Want My Upvote? Listen Up
First Things First
I've sat here for three hours trying to decide how to start this thing and I can't seem to get past the first sentence.
It's not because I don't have an opinion on what constitutes a good post, one that's likely to get my upvote. I most certainly do.
The problem I'm having is, my criteria for a good post doesn't matter if I don't see it. If I don't see the post, I can't read it. Pure and simple.
So I feel like I need to address how I might see a post before I can dive into what I consider to be a good post, or as dragosroua has put it for today's May 30 Days Writing Challenge—What Is, In Your Opinion, A Worthy Post On Steemit? A Post That "Deserves" Its Payout...
Where To Find Me
I spend a lot of time in my feed. I'm only following 30 accounts right now, so I do eventually run out of things to look at, but that's where I start as far as posts go. So, if you're one of the accounts I'm following, more often than not, I will actually see your post.
Since I follow both Curie and OCD, I also go looking through their posts of curated content, so that's another place I will see a post.
After that, it's kind of a grab bag. I will go into a specific tag looking for posts. I don't go looking for posts on any of the trending pages. Not on the main one, and not in the tags. Mostly, if anywhere, I'll be in the new section of a tag.
Since tags get misused or combined with four other tags that can have little to do with each other, I'm finding myself more and more going into less general tags. Like the challenge30days tag we use for these posts. I can also be found rummaging through the nobidbot tag, as well as the introduceyourself tag.
The main point here is I'm looking for posts that will have something of interest to me, either as a subject, or as a matter of principle (in the case of nobidbot).
As far as that goes, I'm up for suggestions where else to look, because I can go through all of those pretty quickly.
On With The Show
Now, once I find a post, then my own personal criteria pops in. Assuming it's a topic I'm interested in, here's what I do to determine whether or not to upvote a post:
Can I read it?
While I speak Spanish, I spend 100% of my time reading posts written in English. It's where I feel most comfortable and competent. At some point I might branch away, but for now, if it's in English, then I'll start to read it.
The next part of this is whether or not the words I'm reading are actually forming coherent sentences. I come from a newspaper publishing and editing background, so things like spelling, grammar and punctuation matter to me. I also consider myself a writer, so at times I'm willing to let the technical aspects of proper writing slide if I can at least understand what's written.
If the English is so poor that I just can't get the concept, I will stop reading. I don't want to guess at what the post wants to say. I want to be told clearly what the point of the post is.
Does It Make Sense?
This might seem like a continuation of the first point, but I've separated it out because the post might be readable, but still not make any sense. The words are strung together correctly, but the subject matter and the arguments for them are all over the place. Comparisons and analogies don't fit. It's rambling or free ranging.
A post has to make sense. It needs a coherent argument. It needs facts or experiences or something cogent that arrives at a conclusion. If it does, then I'm likely to upvote it, even if I disagree with it. It depends, but if the post makes sense or the arguments are sound, then I will almost always give it something.
Do I Connect With It?
A post needs to move me in a direction. It needs to provide something that I understand on a basic level, through a shared experience, a common feeling, tap into a base of knowledge, anything that I can identify with. Admittedly, that's not so easy to do, but it happens a lot, thankfully. It would be nice if it happened more, but I will confess that I am not the easiest person to connect with. I also think that I'm willing to come part way, too, as long as the lifeline is cast.
Did I Learn Something?
I read a lot. I've probably forgotten more than I remember, but I do retain a base of information. But I don't know everything. I revel in details. I might know general information, but lack specificity. If a post gives me something I didn't know, or explains something in a way I can understand better, I will upvote it. Especially if I can verify or confirm the information I just learned from an independent source.
Can I Engage With It?
I'm not only looking to upvote a post, I'm also looking to comment on it. If the post gives me a reason to comment, then it will also give me a reason to upvote. They don't always go hand in hand, but I feel commenting is just as important as curating, so if I can I will do it. If I can't, I might not upvote the post, either, if it's not meeting some of the other criteria.
Was I Entertained?
