CharityCurator Progress Report | #7 | What's been going on?
12/11/18 - 11/12/18
In our Progress Reports we get the opportunity to share with you what's been going on here at the @charitycurator project! As with any charitable project, it is challenging to get the wheels turning and create a large impact to those with financial needs. However, we are optimistic about the potential that we can all produce, right here on the Steem Blockchain.
What a month we have had...!
The back end of November and the month of December thus far has been one of the most difficult for us here on Steemit. The price of STEEM has fallen from roughly $1.35 all the way down to $0.24 as of today's price on CoinMarketCap. This has caused issues because the integrity of Steemit has been thrown into the spotlight. The REAL value of the blockchain is being tested! Those who adopted the website for a 'get rich quick scheme' posting valueless content in the pursuit of making a quick buck have dissipated to the shadows. The fact that people could post meaningless content and get paid through Steem was putting the value of Steem at risk. Steem was becoming a much less valued currency because of the fact that people were giving out upvotes left right and center increasing the inflation and devaluing the currency. Those mercenaries and crows have indeed caused the inevitable, which we must address TOGETHER and change. I hope you are still with me, this is really important!
Community
@Pennsif has been working hard to form a community on the platform for UK based Steemians. Community is so important in times of struggle, and we are certainly upon one at the moment. Important topics were discussed and there was no beating around the bush. As difficult as these things were to hear, as we want to emphasize they are essential for the sustainability and future of the platform!
Link here:
To my best knowledge, @starkerz from @ocracle-d, was reinforcing how the value that we give through upvotes on Steemit needs to be backed by an equal or greater amount of value that it creates. For example, if somebody were to upvote a picture of a dog that someone has posted, the amount of value that this post recieves needs to be somewhat objective. If the picture is recieving $100 in upvotes, then this might not be healthy. You have to question wether or not that picture is honestly creating $100 of value to the blockchain. And this is exactly the problem that we were having on Steem. Upvotes and value were being dished out left, right and centre however this wasn't an honest value and thus the price falling on Steem has been a fair correction in my eyes, as difficult as it may be.
So, the answer to this is to really share value on the platform. Given that we have charitable goals, we are in a slightly different kettle of fish. In order for us to produce value on the blockchain, there needs to be clear evidence that our efforts are going to positive causes. For example, the upvotes that we give to charitable causes (as listed below) need to be seamlessly translated into value for the causes. For example, @schoolforsdg4 uploads a post about crowdfunding for a weekly fruits programme where they give fruits to children in poverty. We can upvote the post (currently a 100% upvote is $0.10) and they can liquidate this upvote into money, purchase fruits for the children and thus be able to feed them. And they can prove that they fed them with a post showing the fruits that they bought from the upvotes given on their post. Now, let me be very, very clear: WE ALREADY HAVE THE PROOF OF CONCEPT. THIS IS ALREADY WORKING. IT IS JUST A MATTER OF SCALABILITY. Once I fully got this idea, this was a HUGE lightbulb moment for me. This opportunity to give to others so easily and see such clear evidence of this was an opportunity that I couldn't let slip. I just had to grab it with both hands. This is exactly were we slot into this. Our aim @charitycurator is to be the philanthropist as it were and be able to give the chartibale causes the money that they need through our upvotes. Ofcourse, we are not where we want to be, as we talk about in our mission statement, but we are working towards this. Again, proof of concept is there, we just need to scale up! Who knows where this could take us! We want to match and perhaps even surpass @fundition in our endeavours ;) I hope the magnitude of this can be conveyed across this text! If the rest of STEEMIT is going down the drain, let this opportunity and potential to give be the leg that this platform can stand on. I think that this may be the direction that we can find ourselves moving in for the future as @ned has prevously stated that Steem hasn't quite gone in the direction he thought it would. Although this new direction is so much better.
So, Who are we up voting?
