Steem - Problems Seed Solutions
View this post on Hive: Steem - Problems Seed Solutions
5 years ago in #steem by raj808 (71)
$2.10
- Past Payouts $2.10, 0.00 TRX
- - Author $1.70, 0.00 TRX
- - Curators $0.40, 0.00 TRX
For me, the allure of joining the steem blockchain in March last year was two fold:
1 - Sharpening my blogging skills by joining a blogging platform (that's how it was sold to me as)
2 - Potential of earning something from all those hours spent creating music and writing blogs.
As time went on, I found myself getting sucked in to chase an upvote on dsound and the lure of that shiny object - posting a track almost daily for 7 months with a couple of cents to show for it - not sure why I bothered for that long really haha.
However, I also started receiving the dsound upvote which started making it feel like it was all worthwhile, the hard work was getting recognised and it was beginning to pay off.
Just before that happened, I did start diversifying my content as despair was kicking in. Having started writing a beginner's guide to cryptocurrency (called Bluffer's Guide), I wanted to share my knowledge with others and write as basic a guide as possible to get people in to the space. Must have spent 100 or so hours doing the research, writing and everything else to produce the series - total amount earned in Steem (converted) - $1.50! I wouldn't say that was "doing it for the money" haha!
I began re-branding myself as a blogger, traveller and Drum & Bass producer. I joined the Travel Feed community and started writing about my holiday, just to try something different and see how it went down as I was pretty demotivated at this point to stay on the platform. Then, I got noticed - picked up my first (and likely only) curie upvote and made me think more about what I can do and what this platform is all about.
Soon after, I found the Steemit Bloggers after one member kept mentioning it after that curie vote and have a better feeling about the platform than I did in September.
For me, it's important for any newcomer to join a community of similar interests that is actively engaged and interacts with your posts. This place is infested with bots and auto curation trails that may give a quick dopamine hit when you start getting a load of upvotes but I'd rather have 10 comments and 10 upvotes than several hundred upvotes with no interaction.
Whilst we're on the topic of bots, I believe those bid bots are also the bane of this platform, manipulating trending feeds, seeing the same people over and over again and these so called "whale/flagging wars" is just embarrassing, especially when it spills on to new member's posts. They should really resolve their issues internally and not take their dirty laundry outside.
That's my 2 cents anyway.
Hey Nik
Sorry I took so long to respond to this comment. You make a tone of good points and I think the only way we can find a logical expression of the broken aspects of steem is through analyzing it based on our own experiences. Some people may have read this article and thought, there goes raj808 banging on about stuff cause he's angry about his post payouts. Or jealous, or whatever. None of that is true.
My main concern is the turning of cheeks to behaviors that directly take away from everyone, apart from a few running certain 'services' or behaving nefariously to give organisations votes, which should be shared equally based on content quality, to their friends. But the truth is that steem has a lot of bad players at the top and a lot of people following along with them for their support in upvotes. Those same people will deny that dynamic until they're blue in the face, why wouldn't they... and in fact some of them don't even see it that way as they believe the bullshit they're being fed by those people who are supporting them.
As you said:
I absolutely agree and I see bidbots as one of the worst factors for driving intelligent 'professional level' content creators away from steem before they have even had a chance to figure out how to network on here.
It is great that you have found support for the content that you create professionally. This is my point, you create dnb music to a professional standard, and you (insert anyone else with a high level of content) should be supported comparatively highly, if steem wants to attract quality people. I have done exactly what you describe above, in changing my content type to something I never envisioned myself doing. It certainly isn't what I could contribute to steem to bring the greatest value! I write professionally, but I rarely post my poems or stories here anymore and that is a direct result of the behaviors that cause this content market to become a game of bought upvotes.
As I said in the 'witness discussion' discord last week, it is not my loss it's steem's loss. I sell my time writing elsewhere. The thing is no one responded to me in that discord server full of the 'top dogs' of steem, including ned. Also, this is not all about me; it is about the 1000's of people like me who have either removed their best work or just left.
Anyway, it's a big problem that the witnesses either don't care about the content side of this platform, or they are running bidbots themselves and see this blockchain as a cow to be milked. The class system in steem is completely poisonous, but not only to us small players but to the high classes as well. As all of these people of talent leave, they relate their experience outside of steem further driving a nail in the coffin of our chances for mass adoption as a content platform. Mainstream use is the only thing that will drive steem price really high past what it will do riding the coat tails of Bitcoin. So all of this behavior from some of the top players here is destroying the chance of that happening for all of us.
Ha ha, rant over ;-)
Thanks for your comment @nickyhavey. I kept quiet about all of this for a long time but I just can't anymore.
P.s. the one thing that is amazing on steem is community and the level of interaction that you get on posts in comments. I'm not completely down on steem, in fact I'm a huge believer, and have poured a tone of time and effort in to this platform helping behind the scenes in @promo-mentors and @curie before my illness ramped up.
Hey @raj808, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you but being here made me too angry. Since speaking with @quillfire, I've calmed down and decided that I'll be supporting the #powerhousecreatives as best I can on here without getting too enraged.
