SP:AMBULANCE Incoming! Preventative Medicine for The Predicted Epidemic of Spam as Steem Grows in Popularity!

What makes Steem great? What adds value to Steem? How can we know what kind of material/posts and activity will benefit both Steem, the value of Steem (as a currency) and also us as users/posters? The Steem Power Ambulance (Or Spambulance) is here to lend a hand!

Thanks to @timcliff for throwing out the challenge for us to explain what we understand gives value to Steem - partially in response to the prospect of Steem's user-base growing to be huge in the coming months - with a vast number of new users not knowing what kind of material will be well received. When SMTs and Communities go live here, it is likely that many new users will arrive like confused immigrants stepping off of the gangplank of a ship, excited to find their new home and weary of their experiences of oppression in their previous home (We'll call their old home 'Facebookistan' for simplicity).

Tim's question is simple:

What adds value to Steem?

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Steem is both a currency (like many other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple and others) and also a social system that allows us to both share posts/media with each other and also receive rewards based on our subjective appreciation of each other's posts. So the actual value of Steem has several forms, including the pure financial value of Steem (the cryptocurrency) on the world's exchange markets and also the value for each of it's users in terms of the quality of posts and connections they make on the network.

The value of the cryptocurrency on markets can increase or decrease completely independently of the activity on the social networking aspect of Steem (due to speculative and actual value of the tokens outside of their daily use on Steem powered social websites), however, in reality it is the case that the social (information/exchange/connection) aspect drives the price greatly too - as people want to buy in to the system in order to be able to boost their posts on the platform (using Steem Power or by buying votes). So while the currency value is an important marker, we need to also look at the posting and reward activities on Steem powered social sites to really understand how value is added to Steem.

How to post/comment/behave on Steem powered sites in a way that helps Steem and gets you rewarded!

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For many new users, the question of "How do I get paid well?" is near the top of the list of their thoughts - mainly because they can see large payouts going to a fairly large number of users on the network and they would like to experience that too. There are a few ways to answer that, but there are definitely principles to understand here:

• Intelligence and Wisdom. Many people here are very smart people who value Steem themselves because of the way it solves so many problems, such as internet censorship, slow cryptocurrency transfer times and getting paid from posting online - to name just 3. Therefore, the competition for eyeballs is high and you need to do your best to show the world that you have a brain (and heart) too. If you are not the most 'mental' person, that's ok - just be creative and have fun in the way that works for you.

• Uniqueness is key, you will do much better by being truly unique than if you are just repeating what others have said. If people can ONLY read information in your posts, they will be forced to come to you! This also means new users will come to Steem via search engines such as Google and that's great for Steem's value in general. The more your posts make Steem powered websites attractive to the world, the more you are helping Steem's value to grow and the more you are likely to get upvotes.

• Demonstrate knowledge and share exciting information that ideally solves problems. The more of an emotional response you evoke in people - provided it is within integrity and is beneficial in some way, the more they will value your work.

• Be honest! There's nothing wrong with admitting mistakes and being transparent about who you are and how you feel. The more we feel honesty in your posts, the more we will feel like being connected with you.

• BALANCE. Being yourself is important, but you are looking to get votes in this SOCIAL system - so it's necessary to consider how other people here are too. Your ability to get paid for posts depends on users upvoting your posts/comments who themselves have enough Steem power in their wallet to significantly boost your rewards. 1000 votes from accounts that have no Steem power will not result in you getting paid much, but one vote from a 'whale' account that has a lot of Steem power will make a big difference for you. Therefore, take some time to consider that to have success here (unless you already have significant amounts of money to pay for self promotion), you need to get some help from those who DO have money already. Selling out is not the aim here, but finding the right balance can bridge the differences between you and those who might vote for you. It's generally healthy to be able to find a balance between people, without overpowering or denying anything. It's a key life skill offline too.

• Find Curation Guilds that suit your posts - There are a few groups who work together to pool resources and upvote posts that fit their criteria. @steemstem deals with science, @curie and @adsactly are more general, @promo-steem deals with marketing for Steem and there are others too. Take some time to look around for these groups, speak to their members via Discord (a voice/text/video chat app) and get guidance from them as to what they are looking for in posts.

What do I upvote/reward?

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My own focus is on healing, balancing and evolving us humans so that we can increase peace, joy, balance and wellbeing globally. That includes a vast range of possible post ideas, so I will support many different topics and people - as long as they are doing something that promotes and supports a loving intention (and ideally is from the heart too).

A few of the areas that I tend to upvote the most are:

• Tips for physical, emotional and mental health that are from direct experience (just repeating from a textbook/website is not helpful!).
• Healthy vegan recipes and ideas (How to improve nutritional intake without doing harm).
• Muck raking and exposing serious criminal activity (We can't solve problems if we hide from them).
• New ideas that solve our problems.
• Great Music and Artistic performances.
• Acts of compassion and kindness.
• Spiritual realisations that might change me or others for the better.
• Information and tips that help me to increase my own abundance/peace (Especially if I can share it with others).
• Anything that adds value to Steem - maybe in ways I've never thought of.. Such as @Utopian-io did!

I will upvote other topics too - but this is the general gist of what I am looking for.

What do I downvote/flag?

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Steem also allows us to downvote/flag posts, which lowers their payout and if the downvote comes from someone with a higher reputation number than the user who receives it, the user's reputation will be decreased! It is therefore very important not to troll people or be anti-social - if you value your reputation and ability to get paid out in future!

I generally don't downvote much, but I will in these situations:

• The post is obviously lying and is potentially doing harm as a result (I will not guess about this, I will actually do research to find out the truth and will only downvote once I am sure).

• The post is obviously just SPAM - repeated messages of little or no value - posted over and over again.

• The post is obviously Trolling - deliberately harassing people and annoying just to get a reaction. Possibly deliberately intended to socially engineer, mislead, distract and confuse people.

So just keep the quality of your posts high and respect that other Steem users are possibly busy and don't have time to read through endless crap about nothing.. and they probably don't use Steem to learn about the latest prices for herbal Viagra (or real viagra!).

What types of projects or people will I delegate Steem Power to?

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Steem allows us to delegate (lend) the use of our Steem Power to others. If you like a particular group or movement and want to help them grow, you can let them vote with your Steem Power (while you keep the Steem Power in your wallet). This is useful since it helps us support causes without it actually costing anything.

I have so far delegated to @promo-steem who are the only dedicated promotional team for Steem - they regularly present at conferences and run projects to promote Steem globally. They also reward posts which promote steem too!

I also delegate to @tribesteemup - who are a group of like minded and conscious folks who share many of the visions I have for Earth - they use my Steem power to support others who post about veganism, peace, music, love and other important topics in that vein.

If I can see that a project will reliably promote the topics and missions that I have in life in general, then I will consider delegating to it!

Wishing you well,

Ura Soul

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