@mindhunter I've always enjoyed our conversations along the way in comments but it sure is depressing to see a one line post that states the obvious get a whopping 3 votes including your own taking up space in the feed and earning more than posts I've or many others worked on for hours that have actual content and double digit votes at less than a buck in earnings. This is the crap that will make people quit, and then your platform will fall apart and become useless for even your self votes. Do you think long tail at all? Do you care about the future of this place? Do you care what you are doing to the entire community with this sort of stuff? I'd really like to know, because in the past, we've exchanged some very pleasant comments and replies, but I personally find this post completely heartless, and not at all valuable or helpful to the future of the platform.
???? @mindhunter spends HOURS adding to this platform in many ways. This particular post may be a one liner, but a - it's a great one liner and b - he has earned the right to put as much or as little into his posts as he chooses to. I think your statement is catty and untrue. It's not taking up space, it's taking a space and before it replaces one of your posts it's likely he will replace it himself with another of his. I'm not sure why it has struck such a cord with you. Go check out the trending page where people are making hundreds off posts that sometimes don't have much content either. But those authors, just like @mindhunter have earned their reputation through loyalty and consistency on this platform and their rewards reflect this. How you could call such a positive post "heartless" is beyond me. It's made a couple of dollars, it's hardly reaping the reward pool yet, live and let live dude! If you want your posts to make more then get to it, tag them correctly, connect with the right people, share them on chat channels or social media, write honestly and authentically and often - just like @mindhunter does. I don't mean to sound confrontational, I am not, but I will defend someone who has supported me and many others like me as well as adding a tremendous amount of value to the platform as a whole on a daily basis. What he chooses to put up is exactly that, his choice. As far as I can tell you've only been here for a month, perhaps you are yet to see some of the truly unhelpful things that get posted or flags that get raised etc - and please don't worry about his input towards the future of the platform, go and look at the thousands of comments, posts and videos he has made. People like him are the future of the platform. We're all friends here, I've followed you and I'll look out for your stuff, but please, don't lash out unnecessarily just because your not getting what you think you deserve. Steemit is not predictable, sometimes the posts you spend the longest on make the least and vice versa. In my opinion the trick is just to keep posting - something I learnt from @mindhunter .
Ok, so I hear your advice. Allow me to introduce myself.
I've been on the platform for 42 days.
755 followers - all organically EARNED.
2852 posts - solid quality comments and content contributions.
644 following - hand selected and actively culled daily for non-producers.
Mindhunter has me beat on the first two by time alone, and follows NO ONE, thus promotes NO ONE's posts but his own.
I am the station manager for http://mspwaves.com radio. My own show is called Monday Night Minnow School. I spend 20+ hours per day, 7 days per week, (no exaggeration, i tend to sleep in two hour sprints about twice a day) onboarding minnows in the now only 5 week old, but 3600+ and growing by 50-100 member per day Minnow Support Project discord. I teach posting quality, building a following organically without tricks, coercion, trades or payoffs. I teach how to use the platform. I have contributed to steem.center wiki and some of my work and posts are featured there. I have personally got three new steem BC apps in development out of my own pocket.
I rarely post now because of these involvements, but still manage one solid piece of content, on tech, training, humor, philosophy, poetry or fiction every day or two. I have personally helped hundreds of minnows begin their life here and many have compared me to tom from myspace, manually and personally greeting them on their zero days in #introduceyourself, with thoughtful, warm, welcoming comments.
I don't come here for the money, I own an international software company that serves enterprise clients at large scale, I manage those projects and my clientele and my large staff while STILL putting the 20 hours here 7 days per week, without reimbursement for the future of those minnows and the platform. My work has been featured and mentioned dozens if not scores of times by the people who came up through my tutelage as well as witnesses of all levels.
I am responsible for now 12 on air personalities steem related live audience streeming shows and maintaining the web and media servers and distribution outlets for these shows out of my own pocket, I spend an inordinate amount of time answering questions in dms on steemit.chat and in discords guiding, coaching and counseling. I was involved in the project that lead to the discovery of the bandwidth and block size issues last week that are now being patched as the direct result of experimental work by myself and one other developer.
I am dedicated to the future of this platform like maybe less than 150 other people are. ANYBODY can dump money in here and be a star, I am not in the slightest bit impressed by that kind of whale, and I DID clearly state that I had enjoyed and by extension respected what mindhunter has done here in our previous exchanges.
So forgive me for sounding a bit cross, when I have to answer to nearly 10% of the daily active users on this system at nearly 4000 users in MSP who ask me why posts like this one are beating them down and causing them to want to quit.
Thanks for your 2 cents worth commenters above, but I am standing my ground. This post is a terrible precedent and it causes ripples in the pond that out of touch or uncaring elitists on this system tend to either be out of touch with or ignore completely.
The self voting issue is at the core of every controversy surrounding this platform. A platform that cannot seem to hire a competent UI/UX or marketing person to save it's life. And saving it's life is indeed what is at stake.
This post will make users that are critical to the future of this platform give up and quit. I talk these people off the ledge EVERY SINGLE DAY.
So, defend it some more. Please. I will await a valid argument. And I won't hold my breath.
Thank you for the comprehensive reply and introduction. It sounds like you have done an awful lot in a very short time for this platform and for that I must say thank you and well done. I do not have the insight that you clearly do into what makes users leave and take what you're saying at face value. However I don't think @mindhunter can be accused of being anything but a reason that people stay. Perhaps as you say this particular post falls on the wrong side of what attracts or detracts people but it's the first of it's kind I've ever seen from @mindhunter and as I said before, regardless of length or content it was positive and surely that's the most important thing? Also regarding the fact that he follows no one, please don't think that means he doesn't support or promote other posts. He has resteemed mine at least 10 times since we first connected.
