Are You Using Your Vote To Promote What You Want To See More Of On SteemIt?
Many people post/talk about being unhappy with the trending page, or not liking the value of this post or that one. It has been discussed that what we like or want to see more of is relative to our personal preferences.
However, are you using your vote to help mold SteemIt?
If you are reading this there is a good chance you are using at least some of your votes to reward content that you like and to help promote the growth of the site. Some have just turned on a voting bot and have mostly walked away. That is their right as they are the holders of their stake and I support their ability to use their stake how they like. We all benefit from them "holding" their Steem.
I can not blame you either way, as I have been excited about earning some easy Steem myself. However, as we grow, I have made a decision to voice my opinion of content with my vote. It is easy to lose sight of long-term goals in becoming focused on short-term rewards.It is not my intention to criticize anyone or tell anyone what to vote on. I just want to encourage everyone to promote what you want to see more of. I personally want more diversity, I want to see articles on parenting, sports, special interests, science, view points, etc. I want to use my vote to support new-users and minnows who are swimming upstreem to get noticed.
All votes are not upvotes, we also have the power of the flag.
I flag posts that have 1 picture or sometimes a video and no words. At least tell me why you are sharing it.
To be clear, I don't care about the pennies, I care about the clutter though. I don't use bots for voting on this account and I never have. I don't seek curation rewards, I vote for what I find interesting, at the time I see it. (Natural Use) I often scroll down "New". For the most part during my SteemIt Journey I have avoided flagging and leaned towards education and discussion. The number of 1 picture posts, and other crap I see with no text makes it harder for me to find the people who are trying to write, post and interact on SteemIt. So, if I right click and google search that photo and there are millions of copies out there, I am just going to flag it. That is how I am choosing to use my stake. I am not going to find a special room on SteemIt chat and report anyone or join a police squad, I am just going to do a bit of clean up as I go.
What are you using your votes to support? Do your actions help mold SteemIt in the direction you want to see it grow?
What about your flag? Are you using it yet? It is a tool provided to us to keep the site clean :)
Let's talk about it.
I fear it is an uphill battle, as besides the clutter we have begging (please upvote and follow me type junk), and usually they reply like thus not even bothering to upvote what they have obviously not read either.
I do support the bot and use it, not just for easy Steem, as you can see I post a lot of articles, replies and comments. But it is because I travel a lot and quite honestly can not always keep up with good value posters I follow. It is my way of support for their effort, value to the platform and support of my posts.
That said... those with value will rise, those without will not.
Over the long term, yes. Spammers and such might make a few bucks in the short-term, but in the long-term they are doomed to failure.
@whatup
I don't suggest anyone to Flagged any posts. The last one I seen someone being Flagged back in result, all their posts rewards being wipes off.
If you can not afford to lose what you have please stay out.
I have been Flagging Plagiarism posts, yes they do fight back.
Can afford to lose what you have?
Things that I flagged are
Resistance is Futile ...
I'm not overly worried about people fighting back. Offenders tend to have relatively low Reputations and low Steem Power.
@preparedwombat
You haven’t meet whales with low Reputation yet.
There are a few here.
You have been warned.
Yeah, that's why I said tend. 😜
I have noticed that there are at least a few Steemians with 100,000+ SP and low Reputations. Some of them have never even posted and are at 25, as if they're newbies. Why anyone would have that much invested here and not be at least semi-active on the site is beyond me.
I pretty much have a similar view to yours @whatsup and have done from when I first joined about a year ago.
I heard about these bots and I wanted to know more. In one way they are convenient in that you can vote for those you wish to support without having to find their content. But saying that you might upvote on a post that, if you have seen, you might have decided against. It is also a way of earning easy money, as you say. But of course modern times is all about making easy money. The banksters and the stock-market fraudsters we can thank for that.
I dont use a bot myself and never have. I prefer to actually read content and decide from that.
Perhaps when Steemit reaches a million "actual" users then they will do away with bots?
When I discovered Steemit it was a refreshing change for me. A place where I could find good honest content and also upload content I wanted to share.
Im not the best at interaction but if something gets my attention, like this post for example, then I always write my thoughts.
I have not thought about the flagging and have never once used it. The danger is it can create a flagging war of which I have seen. Its a tricky one.
