Thoughts On Return Of The Masses When Ever That Is
Sometimes I write crazy long comments and these days I’ve been feeling like I should just make them a blog post instead if I feel it is warranted. This is one such case.
These are my thoughts on supporting returning people who abandoned the platform for the better part of the year. I have broken it down into 3 different points of views I have or have had in the past. While I wont know 100% till the time comes I do have some rather strong viewpoints about such things. I felt it was time to express some of them as others have done in the past.
My Personal view:
When it comes to my own voting power usage.
I’ve honestly moved on from so many content creators that are no longer around. When they do come back I am no longer interested in that kind of content they use to produce. They won’t even be on my radar in the first place. I have already done a mass unfollowing a few times in the past. There are only a couple of really special people to me that I will still follow even when they go dark. Mostly due to having met them in real life and one because he’s a funny guy and I still leave him comments egging him on to say something as he lurks (you know who you are $#@!)!
I have tried to be supporting a few times when people do return. Those people all then quite again a week later anyway. They come back to make some crazy long post 2k+ words. Earn 10 cents and then go on a rant about how no one cares about them anymore. Well, shoot they left without saying a word and more times than not powered down everything as well.
In the worse cases, some of them have come back looking at my attempt to build my account and then want to contact me on discord or make some remake about “how well you have been doing for yourself and now you can really help others out as well.” Well, shoot they been sitting at 100% VP for months and never gave me much of a thought before disappearing.
Community View
It’s about the content they create at least from my point of view. When they return in masses most will get overlooked as there will just be a river again of amazing stuff. Over time they will be found and they will earn much less like everyone else. As the same amount of support now is spread even thinner.
Induvial community members more than likely won’t be as engaging with the newer/returning people as often as they are with older members that have been around during the hard times. They have spent a lot of time and effort building relationships with others and I can respect that.
Returning people should expect to have to work to get back to any positions /titles they had if they were removed. Unless they made it known beforehand that they just needed a break and helped make arrangements so communities were not left stranded struggling to no ends to get it all done unexpectedly. They need to accept while they where gone others had to fill in their shoes the best they could. Sometimes you just need to be happy others were willing to pick up the flag and keep marching forward when you were no longer able to. Otherwise, those places they return to might not be around for them to come back to.
As A Gamer
Back in my youth I help make a guild the top guild on the server I was on. At the time everyone was leaving for World of Warcraft. One of the reasons I was accepted into that guild was because they needed people and they were willing to lower their requirements to find replacements.
(Kind of like right now where communities are promoting people who they would not otherwise consider. An opportunity has not for a while been so high as right now to do something for a community then it is right now. Yet, most don’t want to do anything and think someone else is going just do all the work and keep things running so they get there votes. )
Once those who left and caused great suffering and many guilds to disband returned those players were not welcomed back with open arms at all. It was like they had the plague and no one wanted to even be near them. They had been replaced and no one cared about them anymore. Everyone that remained made new friends. Most never lasted longer than a month as they had no place to call home or a community behind them anymore. They went back to World of Warcraft or found another game.
Which makes sense. When guilds are used to having 20+ people they consider core members who help pick up the slack and that number is reduced to 2-5 people having to do everything. They become bitter, tired, and really pissed off when someone just wants walk back in like nothing happened. When certain people expected to just be made an officer or whatever role they had again. When they think the guy who been doing their job is doing poorly at it and they should just get to replace them because “it's me, I’m back.” No, the small group of people who were silently suffering and giving up time from other parts of there life trying to carry to much weight for far too long would not allow that to happen. They learned to make do without.
