Interviewing the SteemSTEM Curators: @chappertron

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The SteemSTEM Curators

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What do they do? Well, their tasks include searching for new STEM authors, evaluating and reviewing STEM articles, conducting thorough searches for plagiarism and suggesting whether or not a STEM article should be upvoted and supported by @steemstem.

A community gets bigger and stronger as its members work together, get to know each other, learn from each other.

Introducing @chappertron!

In this post @chappertron is interviewed by @katerinaramm!

If you have any extra questions or thoughts, feel free to let someone from the PR team know!

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Let's Get On With It!

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Q - Hi chappertron, thank you for taking time to respond to our questions! You have been on Steem for a long time, since June 2018! We would like to start this conversation by asking; What is your real (first) name? What do you do, where are you from and how did you get to know about steem?

A - Hello, thanks for inviting me. My real first name is Philipp and I’m from the Harz mountains in the middle of Germany (eastern side, former GDR). At the moment, I’m working as a scientist and innovator in a company offering molecular diagnostic analyses. The first time I heard about Steem was in the book “Crypto Coins” by @aaronkoenig.

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Q - How long have you been a language curator for SteemSTEM?

A - Since a month ago. [note: the interview took place in April]

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Q - Do you curate only posts written in German?

A - No, I am primarily curating English written articles.

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Q - How and when did it all start with SteemSTEM and your curator duties??

A - It has started at the end of March/beginning of April 2019. I found a request for new curators in one of the SteemSTEM posts and applied for it. Moreover, right before this time, I was in contact with @sco (head of the German STEM community, @de-stem) about help with curation and more. Therefore, I’m also a curator for @de-stem.

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Q - Do you read English stem posts? Have you seen significant differences between topics chosen by German speaking authors?

A - Of course, I read English posts. To compare English and German posts is quite hard because there is an only little contribution by German-speaking people to #de-stem. Nevertheless, I would say that the content of German STEM articles (except for the articles by @sco and me) is more related to computer sciences.

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Q - What is the first thing that you take into consideration when curating?

A - In general, I scroll down and look at whether any references are added. If not, I usually stop! I only continue reading the article without references when the content contains some nice self-made stuff (own observations, experiments or images for instance).

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Q - Tell us something that really gives you a great first impression when you see a SteemSTEM post. (It could have to do with the chosen topic, images, structure, lay-out etc)

A - The first impression (as already mentioned): References. When an author added references, it’s an indicator for being scientific. Next, I browse the images because of copyright issues. If this ok, I start reading and try to assess whether the content has merit.

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Q - Do you have a favorite scientific topic that you have fun reading and reviewing over any others? Do you get a chance to read about it often ?

A - Because of my own interest and education, I primarily read posts related to bioscience. Nevertheless, I also enjoy content dealing with physics and astronomy. At the moment I would love to see more of both!

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Q - Tell us something that really makes you disappointed or angry when you see a SteemSTEM post. (It could have to do with the chosen topic, images, structure etc)

A - It is really disappointing when a well-written article (with references!) has any copyright issues. I can’t suggest an upvote for this. Therefore, I have to talk to the authors whether they are able to substitute the images. This is totally annoying and time-consuming.

On the other hand, I think it is a shame to tag an article as #steemstem but just posting a youtube link without anything else.

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Q - What would be your advice to both the old and new authors who wish to join SteemSTEM but do not know where to start? Do you have a channel for German speaking STEM authors?

A - Of course, there is the steem-german-general-chat on discord. Otherwise, they also can contact me directly. My first rule is references, references, references! Please research enough. Further, please be yourself. Don’t copy a text book. Share your mind. What are your thoughts about a subject? Write it down and try to confirm your conclusion with available references. If you see some problems in the literature or by comparing the literature with your own state of mind, communicate this with us. Science is always under debate. That make’s it vivid and this is something we have to promote.

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Q - What is the meaning of your username, how did you choose it ?

A - At the university, my focus was on the research of chaperones. These are proteins which help other proteins for maintaining or achieving their structure and removing them if anything fails. My colleagues, therefore, called me Chapper. When I came to Steemit I first wanted to choose the name chapper, but this name already existed. Therefore, I added the tron, because it sounds somehow science-fiction-like.

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Q - What do you enjoy to read or write about?

A - Primarily I mostly enjoy to read and write about biochemical aspects. Moreover, I really appreciate topics which are a bit uncommon. For instance, I did an article about Zombies and the scientific background. This post was really fun! When I see an article which is like this, uncommon and scientific at the same time, I really love it.

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Q - If you could interview anyone from SteemSTEM, who would it be and ask him/her one question now?

A - Definitely, @carloserp-2000 who has besides its activity as curator a big output as an author. Carlos is from Venezuela and even though I never consume news (besides science and crypto news) I know that the situation in Venezuela (Carlos home country) is not that easy. Nevertheless, he is doing a lot with spectroscopy & stuff. Therefore, my question would be: How is the situation for scientists in Venezuela?

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Q - If you had more time to spare, how would you spend it?

A - Visiting my friends/traveling!

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Q - What does Science and SteemSTEM mean to you?

A - Wow, this is a really important question. Maybe I have to explain first how I came to crypto. I have to admit that I never had much interest in the money-making aspects of blockchain & Co. As already mentioned above, at the beginning of 2018, I read the book by @aaronkoenig “Crypto Coins”. After reading it I understood that blockchain is much more than “easy money”. It’s a technology which was created to solve many problems of our modern economy and society. I was never aware of this before. In fact, our economy and society will change tremendously in the next years. But the blockchain technology will allow many people not just to stay paid. Moreover, blockchain is a contribution to enable people to do what they are really interested in. There was nothing like this before, in the history of mankind.

SteemSTEM in my eyes is the proxy for this development on the scientific field but also an economic and social project.

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Q - Who are your top 3 favourite scientists and why are they so ?

A - Uh, this is really hard to answer.

Of course, I really like Leonardo Da Vinci, because he was an artist who disentangled physical laws to improve his works. His goal was to create an art based on the laws of nature. To do so it was important to understand nature first. He was visionary and revolutionary. His philosophy influenced us until today (he died 500 years ago).
Moreover, I admire Thomas Hunt Morgan. Thomas Hunt Morgan is probably unknown to most people, but he was the first person who mapped genes on chromosomes. He did this at a time nobody really knew what genes or DNA actually is. To realize this, he paired flies with certain mutations. Based on the distribution in the next generations and with statistical methods he calculated where the genes must be located. The unit he created (centiMorgan) is still in use today. Brilliant!
Another really interesting person is Eric Kandel. Eric Kandel was born in Austria but was forced to flee because of the Nazi dictatorship (he is Jewish). In the US he studied medicine and started to figure out how memory works. As a model organism, he used sea slugs. From these observations, he found that joy is the engine for learning. I don’t know exactly when he figured this out in detail, but it must be about 50 years ago. Approximately 20 years ago he achieved the Nobel prize for this. It is a tragedy to see that our universities and especially schools don’t take note of the results by Eric Kandel.

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Q - If you could have any job in the world, what would you choose?

A - I love to meet new people and I’m interested to learn fresh new things from them. Moreover, I really like to do research and make my own minds about it. I think my perfect job should be something in this manner. I don’t know whether a job like this exists.

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Q - Besides SteemSTEM, do you have any other Steem-related activities you would like to share? Can we find/follow you on other social media platforms?

A - No, not really. Of course, I interact with the German Steemit community (for instance the video project by @remotehorst23 and me). But not in an organized fashion such as in the case of SteemSTEM. I have a Trybe account, but I don’t use it. Other social media platforms don’t interest me.

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Q - What is your greatest wish for SteemSTEM?

A - I wish that the idea of SteemSTEM survives and grows. Even when the Steem blockchain collapses, this community should continue somewhere else. I wish that we have the flexibility to offer a reliable, vivid and strong knowledge condenser.

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Q - Where do you see SteemSTEM in 5 years?

A - I see it in a way that the people say: “Just look on steemstem-io, everything is written there!”. Something like this!

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It was an honor interviewing @chappertron and I would like to sincerely thank him for finding time to answer my questions. Vielen Dank!

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