Here's something that really ticks me off to no end, when someone who is an active participant takes the time to comment on a post and receives no reply whatsoever. This, in my opinion, is NO way conducive to building community.
We are all aware of the thousands of people who misuse and abuse the ecosystem and platform by spamming posts, however, if another individual is taking time out to read your post in its entirety, takes the time to think about what you said and add his or her honest feedback, thoughts and ideas with you, the least you can do is comment back even if you don't upvote.
Instead of seeking rewards for posting your comment, try engaging with others so that they too may gain something from the exchange, creating a win-win situation instead of the interaction being more one sided, with YOU on the receiving end and the minnows receiving little and often times, not receiving anything for their efforts.
I want to see a more fair platform here at Steemit where everyone's efforts are rewarded, unless of course the individual is abusing the platform by copying and pasting other people's content, spamming, abusing the flag and downvote options, etcetera.
If newcomers are turned away by this seemingly selfish behavior by larger accounts, then what is the point in promoting Steemit?
And I HAVE promoted the hell out of Steemit for months now, by the way. I also go out of my way to promote great people on the site who are worthy of being rewarded and resteem great content so others may enjoy the same material as I have.
We need to work together to create a winning platform that will surpass all other social networking sites, and encourage people to create content instead of the infighting I've read about recently and abusing other active members.
I want to encourage active dialogue between users so that this site is genuinely a socially focused instead of being a place to post your content and watch others make a shit ton of currency off what they normally post on Facebook for free.
Otherwise, there's simply little reason for me to spend as much time here as most of what I do as a newcomer is comment to others who are rank higher in reputation in hopes to raise my own reputation score.
It's not so much about the money for me, but I am more concerned about increasing my reputation, and this is why I honestly take the time to post comments that are well thought out and considerate in hopes to generate conversation.
As a newcomer myself, I've read quite a ton of information in hopes of building up my account, am active nearly everyday, placing greater emphasis on commenting rather than posting as suggested. The whales know this and I think other people do also, and perhaps this is why they aren't actively engaging in the comment section with minnows? I don't know, but it's something that seriously takes away from the site when you have people saying things like, "Oh, look they're commenting on a post in hopes to get a whale's attention." When did social media become about power and control instead of honest conversation? When did you being a whale become that you're better than someone else because you've more Steem Power, and have been on the site longer than someone who just began engaging? I think not, I think it's high time some of these people come off of their high horse and let others gain a little from the platform!
If you feel the same, please feel free to comment and if you disagree, I'd like to hear your thoughts as well! Let's have an honest discussion!!
I am a new active user myself and understand exactly the emotion you are attempting to convey. I too am all about conversations and creating an active community. Many of my comments contain more volume and substance than many posts others make decent money on. There are multiple sides to this. First off, most are here to make money. For this reason it's essentially a job. This is multiplied by the community requirement to create quality content. So, like any income creating talent, you must put the effort in and take the lumps, which come along with creating your brand. You shouldn't judge by using other's experiences, because you cannot be sure how they have connected with their audience. They could have a large group of friends, which simply upvote each other to game the system for the benefit of the few. Don't let this get you down, because this will always happen and...nothing is perfect. We need to concentrate on and spread our ideals, while keeping our honor. When you meet someone who's real, strengthen that relationship. For the fakes, let them go. We need people like you here to keep the balance and fight against selfishness and greed. I notice you are an Agorist. SteemIt is as close to a decentralized platform as we will find that can be empirical proof that full freedom can work and government is not needed for the good to prevail. You, I and the rest need to show communal pressure's are enough to govern, instead of laws and physical force as guiders and deterrents. SteemIt is essentially Anarchist and we must tolerate the bad to get along. Stick to NAP and don't let human nature deter you from your goals. Anyway, I am one person you have found with similar Ideals. Nice to meet you. Let's stick together and find some more to create the community needed to better our circumstances and species. I wish you the best my friend.
Thanks so much for the encouraging words and I agree we shouldn't base our experiences on those of others. Personally, I don't have a large following who upvotes my content, however I have tried my best to get friends from other social media networks to join the site so that they could be rewarded for their works instead of having to pay for promotion.
I think you're right on how we should stick together and I mentioned the same in my blog. I want a strong community of like minded individuals who appreciate agorism, voluntaryism and understand the meaning of NAP!
I really appreciate you taking the time to reach out and share your ideas with me on this post! Wishing you all the best.
I believe there's a large Anarchist communty and all it's branches here already. In time we'll find them and hopefully convert a few ourselves. Baby steps seems to be the pace our species evolves at, so patience is key and slow and steady wins the race.
Oh and in defense of the more popular channels; some of them get so many notifications, they would never be able to blog if they answered every good comment.
I see what you're saying but it never hurts to put a little added effort into responses, especially if you want to keep your followers, which I do. I may be new but there's just something that seems a bit more genuine when you decide to make the effort to reply back to these comments in the early stages. I haven't reached that level to think I'm too big to answer back all the notifications I received.
