"re-posts, re-links"
You want to reward simple links to other sites or material?
The reason that's ok on facebook and reddit, is because there is no content exclusivity being sought after on those platforms themselves. People have their own sites, and they share content in a market. People go there for the connectivity of sharing content through a market.
Steemit is a content platform. That's what the author rewards are for. The whitepaper states to make Steemit a place for unique content that can only be had on Steemit. And also emphasizes not plagiarizing with the cheetah bot and the TOS I think...
Sharing links, sharing content of others, is what the "Decline Payout" option is for. Honestly. If you want to share content from others, then do it, create engagement like is suggested, but you didn't create the content. Keep the rewards for people who don't simply post a link, video, picture or short text from someone else. That's how I saw that feature being used when it was implemented, as I saw that as a problem if you want to just share something like FB, where you don't get $ for other people's work, but you can create engagement, comments, sharing/reblogging of that post itself, etc.
Peace.
I sure as hell do. Along with memes, cat pictures, cute kid videos, a review of your favorite taco joint, #fail, etc.
Why?
Because if you reward link posting then many people will come and post links. Not many people will ever write blogs, compose music, or create paintings.
There can be a certain place in the budget for brand-enhancing "altruism" in the form of rewarding high-quality content, but it can't be all of the budget or anything close to it.
The purpose of this platform is to reward users in order to attract more users and grow a large community. The approach that developed out of a misguided sense of trying to corral rewards to those who are "more deserving" has been destructive to this primary purpose.
If you have people posting links, thoughts, and comments, and other simple content, and earning large rewards for that, one of two things will certainly happen:
People within the system will feel this is unfair and come up with ways to reallocate rewards to "more deserving" content. We can create curation guilds, we can downvote "excess" rewards when undeserved, we can attract a few more excellent content creators who will also get relatively large rewards, etc. The rewards for simple content will fall, but only because it is instead being paid to a relatively small number of other, more talented, users. Those without any particular talent or celebrity are left out. Potential new users from outside the system, without any particular talent or celebrity, see no reason to join, or if they do join, find that they can't meaningfully participate and quit. This does little to increase the value of STEEM. In fact, it reduces it as "content creators" view their rewards as salary and cash out.
People outside the system will see people earning a lot of money posting links, cute cat pictures, etc. and will want to join to compete for a share of those rewards. They will think, "I can do that!" and they will be correct. The rewards for most of that simple content will fall dramatically (a very few viral posts may still make a lot, which is good because it encourages more posting of potentially-viral content), but in this case the rewards on that "low value" content will fall because a large number of people have joined to compete for those rewards, dramatically increasing the size of the community. This will increase the value of STEEM because a huge number of people will have it, know how to use it, and represent a large economic opportunity and audience.
Early adopters of this platform, myself included, made a wrong turn in considering how to respond to the mismatch between rewards and value. We chose #1 and it turned out to be largely a dead end. It isn't too late to try again and see whether #2 leads to a better place. It is quite possible that it does.
I'm 100% supportive of this initiative. I see it as an experiment but a very important one that should go forward without obstruction or interference.
Even if you are someone who is more supportive of rewarding "higher value" content, this experiment may work to your advantage. We need to be growing a large user base for the cryptocurrency that serves as the source of rewards to retain and grow value. Once we do that, there will be room to reward some amount of "high quality content" as part of what this community is about. That is a far better way to support content creators than paying them a little money in an unsustainable manner short term, not growing the user base, and ending up with a token that continues to crash in value with no rewards ultimately left going to anyone.
Thanks for giving your opinion.
I myself have absolutely no talent at all. I can't play an instrument, sing, write fiction, draw, paint, dance etc. You don't have to be talented to be creative.
I started with awful posts few months ago and slowly learnt how to edit and write interesting posts. It is not a talent but acquired experience. I think that such low quality posts should not be rewarded. I think that new users, talented or not should earn their way up here through their work before they start being rewarded for their content. To reward such content is inconsiderate towards other users who put a lot of time and work into this community. We have to decide if we are here to promotin Steemit as community blogging platform or to turn it into profit driven entity that adjusts itself according to the "market" not people's creative input.
We have to decide if it is quality platform for creative expression or just another twitter.
The user base is already quite large and keeps growing. The community is well established. You could have seen it during last Steem Fest - these users are the people who make up this community and make it great, and they should be rewarded for it.
I can not argee with you that the user base is 'quite large' nor than that it keeps growing. It has been stagnant in the 2-3k range for months, and multiple people have analyzed it and shown that a very significant number of those are bots. The true number of users is probably closer to 1000 and not growing significantly.
Neither the size of the user base nor the rate of (non-) growth are economically viable. Unless adjustments are made, the platform will continue to stagnate and ultimately fail altogether. This doesn't mean that my ideas for adjustments are the right ones, but we can't simply stick with what we have been doing. It doesn't work and won't work. I say this not to insult or disparage Steemit or the people who have poured a lot of effort into it, including yourself, but because I want it to succeed.