Bottom line, I'm all for anything and anyone that wants to improve, promote and sustain this platform but I was taken aback by the personal and seemingly over the top reaction to something that as far as I was concerned was harmless - as I said before I won't argue with your insight into what puts people off but I find it hard to believe that a post like that would really be guilty of chasing people away. I'm a lover not a fighter and the last thing I want is a nasty online argument, so I'm not going to take your last sentence personally, I hope you understand that as a loyal and regular Steemer one of the things I love most is the community that this platform offers and to me that extends to @mindhunter . I hope you're not cross anymore and I look forward to reading your posts in future.
I actually almost made a comprehensive screenshot of the more than two dozen remarks made to me over this page in chat today, along with a graphical screenshot archive of conversations I've had over the past month showing actual statements made by more users than I can count top of mind along the lines of proof of disappointment, being talked out of quitting, feeling ignored, against impossible odds of the big guys and all that.
I would have redacted the names of course, but I ended up not doing it for a few reasons. One it felt like a breach of privacy. Two, one is never certain here what will happen if they express dissent (which is why we say we should, but we really cannot actually safely follow through).
I have been rage flagged within my first week here, because I followed the FAQ and down flagged some stolen copyrighted work from a user who was also actively and aggressively harassing female posters and so the user created an alt acct, one day old, loaded 18,000 USD onto it and stalked my blog for a week, downvoting every single post and comment I made.
It cost me a great deal of rep at the time AND money, as 20 and 30 dollar posts became zeros, because I did what the steemit faq TOLD me to do. I would not want to be responsible for a vindictive attack like that on an unsuspecting minnow who did not ask to be dragged into the fight, and even if I hid their names, the sentences would still be searchable.
The only reason that attack ended was because some GOOD whales saw him acting out around the community and crushed his account to a -10 rep ending his attacks on me and others by default.
If you don't mind me chiming in with my 2 cents - I largely agree with @daisyd as well. I'm also a newbie (been here only a few days!), and definitely understand the frustration you're feeling. It's true that Steem gives a HUGE advantage to those who have already built up a sizable amount of Steam (pun intended), and I personally accept this as the nature of the beast. If those, like @mindhunter, decide to sometimes post witty one liners or minimal content, that is entirely their decision, and as @daisyd pointed out, he has definitely "paid his dues" by this point. And even if he hadn't, the whole point is for everyone to post authentically with whatever is on their mind. I just made a super short post yesterday that received a whopping total of 1 vote - my own (https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jobsande/bitcoin-promoted-by-bollywood-celebs-popularity-continues-to-snowball). It's ok though! I'm here to have fun and learn, and I didn't expect much attention for it anyway...just a random musing.
Who has the right to dictate what is right or wrong here in a decentralized network? When you find that person you let me know :)
That person is the community that I talk out of quitting every day, because they see this and assume producing quality and doing the work will be futile. Perhaps you forgot YOUR first day, but they come in and live it EVERY day.
I have 26K of long tail posts @sircork - I'm the #1 poster on Steemit! As Sinatra once said, you gotta know the rules before you can break them :)
Apparently you only read yourself, Mr Zero Followed. But you might want to take the 20 seconds to look up above and see what contributing to the platform looks like. My dad used to say, "some people like to talk just to hear their brains rattle" and that's what not promoting anyone but yourself, and then bragging that somehow makes you a community hero sounds like to me.
Still awaiting a valid argument. Still not holding my breath.
That is your choice to unfollow Sir. I certainly won't hold it against you. As David Bowie once famously said "I'm not here to make people understand, I am here to live my life." [An urge to create is never wholly selfish ... whatever that creation may be.]
I have to follow y'all. I get WAY too many people questioning posts like this not to be well informed about why.
Long tail/short tail I've seen and done it all @sircork. I never question why on here. Look out for my Steemiversary Daily Dose coming soon ... its been a wild ride of a year!! :) Steem on my friend!
Man, I do appreciate the respectful tone we have both managed to keep. I literally just got this in between our banter though... It's about the 3th or 4th time I've had the bittersweet joy of this kind of recognition in a month.
https://steemit.com/curation/@screenname/the-daily-tribune-most-undervalued-posts-of-jul-24---part-i
The thing is, the people I am speaking out for, are in chat, aware of my involvement here and my dms are full of "these are the posts that make me want to quit"
And you and I both know, if we don't have user retention, you don't get your doting audience, and I don't get to help build the future.
You get that, right?
Also, nice Bowie and Sinatra quotes. Got any original ones? :D
t4tvcd23hbvs25tyngbvcw112345tmhnf\sdf [Apologies!! Cat on keyboard syndrome! Google search that quote cheetah!] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t4tvcd23hbvs25tyngbvcw112345tmhnf%5Csd&oq=t4tvcd23hbvs25tyngbvcw112345tmhnf%5Csd&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 ]
My cat put forty lines of the letter "G" into discord last night, then rebooted my computer and lost half my latest unsaved partially finished graphics. I feel your pain.
The network has the right. I could downvote to express disagreement on value ... I don't want to have to though. I would prefer if everybody just consider the community and the effects of their voting.
I am in full agreement with your @beanz :)
Thank you for lending some credence and "lift" to my response @beanz.