Surely you've seen them.
The posts from relatively new users that are suddenly on the trending page and valued over $100. Typically, one of two things has happened here. Either @blocktrades is out and about giving some upvotes for content they like, or the post has been "Curied". Either way, the author should be very excited!
I'm going to start this post about Curie with a Disclaimer.
I am not currently a member of the Curie team, and do not presume to speak on their behalf. This post is my observations from a week of attempting to curate like a Curie Curator, and nothing more. These views are representative of my experience working with one particular mentor, and may not be typical.
Much of what I go over below is readily available in the pinned messages of the steemit.chat #curie channel, so I am not breaking any big news here.
What does it mean to be "Curied"? To put it as simply as possible, since I already did an in depth post about them along with a few other curation services that you can find HERE, Curie is a guild a Steem Curators who go around and find posts from talented, yet underappreciated new authors, and gives them a boost.
So. Brilliant right? That must be the life, going around finding posts and recommending them for a big upvote? Anyone can do that!
Not so fast my friend!
I just spent a week working with one of Curie's Top Curators in an effort to become a curator myself. While my status remains yet to be seen as a potential curator, in reality, the life of a Curie Curator most often looks like this:
There are a ton of regulations for a post to meet in order to qualify. You can always check the latest guidelines by visiting them in steemit.chat #curie room. Go to the top right of the screen and look at the pinned messages, the most current guidelines are there.
NOTE: If you go, please be respectful. Don't ask for their vote, don't ask to be a curator. Instead, spend some time talking about Curie and how much you appreciate what they are doing for the community. Get to know the people in the room. Earn respect by showing respect. You are going in to their home, act like the guest you are.
So here I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Curie Curators WANT to nominate your posts! They really do! Curators earn monitary rewards for each post they nominate that get approved, so it is their best interest to find great content and give it a boost. It is publicly available on their chat that Curators currently make 20 STEEM per approved post. If they maintain good Curator Standing, they are allowed to submit 15 posts per week. Given the opportunity to make 300 STEEM a week, why would they pass up any valid post?
So why aren't you getting their vote?
We'll do a quick review and then I'll explore some of the specific things I saw last week that could have easily been rectified to get a post from ineligible to eligible.
First, Reputation score - Must be between 27-52. While the regulations say that "some exceptions are made for excellent posts" in my experience, I looked at the reputation score and immediately scrolled on by if it did not fall within the guidelines. If you have a Reputation over 52, you can still get hit by one of the Curie Communities, which give a smaller, but still very significant vote. You can read a list of the different Communities in the latest Curie Weekly Update.
Second, Posting Time - Posts must be over 150 minutes old, but no more than 24 hours old. Not something you have a lot of control over, you post when you post, it's somewhat luck if a Curator comes by during the right window. But the time feeds into ---
Third, Reward Value - The Reward value of the post at time of nomination must be less than $1.00. This is important! If you are using upvote bots to increase the value of your post within the first 24 hours, realize you are eliminating the possibility of a Curie vote. Once you hit $1.00, you're out! Keep this in mind if you otherwise meet the above requirements. Hold your Bot upvotes until after you are out of the Curie window.
A Week of Observations
So what are some of the most common things I saw while I was out looking for curatable posts? Some are so easy to fix, it's almost criminal how much reward people were passing up!
First, and one of the easiest to fix. No Picture!
Yup. You need to use a picture. It draws attention to your post in the thumbnail, and interests the reader in coming in to see what you have going on. While not a formal requirement of Curie guidelines, I did not open a single post that didn't have at least one image to pull a thumbnail view from. I'm not sure if that's just my opinion, or commonly held belief, but why risk it?
Second, improper tags. Use the Right Tags people!
There are literally endless tag options available to you. But if you use the wrong ones, you won't get Curie's favor. Particularly the tags you need to avoid. It may be all the rage right now to do a dozen posts with the indtroduceyourself tag, but you won't get a vote from Curie with that one. Other tags that are expressly disallowed include Steem, Steemit, religious tags, political tags. If you post is about those things, use those tags, but anything in those topics is ineligible for Curie by policy. Just so you know.
Different Curators travel through different tags, so you want to address your post to the tag they are likely to be browsing through. If you write fiction, use the fiction tag, use story, use writing. If you are homesteading, tag it as such, Music tag music, instrument, song, whatever works for your post! The better your tags are, the more likely you ate to be found and looked at by a Curator who is familiar with the tag you are using and knowledgable enough to know your work is quality.
