Courtesy: Pixabay
When I joined Steemit last November I was thrilled to have found a community of such bright and talented people. As I scrolled through my feed, it was one interesting post after another. There was articles on any number of topics, Art, Photography, you name it and if it was intellectually stimulating it was here. Immersing myself in this treasure trove of ideas, I began commenting and over time began to compile a list of people whose ideas I particularly enjoyed. For example @kernel, with whom I seldom agreed, presented arguments that were well thought out and equally well articulated. Now, I never see his posts anymore. The same is true of many of my other favorite bloggers.
There are others, that are still here that I enjoy, such as @dwinblood- I don't mean to single these two out, they just happen to come to mind... @dwinblood whose posts on Metal music and society in general, are splendidly done. In fact one of his articles from a day or so ago is what prompted me to write this post.
I had written an article that I was about to type in and post, but elected to look through my feed first- he had written something that caught my eye and looked really interesting. I decided to first do my post and then return to my feed to read his post... I couldn't find it.
As I scrolled through my feed it was one junk post after another. One guy posted pictures of women (don't get me wrong, I like women as much as anyone)- one playing tennis and her cleavage was showing. He posted picture after picture, all of a similar nature- one every 2 minutes or so. Ane, this wasn't isolated- it's just the one that sticks out in my memory... there were many more that were similar. I scrolled through one junk post after another (not one had any intellectual appeal) and not only did I not find @dwinblood's post- there wasn't one that looked remotely interesting... I had to go to his blog page to find the article.
Is this what Steemit has become? What began as an intellectually stimulating platform for content creators has degenerated into a rubbish pit... A veritable sea of garbage unworthy of Twitter (and that's bad!). I have no doubt that content creators are still here- I stumble across one every once in a while, but their posts are buried in a mountain of worthless rubbish.
Here's what I fear will happen... The Whales will, of course, be fine. The junk merchants will upvote each other for pennies until their dreams of "Instant Riches" are dashed- then they'll go back to Fakebook. The guys in the middle- the content creators- will become discouraged, realizing that they can't make anything for all their hard work and they will leave... taking their money with them and Steemit will tank.
The only solution I can see is to put a limit on posts once again- a shame. There are people on here that come up with many quality posts every day, @everettdmickey comes to mind. Personally I wouldn't mind if someone could post a worthy article every 20 minutes- if it possesses quality. But that isn't what's happening. I worry about the platform I have come to love- like the old song goes... Something's gotta give!
GIF by @papa-pepper
Hi, @richq11. I found exactly the same thing a month or so ago. My feed was becoming inundated with worthless posts and I was missing the stuff that I wanted to see.
I managed to solve the problem by being utterly ruthless with my follows. I went through the whole list removing everyone except those who I really wanted to see posts from (by the way, be pleased, you made the cut! :-D). It took a while but I went from having six hundred and something follows to forty-three and I now have a feed which consists of good quality posts (to my mind anyway).
I am now much more selective with whom I follow and will continue to hold culls every once in a while.
As you mentioned in your post, hopefully, those who post the junk will give up and go home and leave only good quality posters on the platform. I agree though that it is a worry that good people may become discouraged and leave.
If all else fails we will still have each other!!! :-D
This is part of the solution to the problem OP is having. From time to time I note something I cannot abide from someone I followed and I have to unfollow them. This has aided in my ability to control my feed, although there's no doubt I could be more ruthless. I tend to be tolerant of human foibles, and my feed reflects this.
I hope OP does this, as he seems to be less enamored with Steemit of late, and I'd hate to lose his presence in my feed if he gives up.
Thanks!
I echo what you say about losing @richq11. It would be a tragedy.
You might be better off being a little more ruthless @valued-customer. To paraphrase Gordon Geko in the film Wall Street:-
With regard to follows anyway. Enjoy the rest of your day. :-)
One of the reasons I am not ruthless, is that I have a healthy regard for my own fallibility. I want to hear voices I don't agree with. I want to be criticized. When I am wrong I want to be set straight, and that won't happen in an echo chamber. I cannot predict which direction the next useful revelation might come from, so I try to seek some diversity in my feed.
