Thoughts on the Current Experiment and Potential Strategies
In reality, every cent I've made on here from paying in NOTHING is a BONUS!
I've never been paid anything to write what ever I feel like. I am NOT ENTITLED to free money, merely appreciate it.
First things first, THEY'RE NOT TAKING YOUR MONEY!! I get that you see the potential payouts going down, but it's just that...potential. Do you throw the same emotional fit when it drops down due to votes being diluted and the price of steem going down? While perhaps confusing, I highly doubt this makes you flip out. Now while I understand the bad feelings that come from seeing your payout go up, which is by an even higher amount than usual by the whales that are voting right now, the overall rewards pool isn't changing. What is happening is that the rewards are being spread around to more people, being decided by more people...each having a greater impact in the decision of who gets what.
I get it, I really do, my own posts have felt the effect of this, but in the end...I didn't invest money from my pocket here (like many content creators.) Rather than screaming about how fair/unfair something is, my time (which is my true investment) is better served looking at what I want to do about it. Remember that the whales who are not voting are forfeiting their curation rewards, which is the only way they really earn on here right now (short of steem price going up) since most if not all of them don't post (typically declining rewards when they do.)
[NOTE: I'm not on a specific side of this issue, merely in the camp of let's see what happens. There are pro's and con's to this, which I'll touch on below.]
My Quick Take on the No-Whale Voting Experiment
Many people have already written about this at length both for and against. So feel free to skip down to the strategy section.
What is the Experiment and Why
This idea had been thrown around by many in the community (especially minnows) many months back. The idea is that if the whales stop voting, minnows and dolphins (small and mid Steem Power holders) would have a greater influence on how the daily reward pool is distributed to authors and commentors through voting. With the current voting formula in place (n^2) the whale votes had a disproportional effect, which while quite nice when you get the $20 upvote from a single person, this concentrated rewards.
EVERYTHING that is done by a whale gets griped about by somebody. If they vote, they get yelled at for voting and not 'spreading the wealth around' and if they don't vote they get yelled at for not rewarding people (especially those who have gotten used to that level of rewards.) This isn't meant to be knocking anybody, but it's important to try and have some perspective on this aspect.
Pro's
Smaller and Midsize users votes are now carrying A LOT more weight, meaning they give more money to a post or comment. For quite a while now most people didn't seen the payout increment even a penny when it was sitting below $1. There have been tons of calls for the larger portion of the community to be able to play a larger roll in distributing rewards and right now we have that opportunity
Curation rewards have vastly increased proportionally. Personally I've seen my triple of more in most cases and I don't even work on generating them, preferring to just vote on what I want. For those of you who have built up some Steem Power this is your opportunity to see some greater returns on this, especially if you are focusing to maximize these returns (like searching out low-paying, 30ish minute old posts that you can foresee getting voted on by a bunch of other smaller/midsize users...since the whales aren't voting.)
There is a (potentially) greater ability to produce content in more unique areas and tags that have had readers/engagement, but not a focus by the few (50) whales. Having the concentrated rewards by whale voting tended to drive people to post in the areas that we being curated frequently by these few users. With the larger population now having more of a say, you can get some payout (say $1-$2 dollars compared to next to nothing.)
Con's
The lack of communication on this experiment has caused a lot of issues with community members either due to the drop in their 'normal' rewards or the impact of seeing their posts flagged and payouts drop (after being excited.) I'm happy to see some messages (even if automated) being left on posts that are receiving flags to at least attempt to provide some information on what's going on. However, some notice ahead of time would have been extremely useful both to inform the community as a whole that this was going to occur and allow them some ability to choose ahead of time what they want to do about it themselves (i.e. not post certain things until it's over.)
Not having all of the whales on board with this, nor seemingly Steemit Inc (since I've seen @dantheman voting) has required the flagging to occur to allow for an 'accurate' idea of the effect, at least pertaining to voting patterns and payouts. I do understand that there is rarely if ever unanimous decisions made, and users here are in reality allowed to do whatever they want short of abuse. However, in this particular case, not having every whale user on board is has caused WAY MORE posts to be flagged in the name of the experiment.
