REP 70... Is It Just a Number?
A few days ago I passed the hallowed REP 70 mark and it got me to thinking; what does the reputation system mean on steem?
Truthfully... very little right now, but that is in the process of changing thanks to #newsteem.
I was told by a few people when I first started on steem that REP 70 was the magic number at which early adopters would/could notice you. According to these folks, certain whales and orcas wouldn't look at anyone's blogs below REP 70.
I observed the steem community very carefully when I first joined this platform, and before the advent of bidbots that rule did indeed seem to hold true. I don't know how many circle jerking steemians I tried to interact with on here who would answer my genuine queries about their posts with one word answers... or not at all.
I don't particularly want to start throwing names about the place, a lot of these people have left now. But it is worth noting that even though the system was stacked against you back then, at least the reputation system had a utility, to delineate hierarchy.
Enter bidbots and the whole thing went to shit! People could buy their reputation (along with payouts) and we had a whole bunch of complete waste-of-space people on here who could barely string a sentence together with REP 72/73 shitposting there way into trending...
What did I do? I continued to write long, well constructed travel articles, posts about art, comedy posts, poetry and fiction (some of which has since been published elsewhere). To cut this story short... content that added value to the network. And I didn't use any type of bought vote until near the beginning of this year when @ocdb offered a way for quality assured (white-listed) authors to boost themselves with a guaranteed ROI. Even using ocdb didn't sit well with me, but I could see that they were trying to lift up high quality content for it's own sake, so I relented in my blanket ban.
See here's the thing. I always maintained that steem's reputation was being flushed down the toilet by allowing bidbots to operate. I wrote long comments on @steemitblog posts saying as much, putting my neck on the line and undoubtedly alienating owners of bidbots, some of whom are very generous with their (large SP) votes for those who tow the party line.
From the day I joined steem I maintained this position against vote selling!
So I am truly happy, and feel justified in my decisions to keep my blog honest as I've finally hit REP 70. I feel that I've earned my reputation the hard way, and more importantly, it means something!
Image by Memin Sito from Pixabay modified by me using GIMP
What does it involve to get to reputation 70 in an honest manner by writing quality content? According to steemworld, I've been writing on steem for 2 years, 3 months and 33 days ...
and in that time, I have created 486 posts.
Out of these posts, over 50% were poetry or fiction. And with a little help from the wizard of SQL queries @abh12345, I have been able to work out that my combined word count for work published on steem is 578,250β¬ words.
The average word count for a paperback novel comes in around 80,000 words... so I have written the equivalent of 7.2 novels. Given that well over 50% of my output has been fiction and poetry, it is safe to assume that I've written at least 3 novels worth of fiction that has been published exclusively to steem.
To my mind this is a great achievement, both for me, and the steem blockchain. I studied imaginative writing at university, and am now pursuing a career as a novelist. If in the future one of my manuscripts is published mainstream, I shall be sure to promote and direct readers to steem to read some of my earlier works.
I did the same calculations for words written in comments and the results were surprising. It turns out that I have written 683,815 words in comments, which just goes to show that the way to true success on steem is through interaction.
Thanks for reading my rant, it has been a long 2.3 years in the making π
Wan't to make money earning and learning about crypto on coinbase and beyond?
Wow! Great accomplishment, my friend!
Cheers marcoriccardi
A big part of that fiction written on steem to make up the crazy total word count of 578,250β¬ words, or 7.2 paperback novels, was inspired by finishthestory and the bananafish crew :)
Thanks for being a good friend :)
Congrats @raj808! You're a talented writer and if you want you can be bigger than this Steemit circus. More than to that number, I want to toast to your values and to the positive impact that you brought in people's lives through your always meaningful, human and real words.
Hi m8y.
Thanks for the compliment, and I do save the majority of my creative writing for submitting outside of steem these days. No luck yet, but it is only a matter of time :)
Amen to that. When all else is said and done this is one of the greatest successes of steem. Bringing like minded people together to grow and develop :)
We can say many things but we can't negate that, surfing from a post to the other, this Steemit journey allowed us to discover whole universes of varied humanity!
Finally Rowan you've gotten it, your month of milestones has definitely just begun, honestly I felt like @acidyo or like Trafalgar when I hit rep 70 lol it was definitely divine for me and I Felt like I could go a long way man, it wasn't easy and I guess it isn't easy now for you, but 70 here you come mate hahaha. I'm hoping for more positive milestone for you and cheers a million man. Congratulations
@tipu curate
Upvoted π (Mana: 0/3 - need recharge?)
Thanks for the congrats m8.
I'm not sure how I feel tbh, pretty much the same. A number has changed... my writing hasn't. My life has changed (with deteriorating health) outside of steem... my writing hasn't.
I guess that the psychological barrier that was sitting in my mind around Rep 70 has gone and that is kinda liberating.
Thanks again for your kind words Jose, and all your support. You are a true friend :)
I've been having reoccurring health issues to which doesn't allow me to function on a maximal level like other people without getting sick, it's complicated in my case and I think it's genetic as well but we live to live on my friend.
