Do you want 500 SP? Yes, i want, and this is why? (A long, but very informed read)

Do you want 500 SP Delegation?

Here is what to do to qualify for the opportunity. Quickly look up this link @suesa

This is my own entry for the chance to win the 500 SP from @suesa

A. Why should I get the 500SP?

1.  My Steemit presence is constant, and my activities are consistent, and of quality

a) I daily spend, for all its worth, averagely 17/24 hours on Steemit, reading, posting, commenting, chatting.

b) Post-wise, I have evidentially, in 35 days of my Steemit life thus far, managed 76 quality literary works (40 poems, 22 short stories, 4 quotes, 2 photos and 1 post on Steemit FAQ’s and 6 miscellaneous!)

Note: I counted this manually so the figures could slightly vary! This is now the 77th standard post. Averagely therefore, I have posted at least twice a day, no easy feat given the creativity my genres of focus demand.

c) Comment-wise, including replies, I have managed a whopping 467 comments, including replies. My commentary is always elaborate and thoughtful, and informative, not the spammy ‘nice post’, ‘thank you for sharing’ sort of commentary. So this number counts a lot.

Such a constancy of presence, and consistency and quality of activity ensures that I am in sync with the real-time goings-on, particularly of joining, posting and commenting, of minnows, the lot to whose promotion, I plan to, and will commit the 500SP.

2.  My own SP is very low and a  hindrance to my steemit activities 

a) Under other circumstances, such a committed, constant presence, and consistency and quality of activity, would also translate to the most positive impact in the Steemit platform. Regrettably, this is not the case. My own 19.507 SP is too minimal to make my presence and curation activities significantly count.

b) Also, I have to contend with having to wait out many hours of most days without posting and commenting because during such days, and they are frequent, my bandwidth is in negatives, and I am asked to power up my steem, to my utter frustration.

The 500SP would resolve these two hiccups. It would ensure my curation activities have impact and also that my bandwidth does not run out so to keep me idly locked out of the platform for hours I would otherwise dedicate to promoting the activities of minnows and accordingly the growth of Steemit.

And then an apparently trivial but important point: I do not power up my posts to 100% but keep the default 50%/50% which ensures that half of my post earnings accumulate as SBD and half as Steempower. This shows my selfless commitment to investing back in the platform.

3.  Steemit members have confidence in me!

a) Minnows

As of the time of this writing, I have 222 followers. Suffice to say, that 97% of them are minnows! The significance of this becomes clear when you contrast it against those I am following back.

Contrary to the unethical mindset for getting followers that most minnows start with, you know, the I follow you – You follow me back strategy, I have been exempt and followed unconditionally, by minnows, never mind my public and unflinching disapproval of their mindset.

Here is one of my conversations with minnow whom, after I welcomed him - making sure to include links to articles with information I advised as useful for starters like himself - in the commentary of his Introduction post, wrote back saying:

Of course he had already followed me, now the condition was to follow back!
Here is my reply, bordering on a rebuke, but certainly corrective:

Suffice to say that the minnow above was very grateful, appreciative.

So overall, the 97% of the minnow followers I have follow me not because I answered their call to follow back, as do most follower-hunters, but because they appreciate the great deal of time and effort I give to acquainting them to the platform, and certainly appreciate the quality of my steemit activities, including posting and commentary.

That being so, in order that new members not only join, but are retained in the Steemit platform as active rather than dormant members, who better to empower with the 500SP to take advantage of their confidence, if not I, whom they have, and will unconditionally follow, and in whom they have already trusted?

b) Higher-ups

In only a little more than one month of steemit activity, I have won the public acknowledgments of some higher up Steemit members like @swissclive, @terrycraft, @mitneb…..all of whom have been of great professional help and guidance to me.

Such public acknowledgements don’t suffice without strong reason and confidence in the object. I am sure that, this 500SP open offer aside, even you @suesa, if you will follow my activities, will sooner acknowledge my passion and commitment to improving the Steemit community.

And now, if all these be true, and they are, who better to entrust with the 500SP if not I, the object of members’, and hopefully soon yours’ unreserved confidence?

4.  I am not an anonymous and masquerading Steemtian! 

My profile picture is real, my profile names are real, my location is real, my steemit age is real!

Yes! My Steemit account is real, genuine!

You can trust I will put the 500SP to real, genuine curation, be it for upvoting myself (which I will by the way do, for good and just reason), or for others, rather than to selfish self-upvoting or unjust flagging of other members.

B. What I will do with the 500SP

1. My idea of a steemit community, is an interactive platform, one in which we each show genuine interest and share in each other’s’ works in such a manner as to build fellowship. How?

The Steemit platform obviously provides all topics and all sorts of activities individuals may so wish to engage in. I don’t here have the luxury to make a point on all of them, even if I was able to, but to illustrate my point, I will speak on three tags, namely, of stories/writings, poetry and photography/art.

a) Is really a photograph/a drawing worth a thousand words?

If it is, why are 90% (this is of course only my educated guess, but I bet I am not so far off!) of the comments on photos/pictures/arts technically spam? I don’t care if they are written with good intentions, you know, without meaning to spam.

The point is: how does “nice picture”, “Nice drawing” sort of commentary to an obviously nice picture/Photo/art piece, create conversation and so build fellowship? Isn’t it pretty obvious that nobody would in the first place post a picture/drawing if it were not nice?

