Understanding the Steemit chats
I would like to show you a private chat conversation I had.
[Start of the conversation]
User:
[Sends a random link to their post]
*PlayfulFoodie: *
Why are you linking me this?
User:
that is my post, vote it.
I voted yours
PlayfulFoodie:
It doesn't work like that
You don't automatically get a vote, simply because you voted for someone else
You get votes, because people like your content
If you don't like my content, don't vote for it
The explanation
This happened on Steemit.chat and it is one of the many private conversations that look just like it. For some reason, there are people on these chat channels who think that their vote on my post automatically means I should upvote theirs aswell. They feel it's okay to private message me by simply dropping a link to their post. Two things:
Don't expect a vote for a vote
I don't upvote any of your posts, simply because you upvoted mine. I share my link in the appropriate channels to get some extra eyes on my post and I don't expect anyone to upvote it, unless they actually like what I shared.
It is not okay to private message me for this reason
If you simply link me your post, I won't like you. I don't know you, you might have been a heck of a good conversational partner in any other way, but this is simply the wrong way to start any kind of friendship with me. Have a question? Ask away! But don't self-promote through private messages.
The appropriate way
There are many ways to get some extra eyes on your post. People have been kind enough to create chat channels for us to advertise our posts in. These channels have a few rules we should keep in consideration, but other than that, you're free to promote your articles.
- Steemit.chat has a lot of different channels and I usually managed to past a link to my post in around 10 of them. That's a nice bit of extra advertisement, right?
- There are a couple of Discord channels where you can also promote your articles. That's even more ways for you to get noticed!
- There are even a few Facebook groups to post to if you want. You can tweet your post aswell.
I understand we all want to gain as many eyes on our posts as we can and we all love to get our upvotes. I understand the feeling that your posts are invisible. I still get that feeling and I've been here for half a year now. You have to understand though, you're sharing this platform with a lot of other people and you will get ignored a lot. You will also get a break now and then. You can increase your chances by promoting yourself through the public chat channels (though being active by simply adding good comments to posts will help even more).
Just make sure that you stick to basic human decency.
- Would you run up to a stranger, give them a random piece of advice and then hold up your hand, telling they owe you money?
- Would you buy a piece of jewelery on the market and then show the seller your pottery, telling them you bought theirs, now they have to buy yours aswell?
No? Then stop acting like that on Steemit.
| Photo shop | Foodblog | Photo gallery | Twitter |
Want to satisfy your creative needs?Join the Marvelous Tales Contest!
My own image used as a header for my blog posts.
About time somebody made this point. If people simply upvote in order to receive upvotes from others then the content posted never improves. Whereas, if people only upvote good, high-quality content, this will be encouraged and the community can grow in a positive manner!
The sad thing is, many people are making this point, it's just not coming across... The very first reply to this post was one of those kind of people, so he did not even bother to read, meaning I can talk about this all I want, they won't hear it.
I wish everyone would just upvote good quality content. I get the friendly votes aswell, but the vote for vote business is just hurting the quality in my humble opinion.
It's pretty sad yes. I'm actually very new to Steemit but this seems to be a problem on here! Is there any way of downvoting people like this?
It seems like people could just buy loads of Steem Power and then upvote themselves to earn money. Surely that can't be right? It will just encourage people with money and no valuable content to post on here.
You can downvote them, it's called flagging. People are hesitant to use it though, but I think it should become more normal in these kind of situations. I'm sad to say, but it's like they refuse to learn any other way.
You are right about that! Some people with a lot of Steem Power try to counter-act this from time to time though by placing a flag. This results in lesser rewards for the person. However, if you don't have a lot of SP yourself, your flag won't do much. It'll be enough for most of the newbie beggars though.
I see. So it is biased towards those with more Steem power essentially so the whales have a lot of effect. What's your take on upvoting your own posts/comments? Is it generally regarded as not cool or do people view it as a fair reward for yourself for your contribution?
Yes it is, I think the idea behind that is that whales have more invested in the system and therefor its successes, so they are more likely to do what's right for the platform.
I think a lot of people (including me) upvote their own posts, so I don't generally care much about that. I think it's all to do with how much you give back. The same goes for comments, though I'd frown upon someone upvoting their "Nice pic" comment. Some upvote their comment when they feel it's useful and they want it at the top of the list. Some people find this acceptable, some don't.
I don't really care much about people occasionally upvoting their own comments, but I don't feel it's okay to exhaust your VP doing that. I also don't think you should upvote every comment you make. Most important in my eyes is that you also upvote other people's content. You gain something back from that aswell through curation rewards, so it's not like we do it for nothing :-)
Thank you for the response and a bit of explanation. As a "noob" it's a little confusing and easy to accidentally do something which others would consider not acceptable e.g. liking your own comment on facebook is socially unacceptable so it is helpful to know that this doesn't apply so much here.
Also, even though I have just joined, I can already strongly agree with your point about people simply joining to make money through various techniques is not good for the community - in reality we should all contribute in a positive way so that we can all grow together. These people who just try to make a quick buck could actually make far more if they contributed to the long-term success of the platform!!
Exactly, I completely agree with you. When I just started, I felt like most of the community was moving towards this shared goal of making Steemit great. The way things are now though, I don't feel that way anymore. There are still a lot of people who share this goal, but there are so many newbies coming in who don't understand that the platform still needs to grow, in order to succeed.
Unfortunately, as the platform becomes more and more popular, we will also attract a % of undesirables who are not interested in putting the effort in and simply want a short cut to riches because they believe they are "entitled" to it.
