5 Tips to Quickly & Easily Identify Trash for Cash in the Steem-iverse!
Learning to recognize the bullshit fast is probably one of the most important skills a new Steemian could have. Hell, it is an incredibly useful set of skills to have in the real world too, however, today I am strictly talking Steem-iverse. Where ever there is opportunity there will always be those looking for a way to manipulate that opportunity to their own advantage and most often without regard to the system or others damaged by their poaching ways. Sadly, Steemit is no different. Or is it? At Steemit’s core is a philosophy and framework designed specifically to snuff out “trash for cash”. If that is the case, you may be asking yourself “Well… why do I still keep seeing all these bullshit posts everywhere?”. The answer comes in the form of a one word answer and that answer is… “You”! You are the secret to Steemit’s success and literally the guardian at the gate. Let me explain.
Steemit is built with the inherent philosophy “Quality is King”. Web professionals, marketing specialists, and SEO experts are all extremely familiar with this concept. The rest of you very well may have only the vaguest idea of what I am referring to. This section is for you! If you are already up to speed in this department, you may wish to skip ahead to the following section and get right to the tips. Otherwise, here we go!
When discussing or debating “quality” of content, I feel it is important to establish the criteria by which quality is defined. For all intents and purposes, the definition of quality will be empirically relative to meeting a set of standards and NOT an opinion of the content’s worth. These empirical standards are defined in the original Steemit whitepapers and various soft fork and hard fork publications put out by the official Steemit team. If you are not familiar with those documents already, I highly recommend taking the time to become more familiar with the fundamentals of how this incredible social community works. Steemit is truly a different kind of beast from the inside out and if you intend to leverage Steemit to the fullest you should at least know how it works (check the bottom of the post for various reference links). The super shortened version goes something like this… Original content welcome, keep it legal, create value (be creative), make that cheddar baby(!), you are all governing yourselves, aaaaand “GO”!
Plagiarism is the exact opposite of original content. Stealing people’s work and claiming it as one’s own is public enemy number one. You may have noticed the trending topic over the weekend. Aside from being annoying it also breaks the second concept “keep it legal” as Plagiarism is absolutely, NOT a legal activity. I could keep explaining how bad plagiarism is but I’m sure you all get that already as we all work too damn hard to have someone else living off our talents.
Public enemy number two has got to be the trash-for-cash community. The trash-for-cash community regurgitates other people’s works. Giving the originators of the content credit but providing no real content of their own to again capitalize off someone else’s work with little to no effort of their own. These individuals are just as bad as the plagiarists and can be just as difficult at times to identify.
This leaves our third public enemy to steer clear of, the ponzi-spammers. This last group of undesirables is just as detestable as the previous two groups if not even more. The ponzi-spammers are like the leeches of the Steem-iverse, only taking away from the community what they can steal without contributing to the community in anyway at all. Even the plagiarists and the trash-for-cash community provide some visibility of content by sharing - all be it unoriginal and under false pretense. The ponzi-spammers are beyond lazy and unwilling or unintelligent enough to create their own content. Instead, their m.o. is the rape of the system. Pure exploitation. Trying to figure ways of using the system against itself and exploiting vulnerabilities for the express purpose of personal wealth with zero respect or regard for the exploited system.
Not all these baddies are evil geniuses. There are plenty of morons in the mix that will be easy to spot as well. Either way they are a complete waste of time and will leave you spinning your wheels for nothing. The plagiarists get flagged down eventually right along with any upvotes wasted on lies. Same with the TFC community. The ponzi-spammers only take. We are the guardians at the gate! It is our job to get these assholes out of here and back on facebook or wherever they came from.
