If I Ran Steemit: An Open Letter To The Steemit Community

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

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If I ran Steemit, I would redistribute approximately 10% of the Steemit account holdings to the 1000 most active, vote-generous and engaged Steemit users.

I would do this as a one time bonus gift, just in time for SteemFest, as a gesture of gratitude to those users who are energetic and excited about the Steemit platform. I would recognize that these users are keeping Steemit alive. I would also recognize that without them, Steemit would just be an endless cycle of new users coming and going, much like fast food worker turnover cycles. I’ll go into other reasons I would do this after explaining how it would work.

CONDITIONS FOR THE DISTRIBUTION:

-Only accounts above 40 reputation would be eligible. This would eliminate unhelpful bots from receiving the gift. I have to admit after looking at @itay’s account, I’m not too sure whether that bot is helpful enough. But this decision would be left to the community to decide perhaps.

-Legend accounts would not be eligible.

-Stellabelle would not be eligible (I feel that the person creating a solution should not be benefitting personally)

HOW THE TOP 1000 WOULD BE SELECTED:

-Combine these account characteristics to determine which 1000 accounts would receive the bonus:

-Use steemwhales.com to determine which users have the highest total post count. Of course, exclude the accounts with under 40 reputation. (The number 40 was arrived after I analyzed the top 1000 accounts with the most posting activity. There appeared to be very few accounts with less than 40 in the top most active accounts. If someone has a better number, please add your voice).

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-Use a tool to determine which accounts vote the most. If there’s a tool that is able to pull the data on voting behavior, please add it in the comment below. I’m not aware of such a tool.

-Add these two numbers together (total votes cast and total post count) to get the final top most engaged 1000 users.

HOW THE GIFT WOULD BE INDIVIDUALLY DISPERSED

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-The amount of the reward would be determined by the total number of post counts. I know people will be discussing whether bots should receive the gift, but I think bots who are well respected and have 40+ reputation, should receive it.

Let’s look at the example of @thecryptofiend who is currently ranked #3 as far as total post counts go. He has 6,053. This number consists of his total comments and posts combined. It is an enormous number. So, as far as the gift distribution goes, he would receive 6,053 Steem from the Steemit account.

There are many stellar, ultra valuable users like @thecryptofiend, but so far they have gone unnoticed to a large degree. @thecryptofiend stands out for a number reasons: he posts a high number of really high quality comments and he votes a lot for others. He’s extremely enthusiastic, supportive and engaged with Steemit. I could name many users who exhibit similar enthusiastic traits like @mindhunter, @acidyo, @merej99, @kyriacos, @brianphobos, @lukestokes, @mammasitta, @anns, @papa-pepper, @dwinblood and actually there are too many others to list here.

WHY

The imbalance of power is becoming truly problematic, divisive and quite frankly, ugly. I feel that something needs to be done as soon as possible. I am not alone. I have been thinking about this problem for months and I will tell you why I believe something like this needs to be done right now before SteemFest.

The curation guilds are designed to address this exact problem and they are a decent idea. I approve of their goal but I think their design is wasteful of human energy. They are band-aid approaches.

Their design is flawed because they do not take into account the natural, organic curators who are already doing much of the curation work already. Many people are natural curators and enjoy reading, commenting and supporting others. These people are like gold to a social media site and should be treated as such.

Why impose a new system, which is selected from a centralized authority when you already have a dedicated, decentralized, organic, highly engaged curation team that is already doing the curating work? When you view things from an attention economy and human energy perspective, you will realize that the ones who are already curating on Steemit FOR THE FUN OF IT are the exact curators you want for the Steemit platform. They are your prize and they are already here doing the work you desire. It’s obvious: natural curators and readers are the lifeblood of this site.

I’m not saying that the curation guilds should not be created, but I think there should exist side-by-side many different types of experiments to solve this huge issue of power imbalance. I’m a firm believer in trying as many experiments as possible. You really won’t know what will work unless you try it out.

INSPIRATION FOR THE GIFT

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@kyriacos is inflammatory and many people have gotten into arguments with him, including me, but I think some of his latest responses to @rok-sivante’s Why I’m About Ready To Quit Steemit post are worthy of further thought:

“I can't understand why the whales put on trail people that fuck them over and ignore consistent members that offer so much to the community. This makes a lot of us frustrated but I am still allowing them some more room for evaluation.”

“Truth is, you both made massive amounts of money without really deserving it while most of us stood ground and defended this shithole as best as we could for pennies—and we still do because we believe we can make it better.” -@kyriacos

You know what, he’s right.

Consistent members who vote every day and who comment like crazy and who stimulate new ideas, thoughts and conversation are not really valued here. They need to be rewarded and redistributing a part of the Steemit account would be a step in that direction. In essence what it would convey to the entire Steemit community is this:

“We appreciate this vital and engaged community and we want to express our gratitude for your ongoing efforts in making Steemit a revolutionary platform. We also want to shift the power dynamics from a centralized to a decentralized one in the fastest way possible. This distribution represents our commitment to making that shift and giving the platform to the people who are using it and creating its true value. The coins aren’t doing anyone any good just sitting there unused in our Steemit purse. They belong to the wheels that keep Steemit moving and thriving.”

The rewards are not flowing to the ones who are most stimulating. It's more of a case of which whale's ass you're kissing. Many of the old school (and I mean the Steemit users who have been here for 4+ months) have at one point or another disagreed with the whales who control the payouts. These old school users are no longer being upvoted by whales unless they dish out a pro-Steemit post. Or they have chosen to write only about non-controversial subjects that are not geared towards addressing the ongoing problems with the Steemit platform.

