I forced myself to vote for posts I don't like.
For the last week I have purposely voted for good quality posts which I didn't enjoy.
Because at some point I realized that my vote meant more than a FB "like" or a G+ "plus", it was a decision to choose the quality of the social media ecosystem I find myself more and more calling my home. I spend 5 minutes on FB checking up on my family and close friends, 20 minutes on G+ responding to comments and offhandedly mentioning Steemit, then I spend the rest of the day encouraging people here to produce posts that I want to see.
But I was only looking at posts on topics that interested me, not all the posts.
If I care about the community, I should encourage even those posts that I am not interested in, as long as they are good quality. That means Introduction, Body, Conclusion. Formatting. Grammar and spelling. Courtesy and respect. Even if it's about Sportsball or Makeup, and I can't make value judgements about content, I can encourage those who follow certain professional standards.
So I did. It was an interesting experiment. I tried to make a few such votes a day, and I might keep doing it. It was not nearly as painful as I expected it to be. And I found that people who post those things, and do it with attention and care, sometimes also posted other things which I did like.
I recommend the exercise to you. Don't only just vote for what you like (you can still do that), vote for the highest quality posts you can find on any topic.
And with that I am done for the night. I bid you goodnight, and may a mystery whale visit your posts in the quiet, cool, dark of this first December evening of the year.
To improve the community and the value of STEEM,
Post and vote for creative, original work that you like.
Please try my Future History stories - Enmity
Thank you for opening my eyes and teaching me a little bit more about how this all works!
I actually have done that before. I have not made it a habit, however. I just happened to come across some posts that were very well-composed and offered a lot of sincerity. Although I did not connect with the subject matter, I felt the author deserved my upvote.
Thank you for the post and the sentence about a mysterious whale made me smile.)))) I voted rather often to support people if I saw how much work was done.
This matches my voting philosophy, too @baerdric. I wrote a post about it 2 months ago (payout is over, so I guess it´s ok if I drop the link here).
Before I actually vote for a post I ask myself just a single question: "Are there many other users who might be interested in this post?" If I´m answering to myself "Yes, probably many" I hit the button. Otherwise, I move on to the next post.
thanks for sharing your experience
Great idea and philosophy.
I like your thinking behind this.
Amen to this.
I use this strategy from the start. Try to support community.
I feel your pain! I do it as an act of loyalty.