I 100% agree. I am actually quite disappointed in the lack of engagement on meaningful posts and the overwhelming engagement on Bitcoin related posts as an example, myself. I am not disillusioned though, as this simply reflects the same level of shallow thought, which society operates on IRL. My goal is to change that. It's nice to find other real-people, such as yourself. My message will never change, just my methods used in an attempt to get through. I will simply continue to be myself and hope others resonate with my message. I know, because of the mass shallowness of society, it will take longer to find those people and for those people to find me than the shallow posts. Shallow will gravitate towards the shallow and depth will gravitate towards depth. It's just the way it is. By the way, I believe it's a bad idea to bring the masses here. There are enough fakes here as it is. Since the majority are fake, the more you promote this platform on other platforms, which endorse shallow thought, like Facebook, you are just promoting the pollution of SteemIt further. The real will find their way here on their own.
I want to be one of the spots where people can come and know that their thoughts and concerns are truly listened to and that I make an effort to help the individual find sound solutions, even if it takes us a while to come up with something, those who visit my account and posts know that there is a real person behind the computer's monitor and not some one else posting for me because I am too busy to truly engage meaningfully with others.
That's why I make the effort and will continue to make the effort as long as I feasibly can.
As far as promoting to other content curators, I have never found that to be counter productive because they, too are looking for a place more meaningful so I don't agree with your sentiments on not promoting Steemit elsewhere. I'm talking about writers, artists, broadcasters and that ilk, people who would gain from the site, as I have.
I agree if you are targeting specific individuals, but if you are promoting with posts calling anyone here, that's just going to hurt this platform.
I'm wondering how much harder I have to work to get some traction as well, do most pay for their Steem to gain power? You better reply to my comment, jk ;)
"You better reply to my comment..."
Lol, love it -- "You better reply to my comment."
As for your question, I put my SBD into SP almost always other than a few donations I've sent since I've been on the site.
I have no idea how much work we have to put in, honestly. I do my best here everyday commenting and I post something at least once a week that will hopefully get someone's attention. Thankfully, you read this post and decided to add your thoughts, and I thank you for doing so. Let's see - I have been looking at some of the larger accounts and they seem to be ranging in the thousands of posts, maybe that's what it takes? Mind you, I wouldn't suggest spamming at all, just keep commenting and posting what you deem good content to the platform. I think conversations would add up eventually, open dialogue should count for something, it shows that you're interested in the community itself, and what other people have to offer.
You're a lot further along than myself, I am going to try and keep going and doing what you've suggested. Let's help each other out as much as possible.
By all means, keep going!
I notice the same thing. I comment on posts or read comments on posts but no one seems to be replaying to anyone. I heard about this place as a good conversation starter and a place to share your life. What I like is that the community on here seems to be self regulated like mean people don't really get attention like other sights. But the down side is no one comments back on anything. I have little knowledge about how all this works and am learning as I go. Using this space as more of a safe place to blog about my life and stuff.
Yes, that's what I am referring to, when you post and no one responds. That's disappointing especially for those who are posting great content, and YOU DO from what I recently read. I think us new people should really pull together and help one another out instead of hoping that those who have the selfish attitudes will notice us.
I am all for helping out my fellow new Steemians, we're considered minnows and I think that whole idea of labelling people by status is demeaning, personally. You have great content that I value more than reading about how Trump compared some ditzy chesty blonde to Ivanka. I could not care less about that garbage material. I care about people, and I care about community not reading tabloid material that gets tons of upvotes.
I do my best to comment back to everyone and if I can help you in anyway by posting a blog on something you need help with, please let me know.
I really appreciate it and same goes to you. I rather read cool new interesting things about cool new interesting people. If I wanted tabloid news I would go to the store and buy the magazine or look anywhere on the internet for it. I really don't like this popular political tabloid type news seeming to be the only valued content. I know that is a personal opinion and I am sure many people enjoy that stuff but after the 5th article about the same thing it gets old. I just came to this platform like I said for a safe place to blog about my experiences in life, but I also want people to read it and be like "wow, I'm not alone" or just more aware of different life styles.
I've been active on here for about a month now but I did noticed that there is not much interactive communication but I also wonder if it has to do with keeping up on notifications or something also.
What I do is go back to my comments and look to see if I received a reply. I am beginning to think if I make an effort in not engaging with their posts anymore and others do the same, maybe they'll get the hint that they're doing it wrong! Less people commenting back and forth means less engagement with one another and more about just posting stuff that you think will get a lot of upvotes. That's not how social media works, not in my opinion.
So when I see those who cannot take the time to reply, I don't give them my upvote or comment. With new people coming on board there's always other content I can give my attention to and my upvote who will appreciate it.
I've noticed this too. I think it has to do with them not wanting to waste their votes or something. But yeah- you're right- they could respond without upvoting. Agree.
You might be right, and I do see that playing a role in the lack of interaction. What do you think are some solutions to this issue? I would like to see reputation score being based on interaction rather than the value of rewards on posts. I want to see new people coming in to the community but the lack of interaction may discourage people from participating long term. I am willing to invest my own money, if I think that things will improve over the years.
