Top 12 Things I Didn't Know I Would Be Doing On Steemit
Yours May Vary
There seems to be a point where we all sit down and write a post that reflects where we're at in our STEEM journey. Some posts come earlier, some come later, but they do most assuredly come. I'm talking about posts where the author questions whether or not they're doing the right things, or why no one is looking at their posts, or why the whales won't do this or that, or when will Steemit fix this or that. Those kinds of posts. Eventually, we all do one or more of them to some extent. Or we think about them.
Why? I think it's just the nature of being here. Which means, somewhere, out there in the vastness of STEEMspace, there are other posts like this one (even though I've never seen one myself). So, at the risk of being repetitious, I present to you my Top 12 Things I Didn't Know I Would Be Doing On Steemit.
In no particular order.
Image source—Pixabay
Me, collecting that precious SP for the winter.
Figuring Out My Rewards
I thought I was coming here to write. I didn't know it would behoove me to acquaint myself with the finer workings of the rewards system. I thought the amounts I saw on posts in my preliminary glance at Steemit were what people got at payout. Nope. Wrong. That was the total gross amount. There would be a percentage for the curating, halving the left over to get the SBD, then dividing by the price of STEEM to get SP. No problem. Oh, and then when prices got low enough, throw in some calculations for liquid STEEM, too. Yay!
I also didn't know that the amounts I saw would go down, depending on what STEEM was doing and what other posts might be out there competing in the reward pool.
Writing About STEEM
It's amazing how much gets written about the inner workings of this place, and how much I've felt I should do it. Here I go again! But there's new people coming in all the time, and they're wanting to know how things work, and others are writing their thoughts and opinions about it and people tend to upvote and engage on these posts. There is such a thing as Know Your Audience and that holds true here, too.
What I haven't found myself writing about with any great proclivity are posts about cryptocurrency or the blockchain. And, I probably won't. Not my interests, or field of expertise. I know what I know about them because I'm here on the STEEM platform. I'm afraid my technical analysis of STEEM and other cryptos would look like this:
Today STEEM is up. Oh, now it's down. Wait, no, it's going sideways. Sorry, thought it might be... Ooops, yes, yes, it is going up... No, that's down.
Competing With Bots Over Curation
Actually, I didn't know I would be competing for curation at all. I didn't even know what curation was. I thought it would be more like a resteem or a share elsewhere. Here, it's upvoting on posts and comments. But, there's times to do it and times not to do it. I'm not talking about whether the content is good or bad, by the way. I'm talking about maximizing your return on investment. Because that's what we're doing when we curate. We do it maybe because we like the post, or just as likely the person, or perhaps the topic, but we do it strategically. Or we're wasting our vote.
Which means we have to out vote the votebots. Even though they're programmed to vote at precisely the right moment. Which means they have the best chance of getting the greater portion of curation.
I also thought that what I gave in rewards would either stay with the author or go into the curator fund. Not necessarily so. It all depends. Some of it, albeit a very small amount, may end up elsewhere.
Navigate The Waters
I didn't know I would run up against so many ways of doing the same thing, and people who were so adamant about it to the point of zealotry. I thought it was more like live and let live here. An anarchy kind of thing. Help others if you wanted. Don't if you don't. And that everyone was buying into that.
To a certain extent, it's definitely like that. And to a certain extent, it's not. Eventually, we all find out to what extent, and it can change the following day. Maybe it should be called the STEEM conundrum. Because that's what it is: a riddle, within a mystery, stored in Pandora's Box.
Worry About My Voting Power
Wondering how voting worked just wasn't on my mind when I signed up. As I've said, I just wanted to write. I didn't know how others were going to vote for my stuff, I just knew I wanted them to. Then I found out that my lowly amount of SP affected how much I could vote and how often. And I also found out that I only had a certain amount of bandwidth, too, that if exceeded, and it happened a few times, I couldn't do much. Thankfully, that wasn't a whole lot.
