Open letter to a future Steemian

in #steem6 years ago (edited)
It might seem weird to you that I'm writing you this letter months before you even showed up, but the more I think about my motives here, the more I wish someone had told me these things when I first started more than a year ago. So, even though you might not walk away feeling too motivated from this letter, at least initially, I hope that you take my words seriously and don't repeat the same mistakes plenty of us have made on this blockchain called Steem.



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Anyways, I suspect that if you found this letter written long before you arrived, it's because you are a bit frustrated and confused. There is a good chance that a prominent steemian who was promoting this blockchain convinced you that coming to STEEM was going to be a sure way for you to make money, and of course, some days or weeks into your journey you are beginning to suspect you've were lied to. In truth, yes, that's not how things work, and for the life of me I don't know how people keep on making any guarantees still, more than two years into the project, it's as if promoters refuse to see how setting these unrealistic expectations have backfired so many times before.

Maybe the best piece of wisdom I can provide for you is this: most people won't make much here, most won't become dolphins, they won't become whales and honestly that is not because of the way STEEM works, at least not exclusively, but more because our very nature. So the first idea that I think all of us should discard is this unrealistic expectations if you will. Now, this is not me saying that no one will succeed, this is of course demonstrably not the case, but those who do for the most part, have worked really hard in one way or another, or had the financial means to start out with a clear advantage. But again, that is just the way life works.

If you are beginning to feel frustrated, if you are thinking about quitting know that you are not alone. As a matter of fact, early on my steemian journey I saw many talented people join, make a splash, if you will, and then quit when their expectations were not met. What I found somewhat sad about that is that most if not all of the ones that have left, did so, without ever understanding the real reasons why it was not working for them. Between the endless debates that never seem to go anywhere regarding merit, quality or even talent, at some point in time all the ones who left felt the game was stacked against them.

Why am I saying this? Because I suspect that if you are here right now, you are also writing down on your blog possibly, reasons why STEEM is broken and reasons why it's probably going to fail. You probably feel that your content is amazing, and thus whales and dolphins should be able to see this and reward you for sharing it on here. But, as I simplify the position that so many people have, let me ask you one question: How did you arrive to the conclusion that anyone had to support your efforts? The key word here being had.

And listen, I say this not because I don't understand the effort that someone might put into their content, of course not. I've seen some amazing writers, amazing musicians who are far better than me at everything they do quit too, because they've stepped into this line of thinking and lose all desire to continue. In truth anyone who has built an audience, or a stake here with content, has probably done so in the most difficult of ways, not applying much in the way of tricks. They've probably posted hundreds of times without making a penny, probably gotten flagged by someone plenty of times, and endured plenty of challenges along the way. I for one don't know anyone who has always had it easy, but I'm willing to be proven wrong of course.

I suspect that you will also find this letter at a time when STEEM is a lot higher than it is today sitting at 80 cents. So, there is a good chance you are looking at the trending page, looking at the exorbitant payouts and wondering how in the hell is that a thing. If you let it, these thoughts are going to shift into anger, make you wanna yell at bidbot owners, at whales for upvoting content you find valueless, and of course inspire a lot of posts about how STEEM will fail along the way. This might be some tough love, but it's just honesty pouring out of me; There almost 0 chance anything you have to say is something we've all not heard before. Yes, all the complaints you may have about what is fair and what is not have existed almost since day one, and it's not that no one cares, it's that this is one of these situations where you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't demand freedom, while at the same time dictate behaviors, and if you are not familiar with the freedom that blockchains represent, then I suspect you've not dug deep enough.

I will tell you one little trick, one thing you can do, but only if you are willing to put in the work. It's so simple that some people don't ever believe it; Become part of the community!. Get on discord, get on steem chat, make friends, network with others, find people who love the same things you do, and participate in their activities. If you don't think about the money, but do a superb job at growing your network, eventually you will do well. But, if you think that with content alone, with the merit of quality you will become a whale one day, allow me to burst your bubble, that will never happen.

Another thing I want to tell you before we say goodbye... Be yourself, that's not too difficult to do, but for some reason it seems to be the case at times. Write about the things that you like, make videos about the things you enjoy, don't worry about niches, what others want to read or hear.... Who cares? - People want connection, we all do... I for one like supporting good human beings with good ideas, not just ideas because those lack soul. If you are genuine eventually you will garnish enough support, and trust me this is probably the only thing that seems to be consistent, even if your ideas are a little fringe or crazy.

At any rate, I hope you don't leave.... I hope reading a letter from this stranger has given your expectations a needed reset. As a good friend said to me once, and I've began to repeat her words. This is an endurance test, and only those who are able to see the good, even when many things are not great, will be the ones to reap the benefits of this blockchain.



Sincerely

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Maybe the best piece of wisdom I can provide for you is this: most people won't make much here ...

You describe very well how it is, however I wonder why/if user experience has to be like that?
Do potential users need STEEM or do we need more users? I think we need them, not reversed. So we should care more about that being successful here will be somewhat easier in future.
We should make the effort to seek more, read more, comment more (not only send bots) and upvote more manually!

Or aren't there just enough STEEM to make it possible for smaller accounts to earn some decent money? As long as the user with the highest reputation in the whole STEEM cosmos earns more than 20000 dollar per month by self-voting (and he is not the only one), and as long as there are no serious efforts to restrict that kind of behavior, I think we shouldn't tell newbies there were just not enough STEEM to reward them somewhat better ...

I think there is a similar discussion when it comes to the inability of new users to upvote and comment more than a few times per day. "They simply should understand that every transaction is eating resources."
Yes, maybe, but we should understand that new users simply don't need us. :)
If they are having problems to create a STEEM account, they will create one elsewhere. If they cannot comment here, they comment under their friends posts in facebook - simple like that.
And yes, we need new users (and retain them), not only new DApps, or where does the value of facebook come from?

Very good points jaki01 , regarding the last bit rc delegations should solve that challenge and that's in the works. But on your first observation...

I don't have a great answer there... I mean, I do my part, or more accurately said, we at @helpie do. But, no doubt we need more.

It could be that a specific app built on steem will make the ux so pleasant that monetary incentives will be just possibilities of icing on the cake, like it's the case with YouTube for example, but then again that would imply that what we do today, our focus, blogs, are on the way out... Maybe that's it...

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We should make the effort to seek more, read more, comment more (not only send bots) and upvote more manually!

I could not agree more, that's the way the platform will grow.

I don't have a great answer there... I mean, I do my part ...

Don't worry, I didn't blame you at all! :)

Great Read. Yes, anyone NEW here must realize, this is a social media platform like no other.

You wont get Rich quick. But if you focus on Quality Content, Building your Network & Socializing with others, in time you can do well.

The trick is; Treat it like a Business.

Thoughts:

Counter to what the OP says, we at SteemSTEM pretty much guarantee decent rewards, certainly far more than a living wage in many countries. We are an exception rather than the rule, though.

However, this still does not bring the vast majority of users to stay on the platform. Why? Maybe it's not all about the money, I'm not sure. Of all the friends I've brought onto the platform, a grand total of Zero use it to this day - even when I could guarantee, with my own personal help in mentoring, $80-100 a post.

One problem is, when that 80-100 becomes 70-90, one's perception is instantly 'steem is dead, it's no longer worth my time and effort when I compare it to the average hourly income at a full time job' or some other crazy comparison.

Another problem is how activity on steem is directly proportional to the value of bitcoin. If Facebook was entirely dependent on the success of Google, it would probably be stuck in the same perpetual spiral of inactivity we see here.

Another problem is that, for the most part, people don't blog. This is why twitter and facebook and snapchat and tiktok and youtube and all the others are so big. Writing long articles is not a favourite past time for the vast majority. People come on here believing it's something they want to do because they also have opinions or whatever, and the money is a good incentive. But when they realise the money isn't an incentive, they simultaneouslly realise they actually hate blogging.

Twitter offers effortless, sub-minute posting, facebook offers all forms of media catering to each and every desire, youtube allows creative freedom to go beyond text documents, to the point of productions reaching into multi-millions of dollars and beyond, and all of the above stand on their own feet, all while allowing you to sign up in 12 seconds.

I guess at the end of the day, my point is, there are so many obvious glaring things that we take for granted on all the other platforms because what they've created simply makes intuitive sense, but this place is so far designed in the least intuitive and flexible way possible, putting the burden of functionality on 'entrepreneurs' who struggle to promise a working model on a salary of basically $0/month.

What should be obvious, is that these entrepreneurs need to get together and build something far more flexible and functional that can work completely independent of the value of BTC, hell, even independent of the value of steem, making monetization merely optional, independent of delegations and so on.

SteemStem are certainly working on this and partnering with a lot of other initiatives because we understand we can't go in on this alone. We are advertising ourselves without even mentioning steemit.com if we can help it. I dunno. there's a gazillion other things to say but...

/ rant

but why can’t steem be used in the same way any of the other platforms are used ? Someone can use it as a Twitter, or post gifs, pics, or videos. It’s the expectations people put on it in terms of expected returns and what it ought to be that weigh most heavily on the platform.

how many of your friends have reached financial autonomy using Facebook or Instagram ?

I agree that the app use itself can be made friendlier and more intuitive, but it’s an open source project and there’s no reason why it can’t get there at some point in the future. I don’t hear anyone complain that their posts on Instagram or Facebook are matching their hourly wages in their day jobs, yet they spend most of their time publishing and consuming content on those platforms.

So true. It is the expectations which people bring which are the the cage which they hold them selves in.

Taking the monetary picture away, I think the answer to your question is simple. This isn't where the people are.

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If you try to use it like Twitter the cheetah and other bots jump on jou and label your posts as badcontent forever and a day

What’s the point of promoting a free platform if we are going to tolerate those kind of bots. Doesn’t busy.org exist around the concept of using steem as Twitter ?

Yeah to build on this, we're aiming to encourage short-form content in the future too, but at the end of the day there are so many mechanisms and expectations to prevent it - primarily because Steemit.com is the main website people know and use, despite it being far from the best - and is designed to create long-form blogs. So yeah I agree it should be open to all forms, but most forms are considered 'bloat'

With 12 standard full powered votes a day, I find it difficult to assume that the designers of the platforms intended it to be strictly long form content. There is no way anyone can publish at that rate and have it be full form and of high quality at the same time. Not even news papers or production studios with full staff on deck can output at that rate. Nor can anyone be reasonably expected to fully digest 12 pieces of full long format content. Even @ned often posts twitter or Insta style every now and then.

Well, Steem is different to steemit. Steem allows a high number of votes which is why entrepreneurs should get together and create something that can capitalize on this, but and in terms of steemit mechanisms, when you post on steemit, you go to a new editing page with Markdown functionality and a big square box to write in... this is not what you'd expect from a site that wants you to write off-the-cuff commentary on the go. And the site is described as a blogging website, both on wikipedia and steem.io.

A tweet is not a blog, a blog is typically long-form, no?

Anyway, this is a minor issue. there are existing apps out there for what we talk about, but they lack any support and fade into obscurity, unfortunately. Not sure why.

Other sites allow similar functionality, the UI and front end designs are different.

The site is still in beta, and will evolve through user feedback and iterations. It’s fairly new technology compared to what we’re used to.

Between the OP, your post, and @ketopian's below, I think there's a pretty complete picture forming.

I note where you write:

People come on here believing it's something they want to do because they also have opinions or whatever, and the money is a good incentive. But when they realise the money isn't an incentive, they simultaneouslly realise they actually hate blogging.

Yet ketopian highlights how they don't HAVE to blog here. They could post FB content here, and some people do.

The issue in all of this is a combination of 1) Expectations; and 2) the Social Factor.

Expectations people are attracted here with are usually about money, so people do grade the experience in those terms. Yet we all know how long and hard we have to work to earn money here. And that we have to include the Social Factor, which many don't at all, not realizing that they need support from people to succeed here financially, and that they also WANT support from people beyond just money.

The social factor is that if you have support from people with enough SP, you'll make money on here, but will you have fun?

Will you have meaningful comments and relationships that grow out of those?

If you start on here knowing no one, then Discord is probably the best place to start the ball rolling on getting support and finding people interested in things you're interested in who are willing to get involved beyond just posting.

