What's To Become Of Steemit?
Courtesy: Pixabay
When I joined Steemit last November I was thrilled to have found a community of such bright and talented people. As I scrolled through my feed, it was one interesting post after another. There was articles on any number of topics, Art, Photography, you name it and if it was intellectually stimulating it was here. Immersing myself in this treasure trove of ideas, I began commenting and over time began to compile a list of people whose ideas I particularly enjoyed. For example @kernel, with whom I seldom agreed, presented arguments that were well thought out and equally well articulated. Now, I never see his posts anymore. The same is true of many of my other favorite bloggers.
There are others, that are still here that I enjoy, such as @dwinblood- I don't mean to single these two out, they just happen to come to mind... @dwinblood whose posts on Metal music and society in general, are splendidly done. In fact one of his articles from a day or so ago is what prompted me to write this post.
I had written an article that I was about to type in and post, but elected to look through my feed first- he had written something that caught my eye and looked really interesting. I decided to first do my post and then return to my feed to read his post... I couldn't find it.
As I scrolled through my feed it was one junk post after another. One guy posted pictures of women (don't get me wrong, I like women as much as anyone)- one playing tennis and her cleavage was showing. He posted picture after picture, all of a similar nature- one every 2 minutes or so. Ane, this wasn't isolated- it's just the one that sticks out in my memory... there were many more that were similar. I scrolled through one junk post after another (not one had any intellectual appeal) and not only did I not find @dwinblood's post- there wasn't one that looked remotely interesting... I had to go to his blog page to find the article.
Is this what Steemit has become? What began as an intellectually stimulating platform for content creators has degenerated into a rubbish pit... A veritable sea of garbage unworthy of Twitter (and that's bad!). I have no doubt that content creators are still here- I stumble across one every once in a while, but their posts are buried in a mountain of worthless rubbish.
Here's what I fear will happen... The Whales will, of course, be fine. The junk merchants will upvote each other for pennies until their dreams of "Instant Riches" are dashed- then they'll go back to Fakebook. The guys in the middle- the content creators- will become discouraged, realizing that they can't make anything for all their hard work and they will leave... taking their money with them and Steemit will tank.
The only solution I can see is to put a limit on posts once again- a shame. There are people on here that come up with many quality posts every day, @everettdmickey comes to mind. Personally I wouldn't mind if someone could post a worthy article every 20 minutes- if it possesses quality. But that isn't what's happening. I worry about the platform I have come to love- like the old song goes... Something's gotta give!
GIF by @papa-pepper
Hi, @richq11. I found exactly the same thing a month or so ago. My feed was becoming inundated with worthless posts and I was missing the stuff that I wanted to see.
I managed to solve the problem by being utterly ruthless with my follows. I went through the whole list removing everyone except those who I really wanted to see posts from (by the way, be pleased, you made the cut! :-D). It took a while but I went from having six hundred and something follows to forty-three and I now have a feed which consists of good quality posts (to my mind anyway).
I am now much more selective with whom I follow and will continue to hold culls every once in a while.
As you mentioned in your post, hopefully, those who post the junk will give up and go home and leave only good quality posters on the platform. I agree though that it is a worry that good people may become discouraged and leave.
If all else fails we will still have each other!!! :-D
This is part of the solution to the problem OP is having. From time to time I note something I cannot abide from someone I followed and I have to unfollow them. This has aided in my ability to control my feed, although there's no doubt I could be more ruthless. I tend to be tolerant of human foibles, and my feed reflects this.
I hope OP does this, as he seems to be less enamored with Steemit of late, and I'd hate to lose his presence in my feed if he gives up.
Thanks!
I echo what you say about losing @richq11. It would be a tragedy.
You might be better off being a little more ruthless @valued-customer. To paraphrase Gordon Geko in the film Wall Street:-
With regard to follows anyway. Enjoy the rest of your day. :-)
One of the reasons I am not ruthless, is that I have a healthy regard for my own fallibility. I want to hear voices I don't agree with. I want to be criticized. When I am wrong I want to be set straight, and that won't happen in an echo chamber. I cannot predict which direction the next useful revelation might come from, so I try to seek some diversity in my feed.
That being said, I limit my feed to at least thoughtful voices. While I may miss some revelation of my own fallability, I can only see so much, and expect to gain epiphanies from folks at least giving things thought, rather than just following their programming.
Thanks!
I totally agree with you. Diversity within ones feed is a great thing to have. However, I wasn't referring to posters who may post things we are not in agreement with (for example I am in a healthy discussion with some people who views I do not share at all) but rather those who only post the 'you follow me and I'll follow you' comments without even referring to the post or those accounts which are totally bogus and only post plagiarised material. Be ruthless with removing those from your feed as they degrade the whole platform.