I 100% agree with everything you said in your "rant" (which I thought was expertly put together) and I can't see myself posting anything more on here once the dpoll is over. I was at the "straw breaking the camel's back" stage and when I saw more of these clowns posts, that did it for me.
It's a shame because the idea behind it all was solid but there are other platforms out there built on the lessons learned from this blockchain with similar incentives for content creation.
I'll see you around and thanks for the support on my music on here, really appreciate it :)
@nickyhavey & @raj808,
As I read through this comment-reply thread, all I could think was, "Wow ... these guys can write."
Raj & Nicky, those were spectacular essays and, after this Contest is over, I will be composing yet more articles about the blockchain's problems. I'd like your respective permission to quote your comments at length, if not in whole.
Quill
Hi @quillfire
I don't mind if you quote from this article or any of the comment thread I've made with Nicky.
Sry this reply is so late. I've been away from steem and the internet in general as with distance can come perspective. Everything I've expressed in this article and much in these comments are completely true, but I think it's how we let them effect us that matters. I've been becoming increasingly negatively effected, hence the break from all things digital. Anyway, as I said previously, I've stopped putting creative writing on steem for the very reasons stated in the article/comments. Time is something we all value as it's the most finite thing we have. I feel like steem can be a real draw on time, which is ok when you're enjoying it or getting something out of it, but when you find yourself stressing and striving over 'steem politics' it sort of becomes rediculous.
Thanks for reading and I hope it all inpires an interesting write for you 🙂
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Permission granted from me @quillfire. I have worn my heart on my sleeve and always tried to focus on the positives but there's only so much one can take before the wool is lifted from the eyes.
I look forward to reading your posts as I always do, maybe try and post it somewhere else too hey? :)
You make some excellent points here, direct curation is a continuous challenge. To see mass adoption there needs to be enough people around to support and upvote the content - I’m not sure enough is being done to keep those active stakeholders retained.
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Hey @c0ff33a thanks.
Yeah, I agree with what you say here
and despite me pointing out in this article what I see as some unfair curation methods by some entities on steem, I think the wider problem is definitely to do with an imbalance between consumers and creators. We don't have enough consumers at the moment. If we did it might become a lot less frustrating for people constantly questing after dapp or curie/ocd votes as I think more people primarily curating would mean a leveling out of rewards based on quality as the consensus effect would kick in. The way I can see this, possibly, happening is when/if the content types are split into communities with their own dedicated front ends. Maybe in the future, mainstream people could visit, for example, a platform for photography where they could curate their favorite photos and even download them for a certain $ level of upvote. This is just all ideas, but I think one thing steem needs is some development like that to really incentivise curation/consuming of content for the mainstream audience. Also, for sure, we do need to take down Fbook, Twitter, Insta and YouTube and poach all their content makers and audience along with them ;-)
All of the thoughts and musings in this article and have grown partly from my recent experience on steem. I've been here for 16 months now and used to post a lot more creative writing and articles around travel and nature. I am a full time writer, but I no longer put my writing up on steem as it isn't worth the time and I get paid to write for various other freelance gigs. I'm not moaning, but it is still a fact and I know many other creative writers have left steem. I'm just stubborn ;-) so I've taught myself video editing and a little about cinematography to make decent vlogs/films on dtube as their is more potential for reward.
My point is that it's an example of how the mechanisms of steem, as they are now, are driving people away, or in my case causing a negative incentive for me to post what I do for a profession.
I'm hopeful that all of these things I mentioned in this post will sort of balance themselves out in the long term so that we can make steem simply the foundation of a building with many different departments.
Ha ha, this comment is running the risk of becoming another post so I'll wrap it up.
Thanks for reading :)
Would communities solve the problem? For the impression still gotten from new users is that steemit as well as other dapps on the steem blockchain are a place to earn crypto. I think there lies the issue.
If the focus can be moved from earning to interacting, creating and connecting, then we could have less attention on rewards and more attention on quality and curation.
The automation of votes is also something of an issue, if we have to look at the whole aspect of rewards coming in regularly to an account whether the post is worth it or not. There are accounts that are still voting but stopped posting since before the hardfork. The owners have either turned away from steemit to other projects or they have lost complete interest in the blockchain revolution.
At the end of the day, if those who write literary pieces that is meant to entertain and educate, can get a form of reward for the quality of their content, then those who know quite well that they are not proficient in that area will move to maybe gaming or vlogging, podcasts, amsound recording to make their bones. This is if we truly want to reward for quality.
You @raj808 will not reward a poorly written poem because you write poetry, no matter how well you know the author or how good the author is but you rewarding a post by a witness discussing codes and technical stuff would be a hard sell as you do not really know what he is talking about but you think he is a good guy. So therein lies the problem that maybe communities can solve but then again like you I don't know much about these things. I am just here to write stuff.
I don't know about solving the problem, but as I understand them they would alleviate a huge amount of confusion and the steep learning curve for new users. Just to clarify, I don't mean communities as we have them now on discord.