Artists - It's not enough simply to post your latest painting, photograph, sketch. Tell us something about it. Give us the process you went through, or the story of the subject of your art. Something to add to your art. Help us feel the work and what went into it.
Formatting Formatting Formatting!
You can write the best blog in the world, but if it is a block of text, it won't get read. Break your post up into nice paragraph sized chunks, with some pictures sprinkled in where appropriate. Make the post visually appealing as well as content driven.
Don't Start your post with anything asking for a vote. Your opening lines are your opportunity to draw readers in. Don't discourage them by immediately asking for a vote!
This is my feed. Tile View courtesy of Steemit More Info.
You have those first couple of lines to draw the reader in. If those lines say "Please Upvote me" I'm passing you by. Sorry. There are thousands of posts out there, I need to be drawn to something in the feed view.
(Ok, I did open the article with no picture there, but it was by @ned, so he gets a pass on the picture. Besides, he sure doesn't need my upvote!)
Use a Catchy Title that tells us what the post is about!
There are 4 things Curators are looking at on this screen. Age of the post, Reputation of the author, Current Payout, and the title/picture. If you meet three of the criteria, but the Title and picture aren't catchy, someone else's post will be. Be the catchiest Blog on the block! Make people want to see what's going on inside.
Editted to add the following
Cite your Sources! Use public domain images in your posts, and then give credit where credit is due. If your images are original, say so. But if you got them off the internet, it is important to cite where they came from. Always give Image Credit!
These are the most common reasons I found not to recommend posts. I am sure there are others, and each individual curator will have their own standards that may or may not match some of the above. But these should be good starting points.
It is important for me to reitterate the disclaimer that I am not currently a member of the Curie team, and do not presume to speak on their behalf. This post is my observations from a week of attempting to curate like a Curie Curator, and nothing more.
I highly recommend you check out @bitrocker2020 and the weekly Update put out on that blog, as well as everything put out by @curie. It is essencial reading for anyone who is looking to be Curried or to be a Curator.
I hope you have found this post informative. Please let me know if you have questions, I will do my best to answer for you, or to get an answer if I don't know it.
wow! I thank you a lot! Valuable information!
I just got two articles voted by curie. I had a stomach feeling about the things you mentioned when it came to a certain time window. The first two postings I pushed the button late in the evening and next morning they were voted. I guess it was a coincidence cause my german friends did not vote me for they went to sleep. I honestly were totally disappointed as my third posting didn't make it through... it was a hell of work, every three of the articles almost burned my brain cells.
On the other hand it's worth when the curie vote shines onto it.
I am not sure about that they really want to find you - why is this 24h rule? Don't get it. Because otherwise the post got voted with a high probability over 1$ after this time window? I haven't found a similar explanation at curie itself or bitrocker, but maybe didn't do enough research.
My reputation is now at 54 - am I out?
Do you want to become a curator? I would say, you are totally qualified!:-))
Thank you again. It revealed a little bit the "mystique".
Hiya @erh.germany! Yeah it is quite the feeling when you get curied! Wow, two posts hit is great! I only managed to get one Curie vote before I hit the Reputation Limit and was no longer eligible. I did get a couple of random hits from @blocktrades too, which helped.
One of the requirements I did not mention above that may be part of the one post you didn't get curied is that you can only have a certain reward dollar ammount per week. Right now if you have any individual post go over $25 within the previous 7 days, you do not qualify for the Curie vote.
Another piece is that the author is supposed to show "Persistant effort without reward." Meaning you keep trying even though you aren't getting many upvotes. I think that plays into the $1.00 rule. While most of us probably don't think of $1.00 as a lot of reward, I think any limit they set would feel like too little compared to what their vote is worth. You would have to ask one of the reviewers why they have that limit, as I can only speculate.
Yes, technically being a 54 Reputation means you no longer qualify for the big Curie vote. But you might still qualify for one of their communities. Make sure you check out the Curie Weekly and see who the curators are in some of the areas you post in and follow them, see what kind of content they are following. You could still get the "minor Curie" which I think is still good for like $40.
I did put my name in for Curator, and have been in talks with one of their mentors. I'm not chomping at the bit like some people though. They probably have 40 people clamoring for every one curator position that is open. So I am patient. If my name gets called, I am willing. But I have a pretty full plate of things I am supposed to be working on as it is, and Curie can be a full time job! There are a TON of posts out there, and only a handful qualify for Curie's restrictions.