Moreover I am yet to come across a comment where somebody says: “Ugly post/picture”. Anybody who has? Feel free to snipe it up and post in my commentary below. So long as it dates to before this post, I will send 0.1 SBD to the first 5 to post.

So why not look closely at the picture? Why not study its finer/hidden details? Why not relate the picture to whatever occasion for which it was taken? Why not appreciate the angle from which it was taken? Why not critique the color combination of the painting posted? Why not question the artist’s choice of background to his/her drawing?

Is it a drawing of nature? Do you not know of another feature elsewhere, maybe in your own locality, maybe where you once visited, that resembles or is comparable to that photo posted, or that is better than that posted? Why not share it yourself, maybe a link? That, for me, is fellowship.

Summarily, it is not without reason that some wise-head observed that a picture is worth a thousand words and steemitians better start acting like so rather than trying to disapprove!!

b) It is the same with writings/stories/poems. How does: “Nice story”, “I liked it” sort of comments build fellowship/community? Have you really read the story? If you have, have you not found the likeable or unlikeable character? Why not share in the experience of the characters the author has created? What impressed you the most about character X? How should character Y have responded?

Does the moral of the story relate to some experience you, your neighbor friend, relative, has had? Tell of it, because that is fellowship. I am a writer and I know that it is such interactions; such sharing’s in the characters of my fictional creation or even factual presentation that brings me, as for every other passionate writer, pleasure.

This is why I here add that with the 500SP, I will flag any such spam comments on my posts! On other posts, I may be a little lenient, on mine, I won’t! And it starts with this one!

c) It is the same concern with poems. Have you read the poem? Have you understood the theme? Have you not? Say it, and task the author to clarify, to explain, to make you understand. What is your take on the theme the poem addresses?

That is what interaction means, what fellowship means. Give your thoughts, rather than spam “Nice poem”, “I love it!” sort of mindless comments

Summarily, the concerns I here-above raise apply to all other tags. I wish had the luxury to write on each.

That foundation rationale above said, I can now confidently state what i will use the 500SP for:-

I will commit 90% of it to curating minnows/upvoting COMMENTS and only 10% to upvoting quality posts. I understand the craze of upvoting quality posts, but I trust with the whole of my mind, that bringing value to quality commentary directly translates to quality posts, and consequently to an improved steemit community, not the other way round!

To cap it all, and with foresight, it is obvious that in the two-months during which the 500SP is delegated to me, I will have many SBD’s from my curation activities. My plan is to commit 55% of the SBD earned during those two months, to powering up my own SP so my impact remains even after the 500SP is undelegated.

I will also commit the remaining 25% to running contests and paying out winning minnows, 15% to my savings so that I am able to afford a meal, clothing, and internet fees!, and 5% to @suesa as a token of appreciation for the selfless 500SP delegation.
 

C. What I’ve done in the Steem network (or other social networks) so far

1. First, having noticed the mistakes made by most minnows as I welcomed them in the commentary of their introduction posts, I decided to research a number of useful articles and to recommend to them (read all of my last comments, and you will find the majority are ‘welcomes’ for minnows with links to those articles).

a) https://steemit.com/steemit/@miti/a-complete-guide-for-newcomers-and-minnows-to-avoid-a-possible-spam-and-to-write-good-comments
b) https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@okusarobert/is-your-reputation-still-at-25-or-thereabout-do-you-have-only-few-followers-this-post-will-help-them-grow
c) https://steemit.com/steemit/@miti/newcomers-minnows-and-spammers-this-post-will-save-your-reputation

Feeling something was missing in all of the above, I was moved to write my own, as an addition to these already very useful articles

d) https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@ebitularmbert/steemit-s-2017-five-5-bad-habits-you-should-avoid-in-2018-to-save-your-reputation

In this, my article, I emphasized the quality of followership, as I believe all minnows are one way or another, followers! How to get followers and what it means to be a useful/active follower.

Overall, I gave sincere thoughts as I understood then, on contentious subjects such as upvoting one’s own comments on other people’s posts.

1. Secondly, I mentioned at the start that I have made many comments since joining Steemit a little more than one month ago, suffice now to add that the majority, probably over 80% of those comments, have been to welcome minnows to the steemit community.

Besides evidencing my commitment to the wellbeing of the new members as they join, which I am convinced translate to their ‘staying morale’, namely, their retention in the platform, dropping in for them, links to such helpful guides as those above, shows my commitment to helping them not just to remain in steemit after joining, but also to increase their reputation, to increase their earnings, overall, to GROW.

All these may not really be that much, but it has to be remembered that I have only been around here for a little more than just one month, and therefore also still learning most trades!

Maybe I should have deliberately gone out there and created Watsapp groups to promote Steemit,

Maybe I should have gone out there and stormed Universities in my country (s) to recruit more members to steemit,

Maybe I should have started an online campaign to do the same,

Yes, it is all maybe, but then maybe I wouldn’t have had the time to do what I have already done in the little time I have done it!

So maybe we each can only play one small but significant part to make Steemit a true community,

And maybe, if you are a minnow like me with so many hurdles to overcome, some @suesa comes along, and makes an offer,

And maybe, yes, maybe you get the opportunity of one guaranteed audience who will read, and consider and thoughtfully comment, and may be,

Yes, maybe find all reason to trust you with his/her hard-earned fortune!!!

The 500SP!