How a group of Steemit’s senior writers forged a partnership with @nextgencrypto to help direct whale votes for a good cause
The “Project Curie” Team: @donkeypong @the-alien @liberosist @kevinwong @anwenbaumeister @infovore @gavvet @steemship, plus contributors including @cryptogee @andrarchy @piedpiper @nanzo-scoop @rok-sivante and others. Several team members volunteer their time for free, others make a small income from curating posts, and many of us contribute SBD from our own payouts to this project.
The Voting Power and Support: @nextgencrypto, other whale accounts who prefer to remain unnamed, and our group’s own orca-level accounts.
Announcing Project Curie
Have you seen Steemit’s Trending page lately? Scroll down past the VIP section. Beyond the Top 10-20 posts, you’ll begin to notice something truly wonderful: an amazing diversity of fresh content.
New authors, artists, and photographers are finally starting to get the rewards and visibility they deserve.
A few weeks ago, it was quite a different story.
Barely three months after the Beta launch, a crisis was emerging: Steemit was attracting new users and content faster than the largest Steem Power holders could distribute resources.
Not too long ago, most of those rewards were going to a handful of content creators. There was a stunning lack of diversity on the main page. We know, because WE are some of the authors who have made those big rewards. We still enjoy writing (and many of us depend on the income from our posts), but our group of writers also realized that we needed to help get some rewards to others.
Steemit was failing the unknown writers and artists: they were posting great content but not getting rewarded.
Contrary to popular belief, some of the largest whales had the same objectives that we did. They also were trying to find undiscovered content to upvote and reward. But they didn’t have enough hours in the day to sort through the increasing volume of posts.
Faced with an increasing number of newcomers, with new hopes, new dreams, new aspirations, and overall, new human stories… Some people thought that maybe some of us should offer our help, because otherwise it could be just a matter of time until we all start scrolling down the boulevard of broken dreams.
Meanwhile the number of new users kept increasing. And there were more good posts that were going unrewarded. Newcomers with new hopes, new dreams, new aspirations, and new stories…who would have broken dreams and no rewards if we didn’t take action.
So we offered to help.
Earlier, Tom @donkeypong had helped organize a group of Steemit’s senior writers and content creators to discuss issues that we had in common. And it turned out that our writers’ group was not interested in making ourselves more money. We were primarily concerned with helping others who were posting good content and not being rewarded.
Most members of this group spend a lot of time mentoring newer writers and artists. Others in our group wanted to take a more active role in voting. And so we decided to pool some of our own votes to see if we could make a difference in rewarding some of the best quality posts from newer authors.
Unfortunately, we’re just orcas, not big whales. And so our votes together added a few dollars, but not enough to bring sizeable rewards or visibility to these deserving posts.
The Partnership
So @donkeypong began discussing a possible partnership with @nextgencrypto. The two had talked previously about their common interests in building other original content areas on Steemit, so Tom thought they might be able to work together on this. @nextgencrypto has been vocal about ending the Steemit “circlejerk” on the front page. He wants to build communities in other topic areas and reward high quality writing, photography, blogging, and other original content. But the large SP holders’ duty of re-allocating Steemit’s resources to emerging content creators was becoming a burden. He also was impressed with the writers group and its dedication.
After seeing the types of deserving posts that the writers group was discovering, @nextgencrypto recognized what a rare opportunity this group provided. He and the writers group developed a partnership. @nextgencrypto would contribute whale accounts to provide voting power, while the writers would curate posts from undiscovered and deserving authors.
Since that partnership was born, additional whale accounts are joining with Project Curie to provide more Steem Power. You’re probably familiar with @berniesanders, who still makes some votes on his own but allocates others to this project. Some of our other clients prefer to stay unnamed. We are open to adding more whale accounts if the partnership is a good fit.
Because the project’s curators are some of Steemit’s most successful content creators, we have an eye for talent. Working together, we can find the best posts from a diversity of topic areas and genres. We can help them succeed.
The Guidelines
After the team members were brought in, some guidelines were established for curation. These are just guidelines and we can make exceptions, but we do so rarely. Here are the main ones:
1.) Only original content. Articles, poetry, photography, videos, recipes, etc. that appear nowhere else on the Internet (yes, we’re checking, and we’ve only missed a few plagiarized articles so far out of 1000’s of votes).
2.) No Steemit-related posts, unless they are truly unique (in which case, they usually get enough upvotes from others anyway)
3.) No overtly religious or political posts (aiming for a diversity of other topics)
4.) Generally, no introductory posts, unless there is something additional in the posts that merits consideration
5.) We discuss the posts and triage the most worthy of them into different tiers. For Tier 1 posts (which get hit with a full 100% whale power vote), the author must have a track record of having made a few good quality posts on Steemit, and we must be convinced by a previous introductory post or via outside social media or blogs that the person is verified, but that author has NOT made any large rewards yet and does NOT have a big account yet.
