Whale Tip! Only YOU Can Save NewSTEEM
STEEM suffered a devastating loss yesterday if you care about the success of seeing smaller fish here grow. @axeman has thrown in the towel and cancelled the many contests he runs and all will be over in a few days as the weekly events reach payout.
@axeman is a very talented photographer and sometimes gets good votes on his own photo posts. I hope he will continue to post those.
Most of his contests were photo contests, but he was also an active dPoll-er. His efforts have helped many a new STEEM blogger learn how to post, and be the beneficiary of @axeman's very generous critiques and prizes.
Here is the main announcement post, and if you go to the blog, you can watch the contests as they close out day by day.
Contests and Giveaways Cancellation Announcement
This is not the only helpful place we have lost, and are losing as I watch. Most of our contest runners are struggling under NewSTEEM. The votes they get are basically what they used to get, but now much smaller with the reward curve changes.
At freewrite by @mariannewest, she gets less than 50 cents on her daily calls for entry posts. After over 700 days of this work, we have seen no less than 4 freewriting authors go on to publish on Amazon. New bloggers stumble in and learn to post in a continuous flow. This should be a vibrant and well-funded place. Instead, Marianne is so discouraged that she has been stepping back.
I can give you many more examples of hard-working and long term STEEMers ready to give up. But many of them have already, so it is too late.
And we see a huge drop off in number of votes.
Why have people stopped voting in STEEM?
No - it is NOT the bots. The bots were never more than 10% of total votes by number and many of those bots are still voting for free anyway.
Curation has fallen off a cliff. This is from @arcange's most recent post (with a payout of $1 for all of his consistently hard work here):
Steem Statistics – 2019.10.29
And this is from @penguinpablo's most recent weekly report showing the same thing:
https://steempeak.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/weekly-steem-stats-report-monday-october-21-2019
Both of those reports show other equally disturbing trends. The deadfish number on @arcange's report has really grown in the last two months especially in redfish.
We were near to 10K in minnows a few months ago. This is why @steevc called his project tenkminnows. Now we are dropping back each week, as small bloggers power down and leave. Then they become one of the dead redfish - a category growing fast. Here is the most recent post of discouragement from the project 11 days ago
And it is worse now:
So what if we lose 600 minnows? We can always get more? I know many of you are on the hunt for new fish. We have a number of marketing plans going on now. But we desperately need more help to the small blogs that are here.
Who will vote for those new fish as they learn to post here? Where will they post if contests and challenges disappear?
I have talked to a few "big guys" who are voting with 95% plus vp or even with 100%. They they do not have the skills to manually curate, and refuse to use auto-voting since they are pure as the driven snow.
They can no longer vote for their friends or risk downvotes. They cannot delegate to bots. And so they have just stopped caring.
OR
They are all about the downvoting now, and have no time for upvoting small blogs.
Meanwhile, tiny fish from India or somewhere stumble in and try. They have some kind of mis-understanding, and their 14 cent post gets downvoted to zero by a downvoting bot.
And the many cammilleresteemer 10% downvoters go after the new little guys the most now. So they get a bunch of downvotes on each post, few upvotes, and no interaction. Why would they stay?
I know and you know that those 10% downvotes do not matter. But when the new tiny fish only got 2 cents on the post in the first place - yes those ten percent downvotes they got do matter.
Here is a recent post by @anomadsoul, begging you to manually spread your votes down below:
Open letter to change voting patterns | A plea to give #NewSteem a chance
But manual curation is hard! It is even harder with a big vote. I have two older posts to try to help big guys learn how to vote on STEEM. Try one or two of these ideas with even 5% of your daily voting power and make a huge difference at the bottom of the pond.
Whale Tip! Vote for Pre-Curated STEEM Posts
Whale Tip! How to Curate Contests on STEEM and Help Small Bloggers Grow
And the seventh SPUD (STEEM Power Up Day) is happening on Nov 1. Your support with prizes or upvotes would help little fish who are trying hard and powering up like you want them to:
From STEEM, With Love - SPUD 007
Go to @streetstyle's blog on Nov 3. Look at the comments on his post asking SPUDers to show their results. Go upvote the people who powered up and give them encouragement. One hour of this action will make a big impact.
