There is one thing I have thought about so often and that is the amount of selfish Steemit users out there, and the biggest of them is me! What do I mean? We are so much thinking about ourselves, and we often only give our votes to those we hope will vote for us back. Or we skip voting for others, in order to use all our voting power on our own posts.
And then you have an even worse version (I am writing about myself) - when I only vote for posts that I believe will give me the best curation awards. Now, that is just terrible - and again, I am the worst in that case. I have even discovered myself voting for posts that I have no clue what is about, but knowing that they have just paid a bot to upvote their post in the coming hours, means that there should be some very nice curation awards around the corner, and thus I give the post a vote as well. Now, that is what I would call a VERY selfish attitude, and one that isn't really helping the Steemit platform move forward.
I believe it is okay to work hard to make a profit for yourself, but it should also be about making Steemit a platform worthy to use, also for those without big financial muscles in the start. But, if everyone did like me, those who entered the platform and wrote splendid posts would never get a vote, simply because a vote for that article wouldn't result in any nice curation award for me. And guess what would happen with someone trying the luck on Steemit if they write a couple of high-quality posts with no reaction at all from the community - they will go and try their luck somewhere else (if they aren't those really stubborn people just never giving up).
Luckily, there are some exceptions.
I am so happy that there are some exceptions in the Steemit community, and probably, there are a lot of them. One of the users that I really find to be an encouragement to the movie/TV show posts is @namiks. He has a nice voting power, and he doesn't care about whether or not you are a whale or just a little shrink if you write a good post about TV shows, movies, or a similar topic... he is always out there to support such authors! That deserves a lot of respect. And, I am not sure if I am 100% right about this, but if I have seen correct, he doesn't even upvote his own posts. Now, that gives him even more respect in my eyes. I wouldn't be able to do that with my own posts (for sure), but I respect him a lot for doing so.
There are several other communities or bots also out there to upvote great content from not so visible users, for example, @ocd, @curie, @steemitworldmap, and some others. I deeply respect the job the curators are doing looking for content not discovered by lots of users yet, only to help new users and great content authors get an audience on Steemit!
So, I guess I feel a bit ashamed for my selfishness on the Steemit platform, and I will do my best at getting a bit better and not think so much about curation and so - but instead, be an encouragement to other users and help upvoting the content that is good, to make sure that the Steemit platform gets better and better!
I don't blame you at all for being a profit-seeker. The way I see it, my time is a scarce resource, and I expect compensation for sharing it. It does seem to result in a lot of garbage posting and those posts getting upvoted, certainly, but if that is the way the system is working in the short run, people are going to act in ways that maximize the return on their time-investment.
I have come and gone from the platform several times, and my opinion is that it doesn't have to be an "either-or" situation. If you are producing quality content that has appeal to other Steemians, the trick still is to get on the radar of those potential upvoters, commenters, and followers. The only way to do that, it seems, comes from investing yourself in the curating and commenting side of things, which builds community and brings attention to your own efforts. That way, you not only have to produce popular content; you have to consume the content of others. I definitely upvote and comment on some of the more popular blogs, but I balance that with saving some of my voting power for those blog posts I find compelling, like this one.
Thank you for your feedback :) I know, 98% of the people here want to make a profit from Steemit, and that is really fine... and I know that a way to hopefully catch the attention of some whales is by commenting and upvoting their content. That is also reasonable! But, for me, it has kind of become so wrong when I with my little voting power still almost only vote for content, not even because it is a whale, or because the content is good, but simply because I hope to get a curation reward that is worth something.
Of course, I do not have time to look through Steemit searching for great content all day, but I will do my best at maybe being a bit less selfish and rather upvote some great content worthy of an upvote, instead of upvoting posts I never intend on reading or posts I am not even able to read (because they are in a different language)...
When I find good content, I typically make it a point to follow the author as well, to enjoy (and reward) consistently good writing.
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Following authors with good content is a great thing to do, will for sure make it easier to find the same authors again later at least (and upvote their future great content as well)! :)
Thanks a lot for the nice mentions!
One thing I will say: I have started to upvote my own posts, but I try to do it in a manner where it doesn't entirely benefit me with the voting power I have.