That being said, I limit my feed to at least thoughtful voices. While I may miss some revelation of my own fallability, I can only see so much, and expect to gain epiphanies from folks at least giving things thought, rather than just following their programming.
Thanks!
I totally agree with you. Diversity within ones feed is a great thing to have. However, I wasn't referring to posters who may post things we are not in agreement with (for example I am in a healthy discussion with some people who views I do not share at all) but rather those who only post the 'you follow me and I'll follow you' comments without even referring to the post or those accounts which are totally bogus and only post plagiarised material. Be ruthless with removing those from your feed as they degrade the whole platform.
I could not more strongly agree!
Thanks Buddy... I just did the same thing a couple of days ago (you're still there too lol) I cut about 50 more. I'm still over 300 so looks like I need to go back to work!
LOL! Glad I figured that out when I only had 230 to sort through, it took me all day. I was new, followed anyone who followed me. I did not understand that it would jam up my feed.
I am getting frustrated, the soft porn, the "follow me I follow you" begging (it feels like virtual panhandling to me!) but the thing that bugs me the most is that even the reputation score is rigged. Some wooman with TWO posts and a dozen comments, been here a week, has an instant reputation of 53. That is bullshit. I thought the rep score was the one honest thing here...
But then life just ain't fair, is it? I decided to make steemit what I want it to be, for me. If I make no money, well, that is what I was making on facebook and youtube already, right? So I started dumping the people I follow unless I ACTUALLY like their content. Going to every blog, seeing what they post. Some of them are pure trash accounts, it seems it is unwise to just follow for follow, but I have not even been here 2 months, took a while to figure it out.
Hello, @fishyculture. Many thanks for your comment. You were quicker than me! I was a 4-month-old Steemian before I did the cull. :-)
I must admit I don't know the reason for the woman's rep score. Maybe asking that kind of question in a post with a steemit tag may throw up an answer or two from someone.
I agree totally with your attitude to Steemit. It can be quite demoralising when a post on which you have spent a lot of time and effort makes next to nothing (happens to me quite a bit) but like you, I look upon it as an opportunity to improve and grow as a poster.
Take care.
When the site gets out of beta and Goes Big, it's only going to get worse.
Maybe Steemit needs some form of customizable filters so you could for instance filter out anyone with a Reputation below 42, or anyone who had posted more than 19 times in the last week, or anyone who was muted by 4 or more people you followed. You could set the filters how you wanted. I'm not a web developer, but from what I know about programming, I think things like that would be quite possible.
You may need to purge the followers to get rid of the fluff posts that infest your feed. Good content is out there, although individual posters do drop out for a while, as @drpuffnstuff did, and then return. I still follow @krnel, although I haven't seen posts from him for a while, in the hope that he will start posting again.
@dwinblood, as you say, is one of the most important posters I follow, and I would sorely miss his content were he to take a hiatus.
I hope you can cut out some of the clutter, to reveal the gems that still are to be found if you can remove the overburden hiding them.
I've begun paring down my following list... But I have NO idea who most of these people on my feed were- nobody I was following!
One thing I have noticed is that much of my feed is resteems by people I follow of people I don't. When I see too much fluff and clutter from such resteems, I have to unfollow the resteemer, even if I like their personal content.
Maybe that's part of the issue you are noting.
No but I've noticed that as well! An entire page of resteems by the same person! (and none of them mine!!!)
I've noticed some folks don't really blog at all, or hardly do. Unless I find almost all their resteems valuable (and I hope you're not referring to me LOL. I have resteemed quite a bit of content in the last couple days, that I thought was good stuff) I have to do the hard thing.
I resteem stuff that's good. What I meant was an entire page of resteems by the same person of stuff that's days old.
I think - carry on - you deliver excellent quality like clock work, Rich. You are an example to me... you've made Dolphin within eight months through hard work, persistency and quality. Glad to have YOU on my feed.
Happy Sunday!
