Thank you for a catalyzing post. It lead me to some interesting meditations. 100% upvoted. I'll leave my response in the form of a letter below. I welcome anyone who cares to respond to weigh in.
Dear @chbartist,
Regarding this issue, I do not think it's resolvable into positive and toxic, that's a false dichotomy that oversimplifies the profundity of our existence. I see that you joined Steemit when the price was coming down from its peak. If you were around last fall you would have seen a very different climate. People are not very happy right now, and yes, that is their choice. I lost over $100k from not selling during the bull market because I believe in STEEM long term but I am not crying and beating myself up about it or blaming others because I know we must always move forward in life to become the best we can be.
The main speculation I've arrived at from watching your blog for a while is that because of when you joined Steemit (January 2018), it's not possible for you to remember a time before the platform was completely filled with spam, vote-selling and bid-bots. Many people who have worked hard since 2016 have heavy resentment regarding what this platform has become and still have reputation numbers under 60 after all this time. Some believe strongly in a gift economy and do not think Steemit ought to be used as a platform to extract the highest possible amount of profit from the blockchain.
Now, I don't actually agree with all of these views, but I can sympathize with them. What it seems like you may not understand is that since every service has benefits and detriments, when you get to occupy the "prime real estate" at the top of trending for several days, having a post upvoted to $1,000+, that is a great benefit. But there is also a huge drawback to paying to put yourself in the spotlight, which is that you attract negative attention onto yourself. In my opinion, blaming the "toxicity" of the platform can be summed up as a failure to take responsibility for the consequences of your own actions, or perhaps a lack of understanding of the social dynamics of this place.
For instance, although I (and many others) will use paid promotion services, we generally use them much more sparingly. If you have a sense of moderation and a level head regarding the worth of the content you create relative to the ecosystem you are in, you will not attract negative attention. Can you believe that in all the 15 months I've been on the Steemit platform, I have never received a single toxic or hateful message on one of my blogs? I knew that I must always respect the unspoken social dynamics of the platform if I was to avoid being a target for hate. This requires constant education and weighing various viewpoints in order to navigate the extremes found in any community.
What I am saying is, although I have great respect for what you have achieved in life and your orientation towards positivity and love, there still appears a lot of projection in your writing in which you appear to be placing subtle blame/judgement onto others instead of realizing that the experience you've had on this platform is a direct result of your decision on how to use it.
Like you said, this place is complicated and it often takes much longer than it ought to to comprehend how everything works. But this is also the beginning of a paradigm shift; humanity is realizing that every individual is potentially an expert at something no one else can be. We are realizing that human energy and attention ought to be rewarded, because it has a unique, innate value. But it also requires radical honesty regarding our individual role in the collective. If you know you are not the best writer, why would you so heavily promote your writing to the top to be the face of Steemit?
Clearly, you have knowledge and have achieved a lot in your life. So have a lot of people on this platform, including many whales with 500,000+ SP. But most of them do not get flagged because they are very aware that it is wise to be respectful and moderate in the way they promote their content. For instance, only posting once a week, or only using huge bid-bot votes on posts they consider extremely important for people to see: related to charity projects, witness announcements, community initiatives, and the like.
The negative energy you have got on the platform is a messenger, it is telling you to look closely at yourself. Just like negative emotions tell us we may need to change our mental and emotional habits, and physical pain tells us we need to take our hand off the stove so our hand is not destroyed: why not frame what you have experienced here and take total, radical responsibility for it instead of psychologically projecting all the "toxic" aspects onto others? We all are made of unconditional love, but have toxicity as well. I don't care how incredible, inspiring, or enlightened someone may seem, they have a shadow side, as well. We all do.
I know this is an extremely long comment, but your post gave me the impetus to reflect more on this topic. Thank you for being who you are. I'm honored if you take the time to read it and hope it was helpful in some way. Namaste.
Dear friend, I appreciate your letter and certainly she has my upvote. I would have to perhaps write another letter to highlight point to point because you have sifted through many questions that provide hours for a debate. With respect, of course. But I can have diso misunderstood by you because instead of using the name of people for ethical reasons I used the platform so here is my clarification. Another point that you pointed out is that with the very low price of steem people are in financial trouble and this I had a test that last week when a person eventually acknowledged that I was nervous because of it and that deeply affected that person's particular behavior.
So to sum it up I mean certain people who really are bad and regardless of anything no one likes to be disrespected. I'm not here to be just preaching love like you said, I'm here to earn money like everyone else but I've been trying to just share the real facts I've lived in my life that can be important to many people. I do not find the toxic platform as I said before but there are people who really want them off my street. LOL
There are some points that you put that I completely disagree with because I see that some things you put do not work well the way you wrote but I respect your position and as you see these points I will not go into merit.
