You can check out STEEM Guild's recent post here if by some chance you missed it.
First of all, I'd like to begin with stating that this is not an attack on anybody. I added "no drama" to the headline for people looking for delicious drama. None of that here.
I've been supported by both Curie and STEEM Guild, and continue to be supported by the Guild, and I am grateful for this support. It's nice that my posts have been deemed worthy of the upvotes.
I don't know the people running these projects personally, nor do I have anything against them. I want this to be crystal clear before anyone reads further.
I've been thinking about this during the past few days, and keep coming to the conclusion that perhaps there are issues with these guilds. Even though the intentions are most likely from a good place, as a stakeholder, albeit minor, of this platform, I care about the long term health of Steemit.
So, I'd like to voice my concerns.
Recently, there was a big war on the general chatroom about the fact that Guild members receive compensation for their work through self voting with big whale accounts, which guarantees them a top spot on the trending page.
I'm not questioning the legitimacy of the reason given.
I am simply pointing out that this caused a big stir in the chat, and people seem to have an issue with this.
Why this is important?
It's important because Steemit, unfortunately, has had to battle with scam accusations right from the very beginning. People from the outside have refused to join because "it's a scam", and then people on the inside have either left or caused drama because "it's a scam".
What's important to note here is that how things are is not always even relevant, and how things are perceived is often how a community can either flourish or perish.
How the Guild self voting looks to the outsider can cause huge problems. To the outsider, the operation can show itself as an infinite cash cow for the Guild members who are guaranteed a big payout on their posts simply because they work for the Guild.
Legitimate or not, this sort of stuff is what's driven people away from the platform before, and most likely can do so in the future, as well.
The big war on the chatroom today is evidence of this. A member of the Guild noted that there are rules regarding the self voting, but since those rules are not visible to the average user, it's easy for him to see it in a negative light.
I understand what's pointed out in the post I linked: the guaranteed money is compensation for the curation work, but at the same time I can't help but think to myself that isn't that what curation rewards are for? Compensation for curation.
What I mean is that every user on Steemit reads and upvotes on posts all the time, that is the intended purpose of the platform. People can easily get upset over the fact that curating from a certain club of people is more valuable than the curating they do.
Again: it's the perception. Perception is everything.
I just don't want this to be an issue that drives people away from the platform. I want Steemit to succeed.
And this brings me to my second point. The guilds were founded because Steemit was considered unfair, and curation guilds were made to reward users who otherwise would not have been rewarded.
This included me back when I was a new user without a big following. And again I say I'm grateful. I don't want to come off as an ungrateful douche.
I am, however, a bit skeptical as to whether or not Steemit needs these guilds.
Steemit is a social network, and garnering a following on a social network always takes time and effort. When I joined, I totally expected to make next to nothing because I lacked a following. I understood that it takes networking - posting more, commenting on other people's posts, finding likeminded people, getting to know people, etc. - to gain a following and succeed more.
I currently do receive a certain amount of both autovotes as well as manual votes from people I've befriended. This is the result of some people just liking my posts, me making comments on others' posts that they've liked, and making friends on the chat.
There are people who aren't willing to go through the trouble of what it takes to make it on a social platform such as this. And I'm by no means a big user, I still make posts that don't even make one dollar - however I'm fine with that.
What's important to keep in mind here that the content I make that makes very little can be something like a review of an obscure videogame released in Japan in 1990 - on a console that most of the world doesn't even know about. Now, the post can be "good", and it's awesome if and when people feel this way, but if it's content that most people simply don't care about, is it deserving of X amount just because it was "good"? The view count can help here, and what I can clearly see from my low rewarding posts is that they simply don't have that many views. It's because it's niche stuff that most of the community doesn't care about.
And that's fine!
When I make posts like that, I do them because the subject matters happens to interest and entertain me at that given moment, the community is not obligated to pay me X amount. It just goes against the whole idea behind Steemit and stake based voting.
And don't get me wrong: if you like my stuff, I really appreciate the upvote.
