Trigger Warning: I agree with @grumpycat
OK guys, so I am about to drop some bombs that might not make some people happy, but hey, you can't always make everyone happy and they are things I have observed since my first day here and I have wanted to talk about for a while.
I know that some people don't like the fact that @grumpycat makes a lot of money on his posts, but he brings up some good points that I have to agree with.
(This post might make people unfollow me. I'm sorry guys.)
Nearly a day ago, a very well-known and somewhat controversial whale, @grumpycat, dropped a blog about Grumpy-Compliant posts. Now this was a bit vague, but I believe that if you are invested in this platform, you understand what a Grumpy-Compliant post would be. This might include but not be limited to:
Not using excessive amounts of upvote bots
Not upvoting your shit posts in the last 12 hours of their 7 day runs
Not just posting a YouTube video with little to no explanation of its existence
Not just posting a photo with little to no explanation of its existence
Not using stolen photos that you rip off of other people online
Not writing poor quality posts that don't really add anything to Steemit, and if you do, not upvoting them into oblivion
Writing good quality content often
Making meaningful comments that add to the original poster's conversation
I honestly think it is pretty clear what a good quality post would/should be if you have been paying attention to this platform at all and if you give a shit about this platform at all.
Whether or not you agree with @grumpycat and his particular flavor of posts is irrelevant to the reality that Steemit is being inundated by crappy content. The kind of content that people are flocking by the thousands here every day to try to escape. If something isn't done about people making money on crap, then good content becomes threatened by terrible pictures of a Canon camera.
(Screen shot courtesy of my good friend, @pawsdog, who is working tirelessly to call out and eliminate shit posts. You should check him out because he is a verifiable badass.)
Now, you may be thinking, well this isn't so bad, Beth, I could potentially be on board with this. Shit posts are going to bring down the platform, ok I can jive with that. But, I am not done yet.
I think in the future it is going to be hard to delineate a shit post from a not-shit post, as everyone has varying levels of acceptance, and some people see this as an inorganic overreach. I have seen a lot of comments criticizing @grumpycat because they feel he shouldn't get to decide what "good content" is.
One poster in particular, @DineroConOpciones was quite fumed indeed to find that one of his posts was one of the first targeted by @grumpycat. He went on and on about how it was unfair for his post to be called out as a shit post, and many people agreed with him, to the tune of over $1000 and nearly 2k upvotes.
My question however is, do these people really think that @DineroConOpciones is so amazing that his posts are deserving of all that support, or do they just hate @grumpycat so much that they would rather side with @DineroConOpciones than see the bigger, broader point I think @grumpycat was trying to make?
Here's where shit gets real and you may not like me anymore...
I don't think people should come to Steemit and drop their work from other money-making sources.
Now let me clarify. That doesn't mean you can't share pictures from your past, or past artwork. It doesn't mean you can't post YouTube videos of a song you recorded two years ago, or a project located on another site that you are excited to share. I get it. I did it. Actually my first few posts were links to YouTube videos because I didn't even know about d.tube yet. But as I got into the community, I realized that posting links from YouTube wasn't helping the Steem community grow. And now everything I post goes on d.tube because I want to help it grow and get bigger.
Let me double clarify, I have ZERO problems with linking if you do it properly and in a way that doesn't amount to a shit post. For instance, the always amazing @aussieninja just made an amazing post where he posted pics from his photography past and wrote an eloquent explanation for all of them. Beautiful. I love it. He also sometimes links to YouTube videos to show his progress on his Ninja Warrior adventure. He always seamlessly slips them into his well-written blog updates. This is perfect. This is how it should be done. I am not saying you only have to use d.tube. But can you honestly tell me that this is helping grow the Steemit community:
This is the latest post from @DineroConOpciones that he so vehemently defended. It is literally just a YouTube video and a link to his Twitter. The only thing that even relates to Steemit is the fact that all of his videos have to do with Crypto. What a deal then huh? Just drop your links to your previous work on a website that you know is full of people interested in Crypto with ZERO fucks given about the actual platform itself, but merely the money that can be sucked out of it, and the followers you can get for your other mainstream social media platforms. (News flash: we are actively trying to get people to migrate from these platforms, not vice-versa.) I did some looking too, and it wasn't just this one time. It appears that his entire existence as far back as I have looked has been dropping YouTube videos in an attempt to get YouTube subscribers. The only difference now is the ludicrous amount of money he is now making by just putting up a link that he is likely already monetizing on Youtube.
(I couldn't get the whole page in the screen shot, but it is another YouTube link drop with the only other text being a link to his Twitter. Note the amount, nearly $1,000)
(Yet another YouTube link that raked in $713)
So this is the quality content that nearly 2k Steemit users think should be saved from the gallows of the almighty @grumpycat downvote? I don't get it. Why are people really on here then?
There are some people on here that bust ass daily to make quality posts, I have named three of them, but there are so many more, and they are barely topping $100 on their highest payouts. They consistently release quality d.tube videos, blogs, music and much, much more. They aren't just copy and pasting a link and getting out of dodge.
So there it is ladies and gents. My potentially rage-inducing post. I want Steemit to stick around. I want a platform that offers its users more than any other platform. People can see the advantages here, but instead of sticking around to help build it, they continue to use the non-blockchain platforms and then just link dump.
None of this is technically wrong of course. There really are few rules on here. However, even in a land of few rules, there are still consequences. Those consequences come in the form of pleasing or pissing off the powers that be (the whale overlords). And there may be some that abuse their power, but I think in general they mostly want what's best for the platform and can identify what isn't. This is a clear cut case for me of what isn't.
mic drop
Hell the Cannon Camera was top quality work considering some of the other posts by @amanat1993
Here is another upvoted shit post winner by the same guy.
This one really touches the soul.. makes me introspective about life and forces me to wonder "what really does happen when the shit hits the fan?"...
Aww, 🐾 paws. That post was kind of funny 💃🏽💃🏽
thanks.. i try
I can't believe that's real. I have spent the last 30 seconds just shaking my head and laughing. Dafuq kind of fan is that anyway? Christ, It's not even a good picture of a fan. Is that even a fan? Wow. It reminds me of like People of Walmart or Pinterest Fails. I honestly think you could make a good amount of money on here just from your shit post compilations! Seriously. I hope you can get that tag trending damnit. I will help you get that tag trending. It has to happen now, bahaha.
Yeah its a real post for sure... https://steemit.com/photography/@amanat1993/fan-image and I agree, its not even a good picture of a fan..
Crazy!
Awwww...you like that one? What about this one? https://steemit.com/sportsphotography/@r351574nc3/tucson-soccerfest-sunset
I spent hours in the AZ heat and sun waiting for that sunset. Grumpycat downvoted me to $5. Essentially, telling me my time was worth $5. Thanks @grumpycat.
I don't know what there is to agree with @grumpycat on. @grumpycat doesn't even agree with @grumpycat. @grumpycat abuses self-voting. @grumpycat has also bid on 6th day voting bots in the past 11 days.
@grumpycat doesn't have any good points. Voting bots don't hurt the reward pool. They're a supplemental feature for a broken promotion system. People are responsible for abusing the reward pool AAAAAAND they'd do it with or without the voting bots. You get rid of the voting bots and you still have people trying to abuse it one way or another. One really good example are self-voter (Oh? Like @grumpycat?)
Ok. Last point. Downvoting is a feature that was intended for the community to regulate/correct payout rewards for posts. It's not intended to punish people. It's intended for users to adjust the payout to what they believe is fair. So if you think a post doesn't deserve to be $1, you can downvote to make it appropriate to what you think is fair. That IS the way it's supposed to work.
@grumpycat downvotes indiscriminate of the content WHICH IS COMPLETE ABUSE OF THE DOWNVOTE FEATURE
IMHO, downvotes are intended to be used responsibly by responsible adults (NOT @grumpycat).
There. I've said my piece.
I think you guys are missing the beauty of this post. The caption "Fun image" really says everything about the picture. It truly is a "fun image". I will have sooooo much fun flagging this shit post. I only regret I can't do it twice.
The thing is, half of grumpycats posts are shit too, kettle calling the pot
Touche, however he also has the clout on Steemit to call out the problems that he sees, and this has become a huge problem. I try to ignore the bad as much as possible and charge forth into fixing the mess. Hypocrisy is totally rampant here!
I'm new on Steemit and am only beginning to discern and learn the patterns of etiquette and politics that operate, both at the regular/object, and at the meta levels of the Steemniverse...I'm just glimpsing stuff right, but I am putting it together in my head to form a developing notion of what it's about (I have came on board enthusiastically).
One of the themes that has come through pretty clearly to me is the movement towards something new - an undefined new paradigm of sorts, in which there is or may be some/excellent financial gain to be had, but where the promise/expectation of this it is not the driver of participation, merely a by-product that also motivates and incentivises. The real driver - in my perception of this 'new-ness' - is the desire to express oneself and engage with others with sincerity, and free from the insecurity of a centralised, controlled platform. The fact of relative 'real-world' anonymity on Steemit makes this easier for an introvert like myself to do, as I don't have the psychological burden of speaking to an audience that largely knows me 'out there' as well (as I did on Facebook until I left in 2014, after which I shunned all forms of social media until Steemit dropped into my lap via @pressfortruth on Youtube).
So, the point of my post is that I have also noticed the spam, the bots, the high rolling income numbers on various Steemians through various means and methods....but I also noticed this new-looking movement of energy towards something that I am not attempting to describe– and its voice was much louder than the voice of greed. I felt it in a welcome post I received minutes after my introduceyourself post went live – from @bethwheatcraft herself actually :); I felt it in numerous posts discussing the etiquette and philosophy as the authors and curators ideally saw it; and I felt it in some of the videos I watched on dtube and guides I read on Steemit, all sincerely striving towards a community with solid, basic values of equality, independence, self-responsibility, transparency and all the other great human lovey-dovey stuff that feels good.
It may take a wee while, but values do over time tend to pick up force and energy - the shift IS happening. IMHO, the more newbies experience this intangible difference that I'm not really trying to talk about, the more the positive and desirable attitudes (basically playing it straight :) will become the norm. Steemit, in my opinion, has the potential for this, and you Beth, along with a growing army of others, are doing a lot to ensure that these issues stay HOT.
Thank you and namaste
Well hot damn, that was a really nice post! I almost hate to post articles like this because I hate focusing on the negatives! I much prefer to spend my time upvoting and making sure that the hard work of others is recognized, but if we let the underbelly of Steemit fester for too long, then there will be a gaping hole in the rewards pool, creative content will be buried and lots of potential SP and SBD will be lost to the black hole that is shit posts! Thanks so much for your kind words! They mean a lot!
I really enjoyed both your initial post and the subsequent comments. I am new to the platform and trying to find my way around. It would be helpful if the FAQ section of Steemit contained a bit more information about down voting as it seems people struggle to know where the button is. I want to keep learning how to help make Steemit work for everyone so your post (and similar) along with all the comments are really helpful. Thank you
There are quite a few things that I wish would be like pinned as important post for newbies, downvoting being one of them!
I can see where you are getting upset BUT some of us came-to Steemit because it was advertised to us that it was a non-censored Facebook.
If you want more people to join Steemit, you are going to get more “shit posts.” Why? Because when I get “my mom” (or any other Facebook user) off Facebook, she’s not going to all of a sudden become a professional blogger/photographer. We will probably still see pictures of her grandkids - which I think is fine.
I put effort into what I post and I’m glad others do too. I’m enjoying the writing community and reading short stories, and even these types of posts AND the simple pictures by everyday people.
PS. If I had enough steem Power, and I would have seen the “shit hit the fan” post early enough, I would have given it my $.01 upvote.
But I disagree with the idea that Steemit is going to be the new FB. People have said that, but it isn't really set up that way. Not Steemit. Maybe another website powered by Steem, but that's different. Steemit is like the nicer, classier version of Reddit, where you can make money. Most people here don't want it to become Facebook. There are plenty of other up and coming blockchain sites that are parents can go to if and when FB comes crashing down. There may even be a Steembook! That would be awesome. But Steemit is a place to put out quality content, whether that be art, music, writing, videos or what not. It would be sad if it just became another FB and I don't think I would stick around at that point!
I came for the “non-censored” Facebook, but agree with you that the current platform is better than Facebook. I curved my posts to give a little more value, but could have easily stuck to sharing my affiliate marketing ventures (I came here to as a marketer but like being here as a writer better).
I’m having a good time, and am enjoying the dialogue tour post brought.
It seems pretty clear most of the upset people are those who have become dependent on vote-bots to farm income with low effort posts.
Well and those that just plumb hate @grumpycat. I don't really have an opinion on the whales because I am too new here to know what each of them had to go through to get where they are. I don't really care to throw myself in the middle of the whale wars, but I am more than happy to call out a shit post, especially when it makes $1,000 for posting a YouTube link. Crazy.
Yeah that is pretty ridiculous and dumb as well that a video link can bank like that..
Hahaha! Canon Camera... Seriously though. How did that make $10? The most I've made off a post so far is less than $0.50...
I kept using the original works bot because I liked the instant gratification of that penny (silly, I know) but stopped using it when I saw how expensive that penny really was (diverting curation rewards, adding to bitcoin voting etc).
I never noticed that. I was under the mistaken assumption that the original works one was a good thing..
Oh no me too! I'm going to look this up!
Nothing comes for free.
Honestly though, it's a bit misleading. I didn't know anything about this bot and assumed it existed as part of the website to ensure your blog against programs like Cheetah. There really needs to be a post about this to make it more clear, and make people more aware!
Voting bots! I don't use them so I don't know how they work really, but I know that people have been using them lately to upvote their posts at the last minute before payout so that they make a decent amount of money.. @pawsdog explains it really well! It's kind of confusing!
I think voting bots are somewhat shady no matter how you slice it. I think if you want to be successful. Network with other users and keep upping your game. Learn from them. I learned from @bethwheatcraft that I should probably start doing videos on dtube.. success is working hard and having good followers, engaging them, and promoting them.. not trying to shortcut the system through vote buying..
I don't understand the vote buying or self-voting either. Would vote buying be acceptable in the real world? Were you not sure if you approved of your own post until after you posted it? I didn't put as much stock in game theory before I came to steemit because I didn't think your average person was really that reductionist and greedy. Maybe it is just a small percentage of bad actors and maybe I've insulated myself from 'the real world', but the arguments I've seen, mainly 'other people do it, so it's ok' don't fly with me. I try to vote for quality posts and quality videos, sometimes ones I don't even personally care for but think add value to the site and life in general.
I really want this experiment to work. The way it has been unfolding is shocking and educational at times. I have deleted most of my outrage replies before sending them and refrained from downvoting because I try to ask myself, 'Does this add value?'before making a move. I think that sort of self-censorship is good because hopefully it is changing my focus to positive, long-term thinking and helping to keep negativity from propagating on the platform, but it still bothers me that people get ahead with low quality by trickery and deceit. I'm not a money guy or someone who wants a following, but I value knowledge, truth, and integrity and want to see those values prevail. It sucks that low quality uses those sorts of tactics, but I don't see it as a reason to employ those tactics too. I'm just going to try to do my part to promote quality and let the chips fall where they may.
Is @grumpycat the solution? Do I believe in a god-mode character righting the wrongs? I don't know. I think that probably just proves my naivety, but I also think being a dirtbag to get money is naive too. Ultimately, they could bankrupt the forum by making it as corrupt and low quality as the institutions in the real world we're here to outshine. In the intermediate, @grumpycat may be necessary to protect the seed of hope we have here before it is able to blossom on its own.
Also, it's tough to decide whether the problem is the gamers or the game. I would never even imagine a thing like a voting bot, but to some people it seems like an obvious necessity. In that respect, steemit and any other decentralized platform is just going to be a microcosm of any other human market or system. Maybe the human condition guarantees that in the aggregate we can't have nice things because of relativism. Maybe I'm deluded in thinking this site can be an idealized version of a public house. I mean, @dan has the same sort of delusions, and he left.
For now I'm going to stay and continue to see how things unfold and @grumpycat gets my stamp of approval.
Is it more profitable to use Dtube or monetize your youtube account and then share your youtube video on steemit with a decent write up on it? I suppose it depends on your youtube traffic.
I think the key to that is "decent write up" .. when you fail to add any content and just link bomb.. its a dick move and spammy..
Yassss. Thissss.
d.tube does take a percentage of what you make, but dtube can also be a very generous upvoter. My last few videos have been primarily dtube upvotes. Just something to keep in mind, especially if you don't have thousands of followers on here, or know any trusted whales to upvote your content.
I definitely agree with what yourself and @grumpycat are trying to say. There's definitely a whole lot of people posting garbage to the platform here, which, in a system of "creating and curating high quality content", is definitely bad news bears. I often forget that there's the counterpart to the upvote button -- the all powerful flag / downvote. I forget to use it, but it's definitely necessary.
At the same time, however, it's interesting to hear the whales complain bout this and try to 'rally the troops' to join them, when they themselves are the ones that are getting the majority of the reward pool. Maybe if the 'wealth' or 'influence' on the platform here were more evenly distributed, people would be more compelled to flag things, because they actually see what it's like to get a slice of the reward pool, and would want to protect it from being raped.
Right now, to some degree, it just sounds like whales yelling, trying to get minnows and others to fight for them (the whales).
Oh yeah, that's definitely true. But at least on here, it is possible to climb the ranks and eventually, not reach whale status, but be comfortable making money just doing the things you like to do. I guess it is that which motivates me to tow the line, and try to ignore the often times blatant hypocrisy of the whales to see through to the points they make which are valid. The whales have already contributed to Steemit, either in content or money, mining or development. So, their opinions on content, to me anyway, are pretty much automatically valid given their current standing. While it's true that maybe there should be rewards for those like @pawsdog who are out fighting the good fight, he is ultimately every bit as much to gain from doing what he does as the whales are, more so probably even. A few thousand dollars raped here and there is a pittance for a whale, but an awful lot for us minnows. Preventing shit posts from making money is a minnow's only recourse to saving some of the reward pool, since we can't control our great whale overlords haha. I guess that's just how I see it! Thanks for your comment though, I completely agree.
Unfortunately issues with the current protocol is contributing to this problem, and most of the large stakeholders seem either not to understand the problem or not to consider it a priority. The Steem community has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of us still fighting for its future, but there's a real possibility that its greatest value will be as an experiment to inform future projects.
I think we need a non-linear rewards curve back and curation rewards for downvoting as well as for upvoting to start with.
Perhaps Steemit will be a giant experiment but I'm not sure about that, just because Steem itself is what is powering this website, and I think Steem is going to continue to power along nicely. d.tube is doing well with its upgrades, and it won't be long before new Steem-powered sites start cropping up. Steemit will always be the original and I don't think it's going anywhere.
That being said, I absolutely agree with curation rewards for downvoting. This site's content is highly incentivized by rewards, so I think more people would downvote if you got credit for downvoting! I do wish the devs would listen more, although most of them are really receptive and are doing their best to navigate through everything. We are still in Beta after all.
I'm not talking about problems with the Steemit website, I'm talking about the economic flaws in the underlying Steem protocol. Problems with the Steemit website can be addressed by competition from busy.org, Steepshot, eSteem, d.tube, and all the other interfaces. Problems with the underlying protocol could take them all down. If the incentive structure is broken such that spammers are constantly attracted and can't be dealt with, the whole community will eventually be overrun, good content will be buried, investment and growth will cease, and eventually productive users will turn to other platforms. This needs to be taken seriously, and I see no indication that the largest stakeholders (affiliated with Steemit) are giving it the attention it deserves.
The problem is, these people are invested in the platform, and they do need it to remain functional in order to keep their fortunes, but they aren't inherently responsible for the website like a founder would be per se. So, that's probably why so many feel...not responsible. In that way, I agree that this is an experiment. This is the first real community run on blockchain technology (really big one anyway) and the whole point of blockchain is to not have one big guy on top making all the decisions. This has inherently created a bit of chaos, but it is interesting to say the least.
I do agree though that things need to change if the website is going to survive. I think that's why so many people on the bottom are trying to pool together to get the attention of the higher ups to show them just how damaging this all is.
Ultimately we need a spam bot. Like, a really good spam bot. Do you remember having your first email and after a while, like, all of it was spam? Then the companies finally wisened up to the idea that no one wanted to sift through all that junk just to find their emails, and that if they wanted to compete with other email services, they had to create a technology to be able to tell the spam apart from the real emails. If that was possible nearly 20 years ago, you can't tell me that some of the devs can't figure out what the spam on this website is and take it out.
The libertarian side of me also believes though that it's everyone's responsibility to help maintain this website if everyone is to benefit from it, or at least then contribute part of their earnings to the development of better bot technologies. We can't possibly expect to profit from the whales but not give anything but our blogs and good looks in return. That's why I think what @pawsdog is doing is absolutely essential, though I do agree that downvoting should be part of the rewards pool.
grabs the mic
If you lose followers over this, good riddance I say. You will gain more followers by speaking up. I agree with @grumpycat's efforts. I think this will only better the platform. As for your argument about outside links / content, I also agree. I've been an on and off twitch streamer for the last 2 - 3 years. It was never beneficial for me so I got bored. I've recently been looking for a way to stream twitch on steemit, but then I noticed d.live. The next time I stream anything it will be on that.
What gets me is how people who have table scraps invested in the platform compared to some of these 3 million + dollar accounts think that the bigger whales have no reason to protect their investment.
As a newcomer to the platform, I am 100% okay with whales laying the smackdown because I can see the abuse happening every day.
I haven't been on d.live yet. I will have to check it out! Sounds cool! Thanks for your comment! I have only receive a little bit of flack, so that's good! (I tend to be rather averse to controversy!)