It's very difficult to devote enough time to keep up with all of the whale votes that are going out to effectively flag them all or adapt flag weights as new whale votes are applied. Even though I personally feel that the experiment is doing it's best to apply these 'rule conditions' evenly across the board, simply due to the understandable time lag between new whale vote being applied and the countering flag, causes many to view things as not being applied consistently.
<Possible Strategies to Apply for Better Payouts without Whale Votes
[These are just my thoughts to approach it and no guarantees can be given for every user.]
With the whales not voting or having their votes being countered, we can no longer try to garner support from single (or few) sources as we have been able. The posts that are atop the trending pages (commonly) are held by those with large number of votes by small to midsize users. While yes, the dolphins are the 'new whales' proportionally, with the voting formula in use (n^2) the gap between a minnow and a dolphin is muuuch smaller than that of a dolphin and a whale. Even though we have a new (and larger) set of 'high impact' voters, proportionally they don't have the as large of an impact in comparison to the whales.
So here are my ideas on how to approach this.
More than Ever the Name of the Game is ENGAGEMENT!
Now more than ever engaging with more and new people is crucial. The more people you are able to interact with and get on their radar, the higher the likelihood you can receive a vote from them. Now this doesn't mean spam your post in their comment section, this means engaging in conversation with them. Give them a reason to want to know more about you and your work without even having to ask. While never perfect, this greatly increases the chance they will look at your blog and hence most recent posts.
Become an active participant in @steemtrails. Even though they are being viewed as a 'whale' they are still voting (even with reduced power and/or less often) there are TONS of individuals that are a part of this that you can gain access to. There are dozens and dozens of various topic trails going on from gardening, to gaming, to fiction, and more. Find the ones that fit with your interest and passions and go interact with those people. Build friendships, possibly even be a part of curating these tags.
Use steemit.chat and discord channels like Steemspeak, VOTU, SteemTrail, SteemitTalk Podcast or others to interact, promote your posts and just get to know more people. Heck, if you find you don't like any of these places, make your own and draw in the people you're looking for...it's free!
If you don't want to really do any of these or are so bothered by what is going on, just take a break from posting for a while. There is nothing forcing us to do anything here...it's OUR CHOICE. If it's not fun, satisfying, etc there is probably a better way to be spending your time. With this being labeled as an 'experiment' I think it's fair to accept that this will end after a period of time (I haven't heard specific on this myself.) Come back or increase your activity when you feel the time is right.
Final Thoughts
I really do understand the frustrations many people are having with this, even those who are for the experiment that is going on. There are plenty of constructive ways to state your dislike and why to add into the conversation. The whales and steemit inc really do hear these things, even though not everything can be done. There are always going to be some unhappy with a decision they make. But in the end, I do prefer seeing something be done over nothing. Even if those something could have been done in a better way and ideally any futures 'experiments' can learn from this experience.
The end goal for everybody that is on here is to be benefiting in some way whether it's from community interaction, learning, practicing skills, making a little money, having a relatively uncensored outlet (compared to many other social media sites) or anything else you can think of. If you find you're not getting any benefit, it's time to reassess what you can do about instead of just repeating the same thing.
Remember the Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing expecting a different result. Be proactive in your decisions and actions.
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Trying to garner support from a single source is against the idea of social media. The point of having many followers is to earn more money, its like youtube the more sub you have the more money you have. Imagine if youtubers had to be friends with the right persons to get the most money, then the whole revenue model of youtube would be skewed and there would be no way for people to gauge progress.
Giving power back to the people promotes engagement, who would have thought? /s
One thing that I noticed is that users who are currently being autovoted by whales seem to be the most upset. This is logic because currently they have some kind of guaranteed revenue which provides some stability which is good for them. However what they fail to understand is that this stability is an illusion, it is very fragile actually because any whales can decide to stop the autovote for any reason at any time. This experiment will provide a much more predictable and stable way to earn a revenue which is why I find it hilarious that so many people say they want to quit because of it. Authors who are serious about building a rep/following and want a stable source of revenue should be ecstatic about this experiment.