Searching by tags (instead of using trending) and then commenting on posts with active comments sections and a responding OP is also a good way to start the social game. I credit much of my early traction on here to finding great people to follow early on then leaving very meaty comments on their posts, comments they wanted to engage with. Over time they wanted to also see my posts, and the game was on!

But another part of the social factor is that people downvote here. And when they do, if they have enough money/reputation they take away some of your money/reputation. And they can post mean things about you too, ridiculing what you do.

I mention this because while you CAN post quotepics and one-liners on here like on FB, if you do you're likely to be punished for it by those who feel the platform SHOULD be a quality blogging platform.

Thankfully there are other steem dapps besides steemit. You can just leave a quotepic on something like dLike, I believe. You can just drop an image on steepshot. You can just upload a video to dtube, with maybe a sentence of description so someone knows why they're interested in watching it. And so on. Having to write long blog articles is apparently a steemit requisite, but not a steem one.

However, needing to socialize off and on the platform to build relationships is a requisite for success. Even if you buy a lot of steem to power up, you still won't find this a place you actually want to be if you don't form a community around you or join one. Because we are all social beings. I don't think anything is wrong with that, other than an unwillingness to accept it and adjust accordingly.

You can post FB type content here but it wont be well received as that is not the development stage the platform is in. For FB content to work you need to have a close network of people who you know. On steem at the moment for the most part people don't know each other in real life and they need something more than FB content to draw them into the new relationships. I think the FB type content is better served on a DApp running its on SMT rather than the top level of the steem blockchain; but time will tell. It is a little chicken and egg with the user base but while we try and have the top level be everything to everyone it is going to be difficult to make the majority happy.

What's interesting is that dtube doesn't have blog posts, but steemit does have dtube posts. Steemhunt doesn't have blog posts, but steemit does have hunt posts. Etc.

Where is the place that there is only blog content?

I think that's part of why people get annoyed on steemit. I imagine steemhunt folks would feel the same about having blog posts mixed in on there.

The dLike type content (which is a lot like FB I think), is being shown to people looking for blog articles because those people have no dapp dedicated to what they value. So they try to police everyone a way no one else (on other dapps) is doing.

Yes. I think SMT's will solve a lot of that and we can categorize content into sub platforms. View posts in Steepshot and you only see those posts from steepshot but on the top level viewers like steemit/steempeak/busy you get a mesh of all different content with a broken trending system

I just hope something is made for blog content that isn't considered "top level." It would seem to me that busy/steempeak should be that, but do they intend to? Does anyone intend to?

Time will tell.

ok so i look at some of these posts that people post "photography " some of the most horrific photos get like 300.00 .......then if you look at mine i have some substantial work real photos not some one sitting down to eat with a group of friends ..........i repeat REAL photography ....not a big story line but about the photos i take and every one no one seen them ....so my question is why bother or...how can you claim what you say is true no joke go look at my photos then go look at the ones getting like 150.00 200.00 even 350.00 i kinda agree with the guy up top

You can consider Steemit a pretty decent reflection of reality in this sense. As a professional musician I constantly see shite get to fame and glory, take jobs they don't deserve and end with massive paychecks I could never dream of. Why? Because the old mantra: 'it's who you know, not what you know'.

Exact same thing applies here. Suck up to the right people and you get what you desire. Be an honest, hardworking blue collar and nothing else, and you rarely get anywhere (unless some twitter video goes viral and somebody boots up a kickstarter to support you)

Some of the greatest work in the world is locked away in museums where almost nobody goes - especially not for a price - to see them. The people are not searching for, nor rewarding, things based on objective quality standards, unfortunately. This is actually not so much a Steem problem as a human problem, imo

you have to post quality content like this

!popcorn

Every art abd discipline should have an audience I on the contrary stop by fine photography and art and music and less on crypto related or philosophy, we are all different and thatvis why we must be consistent building our feeds, but curating high quality speaks good of the pkatform as it soeaks badly rewarding low quality, though subjective we all can make thevñ difference of a shit post. Itbis true that networking builds up your possible rewards but high rep should not make you lazy knowing you get the cake anyway, up the ladder to help down the ladder, but it is not that way, usually

You can consider Steemit a pretty decent reflection of reality in this sense

It is amazing that people expect different rules to apply here to reality. Income distributions on steemit are not fair; but neither is life. Steem is a reflection of the financial inequality which is already present in its user base, nothing more, nothing less. At least with an inflationary system there is a chance over time to reward hard work with upward mobility; which is a lot more than can be said with stratified financial systems which lock the lower classes out of the economy completely.

Try @steepshot, @xlcaptainblacklx they have a better interface than @steemit and will probably upvote most of your posts.

We earn anywhere from $0.05 to $0.20 per post on @zaclucasrice's account. It isn't a huge amount of money but it's a start!

Just an FYI, I looked at your photography, and if you'd like more upvotes or engagement you should be using the photography tags that are active and supportive like #photofeed #photomag #photocircle etc..

I wish I read this before posting my comment lol !

With respect to photography you need to engage in the communities that value it such as @photofeed , @photocircle, @photomag etc if you want to get noticed. The values in trending are irrelevant as they are paid upvotes. It is like complaining that your photos are not up on the billboards as you drive down the highway. It is not the best photos in those advertisements, it is the people who paid to put them up there who can choose what they are.

@xlcaptainblacklx agreed, you can't look at trending to get an idea of the kinds of profits photographers are making on Steem. Most of the trending payouts as @intrepidphotos said are from purchased votes. I think I have found relative success here on Steem, but it is not to the tune of a $300 payout per post. That's unrealistic. However, by engaging in the active photography communities on Steem, a good number of my recent posts have multiple dollar payouts pending and my latest has $25. All except one recent post were from organic and community upvoting without paid votes.

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Fair enough but who sees these photos. What kind of following have you built up that will appreciate the work that you put up. Those people earning large amounts have people following them who will give them votes maybe not entirely down to the quality of the post but due to the relationship built over time.

If you were on Instagram and had a thousand nobody's following you do you think that you would be earning money and gaining sponsorship deals? I doubt it. If you had 10 million followers and multiple celebrities on your account you would have companies pushing to give you money.

Content is only one of the factors in earning money. You also have time, hard work, investment and connections. Any of these can help you but all of them means success.

Do you just post photos and expect people to give you votes and money for them? Not trying to sound harsh but photography doesn't interest me so on my feed I would just skip past most of it. What you need is to find people that have an interest in it and willing to support good work. There are plenty of them out there but you will need to catch there attention first.

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Very good points. Again it comes to expectations. On IG no one would be expected to be rewarded so they happily give away their content for others to monetize.

Re not liking photography perhaps you have just not found the right type of photography to interest you ;-)

Hey dear sir i wellcome you to my whatsapp group we will talk there ok

Great point it's also the time you have to spend and the fun you get out of it.

Very salient points made in addressing ongoing changes on the platform. Your observation about how the mainstream social media giants are able to attract and retain members hits the nail on the head. Ease of use and content discovery are main drivers in keeping on those platforms. Community engagement also plays a critical role in this process. One might ask, what is in it for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., to offer low-key friction entry and interaction for their respective user bases? That's because those users are the product and selling information about those users is big business; and with the exception YouTube in some cases, users receive no compensation for their contributions. Nevertheless, people return to those platforms because of the overall user experience. In my opinion, Steemit should not be about a money grab as such an environment would limit its appeal and severely impact its future prospects. Technicals are very important but if the UI and UX are neglected, then the vision/mission will likely fail. Let's hope the Steemit team will take the points being made in this thread to heart and make a true effort to make Steemit the social media platform of choice.

Yes ease of use and content discovery ; which is why steemit is dying as a proof of concept and other steem interfaces will take over.

You guys (StemSTEM) are one of the shining lights on steem. I think you have hit the nail on the head about people not liking blogging. They come here expecting to be paid for simple social media content and then realize that to make an impact they need to produce quality long form written content or quality original creative works (art, photography ,etc) and then hustle like a musician trying to get their first record deal. The reality is that for most people that is unachievable and they leave disappointed. I am hoping that SMT's and DApps like APPICS will solve this for the masses who can onboard a dedicated app which is closer to what they are traditionally used to. This will leave top level steem for long form bloggers and their followers who are interested in consuming that kind of content. As a photographer I have 80k followers on other social media platforms and I can count on one hand how many I have successfully transitioned over to steem.

Again love the work SteemSTEM is doing at a time in history when anti-science is on the rise. I hope to contribute to it next year once I have a bit more time free as I have a background of 15 years developing renewable energy systems and trying to manage clean tech startup companies.

Gold comment!

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Networking is the most important thing in social media, I've underlined that several times in my older posts. Commenting on posts is one minor step for building an audience, I think the chats are where the action is. It's my favorite means of communication because it's live and easier to reach a wide audience. Thus, Steemit becomes complimentary to the chat networks with the benefit of reaping rewards. When I started my journey on Steemit, I spent most of my time chatting, meeting people and making new friends. I had no expectations of making it big on Steemit, so even if I didn't succeed, I wouldn't have been disappointed. Perhaps it's not easy to have such a disciplined mindset, because people see the trending page with shit posts making hundreds of dollars, while they work their ass off to get noticed with quality posts. I blame the irresponsible people who trend their shit posts for giving minnows a false sense of hope and a promise that may be difficult to fulfill.

it does confuse people, but that's why a voice of balance has to be just as loud somehow someway...

Te apoyo amigo

@meno not all people can blog.
To be able to have a success in here one must be persistent and just learn how to share what are their passions in life by blogging in here and then they will discover like-minded people who can help them grow.
It is not immediate because it is a slow process but once you get your ball rolling it will have a snowball effect until one day you are already one of the so=called dolphins.
As pointers newbies must read and comment, dolphins create content and comment, whales can just curate. It will create a steem economy making steem more valuable because it is being saved as SP in the process.

I agree about focusing on community, but why do we have to get on Discord or Steemchat? Why not chat on here?

Also, what if some of us would rather spend time creating than socializing? A lot of creators are introverts and I don’t believe we as a society need to continue to punish them for not socializing.

Also, not all of us want to have our faces all over the web for a bunch of strangers. What’s this a bar or a publishing platform?

A front end could make chatting on here a little more fluid, but as it stands it's not very conducive. It's like chatting with emails.

Regarding punishing introverts, I don't know what to tell you. There are exceptions, there are quite a few examples I can think of of geniuses who were introverts, Tesla comes to mind, but statistically speaking introverts usually struggle more to get ahead in life, we are after all a social species.

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so why not appreciate each individual for the way they are instead of forcing them to convert, and bully them economically if they don’t. Aren’t we paying now for the disregard society had shown towards Tesla’s efforts?

Yes we are social beings, and just because an introvert contribute through their work and effort instead of chatting or immediate social interaction doesn’t mean they are being anti-social. I wittiness many chatter boxes who act in very antisocial manners.

also, a chat program built on top of the steem engine sounds like a fantastic idea to mobilize the currency.

suggestion:

burn inactive accounts to release the pressure on the remainder of the system and could help appreciate the currency.

I think this is spot on. I actually wrote a post a few weeks back on my favorite discord channels for newbies to start finding support. I didn't learn that myself until after a few months. (Before that I was fortunate to at least learn to prioritize following people who responded to comments on their posts, and being able to invest some in STEEM.)

Now I would say that my community relationships are definitely the most important part of my steemit experience, even though I earn a decent amount for these depressed STEEM prices. There are other places to earn more, but I still spend the bulk of my time with my communities here.

Really I hate communicating in chat. It's so difficult to keep track of a conversation that it literally gives me a headache. But until there are groups on this platform, it is a necessity to get those really wonderful conversations going in the comments threads on your posts.

I don't like the chat sections myself either. It would be nice if we had something integrated to steemit itself for those conversations. Maybe in the future.

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I think definitely in the future there will be. In the meantime, we really have to buckle down and just deal with discord.

Always love your advice. There should be a regular Dear Meno post.

That's actually a pretty good format !

Hello, Future.

My name is @NoNamesLeftToUse. I hope, by the time you read this, I've found a name to use. If not, that's okay too, I guess.

Brilliant! This post needs to be trending #1