I think within the first few days of voting I depleted my voting power below 30%. That was a terrible time, because I wanted to comment and I felt like I need to leave something as compensation or a polite gesture. Proper etiquette. I still do it now. And I'm watching when my voting power will return to 100% all the time so I can know how much more I can vote. Because I want to do it. I want to vote, okay?!
Building Relationships
I'm well aware of networking. I went to a business college where they hammered the concept into our heads over and over again. In the beginning at least, and thereafter, it's less about what you know and what you can do as it is who you know. But I figured, there's these pages—Trending, Hot and New. That must be the way people would find my posts. I wouldn't need to network.
Silly me. I needed to network like never before. Fortunately, I could do it through commenting on other people's posts, and then there was Discord and Steemit.chat, too, where all the cool kids hung out. I could really go to town with networking there.
Well, in the process of this networking (mainly commenting), relationships have been formed. I didn't now I would need them, or want them. While I'm not a social butterfly, these relationships are a part of the reason why I keep coming back day after day. I didn't know it would be like that.
Complaining
I thought people would be primarily on the same page. This was STEEM, the revolutionary blockchain and social media platform that would change the world through bootstrapping a global digital currency. Decentralization. Immutability. Freedom. Opportunity for all. Finally, something that would bring people together and unite them under one banner and one common cause.
Except... we're all still very much human with our human flaws and we bring those with us here. And even though most people are on their better behavior here, too many are not.
So, there's plenty of complaining. And it's contagious. It doesn't help, though, that there is some low lying fruit to pick at. It's really not hard. I've participated. I'm trying to stop it all together, and I think I've slowed my part down quite a bit. But it still rears its ugly head.
Wondering Why
Why did he/she do that? Why did Steemit do that? Why don't they do this, or something else? Why am I not making more? Why is that person making more? Why did they get curied? Why am I still here? Why does everyone ignore me? Why aren't I a whale yet? Why don't people get the awesomeness of this platform and appreciate what a once in a millennia opportunity they have here?
Worrying About Hacks
I thought the blockchain was unhackable. I thought it couldn't be shaken. I didn't know that phishing scams would be possible here, let alone be happening. I didn't know there would be a bot, maybe more, waiting to pounce if I accidentally put the wrong key in the wrong place. I figured that decentralization would stop that from affecting anything.
Truth to tell, there's probably more that goes on than we ever know because things are prevented from doing major damage. We just lose access, or things get spotty, when the attacks do work. It's really sad that there are people out there with no better purpose in life but to do harm. I guess hacking into STEEM isn't the worse thing they could be doing, but it's certainly seems far from the most constructive.
Worrying About Blockchain Freezing
This is a recent phenomena, and hopefully not forgotten. While not necessarily common (it's only happened once since I've been here), there are actions on the blockchain that can cause it to seize up. Apparently, it's got to be some function that's out of the ordinary to do, but can still be done. No one really knows. The blockchain is a very complicated series of code. I'm told it's impossible for there not to be some bugs, and difficult to anticipate what else might happen.
I didn't know that, and while I'm not exactly worrying about it, it does continue to concern me, and I do wonder if/when is it going to happen again.
Wondering Who People Are
This, I really should have known better. I figured someone, somewhere would know who people were. They would keep track of them. In the case of a bad actor, they could be identified. In case of accusations, we'd know who they were coming from. If someone with a lot of SP came out of nowhere and started demanding folks to comply with certain standards, someone at Steemit Inc. would know who that person was so they could sit down and have more of an adult conversation with them and try to bring about consensus with others.
Nope. It's the Internet, and there's a cryptocurrency attached. So privacy wins out, nearly every time. I'm allowing for an exception I haven't heard of yet. Maybe if Steemit Inc. ever has to comply with a request for information on someone. Maybe then. In the meantime, bad actors can keep on acting badly. They'll get flagged, they'll get harassed, they'll get shunned, but any true criminal activity, like phishing and stealing STEEM, has just as good a chance of going unpunished as it does going to court. Why? Privacy, even for the phisher.
