What is @curie exactly?

Curie is a community curation initiative made up of a diverse group of individuals. They focus on improving the platform through rewarding under rewarded authors that are adding value through exceptional content. As well as direct curation, community building support, and development.

Curie is a community witness and a meritocratic community curation project. Following are Curie’s main goals:
• To discover and reward undiscovered but exceptional content by persistent creators with limited success.
• To empower quality curators.
• To develop a curation community on Steem.
• To build communities.
• To serve as a community witness.
All of this with an absolute commitment to meritocracy and transparency with an aspiration towards zero corruption.

Who started Curie?

It was started by a group of like minded individuals over 2 years ago. I think this post best describes The Who and why Curie was initially founded;
https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/announcing-project-curie-bringing-rewards-and-recognition-to-steemit-s-undiscovered-and-emerging-authors
Many of these individuals are still involved and even though things have changed slightly as the platform has evolved, the core goal is still the same.

What was the history of the @curie community's progress, through the inevitable difficulties faced, to become what it is today?

Curie has definitely had its ups and downs as far as support goes. In fact at one point getting a Curie vote would put you on the trending page, and to be honest.. I really wish it still would. In the past Curie has gotten a lot of community support through delegations, which allowed it to make quite the impact. Currently, while it does have some wonderful support, it desperately needs more to continue.

What does Curie do with the Steem it earns?

Curie is non profit, and always has been. It is not focused on growing its own account and all additional funds are put back into the platform through either community support, community building or development of helpful tools etc. (https://steemlookup.com/#/ is the free Curie made search engine development for the blockchain and https://www.becquerel.io our Curie developed and open source submission platform). 100% of Curie's profits are distributed back to the community, always has.. always will be.

Curie’s ownership and governance is decentralized, as expected of a community project. Curie earns revenues largely from curation rewards, with author rewards, witness rewards and donations accounting from trace amounts. 100% of all revenues are distributed back to Curie’s contributors.

Curie will be around as long as it’s needed and has the support to continue. Every individual involved is passionate about what they do, and will fight to continue to support authors as long as they can.

Who are the curators? How did they become curators?

The current active list of curators can be found in Curie’s weekly update published each Sunday, and are archived in the Curie Discord Servers announcements channel.

To become a Curie curator you essentially join the discord and are mentored by someone. We are required to achieve very high acceptance rates (% of posts submitted that are approved), because each rejection actually costs the project money.. and wasting resources that could be used to up lift authors is just unacceptable. So, while anyone can be a curator.. there is a bit of training involved.

Previously, Curie had completely open submissions. However, this proved to be unsustainable due to unmanageable volumes, so currently new curators need to be mentored and recommended by existing curators. Existing curators are offered a generous reward for recommending new curators, to incentivize on-boarding new curators.

How did hendrikdegrote find out about the @curie community?

This is a question I hear a lot, and who can blame them? His vote carries a pretty big punch and everyone wonders how he is involved with Curie. All I can say here is he has been a supporter by following the @curie vote since I have been with Curie, I’m not entirely sure how long before my time he joined the trail but his support is the main reason Curie votes still have the impact that they do. He’s a silent supporter you could say, so I can’t answer too many questions to be honest.. because I just don’t know.

How/where do curators find posts?

This one has a lot of possible answers, but essentially they spend a lot of time searching. As curators, we manually search the platform looking for those hidden gems that match the Curie criteria we are looking for. They follow authors they think produce high quality content, search feeds, resteems etc.

One of the most helpful tools for curators is the Curie developed (and free to the public) steemlookup.com, which is a search tool designed for the Steem platform. It allows you to select certain tags and search filters to find those hidden gems. It’s also great to for the everyday user to find those topics that interest you!

So, while there are many ways of how curators find posts, it all comes down to.. they look pretty hard for them.

The goal always being, To uplift under rewarded authors who add value to the platform through their content, consistency and engagement.

What happens after they find a post?

After a curator finds a post they feel is exceptional they have some work to do...

You see, It’s not about just deciding if a post is good or not, there is a lot of background that goes into it. And that starts with the curator.. here is a breakdown of what goes into that;

• They then look at the authors history. Are they engaging with other members of the platform? Are they consistently contributing content to the platform? Are their rewards minimal for what they provide? (Current rewards level is under $5)

• Then they do a thorough check for plagiarism, which is again all done manually.

• Curie wants original to Steemit, so then the curator must search to make sure it’s not posted elsewhere. There is a 7 day window for other social media platforms, but it cannot be anywhere else older than that.

If all of that checks out, and they feel it is truly exceptional, they submit it for review on the Curie developed (and open source) https://www.becquerel.io

How does the review process work?

Then, the reviewer that is on shift does all those checks again.. and they are even more thorough due to their experience.

• They check for plagiarism, repost, and ultimately decide if it fits criteria and is in fact exceptional.

• If approved, they decide percentage and place the vote. Which is followed by the extensive trail, which includes that Hendrikdegrote name that many people recognize.

After a curator submits a post to Curie, a reviewer verifies its quality before voting on it. For some posts, the reviewer may seek second or third opinion from fellow reviewers. Poor quality submissions are disapproved by reviewers.

Sometimes the review process can take a few minutes if a reviewer is on shift and sees that the post is in fact exceptional. Or it may take a few hours for many reasons.

Also, if a reviewer just isn’t sure about a post, they may leave it for the next reviewer to review.. and that I believe this adds another level of ensuring inclusiveness and ensures there is no bias shown or issues with personal taste.

Who are the reviewers?

Reviewers are long term top curators who have excelled and therefore earned a promotion to be a reviewer. Many have been with the project since the beginning and are extremely passionate about uplifting authors. They have the experience needed to keep Curie high quality standard while being fair and unbiased.

Curators with sustained high curation scores over six months are promoted to being Reviewers, as per demand. Through excellent quality curation, anyone can be a top curator, and anyone can be a reviewer. All thresholds are predetermined, so there’s a great degree of objectivity and meritocracy.

Long term top curators qualify for becoming reviewers. As with Curation Scores, there’s a predetermined qualification criteria for reviewer qualification. Currently, this is 250 Curation Score and 95% Approval Rate over a period of 6 months.

So, as you can see... the process is all manual and includes many sets of eyes to ensure Curie is voting on original content by under rewarded authors that are producing exceptional content. Having curators and reviewers from many different backgrounds ensures that it is a very inclusive curation initiative.

Curie’s sole goal is to improve the platform, and will be around as long as it is needed.

Do you feel it is still needed?

I personally feel Curie is needed more now than ever. In a time where our trending page leaves something to be desired, and many valuable authors are slipping through the cracks. Curation initiatives like @Curie are doing what they can to improve the platform, but they need our help. Curie depends on community support, and without it many authors may stay undiscovered.

If you would like to delegate to Curie you can do so by clicking on the following links:

50 SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.

I hope that answers some of your questions while also giving you a look into the work that goes on behind the scenes of this amazing initiative.

If you have any other questions you would like me to answer just drop them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Stay tuned for Part Two...

Much Love and Steem On,

Justine

_{All quotes taken from the Curie Whitepaper
Also, I’m not a official Curie rep, but have been with them for about 6mths curating. This is just my personal opinion and experience based on that.}