I just question whether Steemit is really even being given a chance to function the way it should. The guilds are defended as necessary since without them authors would go unnoticed, which can be true, but Steemit wasn't really given the opportunity to even run for a full year to really see how things would go once the growing pains are over.
As soon as after a few months the market needed to be "regulated". And I think people may have jumped the gun a little bit. Perhaps Steemit should have been given a bit more time to sort itself out. The market should have been given more time.
And now, since the guilds are operational, we really don't even have the chance to see whether or not the market could function without them.
Unfortunately, the guilds drown out all votes, and during the short time that Curie was on a break, votes were worth a lot more than they are when the guilds are fully functional.
I think that these guilds may cater too much to people who are not willing to work hard on Steemit. They cater to the millenial attitude of "I should get everything right now".
And no, not by design, I don't think. I think that these are great initiatives, they show that support for others can form in a voluntary manner, that's really awesome, in my opinion. A voluntary "society" can create these sorts of systems that benefit others.
But I hope people understand my concerns.
We place a lot of weight, still, on the idea of a good post, and that good posts need to be rewarded, but the goodness of a post is something that is impossible to really measure, and too much "helping" may actually hurt the author.
One piece of evidence of this is the very formation of the STEEM Guild itself.
The Guild was formed because people who no longer were applicable to Curie were failing hard with their posts without the Curie votes. So, a second initiative was formed to help out those authors.
Could it be possible that Curie rewarded content that the rest of the community wasn't rewarding and wouldn't reward, thus sending out a wrong, for the lack of a better term, "price signal" with the support.
So, the authors continued to produce content that Curie upvoted, and failed since the content they produced ultimately lacked the interest received from the rest of the community.
I'm not saying this is the case, but I'm saying it's a possibility.
What to do, then? I know these operations will not be shut down, nor am I telling them to, but I raised my concerns. And maybe I, personally, would wish for at least a slight scale down. I'd like to see the rest of the community to be given more of a chance to decide what content ought to be rewarded.
Also, I think the self voting practices need more openness, and perhaps reconsideration.
Note that this isn't me at all saying what people should or shouldn't earn. I'm actually one of the posters that mainly cares about the success of his own posts, and I'm not questioning the work these people put into these guilds.
I am simply looking at it from the point of view of how can this potentially affect the community morale. The war waged today in the chat was furious. And as more and more people bring the voting practices into question, it's going to get worse. And then these people ragequit and tell their friends to not join Steemit.
And I do not want that. Nor should you.
I understand that it's absolutely awesome to be able to basically whale autovote your posts to the trending page, but the STEEM you make will be infinitely more valuable in the future if Steemit is a success.
Most people will probably think I'm an idiot for doing this, I'm shooting myself in the foot, but I'd like to opt out of STEEM Guild votes in the future.
If you like my content, please do upvote. Appreciated.
However, since I have these concerns, the way I am as a person simply means that I can not accept those votes anymore. I seem melodramatic, but this is a character trait/flaw I have. Nothing personal against the people who work for these guilds, but it would feel wrong for me to accept them. All manual votes are accepted, of course.
But I honestly also think that I shouldn't be a supported author anymore. I've made it near the top, and even to the top, of trending a couple of times now, and I receive autovotes and get engagement from prominent Steemit members.
I think I should either make it on my own, or not make it.
Thanks for the support, it's appreciated, I'm just willing to play the game by the same rules as a regular user. I don't feel entitled to preferential treatment from the STEEM Guild. The elusive "high quality" post is always completely subjective, so even though the guilds attempt to bring a form of "fairness" and objectivity onto a subjective platform, I feel this attempt will always ultimately fail because we all have our preferred authors. After all, I've been a support author for subjective reasons.
Ultimately, these guilds will function the way the community was criticized for prior to their creation: being subjective and not recognizing "objective value of certain content" - which, of course, doesn't exist in the first place.
Therefore, perhaps they are not necessary in the grand scheme of things.
What I hope to have achieved is making people think that maybe we should give the community more of a chance.
