Is It Ok To Make a Crappy Post Once In a While?
Greetings Steemians,
I would like to share some of my opinions about post creation on the Steem blockchain. Specifically, whether it's ok or not to make a crappy post once in a while.
TeroVesalainen, Pixabay
Disclaimer:
I'm not exactly a shining example of success in the eyes of some, so please take my views and opinions with a grain of salt!
So is it ok to make a not so great post once in a while?
My opinion is yes it is.
The major question I have to ask myself here is:
"What is best, perfection or consistency?"
Now in terms of perfection, I think this is rather subjective, because what is perfection anyway? Humans aren't perfect, and personally I don't strive to be perfect. I just do my best in this life day to day.
We all have good days and bad days, and some days the neurons fire better than others.
Sometimes I'll have a great idea for a post, and after it's finished I realized I could have done a better job. That is reality, and there are plenty of other things to take into account and measure in terms of your time.
If you're a successful author who might make a million dollars for a book, it would probably behoove you to take upwards of a year or more to produce the very best you can produce. If you are going to make 5 dollars, should you take a year? My personal opinion is not at all..
Consistency vs Quality.
This is something else that is important to measure on a personal level in my opinion.
If you can produce 1 ultra high quality post a week, should you create 6 days of sub par material simply for the sake of maintaining consistency?
My opinion is it's really not a big deal if you do, and I really think consistency is important here, but as I said, this is something one will have to measure for his or herself. (and some do choose to only post once a week or even less, which is their right, I'm not judging!)
If you have friends on the blockchain, they might appreciate your content and consider it to be good quality even if you don't! Quality is subjective after all! There is some truth in that, I do believe. Having been a curator for a while now, and seeing the arguments people get into sometimes over whether or not something is quality, it's definitely safe to say "quality is in the eye of the beholder."
Crappy post vs Shit post
Now this is where I would draw the line a bit. There is a major difference between creating a "sub par" quality post vs a straight up shit post. The common mind here, is a shit posters intention is to simply rape the reward pool for monetary gain alone. I happen to agree with this perspective.
So, my opinion is it's not ok to make low effort shit posts on the Steem blockchain!
That being said, if a person chooses to shit post, it's everyone's right to use downvotes for disagreement of rewards. This is another topic entirely though, which I won't address in this post. There are many gray areas about downvoting, and to me it's rather negative. It serves an important purpose here, but for the time being I stay away from the downvoting entirely, simply due to how downvoting makes me feel, as well as some extreme variance of opinions regarding downvoting.
Wrapping it up
At this point you might be wondering:
"Is futuremind making a crappy post right now?"
Well yeah I guess I kind of am!
You see, I want to remain consistent here, and this morning is one of those mornings where I have other things on my mind and really am just not in the mode to delve deeply into any particular topics. So I was thinking, "is it ok to make a crappy post for the sake of consistency once in a while?"
Yeah, I really think it is, that is my opinion completely and it's really fine with me if you disagree. We want mass adoption on this blockchain, and not everyone is going to create what everyone considers "high quality" anyway. That is something to keep in mind.
At the end of the day, I am happy to see posts from my friends on here, and I really don't judge the quality of their posts. I'm just happy to see them doing well and creating content to share with the world.
I hope you're all having a wonderful day!
Thank you for reading.
Much love,
@futuremind
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I don't think that is a crappy post at all! Thanks for discussing it. I am very frustrated with seeing posts that may have taken at most an hour that earn $50, but posts that take me the better part of a day make .50. I've seen very few posts that I would consider "shit", even really clumsy ones from early users who are learning are not producing shit.
This platform must have room for the beginners to learn the craft of producing a quality post - so much goes into it!
Thank you for the kind words @owasco 🙂
Yes, I also see many beginners trying their best, and despite the newsteem curation efforts, it's still not reaching everyone. There are definitely some components to the curation system that could be improved in my opinion, but I'm hard pressed to think things will get a whole lot better anytime soon. With Steem much of it has to do with who you know, how much time you have to spare, and a whole host of other variables. Luck plays a part sometimes too lol.
I wish VP was unlimited so I could help small users more. (of course we know that isn't possible with a limited share pool.)
I really appreciate you taking the time to comment and share your thoughts on this topic!
I'd like to see more discussion about how the upvote curve has affected the new users, smaller communities, and low paying posts. I used to upvote low payout posts and at least they'd get a penny from me. Now my 100% upvote is nearly worthless on small account posts, yet my VP is depleted just a s fast. Both are deterrents to upvoting low paying posts. So what's a newbie to do? They can pander to big accounts and hope one of them upvotes generously (which in my experience large accounts do not do, they want to make money too) donates to them or gives them a loan (delegation), same hopes someone without money has in real life. It pains me to see a great post earn .02.
Absolutely, you're on point.