Perhaps we need a way to downvote members with this mentality so they will go away and leave us alone faster. Seeing too many posts of just a video or picture with not much else... clearly not the authors, just too lazy to write their own content. If we are not careful, steemit could become a dumping ground for rubbish content and beggars asking for upvotes... Hope I am wrong here.
We can downvote though. It's called flagging and it is being used from time to time. People are a bit hesitant to use it though, because flagging has been missused a lot aswell by powerful whales disagreeing with eachother or others. People are scared of getting into a flagging war that they can't win, which results in their own account being shot down to zero. I think this is a very bad thing, because we should be flagging these type of beggar's comments more often. People are trying to explain things left and right. If that doesn't work, I feel flagging is the next logical step.
Still new here but I am guessing flagging is transparent and you are referring to revenge flagging which will destroy the good standing of the innocent person who was trying to moderate time wasting posts in the first place.
If I am right, I guess steemit need to improve their flagging system. Perhaps make the flagger anon and track the reason for flagging, then give an independent panel of steemers reviewing rights in return they can be rewarded with steem for their time and effort. This way Whales cannot not arbitrarily decide another accounts fate just becoz they disagree and likewise the poster who is flagged will have their actions flagged by an independant and unbiased person.
Just my 2 cents worth...
That is exactly what I am referring to, yes.
It would be great if something like that were in place. We do have a thing called steem-cleaners, which is an account that flags plagiarised content. You can drop them a link through steemit.chat if you find something suspicious. I'm not sure if they are also on the hunt for vote/follow beggers/spammers, but this is also a big help in cleaning up the community.
Good advice, thanks
I am learning everyday :)
I have no problem flagging posts that need to be flagged. I just think that people need to stop and think before flagging in some cases.
Not in cases like this, though.
That's very true. Flagging has been missused a lot in the past, but this is quite clear to be honest. Not everyone agrees though and some feel we need to educate, instead of flag. I'm just not sure how long they want to continue trying to educate, before they see it's not working.
Oh yes, this one is extremely clear.
I firmly believe in flagging and education. I've seen it work really well.
Everyone flags the offending material into oblivion. Person makes posts begging to stop or for help recovering their reputation. They find their way over to @neoxian. He charges them for his services. (I like that, because if it costs them money it seems to make them take their second chance more seriously.)
They get things sorted out, and from what I've seen, they at least try to become contributing members of the platform. Now, a lot of them just have shit content and leave pretty lousy comments, but they're at least trying which I have to give them credit for after their previous behavior.
Yeah, that sounds good. Honestly, I know not everyone is a good blogger. I don't mind lousy content and posts, as long as they are heartfelt and meant well. Sure, they won't get many upvotes, but that's a logical way of how the system works. You don't get to be successful as a rocket scientist if you can't actually hold your own in that field, so why should you become successful here if you can't deliver good content?
Atleast if they actually try, I'll appreciate them and be able to have a normal conversation with them. Heck, I'd even be inclined to throw them an upvote once in a while if they proof to be a good conversational partner.
I agree with you completely.
100 percent yes 💯
They didn't state what type of vote they were looking for, maybe they wanted a down vote, maybe you should be obliged to do so!! Thanks for you post.
Haha, that's a good point!
Right! The best is when they link their post and just add everyone's name to the post...
I agree, few days ago i was experiencing something similar, it was like a proposal from one of my friends that i, of curse, decline.
It is very sad. Happy to hear you declined! There are some decent people still :D
I wish it was me who wrote this.
Anyone who asks/begs for votes, follow etc. should automatically get a pop-up in his screen with the content of this post.
With an extra line added that says:
'If this pop-up shows up two more times, YOU'RE OUT'! 😎
Hah, wouldn't that be something :D
Whenever I run across posts like these (many people talk about this), I copy/paste it to whoever is begging me for votes or follows that day :-)
It is indeed annoying. People are doing this in comments too with stupid responses like "COOL READ, FOLLW ME AND UPVOTE MY POSTS!!" And it's clear it's a copy/paste and that they didn't even read what I posted because it's not a COOL READ if I posted a funny gif lol
indeed people are always looking for a shortcut to make a quick buck!
Yes, Just look at one of the other comments that came in right after I posted this. It's the perfect example of why we write these kind of posts...
thanks for the post.
Hello @rohitrajput, thank you for being the perfect example why this post was needed.
It was a copy and past job. Go look in his comments.
I reported him to @steemcleaners.
Gotta love when the exact perfect example of what you're talking about comes along and does exactly what you're justifiably ranting about.
After Steemitchat started working again, I was constantly bombarded the moment I popped in by this kinda crap. So I just stopped using it completely. Not enough actual conversations, and really sick of the spammers.
It made me laugh and I was happy that he drove the point home for me! Good job reporting him :-)
Yeah, I really don't like the increase in the amount of beggars on both Steemit.chat and Discord. I think as long as new members come trickling in though, this will keep happening.
I haven't really been having much of an issue with that on my own Discord server. But it's not a huge community and it's not part of any of the minnow support networks.
I guess it mostly comes from the SteemSpeak or SteemTrail channel, which is where most of the post promotion happens.
Pretty sure that's the case.
I mean, we keep a post promotion. But we're small. And not a minnow support server. (That doesn't mean we're anti-minnow, most of us are minnows.)
LOL.... that was either perfect sarcasm or it was a perfect cut and paste
I really hope it was the former!!!
Ooh he changed his reply now! guess it was the latter ;-)
too funny
Wish I took a screen shots... before and after!
Same :D
I think he is "cured" now, hahaha
Hope he does not have a relapse!