6.) As for the other voting tiers, which get lower scaled % votes from us, the criteria is a trade secret. Our lips are sealed. The recipients do include authors who have been working very hard and posting consistently great content, but still struggling to get consistent rewards. We hope we can help get them established and encourage them to keep posting good work on Steemit. And there are other criteria also, but we’ll stop there.
The Curation Work
Hiring a team of primary curators to help us, we started to work in teams that cover all time zones in 24/7 round-the-clock shifts so that we do not miss too many deserving posts. We divide the work with some of our members scanning feeds, digging through posts, and finding those high quality gems. Other group members check for plagiarism and provide another level of review for the selected posts, which we discuss and sort.
And other members operate our proxy accounts that vote on the posts. Unfortunately, @laonie and the bots catch onto our voting accounts very quickly. We have nothing against the bots, but if we let them have their way, they siphon off rewards that could be channeled to deserving authors. So we must constantly switch out the proxy accounts that we use. Bots, could you please help our project by adding a 5-minute delay on following Project Curie accounts?
We put a lot of effort and due diligence into our curation work. As individuals, we even provide mentoring help as needed or we refer emerging writers and artists to other volunteer mentors.
The Results
We are constantly searching for new authors, writers and artists who haven’t given give up, bloggers who persisted, artists who stayed true to themselves, and more importantly, quality posts that add some sort of value to the community.
So far, we have made more than 1,000 votes for Project Curie.
If you see Trending posts from non-established authors (particularly those just outside the Top 10 or 20 posts), chances are very good that our project helped find them and boost them up to where others can see and evaluate their work.
We found one very good author who had made 19 posts on Steemit, all completely undiscovered, and had earned about $2 in total from them all, but he kept going. Once we found him, we helped this author’s most recent post become noticed by the community, who rewarded it up to one of the top positions on the Trending page and gave this man a few thousand dollars in well-deserved rewards.
Also importantly, other authors we have found have made more than 23 cents on a post; perhaps our scaled % votes have given them $25 or $50 or $100, encouraging them to keep working hard and producing good quality content on Steemit.
You should see some of the comments from these authors; some of them have cried with joy to finally make a few dollars in rewards. Some of us cry with joy after reading their comments.
Steemit is expanding, and with it we may need to expand too in order to reach more and more new great authors, and fresh new content, and cover more themes. Out of 5,000 posts made daily on Steemit, we are able to curate only about 1,000 currently. We would welcome a few additional whale accounts to add voting power for Project Curie, which could help us reward the deserving posts that we still cannot quite reach and boost the most worthy posts higher on the Trending page. In time, we will add more members to our authors group and to our curating team, too.
But we will not grow too big, because we value our original purpose and we also enjoy working with each other in this group.
Steemit’s resources need to be redistributed to reward a broad base of content creators. The whales can’t do it all on their own, and maybe we shouldn’t blame them for everything. When they need help, we’ll be here to offer a willing hand to help bring something beneficial for both the individual and the platform in its organic expansion, helping out in the transition through smart work, dedication, and a lot of due diligence.
How You Can Help Project Curie
1.) Support the authors we find, if you like their work. We are working hard to get them noticed and rewarded, but then it’s important for them to become established in the community. If the broader community likes their work and decides to follow and reward them, then Project Curie’s pipeline can end. We give them that chance. And then, we can move on to support others.
2.) Do your own curation and help find deserving authors. Use our criteria above, or develop your own. If a post has been active for more than 3 hours and has less than $10 in rewards, that means others have missed it so far. Find some worthy authors to support and share their work with everyone. You can share it with us, too, by submitting it to the #curie channel on Steemit.chat, which we monitor (link: https://steemit.chat/channel/curie ). If you submit posts from other authors (not yourself) who meet our guidelines, and if we include that post in our project, then we will pay you a finder’s fee also. But please do not spam our project members or whale supporters with your posts, who need to spend their time on this project.
In fact, to value their time, we must make a bright line rule here: anyone who spams links to our members directly will be REMOVED PERMANENTLY from consideration for our curation project. Instead, if you have a post that meets our standards and is worthy of consideration, please submit your posts to the #curie channel on Steemit.chat (link: https://steemit.chat/channel/curie ). We will monitor that channel, find them, and consider including them.
3.) Leave comments with feedback on deserving posts. New and emerging content creators often appreciate the comments even more than the money. A good comment will help them feel welcome and provide some encouragement to continue working hard.
4.) Support undiscovered and deserving authors first. Yet please do not forget that the members of Project Curie are writing fewer posts themselves, curating more, and putting some of their own earnings back into this project. When you see their posts on Steemit, assuming you like those posts, please do not forget what they are doing for this community.