Greetings and I wish the best for you!
Hi @chbartist, I'm grateful to receive your reply. I'd be honored to discuss further in another form in the future, and of course you are welcome to take anything I've said here and take it apart as you will. I share, with my friend and fellow poet @quillfire, a great appreciation for the power of civil disagreement. If everyone viewed the world identically, it would be a very boring place. At the same time, finding common ground is incredibly empowering.
By the way, I mean no disrespect with this letter and appreciate all your years of experience which I simply cannot match since I am much younger than you. Discussion enriches us, helps us understand each other better, creates the opportunity to hone our discernment, and more: all of which leads to a stronger community.
"Steel sharpens steel"
Wholeness & all the best back to you :-)
Don't worry friend, I did not feel disrespected at any time. You are very polite and respectful in your words.
I also wish you the best
yes he is but too loooooooooooooong
good
Can I get a follower :)
I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this post, and especially your response to it. As someone newer and figuring out the nuances of Steemit, it's valuable to see different views. I totally understand the desire to minimize toxic individuals in ones life, and the need for civil discussion and constructive feedback (ex. hey, stop posting so much and promoting so much, taking the limelight from others and making me see your page all the time-instead of some hateful comments).
I also see the nuance that promoting/upvoting/posting too much of your own content, not as tactfully as others, can invite frustration or negative comments from others (I tried this tactic for a month on instagram promoting my music, and learned the hard lesson from it, that "Toxic" or "Hateful" comments have some truth to them-so I stopped posting and promoting content and forcing people to look/hear my content that was not great).
Anyway, I am not a great writer myself, so I won't go on, but just wanted to thank both of you for having this conversation, and for caring about Steemit and the people on it.
Best,
Seb
Thank you @sebastianhughes for your words and time to comment! Regards
wow nice post boss
A long comment @d-pend but incredible!
I guess the summary of your long wide comment is this:
@chbartist has a long wide way to go to learn more on different variety of anything and everything, not only on this platform but in general, his life and journey, his goals and purpose in particular.
Its not only for him but for all of us.
We can't perfectly estimate anything, but we can weigh them base on right and wrong or moderation and extreme. An example obviously is the value of the content we create and post. Is my post worthy enough to receive $500 or $1000 upvotes? This is where most of the people were complaining. And we can't blame them to some extent that their blood boils, much more if its done regularly.
This is happening over and over again and again on the trending section.
This is a summary right?
I need to stop now lol
Much more to say but this is not the right section, it would be extreme and violates the law of moderation lol
Gotta sleep now!
If any of us were perfected beings, we would not be incarnated in human form. :-)
Precisely. We shouldn't be surprised at backlash when we promote content that is less than impeccable to the top of a community composed of tens of thousands of active individuals.
Haha, perhaps so, though I would like to see this convention to change. That is partially why I decided to leave this post here instead of my own blog. It could be considered an act of rebellion against the shallowness of most online interaction.
Good night @ronel!
wow boss
Oh yeah!
Wow, I wish I improved my english as where you had now. It's not my mother language so whatever I say looks like coming out of a broken translator. And it doesn't even reflect my emotions and probably misunderstood. Anyways I don't want to spoil this conversation. I just want to let you know that I like and respect your perspective. Personally I don't like to play it by the rules, I don't want to shape myself upon community dynamics. However if anyone thinks this place as an investment should listen to you. Thanks.
Hey @oups, thanks for the reply. I can understand what you say perfectly, so perhaps you underestimate your level. Keep going! I believe anyone can achieve great things in any language of their choice. However, I can also relate, because I've studied Spanish for many years and I still feel doubtful that I'm expressing myself clearly.
I also think people should be free to disregard social dynamics. Many do not have the patience or have a different personality when it comes to that. For some reason I love being a mediator and focus on constantly minimizing unnecessary conflict. I find a sense of meaning in that approach, but I also admire people who are unabashed and go against the status quo.
To me that is the beauty of human beings: that we can use our freedom of expression so exuberantly and authentically, and embody any facet of the color spectrum according to our nature and our choice. We also evolve through different phases of our lives. It's really quite extraordinary and leaves me speechless many times I contemplate it.
Hago mía estas palabras: "Personalmente, no me gusta jugar según las reglas, no quiero conformarme con la dinámica de la comunidad." Con tu permiso.
can i get a follower :)
Yeah, once you create some quality content! :-P
@honey2018 Te sigo y te voto, feliz???
Flag away, it's your right to do so if you disagree on rewards.
😂😂😂
Wow, this comment is stupendous and took a lot of careful thought to craft. Yes I agree with you and think the assessment is dead on.