I know they do want it to succeed and you try your best. You are right that we need more users.
I'm just not convinced that rewarding poor quality content is a solution. There are many other ways. One of them is professional PR. There should be group assigned for making this platform heard of in crypto-community and mainstream media.
For example, we must contact crypto news sites on regular basis so they keep writing articles about STEEM just like they write about other crypto projects.
I think that PR aspect is highly neglected. We cannot just rely on users to contact media or wish that posting more content is going to attract the media.
"Poor quality" is very subjective and I think a little too tied to one particular approach. There is more than one way to interact that people feel is informative, entertaining, and generally adds value to their lives. No one is proposing or supporting worthless spam. If it isn't something that gets people excited to join and interact, then it won't add value and this initiative won't go anywhere. It is an experiment worth trying. That is not to rule out also doing other things like improved PR
I agree with your here @smooth - I thought the user base had stagnated around the 5000 mark. I think it may soon be time to get people in who know what they are doing to get the Steem valves rebored and ready to fire on a full on assault on the non-crypto market. Anything else just seems like ultimate failure like you say.
Such a crying shame for the many man hours put into the platform - far more than any other crypto apart from maybe Bitcoin and Litecoin!
It did stagnate around 5K for a while after the big surge in signups but then dropped lower to the current 2-3K. Some of that may be reduced botting/spam after the rep system, though some was very likely actual attrition due to loss of interest or other reasons. There are still many bots included in the lower figure.
Yeah, that's what I originally thought as well. Posting a single picture or a link isn't exactly what most people would consider "valuable." Links can be found anywhere and even most photography isn't valued anywhere close to the payouts seen on this site. A few cents for stock/landscape images is what you'd get almost anywhere else. I think the original, long-form content is what adds the actual value to this site content-wise. Other social factors can add value - such as sharing links and reblogging - but I don't believe that this is how the limited rewards should be allocated.
Exactly. I have no problem with people sharing content like that. I'll even upvote it once in a while. But I really don't think we need to create more curation guilds just for that type of content - and I honestly don't think the people posting that stuff actually care if they're being rewarded for it. It doesn't take more than a few seconds to drop a link or copy-paste an image into the editor. It doesn't take more than a few minutes to write a couple of lines for a "status update."
I think this will only generate more ill-will towards each other. Content creators vs. "link spammers." The latter getting rewarded just like the former probably wouldn't sit well with most people. We don't need to find ways to curate link-dropping. We need to find ways to make this platform more attractive for social media users - attractive in ways that aren't centered around "making money." That isn't what draws people to social media, as we can see from nearly every other social media site. It's about time that Steemit starts figuring this out.
No one wants to reward "link spammers" - it is of course not all black and white. There are many thoughtful short form posts and/or where the author links to interesting content.
Of course. There's lots of useful content that we can link to here on Steemit. But I just don't see how that adds value to Steemit and why that necessitates another curation group to specifically reward those who put up the links. What problem are you trying to solve with this initiative?
I'd assume the problem they're trying to solve is that there is nothing currently bringing value to Steemit. Post quality is dropping, engagement is dropping, users are dropping... If Steemit, inc. won't do anything to encourage adoption it's up to the community to make an effort and that's what I see being done here.
Right. But the problem then isn't that short posts aren't being rewarded. The problem is that the platform sucks for that type of social media use. The problem is development, not rewards and engagement. The latter will come when the former is fixed.
I think that bots have a lot to do with engagement. Newbies are disappointed because nobody reply. Me as curator also. If I find good post bots jump on it and I get no reward.
As a new person to Crypto and trying hard to learn so much, and then investing time making content, I honestly get bummed I work hard and get nothing, no engagement, no reward for most of my stuff. I basically left for 30 days because of this. I make sure every day I sign in here, to share the heck and resteem and upvote good content, I reblog a ton to help others and the site. No real rewards, the weights for things and work makes no sense, -- the average person does not get enough traction or have enough followers to give weight to their case. Just speaking freely. Something is not right here. I would like to see the smart people like all you guys in this post chatting about stuff I don't understand, help. I know you are working on it! TY for your time.
Links are mentioned in our post as examples of different types of content, but pure links were not the focus of this post. This post is about the community being open to shorter posts as a different type of content. The problem we are addressing is a lack of engagement in the content and a model + community behavior that currently favors only one type of content, which limits Steemit as a social media site. Did we announce any new initiatives or curation guilds? If so, I missed that part.
All my posts can be considered short form, as I post a video, a few lines of original text, and a picture. My posts earn average $5 per post, that's a start, I figure when the value of steem goes up I will earn $50 per post, and that is fair
That is platform-wide and it has little to do with the length of posts.
