ABANDON SHIP! (OR DON'T)
Changes are coming to Steemit. It’s inevitable. Who knows if they’ll impact the platform negatively or positively. They’re coming in the form of mass exodus by the disenfranchised, future hardforks, changes in UI. They’re coming whether we want them to or not. Some of the changes are impossible to influence. Others, we have a duty to influence. The most pressing matter at hand is discovering the most effective way we can do so.
As an individual, I don’t know where I stand with @transisto after the whole flagging debacle with Michele Gent. It matters in a way, but I don’t need to know the answer. I’m not after his approval or attention, but I do value the insight he gave. He was willing to speak about this issue when most other whales don’t seem to be. I’ve been one of the most vocal Steemit users about the fact that I think capricious flags are damaging to the platform. However, they certainly opened a dialogue about issues with the infrastructure, and it’s a dialogue I’m more than willing to have. I certainly don’t claim any expertise here. But I’m trying to learn, and hope I can use my skills as a writer to help others learn with me.
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN PERCEPTIONS AND REALITY
The subheader of this section is taken from the title of a post by @lukestokes. I think it sums up the biggest need of the platform right now, at least as far as the user side. It is very important for people to understand that Steemit is still in beta. Equally important is the fact that—like it or not—investors have different goals and priorities than content creators, and unless that detail registers, many users will continually be frustrated by their experience here.
This leaves us with two user types in the Steemit community. Having them co-exist side by side is like locking cats and dogs together in the same room. There will be skirmishes. There will also be also be a communication gap. Dogs and cats don’t speak the same language. The same is apparently true for investors and creators of Steemit content. Let me try to illustrate this, although be warned that my example is extremely oversimplified.
Pretend that a post earns $300 during its first twenty-four hours. But the post has ten views. Content creators are going to look at this and see success. The author is earning, the post is trending, the piece is well written and relevant, and everyone is motivated to write more and engage more. Great situation, right?
An investor is going to look at these same facts and see a train wreck. $300 is gone from the reward pool, allocated to one user who did not generate adequate view activity or influx of new money into the platform to justify this earning. In their opinion, this post has not earned its keep, like a horse that eats a barn full of hay but never has to pull the plow.
Content creators will scream bloody murder about this line of reasoning. The post is well-written! The author has many fans! Steemit is a social media platform and its value is in the blog! The author has worked their ass off to provide quality content! How dare someone who doesn’t even like to read judge this piece of writing to have no value!?
Investors will say they have no opinion about the quality because they never read the post. They looked at the reward versus view ratio and obtained all the information they needed. Content creators respond with outrage, citing hypocrisy for passing judgment on a post that wasn’t even read. The investor flags the post to return some of the payout to the community reward pool, which they know will increase payout for all users in direct ratio with the value returned. Content creators see the flag as an insult and a condemnation of the author’s hard work. Pretty soon everybody is yelling and nobody is hearing what anyone else is saying, because both sides of the issue are shouting in a completely different language.
Cats and dogs. And that room they share? Now it’s a war zone. Fur goes flying, and blood starts dripping down the walls.
SHORTSIGHTED
For me, neither position depicted here would benefit the platform over the long term. They are both extremes and therefore extremely limiting. If Steemit were simply a crypto hub, then nobody should ever have had the bright idea to attach a blog to the platform and invite the public. If Steemit were simply a publishing tool, why is it connected to a form of currency? There simply has to be a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where both types of user can find value in good content.
I can appreciate that Steemit is in beta. This being the case, perceived lack of interest by the developers in marketing to a mainstream public makes a twisted kind of sense. They know the platform isn’t ready for the big time just yet, so they compartmentalize and focus on building the foundation. Unfortunately, while their heads are buried in code, some of the little fires burning on Steemit are destroying thousands of prime social media acres. Those of us out here walking across the hot coals see the potential for a long-term setback because of this. We’re watching as Steemit’s public-facing persona takes quite a hit.
