The Writer, the 'Bot, and the Steemit Reader🤖
Is it a trick of perspective...?
"Not all those who wander are lost" - J.R.R. Tolkien
It must be a trick of perspective... It's not possible to be in three places at once, is it?
As a slightly schizoid personality, I'm usually of at least two minds about everything. But this is weird!
Suddenly, I find myself peering, in rapid succession, through three different sets of eyes. My perspective keeps rapidly shifting — from me (same-old-same-old), to something that feels very computer-ish (robotic?), and then, without warning, to an utterly, unaccustomedly, normal view of things.
What the heck is going on here?
A Private Conversation Between 'Bots
Photo courtesy of Leonardo Valente and http://pixabay.com
The Writer:
Of course, this is my normal perspective. As a Steemit author, I'm always talking to myself - go ahead, ask my wife, she'll tell you!
You can hear me muttering things like "Why won't they read my articles?" and "I've never been flagged before, what changed?" or "I'm bored... when will that next John J. Geddes story show up?"
In other words, there's nothing new to see here... just move along.
The Writer's Perspective
Photo courtesy of Dustin Lee and http://unsplash.com
The 'Bot:
You may have heard that 'bot's don't chat much among themselves? Don't you believe it! We Steemit 'bots would never get anything done if we didn't compare notes.
Can you imagine how bored I'd get if I only made the rounds set for me by my creator? 'Bots are people too! We need friends. We like to share gossip, comment among ourselves, find out about other good writers.
Heck, if all I could read was this author's drivel, I'd be bored out of my skull! Thank god there are some good writers on Steemit!
'Bots Everywhere
Photo courtesy of Emmanuel Floriann Magto and http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
The Reader:
Hmmm... is this something I really want to read? Don't have much time today... But the title's kinda' interesting...
Hey, that's clever. Whoa, I never thought of it that way before. Who would have ever thought that theology could be interesting?
⬆️️CLICK!☑️️ Upvoted and Followed. I'll be back for more! Maybe I'll have time to read some of this guy's stuff later on.
The Reader's Perspective
Photo courtesy of James Tarbotton and http://unsplash.com
—FIN—
I wouldn't be here on Steemit if it weren't for you, my readers!
I have very eclectic interests and hope, over time, to write about all of them.
⬇️To Check Out @creatr's World⬇️CLICK Each Image Below⬇️
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whoa! some good insights here and comments by your readers. I got inspiration from this post..and thanks for the #shoutout, my friend :)
You're very welcome. We can all use more followers, and who better than my friend John? ;)
I think we'll see significantly more readers and engagement once comments have their reward pool.
That will be nice! :)
One of the problems is that content creators can wear themselves out on creating; and then not have the brainpower to comment on other contributors' works.
(For me, maybe it would be nice to post, "hey great job", sometimes...but when I comment I like to show that I actually read the post ;>)
A second is that since there is a limited "supply" of commenters, the interest for certain categories is even lower.
As for the bots..well, I'll plead a loss of brainpower ;>
And down to the readers...I have lost track of the bookmarked Steemit posts I never read
hmm, title looks good, upvote, bookmark, move on, I PROMISE I'll come back
Nice job on the schizophrenia!
And that's the reason I see 2 views on many a post that has literally hundreds of upvotes. The reality often doesn't reflect the perceived fame of an article. I would pretty much like to see people read articles first before upvoting. Make bookmarks instead of upvotes if you want to come back to read the actual text. (Please, guys?)
I think that curation bots are the number one reason you get that discrepancy, but you do have a point...
maybe require that the post actually be opened before voting?
Although I do that and still sometimes just skim before moving on
That might be worthy of a thought. :)
Whenever I'm lacking motivation to write a post, I search other posts until I find something I'm passionate enough to make an extended comment on, and that usually provides enough energy to write a post. Sometimes the comment becomes the post.
That has happened to me as well!
Thanks, Steve!
One of my hopes, and one of the reasons I provide a Catalog of my work, is that (especially with the archival nature of the Steemit blockchain) "ordinary people" will be coming back far into the future and benefiting from what I write.
I also like to leave "meaningful" comments when I do comment, and so I appreciate you!
the catalog is a good idea; I keep an index of fiction, and I need to recreate that for other topics.
another idea I have thought of is link-chains; maybe not a full index, but a series of related posts
I have also thought about mirroring my Steemit work on a wordpres or blogger site, solely for adding tag searches and indexes.
you gave me some ideas - you're a really good commentator, Steve - Thanks!
thanks!
"I'm bored... when will that next John J. Geddes story show up?"
I know that feeling. :)