Minnow Masses Unite! A Question for some of the bigger players...
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When we all first joined Steemit we quickly learn about whales and minnows. The whales are the large accounts that make a massive difference if they upvote you, and I must repeat, IF THEY UPVOTE YOU. Minnows are the young and smaller accounts that don't really make a big difference when upvoting but they are by far the most active on the platform. The trend that is emerging more and more are minnows standing together and making a difference, MINNOW MASSES UNITE! Let's have a closer look.
Minnow Masses making a difference
The sad thing is, whales hold all the power and they rarely manually curate new content or minnows, most of them will either invest their SP or selfvote for days. Face it some whale are only using the platform for their own personal gain, posting crap and upvoting themselves for thousands of dollars (500K+ SP accounts with tons of selfvotes, sadly we can do or say anything about it, we all know they can flag you pretty hard). I have nothing against that, they invested the time and money to become a whale and they do not need to share that with anyone. Wish they did though, they have so much power that their witness vote and upvotes could make or break a Steemit account/project.
There are of course some amazing whales that have the Steemit platform in mind and that takes their time manually curating or even delegating thousands of Steem Power to projects that take the quality of Steemit content seriously. I have a lot of respect for these members and their generosity.
I want to use @steem-ua as an example here. Since they are the project that made the biggest splash lately. They are not even a month old yet and already they gathered over 500 000 Steem Power from more than 920 individuals. What a feat for any project here on Steemit. Hats of to you guys! There were quite a few large delegations and that is what really makes the difference for the little guys to delegate as well. As a minnow and a content creator it is almost a no brainer to delegate to them.
Why all the delegations?
I believe there are two main reasons why they received so much delegation.
1 - The members who believe in their ranking system
2 - The members who delegate for the upvotes
1
I feel the larger members who delegated are happy to see a new system that easily trumps the current Steemit reputation system. With the current reputation system, you can buy your way into a high rep even if you are posting crap and barely interacting with people. Thus the new system shows promise and the older members immediately saw it and showed their support via delegation.
Steemit members who delegated 5000+ Steem Power
These are the accounts that really believe in something and that are not always just in it for the profit.
2
The rest of the delegations that make up the massive account comes mostly from minnows and smaller members who are new and don't have that much SP to delegate. I feel most of might not care so much for the UA ranking system but are more in it for the upvotes that the @steem-ua can support them with. Nothing against that and I also delegated my fair share from some of my accounts.
Why did I delegate?
The new rank system and the upvotes. I am a big fan of the ranking system even though I feel it is not totally perfect yet, most people who delegate can get upvotes and I think that might be a bit unfair when it comes to quality. With so many delegations and accounts being upvoted I am a little concerned about what is getting upvoted. Then again, to each his own when it comes to quality. For me though I believe in original content. Why get rewarded for something that is not yours?
Is this a new trend?
This is not a new trend at all and all over Steemit there are many accounts/projects that allow multiple members to delegate to them and then work towards a larger account supporting a community of members. Swimming in a school is always better than swimming alone!
Steem-ua has just been one of the newest ones that got a lot of traction from all over the platform and I must admire their efforts and marketing. You really did blow up like nothing I have seen before on Steemit. It was really fun to see that account grow to what it is today. I think it will continue to grow even more.
In the end, it just goes to show that Steemit is moving more to community projects and that we should take advantage of the opportunities presented to us. Delegating some Steem Power to a community in order to get their support is worth way more in the long run.
Opinions anyone?
I want to end this post by tagging the larger delegators, and I want to sincerely apologize since I do not normally tag for attention. I also don't like asking for delegation/upvotes/witness votes. This time, however, I would like an opinion if you have one.
The Qurator Project just turned 1 a few days ago. That means 365 days of curating and supporting all our members.
We are also a community project that relies on the community to grow and show support. Most of our liquid payouts go towards getting larger leases in order to support our community. Most of our delegations are from members and investors that we pay weekly.
Just like Steem-ua we can't just upvote the whole platform so we came up with a registration system of 4 Steem (we use the steem to get delegations).
After we receive the registration fee we do a full and proper review of the account. We take quality content very seriously and we reject quite a few members if they do not meet our standards (we do invite them to Discord to help them improve their blogging and they can apply again).
Once approved you can start getting daily upvotes. There are always ways to get some larger upvotes.
With Steem-ua the amount of SP you delegate will determine how many upvotes per week.
With Qurator we try to be as flexible as possible. You can get better upvotes/support by delegating, upvoting or sending a small amount of Steem.
We offer multiple competitions and prizes to help members promote their content and earn more. Always with original content in mind.
The point I am trying to make is that we are a project that focuses on our members and the original content they create. We have been around long enough now to show we take what we do seriously. Yet, getting support from larger members is still a struggle.
The question then is...
Why or why not would you support the Qurator Project?
Once again I am not looking for handouts, but I really want to focus on making the project better for the platform and all our members.
Thank you for your time and looking forward to hearing from you! =)
Some Qurator Stats and more info here
- Members: 1500+ accounts manually reviewed and accepted into the Qurator project
- 365 Daily Qurator Posts = 1825 posts featured
- 40 Photo Friday Competitions = 200 photography posts featured as well as 40 winners!