Thanks for reading.
Exactly.
I feel the same way you do. That's why I got out of a voting guild in the early days. I do see that it was necessary in the beginning and may be so today, but the fact that the curators are getting their posts upvoted to the moon is a bad idea. A better idea would be to get a set amount from the steemit account, like an employee.
If the trending pages are not really trending pages, then it does look bad from the outside. I'd much rather know my post really trended by organic votes (bot and human), than be on the Steem Guild, getting basically a free pass to the trending page. It's not an ideal situation.
I had the same feelings from the very beginning and I quickly got out of the guild. It felt wrong to me, that's all. I think paying people to work in the guild by depositing some Steem would be a viable solution. But I think having the Steem Guild members upvote their own posts by whale accounts is the wrong way to do it. Building value is more important than anything, and when things "seem" fishy, no one will benefit long-term.
Thanks for writing this post.
What are your thoughts on this proposal? Would it take away some of your misgivings?
Very good post. (albeit too long)
Steem is headed the wrong way because of the way Steemit.com deals with STEEM content.
There is not enough quality original content generated by the whole of steem community to reliably fill even one of the top 50 spot on Reddit. Yet Steemit show a endless list of post of the day without a convenient way to subscribe to niche subject. By giving the most impact on post mostly within the first 24h the reward structure is not designed to reward evergreen original content. Heck we can't even comment on posts after a certain time (30 days?).
Whatever happened to Trending 30 days ?
This.
Stop voting for yourselves. Let others determine the value of the posts. Not yourselves. The community is aware that they are not the ones that are determining what is ending up on the trending page.
Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it.
There are many others in the community that do more work for Steemit and don't expect anything in return. They enjoy blogging and using the social network and are constantly overlooked. They are the ones bringing value to the platform by taking the time to connect to their audience by the message they create from their content. Interacting and being a part of the community.
It takes more than just being a whale and circle jerking, that's easy to do.
It's harder to walk the path of righteousness, the path of greatness.
Yes Schattenjaeger, I do it by my own too. I've been never voted up to the Steem–heaven, but I have the feeling, I did it by my own. It's a real good feeling. And by the way, Steemit is not easy for beginners, as you know. How should beginners understand vote guilds? Impossible. The vote–guilds divide the Steemians into parts. We are not going on to be one community. Vote guilds are building up classes of steemians.
BUT! There exists a german Guild. They guide strong voters into our small house. Without this guild, we german bloggers would be the poorhouse of Steemit. What do we learn from that? Building a system of equity is a real hard work, like Sisyphus has done. You will never touch the target. There always remains a part, running in the wrong direction.
My proposals for a better steemit-habitat:
First: Close down all bots. This is the only way to get more first class content.
Second: Shut down these bots. They are just cash machines. Redesign the vote process.
Third: Bots. Throw 'em out. Curation has been the smart idea – not maximation. Steemit blog is not a very sophisticated high end blog because of less reading. Pay for reading, not for voting. The meaning of curation is: read the matter–tell other's what you think about (means vote or scratch it without voting) and reply, off course.
It's just a beginner's opinion. I came in to collect readers, getting their attention, and then maybe get payed for work, if they like my stuff. Thank's for your attention.
BINGO! The whale's oligarchy has spoken.
I am banned from the whales vote list too, @schattenjaeger. We all know, what it means. The steem has nothing to do with free speech. It's just a playground for capitalists watching how nicely their personal writers are jumping over the fence. They are voting for the most fashionable jumps (whales fashion only).
Bye, bye, all you true and honest Steemians. Bye, bye German guild. Bye bye hope. I've made a mistake, wrote the wrong comment in the wrong posting and now I'm banned from the whale's voting circle. It's a very sad story for the German guild. Because they liked my postings very much. It's a very sad story for all the honest minnows too. Because they are so full of hope. I'm sorry for this too, you German guild, but now you see, how the system really works. Ah, you've knew it anyway! You are very smart people – smart, but without power. Bye to you all. I've have had a really good time at the steem blockchain. Very exciting and I told it to you in my stories, how exciting it has been.
