Steemit Linking Etiquette Patterns- Reddit vs Medium
Last night I posted my first Story to Steemit. One of a few things I struggled with as I scribbled my dumb nerd notes about cord-cutting and U.S. TV consumption was linking etiquette. My internal dialogue:
I wanna put links all over this thing, especially at the end. Sometimes as "footnote" type things, sometimes just as a way for readers to "follow up" and scroll through previous things I've written off-site. And I wanna put links back to some other profiles where I write more about this stuff.
It quickly became an internal dialogue: Is this place more like Reddit (where you have to be sensitive about links back to one's site, because it can be seen as self-promotional/spammy, or Is this place more like Medium/any blog, where putting links back to prior work/external profiles is seen as being conscientious.
If I saw somebody post something on Reddit with links all over the place to their other sites/off-Reddit creations, especially if it were one of their first posts, I'd be a little more skeptical when reading. But if I saw it on Medium/Tumblr, I'd love it.
Another reason I leaned towards Reddit-style self-consciousness- On Reddit, one's profile doesn't have space/fields for links back to other stuff you do online. On Medium, you have structured fields that link back to your Twitter/Facebook, and you have unstructured field to write a bio/link back to self-hosted sites/wherever. In this way, Steemit is more like Reddit.
Often on blog posts I end a post with something like, "If you're interested in reading more about X, check out this twitter account I maintain," etc. I stopped myself from doing that last night. Was I being too uptight? Rightfully cautious?
Would love to hear what people who've been in this community for longer than I have might think.
Alright, so let's talk current state vs ideal state (and this is mostly just my personal opinion....)
First of all I think the economic model is really quite good at focusing content here, and actually the reason I thought of you so readily as an ideal steemian is that it's designed to reward value provided to other users. Your links tend to be positively dripping in value, so they're surely not an etiquitte breach. Mild to egregious self-promotion seems acceptable as well, as long as the post itself adds value to the site/discussion/what-have you.
So, all of the links that you mentioned are certainly quite acceptable. Also, there's the "tradition" (lol @ tradition-- site's ~4 months old) of an introduceyourself post-- here's mine's part I, and it's Part II. I'm pretty stream-of consciousness, so well, my posts reflect that.
In terms of the content I'd say that on steemit we're a lot closer to Medium than to reddit, despite the user interface. Posts with no "body" and just single links do not tend to do all that well with respect to the economic model. However, if those links were seen as providing value to the community, then it's pretty likely they would in fact do well.
And that's the last point: Like most all social media, Steemit is a rather capricious animal, just like the humans who create it through all their frenetic writings and keyboard smashings. You might post something really simple (a reply to a comment, for example) and suddenly find it valued at $500 (this totally happened to me once) and you might also post a
But at the end of the day, I think that of the social media sites I use, I like steemit best because participating here is clearly not a waste of time. None of the other sites has considered paying me a single cent and most have repeatedly asked me for money (ahem! Facebook! Linkedin!)
Tl;dr:
provide all the contextually appropriate links your heart desires
.... and to finish the last post.....
Personally I'd like UI/UX here to evolve towards medium.com's approach, where less distinction is made between posts and comments..... as this encourages discussion and participation in the community formed around the site :).
Agree that Medium approach to blurring "responses" and posts improves quality (and credit to Tumblr for doing something similar with reblogs.). You have to "wear" your replies on your profile, which discourages certain types drive-by junk.
I have a post planned (for here) about a tale of two platforms: YouNow and LinkedIn. They each have certain things directionally in common with steemit, some good, some bad.
A problem with LinkedIn that steemit seems vulnerable to- the "thank you for the interesting article" nothingburger comment problem. These sorts of comments are not spam. But they are almost as dangerous as spam, and plague communities where there's no drag on mechanisms where participation is highly incentivized.
I believe it can be a bit of both, and at these early stages and with smarties like Dan behind it, it will most surely evolve into a much complex tool.
I'm new here myself, and also never had much to do with reddit, but I feel like maybe it's ok? Steemit does label your posts as your "Blog", which would suggest this place is more like Medium/any blog? Really, though, I don't know...