Well, you did say this in the post:
It may not be an official, new curation guild, but it certainly sounds like a new initiative to identify and curate certain posts by a group of people. I don't know what else we can call this. "Curation guild" seems to fit.
@craig-grant
I also upvote some of your posts. I don't discriminate based on how many words you typed. I don't think most other users do it that way either. If we like your content, we'll upvote it.
Besides - it's not the average user that skews the post rewards anyway. And if it's a problem with engagement, well...provide more engaging content. However, we first need to attract more engaging users - which requires the ability to attract users and to retain them.
Steemit is an experiment, a constantly evolving one. There's no technical reason why it cannot evolve into a more social platform.
Rewarding short form posts is another experiment. The community will decide whether that adds value to the platform.
"Decline Payout" is certainly an interesting option, and could go hand in hand with a revised short form section where the Trending page is arranged by engagement and not rewards. However, I also feel the author in this case could be thought of as a "curator". If someone finds interesting material in the public domain, links to it, adds a couple of lines with their thoughts, and this generates a lot of discussion and comments - they certainly have done their bit in adding value to the platform. It could of course be a fraction of the amount original content will receive.
Isn't that what the community is doing now? I would think that creating a group to specifically reward short-form content because it's not being rewarded by the community is the opposite of this.
We don't need to solve problems that don't exist. The problem is not that links, images, reblogs, and three-sentence posts aren't being rewarded enough. The problem is that the site is poorly developed for that type of content sharing. I'm curious to know - what exactly is the problem that this new experiment will solve, other than a perceived rewards distribution issue?
I see hundreds of short form posts every single day being ignored, generating no comments, and the authors eventually leaving the platform. Pretty simple problem. I don't know the solution to generating discussion and engagement, but I'm interested in seeing if this new project helps.
Three months ago, the same was true of original content - only a handful were being rewarded. There are several curation efforts today organized around promoting long form content - that problem has been solved.
I see plenty of long form posts every single day being ignored as well. Maybe the problem isn't the length of the posts? Maybe it has more to do with the UI features and the limited distribution of vests on the platform?
I happen to think you're trying to solve a very large problem with the wrong solutions. Instead of focusing on rewards, we need to focus on development. I have been guilty of this too, but it's time that we wake up and realize that this platform isn't attracting and retaining users - and it has little to do with the length of posts or the amount of rewards they get. It has to do with features/functionality and engagement. The latter isn't happening much because the former is terrible...and not enough people want to use this site. That's the problem. Let's get that resolved first, then see what happens.
Sharing my experience as a full time curator, there's a far greater proportion of ignored short form posts. For every long form post I curate, there are at least five short form posts I have to pass on simply because the curation guild I work with focuses on long form posts. It is as simple as that. I have seen authors writing short form content / sharing their thoughts linking to non-original content leave the platform and head back to Reddit etc.
There's no one solution to any problem. I'm sure the Steemit Inc team is hard at work developing the website. Meanwhile, the community will do its little bit to help. There needs to be different, varied efforts from different perspectives - that's how an experiment succeeds.
I completely understand you're not keen on this project, and that's just fine. I'm sure you have your own solutions - we have to work together. We shall see if it is successful like the long form curation projects have proven to be.
I have no problem with any kind of content, even just a heads-up, as long as copyrights aren't violated. The voters can decide if they find the content interesting or useful or adding value. I thought that was what we already had here. Apparently, short content doesn't get enough appreciation according to some. That's not a reason to curate short posts more, it's a signal from the voting community that they don't appreciate short content much. Only when short content gets a lot of votes but little money, there may be a reason to reward such content more, but such initiatives are already in place and we all suffer from this from time to time anyway, with all kinds of content.
Those were exactly my thoughts. If this platform is to be decentralized and based on the votes of users in order to filter "valuable" from "not valuable" content, then it's not necessary to identify the "not valued" posts and find ways to make sure that they are rewarded.
Now, is the current system of rewarding posts skewed or broken? Yes, it is. But that has nothing to do with the average user or the visibility of their content. It has to do with how the vests were distributed and how the posts are currently being upvoted (automated/bot voting, automated trails, curation guilds, etc.).
We need better development and smarter curators, not more gimmicks. This platform is going to live or die by its attractiveness to users as a social media platform. It's not going to die because someone didn't get $40 for telling us what they ate for breakfast or for linking their latest Vine from YouTube. It's not going to survive because Aunt Sally just earned $100 for posting another cat meme or because Jack was rewarded $50 for his 60-word snippet about his shiny new stapler.
Make this place better for the average social media user so that it can gain widespread adoption...or watch it shrivel and die as we all try to micromanage voting and rewards on a platform with an unfriendly UI. Resolve the development issues. Everything else should fall into place after that.