Outside of its tie-in with crypto, Steemit offers the mainstream very little in its current incarnation. It is only attracting people who already have a stake in Bitcoin or some other form of digital currency. Yet apparently the goal of investors is to draw new money to the blockchain and strengthen the value of their investment. Well…how ya gonna do that if you alienate the very people whose money you’d like to see flowing in?
@beanz recently made an interesting post about the ways curation impacts the community. She points out what should obvious: our content creators would make excellent curators, thereby increasing their value to the investing pool. She cites delegation as an option to give content creators a stronger voice. One commenter called it a “force multiplier.” I’m interested to follow the arguments for and against this idea.
POLICING BY DOWNVOTES
Several influential users on Steemit use the downvote option quite liberally. It’s their attempt to control the market. I am not anti-flag. You’ll never hear me argue that this feature should be eliminated from the Steemit toolkit. But seeing the downvote as a weapon available to exert personal agenda is not thinking like a whale. It’s thinking like a terrorist.
If Steemit guerillas need one surefire way to make sure the platform never succeeds as a social media site and remains a small, private community of circle-jerking, these flag patrols are the number one way to accomplish that. Whether or not I understand the “this is business, not personal” explanations for that flag, I also understand that a great number of professionals were watching when it happened, and there isn’t a chance in hell they will bring any of their money, audience, or creative input to this platform ever again. We’ve forever lost several authors, publishers, and photographers because of that incident.
Perhaps developers are counting on the influence of trend to negate these losses once they market Steemit in the mainstream. And to an extent, the numbers will bear them out. However, treating your current batch of content creators as disposable is not the best business strategy. Capricious flag attacks on the user base equate to bombs on civilian communities. There is way too much collateral damage for the world to ignore.
Top tier users adopt a somewhat indifferent attitude toward flagging. I’ve read comments by several whales and developers that are perhaps meant to be reassuring, but come across as dismissive toward community concerns. Let me see if I can couch this in terms of analogy. I think I have a really good one.
To me, a flag smack for nebulous reasons is a lot like alpha rolling a dog. If a dog is attacking me, I will do anything to stop that behavior, including put a dog on its back or its head or in the ground with several feet of dirt on top of it. If I am at immediate risk of being damaged, I will defend myself vigorously. But if I grab a dog who is not attacking me and flip that dog over onto its back just so I can prove my dominance, I have just proven to that dog that I’m an unstable leader who cannot be trusted, with unpredictable behavior and potential to cause real harm. One of two things is going to happen in the mind of that dog. It is either going to become reciprocally aggressive, or something is going to break in its psyche. Is that really what we want to do to our dogs? Is flagging our best content creators really something we want to do to our users?
The video below shows what it looks like when performed by a “professional,” dog trainer employed by the U.S. government.
A humorous but completely accurate depiction of how it seems from a dog’s perspective:
For more information about alpha rolling, read a fantastic article HERE.
Many may scoff and say flagging is nothing at all like alpha rolling. I disagree. I think both employ the same unpredictable strong-arm techniques to assert dominance. The end result is certainly the same. The person who got rolled is going to become uncharacteristically aggressive, or they are going to shut down, tune out, pack their heart in a box and either leave or become useless on the platform. None of this is what we need. Instead, let’s find a better system, manage user expectations, and reserve flags for the most egregious offenses a user can commit.
This recent flagging activity has certainly opened my eyes as a content creator, focused solely on writing and sharing my thoughts. For Steemit to grow new money does indeed need to come in, so I see arguments made by investors and understand them more clearly, although I don't fully agree with them as a content creator.
Never forget that content creation is the source of Steem value in the first place, too. The blog aspect is what gives it value, and good blog content is essential to long-term success.
Content creation in steemit is somewhat analogous to mining in bitcoin. It is the means by which the new steem/bitcoin come in to existence.
Early on in steemit (for the first weeks or month) almost any post could earn you a large reward. Early on in bitcoin almost any little laptop doing the mining could earn you a reward in bitcoin.