Tip 1: Check out the Author Stats – Reputation VS Interaction
Clicking on the author’s name will bring up their blog page. Look for the number representing their reputation represented inside a circle in the header section at the top of the page. Comparing this number with a few of the other numbers will give us a great way to deduce a few things about the author in question. For example, an author with a relatively high reputation (perhaps 50 or higher) would most likely have a proportionately high number of followers and posts. In under a second we can easily identify an imbalance clueing us into a need for closer inspection almost instantly. Should the reputation be closer to a noob account (like 30 and under) but still reflect tons of follows/followers and posts, that is a strong sign something is off with the account. Either the content is low quality for natural reasons (just poorly created, useless content to the majority of current Steemit users) or there is something nefarious going on. If you are a glass half full type of person you can dive into the author’s body of work and see for yourself. Otherwise, beat feet and move on.
Same for the reverse. Someone with a high reputation but literally no posts, comments, re-steems or follows but has 1,000s of followers is probably up to shenanigans. Beware!
Tip2: Post Volume, Not Post Value
This one is just as short and sweet as the title. Quality original content takes time to create. Creating more than 4 posts a day while maintaining a high standard of quality is no short order even for the super talented. After the 4th post every post following loses 20% of the potential earnings. By the 9th post per day, all profit is forfeited. Any author worth a damn won’t post more than 4 posts a day. If you see 5 or more daily posts, that is a clear sign someone is on the grind. Either out of ignorance as to how the system works and in the hopes of working their way into some wealth or intentionally trying to nickel and dime their way forward (again ignorant of the deterrents in place).
Don’t worry about the post values. There are a ton of factors involved in predicting the success of a post’s potential profitability. A low value is not necessarily a bad sign. Even comparing a user’s following to their average post price won’t give you an accurate prediction without clicking into a post and checking it out yourself. Consistent $20-$30 posts could just be a sign of a limited audience due to a niche topic or maybe they always post at the worst possible time? Instead look for parallel trending patterns. Meaning if the post payouts trend up at a rate similar/relative to the increase of followers. That is a strong sign of consistent interest retention and a testament to the quality of the followers that the author or artist might have.
Tip 3: ReSteems NOT Tail Coating
Sharing content other Steemians have created should only be done via ReSteeming! Anything else is stealing, credit given or not. Saying “This video was great!” and embedding a fellow Steemians youtube directly into their own posts, cuts out the original content creator. That’s gratuitous money that should be working a portion back to the original creator. It’s sleazy, lazy and not worth your time. If you see someone trying to ride someone else’s tailcoats. Show some integrity and take a second to see if you can hunt down the originator on Steemit and follow them directly. Cut out the middle and starve the spineless cowards pretending to pay tribute when in reality, they are hoping to profit from someone else’s hard work. Even if the originator of the content is not on Steemit, doesn’t give anyone the right to profit from it on Steemit without permission via express written consent and credit.
Tip 4: The Wallet, Duh!
Check the wallet! Blockchain transparency at its finest. You can see everyone’s wallets and payout histories. With this information, you can compare with the blog history and social interaction stats and get a great idea of what type of Steemian you are interacting with. Priceless! Have standards. Be picky! Remember this whole Steem-iverse is designed around the concept of quality. Watch for the signs, do your homework, and hedge your bets!
Tip 5: Resource Credits
And finally, the big one. Plagiarism. When someone has the stones to simply cut, copy and paste. If a content creator is being straight forward the resource credits will be posted either accompanying each instance where applicable or sometimes saved until the end to help preserve the presentation of the content. Take a second to see if proper credit is given. “Quality” content creators will never have a problem throwing in the extra couple lines somewhere within their posts.
Choose Wisely
Using these tips should help you better assess and align yourself with a strong supportive community to help your blog succeed fast. So, there you have it. 5 tips to quickly and easily get an idea of exactly who you are choosing to rub elbows with!
Resources
https://github.com/steemit/steem/releases
Thank you for your interest in my post! If you liked what you read you can follow me @i-am-wade. If you up-voted this post or resteem'd, again thank you! I look forward to reading your comments and if you have any success tips of your own that you'd like to contribute, by all means, join the conversation!
written by:
"Trash for Cash" Image Created by @j-vo
"Article Images Courtesy of Pixabay.com
Found a huge amount of value in this post!! It actually made me do a self check when I thought back to my previous posts. I try and source reference anything that I use and add my own personal take on whatever it may be. I want to give credit where credit is due but most of the content I want to create is sparked my other's content. Thank you for the post and I'll keep most of this in mind when posting in the future.
