The Behaviour That Hurts Steem – What To Avoid As a Curator
Selfishness
Let’s face it. Steemit takes a lot of everyone’s time. We all are here for the rewards (to an extent…it of course SHOULD NOT be the only reason). Everyone will try to create a strategy that nets the most Steem in as little time as possible. But there are some strategies that support the overall value of the token and vice versa.
The value of the Steem
Obviously, Steemit is not the only entity that provides value to the Steem. As of now though, it’s the MAIN one. Without Steemit, the token would be closer to the infinite amount of shit coins that are in existence as of now, than to providing some real value. There are several groups and individuals, like @sndbox, that are working on projects that would create a whole new dimension for Steem to grow in. Until those projects are widely adopted though, Steemit is the core platform deciding Steem’s value (trough the supply/demand of course).
I do not pretend that I know what the real quality is. That is totally subjective matter and it would be against my own belief to act as if I knew what is good for the site. It’s actually the exact opposite. I have no idea what the masses will want the site to look like in the future, whether we will have whales supporting all the topics, or whether few topics that are “wanted” on the site will crystalize, while the rest will slowly perish.
Quality > Quantity
There are some aspects that form some kind of “apprehension of the value of the token”. I’d like to underlie some of them, to help the curators with their decision of how to spend their voting power. What is important to decipher is whether the user is here to game the reward pool and snatch as much as he can, or whether he really tries to bring some value to the table.
It doesn’t matter how skilled one is, but it’s impossible to write 3+ posts per day while maintaining the high quality. Sometimes when users realize that a valuable trail has started auto up voting them, they suddenly start to spam one post after another just to gain as much as they could from the automated bot. Instead of being appreciative and show it by further effort to improve, they start gaming the system. When new potential investor spots a user spamming one post after another taking a big portion of prize pool with them for much lower quality standard than he used to have, he will basically not buy in. Action needs to be taken in order not to further assist the future drop of the value.
Instant power down
Truth is that every single user that starts trading the token (buying or selling) increases the volume, therefore helps the prize grow. The value of the Steem is though closely connected to the amount that is currently powered up. Power up actually represents overall faith in the token. The bigger the faith is, the higher the value will be over time.
Now the user that wants to sell all the gained Steem hurts the site more than the one who keeps at least some of the Steem powered up. I do understand that person can find himself in a bad life situation as in need of the money injection. Im more concerned about those users that continuesly send all the gained Steem to exchanges as soon as they can in order to sell them. By supporting those users the curator actually supports “the lack of faith in Steemit”. And that is clearly something that hurts the platform.
“The praising bot syndrome”
A lot of users are trying to game the reward pool by automating “the praising bot”. The praising bots are those that praise everything about you and the post without specifying anything or bringing additional value. People love to hear praises so they often times up vote those bots. The reputation of the bots are from my experience usually above 35, which is truly wrong. This is what we need to actually censure as community. This is what we have our flags for. Again, if a new investor spots that such behaviour is prospering on the platform what do you think his action would be?
I see so many bot spam posts and often wonder if I should flag them, but I don't know what the ripple effect of doing this would be. would I cause the OP an issue? will i become under attack for flagging spam? I think many of us genuinely worry about causing a negative issue by flagging so maybe it would be helpful if someone could explain what exactly happens when you flag?
I have been actively flagging spamming bots. I can guarantee this, if the user is in need of automating such a bot in order to get reward, he doesn’t have any value. You anyway have to check the account, so you can as well check the SP of the account right away.
If everyone was worried to use the flag, there wouldn’t be any censorship on the page and anyone could devolve the value of the token with any given harmful activity. People need to step up and be against morally wrong actions in any environment they are in, be it real life or Steemit.
There are newbies who innocently ask to be followed or to have their post read, but recently I even had someone link to an offsite blog.
I share your concern and unease about flagging. I haven't done it yet, but I too have thought about it.
Are there any mechanisms in place for dis-incentivizing this kind of behavior? As a newer user it's easy to get excited when someone comments on your post, the excitement quickly fades as you realize that comment adds nothing to the discussion.
Just don't reward them, don't give any upvotes to generic compliments. They're usually bots or even if they are real, they don't deserve to get paid just for saying "Nice post!"
Interesting post. I agree with you.
Are you suggesting sndbox should adopt certain rules about curating and upvoting its members(about how many posts a day or powering down, etc), too?
Hmmm… I wouldn’t go as far to say that we as a group should adopt the same rules for curation. This should be evaluated by every individual. I just tried to point out several attitudes that harm the value of the Steem in long run. If the @sndbox members are willing to give it a thought and re-evaluate who they are voting for, then awesome:)
I agree. Thank you for your reply. :)
Thanks for exploring this topic. I did an experiment in passivity for about a month in which I concentrated on producing what I considered a quality post every single day. I didn't check my feed, and stayed inside my own blog. When folks commented and or upvoted, I made a point of checking their blog. I also checked some of my favorite blogger buddies regularly.
When they did something I liked, I mentioned and or linked to it in their comments on my blog. I used all my voting power on comments on my own blog.
At the outset I eschewed boosting, but realized that was an untenable strategy for the current steemit environment. Financially the experiment was a flop, but my posts got me nominated to sndbox -- so it was indeed a great success.
Goal one for me is producing quality posts, after all, because of the blockchain they will be around for a long time.
Steem as money is still quite abstract to me at this point. Personally I haven't considered cashing out. Steem power is vital, and a steem wallet gives you flexibility to surprise folks.
Your post & Matt's comment have caused me to reevaluate my upvoting behavior. Thanks to both of you.
I’m glad to hear that:) The more we strive for quality posts of any kind as a unit, the better message the @sndbox will send to the world.
And about the Steem. Cashing out for me means buying Bitcoin lol. My plan is to move totally out of fiat, because who needs coin representing broken financial system anyway?:D In our country I can already buy everything for BTC. Just because "the real" money has 1% or so of the coins "printed" doesn’t make it any less abstract than cryptocurrency:) But if you are not in need of the money, by all means power it up! This place is in need of more conscious curators!
I’m glad that I made you think. That’s after all the main purpose of most of my posts:).