Here is a list of the projects that we have identified as charitable causes and thus provide support to them:
- @steemitkidsworld
- @schoolforsdg4 (Run by @azizbd)
- @scholarsph (Run by @tagalogtrail)
- @thegreens (Run by @mr-greens)
- @adollaraday (Run by @pennsif)
- @papilloncharity (Run by Stephen (Zac) and Marian Smith)
- @littledisciples
- @dreamsoftheocean (Run by @surfermarly)
- @treeplanter
- @mhm-philippines (@daddywilliam)
- @lotusleaf (supported by @fundition)
- @ecodesigns
- @tarc
- @youarehope (Run by @sircork)
- @sc-v
- @sc-g
- @seekgod
- @steemchurch
- @sc-n
- @walkofhope (Run by @immarojas)
- @beyonddisability
- @steemarity
- @steemitmamas
- @cindyik
- @gtpjfoodbank
- @steemitcharity
- @womenempowerment
- @FamilyProtection (Run by @canadian-coconut)
- @cooking4charity
- @globalfoodbook
- @gardenofeden
- @biodiversity
- @ecotrain
- @forestfriendly
- @save-elephants
- @solarcoach
We are adding some new pages to the list! Here they are:
- @coolguy123
- @luppers
- @kedjom-keku
- @teammalaysia
- @steemxp
- @mentalhealthguru
- @steemagriculture
- @abu23
- @emiliocabrera
- @top-exchanges
- @pro-content
- @theredroad
HOW TO SUPPORT US! :)
Our mission @charitycurator is "To Raise 100 People Above The Poverty Line On The STEEM Blockchain". This is done by giving them $10 worth of upvotes / day on content that they upload on Steemit.
If our mission resonates with you and would like to get on board and support, here's how you can help:
1. Upvote @charitycurator content:
Upvoting our content allow us to gain more STEEM Power. Having more SP allows us to work towards our goal of 2.5M SP and thus being able to give charitable content the financial help that they need.
Even better could be adding us to your auto-voter on @steemauto so you never miss upvoting content that we post!
2. ReSteem our posts!
With any project on the STEEM blockchain, exposure is paramount. More eyes on the work means more potential help that we can generate together here at @charitycurator. If you have supported the project and feel that you can do no more, perhaps someone else can who is following you. By ReSteem-ing our work allows those people to see our work as well and also become potential supporters in the future! We would massively appreciate this!
3. Delegate SP to @charitycurator
This is a very generous thing that you can do. We are aware that every little helps, therefore we accept all quantities of delegations. We are finding out how to get links below for you to click and seamlessly offer your SP to us :) Or, you can head directly to our page and delegate there!
4. Join the @charitycurator SteemAuto Curation Trail:
We ask that you join our Curation Trail so that we can make a greater impact, together! The Trail is simply named: @charitycurator.
Here is a quick overview of @steemauto if you aren't aware of it.
@mahdiyari built a project to provide automation of curation on Steemit, called @steemAuto. One of the base features on this platform is a 'Curation Trail'. What this does is essentially you can copy the up voting of another user, compiling many users together would thus form a curation trail. What I would like to bring to the table is our @charitycurator based curation trail, thus allowing many Steemit users to come together and upvote content from pages such as @sc-v and @sc-g
This is our favourite part, the @steemauto curation trail allows us to automate the curation so that we never miss out on an opportunity to help!
We have been again working hard at gaining exposure trying to get our mission more eyes and more attention. The healthy thing about Steemit is that the ecosystem is very integrated so exposure can be gained in a natural and healthy way. The obstacle however is getting the wheels turning so that content can be seen on trending pages and hot pages so that the masses of Steemit are aware of the content. We are trying to achieve this in a organic way without too much outside spending on promoting posts and bots, although this is necessary at times. Reiterating what we mention in our previous post about helping us out at @charitycurator read the whole post to the end!