Users who push the envelope with stimulating, controversial and challenging posts, with very high engagement are often flagged to death by the powerful whales. The whales who are flagging content because they don’t like the content are responsible for killing off engagement. Whales have a hard time even understanding this reality, but it is happening. From here on out, I’d like to see the whales exercise restraint and only flag content that is spam, abuse or plagiarized. I’d also like to see the whales consult @steemcleaners before they decided to flag anything. Get a neutral second opinion before destroying the integrity of this place. This one act is responsible for killing off a massive amount of users and also creating an atmosphere that no one wants to be part of. REALITY CHECK, DEAL WITH IT.

The chilling effect that descends after a whale has flagged content he dislikes is making newbie users and old school users alike afraid to be honest and speak from the heart.

It’s responsible for creating a sheeple atmosphere that basically sucks on so many levels.

I mean, how many fucking Steemit users have to say the exact same thing before anyone at the top listens and decides to fix the problem? It. Is. Insane. I even considered creating a new account just so I could speak my mind and talk about real issues that are going on without fear of whales lowering my reputation and removing my monetary rewards.

If people are afraid to speak their minds, then what we are left with is a shell of a social media site that will rot from its own lack of challenging ideas and growth. When I came here, I never thought I’d be entering into and contributing to a fascist-like platform, but Steemit is much closer to fascism than anything else right now. The solution is easy: WHALES STOP FLAGGING POSTS BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE THE SUBJECT. Remember your own words, “Let the market decide what is valuable.” Just look at the @masteryoda and @ned fallout for the latest evidence. Actually, there are so many cases of this happening, I couldn’t possibly count them all. The end result: disengagement, bad blood, users leaving, value of Steem falling.

Look, I could have flagged tons of shitposts that are poorly written and wouldn’t make the time of day on any other platform.

I am ashamed actually when people from outside of Steemit see the shitposts making bank. It’s embarrassing. I came from Medium where there are tons of talented writers. Some of the best writers on Medium are also the most controversial. If you want to know what real writing is, go ahead and check out a writer who has 19,000+ followers on Medium. Her name is Holly Wood and she chews glass for a living. Read The Evil Banality of “PharmaBitch” for inspiration on how to write in a style that is both informative and cutting. She’s not into scams. She’s a writer. A very critical thinker. She feeds people opinions that the average person is too afraid to even whisper.

But I restrained myself. Over and over again I restrained myself.

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I DIDN’T FLAG THE SHITPOSTS. It’s apparent that I have been too polite. But now I’m calling on the whales to restrain themselves and think deeply about the consequences of their flagging actions.

The other source of inspiration came from Synereo making the decision to burn $146 million AMPS in order to commit themselves fully to the decentralized model:

“Relinquishing control to users has been the core proposition presented by most decentralized platforms. From the next-gen social media network Akasha powered by Ethereum to privacy-aware decentralized platform, Diaspora, putting users in control of their data has been their promise.

Though these new set of decentralized platforms are yet to capture the social media market when compared to their already-established centralized counterparts like Facebook and Twitter to ascertain the widespread level of their acceptability based on this key feature, Synereo has joined their list as it essentially eliminated half of all its native Cryptocurrency in existence to give up more control over its platform.”
-CoinTelegraph

So with this new knowledge, what is Steemit’s promise? Is it really wanting to be a decentralized platform? I really don’t know the answer to that.

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It’s my hope that the investors, whales and the entire Steemit community realize I am attempting to address an issue that I feel is contributing to a downward spiral in Steemit. It’s my firm belief that too much work, time and money has already gone into the making of Steemit for it to end up as a niche platform. It has many of the core structures in place to make it valuable but there are a number of persisting problems that are scaring away users. And once a platform has acquired a certain reputation, it’s hard to shake it.

If the founders don’t listen to their most engaged users and don’t think deeply about how human beings operate, then this experiment could be outpaced by others. Remember, you don’t have to come up with all the ideas yourself. You just need to look around and see what is working on other platforms and refine those ideas. If Steemit makes a firm commitment to decentralization and addresses the frustrations of its most active and engaged users and investors, it will have a chance of becoming more unified. If anything, it will show to its own community that it truly cares about high quality engagement more than shitposts.

It's not too late.

All images from Pixabay.

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I started investing in steemit almost at the high. i paid 0.0052+ for my steems. I'm down above 90+% on that and i don't like posting. And i would of course not receive anything from this beautiful proposition.

Why does everyone in here dislike investors? Keep posting i'll stop buying and we will see how much thoses steems will be worth in a few months. When everybody ask themselves where the money comes from it came from me and other investors. If a redistribution should be done investors should get a big chunk of it to motivate them to keep buying. Lost money in this thing everyday (almost) for 3 months now..

I agree with you that you're overlooked as a group. However, it is the active users that are keeping Steemit alive. If some of these fundamental issues are worked out and that results in users being retained, then that growth will create a valuable currency. Value comes from user engagement. It would spread like wildfire if this platform worked well. That would make your investment increase in value. It's my belief that without the main power dynamics and curation worked out, this site will not flourish.

If you give away steem to active users what will be the first thing that will happen? It's free money it will be sold for the most part. Since the price is going down all the time it is logical to sell.

Then for us investor you just changed the whole risk/reward investment. I will quit if i am completely ignored in this process why bother buying just post things. So by punishing investors again what will be the outcome? price will drop some more.