It's not all about the facts. If a post is creative, artful, humorous, adventurous, thrilling, or in some other way entertaining, then I will upvote it. I like well-written, but I also enjoy out of the box thinking and presentation. A subject that typically is serious may hit home harder if it's presented in a more satirical or comical way. That could be light treading, but a post that conveys a clear message while entertaining is more apt to reach me and linger longer than just the straight up facts will.
Is The Post Undervalued?
I will more likely upvote a post that I believe is undervalued than I will upvote a post that is already getting good numbers. At this point, it's less about the subject matter or the other criteria I've cited as the overall worth of any post. I have a range in my head that kicks in. It's not exact, and it changes, but just as rule of thumb, if the post has over $150 in rewards already, I'm probably not jumping on the train.
Every Post Does Not Need To Meet Every Point
But I probably need two or more of them. Maybe it might be entertaining, but if I'm too distracted by all the misspelled words or lack of capitalization and punctuation, I might upvote the post, but not allocate as much as I might have otherwise. I do like to give people as much the benefit of the doubt as I can. However, if I don't have some hard limits, I lose my effectiveness as a curator.
Last Thoughts
The sad fact is, not all posts are created equal. That said, what I like someone else won't, and very much vice versa. So, once the visibility issue is cleared, it comes down to what appeals to more people. The topic might be your favorite, but if it's too niche, most people will pass right on by. If it's too generic, it will probably be swallowed up in the sea of similar topics. Somewhere between broad and narrow appeal are the topics that will standout, whatever those may be.
I'm glad that one of the first posts that I'm reading and commenting on is yours. This is another example of your thought-out articles that are informative and complete in their presentation of arguments. Based on the criteria you outlined, it's worthy of an upvote.
I haven't written out my criteria yet. Oftentimes it's more of a gut feel, but I think a lot of that has to do with defined criteria. I also tend to upvote certain people regularly. If I interact with them on a regular basis, I don't tend to be as critical... then again, I probably don't need to be since their stuff is up to par if I'm spending that much time interacting with them.
Now I'm realizing that I'm rambling and that my comment might not pass. Ha ha. That's ok. :)
Well, well! Does this mean you're back at it, or just checking in? At any rate, I'm glad to see you around and I'm also happy to be one of the first posts you've seen.
I figured if I was going to lay out a criteria for upvoting posts that I probably should emulate my criteria as much as possible. That's why I had the writer caveat. I notice all the problems with the technical side, but I don't always want to adhere strictly to the rules myself. In some cases, the point can be driven home more effectively by not adhering strictly to the rules.
I'm much more lenient on comments than I am on posts, so you're off the hook for rambling (which I didn't really notice much of anyway. :)
I'm in re-acclimatization zone. I still have a lot to do to catch up, so haven't been able to dive in head-first, but I'm at least getting my toes in the water so I can start building momentum again. It's really nice to take a break. It's easy to get sucked into Steemit and spend all day here, forgetting there is a big, wide world outside. It was fun to do some exploring. It's also really nice to be back. Looking forward to seeing what happens from here.
Thanks for being lenient. ;)
So, have you made it over to the league results yet. I was eked out for the second week in a row! This time it was @lynnecoyle1, so that's fine. The last time though was out of nowhere. Apparently, they went back to nowhere, as in nowhere to be found in the top 20%. Oh, well, the immovable, unstoppable force (which never was) is no more. :)
I was just looking at that. That's crazy! It looks like your score dropped quite a bit from the previous weeks. I'm sorry as I know that my absence probably cost you some points as we banter back and forth. At least the win went to a good cause. The person who won last week was a bot (I believe). It seemed there was a script running that made the comments. I didn't want to get up in arms about it, but that was frustrating to see.
Hey, you're still doing really well and I can tell that you've gotten much more engaged since starting in the league, so I'm glad it's having a positive affect on you and the people with whom you interact. :)
Last week was just strange. I didn't hit a hundred comments until the end of Wednesday, when I'm normally at least at 150. So that meant the remaining three days I was in catch up mode, and I just eventually ran out of time.
I just couldn't seem to find enough posts that I thought I should upvote and comment on, and then no one seemed interested in carrying on much of a conversation. I guess I could have followed Lynn around, but she can comment on things that I just can't, and it's probably not very sporting or in keeping with the spirit of the league. And I'm okay with that, but I do need to build my list of go to places for posts somehow.
