I agree with everything except this one: "Minnows should stick to posting and commenting." If the minnows followed your line of thinking, then the Secret Writer project would die. It is almost entirely supported by minnows and dolpins currently. Also, when minnows work together to curate content that helps THEM, they are choosing content that rises, that can help other minnows with things like navigating better in Steemit and with ideas that can help them in all kinds of ways. You are completely missing the important role that minnows play in deciding what content gains visibility. And you are only thinking of curating in terms of rewards alone. There are other rewards contained within curating, and that is social and informational value that has a separate meaning from money. I realize you are only speaking about the curation rewards, but by separating it from the other social rewards, this causes a lapse of understanding of the big picture.
By focusing exclusively on the monetary rewards, you leave out an important part of upvoting: raising the reputation of others through insightful and helpful comments. This builds a true community. I have recently begun focusing my efforts on minnows and helping them increase their reputations when their comments go beyond the scope of "good post." It is engagement, afterall that creates meaningful social media. The substance that binds people together into cohesive groups is not money actually. Money is a side-effect of highly valued engagement. The two are inextricably entwined. Without high value engagement, this place would wither away.
I could be wrong but if you read the entire post including the section "Role of Dolphins and Minnows" to me it appears that he is not discouraging minnows from voting at all, only discouraging them from attempting to make a significant profit specifically from curation rewards. Instead it makes more sense for minnows to vote based on preferences and earn from posts and comments.
@stellabelle I agree. The real power of a social network is about the tons and tons of totally regular people that come in. If we treat these users are "less than" just by virtue of being new, I think it will be a huge turnoff.
And the simple fact of the matter is: numbers matter. 1000people, even minnows, liking something is really better for the network than one powerful person liking it.
It's a huge flaw.
Yeah, it seems odd to me that @dantheman would be telling "minnows" to not worry about upvoting posts - to let whales and their bots do that. To me, that's the entire problem with the platform. Whales have far too much influence on both payouts and creating trending posts and topics.
The other thing that I always find interesting is what is meant by "quality content." To Dan and other site creators, developers, and operators, "quality content" essentially refers to SEO. To original content creators and writers, "quality" has an entirely different meaning. If the purpose of this site and the whales/whale bots is to seek out and curate the former, then this site is apparently not for the latter. It's strange to me that seeking photos and "link spam" is somehow seen as adding value to the platform. If that's what will ultimately attract whales and their bots, then it will be a race to the bottom when most users finally figure out the process. I've seen this exact type of algorithm play out on two similar sites that I was a part of in the past. Neither exist today. I'd rather not see it happen a third time because whales want bigger curating rewards.
Although, I suppose I could then write a post titled, "How to Moby Dick the SteemIt Ship," plaster it with photos and links, snag a bunch of whale bots, make a quick $20,000 and cash out.
Thanks for saying this, stellabelle. While I understand the focus on building financial rewards, it's myopic in one sense. The quality of the content is more important. Ideally, the two meld as quality is rewarded accordingly. Of course, we see popularity getting massive rewards too, but who can fault someone for taking advantage when there are huge profits to be made? Hopefully the community will mature and focus on quality as a result.
Another "Champion of the Minnows!" #COTM
Here, here!
Otherwise, what hope does a minnow have of growing up to be a whale one day?
None.
Do what you are told data-slaves!
We are useful idiots.
Nails it with this response! Although there are important members of Steemit like @Stellabelle who attempt to find the good minnows, the platform should also work towards this important goal. I would like to see Steemit have mass adoption like Facebook or other social media. But will it be mostly a site for these whale bots?
I really like your take on the role minnows play here stellabelle, I concur completely. This is a perfect example of how hiding information (I'm confident Dan had no agenda other than to focus on curation rewards using a quantifiable reward metric) can really skew the big picture. The intangible values you describe are indeed very important aspects of curation.
@stellabelle,
Thank you for your interest in minnows and thank you everyone who wants to see the quality of the content remain high. Through efforts like these (i.e. patronage and encouraging minnows to organize curation to their advantage). The more we can leverage content over a more broad spectrum the more the value of the whole market will rise. The more we can help content providers to make money and become empowered the better.