Community at its Best? Well, partly...
Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be about @exercisinhealth, but, I must first give a short history of my journey on Steemit, to help provide context to the more critical matters.
Wait, what? So I provide content, and I can get paid for it?
I don't need 1000 subscribers to get monetized like YouTube?
I also don't need to buy a domain name, pay for hosting fees and someone to design a website for me?
On top of all of that, I get direct access to a 'Top 2000' website with excellent Google Search visibility?
Shut the front door!!
I'm sold, Where do I sign up??
These were my thoughts from October 2017, when I decided to close down my struggling website and join Steemit.
How I started:
After a few weeks, on the platform, trying to learn the ropes, I realized the importance of community. More importantly, I discovered the need for adding value to a community.
My first few, half-hearted, blogging attempts gained no traction. I was trying to provide daily content. This high frequency meant I couldn't put in the research, time and effort needed to structure a piece of art I was proud. Especially one which people would be willing to spend their valuable time reading.
I then stumbled upon the @steemstem community.
For those who don't know, the group was founded by two scientists, @justtryme90 and @lemouth. Their mission is to bring, all, who are interested in science, together.
Under their umbrella, the enthusiasts can share their research and ideas with one another. All, with confidence that their work will reach like-minded individuals who appreciate and respect it.
The use of their tag, does, however, come with strict guidelines and rules.
The content should be 'well-written,' original work and backed by research.
Steemstem sounded perfect for me.
So, I dug through my archives and found an old essay which I wrote in University. It was about the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sport.
I got an 'A' for that essay, so, I was pretty confident that others, in the community, would see the value in it.
Luckily, I was right:)
@suesa was the curator who found the post and sent it to the @steemstem team for approval. The article was then upvoted. The team never left it at that though. One of the founders commented with some helpful advice:
And that was not the last piece of advice or comment I received from them. They have continued to critique constructively, give praises (when deserved) and show interest in the topics I present.
The team is giving this type of care and attention to hundreds of posts, under the @steemstem tag, every week. The curators such as @trumpman, @ruth-girl, @abigail-dantes, @mobbs, @anarchyhasnogods, @suesa, @zest, @lemouth spend countless hours, each day, reading through all the posts and upvoting the ones they like. They also sift through the science tag in search of new talent.
At the end of each week, they select their favorite articles and present them in a newsletter for the whole community to see.
On top of it all, @steemstem have an official chat group on Discord. This chat is continuously active with members of the team giving advice, asking questions and just getting to know the community.
Oh wait, there is more. The founders organized an official @steemstem meetup, in Cern, a few weeks ago. Twenty-two members of the community, from all over the world, met up there. @justtryme90 even flew all the way from The States!!
Check out this post on the trip here.
The individuals, who attended, were even helped out through subsidized lodging, transport, and food @steemstem expense. How selfless is that!! They also felt the need to include this in their community newsletter, with exact amounts, to maintain total transparency.
The Problem:
So while Steemit wars continue between berniesanders and hajien, useless posts, without substance, get upvoted to trending, and thousands of newbies are spamming peoples articles, there are communities like @steemstem who are providing value to the ecosystem.
Imagine if telephone calls were unstable, you couldn't talk to the people you care about, do business deals, and every second call was a spammer trying to sell you something? The potential 'network effect' would be lost as no one would want to purchase a phone.
If Steemit wants mass adoption, their reward pools must be equitably distributed to the people who deserve it. This, 'fairness,' will ensure that the tide brings in waves of knowledgeable content to the shore, and the backwash takes back all the garbage.
For this to happen, the delegated power must go to projects like @steemstem.
As it stands, the @steemstem community has grown exponentially over the past few months. It has gotten to a point where the team has had to lower their vote, per post, to accommodate the influx of quality content.
This is sad because we have posts written by medical doctors, physicists, psychologists, sports scientists and many more professionals, who, are barely making it on the science trending page and are getting suboptimal payouts for their educated contribution to the ecosystem.