But sorry, the Steem-chain has nothing to do with freedom of speech at all! It's just money, and how money usually works. I've read no news in here. Just business as usual and this is the real reason, why the steem doesn't rise. It is nothing new, just another kind of manipulation. Think about. All of you. The whales, the dolphins and the minnows. The steem is not able to raise with such an asymmetric vote–power system. Never, because it's just the same procedure as every year, James …
Honour isn't melodramatic. You gained an extra follower.
Welcome!
The problem is ages old. Anything concerning power or money which is not totally transparent and subject to checks and balances WILL become corrupt over time.
At present I suspect we need these guilds to grow. If they are not regulated in the future they may be the downfall of Steemit.
I'm seeing more cronyism and more bullying every day.
Never forget that in the name of peace and equality the soviet politburo travelled around in sumptuous luxury after presiding over a slaughter or 30 million.
Power corrupts
Why do we need guilds to grow when the active user base really isn't growing? I would argue that we need less guild manipulation of rewards allocation. I don't see how they can justify 200+ votes every day when there are only 600-800 total posts.
And why would we need regulation of guilds? Why not just stop creating these guilds? They wouldn't be an issue if whale accounts were not behind them. That's the main problem. The guilds are being created in order to use whale power to subjectively distribute rewards "more evenly." This distorts the actual market for content. Adding another layer of "regulation" to a very tiny and distorted market doesn't make much sense.
I understand your argument, but I think the simplest resolution is for the whales to stop delegating their stake in this manner and to stop approving of it to be used for the Guild's self-voting of their own posts. The whales in question here have the ultimate power of decision-making.
Well we either go full free market or work on the guild system to make it more efficient. The problem is that there are people who will constantly plot to vote share which gives an unfair advantage.
Whales want the curation income but don't want to read hundreds of articles each day. Perhaps if a non voting income were offered in place of proxy curation the whales could be persuaded not to guild vote and the system would begin to even out.
I'm pretty sure STEEM Guild will not be slaughtering 30 million people anytime soon. If it does, then STEEM has become so powerful that I'm drinking a mai tai in Hawaii with my money.
But you take the point? Take an idealistic person and give them unrestrained power. What happens?
I get what you mean, I was trying to lighten the mood. But I don't think the issue at hand is quite that drastic.
Neither do I. Just demonstrating an oft forgotten principle.
I am just a minnow and I so guess my opinion is only small.
But for what its worth.
As a newbie I basically joined because I liked the idea of people voting on a post because they read it and they liked it. E money attached this a voting it added an extra dimension. Not as a way to earn money, but as a way to show that you genuinely liked and appreciated the post.
My grandmother used to say "Put your money where you mouth is".
Thus when you vote you are literally doing that. I like the honesty and simplicity of that and it is refreshing.
I had not heard of this Guild until reading this post and I have to say I found it rather disturbing.If sort of smells of a form of elitism and as such I feel this is not healthy for the eco system of Steemit.
It is tough to start on Steemit and somewhat daunting in the begining and in a sense you have to be brave and patient and stick it out.
I was lucky in that I was given a good "Welcome" and so now I pass forward that and make sure I dedicate some of my time to new minnows.
If I had heard that there were such Guilds on Steemit from the beginning I am not sure I would had joined. I might be legit but it does look suspicious.
At the moment I am having a great time on Steemit and have got to know some amazing folk that I never would have got to know in the outside world or on the FaceBook "bubble", and so at the moment I believe strongly in the platform.
I guess it is early days and it is said the first 3 years are always the hardest and so we all have to work it out somehow.
Anyone who survives their first month on Steemit, like me lol! becomes pretty much hooked and will stay because then they believe in it.
I know there are problems on here that need sorting out and we must hope the will be in the future. Lets face it Steemit is the first of its kind and as such is the flagship for the future. We owe it to ourselves to make it succeed.
There are things on here that are concerning but I believe they will eventually sort themselves out.