As mentioned in our mission statement we announced the stretching goal of having 2,500,000 STEEM POWER. This was not simply a number plucked out of the air, there was calculations behind it as to fulfill the goal of giving 100 people $10 worth of upvotes a day, thus raising them above the poverty line! We are a long way off, however we would like to thank our delegators and of course acknowledge if delegators would prefer anonymity.
Thank You!
Delegators:
@coolguy123 200 SP
@nathen007 25 SP
We are SO grateful for these generous delegations!
We would like to thank our loyal followers, please take a look at their pages below!
@albert8887, @alphabot, @datmacro, @eveningart, @fastresteem, @freerangehuman, @iamindian, @intro.bot, @karchady, @littledisciples, @luppers, @marcusmalone, @modelcoinmc, @neelam121, @romanticankit, @samiullahsr, @sezenke, @skramatters, @sohailezaz, @steemwhalepower, @sutter, @thegreens, @voteme, @windermarin, @yoginiofoz, @gregorypatrick57, @ctime25, @primeradue25, @lorennys57, @glendys43, @minhaz00754, @albertico1925, @abhaya50443, @furqanhussain25, @beardedegghead43, @voxmortis58, @sadman8835, @ceeka-dacrafta32, @williammarin51, @cindyik25, @theonlyway56, @randomkindness, @nationall, @lotusleaf, @robertchr, @beyonddisability, @steemarity, @electronicsworld, @snoob, @sport-is-art, @fiberfrau, @natha93, @adedoyin-wealth, @shawshank-steem, @mrnightmare89, @lorennys, @aresbon, @nashilda17, @ichpersonlich, @grider123, @frassman and @sirknight
We would like to thank some new followers, tags also below!
@peerzadaaabid, @andrulol, @udow, @schachoberhessen, @dulce85, @impactn, @fridamajestic, @ura-soul, @nationall, @helenoftroy, @gentmartin, @creativestreet, @walichan, @farmsteemit, @uroeha, @steemagriculture, @digital.mine, @successforall, @socky, @coolguy123, @khaimi, @rasoul, @steemclub-uk, @hada, @zool237, @mansoon, @nirajsharma, @marisolana, @willyc, @mrclave71, @eternalsuccess, @tuzashitama, @rushlee, @sabrip, @semcomama, @emiliocabrer and @yadnus
Thanks for reading this report!
Feel free to comment below, let us know what you think!
Best,
upvoted and resteemed, I hope your ideals will reach the heart of everyone in steemit so that they will also help like you did, more power and good luck
Posted using Partiko Android
Hi Mrnightmare,
Thank you very much for the support! Yes, we have an aim of trying to reach as many people as we can! Every little helps!
Best,
@charitycurator
It's great to read this! I would like to add that at its most basic level, if you upvote 10 cents, then you should have raised 11 cents in donations prior to upvoting and have either used the 10 cents to send directly to the cause and powered up the remaining 1 cents, or have powered up the whole 11 cents and given a 10 cent up vote. This is the only way that steem remains sustainable. You have to raise the money, not just rely on distribution of the communities money via delegation. Alternatively, you can spend the steem communities money on a cause that eventually will bring in more money than you distributed via upvotes. This must come in the form of either profits or donations, but you cannot escape the economic problem that we must all work together to replace the steem that we distribute, or even better, gain that steem before we distribute it.
Any support is good support, but now that I've been running @YouAreHOPE successfully for 14 months, you're right and I can tell you that delegations are of very little use to a charity like ours. We need straight donations, as we have to use the money to actually do our missions around the globe in the real world, and that means conversion to fiat to buy food, clothes, seeds, school supplies, books, tools, medicines, services and other supplies that we have provided on the ground via a network of steemians in the regions we serve.
Delegations don't do much for us when only post once or twice a week and its not about supporting people who post, its about supporting people who don't have food, or other necessities.
Hi Sircork,
Yes delegations only seem to make an impact when they cumulatively become huge.
