Trails - Big hype or serious investment model? Opening a curation debate.
It seems like trails, voting communities and curation services are the number 1 trend at steemit these days. I was wondering if I should start using one of these business models to improve my return here. But I am still not convinced so far. Here is my WHY NOT.
My recent experience with a trail
Yesterday I randomly opened an article published in the life-section. I was attracted by its title so started reading. Unfortunately I couldn´t understand a word. It seemed to be a bad google translation from another language into 'something like English'. After reading the article three times I kind of understood what the author wanted to say. But it sadly hadn´t anything to do with the promise given by its title. Scrolling down I saw that the article was upvoted by a trail - let´s call it X-trail to not denigrate anybody: 'Your post has been chosen by the communities of X-trail as one of our top picks today.'
What???
Why does a trail vote for an article which:
- Doesn´t make any sense
- Doesn´t have any message
- Hasn´t been written by a newbie (idea of supporting new users)
- Hasn´t been written by an established, successful and therefore promising author
???
Well I asked the person who voted for it on behalf of the trail and the answer was: 'I liked it.'
Imagine you asked your broker why he invested part of your capital in one specific stock and he answered 'I liked it'. What would you think?
I started investigating a bit more about this specific trail. I found out that there are 'curators' responsable for the main categories at steemit. The above mentioned article was published with the main tag 'life' as I said in the beginning. So I asked the curator who - according to the trail´s description - was the responsable one for that section. I already knew that the vote itself was given by someone else, but I thought that a curator would have at least any information about what happens in 'his' section.
I addressed the following question to the curator: According to the comment below this post (link copied) the piece has been chosen by the communities of x-Trail as one of their top picks of the day. I don´t wanna be disrespectful, but I cannot understand a word. Can you? The article got only 1 view, so I suppose you have read it before alloquating a bunch of votes on it on behalf of the trail?
The answer of the curator was:
[EDIT] This part has been deleted from the original article following the request of the information source not considering the information appropriated for public. [EDIT END]
Shouldn´t trails have a trustworthy business model based on numbers instead of personal taste? Shouldn´t officially nominated curators be well informed about what´s going on in their assigned field? And shouldn´t trail-votes be allocated on content with a certain level of quality?
During yesterday´s chat conversations talking about trails I was asked by one user why I am that upset and frustrated. I am neither upset nor frustrated, just asking and trying to understand the system. If some of my questions don´t make others feel comfortable, I apologize. But since this is about money, I don´t take everything for granted.
Although I am a girl I am able to leave my emotions outside when it comes to business :-)) And that´s exactly why I am still not convinced about these curation models. If I gave my voting power away (which is actually the most valuable power I do have inside this eco-system) I would do that based exclusively on rational arguments.
So where are these arguments? Where is the vote broker´s strategy? Where is your trustworthy investment concept? Why should I jump on that trail?
This is a quite controversial topic, so I hope to get some comments on that :)
Cheers,
Marly -
Picture source title: http://data.whicdn.com/
Picture source DiCaprio office: http://www.modularsfc.com
Picture source emotions: http://www.ultraupdates.com/
Picture source awesome: https://67.media.tumblr.com/
I don't use vote bots, or auto vote trails. Why? Blindness. I judge what I vote for, apply my vote weight towards, and reward them for. I don't trust other people to choose what is worthy of a vote and generating rewards on my behalf. I judge and represent my own voice. I also don't blindly upvote everything from someone just because they are someone "trusted".
I started to make a project for a curation network, which keeps you in power, while allowing more networking of sharing quality content, or content people "like" to curate for.
SteemKURE - Curation Network for Steemit Users
Let me know if you think it's a good platform/idea. I should have a working basic version today done and put online shortly. If you want to try it our when it's up, let me know.
Also resteemed your post. Peace.
Brilliant! Thanks for your comment and for sharing the link, I will study your concept and give you my feedback. I totally agree on your voting philosophy!