That soon changed. It now takes a huge investment in equipment to earn any bitcoin at all. And it takes a lot of effort, strategizing, netorking, and, yes, luck, to earn significant steem.
This platform is an experimental hybrid of cryptocurrency and social media. No one knows how it will turn out.
Will the value of comments always be small? Maybe in the future you can make significant steem by piggybacking off popular posts with good comments.
And without quality content to interact with, it would be very difficult to persuade the next content creator from elsewhere to sign up and become part of the community.
I used to do mining for crypto currencies. And I do post and curate on steemit. It may be true that some types of content creators will leave, just as some miners (me for example) left crypto mining. But others with different skills/motivations will replace them.
Peoples' agttention can be attracted by other things than content creation to interact with. I hope that doesn't happen, but it is surely possible.
It depends how you define value.
What makes Steem different from the thousands of other altcoins on the market? What new utility does it bring that makes it useful in a unique way? That is what average people need to find valuable in a coin. For Steem, it is a blog where the coin can add weight to your vote. That is what keeps it from being just another forgotten coin worth a couple Satoshi. And it is the creators of content who support that.
The content attracts readers and more content creators, but unless they invest in Steem financially, they don't add to the reward pool, as far as I understand it.
The financial investors are symbiotically connected to the content creators who invest time and effort into creating the ecosystem that drives the market value. Without content and community, your investment falls to zero. We drive the demand that creates a price. If you cannot see this, you are blind. But don't worry. I can sell you an authentic Steem Pope indulgence for a mere 100 SBD to absolve your sins against Blog. :D
I see that, but I also see that, as @rhondak pointed out, both creators and investors are needed. One without the other adds little value.
Good ☺☺
You realize this sort of comment, along with your other one, is likely to earn you a flag? Comment in a fashion that interacts intelligently with either the original poster or the person whose comment you reply to. Otherwise you are comment spamming and people will flag you.
wow! well explained...i changing my focus right away.
thanks for this dear
I have always thought that flags in an effort to "balance the reward pool" were as destructive to good curation as votebots indiscriminately supporting content. It is a bit annoying to see a few users consistently getting big payouts, but it's also painful to see a post FINALLY get recognition only to have some self-righteous whale decide it's gained "too much." Meanwhile, spam and plagiarism erodes the reward pool far more destructively for the ecosystem and community.
In fact, financial manipulation and political machination are at least equally degrading, and IMHO, far more deeply impact the platform, and community.
The middle ground advocated by @rhondak is perhaps attainable, but practically impossible to conceive, much less to derive from extant conditions. I'm gonna hang in there for now, but I reckon holding my breath while my betters tilt at windmills is an irrational approach to Steemit.
The confluences of money, manufactured opinion, and power politics are complex, and the tools available to us to negotiate such rapids are in few hands today. I reckon luck will be as important to Steemit's survival and future as good intentions, understanding, and solid code.
Upvoted and Followed!
I'm still pretty new around here but I must say that I loved this article.
I'm really still just trying to figure so many things out here at Steemit so I can't make any educated comments about all this but I certainly can say that what you have written here makes perfectly good sense to me.
Yes I read the whole thing! :-)
Thank you for your very talented article. I will be looking forward to more. :-)
We need a trickle up approach to the golden rule.
It is sad, that can I get a flag for my opinion is close to being a tag.
Be interesting to see what steemit becomes once it is out of beta,and working right(?)
It is definitely a good social media experiment.
Namaste!
I (currently still a newbie) found this article to be the first time I've truly been able to understand what happened and why.
Thank you!
I don't claim to know much about how this system works as a whole, but it's clear there are still bugs to be worked out, and some 'happy middle ground' to be created.
Well-reasoned and more diplomatic than I would have been.
"If Steemit guerillas need one surefire way to make sure the platform never succeeds as a social media site and remains a small, private community of circle-jerking, these flag patrols are the number one way to accomplish that."
QFT.
