Introducing:
Project positivity
Many thanks to @kushed for lending us his posting key to get this project off the ground. It’s something we, @honeyscribe and I, hold close to our hearts.
What’s it all about?
Well, as you know I’m all about spreading that good vibe into the community, and, as of late we’ve been hit with a lot of negativity. I’ve not been very vocal about it but I’ve certainly watched people unfold and tear themselves to pieces over who deserves what and so on.
So we aim to cut through that mess and create a more cohesive and collaborative community; one that celebrates the rewards of others and embraces humanity for what it is. We may all be different but there are definitely similarities in every one of us on whatever level.
The Challenge
We are divided. Naturally, we see each other in divisions of geographical area, skin colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation and so on. It’s what we’re born into. We are bred to believe that we’re different on every level. But as someone that has worked closely with people from all walks of life I can guarantee you that we’re not as different as you may think. Some of us may like the same music, or have the same friends, it could even be as simple as liking the same politician. Whatever the case, we plan to focus intrinsically on what binds us together rather than tears us apart.
Our community will be one without labels. A hard feat, but one that we hope to accomplish.
Project Aims
• Create a cohesive and collaborative community, one that backs each other up rather than strips each other down
• Host weekly challenges; challenges that will test the very person that you are inside, articles that we enjoy will get a whale upvote, and hopefully more whales will join us
• Create a labelless community and in our channel on steemit.chat
• Encourage people to write on a higher level
• Help people process their feelings better through experience based writing
• Inspire and encourage free thought and different ideas for Steemit.
The Landscape
You guys are great, you really are. You are the bread and butter of this platform. We need the minnows just as much as the dolphins and the whales – we’re a nice little tightly run ship. There are lots of great potential writers out there because we know, we’ve seen it in you! And we see you sharing valuable content daily. And we all co-exist in a lovely little technical eco-system.
What we haven’t seen though is much thought inspired differentiation. There are some others out there which have taken Steemit into gambling, and art, which is awesome, but we’d like to see more. Google ‘writing niche’s’ for an example of how many there actually are.
This platform was designed to govern itself, and create idea forks through that. We hope to be the pivotal idea fork that drives Steemit into a thousand other idea forks; limits? Endless.
The Problem.
I’ll will be the first in putting my hand up and stating that I too have been guilty of writing ‘for’ the platform and not for myself. You see, the reason why I am hosted on the Huffington Post is that because every time I take to writing I do it for myself, for the love of writing. And this platform has separated me from that. I’ve been caught chasing the money. And that’s not what it’s about.
Writing should be about you. All the best writers do so because they love it. Because learning to write and becoming a good, published author takes hours and hours of alone time, with only your thoughts to play with, and a great amount of self-oomph.
And we’ve been afraid to take that creativity out of its boundaries in case our rewards are effected, who wants to be stuck on 1p all their lives through thinking out of the box, right? We’ve been writing for Steemit, and not bending Steemit to our writing.
The Solution
Okay. Here’s where we are so far. There’s myself, @honeyscribe and @kushed on board at the start. So, firstly we’ll be looking for great content. People that show themselves to go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to writing, people that take that leap into the unknown and allow themselves to be vulnerable. We also won’t just be looking for hardcore writers, we only ask that you’re ‘trying’. We’ll be looking for lived experience, non-fiction and a plethora of other stuff.
We absolutely understand that no-one becomes a professional on the first day; that’s just silly. But we also understand how frustrating and demanding getting started can be. All participants will find us dropping hints and tips on how to better their work in their comments sections – so we fully plan to help you grow as writers too. We have a commitment to you, as well as ourselves.
At first we plan to host weekly writing prompts on our feeds that anyone can join in. Posts that I like will get an upvote from me and @kushed. Similarly, since @honeyscribe has different interests to me, posts that she likes will get an upvote from her and @kushed. We will also encourage all whales that like the idea of this project to follow suit, but, we respect diversity and if you don’t like what we share then don’t upvote it! But we hope you do :)
It will also be highly encouraged that participant minnows and dolphins to get busy on upvoting – we will want to encourage cohesion, a community that rewards each other for being what it is, a community.
And remember, positivity is an integral theme to this project, so not only will you be rewarded for positive posts, we’ll also be searching for and up voting positive comments from people on this platform as a “way to go for being awesome to one another”. We’ll be ignoring all the hate.
