STEEM Solution: We Need To Do This To Make Steemit A Huge Success
Recently, after reading all the complaints about the curation reward system, I decided to investigate what is going on here to see how things are changing. Many feel the system is broken with the rich getting richer. Whales have all the SP and they self and circle vote themselves even more of the reward pool. That is the common knowledge.
I explained my findings in this article here:
The only problem with that viewpoint is that it is incorrect. Whales, as a whole, are suffering from dilution as more people sign up here and get active. This is only logical. When there were 50 accounts, they shared in all the proceeds. Now that there are 450K, those same 50 are not getting 100% of the reward pool which means others are (I know there are more than 50 whales, that is just an illustration).
So if the system is not broken, what is the solution.
Steemit operates on the premise of Post, Comment, and Upvote. These are the directions. Steemit is based upon these three actions being taken. What I am going to propose will radically alter how each of you approach's Steemit.
I do not think we need to cover the Post part of the equation. People seem to have little trouble posting anything on here. Even the first day, a new person is posting away. Where the issue lies, in my opinion, is in the expectations. Said newcomer puts up a couple posts and expects $10-$100 to roll in. This is not going to happen unless you bring a big following with you.
The second area is commenting. Steemit is awful at this. You want an example of a site that does fantastic in this area take a look at Reddit. Many threads on that site have hundreds of comments. You can read actual conversations taking place. On Steemit, it is the exact opposite. Why is that? I will answer that and tie it in momentarily.
The final piece if upvoting. I wrote a number of times how people need to use their allotted 20% of votes daily. Are you doing this? If not, have no worries, I will present the solution for that.
I read an article by @cryptoctopus yesterday that really summarized how I feel the process needs to work. It all starts with the commenting. People need to post comments. This is crucial and vital to the long-term success of Steemit. Most posts either have no comments or just a few. Steemit is a site that needs interaction and it only comes from commenting. I tell this to every new person I encounter. Forget everything else, go out and comment on articles you like.
Of course, if you comment, an upvote is most likely in order. Here is where we see the genius in what @cryptoctopus wrote. Getting an upvote and a comment from a reader is nice but it also up to the author to empower his/her followers. How is that done? By upvoting all the comments. Each person who posts an article needs to go through and upvote the comments.
Why would you do this? Simple. If you are upvoting your commenters, over time, their SP grows meaning their votes are worth more. Of course, it does not take a genius to figure out that more powerful votes mean that each time they upvote your article, you are getting more money.
Here is the article:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@cryptoctopus/the-virtuous-cycle-of-upvoting-your-comment-section
He calls it a virtuous cycle. It captures the self-serving essence we all have while having us focus upon the benefits of others. It is the atypical win-win situation.
In looking through his posts, I noticed that he does not just randomly upvote everything. He upvotes quality content. There are many vote scalpers out there who will posts the usual "great post, thanks". Those get omitted. He looks for quality content. @zer0hedge, another blog I follow, does the same thing. While he will upvote every comment, he will really reward the ones that people put effort into. Of late, I started to do the same thing as these two.
What is interesting is that in looking through the comment sections on these two blogs, I noticed that many people started upvoting each other's comments. On a few of the posts, I saw comments that had 10 or 15 votes for $12 or so. That is more than most people make on their articles. Basically, while you might not get a heavy hitter to your blog, especially when new, that is not to say that will not see a well written comment by you on another blog.
I was able to experience the benefit of this when I went and posted a comment on a particular article. A whale answered my comment which did not do anything for me financially. However, I noticed the value of one of my posts really jumped. As you can guess, said whale went to my blog, read an article and gave it an upvote. That was a pleasant (and unexpected) payoff.
It is said in marketing that you will have to contact someone 7 times before they will remember your company. The same is true here. If you comment on someone's blog, do not expect that individual to remember you from that one interaction. This is especially true when you are dealing with those who are 75 or 100 comments on each of their posts. It requires repetition. However, I am finding out it can be done.
I did not mean to turn this post into a self-help guide for success on Steemit. My goal was to keep it more general. Anyway, it works since the success of the individual on Steemit will translate into overall success for the whole.
Remember this post then next time you feel that the whales are taking an unfair portion of the pie. I can tell you that they are willing to upvote a small percentage of the VP for quality comments. If we want the percentages of the SP spread around, we all need to put ourselves out there and claim a piece of it.
If you found this article helpful and informative, please give it an upvote and a re-steem.