Anyway, good post @sykochica
I can fully agree with everything you said here! While I can sympathize with those who see their rewards suddenly drop (for any reason whether a flag or a whale removing them from their autovote list) because the first thoughts are naturally 'What did I do wrong?'
But like you said, in the end it's really quite fragile and there is a danger to expecting the stability. I remember when I first came on here and was ecstatic to make my first penny...a penny!! I'd never been so excited about something that I often don't even bother picking up off the street. Then I'd frequently make a few bucks that made me excited, but when I made pennies I'd have the same 'What did I do wrong' feeling. Often we get into these states of 'normalcy' that much like building a tolerance, requires more and more. Like Admiral Ackbar says:
Source
I would say almost everyone before the experiment was saying " what did I do wrong?" because rewards are very inconsistent for the large majority of authors.
The one who complain are the only one with some kind of stability but for most users on the platform rewards are a complete rollercosters. They would get a few pennies for days and then a post with $30 then back to few pennies ( this is the situation for a lot of users) and everyday they are asking what they did wrong. This is very problematic for authors to gauge popularity of their work within the platform.
I can agree with that. At least while a roller-coaster I'd think it's not as much of an impact compared to the person with quite consistent results. It was a little easier (at least for me) when have a decent payout x number of times a week versus daily. But I do still get exactly what you're saying.
When I was setting up and running the Steemprentice mentor group we really focused on getting most people (typically those that weren't on the whale radars) setup and noticed by curie. At least in those instances I was able to provide them with that groups rules to give them an idea of how often they could reasonably expect a decent payout. Imo curie did wonders. I remember when I first started and you were either on a whale radar or not.
One thing that might help outside the payouts would be to see an increase of views on posts as a 'meaningful' metric (at least for some people.) Simply removing the upvote button from the thumbnail/list view and forcing people to open and scroll to the bottom to vote would he useful. Even with the strings of bot votes, it would at least provide a view per human voter. (Though I don't know if views of other platforms like busy are recorded.)
at first, I was kind of astonished with the lack of communication. Honestly, I can see its benefits right now (the lack of whale upvotes). In a social media platform, the trending page should be populated with the posts that majority of users like, not what a single powered whale likes. so far, so good. Although, I hope not many users got their rep going down.
I definitely understand. Some of the more recent changes have been driving a push back to people commenting, whether it was the change to the trending formula (that takes comment payouts into account), certain whales spending time to upvote comments, and even this experiment.
While there are always some fantastic users that leave a great comment on every post they open (seemingly) we can't expect this to naturally be for everybody. The system as a whole has effects that motivate people outside of these natural states, in reality because they see there's a chance of earning some money. I'm not saying this as a bad thing, just how people are.
Waaay back when in the early days, people commented a storm, especially when they saw some earning $1000+. For many it had to seem easier than writing and promoting a whole post. Eventually a good balance can be found to motivate people to post AND comment (ideally.) I do think we're going in the right direction. If nothing else, it's enjoyable for me to be able to actually give a penny to a comment now. Lol
hahaha exactly :)
rep only goes down if the downvote pushes the post below 0.00
Thank you!
I had thought it was this way and had mentioned that in another comment in here. Great to have that verified. There are some people not posting right now with a concern of it impacting their rep, perhaps knowing this can help.
THIS is the best outcome of the experiment imo.
Excellent post @skyochica
Since the experiment my average uptvote is generating about between 15 and 20 cents. One was 50 cents.
This has never happened before.
It gives a good feeling because you feel you are actually making some kind of contribution to someone post.
I voted on this post with 100% and it generated 19 cents.
Not sure what the results will turn out to be but if you took away the flagging part then I think it is quite positive.
It might sound strange, but rather than feeling bad about losing money if I got flagged, I would be far more upset if my reputation score was affected. This is why I am not posting until it is over so instead I am making the most of using my voting power to help good quality posts.