Final Thoughts
I expect all of these and many more viewpoints I’ve not expressed to be carried out when Steem stabilizes or it becomes winter time and everyone is “trapped” in their house due to cold weather so they come walking back in saying “summer to fall I’ve had a blast. Oh, Steemit is still around? I’ve no posted in ages!!!! Where are my upvotes I’m back…”
I can be understanding when life gets in the way and you just have to use your time elsewhere to be able to put food on the table. I”ve disappeared from Steemit for a little while before and that won’t be the last time I suspect. Life struggle happens and they suck. I had to work my way back up to where I am today. I missed out on the great opportunity that would have been worthwhile to have now. I can understand when you feel burnt/no longer have the time to put in and you just need time away.
People should take vacations. They should get a break. It’s ok to post once a week or a couple of times a month if that just how life is for you right now. However, when you abandoned your friends and the platform entirely I just got one thing to say –meh.
Cheers! I’m a time traveling cat or a crazy person. You decided.
Information
Screenshot were taken and content written by @enjar. Screenshots are from a game called World of Warcraft.
great post, fantastic rant and good topic too. People have left in the masses, and I think it is a good think for steem right now. But I know many have left because they are not earning enough now with the downturn and will probably return when the price is right for them. While they have left, you, I and many other have been working are butts off curating and networking and building relationships. There is now way I could give the same support to those, lets face it, when they come back, chances are there will also be an influx of new users and i would rather give my time to them. I know we will see tonnes of messages - Oh its so good to see you, welcome back. I will probably write a few my self, but that will be about as far as it goes for me.
Many who use to be on my follow list will have me as the last comment they ever received if they went missing. I use to try and be that guy who would check in on people. I still do sometimes. This leads to some awkwardness when someone whose been gone for 3, 6, or more month’s shows up and I’m the last comment still they received.
I just hope those who are struggling that do need to take a step back do pop in from time to time. I know a couple of people who sometimes only post once a week or a month. Still they stop by discord once in a while and just ask “how is everyone doing.” They might be gone 5 mins later but at they are still trying.
I think I pretty much agree with you, about 5 months ago I watched a short conversation between two people from 2016. One stayed and posted his ass off. The other just left. When he came back he was complaining about how the individual that stayed was not being fair toward him, how he should help him, it was not pleasant for the person that left and came back.
I can see more of the returnees doing the same as this individual did, talking about their REP and how they need to rebuild their SP and how you should help them. I understand that some people use steemit as a means of earning money, what I do not understand is when they come back and start to basically try to run roughshod over the people that stayed and continued to build their accounts.
Jealously and the grass is always green on the other side mentality are some of the factors I see--sometimes. They went off to go do something else and it did not work. They come back and they are worse off here than they were before leaving.
I can be hard trying to determine where to cut a loss and when to keep going. I think some are just not so great at looking at opportunity cost of things in the short or long term. They just want that quick money in the short term. They lack a future as they do not build to have one.
Which seems to be the difference between the holders and those cashing out every cent. Where they seem themselves years form now. We have what 20 years total before Steem stops printing? Even a 5 year outlook might not be long enough.
I keep threatening to learn how to convert steem to fiat, one day I will learn how, but for now, I kind of look at it as an opportunity for a second retirement income in 8 to 10 years. I hope to be able to keep it going till then.
By then we should have lots of ways to spend it! If everyone does not blow it all first on steem monster cards!
I've not been keeping up on current routes people been using to get out. I'm sure it won't be to long till there is a decent Steem to fiat option; instead of, exchange > what ever exit node you find into cash.
If nothing else by then you should be able to exchange steem into something else to be able to spend it.
There us to be preload debt cards people where using for a while to buy with BTC. Some country's even have more friendly options such as on online payment processer to pay bills with or a BTC ATM they can go to in person.
What was the name of the game you played when everyone left for World of Warcraft?
Posted using Partiko iOS
Everquest. Back then gaming was all about the community. You often kept playing a game you lost interested in just because of the amazing people in it. Something that feels really lost in modern day gaming.