I i'm the most bullish investor on this thing and down pretty much 2k$USD and i keep buying a bit, but i'm about to quit. You think posting is hard work? Try earning money in the real world to put it in here and see it vanish at the speed of light. Without investors this site will be out of business very fast. Whales still have around another 21 months of powering down to do things will get ugly. I strongly suggest a slight change to that redistribution plan. Investors are key to all business models ( except here it seems).

Many active users are in the same boat. I started with a 3k Steem investment and have built it up to over 8k through working on the site, powering up every SBD I've received. Today, even with my increase in Steem over the period of time, it's worth less than my original investment. I've also taken a position on an exchange.
I really don't think I should be compensated for my investment directly. It was speculative, which is the nature of cryptos, including ones that actually do something (like Steem). If there's going to be a distribution, IMO, it should focus on the best content creators or it should be a simple burn of Steem in order to reduce the supply, hopefully raising all ships. IMO, any other attempt would become too subjective.

A burn of steem is the only fair way. So many "content creators" are just sock puppets, that would not change anything. Reducing the supply by burning half like Synereo did is how you increase the value for everyone.

What is your plan? As I am not an investor (well, technically I am now through my non-stop effforts of the last 4 months), at least I didn't start out that way, it certainly is hard to see it through your lens. Would you suggest a 10% redistribution to investors in addition to the most active users?

Lets make it 20% to investors and 20% to the most active users, it's much better this way!

/sarcasm

Can i ask a question: when you invested, what did you do with the Steem? Did you put it into SP?

When you buy steem the only logical place to store them is in Steem Power. Else you are subject to raging inflation. It's very hard to come to a solution to a system already in place but here is a few possibles roads.

  • I would not touch any kind of redistribution at all. Doing this will scare all investors away we don't want that. If it must be done then linear distribution from the 85+% that was self given to the owners at the beginning in a linear fashion to every account is the only way i see plausible. Basically everyone has been losing because of how the system started it's only fair to reroll the dice fairly for everyone.

  • Curation should be back to 50%+ make investors beg to buy this thing.

  • The free SP we get everyday should be given only if you are considered active. Basically if you did invest, curate, post comments, post articles in the last week you get your SP for the following week.

  • If you invested in the last week you get a bonus of some sort more temporary curation power etc.. .
    Inactive accounts would get obviously much less SP or no SP at all. Since more than 90% accounts are doing nothing giving their reward to active users would explode what they get everyday. Even minnow would be getting something out of this ( usually we can expect 90% SP per year if only 10% stay actives they get 10x more SP ).

This would be and amazing incentive to participate. Basically thoses who make this place great to visit would get tons of benefits passive dead account would not.

This would encourage people to log in and do something, investors would be rushing to buy in and would probably slow down powering down. Curation is probably the key to investors they have to make a return of some sort at some point, else it's not investing anymore it's donating and that won't be very popular.

Can't agree on every single point but overall I applaud your comments on the critical role of investors.

Now is the time to do a redistribution, because there are NO investors, or very very few.

Those are pretty good ideas I have not seen posted before. You should post them separately to see if they get support.

 8 years ago  Reveal Comment

As it currently sits there is absolutely no reason for any "real" investor to invest into Steem.

There's not even an incoming revenue source to give an investor piece of mind to invest on. It's pretty much a purely speculative investment. You are only fattening the pockets of the top right now, unless some things change.

Then throw in the fact that the only real investor ever talked about is some "angel" investor who can't be named, according to Ned anyway.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you are not investing in the 6 figures right now you really don't mean squat right now in the overall success of this platform.

The majority of the big players on here where early miners (by design btw) and a few early adopters who gained from the big boom and now the big crash.

He only has steem power so it looks like he powered up. He's a little over 1500 steem power.

Good points. Maybe you should put all this into a post so that it reaches more people here.

.

I'm feeling the same way!

Dear Stellabelle
I have invested around 15k USD so far in Steemit (most of it powered-up) AND I´m dedicating two working day equivalents each week to posting and curating.
If your proposal would come true and the platforms value being redistributed based on purely quantitative parameters, this would feel for me like a slap in the face. Without doubt this would make me stop investing and engaging in this platform. Number of posts and number of cast votes are vanity metrics par excellence. Such an approach would favor making four „snapshot of the day“ posts each day and throwing votes around in an completely unreflected manner. I don´t see how this would make this platform more valuable.
Please reconsider this proposal and use your following AND voting power to support the kind of content and users that you like to see here.
Thanks!

good comment!

When do YOU start voting, Mrs. Stellabelle?

I have a question for you: how long do you spend writing your posts?

2~6 hours. 😔
Yeah, I make more $/hr working retail, but I have more fun writing articles.

Oh, I don't know, but usually after 5 hours of solid writing, so that's ABOUT NOW.

btw. you are using "Mrs." incorrectly.

@stellabelle
Nice post, I agree to the point that these 1000 first movers should receive SP but I think that a min of an average amount of 50.000 SP is needed per person anything else would't have any effect.

Another question, would it be accurate that you spent a long time writing this post and you are a bit agressive right now? I just saw that you replied 3times to @twinner 's question...

Would advice you to keep your cool !

not keeping my cool anymore. It's doesn't accomplish anything

I feel it just will damage your credibility . but ok your call

To be fair, his comment could have been formulated in a less provocative way and he still would have made his point.

basically, he's being a non-entity.

Let's check the numbers at steemwhales.com

I'm on rank 80 by curation trending last 30days, with manual curation against all these bots.