I could not more strongly agree!
Thanks Buddy... I just did the same thing a couple of days ago (you're still there too lol) I cut about 50 more. I'm still over 300 so looks like I need to go back to work!
LOL! Glad I figured that out when I only had 230 to sort through, it took me all day. I was new, followed anyone who followed me. I did not understand that it would jam up my feed.
I am getting frustrated, the soft porn, the "follow me I follow you" begging (it feels like virtual panhandling to me!) but the thing that bugs me the most is that even the reputation score is rigged. Some wooman with TWO posts and a dozen comments, been here a week, has an instant reputation of 53. That is bullshit. I thought the rep score was the one honest thing here...
But then life just ain't fair, is it? I decided to make steemit what I want it to be, for me. If I make no money, well, that is what I was making on facebook and youtube already, right? So I started dumping the people I follow unless I ACTUALLY like their content. Going to every blog, seeing what they post. Some of them are pure trash accounts, it seems it is unwise to just follow for follow, but I have not even been here 2 months, took a while to figure it out.
Hello, @fishyculture. Many thanks for your comment. You were quicker than me! I was a 4-month-old Steemian before I did the cull. :-)
I must admit I don't know the reason for the woman's rep score. Maybe asking that kind of question in a post with a steemit tag may throw up an answer or two from someone.
I agree totally with your attitude to Steemit. It can be quite demoralising when a post on which you have spent a lot of time and effort makes next to nothing (happens to me quite a bit) but like you, I look upon it as an opportunity to improve and grow as a poster.
Take care.
You may need to purge the followers to get rid of the fluff posts that infest your feed. Good content is out there, although individual posters do drop out for a while, as @drpuffnstuff did, and then return. I still follow @krnel, although I haven't seen posts from him for a while, in the hope that he will start posting again.
@dwinblood, as you say, is one of the most important posters I follow, and I would sorely miss his content were he to take a hiatus.
I hope you can cut out some of the clutter, to reveal the gems that still are to be found if you can remove the overburden hiding them.
I've begun paring down my following list... But I have NO idea who most of these people on my feed were- nobody I was following!
One thing I have noticed is that much of my feed is resteems by people I follow of people I don't. When I see too much fluff and clutter from such resteems, I have to unfollow the resteemer, even if I like their personal content.
Maybe that's part of the issue you are noting.
No but I've noticed that as well! An entire page of resteems by the same person! (and none of them mine!!!)
I've noticed some folks don't really blog at all, or hardly do. Unless I find almost all their resteems valuable (and I hope you're not referring to me LOL. I have resteemed quite a bit of content in the last couple days, that I thought was good stuff) I have to do the hard thing.
I resteem stuff that's good. What I meant was an entire page of resteems by the same person of stuff that's days old.
I think - carry on - you deliver excellent quality like clock work, Rich. You are an example to me... you've made Dolphin within eight months through hard work, persistency and quality. Glad to have YOU on my feed.
Happy Sunday!
I'm not talking about myself so much as the platform in general... I'm doing ok. I just got back from visiting my ex (who isn't doing so good) She's having problems with her heart and colon(?). She needs tests but her ins doesn't cover it all... So I brought her $200 (that I don't have) God judges you on how much you give when you're broke- not when you're flush. It's easy to be a Christian- when it isn't inconvenient!
Good thoughts here, @richq11!
I'm incredibly new to Steemit, but I am trying to get going as a quality content creator. I've been reading lots of more experienced blogs and absorbing advice.
The best piece of advice I've got might be "avoid overposting."
If I had all of my time to blog, I think I would still never exceed one post per day. I would just work harder on each one.
As a new user, I see a lot of what you're talking about, but I also see a ton of smart people sharing quality, intellectually stimulating content.
I'm sure a lot of the original Steemit bosses aren't going to stick around, but there will be plenty of new ones coming in.
Thanks for a great post!
I hate to see people leave. If I might share my experience with you... stick to good content. It gets incredibly frustrating, but in the long run it pays off I think. I didn't get the reputation I have by posting crap. That's what I use to judge- someone's rep, not how many followers they have. I don't know who 3/4 of mine are. I figure I have about 150-200 actual followers.
I'm the first to admit, I've thrown out a junk post or two, but I always try to include some text- humor. About posting frequency: after the last HF, the amount of votes you can cast have declined (4x) so you can't expect your followers to vote your stuff exclusively every few minutes- it's unrealistic. This is my only means of support, but I try not to hog the reward pool. If I do well on one post- that's it for the day. I look at this as a community. There are some incredibly good people on here and we try to help each other out. My other piece of advice is become part of the community. That's it- I won't bend your ear anymore!