AND START THE PROCESS BY GIVING IT A COMMENT!!!!
Pictures from google images.
This post has been selected as A Quality Contribution to Steemit by the independent curation team of @enchantedspirit and @catweasel. You have received an upvote from each of us as a gesture to reward and encourage this kind of quality work. Thank you for your contribution to Steemit and the excellent value of this post. We look forward to seeing more. Have a lovely day. (P.S. We found you through @ShadowsPub's Steemit Ramble.)
Good job. Glad to see you're finding quality and rewarding it. Best wishes for continued success.
There is a lot of quality work on steemit. We are doing our bit to find and promote a few gems. It's not much, but it's a start.
Thank you very very much for noticing and supporting us.
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
I always try to reward quality content comments too (even though I do get behind due to my daily allowance being used up). My main filter is the question: does the comment add value? Put another way, does the comment give other contributors something of value, something that they would value? If I think it's very valuable, I give it a full 100% upvote (about 1/2 of my votes are at 100%), if it's valuable, a 50%, and if the answer is maybe, then 25%, more or less. Sometimes I give a 10% upvote to someone who only says they like the post or thanks me for posting. Even a thank you has its value. 😉
Engagement is just as important. If you want quality interaction and commitment, you've got to do the same yourself, but since this thread is about using your Steem Power by upvoting and distributing rewards that are in the rewards pool and need to be distributed, I'll say no more about that.
My second filter is staying on topic. 😄
Resteemed.
Great comment @cryptographic which gives me an idea for another post.
Upvotes, quantity versus quality?
You choose to limit the number of votes you give but have them carry a lot of impact when you do give them. Hence, less people are profiting yet those who do get a vote from you really do well. I know you are not just running around in a circle upvoting your friends so you do share it with whomever or whatever catches your eye.
Compare that with some who do a ton of voting yet do at a reduced rate. I, for example, might upvote the same person 8 or 9 times a day if they are commenting a lot (and sound comments like you said).
Just different approaches. It could make for a good discussion. Time to start writing.
Good point. I should probably do a 50/50 allotment - half rewarding outstanding contributions, and the other half supporting more everyday stuff that cumulatively makes a very important long term contribution.
My main problem is time though. I only have roughly an hour a day to dedicate to Steemit. That's why I tend to upvote in larger quantities.
But I'm going to see what I can to to balance things a little better.
Cheers
I just put up the post...hopefully we get a nice conversation going on it.
By the way, I didnt mean to insinuate that there was any problem with your approach. Is rewarding more people better or is the site better served by you finding what you deem outstanding content and really giving it a nice financial hit? Perhaps the later is what is needed.
And yes, with time being limited for you, passing around a ton of votes simply does not work for you. You would end up not using your daily voting power.
I just put up the post...hopefully we get a nice conversation going on it.
By the way, I didnt mean to insinuate that there was any problem with your approach. Is rewarding more people better or is the site better served by you finding what you deem outstanding content and really giving it a nice financial hit? Perhaps the later is what is needed.
And yes, with time being limited for you, passing around a ton of votes simply does not work for you. You would end up not using your daily voting power.
But a better balance on my part would be worth the effort I think. Sometimes we miss the trees for the forest. Thanks for pointing out the trees! 😁
Balance?
Oh you mean like balancing between BTS and STEEM?
I understand now. LOL
I have seen you writing quality comments on the articles of others and I know you practice what you preach. I thought for a long time that Steemit needs to do a better job of incentivising good comments and discussion because that is what will make everyone including the minnows feel optimistic and enthuastic about STEEM. I don't post much but when I do I always upvote good comments and I'm surprised everyone else doesnt already do the same. Resteemed!
Thank you for the comment @cataincanary.
Yes you would think something so logical would be followed by the masses but it is not. People act as if the money given for the upvotes comes out of their wallet instead of being a representation for a certain part of the reward pool. Unless someone is using all upvotes on him or herself, of which I wont upvote that person, then there is no point to it.
Use the upvotes even in the comment sections.
Great approach on the subject. Comments are essential and sometimes I believe I have actually gathered quite a bit of SP just on comments. Any sites to check these kind of statistics?
Hopefully one day wile will see a living comment section!
I am sure there are...I just dont know what they are.
I spend more than half my time on steemit commenting and replying to others' comments. I prefer to carry on intelligent conversations, friendly debates and share personal experiences with other members.