You are on rank 1160.
So you missed to get into the most active 1000 steemians last month.
Seems you are being the REAL NON-ENTITY here.

To german ears this sounds a lot like "Unnmensch", although it is worse than non-human, I guess. Worse than even a Bot, is that what you wanted to express?

there will be a weekly bonus payout to dedicated users, and the reason changes every week

You go girl! As much as I appreciate the reminder that my opinion isn't worth shit unless a top 1%er supports it in real life I would prefer my digital life didn't reflect that. Lots of ways to empower minnows especially when the corporate account is sitting on 76M SP.

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Good post, re-steeemd.
Only 10SBD for this post so far. You know why...

Wait, because I didn't post about giving Ned a new toy?

lol speaking of toys, there should be a bot that automatically whale votes posts that get over 100 votes. I guess some devs could game t, but theres gotta be a solution to that too

yeah, well, it's a flawed system.

lol at that. with do you know how many bots are on here? You don't: over 75000! 100 upvotes is NOTHING and certainly not a good indicator. I'd say look at the comments!
This post generated a shiiiitload of comments. good job, stellabella!

I had no idea!

true story man. 94000 total accounts, 8000 somewhat active :)

I'm not a whale whore?

Yup. That'ws wht I meant moreless.

The pervading compulsive sycophancy around the platform is really off-putting.

Speaking about whales flagging minnows, because they post information which does not fit their lifestyle agenda.
For example. jamesc downvoted this nelu.ceban's post, because this minnow posted some scientific information about vaccines which does not fit his attachment to anti-vaxxer tinfoil beliefs.

https://steemit.com/medicine/@nelu.ceban/vaccination-immunization-can-save-lifes#@nelu.ceban/re-logic-re-teamsteem-re-neluceban-vaccination-immunization-can-save-lifes-20161011t183625287z

He did not even leave any comment with some valid argument to engage in debate. Just "click" on flag...
jamesc is one of the whales who persistently upvotes all sort of pseudoscience posts and whacko conspiracy theories like anti-vaxxer or chemtrail posts. Anti-vaxxer canadian-coconut is his favorite. This coco-nutter earns hunderds of SBD each week purely thanks to upvotes from jamesc.
jamesc incentivizes pseudoscience and bullhit being spread around Steemit, while we, minnows at SteemSTEM trying to bring science to the platform.

absurd! Vaccines are one of the reasons we're alive without polio! There's one vaccine that is excessive that my daughter will not be getting: HPV. But everything else, she's had. There were no side effects or anything bad coming from them. Flagging content a whale doesn't like is retarded. There goes my respect for jamesc. Gone! Poof!

We know that about vaccines but trying to explain science and facts to anti-vaxxers is just wasting one's breath.
It is like talking to deeply religious people. Like I tend to say, there is no point in trying to explain science and evidence to someone who does not value science or values their personal beliefs more than science.

It's also not either or. Sometimes people like me get hammered by people that think you have to be anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine. They don't bother to consider there are people like me that believe in vaccines, but believe they should be tested more thoroughly and given strong safety requirements. With how fast some of them are pumped out it is clear this is not the case. One of my children did have a negative reaction to the Pertussis vaccine in the DPT vaccine. The rest of his life he received the D and T vaccines via a different route, but still got them. Not all issues are BLACK and WHITE, and US against THEM. I think sometimes people forget that there are more than two choices. I support vaccines, but I believe they need to be carefully scrutinized and not rushed out the door if big pharma lobbys someone. Also don't force people to take a vaccine that is likely to be worthless to them.

In reality I am not anti-vaccine, but I am an anarchist. I am a voluntaryist. I do not support using FORCE to make people do anything, that would also apply to vaccines. I like the saying "Good ideas don't require force." If things were more OPEN and TRANSPARENT and there was not corruption as so many levels within government I believe this would be mostly a non-issue.

@jamesc did actually leave a comment to justify his downflag and when I last saw this thread the OP was ignoring valid questions. This has been heavily edited since.

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This post is a perfect example of what is wrong with the platform and the imbalance of voting power/reward.

As I currently write this comment, this post is sitting at a $11.15 potential payout with a whopping 217 votes.

217 votes is a ton of votes knowing Steemit has roughly 1k daily active users. (last number I read posted from Dan I believe)

But yet we see "shit posts" where an author magically pops out from some mystical magical fucking writers dream land and everything they post from post #1 is pure fucking gold.

The majority of content creators I have seen on this website so far have a high enough IQ to see through this bullshit when it is laying there in massive pile.

You can cover up a pile of shit (or in this case bullshit) but it's still a pile of shit.

This is a very good idea, and I support totally support it. It will not fix all the issues, but it´s a good start.
I have resteemed this. Pease make this into a campaign somehow.
Make a petition that we can "sign" by upvoting and commenting.
Let´s try to make it go viral.

Thanks for the shoutout and for always speaking your mind. I also appreciate you highlighting @kyriacos' comments. I've had many disagreements with that individual and hope for them to learn some non-violent communication for more effective relationship and community building, but I also recognize some people are just different than I am. Some people are fine with personal attacks and cussing to express their negative emotions. I can't force everyone into my box or my perspective of how communities should be healthy. We may not all agree, but I do think we can get along and respect each other.

My biggest hope:

Let's not operate under fear.

Fear Steemit will collapse. Fear we may not get noticed. Fear our investments of money or time will go to zero. Fear we will be misunderstood. Fear we won't build relationships and no one will care.