Now that I´ve read your article about the KURE project @krnel, here is my feedback on it: fantastic approach! I am really looking forward. Terms of curation should be designed by all of us, that´s a brilliant idea. The way it is going right now cannot be the way most of the users are really willing to follow. Kindred - that´s it! A really good naming. And the logo also fits very well - it somehow remembered me Lady Juctice (which would actually be a nice bridge), don´t ask me why :-)
I would have loved resteeming your post, but it´s too late :-( I am following you for future updates!
That's part of the reason why I feel views are important. I mentioned that the other day. I'm losing a bit of faith in the automated procedures myself due to the fact I'm consistently witnessing garbage that will not stand the test of time being upvoted to the high heavens while others writing quality pieces of enjoyment aren't even being acknowledged.
When someone sets up their bots, they are not doing it to support quality. They look at who's consistently trending and add those authors to their lists. The reason those authors are consistently trending is because others have already done the same thing with their bots. The reason their rewards grow with each article is because more have applied bots using the same logic. They want curation rewards, they don't want to support authors. The quality means nothing.
It's spiraling out of control to the point where the same people are making huge rewards which keep growing and the rest of field gets zilch unless a curation guild picks them up.
One automated service now has over 700 users. Think about that. Think about what happens when they all follow the same thought process. Now think about the average users who contribute decent stuff daily and new users as well.
I'd go on, but it feels as if I'll be punished for saying anything. I just know this isn't good for business.
Yup. People don't want to take personal responsibility for making Steemit a quality success. Their focus? $$$ for the least time, effort and energy they can put in. Hence, @shitsports and the sports pick to drain the reward pool and inflate one account that doesn't create any real content on the platform. "Redistributing SP"... and... "interaction" are the two clever manipulative justifications used to sidestep the real issues and keep projecting a false image of "goodness" for Steemit by doing this.
People, overall, don't seem to care for quality and standard of honor and doing what right and better.
I've had quality on my mind since the beginning: Steemit Succeeds if We Make it Succeed - Analysis to Help Yourself and Steemit Grow in Quality, and mentioned the personal responsibility to curate. Autovoting is blindness.
For me, personally, I write entertainment, produce my own images. There's no way that can impress a robot. If my account wasn't trending the day someone made their automated vote list, I'll never be on it. If my account was trending, and someone added me, they'd quickly realize others have not added me to their vote lists and I'd be dumped because I don't add value to the procedure, I'm a waste of a slot. They want to maximize their curation rewards.
Show me one business on this planet that allows people to dip into the cash register after kicking the merchandise around all day. What happens to the platform when new users can't get anywhere because everyone has their votes locked into someone else. What happens to the 90% of people who are not on the fabricated trending list. When there are 100 authors and 1000 automated voters and nobody else, what happens to the value of Steem. Will they realize what they did with their own money when they finally realize they did that to themselves?
Yeah, eating ourselves, nasty incest. Short term sight and goals on $, no real vision to see whats best for the platform. Eventually the reputation and image will be of sports pick betting, and if porn increases then more of that. Facebook is safe where it is, Steemit will never be anything big if its revolving around sports bets and porn as the most popular "content".
Seems like my article was flagged. Is there any possibility to see who flagged it? Funny somehow. I called it 'debate' for a reason :-D
Replace steemit with steemd:
https://steemd.com/curation/@surfermarly/trails-big-hype-or-serious-investment-model-opening-a-curation-debate
I agree! I've been trying to increase the value of my vote for just this reason...I genuinely read each post I upvote and therefore want my vote to have more impact. Keep up the good thinking and posting!
Thank you @natureofbeing! I think that controversial issues have to be openly discussed. Curation is something many users are concerned about, that's why I started the conversation. I am happy you appreciated that :) Have a nice day!
Hey!
I am not sure, but for the non-technical curators (like me) who just like to read a lot and vote more often than the normal Steemit user, I opened my trail with specifications of what I will be voting on (sort of like a witness thread but for curators), and I think that every user who uses a site like Streemian or Steemvoter should be responsible for who they have trusted to use their voting power for or to. But in a way they do, let's say another user runs into a post like the one you mentioned, he or she might be aware of @steemcleaners and drop the link in there and once they take a look at it they will flag it and remove the rewards, so they lose curation rewards by having voted on it.
