Continuing to blog on all the fascinating aspects of my experience on our Steem blockchain, here is my fifth monthly update.

Since posting my introduction on May 14th, it represents my "log" of sorts, giving my readers a monthly window into my "journey" through the Steemisphere - a new "virtual world" based on the creation of our Steem blockchain.

So ... "What are you doing 'in there' @roleerob and how is it going?"

Status or "Executive Summary"

To begin, here is a brief overview to answer the "how is it going" question we should probably be "checking in" with ourselves and answering, from time to time.

Statistics

There is an old saying, "numbers don't lie." Yes, well, there is also an old joke about the executive asking the accountant, "what do the numbers say about how we're doing?" to which the accountant replied, "what do you want them to say?" ... 😉

Required to issue a monthly report for most of my career, with numbers to quantify progress, here are a few:

To date on my Steem "journey," these numbers are the most important. The first three quantify our influence on adding value to the Steem blockchain. And the second two, the actual work we are putting in to adding value ourselves. Given all of our rich diversity, I trust we all have one focused objective in common - adding value to the Steem blockchain.

We want the value to go up!

“Doubling Down”

In the face of the “bear market” in the entire cryptosphere over much of 2018, I remain not only a HODLer, but an investor. I have continued to invest in more STEEM on the dips, as much as possible.

My engagement levels are also significantly increased, particularly my replies which were triple what they were in my last update. I am very close now to my first 1,000 “posts” on the Steem blockchain.

I continue to struggle with the time commitment required. For example, my readers may note the table above skips 4. A typo right?

No. I simply didn't have the time to create a month 4 post, before it was too late …

So …

"Recalibrating"

Frequently appearing in my writing in the past is the question of my time. I continue to struggle with the amount of time I have committed to Steem not being unsustainable, but so far have not figured out exactly what I will and won’t do, as a result …

So, "recalibrating" simply means I am still in a work-in-progress on getting the right balance of my time invested “in here” supporting our Steem community and time spent “out there” in the rest of my life. And then, further, how I allocate the time “in here” between posting and engagement, both “up” and “down” …

Awards and Accomplishments

Winning Curie Exceptional Content Award

Hands down, the single biggest accomplishment of this period was receipt of this award, resulting in the single highest-payout post I have yet created - Reflections: My Life as a Hay Farmer.

Given the impact on me, this in turn led to the inspiration to write my True Story: Encouragement on our Steem Blockchain post, telling the whole story.

More on this can be found in my 2 👍 👍 section below.

Full Engagement with @pifc Community for 1 Month

As detailed in my Chapter Two: My “Journey” and the Pay It Forward Community post, I made a decision to support this community, after this reply to its founder @thedarkhorse.

More on this can be found in my 1 👍 section below.

Publishing my Steemisphere Posts

Once deciding “Chapter One” of my Steem “journey” was over, I wanted to post what I had learned, for the benefit of other Steemians choosing to join the Steem blockchain. Why?

Here is what I said in my introductory comments:

”You are reading what I would like to have been quickly introduced to, when I was where you are right now.”

I wanted to help others avoid what I had been through, as much as possible.

Here are the two complimentary posts created:

1. Welcome to the Steemisphere! Getting Off to a "Flying Start," Version 1.0 – Covers the full spectrum of what a new Steemian needs to know to get off to a “flying start.”
2. User's Guide to the Steemisphere, Version 1.0 – Covers the recommended apps and tools a new Steemian needs as they begin to engage with our Steem blockchain.

Monthly Highlights

In this section of my monthly update, I try to extract both highlights, as well as “lowlights” (yes, there are some …) for the benefit of my readers.

👍 👍 Two Thumbs Up 👍 👍

Working with ”systems,” as well as managing the work of others, for much of my career, I have always emphasized ”people” over ”process” believing that is the right priority. From a lot of experience, I know the best systems are greatly diminished, if not ”manned” by competent, engaged people. A great team will always solve the problem of less-than-ideal systems. I have never experienced the reverse to be true ...