I hope the analogy helps bridge the gap abit. Made sense to me, but I'm an animal person.
If the platform regulates itself, there should be nothing to fear. Content creators come and go, good times and bad times come and go, and I don't think this incident is the beginning of the apocalypse at all. Having greatly benefited from @curie upvotes in the past, I could never get angry (even if I would feel disappointed) if they were to flag me for excessive profit.
That said, I am worried about guerrilla tactics and terrorism on steemit through mass flagging and targeting specific creators repeatedly. It's a very real danger, as similar tactics are in the free market as a whole. I believe this is where witnesses along with user-associations (like @thewritersblock) have to come in and work towards finding solutions, systems to protect creators, etc.
As you have said, Steemit is in beta and as long as this is true, we'll see big changes in the metabolism of the site, it's etiquette, who gains more SBD, etc. Anyone who feels really interested on the platform should endeavor to make their voice heard and make it a better functioning place. That's how the environment regulates itself.
Steem on!
I appreciate your views and also want ithis should be stopped "mass flagging and targeting specific creators repeatedly"
The sole purpose to start Steemit to make a better Social media platform then FB, G+ etc.. (in case if you watched all promo videos of Steemit) but due to some loopholes or you can a some are taking undueadvantage of the system is not right.
One must do something, there should be more space for positivity and LOVE not hatred, jealously, and envy
Very well written and explained blog. I'm troubled by these issues and indeed they are disappointing. Good content creators are leaving or considering doing so. I'd leave the flagging for VERY SERIOUS OFFENSES, not as a bully tactic or power trip as many notice quite quickly coming into this platform.
Well written, it seems like you thought the same way, what others are thinking about. I talked to a few & they all unanimously said what your views are.
I read your post carefully and I say you're right and I must support you and I do so by giving big upvote to it and a moral support as well.
Thank you. :-)
Very good post, covering many aspects of the issues facing Steemit these days...
I always felt that upvoting yourself (or buying upvotes from a service) is akin to writing a book and then buying copies at the store to "show that it is selling." You aren't actually selling any books, the book's "popularity" isn't actually popularity, and you're handing over your own money in order to get your own money back: it's all a shell game.
The flagging thing is problematic because it's being used for "disagreement with content" rather than just outright abuse. Should botnets and upvote farms be subject to scrutiny? Absolutely! But mostly because they threaten the future of the entire ecosystem. As your graphic shows... most people are coming at this from a short term thinking perspective.
I approach Steemit from the angle of: What action can I take to help drive Steem towards being worth $10, three years from now. Petty personal vendettas and whether I make $20 on my next post isn't part of the picture. I simply try to take whatever action I can in support of what I believe will help the platform (and hence, ultimately ME) rather than worry about how to line my pockets TODAY.
Your comparison to authors making a run on their own books is spot on.
Exceptional post.
$300 is gone from the reward pool, allocated to one user who did not generate adequate view activity or influx of new money into the platform to justify this earning. In their opinion, this post has not earned its keep, like a horse that eats a barn full of hay but never has to pull the plow
I agree it's hard to justify a basic photo drop making the big bucks but it is what it is. For me, i enjoy the color challenge and participate in it sometimes. I always at least put some anicdote with the photo.
Then there are times I put hours into a post and make 10 cents so.... bleh
Resteemed.
A very well articulated article on Steemit ! I am new here. And my observation did tell me that there are two segments to Steemit. One is the content creators . The other is the money creators. But it was a little vague in my head as I am new to cryptocurrency. But you have truly written well and explained the scenario so well. I fall into the category of a content creator . And I agree, allowing flagging is tantamount to allowing full scale prejudices, mafia , terrorist wars to fly around uncontrolled. As you say "strong-arm techniques to assert dominance" ... I know nothing of what happened . But your article makes sense to me. It is important to look at the bigger picture !
This is a fantastically written opinion piece @rhondak, and as a new user to Steemit (less than a week at this point) it really helps put some immediately evident issues into perspective. I'm just getting to grips with the influence system and having not made any impact to warrant much attention as yet, I'm hoping that these issues can find resolve in the near future.