I'm not talking about myself so much as the platform in general... I'm doing ok. I just got back from visiting my ex (who isn't doing so good) She's having problems with her heart and colon(?). She needs tests but her ins doesn't cover it all... So I brought her $200 (that I don't have) God judges you on how much you give when you're broke- not when you're flush. It's easy to be a Christian- when it isn't inconvenient!
Good thoughts here, @richq11!
I'm incredibly new to Steemit, but I am trying to get going as a quality content creator. I've been reading lots of more experienced blogs and absorbing advice.
The best piece of advice I've got might be "avoid overposting."
If I had all of my time to blog, I think I would still never exceed one post per day. I would just work harder on each one.
As a new user, I see a lot of what you're talking about, but I also see a ton of smart people sharing quality, intellectually stimulating content.
I'm sure a lot of the original Steemit bosses aren't going to stick around, but there will be plenty of new ones coming in.
Thanks for a great post!
I hate to see people leave. If I might share my experience with you... stick to good content. It gets incredibly frustrating, but in the long run it pays off I think. I didn't get the reputation I have by posting crap. That's what I use to judge- someone's rep, not how many followers they have. I don't know who 3/4 of mine are. I figure I have about 150-200 actual followers.
I'm the first to admit, I've thrown out a junk post or two, but I always try to include some text- humor. About posting frequency: after the last HF, the amount of votes you can cast have declined (4x) so you can't expect your followers to vote your stuff exclusively every few minutes- it's unrealistic. This is my only means of support, but I try not to hog the reward pool. If I do well on one post- that's it for the day. I look at this as a community. There are some incredibly good people on here and we try to help each other out. My other piece of advice is become part of the community. That's it- I won't bend your ear anymore!
It's the nature of social media. It's also the nature of 'freelance' internet writing. I had a website once where I bought articles, and you can only imagine what I was inundated with, as well as the spam offers made by internet 'content providers'. Everyone is trying to make a buck via bad writing and celebrity/sexual click-bait content. Like you, I look forward to @dwinblood's posts. However, part of the problem lies with Steemit's structure. We can't separate or group what we follow into our own lists. There is also the down-vote problem which causes us to self-censor if we don't have a high enough reputation to withstand a down-vote attack. I'm in the process of writing something, but I can't use the reference I want to because it would certainly draw such an attack, and my reputation is not high enough to withstand it. I believe that is also a contributing factor as to why only fluff is appearing. People are scared to say what is on their mind, and then be blasted into a -6 reputation level (as has actually happened to someone for posting a non-offensive post). Sad to say, I agree with your vision of where things are going... .
I've seen this happen, to @krnel in fact, and it is a reason he stated to me that he wasn't posting for a while. @berniesanders was flagging him hard, and, until @dan flagged @berniesanders reputation into dust, @krnel just didn't open an attack vector that might jeopardize his own reputation.
I have noted recently the @krnel isn't posting anything I've seen on my feed either, and haven't made the time to investigate why.
Flagging is an issue that causes many to self-censor, although my own fear of being flagged is very feeble, as I simply am not concerned about any income I might lose as a result of being flagged. Given my concern that Steemit is unlikely to survive unscathed if it suddenly begins to succeed and quickly grow (due to the inevitable Sybil attack that is certain to capture the platform if it does), I am neither very concerned about my reputation.
So, I just post what is on my mind, and if I'm wrong, I change my mind. I haven't yet been flagged to death, and if I am, I will die. So be it.
For me, the point is to seek to live well while I am alive, and to die on my feet, rather than on my knees.
I've been flagged, but not to death. Thankfully. It is not really the income that is the problem when it happens, it's the fact that once you are at zero, your posts are hidden. Unless others come together to get you back to a minimum level of 1, no one sees what you write. So why continue writing? I just used up a lot of my voting power to help get yet another person back up to 1 so that people could see her posts again, but I am no social butterfly, and I doubt I'd rally the same support. Overall, it is a sad situation.
Man you need to have a clear out and bin all the people you are following who just do posts about strippers with big boobs :)
LOLZ good one!!!
Booooobs!!!
