to sell it all.I am very glad that you found the peeps behind it and are able to reign them in.
To me - the biggest part is about community and talking to each other and - yeah, I think you got the picture 😊
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my little rant here!! I really, really appreciate it.
p.s. not sure about Friday's tourney, I haven't really leveled my summoners too much - oops!
I agree about the community, that's what's kept me here the whole time. Despite some of the bad apples, we have a lot of wonderful people that definitely overcomes the hurdles we have to go through sometimes! :)
ps... I don't know the league level you play at, but just remember in the weekly tournaments everyone that wins at least one match will earn a pack. I can delegate you some level 3 summies if that helps, I'd like to see you get a bigger pack (if you want)! Just let me know if so :)
Good community and teams are the best!
I'm playing Silver (though I'm now in Gold). That's an awfully nice offer. Hmm, I know you mean well and this may sound weird - but getting cards for a tourney delegated from said tourney's organizer somehow doesn't sound quite right to me. If I wanted to, and I might, I could rent some cards. Hah - I think I have an Alric rented from you 😀 because I knew you wouldn't do the EOS cancelling stuff. Thanks again!
lol... I won't charge you so if anything I'd only be guilty of wanting you to play and earn some free packs, which I think is ethical. :P But its up to you, the offer stands now or anytime you want.
ps.. I'm helping because you are nice and were frustrated, plus you liked the NFTs from last year too! All good reasons :)
You really are too kind. Maybe I'll come back to your offer at some point. For now, I'll battle with what I have, and I do have some Lvl 3 summoners, and - it's o.k. For me - it is a game.
Don't fall for this guy and his self-interest manipulation. He just wants you to be his slave, just like he has done to everyone else that he hoodwinks with his fake "help". He just wants attention and approval from the community by pretending to be doing it from the goodness of his heart, but its really only for future benefits and nothing else. He has a gigantic bot farm, that he keeps quiet while he pretends that only "bad apples" are doing shady things. These people have been stealing from the community for years now, by hiding what they really do in secret. Everyone falls for their dirty tricks, because he uses the bribe method to convince you to play for him, so he can "help" you.
His entire guild is a mobster style network, that steals from people and the game. He and his "friends" get away with it because they are friends with the game developers. They can steal and cheat as much as they want, and then go on witch hunts to remove the competition who try to get in the way of their monopoly. Thats how this game really works.
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Hang in there Bee. I think that as long as money is involved we will see these types of bad apples to some extent but I think overall as the environment and community grows we will gain so much of the positive side that the negatives such as these will ultimately be drowned out.
Thanks, Kote. I know these rotten apples will always be there, somewhere. There are just times when it gets overwhelming.
It’s difficult but flattering that people are so intent upon finding ways to cheat the system! I know that with anything financial there is always going to be people looking to cheat it to gain some meager rewards but it’s just sad. That’s why I mostly don’t spend as much time in the newcomer section of hive because I know for out of every 20 new users posting, 1 or 2 are legitimate new people and the others are just people scamming trying to steal the rewards we’ve all spent so much time trying to attain. People suck is what it comes down to hahaha.
You’re more than welcome to post in here whenever you like :D
I gave up on the Monomad community, it was always the same 4-5 people that would win and I posted in there several times. Felt very geared towards a small group of people but that was my impression.
It definitely is sad, these money-making-cheating schemes. My big problem is that I can't prevent it from affecting me and that makes me really mad.
Hmm, I'm definitely guilty of not spending time in the Hive newcomer section due to my own time constraints. But the way you're describing it - seems like I'm not missing much.
Oh, yeah, monomad - hmm, I just love b&w so I post there but they sure are very adamant about the use of the monomad tag which I get. I have seen some recurring winners but not too many really. Then again, I'm not spending that much time in the community and might be missing some things.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to rant! Nothing personal - but I hope I won't be posting here too much. Generally, I'm a pretty balanced, chill person.
Hello @oceanbee
I feel you on this. I've been having a few difficult days of late myself and I know how it can be disheartening when you do all the right things and then you end up being messed around. I get called overly sensitive often and while it used to really bug me, I now take it as a compliment. It's a difficult thing to survive being sensitive in an insensitive world!
Take a break if you need it. My totally unsolicited advice here: Go somewhere and take some photos just to put up on your blog with no attachments to a photographic contest, do it for you and for the love of photography.
The dandelion photo is beautiful.
Hey @andrastia, thanks so much for your kind words. And your advice? Very sound. Many times I have done just that, go somewhere, alone and enjoy that time without thinking too much about online people or also IRL ones. I think you're right, the key is to just step away. Sometimes that is easy and sometimes it's harder to do.
I also think writing it off my chest here helped quite a bit. I think I have accepted that there will always be those that are greedy beyond my understanding, it is in our human nature and as humans, we are all very different.
Hopefully, things turned around for you and you found a way out of your difficult days.
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