Cool. I never got into EQ. At that time I was hanging out with people in Warcraft 3, we had a strong clan going, and people also switched to WoW and I was left behind. The chat room was the main reason to login, games was secondary.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Exactly, I use to log in just to chat. I spent hours in the guild hall not doing anything. People would just come by and buff me or ask for a buff. Maybe they needed a rez so I would leave the guild hall to help them out. Otherwise, it was just having fun in chat or Ventrilo at the time.
This post is really great and I don't see it as a rant; instead, a great example of how to handle situations we have all encountered here. I myself also went through my first purge of my following list a couple of weeks ago and was amazed on how inactive some of the accounts I used to read in the past have gone. While not surprised due to the market and its prices, I am disappointed in most as some were very inspiring on how #STEEM could change their lives. I would not be surprised when they come back once we advance in our development. Some will deserve attention but agree with you that they should come with the same expectations as other new users as they need to prove their consistency and engagement over time to achieve the true benefits of this platform.
That really is a must from time to time. I lost count how many times someone went mostly inactive or came back and just t started to resteem 10+ times a day. That just starts to fill up your feed and mostly with things you just are not interested in anymore.
I always tell people right now might be last time you have it so easy earning so much Steem. The higher the price goes the harder it will be just to earn a single unit of it. I’ve seen some really old posts where people power up the worthless at the time Steem and it was just crazy amounts.
With so many things going on who knows by end of the year where things could be. If things don't work out I at least had a fun time and meet some really amazing people. I might even be blessed to keep in touch with people as well over the years. Some of the networking going on is just crazy.
I'm doing the same! Focusing on posting at least once a day and engaging with the community as much as I can to get as much STEEM as I can at these prices. As less people remain active, it leaves more rewards to those who do remain active and engage. I have seen the difference since being so active although I have taken more steps like buying STEEM outright that have also helped!
Its the powering down completely and on returning with jealous snipes about you doing well for yourself that really narks me as you mentioned above.
Will be interesting seeing which one of "those" kind of people come crawling back. Some of them still have some decent auto votes still unless people have changed them. As such it will just be a matter of time.
Yeah, it is slightly annoying when they do come back and it's like nothing has changed, especially if they start banging on about the platform lol
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Maybe they power down then come back in at the point where they left when it goes back up reaching that point. I don't know if I could really blame someone for powering down to save their investment. Most did all that work to make money, (I am talking about those who had a significant amount to lose) just like those who followed them main interest was getting voted money. If the shoe was on the other foot and that individual had to start anew do you think those people would be clicking on their new account knowing they wouldn't earn anything? I've seen other articles on this also, my take is this would be no different in comparison to a wealthy persons giving up their wealth to distribute among their neighbors in a economic downturn...there's really no difference, no one's going to drain their bank account on someone else's behalf.
Those kinds of people are very rare. Most power down everything and it will never come back. Some even make new accounts and start over trying hide the fact they 100% power down everything every 2-3 months.
It would seem if they could make enough every two to three months that warrants powering down then they sure found a way to beat this system!
Often times it is about finding a community that approaches you for you. Which is also how you learn when people do such things. They know where to get eyeballs on the content they have created.
I don't know if I am much of a community oriented person. Back in the day before I had kids my favorite bar had a song they'd play when I came back on Sunday night from a weekend of wondering.....(I am a gal though)
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Not so much of a rant really, as just an interesting exploration.
Even with just six months here, I see two kinds of leavers: The ones that totally cashed out and are gone and the ones that lost interest because their rewards were too low. My own "counter rant" is that I am not sure what too low really means, since there was no job offer, contract, or anything else here making a promise that anyone would get any particular sum of money for posting pictures of their toenail clippings. If there was, I didn't get the memo!
Part two of my "counter rant" is that the *early adopters who are rage quitting over the low value of rewards and low price of Steem were all here when Steem was seven cents! So, get over yourselves!
I always come back to the words of the no-longer-active mega poster @barrydutton who used to run a spoofy Friday series entitled "Show me your Facebook wallet!"
Indeed! Show me your Facebook wallet, folks!
=^..^=