There's a dust threshold which is a protection against people creating mass accounts with intention to vote farm. It's sad that this protection needs to exist, but that really tells you something about human nature doesn't it.
Unfortunately this dust threshold hurts the majority of small accounts. I'm not sure what the dust threshold is currently. I'm gonna have to try to find out, because I would hate to think comments I reward with 0.01 aren't getting paid out, but it's very possible they aren't.
The new 50/50 system seems great to some, but I have some mixed opinions about it actually. If you think about why this was actually done, it seems like an undeniable conclusion, to protect the wealth gap.. (What will happen with a bunch of consistent middle class content creators who also curate, weighed up against curating whales that don't create content in the old system?..) Share pool distribution and curation of course works on vesting shares, so smaller stakes growing takes away the power of the whales. This system of course makes that gap easier to maintain.
And as with rich vs poor, what the hell can we do about it? Not much...
The best thing I've seen out of newsteem with the free downvotes is bid bots turning to manual curation, but there are quite a few that I've yet to see a vote from, so... What gives? As I said, I think you are very much on point with your assertion to what is going on.
That is why I think consistency is key here, because it's hard enough to earn as it is, but if you're consistent then your likeliness of getting a decent vote every now and then is increased substantially. Not to mention consistency is the key to improvement with most things in life.
I am posting much less often and trying like mad to learn more about cameras, images, formatting, tagging, pimping posts, titles and all the stuff that does not really interest me (titles excepted) and very very rarely do one of the whales or curating accounts notice my excellent posts. It's getting very frustrating. I did manage a curie yesterday, my first in many months. therising, therealwolf, upmewhale, ocdb (even though I am on ocdb white list - they've upvoted me once in over a year on steem) etc ignore me completely, and I have no idea how to change that. Cozy up to some curators? My content is always excellent, there are no toss off posts from me, ever. I spend at least two hours a day curating, but my upvote is so small, and made even smaller by the curve, that a good day of curating renders me .5 steem, the equivalent of 5 US cent and hour. The small accounts got hit really hard.
The dust threshold is .02 as I understand it. I was upvoting comments before the fork to draw readers to my stuff - they sure don't make anything curating my stuff. With the curve, I will never be able to give an upvote to a comment that pays anyone anything, but I suppose will go into the pool to benefit big players, just like the remaider of my uvotes that's not given to the posts I upvote. Not sure that makes sense.
I understand your frustration. In my opinion, focusing on improving skills which interest you and give you a sense of fulfillment should always take precedence, and the fact that you're focusing your energy in this direction is wonderful. I've had my eye on your blog since you started on Steem, (as an eSteem curator scrolling through the tag.) and there is no question in my mind whatsoever that since you've started your blogging on Steem, your focus has been to improve any which way you can, and your blog has come a long way in this respect, no question about it!
There are some hard truths about how things work in this environment, and many of the large curating accounts are more apt to curate posts which they know will make more rewards. It shouldn't be that way, and is an exemplification of greed at its fullest, but that is just how it is here unfortunately. The ultimate question to the low earning accounts is "well how the heck can I start making more so that I will get recognized and/or curated by these large accounts?" There's no easy answer to that, but I think just continually working to improve is the best any of us can do.
I saw you received a Curie, congratulations, it was well deserved!
In terms of OCDB, they do their best, and I used to curate for them. (I stopped due to time management and having to cut back on my time spent on Steem. I was spending 8-12 hours a day curating at one point for 3 curation teams.) I don't think they intentionally are ignoring you. I know the team and they really are some good people who do their best for the ecosystem. I've gone periods of time not getting their vote, and at times got a little frustrated myself, but they genuinely do their best to curate fairly.
One thing I've noticed bloggers here doing, is timing their post drops to when certain large accounts are curating. It's not something I'm really willing to take the time to do myself, just because I don't want to mold my time around the "possibility" of a vote, but it's definitely an option.
Well, hopefully you'll get a payout on the 70% vote I gave your initial comment lol. It's probably not even practical to curate comments unless you have a stake of 10k Steem or better. I should probably just refrain from doing that but I like to give a "token" of appreciation for peoples time you know?..
Either way, I think you're doing a wonderful job. Please try not to let the system here get you down too much. You never know what could happen. One day some new large investor might come in, love your content and start upvoting every one of your posts 100%. It does happen..
I do believe consistency is a good thing here, but there is certainly nothing wrong with the mentality of "quality over quantity!"
Keep up the great work @owasco, and thank you so much for your time and thoughts!
Oh thank you for that supportive comment! I have to admit, a comment is far more valuable to me than a big upvote.
Now I remember our earlier contact via esteem. You exude positivity, even when you're doling out criticism. I'm so happy our paths have crossed.
