Whales Be Like

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

If you have been around here for any length of time, surely you have shrugged your shoulders and raised your eyebrow, wondering how on earth can something that stupid / shallow / inconsequential ever have made it to the trending page.

I know I have. Pretty much every day.

And from reading comments sprinkled a little bit all over steemit, I know it is not just me.

Of course, the only reason the posts ever rank so high is that a whale of epic proportions has given them their vote.

Certain whales justify this behavior by repeatedly claiming that they must push forward a certain demographic, or otherwise steemit would be too uni-dimensional.

What they fail to realize - or perhaps do, but do not care, since their pockets fatten up all the same - is that by encouraging the grossly overpaid characters we see daily in the trending page, two things happen:

  • More superficial fluff gets generated, as behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated.
  • News of their success spreads to their social circle, which - you guessed right - is filled with more of the same kind of fluff.

Said social circle then flocks to steemit and gifts us with even more inconsequential stuff.
Repeat cycle.

It does not take a genius to understand the impact this vicious circle will have - is having - on the quality of steemit content.

And what kind of writer will be rewarded to keep on writing.


The solution

Shocking, I know - reward authors based on the quality of their writing.

/endrant

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How about interest, who here is an English Teacher, and has the ability to vote on the quality?

We are making Social Media here not a library of "Well Written Content.".

LOL, and despite that I am in complete agreement, and I enjoyed how you put your rant together.

I just think we should focus on Interesting! Your post was Interesting! :)

Just wait until people start coming in with click-bait posts, then we will REALLY have heart attacks and aneurysms scrolling through the list of articles.

Oh dear, oh dear.