I mean whole dedicated sites, similar to busy or steemit. Appics is a good example for what I'm trying to say as currently they're basically like instagram on steem. Communities that literally cater for one content type would mean that the likes of Instagram users would have their own platform that rewards in steem (or possibly an SMT) but that runs on the steem blockchain. Hopefully this would mean rewards become proportional to effort as things become more refined, but I have no real basis for that thought, it is just a hunch. There might be a similar site for creative writing, in fact I think someone might already be working on one. My point is that it separates different content and could allow for a more qualitative reward as people posting tweets or status updates wouldn't even be on the same platform as those sharing vlogs. It might be better for everyone who is coming in to have a much more focused experience.
Absolutely agree m8. The monetary aspect of steem is a dichotomy in that it is the thing that draws most people, but it is also the thing that people take advantage of and those self-serving behaviors are what makes people leave who aren't stubborn, or who just don't care about the rewards that much. I completely agree that community is awesome here. Feedback and comments on posts are what keep me here, even though they have fallen off in the last year. Which leads into another point that you make which is absolutely spot on
Autovoting completely works against interaction and commenting and that is a big issue that I failed to mention in this episode of my steem musings. Maybe next time ;-)
Thanks for your comment warpedpoetic. Lots to think about in what you'e said. I've been so wrapped up in various things outside of steem that I've forgot to visit some of the people who's content I love on here and you're one of those people. I'm gonna stop by to check out some of your poetry soon.
It is fine. I too have been absorbed with off chain matters to the point that I can't curate posts much.
I'm so sorry my friend for definitely replying late the truth is I have less knowledge of the technical side of steem and this is the reason why I hadn't talked about this issues in a very long time the truth is that the voting system is oligarch in nature and seeing people getting 100% vote irrespective of their content is really terrible in my opinion it seems a little bit fascist and this will make it possible for people to just create whatever they like because they know that they are getting 100% votes that is why I think the voting pattern and voting system should definitely change no matter the kind of community these people belongs to I believe good content creators who does not belong to any part of the community are judged based on what they bring to the table and not because they do not belong anywhere this is definitely shrinking the audience and concentrating on just a few amount of people and even when I think have a plan b in order to get past this hurdle I do think the selection pattern for vote should definitely developing 100% for some specific kind of people for example this beautifully written post could have been a video blogging that should earn massive reward but the truth is that sometimes we lose faith in even video blogging because of the uncertainty that comes with not knowing whether your video qualifies what you call quality because really you do not know the definition of quality being held by a group of people who are called curators
Hi m8
Sure, you're right. I held back in this article in the way that I approached the subject, mainly to stay as objective as possible to encourage debate if it was seen by anyone who may disagree, or be involved with curation. It solves nothing to get involved in battles, but rather to try and change hearts and minds. I think I made a reasonably logical progression in my argument in why certain 'gaming the system' behaviors are short term gains for the ones gaming, over larger long term gains if they changed up the way they do things. I just hope that point comes across to anyone reading.
thanks for saying that, as this is definitely one of my central points and the more people who recognize that fact, the better IMO.
I couldn't have articulated all this in a vlog. My main weakness is camera shyness, but I've been writing articles for over 15 years, but more recently much more than in the past with some freelance work. I wish I could get that natural flow of thought to mouth for vlogging but maybe it will come with time.
Thanks for checking out this post Jose as the inspiration to finally put these thoughts down into words came from watching your vlog :)
Obviously your works are more than amazing I couldnt even qualify as have as an editor of a video content and this has really made me miss a lot of opportunities I do have great video contents but editing them to a certain satisfaction is what I really couldn't do enough and I was thinking this is the reason why I think my contents were not really rewarded as it should even if so many other people resist the same topic that I have done in the past and the get massive reward for them by these people make me really accept the fact that the rewarding pattern which dte the decentralised applications embrace is definitely not fair however not to dwell on this issue but to accept the fact that the system is capitalist and oligarch and is meant not to be fair because I find solace in that
The future is endless. Indeed people need to pay attention to their vote and not vote crap like someone just putting a copied picture on. The apps side and development is beyond me but if there was more support with this I feel the expansion of Steem has unprecedented possibilities. To me there is so much on Steem and not enough time to explore it all a more defined and easier way to pick your content would enhance the experience no end. We are moving in the right direction but a long way to go. With dyslexia and OCD to an extent I struggle to read all the content I want to and have no easy way to select my choices, just a wee rant there 💯🐒
Yeah, I think the future can be amazing for steem as long as things are constantly questioned, tested and above all we use the consensus based model of this blockchain to remove the (financial) incentive for high power users to exploit the bad mechanisms of steem by making them unprofitable.
Anyway, as you said:
I won't go off on a full scale rant ;-) Thanks for your comment vibeof100monkeys
No rant haha. I think we need better connection with the developers so people like me can feed ideas to them to look at producing! Currently I would not know where to start with developing or who would develop my ideas 💯🐒
This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
Thanks @pennsif 👍
well written. steem is a good solution for curators. in general it is important for aware ness
Cheers @worldtraveller32
These ideas and thoughts have been developing over a very long time and it was only recently that I felt sure I could articulate myself well enough to approach such a sensitive subject.
for sure glad to help
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