I appreciate you taking a second to check out my post. I'm glad you found some good in it. Anything I can do to help people speed up their success on Steemit, I'm game. Thanks again. Following and I'm looking forward to checking out your posts in the future.
Man this blogging platform is so deep. I have just been here one week but i keep learning new stuff everyday. Yes i did notice the kind of post your talking about, the cut and past kind of stuff that contribute to nothing. I'm still having a hard time figuring that out. I'll definitively use that wallet trick you suggested next time to gauge an author.
Thanks for checking out my post! The learning curve here is steep but it's worth it. Welcome to steemit! The whole transparency aspect is a real game changer. When things don't add up you know what's up! Thanks again.
I'm really glad I wasn't the only one starting to notice a trend of plagiarism and "Trash for Cash" Followed you! Please follow back?
Sure thing @seebasscan! I appreciate you taking a second to check out the post. You definitely weren't the only one to notice. Seemed like it's about all I saw towards the end of last week. Thought some tips for the community might help. Couldn't hurt, right? Thanks again and followed!
@i-am-wade - this is a great post. Extremely informative and I think will really help people not only identify quality posters (if that is what they are indeed looking for) but maybe it will help those who are just unaware of what they are doing to correct themselves with these mistakes in their future posts. Thank you for sharing your insight!
Thank you! I really hope it helps everyone build a stronger steemit community!
good informative post, upvoted an resteemed
Very well said i-am-wade. I am new and up to 100 followers but I have gotten that by replying and greeting. It took me about 200 replies to get there and that was over about 6 weeks. Your post encouraged me to work toward quality and content. I have noticed things you mentioned. When I can post better I will go for four a day but I have a learning curve and want it to be quality. Thanks
Quality is the way to go. It pays off in the long run and the short run really, lol. I'm working my way towards 100 followers still. This post might do it for me. I really hope this content helps people navigate the waters regardless. The stronger we build up our fellow content creators the better off we'll all be. Quality is king! I appreciate you taking a minute to check out my post. Followed, up-voted and I look forward to seeing your future posts! Thanks again.
Congratulations @i-am-wade! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP
By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!
I liked what you have written, and I really agree, I have only been here about 15 days, and I have seen a lot of plagarism, people simply using the content others created and posting it more or less as their own... I am an artist and also create adult coloring books and stealing of drawings is rampant, even people and groups publishing entire books made of art they stole from other artists , the real problem is that it is so difficult to do anything about in the vast universe of the internet ... lets hope that at some point there will be a solution to this issue !
Hopefully I can help people become a little more aware of some of the less obvious practices and we can really make Steemit the home for creators it was meant to be. Thank you for taking a minute to check out my little article.
Yes, I hope so too, it was well written and should give some red cheeks ... that is if they bother to read lol and you are welcome ... Awareness is key
Excellent post and I'm still a noob but my rep increased today. I was inadvertently sharing poop at first (gotta be patient with the noobs) but I'm learning and getting to know how all of this works better. I wrote a post the other day how I compare Steemit to back in the day Klout as there are so many parallels. Lots of people gamed their Klout scores just like you see people gaming stuff here too. Quality and consistency will get you to the top.
I appreciate you checking out my post and you're absolutely right! Patience is key and helping everyone get welcomed in is really important. When we're talking about a whole new paradigm for everyone to get used to there's a huge learning curve as well! This is still my second week so you've even got me beat. Following and looking forward to seeing some of your posts. Thanks again!
Glad to connect with you @i-am-wade and with the proper support we will rock this :) Have a great evening or day, depending on where you are!
great post, upvote and resteem.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Following too :)
meep