Still Want To Get Up In The Morning
After all that, I wouldn't believe I would want to keep getting up in the morning, six days a week, and doing it all over again. I've said on more than one occasion, I'm getting to old for this. I believe that's true. But with age, patience has emerged. A dogged determination if you will. Also, a realization that I have nowhere else to go, until something else actually shows up and proves itself to be less complicated, with an easier learning curve, that's truly incentivizing what it would like people to do, and is more organized than cats herding squirrels.
It's not cats herding squirrels, but it's still hilarious.
So, I'm here. And oddly enough, despite doing all these things I didn't know I'd be doing, contending with, or tolerating, I'm anxious to keep coming back.
I enjoy writing. I enjoy commenting. I enjoy reading and curating. I enjoy helping out where I can. I like meeting people from all over the world, even though I might rather travel and actually get to know people in person. Maybe some day.
Bonus: Watching The Steem Price
This one probably ties in with the way the reward pool works and how voting power goes, but I do a lot of STEEM watching. I've watched it spike, and I've watched it dip, and I've seen it go sideways a lot too. I kind of like the sideways but slightly trending upward myself. I didn't think I'd be doing that, either.
Final Thoughts
Who would of thought that there would be so much to do, just to get your footing on STEEM, let alone do something once you had it? Maybe that's why the slogan isn't:
STEEM. You don't need to be a rocket scientist, but it doesn't hurt. Or:
STEEM. You don't need a thick skin but you'll probably grow one. Or maybe even:
STEEM. Figure out your why now so you won't have a hissy fit a temper tantrum a rage quit an existential moment later.
About This Post
These are things I didn't know I would be doing on Steemit. While some will be virtually universal, others may not. What things didn't you know you would be doing on Steemit?
howdy @glenalbrethsen! this is an amazing post and brilliantly written, all the great comments have covered any thoughts I had but I wanted to say hi and show my support. that cat herding video! oh man, where did you get that thing? it's hilarious! God Bless!
No Name remembered it came out during a Super Bowl a while back. I didn't remember that part, but I did remember seeing it. I just put in cat herding into the YouTube search and it popped up.
Well, that's too bad that you don't have anything to add. I guess that means getting here sooner or something. :)
hey the comments were so good that I'd sound dumb, give me another few months here and I would have more to add!
I could include many things from your list on mine, but I also would include a few others. Like, helping a man work through his grief from his dad's death, another for his wife leaving him unexpectedly, another who was depressed, talked a couple of people in to staying and not quitting steemit. I could continue, but you get the picture. I'm a good listener, and often many open up to me here, like in real life I guess too.
My VP is horrible Glen, so I've got to hold off on upvoting, which I hate, but there it is :)
Interesting post; it's crazy to think what this really is, compared to what it's sold as!
I guess I had those kinds of things included under building relationships, though I wasn't thinking specifically of instances like that when I wrote that part. It's true, though, there tends to be a lot of listening and sharing of life experiences going on here, too, that isn't necessarily something I would expect to do.
The fact that you're getting to do these things, while standing to have your own situation listened to, is just amazing. But it's funny how in the times of most need for oneself, reaching out and helping others seems to be the only balm that works to ease our fears, tears and aches.
Not sure how it works. Only that it does, if only temporarily.
re: VP
Well, the STEEM price keeps adjusting down. It's not very conducive to voting, unless you've got a ton of SP that you bought at $0.05 or something.
There's definitely much more to this place than meets the eye, or what you're told about in the beginning. And then it goes and changes some more every time a change is made or someone discovers some long forgotten aspect of STEEM, like dust thresholds. Who knew? :)
@glenalbrethsen, the thing that surprises me is that I've never been a social media person before. Sure I had a Facebook account, and still use it to keep in touch with long distance friends and family, but I can count on one hand the pictures I posted or comments I made. I have, as you know, bared my soul here, but it's only because I realized, after a certain amount of time, that it seems safe to do so. You're right though, it all helps "ease our own fears, tears and aches".
I've never bought any SP, and with all of the things I'm involved with, I just simply run out. That's the easiest thing to understand about everything :)
No kidding! Dust thresholds!!??