I do see some smaller blogs getting better upvotes and I am so happy for this event. I am a believer in NewSteem, but right now we are off track and driving minnows and redfish out the door in droves.
I won the Conference Fee to STEEMFest in Bangkok!
Just the other day, I got this great news. I was going to be in Bangkok anyway for a necessary Visa trip, but now I will really be at STEEMFest in a few days.
I am still fundraising to get there and I need help. I think I need about $85 more in USD and will have that number soon to do a countdown with it, lol.
If you would like to help me get to STEEMFest, you can!
You can upvote any of the posts on my three STEEM blogs, especially those older and close to payout:
@fitinfun
@fitinfunfood
@bxlphabetYou can send any amount of STEEM/SBD to my @fitinfun wallet.
If you would like to send cash by paypal, please contact me in Discord. Sending that money to a member of TeamMalaysia instead of to me directly ends up being quicker and with much less fees.
- If you would like to send cash to my Thailand Bank account where I can access it with no fees while there, please contact me in Discord to get that information.
My Discord Contact Info:
fitinfun#2249
Many thanks to those that have already helped:
@whatisnew
@lizelle
@mrnightmare89
anonymous times 2
What I do on STEEM
I post a total of 5-8 posts a day on my three niche blogs. The majority of what I do here is to help small blogs grow. I did see an uptick in voting right after NewSTEEM came in. Most of that has disappeared now and I am struggling still.
All my blogs enter contests many times a week. We win often now since there are so few other participants.
@fitinfun
- Top @tipu Curator which pays $0.11 STEEM per day.
- Regular top participant and winner in the Weekly Engagement League of @abh12345.
- Constantly on the @trufflepig list for undervalued posts.
= = - freewrite daily with @mariannewest
- Minnow Tips
- Photography
- Travel
@fitinfunfood
- Food and ccc contest posts
- Tasteem restaurant reviews
- @pifc contest entries
@bxlphabet
- dApp, tokens/tribes and gaming review posts
- dpoll- STEEM and lifestyle questions
My most recent summary of Minnow Tips is here:
These tips will help you if you are new and struggling on STEEM. Tag me in any comment, and I will help you if you ask me to.
I'm not going anywhere. I'm a tiny plankton and I'll continue to do what I've always done... consume some of my alternative news and random topics here on Steemit infrequently... upvoting stuff because I "like" it... not for any economic model or ROI. That's just me.
It could be ages before STEEM actually rises in price... it might be due to onboarding or "communities" or whatever... none of it will change my behavior on this platform.
I'm glad to meet an eager plankton, @jbgarrison72. This is not an easy place when new. Your best strategy is to learn how to work the angles here and get your account to grow as fast and as far as you can. There are many thing you can do to accomplish this and most are in this post:
You CAN Succeed on STEEM
I hope I will see you SPUDing tomorrow with @streetstyle. The littler you are, the more chance you have to win big :)
While I partly agree with your concerns, I think we need to put a bit of a perspective on that.
The bull market brought a lot of people, and ever since the bears have taken over it goes down. A lot of people jumping in back then lost money, and faith in crypto in general. The graph shows a steep drop with the last HF, as does the price chart. Engagement in generall seems to follow price more than anything.
Manual curation actually has gone up. How many people struggled to get over a dollar before the fork? Most who stuck around are better off now. Maybe not with recurring content like contests or automated statistics - except they have autovoters piling up on them, which I ranted about a few weeks ago getting a lot of backlash - but artists and writers and travelers generally have improved.
Even axeman isn't doing too bad. He can't expect to post a single photo 5+ times a day and make $10+ on each. Expectations have to be managed - $10 are 70 STEEM!
Also, not everyone busy with downvotes doesn't have time for curation any more. Look at @curangel - with its trail it seems to be responsible for 1% of the total votes (which I just realized looking at those charts, and it frightens me quite a bit...). We're far from having 1% of the active stake :D But with that project as an example I also can't confirm your issue with the curation rewards. We're doing pretty well, voting consistently on small posts.