Hey @richq11 I thought the solution would be pretty simple why not just unfollow many of these people? I mean if you got over 300 your going to get a ton of stuff you wont want.
But many of those are actual followers. The posts I was talking about were by people I never heard of.
There will be ups and downs for the quality of the overall content. Additionally, every author also has dry spells. Some people leave while others join. The way to overcome the downward slope is to continually follow new good authors. Steemit is dynamic. We all must contribute and also seek new authors who strengthen the pool of thought-leadership. Stagnation and apathy is the enemy to free thought.
I couldn't agree more! I hit a spell every once in a while and have chunked a few posts that I wouldn't consider my best effort (It's be kind to me day). My complaint is junk posts... with no thought behind them. Even my worst posts have contained at least a little text- my feeble attempt at humor. But I at least try to create something of value.
It would be nice to have a favourite feed or a way to stay connected without following.
I'm convinced that there are superficial people on here that enjoy the junk... so why not 2 feeds- one for creators and one that's more like Twitter?
Yes thats what I want, I like making worldwide connections.I don't have time right now for good content so I'm just doing some life blog crap right now.
I did pretty good with that. I wrote my life story- The Kid That Became A Guy. And a few Kid stories after that. I still write one when I don't get too busy.
I'm just starting to write so I'm going practice with some small stuff before I get into the growing up and coming of age stuff because a lot of that stuff was pretty crazy(for normal people anyways) and I'm not to sure how to present it yet although I'm leaning towards a true crime format. When I said life blogging I meant taking pictures of things I'm doing and British Columbia and Vancouver events. I try to keep my cleavage shots relevant.
I love a cleavage shot as much as anyone... But at least put a little text (like who it is even). When I write my story- I just told it like I was talking to a friend. And if you think yours was crazy, read mine!
I will. Can you give me the link in case its to far back in your feed?
You cant blame em i write quality poem and sometimes articles but they never make it up, people love junk i tell you thats why many here write junk.
I'm beginning to notice that. But my advice is to stick with good stuff. The people that keep posting junk will eventually go away when they figure out they can't get rich doing it.
Be patient, and good things will happen if your stuff is good. I didn't get where I am overnight- it took months. Also when I looked at your drawing (which was good by the way) I noticed you posted several times that day. When I started out, I would do 3-4 a day. More than that and you'll only hurt yourself. After the last hardfork they cut people's votes down. They can't keep upvoting the same guy over and over. You have a new follower.
Wow thank you for the follow i will follow instantly and yeah i usually do a 3 to 4 post a day at least but when i look less attractive things get even bigger upvotes and so i was wondering what was happening, but here is amazing friend, i thank you for reaching to me
The reason they make more is because of who votes for them (whales) If you really want to get discouraged go to the Trending page and look at what garbage gets voted for.
I use to get daunted by those stuffs that make it to the trending page, its the human side of me, but well thats all in the past. Thank you
It forces you to be VERY selective with your follows!
I try to be... A lot of them are people I interact with. But I better go back and do some more housecleaning!
You're not alone in this regard, Rich. Like many things in life, it's a combination of a few different things that's creating this proliferation of low quality content.
I know I have written quite a lot of very good stuff in the past that got much less of a reward than a single image, for example.
All I can do though, is continue to put out works that meet my own level of quality. It might not be a subject that interests most people as I write mostly about personal finance now. But I enjoy it, and have other uses for the content as well.
For all of us quality writers, just keep doing what you do. I believe that everyone that does so will find success in the future.
I couldn't agree more... I keep chunking them out hoping for the best. One thing I noticed- the more work I put into a post- the less I make lol!
I know some of my friends that are quality content writers he had stopped writing at steemit because his quality post are not earning but only pennys and Ive motivate him again how to get more upvotes and followers now hes back and doing well.
That's good... I'm worried about the whole platform more than just myself (I'm doing ok). I just don't want to see Steemit ruined by junk dealers!
I write because I just want people to read and tell me what they sincerely think.
