Letter to a fellow Steemian

Dear @markkujantunen,

I was very interested to follow this discussion regards structure/leadership (elsewhere prior to this post of yours on leadership) and noted how much bitterness there is towards so many of us Steemians for reasons hard to fathom. Can't we all brainstorm about essential issues with a bit more stretch to our frustrations? (I found your comments reasonable and understand your desire to write your own well-argued post.)

I can only write as content writer and commenter. I find interpreting the wallet-side of it not worth my while at this point in time. I have witnessed much grief come of it. The battles often appear to financial twits like myself to have been pre-arranged looting expeditions cloaked as banal vendettas. I never took it very seriously until I discovered people with real money invested got really damaged by this game. Getting flagged myself now, since this new fork allows for pain free downvoting, makes no sense to me unless it can be backed up by constructive criticism, and allow me a chance to defend/explain my post in the attempt to reclaim my reward as yet.

It feels to me that it is all one none-too-sophisticated set-up by a bunch of techies who aren't very clever really. Not clever enough anyway to make Steem interesting and profitable. There is no plan or projection clearly. Maybe they are only ex-gamers who have got bored of gaming? What goes on here resembles school yard fisticuffs.

So, you consider curiosity as motivator to stick around in a Mad Max kind of ecosystem. Possibly. Desperation and misinformation otherwise qualify. There are bloggers here who hope to find serious sponsorship for their outside life.

Otherwise, there are wise old birds, who have been around the block a few times and have become investors here precisely because they are both in for an adventure, but also value independent free expression on a human scale and of a generous nature. They understand Steemit can only work if external sources are invested (both financial and some kind of content quality control, impossible to manage by bots: so intelligent/professional people). They have left after having been robbed blind (of their fiat coin) by downvotes based on nothing. In the more ugly cases, their sense of justice will dig them in deep in the trench warfare of trolls and it will leave them resentful and scarred. Hope in a better world dashed once again.

It is Highway-Stick-Up country around here alright, even if you know all the ins and outs of the game but simply refuse to play it because you want to coach the users to take seriously recurring interest in eachother. Thereafter, somehow, we hope, there will be subseqent branching out as newcomers are attracted. Of course, we need greater numbers, but attracting those who cannot write blogs is pointless. It's the name of the game on a blog-social media platform. Tweets and albums of pics belong elsewhere.

^{Nathan Riley's photo source
A black cat never brought me bad luck yet; and curiosity isn't such a quick killer to them with nine lives.}

I don't think that curiosity factor can ever be stimulated by upvoting. Some things I wouldn't read for love or money. I also don't think Steemit stands strong by its tags or tribes or whatever categorises us into communities that are most likely to commit to eachother and the Steem Mission (otherwise undefined, to be honest, for most of us out on the platform doing our humble social thing wondering almost always: What am I doing here?).

Can we have mediators who are not leaders and don't set trends? Who merely encourage the human momentum which otherwise, as everything else on the Net, is going to be taken over by robots and programmes? There are some maters here, but I must say, once they hit high reps (70 or so), they tend to all become ever more commercially inclined or covertly operative. Hmmmm....good thing? Inevitable thing? More pressing, however, is my question how is a reputation made and broken: what can one do to deserve a ranking promotion? And inversely, how to avoid ending up with minus rep?

The community impetus, surely, can only be crafted in a forward-thinking fashion out a genuine belief in people and their community building and maintenance skills (human kindness) not financial gain? Anyone who doesn't understand behind the scenes people could get very rich from our simple writings is naive. But the world needs a bit of innocence, meekness and simple paddling about for R & R. The only structure I am interested in would be one that makes being on Steemit even doable: i.e. minimally rewarding in the sense that you have a loyal membership/audience to whom you start to tailor ever better. Must we all form our own tribes, perhaps? I don't think the illusion of tightly knit families is going to move us away from that mobster vibe that tends to hang around here on Steemit.

We don't need another shark pool, I don't think. People have to make up their mind if they want to connect or get rich. I was hoping there might be some kind of morality code amongst Steemians ruled predominantly by the belief that Free Will is holy. Not the kind of freedom to manipulate others (which cannot be a free idea in the first place but is always a response to restrictive personal negatives).

I don't so much care that there will always be a divide between developers and users on the business side. I don't care if some of us want Maseratis more than daily inspiration and consistent support and stimulation to make life possible and even emotionally rewarding.

Many like me plod on very happily just doing what we love to do: share our lives in the hope to support, uplift, exchange energies, shake up to wake ourselves up and then shower ourselves with kindness. Until an invisible management and unforseen activities disrupt our kindly mood. I hope them upstairs don't forget that you don't want an angry mob with pitchforks on your hands... If Steemit collapses it will be because of the users refusing to be used any longer.

I would like to see creative writers and community facilitators get something consistent for our time as loyal product creators in our own right. 277 votes on Friday night mean nothing if you get 7 every other day of the week. It tells you that your are insane to even be here. I won't buy exposure (curation trails) because how would that tell me what I am worth as a content provider; how does that form a true audience off which I can spin further material? As a creative writer/artistic wordsmith I was hoping to find a community that would organically create a journal of its own existence.

Instead you end up feeling dissed in a system that does not aid you to stay in touch with your willing but forgetful readers (the feeds are too long); and also toyed with by management. Recently, anybody and everybody has taken to flagging the most innocent or seriously crafted (entertaining) posts. Can't say I am curious about the motivations behind such human (amoral) behaviour.

Find Steem Country between A Rock and A Hard Place.
Not only a lack of understanding gives issues but more so the shifting of the goalposts (perhaps for the lack of well-thought-through plan, if not quite the lack of leadership). Who needs another rigid and dictated system?
I thought true Steemians were meant to be Utopians and believe in organic growth - and a modicum of chaos is alright at the incipience.

What is direly needed is imagination, inspiration and intuition. Intelligence on a futuristic human scale - if even only in the wings.

With love, if also with some due concern, as befits a Steemian always,
Suki

^{Vanessa Serpas took this picture of a man who can only be envied, freely riding off to wherever his free will leads him (or so we dream in good Steemit-utopian fashion).}