I actually hoped that more people would use curation services like curangel with newsteem to spread their votes, but obviously that didn't happen to the extent that might have been desirable. The good thing about less votes being cast is that each one is worth more ;)
So yes - whales piling up on a few people are a huge problem, as that lowers rewards of everyone else. But it's never been much different. Rewards are lower than people are used to across the board. But were not seeing payouts in the hundreds for the top any more, as it was before (with similar or even lower prices). It's spreading slowly, but it's spreading.
The vast majority of auto-votes I get now are at 95%+ vp if not 100%. This is because they have no one else to vote for. I win contests and bounties all day long because no one else enters.
The difference is the reward curve, @pharesim. Contest runners and other who used to get a dollar or two per post now get 50 cents. No one in minnow world where I work was ever getting 100's on a post or even looks at the people who do.
You are right about bigs not getting on trails. I am begging them to autovote for something and they will not. If they cannot vote for their friends or delegate, they want to spend all day handpicking. This lasts a few hours and then they give up. My blogs all did much better in the few weeks after the fork and now it dies off.
It's not about axeman's photo posts. It's about the many weekly contests he just cancelled. Where are the people who swim in now going to be able to post? We know the bigs are not going to vote for a "mass onboarding" bunch of 45 rep fish, if they will not vote for who is here now.
I did not see your rant:
Are you wanting people to do this for free? Most of them basically are. They curate the results and give out prizes from their own money.
We cannot only have 250 bigs talking among themselves , but it seems that is where we are going.
And in the last week we have gained 22 minnows and 7 dolphins.
I know what the graphs show. Less votes means the active userbase goes down. To be expected with lower prices.
I don't know if anyone who uses their downvotes but not their upvotes.
Contests are less popular - because a 5 steem reward in the past was more than a dollar. Again, related more to price than anything else.
The changes of the hardfork are working, it just needed some time. Yes, some people left because of fud beforehand. Those kids out on the better opportunities now. Curangel alone supports 100 authors a day with votes between $1 and $3. Our voting power is consistently around 99%. Not because we wouldn't use them, but because we use them efficiently to give as much as possible to authors.
The distribution improved a lot, the upper end gets less and the lower end gets more. You haven't been on the lower end when you didn't have to fight to get over a few cents obviously.
It's all a matter of perspective.
I am in the trenches with minnows and see the carnage. But if the bigs are happy, we are all happy. Loose 600 and gain 22. Woohoo!
I have been here 2.5 years, @pharesim. I only earn by blogging. I have no money to invest. I have three blogs here and work like a dog on minnow tips and trying to help the little guys get a foot hold. I have been living 90% off of steem and steem related money since Dec 2017. I live very cheaply in SE Asia.
I am on the top of the engagement league of @abh12345 weekly, I am at top tipu curator for 0.11 steem a day. I help little fish in comments, email, and discord all day long.
I make almost nothing on most of my posts, but I do not fight for votes. The fighting can stay up top. Down here I teach people how to enter contests, format posts, not worry about 10% down-voters, and a billion other details.
So you confirm that you didn't have posts getting only a few cents.
I'm involved with minnows too. My stake and my project are boosting hundreds of their posts over a dollar every week. Something that didn't happen before the fork.
That project gives a bunch of curators more influence, and lets them earn some steem on top. Around 5 a day, which still isn't much for the work they do, but obviously quite some more than tipu is willing to share.
Besides that I'm fighting for whales and orcas who got used to vote only for their friends to spread their votes too, and we made some serious progress with that the last days. For those who aren't willing, we return parts of their rewards back to the pool, for the minnows.
Yes, there are whales who don't really help the platform. But you throwing all in one bucket and preaching doom and gloom doesn't help either.
Ok - you are my hero, @pharesim. Carry on.
My first six months here were all posts under $1. Then I had some luck, training, and got supporters for my work.
I treasure the one curangel vote I got in the last month, and hope for many more. If you look at my @bxlphabet blog most posts still get under $1 since they are all minnow tips. Hopefully your peeps will take a look at dPolls one day.
It's sad about @axeman, I've always supported him and he expressed his disappointment in dm a couple days ago. It's something I warned about concerning EIP and how it was going to negatively impact author rewards.
Yes it is really sad and scary down here these days, @drakos. I just looked at my own curation reward which are all way down. No post I vote for gets over $10 reward. This is discouraging in so many ways.
See you in Bangkok - can then discuss this off-chain.
