Did I just clickbait you?
Not at all, as a matter of fact I suspect you've been thinking about the same issue, just standing on the other side of the argument. Allow me to explain this a bit more before you decided to click away. But first, lets get the obvious out in the open. What do you think is the main purpose of Curie?- (a) To find the best undervalued content and reward it
- (b) To support the best content creators and give them income
- (c) To show new users the potential behind our blockchain
- (d) To get the best content into the trending page
I suspect that just on this very question we could have a heated debate, discuss as to why all of them should be the answer, but some of them seem not that accurate. I would also suspect that even among the curators of @curie you might not find a true solid consensus. Why would I say this? - aside from the human condition being a factor, I also say this because I've observed it serve all these functions, but not consistently, because it realistically cannot. (refer to human condition on wikipedia)
However....
None of us can the deny the positive impact it has had on thousands of Steemians. At the expense of being too anecdotal, I will share that when I got a @curie vote about a week or two in, my eyes where opened, and I became a believer of the platform.
This is to say, there is hundreds I'm sure of Steemians who found this place, got discovered by a hard working @curie curator, dispelled their doubts, found communities, became super active, and the rest is on the blockchain (as we will one day say). Out of those hundreds of Steemians that where discovered and stayed, I wonder how many more hundreds left soon after being curied, as we refer to it now.
Yes, that's right, I'm sure you've seen it too. Someone brand new to the platform makes an amazing post, a curator finds it, and summons @curie and the mysterious mega-whale @hendrikdegrote along with the hundreds (as of writing this post) of trailing votes. The new user is overwhelmed, he/she can't believe this is happening, that night pizza is ordered, people get drunk, someone gets slapped, you know exactly how all that goes down, you did this too.
Then, as if it was some cruel joke life played with the new content creator, the very next post is a whopping 0.01 payout. The new user gained a few followers, being most of the spammy spammers of the spamland kind. The new steemian does one more, two more posts, until the excitement dries up and regrets of buying the pizza, the slap and getting drunk.
And This is how we fail Curie
And I'm including myself in the bucket, because I've been guilty of it too, even thought I'm trying to change my ways. What am I talking about? - In one word "Guidance". People need a little bit of guidance, someone to tell them - "Hey @newuserwithinternet you are awesome, your post was amazing... hey listen, there is a bunch of content creators like you participating of this over here, and you should come join, its awesome, we got internet, we got pizza, I mean... not the size of pizza you just got, but we got some.... come join, its awesome"
If we don't follow up
They will get the wrong idea, have unrealistic expectations, not understand what in the hell just happened, thus they walk away disappointed, feeling cheated. And this could be chugged to a direct result of inaction from established Steemians. Am I wrong? Have you not seen this yourself? Why should you care, you say?
Where to even begin?
This list is ridiculously long. If I seriously started to list all the reasons why we want and need good content creators on this platform, I would need a week to write this post, and possibly no one would read it all the way through. It might be enough to say that many of the steemian cultural changes we want, will come from having better quality content creators participating of the platform, but lets get a little crazy with this post.
You want a better trending page?
Great, then we need to get good content creators constantly producing amazing content.
You want more investment?
We need good content creators, that give our platform legitimacy, constantly producing content so they attract more money to the platform.
You want more development?
Well, for that we need more investment, and to get more investment, we need good content creators, that give our platform legitimacy, constantly producing content so they attract more money to the platform.
You want a better distribution of Steem?
We need more development, SMTs, better user experiences, and what-not, so we need investment, but for that we need good content creators, that give our platform legitimacy, constantly producing content so they attract more money to the platform.
As you can see, my semi-ridiculous line of questions could make a blockchain on their own. And I submit to you If I'm off I'm off grammatically, but not logically. (watch the gramar bot that I hate show up)
So, how do we not fail?
Great, awesome question my friends. We stop failing by engaging with these new users, by empathizing with the fact that if we just let that one post trend, let all the spammy spammers spam with their random irrelevant comments, and do nothing. We are effectively braking our logical blockchain we just made here on muh post, thus perpetuating the very thing that annoys us the most.