Fear turns off the parts of our brains we need most.

Thanks for being fearless, @stellabelle.

@stellabelle Resteemed for purely the sake of gutsy, passionate conversation and real discourse, which is why I came to Steemit, I see this article and its comments (regardless of mine or anyone's personal political opinions about it) as at least interesting concepts to think and dig further into.

Hey, I appreciate that. Attention is scarce after all, so if you took the time to comment, that means a lot. I put a lot of time and careful thought into crafting a solution. It may not be perfect but I think it would be a hell of an experiment! And users I think would feel that their efforts had been valued.

The Stellabella gift. This is not the first time I've observed you observing an engaged audience that is not leveraged, or the audience's gifts utilized. You have a gift for observation, and community engagement and betterment. It's an idea. I don't know if its the right idea because it's not my trainset, but it is a big idea. Bravo for having ideas! People can always choose not to hear your idea, but it's always better to be creating solutions. xo

Thanks! I suddenly realized that the numbers contained in steemit's purse were doing absolutely nothing.


Hi @stellabelle, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads today and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.

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that just about says all of it. that article by Holly Wood is better than all of charlieshrem's posts on steemit put together, easy, by an order of magnitude. thank you for this post. i'm sorry my vote isn't worth more, because this post and ones like it deserve so much more.

I can pretty much guarantee that management will never go for this idea (the very notion of forced wealth redistribution makes any good capitalist cringe) but nevertheless, there are some important points in here and you've given us all some good food for thought.

Well, it's either this or burning Steem from Steemit account. Synereo and other decentralized platforms are damned clear on their priorities of being decentralized. Decentralized platforms will outstrip centralized ones. This is just a future reality trend. Addressing this now would be the smart thing to do. Waiting would be foolish.

Yeah, a burn seems like a smarter approach than redistribution. The former would be objective and hopefully push the value of Steem up. The latter is too subjective. It would really suck being number 1001 when two more upvotes would have pushed to 1000. :)

Yes, true, perhaps a burn is the best way. This is a good discussion, to see many different viewpoints.

That's an interesting idea. Burning that much would certainly strike a blow against inflation...

The thing is, another platform has already done it. It's not even a theoretical idea.

So what are the other Steemit-like platforms around? Synereo...any others?

It would be fallacious to look at it in a socialist way. The redistribution principle would be to increase value of the platform and retain customers. Steem-miles.

Many whales call themselves anarcho-capitalists which is a complete paradox. You cannot be both. They are pretty much capitalists who do not want to pay taxes, want to keep hoarding their property and wealth for themselves and be left without any state inervention.

Since the word anarchy literally just means "without rulers" you can easily be both... but I don't find it to be a very useful label so I don't use it myself. It just comes with too much baggage and introduces confusion where it need not be. Easier to just say that I'm a capitalist and leave it at that. If someone wants more detail, I can go on about how I'm the sort that has no interest in having the state rob anyone on my behalf... but over the years, I found these little debates to largely be a waste of time unless it's between two people that care about one another and are genuinely interested in exploring their differences of opinion together... always best to do it in person too, if at all possible.

If I ran Steemit, I would redistribute approximately 10% of the Steemit account >holdings to the 1000 most active, vote-generous and engaged Steemit users.

That would be a total waste of 10% of the Steemit account.

The other source of inspiration came from Synereo making the decision to burn $146 million AMPS

LOL

On the curation guilds, I recently was approached to become a part of the Steem Guild team focusing on photography, along with another user who I suggested (and who was actually already on their list of potentials). I think I was chosen because like you said, I already do what I can to support and spread whatever value I can within my area of interest which is mostly photography.

So I think you'll find that members of the curation guilds are people who naturally do it anyway, but have been hooked up with some power behind us which makes our curation a bit more valuable.

It's a very bad idea. It based on your POV as user and doesn't consider any others types in the whole steem ecosystem at all. We do have at least 3 main types: users, investors and developers here. Your suggestion is a slap in the face to investors who use their own money to buy STEEM/SBD (yes they are people who pay the steemit's bill). Btw there are endless ways to abuse/exploit such distribution.

From the White Paper:

The third principle is that the community produces products to serve its members. This principle is exemplified by credit unions, food co-ops, and health sharing plans, which serve the members of their community rather than sell products or services to people outside the community.

In co-ops, which SteemIt is modeled after, the investors are the users/consumers. As it stands, SteemIt is more corporate than cooperative in this regard.

I would plan something for the investors as well. I think they are the most ignored group of all actually. If an investor has a solution (sometimes it's much easier to see a solution from your group's perspective) then it would be good to hear one.

With respect, I think the proposal to redistribute some of @steemit's SP to the 1000 most active users, if implemented, would only serve to move the problem a little farther down the road. It would be another band-aid...

It seems to me that in order for people, for minnows, to feel like they are useful and appreciated by the community, they should begin their journey here on Steemit, with at least a voting strength of $0.01. This would inspire greater readership, content production, and allow new users to immediately see that they are integral to this community.

It would also lessen the dependance on whale voting, because, many people will be happy with 1,5, or 10$ for a decent post...

I don't mean to sound contrary, it's just that I believe the problem is in the algorithm, and not with who specifically has the SP...

To the devs, a sincere thanks for listening to the users...

The only reasonable and best proposal of all. Simple and very effective if you ask me. But who will listen to me . I have no posts for now, but I read and upvote like crazy. Even with my SP with low steem price I have a feeling I'm just wasting my time here. I'm wasting money from long ago anyway.