So, I have a degree in Social Media Marketing, but as an individual person, I haven't really posted a whole lot of my life on Facebook or anywhere else. Here, though, just like you, I've opened up a lot more. I'm still hesitant to go all out as some do, but I feel more comfortable about it, since, as you note, it does have more of a safe feeling to it.
That said, there's no way to get rid of anything that's here, so any entity coming in with the intent to hunt you down dirt or information won't have a hard time of it. Certainly, hopefully, there will be a lot of things that will need to happen before that occurs, but Steemit's updated Terms of Service policies aren't necessarily instilling people with confidence of maintaining privacy in the event a government, law enforcement or even someone else with a legitimate request comes calling.
There is a level of privacy here, and anonymity, but with it, there's phishing and spamming and other scamming that we can't ever shut down entirely because account ownership is sacrosanct. With maybe an exception that I'm not even sure exists but I have heard does and don't really even know what it is. Just that it would set a precedent that no one really wants so we tolerate the rest.
We live in a sea of shark infested water, but as long as we keep each other apprised of where they are at and do our best to avoid them, some of us may fall prey but the rest of us will be okay until we also fall prey. Or not. :)
re: buying SP
I bought in, I'm not involved anything but one thing (the leagues) and I also run out. It's apparently the name of the game, at least until you reach a certain SP threshold, where the word threshold actually works for you instead of against you. :)
Yes, the "forever" thing is a bit daunting when you really stop to think about it. There's positives to that as well; I know a couple of moms who are opening accounts in their kids names, only to upload photos, art work, etc.; all that stuff we piled in boxes and store it somewhere in the attic or basement. That's a pretty cool thing. All of Brian's poems and writing to me; here forever, never to be lost on a broken hard drive somewhere.
But, then there's what you said; the other side to it, and it's a big "other side" for sure.
Well, see, that does concern me. When people start saying, that's impossible, it can't be done, I think, Oh, yeah?! Tell that to every scientific advancement that was impossible before it wasn't. Or tell that to everyone who thought Germany wouldn't take over most of Europe or that Mao wouldn't kill so many of his own people.
It's only impossible because it hasn't been done yet. Not because it can't be done.
So, here we are, sitting on the latest and greatest bit of technology that mankind has to offer, with all its promises, and man, if they ever happen, what a glorious day it will be. But, in the meantime, there's a worldwide apparatus and status quo and power struggle that needs to be dismantled and that's not going to happen without a battle.
Oh, but technology will sweep them all into the dustbin of history. Or, they'll seize it and wield it against you like every other scientific breakthrough that ended up weaponized. I don't know how they do that to STEEM, as in, make it a weapon of mass destruction. But they can take what's here and use it for whatever purpose they want. And really, anyone can see it, so there's nothing to stop them from using it now.
How's that for doom and gloom on a Friday Night. It is/was the 13th, right? :) Sorry. I just kind of ran with it.
Yikes! How do I erase this stuff????
Well, you could make it harder on them and start deleting things when we're able to edit all our old posts. They'd still be able to get to it on another app, but they would have to go to that hassle first. :) Then you could follow in the footsteps of the nijeah guy and come up with a way to freeze the blockchain so no one can access it.
Actually, though, I think I would rather find a way to preserve decentralization and liberty. That seems to be a better use of time, energy and effort. :)
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
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Hi Glen. My biggest one is the voting power. I like you feel guilty not leaving something behind and try and do it more than I don't. Once you reach below 50 % though it is a struggle to get back.
Yep. At that point, the only thing you can do is wait it out.
There's certainly an element of guilt or something to it. It's also just the general idea of, if I want someone to upvote my post or comment, then I should be willing to reciprocate. In reality, it's more of a courtesy—I want to engage with you, so here's my $0.03, or a way of saying thanks for replying.
But since the vast majority of comments go without being upvoted, even when engaging with higher SP (so it's not as much about voting power at that point as some philosophy or voting strategy), it's morphed into my way of providing the person I'm engaging with something for their time.
It's kind of weird how that all has unfolded over the last six months, but that's basically it. :) And I can't do it nearly as much when STEEM values are down and cutting into how I much I can spread my vote around. It only gets worse the lower in SP from me you go.
