Suggestions to Improve Steemit… and I Have a Confession to Make About My Steemit it Usage!
I have analyzed, done some soul searching and finally come to a conclusion and I have wrestled with the decision to come out and say it but… Yes it’s true I seem to be addicted to Steemit.
It seems to have replaced my Facebook Addiction. I still check Facebook , just not nearly as much as I used to. But in all of my many hours of usage of Steemit combined with my background in online marketing, affiliate marketing and selling digital goods I have a few suggestions that I think would help Steemit grow faster and be more profitable for it’s users.
Suggestions for Steemit:
(This are meant to help, not an attack)
1. This one I have said before but I’m going to say it again. We need a Multiple Rev-Split with variable payout to encourage collaboration. I’m seriously sand bagging bringing people on that I want to work with because this is lacking. I want to collaborate but I also want to get paid and assure others they can get paid.
2. The biggest problem I see on Steemit is the over reliance on whale votes. You can get 50 – 100 votes and still not make hardly anything. This is discouraging to content creators. We need a fix for this and a few that come to mind are…
All votes should have a monetary value regardless of the person voting SP. I get posts from a bot all of the time telling me that my posts are undervalued. A similar bot could be used to assign the basic minimum value to a post.
Where do we get the Steem & SBD from to pay it?
It could come from the money burned from Promoted Posts and also Steemit could and should sell ads like most other sites. That money could then be used for what I mentioned above but also bonuses for posts or bonuses for reaching Certain levels of SP and Reputation.
Another point to consider is... Why would anybody with a large following (that they are already monetizing) bring their following here when their following will have no SP for them to monetize and will take time for them to build SP also due to the learning curve, many of their following will just give up and quit.
3. We need stores and the ability to sell Physical & Digital good. This would bring in Artists, Creators, and companies of all kinds to sell their products. And people selling thing are likely to buy ads and promote more. :)
This opens up all kinds of possibilities:
A. An artist like myself could post a couple of images and for $3 SBD you get the entire set or you can buy a shirt or a Mug or Wall Art featuring one of the images.
B. With digital goods you could use it to sell premium content. So you write an Article that’s a Cooking Recipe but for $2 SBD you also sell am instructional video of you making it or your entire new Ebook Cookbook. This could apply to anything that can be delivered digitally such as software, code, tutorials.
4. I still think we need a referral program also. You give people that sign up some Steemit. But nothing to the person that got them here?
First off a referal program would encourage people with large followings to bring their following here.
A flat fee is nice but an override would help encourage mentorship as you would make more if you helped your people make more by sharing your knowledge with them.
I’m planning on starting my own Steemit and Mentor Group to build my own network locally where I live so we can all help each other and to bring people on board and help them get started as there is so much to learn (and I’m still learning myself) and I’d like to see more creative people on here and them benefiting from it. But I would also like to benefit as well monetarily from doing this.
5. A much needed block button so that you cant be mass flag attacked over and over by someone. You should also have to give a reason for flagging and certain should not be allowed and flag abusers should get the penalty they put on the other poster.
Anyway that’s my confession and a few suggestions I would really, really like to see implemented.
Full Steem Ahead!
The problem with a giving value to every (not-invested) vote is that the rewards can then be gamed with fake votes. There are people with thousands of accounts. Now if these accounts could guarantee a minimum value per vote, then these multiple account holders would be incentivized to use them in order to game the system.
Invested vote solves the problem of fake multiple voting - which would make the system useless with people saying that they do not get what they deserve because the system is gamed from fake votes from people who control thousands of accounts.
You can't penalize good content creators to prevent scammer abuse and while not intentional it's kind of what's happening.
It could also be partially based on the poster's reputation and average post $ history as to bring under-performing posts that are quality up to where they should be. And it would be for under-performing posts.
I'm sure with some brainstorming a algorithm could be made to prevent abuse but at the same time reward the quality content creators. Content is King so we need to attract the best content creators and you do that by offering the best compensation.
Between the problem of better rewarding content creators and preventing scammer abuse, the second is far more difficult to solve. On a practical level this means that curation does have ways to bring whale attention to good content. But technically, it's extremely difficult to prevent abuse without also penalizing adoption (if, say, you implement somewhat invasive identity checks for each account - but even that can be bypassed since accounts can be sold).
And finally there is also the issue on why would anyone buy Steem (Power) if it doesn't give any advantage over someone with no Steem... The Steem token does not have intrinsic value beside its ability (when "vested") to direct the reward pool and get curation rewards as a consequence. If people can enjoy the benefit of directing the reward pool without having Steem, then Steem loses value and as a consequence content creators are penalized because the rewards are connected to the value of Steem. Low value of Steem = tiny content rewards.
No I'm not saying (or maybe I'm saying it the wrong way) that you change anything on the voters side. Only something that affect the creators side which a post won't get 200 votes and be worth 20 cents. And then some other crappy post get's 20 and is worth $40. This has to be balanced some way of you want to bring in quality content creator and social media big names I think.
If you want to find the weak link in a company just look what people are complaining about and what it's detractors are attacking. Then you'll see the weakness that needs to be fixed and this it Steemit's weakness. I'm not going to repeat the negative things people are saying as this post is meant to be positive.
But hopefully they will take a serious look as what's going on.
The easiest way to avoid "confusion" for the content creator is to simply hide the vote count and then he just sees the payout. Showing meaningless (valueless) votes does not indicate creative value anyway but will have the effect of the creator wondering "why did I get 100 votes but only 1 cent?"...
That's just hiding the problem and making a eve worse one.
They will just see that one post made money and the other won't which will give a false metric or the content.
For example: This is easiest way to explain it by using my own posts.
So let's say I post a model I'm working with and the post makes $40
I use a different model and I get a payout of $ 1.24 cents.