I am also in favor of that and had thought it would help tremendously too

I don't mean to sound contrary, it's just that I believe the problem is in the algorithm, and not with who specifically has the SP...

I think you make a very valid point.

The whales are probably taking the brunt of the dissatisfaction because they are out in the open, where the algorithm is just some back end code.

The whole sock puppet accusations or whatever you want to call them don't help alleviate blame either.

What are you, a commie?

It's called the gift economy, something you would know nothing about considering you've gone rogue and now are actively abusing your power by flagging all of @ats-david's neutral comments and posts. Since NextGen has censored ats-david's comment, I'll repost the image here for all to see the comments and plans to abusively flag and attack ats-david's neutral comments:
nextgen_kushed_chat_compc7124.jpg

Capitalists give gifts.

Very true. It has to be voluntary to be a gift though. Can't force it. ;)

The definition of a gift includes the fact that it is done from the heart, when applied to the gift economy. I am not talking about bribes here.

google "definition gift" The two qualities giving must have to constitute gifting is willingness and lack of payment. Sentimentality (being "of the heart") isn't a requirement at all. It's not that I don't understand gifting, it's that I understand it better than anyone that refers to it as being purely altruistic or part of an economy. The reason I felt the need to point out that it has to be voluntary rather than forced is that your original proposal suggests an involuntary redistribution of wealth and that wouldn't be a gift at all. More like theft.

People here don't seem to know anything about the gift economy.

commies_everywhere0a426.png

Please explain how the above suggestion isn't meritocratic.

quoting CoinTelegraph....:)
But sure, decentralization is a good idea. It's nothing new. The decentralization would solve most of our problems and sure, it might as well come anyway as the price of Steem goes down.
Also, do you see the irony of your title in a decentralization-heavy post? :))
If you ran Steemit, I'm afraid you'd sell it to Synereo [ just kidding ]

On a more serious note, I strongly agree with the fact that Steemit HQ should keep their eyes and ears open to the input of this community. I've met and know so many smart and knowledgeable people around here and our input has been generous, free and abundant...ignoring it like that, even going against everything most people want, is really a bizarre way to treat your loyal base.

All the rest is details...

inspiration is Tesla who ripped up his contract with Westinghouse to save his AC current idea from dying. The best inventions need to be given to those who can best use it. Holding onto purses is something not worth emulating.

Actually, I would run it until it could run itself, and I would redistribute more than 10% to be honest. The best thing to do is to remove oneself entirely out of a decentralized platform, get it running on its own and then vanish. I'd be quick to identify those who are naturally good at curation. That would be where my energy would lie since bad curation is one of the fundamental problems.

very nice. but you know that people would do a lot of wonderful things in their imagination.
it should run itself though....but the problem does not lie in bad curation imho, it lies in bad curation from super powerful users. and why do you think you'd be "naturally good at curation" anyway? don't you see that this thinking is so centralized that it will only lead to strifes...jsut instead of your friends, it will be someone else's friends not being happy with the current curation :)
Also, you did not seem to mind curation when you were trending all the time.
SOOO.

Resteemed this

I appreciate that. This post has been brewing in my mind for months. It's exactly what I would do if I was running it.

I think this is really good. Creative.... And i just saw that @steemit twitter tweeted it out oo

that's interesting. I wonder if they read it? It's a long one.

They better have! :)

I just tweeted it too. Definitely some interesting ideas to chew on. :)

Okay, peer pressure, ill tweet it too!

What is this "tweeting" you speak of?

I’d also like to see the whales consult @steemcleaners before they decided to flag anything. Get a neutral second opinion before destroying the integrity of this place.

I'm not sure this is the best idea out there.

As a likely beneficiary of such a redistribution, I'm in favor. But there needs to be pretty uniform consensus on it.

I'm on Steemit for just 8 days. But I do have a lot of experience with blogging (I run a top 100 self-improvement blog , built in more than 8 years). In my first week I made $420 worth of money (a part of it received in SP, of course).

Why do you think such an idea will help balance things out? It may create a precedent. Is not the free market and the power of blockchain supposed to take care of this?

I'm asking these questions with all the honesty, as someone who is here for less than 10 days, but who saw a mechanism functioning. I would really appreciate an answer.

Thank you.

Because good curators and super active, engaged users have not been properly rewarded. Also, the imbalance of power is destructive. Other decentralized social media platforms are burning their coins in order to reduce the centralized power. The coins are not doing any good just sitting in a purse unused. They belong with the natural, organic curators, the literal wheels of steemit that keep it going.

Thanks for the answer, appreciate the dialog.

One possibility could be that by driving the STEEM price so low, they're opening the path for other big investors to replace the current whales and they're actually hoping more people will massively buy this dip.

I agree in theory that power imbalance doesn't go well with decentralized platforms. But on the other side, too much human intervention can set up a precedent for future interventions driven by arbitrary reasons.

Man, the price of steem is tanking. But, I think this is largely due to people wanting to sell off as much as they can for two reasons: ① I believe they recently changed the system such that a larger percentage of rewards go to steem. ② People are furiously trying to get money together to go to SteemFest.

I may be wrong though. Markets aren't my forté.

It's obvious the price is tanking, but one of the consequences could be that other people will buy at this price.

It's just normal to go down, in my opinion. I don't see how an ecosystem so small in terms of user base (probably 25.000 active accounts) will generate payouts in the $500-$1000 range, as many are expecting (or so I see many complaining about the reward falling down from that level). If we keep projecting such unrealistic expectations on the platform, it will eventually implode.