Some of our members do this for free and others receive some small payment, since they are humans and have bills to pay. We are not getting rich by curating. If you see our whale friends upvoting the posts we write or sending us payments, you also will notice that we are paying most of that money back into Project Curie. We cannot cover all the work ourselves, so we have hired a small team of primary curators to assist us in finding posts to consider, discuss, and sort. We need to pay our curation team a fair wage for their help.
5.) As Steemit grows, feel free to borrow our model and create your own curation team!
We hope you agree that Project Curie is an important addition to Steemit. We basically operate it like a non-profit organization. It is our way of helping to make Steemit more diverse, more representative of different authors, and a more welcoming home for deserving content creators. We can encourage people to post about what interests them. Instead of following trends, they will be driving Steemit’s natural expansion.
Good initiative on this. Beyond the financial rewards, I feel that "Leave comments" is the best advice you could give out. Some of us are typing our fingers to the bone and loving every minute of it, but without comments and feedback it's almost akin to shouting your story in the street while people walking by put change in your cup. It's of course appreciated, but writers need feedback and constructive criticism. Most of us have a million subjects to write about but would pick those subjects that develop community dialogue. I hope you guys make it a point to promote the undiscovered talent while also nurturing that budding author with honest feedback.
Humpy hap Day
YES! Leaving comments is so important. And you're right that they don't have to be all-positive; they can offer constructive feedback, too. Many of us use the Steemit.chat channel to find and network with authors who need help and can use some mentoring support.
To date, the most effective comment I've ever received on my writing was from @razvanelulmarin who left a note on one of my articles. We went on to have a little back and forth about what missed the mark for him in that particular article (lack of centered images, not enough markdown for natural emphasis and stops). He enjoyed the content, thankfully.
Steemit becomes such a place of growth when the above happens.
After that conversation, I tried to level up my skills where they seemed deficient, I enjoyed steemit.chat and met new people with interesting things to say, I wrote a ton for Steem Survivors in collaboration with some brilliant dudes, doing SOT now, and there's been an increase in followers that I hadn't expected.
I did none of that alone. Don't forget to help integrate them into this community, because this one is infinitely more welcoming to those with original ideas. I'd argue that like in life, money usually takes a backseat to exposure, experience and collaboration.... Give a blogger a dollar, you feed them for a meal. Teach a blogger how to Steemit, you make hundreds (maybe thousands) of people happier with some financial rewards as a side effect. Best of luck, you have my energy.
oh wow! high praise man! s
I can tell you that my comments are hit and miss though, some people think that if I give them advice or suggest changes, I'm being an asshole and someone even called me " passive-aggresive"....
Thank you so much. This really means a lot to me!!
You're a legend @razvanelulmarin!
I wish you could also give such comments in my content. Im not a writer and I really long on improving my piece.
SUPER!! I'll check it out and leave my feedback. Anyone else wants in please reply to my comment.
Hi there, @razvanelulmarin. I'm new to Steemit, around 2 weeks. Even though I'm the author of 7 books and been featured on PBS NewsHour and PBS, I'm having a hard time finding my audience, here. Any feedback is appreciated brother! Cheers, Yahia
hey @razvanelulmarin, i just wanted to introduce myself in this comment to you.
I have a good feeling that the Steemit community will be some very good friends. I have been reading and following much of what has been going on here and my heart keeps pointing me to where I go next and so I' am here to say hello. I want to help create a world of abundance 4 everyone. To encourage each and every person to live each day, with passion and purpose, guided by faith. I also love things that go fast. It's just who I am. I believe in a higher purpose. A higher calling that is much bigger than us all. We are all in this together.
I was reading @dantheman 's post earlier about "Why We Fight" and just couldn't help myself but know that I've found a great community of change-makers!
ohh, I love exercise, I love music, I love eating cereal!, I love nature, and my favorite color is red. (and, I think I just broke parallel structure in that last sentence and that's okay too :*) It's just who I am.
I love numbers. Entrepreneurship (exponential entrepreneurship). The first video I posted to Steemit talks a little bit about this (Fastest Growing Company) - don't know if it has any views yet, as I haven't really shared who I am, what is my vision, and what I want to do with many others up to this point as it's taken me much time to finally decide and clarify who I am and what I want to do. It's not about me, it's about us...all of us. I want to help others. How do we help and how do we know that we are actually helping. I want to see the world smile. I want to do so much.
I love to laugh and have fun with basically everything and I want to share this love for life with others.
It's all about the "why". Why do we do what we do?
It's 2:20am EST and I'm getting tired so I'm going to probably eat a bowl of cereal and then get some rest. I love cereal, did I mention that? hehe
Anyways, I just wanted to say 'hi' and thank you and so many of the others that are moving the ball forward each and every day!
Goodnight!
"There must be a God" :)
@razvanelulmarin, keep up the great work. I don't even know you, but I believe that you're heart is in the right place from what I do know of you. Follow your heart! (share your passion with the world, you're awesome)
peace~
I'm not sure I get what the big deal is about centering images. They look fine to me left aligned. Does it really appear that much better centres?