- 40 Tasty Tuesday Competitions = another 200 food related posts featured and 40 more winners!
- 13 Toss up Thursdays, free for all promotion = 26 winners!
- 12 Shining Qurites!
- 10 Shooting stars!
Add it all up and it is close to 2500 posts featured!
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSQnxEBigCNXYe3hUB5ujRMmAvq1r851wGFc5LwZTkfRv/rebelheart.png)
Vote for @qurator as a Steemit witness on
Via steemit.com.
Via SteemConnect.
Thank you for reading! Steem on Steemians!
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I (+ family) votet for @qurator as witness. :)
Concerning delegating Steem Power I normally never do that, as I want to be able to upvote good content creators and loyal followers manually with full strength.
My delegation to @steem-ua is an exception as I am of the opinion that the current completely misleading reputation system has to be replaced and because I think that (hopefully) @steem-ua could play an important role in improving Steem(it).
Yes, that is an answer I can 100% understand. I wasn't too sure if the member tag would reach some of you guys. Kind of hoped though. I really appreciate the witness vote and it does go a long way to help out.
Thanks for the answer and I also hope and feel that UA could be the upgrade we need to sort out the current reputation system that is totally broken. Thanks @jaki01
Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3
Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3
I think the further the community continues to develop on the blockchain, the ecosystem starts to expand and broaden its reach to create these smaller communities that have a positive tone in what we want it to become. The example you mention are great examples of backing a project to demonstrate to witnesses and whales that the masses could really move the ecosystem if we work together. I also have been expanding my engagement with these types of communities am excited what HF 20 can bring to new users that grow and create a more powerful class of minnows!
Yes, that is indeed the way forward. More and more support structures from groups of minows. The platform makes us think that being a minnow makes our say/upvote kind of useless. BUT if we stand together we make that upvote and support count way more. I hope to see more and more initiatives pop up that can help minnows =)
Thanks for doing your part in looking out for some minnows. =)
Very nice post.
Sad but true. I was already attacked twice for speaking out against that. Then I realized it wasn't worth it so I have just ignored the trending page altogether, since the last time I was unfairly attacked.
I have joined @steem-ua as well. The ranking system is pretty interesting and if SteemIt.com won't do a thing to improve the native ranking system, someone else gotta step in with an alternative.
The upvotes are an awesome incentive. Otherwise, they would spend ages trying to convince people to get it.
What they did was excellent. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved!
I hope you manage to get some "whalish" support for you Qurator program.
Keep up with the good work!
Sucks that you were a victim for speaking out. Sadly the only ones who can counter the larger abusers are whales and most of them will not waste money on a flag if they can rather use it to gain some money in another way. Flagging and wasting money to make a point is not what the whales will easily do. Guess we are stuck with it for now.
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TrufflePig
, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
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Why do you say this @scrooger?
Is it because of the upvotes? I didn't know they upvoted to be honest. I think I'm one of the few people around who's not a big fan.
I would say they have two kinds of fans. You either like them for their upvote or for their ranking system.
I would suggest delegating to them. 250SP is not a bad price to pay for a few upvotes here and there. Since they have some large delegators they are able to give out some pretty decent upvotes.
Try it out, even if only for the upvote value they can offer.
Using 250SP to selfvote or sell your upvotes will still be way less than the upvote they can give you.
OK.Thanks for the information @scrooger. As I mentioned, I didn't realise you got an upvote from them. Looks like it might be worth a go. 😁
Hi @scrooger!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.766 which ranks you at #1328 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 7 places in the last three days (old rank 1335).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 429 contributions, your post is ranked at #40.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
You make a very good point @scrooger. The price of steem probaby has a lot to do with it along with the fact that steem-ua is a hot item right now. The moment the price increases a lot of the steem-ua delegations of 500SP+ will decrease. If anything, solid larger scale projects like qurator and steem-ua should get some support from the devs instead having to count on whales delegating some of their SP.
Thanks man, you make a good point. Those supporting the content creators should get some support too. We could have all the apps and devs in the world but we need content creators to stay and create.
I didn't check but how did your project with the point system play out? We didn't forget about that in Qurator and are still playing with some ideas around that concept.
@upvoteshares is doing great and is moving along as expected. Everything is very much based on numbers, is highly predictable and transparant regardless the price of Steem going up or down. The SP added on top to grow the account and give a better return is always fixed and the number of spots directly linked and limited to the account SP . I see it more as a smaller scale proof of concept project aimed at the longer run. Also the amount of time it takes up right now is fairly limited. A couple days each month to proceed to the next level after which things can run automatically. So I'm glad how it is all woring out right now.
It's also nice to see a project like @minnowbuilder using some of the ideas to create something that mainly aims to help minnows grow and hope more of these projects that are more aimed toward curation in a group will follow.
Glad to hear it is going well. I need to drop by and check it out. Looks like the concept is working quite well. Would love to see what it can do on a larger scale. Will check in on @minnowhelper. Loving all the projects lately, more and more minnows standing together.