But I understand that many are also afk and have been for some time and trusted their voting power on someone, while that somoene might have trusted his own voting power on another trail and thus there are trails building up upon trails and I've seen this happen at some point a lot as well were votes were being re-cast because users were following more than 1 trail or trails were following other trails.
I think it also has a lot to do with intertwining with bot-votes as well, or timed votes on certain authors that may or may not be outdated. There may be a lot of factors and I haven't to be honest looked into it too much, but I understand that it can be annoying to run into posts you wanna read but can't and its just a waste of time for everyone involved.
I urge every curator to read the content before they upvote stuff. In my eyes I see curation trails as something big in the future which you could compare for instance patreon.com and what it does but with votes instead here on Steemit. Supporting newcomers and old users, my votes usually spread from 40-100 per day from 20-100% scaled votes with more SteemPower than I am able to provide with my own account.
Hope your issue is something that will get fixed over time and more manual users/curators :)
Thank you very much for your detailed reply! I guess if steemit was growing like it's foreseen, manual voting and curation would become even more complicated. If values are hard to defend with 3,000 active users, how would that be with 300,000? I am happy having opened that discussion in any case. It's always good to point out concerns users have, although some may feel uncomfortable with it. I am totally with you regarding the voting philosophy. Reading is gold! :) Steem on!
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 12. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $14.05 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 12 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
I curate for two trails - the @foraging-trail and the @gardening-trail. Right now, the focus is on establishing sub-communities around those topics. I read every single post that goes onto those trails -- and others that don't make it. I write comments in most of those posts, too! Not every post is 'top-notch', but the emphasis is on community - giving people a focus for their posts and for getting to know each other. Community is what keeps people coming back to a platform over the long-haul.
Eventually, people will be able to follow those trails and lend their votes to anything curated for the trail. The idea is that people cannot possibly read all the foraging or gardening posts, but they want to support people writing about those specific topics. And they want to support the curation, too, especially for foraging, where curation takes more effort because information should be correct, not just interesting.
There are so many curation efforts underway, that I don't think it's possible to make general statements about curation. Critique or suggestions should be aimed at a specific curation effort, not just curation generally. Their goals are not the same and their methods are not the same.
I am happy you left your comment here, @haphazard-hstead! The post wasn't aiming to criticize in general but to open a quality discussion. What you pointed out is 'trust', and that's exactly what I was missing so far. Thanks for sharing your point of view and experience!
Let's see what the road map of Dan and Ned will bring - until that moment of time there is not much sense in making plans anyway ;) Have a good day!!
Good points. I'm new, and finding many questionable practices here...
Thank you @kuching! And welcome to steemit though. Good choice ;)
Haha:
https://steemit.com/streemian/@chainsquad/curationtrail-premium-queue---vote-before-others-in-the-trail-for-5mth--extended-promo-discount
Secure a better spot for more curation rewards : PAY US for the spot!
Steemit... voting is losing its authenticity.
It´s becoming a county fair. I actually missed the blinking neon spots on that promotion post :-D And the #funny tag, certainly! haha
I was just introduced to the concept of the steemit jargon "trails" only 6 minutes ago, and naive to the full understanding of curation. So, though I may not at this time "add" to the debate. I appreciate you bringing up the topic so I may become better informed. Thanks. ~Peace!
You are welcome, and thanks for participating @hexdek16!
The upvote happened for the same reason you opened the article in the first place: it clearly had a catchy title, and perhaps a good thumbnail.
Therefore the upvoter thought that it would get upvotes due to those factors.
I doubt he ever read. Success on Steemit has very little to do with the contents of your post, and moreso with grabbing attention.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is everyone's prerogative.
Thanks for your comment @schattenjaeger!
The big difference between the 'upvoter' and me was: I didn´t upvote the article :)
I totally agree on your attention theory. In the beginning it´s all about attention. But that doesn´t necessarily mean that we have to curate accordingly. Content which is able to gain attention will always have a higher possibility of an upvote than content which doesn´t outstand in any way. But shouldn´t we vote for the content itself and not just for its shell?
Personally, I agree with you. For what it's worth.