That could lead me to think that model my viewers don't like. So I don't use her again.
However if I know it was 30 votes and $40
And the other was 156 votes but only $1.80
Then I know two things that the audience did like the model but they were mostly minnows and the some whale liked the other models.
The would apply to topic and content creation choices of all kinds.
So that will not work.
Love your post, all great suggestions ! Especially 1 and 2 ! Thanks for shareing and hopefully the right people will see this ! Glad to follow you! Steem on !♨👍♨
Thanks. Just putting it out there so maybe we can all do some brainstorming and come up with improvement that will help Steemit grow.
The creators of steemit always stress that it is not your content that is being rewarded, it is the amount of attention that your content drives from users on the platform. Always think of the rewards being related to the amount of views your content gets, not the amount of upvotes by bots who do not view content.
Focus on what you get paid for your content and do not compare that to what someone else gets paid, there are large SP holders who are always gaming the system and paying themselves or "their friends" with rewards, as steem gets more decentralized this problem will slowly solve itself.
Many of your suggestions will have resolutions within about 4 months from now. I recommend that you earn as much rewards as you can now while the price of steem is cheap, and do not cash it out until after 3 months form now when the price of steem is not cheap.
Hi Nico,
You just need to see it the different direction. If somebody with thousands of followers joins Steemit, he will be detected and will get automatically the whale votes. And then he can tell this to his followers and then they maybe or hopefully also want to join steemit.
BR,
twinner
Block button has been brought up before. I doubt that would ever happen but wold be useful in some cases. But then people might be able to block cheetah bot and steemcleaners.
I can;t remember all the reasons given back when it was brought up but they seemed legit.
You have to have a block button.
There are too many cases of stalking, harassment and cyber bulling these day. There is no logical use every major site has a block button but Steemit. You should also be able to delete harassing or slanderous posts.
preaching to the choir. ^^
yea. i know those good reasons.
I wonder if a block button can be reliably done when we are dealing with the blockchain as the main "memory" of what is written on it. It would probably work just like the mute that already exists. And even that is evidently implemented on the Steemit website code and not in Steem itself, because such implementation on the blockchain would be much more difficult, if not impossible.
I think it would just be a double sided mute where no one could see it.
I'm afraid I don't fully understand what you are looking for. As I see it, the mute makes the other party, or at least their messages disappear from view. I think that's enough for me.
Now, I'm slowly getting it, you want that your content disappears from the blocked persons' view, am I right? (I find it personally a bit harsh, like censorship.) Anyway, I guess it can be done on the front end level (steemit.com or busy.org), but I have doubts that you can completely hide content from those who want to read it.
Everything created on Steem is inevitably on the block chain and one can go to steemdb.com or switch services to read it and reply on another account.
Oh, and not only that, it might be possible to setup and run a standalone steem client one day, and that's going to be a whole another can of worms, since you can't tell who is reading or replying your content if they do it within an app with the ability to switch or create user accounts at will.
Blocking is damn hard. It might work in a centralized and controlled environment like Twitter, but when the system is decentralized, it's not going to be possible. IP addresses can not be blocked since one can just switch service provider or install their own client (or wallet). IP will cease to have any meaning so it can not be used as an identifier to block anyone anymore. (In a matter of fact IP based blocking is stupid and doesn't work either, because so many people are forced to use a shared IP nowadays. Blocking one guy will disservice everyone under the same IP, that would like to use the same service.)
But I'm ranting. I guess you have a point wanting to block some problem people, but I don't know if that's going to help in the long run. Here I am inclined to take a lesson from this guy (Skip to 9m 4s.):
It will definitely help with cyber bullying, stalking and harassment. Freedom of speech does not include bullying, stalking and harassment regardless of what some people may think at least in the U.S. it does not.
Funny I was not even thinking about it for me as for other people. I agree with him. But flag attacks can be a problem.
But also unsolicited critiques is are rude period. Everyone has an opinion and most mean nothing because it's all just taste. Someone may say that looks bad and someone else maybe love it. I'm actually going to write something about this soon. I like his Gimble Device though. :)
Hi Nico,
I totally agree on no. 3
Regarding the curation and your photo model example: it´s not only the content itself which has an impact on its monetary success. It also depends on timing and audience (attention, personal situation, emotional status,......). There are many factors you cannot predict. But learning to comprehend them step by step is also part of the 'game'. A lot of these problems will disappear when the number of active users passes a certain number. Now we are depending on very few active voters - and every small change in one of the above mentioned factors has a huge impact.
Regarding the flags: it seems that flagging has become 'popular' lately. That´s not a good trend. Have you tried to directly contact the flagger?
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 19. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $4.35 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 19 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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Why? I mean without unsolicited critique, we'll get flickr, the ultimate back patting club, where even explicitly stating that I would want constructive criticism, all I get is more back patting. I'm not sure about others, but I for one don't think I can grow in my art if I can't get those unsolicited, even rude, but nevertheless sincere critiques.
Regardless it is. An artist is expressing themselves and looking for people that resonate with what they are creating and to building a following. They are NOT looking to be told how they should have done it. If someone feels it should be done differently they should go do it themselves.
I don't know one person model, photographer, painter makeup artist that likes or appreciates unsolicited critiques. And most of the time hey are of little to no value as well as you have to several factors to consider about the person doing the critiquing.
I'll write about it more later in a post. I have to prep for a shoot.
Great sugestions! I wish your plan on starting building a network/community locally would to be very succesfull. I also believe steem cryptocoins can work as lets (local exchange trade system). Thanks and good luck again!
About the referral program, I found this Steemit referral code explained in an old @future24 post Tutorial: How To Use The Steemit Referral/Affiliate Program? (English/German). I'm not sure if it continues tracks the clicks or will give rewards someday. Congratulations and good luck again.