Open 'letter' to @steemcleaners
I’m no longer ‘new here’ and so I don’t have an excuse for messing up – or so you’d think.
This morning, looking at the replies to my various posts from yesterday, I see a message from @steemcleaners warning me about the use of the ‘steemit’ tag I sometimes utilise when I’m sharing my stories. You’ll notice the ‘sometimes’ in that sentence. I don’t ‘always’ use it.
Just in case you’re interested.
That message kinda got my back up a bit.
I’m never quite sure if I do this too much or not enough, but blowing my own trumpet is necessary for this point.
I’m a published author.
I sell my stories – just for clarification, people PAY to read my stories.
I share those stories for free in ONLY two places, Steemit.com and Smashwords and only to a limited extent there – Dusty 1 and 2 are available for free but that fact is only publicised on rare occasions and so, those two short stories still sell on Amazon, iTunes and the publisher’s site, Gingernut Books.
They SELL on those sites – people pay to read my stories, and have done for a while – since August 2010.
Having made that point clear, the warning I received for using the ‘steemit’ tag for EXCLUSIVE content, available NOWHERE ELSE grinds my gears.
Stats before I shared the link.
Stats a few minutes after I shared the link
Stats now (10:55)
If I over-used and abused the ‘steemit’ tag on a regular basis, I could quite understand but the story I shared on this platform didn’t get warned the other times I used it and neither did the other story excerpt. I used the same tags on the ‘Dusty’ excerpts to keep the stories in ‘one place’ because they are rarely more than 6 episodes in length.
Still, it’s fine. If that’s how it goes, I’m ok with that, but I’m re-thinking my commitment to EXCLUSIVE part on everything I share on Steemit.
There are 3,584 friends on Facebook, plus the 5667 reached according to my Author page over on Facebook Here
Then the 13.3k followers on Twitter
Not to mention my blog (stats in the pics above).
I have 505 followers on Steemit, so my following is bigger everywhere else.
Still, if I’m not allowed to use the ‘steemit’ tag, I won’t.
Yours,
Annoyed from Nottingham
Challenge30 - day 6
Added by edit I really do need a new phone, this one is borked...
added by another edit This pic is from a moment ago - 14:45 - It appears that my Blog is benefitting from the ONE round of sharing the link.
Hi Michelle, I completely understand your point and as an author it's rather normal to want to increase visibility of your content to as many people as possible, hence choosing to use the #steemit tag which gets a lot of traction.
On the other hand I fully understand @steemcleaners' point as well, as the tags are a manner of sorting the content by interest, kind of the way the /r/.... sections are on reddit. That way people that are interested in photography look for posts in the #photography tag section, people interested in Bitcoin go to the #bitcoin tag etc. If we're not careful there and keep mixing the tags, it will be an all in one fest that wouldn't satisfy anyone's needs and will alienate the interest for the platform over time. This is why proper post tagging is super important, and I've even seen Dan downvoting posts that were improperly tagged.
I personally think you have been warned about the improper tag use, not about a potential plagiarism attempt, as it's your content in all places and nobody can limit you to post it only on Steemit. The comment they use is a template, used for all the warnings, tailored for all cases in one message.
Now, don't be mad at @steemcleaners, they are humans just like everyone else and are flexible when it comes to non-repeated or intended harm. I appreciate all the hard work they're doing as they are leading one of the most effective and constant battles against plagiarism, personality thefts etc.
just my 2 cents
@andu, if I wanted more visibility for my writing, I would never have limited it to exclusivity on Steemit, I would have posted it on my Facebook and Twitter accounts, not used the steemit tag.
I understand the importance of tags, I really do. As I said, I’ll not tag, mention, invoke or involve ‘steemit’ in any more of my writings, it’s THAT important.
Mentioning ‘steemit’ in the things I write, even if it’s ‘only’ in the title, helps with search engines etc, doesn’t it? But as I said. No more.
The point I made was not that anyone was limiting me to use it only on steemit, I was doing that for the benefit of steemit, not for any benefit I received.
I’m not angry, but I am annoyed that the efforts I have made to spread the Steemit product, using my own work, for more benefit to steemit than myself is rewarded with that slap-down.
I’m a fast learner and I know not to use certain tags. The ‘til’ tag, as I said before, will never be used by me again and now, neither will the ‘steemit’ tag.
I can also play games as well as the next person too – sometimes even better - and this game has just got a lot more interesting.
I’ll be using all my writings on my blog from now on. I’ll share that link first, before I share the steemit link and I’m pretty sure my earnings will go up from sales on my books because of that.
You see, I’ve neglected my existing followers in preference for this new platform but now I’ve realised how much value is placed on that loyalty, my aims have changed course.
hindsight is always 20/20 Michelle... but I'll suggest this anyways. You might want to consider creating a unique tag that you use alongside maybe the story tag and over time your followers will know they can find you through your unique tag. I've seen a few on here do that with some effect.
Awesome!
My daughter (the genius) had already suggested that - I knew there was a reason I liked you ;)
ah shucks.. you gonna make me blush now and match my damn hair.. what hasn't gone grey that is.
There's no central authority here on using tags, or not using tags, steamcleaner should go kiss themselves.
It was the threat of @dan downvoting that made it all the more... sinister I think. There's precious little to be 'earned' here and you get a 24 hour shot at it. The chance of having any/all of that wiped because a whale could downvote it is massive.
say what you feel mark.. don't hold back LOL ... most of the time they do good work but ... there are times.
Whatever, this whole platform went to the dogs when everyone decided that those who were succeeding were getting too much and tried to "level the playing field" it's an entrepreneurial endeavor. If you try to run a "libertarian" enterprise like a bunch of damn socialists, this is what you get. No new users and piss poor payouts, so who really cares what they think?
I hear you Mark. It's frustrating but like most things I suspect the negativity will run its course as other people just keep on working on building.
One can hope, but I can't put the time into it I had been back in August if the payouts are worthless.
I really think you should not take this so personally. I don't think anybody has anything against you, you just happened to use the wrong tag. it can happen to anyone of us, trust me, and now it's fixed. It's not about not using the til or steemit tags at all, it's about using them only when the post really relates to them.
I'm sorry you are taking this very heavy that you are willing to give up on steem for that. On one hand, many of us are not here for the rewards and on the other hand looking at your blog I see that you posts have been rather nicely rewarded, maybe more than most of us commenting or upvoting this post have gotten in our Steem life.
In the end, it's your choice what to do with your creations and all of us can only respect that. Best of wishes whatever that final decision is. We'd love to continue to have you here though...
I'm not taking this personally, really I'm not. I'm 'working to rule'.
I'm certainly not giving up on Steemit and I'm extremely thankful for the monetary rewards I've been fortunate enough to receive.
My posts being 'nicely rewarded' is less important than readership and involvement. Not once have I complained about the rewards - or lack of, if you look at some of my posts.
I do know it's my choice what I do with my creations - that's what it has always been.
I'm still not quite sure where you get the idea that I'm no longer going to be posting on Steemit. That was never in question.
My direction has changed and instead of using 'steemit' as an infrequent tag, I'll use michellegent so all of my work is in one place and none of my followers have to trawl through any of the other stuff to find it - meaning, my followers, looking through the steemit platform could have been distracted by other writers and subjects. The chances of that are now much reduced.
I'm sorry, I may have misunderstood some of the things you previously said and misinterpreted them. I'm happy you're not giving up on Steem.
The creation of your own tag, or even story related tag is an excellent idea in my pov. I'm using the #dailydose tag for ex., for my daily posts with funny stuff.
I do upvote some of your stuff, I hadn't realised it was your own tag though. Well done :)
Yeah, not giving up on steem, but also no longer making it the priority that I had before with regards to my writing.
replying here due to the max 6 comment stack limitation
It's all about priorities indeed, each of us need to analyse the costs and benefits of our actions and investments (time, attention, money etc.).
I do hope Steem will become a more important platform than any other out there :)
PS. I don't own the tag, anyone can use it (steemcleaners will not warn anyone using it that's not me :) ), but I used it first so I'm the creator and it's a nice way to classify your writing
I hoped for the same, which is why I gave exclusivity so readily.
Don't let it get to you. @steemcleaners has a problem. Yes maybe they do stop real plaigerism and spam but for every group of bad apples they catch, they are also ruining rewards for many quality steemians with good intentions. Just scroll through their replies and you can find countless users that got shafted due to an overreach by @steemcleaners
You know something? I've been enjoying this steemit thing, I really have. I've been writing more, engaging other members of this platform, meeting people, even going to a different country to meet people - ALL because of this, because of steemit.com
To be threatened with getting flagged by one of the founders of Steemit is a big thing. People seem able to brush this off as 'ah, nothing to see here, move along...' but as I said, I do not respond well to threats of any kind and that was a definite threat.
If that comment was meant as a 'friendly nudge in the right direction', it missed its mark, by a long shot.
As I also said, I've been here since August, AND I'm no newbie to the internet thing, I've been online since 28kb dialup modems were 'the thing' and I don't like working on something of this magnitude, to get threatened because of a 'misuse of tags' when there are no guidelines for using tags, the punishment for when tags are misused or how to avoid getting these sinister/friendly warnings in the first place.
Who made these rules? Can I please get a copy so I can print them out and never ever EVER misuse or abuse them unintentionally again?
Also, can that threat be removed from @steemcleaner's warning - friendly or otherwise?
I'm still new... lol so what happened exactly? I don't understand.
We used to have a rule about exclusive content, in order to avoid copyright infringement.
But this rule doesn't really work for people like Michelle because she's a known author. She does some exclusive content, but not all of it is exclusive.
In this particular case, someone in steemcleaners is trying to enforce some arbitrary ruleset on hashtags.
@steemcleaners Things like this make it difficult to attract and retain quality authors with large followings to the platform. Make a whitelist like we have for cheetah or you risk alienating not only authors like michelle.gent but also their entire following! Things like this make us look really bad to the outside world and really do slow adoption. She's not the only one either. My wife and I have both brought people over who have hit this from time to time. Those people generally quit because it's not worth the hassle.
Ahhhhh I see.
Thanks for explanation :)
You're welcome and thanks for the excellent question. If it hadn't happened to you or folks you know, it would be a very confusing post.
Yeah!!! I like to avoid warnings where I can. Grateful that it was explained! :)
Yes, thank you for that explanation. It made sense to me too!
I'm running more on emotional content than logical at this moment...
To be clear, I'm talking about using the steemit tag here. You were flagged because some folks have decided that tag spam is something worth their time and effort to enforce.
You produced content exclusive for steemit here, for a steemit wide challenge and that's why I got so angry about it, because to my mind this is totally relevant.
Had you just cross posted a story from somewhere, the case in their favor would be better.
Eitherway with engagement at the levels they are at and rewards as low as they are, the whole notion of enforcing tag spam rules seems like it should be laughable if it weren't for the very real problem of alienation it causes. Literally no one but steemcleaners cares about tags anymore. Furthermore, no one has a lock on what is and is not worthy of a tag. It's entirely subjective. Just avoid upvoting if incorrect tags are a thing that really rustles your jimmies.
P.S. Still waiting on reading your wife's stuff.... but have been interacting with her in comments and sooooo tempted to start reading cuz I like her already! LOLOL
But still holding out for fear that I'll meet ANOTHER like minded author that.... well.... I just commented on it to country girl. Let me just copy and paste what I said there.... here lol (instead of restating the exact same thing again)
But you'll see why I'm hesitant to meet another awesome mind... Lolololol
It's all good, but keep commentary relevant to the topic of the post since
it's respectful to the author, in this case that author is @michelle.gent who is also not my wife. My wife is @ghostwriter, so the commentary is unrelated. :D
Feel free to pop into any of my blogs or my wife's to discuss things like this.
Thanks! BTW she says you're a brilliant author.
I can't reply under the comments, but @dreemsteem and @williambanks you carry on. Mention as many other authors as you like, I'm going to check them all out! <3
So sorry @michelle.gent and @williambanks for my spinoff!
Didn't mean to be rude on your page :)
Yes I know @ghostwriter is your wife lol that's who I meant.... but I should have limited that to a post on your page!!!
My apologies for the ramble! I got carried away lol
Um, well, that hasn't been true since at least July when I signed on. No fucking way I'd put exclusive content here, in perpetuity, with no residual payments. And yes, it is arbitrary. In fact, there are no centrally published rules and from now on, every piece I post will be tagged with it.
I had a warning about using the tag 'steemit' on a story I've shared exclusively here, on steemit.
Gotcha! :)
So you can only use steemit when it's exclusive to steemit.
And you did... but they didn't realize it cuz your characters were elsewhere... just not in the current chapters.
So if I re-use anything that I've published... I can't say "steemit"
Unless I completely take it down from other sites.
Yeah?
To be honest, I have no idea now.
I don't know what changed on #6 of the six part serialisation because the other 5 were ok - or at least, I didn't get warned for them.
The stories are NOT available anywhere else unless purchased from the outlets I mentioned and therefore, they're not on any sites, they're e-books.
I'm utterly confused as to what I did wrong with the tag.
Interesting.
And frustrating lol
Ok let me clarify...
steemcleaners flagged you because it appears there has been rule change in their system.
Steemit tag used to be for anything exclusive OR relevant to steem.
They are saying your content is not relevant to steemit and that means they've dropped the "exclusive" part from the rules to the detriment of folks like yourself.
This is 2 different problems. First off, steemcleaners is backed by whales but not an official part of steemit any more than cheetah is. Thus you're literally just being flagged by vigilantes, who's views I don't think reflect the value judgements of the broader steemit community.
Secondly their ruleset is a bit arbitrary and enforcement is kind of random. You are producing exclusive content and responding to a steemit wide challenge. Ergo it is in fact relevant to the tags and thus not tag spam, even by their rules. Thus the person who actually did the flagging needs to reassess. If they really want to try and enforce a rule of "#steemit posts must be directly related to posts about steemit the website and it's developments", then this needs to be laid out in a TOS or something. This really is something that should not just be subject to whim because of it's broader implications.
Final problem, this whole concept of tag spam dates to a time when you could insert an arbitrary number of tags. Now that number is 5 and has been for awhile. Trying to enforce the tag spam rule is actually just pointless and petty especially when you consider our current engagement and retention levels which are abysmal. There are much better uses of their time.
My advice here, hop in steemit.chat hit up @walden who used to be a troll of some note, but has since rehabilitated himself. Point him at this and ask him talk to whoever did the flag and get them to remove it, because frankly it's pointless. He's a smart guy and he'll know how to present it to the rest of the group.
That story wasn't part of the Challenge30 project. It was exclusive content, just for steemit though.
I'll give @walden a shout now. Thank you for all your help in this and I've followed @ghostwriter too.
Oh, and please don't worry about going off at a tangent on this, I enjoy reading your conversation ^^ up there ;)
@anyx:
'just left a comment, as a suggestion.' Along with a threat of being flagged by @dan... just thought I'd remind you of that, even though it's obviously 'no biggie' to you and @steemcleaners, it is to me.
Interesting points Michelle.Don't think I have ever used the Steemit tag and now definitely wont use if you receive so much flak over this
I won't be using it again either and to be honest, the rethink on exclusivity for Steemit is a distinct possibility too. I'll see if my sales rise when I start post stuff on my blog which is the same blogs that I post here, on steemit.
lol, I like how you mentioned that people pay to read your stories like 23 times and than how many friends and followers you have. cheers!
Haha! Well, some points need hammering home, sometimes ;)
What if you add the line "Finally, a post that isn't about Steemit itself!" at the top of what you post? That would warrant the steemit category. I like tongue-in-cheek solutions.
Hahaha! I think perhaps I'll do what I've said I'm going to do - post every blog I write on BOTH my blogs.
I'm feeling a little like the 'reward' for exclusivity is a public slap-down.
I've rarely used the Steemit tag since August when everyone seemed particularly incensed by its use. I didn't even realize it could be used for exclusive content (is that accurate??). I didn't even put it on the Steemit Story Slam because I wasn't sure it wouldn't be smacked down. Guess I'll have to do more research....
Sorry about the warning, Michelle. I'm sure it'll be sorted in short order, you've been here very long and your case makes sense too.
I don't know if it can be used for exclusive content. I just threw it in there for a change for that one serialised story.
It would be helpful if there were guidelines to say what tags are too precious for us to use.
If everyone misuse the steemit tag like you did what value does the steemit tag have? Where do people find info about steemit without needing to sort though non steemit related content?
It's no longer a problem, the tag has been removed and will not be used again. Not that it took that long to find, click, scroll and edit ALL my tags using that word.
Isn't the more relevant question here "who determines what is and is not the appropriate use of any given tag?" The author believed sincerely that steemit was a relevant tag. Furthermore there are people in the community who believe that steemit exclusive content belongs there.
But perhaps the most important question here is why we have a group enforcing arbitrary rules on tags and before you say they aren't arbitrary because "we say so", keep in mind that is the definition of arbitrary. Just because you enforce it semi-consistently, that doesn't make it somehow less arbitrary.
I mean seriously, if I post a rant about my job in #NSFW you're not going to flag that as spam or tag abuse just because you're looking for pr0n and didn't find it, so what is so special about #steemit? How is one arbitrary tag any different from any other arbitrary tag?
In the meantime steemcleaners alienated this particular author by calling it abusive and you continue to alienate them by continuing to call it abusive. It's not abuse and it's not spam. I use the steemit tag to find content only on steemit all the time. Others do as well.
At worst she has violated the expectations of a certain number of users with enormous power and influence on this problem, which basically means she hit a pet censorship problem.
It would be just as easy to stop this "abuse" bs and simply ask the author to elaborate on why they felt the tag was appropriate. Then accept the answer because tags should be authors choice so long as the option for the author to add tags is there.
What you are advocating actually makes it harder to find steemit content about steemit itself.
Steemit content should be coming from steemitblog or the devs directly.
If we want that, then we can follow those authors who are authorized to be announcing stuff.
Tags are handy for quick categorization in the broadest sense of the word, they can't and shouldn't be used at the granularity steemcleaners is asking for. For that level granularity, use the search function on the site. If we need to improve search then so be it, but my point here is ask ya'll to stop abusing people by calling it spam or abuse because honestly it's not, it's really just a handy way to get noticed.
You're abusing users and pushing them away, so stop it.
Wow... yeah, that.
Thanks @williambanks, I've appreciated your input on this matter today. You've clarified a lot of things I couldn't get my head around.
Thank you :)
You're welcome, just remember you're on a social network run by people who normally shun social networks and there really isn't any sort of editorial control. It's all dollars talk BS walks. Maybe we can drive this home a little more clearly. I'm going to get some rest and then write my own open letter. I hope to see you there.
Please post the link here when you do write it, I'll be there, with bells on.
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