Just checking in on this. So doth thou feel Randowhale and Bitshares which are Pay to Play / Buying Votes / ala Facebook and Twitter ads are ok? And personally I have been trying so very hard to talk to improvisers on facebook, in person, and gmail. I have been talking about community and suggesting that maybe we might get some help from a thing called @Steemtrail which is building communities for when Steemit, according to @Ned, begins to empower communities. I appreciated the forward thinking of the team. I have put in several hours in sharing posts that i discover with the specific communities. I have personally upvoted and commented on discoveries I would other wise not have seen. It is kind of like steemit.chat only more organized. Then the specific pages started coming up. I have not even begun to curate a page, although they were kind enough to offer getting one up for the improv community. Improv by the way is devoted to live comedy for entertainment, as well as empowering any organization that wants to grow from communication and creativity. Improv is a 500 year old tradition that has always struggled to provide a decent living for it's artists, but we have seen the joy it brings to live audiences. I can go on and on about improv, and it has not been easy to get support from steemit cause people are so concerned with other cool interests but also because of some things like competing and division and fighting. Improv is here to help bring people together. There is one smart guy who even took the account name, @improv. He is such a good dude. Look at how much he puts out there. I know him from LA Comedy Sportz. He is so generous out there in person hosting bar b q's and doing great shows. There is my old buddy @locoestaban who busts his ass to take care of his mother in law with Alzheimers using lil ol Improv's gift of Joy. He and his lady Katie are two of the best improvisers I've worked with, Steve also makes cigar banjos, and they are doing their best to bring improv to Twin Falls Idaho. I have one of my best friends @ShermanEdwards in Chicago who is gonna help me with the Improv on Steemtrail. He and I used to sit in his house, put on a movie while we would be online for hours promoting the local Chicago Improv shows at Annoyance, ComedySportz, Second City, iO Chicago and Playground and bars and we never made any money. We did it cause we loved our friends, loved our community, loved the art, loved seeing an audience of 200 or even 20 just enjoy a night of live improv comedy. Everybody is still addicted to Facebook. I thought, maybe just maybe they could come here. Maybe just maybe I could help get the ball rolling, learn the ins and outs, and then explain things to them and help them along the way. We are not coders. We are not investors. The Steemtrail team has gone above and beyond to reach out to us to help. The awesome @MinnowSupport project uses a similar model I think. We all just donate a little voting power to the trail on Streemian. That's about it. It's no different than the designating power that I think occurs with RandoWhale. I think. I don't know. And not only that, the steemtrail team recognizes that we are giving them our vote to help empower many different people, they give us a little Trail. I know it isn't worth much, but it is a nice gesture. It just sits there on OpenLedger. I don't know what to do with it. I'm a terrible trader. I lost 300 dollars this past week and that is a lot of money to me. I lost 300 dollars the weeks before. Because I'm not making money on steemit. Because I tried hard to make money to pay for a trip to Lisbon. (Side note, you going? It's gonna be fun. I'm hoping they let me share some improv talks at some point. Maybe even a free workshop. I offered to teach a free improv workshop to everyone. You are invited.) Look, I know this is a wall of text. But I am writing from the heart. I will check back here to see what your response is yes. But I do hope you heard a little bit about the humanitarian aspects that I see in Steemtrail. I had class with Tim Robbins an Cynthia Ettinger in Culver City at The Actors Gang and they said something to me that has always stayed with me, They said our society is being torn apart, but the living arts give us an opportunity to remember and reflect on our humanity. I hope at the end of the day you are getting to witness some living arts, some live music, some theater, some dance, and best of all, some live improv comedy. If not, then I hope you will give me a chance to empower a positive beginning of bringing improv to steemit. I know some guilds have gamed the system. Some rich guys have multiple rich accounts that upvote each other.
