The largest REP in the world
While no one saw this creeping up, today I became the highest rep user on Steem! When I saw the number on steemnow.com I have to say, I was pretty surprised myself, but I knew all the hard work would pay off and I would finally get recognized as being at least 3 points more reputable than the Supreme Leader.
It didn't last long though, and as soon as it moved by 0.001, it read the correct reputation score and I was demoted by 9 points to here:
A user of ill-repute.
While not as impressive, it is still kind of cool, regardless of how useless the reputation score really is on Steem. Each point gets harder to get and if I remember correctly, it increases in difficulty to reach by a factor of 1.5x. This is calculated by vests used while voting as well as the reputation of the voter, but I do not know the exact numbers.
While useless, I do like to see it change occasionally and it is one of the things I would like to mention as an indicator of the change to #newsteem. I generally mark the occasion with a post these days as it is quite rare, but it has actually only been 107 days since I moved to 78 rep, and if I can recall, it took something like 8 months to get to that point from 77. I don't know for sure though.
What has this got to do with #newsteem?
I am glad you asked.
Well, I moved to 77 exactly one week prior to HF20 .... and then 21 a few days later. And at that point, a lot of things changed, namely - the voting behaviors of stake holders as well as the downvoting behaviors. Because it suddenly became sexy to vote again due to the 50/50 split for curation, the curve and the downvote pool that trimmed bought vote posts, stakeholders started curating again. I am pretty sure for many of the users who have benefited from the change by getting attention on their posts, their reps are moving along nicely.
Not that it matters.
Well, maybe it will matter one day, but while the reputation is heavily flawed and has been especially screwed over by selfvoting and paid voting, it doesn't mean much. I have the 24th highest reputation on the platform, and one of the lowest payouts on posts, even though I used @ocdb paid services for a time. The reason is that the people who have voted on me have been relatively high rep, even if they haven't had a huge amount of stake.
If you want to see some basic user stats.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this lately, but it seems that some of the more dormant accounts are starting to return to the ecosystem, as well as a lot of new accounts. While nothing like it was in 2017/2018 at the change of the year, it does appear some new people are finding us. Hopefully, they are finding the best of us and not the worst, as there is still plenty of ugly on the platform.
I have also noticed that there is a little more vote buying creeping back into the platform and I am really hoping that this is going to be nipped in the bud as we can't afford to have anymore time spent with that bullshit as it held us back heavily in many ways. While some people will say that it kept people here, remember that they only accounted for a small percentage of the voting on the platform as only a small percentage of users used them. How many left because of the bidbots is unknown.
Not that those numbers of the past matter much, but going forward we as a user base have to really start focusing on building as a community. Or several communities since that is the goal with the coming integrations and with the implementation of Smart Media Tokens imminent, we have an opportunity to make this community a powerhouse in the industry. We don't need to work together, but we do need to work toward improvement of the ecosystem consistently.
People complain about Steem-centric content not being great for user experience and assimilation, but the worst thing in my opinion are the internal squabbles and childishness of people who would rather burn, than build. The thing about opinions is, everyone has one, and that is mine and others may opine differently. I am always interested to hear people's opinions on things, even when they are obviously wrong as they aren't the same as my own.
As said, rep doesn't mean much - behavior and intention does. When you see one of the oldest and most rewarded users with an 80 rep and large stake, self-voting their own pointless comments at 6 days old, you have to consider their behavior and intention. So, while nothing is ever going to be perfect on Steem, I do think that we are heading in the right direction, but we have to be very careful not to become complacent and slip into our old ways. We have a lot to gain as a community, and a lot to lose as individuals.
Opportunities go begging every day, so put a little coin in the hat.
Out of curiosity, do you pay attention or care about rep?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Wow, you made me look. I'm at 55 today. If I search back through old posts I can probably find where I mention rep in the past. All I can accurately state is that my 55 rep was purely earned, I had minimal bot upvoting on my account from purchased votes (and if I did, they were small dollars). Most of my bot activity was through dividend earnings delegating some of my stake to minnowbooster, who I supported based on their "stronger" moral code and better anti-spam work that they actively pursued (at least back when Steem SQL was still free, they always promptly removed votes from crap posts if I notified them about the junk in discord or live on the blockchain.. and they set up bans on bot accounts.. I respected that.. but I digress).
I don't actively post much on here anymore. Partially because of the value of Steem, partly because I was discouraged by the abuse of the old platform, partly because HF20 devalued original content vs voting on content, thus creating a smaller circle jerk of voting, and mostly because I have limited time to spend on Steemit to generate content that I would "be proud of" from a format and content perspective. I don't know how much my rep will change from my limited content posting (or comment posting), but 55 feels good for me at this point. Maybe one day that will change.