It looks unbalanced to me and distracts me from the article. It would be equally acceptable if the image wasn't scaled and allowed to be the same width as the text.
I center my images, but there should be more sizing options (entering an issue on github. It defenitly feels different when you can fill the screen with an image or have a wide picture.
Have you got a good link for the coding required for centring and sizing options?
@jonno-katz, I can't reply to your comment.
I totally understand. I do DAILY drawing tutorials and always urge people to try some exercises and post... so far no takers :/
I just discovered your work after reading your comment. I loved the koi sketch!
Right, comments could be an avenue for improvements which every author is willing to take.
Indeed, feedback and comments are absolutely crucial. :) This is where the community comes in.
Yeah. Another good thing that the comments do is that the post they are made for stays in the active longer, which gives it more exposure. Its like boosting, but free!
This is a huge leap for steemit. So the problem that good authors will be leaving the community due to the absence of rewards and not get noticed has answered already. During the onset of this project, quality content will be spreading in the community and I will try my best to be one of them.
Good point @juvyjabian.
If it were not for the encouragement that the upvotes and payouts bring, I would have found something else to do with my time and quit steeming a long time ago.
Thanks to all those who encouraged me along the way. I'm blessed to be here.
Your unique recipes will be posted their. Lets help each other and gain enough momentum, I mean enough and not too much.
Yes, that was another problem - good authors were leaving the platform frustrated, or worse, being reduced to making generic Steemit-related posts as that's all that was making money.
Hehehe i wonder why steemit related post are selling like hotcakes. I tried once but I could not complete a single article, its hard to pretend that you know something about the topic.
Great post and amazing project. It has been a pleasure to work with the other members of Project Curie. This is the best project I have been involved with on Steemit and that includes the e-book, Tom!
Is this even for real? This is an excellent intitiative you guys are taking and I applaud the time and effort you're putting forth. It's a community effort. We all need this, especially those of us who are serious about steemit progressing as a platform for interesting, original, high-quality content.
This is good news.
Nice one! I'm so glad this has come out now; I'd just like to say a massive thank you to @donkeypong for putting this all together and inviting me in as a curator. It feels really great to work with you and the whole team, I'm hoping that now we're public, the content creators we support will start to gain traction independently of us.
Toot, toot! Onwards and upwards!!!
Cg
You took all of my words right out of my mouth.... except maybe the toot, toot bit....
Yes, thanks @donkeypong (a mover and a shaker!) making things happen.
I'm just here saying hello and letting you all know that I believe in what you are doing. You all have giant hearts for change. What's happening here is bigger than anyone of us. It's the teamwork that makes the dream work, baby!
so hello and goodnight @cryptogee and @donkeypong,
this is @fast2future signing off for night - 'over and out, copy that'
:)
It's projects like these that will be the real reason for Steemit's success in the long run. If this is done properly (and I am sure it will), authors, artists and photographers alike will simply love this place.
Steemit will be a haven for all persons creative. A hub of creativity if you will. Looking forward to doing great things here :)
YAY to another great initiative! Looking forward to a more diversified Trending page, author recognition and a constant increase in quality content on our beloved Steemit!
My cent upvote as a small token of appreciatin and my hat's off for the entire #curie team as a sign of deepest appreciation:
Like a sir :)
A couple days ago I received a Curie vote accompanied by a large whale vote. I am humbled and thankful for the recognition. Thanks to you, a second post of mine had made it in the Trending category!
One day I hope to return the favor and help other new people. Your initiative is inspirational, and receiving a vote by your group is the highlight of my Steemit experience so far. I appreciate it. Thank you!
I have noticed a few combinations of upvotes on certain posts I made lately including users like yourself, @berniesanders, & @nextgencryto.
I am glad to hear about what you are up to, and it is so encouraging to me to receive your votes.
Thank you for what you are doing to help build this community.
Keep up the good work, @papa-pepper. :)
Will do. Thanks.
This is exciting news :) I wish there was a system in place though that could rate articles or a group so a author knew their standing, I for instance think I write good stuff but I never get voted which leaves me wondering perhaps its not as good as I think, maybe a idea for steemit would be a star rating or something so even if somone does not upvote you would have a idea on your quality :)
You just haven't gotten the proper exposure. Don't be discouraged by that. People usually never vote my shit either, but it's because I need to build a better following and continue developing my writing skills.
The whole idea of determining an author's quality is by reading articles, upvoting them when they're good, and following them if you enjoy their content. If we continue to seek high quality content and upvote it as deserved, regardless of who wrote it, things will begin to fall into place.
I agree with you @xvickx which is why this initiative is very exciting at least some whales are trying to address the problem :)
no one reads them, sorry
lol some do read them @jennsky even if though we think they do not, the platform is new so many just do not have the voting power yet.