The value of reward per post can grow only in 2 situations: 1. user base is growing (more eyeballs) or 2. price of Steem going up (more dollars into Steem). The first is the one that counts because, in the long term, it will also push the market upward too.

Looking at XBC trends I notice it has been increasing pretty steadily in value. Perhaps that's a bigger factor than anything happening internally?

I recently posted that I'd be voting people up a lot more and only if they looked like they were voting for others as well, but I do read their stuff to make sure it's decent first too. My vote isn't worth a hundred dollars yet but even a vote can show someone that I care about their content - similar to a facebook 'like'. It's better than not doing anything at all, plus there's a lot of awesome authors on steemit so why not :)

I like your attitude! This is how more users should behave! We have to put in the work to make this place better for future users! :)

To me this is the obvious reason for having an upvote button. I can appreciate the logic behind, but disagree with the morality of, tactical curation.

This is a great idea! Without the projects going on right now I think Steemit would be dead in the water... and those projects may not be enough to save it unless many more pop up. I agree with you 100%, this needs to happen now!

I resteemed to help spread this idea around!

I disagree with redistribution altogether, and I'm a peasant here.

Giving away steem is not a good long term move. "You can give a man a fish and he eats for a day."

There needs to be a way that enthusiastic, engaging users, can acquire more SP through a system of being rewarded for activity. Maybe an extra boost for meeting certain required events on a daily basis?

We do need to be reader centric here really. Not everyone will "win" writing/creating. If you have only three neurons devoted to forward thinking you still should be able to deduce that readers will always make up the bulk of the user-ship. Why limit growth with the deification of content creators? We need a balance in that department.

It would be a one time gift! Not something repeated. Most corporations give Turkeys on Christmas in USA to their employees. This would be a way to organically find and reward the engaged users who are not writers necessarily. This place lacks organic curators....well, no they are right here in plain sight!

poor turkeys :(

As a one-time reward, I don't think this would be effective. It ought to be something that occurs monthly, but with lower reward values than you suggest. Either that, or raising the value of comment upvotes. Alternatively, they could scale back the SP multiplier such that the power rift isn't as great. This would make dolphins more powerful and reinforce the minnows' drive to become dolphins.

You're right, a one time gift. That's my point.

One time gifts do nothing for future generations of users and eventually we'll end up back where we are now. We'll have the same imbalance with different faces. Would you give a gift every year? That would bleed investors dry.

The only argument to this is that a gift won't be really be changing much in the way of distribution of wealth. In which case what is the point?

it would show the users and the world that steemit is dedicated to decentralization. The other option would be just to burn a large amount like Synereo did. That move on their part solidified their dedication and commitment to decentralization. By holding onto Steem, it doesn't look good in comparison from a user stand point.

I hope you understand that I mean this in the most civil way possible and that I'm not trying to attack you. We need more discussion like this here.

How is rewarding content drivers "giving away" anything? I see the proposition as more meritocratic.

@stellabelle

Thank you for quoting me. You addressed the issue spot on. I think we will see more changes after other decentralised platforms take off. Thing change when you see someone threatening your ass.

ha! You and I are correct indeed. Power and money mean nothing when it's backed by shady deals, corrupt whales and shitposts. The Big Flushout is needed!

@stellabelle - thank you so much for the recognition of some pretty great organic curators. While I would absolutely love to have some extra coin in my pocket, my personal goals have remained steady from the beginning: jockey my ass off to build my reputation; help others who are floundering but willing to put in the work; develop/create my own original work; learn new things; make-a-da-moolah.

My participation in many of the curation guilds is simply passing through for a quick hello just to stay in their consciousness - but mostly to help promote others - even more than I do any self-promotion. Honestly, if everyone's so busy on chat, how do they have the time to create quality work??? There just isn't enough time in the day to do all of it well. One must simply pick their battles and pray they win the war, if you catch my drift.

Building a rock solid community is formed from true engagement, making introductions, and following tags and people that personally interest each individual. It's about digging for hidden gems, and blazing a trail for others to follow.

You are a trailblazer and you have cleared a swathe for so many people to succeed - myself included

I have seen abuse of power on the platform, and there have been times when I'd refrained from an upvote or a comment because the person was way too angry and on the verge of nuking themselves. And then there are times, like the situation with carlidos, where I came to his defense because it was the right thing to do, even as he was assigned "the scarlet letter".

But here's my take on flagging that I've mentioned on other blog comments:

  • Bring back the down votes.
  • Allow down votes to have an optional comments box so that a healthy dialogue may begin.
  • Have a link to an objective moderator available should it turn into a flame war.
  • Down votes should NOT affect reputation or monetary value.
  • Flags should have a mandatory drop down menu with serious offenses listed: SPAM, Plagiarism, Abuse. Those should immediately go into a queue so someone can research the issue before making an objective determination based on FACTS.

I'm an engaged user because I'm doing what I love. Incentives are great but it's not the only factor. I want to see Steemit come out of Beta and take over the world, make a difference in an individual's life, and expand into humanitarian and philanthropic avenues.

Chances are I will never been a Steemillionaire but I am an early adopter. Steemit isn't just a platform. It's an idea and a think tank. The developers really need to focus on keeping the site stable. The whales need to vote their conscience and become re-engaged with WHY they came here in the first place. The minnows need to stop bitching that they're not making any money or getting attention. FUCKING DO THE WORK, PEOPLE. It's that simple....and that hard.