So... Be on the hunt
You see a brand new account get a @curie, freaking celebrate. Don't think like a loser and be - "Well, they got all this money and attention already, they don't need my 0.03 upvote and comment... they are good" - Don't BE that person. Seize the opportunity, think of the platform as a whole, think of the little logical blockchain we just made here and invest some kindness, I promise it has a great ROI.
Don't believe me yet?
Ask, ask around, ask those who quit, those who got a @curie and got abandoned. They will tell you that, because that is exactly how they felt. Ask... Don't believe me, who am I? Ask...
Don't forget to ask those who had a different experience, someone like @lillywilton... and tell me If I'm on to something or if my lady just spiked my coffee. I seriously don't think I'm wrong on this one.
Other posts by yours truly
• Join me Tonight for Songwriter Shop Talk Featuring @zipporah
• The bull run might come from Italian Investors
• Helpienaut Meeting May 28 - 2018
• The White Paper is not Holy, let's move on.
• Thoughts on Steem's complicated Politics & Witnesses
This post makes a really great point. As amazing as it is to get curied, it can lead to a false sense of hope that quickly fades when your following posts payouts go back to basically nothing. I have wondered myself if there were ways to help remedy this issue. In the short time that I have acted as a curator, I have tried to purchase @steembasicincome shares for some of the people I have curied or even some people who were new and not quite putting out curiable content yet, just to try and keep them involved and make sure they are getting something even when I can't upvote them. However, for the most part, I feel that after many people are curied they typically just go back to being all on their own.
Another great point you made was with regard to people seeing a post with a big curie upvote and thinking "Well, they have enough. I don't need to upvote/follow them." One of the guidelines for submitting posts to @curie is to give preference to people who are underappreciated and/or consistently recieve low payouts relative to the quality of their work. I have seen many times where people regularly produce amazing content and make nothing other than from the occasional curie vote they recieve.
So if you see a curied article, instead of thinking, "That person has enough of a payot." Maybe try and think, "Wow, that person's must not be making much for their great content. Maybe I should upvote or follow them." Surely, you can't upvote and follow everyone, but there is certain to be an author or two making something you really enjoy that you might be able to show some attention to.
Personally, I also feel like @helpie is an amazing group and has probably played just as much of a part in my sticking around as @curie has. Although @helpie doesn't provide that super big upvote that gets you riding high, they offer education, support, community and even regularly upvote their members enough that they don't feel like they have been abandoned by the greater steemit community. I feel like many of the things that they provide newer members are precisely the things that @curie doesn't and that the two groups are a great compliment for new people who produce great content.
I just want to point out, that this comment needed aggrandizement big time... so i had to do it... and its done... help me aggrandize this comment, join me.. yes..
Yes, I agree. Help him aggrandize! Hahaha
I have aggrandized this comment. :-)
See, Curie has a big problem. And that problem is us. All of us.
Curie is like that guy that catches all those plates a clumsy waiter drops before the crack on the ground and that generous person that pays for your tuition without asking anything back but your commitment and hard work.
2.5 million $ Curie has given out in 2 years. Just stand back and think about it.
Curie is step one, as you said, its on us to afterwards pull up those that get the curie treatment. We just dont do that enough.
Someone should sing: "Nothing compares to you" for Curie. Because its true.
You really sum it up very well my dear @silentscreamer, most get to "me me me" and forget about the big picture.
I'm mostly in the Spanish community, and over there I've listened to the distant hoof-beats of celebration and joy over a Curie vote. However, I recognize you're right on this one. It happens within the Spanish community with a well-known group. People get their upvote, get really really excited and when the next post is done and posted, they rarely get the same numbers, if anything (and I mean anything). I think it also has to do with the quality. People that want to get voted real fast often don't put the same heart as they did on the first one, and of course, that stays there, unvoted and sad because it wasn't made with love.