Engaging content is a different matter. So far, if the post revolves around shock value, well at least there's some interaction. But if its a quality content (without all the shock value), you will have quality interaction, just maybe not in quantity. (Steemit is still a baby, the critical mass is yet to come)
This is a great initiative. This will defintely motivate emerging writers to come up with more new and exciting content. So there is light at the end of the tunnel after all
This is an amazing idea!! I was writing exactly about this recently and how good articles with 100 votes go unnoticed and not rewarded. This will help So much
Amount based on voting amount maybe a problem though coz of sybil/bots, but yes betcha plenty of people are trying their best to make things work better :)
Yes man, I'm sure there is people working on improvements
I know the feeling, but figured I'd maintain patience and keep posting. The cool thing is that every day, I read new curation strategy posts from people willing to spend their time to discover artists and writers out there. This sense of togetherness is rare in the physical world. As a futurist, I have only good hopes for us all the more we stick to being ourselves. Don't feel too discouraged if you see other people's posts doing good. Just stay positive my friends.
I've taken a look at your blog. It may take more time, but art, i think is best when you can walk others through your process (that's what i find best about art posts, personally)
Thanks. I took your advice on that and entered a new art with process shots.
That's awesome, guys! My respect to all of you.
And thank you for doing instead of just talking!
This is why I get excited over steemit! Thanks guys, you are the best comfort for aspiring writers! May the tribe be with you!
I absolutely love this! Some of those involved are my favorite people on steemit already, but I am looking to get to know those willing to spend the time finding content that is far undervalued.
This is a brilliant way to get people excited about making great content that might have given up after a few tries.
I'm no orca, but anything I see that I feel is deserving of far more rewards than it currently is, I will be happy to post to your channel and get some more great content creators rewarded.
I would double upvote this if I could. I love the idea and project that allows people to work together instead of hoarding for oneself.
This is a great initiative. I very much agree that this is needed, and I love the guidelines. I'd add that it would be great to foster communities around gaming, history, sports, programming, books and tv and others where original content is not necessarily art but reviews and discussion.
I've been writing more about steemit lately because I've been spending time digging into it but also of the complete lack of exposure when exploring other subjects. This encourages me to keep trying.
I also have a couple of undiscovered authors in my following list that I'd love to share with you. I'll drop by the channel later!
Those are precisely the kind of topics we are looking for. In fact, the more obscure and niche the topic, the better. :)
In my circle of activities, it is often said, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. I'd say this post shows Project Curie to be part of the solution. Well done all of you for the giving of your time and talents.
Seeing community projects like this are what made me fall in love with Cryptocurrency and Steemit! <3 Just amazing <3
When was your first foray into cryptos and why? :D
Well my first intro into crypto was early 2012/2013 when I played poker on a site called Seals with Clubs. I played on there very briefly after they shut down online poker in the US, but I really had no idea what BTC was besides "internet money". After I played there for a bit I forgot about BTC until March 2016. I was on vacation and out to dinner with a good friend whom was invested into BTC/ETH/Crypto's and he at that point really explained what crypto currency actually was. From that point on.... I have been hooked completely! It wasn't too long after that while doing research on crypto's, I came across Steemit! Honestly the conversation I had with my friend that ultimately lead to me getting into cryptocurrency, lit a fire of passion into my life like I hadn't felt in a long time. It gave me hope for the future when I felt like my life my beginning to become stagnant. I can say with pride that not only did cryptocurrency change my life it saved it haha.
Pretty revolutionary stuff eh, yeah it shook my world too lol, I've known and mined bitcoin since the early day but I never really thought much about the potential of cryptos til late 2015. Good to know you're taking internet money seriously and with passion now lol :)
For me making money and good investments is a plus side to crypto, but not what makes me excited about it. There is just something fresh and exciting about it and that breath of fresh air it brings really makes me excited for what the future holds with this technology!
I'm very excited to hear that these kind of initiatives are starting to take place.
When I first started using steemit pretty much every other post with a high payout was about steemit, Which to begin with was very helpful as It enabled me to learn about the platform, But It did get a slightly boring after a while, Plus I had come to the conclusion that The only way that you would be rewarded for your hard work was to join the queue and start circlejerking.
It's projects like these that bring hope to to this platform, And I genuinely can't wait to see steemit become as diversified as every other social media website, And also to see decent hardworking content creators being rewarded for the hard work that they are putting into their posts.
Steemit truly is becoming a great community to be a part of.
This is so great @donkeypong ! For a while now I've been thinking about start blogging about one of my biggest passions though I had doubts on whether there would be people in this community interested on this new topic or not, anyway I like the idea of pioneering a new topic here in Steemit, hope at least some people will be interested in it, and even if they are not, being one of my biggest passions, I'll be comfortable blogging about it. Kudos to you for pioneering this initiative that will certainly increase the trending topics in Steemit!