Thank you!
I feel the same. I really like being able to see that penny increment from a zero all the way up to 9-10 cents on some bigger payout (pending) posts. I remember back in the day all the excited posts about being able to give a penny for the first time. It definitely gives a whole new level of excitement to voting.
I think you're spot on there. If the flags weren't 'necessary' I do think this experiment would be seen in a much more positive light. Along with this people would be seeing their payouts drop due to them, since the votes wouldn't even be happening (and then countered) in the first place. However, I do think there needs to be a way to still allow the whales to earn by not voting (with curation being their money maker) whether it be what was discussed in timcliff's (and others) posts on Eliminating Curation Rewards or something else. It's important (at least in my mind) to have something to reward the large passive SP investments since the 'interest' isn't there and otherwise why not just keep it all liquid purely earning through trading.
I can understand the problem of rep being effected. I'm somewhat lucky at this point having a higher rep than most of the whales, so even if there is a 'hit,' I really don't think it'd have a meaningful effect. While not positive though, I do think that with the flags being rather close to to the power of the whale votes they're countering (speaking in rshares) that it'd zero out reputation wise for anybody. But I can definitely understand not wanting to take the risk.
Good point regarding the whales still need to earn.
As you say there still needs to be incentive to own a large amount of SP. It is not an easy answer and the fact that it is so difficult to find this balance proves that Steemit is unique in internet history. We are all part of an amazing social experiment here that, if can be solved, could have far wider implications in the real world than we yet realize. In that way at least, perhaps we should see it as a privilege to part of it for, together we are all trying to find and build a system that we can all agree is fair in a world where we have become used to being unfair.
Well said and spot on. We really are in uncharted waters to a large degree (at least in my mind.)
I remember a long time ago it being said about political negotiations, "A successful negotiation is when all parties feel they didn't get what they want."
While I do think I know what they meant by this, it really is a quite sad way to view things. I'd much rather see the case (ideally on here) where everyone is able to get enough to view it as a 'win.' I prefer to see people supported and find that good win-win if possible, this often is more difficult and takes way longer to work out than the win-lose or lose-lose scenarios.
In the ends it's those with patience and cool heads prevailing (at least ideally, lol.)
Totally agree @sykochica
You really nailed it, @sykochica! Yes, go out and engage! not just post and run. But remember to engage with dolphins now, not whales! No! just kidding! If you target at someone specific, probably you won't get upvoted as expected. Be strategical. No! Again, Just kidding!
Do not engage just for the money, if you do you'll probably be disappointed and next time it will be you complaining out loud. We should view it this way - do what we, users in a social media site, should - engage, and on average everyone doing so will be encouraged more for doing so. Authors stay for engagement as well as some encouraging rewards, and readers stay for engaging authors and fellow readers.... how nice! :)
Exactly! :D
It's crazy...motivate people to be social on a social site! Lol.
But yea, the goal really is getting connected to people. When you're honestly liked and/or appreciated, they'll go out of their way to support you financially and/or through comments. If you just beg, they may play along for a while with diminishing returns.
Imagine Facebook if nobody wrote messages, instead only clicking the like button. (or that STUPID poke button, lol)
Hey hey, if you agree, why don't you upvote each others' comments. I don't want to be the first voter.
Hehe, I'm getting there. Just reading and responding first, then I scroll back through and upvote. Their incoming. :)
poking is fun. people like to act stupid. lol
Great post and I agree with many of your points. Thanks you for creating this.
Thank you!
I felt it was time to finally chime in and ideally provide a little something beyond my take on it. I hadn't seen much posted on actually strategically adapting while the experiment is going.
I saw you're post on buying some Steem Power...much appreciation for that!! The investment a big piece to getting the share price going back up. :D
Very well written and to the point. Thanks for the information and outlook. The details of Steemit can sometimes be complex and a bit confusing, but it is always a grand adventure. And an experiment.
I like your take on getting what you want out of the site. There are many unique goals and dreams folks chase on here, and all should be respected, and realize the great benefit from the community aspect of all of this. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you and you're welcome!