Speaking as a platform Plankton I can see the Steemit's model looks bright for the future as long as content remains front and centre. If the community can stay focussed on that, the whales and minnows will forever swim in harmony.
I'm actually really excited about this recent confrontation between the two perspectives, because you're right - either extreme is missing something. Knowing and understanding "the other side" is key to being able to create something exponentially better - taking into consideration all of the users on the platform. I'm excited and hopeful, to be honest!
I'm excited about it, too, Uni, especially since we kept it from escalating into war. That alone is cause to be happy with the outcome.
Thanks for creating this post. I'm seeing that some people with heavy firepower on Steemit have become blinded by ego and self-righteousness. It feels like delusions of grandeur from bullies, while enjoying forcing their own personal dictatorship/values/views on others by brute force. True leaders with wisdom don't act that way at all and earn respect through proper channels. Leading/ruling by fear is proven to fail and hurt others in the process. Doing so in a verbally abusive and emotionally abusive way is also abhorrent, which baffles me every time. I'm tired of rolling my eyes. It's ruining the community, but it'll work its way out.
What I ponder is if these people acted this way in normal society, outside a social media platform, how well they'd fare or last. There's a reason people who act this way never show their faces.
Hangover from other social networking platforms and the fear/threat of revealing identity is real for some conservative society. But I agree with your opinion.
@rhondak What about if we made a view worth money, so the investors and content creators can both win ? such that the payout of a pice is based on both votes and views.Look at your piece , you have more views than votes, does that mean you have a hundred people who have consumed your work for free ?
I see the logic in your suggestion, and then I see a whole host of issues that could arise from that. But yes, you are right. Over 200 people now have consumed this "for free," which is exactly what the fuss was about in the first place.
If someone doesn't fix the problem, there will be alternatives.
Steemit is the first of its kind, but i'm sure not the last.
Different tokenized social media will play out different strategies to reward and attract users - mostly through an 'attention economy' model.
The trouble with this model, is that the more network collateral a user has (in Steemit's case SP) , the greater their vote. If there was a fairer distribution then there would be a fairer reflection of value.
I can see in the future a network where user's are rewarded only for contributions, and it will be impossible for people to just buy their way to whale status. It would have to be earned through post and interactions, therefore creating a real community vibe, led by 'elders'.
What you say is true, and how the various populations interacting on Steemit, and potential to such platforms, advance their interests, will continue to mold it's evolution.
Given that Steemit and Steem were devised by parties with expertise in coding and capital, far more than politics and social sciences, it is likely that the current tension between society and economy is going to continue to reflect that bias in it's constitution.
I have long advocated for essential changes in VP on Steemit, and the more powerful of those on the platform recognize that the platform they seek to make faces existential threat from such changes, because their expertise is in the economic reality. They are biased, as incapable as any of us in holistically viewing reality, and stick to what they know, which is how to make money.
An effective synthesis of politics, social science, and economics is scarce as hen's teeth, and yet such a platform will eventuate, whether it is Steemit or not, because such a platform will outcompete rival mechanisms.
As an innovation consultant, I have seen how disparate proficiencies can develop syncretic evolution in technology, with nominal infrastructure, and the clear goal to so do. I have yet to see such collaboration arise on this platform, although various enterprises have sought to mitigate and compensate for the lack of such a holistic social synthesis as potentiated by social media and cryptocurrency based economic infrastructure.
Such a transformation won't be led by finance, celebrity, or academia, but by programmers, who are often enlisted to craft disparate fields into functional applications. Indeed, the extant platform is the result of such talents being brought to bear, albeit with limited practical experience in the political or media fields.
The imbalance of forces in Steemit reflects the expertise of the founders, who were technocrats.
While expertise in social science is clearly what is necessary to rejigger the platform into greater functionality, the sad truth is that politics is the domain of psychopaths, and power to effect a society of just and free people as welcome as a fart in an elevator among those with the most expertise.
