Some things just take more time and patience than others. I am here because I believe in Steem’s long term viability. To get there we are going to need some critical mass — more people who find this platform to be a worthwhile place to spend their precious time and energy, in addition to believing in it as an investment.
I do hope that communities will be part of that recipe. Another ingredient, I believe, is simplified sign-up and on-boarding. It needs to be fast and painless to create a Steem account, and we somehow need to make it possible to be successful here without having a fricking Ph.D in Steemology.
Regarding downvoting, I am personally not a fan. Someone dear to me is being ritually downvoted, because he dared to use the downvote mechanism precisely as it was designed — to bring out-of-line rewards back in line, and enable those who are producing quality content to earn their rightful share of the reward pool.
The trouble with it is that it turns individuals into judge and jury. And it gives people with a lot of power an inordinate ability to retaliate. Not only that, but as you are seeing, those who get down voted very often feel hurt by it. It may even be justified in some of those cases, but it comes down to individual opinions about what quality is; individual metrics for what kind of content deserves what type of rewards.
Creating equity is a very worthwhile goal. I’m just not sure that downvoting is the correct mechanism. The net effect could very well be that people who have put heart and soul into their content and are doing the very best they can will be downloaded off the platform, because it feels like they got slapped. And many people also experience it as a type of theft. They saw rewards that then disappeared, because someone made a determination that they didn’t deserve that. I wish it was working as planned, but I see a lot of frustration and sadness and distrust and abuse.
I believe the only way to right things, where rewards are concerned, is to do so algorithmically, like Google does. Now, I am not a developer, and my understanding of what’s possible may be skewed. But as long as individuals can stack the odds in their favor for upvotes and use their power to retaliate against those who attempt to create fairness, the system isn’t going to support the goal of mass adoption on this platform.
That is my humble opinion.
On the matter of people jumping ship when the price dropped, I couldn’t agree more. There were thriving communities back when the value was sweet and on the rise that are gone now. I hope and believe that will happen again. But, because this platform is about earning rewards and/or about investment (depending on the mindset of the individual), those who are in it for short term gain are not going to weather the ups and downs. It is unfortunate. The antidote may simply be that Steem needs to start showing steady growth. I am hoping we will never see a sharp rise, because it will encourage more of that “jump in and get my share” mentality, when what we need is a lot of HODLers.
Thanks for your thoughtful post, @adetorrent.
"Regarding downvoting, I am personally not a fan. Someone dear to me is being ritually downvoted, because he dared to use the downvote mechanism precisely as it was designed — to bring out-of-line rewards back in line, and enable those who are producing quality content to earn their rightful share of the reward pool."
I just came back on Steem yesterday after almost a year absence, for varied life reasons, and was a little excited to get back to creating some content. My post yesterday afternoon had a potential payout of around $10. Then someone with lots of voting power, that I will not mention here, down voted it.
Ok, so you don't like the post, so you screw someone because of your personal tastes were offended? Then I go to this persons profile and they have not created in content or contributed much in the last two years on Steemit.
I appreciate @adetorrent and his commitment to Steem. He is a great ambassador for the platform, but if this is the way it is going to be, I am not going to waste my time writing and sharing content for nothing. I can do that on Facebook or a personal blog and get a much better return.
Yeah, I might stop in for the occasional tid bit of information and stay in contact with peeps, but man...what a welcome back!....pffff
Exactly!!!
It's not that he didn't like your post, he downvoted it just because. He's lashing out because the community disagreed that posting screenshots 12 times a day and upvoting himself at 100%, and nobody else, was a good thing.
Following HF21/22, the community have free downvotes, so we used it to put a stop to the years of reward pool raiding. He now targets a few of us for constant downvotes, and he randomly hits posts that the community have upovted to a good amount. He also upvotes shitposts randomly, just to be a troll.
Free down votes? That's ridiculous!! If one feels so strongly that content is crap, and wants everyone to know it, then they should be willing to pay for the down vote.
I am was just working on writing another post and was almost done until I saw this reply. Not wasting my time posting it if ass hats are doing that stuff.
As it is now, there are many tribes you can post on that have their own token. For instance, there's Palnet or SteemLeo for different communities. You can post on there or use their tag, and you'll get the tokens. If you look at
http://www.palnet.io/@adetorrent, you will see all my posts just fine, even if greyed out on Steemit. The earned tokens on there are not affected either by downvoting on Steem.
When SMTs arrive, this will be even more important. I think many people might stop posting on Steem directly and focus more on their tribe/community.
Thanks for sharing. Where do I look to find existing communities like coin collecting (fiat type), fishing, computers etc...
Hmm. Good question. I'm not really that much of an expert on which tribes are what. I'm part of RaggaeSteem, Palnet and CreativeCoin.
Best bet is to check out SteemEngine - all the coins are there. If you click on the (information icon) "i", it will display some info about the coin/community
Thanks my friend, I’ll check it out.
Please don’t give up, @joebrochin. Just find the things that make this platform work for you and focus on those things.
This is a great response. I’m catching up after a few days of life madness and wanted to let you know I really appreciate this perspective, @adetorrent.
First of all
That should be a thing haha. You're so right there!
I also agree with the hope for a slow rise and not a sharp one - it will benefit the platform better. However, I won't say no to a $10 Steem price tonight, all of a sudden. :)
Well yeah, we wouldn’t turn that down, right? But would you power down or hold? Tough philosophical question. For better or for worse, I would hold.