Steem As a Topic and Also Networking
Sometimes people say something on Steem and it hits home with some so it gets repeated.
Sometimes without any evidence.
A recent topic a lot of people are talking about is too many people writing about Steem. I write about Steem a lot and here is why I am not going to stop.
When I heard about Steem, I came to SteemIt.com (the only front-end at the time) to read about it. I loved seeing the excitement and interest in the platform and reading all the opinions on what it was and what it might be some day.
I am passionate about Steem and I like writing about it, I am fairly knowledgable about how it works, who is involved and what is happening with Steem related topics.
I haven't seen one shred of evidence that writing about Steem is a bad thing for Steem.
I would never stay for recipes and flower pictures nor plastic articles.
I think it perfectly fine and a good thing for Steem to have photography groups, and people who post food, recipes, and cooking, but it's not my thing. There is not a shortage of any of those topics on the Internet either so while those posts are likely interesting to someone... They aren't that interesting to me.
A group of people likely shouldn't decide that everyone wants what you want to read. I do not assume everyone wants to talk about Steem. Those people are welcome to ignore or downvote my posts and I don't blame them a bit.
The other half of this story is that it's a circle jerk and it certainly can appear that way, but it is also a community and a social network. Many of us have been around for several years and we know and like each other. We have weathered $.07 Steem and $8 Steem and everywhere in between. We've seen people come and go and watch the community turn on themselves while the bear market was having its way with our price and our community. Yes, for the record I am more interested in what people I know have to say about a topic than a stranger. Just as if I know you well enough, I might read your recipe too.
There is no shortage of content on the Internet. Part of being successful on Steem is name recognition and the Network of people that you build and this is true everywhere. If you aren't happy with your current engagement I suggest you go read and comment on other posts and join some discords. People gravitate to who they know and like.
Do you really think Ed Sheeran's new song is the best song each month? No, it likely isn't. But he tops the charts week after week. He makes good music that appeals to enough people to hold his position.
It's one thing I think the content discovery crowd are missing. We don't all agree on what the best content is, not even close. I don't want to hear your 1000 word explanation of some topic I can easily research if I want. I like interesting and personal post, casually written about things I am interested in. That is what I support and that is what I tend to try to write.
Having Said That:
I am happy to see a nice variety of topics on Trending lately and I do not mind that many things are still Steem related. If you do you should upvote other things and or downvote the Steem topics.
I do look for and curate new users, but I feel the votes I cast for proven members of the Steem Community are some of the most important votes I give.
I do not apologize for who I support, or what I write about and while I am glad there are others who cover many other amazing topics and for our diversity.. I think a lot of our problems are Alt-Coin Depression Related and we have plenty of room to improve the throwing darts at problems isn't helping anything either.
Let's discuss it, I am open to considering other opinions, but I don't just accept them on face value because Steem has a new topic to be mad about.
To my opinion, writing quality content about steem and steemit should be rewarded and normally people react to the new informaion about steemit in a positive manner
There's nothing wrong with Steem being discussed on the Steem blockchain, but there is something seriously messed up with it swamping the Trending page.
It is just a problem existing in crypto in general really. Way too much moon-boy trash everywhere. And the minute anyone is even slightly critical about anything they get attacked like crazy. Honesty and rational thinking is not the name of the game in crypto, just overly enthusiastic hyping.
I remember making a comment on Youtube where I explained clearly why the Bitcoin moon-boys claiming that Bitcoin can't be stopped are wrong. I was attacked relentlessly and accused of being a fiat-loving mole. I'm not against crypto, I am completely for it, but I'm not for playing along with delusions of grandeur. So I explained the step by step process that any sizeable government could easily do to destroy any of our POW blockchains. Nothing but ragequits ensued...
So, the trending page being filled by emotion-driven investors trying to pump their crypto is a real problem given that this is a social network. It is expected to be a real product, not just a place for investors to keep each other's stack above the masses. But in reality, that is exactly what is happening.
On the circle jerk thing, you are somewhat right on that. The facts of life are that circles form and they do usually just keep supporting their circle. This is a flaw of Steem's design though, because the idea of Steem is for complete strangers to get rewarded based on quality of work. I think it would be cool if upvoting the same people within a certain span of time would result in less rewards, in order to encourage spreading out your votes.
Ultimately, I do believe that people should have the right to use their votes however they wish, including bots though. I believe vote power is property and what one does with it is their business. That is also why I was opposed to free downvotes, because I think that if you want to hinder someone's rewards you should be willing to lose as well. But no, after HF21 hugs cost mana but dick-slaps are free...