It's the nature of social media. It's also the nature of 'freelance' internet writing. I had a website once where I bought articles, and you can only imagine what I was inundated with, as well as the spam offers made by internet 'content providers'. Everyone is trying to make a buck via bad writing and celebrity/sexual click-bait content. Like you, I look forward to @dwinblood's posts. However, part of the problem lies with Steemit's structure. We can't separate or group what we follow into our own lists. There is also the down-vote problem which causes us to self-censor if we don't have a high enough reputation to withstand a down-vote attack. I'm in the process of writing something, but I can't use the reference I want to because it would certainly draw such an attack, and my reputation is not high enough to withstand it. I believe that is also a contributing factor as to why only fluff is appearing. People are scared to say what is on their mind, and then be blasted into a -6 reputation level (as has actually happened to someone for posting a non-offensive post). Sad to say, I agree with your vision of where things are going... .
I've seen this happen, to @krnel in fact, and it is a reason he stated to me that he wasn't posting for a while. @berniesanders was flagging him hard, and, until @dan flagged @berniesanders reputation into dust, @krnel just didn't open an attack vector that might jeopardize his own reputation.
I have noted recently the @krnel isn't posting anything I've seen on my feed either, and haven't made the time to investigate why.
Flagging is an issue that causes many to self-censor, although my own fear of being flagged is very feeble, as I simply am not concerned about any income I might lose as a result of being flagged. Given my concern that Steemit is unlikely to survive unscathed if it suddenly begins to succeed and quickly grow (due to the inevitable Sybil attack that is certain to capture the platform if it does), I am neither very concerned about my reputation.
So, I just post what is on my mind, and if I'm wrong, I change my mind. I haven't yet been flagged to death, and if I am, I will die. So be it.
For me, the point is to seek to live well while I am alive, and to die on my feet, rather than on my knees.
I've been flagged, but not to death. Thankfully. It is not really the income that is the problem when it happens, it's the fact that once you are at zero, your posts are hidden. Unless others come together to get you back to a minimum level of 1, no one sees what you write. So why continue writing? I just used up a lot of my voting power to help get yet another person back up to 1 so that people could see her posts again, but I am no social butterfly, and I doubt I'd rally the same support. Overall, it is a sad situation.
Man you need to have a clear out and bin all the people you are following who just do posts about strippers with big boobs :)
LOLZ good one!!!
Booooobs!!!
Hey @richq11 I thought the solution would be pretty simple why not just unfollow many of these people? I mean if you got over 300 your going to get a ton of stuff you wont want.
But many of those are actual followers. The posts I was talking about were by people I never heard of.
There will be ups and downs for the quality of the overall content. Additionally, every author also has dry spells. Some people leave while others join. The way to overcome the downward slope is to continually follow new good authors. Steemit is dynamic. We all must contribute and also seek new authors who strengthen the pool of thought-leadership. Stagnation and apathy is the enemy to free thought.
I couldn't agree more! I hit a spell every once in a while and have chunked a few posts that I wouldn't consider my best effort (It's be kind to me day). My complaint is junk posts... with no thought behind them. Even my worst posts have contained at least a little text- my feeble attempt at humor. But I at least try to create something of value.
It would be nice to have a favourite feed or a way to stay connected without following.
I'm convinced that there are superficial people on here that enjoy the junk... so why not 2 feeds- one for creators and one that's more like Twitter?
Yes thats what I want, I like making worldwide connections.I don't have time right now for good content so I'm just doing some life blog crap right now.
I did pretty good with that. I wrote my life story- The Kid That Became A Guy. And a few Kid stories after that. I still write one when I don't get too busy.
I'm just starting to write so I'm going practice with some small stuff before I get into the growing up and coming of age stuff because a lot of that stuff was pretty crazy(for normal people anyways) and I'm not to sure how to present it yet although I'm leaning towards a true crime format. When I said life blogging I meant taking pictures of things I'm doing and British Columbia and Vancouver events. I try to keep my cleavage shots relevant.
I love a cleavage shot as much as anyone... But at least put a little text (like who it is even). When I write my story- I just told it like I was talking to a friend. And if you think yours was crazy, read mine!
I will. Can you give me the link in case its to far back in your feed?
https://steemit.com/story/@richq11/the-kid-that-became-a-guy-an-autobiography-of-sorts-part-i
https://steemit.com/story/@richq11/the-kid-that-became-a-guy-part-ii-uncle-arthur-and-back-to-boston
https://steemit.com/story/@richq11/the-kid-that-became-a-guy-part-iii-sonny-patty-and-uncle-sam
https://steemit.com/story/@richq11/the-kid-that-became-a-guy-part-iv-vietnam
https://steemit.com/story/@richq11/the-kid-that-became-a-guy-part-v-haight-ashbury-and-the-hippie-life
There's part of it (all you have to do is click on the little magnifying glass)