I try to upvote my posts after upvoting other people's throughout the day, so the voting power is closer to 70% rather than 100%, which means the larger votes of the day go to others; secondly, I do it towards the end of the reward week so it's about a day or so before the reward is released; I do this because typically, once again, the voting power has decreased quite significantly throughout the day of voting people's content.
I was very much against voting on my own posts with this stake that I have to use, but I thought about it extensively, and I looked at various methods of how I could further increase my voting stake upon the realisation that 30,000 Steem delegated to me isn't mine. It isn't going to last forever, and I not only want to ensure that people receive the best rewards they can while I do have this delegation, but that I can earn enough Steem myself through posting and curation myself so that once this delegation does end I will have enough SP to continue supporting everyone independently.
I've already placed (I can't remember the exact figure) around $1,300~ into Steem when the price of Steem was around 80 cents. I did this for the exact reason that led to me receiving this delegation: I believed in Steemit and wanted to increase my stake so that I could do more. I used to write about how Steemit lacked proper curation and that many were overlooking a fundamental process that not only rewarded us all, but kept the platform growing and improving.
You're right that the existing curation guilds do some great work, but part of my decision to attempt to increase my stake as fast as I can while I still curate properly was that many of them work together to find content and upvote it, but so much content is still ignored because they can't upvote everyone and everything. I have been asked whether once this delegation ends if I'll start my own curation team, and the decision will forever be no. I'm not interested in starting my own community, I'm interested in contributing to an existing community. The one that includes everyone, doesn't require any delegations to anyone, doesn't require any bots, rules, or any leaders: just regular, authentic curation.
A community is never made, but it is formed. The curation I've done has done nothing but impress me in terms of how much people want to discover and communicate with each other. I've noticed people begin to curate and comment on each other's work on a regular basis just from a resteem I gave several weeks ago, or even months ago. The fact that regular curation can improve the experience of the Steem blockchain for all -- without me needing to be in the equation aside from one minor boost -- is how I believe Steem should function. This is a decentralised blockchain, and leaders aren't needed to perform such a basic, fundamental process on it.
I don't care how much I profit in the process, because it's the fact that I'm supporting others and watching them grow and become more creative that is the true reward. It's something you can't really do anywhere else.
Having this delegation made me see that, and while this answer was pretty long, I'll try to sum it all up in short: I want to be reach the point where I too can give people 30k SP delegations and sit back and witness just how large and positive the changes that come from it are. Nearly all of my earnings in the last few months have gone entirely back into Steem Power, with a recent exception where I've tried to accumulate a little SBD since I had none. A quick edit too: I've even had comment rewards set to 100% Power Up for the last few months. I recommend it, every little bit of SP helps!
Have a good day. <]:^)
Wow, this answer was a giant post in itself... what a pity I don't have a higher SP in order to give you a better value for your comment! I just noticed that your description on Steemit is "Building other people's accounts" and I guess it couldn't be truer! Also, keep on upvoting your own posts, I totally support it :)
But, on behalf of all of us writing about movies, TV programs and similar stuff, you for sure serve as an encouragement and one who helps us keep up writing, and I really admire you for your job/hobby :)
I'm just glad there's others like me that enjoy these things enough to take time out of their days to write about them and share their experiences.
Truthfully, Steemit and having access to all this information, different viewpoints of filmmaking and reviews, has certainly contributed to my decision to fight all the social anxiety I have and return back to college to study film and tv production myself.
I have an interview on the 24th for the course, which decides whether I get a position or not. So thanks to you all, you're helping me as much as I'm helping you. d:^)
Wow, good luck with that! I do hope you will succeed, and so happy to see that you have profited in your personal life from your activity on Steemit! :)
While I try to profit as much as possible on Steem, I also try to not manually vote unless to the topics I like. I also don't post all the time because I don't want to make crappy articles.
I really respect those who're not like me, who don't vote for themselves, don't expect a vote-back and try to make the community better for people.
I guess we are all human so voting for ourselves is totally okay, but I guess the best way to grow is by also investing into the community and the people around us. So, walking the selfish road will eventually lead to less fruit than actually investing into others and by doing so, growing on your own as well!
This post has received a 31.75 % upvote from @boomerang.