There absolutely is a ton of complexity behind this place. On the upside, it's by no means a requirement to understand it in full, even though most people do spend time figuring it out piece at a time. Before I came here, I'd never dealt with cryptocurrency (short of just hearing about bitcoin and maybe a couple alt coins from gamer buddies.) Over the months I delved more into it purely because I was curious and wanted to be able to explain it better to people I was trying to bring onboard (some successfully, some not.) But it's definitely nice that all you have to really know to start is how to make a post. :D
Ty! I've always enjoyed seeing teams work well together whether at work or in games (yea, I fell into a World of Warcraft 'hole' years back...I'm better now. Lol) I liken it to a degree of the angry drunk. Doesn't being angry while drunk defeat the entire purpose? Why not find something that does achieve what is actually wanted. Simply being proactive towards ones goals goes a long way, even if things don't work out.
Source
Remain positive and push on through. Thanks for the reply, and working at helping to make it a bit more understandable. And I always subscribed to the happy drunk...
Right on! Personally I'm not worried, having the gamer mentality of "There is always a way to win." :)
Hehe, I'm with ya, I've never been an angry drunk, even though I rarely drink.
In the beginning, I was skeptical with the "experiment" but your post has cleared the thing up a lot in my mind, I've seen another point of view and you have offered good strategies to deal with it
thanks for clarify this
Glad it was helpful! The skepticism is quite ok, I'm not too far off myself, but willing to see where it goes. The 'need' for the flags alone is a huge issue right now that would have to get figured out...that really can't go on indefinitely.
I'll fully admit it's not been without it's problems but I do personally believe that with a little better communication (I sooooo await the day there is a little 'Announcements' icon at the top of the site to help with things like this) and without the need for flags, most the community would be supporting the experiment. (Purely my opinion, I don't really want to speak for everybody.)
i like this: "most the community would be supporting the experiment", maybe there are better solutions but as i said in other replies, it has been a imposition, not a choice.
I do understand. A lot of people do seems to be upset on varying levels that they were forced into something. However, in the end it's really each persons choice to vote how they like. The larger community telling the whales how to vote is also an imposition. To some degree it's a catch-22 to get any group fully onboard since that would require unanimity which is nearly impossible.
On the flip of this though, I don't think this was implemented nearly as well as it could have been. Given more time and clearer communication (to a degree like hard forks which has a minimum of two weeks, usually more like 6-8 weeks) to layout thoughts, proposals, objectives, etc could have gotten more on board or against, but at least there'd have been some chance for feedback. On top of this, users could have chosen to just not participate during the experiment period while it was active. This was rather 'sprung' on the community with little notice and explanation.
@sykochica Personally I am a a bit torn. I think everyone agrees the system is broken and needs to be corrected. However, I'm not convinced this experiment will achieve the results which are being sought.
Increasing bot registrations to get around the continuing flagging does not equal a growing community.
Increasing numbers of comments and blog posts needs to be viewed with context. If the explosion is due to outrage, I wouldn't call that successful, sustainable engagement.
My concern is more and more authors are withholding rather than publishing. Several I follow and actively converse with are going dark for a bit. Honestly, the whole "experiment" seems incredibly reactionary rather than carefully considered, and it could have some very severe consequences.
I don't think writers who study a market and cultivate relationships with patrons who have deep pockets and voting power should be punished for not writing from a place of altruism. I'm sure content creators on the sites you may read outside of Steemit would not supply content for free. I'm sure the journalists writing some of your favorite articles in the magazines you may read would feel similarly, as would the authors of the novels and books you may read. They treat their writing as a business. Some have chosen to treat this as a business, and because their motivation is different from the altruistic "fun" blogger somehow now they are the problem on Steemit? I don't think that's a fair assertion. It's also somewhat hypocritical on a blog dominated by anarcho-capitalists (which the phrase itself is an oxymoron) and steeped in libertarian values.