Sometimes it's crazy though. The rep is a psychological change i think and like you said it's liberating to finally be off 69 finally.
Shared on twitter as part of @ocd @ocdb #posh (proof of share) initiative
Well done you! Now you may enter the sanctum!!! :0D
Ha ha... I still don't know the secret handshake boomy, or the 17 character password that leads to the celestial stairway! I've heard it's guarded by a bot that can only be slain with a binary key
00110100100001... or something like that n e way π€£
Don't worry. A man will deliver them at the required hour. Remember the passphrase when he asks...
The passphrase...?
holy smokestacks batman! steem me a steemian on a hot cross bun??
I hope for all our sakes the compact is never broken
Ha ha, yes for all our sakes let's hope the bot at the base of the celestial stairway never gets free!!!
I might write a comedy post inspired by the rumors of the Rep 70 secret society tomorrow π
I think you should. It is vital that the community at large maintains the belief that it is just comedy ;0)
Dude! Yes!! If there's anyone deserving of reaching 70 rep, it's you! And I'm with you, even when I got whitelisted on OCD, I still didn't want to go anywhere near the bid bot so have been plugging away. Still on rep 67 but hoping to get to 70 next year in the honest way! It is possible and the rep system does still mean something to those who never used a bid bot!
Your comments on my posts have inspired me to keep going so I'm grateful to have met you through the Steem network. Always love your well thought out comments and you've said what we've all been thinking. Now hopefully we get a lot more dolphins rising up from minnow and plankton and get this ship sailing as it should!
Ahhh, thanks dude. I appreciate the support, and encouragement. Truth is that I get real bad steem burnout sometimes, and I'm in a bout of it now.
It's comments like yours that get me through the times of creative block. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter how much you put in to steem, as long as it's the best you can at the time π
Roll on the rep 70 Nicky, I'm plugging for ya man!
As to the truth speaking, I think I shoot myself in the foot with it sometimes but that's just me. I'm not gonna change just to lobby support for my blog π
You're not the only one. Have had a fair share of that myself but stepping back and assessing where your sources of energy (good and bad) come from is important to do. So focusing on where the good stuff comes from and eliminating where the bad stuff comes from is the way to do it. There's only one of you and if you don't look after yourself, no-one else will hey!
If you can't be yourself on a so-called decentralised platform then where can you be yourself?
And I agree with putting in the best you can when posting to STEEM, it does make a difference and let's hope that we see a bright 2020 (although I'm sure we will, even if it's just down to BTC increasing in value in the interim).
Congrats! Rep is a grind when you're not paying for it!
Cheers Joshman. Yeah, it has been a long haul π€£
Congratulations @raj808. You are truly one of the bright lights of the platform.
Cheers @blockurator
It's been a long but satisfying journey to rep 70 π
Nice work, I also got to 70 without bots, it's a fantastic achievement
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Thank you @paulag
Yes, it does feel incredibly satisfying. I went out yesterday for a few pints to celebrate ππ»π»
You splurged ahead... we were matched at 62 rep.
Keeping that nose to the grind m8
Congrats!! You so deserve to be in the 70 club.
Let me know if it smells any betterπ€£
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Ha ha cheers m8, yes I sprinted off ahead in the rep score when newsteem hit @buttcoins
Gonna keep my nose to today grindstones... it smells much the same so far π€£π
Congrats! That's a great achievement!
Thanks, yeah it took a lot of hard work but it's immensely satisfying to reach that 70 rep ππ
Great job! 70 felt awesome.
I just passed 73, and I tell you... it gets really tough to climb in the 70s.
Ha ha, I can imagine it does get super hard after 70!
Congrats on hitting 73 rep @abitcoinskeptic π
Rep score has a great impact for steem users @raj808 as well as the SP one holds, congrats to your achievement. :D
Thanks @cryptopie, yeah it took a lot of hard work but it's immensely satisfying to reach that 70 rep ππ
This is a fantastic achievement. And being published elsewhere. Congratulations. I have just hit 64 and given that I have stepped back a lot, 70 will take a while. That said, and as I said in my #spud post #newsteem has been kinder to me. That said, I don't get why there is a slew of accounts downvoting - just for the sake of it.
Steem on!
Oh, and great stats @abh12345 .. erm.. I mean @raj808...
Thanks for the kind words Fiona :)
Yeah, it is a bit of a slog.
I'm not 100% sure either, but if I had to guess, I'd say a proportion of them are people who have been plagiarizing, or just straight up 1 pic shitposting for the last two years trying to get some type of pathetic revenge against anyone on here who actually has talent. I can't explain these accounts that are popping up with 15 SP and just flagging all and sundry any other way.
Lol, I could be completely wrong tho π€£
Rowan, since I made that remark, I have learned that it has to do with aggrieved (and a particular) bid bot owner(s). You might want to ask @nickyhavey and/or I will DM you.
You earned it Raj. I hope Steem rebounds and you get to cash in on these rewards.
Thanks AGmoore.
Ha ha, me too! Keeping my fingers crossed for the rebound π€π