Until then, all of my "old" favorite writers get my upvotes, and an occasional comment or two 👍
I think this is not the case, at least for some of the curation projects as they have expanded their reach a fair bit. As for the limited posting, if you want to post, post. Sure quality does matter and make it something you want to post, but relax a bit and have some fun with it. The platform will change many times for better or worse, but look long and the experience is much smoother.
For a "social media platform" like Steemit, you need content. Expanding on that, you need quality content. Which means that there needs to be an incentive for producing quality content.
Since the creation of quality content requires effort and effort requires time, and time is a known limited resource, that means someone who generates quality content has to make a choice: spend more time generating quality content and less time curating, or spend more time curating and less time developing quality content. Time is unfortunately not limitless.
Sure, you have an alternative to support a curation chain, but now you're not voicing your personal preferences through curation in the same manner as you are performing through your content/writing. Also, you might as well let a bit vote for you at this point (there are very minimal differences in final outcomes between a curation "circle jerk" chain and a random/automated/AI bot voting system).
Everything in life requires balance and trade-offs, including Steemit. I like that the "new new Steemit" has fewer bots, but until the Trending page is fixed (a ridiculously silly problem since beta), we're going to see continued adoption issues and continued lack of support for new users with limited stake. It's still like trying to find a needle in a haystack for good, original, content. And when you find it, it doesn't matter because you STILL need to "team up" with other minnows in order to try to become more than a blip on the radar.. because everyone with enough stake to actually support good content is too busy giving their votes to an automated curation chain rather than searching for and supporting new users.
Perhaps all new users' content should be on the "Trending" page for their first 1 to 3 months (once they initiate their option to be on the page- when they're comfortable with using and navigating Steemit). Of course, something like this requires added scrutiny on new accounts to ensure that someone isn't just creating a new account every time their timer runs out... But it's at least a new and (possibly) original idea that I've never seen discussed by devs or witnesses..
I think that there is incentive now and there will be even more in the future, but quality (of any kind) will always be in the minority, which is what makes it valuable.
I approach this (as I write more than I curate) by finding people who I believe are builders and supporting them (I normally read what I vote on) and people who resteem quality and I can find new people to support, some I follow too. I don't have the hours to spend searching, but I am pretty good at finding through the network connections.
I think that communities will help with this a lot as they have the chance to onboard people directly into where their interests lay, instead of a content soup. There are some good curation initiatives out there, I wish there were more at this time with stake.
I think onboarding will have an easier time in the future and trying to repair what the current situation is might be futile as so much more can be created that is fundamentally better, not just a patch.
I agree, but is quality on Steem actually being given the value that it is worth? I'd argue that the answer is "no" more often than "yes". Which is why I say that the incentive does not yet exist.
I just read a post from @paulag that indicated communities have quite a long way to go before they are to be considered the "solution". Based on her comments, it appears that communities have far missed the basic mark of what might have been expected in any sort of "first launch".
The fact that P2P direct messaging is not available in a community is a severe oversight from my perspective. Sure, I'm cherry picking a flaw, but communities have been discussed for years and that's something that I feel
that most people would have thought to add-in from the start.
I'm not trying to be negative, it's just disappointing to see such massive potential get floundered so often. It's like Steem never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity... Hopefully someone figures it all out for Steem soon, or Steem will quickly be replaced by the competitor who saw epic failure after epic failure on Steem and decided to make their own (better) solution.
Again, I'm still on the Steem Train.. I just need to see more success. It's been a long road of "the next big thing is coming in 3 months!" followed by "the next big thing is coming in 3 months!" and when it finally arrives, another 3 months later, the blockchain crashes for 90%+ of users for 3 days..
The incentive is there, but it depends of timeline and perspective. The immediate return is not available for most, unless living in a very cheap country.
The community framework is just some code. What needs to happen to make them really functional is to have apps built for them in the same way, Appics, Steemhunt or others have built for the basic blog. Once developers start thinking wider, a lot of innovation can take place.
The crashes need to be sorted out, instead of people worrying about their missed earnings. As I see it, stability is fundamental to SMTs, not the reward pool, as every SMT will have its own.
congratulations! well deserved!
Cheers mate. :)
Out of curiosity, is https://steemfriends.org/ coming back ever?
Hey mate. Not the way it was before - I need to figure out a better way so I don't have to pay someone else 40sbd every month.