For us, we have to support those who post, it is our only way of helping at the moment. We hope that they liquidate the money out from our upvote and then go on to turn that into FIAT and the supplies that people need. That is why we are upvoting pages like yours! Do you understand?
Best,
@charitycurator
Definitely appreciate the support!
Ofcourse, it would be good to keep working together and improve our relationship!
Best,
@charitycurator
Hi Starkerz, of course please add!
If I were to raise donations prior to upvoting, are these donations coming from external sources such as FIAT money or donations here on the platform?
I have 100% power-up from my rewards because it aligns with what we want to do with our mission. More than that though, do you see this as absolutely essential for the benefit of Steem as a whole?
Are you suggesting another nuance also that charities in themselves need to be profitable? For example, instead of us upvoting content that the charity then goes and spend on bananas for children in poverty, the money should go towards a banana 'farm' as it were and then grow them themselves and also sell excess to make profits? Sounds fantastic.
Best,
@charitycurator
This is a better use of charity money. give people the ability to make their own money of course! as long as it is provable. either way, what i am saying that just upvoting people for any type of work costs the community money. by upvoting we are spending the communities money. We should instead be spending our own money, or our projects money, not the communities money. So we should bring money in to cover what we upvote before we upvote. if we do not start to do this as a community, the steem price will keep on going down, or we will keep on moving down coin market cap rankings
Sure, that does sound better.
Now you put it like that it does make more sense. Although, does that allow anyone to use the communities money at all? The community money needs to be backed by alternative sources of money coming into the ecosystem?
Best,
@charitycurator
On steem we all use there communities money by upvoting. No one can stop you doing that. But ethically, every time you use the communities money (I.e. upvote someone’s blog) you should either have already added more steem than the upvote is worth (via profits or funds raised) or will add it later from on future profits or fund raising or be working on a project that is doing that
Great. Even ethically, we can't always get everyone to act that way. So how do we create a plan to accommodate for those who don't behave ethically with the communities money?
I love seeing charity work on Steem. This doesn't just have to be about people enriching themselves. Using our votes to support a charity costs us nothing.
All the vote buying to get on trending gives a false impression of what this platform can be. We need some charities to get featured instead.
Hi Steevc,
Yes, we are trying to serve that purpose. Using our upvotes to give to those in need!
Yes, those with a lot of STEEM can just pump their posts to the top. That is a barrier for us at the moment not being able to get on the trending pages and get our message out there!
Perhaps you could have us along with that? Drop us a follow or add us to your auto-voter?
Best,
@charitycurator
Many thanks for these thoughts. "What is value?" is a truly fundamental question. Chris Burniske offers a monetary approach in an article on medium, which is definitely worthwhile reading: https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479ffca7
It helped us a lot, to understand how value of a token and the logic of the underlying economy are (de)coupled. Chris for example stresses the importance of a low velocity for a high token value. Vulgo: make it sticky and its valuable. This essentially says, there has to be a reason to keep the token, be it savings, curation rights or what so ever. A marketplace such as @dstors is an excellent vehicle to achieve this, just like the investment opportunities @oracle-d has introduced.
@charitycurator mentions a real important point, Chris didn't really catch: "What is the value being produced on the Steem platform?" As long as there is an external FIAT-market you have an easy point of referal.
But as soon as you produce intangible value such as "social impact" or "something good for society" or "beautiful pictures" different rules come into the game. The validation takes place within the token economy through curation by the user. We think, this makes it essential that there are agreed-on procedures for up- and down-voting - just like there are agreed-on procedures by the Guide Michelin to validate the quality of a meal.
We'll make a suggestion soon how this may be done in impact-scenarios and are already looking forward to discussions with economists, environentalists, social scientists and who else is active here on Steem. A discussion on value-creation could be an important step itself to enhance the future value of the Steem-token.
Hi Impactn,
You are welcome. Value can be seen as anything helping another individual. We forget that this is the sole purpose of business. Even though we are not a business as such, we are trying to bring value to others with the aim of getting some of that value back.