People talk about how the trending page is all the same people. Steemtrail accounts are never on that page. People being helped by Steemtrail are not making $1,000 dollar posts, and individuals are not making $500 dollar posts. Hell, look at my page, I'm lucky to touch $10 a post. I do so much behind the scenes in chats, emails, facebook messenger and even phone calls. I got a crazy busy life taking care of my grandmother who has dimensia. I bike hours round trip to teach improv workshops that only pay me $10 an hour. I work a dayjob for $9 an hour. Steemtrail at least was giving me some light of hope that I don't have to spend all my time on Steemit doing challenges, and fighting in competitions, or having to pay for votes. Steemtrail was at least empowering hope and community. As my old man says, all a guy needs in this world is a fair shake, give a guy a chance. Steemtrail , and many other guilds and groups are trying to give a guy chance. Will you give a fella a fair shake and give it a chance? Will you come to discord and talk to all the curators, meet the individuals, listen to their stories? Will you share your posts with us? Will you ask questions? And at the end of the day, will you give me, Jake Schneider of iO West's 17 year old Improv Team, The Reckoning, a chance to bring Improvisers to Steemit, and bring Steemit to the rest of the Improv World. I would appreciate it. I welcome your comment and will check back later today. I gotta check on an elderly loved one now. I am wishing you a prosperous and peaceful Holiday weekend.
What is this ?
Do you expect me to read all this ?
What does your hourly wage and your grandma have to do with people being scammed into thinking the trail supports communities, while it doesn't even upvote the authors it features ?
Interesting how it worked fine for this comment tho.
Everyone on this long-ass list of upvoters should reconsider their support for trail.
Happy to discuss this over coffee or a beer. Your choice. I live in St Louis. I am a human being with a human story. My guess is so are you, and I am willing to listen to your journey. My hope is you can see your positives and not just the things that upset you. But if your focus is on destroying instead of creating, then interesting indeed, because I suppose the universe needs both sides. Your argument in spaced out ad hominems and my words do not mingle on this page. At the top of the message, I asked what you thought of the services here that charge for votes, and the circuitous voting by the trending page, are those scams too? You did not address the very first thing I mentioned. Interesting, i wondered if you also thought them scams. The invitation is here to meet in person, discuss as people, whether here in St Louis or if you care, we can discuss our differences in Lisbon at Steemfest. Be well, if you want to, feel whatever you wish.
I'm looking forward to Steemfest.
Sorry for trying to ruin your scheme here.
Wonderful. Happy to hear. I hope you will attend the improv workshop. My scheme, is your scheme. We are both trying to get the most out of steem. You are a 66 I see. Congratulations. You did not get there through destruction. You built from some means. I don't know how, only you do. I humbly suggest you continue to build on your strengths, the talents that helped you achieve a 66. There is only one you, and only you can do what you know you are awesome at. The next cool thing is staying in touch with those that appreciate you. I trust you know who they are. It is focusing on your positives that will make you a 67, 70, 77 sooner than you'll realize than if you waste your energy on worrying about newbies who don't want to pay for votes but instead have found an opportunity to grow from community. You can call it what you want. But don't forget to spend more time on your inevitable success. If that sounds crazy, then again I hope to see you at the Improv Talk in Lisbon. Peace.
I got a good part of my rep and connections here for being critical, being helpful and actually supporting newbies and other members alike.
And I did this without the help of the guild, the trail or other schemes and abuses.
Respect Felixx. I too have sometimes attempted to use Satire to shed a skeptic's view on things. In the past, those posts got zero attention. To be perfectly blunt: free speech is awesome, and I hope you continue to share your views. I am interested in learning more of the ways you have empowered newbies. That is also awesome to hear. It's a challenge trying to balance helping others and taking care of myself. I am gonna be curating a Trail soon for Improvisers. I honestly do not expect much rewards for myself from it. But I do hope it helps my newbie friends simply connect. Something missing on steemit are "hubs" or like "facebook groups" for like minded people to huddle up at and then go back to meeting new people. I keep hearing Ned plans for communities, so we'll see what that means.
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You do your thing man. I look forward discovering your continued contributions to steemit. I appreciate counterpoints, it helps to temper FOMO and hype that misleads friends. So seeing your views, I appreciate. So please never hesitate to begin a conversation with me. All the best to you.