I urge everyone to look through the top trending on all the 'main' tags. Count all the posts which give little knowledge, entertainment or value whatsoever to the community. I think you will all be, sadly, surprised.
So how can we fix this and not turn Steemit into a 'broken' phone?
Provide value through your blog:
Firstly, we need to change our posting strategy from: "How can I post, as often as possible, and make the most money NOW" to "How can I add the most value to this platform to improve its longevity and growth."
If we all had to choose the latter, the platform would eventually end up rewarding us beyond our wildest dreams.
Instant gratification is not sustainable.
Spread the word:
Secondly, we need to invite steemit inc, @ned and any other significant account holder to study what @steemstem is doing.
Let them look at the quality posts, get in contact with the founders and observe the community chat group. I am confident they will see the value in what @steemstem is trying to build here.
The future of this platform should rest in the hands of competent communities like @steemstem who care more about the longevity of Steemit than lining their pockets NOW.
Your upvotes are valuable:
Lastly, I stress the need to save your vote for those who you feel deserve it most. Many people support authors, but, never actually read their posts. They do this all, for the sake of curation rewards. Just because someone consistently receives a high payout, does not mean their posts are high quality or add value to this platform.
Rather sacrifice your few cents of curation rewards and give your vote to the writers, video creators, and musicians who will help build steemit into the best social media platform on earth. Because if this has to happen, all of us, the early adopters, will be rewarded tenfold.
So I urge everyone, who have invested their time and money into Steemit, to check out the work of @steemstem. If you like what you see, try to make the whales aware of them.
This fantastic team needs delegated power to maintain and support the fast-growing community they are building.
@steemstem have provided incredible value to this platform since their inception. It is now time for, us, the beneficiaries of their hard work, to give back by spreading the word and getting support for them.
I have one more cool story to tell:
I think we can all agree that there are two types of influencers in this community.
You have the guys who promote projects and coins purely to pump the prices, promising 100x returns, for their benefits.
On the flip side, you have the guys who care about the tech, the team behind the projects and their potential benefit to the world.
There is one guy in particular who has stood out to me from this latter group. He goes by the YouTube name, BTCBusinessconsult. His mom calls him Andreas though.
So why am I promoting this dude?
Well, I can only explain through my story.
The day I almost lost all my blog money:
After my blog started picking up steem, towards the end of November, I started saving all the SDB rewards from every payout. So, 19 posts and more than 200 hours of research, writing, and illustrations later, I reached my target for an ICO I had wanted to invest into.
I signed up and sent the entire amount, including a little fiat money I had also saved.
After 24 hours, none of the ERC20 tokens, I purchased, reflected in my wallet.
I started to worry.
Big time!
I went to their website and read the 'how to invest' part again.
The first time I went there, in my excitement, I must have missed the most critical sentence.
"WE DO NOT ACCEPT ETHEREUM FROM AN EXCHANGE"
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.
After many curse words, followed by a few very manly tears, I turned to the only person I thought could help me. Andreas BTCBusinessconsult.
I never knew Andreas past his videos and the telegram chat rooms. Contacting him was a leap of faith.
I explained my sob story to him, and he replied with something like:
"shit, I think you lost all your money."
My heart sank further down towards my knees.
He then replied again, saying: "wait, give me a minute."
A few moments later, he replied again.
Together, we managed to retrieve my transaction data from the exchange.
Andreas then sent it out to the admin of the ICO.
Ten minutes later I received a message from one of the founders of the ICO.
He said: "I hear you have a little problem, I think we can fix it for you."
My heart jumped straight up, into my chest, where it belongs.
To cut a long story short, they managed to retrieve my lost tokens and all ended well.
Naturally, I was filled with gratitude towards Andreas for his help, so, I offered a portion of my coins to him, as a token of my appreciation.
He declined my offer and replied: "Just, pay it forward."
So this is why I have written this blog post. I have decided to 'pay it forward' by letting everyone know about the excellent, diligent people behind @steemstem and the honest, trustworthy creator, Andreas.
I urge everyone to continue this 'movement.' Write a post about the people who have added value to your lives, within this FUD filled crypto space.
Don't forget to use the tag #payitforward
This way we can all keep track of these wonderful people and give them the recognition they deserve, above the FUDsters and con-artists.
Follow @steemstem
Follow Andreas BTCBusinessconsult
Sources:
Special thanks to the community for supporting the first steemSTEM meetup at CERN
The steemSTEM meetup at the LHC - My Recap
Helpful Guidelines For Crafting SteemSTEM Content
SteemSTEM Winter 2017-2018 Project Update
Being A Member Of The SteemSTEM Community
*All images with the EH logo were created by @exercisinghealth
*All the pictures and official @steemstem designs were used with permission from the authors
The future of this platform should rest in the hands of all stakeholders who care about voting. I'm quite confident that the curators of @steemstem would agree on that.
I am trumpman and I approve this message 😂
🙌 :)
I totally do! And thanks to you as well for all you do for science on STEEM :)
Thank you @lemouth, I can only return that compliment.
For sure, I agree
@steemstem are providing an excellent example as to how we should all be using our voting power responsibly. They don't abuse the system with their stake, but, rather, reward all the people who add value to the platform with it.
They are not able to reward all people who add value. As long as users like you don't start digging for valuable content on their own, good content will be missed.
This is sort of the point of our curation. We are trying to create others who have enough vested stake to be able to expand the amount of good content that gets supported. :)
We can't do it alone, its why we strive to create a massive community of like minded people who, together, CAN.
You are right. I admit I don't spend enough time looking for valuable content and upvoting them.
I do, however, try and focus on producing the best content I can. This effort takes many hours from my day. I also focus on staying in touch with my own followers and commenteers. I can't do it all.
steemstem is not just the team that curates, it is the entire community of users who create content, and vote for said content. So yeah, it should be in the hands of competent communities of stakeholders who care about voting and making steemit a productive and fun place to be.
Exactly.
As decentralized as we think this platform is, the truth is that few of us hold the big accounts. How these funds get used is of crucial importance to the longevity of Steemit.
My 30 odd cents for 100% vote is not worth the time it takes to look through 20 or 30 shit posts and find the 1 of value. I add more to Steemit by spending my time producing original content that may improve peoples health.
I use my funds to reward good comments on my posts and supporting the few people I follow.
Additionally, No new investor is going to drop 100 000+ USD, to become a 'substantial' stakeholder, if the platform does not have competent people running the show.
By 'people' I mean the ones who currently have the majority stake, as they affect the reward pool the most and have the potential to attract skilled content creators.
You have said it so right. Some may say I'm biased because I am a member of the specific team, but I can see the work done and the hours spend to help build a strong community. And it's not the money that should keep us here, but the quality, the interaction, the exchange of ideas.
This is very subjective, although I agree that it would be more helpful to spread votes to people whose work stays unrecognised. High-rewarded posters don't need the votes of 20 minnows that worth 3-4$ in total, they already have their strong supporters. This "boost" could go to people who try but get very little in return.
You guys deserve this type of recognition. Some of you are working full-time jobs, have families, your own blogs, yet, you still find the time to reward other creators and spread useful comments on their posts.
The money is important, and steemit is providing many talented ’less fortunate’ individuals the opportunity to support their living. Some creators really do deserve the 1000s of USD they receive per month, others, maybe not. I just welcome everyone to take a wide look at all the content that is being created, to get a better perspective.
You are right I have changed the sentence to:
Thank you for your kind words. Please keep pumping good content :D What was that ICO?
Thank you :)
Sharpe capital. They have an excellent team and are doing incredible things with blockchain technology. Unfortunately due to the nature of their token and the work required to benefit from it's utility, i’ve since liquidated my assets to focus all my spare time to this blog.
They will go on to become a big name in crypto though, I'm pretty sure of that.
Just to join my voice to the one of the others! Thanks a lot for this nice spontaneous advertisement about our work and what we do ;)
I meant every word. Thank you.
While I like Steemstem (even went to the meet up) I find troubling the idea of what is or not the most valuable content in the platform. Particularly because is a social platform and social signaling and interactions are what most find valuable.
If one want's the platform to grow for instance. One can make the case that subsidising the lowest common denominator content is actually good as it gives the impression to people outside the platform that they have a chance. (I bought a lambo by writing about my favorite movies, food, Pokemon games)
If one wants to improve quality then random rewards actually do work better than meritocracy. As meritocracy actually benefits those who are lucky the most.
The best approach is to solve problems and to lead by example.
The trouble with the cryptosphere is that people have gotten too used to making money from nothing. They invest in some shitcoin, which adds zero value to the world, and 100x their money in a year.
I think everyone, in this space, is in for a rude awakening over next few years. Many of those coins will go back to zero where they belong.
Money is supposed to compensate labor. We won't pay money to watch a low budget movie, with shit actors and special effects, edited on an iPad. We won't pay someone to take care of our medical problems if they haven't studied their whole lives. We won't invest in a traditional stock which has shown no impact in its industry.
Steemit is lucky because they have first mover advantage, with their model. So did MySpace though. What happens if YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram adopt a similar model? If we want this platform to grow, we need to add value to the people who visit.
No newcomers, with lots of money, are going to invest in a platform full of shit content.
No skilled individuals will come onboard, just to get buried in a wave of crap.
So whats left? A few whales, who got involved right at the beginning. They will then suck the reward pools dry, until steem is worth zero, and then move off into the sunset.
First mover advantage is a relative position. Even before myspace, there were social networks that were 'first' like Friendster. Rebranding has a lot to do with being a first mover at something. Is hard to maintain that Steem has first mover advantage without some serious rebranding. Bitcoin has that. Other media networks have that.
The idea of 'we have something good going on here, we have to make it grow in a sustainable way' is something that happens to most newcomers in a network that benefits them. Self-interest works.
The fact this worry emerges is a testament to the low barriers to entry and how they incentivize sustainable personal self-interest. While the growth benefits from low barriers to access and success.
The question is: what works?
Most of the growth of the 'crypto' space is based on subsidizing mediocrity. What one can't deny is that is growing. The more it grows the more competition there is. Networks subsidies self-sort quality based on their own rules as time goes by.
You make some interesting points. Thank you for sharing them.
I guess we will have to wait to see what happens. I hope, Steemit will survive and thrive for many years to come.
In the meantime, Im keen to see some more videos from you. The last one was cool.
I will post this week (since steemstem is on a break). I have been busy and the people in discord that were asking for payments kind of got me bored.
When i joined steemit and for the first 2-3 months if i recall correctly i was checking the trending page at least 5 times per day, read the posts and interacted with the people behind. nowadays with all the bots and about i don't even want to have the slightest look and i only check the people i follow. Sometimes when i have time i try to find out more!
i agree completely with everything you said about @steemstem and i think that steemit.inc should be more active in solving the real problems in steemit otherwise if they keep leaving them like this the ''bubble'' will burst. A thing that is bit of tricky although i believe i get what you mean is to how you add value to the platform with your posts. For example let's say i make a funny post with only 2 short paragraphs and it earns double the money out of a scientific post because a whale liked it and upvote or whatever the reason ( except bots). How can you see the real value in this? to someone it may be valuable to someone else not even if in reality a scientific post is indeed more valuable :p
Thanks for your comment.
@trumpan has just posted an awesome article on 'communities' within steemit, which are supposed to act similar to subreddits. This feature would allow segregated fields of content which appeal to the relevant people. This way you wouldn't care or even notice the posts which don't add 'value' to your life, because everyone would stay isolated to their own communities.
The trouble at the moment is that the tags are not specific enough, so, posts which take 10-15 minutes to create, with little creativity and effort are sometimes rising above other posts which may take days to research and write, within a tag. I have a problem with this in particular.
There could then be communities of pictures and memes, communities for research articles, etc. This would ensure that everyone will get fair recognition for what they provide to their niche community.
Hello exercisinghealth!
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