Let's focus on quality

Probably all users were affected by HF21 and HF22 in some way. It was not possible to add new posts, comments and upvotes. But now it works again, but with some differences.

Everybody knows what has changed with those hard forks, there is no need to repeat it again and again. But how to deal with it as a Steemit user? The 50/50 distribution of prizes means that a lot of people will focus on quality curator work as opposed to selling their votes or automated activities. This can bring a) more curator rewards, b) higher quality content of Steemiters.

But in order to reward your article with a nice juicy upvote, you need to go a little forward to it. If you change your previous behaviour at least a little bit, you increase your chances for it. Don't forget that few whales and dolphins from time to time write a post, where anyone can nominate some nice article, which deserves a decent upvote. This might be also your article!

I don't want to teach anyone what he does wrong and what he should do differently, let's everyone evaluate themselves. Do your own self-reflection. I would like just to share my experiences and thoughts... everyone can use it differently. So let's get into it.

So, what can be improved?

1. No COPY/PASTE text - try to avoid using even parts of other websites/blogs or Steemit posts as its not the purpose of Steemit. Purpose of Steemit is to create original content, which is worthy for the readers and curators.

2. Text formatting - format long text to separate paragraphs, insert an image into them. This makes your text easier to read. Use bold and italic fonts, this can also lead the attention of the reader in a better way.

3. Images - put inside you article at least one picture, because it appears as a thumbnail and it can attract people to read your article. The best thing is to use your own photo/picture, but if not a single one fits your article, you can also use some "free to use" pictures from creative commons license, which can be used for commercial use also, because you monetize it on Steemit. If you never did it, try pixabay.com, pexels.com, commons.wikimedia.org, ccsearch.creativecommons.org or google.com (using Tools-Usage rights-Labeled for reuse). For images that are not yours, it is essential to add a link to their original, some community program like @qurator strictly require them.

4. Bidbots - right after HF21/22, there are several groups of users who are massively downvoting some articles. Mostly the articles, which have not valued but through the use of bidbots, they have big reward and they appear in the Trending section. Some curation services like @curangel do not vote for posts and users, which used bidbots in the past. That is how they are set up. The other thing on using bidbots is, that ordinary curator will think twice to put an upvote to an article, which already has a reward worth of $50 because the curation reward for this upvote will be minimal. It's simple economical thinking, which some curators use, there is nothing bad about it, it's just about incentives. And the article with good quality, but with a reward value of $ 0.01 is a greater incentive for those economic-thinking curators. Think about this next time, when you will use bidbot.

Google image search - labeled for reuse

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I will be glad for some of your thoughts and ideas below this article, maybe I missed something or you think some points are irrelevant to you. If the aim of HF21 was to improve the quality of the articles on Steemit, which I believe it will succeed. Do you think so?