Etiquette guide to help SteemIt succeed
This article will cover some simple guidelines to follow if you want to improve this platform drastically. Many users might not realize how detrimental certain behavior is to SteemIt. After reading this article you will hopefully realize the potential consequences of your behavior. If we all start to follow these guidelines, the experience on SteemIt will be better for everyone (including yourself)!
Curators:
There is no autonomous system implemented into the blockchain to prevent unfair behavior. Until that system is implemented the only way to make this platform more fair is by making it more fair yourself! Below are the guidelines to follow as a curator:
1. Don't follow too many people
Try to follow less than 200 people. The more people you follow, the more you are effecting the platform negatively. The details are explained in my article why following too many people will only hurt them (and you). Below are some guidelines to follow:
Make your follow rules more strict
If you are following more than 200 people, you are probably following a lot of people of which you never see the content and/or never even interact with!
Stop trading followers
Do not ever trade follows unless you really really like their content. You might think it will help you get started, but it truly doesn't. SteemIt isn't Facebook! Followers are useless unless they love your content. There are many people on SteemIt with 1000's of followers that aren't making much money.
Do not follow users without content
In most cases you should only follow someone that is actively releasing quality content. There are of course exceptions (for example really good curator accounts that resteem only top quality).
Never follow someone only because they have a lot of STEEM POWER
Again, only follow top quality content creators. Popularity or STEEM POWER is irrelevant!
2. Flagging
Don't be afraid to use flagging! Currently it's a very underused feature on SteemIt. If you truly want to improve the platform, flagging might be the way to go! You will not get curation rewards anymore, but you are improving the overall experience of SteemIt, which is worth much more. The better the experience on SteemIt, the higher chance that SteemIt is going to take over Facebook some day.
You might not realize that flagging is much more effective than upvoting when it comes to reallocating rewards. Think about it this way: flagging someone takes away rewards from 1 person and puts it back into the reward pool so everyone can use the voting power you spent again, while voting on someone takes away a tiny bit of rewards from everyone. So by flagging someone you reduce the rewards of that one post and essentially divide it among everyone. By flagging high earning posts you are your own Robin Hood.
There is an unwritten rule that you should comment with the reason of your flagging though. It's not required but highly recommended.
3. Self-voting
If you truly want to improve the experience on SteemIt, you need to stop self-voting altogether out of principle! You have to realize that when everyone stops self-voting altogether, all content creators will earn more, meaning more content creators are happy. The more content creators are happy, the more this platform will grow. In the end you will earn much more by exclusively voting on others, because of the significant rise in the value of STEEM as a result of the increase in the overall value of the platform!
Authors:
As an author you have the responsibility to make this platform great by releasing quality content. Below are the guidelines to follow as a curator:
1. Increase your standards
You have to understand that each time you release content that is below average, you are essentially reducing the user experience of the platform. There is so much content out there. Every time someone releases below average content, average or above average content becomes harder to find!
2. Stop focusing on the money
The very best way to get more rewards is to make better content! Only publish content because you like creating it, then you are already getting satisfaction by making it. Positive feedback and money are just a bonus then!
3. Stop begging
Asking someone else (especially whales) to read or upvote your content without ever having interacted with that person will not accomplish anything. In fact, it usually accomplishes the opposite. If you are interacting with someone and your content is relevant to the conversation, then by all means be a little aggressive and show them your content. In short, try to have some interactions first.
Don't forget to follow, resteem and browse my channel for more information!
I really hate begging, coments like "nice work! btw follow me" even if they didnt read the article...trash
Yep it's a big problem on SteemIt right now.
Thanks little dude :p
@calamus I recently wrote a similar article about this issue, but now I found yours and it is much better! I like how you broke it down in points and gave suggestions on how to be a better Steemian. Hopefully some newbies will take note and follow suit!
Resteemed since it is a very important message that can help shape the future of our community for the better.
Thank you... Proper steemit etiquette is critical.
that's a great article thanks for all the tips I'm sure that thanks to you many people will stop doing this mistakes thanks for sharing it and keep on posting ;)
Can you explain in more detail the taboo against self-upvoting? It seems like a problem that will correct itself soon enough. When new users upvote their content it has almost no effect. When whales upvote themselves they pay themselves a reward that they can decline if they want to. If they abuse their position it will reflect negatively on their reputation.
It's not really a taboo, it's more a controversial subject. I've explained it in more detail in my previous articles. You might find the info you need there.
Thank u for shearing this post
very Nice. Using the site as intended will only make it better as you pointed out.
Yes it is true
I love to follow people. I love freedom. I love quality. I love people. I love to beg. I love to do what I want to do. I do not like it when people tell me not to beg. I have some freedoms. People should probably follow who they really want to follow. How many people should people follow? Less than 200? Maybe. I am following over a thousand. Is that bad? It depends. I think it is a process that you cannot put an exact number on. I believe a lot of the things you wrote above is possibly and potentially or hypothetically too subjective and relative instead of objectivity from God. I do like the idea of being careful. People should focus more on content. People probably should spam less, perhaps, but the word "SPAM" is a word that is very relative and it is as general and undefinable as like fake news and CNN and many things. Good post. Good work. We are making Steemit great and greater than ever before.
Freedom is good, but then you obviously can't expect everyone to act fairly or even rationally :)
There is a perfect balance between freedom and efficiency, SteemIt hasn't found it yet in my opinion.
Agreed. But can people really find balance? I guess we can try our best. I love capitalism. I love rewarding people with more if they do stuff we like. It is a perfect trade. The best we can do is do our best to give more money to people we like. I do not want to steal money from people. I just want to focus on the people I like more and give them more money. I do not want to take too much or any money from people I do not like.
A lot of people are greedy though, including me.
I also feel that it is rigid to say to not follow more people than #insert a figure#. If I'm interested in multiple topics and there are quite a few people publishing relevant quality content, then why shouldn't I follow 500 people. If I'm OK with not always spotting the most useful posts, but like to be fed with more or less randomly-picked posts that I then decide to focus on - and this is what would happen if each of the 500 people published one article per day and my attention span probably sufficing to scan through 100 posts a day - then why not.
The problem is following people without a solid reason except for the hope that they follow you back to return the "favor". This is indeed something to advice against.
I understand wanting to follow more people and we also both agree on the consequences :)