I would guess you would have been good for at least half of the 50 comments I was lacking last week, but that still meant I would have been short my average. Still a few more comments one way or another would have meant the difference.
I actually stopped earlier than normal because I thought Asher was going to run the data search sooner than I think he ended up doing, so I still might have come up with the remaining comments.
And then, the week before I had five more comments tallied than Asher came up with. I checked mine twice, so I don't know what happened to them because they didn't show up this week, either. So, yeah, it was kind of frustrating, especially after I saw what the previous week's winner was doing.
As long as someone else knows what happened, I'll be okay with it. It's not like winning the league is everything anyway. Aside from the incentives, it's supposed to be fun and more importantly, beneficial to the platform, and I'd rather keep it that way. I wouldn't want anyone to be knocked out of any place they were supposed to be in, though, regardless of who it was, due to missing comments, bot script or whatever else. It's just better when everything shakes out the way it's supposed to, whatever the outcome.
As you know, English is not my first language. When I first learned that you were an editor, it made me apprehensive and a lot of what ifs came to mind that made me stay away from you as much as possible lol! Some if not all of your criteria above had me questioning myself and with what I post. I have little confidence about myself and I easily get disheartened. I have anxiety about things I have done or said and I beat myself up with my mistakes. However, you continually interact and engage with me which boosted my spirit to which I said to myself I am doing okay lol! It doesn't matter if you upvote my post or not but at least you are getting what I am commenting or posting, so thank you.
I am not well versed in many things and I can't relate to a lot of topics. I only have little grasp on some. The topics I write are those that I am interested in - food, travel, photography. Those are the things that my heart speaks of.
There are many people here, just like you, where English is their second language, who produce great work. So, please, no worries on my account ever, okay?
As I tried to say in my post, I notice a lot of things just out of years of doing it, and also, trying to catch my own mistakes (which is the hardest thing to do—even after reading things two or three times errors are made).
But of course I interact with you, because I can understand perfectly what you write, and because you have many good things to say. It's good to have different tastes and ways of doing things. That's how we all learn to appreciate others, and sometimes we adopt them into our own best practices.
And I know how it is to feel inadequate in another language. I know Spanish, but speaking, understanding and reading Spanish, is a lot easier than writing it. So, I don't really try it that much. I feel I can express myself much better in English, so I do it.
Keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about me or anyone else. You express yourself just fine. None of us are absolutely perfect at writing, even in our native tongues. And I'm certainly not here to critique anyone's work, anyway. Where's the fun in that? :)
I appreciate that a lot, coming from you.
I tried learning Spanish through an app called Duolingo. I thought to myself it would be easy since there are some Spanish words that is infused in our language but it was harder than I thought. I think I finished a dozen lessons before quitting.
Yeah, the ease of learning anything, especially a language, is always going to be relative. I learned Spanish while serving a church mission in Southern California. While I wasn't totally immersed in it (many missionaries are, though), I did have to speak Spanish regularly with my missionary partner (some of which spoke more Spanish than English), and with the people we met with. It was actually good for me not having to dive in with both feet because it gave me a needed transition time, but my Spanish suffered for it for well over six months. It wasn't until the year mark that I felt I could hold my own.
Funny thing is, I took two years of Spanish in high school, and by the end of my second year, had not learned a thing and I'd pretty much decided I wouldn't continue with it. I just didn't like it. Four years later I was back to learning Spanish. :)
I do love Spanish now though. It's a beautiful language, in many ways, much more than English can be. I guess that's why it's considered one of the romance languages. :) Okay, maybe not.
There was a time when different languages were taught in schools aside from English. I wish they will incorporate that in curriculum again. English is not the only language in the world lol! Then again, if there is no application of what is learned then it would be useless.
You'll never know when you will be using what you have learned.
That is absolutely true. I use it with my wife at least at some point during the day every day. We mostly speak English, but sometimes it's just easier to go into Spanish. I had three jobs where Spanish was a criteria or really handy. Then, we were also asked to serve in a Spanish speaking congregation for five and a half years.