Ofcourse, then another token could easily take it's place!
That's the whole reason money was created so that value could have a monetary number, unfortunately the banks are dictating those numbers now as they continue to print more and more money. You're right. something such as 'social impact' or even loving one another has no measurable value, that's why they aren't shared around as much :(
There perhaps need to be some rules for curation. Given that we are talking about STEEM having financial issues, maybe 70% goes to the author, 25% to the curator and 5% goes to Steemit? This is fair in my eyes.
Best,
@charitycurator
Actually, we plan to go one step further and give 'social impact' a measurable value by creating a 'social impact' token. Making 'social impact' tangible would help align financial goals and impact goals.
Concerning your proposal:I think 5-10% for Steemit Inc. would definitely be fair. We have been doing calculations for our own business and think 10% for the whole technical background (Dapp, nodes, blockchain updates, storage...) should be the minimum. Token only seem to come out of thin air. :-)
That sounds great, I hope you can figure that out!
Sounds fantastic!
That's very interesting. Given the conversation, which it seems to me is about sustainability, how would the social impact token be financed?
We're also interested in rewarding engagement and participation, as well as social impact ... would a social impact token be able to encompass that?
Great question.
A social impact token would be used to reward engagement and participation in a bifold way:
I'm not quite sure, what you mean by 'financing' the social impact token. The challenge we see, is making the token valuable. This will be dealt with by making it something desirable, as a means of payment, as a symbol for being part of something meaningful, by giving you voting rights. Our ideas could be decribed as Steem-plus - the plus being a value-based framework which replaces purely subjective curation by impact-oriented curation-mechanisms.
That's the challenge with all tokens, what ACTUALLY makes them valuable as opposed to just throwing a monetary value on them.
Excellent message @charitycurator, thank you for supporting @sc-v in your project with the children.
Thank you.
You are more than welcome for our support!
Let us know how we can help more!
Best,
@charitycurator
Thank you for the mention of SteemClub-UK.
Keep up the good work.
Promoter of The SOS Forums : Weekly Discussion Forums on the State of Steem.
Co-ordinator of SteemClub-UK.
Editor of the weekly listing of steem radio shows, podcasts & social broadcasts.
Founder of the A Dollar A Day charitable giving project.
You are welcome.
Thank YOU very much for organising it and getting us all together, we can all help eachother propser!
Best,
@charitycurator
Hey @charitycurator, I appreciate what you are doing via the steem blockchain. I am developing a project - @writeandearn and I wish you take a look at it and send in your suggestions.
@Writeandearn is a curation/support foundation for creative contents (poem, stories, drama, motivational messages, Christian education, tutorials, drawing, painting, music lyrics, graphic and illustrations).
Curated articles will earn our facilitation for online and offline journal and book publishing and printing for wider reach to audience beyond the Steem blockchain.
@Writeandearn intends to give sbi shares to authors of featured contents and theywill earn rewards beyond the 7 days payout for other posts.
Hi there, we will take a look at it and perhaps add it to our auto-voter!
Drop us a follow so we can continue to connect with eachother!
Best,
@charitycurator
Thanks for the mention. Upvoted and resteemed.
As for the modus operandi of a charity, sky is the limit. Steem offers an opportunity for people to help a charity with just a click of the mouse. We at @tamilcharitycoin are trying to use steem as a vehicle to create a self sustaining charity(not exclusively non-profit).
Would appreciate your considering including @tamilcharitycoin in your upvote list.
Have a nice day.
Hi,
You are more than welcome for the mention. That's it, that is the huge opportunity that we have. I will take a look and add you to the upvote list! Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
Best,
@charitycurator
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Thank you.
Hi @charitycurator!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 1.785 which ranks you at #29998 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 7539 places in the last three days (old rank 37537).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 239 contributions, your post is ranked at #74.
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