With regards to "shaping" Steemit, this is a major point you bring up.
What exactly do we want Steemit to be?
I guess market forces will have some say in this.
From the beginning I have made a point of welcoming newbies in the inroduceyourself tag. And from this I have noticed a distinct increase in the motivation to make money. The other day o went into steemit chat and within 5 seconds someone asked me: "shall we swap upvotes". Forget the content, just give me your upvote. I see this more and more.
I understand this and it is a free system but it does rather defeat the point IMO- Why not create a blockchain platform where people can just upvote each other for the sake of making money. Who needs content.
I have noticed this change even in my short time on here and it definitely has something to do with money.
When I started the value of steem was so low it took many many many votes to make any actual cash. I was checking this out the other day. On one of my first posts there had almost 200 upvotes and I made just over $2 lol. All who started (after offering value price fell I mean) we posted inspite of this low value. No one can accuse s of being in it for the money at that time. Yeah we all hope it would rise but it was an act of faith for all of us. And because of this there was a genuine sense of "we are all in this together". At least that is how I felt.
Newbies ask me a lot of questions on how they can make money on steemit. As aI say this is understandable in one way and I totally agree we should be rewarded for good content. I suppose I hope Steemit would transcend this impulse but of course Steemit itself is promoted as a place where you get paid for content. I dont know where it is all going but life has a way of being driven by wave of public wants and wishes whether we like it or not.
I can not control steemit, no one can, butI can control myself, and as such I will continue to look for and upvote good content.
Very powerful indeed and yes something a lot of people need to consider when upvoting things! Thanks for this post!
Sincerely,
@joeparys
whatsup you are always a voice of logic I very much appreciate your existence.
I am a little scared to flag post so they dont rage on my account or anything, i have seen wars between people and I am not encouriging that. However i chose to upvote content i like and so that content keeps comming :)
@whatsup i see that you are still lost on your way to the bitcoin store...i still have a beer waiting for ya if you ever end up in colorado land...
I appreciate the reality that people that are owners of steem have a level of power thats seen in their vote. I appreciate the ability to choose, and I think its the baseline of being powerful.
I am trying to push the #discussion tag @timcliff introduced earlier last month and was wondering if you would check out this post and if you like it engage the discussion, up vote and maybe even resteem it...I am trying to up my ownership in the steem world and need some whale figures to look at me...
https://steemit.com/racism/@breakthrough/racial-reconciliation-main-stream-media-being-politically-correct-discussion
I don't flag very often, but when I do flag, it's hate speech that tends to earn a flag. Yeah, I should probably flag copy-pasta more often than I do now.
Yes, we want to see in steemit meaningful things and learn more by interesting article, and not like some who use there photos(body) to attract people to upvote. @whatsup
Me saying my honesty here, I use my vote to for projects I support even it worth little. I flag user once because it was spammy and I was annoyed.
I am not fan of bot voting but I am using it to help people around me, so I kinda have my own voting guild to constantly support my favorite users who constantly creating quality posts whilst also contributing to steemit.
@whatsup - Ma'm if I see a valuable content I'll upvote it & resteem it as well. I never used bots & don't know the how it effects our earnings either. I never flagged anyone & I want to be friendly with everyone ma'm. Love what you shared & nice to hear others opinion as well <3
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
@whatsup,
Vote power made more income votes! Yeah I believe this! And personally I like to give 100% upvote for every article I am willing to read and I am willing to comment!
Flag, I am trying to avoid it! Only 2 times used it in effective way!
Bots, sometimes I am using boosters, coz people won't upvote my posts and I hate and I can't write long stories! If I do, definitely it will not interesting thing at all :D
But now I am averagely earning $1 per day by posting! Yeah I found a way to add a value via existing sources to the community! I know it's not much, but I am happy about that!
Let's see what others say about this! But I want to tell you I hate upvote my own posts! I did before at the beginning! But now, I don't do and hate it!
Cheers~
This is a valid point. I recently got involved with a group on Discord, and one of the ways I use my votes is to support the excellent content the other members of the group are generating. It's hard to browse new because it takes such a long time to find a good post to vote on. I applaud you for doing this, though, because one upvote on a well crafted post by a newbie could keep them making great content and not falling victim to the copy and paste madness.
As for downvoting, it's hard to decide when to do this. I always feel better giving upvotes to good content than down votes to poor content. I hope we can keep this up in the future to continue promoting great content.
Thanks for your thoughts.
@originalworks
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @whatsup to be original material and upvoted it!
To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
To enter this post into the daily RESTEEM contest, upvote this comment! The user with the most upvotes on their @OriginalWorks comment will win!
For more information, Click Here!
Special thanks to @reggaemuffin for being a supporter! Vote him as a witness to help make Steemit a better place!
I'm not a fan of bot voting, although I do understand why some choose to go down that route.
I'm also not a fan of the one picture post with no content as it's just lazy and shows a lack of thought or even respect for the platform. I put a lot of work into my posts and like to see people do the same, I want to help educate people in the subjects that interest me and to give anything less than 100% would be disingenuous.
To date I have never used a flag however I have been opinion flagged which I'm not a fan of as its a slippery slope and shows a lack of respect for the opinion of others. IMO Flagging should be saved for spammers, disgusting, cruel, plagiarised, and just plain wrong posts. Although as I said the copy, paste and drop brigade need to be discouraged.
This was a post worth voting for!
Well there is a mix of clutter and good content here on Steemit. Taking time to appreciate what good content is has turned Steemit into a content mill; some content has no meaning at all ( opinion). There is however good content that needs to be rewarded by users and that is what I go for.
I tend to upvote most of the post that i like, specially of the newcomers. Since I always remember how hard it is to get vote when I started.
And I haven't flag anyone.
I feel upvote is a tool that we need to use wisely
Cheers!
Good post. I'm fairly new here, and yes, i vote on things i want to see here. What bothers me is the users with huge amounts of steem power and big follower base who upvote themselves. I think its a huge mistake in the Steemit system. A person who already has a big share of the network, takes away even more profit from his followers. That's a big no for me when deciding to vote. Even if content is good.
Thats really a great post and well said @whatup, so upvoted and reteemed by little me ) regards to you and your vision of Steemit !
Since joining steemit I have never used the flag/downvote. I don't think I will be using it as fighting with these abusers can be bad for my own account, they will surely retaliate. It is better we report the case to the steemcleaners and the justice will be done for sure.
I do get some spammy comments on my posts, but I always guide these people, some of them take the good advise and others just don't care and keep on doing the same.
Education is also very important, there are many users who still are not aware that they are spammers, they did not do this on purpose, they just thought that's the way they have to socialize.
i am for sure using it for the best :)
I also don't use bots. I think we are in a minority! I have also started using flags in the last 3 months or so, which I never did before.
There are many posts that are just paraphrased news articles which get tons of upvotes. I avoid up-voting such posts except when I see a huge reward potential (yes, I know ... greed). I don't like when people post somebody else's video from Youtube and hope for upvotes. There are really a lot of spammers on Steemit.
You must be very careful when flagging people's posts because this could backfire on you. It almost happened to me when I saw how a user copied other user's work and when he noticed that I flagged him he immediately flagged my latest post. He had more reputation and Steem power which damaged my rewards.
Thanks for your continued efforts to make Steemit a better place. The more of us that keep reminding people that this is a SOCIAL platform, the better chance we have of altering the mindset. I understand why people use vote bots, but at the same time they are missing out on reading many good and informative posts because their bots have already voted for them. If people don't have the time to vote, why not delegate some SP to those who CAN vote manually on their behalf? And when they do find time, turn off the bot and make some manual votes. I know, its not easy, but the more we at least TRY, the closer we come to the ideal.
I have not used my flag yet. But if I encounter something that is outrageous or criminal, I will flag, definitely!
I know right? I also said it would be nice if we could choose categories of themes we want to see, then maybe you stand a chance of someone actually reading your posts instead of it disappearing after two seconds of posting. Then people get to see things they have an interest in. Many new posts I have seen are written in a language I don't even understand. If they have their own steemit section, then your post will have a longer time on the new post section and people will actually see it! Thanks for bringing this up, you have a really good point.
I was thinking about something along the same lines. Say I don't like a post that is making a bad person famous. Just an example a mass shooter. Should I flag a post because 1 they are posting the shooters name and "achievements" (monstrosity's) and 2 gaining money from this post. I vote to encourage people to continue with content I like but should I flag for my personal moral reasons?
It has been hard for me to not jump on this voting bot train. I post a fair amount and it is nice to get that initial boost. But, it is not what I want out of steemit.
I do enter and run giveaways and contests. I have fun doing this and I have used my winnings to power up my account as I want my vote to mean something.
Contests can be a lot of fun for new people here as it is an easy way to get active and a good reason to log back in!
Beyond that, I do comment a lot and try to get good conversations going whenever I can! :)
On the issue of quality post, i think steemit is also about helping people and so one does not need to post a quality post to get an upvote for a while especially if it is minnow at least since they are trying to discover themselves on this platform. But even has one votes for a low quality post, at the same time you can encourage the person to produce a better high quality post i think.
upvote & resteem & comment are the rewards i'm giving to good contents. excellent post @whatsup
ReSteemia
'UpVoted ReSteemed Commented'
All comments are different. While some are limited to the usual phrase (for example, "Super" and everything) others create excellent comments, which I want to give my voice to, what I'm doing. But but as to how I react to negative feedback, I have not yet encountered flags, not received and did not give.
Although I think that flags are needed, what would be the order Otherwise, you can get to mess chaos
@whatsup
Thanks for sharing this article,read people's opinion on it
Have never used bots and also never flag too
I think some people haven't really been enlighten about this wonderful community.
Am speaking from experience. I was told you can post anything,especially pictures without writing what its really about just like facebook but after reading this article,there is a lot to read and learn.
Thanks for the knowledge shared
I use my vote to support the good people in their posts and comments. I mostly just flag spam comments, but I've done some posts that mis-use tags.
I've seen some people who do 'nice post' comments and give themselves a big vote whilst giving nothing to the post. That's a very cynical money grab. Some are too big for me to risk getting into a flagging war. I'd hope some whales will support bots who deal with that sort of behaviour.
I've delegated some of my SP to people I trust to use it well. I'm not too worried about losing some curation rewards. I don't tend to give much of a vote to posts that already made a lot. I want to see the rewards spread to more people.
When i see a post that needs to be flagged and so i just leave it and when i come back to check i see it already flagged. So i don't flag much, in fact i have never flagged.
Incredibly helpful article for me @whatsup especially for my new beginning here at Steemit. Most of my time thus far has been scrolling through the many posts finding those that resonate with me. We live in a time of mass confusion it seems as to the state of the nation and the world as a whole. What is important to me obviously is not a primary focus for many here at Steemit, however the platform can be created to serve the many purposes.
I am one that is moving toward a more Fully Informed Public so naturally many of the posts with simply a picture and quick blurb of the day is not as important to me. I think your message here has set me at more ease in the realization, Steemit will be what we the members create.
You have cleared up a great many questions I have been building and certainly will follow to gain more knowledge on best practices. Again thank you for your help and encouragement. Steem On! @vickiebarker
Excellent article and very promising topic, I, too, like all of us use my voice and agree that it should be done only for interesting messages and comments. Thus, I promote interesting, in my opinion, content forward. For the same reasons, I use the flag to filter out bad or offensive content. Something like this :) Thanks @whatsup
Very interesting post @whatsup.
Thank you for sharing.
Upvote
Excellent topic and great article.
Thanks @whatsup
Great day.
you says right....i like this post,very good post,thanks for sharing
This wonderful post has received a bellyrub 1.66 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to this cool cat: @steemfeed. My pops @zeartul is one of your top steemit witness, if you like my bellyrubs please go vote for him, if you love what he is doing vote for this comment as well.
Thank you for sharing.
Upvote
I used Steemvoter for a while, but I don't really need it anymore, at least for now. I do however care somewhat for the curation rewards, and this is why I tend to use most upvotes on articles with low rewards or for comments.
Thanks for sharing this article,read people's opinion on it
You know sir the problem is the miss use of flags you got me right ! which man i am talking about there is only one who missuses its power and kill every talented man just arguing badassly without proof witness the doing of him can kill this beautiful community if it isnt stopped at the right time ! you know who is doing it ! i really hate false rubbish idiotic flags seriously sir ! this need to be stop right now !
upvoted......
congratulation friend for nice post.please follow me and help each other. @shiqder
1% flag for spam. Be original and interesting
Good Work Boss ! kill all those spammmers !