🤗
I'm replying to this since I upvoted here. Dust threshold remain unchanged at 0.02STU. the only thing that took everything away and make a rock to shrink like a dust is the reward curve. There's a chart to work with, but I'm just too damn lazy to dig it up. Basically anything below 20steems total payout will result in drastic drop of actual payout. This comment for example, it was voted up to 0.063 by both @futuremind and @zyx066, but the actual reward came down to 0.032 after fitting into the reward curve. And imagine this, after a week when the post payout came the EIP take away 10% and split that 50% to the curator, is there still 0.02STU to be paid? So I had to top it up with 0.011 vote, just to be sure it doesn't go to waste. But again, the current reward supposedly to be 0.072 and we're only getting 0.042 😂
I'm not a technical guy, but it's obvious. At the current 0.20 feed price, if any post or comment doesn't go above $4, the reward curve is going to do bad. How do I come to this conclusion? Refer above mentioned, 20steems! $4 ÷ 0.2 = 20steems.
Posted using Partiko Android
You sound like you know what you're talking about so let me ask you this: what is an STU? To arrive at what I finally see in my wallet, I have to multiply my "reward" by the current ratio of SBD to USD, then divide that by the ratio of STEEM to USD. There's always a tiny bit lost in there somewhere, but as near as I can tell, that's how the mysterious STU is coverted to STEEM. I've searched the blue and white papers and find no mention of this currency. When I do dimensional analysis of all this, I can see an STU has been generated by the curve. One of these days I'll make a post about all this and pray I don't piss a whale off in the process.
I would LOVE to have that chart!
It is extremely rare for one of my posts to earn more than 4STU, so rewards trickle in for me.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE UPVOTE. When folks upvote my comments and not my posts, I get a bit irritated. Every little bit of dust helps on a post, but on a comment only the reward pool benefits and most of that goes to those who already have a lot of steem.
Oh look! It's down to 0.037. OMG😂 Seriously, I don't even bother to check on the reward curve anymore and I'm running out of idea how to counter it. But if you're interested, I will put up some link on the other comment where you just left me on my post.
As for the variation, I don't bother to count anymore since SBD unpegged with $1. I have every reason to believe the $ sign now refers to SBD, so the actual value you see here may be need to multiply by SBD value. For example if you get vote of $10 which literally means 7.156only. And taken away 10% EIP, that's 6.44 balance. 1/2 goes to curator, and whatever balance is 3.22 divide by steem feed price 0.2, left 16.1. 50% goes to SP, you'll have 8.05SP and 8.05Steem. Is that what you're getting?
No, I generally no idea what am I talking about, but having said that you and I are friends of @futuremind this kind of rare species, yes basically I'm staying back like for religion purpose, you are probably one of us, #hodl and #hoep for the best. Lemme give you a follow and hopefully that will help you a little bit on #esteem reward if you do not know #esteem reward their author base on their follow's SP count. The more follower you have, the bigger the SP pool from your follower generally determine how much #esteem will upvote you, if you're posting with #esteemapp. Have fun. Time to stop hijacking @futuremind's post 🤣
I love it when you hijack my posts :)
Thank you for the information @davidke20,
There is a bit to wrap the mind around here, but it certainly helps with putting things into perspective.
P.S. I think most people on Steem are a rare species 😄
Very nice post my friend, plus a very nice discussion to boot; I agree :-) Consistency is gold, and if the frequency is high, say a post a day, they can't all be masterpieces; I'm living proof of that ;-) When you post once a week or once a month, I think the quality-bar gets higher. Great discussion, one we have to remind ourselves of every now and then; thanks for keeping the fire burning my friend :-)
Thank you for the kind words my friend.
Indeed, quality improves with consistency. My beginner posts on the blockchain are cringe worthy, but I was a brand new blogger at the time, and taking a look back, I can confidently say I've improved in many ways!
Have a great day @zyx066 :)
Agree with you, consistency is important. Also, this is still some kind of social platform and not your job where you have to perform. The most important part is having fun, and if you do, quality will stay high anyway ;)
Great point @kaeserotor,
It should be about enjoyment first and foremost!
I appreciate your support and comment, thank you :)
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Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
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Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
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Hi @futuremind, I totally agree with you that making a post does not have to be always perfect because we as humans are certainly not perfect. So sometimes it can make a bad post due to the many problems in life. Have a nice day, sir.
Thank you for the kind words my friend.
Have a great day miss @elianaelisma!
I guess it is all right to make a crappy post once in a while - as long as it is not shit post. There are bound to be days when we are short of material, or when words don't flow, or when we are simply not in our most creative moods. Besides, what you think is a crappy post might not be so to another. 😊
Very wise words my friend. Thank you!
Indeed, it's especially important not to shitpost when you receive continual support from accounts that don't always see your content. Behaving in such a way would be taking advantage. Consistent support here is earned with hard work. Thank you always my friend Vince. :)
You are welcome Jake. I was just telling it as it is. 😊