Please Please Y'all .. Stop Fighting in the WarRoom
Gentlemen and Ladies, we implore thee ..
In our brave new world, the success of one individual, or that of any group, should not limit the potential success of another individual or group, if it did one would have to say that there are limitations in the system's design that need to tweaked. High levels of voluntary participation, in pretty much anything, is something to be celebrated, not feared, punished, nor should the degree of participation be limited to any extent, otherwise the overall system, as Freedom Facilitator, falls down.
We must remain united in order to topple centralized media .. serious dissension is our Achilles Heel
Well, this is not entirely true .. but it sounds good. STEEM is designed to fuel many kinds of projects, that do not necessarily need to share the same "space" - busy.org for example and now steemsports.com - all that is required is access to the blockchain. However, in these early days, we should be seen by potential members and the competition as marching in lockstep .. a revolutionary group, that can not be divided ... can not be divided & conquered!
The fact that Steemsports is getting the attention it is, the level of participation that it does, is because it maximizes all the positive elements of this new world. It brings people together around a subject which they already gather around in all other "traditional" forms of media, in very very large numbers. As in those other venues, they are able to 'voice their opinion' on the outcomes of events, and because they are doing so on STEEMIT they happily receive a return that has monetary value. The same would be true if the subject was any other 'thing' in this world which statistical analysis could be applied to .. the thing is, not a whole hell of a lot of people are interested in crop yields in Sumatra, but for some crazy reason they LOOOOVvvve baseball.
"Sports Betting" and gambling in general, is the subject of a lot of moralistic grandstanding by non-participants .. with good reason of course, because there is real addiction, real losses, real familial disasters that result .. suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, the degradation of urban areas that surround casinos .. this shit is allllll true! But, what the hell does that have to do with STEEMSports!? People are not going to get a reverse mortgage to buy STEEM in order bet on the Pittsburgh f'n Penguins! Steemsports is 'communication about events', and the the evaluation of individual determinations of outcomes ... it is 'not' gambling, because nothing is put at risk. Things may have changed with the creation of pay-per-play, but I think this will be limited .. which is the rational thing to do.
People, we need to relax and determine what the 'real' issues are here, or we risk sounding like we are bellyaching for no good reason - sure, I'm jealous of their success, but I have not worked hard enough 'yet' to feel so justifiably. It is a great idea and it is implemented well, the posts that the STEEMSports crew provide are information rich .. if you are in to that kind of thing .. and the whole project serves as a model for any other individual or group that wishes to put together a series of posts that have the potential to draw any amount of attention. If you are not able or willing to produce posts that attract large numbers of people then there should be no expectation of return - even if what you are doing is 'very' worthwhile .. purely artistic, incomprehensible rageful opinion, or whatever you wish to share. These chaps just happened to choose one of the most popular cultural phenomenons ... sports!
Disclaimer: Personally, I do not consume porn .. I think it is dangerous to one's mental health and intimate relationships .. although if you have neither, it can be quite the opposite! :) Regarding sports .. I personally have no love for team sports, and regard 1-on-1 combat as the only 'real' sport that ever existed.
This also applies to pornography by the way .. we want to bring in as many participants as possible, from all walks of life - this we can all agree upon is our collective objective. When you say 'all walks of life' this includes high-flying intellectuals and more basically-oriented folks, as well as the absolute misfits, fiends, delinquents, and str8 crazy mfers. Yes .. yes it does include them, or we again lose our claim as a freedom-maximizer .. we begin to behave like a club, or worse even, a collection of warring cliques ... THIS WILL BE OUR DOOM!
Self-Policing & Transparency
Self-policing is sometimes a good thing however .. if @steemsports pay-to-play limited the size of bets that could be placed, so no one could get themselves in trouble, and if the 18+ content crowd limited their 'contributions', so as to not include that which has no value .. stuff meant only to shock and disgust, then we would have no reason to call anyone out. Discussions of whether or not something has any 'value' are always interesting, so if the poster really is no sure if it does or not, they can solicit feedback and a conversation can start ... which is what we are here for afterall, is it not?
Taking an open-source approach to projects is always a good thing .. fully informing the community about what you are doing, exactly and why, and what you hope to do in the future. This is in the spirit of the thing, is it not ... no one should use an open-platform to create an insular entity designed to benefit a few at the expense of the many, which in the long-run spells doom for the entire system .. which also dooms the kingdom they wish to build atop of it.
Geometric Consciousness Expansion
When you have a massive number of people engaging in the proper way, reaching conclusions, then re-reaching slightly different conclusions about slightly different perspectives, again and again, over and over what you have is a large number of people accelerating their awareness and understanding, and gaining an increased ability to participate in such discussions, debates, all learning .. .together. Beyond monetary return, this instrument of progress, is the true value of this system .. but incentives are an absolutely necessary element, in order for people to check their behavior .. yes, there is absolute freedom .. you are free to make yourself appeal to a large audience, and you are equally free to make yourself look like a ginormous twat, who should be entirely ignored.