"An empire does not fall by invading armies at its gates, but when the people themselves stop believing in it" Marcus Aurelius
As I say, I am just a minnow so please dont eat me up lol!
Followed.
You are one of many who's been strongly supported by these guilds without knowing it. Every post you put out is exceptional, so myself and a team of others have made sure you got the votes you deserve. If there were a lot more people with significantly more voting power, or if reputation played the right role in reward distribution, these guilds might not be necessary.
But, in the past, without the guilds, we have seen countless outstanding posts be relegated to the depths of the Steemit abyss, earning just a few cents. I suspect that without the guilds, you and many other great authors would see a large percentage of your posts suffer the same fate.
I see. It seems it is not so simple as it first appears.
I appreciate you telling me @shenanigator .
I guess I feel a little embarrassed and a little naive. But then that´s always been my problem.
The post came across to me a little scary to me, like some kind of secret society like "eyes wide shut" or something lol !
Of course there are two sides to everything and the way you explain it I can see that there is a lot of good that can be done.
I will tell you a little secret, I may as well tell you now. For I see there may now be consequences for my comment.
I had this crazy plan that I would work hard and become a whale. Not because of money, or power, or status or anything, but because I wanted to do exactly the same thing as you have just mentioned.
I also see amazing posts on here that I feel perhaps do not get the attention they deserve and so I felt frustrated that I did not have a bigger voting power so that I could give encouragement to others.
I saw it as a way of doing good in the world.
I believe in this platform and I guess the encouragement I have been given, even it is was in secret, has much to do with that.
I don´t know what to say
I am just myself and will always speak my mind. I was raised to be an honorable person and as such I try to do the right thing. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong.
I will continue to give my best on my posts, as is my nature. And I will also continue to spend time on welcoming new people as well as trying to read as many posts as I can and joining in conversations.
This is not hard work for I actually love to do it.
The idea of Guilds are completely new to me and I know very little about them or how they work.
I admit, on this matter I am somewhat confused.
One part of me feels grateful for being helped and encouraged, and another part of me feels sad that groups or Guilds like this are needed on Steemit.
I thank you for telling me the truth @shenanigator
I have much to think about.
For clarity, the guild I help out with (and the one that has voted on your posts) is Curie. Your reputation is getting higher now, so soon we'll give your name to Steem Guild. At that point, they will be checking for and voting on your posts instead of us.
Great post.
I work hard to put out good content. I am not from this world of blogging. I regularly have 100 comments or close to it on my stuff, yet rarely see a decent payout and I have some of the same concerns as a lot of people.
A LOT.
A lot of the metrics and practices seem really really off on here and I don't have all the answers.
It took a lot of guts to write this post and follow through. I appreciate this, more than you know.
A voting guild is a centralized system, and should not last long on a decentralized platform
Over 1000 votes and 17$ ??
You poke the bear in the eye,man.
1312 votes is the most i've ever seen.........what percentage are bots?
It's over 1500 now, but I think that here we can see what real users think about this issue. With usual bot voting also reward in $$ would be much higher.
Thanks for providing great points and I agree with your concern.
I think the self-voting problem is a temporary way to fund the curators, since all curation rewards go to supporters who provide them with voting power.
When Steem Power Delegation is implemented, this problem maybe resolved.
First, thanks. Thanks for all the time you put into these thoughts.
You write:
Curie, steemvoter, the guilds, my bot, this post you've just written, it's all part of how we're deciding steem should be run. I don't mean to be preachy, but what exactly is the "market" other than all of this? Other than all of us? You're looking at what the market "chose."
Sorry for not getting to you earlier.
I realize that you're right; the guilds are a product of voluntary interaction, and thus a product of the market.
But when I said market, I meant it in a less than literal sense. What I meant was a "free market" for the content without "regulation" from the guild "governments".
As in people voting for what they value.
Of course, the bots are also in the way of Steemit truly being simply a stake based Facebook.
Unless the incentives can be structured to facilitate this, I'm skeptical that it will arise naturally in any pure-seeming way.
Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. But I'll ask you the question I ask all voluntaryists: if you remove the guild government, which was created via voluntary association, why wouldn't we expect something else similar to arise to take its place? Or do you envision an ongoing battle between the organizationists and the individualists, where self-organizing structures are periodically removed as they accumulate too much power?
What do you think of this proposal then? Your comments are appreciated, also if you disagree violently 8-).
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 31. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $8.16 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 31 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Thanks for writing! Excellent words and thoughts. I joined Steemit less than a month ago, and it is nice to see posts like this.
I'm on that list. I'm grateful for any help I receive. I've never missed a day of posting. I don't google stuff and rewrite it. I produce my own images. Everything I do is created from the ground, up. I don't cry or kiss ass for anything... and I'm too old to be anything like a whiny brat who wants theirs and wants it now. I can agree and disagree with a few things said here. There are certainly no hard feelings. I enjoy your work, a lot, and will continue to do so. That one line though, two sentences. I'm on that list, you say that line, I'm forced to defend myself. Just letting you know, I'm not comfortable with that. I've worked too hard to be placed in that category. Also, I know many on that list, or at least read their work. They work hard and act professional. I can't speak for everyone, because I'm not familiar with everyone, but I can say there are some very honorable members on that list.
Oh, absolutely! By no means did I mean that there aren't good authors on that list. Not at all. They can all be good authors for all I know, that's not what I meant.
What I meant that the guilds may cater to a certain mindset. In general, not a specific or a group of specific authors.
And thanks for your support!
I just don't want to look like a villain. I can't control who votes for and enjoys my stuff. Just in case someone comes along and reads this, sees that list, sees me, then assumes I'm some part of a conspiracy. You know how people can twist things out of context. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I enjoy my time here. I don't get the big votes like many others, so I take what I can get and appreciate it fully. It's been a tough climb for me these past few months and I don't really feel like losing any momentum. That's all.
There's nothing wrong about being supported by a guild. I'm sure no one feels that way. No worries.
A few thoughts: (1) Maybe people should opt out of steemit.chat. It seems like many of these dust-ups originate there. ; -) (2) There's nothing to stop the people who are complaining from setting up their own competing guilds. If the new guild does a better job curating, it would reduce the self-paying for members of the original guild. (3) You raise a good point about price signals, and I respect your decision to opt out. Maybe we should build on an old idea from @williambanks (here) and create something like #norobots and #noguild hash tags to make it easy for people who want to opt out of bot and/or guild voting, and to make it easy for people who care about that sort of thing to avoid contributing their voting power to guilds or bots. If enough people think it's important and focus their voting on those hashtags, it would limit the payout that's available to bots & guilds.
Appreciate the comment.
Steemit.chat is my favorite thing about Steemit. I've made good friends there. Currently, it brings more engagement than Steemit does.
I like, and have been a proponent of, the communities feature on the Roadmap, and hope that it will bring more engagement and just plain fun to Steemit. But as it is right now I enjoy the chat.
Your second point is true, there's nothing stopping people from starting their own guilds. However, it shouldn't stop people from being critical of other guilds.
This is Steemit, we're critical of everything, hah, and I just haven't seen that many posts regarding this subject before, so I wanted to raise the issue.
That's the real gold mine. If anyone can figure out how to monetize the (awesome) chat channels, they and we would be billionaires!
No you are my favorite thing @schattenjaeger! :)
the main issue is that the Steem Guild is funded by many big whales that by and large do determine what trends.
That would be true with or without the guilds, though, right? Like it or not, they are the major stakeholders.
If we are so afraid new and "good" authors are overlooked, does voting for them help? The hole some seem to fall in after Curie support stops suggests otherwise.
Wouldn't it be better to simply expose them to more voters by resteeming their content in stead of voting for them? That way, they get the exposure new authors lack and the "normal" voting system remains untainted.
I am just a minnow and this issue does seem to be driving away many people. It is very discouraging. I am hoping for the best!
