Italy Community Application for the Communities of the Month Support Program - September

Greetings Steemit Team,

I am @girolamomarotta, Admin for the Steemit Community Italy, as well as Steemit's Italian Country Representative. I would like to offer this post as our application for The Communities of the Month Support Program - Applications for September.

• Community Purpose

What is the purpose of your community?
The purpose of our Community is to provide a space, not only for the Italian-speaking members of Steemit, but also for those Steemians who are attracted to our country, our culture and the many initiatives that are offered and open to the entire Steemit platform.

Is it unique?
The Italy Community is indeed unique, as we are the only active Community for the Italian-speaking users of Steemit.

Are there any other communities covering the same subject or area as yours?
To the best of my knowledge, we are the only active Community catering to the Italian-speaking user base, as well as anything and everything having to do with our Italian nation and culture. Prior to the formation of the Italy Community, most Italians simply posted using the #ita or #italy tag, but with the founding of Italy by @sardrt, who is also our Co-Admin, the Italian user base on Steemit, has found a home to unite all of their talents, interests and fellow citizens of Italy.

Why should people join your community?
The Italy Community is well known for hosting many contests and initiatives, as well as warmly welcoming people from around the world to join us. We cater to not only Italian speakers, but also English-speaking Steemians. And as of late, we are beginning to attract Spanish speakers as well. Our contests are attractive to many creative people from around the world, and we are a very hospitable and strongly united group, who are open to welcoming many other cultures and ideas.

• Community Team

Who are the Admins and Moderators of your community?
Italy has a strong team who has worked closely together for over a year to grow and beautify our Community, as well as support the Steemit platform and the Steem blockchain. Our Founder @sardrt is Co-Admin, along with myself @girolamomarotta. And our dedicated Moderators are @ilnegro, @italygame, @steem-fanbase, @mikitaly, @famigliacurione and @mad-runner, all of whom remain in constant contact both on and off of the Steemit platform.

What countries are they from and what languages do they cover?
The entire Team is composed of fluent and native Italian speakers, all living in Italy; and all have an excellent handle on the English language, especially Tino @famigliacurione, who lived for many years in the USA and is considered a native English speaker.

Are the team members paid or rewarded in any way from the community funds for their work in running the community?
Yes, the Italy team are rewarded through upvotes from our fellow Team members, as well as the occasional prize for certain contests, which are paid out in SBD. Sometimes, members of the Italygame Team receive payments in liquid STEEM and/or TRX, as rewards for their work within the Community.

If you only have one Admin what would happen to your community if you left or lost your keys?
Not only do we have more than one Admin, but our committed Moderators would always be available to continue caring for the Community should the Admins not be available. Rest assured that the keys to this Community are not in the hands of only one person.

• Community Curation Account

What is your Community Curation Account?
@italygame

How much Steem Power does it have - both of its own and delegated to it?
The current Effective Steem Power of @italygame is 21,592.15 SP. And it should also be noted that @italygame is a Steem Witness, hence receiving daily SP for processing blocks. Those rewards are used for curating the Community through upvotes, as well as offering SBD for contest prizes.

What are your plans for growing the SP of the account?
As already mentioned, @italygame grows its Steem Power by being a dedicated Steem Witness. We do not require our members to delegate to this account, as we, the Italy Team, are personally committed to growing this account on behalf of our Community.

Are all the post rewards powered up, or are they used for paying delegators or members of the community team?
A large part of the rewards from our @italygame posts are powered up; some of these are also used to reward the work of the Team members, and others as contests winning prizes in the form of SBD.

Who has access to voting with the account?
As the Community Co-Admin for Italy, and Steemit's Italian Country Representative, I @girolamomarotta, have been assigned the responsibility for managing the upvoting of the @italygame account.

What is the current Voting CSI score for the account (from Steemworld.org)?
Our current Voting CSI is 7.7 (9.02% self, 190 upvotes, 57 accounts, last 7d).

On average what proportion of the posts each week receive a vote from the community account?
As noted in the previous answer, 9.02% of our votes are dedicated to the @italygame posts, while the remaining 90.98% of the upvotes are dedicated to posts, not only in the Italy Community, but also those posts outside of our Community that merit upvotes based on their quality, or their commitment to Steemit.