Posted 10 hours ago, this is the 3rd comment on a post that is on trending page.
We are bringing to light issues that need discussing if they are to be resolved.
though i give you credit for meaning well, your position is misguided.
Discussion of value is absolutely appropriate, even if unsolicited. The assumption that such discussion stems from jelousy is unfounded.
Certainly envy is the motivation of some, but of course not all.
Discussions of value, even very heated debate, should always be welcome - that is what many are here for - but when this escalates into divisive side-taking and down vote warfare, then it is far more harmful than it could ever be helpful.
STEEM / STEEMIT is something greater than the sum of its parts .. the fastest way to destroy this is to divide and attempt to control. If gangs form the evolution of the whole, I fear, grinds to a halt.
I am totally for success! There is nothing wrong with the community coming forward saying... We are concerned about this issue. It is just called communication. There is no divide. I am coming here no matter what.
However, I get to have a voice in the reward pool, and the community. I will use it. :)
At the time of my comment, this post has 137 votes, $22.72 reward pool, 18 views and no other comments.
Yet, it is a great post. Think about those stats and our community. We are upset that people are discussing a relevent topic?
I totally feel you bro and thank you very much for the reply! When you feel the true spirit of the thing, as you certainly do, we don't see enemies ... anywhere ... just glorious diversity!
It's all love baby!
Thank you for this post @kurtbeil unity is very important for the future growth of Steem, we hope 2017 will be a new year of amazing things to come for the platform. You deserve this post on trending for your heartfelt efforts to broker peace. Namaste! Upvoted, followed and now auto-curating your content.
Wishing you a happy and wonderful 2017.
@steemsports team
Namaste!
When we have an additional 1/2 million users powering up STEEM and joining the frenzy, the amount of activity and the myriad projects that we see sprout up, will render these early concerns moot. Yours is the first of what we hope will be many MASSIVE successes - when people did the math the FOMO made them pee themselves a little - this was to be expected.
If something about the overall economy needs to be adjusted for us to be better able to support many such successes in the future, I am certain @dantheman already has it up on his drawing board.
Thank you, and all the best to the team .. keep it going on!
Thanks for the kind words, Kurt! :)
Auto Curation is excellent for SteemIt. Nice job! At the time of this post there are 6 comments!
Interesting post, On the other hand though, I would say that conflict, heated debate and controversial topics are all things that create engagement, attract users and ultimately help the growth of Steem. I totally agree that we need to welcome all, however I disagree on the gambling/porn aspect. It's not that I'm not OK with it per se, just that I think it needs it's own browser, separate from the main Steemit site. This is because these 2 particular things can bring various problems along with them. I'd have a Steemporn and a Steembets site to keep things separate myself.
BTW, "Ginormous" is not a real word - the correct terminology is "Humongous".....lol
lol .. I know, I used "ginormous" to reflect the lack of maturity that sometimes occurs in such conflicts :)
cheers
I enjoyed your point of view - it is well written and genuine. You mentioned a "whale" account that everyone is jealous of (SteemSports). I think people forget that there was a 2 year power down a couple of weeks ago - there was no way to distribute that SP - and to be fair - split between a few people (or not) - we are not talking a lot of money (in real world terms). Its an "unrealized" gain - they might never get the money out.. They worked for that SP. A lot of the larger accounts are witnesses or former miners - which seems to sit better with some people than good old fashioned ingenuity.
Cream always rises to the top and so does shit. An extra 5-10% of the reward pool to spread around would not "save Steemit". Each whale would continue their 20 votes - it would simply make their vote worth a little bit more. Tell ned to buy advertising instead of flying to stupid conferences if you want this platform to work.
We will see in time how effective the tail is at wagging the dog.
Hello - thanks for the feedback!
I have not investigated the activity of the individual members who support / work the project, but if they are not cashing out every dime they have made that is a very good thing indeed - it shows they are here for the long-run and that is all we can ask anyone to do .. remain invested in our common future.
There are many minnows who are not gaining anything from curation, and are not getting any traction for their posts - perhaps due to language barriers or the quality is just not there yet .. but they remain active and excited to be here because @steemsports provides - they see constant growth in their SP holdings and happily remain active as a result. The challenge to anyone who does not agree with what they are doing is to create something that achieves this for the minnows, without creating whatever issues they are worried about.
I entirely agree .. if there was more time spent bringing in new users, especially those who will purchase and powerup substantial amounts of STEEM, then such concerns would quickly evaporate I think.