$trendotoken
Congratulations @rycharde, you are successfuly trended the post that shared by @fitinfun!
@fitinfun will receive 3.37563450 TRDO & @rycharde will get 2.25042300 TRDO curation in 3 Days from Post Created Date!
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To view or trade TRDO go to steem-engine.com
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Hmmm... Good news or bad, lol. See you there, @rycharde and thank you very much for the trendotoken!
Hi @fitinfun
I agree with your concerns and hope that you will have the opportunity to address the issues you describe at Steemfest as it seems that everything is now about the downvote in the newsteem. I believe that the downvote agenda will now damage the platform
Oh my goodness, @xpilar! I cannot thank you enough. I do not even know how much you are doing for me now, but I am so grateful. I will be sure to post about the money exchange no matter how it goes down. Your transfer gives me big relief.
You have just made my day and I promise you that I will talk to everyone that does not run away from me and try to get some common sense going on. I am sixty and I was a fat accountant for most of my working life. None of these people will hurt my feelings or scare me. I just want the little people to be heard.
TYTYTYTYTYTY!
it's nice to be able to help @fitinfun, we need a person like you at Steemfest who sees Steemit from a different angle.
Your Age, that means you have a lot of lessons in your luggage. 👍
hehe, i am 65 years old and have also learned a little on my way
Haha! Glad to meet another oldster, @xpilar. I try to prove this is not only a game for young people. I'm leaving soon on this mega-trip and your support is really giving me a boost. Thank you so much for everything.
wish you a good tour and a good Steemfest
This is indeed an alarming trend. The main stumbling block for manual curation is discovery. We don't know what we don't know and it is very tedious to dive through all the new posts to look for gems.
Yes, I completely agree with you, @culgin. Curating is very difficult work and not everyone want to do it. This is why these two posts can help to at least get bigger accounts voting for something that can help STEEM in general.
Whale Tip! Vote for Pre-Curated STEEM Posts
Whale Tip! How to Curate Contests on STEEM and Help Small Bloggers Grow
Also, yesterday I wrote a post about how I do tipu curating which might give some good ideas.
My @tipu Curator Tale - How I Find Your Post
But no matter what, it is work.
This is why I recommend some auto-voting for contest posts and other things you might want to see continue. Then do manual votes for some other portion of your day.
Or find a few small bloggers you like and auto-vote a post a day. Change it up each month or so. There are a lot of ways to do this. I need to write more posts on it...
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account.
If you are a community leader and/or contest organizer, please join the Discord and let us know you if you would like to promote the posting of your community or contest.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here
Thank so so much for your support, @c-squared. I appreciate your help so much.
@pifc has the same issues. There just isn't a lot of support from the top for things that don't directly benefit those with large accounts. Sometimes it's hard to see the indirect benefit from gaining more loyal steemians even if they aren't coming in with large sums of cash buying steem.
With each new account we have the opportunity to either create someone who will be talking to their friends in a Positive way about Steem or in a Negative way. It's not about that single account holder, but their entire network of friends and family.
Do we as a community want a positive or a negative conversation happening about Steem as our users small or large are talking to their friends and family? This really is the only question those with large accounts (ie large financial stake) should be asking themselves with each action they take.
We have the negative now, @pifc. Somehow the tide needs to turn.
never mind about the small content creator, even the big one feel very unfair about the newsteem system .
First, the Ads revenue is not share with content creator.
It make no sense for content creator to do a long term value post.
If we really want to fix it, i suggest we do it like youtube partnership program.
steem side take 45% while content creator take 55% of the revenue ads . ads revenue will base on how much view the post manage to get. You need view to serve the ads.
Hmm.... I know it is odd that things drop off here so quickly, @hooiyewlim. I'm not sure how this could be repaired. I just want the current system to work for the little guys if it can. I am so busy trying to get to STEEMFest that I have the blinders on. I hope you are still tasteeming :)
Excellent report that gives a portrait of how steem's health is. Hopefully soon it will improve. Happy and blessed day.
I just saw your wallet transfer, @felixgarciap, and I am so grateful to you. I will be fighting for the little people ass hard as I can so we can all succeed.
Thank you very much for your words. Today, little people are the reflection of the greatness of a tomorrow in victory. :-)