So, you're right. You never know. My son speaks Spanish (as well as Japanese, some Portuguese and took four years of Mandarin), and has been working at a middle school as a bilingual assistant all school year, so he's kind of following in my footsteps that way. :)
It's good to hear opinions about what does and does not "deserve" an upvote according to people's particular standards. Unfortunately, at this point, since my SP is limited and there's no real use to giving percentage upvotes, I very rarely have the opportunity to upvote something simply because I think it deserves it. If I want to conserve VP at all I basically have to stick to the bare minimums, which are authors who I think are really undervalued and try to consistently support, the people who leave thoughtful comments on my own posts, and then whatever is going on in terms of supporting contests and communities that I'm currently active in. After all of that is taken into account, I don't have much remaining to give. I've been considering joining a couple of communities that require curation trails, but given where I am right now, I have to pass. I would much rather save those 2-3 precious upvotes for a promising #introduceyourself post or another newbie hidden gem.
And that's the ongoing struggle all of us smaller fish have, isn't it? We never have enough to give what we might want to, even once we have the slider. I find myself doing that all the time.
However, I do believe that at some point, we all will have more SP, and therefore will be able to leave more if we so choose. We do what we can in the meantime, and we pick and choose if we must.
Plus, we're still looking at what we deem as good content, anyway, regardless of what we're able to leave. What I consider good, someone will think, "That's terrible," or "You're waaaaay too picky." That's good, because that means people aren't depending on solely one standard as a judge for content. In some way's that's better, because it allows some who need it to get a more solid foundation and carry on.
I'd say keep doing what you're doing. You know what feels right for you, now, anyway. How you do things now will probably change somehow, even if it's only in the amounts you leave, or how far you spread out your upvotes.
Your method seems solid to me! I look forward to the day when I have more to give people.
density of content seems to be a put off as well. i know lot of really good articles out there that don't get read because it is too dense. lot of good stuff in it but the matter is hard to comprehend for most people who dont relish slogging through it.
you make some good points about the hook. that is hard for most writers.
Additionally, i feel that nowadays a writer who shares a certain level of intimacy with his/her readers get more out of writing. shared feelings or shared aspirations seem to work the best
I was going to include length of articles, and technical or what you're calling dense, but then decided that it really depends, for me, on the subject matter. I've slogged through things and I've backed off of them depending on my mood, which isn't a very good measuring stick for content.
But you're right. In the end, it's going to boil down to what people want to read. Being genuine and sharing some kind of experience, especially ones that are near universal, will have some of the best results. If they're seen.
I do the Steemdunk feed and follow about 50 people. But, I'm surprised that most of them are not posting consistently. You are one of the most prolific and consistent. When I find a good post I'll frequently look at who is commenting and if they make good comments without drooling on themselves I'll investigate further. Anyway, yes, the English language, or any language for that matter, is a tool frequently misused, which is disappointing. Blessings.
I haven't heard of Steemdunk. Just looked it up and it sounds like some of the other apps/sites which do similar things.
I don't know what's happening with people. Some of it might be taking early summer vacations, or just getting out more in general. Or it might be that they've just walked away like so many others.
I'm trying to post twice a day, or at least 10 posts a week. I think that's doable even with what I'm trying to accomplish within the engagement league. Some days obviously go better than other days.
Now that's a descriptive way of putting it!
I'm not really looking for perfect English. I don't know many native speakers who are capable of it. I don't even dare to put myself in that category, even though I do believe I pay closer attention to sentence structure and such than most. But that's what makes me feel good about what I've done, to the degree I'm even able to do it.
I feel there needs to be some standard regarding post structure, or what's the point? Otherwise, we're just throwing gibberish at one another. :)
I have great compassion for those who work full time jobs and have to raise families too. Trying to squeeze Steemit in among all of that would be daunting. Perhaps, many are out doing family things right now, or spring repairs and cleaning.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to keep our own quality high. This one thing seems to influence others to do well too. At least I hope so. I'm no Dickens or Tolkien but do the best I can.
Blessings.