Depending on the day I have, I will post 1-4 times on my page. Some days it is a regular feature that I do; while other days it is a more in-depth article to bring others in to discuss.
That si the way to be @goldendawne.
I think there is actually more impact on commenting than there is on posting. Sure both are needed but dare I say the top commenters are the ones who move up the scale quickly. I guess top-notch commenting will lead to more checking your block out and upvoting.
It all ties in together.
Yes I agree. I am still learning hoe the whole block chain works and reading this post kind of put a little more perspective and meaning behind it.
Some days, well most days, I prefer to comment versus posting. I find some very interesting people and posts.
Great post again! I like your link you make with marketing and I think that is true. However, I think you have to focus on a certain topic to do that (or spend or enormous amount of time on this platform). Personally, I like running so I follow some people about this topic and after only one month, I can see that people I know are the one who comment regularly my post or other posts that I read (in the same topic). It's like when you launch a product. You need a niche first and then you can start to be active in that niche and be known by other people in the same niche.
Very good point and I think the communities are really going to assist in that when added to this site. That will be a huge boom for steemit.
Another aspect to the niche is that one is able to leave better comments when he or she is interested/knowledgeable about a particular topic. An article on bee keeping would bore me to death and my comment would be foolish at best since I know nothing about the subject.
Comments are important...quality comments even more so.
Yeah, I think communities will be huge. One of the problems I had when I started was finding content I actually wanted to comment on. Building up a subscription list is a bit of a grind right now.
Because the great majority of activity on Steemit sadly comes from bots, and they are not trained to understand nor respond to comments... which is a good thing in my opinion.
They target the whale posts, and up-vote them to earn their curation rewards, and then peace out, which is really sad, but a problem Steemit has faced from the beginning and still does.
The solution: more active real-life people. Until they show up, expect Steemit to suffer in the comment department, or until Steemit developers implement sub-Steemits, which will really start getting people engaged in my opinion.
Fully agree!
I try to do exactly this - but then I don't post all that much, which makes it easier ;-)
The problem is the new arrivals copying the old hands - which won't work out for them:
Someone just arriving to the site needs to comment and comment and comment and not worry so much about posting until they have a following
A whale with tons of SP and a big following doesn't need to worry so much about commenting (even though they should), they can just post and earn
And so the new arrival copies the whale and the cries foul when it doesn't work, rather than taking the time to actually work out what will work...
Cheers
What is interesting is that when you get into some of the trending posts, the whales are there commenting...they are select when they do it, but they are doing it.
Mostly their comments tend to be on bigger, site/blockchain related issues. I saw there was a todo over downvoting which got comments from many of the major hitters.
Nevertheless, you bring up a valid point...minnows should just upvote for a few weeks to get the feel of things.....
I think it makes sense that they comment primarily on the bigger posts, because those posts are predominantly written by those people that have been around a while - their old friends
I comment predominantly on posts from people I know through communities such as thealliance or theunmentionables. A year or 18 months ago, when the site was much smaller, I imagine it effectively was one single community in the same way, and so these people have grown with it and maintained their original relationships
The communities give us an opportunity to turn back the clock
Cheers
Very wise words. I admit, it was not easy to master such a large text. But, I imagine how difficult it was to write it. And for this huge thank you.
In recent times (10 days ago), I realized that it is much more profitable for me to write quality comments, rather than writing a large number of neither necessary nor mediocre articles. And I'm happy with that.
I made up my little list of THANKS and regularly give them feedback using their comments.
During this period, my daily remuneration has grown several times. So that I am a vivid example of your written words.
You bring up a valid point that I didnt mention.
Write an article and you are one of a hundred going through the new section at that moment. Post a quality comment, and you might be the only one on that entire article.
There is a balance between quality and quantity. The amount of comments need to rise yet we do not need more of the great post thanks.....we need quality in there also.
As your comment shows, it only has to be 4 or 5 sentences.
I have been following this advice from the beginning. I think that is how you and I started talking. The only thing I see that can be difficult for the more active users if they haven't reached the 500 and the slider yet. Then you get 10 votes a day.....
But I think this is excellent advice. Resteemed. Are you okay with me sharing this with the freewriters in tomorrows prompt?
Of course you can...anything up here, you are free to share with whomever you like if you think it can help out.
I agree with the users who havent reached 500 SP...it is crucial that we do all we can to help them move their accounts up. An upvote to someone with a very small account could mean a lot.
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