• Plagiarism & Abuse

What measures do you take to check for plagiarism and other forms of abuse (content farming, duplicate accounts, fake accounts)?
It is very difficult for these kinds of abuses to occur within our Community, because we are very committed to getting to know our users. Plagiarism is not tolerated, and will be flagged. We pay close attention to this issue because of the nature of the contests that we provide, for example, the Best Photo of the Week or the Best Post of the Week, which are carefully monitored and scrutinized, not only by the Italy Team, but also by Members of our Community.

Do you have designated people in your team for plagiarism checking?
Yes. Our Founder and Co-Admin @sardrt is very diligent in controlling and reporting any copyright abuses or plagiarism. As mentioned in the previous answer, we also have Community Members, who of their own accord, check, flag and report any abuses they find.

Do you ensure all photos used in your community are copyright free?
This is an absolute priority for the Italy Team, especially considering that we offer a weekly Best Photos contest, which is now successfully on its 18th week. Our Founder and Co-Admin @sardrt has been a passionate photographer for many years, and takes great offense to the stealing of other people's photos.

• Engagement & Commenting

Does the community team check and comment on every post in the community?
We are very proud to say that our Community is a very interactive group, who values commenting and getting to know one another. Some of our Community Members have, of late, been experimenting with the @penny4thoughts project created by @remlaps, which actively rewards commenting by distributing a certain amount of a post's SBD rewards to those who comment on the participating posts. This initiative also requires comments to be upvoted, and has proven to be a great incentive for promoting more dialogue. Apart from that, our Community Members are self-motivated to leave comments on the posts they enjoy, as we are a Community that believes in and encourages the creation of friendships.

If not, approximately what proportion of posts are commented on?
I would have to guess that at least 85% or more of all posts are commented.

• Plans & Updates

How often do you post plans and updates for the community?
Once a week for the @italygame account, and whenever there is an update for the @steem-fanbase app.

Do you post these through the community account?
Yes, our weekly update is posted using our community account.

Do you have a roadmap or long term plan for the community?
We have started many initiatives, we intend to maintain them long-term and to add some new ones. Our Best Photo contest has been running for 18 weeks, our UNFORGETTABLE ITALY contest - 21 weeks, our 200% POWER UP!! initiative - 26 weeks, our weekly Italy Community Updates - 46 weeks, our BEST USER OF THE WEEK initiative - 48 weeks and our BEST POST OF THE WEEK - 25 weeks. As you can see, long-term planning and commitment is a strong point and priority for our Team.

• Promotion

Do you have a Promotion or Marketing Plan for your Community?
Our main source of promotion for our Community within Steemit is through the many contests and initiatives that are open to the entire platform.

Do you promote your community outside of Steem?
Yes, we promote our community on Twitter with our official account Italygame Witness, and we also share many topics and discussions on YouTube | DTube | Anchor | Spotify | Breaker | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Radio Public about our Community, and the whole Steem ecosystem, through the many podcasts hosted by @famigliacurione, both in Italian and English.

• Anything Else

Please include any other information you would like us to know about your community, and why your community should be selected for extra support? Any other special features your community has?
Our Community has been dedicated to the Steemit platform, as well as the Steem blockchain, ever since this Community's inception. From a small group of about 5 committed Steemians, we have grown into a Community of 2895 subscribers with about 100 active users; we have successfully activated a Steem Witness node; we have built a Steem tool for autovoting and curation trails - Steem Fanbase and will keep on to develop it; we translate the Steemit Team's posts into Italian for giving the possibility to everyone to be always informed. And we have actively fought against abuse on this platform, being committed to the Powering Up and the long-term holding of our STEEM.

On behalf of the @italygame Team, we would like to thank you in advance for considering us for The September Communities of the Month Support Program.

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Greetings to all

Girolamo

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_{This post has been written in collaboration with @famigliacurione and @mikitaly. Each of them is set as a beneficiary at 20%}

cc @steemcurator01