I think exactly the same as you. Wish others did as well though.
Yeah, that's a whole other can of worms, now isn't it?
I haven't seen it verbalized as much lately, but for a while, I was running into comment threads discussing the actual worth of comments. Basically, the idea was, no comment is worth an upvote, or very few, which would then put that comment up to the top where others could see it and potentially upvote it, too.
Kind of creating a trending comment.
While I've upvoted comments on their value or merit, engagement is such an issue here that I just like the idea of encouraging it. If someone replies and gives me something to work with—doesn't need to be long, but it needs to continue the conversation—then I think it's worth some kind of acknowledgement beyond my response.
So, there's the upvote virtually every time mentality I find myself in versus the upvote virtually never concept, with all points in between, including subjectively determining when to do any of that. :)
It would be great if we could a group of 500-1000 who all had the ability to upvote regularly and then just see where it went. Although, getting upvotes isn't the only reason for commenting. There's so much else that can be gained from it, that it can become it's own reward, and then gain rewards indirectly through more post curation.
The main thing is to keep commenting and see where it leads, I think. That's the theory I've been testing out for about 2.5 months now. So far, it seems to be having some results. :)
Yeah, I don't know if that counts as something I would expect to do. :) I'm always the odd duck.
As it is, I'm probably coming back for the prizes after Sunday's results lists come out. Or at least, after a fashion. It has to do with what I mentioned very briefly a time or two before. I'll let you know for sure, though. I think I've come up with something I want to do and how I want to do it, but I need to run it by you first to see what you think, since it would serve as an add on incentive to the engagement league. :)
And, I send my condolences regarding England and the World Cup. Just a weird unfortunate bounce that caught everyone on Team England standing around watching.
Which puts me in the not so enviable position of determining who to root for in the final minutes of regulation (since that's about all I've been watching) unless it's already determined by then.
I suppose though, if your a French Croatian, or a Croatian French, you're loving life right now. :)
Heh, those are all things I never thought I would be writing about either... but I do. Your insight is right on point, man. You're normally putting into words what I'm still just feeling in my gut. At least someone knows how to say what needs to be said.
I like that commercial. I think it came on during the Superbowl one year. I still don't know what that company does... in fact, I've never heard of them other than the commercial, but that's ok. I got 30 seconds of entertainment from them.
It is pretty hilarious, listening to actors who really sound like cowboys talking about herding cats all day. :) It's almost like it's true.
Well, I appreciate that. This is an idea I've had most of the week but I wasn't sure what I was going to include until this evening.
And, I thought if I approached it from the standpoint of what I knew before and what my expectations were it would resonate and relate with more people. So, I'm hoping it does that.
Being here is so much more than what it's sold as.
It's really like learning a whole new language while being in middle school all over again, and at the same time that first day of work in a job you've got no clue about because you oversold yourself and bluffed your way through the interview, while living in a new culture where everyone airs their dirty laundry in public.
That is an even better summary of the place. People will know what you mean. You should just lead with that. Or follow with it and put it at the end of your posts!
It's a little long for a slogan, and doesn't really fit a mission statement, and as I was typing it I was thinking, Man, I should have thought of this earlier and included it in the post. Type type type Oh, well. Shrug.
Or I could have said:
Steemit: Don't short the roll.
Then you and I could have roflcoptered while everyone else wondered what I was drinking. :)
I'm picturing both you and me roflcoptering on the floor next to each other. That's a funny mental image! "People would point and stare, but we wouldn't care. Because we met the roflcopter."
Kind of like this:
I was looking for the one where's there's at least two of them, but I couldn't find it. You'll just have to imagine the other guy. :)
Yep, that's pretty much it! Too bad they didn't do another sketch where all of them were doing that. Would have been hilarious! :)
I'm with you on that one! It's a perfect summary of this craziness :)
You sure do bring up a lot of points that I can relate to. I am sure many can. I am sure you are correct and I like everyone else will eventually be writing about it. I think at some point everyone has to look around and ask themselves why they are really here. I believe for many it aint the pennies.