The world doesn't need another Dickens or Tolkien. I don't think most people's attention spans would even survive that kind of writing any more. Sadly. However, they do need storytellers, and I would say you're definitely one of them. They also need people who can relate to them, through good times and bad. I think that describes you, too.
As much as we want to make Steemit for everyone, it can't be. There's just not an instant success or gratification mechanism. So, we all put in as much time as we have and we see where things go. Some catch a break quickly, some never do, and others just grind it out and eventually get somewhere through consistency and the day to day accumulation of SP. :)
That's a pretty accurate description of Steemit.
I can imagine a world where Dickens and Tolkien are quaint memories held only by a few that study such things, but I dread it. I hope it never happens.
In the meantime... yes we will keep telling stories. No cat vids from me though, no matter what. I was invited to go to a new platform similar to Steemit but over there it's just more Facebook level stuff. Not interested.
There are two things that I feel need to be done in order for me to really get involved with somekind of a group I'm really following here on Steemit.
1st - a search engine is a must - I can't really understand how this is not a priority. As you say, tags are next to useless. I think a full text search would be much more accommodating.
Better filters or a search engine or something would be great. Busy does provide suggestions for people to follow, but I haven't quite figured out the criteria, and it's not specific posts.
You're certainly not alone with the amount you're following. There's many who have much more than that and I know for a fact that they can't keep up with it all. I'm back up to over 30 people now after having been around 35, maybe, and then paring it down to around 20 for a while. Between the posts and the resteems, it's kept me busy, but I think I could probably manage up to another 20, give or take, for a total of 50. I really don't feel like I could do any justice as a curator if I go beyond that.
That is me for sure!!! And you follow only 30 people? I guess that is a good strategy to build stronger relationships with everyone you follow.
And as this post shows, you get tons of engagement.
I never look in my feed - but much of my time is spend to comment on the freewriters and I comment as the @freewritehouse as well.
Since you enjoy looking at the introduceyourself tag, you might enjoy joining the greeters guild. They are all about finding promising newbies and helping them along.
I will slowly build that 30 up to around 50 I think. I'm able to keep up with it now, but generally run out of posts in the feed toward evening, so I probably should have a few more to peruse.
I'd say there's bonding going on. The strongest, though, are also because people are a part of the engagement league.
Well, tons, I would say, is relative. That's been picking up since I've been commenting more on other people's posts, too.
I go to the introduceyourself tag mainly as I work through my other sources for posts, and while I do find some new folks to interact with there, I go through a lot of posts to do it. I'm glad the greeters guild exists, but I don't think I'm much of one. As it is, I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with what I already have committed to, which includes the 7 daily gratitude posts challenge. I'm hoping to get to it today. :)
hahaha - go and do that challenge!! Who are those people that are dumping challenges on you???? LOL
Okay, so it's not letting me publish the post in Steemit starting any tag with a number, as in 7daypositivitychallenge. How are you all getting around this? Do I have to into busy? Or is there a way to trick it?
You need to put the hashtag sign in front #
It disappears after you post it. Go figure. It drove me crazy!!!!
Okay. I obviously got it to post, but I used Busy since it doesn't appear to have the same problems. I would prefer to use Steemit, though, so I will use the hashtag trick with the next one. :)
I agree it'd be nice to have some additional filtering tools to search posts as most of the time spent is about finding the information we think we may like or want to read.
Good to know you speak Spanish :)
Steemlookup.com
Thanks for mentioning this. I came across a post about this the other day and then couldn't find it again. I need to figure out how to best use the filters though, because I end up either with too many things I don't want, or too little that I do. Maybe that's not the filters' fault? :)
It's tough. If people aren't using the tags properly, which I understand happens a lot, then there's really no purpose to the tag system. I think it doesn't help that folks get it in their head that based on the overall payout information available when you look at all tags that the larger ones are going to be the place to go, when in reality, it's some of the lesser used ones that have the greater payout per post.
At any rate, it would be nice if we did have a better way to filter through posts, thus increasing post visibility, it would end up a win-win for everyone. :)
Well, I speak it and understand it and read it better than I write it. :)
Congratulations @glenalbrethsen! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
To support your work, I also upvoted your post!
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP