A call to wing for Curangel

in #curation5 years ago

What I have loved about #newsteem has been the reintroduction of randomization in the reward process where due to the increase in active curation, there is more uncertainty in what will get voted, what will not and - what will get downvoted.

This randomization has been reintroduced because of the latter, where downvotes have changed the models of maximization away from massive bidbot buys and therefore, a lot of stake went unused. This then translated into people moving their delegations toward 50/50 curation instead.

Because of this return to curation and more manual voting, curation initiatives have finally returned to the Steem waters to reintroduce the "lottery effect" on Steem, where authors can be surprised by winning rewards without having to do anything else other than produce good content. Once upon a Steem time, these community projects kept people engaged and as they offered a thrill of not only a vote, but recognition.

One of the newest and most interesting curation projects is @Curangel - delivered by respected witness, @pharesim. Some of you might recognize those wings as a major sponsor of SteemFests. You can see their announcement post here and how they have been performing officially here as of a few days ago.

But for the last 7 days, we have this:

What that means is that in the last seven days @curangel has unearthed and voted 822 times and to 679 unique accounts by using their manual curators who search and suggest content for the @curangel account to vote upon with its almost half a million stake.

So?

Well, there is more to curation than just directing Steem toward content and there is more to @Curangel than this too as what is starting to happen more and more is like @theycallmedan has said, curation becomes the best way to earn for investors and a paid service, and this has larger implications for the entire ecosystem.

While at @curangel the author gets some much deserved Steem for their work (50%), the curator also earns a piece of the curation return (10%) and those who delegate get the rest (40%). 40% for delegation instead of the 50%? Yes, because through the curation as a service, there is more to it than maximization.

Being able to unearth and reward talent adds value to the entire ecosystem and rewarding people who search for this content to reward and bring it into the spotlight has value also as it develops and supports sets of active eyes who are looking out for Steem, in the positive and negative. Yes, @curangel has a downvoting component too and curators can suggest content that they come across that deserves to have some rewards removed.

What Steem is missing in regards to unearthing content are the algorithms that the centralized platforms use to great effect, but are authoritarian by nature. Steem's algorithm is the active community who keeps an eye on on the content so that what is deserving gets rewarded, and what is not doesn't. This is intensive manual work, but it means that rather than telling people what is good, the community actually decides what it wants to see.

It is also because of this that having many curation initiatives with stake behind them is ideal because it decentralizes the search process so not only can more ground be covered, but there can be a wider range of diversity as well as greater community consensus on what holds value. What I am hoping is and seeing already is that some content has had stacked votes on them, not by bidbots, by manual curation teams.

What this does is highlight what is highly regarded by the curators and generally it is when they all chance upon a brilliant piece and, the author wins the curation initiative lottery. In time, this is going to be a massive attractor of users and will encourage authors to win the lottery from time to time also by creating fantastic content. It is this attention to great content that will bring ever more content creators and as they arrive, the masses will come to consume the content delivered.

As an investor and Steem owner this is what is needed to increase awareness and therefore value of the ecosystem, and that is why people should consider delegating some of their stake to curation initiatives. Especially at this stage of the platform, having manual curators who literally spend hours each day searching through the ecosystem looking for content should be considered a highly regarded service.

Personally, I have increased my delegation to a dolphin-sized amount of Steem to @curangel because I have watched how not only have they distributed much appreciated votes to authors, they have engaged their curators and connected them more deeply to Steem, something that also has to happen. My brother @galenkp is one of the curators and I do not think I have seen him as engaged on the platform in his 2+ years, and if anyone knows him, he has always been engaged.

Having this kind of energy behind a curation team means that when it comes to distribution, they are actively looking out for all aspects of the platform, and all user groups - author, consumer, developer and investor. @curangel and other initiatives are business models that provide a service to bring all four into alignment and the more support they get, the faster the ecosystem develops and the greater the value grows.

Your stake is your own, but I urge those who have even a little extra to seek out ways to maximize the value it brings to the ecosystem by delegating some to projects like @curangel where the return on the investment through the development of the ecosystem is much higher than the cost of the service. For the larger and older accounts out there, this being a @pharesim project should be enough in itself to look further and consider giving it some backing.

Your stake, your platform.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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Thank you for the support @tarazkp, we really appreciate it.

Really enjoy my time as a curator with @curangel

With this project, more content creators are covered.

Many old users at Steem don't get their hard work properly, but they also remain active. This often makes them only post short content because they feel they only bring a little attention from other users.

The little attention is always an issue. The curators should leave some kind of personal comment on each post perhaps.

Thank you for the shout-out and the kind words, for the project as well as myself!
I feel a bit weird when it's described as a business model, because the curators will never receive more than a tip for their work, and everything else does to the delegators. But that's a definition issue I guess :)

No worries. I think because this is part of the economy and aims to add to it, it is a business by ecosystem proxy. :) when used well, those tips further add to the value and engagement on the platform. How I see it is that on Steem, everything is connected to the outcomes of the future.

I've been enjoying curating for the project. As you know I've posted (on average) over twice a day every day since I started here in mid-2017 but yes, since @curangel I've engaged more deeply with other users and off-platform a little too. I'm enjoying it and together with the #newsteem-environment feel things are moving in the right direction. The numbers certainly look good.

Bringing, and keeping, people here is critical to the future. A big congratulations to those behind the project and to the other awesome curators for a job well done. They all know who they are, no need to tag them I guess. 😂

(Delegated 2000 right from the outset as I thought that the project would do some good - It does so my delegation is vindicated.)

Bringing, and keeping, people here is critical to the future.

The trick is to keep people engaged and connected to others on the platform and I think the best way to do that is through relationship building, comments and the like. Once that starts happening and the applications start offering different experience, people will be more happy to bring in family and friends.

Agreed.

Posted using Partiko Android

Thank you for all your support Taraz! It is much appreciated!

I am impressed with curangel's coverage so far as the curators look for content all over the platform and in many different languages as well. This wider reach is so important in my opinion to raise the value all over, from already established authors to completely new arrivals.

Curangel hunts for quality in all shapes and forms. Excited to see how it grows and helps others to do the same!

I am bad with this as well, but I hope that there is some encouragement to leave a personal appreciation comment by curators on the work too. The votes are great, the recognition someone enjoyed it is what really engages.

Hello dear friend @tarazkp.

"... where the return on the investment through the development of the ecosystem is much higher than the cost of the service."

Excellent!
Perhaps for some skeptic this would be difficult to accept but it is the reality and we must believe in this if we really love our ecosystem and intend to contribute to its growth.

When we focus on generating growth to the platform, the role we can play will depend on our participation as stockholders. Who has a lot of SP we have a moral obligation to curate. It is an acquired commitment.

We may not have enough free time to search among the thousands of quality publications that are added to the blockchain every day, so the best alternative is to delegate. There are large well-organized healing teams that really spend hundreds of man hours digging up those valuable gems of publication.

Coming from you dear friend @tarazkp, this recommendation to delegate to @curangel should be taken into account.

All best, Piotr.

We may not have enough free time to search among the thousands of quality publications that are added to the blockchain every day, so the best alternative is to delegate.

This is right, and with the return possible from the delegation, it is a decent position to take.

Gave @curangel now a small delegation of 250 SP. Been really enjoying the project as a curator there :)

It is a great initiative. Do you enjoy the process of unearthing when you find something great? I think it helps get out of the box a bit.

Yup, I'm much more actively checking #photography and #creativecoin for some undervalued content. It is nice to be able to give them more than what I can give alone with my personal account :)

It works out well for all involved in time

Welcoming any project that 'spreads the love' and helps those who probably deserve support

It takes time to get these initiatives off the ground because getting support to give support isn't easy, however hopefully some backers get behind it so that they can add more value to the ecosystem in more ways than one.

"lottery effect" on Steem, where authors can be surprised by winning rewards without having to do anything else other than produce good content. Once upon a Steem time, these community projects kept people engaged and as they offered a thrill of not only a vote, but recognition.

I still remember when i first joined those random votes from curie and some whales that made me say "wtf just happened" I was absent for quite sometime and just got back reading about the effects of the new hardfork.

I am extremely excited that everything slowly turns to manual curation and searching for good and quality posts. I do this since the beginning both creating posts ( the views will me the judges of my quality) and manually curating and interacting with others. I felt for a long time so frustrated with this bot abuse that was going on and wrote a couple of posts about it. It was one of the reasons that i couldn't feel like returning to steemit but after i read some posts about the "new rules" i felt like when i first joined in 2017!

I am extremely excited that everything slowly turns to manual curation and searching for good and quality posts.

I am hoping that this is going to continue and increase as people realize that there is a great deal of value in building the community, and that outstrips being an ass :)

exactly and the strong relation that will be formed through interaction will make everyone come together again. Also, it's a great marketing via word of mouth! I bet a lot of people will suggest it to their friends while stating how cool and helpful the community is.

Most people that i know that left the platform wasn't due to the money aspect but because they were sicked tired the whole bot game. They were preparing and writing quality posts for hours that nobody will read while at the same time a single stolen meme posts that took maybe 1 minute to upload gained 20$ :p

When I came on steemit early on, I used to get votes from @pharesim. I didn't know who he was or if he was even a witness then or what a witness even did, I just knew that a certain account just voted for my post with a rather large stake and it was good. I tried so many times to connect but he wasn't on any discord server that I know of. It just felt like I had a kind uncle somewhere. 😂

For me, there are some persons who have made me feel special in this here blockchain thingy. Whenever they come up with an idea, I'm always willing to be a participant because I believe that they be good people and they have the best interest of the steem chain in their hearts.

Curangel will get a delegation from me, not as big as I would love it to be but definitely something that contribute to this ecosystem that we are trying to reinvigorate.

It just felt like I had a kind uncle somewhere.

lols.

Curangel will get a delegation from me, not as big as I would love it to be but definitely something that contribute to this ecosystem that we are trying to reinvigorate.

Perhaps you should think about investigating curating for them?

You know I've thought about it too. I'll investigate and see what I can give.

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