My Interview with @dove11 via WhatsApp Video Call

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It was a pleasant surprise for me after requesting an interview with @dove11 on Friday 26, January 2024, who based on his busy schedule accepted my request and agreed to the interview which was held on Saturday 27, January 2024.

My interview with dove11, began at exactly 4:03 am Africa time and lasted for 30 minutes. In order not to waste my interviewer (dove11) as he was preparing to go out, I began with the below.

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Good morning, Sir dove11. Thank you for the opportunity to interview you and I hope you're doing well today.

👦dove11: You're welcome and I am happy to meet you virtually.

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I appreciate your time and consideration, for I have been looking forward to this interview and am excited to learn more from you. I would like to know more about you.

👦dove11: My Intro-

@dove11	@dove11 and wife

I am from the National Capital Region of India. I am an engineer and have a PG Diploma in Business Management. I have worked as DGM Marketing, a project manager for the Border Road Organization of the Indian Army. Now I am working as a project lead for an Indian company posted in Australia. I am married and have a daughter. My wife is no longer working so she is a full-time housemaker.

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How do you get to know about the Steemit platform?

👦dove11: I started hearing about Steemit in 2017, but I was too busy offline, so I gave this website a casual look and forgot all about it. If I remember right, it was the same forum site that mentioned it in 2017, but when I saw another invitation on the same website in 2022, it attracted my attention because I was out of a job and had a lot of spare time.

I joined Steemit on May 14, 2022, but it did not give me any idea of the member whose invitation link I had used, or maybe he used another username on Steemit. However, I had an idea that the first thing one is supposed to do is introduce himself and write an informative post, along with other posts in the newcomer community.

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Your Steemit publications are usually good, which to me seems like you were once managing a blog before joining the Steemit platform. What are your strategies for making your posts different from other Steemians?

👦dove11: I am not sure what you mean by different from other Steemians, but yes, I was an amateur but active contributor, moderator, and editor on different Indian and international websites right from 2007 to 2013 until Google decided to change the earning algorithm and killed almost all the worthy and earning websites. I also stopped, although money was not my basic idea for writing ut there were almost no websites left for serious writing.

If you feel my posts are different, it may be because I write about travel, fiction, and photography. I have written very few diary posts, but even my diary posts have a theme, and I prefer to write them based on my detailed experience of the day. I try my best to keep my visitors interested and give them something that keeps them interested.

Maybe I keep my posts different because I don't write for money. I have enough income from my offline sources, so I keep my posts different. But yes, being busy offline is my drawback too, as I find it difficult to engage with other users, which is a big reason I get very few big votes.

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Have you ever recruited someone to join the Steemit platform? If yes, how are the user activities on the platform?

👦dove11: I have invited one of my friends to this website, and he is also doing well with his talent for writing fiction and taking part in various Steemit engagement challenges. I know he joined this site a few months after me, but he started posting in December 2022. He has been in Club 100 right from the beginning, and if he were a little more regular, he would be at a higher rank.

To be honest, I am willing to invite several people who I believe would be glad to be here and contribute to the growth of this platform, but as I see a few drawbacks, I haven't done it so far. I am trying to work out a way for the members who join through my invitation to be successful.

I am in search of a proper guideline and encouragement for the newcomers, whom I don't see at Steemit at this point. I don't see any positive results if I invite users and they leave after writing a few posts because they did not get proper guidelines or support. I see a serious need to give proper encouragement to genuine and promising newcomers.

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Is Steemit among the top 5 most used social media platforms in India?

👦dove11: Unfortunately not! The fact is Indians, despite having an interest in and writing talent, have a limited interest in cryptocurrency-based writing sites due to the Indian government's policies. The government imposes a 32% tax if we want to transact through cryptocurrencies, which is a big setback.

Mind you that even people who do not come into the tax slab have to pay a 32% income tax on all transactions in cryptocurrencies, and they come onto the radar of the income tax department. So, Steemit is not even among the top 25 social media platforms in India.

Even if people in India are interested in writing and earning but stay away from websites that pay through cryptocurrencies, There is another reason why not many Indians opted for crypto-based websites: we had other options like PayPal available for receiving payments, so blockchain-based websites gained popularity in countries that had no support for other payment options.

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It was a pleasure speaking with you sir, @dove11. Thank 🙏 you for your time and consideration and bye. 🤝

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Why did you choose that person?

I choose @dove11, because of how active and consistent he is in sharing quality content and engaging with other Steemit users on the platform.

I was also motivated to know where he is from, and what he does for a living that allows him to be spending more time on the Steemit Platform. He has been an amazing user whose stories usually catch my attention.

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Do you think it's important to relate to other people at Steemit?

Yes, I think it's important to relate to other people at Steemit. Social media is all about creating relationships between people and I think it's very important for us to relate with one another.

Who knows, if tomorrow I might have the opportunity to travel to India, or @dove11, may have a business deal in Nigeria and if such an opportunity comes for me to travel to India, I might need his assistance before and after arriving in his country vice versa.

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I am inviting: @pelon53, @patjewell, and @ruthjoe, to also take part in this contest.