Are you ready to join the Foraging Community here on Steemit? Through SteemTrail, we now have the @foraging-trail as our hub to focus the great interest in foraging here on Steemit, and build it into the best foraging destination on the Internet.

Last week, this post by @haphazard-hstead laid out a vision for the Steemit Foraging Community and proposed some curation priorities for Steemit posts on foraging topics. This post is the next step in building our Foraging Community. It explains what happens next here on the @foraging-trail and what you can do to become a member of our growing Steemit community of people that appreciate nature's wild bounty.

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What happens now?

1. Curators for the @foraging-trail will be reading posts that use the Foraging tag and recommending ones that fit the curation priorities to Steemtrail. Right now, @haphazard-hstead is the only person on the Foraging curation team. So, curators from other StreemTrail tags will also be reviewing your foraging posts. The goal is to curate your posts quickly enough that your first-payout earnings can benefit from SteemTrail support. For your convenience, the @foraging-trail curation guidelines are listed in the next section.

2. Curated posts will be resteemed here on the @foraging-trail page. Follow @foraging-trail so that you will see all these resteemed posts. Upvote the posts when you see them resteemed. Most people don't use all their votes every day - not even close. Upvoting all the posts resteemed by the @foraging-trail encourages people to write more good foraging posts and grows the Foraging Community.

3. SteemTrail will start producing statistics about how our community is growing and supporting each other. When that is reported on the @foraging-trail, upvote it, too. Consistently upvoting any posts by @foraging-trail builds its voting strength - and that will increase the payout for future curated foraging posts. Rewards from @foraging-trail posts will be used for increasing the Steem Power of this account and for covering costs of development and the curating teams.

4. The @foraging-trail curators will also be initiating activities for members of the Foraging Community. Some ideas in the works include challenges, scavenger hunts on Steemit and in real life, and badges for foraging and participation in the Foraging Community.

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What can you do?

1. Follow @foraging-trail. The number of followers on the @foraging-trail affects the amount of rewards for the chosen posts. If you want to help build the Foraging Community, following this trail will help accomplish our goals. It will also earn you additional Steem Power rewards, especially if you currently don't reach the daily 40-vote target -- and that's most of us!

2. Start writing about foraging topics and post them with the Foraging tag.

3. Comment, comment, comment! Connect with people writing and reading foraging posts by commenting within posts. Genuine comments build community and will increase retention on Steemit, not just upvotes! And it's how we will learn from each other, too!

4. Tell your followers about our Foraging Community and the @foraging-trail. Resteem this post to spread the word.

5. Tell your friends that are interested in foraging that Steemit is the place to be! They won’t need to know everything about Steemit to enjoy themselves here and benefit from being an active member of our Foraging Community. They just need to register for Steemit and then start following the @foraging-trail! It's that easy.

6. Volunteer with SteemTrail to help curate posts about Foraging. If you want to help, please send a direct message to @haphazard-hstead in steemit.chat or in the comments below.

7. Stay tuned for updates. If you follow @foraging-trail, you’ll see them.

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The @foraging-trail Guidelines for Posting

Because @haphazard-hstead is the only Foraging curator right now, curators from other StreemTrail tags will also be reviewing your foraging posts. Here are guidelines for creating posts that will increase the odds of your posts being recommended to the SteemTrail, where they will get more visibility and upvotes from other posters and curators.

1. Write posts about authentic, direct experience with foraging – at any skill level

In foraging, having correct information is essential, so you may want to reference other material. But it's your personal experience, your perspective, your photos, and your tips that readers want and value. It's your original writing, images, and personal touches that will make the Steemit Foraging community unique and powerful.

But what if you have never picked, eaten, or crafted with something living in the wild? That's OK! You will help a lot of other people new to foraging by sharing your journey as you develop your foraging skills.

2. Write thoughtful blog posts about different aspects of foraging

There are thousands of plants and other resources in nature that we can eat or craft with. And there are endless ways to prepare and enjoy all of them. So there's lots to write about! But there are so many other foraging topics, too: motivations, fears, triumphs, family traditions, strategies and tactics, field trips and forays, regulations, best practices, reviews, and so much more!

3. Help each other

There is more to learn about foraging than any one person can learn in any one lifetime, so there’s no embarrassment in asking questions or correcting errors. In a supportive community, that’s what makes the learning fast and rewarding. So @foraging-trail curation will also reward comments that answer questions well, by upvotes or in some other form. Valuable comments include correcting misinformation or misidentification in a friendly way.

4. Use English and scientific names - preferred

This depends on the content of the specific post. There are so many local names for different plants, mushrooms, and animals. They are great to know and reflect so much traditional knowledge. But scientific names work for any language and culture. And they can be important for correctly identifying the right plant! Adding them in the comments to a post would be a nice way to contribute to building community knowledge!

Not everyone uses English and Operation Translation is a great effort to support Steemit in other languages. But until there are other curators that know other languages, English is all I’ve got going on! Not proud of it, just being realistic. If someone wants to curate posts in a different language – great!

5. Clear, original photos - preferred

In foraging, the consequences of incorrectly identifying a plant or mushroom can cause real problems. The best photos are in focus, have good lighting, and show key features that allow correct and confident identification.

Sometimes images from elsewhere might be useful – to point out key features, or to compare features to your photos. Be sure to provide the source for those images and make it easy for curators to verify you have the rights to use them. But I’m not a fan of posts that are just collections of images from other places.

6. Meet basic SteemTrail posting standards

These are not strict rules, but following these guidelines will certainly improve your post quality and your chances of receiving recommendations for curation by @steemtrail.

Make it easy to verify that you own the content or have rights for the pictures you use. If the photos are yours, a simple statement at the bottom of your post is just fine.

Content that is simply copied or plagiarized will not be eligible for curation. If you’re using images or quotes from another source, cite those sources with appropriate, verifiable references and credits. SteemTrail curators won’t upvote until sources are cited, but can help you add that information.

Only use relevant tags. Foraging is the tag I'll be looking for!

Posts formatted using Markdown and HTML to increase personalization and style will be more noticeable, to curators and readers in general. Formatted posts with good and relevant titles and headers will receive more consideration than others that have not been formatted.

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What’s your vision for a Foraging channel on Steemit?

Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment!

Curation for the @foraging-trail has now officially begun.

Thanks for your support - and happy foraging!

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The @foraging-trail participates in Operation Translation. All posts by the @foraging-trail are available for translation under the rules listed on the linked post from @papa-pepper. Resteemed posts made on the @foraging-trail are not included by this statement of participation - read them to find out. Logo provided by @oepc85.