This is so awesome! Just what we need here! So great! Well done to everyone involved!
I am rubbing my eyes and blinking and my heart is swelling up to give birth to The Michelin Man. Thank you, Project Curie!
I love the initiative. I hope this helps many people like myself who dont get noticed. I, on my part, will be more involved in commenting newer posts, since at the end of the day that is more rewarding and fun than writing my own posts! :)
Its great to see more of these projects come to life!
2 weeks ago before I went on vacation I noticed that new authors were emerging but were either getting featured from already known authors (who let's say didn't mention a lot that they receive 50% of SP for not doing that much) or then not getting any attention at all and sometimes quitting.
That's what I like most about these projects combined with @robinhoodwhale and @steemcleaners, they will give new authors a better shot at getting followers and attention, while still getting most of the rewards themselves, like they deserve.
Not saying the featuring thing was a bad idea, but when money is involved, anyone would try and game it in one way or another, or over time try and gain mostly for themselves rewards. Its anonymous accounts mostly and that's something that makes the abuse easier until you get caught.
Now that I'm back I would like to focus more on curating and hope I can help out these projects in any way I can. I will be very active here again and the new section is my favorite part of Steemit, and getting newcomers started and to feel welcomed, either with a comment or a vote (even if that vote doens't have a lot of value).
That's great, feel free to share good content you find in #curie on Steemit.chat.
Yeah, I'm hoping that the robinhoodwhale and steem cleaners will help too. I've seen some of what they've been up to, and I think they are heading in the right direction. I was even selected by the robinhoodwhale, so that was encouraging.
Yeah! Was glad they had also selected @kiddarko which was a user I got to Steemit and he has become very active and successful lately! Its such a great feeling to show others Steemit and when they realize its potential and how good it works.
I'll check him out!
Great post! As someone who put together a follow vote bot to support the @robinhoodwhale project, can you help me understand and elaborate on your request to add a five minute delay? What does that accomplish for the author and the network? Also, would it be helpful for others to announce their curation team efforts for supporters to follow vote in order to increase the Steem Power involved?
Side note: early on, I was very cautious to auto vote something. Since running the bot on ronbinhoodwhale, I've changed my opinion. If the voter being followed is trustworthy, the vote list becomes my favorite reading list of great content! I also have time to remove my vote if needed.
Thanks for listening to my questions and input. Again, great work!
We are worried about bot wars. By adding a 5 minute delay, we know that only those that really want to help authors will add their bots, and not just trigger a bot war to cash in on free curation rewards. We also wish to attract more whales to the project to reward more authors, and offering them curation rewards is an incentive and a method of generating revenue.
Interesting. I guess I could see how people might vote on anything added to the curie channel which might decrease the whale curation reward. Still though, it would increase the reward for the author which, I thought, is the whole point. I get what you mean, though. There has to be a balance between incentives and goals. The whales make the world go round, so keeping the incentivized is critical to the project's success.
I'm not asking for altruism on the whale's part. In fact, in the long term, I think it's in their best interest to spread around the wealth a bit more which might include giving others higher curation rewards. Having STEEM spread around will increase the long term value of STEEM for everyone, IMO. It's even been suggested they should power down and let their STEEM dilute. Not sure about that approach, but the goal of everyone owning some value in STEEM makes a lot of sense to me. No one wants to be holding millions of worthless tokens while the crowd goes elsewhere.
Seems like they want to make sure they can all get a chance to vote before the whales they're working with, so they can maximise their own personal curation rewards...
We never vote before the whales.
(Except for backup proxy-voting)
Read this post twice and still, can't believe that finally there were people who decided to solve the problem of rewarding talented authors.
Recently I talked to a guy who made few really good posts, putting a lot of efforts and time in it, making just a few dollars of an outcome.
And he wanted to give up and quit when saw some shitty posts that were automatically upvoted by whale bots, making more than $300 within first 30 min. And of course, everyone understood that nobody read these posts. Hopefully, now the situation will change and it will stimulate good authors to keep up their contribution here.
I remember one whale started a similar project with curation team but finally noticed that it ended up with a bot that automatically upvoted some authors he subscribed for. I hope here it's not gonna be the same.
Finally, would like to thank you guys, for your efforts. I hope it will help to make steemit a better place. From my part, I will help to curate unnoticed authors whenever I have some free time.
We are just getting started. There would be no bots involved, we will be voting on hand-picked and curated material. Of course, it will take time, but we hope over time, with the community's support, we can promote diversity on Steemit. Our goal is to see the day when Project Curie is no longer needed. :)
Thanks to you and a lot of others for your great feedback. We don't want good people giving up and quitting. I also hope this project is making Steemit a better place. You're right on the bots; we can stay ahead of them mostly, but it's a bunch more work we wish we didn't have to do. Kind of like keeping away from mosquitoes when you're going on a hike.
