IFC S1 R40 - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Source
This post is an entry for the Information Finding Championship hosted by @apolymask.
The theme of this round is memes. The description of the round is below.
This quest is going to be about trying to "help steem" in general and it's up to you how you want to go about that, but I think something you could do is make a blog post explaining what you think the biggest challenges for steem are, and also please include any potential solutions as well.
I think the IFC will find a way to survive even if something happened to steem, but.. I think the better steem does the better the IFC does, so it's in our best interest to try to help steem do well!
In fact.. Our very first quest was about showing love to steem, so I think this is fitting.. Let's show love to steem by trying to help steem.
A good way is by being honest and expressing what we feel is wrong and that needs attention and help.And if possible, don't just point out or "complain" about it, but also provide potential solutions as well if you have any!
My Entry
To ask the question of how do we make Steemit better, I believe it is essential to ask, 'what does Steemit mean to me?' Because I have been apart of this community for 81 days now and I am still learning about this platform.
The Good
To answer my question, to me Steemit is a place where I can record my stories so I can remember and share them with friends. It has also motivated me through its payout method to record these stories because writing has been something I have wanted to get back into for at least the last year. Do I hope I can someday get rich on Steem, hell yeah! But, that isn't my whole reason for being here.
The Bad
So the problems of Steemit, from my experience so far is the bots, upvote bots, promotion bots, flagging bots, you got a use, someone has a bot. It is kinda surreal, at first I didn't want to use any bots to boost my post, but it seems almost normal on here, and if witnesses own bots then it really isn't discouraged I guess.
The issue with some of the bots is when they are used to boost low-quality content. Like stock photos off Ppixelbay are upvoted till they are trending, while high-quality post are just buried underneath. Also, from an economic standpoint, the self-voting destroys the value of Steem and Steemit itself.
Solutions
Vote in witnesses that don't own bots and discourage their use for self-profiting. That way it levels the playing ground for new users and keeps from inflating the value of Steem through upvoting.
Another solution is adding more tags because it feels like five is never enough. You also have to add the brandtag like for this it is the #ifc. So, adding more can help get more exposure for post and not limit people to only posting in those brand listings.
Getting Word Out
What I do is share my stories on Facebook so people can see it. It is kind of a passive way to get the word out about Steemit. Another way is just straight up telling people what Steemit is.
Conversations usually start with someone asking where I have traveled, so I dig through my blog and show the photos. Or people ask what my hobby is, I say writing, they ask where then back to my phone 😂 They ask what the platform is, and I say basically the baby of Bitcoin and Reddit.
Last Thoughts
I am not an expert on Steemit; these are just my general feelings and ideas that I have read about and experienced since I initially learned about the platform.
When I first heard about it, I looked it up to see if this was a scam, seemed alright except the problems I already mentioned. So, I stuck my toes in and have been head first ever since.
This post makes me sound like a hypocrite because I use minnowbooster and occasionally use an upvote bot. However, on my first day, I got an article from @bycoleman about minnowbooster and such. To paraphrase the author, if they are good for the platform, then everybody should use it if it is not good for the platform, then no one should use it. If the witnesses don't care about Steem, then who else will?
I tend to write about life in Korea as a foreigner, food, photos from trips, and things teaching related. If that interest you and you like this post, please give me a vote and follow
Fellow minnows can use Busy and Steemfollower to get more upvotes and followers, my referral links are below respectively:
https://busy.org/i/@mr-bike
https://steemfollower.com/?r=14715
Until then,
Ride on!
A good way to get the word out, through your other outlets, I don't use them often or have an account with them FB, Yahoo, and other social media stuff, just steemit. I have also talked to a few people, and my wife shows people the picture post and stuff on her phone.
Yeah it would be nice to "get rich", but until then, I'll just keep plugging along, and if/when I get steemit rich, I'll just keep plugging along then too.
I feel the same way @bashadow. Even if Steemit can make us all a fortune honestly nothing will change. Except I'll have a bit more time for hiking and being outdoors. Probably keep most of my Steem powered up anyways and use the odd Steem to buy myself some Silver coins! Hopefully 6th or 7th edition Steemit coins by that time.
Hey mr-bike! I haven't had a chance to read this round yet to leave a proper comment as I haven't judged round 40 yet, but.. I just wanted to stop by and remind/ask if you did a tie breaker entry for round 30?
Everyone else that you tied with has submitted their entry already and I can't find yours.. I dunno if I missed it or if you missed it or decided not to enter this one? Either way, here's the link if you still wanna try! Even though we're past the payout, if you get it done soon you'll prolly be fine as no judges have voted on this round yet.
https://steemit.com/contest/@apolymask/ifc-s1-r30-results
Oh, damn. I didn't even notice that I was tied up for it. I will get that in today. Sorry, I haven't been as active in the community these days with the end of the semester and making plans for heading back home and stuff. Thanks for letting me know!
You're welcome. And.. No worries! Glad you're going to try. :) Still no judges have voted on that one yet, so I think you have time. You're really close to the top 16, so I hope you make it. You're like 2 points away I think? Would be cool to see you in the finals or even to win the whole contest! So.. Good luck. :) I'm rooting for you. Also good luck with your travels and studies as well!
I do agree that the bidbots are a problem, highlighting lousy content while good content gets unseen. Voting for the right witnesses will help and I also agree with the more tags idea. Though I'm not sure those things will solve the bot issue, I'm not sure there is a solution other than to try to blacklist certain accounts like some are doing.. With a platform so open and free, there's going to be a lot of people trying to take advantage of that and it's difficult to address it without becoming tyrannical.
Perhaps there could be a community effort to flag certain accounts, but I'm not sure that would solve it either. It is a tricky one.
In the end when I look at it, how different is it really from like.. Setting up a billboard or sign somewhere to advertise your product? I don't see anything ethically wrong with that, other than the people providing the advertising service allow people with good money to put their stuff up there even if it sucks.
That's part of a free system I think.. You can pay for services if you have the money, even if perhaps you shouldn't be advertising in such ways because you should be focusing more on the quality of your work first..
I'm not sure.. It's a tricky subject.
Thanks for the thought provoking entry!
Yeah, it is almost taking me back to my struggles with Libertarianism. The pull between regulation and a free market. But, I won't get political about it. If people want to invest their money in their post, then that is their choice. What is the difference between this and trying to buy and sell stocks or crypto itself?