I believe many content creators are like that, so we'd stay
My point is that it's hard to even get that... I keep getting comments like "Nice post- upvote me" That isn't honest discourse- it's begging!
Yes, there are people like that. If you notice their reputation is not so high, mostly newbies.
They entered steemit with the wrong orientation.
We still got plenty positive vibes here
The "instant Riches" crowd... I try to encourage them to go in a different direction- if that doesn't work, I flag them.
I'd say easy on the flagging though...
It's the twitter and instagram mentality, you know, like freshers in college.
nicely said and reSteemed
One of the things that we WILL run into once the user base becomes very large is the amount of posts that we don't find interesting ourselves.
Families may abandon Facebook to post their baby pictures here and to upvote their family conversations.
I'd say the best way to deal with this is to take @maninayton's post, and control your home feed at least.
Then from there you have to drill down on the pages of posters that make comments you like on those posts, and follow that creator from there.
Compared to what I've been seeing lately- I'd be happy to look at baby pictures! Thanks Buddy!
I'm trying to keep my reSteems minimal, but this sounded like a problem that IS going to get worse, and we need to look at decentralized....by which I mean our own... solutions instead of demanding systems fixes
Weeding will help. I use Google Keep to keep a list of favs to visit regularly.
I just reweeded and I've still got 300!
I need to take out a cleaver and clean some house on my feed. Far too much nonsense posting.
That line was a great description of what Steemit is becoming. I fear for her existence at this point.
My sentiments exactly- that's why I put it that way! I too fear what will happen.
Imposing a limit on posts could be an idea to clean the platform of garbage. I rarely post more than once a day, as writing and looking for decent pictures takes a lot of time.
I totally agree Rich! I think it's pretty ridiculous how many people post the most absurd nude photography on here LOL & it would be one thing if they were actually CREATING the content, but it seems like some people just go to Google Images and search "Tennis Cleavage" and start posting away. Which is pretty hilariously ignorant if you ask me!
I, however, think that we need to stay positive during a weird time like this 😄 I joined this year, in June, and since that time I've seen Steemit go from 200,000 users to over 300,000 users which is an over 50% gain in users which is pretty crazy for a couple months of growth!
I believe that, in the end, there definitely WILL be people "quitting" due to lack of hope. However, I really hope that real people like you and I, and all the other genuine people here on this wonderful platform "stick to our guns" and just let all these lazy re-posters and post-stealers tire themselves out! I think that good content creators should stay strong and just keep on being REAL. That's a big factor on Steemit: being able to tell who's real and who's... Well... Just posting a ton of porn 😂
This is what happens when there is a site that lets you post anything; People post EVERYTHING 😂😏 I think these people will be done jerking off soon and then they will realize that you can be much more successful here on Steemit if you're REAL with people!
On a side note, I'm really glad I found your blog awhile back! Somebody had reposted your Plea for Help post and since then you've been one of my favorite Steemians on here! I even added you to my Steem Voter so I never miss upvoting one of your posts 😄
So stay strong Rich, and everybody else who may feel the "Hope" slipping out from between our now-sweaty Tennis Cleavage 😂 I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg, as far as Steemit goes. And I think that if we Vote with our (Steem) Dollar (Upvotes), I think we can get these lazy people to stop posting tits and instead start posting REAL content! Again, thanks for keeping it real as always Rich 😄
You da man! 👁🔼👁
Oh looks like we share the same Steemit birthday (ish). I think that what you say is true and some kind of quality control would be a good step forward in Steemit's plans to be become the powerhouse it could so potentially be. It could be just a matter of time though, for the triers to stop trying and the dedicated to keep dedicating :)
I think you're right... Sooner or later they will see that this isn't the road to instant riches and go away.
I hope not, mainly because I just started and are still nothing and it's interesting to find the good content like yours @richq11.
Because there is so much shit I follow only like 20 people because iven the "whales" are posting the same thing over and over again and are getting payed so much money for nothing!
Guess everyone is here for different reasons or purpose
Nope, I'm pretty sure we're all here for the $$$. Some of us feel we should EARN it and others don't.
I'm still working my way around here.