It's encouraging to see that enough whales care enough to put time and effort into this!
I am still unsure where can I see what Curie is upvoting so we can help out the authors we like.
That being said, I'm excited about this, rhw and many many others that will surely come and eventually change Steemit into the place we all dream it to have the potential to be!
Good luck!
That's a very good question! All I can say is, you know the whales who are supporting us with their voting power. Just follow their voting patterns on Steemd.com, Steemdb.com or Steemstats.com.
It's great to see initiatives like these coming up and helping out people on the website! More power to the masses and kudos to the team!
#curie is live and ready on Steemit.Chat for the awesome team behind this project!
Thanks once again @firepower for setting up the chat for us. :)
Happy to be of help! :)
Thank you @firepower and I look forward to using the channel.
Happy to be of help as always! :)
Great initiative. I may have differing valuation on quality content, but I recognize what you are doing is great for the overall community. I have taken on the task of curating what I value as content, and was recently doing a daily or every-two day aggregation featurette for others to access the top posts I valued from lesser known content creators. It's less work than what you do because I ignore much of the content I don't value, but you do value.
Keep on keeping on, we can each do out part to bring recognition of the work of others, even if we disagree on what is more valuable. I took a day off yesterday to create some content, and overall the featurette doesn't get many views, but I will also keep on with my efforts to have people learn the valuable quality content I recognize people should learn from to change our condition and quality of life.
I am fairly committed to seeing Steemit succeed, aiming to influence more curation power. I have invested $300 so far, in my first ever bitcoin purchases, to get more SP. Not much, but I don't work right now.
Take care. Peace.
I enjoy The QC - keep up the good work! We are also fans of your posts. Of course, we have a set of goals that differ, but I'm sure there'll be common posts. Feel free to share your finds from the QC in the #curie channel.
Oh... excellent, I will do that! Can I share the QC link itself? Or do you prefer each post to be added individually so as for me not to promote my own post?
And I appreciate the feedback as well. I thought those QC posts were mostly falling on "deaf ears". :)
Take care. Peace.
I don't think we would be considering the QC posts themselves, as they are strictly Steemit-related. But we'd definitely consider the posts listed in The QC.
Yes, that's what I was saying. Can I simplify the process by just posting the link of what I collected? Or is that considered promoting my own material? If so, I can provide the individual links. That's what I was wondering. I know the post itself would not be valid material for curation of quality material itself, lol. Thanks for the feedback.
nice post
How can voting for content, and thereby rewarding the author, be considered unfair to the author?
I think it is a timing thing. If they upvote in the 25 minute to 30 minute timeframe, then they get a bigger cut (I think). If they waited longer, the author retains more, but the voters get a smaller portion for voting later. There is some sort of formula behind it all, and I am no expert, but this should be the general idea.
I think it's the opposite. The rewards are split 75% author 25% curator. But if the curator votes within the first 30 minutes, some of their curation award goes to the author as well. So early voting helps the author. Late voting helps the curator. In order to maximise awards to himself, the curator wants to vote as close to the 30 min mark but before a whale does. If a whale votes first, then the whale gets most of the curator awards.
Ok, that could be correct... but what were they talking about pertaining to bot voting then and how it affects rewards?
We wish to attract members with significant SP holding so the authors are rewarded more. Curation rewards are an attractive incentive to help us with our project. So, in effect, it's unfair to not just one author but the entire project, and all authors.
Wouldn't the bot have to front-run the whale? Not sure that's even possible unless they have a mechanism to get insider knowledge.
This seems like it's intended to help "members" more than "authors"...
All members in the team follow this rule as well. We always vote after the whale votes have hit.
We have a general rule not to vote on these posts with our personal accounts until later. The whale curation rewards is just part of the economics of it since we have to pay for the project.
@donkeypong
I am glad to see so many initiatives taking place. This shows dedication to any new members. I am way more optimistic over the last 2 weeks for Steemit.
Your initiative seems to be to the right direction! Let's see how it will play out....
Thanks for the support @liondani!
What an amazing initiative @donkeypong and the entire curie team! Your project has given me hope to keep writing and continue to contribute to the Steemit community.
After spending hours on a post, there is nothing more discouraging than to see a few cents and no comments next to the post. I agree, it's not just about the money, it's about being valued for your work. Thank you for giving me hope to persevere on this platform and continue my passion of writing.
Thanks for the support @nextgen622, I'm sure everyone else is trying their best in their own ways. It's just that we've banded together, having trust with each other to act responsibly with our curation and votes. Helping the top influencers to spot authors and posts is definitely showcasing the power of steemit to distribute rep and funds :)
Yes, that's what I like about the project, the collaboration.
This makes me really happy to see. I was already excited to be a new member of this community, but knowing how cognizant large accounts are of the need to encourage and support independent creative folk makes me even more stoked! Good work Project Curie!