I wholly agree that one must really learn how to change the perspective of our relationship with the Steemit community, as a whole. Instead of being here just for the pay, let that be a secondary reason (because we're here for the money, too). How do we do that? Simple: b, keeping the content creation in a high quality standard, and by supporting others as the flagship of our journey here. Sounds 'utopical', I know, but let's face it... The Blockchain is the land of Utopian dreams. We might as well make the most out of it.
-A.
As a dreamer I tend to lean more towards your philosophy, the utopian dreams you speak of. That being said, this little phenomena is what it is because of our human condition really. Thus, we must fight back, consciously fight back, and try not to think with the mentality of scarcity that made us run into crypto in the first place.
ERMEGERD IT'S MY NAME IN ANOTHER MERNER PERST!!
1000% can confirm. I was one of the lucky ones (mostly thanks to our lovely author here) who had so many people reach out to me after my curie moment. When a group of people reach out and say, "Hey! I like what you do and I want to help you!" - it's a way better motivation than a payout.
Appeareth is thyself onto Myeth Perst! I bask IN gratitude!!
<3
I saw you entered the openmic this week... awesome possum.. I can't wait to hear the collabs, im sure im going to blown away, i have no doubt.
Post-Curie Curation League? Of all the ideas I've seen you and others put forward lately this is probably one of the easiest to implement as an actual initiative.
I nominate you Chief Captain General of the Post-Curie Curation League, League of Excellent Excellence....
PCCLLEE for short...
You are very correct, who ever says you are wrong does not read the post to pick the points or does not understand steemit at all.
We are loosing so many quality content creators due to this I don't care attitude, when we help more quality authors to be comfortable on steemit, we are helping ourselves, we are securing the future of steemit.
Though, things has so much changed on steemit from what it used to be to what it is now, but it's high time we start doing things right again.
Thank you for this super wisdom dear friend
don't forget to dm me on discord bud
Alright, no problem.
It is not a bad idea this follow up thing.
When I got my curie (yeah my only one I know, I know) I noticed how open I was afterwards to not only creating better content, but also engaging more with my surroundings.
Because somebody found that post for some reason, and this probably because I had put myself somewhere in the picture, and somebody decided to press on my account name after that.
Its all random but it is also not, because I was long enrcouraged afterwords (as you see, I really like commenting hahahaha, ) but that is not for everybody.
I love the fact that the memo would go with a bit of extra note, so mostly the newsbies understand what just happened and what they should do now (power up that pay out for instance:D)
there are thousands of us who got curied once.. i got curied once (just once... i think) so i went through this myself, hence my post/rant hybrid.
I'm kind of inviting people to engage with the curied plankton and noobs.... to think of the bigger picture.. i know you get it, i see you comment all over the place.
@veckinon said it all ;-) And you, of course, @meno! Great post! Maybe just emphasize this part:
I'm thinking I should ask @veckinon to write about it, make a post about why communities are key. and how we should help other people find them...
I say we peer pressure him
Oh no, not peer pressure! That's how they get you hooked!
I don't have anything intelligent to say here except that I agree with what you're talking about in this post. I's hard to go back to making 35-40 cents on your posts after you've been curied. Last summer I had a few big upvotes on a couple of my posts, and then the others were just normal payout. For a pessimist, that can be a difficult thing.
The ideology behind the post is what swept me off my feet, I actually am reading a @meno post for the first time and i am captivated. I am new to steemit @mindbuilder-sc and I really appreciate the drive you're trying to input into the commuity, so far i've relented abit when it comes to writing, but now I think i'll have to participate more and boost my morale with reading more posts like this.
i know it might not be easy in the long run, but as the saying goes, nothing good comes easy. It applies to virtually all facets of life @curie please visit my Intro post https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@mindbuilder-sc/about-me-in-3-dimensions-the-introduction-of-an-entrepreneur-business-analyst-crypto-optimist-and-more-in-one-personality
I pray and hope I get upvoted by @curie, this is my story and I won't back down from steemit.
This post rocks...
Truth said @meno