Everyone here is motivated by self-interest. For some it manifests in maximizing payouts. For others it's about creating a large social network and for others it's pure catharsis. Everyone's self-interested motivation is different. The flaw is not in their approach or rewards, but the system in which they choose to exercise their self interest.
When businesses are in the planning stage, the first thing they do is look for a market to sell a product or service. Many businesses choose to target "upscale" customers, selling luxury products and services. They spend time learning about their target market, carefully and deliberately cultivating the relationship to receive long-term, recurring revenue. Food purveyors, fashion labels, automobile companies, concierge services, etc. Should they be punished for not altruistically giving away their product without expectation of payment?
It seems as of late, the community has been engaged in a witch hunt for straw men to unleash their pent up rage upon. Flagging wars were a manifestation of this and, make no mistake, this is simply another repackaged flagging war with new straw men. The rage and frustration should be directed at the architects of the system whom many feel refuse to engage in a way which makes them feel heard and acknowledged. I get that they may be overwhelmed with a million issues to tackle, but it's business 101 to engage with your customers - even if they are spouting venom you may not agree with. Their perception is their reality.
Personally, I have scaled back my content production dramatically, but I chose to do so before @abit and the whales decided to do this experiment. It came more from a place where I saw trending pages loaded with Steemit related topics (primarily bitch-festing) upvoted to nosebleed levels from both sides. That spawned a never ending train of articles in the same vein. This repackaged flag-war is doing the same. It stifles and drowns out true value-added content which the platform needs to attract more users who are not bots.
I'd like to Steemit get to a place where we are not chasing straw men. I'd like to see a burst of more value-added content and less Steemit related content. I believe the system is broken an needs to be fixed, and more linear vote power curve seems like a great start. The users need to demand this become a priority from the architects and stop demanding all users motivations come from the same place as their own.
Here is to hoping.
Flattening the vote power curve would have much the same effect in terms of completely changing the game and greatly reducing the rewards that come from 'patrons who have deep pockets' (unless, of course, they actually pay those rewards out of those pockets). To earn more with a flatter curve (as currently with whales sitting out or being countered with downvotes) will require getting (and keeping) a larger base of followers.
Two counterpoints to this argument.
This argument assumes the experiment will be successful and a larger user base will come into Steemit. I would suggest to you the experiment is creating more badwill than goodwill because of the user perception of what a flag means. No bot script or politically correct message will change the perception of being collateral damage in an ongoing flag war. One cannot build a larger base from a diminishing group.
I do agree it will force users to seek out a larger user base. That certainly has an Orwellian sound to it. One cannot simply compel user engagement at the point of a gun or threat of diminished rewards. Punishing a user for employing a successful strategy which earns larger rewards with a smaller patronage is identical to punishing a programmer for writing clean and elegant code. Consider that brands partner with social influencers to leverage their social capital (in essence upvotes) to earn rewards in the form of customers buying. It benefits them to grow a following organically on other social media sites, but they are not forced to grab a larger user base to earn proportionate rewards. If anything they are rewarded greatly for their efficiency. Pursuing a similar strategy of efficiency here means chasing vote power. It is only logical that on a site where upvotes are linked to the size of the user's stake, that is the primary driver in a strategy, and social capital is relegated to a lower tier. Again, an individual should not be punished for pursuing a strategy of efficiency.
Personally, I support some kind of flattening of the vote power curve. I think larger stakeholders deserve greater vote weight to allocate the rewards pool, but the current vote power curve is clearly broken. I agree with many of the other members of the Steemit community that it's good to see my votes actually impact rewards to authors I support.
I think the community as a whole is open to this idea as well, but engaging flagging/downvoting to counterbalance whale votes creates a seriously negative perception among many minnows and dolphins. Some of them have taken the time to cultivate relationships to earn higher rewards, which both allows and motivates them to produce incredible, value-added content to this site. They should not be arbitrarily punished for pursuing a strategy used successfully on other social media platforms.
The flagging may have a noble purpose, but in the end, the body count is starting to stack up. Can we agree that fixing the problem would be a better solution than arbitrary vigilante justice euphemized into the phrase "an experiment"?