Tell me if I'm wrong. People who are accepted in the steemguild are only people who had been chosen by "curie" in the past ? In thate case, Curie and steemguild are linked. Then I would like to know how the curie selects the posts, and which type of post are not allowed to be selected ? I checked several posts of both "curie" and "steemguild", but didn't find any clear information about this matter. Transparency must be important in steemit if we want it to grow up.
I already said this to @dwinblood and I think we were both in agreement of this first paragraph:
We need to build something that doesn't depend on guilds, psychology, how things look or the good intentions of those involved.
Steemit can not and will not be an anarchic utopia in digital form. Traditional Anarchism doesn't work folks. Some hierarchies will always exist in any situation and can neither be removed nor ignored. The only thing we can do is take into account the unstable nature of the universe and instead create institutions that last under such unstable conditions.
Great post! It put the things in other perspective... And this is very usefull for a newbie like me! Thanks for your help
Happy you found it useful! But I urge you to take into account that this is just my perception of things. Nothing more.
Thanks for this write-up. I think you've addressed some important issues. Ones that aren't beyond the community to solve.
Having well-thought out dialogue in a respectful way is the a great way to get people talking about change and improvement.
Thank you.
P.S. Holy shit, 2000 upvotes? That's the highest I've seen.
I just discovered all this tonight. Watched 100 votes come in 2 minutes with no view increase on my new post. Thanks for the write up. I love how you remove the drama. Keeps things conflict free.
I have always voted for many different reasons, sometimes the writing is crap but I like the person. It could be a cool doodle or a 2,000 word essay. HQ = pleasurable emotional response. Different for everyone. Impossible to measure.
Thank you for this. Great writing and an admirable attitude. I hope your thought are noted by the powers that be.
Great and interesting post, as a new blogger here i have a question - do not laugh please lol - self voting do you mean we should skip the default upvote we have for our post when posting, is that meant to be not good too or minor points :-)?
Of course I won't laugh.
Self voting, in this context, means the fact that people who work for STEEM Guild can upvote their own posts with certain whale accounts, not just their own.
That means that they are guaranteed to make good money on their posts automatically.
That's a source of gripe with some other community members, and I fear that will become a bigger problem that can drive people away from Steemit.
thanks @schattenjaeger - makes sense so i understood correct and do not need to worry on my voting - agree it can drive people away hence we need to drive people here currently or after the re brand
This is where I disagree. Curation can't be called censorship in any intellectually honest manner. Censorship is the banning of certain material, whereas voting for something is simply preferring certain material.
They are not the same thing.
To be clear: I don't agree with the way you conducted yourself in the chat, and I wasn't agreeing with all of your points. As I told you, you may have had valid points - which I also raise here - but you get nowhere by making personal attacks and threats on people. That will not help Steemit, it only buries you in a hole.
Having said that, if you feel like you want to follow, feel free. I'd rather make friends than enemies.
Suit yourself. I said "I'd rather make friends than enemies" as an offer of friendship.
I'm of two minds about this particular issue you raise.
Indeed, if the goal is to reward not yet established authors, and one author gets through the cracks everytime, it can bring to question the methods that are used to find these authors.
However, at the same time, no one is entitled to anything. Just because someone posts a lot, doesn't mean he's entitled to something.
You have to take into account that according to SG members, you've PM'd them with links to your posts and such, and this is often seen as annoying. How people perceive you has a big bearing on how they reward you.
Think of this way: if by making threats one could earn himself votes from a curation guild, what type of a message would that send? What gets rewarded gets repeated.
This is why behavior that is perceived as negative generally doesn't get rewarded.
I'm not discrediting all of the points you make, but I think you should be able to take criticism and opposing viewpoints better.
I have no insight on their inner workings. I'm simply attempting to remain objective.
This is the fourth time I'm asking you to stop slandering me and attempting to put words in my mouth.
Shadowspub said something more closely to something I might have said which was not this crap you're vomiting about me bragging about "draining" the rewards pool.
I won't tolerate you slandering me.