Steemit is not the Wild Wild West. It's up to us the Community to Maintain Order

Do you enjoy Steemit? Do you want to see Steemit Succeed and grow? I have a feeling that there's a number of users that are here to destroy Steemit.

Cryptocurrency is not the Wild Wild West either. You have to realize that where there is money to be made, there will be people trying to scam the system.

Steemit is About Original Quality Content

There are a number of Steemians that can and will go unnoticed for quite some time that have a desire and drive to help lead the Steemit community to success. This is in part due to the fact that as Steemit grows, your post will get buried much faster. I can easily say that there are by far more comments and posts being made than there ever was before, and that includes all the spam that comes along with it. As discouraging as that sounds, I've never given up and it's really starting to pay off. "I will get noticed!" I kept telling myself, and if you can be as enthusiastic, motivated and excited as I am to succeed on steemit, then I promise you that you will.

These original content creators are being spotted on a daily basis, so if you're one of them I can assure you that your day will come. Just keep on posting your content and always evolve! When it comes to my success so far, I am no millionaire...yet, but I can also assure you that I will get there because I am motivated to keep going.

One of the best pieces of advice I read about when it came to social media and blogging was that in order to really get noticed it is a good tactic to go with 100 posts in 100 days. In essence, this requires a fully written article that is engaging and original. While I never tried it with previous websites, as soon as I joined Steemit that piece of advice came back.

The best part is that with steemit there really are no limits as long as it's original content. 100 Haiku's in 100 days are valid if that's your thing but of course you may want to have a picture to go with it. Maybe some thoughts on how your newly created haiku makes you feel. The point is that there absolutely is a place for everyone. Even Abusers: (-18)

Normalize flagging

There is a serious issue going on with Steemit and abuse. I've watched the abuse grow over the last few months and is even more apparent now than ever before. Between the exploitation of the Byteball Airdrop and the plagiarism and abuse going on the amount of money being paid to the abusers cumulatively is astounding. Just take a look at @sailor-moon, constantly getting her shitposts upvoted by @steemit-jp. A small example to show that even minnows can help clean up the blockchain. That's where @steemflagrewards comes in. A community dedicated to fighting abuse, and it's not the only one.

Some people think that just because steemit is a decentralized platform that they can just do as they please and get rich from spamming and posting plagiarized content. If this is you, expect a train of flags that will come your way. If you're a spammer, let me ask you this:

Why don't you go rape a bitcoin mining pool? Why not steal some Ethereum? I mean, it's decentralized afterall, right? So with your argument that Steemit is decentralized, since bitcoin is decentralized also you should just go get bitcoin rich by stealing and nothing will happen to you, right? Oh yeah...it's because you can't.

Just as you can't go spamming the steemit blockchain and expect to go unnoticed. I don't understand why some of you have such a hard time grasping this.

Just because it's Decentralized, doesn't mean you can "do as you please"

If that were the case, Steemit would fail. If everyone would just spam and upvote spam it would drive the value of steem way down. The problem with a government-free society is greed. People are too greedy and have a seemingly hard time governing themselves. This will most definitely create some type of governance on Steemit so you can't be all that surprised that it's happening.

When I first joined, the originality required to succeed on steemit is what really sucked me in. It's like being in school and your teacher gives you a writing assignment.

"Okay class, today you're going to write an article, an essay, or a report. It can be on anything you want. Any subject. It can be a joke, an idea, or even a dream you had, so long as it's your own thought. You may use Outside pictures or take your own but if you didn't take the pictures yourself, please cite your sources. Even memes are accepted, but they must be yours."

As a bonus, you might even get paid for it...in Cryptocurrency!

It's like some of these spammers either got dropped on their heads as babies or maybe they never went to school. I watch some of these people tirelessly continue to repeat the same nonsense and for some reason they expect a different result. When they don't, they cry and cause an uproar about how terrible the whales are for flagging their plagiarized content and comment spam.

Their may be over 1 million steemit accounts, but there aren't 1 million users.

I know that I have a second account (@rockhounds). Almost everyone has at least one secondary account. When it comes to the abusers they have a lot more than 2 accounts. We're talking thousands. It would be detrimental to the platform to allow this kind of abuse to continue. They are literally making new accounts every day and using their delegated steem power to votefarm their spam. With such a big flaw in the system we can't stand by and just let it happen.

If you're a legitimate user of the platform you should be doing everything you can to ensure the success of the platform. This includes flagging spam and abuse. I'm not saying flag something just because you don't like it, and I'm definitely not saying go flag a whale that has a 10 STU upvote unless you can combat it, but there are tons of bots and minnow accounts even that need flagging. There is money to be made by protecting the very platform/hand that feeds you.

Many of these spammers and scammers try to claim that they need to do this in order to feed their families. However; I have run into plenty of Steemians that struggle with this on a daily basis and still continue to put in a good effort, so don't let their cries for help sway you. It is okay to flag plagiarism and we can't depend solely on the whales to do it all for us. If you even have 1 SP it is your duty to protect your investment. There's no excuse for the abuse.

Earnings are like a Snowball effect

The early adopters were making pennies at one time, too. Especially when STEEM was at $0.15! These people continued posting and making steemit what it is today. It's what attracts new users every day. Why some people don't understand how the early adopters continue to make 100's of dollars per post while they only make pennies is astounding. They got in early, we are all still early. Some earlier than others. The more they post, the more they earn, the more they power up, the bigger their upvote. Hence, the snowball effect. Over time your earnings will increase dramatically, especially during a bull run. So what is someone like bernie going to do? Protect his investment. The bidbot blacklist has really helped too because these bidbot owners want to protect their investment.

That's what I'm going to do.

That's what you should be doing. Normalize Flagging. It's normal to flag. It's there for a reason. It's normal to report questionable and shady accounts. I've reported at least 2 new SDL accounts last week. Don't plagiarize, don't slander, don't spam....and you won't get flagged.

Okay, you might still get flagged

Some may be afraid to get flagged because of retaliatory flags coming back at them. I've gotten them. They're mostly harmless, and there are people like me who will fight against such flags. Just the other day I got flagged but it was a dust account made by the Steemit Defense League. Some people are confused by this league. It's false. It's a fraud. They are trolls, and they are being taken care of so most of their flags don't even have dust to their voting power. Don't be afraid to protect this Utopia! This is yours too! We can all benefit from this.

It's one major part of my success so far. These spammers are hiding in the shadows. They'd never show face. I got no problem showing mine, so I am already gaurenteed more success than they'll ever get with their spam. Abuse doesn't go unnoticed, so if your thing is to be a criminal on steemit (Yes, plagiarism is a crime), and vote farm, you'll get flagged.

Of course, if you're not a spammer and are posting great content, I thank you! Steem on and normalize flagging!

@bitfiend
^{sdl magnet}

When I joined Steemit I made the decision to always Power-Up my earnings. For now, payouts are set to 50/50 but you bet I will convert & Power Up! Besides internal transfers, I have never cashed out and don't plan on it! Power-Up only!

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