Keep on steeming! thanks for the support :)
@donkeypong I love seeing these initiatives for new, underrepresented artists and creators. I've only been here two weeks and I've been posting photography and illustration every day. Fortunately there are a few whales that've been good to me, but I just brought a small circle of talented, creative friends and their first few posts are quickly falling of the radar. Thanks for fighting the good fight.
Its much valuable work that projects liek this can bring to us.
As a society we must introduce simialr projects - right now there are a few happening across the world of steem.
And for those projects we have to be greatful and thankful, as they help many new authors to get noticed!
This kind of curation is one of the reasons Steemit will succeed in the long run.
Here here!
glugs ale.
Nice. Just what Steemit needs as it grows. I'd love to be given some feedback/mentoring. I've been wondering if it's my writing or I've just been unlucky. It's hard to change/adjust when you have little feedback.
I feel a bit the same, I am interested to check your blog now, just keep going and be yourself @jonno-katz
I'll look at your stuff. I'm in three writers groups and have a lot of experience giving feedback and editing.
Thanks!
Pardon the interjection, but I'd love some feedback too. When I first came here I posted a few clips from YT I liked, but now with th a better understanding of the Steemit project. As a result, I gave posted a few original story posts. I haven't written in a long long time and could use some critiquing. If you have the time I'd love to hear your feedback. I think the more we create the closer to our purpose we become.
[email protected]
This is the community spirit and this is how we'll keep growing!
It means a lot for new content producers like me and it's a huge motivation to keep going.... Amazing initiative guys!
I'm obviously sooooo late to this post no one is watching. No matter. Curie is exactly the type of thing I was looking for. The PAL community discord pointed me this was, as I was talking about how hard it is for new steemians to find good content in one place. Anyhow - late to the game....but thanks for the work you do!
Hey @jfolkmann do you know of any other steemit helpers in terms of programs you can donate to that upvote you or other groups like this?
No. I'd love to hear about them if you know of any? I'd share them with our discord community.
It sounds really good. The problem seems to be that unless you are discovered within the first 30 minutes you sink. The few votes I've managed to get on my first article all came from other minnows on #minnowsunite.
We look all over... mostly at articles over 30 mins old that have sunk into the pile
An important program to have here on Steemit and, by the looks of it, a great team of dedicated and quality seeking individuals. I really like the choice of guidelines. Thank you for your hard work, all for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Thanks, Tom. Good stuff and so needed. It's nice to see more folks jumping on finding ways to help too. I tried to fire one up, but don't really have the presence yet to motivate folks, I suppose. It drowned... :)
New authors need the encouragement, especially those who put out great content that gets no recognition only to see a meaningless post get big popularity votes.
When you find someone they end up gathering a new batch of followers as a result too, boosting their potential immediately. We all lay eggs from time to time, but it's nice to see a little consistency as we grow in our efforts here.
Thanks to Project Curie for all you do.
Good Stuff.. I like how ya formed a "commission of curations" that's badass and I look forward to the end result. Cheers guys and thanks for doing this..
@mister-e this is why our collaboration is probably limited, lol.. but it's a good thing. Because this was your introduction post... it isn't qualified for the big time just yet.. don't worry bro, we gonna do another quality video soon and with these guys setting this up.. you will be noticed :)
I think I may be one of the recipients - it has been noticed (even if I haven't gotten into the top 30 recently). I appreciate the support. It's good to know people want to reward fresh, quality content.
This is THE BEST initiative tin the whole lifetime of Steemit so far. Congratulations for coming up with it and for carrying it out. It might just represent the salvation of the platform.
A question - what about helping out with forming the communities which produce content which is not a 'high' quality. I am talking about various interests' clubs or similar... Thanks!
Keep up the good work. It is very appriciated and extremely necessary.
Thanks for your comment. Good question re: forming the communities. In terms of rewards, Steemit really seems to be more like Medium than Reddit. Voters mostly reward longer, presentable work, rather than conversations. But there's no reason that we can't have both. It's not the focus of our project, but I strongly encourage you to pursue that (if I'm understanding your interest correctly there). Hopefully, once the SP is well enough distributed, there will be people in each community who can add some rewards with their votes. Until then, you could focus on building those out in one or two areas and seeing if you can find a benefactor who might have an interest in that area also (or an interest in seeing it grow).
@donkeypong
Thanks for your reply. Yes, you do understand me correctly :)
OK, I will start building a running community here at Steemit.
I will start with a proper introduction and guidelines. Something like this post on a lesser scale.
I will 'keep it together' with #steemitrunningclub tag and with moderating. Of course, I will need / build a team of moderators. There will be events, weekly digests, ...
The promotion will go through Steemit and related channels. I will also use other networks to attract members.
May I notify you when The into will be ready to be published? You just might help to launch it. If you feel like it, of course.
It may be a model of how to build a community here :)
Thanks for your attention and help!
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