Political skill is not lacking, it's just being effected for the purposes of aggrandizing those in possession of it, rather than altruistically.
I have no expectations this is going to change any time soon.
Right on!
Are you suggesting all users must be "performers/actors/writers" ?
My view is for each "actor" you need 100 or 1000 "viewers/spectators"
or what is the point in putting on a 'show' ?
Im not suggesting that at all - im just saying that there will be alternative systems which solve problems of unequal distribution of voting power in the future systems.
In the example I give, maybe a casual viewer would get a vote worth 1%, while someone who has contributed 100 posts would get a vote worth 10%.
Ok I see your point.
I was thinking that 80% of "reward pool" should be shared by the "audience"
the "actor" gets only 20%, but earns from volume.
and either voting bots are banned &/ or only 1 account / person.
At the moment is it the same as MSM where a few at the top own & control the flow of info & $$. Steem could be different, and give 'power' to the base / mass. But that means a look at the problems. (whales/bots / PC enforcers etc)
You've written another well thought out post @rhondak and provoked what may seem like a non-sequitur question (sorry, little things can catch my attention and lead me down a different path).
When does anyone expect Steemit to be ready for "prime time" and move out of Beta?
I came here in May and have been hearing "Steemit is only in Beta" since day one.
I think it might help a lot if there was some kind of statement as to where it's all headed. It's not difficult to come to the conclusion that Steemit has been relegated to the back burner.
I'll continue to post and comment but my expectations were pretty high when I first arrived.
Not so much now.
Yeah, and this is taking a toll on the platform, too. It is much easier to get discouraged than motivated, and that is never a good thing for any venture hoping to succeed.
Do you mean to say that at long last someone / anyone is actually noticing?
The Circle jerk is REAL
The PC correct enforcers are REAL
The Whales ONLY support whales is REAL
Minnows have 3 choices:
Setup 5 or 10 accounts to increase voting ability (100 votes/day will earn more than 10)
IMHO
You left out the "create bots" option.
Relatively speaking, Steemit still produces a lot better returns for content that Facechat or the others. It's the disappointment of realizing that you're not going to earn a living doing something creative that takes it's toll.
Especially after the early hype.
@rhondak mentioned "managing expectations".
Ok "bot creation" is an option & I have figured out some logic to create good ones. But not really a "beginner" thing?? (ie having to program to earn on steem doesn't seem beginner level IMHO)
Re the earnings, it seems the $$ are there......just over there, and out of reach.
It's the $ that make steem attractive, its the management that kills the concept IMHO
This rings a bell. I feel like I recently read something about it perhaps leaving beta soon... Or at least being less touted as such. However, I fail to remember where I read it, as usual.
I think i read that as well, but also cannot recall. Maybe on one of @steemitblog content @bex-dk ?
As a newbie here I found your post really interesting. I’m a content creator and spend a few hours a day researching and writing my posts hoping to educate people and i would certainly rather have more views and comments than just a quick upvote on a scroll down because they liked the first photo. I’m still learning how to use this platform and I hope that eventually I’ll have equal views to upvotes. Thank you for a great post insightful :)
Congratulations @rhondak, this post is the sixth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 785 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $3543.01. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
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If this is made with bad intention is not good for steem and all bussiness.Because I do not think thay cheese someone to vote in the bad way.
But like a new here I want to know where my money go .
How many user can potential acces my page with my reputation? (5k, 50k, or 100k from all steeamians user).
By example @tipu is a big steeamian with his projects and have very low acces to visibility or people do not about his work in tools for marchet promoters in steemit.com.
I lose a lot of my power vote to initiate new user, to explain them thinks about site about rule, about chalanges .Is not big deal in 3 days is back and I am happy with my steem comunity.
So is a big new comunity and system works fine till now.
Thanks!