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Thank you for your time and comment @stellabelle
"The negative energy you have got on the platform is a messenger, it is telling you to look closely at yourself. "
I love these word and I seek your concent to add to them that the negative energy we have both on this platform and the world around us is a messenger, that is telling us to look closely not only to ourselves but also the world around us.
"Just like negative emotions tell us we may need to change our mental and emotional habits"
Looking closely at these words it is telling us that we have to take responsibility and it requires effort to change our mental and emotional habit and everything mental and emotional energy around us that will be a hindrance to us achieving this goal.
Thank you for your Original words
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While you might be right in the sense that "what goes around, comes around," nevertheless there are some really negative people (toxic by nature) on this platform. They are easy to recoginze and even easier to avoid. The very nature of the Steemit platform tends to compound peoples emotions because everything here is tied to one thing - money, and we all know that money tends to bring out the best in us... unfortunately. If everyone learned to practice positive affirmations, Steemit would be a perfect place, but that would be like asking for the moon.
Very true and in the near future, humans will not just ask for the moon, but will live on the moon
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Very true and in the near future, humans will not just ask for the moon, but will live on the moon
Posted using Partiko Android
He may think I'm 'toxic' for flagging his posts, but it's my feeling that buying massive votes for every post is bad for Steemit. It concentrates the reward pool on a few posts that may not warrant it. There's lots of great posts that struggle to make a dollar from community votes. I choose to support those rather than ones like this. I'm really not sure why so many whales give him votes. It's not that I'm against what he writes, just how he promotes it.
I tend to agree with you, for the most part. The reason I chose to support this post is because it was the catalyst for some interesting thoughts. As far as over-promotion goes, it reminds me of how people roll their eyes when they are forced to watch McDonald's commercials every 5 seconds on TV (for a random example.) There is a feeling of resentment that creeps in pretty quick when companies or individuals go over the top spending money to get their product attention.
This is one reason that I and many others rarely even look at trending. We can avoid most of the junk. Not saying this post is junk...
@steevc, I do not think you're toxic because you gave a flag in my post. I understand your point of view but I do not agree with the flags and I think they do not help the platform and I'm saying this because I've talked to many investors and people about it. BTW I do not think you're toxic because you gave a flag and I respect your position but I really like the way the @d-pend has positioned itself with his response to you. The funny thing about this is exactly what the @d-pend said exactly what this post provoked being a catalyst that provided a very interesting discussion of high level and respect. Regards
Thanks for responding. I'll say that there is little direct correspondence between post value and quality of discussion. Trending is not the place to find the best comments as it will mostly attract the desperate new users. Those in the know just follow the people they find interesting. That's how I see it. Flagging is an essential tool to manage how rewards get distributed.
I can understand your frustrations. It's one thing to flag someone for inappropriate behavior or comments, but it is another thing to flag someone just because you disagree with someone's actions that the Steemit the platform has fostered by design and allows. Just like with the issues of large self-upvoting... Steemit created this animal, so one can hardly attack an individual for exercising that which is permitted (except when there is nefarious intent say through the creation of multiple accounts). Remember, Steemit was basically created "without" a Code of Ethics. I wholeheartedtly agree with you on the subject of vote buying... good thoughtfull content should always be the winner.
Just because something is possible does not make it acceptable, but we each have the option to take action, if we dare. The first reason given on the flagging popup is 'disagreement on rewards', so they are encouraging me to do this. The main point of voting/flagging is to distribute the rewards and we can adjust them down to make more available for others. $1000 for a basic blog seems excessive when artists and musicians can earn cents for many hours of their work.
Totally agree. Everything else is ethical in nature.
@d-pend thanks for sharing your thoughts with us and thanks alot for your valuable time to write such a beautiful comment. Really i'm totally agree with you. You did a DNA test.
I like these line :
thanks for such types of comment
@ajsharma333
Comment larger than the post.
Guilty as charged... ;-) Sometimes I get carried away. Okay... a lot of the time :-D
"The negative energy you have got on the platform is a messenger, it is telling you to look closely at yourself. "
I love these word and I seek your concent to add to them that the negative energy we have both on this platform and the world around us is a messenger, that is telling us to look closely not only to ourselves but also the world around us.
"Just like negative emotions tell us we may need to change our mental and emotional habits"
Looking closely at these words it is telling us that we have to take responsibility and it requires effort on our own part to change our mental and emotional habit and every mental and emotional energy around us that will be a hindrance to us achieving this goal.
The later would not be easy to achieve than the former but we should at least give it a try.
Thank you for your Original words
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McAffee?
good post boss
amazing ...