Yeah, the price is high to get access these days I hear.
Yeah i saw that bug on pariko and i was just like what how can this guy go from 79 rep to 88 rep in a day.
But when i clicked on your profile it reportet 79 so i understood that it was a bug of some sort, but i thought it was only on my side.
Posted using Partiko Android
Yeah, I have no idea what causes it, but it has happened on the exact whole number before.
You deserve an 88 rep if anyone does! I am inching closer to 73 rep. Boy does it move slow!
I would predict that if going at the current rate, which I don't think I could maintain, it would take something like 8 years :D
Don't really pay attention to it at all... Am more focused on becoming a dolphin before I die
don't say that, I know a guy...
I'm not far off 74 which I'm happy with I guess. I used to think it meant something, and maybe it does/did, but in general I think now that it doesn't make me better, or someone with a rep of 45 worse.
Maybe it just demonstrates persistence on the blockchain. It would be nice to think it meant that my posts had a certain level of quality however as a circle jerk voting within itself on rubbish content also raises rep that's not necessarily the case.
I remember in the early days when someone with a larger rep iInto the 60's at that point 2.5 years ago) would vote on me I'd make an effort to engage with them more, understanding that relationships with those people may be advantageous. Now, I've got 70+ and don't see new people I vote and comment on doing the same as I did...So maybe the rep is not as highly regarded these days.
Anyway, you only got 79 dude...You must be shit.
I have heard of people who only reply on high reps, but I am pretty rep blind and as long as the comment is decent, I reply. Obviously when starting out it is probably good to comment on higher reps, but once higher yourself, it s good to set an example.
I think this is what it is for many, other is it just that they got the right support early and kept it.
I think many don't regard it or even know what it really is these days as it has fallen out of favor in posts as it lost its meaning through bidbots.
It is pretty meaningless, unless you apply meaning to it - like all reputations.
So...End my posts with:
You just read a post from me, titan of the blockchain, but not as magnificent as some with my good, but not great, rep of 73.817
Hmm...
Lol.
Something like that :D
On second thoughts, probably not. Lol.
I think 2-2.5 years ago there was less rep/vote buying and so a 65+ rep meant the user had stake, or friends in high places.
Nowadays, they'll give out these 79's to anyone ;)
So pointless, there's barely even a queue.
Not at present, but if the STEEM buyers queue grows, there will be :)
Get in early, exit late
Quite clearly.
I sort of do look at the Reputation score. Both large tiny and in between. When I do look and try to pay attention to a rep score, I generally open their account in steemworld and see when the account was made, how much steem was earned, and then determine in my own mind if the Rep fits the bill. it's a bit harder to know if an older account's Rep is close to being self made or purchased.
I am always curious as to why some one ended up in the minus range, and that can take a bit of digging, and I still think serialized down voting of comments by mack-bot and other accounts is wrong. Punish the bad behavior, but if you punish good behavior then you have accomplished nothing.
The early accounts likely benefited from being early accounts and collecting large amounts of Steem along the way. THis gave them an edge at every step
Most is for spam or plagiarism, some are automated comment accounts that run through a set of phrases. anything for a dollar, as they say.
I don't think my rep will ever budge agan XD
I don't know how long it's been like this but as I don't pay attention it could have changed yesterday and I wouldn't have noticed)
I know there's a lot of steem-centric content still and I have no idea what a new user would see on arriving here for the first time, I just know that there is a lot more non-steem stuff now than when I joined so I optimistically don't think it's as much of a deterrant as it might have been once :)
more you post, the faster it climbs ;D
Steem-centric will mostly disappear as the ecosystem grows, but since it is a platform all can own a piece of, there will always be niche interest - at the moment it is a big niche.
I struggle with the pathetic amount of posting I'm doing XD But that's okay I don't mind being...[scrolls up quickly]...64 forever :D
As far as I can tell it's at least more down to the more interesting technical and ux stuff. Used to ignore most of them previously due to the ridiculous level of shill XD
I think there is a blindness to these for some people, but many are influenced in some way. It is the many that they target :)
Congratulations on your new Rep score. That 88 Rep bug is probably the best bug every, send it my way!
I thought it was you who stole the 9 points! ;D
LOL
😂🤣
You caught me!
hahahah - I knew it!
@tarazkp I have already placed a little coin in your hat, I loved your report, I hope you can recover that good reputation that would encourage us all for the promising future ahead.
Put some in your own hat is what I meant, ten spread it from the pool :)
@tarazkp Ah I understand dear friend, thanks for clarifying it to me.