I like the point about giving upvotes even if we don't agree with the idea it tells about.
It's really wise. Many men - many minds, but if it's well-done, or the idea is rather interesting, we should support it even if we don't agree with it.
Personally I upvote your posts because I really think they're useful and deep, no other reasons;)
and thank you so much for your replies to comments (because many authors just ignore them)
and the main principle for Steemit (as far as I've noticed) is upvotes for friendship or profit (give me, and I'll give it back, and 80% of posts aren't even read I suppose;). You're very responsible with your upvotes and voting power, but the majority are not. And it's not considered to be a problem here, right?
To receive an upvote from an unknown person is almost impossible.
I was lucky to get it from a whale when I was about to leave Steemit and didn't believe I would be able to find my place here. Just one upvote and one reply to my comment really can motivate and give power to go on. I was lucky, but many newbies are just invisible because many whales vote only for their own friends and partners, so newbies leave losing any hope..
By the way, the same principle reigns in Golos (Russian clon of Steemit).
and sorry for this question, but I've noticed your posts get not so big awards though you're a veteran of Steemit, you've great Voting Power, and your posts are really worth of attention. Why is it so?
For example, your posts about birth got great award, though it was long ago when you weren't so powerful like now.
The echo-chamber effect is a very big problem in many social media sites today, the technology that is supposed to bring us closer is sometimes doing the opposite - bringing us apart, because we only get to see the like-minded.
I'm quite concerned about Steem, at one hand everyone wants to be friends here, I think people are a bit more polite than on other social medias. That's a good thing - too much time and energy is consumed on flame-wars in social media, it's a good thing if people will think twice before posting, trying to be polite and friendly even when disagreeing.
At the other hand, I believe quite much disagreement here on Steem is simply swept under the carpet, because that's easier than to attack ideas one doesn't subscribe to. It's usually easier to skip reading an article than to write counter-arguments - especially as one risks losing upvotes from that whale by flagging that one disagrees with him.
I think it's important to write back and comment when disagreeing, albeit in a polite and humble manner.
That's a good thing - too much time and energy is consumed on flame-wars in social media, it's a good thing if people will think twice before posting, trying to be polite and friendly even when disagreeing
hehe, flame wars - nice definition :o)) I have stopped using social media, too much crap going on there - better with steemit in this way.
Steem is social media. :-)
somehow, it is :o)
Depends on whom you ask. I think it's a problem that too much steem power is concentrated on some few hands; theoretically those people should (out of self-interest) do what they can to promote Steem and make it the best place for newcomers, but in practice they seem to be a bit short-sighted, boosting their steem power by self-voting or running bidbot services.
I guess there are too few "whales" following me, simply. I haven't done much work on promoting myself or befriending people, I've never used any out-of-band communication (typically chat), etc, and I've never tried to actively search out the bigger fish.
That was really the hey-days of steem - there were not so many articles written, and there were quite some amounts of money entering the ecosystem, I also believe there were a serious backlog on approving new accounts for a while, that was keeping the post volume artificially low. Hence, it was easy to get seen and voted for.
Another thing in those heydays, the vote weight algorithm was non-linear, voting power was the square of the steem power. That's pretty insane, it means that the bigger whales could give away hundreds of dollars worth by a simple upvote, while the dolphins could only give upvotes worth some few cents.
Some other things that have changed: