It's been a while Steem! I have enjoyed taking lots of pictures now that we are fairly settled here in Patagonia. There should be a lot more photos to come!
Edit to add: I've been away from Steem for a while and it seems to have had some changes. I'm going to have to go research to find out what's different, but definitely noticing some new things under the rewards, STUs, etc... Also promoting via @smartsteem seems to have a changed a little. I apologize for promoting this post so heavily, in a current atmosphere where that may be frowned upon. This is such a complicated place. Maybe I'll just stick to Instagram. http://instagram.com/justinmullet
Purchase my photos on Stocksy United! Stocksy United - Justin Mullet
Creating authentic outdoor and landscape photography primarily in the Western United States. Featuring a beautiful portfolio of stock photos that portray some of the earth's most peaceful and quiet areas, and portraying rural life at its best!
After the fork people have some free downvotes and by some coordinated efforts they are used to downvote posts that use bidbots.
Thing is that the vote-selling kind of ruins this place. The reward was meant to reflect the quality of the post as judged by the community. That principle is very much ruined if you can buy the upvote no matter what you post.
Maybe you could simply try to go for the organic approach where you get upvotes if people like your posts.
I could, but that's not really worth it to me. I was able to quadruple my Steem stake in 6 months using smartsteem up votes. Organic votes aren't really worth it because they don't add up to much, and no one outside of Steem takes this place seriously, meaning time invested here does not see any returns outside of a few organic up votes. Instagram is much more lucrative for me for now.
That was a flaw, not a feature.
It was a consequence of a broken economy that completely undermined Steem's ability to function correctly through honest voting.
I'm confused, why is self voting still available. Doesn't that go down as a flaw too then?
Aah ok. Is it fixed now? It seems like it was still working normal on Smartsteem. I did hear that Steem went down recently.
It's impossible to say if it's 'fixed' this soon or perhaps ever
But recent economic changes have made honest curation far more competitive than before (curation is now 50%) and it's less expensive to fight against content agnostic voting (self votes, vote buying, circle jerks etc) with the 25% free downvotes now available.
Some who were taking part in the content agnostic voting economy have since adapted to honest curation and many of those who remain are feeling considerable resistance in the form of downvotes rendering their exploits less profitable.
So with respect to pivoting from a broken set of economic rules, things have certainly improved across the board. Many are hopeful that they will continue to improve until the overwhelming majority of stake engaging in honest voting behavior becomes the norm.
Fair enough.
You are welcome to be on Steem, but you need to build a following to support you. I realise that is working with a small pool for now, but we need pioneers willing to give it a try. Any Steem you earn has potential to be more valuable.
I downvoted the post as the rewards are just not justifiable when others make cents for good content from 'organic' votes. People do appreciate the real interaction they can get here. Just milking the bots is being punished now in an effort to make Steem work as intended. Nothing is perfect, but there is still potential here.
Well either way quite the way to welcome back after a 2 month break due to life events, moving, jobs etc... Makes me want to power the rest of the way down and leave for good. Wow.
That's your choice. Downvoting is as valid as upvoting and this post is over-valued. It will look selfish to everyone here. Can you see that? Steem was intended to work using user curation, but the vote sellers exploited the exceptional freedom we have on Steem.
Alternatively you could power up and support other photographers whilst earning from curation. It's not like it's worth selling Steem right now. We have new tokens based around photography and creativity with their own sites where you can trend without buying votes. There's an opportunity to build something new that does not depend on advertising and everyone has a chance to earn something.
So you want to leave because you can no longer milk the rewards like you used to under a broken economic model?
I downvoted this post not because it was a bad post or because I have any ill will towards you. I downvoted it only because we can't let people buy enough votes to put their posts into Trending and also profit from it. There has to be a negative ROI to buying votes to reach Trending because Trending is the most valuable real estate on front ends such as Steemit.
I try to downvote everything in Trending that didn't get there on organic votes only. Not just you. Nothing personal. Welcome back.
So you're saying that if you were a new user you'd like to see the spammy looking posts currently on trending over my or others photography or original art? What do you exactly want to spend that "real estate" on?
It's up to the community to decide how valuable each piece of content is. You used bid bots to grab about $107 from the reward pool (which is finite) to the bid bot delegators and owners + about $5 to yourself. It's fine as long as you decline rewards or burn (have @null as the beneficiary) enough of the rewards to get negative ROI or alternatively accept gracefully that your post will be downvoted with enough stake to send it into negative ROI territory.
Your single picture post was an ok post but I've seen much better material take a fraction of $107 from the pool. I also downvote those posts whose author bought votes that are in fact paid promotion. We can't have that get to trending with positive ROI, either.
Also, no I don't want to leave because I can 'no longer milk the rewards". That feeling is coming from the fact that I was gone for two months due to some big life changes, continent, job, etc... Then I come back on here and make a post, promote it and immediately start getting down voted. This was super strange so I started looking into it and realized things had changed. At that point I edited my post and begin figuring things out here on the comments that things had changed. Yet even though I realize I made a mistake and know that things are different know people are still intent on "punishing" me for making a simple mistake. I mean if it's such a big deal why didn't you all down vote me for the past 6 months?
We didn't downvote you because prior to HF21 nobody had the 2.5 daily 100% downvotes. The economic model was fixed in HF21. Downvoting is not a punishment. In this case, it's all about reorganizing content appearing in Trending. It has to work without exceptions. Otherwise anyone can claim to be entitled to an exception.
The whole thing though reeks of unwelcoming new people to join. If the "rules" are so vague and unclear there is no way I'm promoting steem. If Smart steem exists, someone uses it and then gets blasted in the comments and down votes, why would they join such a hostile community. Super broken!
The rule was always the same and very simple - everyone can uovote or downvote wharever he/she wants :) just like reddit for example.
Where is that clearly explained?
Where's the down vote button?
Also if it's always been this way why didn't my posts a couple months ago get down voted? Maybe it's because this particular photo in the post is bad? Should I get rid of my Fujifilm and go back to Canon? DSLR only club?
Shut up. Your photography is stunning and you know it haha :)
That's not the point. You've been away for a little while and missed some changes. You're not the only one affected. We've all had to make some behavioural changes.
Steem on!
Also downvotes are free now (small number off).
Smartsteem is also an organic curation project these days. It gives free upvotes and pays out the curation rewards to its delegators. Curation much more profitable than it used to be under the old rules. Author and curation rewards are split 50/50 post HF 21 that took place a couple of weeks ago.
It's like the cops changing a speed limit from 60 to 30 and not posting new signs for the drivers used to the road. Then when they break the speed limit, fine them!
There are plenty of posts about #NewSteem, including on trending. There are no official rules, but being part of the community is encouraged. Buying votes is less profitable now and wouldn't you like actual feedback on your work rather than bot comments? From what I've seen buying votes does not generate much engagement. I appreciate you have to spend your time where you get the most value and Steem is still a small fish.
If 10% of your Instagram followers came to Steem and used it you would all benefit.
Updated to say I have removed my tiny downvote as I understand you misread the mood of Steem now. I hope I joy will give it another try. I'm happy to upvote good content that is not buying votes. I support lots of small accounts.
after edit I appreciate it. I like to fit in and will have a lot more time in the coming months to contribute and participate. I'll see if I can add some value back.
Fair enough sir; thank you for engaging and clarifying.
You just discribed my neighbourhood :)
You would get organic votes now but you need to put some effort into the post :)
I won't down-vote this post, as you didn't know. I can accept that you have been away and have not been keeping up with recent changes.
I found your statement about the others' perception of 'this place' interesting and disturbing at the same time.
Thank you, this post served as educational in jumping back into the platform after a couple month break.
Followed after reading through the comments. Steem has always been complicated and difficult to navigate. I appreciate that you were unaware the game had changed. My flag isn't powerful and I am sure you have gotten the point by now. I came here because a friend told me that felt bad that you might have decided to leave the platform due to the bad taste this post has given you. I implore you to look at the engagement and actual humans expressing their willingness to support your photos, and steem experience in general.. This has actually served as fantastic exposure for you and I hope you make the most out of the opportunity by sticking around and coexisting in a more sustainable steem..
I plan to, thank you. I have always enjoyed Steem and I'm sure I'll find a way to fit back in and start contributing again.
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Good to see you, Justin. After the recent developments, there's some hope that the price of Steem will go up.
Haha thanks Dan! :) I appreciate you sticking with me here. I'm excited to share new photos.. and you commented this before all this blew up.
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You're too valued around here to quit, Justin. I'll speak to the atmosphere around here changing, but people are going to resist as always. Do I think you were out of line for how much you promote your post? No. It was within your endowment, and truth be told, your actions are minor compared to some larger stakeholders who quite flagrantly farm the reward schema. As I follow you, even I knew you were gone for sometime, perfectly timed if you ask me, because all this development came about in your absence. I think a helpful comment is warranted, a sort of 'Hey, things have changed', and you handled it beautifully. Most of all, in a place like this, I hope you don't ever feel pressured to act in a certain way. You don't have any history of abuse, so I see no reason to reprimand you. Welcome back, man.
I appreciate it. I just got my laptops and hard drives after they had been on a ship for the past 2-3 months. I'm excited about sharing a bunch of photography. I guess what gets me riled a little is that people have nothing better to do than down vote people with too many rewards? I could care less how much others are making. Some of my favorite content producers on here used to upvote to the max. It's their right. @cardboard is acting like it's the same as reddit. But I don't see anyone on reddit down voting anyone because their too wealthy... I only see people down voting the actual content they dislike. Curious what they don't about this photo? Lol
Hey Justin, good to see you back! I randomly came across this and hate that this is what you had to come back to, but I think it’s important to understand that downvotes are a way to balance the shared rewards pool. So it’s not about downvoting someone due to being “too wealthy” it’s trying to break the habit of bought votes which are taking more than their fair share of the shared pool.
It’s not about the photo, the photo is beautiful. The issue is that votes were bought rather than letting the community choose how the shared pool will be allocated.
I understand things were different before and it’s a bit weird to come back to, but please rest assured it’s not about your content, rather about finding a balance of where the inflation should go.
Feel free to reach out to me on discord if you have any other questions.
Thanks, just kind of stinks that the community is so obscure and confusing for the average person. No announcements, banners or anything upon logging in again that things had changed. In the meantime looks like I just wasted 300 Steem. Seriously demotivating.
There were many announcements of the changes during but yes if you don’t know to go look for them how would you know, right?
I totally get your frustration and sent you over the 300 STEEM to replace what you lost as I know the kind of content creator you are.
Currently the new Steem is one where you don’t have to buy votes, and where organic manual curation is up.. I think if you post as you did before without buying votes you will notice a big change. And I hope you give it a try.
Oh wow, you didn't need to do that Justine. If this post ends up making anything I'll send it back. I was just in all seriousness surprised by all of this response on something I had done for months and months and never a whisper in my comments that it was "wrong", then when I was excited to be back it felt like a door was slammed in my face. Anyway, I have a new camera, living in a new continent, and have a big backlog of photos from traveling this summer to share on here.
Happy to do it. And yes I know you are just doing what you had done previously and yes previous it was just something that was accepted (even if it wasn’t ideal) due to there being flaws in the system.
There was a hardfork that changed some of the economic changes which allowed for organic curation to be profitable and therefore more appealing. So far what I have seen is a lot of great content being rewarded and much more manual curation.
Also there has been a very strong push to stop the overuse of vote selling systems as they don’t add much value. The response to that is you will see the trending page is more diverse and it is a lower threshold to get trending, and organically get there.
There have been a lot of things that have changed, including tribes where you can earn additional tokens over and above the STEEM on your content. You can see them on steempeak dropdown menu under “tribes”, but I would suggest you start using the “creativecoin” and “palnet” tags too for your photography posts. You will earn even more that way 🙂 Also you can use more than 5 tags on steempeak to make room for the tribes tags.
Give it a try. Post your stunning photography without buying votes and just see how it goes, i think you’ll be motivated by the response.
Boom!
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Wow. Super kind of you to have sent him the 300 steem.
I am interested to hear your thoughts a month down the track as to how do you see it going? Seems in the right direction to me. There are still onboarding issues with complexity in bringing people over (I could count on one hand the number I have managed to bring over from 80k followers elsewhere).
Downvoted due to excessive use of bidbots
Lol okay, well if you would've actually read the posts you would understand I didn't know things have changed. But happy down voting to you and yours. I'm sure you've looked at my past posts and noticed how they are all garbage and have been abusive to Steem. Glad you feel great!
I never said anything was garbage
Looks like you missed this post from 2 months ago. https://steemit.com/photofeed/@justinmullet/Antigua-Guatemala Wouldn't want you to waste your down votes on anything but garbage content.
No. I saw that post too.. 2 pictures worth $107.. and only 5 comments? Yeah. That's #oldsteem right there
But you know I didn't make $107 right? I probably paid $102 to make maybe $5. And $5 is pretty measly for two professional quality photographs wouldn't you say? Smartsteem only pays a small percentage of profit and its not even guaranteed. Are you against others profiting? If you're acting like I made $107 than you clearly don't understand Smartsteem.
If you are making so little then is it worth buying those votes? You only get half the rewards now instead of 75% since HF21, but that $100+ reduces what everyone else can make. With the current Steem price most of us have to accept that we are doing well to make a dollar or two worth of Steem on a post (that may have taken hours to write), unlike the 'good old days' when it could be 10x more and some made thousands! I know some people still make hundreds, but many of them have invested serious money in Steem and may have projects to promote that are of general interest to the community. There are some that I think abuse this.
If you just re-post photos that you would post elsewhere using a template it is not a lot of extra work to post here and you can try to build more of a following. Drop by when you can to respond to feedback and maybe check out some other photographers. It may just be 'beer money', but it's better than nothing and may lead to better things as Steem grows.
You said in one of your other comments that you could not recommend Steem to others. It is a form of anarchy here and there are some nasty people about, but a lot of us want to try and build something with real utility with the freedom it offers. There is no 'police', but the community gets to decide where rewards go.
Being here is a good start :)
Than I don't understand why I'm still being down voted? I mean are people that ugly here? They see someone who didn't realize the changes, admits to that in the comments, apologizes in a post edit that I didn't mean to "over" promote in the current system, yet still decided to slap down a big down vote!? I don't get it. I get the feeling people don't really care about the ideals. It's like they aren't even reading my post. Super big turn off to the community as a whole.
I am kind of surprised that you don't get it.
The owners of the bid bot takes away 102$ - you get 5$
People here are mad about the bitbot owners scamming away those money from the network, money that could be distributed to the best artists, writers, blogger... photographers.
We can only hit the pusher by going after the junkies and thereby destroying the market. You are the junkie who get cheated just as much as all the rest of us, but it is you who keep them in business. That is why people are downvoting you.
Nobody dislikes your photos.
1: Nobody has an obligation to understand how much you bought your votes for.
2: You aren't entitled to a dime for your photos.
Ok.. you spend $102 for a $107 payout.. that should leave $5... right? Wrong.. this is #newsteem.. you lose 10% off the top.. that's $10.70 so you're now down to $97.. 50% goes to curators.. you make $48.50 for your $102 ... OR.. you post the exact same thing and make $5 organically and get to keep about $2.25 in profit. By downvoting you I make it more expensive to use a bid bot so hopefully the only people using them are people that don't care about the money and just want the exposure..
Yep you can still pay for upvotes and see it more as PROMOTION... but it's not gonna work as a money making strategy anymore... just for promotion. In fact I've seen posts that use paid votes state something along the lines of "I understand if you downvote me it's the price of paying for votes to promote a post".
So it's still doable to use paid votes just know it comes along with people making sure the person isn't using paid votes as a way to ROI.
Also i'm of the personal opinion that steem rewards pool isn't a solid or dependable way to make money but we're working on making SteemPeak much more interesting than steem reward pool dynamics if that's of any consequence.
Also happy to give an upvote because you didn't know that common practice kinda died a week or so ago. Good to see you back.
fun's just starting.
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Hey man sorry for all these down votes. Take it as a good thing that the whole community were fed up of bid bots so everyone really tries to make this whole bid bot thing die out. Many bots by now are manually curating so some valuable posts might get their attention.
don't let that discourage you, love your photos and would love to see more from you!
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Welcome back! I have followed your account, but downvoted this post due to bid bit usage. I'll probably upvote interesting Patagonian posts that aren't reliant upon bot votes, but the bot votes are a plague.