I'm not sure why you answered my comments out of order but this is completely out of context. My comments were related to the prospect of a flatter curve being implemented in the code (since that was something you seemed to advocate in your post), and how that would affect the factors for success of content on the platform. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the present 'experiment'.
My point is that a flatter curve will greatly shift emphasis and success factors toward larger follower sets. This is essentially the same outcome as the current 'experiment'. Whatever gripes you may have with methods, the conclusions about whether you will be highly successful focusing on those with deep pockets is much the same (that is, you won't, unless you get them to donate directly, rather than have vastly disproportionate influence over the reward pool).
@smooth rather than attempting to persuade a closed mind to consider a different perspective or consider unintended consequences, I think I'd prefer to end the conversation here. May you get the results you seek.
Thoughtful. Thanks.
@abit you're welcome and thanks for taking the time to read through my long-winded comment.
I have no doubt the end result you and the others are searching for is a lasting solution, while perhaps giving the users a taste of the poison they seem to be clamoring for before it becomes code. Attracting a massive user base and STEEM which is orders of magnitude more valuable serves the self-interests of everyone here - altruistic and greedy alike.
I may disagree with the methods employed and how it was initiated (more the latter), but I believe the motivation comes from the place of making STEEM more valuable.
I have limited time before I have to head out this morning, but at least wanted to give a short reply for now...I'll follow up more in depth when I get home.
Agreed, giving more weight to smaller users gives motivation for people to make bot accounts to exploit the system. I personally don't want to see that kind of behavior rewarded. I don't know at what SP level per bot it would become beneficial, compared to pooling it to a single account. Either way, bots are always a concern.
I'm not advocating people to be focusing on engaging in the outrage. Personally, I've been extremely sick of polarizing drama being on the front page, most the time with commentors seeming to have very little idea of understanding both sides. If this place wants to be a social media site, engagement is a requirement, and hopefully it is done in many other, more useful (in my opinion) areas.
It's worth noting that the 'drama' posts just tend to be the loudest and given the most attention, hence what most people see as what's going on. Even people engaging off the posts work like in steemit.chat, discord, etc. But I'd love to see this implemented in the code itself as well as have a better outlet for 'drama' than having it plaster the trending page and enflaming users to 'take sides.'
I'm so sick of seeing polarization when in reality we're all in the same boat. Disagreements don't HAVE to be polarizing.
I agree with you on every point.
Since I started to create content here, one of the "mantra" in my mind is engagement! Here in steemit, as in the other social media, "engagement" is a great source to built something good. It's as "coins" that we can grow up without fiat or cryptocurrencies ^_^
Thank you!
You've been absolutely awesome getting integrated here! Everywhere I look I see your comments, on top of your posts (where you always respond to others comments) as well as seeing you at the podcast recordings! You're english is also phenomenal...better than some Americans I know. Lol
I'm so glad you joined up here. I'd love to see people able and willing to engage and interact as much as you!
@sykochica I think there are 2 reasons on the "why" is simple for me to engage people: at first I'm the same in the real life, I'm interested in different topics (very different from each other) and so I need to engage people to exchange experiences and skills. At second I'm using some social media from many years and the "engagement" has always been my favorite part ^_^ Here I can engage interesting people from all over the world, read interesting content on various topics, learn something about the cryptocurriencies (here in my city this is impossible, nobody knows them) and I can earn some money for this, so I think it's fabulous!
To a large degree I really envy that aspect about you and others. I'm typically not a terrible social person, taking quite a long time to get me to open up or get into lengthy discussions. I to read and digest a lot of what people have to say, but I have to really push myself on the engagement aspect of things. I can't think of the last time I actually made a facebook post and have probably made less than a handful of reddit posts ever. Lol.
I'm by no means meaning this as an excuse, just merely that I appreciate those who are open and engaging which makes it easier for me to open up more often. :)
I like how balanced this assessment of the War of the Whales is. Resteemed!
Thank you! That was my goal with this. :)