Thanks for the warning!
I joined since June but I also see a definite change on momentum, earnings aside it is definitely a less interesting place than even 2 months ago. I expect growing pains but The lack of constructive action against bot abuse is not encouraging. There are some well meaning individual trying to fight it but you can't manually turnback automated abuses .
But the most discouraging aspect is the fact you can't filter the BS posts . The interface sucks now that there is some volume of posts and upvoting is obviously not effective to ID good content... unless there are some major changes soon, the scrapheap does not seen unlikely ...
That's what I fear... I really like this place. I wish you could have seen it back when I joined- it was unbelievable! Now to find anything remotely good I have to go to people's blog page.
Thanks a lot for these words! They are just a lesson for us all
Thank you for the kind words...I try.
With all due respect I think, that in some ways, what you are seeing is GOOD. The GOOD authors are still here. They are still posting good stuff. They are making good money doing it. But they are being covered up with trash.
In the Chair Force we had a saying "don't think of it as a problem...think of it as an opportunity to display your managerial and/or technological expertise" or something like that. In other words..
.
The problem is digging thru all the crap and finding the nuggets.
I use my 'home feed' to do that. I 'follow' very damn FEW people. I'm at 62 now and I figure that's too many. I'll be cutting back I imagine. I only follow people for a reason. That reason is that they have something to say that I WANT to hear. Their stuff shows up in my newsfeed and I scan it several (dozen) times a day. If someone doesn't live up to my totally arbitrary and constantly changing standards...I 'unfollow'.
If someone post stuff that I do NOT like, according to my totally arbitrary and constantly changing standards...I mute them. My 'mute list' probably contains several thousand names. By muting someone I remove them from ALL of my feeds..not just home. I never have to see their crap again.
That's how I do it. It's not perfect...it's not even good...but it's the best that I've come up with.
Perhaps we could use some kind of 'index' system. We certainly need a 're-steem' tab. I'd like to be able to mute-by-category. Forex...I'm not interested in religion, weed, or porn (on Steemit..there's a time and place and this ain't it)...so I mute people who post that reflexively.
That's bad...some of those folks might (probably) have some good ideas outside of those categories and post them.
Too bad...so sad. I do what works for me.l
Your Milage May vary.
Yup, definitely keep that following adjusted. I received that valuable advice pretty early in my Steemit stay during one of my few visits to the MSP Discord channel from @princessmewmew.
I was following everyone back that followed me inducing my Twitter reciprocity.
It was making for a really crumby experience as far as content consumption.
One of the super cool things about Steemit are the comments...I've added several people to my Following list from this post because:
Having nice things is hard. Unfortunately, the Whales are the Whales, so we must take it upon ourselves to take out the trash here on a regular basis. STEEM ON!
Definitely feeling the pressure here. I can relate with everyone else who's commented about this. I've had a harder time lately finding the kind of posts I want to see and you are on the money with the whole pictures of women thing. Everything has it's ups and downs, there a lot of good people here, I still have faith :)
Thanks for the post richq11!
One of the very reasons why I try not to follow to many people, and only follow what I considered to be good content producers or forwarders. Not every one want to post, but they do find interesting things to resteem.
Yes there is a lot of "well that was a wasted click", but there are real gems out there. If not for you would I have found so many other authors to read, follow sometimes, and blog about? I got lucky on the people I found to follow.
I use the new tab when those I follow have not found anything to blog, or are busy, or I already looked at, Yeah it takes a heck of a lot of scrolling, but sometimes you find good post that lead to great post.
It is not so much the barrage of wasted click content that bothers me, it is the whale flag bulling that is driving more people away, than the piss poor content. PP Content is easy to ignore, ignoring a blogger/poster that has good content and that person being ground into the dirt and off of steemit, now that is something to Bitch and Complain about. Because as those people get driven away, then all you will be left with is PP Content.
There is posting limit i think you can only make 4 posts in the day you get paid at 100% and every next post you do will lower the amount you can get paid out ??
Maybe a two days of work for me to make an unfollowing job as I have not much people to interact with as well.