This is the most detailed explanation of the Reward Pool debacle followed by the Cake Crumbs Theory My friend explained to me and i made a post of it, the Investors owns the cake and eat it, the crumbs are what minnows like me get in rewards.
Feel free to check my latest blog as i have now gained more detailed info about this Strange place.
wow so nice
Hi @rhondak, I read the post by @writersblock regarding the recent flagging incident and he pointed me to your post which summed up the situation. It feels like we are in need of some Steemit Neutrality where users have some basic rights! I am not saying that there is a solution, but I do hope and advocate for some form of arbitration while a long term viable solution is available. What is your opinion on this?
https://steemit.com/dispute-resolution/@plushzilla/resolving-conflicts-the-steemian-way-a-proposal-for-arbitration-on-steemit
I read your post, and since the Writers' Block has recently successfully implemented arbitration, naturally I'm a fan of the process. I'm not sure the idea would translate well to the Steemit ecology, though, with its decentralized structure. I'm not qualified to talk about this in any detail, but I think it's a valid question to ask the community, as long as we manage our expectations about the answers.
I suspect arbitration, as well as other modalities, can improve success for those that are able to adapt to it.
A feature of political entities is that power tends to accrue to avarice, regardless of the economy underlying society, and, while Steemit undeniably was envisioned as a thrust towards a society that transcended political machinations, I am hesitant to ascribe to it potential to do so.
Society(s) will attain to ever increasingly functional mechanisms, and Steemit is a potentially transcendent platform, but the extant obscurity of rational society is a seemingly insurmountable impediment to it's nominal evolution.
How can we go from here to attain to some sublime and ineffable society that reflects the real needs and abilities of the people of the world in just and benign policies?
If Steemit can do this, the platform will need to remain in beta while the various forces are balanced, and the opacity of both the journey, and the goal, will ensure that isn't brief.
I doubt TPTB at Stinc are prepared for that transformation, even if it's their purpose. I reckon they have more practical, finite goals that reflect their personal economic realities.
Would you be able to point me in the right direction or person to talk about this? I understand that teams or groups within steemit might have their own processes, but I wonder what happens on steemit at a level that involves different groups, or between investors and creators, or whales and minnow, etc... I think the lack of consensus on a range of issues requires some 'prior cases' that can be used to set general expectations around what the 'expected' behaviour should be, given the wide range of cultures and audiences that we need to cater for.
This is where this view confuses me... Was making the post not pulling the plow? Wait, no, the post the horse, right? So what is the post creator? Yea, I'm definitely confused ^_^;
Either way, all I know is that every youtuber I watch mentions the "adpocalypse" at one point or another. Steemit could be the perfect new place for them and all their millions of followers. But if Steemit isn't ready for them when they come looking for better options, they'll move on. And possibly never look back.
Exactly. Never underestimate the power of Word of Mouth.
This post was indeed helpful for learning more about this platform, I have heard some things about flagging and what not on steemchat, and was still wondering where the money on steemit even comes from, and was pretty confused. I still am sorta confused, but thanks to great posts like this the platform is slowly starting to make more sense!
I find myself in agreement with your view, quality content and user-engagement are both important aspects. To make a sustainable platform you cannot have only one or the other. To use your same analogy, everyone now appear to be ruffled because we are still in beta and there are issues in the reward distribution system. In my view reward distribution has to take into account also user engagement. If we use only votes as a criteria to establish the worth of post then we are going to factor in many things that will distort our estimate. Votes and their weight are not directly related to the quality of a post or to user engagement. Votes mainly equate to how many emotional connections an author managed to establish with other popular authors on steemit or to how much bots love him/her. Instead, pricing in comments and views of a post will definitely give a more accurate estimate. For example as a proof that a user really read the post they could ask them to solve a captcha puzzle at the end of the post in order to factor in his visit in the reward of the post. Having some kind of proof of engagement would be great and would make the system a little more balanced.
My problem with this reasoning is that authors on Steemit get paid in the short term, BUT Steemit as a platform benefits in the long term. Those 11 views are not the final number. If it's for something like a guide, review or something people are searching for the long term value could become quite beneficial.