This section, then, will always be about the people I “meet” in our Community. Specifically, those who have had the greatest impact on my "journey."

During this period, my “shout outs” go to @lordkingpotato and @llfarms – both curators for the highly regarded Curie community. Between them, they added the most value to my understanding of and appreciation for our Steem blockchain.

If you would like to invest some time to learn more about this, here are important links:

1. Exchange with @lordkingpotato after he replied to my Encouragement post.
2. Exchange with @llfarms where she invested her time to answer the questions in my Encouragement post.
3. “Let's Talk Curation” (Video Series) | Part One - What's A Curie And How Do You Get One? post of @llfarms, where she goes into more depth about Curie. She will be presenting on curation and Curie at Steemfest 3!

👍 One Thumb Up 👍

My experience with my “all in” engagement with the @pifc community was important to me. First, to follow through on what I said I would do. As we all have hopefully experienced in life, when we do that we never know how it is going to “play out.”

I am pleased to report it was a great learning experience. It just reinforced in my mind how many good people there are “in here” which are facing the Challenge I wrote about in my Encouragement post.

We never know where just one upvote, resteem, or encouraging word will lead and participating in this community will help anyone develop a much deeper appreciation of this fact.

👎 One Thumb Down 👎

I was very frustrated after getting my Steemisphere posts finished with all of my effort put in, that the embedded bookmarks didn’t work! Unbelievable. Why is that?

Steemit Inc. developers have chosen not to support all of the HTML code needed to format our posts, as desired. Specifically, the ID attribute in HTML needed to create functioning bookmarks.

In creating these large posts, it was my intent to refer to sections of them in future engagements with my fellow Steemians. In other words, not just with a link to a post, but a link to a section inside of it! Simply not currently possible …

• Note: If you would like to dive deeper into this topic, specifically the whitelisted HTML code Steemit Inc. developers support, here is a link to the very helpful post of @innervision.
  
  Finding it, after 3 hours spent in vain to solve my problem, I read in it - “Note that the id attribute is not whitelisted” …

👎 👎 Two Thumbs Down 👎 👎

Sadly, this month I have two items in this section:

1. My experience with HF20 was not pleasant. My first experience with a fork on the Steem blockchain, I was definitely not impressed. The negative impact to our blockchain is hard to measure, but it was considerable.
   
   I wrote extensively about this in my Entry for the Pay-it-Forward Curation Contest - Week 26 ... then Boom! ... HF20 …. No punches were pulled. Not my style …
   
   

2. As I have written in the post, I really despise the downvoting and destruction of people’s “rep” and income “in here.” Yes, I’ve read the FAQ on downvoting and reluctantly agree it has a place in keeping some “law and order” on our Steem blockchain.
   
   But this month, I again experienced a very ugly exchange which had nothing to do with downvoting really poor content. It was much more an exercise in intimidation and bullying. Very sad people won’t do better that this. Just reinforces for me that while this brilliant creation called the Steem blockchain may be a revolutionary step into the future, human nature is unchanged from the beginning of time. And it can really be ugly at times …

Closing

So, overall a very big month for @roleerob. Thank you for investing your time in reading this update on my Steem journey. I trust you have found something of value in it and hopefully even some encouragement.

I’d love to hear any feedback you may be inspired to provide.

Until "next time," all the best to you for a better tomorrow, as we all work together to build our Steem Community! 👍 😊

Respectfully, fellow Steemian @ roleerob

Posted using SteemPeak and “immutably enshrined in the blockchain” on Saturday, 3 November 2018!

Interested to read more of my “log” posts on my Steem "journey"? Great! Here you go:

• Update, Month 1: Engaged with a 4-Figure Stake in the Future
• Update, Month 2: Still Engaged with an Increased Stake and "Growing" ...
  Update, Month 3: Still (Somewhat) Engaged with an Increased Stake and "Recalibrating" ...

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