An open letter to folk griping about Steemit. Spammers, Upvote Rings, and Gripers (oh, my!) [Part 1]

Please, can everybody just STOP COMPLAINING that your posts aren't getting enough rewards?

I've seen so many articles about how everything is unfair, their posts aren't getting the rewards they want, and steemit is so bad. It's really starting to get under my skin. To be clear, I'm not talking about people who put a lot of time and effort into researching, contemplating, and working to understand\solve the difficulties of this brand new platform. I'm talking about the baseless complainers. Its as though you think all the whales, the witnesses, and SteemInc are out to EAT you.

Yes, there are issues.

Did you notice the word Beta in the top left hand corner? We are currently at Steem v0.19.1.

There are voting bots and voting rings, and self"ish" voting whales. There are spammers, flag wars, and a general lack of understanding what's going on at the top of the blockchain. Yes, I am aware of the problems. I've read quite a few well paid articles addressing them in a thoughtful, technical manner. It's not that there isn't anything to complain about, but a large majority of the complaining is completely counter-productive.

There are plenty of people working hard to bring light to the flaws of this platform, and to solve the problems we face. The issue is that there is no quick fix. It takes a long time to write the code for each new hardfork, and HF20 was already under way when the problems of voting rings and self voters came to the forefront of everyone's consciousness.

A very productive way to change this system for the better, is to vote for the witnesses who care about the issues and will vote for a Hard Fork that they expect to improve the platform.

The STEEM network has many checks and balances to ensure everything is vetted by a decentralized group of trusted (elected) individuals before taking effect. No hardfork will take effect until at least 67% of the active witnesses have upgraded to the latest update.

Just because Steemit Inc. releases a new version of Code does not mean that everyone is forced to upgrade to the new code.

So if you're making that assumption that Steemit Developer Control STEEM , you're Wrong! _{- (@steemitguide - What exactly is a Steem Witness, and why every user should vote)}

If you really care about the issues, find out which witnesses also care. (mind you, I've referenced a number of witnesses in this two part series. They might be a good start of where to look. you can even go to steemd.com/@inquiringtimes to see who I voted for. I've left my reasonings for who I vote for, in this post, and in my posts about the bandwidth crisis.

I was asking @ausbitbank his thoughts on the problems with self-upvoting and upvote rings. He managed to get away from his various responsibilities to help with a well thought out comment on the difficulties we face:

"Yeah, I'd like to see the linear curve removed and some serious thought put into anti-abuse measures.

Something drastic needs to happen here. I think we've made a massive mistake by ignoring the whitepaper warnings and using a linear curve.

The exponential curve required cooperation between stakeholders, for them to agree that a certain piece of content was valuable - despite all of the talk about "whale collusion" this was actually an extremely valuable property of rewards distribution system. Our current spam and self vote abuse problem is a direct result of moving to a linear curve.

My general attitude towards distribution hasn't changed - it's bad, but it's way better then it used to be and is improving all the time as new power players buy up the Steem of the old whales. It's going to be a long process that unfortunately will probably result in a lot of older whales dumping their steem on the market - but an equilibrium point will be found with price and we're seeing new whales appear daily."

(I have to add a HUGE Thank You to @ausbitbank for taking some time with me tonight.)

During the course of this two part series I reference witnesses that you could vote for, if you think they are doing a good job and care about you. Some of them are @reggaemuffin @timcliff @rycharde @ausbitbank @drakos and ...I feel like I've left a few people out, pls lmk or DM me if you are a witness and would like to add some statement about these issues.

Vote for them, and you can even spend some time telling your friends to vote for them.

@timcliff releases weekly editions of "The Reports from the Witnesses"

This is a digest of whatever witness reports have been released in the past week.

@necrophagist does interviews of witnesses, here is a current list of witness interviews:

• Witnesses, the unsung heroes of Steemit, and why you should vote. Interviews with @aggroed, @theprophet0, and @ausbitbank included.
• Interview with @neoxian: Witness awareness
• Interview with @someguy123, Witness Awareness Series
• A moment with @timcliff the steemit sage: a witness awareness interview
• The Steemit Gatekeepers, interview with @followbtcnews, MSP supporter: witness awareness series
• Interview with @reggaemuffin, minnowbooster extraordinaire: Witness awareness series

I love the witness interviews by @necrophagist and cant wait to see more of them.

UBU (Universal Basic Upvotes)

Nobody gets paid to show up, here. Well, actually, we do get paid to sign up. However, there is no universal basic upvote policy here.

There is still, plenty of room for growth here, despite the various kinks in the system. I'd like to see an article about how much is paid out to the self-voting whales and "exploiters", compared to the total payout across the platform. I'll buy an upvote for you if you do it. lol.

If you want rewards, you have to make friends and write stuff that isn't just good, but that people are happy to vote on. This involves finding the communities which you feel comfortable in, and participating with the other Steemers there. You also have to stop comparing your posts to the highest paid people, many of whom have been here a long time to get where they are.

Recently @sift666 shared with me, a post he wrote about complainers, and what it was like when he started on steemit a year ago. It really opened my eyes and my heart to have his perspective. Below is a selection from that article:

Nobody had any money in their accounts apart from whales. Our votes were totally worthless. In 2016 I did 14 posts that earned nothing at all, and 49 that earned more than 1 cent but less than $1. Many of those posts took me hours to write, and when I go back and look now, I still think a lot of them were pretty good.

So why did I persist? I can’t really explain it, but ever since I first saw Steemit I’ve been obsessed with it. And not getting paid to blog was nothing new. I have a Wordpress blog with over 350 posts on it that has never earned me a cent, and before that I had a Blogger blog that paid similar dividends.

( @sift666 via: Old Time Steemers live in a Different World to Newbs)

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How to actually Succeed as a Steemit Blogger. Spammers, Upvote Rings, and Gripers (oh, my!) [Part 2]

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^{(image by @woodywood143 via: Alien Structures)}

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Unless otherwise noted all of the content created by @inquiringtimes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Additionally, while not required, I am easily contacted if you wish to use these materials for any purpose(excepting a quotation in comments on the Steem Block-chain, where a simple @ tag \ linkback is sufficient).

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Refrences and Further Resources:

• @steemitguide - What exactly is a Steem Witness, and why Every user Should Vote
• @drakos - Tips and Guidelines for voting on witnesses
• @drakos - Tips and Guidlines for the Noob Witness Setup
• @inquiringtimes Easy Witness Voting Guide [re: the bandwidth crisis]
• @sift666 - Old Time Steemers live in a Different World to Newbs
• @woodywood143 - Alien Structures
• Charts and interpretation of @calamus056 's comment self-voting user list since HF19 - PART 3 (potential comment abuse)
• How to actually Succeed as a Steemit Blogger. Spammers, Upvote Rings, and Gripers (oh, my!) [Part 2]