Great article, but as a new steemit member and content creator it is so hard to get more viewers . I can't judge my own work, but I see some random picture that is not well taken get like 400 views :/
good info
i see so many post coming up about the flagging ! i seem to see them all, accept the ones where people disagree or have fights about.
I do flag but never about the content, more in reply that not even say nice post, but just vote for me or i vote you, you vote me. Without a nice word to where you worked on. I will also go to their profile and look if they wrote something, but most of the times that is just a repeat on vote for me. When we could get rid of that part that would be nice. I came to steemit to write and socialize, did you have not enough with fb you could ask, No , you be polite d nt try to hurt, you know or are supposed to know them people. Say one thing wrong and you have done wrong to the whole group of friends of family because they all take sides. The word cryptocurrencie came up later, it always tickled me, money witch is no money and mining ? still all a riddle. But it got my interest, to be able to make a crumble while doing what you like ? why not? When i make plenty and my believe and mostly understanding is gone up, i do want to invest in what ever that has been good to me. In what group do i and many others like me fall in than? As a content creator (good or bad) who wants to become investor? I mean on this moment all the steem and sbd that comes in get directly transported to my steempower, because i want my vote to be worth something. And i want to be read. Or do i see investor wrong? I really am new in the cryptoforest but i must say i like this steem tree and want to be and have a branch of it. Am i thinking or doing wrong for steemit?
Sounds like you are on the right track, for you. As you gather SP (Steem Power) you are becoming an investor, as well as a creator.
thanks than i understood that well. :-)
great post very good guide for newbies in steemit thanks for sharing
Wow! Great post, very well explained about whales and steemit rules. I am new here (on steemit) and I consider you as my teacher who taughts various new things about steemit, without your article I can't understand steemit. You show a new direction and way to me of progress. You are like a guardian angel who helps me to walk and find the destination. So thank you so much for sharing this post.💙
Bloggings like this makes social media a better place. Even the reply comments are tremendously insightful.
"Instead, let’s find a better system, manage user expectations, and reserve flags for the most egregious offenses a user can commit"
For me, this statement says it all. Very well written article, in my amoeba opinion. :) Thanks, @rhondak!
Thank you, Trish! :-)
Great Article "capricious " vs Malicious" vs"psychotic" vs " political" vs "just business" I've been here 4 months and had the lot thrown at me . so badly that I have a witness have to fix my account for me ... The facts are Steemit is progressing and changing and new blood is coming in and the "whales" are as you say eating all the hay(great obeservation btw) In a decade I will be a tadpole.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...Oh, sorry. Channeling Dory there.
Hi Rhonda Not sure what that is about Dory and swimming ect ? I'm a bitava philistine eeeek
Thanks for this, Well explained
Nice😀😊
Thank you ☺☺
I like you thank you☺☺
If you look, I first made a polite comment explaining this behavior was not appropriate here and explaining the kind of comment to make. The poster made 2 more comment spams on this post after that explanation--and several more on other posts--BEFORE any were flagged.
Nothing to forgive. I'm sure the timing isn't easy to see without looking at the blockchain anyway. Just clarifying that support was offered prior to flagging. Apparently person doesn't care.
I think you will be gratified shortly, as the process is ongoing presently.
This is why Steem is where it is now, and also why I have remained unaffected by the value of the tokens.
I came here for a transformative platform, and generally endeavor to invest my capital in that process. From my perspective, the time is ripe for transcendence of normative society, and progression towards policies effecting ubiquity of economic contentment, extraterrestrial development, and the elimination of violent conflict.
While I acknowledge my idealism, I remain a practical man, and ain't holding my breath for Steemit to birth that world without either severe birth pangs, or a vast multitude of midwives.
Steem's plunge from $4 was but one contraction, and the birth of such a platform will be likely to endure many.
Hah! Exactly. LOL
DM it to me on Discord. :-)