Also look at OCD. I am not sure how they qualify posts, but I think their guidelines are a little more open than Curies. I did a write up of them and their efforts in the post linked in the article above. BuildaWhale is also an interesting Curation effort, and it's owner, @themarkymark gave a really in detail response to my post about their curation efforts.
Best of luck to you!!!
thank you so much, @mikepm74, for your effort, even checking my blog. That were another good hints and recommendations.
I am holding my thumbs for you in becoming a curator yourself. I know, one shouldn't push it and embarrass oneself.
Yes, it is quite a challenge to meet the requirements but it showed me something about myself, namely: Do I believe in myself to be able to meet the standards? Is my work having enough "flesh" on it, giving me ideas and content I love to work on and think about? To fulfill the scientific requirements gives me the chance to get to know myself in another light.
I don't know if I can really hold it, because my recent work was very time consuming and I therefore did have to set priorities. It also is kind of addictive to stay here and watch what others do and give comments of quality, as well.
I am torn between pain & pleasure:-)
All the best for you!
Hello @mikepm74, I've never received a curie, but my wife has received several. Her reputation skyrocketed, so she doesn't get the full-blown curie upvote anymore.
Some of the tags I use disqualify me from curie, but some of my posts meet the criteria. I was wondering if you could do a 'curie audit' on this post:
https://steemit.com/steemsilvergold/@ironshield/history-1-4th-of-the-world-s-silver-supply-recovered-at-wtc-building-4
Are there ways to improve this post to help invite a curie nomination? @ironshield
Responded on your thread @ironshield!
Hope it helps!!
Hi Mike, good post.
Informative, well formatted, good images (and credited), correctly tagged... worthy of a Curie I would say 😉
I was lucky enough to get Curied a couple of times in my early days. It is a great thrill, and encouragement, to get those tasty upvotes.
I hope you succeed in getting to be a Curie Curator. I think you'll do a great job for a great service.
Hey @pennsif! Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated.
I got one Curie vote when I had been in for 5 days. It kind of was a shock, but also what kept me from fleeing back to Facebook! I only got the one vote from them, but it made me interested in their organization and checking it out.
Thanks for the endorcement! They have way more applicants than open positions, so it is a matter of waiting my turn at this point for my mentor to have an open referral position. So we'll see how that goes. ;-)
Thanks again!
Thanks for this information. I did not know that "posts must be over 150 minutes old, but no more than 24 hours old" and "the reward value of the post at time of nomination must be less than $1.00."
All the best for you!
Thanks for reading @allesia! There is a lot to go over with the post requirements for Curie. And I did not hit on all of them.
Best thing to do is check out their most recent pinned message in their chat room so you are up to date on the requirements. But really, all you can do is put great content out there and hope one of their curators sees it.
According to their Streemian Page, they have 739 Curators out combing the posts for content to upvote. Not all of those are active I'm sure, but there are a lot of them. Curie limits themselves to 25 posts a day, so even if you have the best post in the world, if it is the wrong day you still miss out.
You just have to do your best to put the odds as much in your favor as possible. Best not even to think too much about it I suppose. haha
Thank you for your advice, I hope one day you become a curator :D
I've bookmarked your post to read it again.
very brilliant and informative .. thanks mr mike for this wonderful write up
I'm glad you liked it @knowledges! Now go out there and get curied! LOL
Have a great day!
This stuff is so new to me it's not even funny. Sounds interesting enough though. I'm still learning all this stuff on steemit and trying to make sense of it all. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks alot
As a newbie this was helpful
@blocktrades curates too? Whoa... I should write a post for that now. Lol.
Today is my 8th day on steemit. Your post gave me a good overview of curie! Thanks for your in-depth analysis.
Just one question... Is there a word limitation for each article? Like articles need to be under 500 words to be recommended by curie team?
Excellent post. I've spent the last few hours reading about Curie and Curation, and you gave me some valuable guidlines and tips, thanks!
@mikepm74 I just came across this post by doing a little research and found it extremely helpful. To do’s and pitfalls to avoid. Just wanted to say thanks. Posts such as this are the type that will force me into be a better writer...so thanks!!!
Hey Mike .. thanks for this valuable information. Curie is definitely a platform a gem!