That said, I wish there was a cap on how powerful an account could get. A fork of EOS did that, putting a cap on account influence. I am a big believer in the idea that social networks need to be an even playing field with less hierarchical structure.
Sure there is the duplicate account issue. But Minds.com requires a phone number, which they don't know about because your phone number just gets turned into a hash by Ethereum and ties your account to a wallet. It would be cool if Steem did that, so that it was more difficult to have 100 accounts.
I think that's a great idea. There needs to be algorithms that incentivize certain behaviors.
I think people with tribe alts might not be too happy with that, but it is what it is.
@whatsup,
One thing I am concerning more now, the tag and the content! Specially the tag #newsteem
$trdo
Cheers~
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I like that you have very clear ideas about Steem and your involvement with it. All what you have said makes sense. We have to adapt to what the market likes and how it likes it presented. The example about Ed Sheeran illustrates that. I do think that content discovery should be more aggressive by the orcas and whales. It would be a way to give back to the blockchain what the blockchain has given to them.
Oh man...this post is just five hours old, and already has 26 replies...Cheeeezzzzzz How the hell am I ever gonna read through them all to make sure I don't repeat the same response?!?!?!?!?!? I've already been on here for about five hours or so writing, curating and leaving comments; I'm almost exhausted…
Anyway... @whatsup … I agree with a lot you have to say here, and NOT just to be brown-nosing for a vote :>) HeHe…
Personally...my experiences here since HF21/22 has not been as detrimental as feared by many of us, and with the advent of @newsteem in attitude and action by key members of the community, it appears that this thing is working in a positive way.
That's it for now my friend...I'm going to sleep (I think?)
While I don’t write about Steem I do read Steem related content quite often. And your articles are the ones that I read the most.
It’s only natural for people to write about Steem related stuff on the Steem blockchain. And while I love seeing a diverse range of content on the blockchain, you are quite right that every day plastic content could be better suited to other platforms.
I was just thinking about this the otherday.
Please do a post about cooking with whatsup or about some interesting trees whatsup has admired recently.
lol, trees and cooking are not really my thing. Although I did recently admire my daughter's new plum tree.
Wonder why you should even had to explain the reasons you do what you do.
Isn’t it obvious to people that everyone is blogging about what they like most? How can I “force” an economist to blog about gardening? Just for the sake of it?
Keep doing your thing sis...it’s good.
We go through these weird little things where everyone decides something is good or bad, and a lot of other people just thoughtless jump on the bandwagon. I like to argue the otherside sometimes even when it doesn't impact me, but this one does. :)
i dont think too many people are writing about steem. I do think, however, too many of them make trending in contrast to any other type of post. why is this? because the people who tend to write about steem are whales, or wanna be whales. they know that writing about steem will get you large upvotes, compared to say, writing about what you just made from your hands and imagination. I don't mind people supporting good content. I do mind them being blinkered about it, and people upvoting only posts that will make them really good curation rewards, regardless of the worthiness of yet another post about the latest steem on-dit. By the fourth post about steem engines new update, it really ceases to become original material.
I don't think you can compare another post about steem to an original ed sheeran song. if you made that steem post into a song, even if ned sang it, i doubt that it would make anyones playlist.
No, I don't write about Steem because I want to be a whale or a wanna be whale.
I don't write about it for upvotes anymore than you make art for upvotes.
It's what interests me.
i was not talking about you in particular, more i was addressing the aggregate who might write about steem. I think you in particular write very well about steem and its your niche. I don't comment on every post but i do comment because out of everyone, you pick pertinent topics. however I also see other writers trying to latch on to the niche for the exposure, and the payout. their posts are NOT always done well - yet they still get the upvotes, because of the tag. this is what bothers me. i see a lot of parrots and topic taggers.
I also see people in different niches, long running members, who do really cool work on other topics and niches, yet never make trending. why? because whales dont vote them or the votes are tiny compared to what they give over to a steem related post. why is this healthy?
Nothing that was not botted has made trending except for the last 2 weeks. So, while I think you make valid point it seems a bit too soon to jump to those conclusions.
Also, I guess we would have to acknowledge that most of our large stakeholders were miners. Those miners are interested in Steem and Crypto by default they may be less interested in some other topics.
I do acknowledge your point, and some of it is going to take some time.
I wrote what I did based on the last week of trending. And ya Im hoping that time will change this.