The lack of interaction will cause people to leave.
If the developers can get Steemit to be as friendly as Facebook and as easy as Coinbase it will shoot to outer space and beyond!
I watched a guy who had a rep of 44 flag my friend's geoengineering posts. It grayed them out. It also made my friend's reputation score get lower.
Because 44 doesn't think Solar Radiation Management is real, he was able to bully and damage my friend's reputation and posts. (My friend had a lower rep than him.)
I also saw a whale take out a lotto guy because he didn't agree with the way the lotto guy structured his daily posts. Personally, I was having fun meeting people over there on lotto guy's posts. He was bullied by a whale and taken out completely.
That is two people I've seen harmed when they weren't doing anything wrong. So there is a real problem there.
I don't have a solution other than for the programmers to make it more friendly and easy for the masses.
Yes, that would be a dream come true to have the mass adoption of users.
I don't make a habit of downvoting or flagging content as I see no reason in it really other than perhaps maybe a post is overvalued and I came into this seeing a lot of the same people generating most of the reward pool. I also don't agree with bullying on the platform as this should be a peaceful community where folks share ideas and come together to raise awareness on important topics, not just cryptocurrencies in general.
I would love to have a conversation with one of the witnesses about these issues and maybe they could come up with a solution that would help everyone.
It is sad that people don't want to "waste their votes" but it does show that even on a platform like this support isn't always found everywhere and there really is a divide. But I agree people can still comment and reply without upvoting.
Indeed. As I understand it, when we get to a certain level of Steem Power (I think it's 500) an option appears that allows you to determine how much money or percentage you would like to give on the upvote. So- they could upvote with a little tiny amount just as an acknowledgment. I think that is what I'll do.
That seems reasonable to do. Just some acknowledgment would be nice
Very well said @nexusvortex777 . You are spot on. There will ALWAYS be people who abuse the system and try to take advantage of it, but more importantly we need to make sure we have people like yourself who spotlight and call out this abuse. I have made a commitment to myself when I make whale status or whatever you want to call it...that I refuse to act in this kind of behavior. I plan to interact with people who make comments as well as Upvoting Content and Comments that have some substance !! Thnx again for your Post
Thanks for taking notice of my post and I simply wanted to bring attention to what many other people have mentioned seeing on the platform as well. I think those of us who honestly make an effort to interact with others should be rewarded with higher reputation scores as I mentioned above. Interacting with others is integral to growing community and forming relationships.
If I ever become a whale I will most definitely keep in mind the minnows struggle and not forget where I came from, either. It's vital to help one another here as I've found out in my first weeks and posted some helpful tips for others who are new.
Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to read my content. I truly appreciate it.
Interesting read, some thought provoking ideas.
"And I HAVE promoted the hell out of Steemit for months now"
If you you don't mind me asking, how exactly? I've been meaning to start whoring out and I've been looking for ways to spread the Word.
I've actually talked to people who don't know the first thing about the Steemit platform in my own community, showed them the site, and some posts that generated a lot of interest. I also talked with family members about joining, and encouraged them to join by mentioning such active members of Steemit like Jeff Berwick. He's an exceptional thinker when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Mind you, most of these people don't know the first about Bitcoin.
I also have continuously posted to other social media network friends how they could benefit from using Steemit instead of Facebook and Twitter several times over the last couple of months.
So I feel like this is a common dilemma experienced by all individuals who are on Steemit for 3-4 months. Don't worry, the feeling will pass :)
Keep looking towards the future! There will always be things on Steemit that irk you. That's part of the beauty of the platform. Freedom Everywhere! If you can figure out a way to embrace that freedom, and make your own niche within it, you'll be on your way to becoming a dolphin in no-time! ... At least, that's my hope :)
Things are certainly looking up today! I should take the advice I give to others and keep posting original content that I find interesting or might be interesting to others.
I surely aspire to become a dolphin one day and the only surefire way I know of becoming one is to create content that generates interest in others and comment!
Keep at it and you will be there soon.
Thanks for the encouragement! I sincerely appreciate it!
I for one can say that you reply to everything and you reply genuinely. I'm also trying to do my part more in the comment section than with the blog posts. Hopefully one day we'll both have a reputation of 60 odd and we can push these ideas with a bit more weight. Thanks for this post.
You're welcome, I am glad you could gain something from this post. I do make an effort each day to log on and the first thing I go to is comments and replies. I want to keep my followers so naturally, I am going to interact with others and hopefully, we both will gain from the exchange.
As I've said numerous times, comments are where it's at for new Steemians. I recently posted a blog that I certainly didn't expect to gain much traction but it did and without using voting bots, so things are certainly looking up for me at the present moment.
I hope things are faring well for you, also!
I've had 2 posts do really well since I started last month. I haven't seen a pattern with those 2 posts so I'm just going to keep creating while I stay working in the comment section.
Sounds like a good plan to me, @adriansilas! I'm wishing you and all of my fellow Steemians the best!