The future
Well this alone is no easy feat, and I’d hate to put a timeframe on achieving what we initially plan to do, but I’d like to say the choice is yours on the future. We’ll be encouraging new and forward thinking ideas as part of our brief, so who knows where we’ll be a month? A year? Down the line. It’s all up to you. And this is your awesome chance,
To make Steemit fucking awesome,
FOR EVERYONE.
Although the name seems a little too "light side" for me, I am all about being awesome. I am also trying to express my feelings in ways that do not involve force choking, so I appreciate the goals of your project.
I'll be over here being awesome if you need me.
Haha - that's just awesome :)
You only force choke the ones you love. Or, so I've been told. ;)
great post !! so pleased you make so well these points !! thankyou !
@lifeisawesome, what an awesome way to build a stronger steemit community. One of my biggest concerns here on steemit, is all the unrecognized quality writing. Here is to a better tomorrow.
Well, @honeyscribe and I are both published authors - we'll be working hard to recognise those that are already awesome, and similarly those that are trying to be awesome :)
source: goinglong.ca
Totally! :D
True awesome is totally, absolutely without conflict.
Without conflict the word positive may not even be needed.
I don't know if this would match your project goals but a striking thing someone said in steemit.chat one day is that he doesn't see many funny posts here. I thought about it a little bit and agreed. Encouraging funny stuff could be a good curation goal as well.
Great idea - I'll add that for a list of things to get out there :)
the art of up front truth and transparency, without revealing identity, brilliant ☺
Yep! My identity is important, and more-so now that I'll be joining the weekly challenges with some totally transparent writing; things I'd die to share with my signatory to.
Amazing finally three of my favorite users combing into on force! Today is going to be a good day!
I'm excited you feel this way @carlidos! Thank you for extending the welcome mat.
I feel the same, thanks, Carlidos :D
On the surface I'm all for this idea! And honestly it's great to see you three in particular spearheading this after recent controversy that I'm happy to steer clear of. Regardless of the past (what may or may not have occurred, idk) this is a great way to change the tide and give something back to the community.
How someone earns money is interesting. How that money is used is character defining. We don't often hear complaints about the 'rich' who delve their time and resources into honest community oriented/charity work.
One thing that isn't so much a problem, but that may pull this project off message, is that I fear this easily can become just another curation group (which isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself.) In the sense of building community, trust, positivity and ideally generating conversation it's easy for authors to get stuck in the 'me' mentality and write for the curation, instead of the intention. I do commend the focus on positive posts and comments (which in particular are lacking love atm) and don't want to have any of this sounding like I'm against your project.
What comes to mind is mixing the concept of a curation group with a author/artist challenge. For example still spend some time curating general positive posts and comments (similar to curation groups, just with a focus) but also put out calls for people to post on a specific topic, like how to generate trust, or to find and create an impactful method to help (where an external charity/person in need, or how to help other users internally.) Priming people to think along these lines can help keep some authors on point, and bring voices out you may not have heard. Things like this shouldn't necessarily be judged on a post being formatted well or pretty, but rather the generated view and ideas themselves.
Further, I'd love to see an actual discussion generate and ideally have rewards available for good participation. This can either be done in the chatroom or even on a stand alone post. Often users here get stuck in inside their group of authors/friends they see/read...so I see having some centralized place for such discussions to be very helpful while having the ability to keep messages positive and constructive.
I trust your intentions on this project and would love to see it stand out in enhancing positivity and trust amongst community members in general. I just feel that it needs to have something unique beyond purely a curation group for this to happen.
Anyway, just my thoughts. Let me know if I can be helpful to you all in this project, happy to do what I can.
true that which you say here !! upvoted !! Curation foundation groups can become a ghetto i feel. So yes we really need to keep our eyes open and aware of the new things coming in and not get too locked into whatever other people decide is good and has value !!
Thank you!
Personally I see the goal of curie/rhw to be finding and rewarding those with good content, without a reward yet, with the hopes of 'spreading the wealth' around a bit as well as new user retention.
This project imo seems more geared towards maintaining a dialogue, positive outlook and ideally trust with all members regardless of the rewards (many of whom $20ish dollars is but a drop in the bucket.) Long term positivity, in my eyes, needs a little something more than just votes and payouts can generate, such as building a some shared understanding and trust that we have some common community goal. It's more a focus on the group as a whole versus the individuals.
Oh I so need you in #project-positivity on steemit chat when you have the chance. My actual goal for this project is to spearhead change and diversity. I mean currently it's great that we're recognising people that are already capable of writing a well informed piece, but what we're sadly lacking is innovation of any kind right now. Your post highlighted this. I WANT to generate discussion, to take people into different avenues, and largely by their own doing. My life experience is limited, and there are a truck load of users on here with different skillsets - let's use that.
Project positivity is in no way just a curations project - you can see our first post for example, we're calling for thought based articles, and that will only grow each week. We also have #writing-exchange ran by the lovely @honeyscribe who is more than experienced to begin a persons journey into writing, or, take an experienced writer further into their skillset.
But that's just us. That's our skillsets managed. What about you? What can you, and everyone else do? We have the clout backing to take a leap into the unknown. We call for ideas, we want more!!
Sound inspiring? Join us in #project-positivity and #writing-exchange
yes i saw this another good venture coming online like Curie which is cool for the smaller newr good posters !! Or actually why not even me ?? ; - )
I'm definitely on board with you and will have to think on it some more. I saw your first post after I had initially made my comment, so that definitely helped to frame what you had in mind a little better.
I think your first challenge is a great one! Not only does it allow users to bear their soul (which is pretty necessary for an 'overcome' story) but also ideally helps others to get a better idea of who that writer is as a person. It's frequently forgotten that we all have our current imprints/reactions built from personal history and experience.
Some similar things I've seen around here that may be useful include Random Acts of Kindness which focused on the 'here and now' of paying something forward (commonly SD's) and Hearing about previous kind acts that focused more on past experiences of niceness.
I do think that stepping outside of the post/writing experience itself is necessary here. Every single person here checks their post payout form the previous night, with the hopes of seeing it 'pop.' And I'm not saying this is wrong, but it's an impediment in my mind when the focus isn't just on individual positivity but for the whole community itself. Especially considering how anything over a week or two old here tends to get buried and forgotten about.
So, my outside the box thoughts....
Generate a discussion on a community mission statement. I understand the want to get away from 'facebookers talking about facebook,' however this place is rather distinct from other social networks in that, simply by having the economic backbone that Steemit sits on, longterm and impactful solutions become readily available. No one on FB has input on what FB does, how it generates money, or where that profit is spent. Users are completely disconnected from those who run the site and commonly vice versa. That's not the case here.
With this in mind, a discussion between smaller/newer users with those at the top (whales/witnesses) is a HUGE must in my mind. Just having @picokernal (and recently @ned for a Q and A session) come into steemspeak to give those in there a better idea of what's going on, intentions, things in the pipeline, etc.. was insanely helpful to me personally, so that I could convey that to users both in and outside of Steemprentice. I'm by no means saying that general users need to know and understand everything, but things like this go a LOOONG way to being able to give those founders/whales/witnesses the benefit of the doubt on their intentions. Even though it's rarely discussed, often success is both a combination of writing (or other) skills AND how much somebody likes/trusts you as a person. On steemit what we are really doing is branding ourselves with our posts and behavior and ideally fostering people to come together with enlightened self-interest.
While this can be done in a post, using other methods like a chatroom and/or voip can do a lot. Since having a large number of people try to discuss things at once can be a problem. What I propose if generating about 5-10 issues that are inhibiting trust (on or off this site), allow people to join these 'sub-groups' to come up with a proposal, which then at all brought together in a larger discussion or post. Much like politicians (i hate to even use that word here) do with work in a sub-committee before taken to the whole community for discussion. The big difference in this case is that people can freely join whatever topics they are passionate about. It's the discussions that are really needed.
Long story short, i think both sides are needed...focus on personal positivity AND community trust and positivity. Otherwise we just end up with a bunch of happy people (which is great) that don't also have the community, of which we are a part of, in mind too.
Anyhoo, i've already got a wall of text so i'll end this here. But i'm sure I can think on this some more.
This sounds like a great opportunity! Thank you for giving back and helping make Steemit.com a better place for everyone :)
I want it to be as well - please check out what @honeyscribe has posted too! More to come. Loads more :)
Awesome post that reflects the wholesome, honest vibes of the "powers that be" which attracted me to Steemit from the beginning.
Brilliant :)
I think this is a great initiative to diversify the news feed, I see a lot of people that start with something genuine and then start jumping all over the place chasing the trending topics.
Looking forward to awesomeness ;D
Me too :)
Please make #good-vibes a thing :)
Really happy to see this. All the best, and looking forward to participating in any way!
Have you any suggestions as to what you'd like #good-vibes to be? :)
Yes! Our steemit.chat channel #Project-Positivity is open now; not much activity yet because I have to get dinner on, and be a husband and father for a few hours, but I'll be back! :)
But we welcome your participation, and any ideas you may have :)
What a great initiative!
I'm all about positivity and truth so this will be a tag that I definitely follow and hope to write for! Please keep us in the loop if you're planning on creating a separate account that you all manage - kind of like what curie and robinhoodwhale does. All best! :)
We are, and have @positivity :) - check her out
Inspired by your project I wrote a new post! Some positive vibration for all of you!
Got it and shared :)
really love the initiative. I see a lot of awesome, original content just disappear into oblivion on a daily basis and what you guys are planning to do is just commendable.
One question....How exactly do I participate?
Keep an eye on us tonight - we plan to create a new account as the project - our first post will be a challenge, this is how you participate. You can also #getinvolved by bringing to our attention awesome posts that you rightfully say get lost into oblivion, participating in our weekly challenges, resteeming what our new account shares, or if you have an idea - let us hear it. One thing that we plan this project to be is very user led. So we're not going to sit and dictate; you, everyone will very much be in charge of the shaping of this project :)
We also plan to create a channel on steemit.chat - once I have that organised then that would be better for a flow of information / ideas :)
thank you so much for this information! I hope we may be able to help as many writers as possible!
P.S. I am eagerly waiting for the weekly challenges. I LOVE challenges :D
Thank you @lifeisawesome, you rule! I posted an article and tagged it with project-positivity. Let me know if I can keep the tag I'm not sure of how directly about positivity it has to be. I think it promotes being positive of the success of Steemit... thanks! Here is the article
We haven't started it up yet, our first post will be tonight - yours is the first post we'll read :)
I second that post and mine :) Mother Earth
Another good initiative to bring more positivism to the community, i wish the best for this proyect.
Thank you!
Sounds like a good project, will resteem!
Thank you!
Sounds like a great idea. Looking forward to it.
Yeah, writing for yourself can be rewarding, personally. But sometimes even masterpieces go to the wayside, if they don't meet the approval of the masses... or at least a couple of folks who can vote harder. :)
Yeah but even if voted posts get forgotten in a week or so.
True. OTOH, the monetary reward is incentivizing. I've done freelance writing for a few years. It's highly competitive, and can be tough to make a decent income until you make a name. Even then, all it takes is one staff member to change and you're back to scrambling.
When I was younger, I would write away just for the pleasure of it. But it loses its appeal after a while. Building content for content's sake when your cupboards are bare is only so gratifying for so long.
IOW, context really is quite relevant. Having said that, and though I'm making very little right now. I do write what I want to write about. That's the appeal of Steemit. Before, if I didn't hit just the right notes for the editor, it never got published. Now I am the editor and will publish whatever I want, on all the topics I want. I might not make nearly as much, but it's certainly more gratifying. I don't even look for freelance writing gigs right now. The lower income is worth it, plus I have other gigs that actually put food on the table. If I didn't, then I'd have to focus more on what people necessarily want, rather than just blaze away because it's what I want to say. :)
Agreed :)
The marketing slogan is : "Posting Rewards, Earn STEEM every time you post content valued by others.", but too often, particulary in Trending, the rewards are assigned to the post relative to Steemit
We plan to stay away from STEEMIT, well away
Looking forward to making steemit fucking awesome :)
I wish guys good luck!
And of course lots, and lots of positivity.
Awesome :)
This resonated with me deeply. I came to the platform lured by the promise of writing what I felt while connecting with like minded authors and potentially even helping each other reap rewards for the same. It's been a wonderful experience and I celebrate that people continue to take these initiatives that bring community closer, and content quality higher.
I try to bring positivity and truth through art and poetry slam contests (on the 4th!), so this project and the talents behind it bring me a lot of joy. I look forward to the prompts and the dialogue, and wish you all the best of luck in achieving the goals of this cool project.
Oh, you'll have to connect with us on steemit chat :)
Mission and idea are interesting, hope there will be no problem with realization. Good luck with the project ;-)
Hope so too!
I think this will be a worthwhile project! My first post (today) was not very wordy, but I'll be sure to really elaborate on them going forward and I'll look out for your prompts!
join #writing-exchange if you haven't already. We plan to encourage writers
good project!