I think one of the reasons you write so well is an ability to cover a lot of ground in one go. Anyone who truly wants to "engage" could easily start a whole conversation based around any single paragraph.
About that vote thing never even worry about that with me. most times I just enjoy to the typing back and forth. I pay my little 1/2 pennie like paying admission.
Steemit sure is a strange place with its own little conduct code. It would almost be sad if something better came along. I just now am starting to figure out this mess. Starting from scratch would be a pain in the patoot for sure.
Well, that's what I figure. The thing is, if I remember correctly, the only thing known to be potentially better is ONO, which I think launches shortly. It'll be on EOS, which is also supposed to have Steemit 2.0 in the works. Regardless, ONO will be two years behind STEEM when it drops, and whatever EOS might have in the works will be behind that. It will take a massive migration for either to become bigger than Steemit in less than a year to 18 months period of time. That's not likely to happen. More likely is some of us will go, others will follow, keeping one foot here while stepping into the other, and the rest of us will wait and see and work with what we know.
ONO is China-based, and even though it's decentralized now, that concerns me. China's track record since communism isn't that great when it comes to freedom. It's track record before communism is only slightly better when it comes to freedom. So, we'll see.
As far as anything EOS might put together—unless they come up with a cutting edge social media platform, and figure out how to reward people in a fair and consistent manner, they will run into the same situations as STEEM has. In order to do some of it, they will have to have it coded into place. In order to do some others, they will have to have a little more of an authoritarian mindset. We'll see how that goes, too.
re: conduct code
It would be nice to understand that conduct code. It's more of a do what you want but suffer the consequences (or not) kind of code. You never know what people you run into are going to think about anything. And by the time you get to know them, you and they both have both nuanced your thinking about any given topic at least once.
It's just not that easy of a place to get used to, because there's always something new popping up.
Well, I figure most people can relate to not expecting to do so many things on Steemit other than posting, commenting and curating. Something might be emphasized over others, with a few unique experiences, but we eventually will have a brush with all that can happen here.
I appreciate the assessment of my writing abilities. This one was a mash of different topics, which would hopefully encourage conversations on more than one. You could go on for days with this kind of post, commenting back and forth. However, the post needs to be seen, and I suffer from the same near invisibility the majority of us do. Some day, though. Some day. :)
Hi I agree about China's track record with freedoms. If you have had a look at their "Sesame System" that right there says it all.
Conduct code is a favorite topic for me. Probably because I have a fascination with psychology. Group psychology and how that translates to Steemit provides an endless supply of things to delve into. Cultural differences just add more to the mix. You seem to touch on such topics often. Think I will pop over and see what you are writing about today.
Well, today, I've been out and about, and managed to get my normal average of posts per week, plus one, in by yesterday.
I do tend to be on those kinds of topics, but not so much from the psychological standpoint but more from the "What the heck?!" frame of mind. :) Actually, I guess some of them aren't quite like that, but it's hard to avoid really. I know there are plenty of people who go on their merry way doing mostly what they want to do. I don't know that I envy them per se, but it would be nice to be able to ignore things more than I do. I used to go looking for things. Now, they come looking for me.
So do the middle class and the wealthy.
I suppose the different cultures do add something to it, but really, when you break it down, people are people, and while some environments and ways of thinking will be different, human nature still gets in the way.
If all you've ever known is poverty, do you only want that? Probably not. You seek for ways to better yourself and that of your family, particularly your children, so they will be better off than you were.
If suddenly your thrust into the role of great wealth, do we go about things as if we are still poor? That would be good to a degree—being thrifty and buying just what you need. Some do, but most do not. They don't know how to handle it. Not even those in the middle class range tend to do well when all of a sudden there's millions in the equation.
That's just one example of what can happen, but mostly it's folks who are trying to do something to better their financial future. It doesn't matter where you come from to have a desire to do that. That's probably a simplification, but often what we're looking at are the lowest common denominator, and the lowest common factor.
Great post! Enjoyed reading your article...keep up the great work!
This is really very special thanks for sharing