To be honest - I find it pretty darn hard to decide on what quality content is.
Especially through my experience of rating a lot of Users for smartsteem.
I find the most interesting posts to be those - which aren't focused on being quality content, but are authentic and not written because they had massive upvote rewards in mind.
Even Memes can be Quality-Content if they are unique.
Or even simple 3 sentence posts.
On the other hand - posts which had a lot of effort put into them can still be shit. Because they are most of the time those posts that have been planned to accumulate the most rewards.
While for me - the bests and interesting posts are always those - which I create spontaniously.
Example: McAfee Twitter Hack
I was prob. (99% sure) the first on STEEMIT who posted about McAfee getting hacked. Even before it was announced on his Twitter.
Did I plan to be the first? No. I simply watched his Twitter and saw something strange happening and started posting about it.
Spontanious..
What does STEEM need?
Authenticity. And less people worrying about their rewards and money.
For me - the goal of generating money through posts is what most of the time kills the creativity.
I mean - it's amazing to generate revenue with posting, but that shouldn't be the focus while creating the content.
And Communities
Honestly, communities will be a game-changer.
I'm super excited for them. No more Spam-Posts f*ng up the new section.
I agree! Although I came here with the money in my mind in the first place, after scrolling some posts, seeing different contents, and spending couple of hours, I realized that unique content is really catchy. I signed up I guess 2 weeks ago, but I was to afraid to post because of the same trend topic everywhere: tips to earn more, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, bla bla power, bla bla dollar. Of course it is important but focusing mainly on money makes most of the content poor, less unique and.... fake. Also, it looks the steemit scary for newbies! I felt like I couldn't exist here without having the word bitcoin on my blog :}
I feel the same way!
This perfectly captures the thoughts that have crossed my mind since I joined steemit earlier this week. I know exactly what you mean about the lack of authenticity around here, it's most def in short supply. I see just as many users trying too hard as there are users not putting in any effort whatsoeverl. All the while, quality authentic posts are especially hard to come by. Thanks for the insight.
I have to agree. Most of the content in Hot and Trending is utter rubbish. The only way I’ve found to discover quality content is trawl the garbage in New and wait to stumble on something good. Very inefficient and frustrating.
This is what I've been trying too. It's worth it most of the time, all the better if you can find an awesome content creator behind the post with more content to offer. What about the users I follow, do they appear in "new" or "trending?"
What about taking actions against copy paste materials?
There have been a couple times I would stumble upon copy paste articles and it can be frustrating. Also just posting of random youtube videos without any context! I feel that a filter should be in play for this type of content somehow, but without taking away from the entirety of what Steemit has been built upon..
Good points. I'm new on Steemit and this post helps me understand what I have just signed up for.
that's a great piece, I have been looking for an article outlining the fact, that sometimes it feels like some people treat it like virtual garbage. It's not about being a hater or diving people into good and bad users, but about showing a RESPECT for people who created it with a clear idea in mind and for those who are aware what is it all about and try to contribute in best possible way. I want to believe that some of those who just "litter" are not aware of the damages and the fact they are actually making it more difficult to for a platform to grow and for everyday user who have to filter through this digital garbage manually to uncover valuable content. Hopefully with the time awareness will grow and we will all be better steemians :)