Hi @merej99, The update to the upvotes/flagging is likely going to require a Steem engine change, which does make it more complicated than something that can just be made to the Steemit.com website. The developers and community have actually been talking about this a lot on GitHub, and I just got confirmation from one of the devs last night that this item is on their roadmap.

I know that a lot of these changes are crucial to the success of the platform, and it can be frustrating that they are taking so long to get implemented, but I assure you that they are hearing our requests, and working around the clock to bring as many of the features we want online as soon as possible.

It is a massive project though, and they have a ton of features they want to add. To get to where we want to be with all the bells and whistles added and kinks ironed out is going to take some time.

@timcliff, I sincerely appreciate the time you took to read and comment. I've personally not been affected by flags but as an observer, I have witnessed an outcropping of bad blood: members v. members and members v. platform.

I know the dev are working hard and I feel like I've been heard - even if I had to yank you in here. LOL Thank you.

This is a great response on many levels. You are a very good person inside.

Nice article @stellabelle. I appreciate that you included me in your list. I do not believe this is likely to happen as @piedpiper mentioned as this is wealth redistribution and I know that is anathema to the philosophy of the founders. It is a philosophy I share. It would make me feel great to be rewarded for my efforts. Yet, I would rather see something done to perhaps tweak things. Realize the white paper is not gospel and was instead the initial idea. If something is not working TRY new approaches during the beta to see if they work rather than saying they will not work before trying them. We have a WEEK of trying a new approach... if it is way bad then we revert it the next week when the new code rolls out.

At this point I just write, vote, and comment. I'm not sure how to fix the problems. I'd benefit from your suggestion personally, and I'd try to put that extra power to good use. Yet that'd be my subjective interpretation of good use. I'd like to say YES that would be good for the platform. It indeed might. Yet would this not likely have to be done again at some point down the road?

Right now the @null account nukes promotion funds and this takes funds out of circulation to prop up the currency, so it likely needs to be taken out. Yet if you were going to award someone then perhaps taking a % of that and awarding it out based upon activity. Yet even that likely could be exploited. Every solution I think of there are still ways to game it. So really what can we do that has the least potential of when it is gamed making a really big negative PR experience here. Having to flag posts is not good for PR, but what do you do without flagging such posts? They game the system and devalue the voting pool. Catch-22.

Great post, I 100% concur. Anything that can help to decentralize the power on this platform would be beneficial. As the number one complaint I hear from people who refuse to join is because of the centralization of wealth on here, it is too much like a ponzy scheme to them (not me) and they won't join. Or if they do join and their intro post doesn't do well enough they give up and never post again. I am all for any ideas that can help accurately decentralize the platform and give more voting power to active and positive users on here. So this is a great idea. 100% up-voted.

Good thoughts, and the reward might be a good idea. We do need changes here, and changes must be coming because we're in beta and that means things are not fully formed yet, so by definition things will still change.

The devs are really good at coding, and now we're getting an upgrade with Graphene 2. There was something here a few weeks ago about a Community Manager job being available from Steemit. If that gets filled and the person sees things like you write about, they can get the word directly to those who can do something about it. The coders can code and the Community Manager can help make the community great.

I'm still here every single day, voting for many articles, commenting on some, resteeming and sharing a few on facebook and twitter. I'm here for the long haul and still feel optimistic! But there are ways to make things even better and your article talks about some of them. Thanks for writing this!

Yes, I still learn way more about human nature here than anywhere else. And the conflicts that arise are fascinating as well. It shows who is who in the game of steemit........

I'd simplify it. Take all the founders SP pre-mine & distribute it across all accounts equally as a hard fork. I would allow them to retain 1-5% of the pre-mine for the marketing of Steem.

I like this idea better than the off the top of my head idea I posted on cryptofiends blog recently. Similar idea, with better implementation on your end. :)

Let's start a project to get this done. I think that 10% is actually too small of an amount.

The universe decided I needed a tree root growing in my septic system, so that's the only project I'm focused on currently. ;)

ha ha! That's unfortunate. Me, well, recently I was offered a professional writing gig, and seeing as 209 votes now equal $10, I cannot afford to be posting on Steemit as my only gig. Diversification is needed. I'll still be posting here, but see it now for what it truly is......a whale ass kissing casino.

Hey, Congratulations!!

congrats!

Look, @kushed is flagging the shit out of regular posts by @ats-david and steemit abuse is doing nothing because @kushed's buddies are running the channel. got any ideas for dealing with this shitstorm?

check this out for Steemit going to a new low: https://steemit.com/@ats-david/posts
His posts are not abusive or plagiarized.

I honestly think 40% is the number that would at least have a direct impact immediately. That leaves what still about 40% or so leftover?

Like yourself, I too am going back and focusing on other writing gigs for now. I guess for me I never got any backing from a whale though so I haven't experienced the "high" that comes with any success on Steemit.

don't give up. consider this the big flushout. I think @kyriacos has a valid point. Let's make this platform interesting and dynamic by spilling our guts in an honest way. Let's not be whale whores, but instead speak our minds with integrity.

It's comments like this that make me wish I had more steem power to vote with

wow, a rare tuck sighting :)

We play FF together, so that means you likely spend more time with me on the web than you know. ;)

i know! that's what i was thinking!

I am glad you decided to write about it on your main account, because of your reputation, your voice matters.

Flagging because you don't like a subject is like the kid taking his ball home because the rest of the kids won't let him win.

If there's to be a valuable system of not rewarding plagiarism, spam and abuse, then rather than consulting @steemcleaners, maybe another way has to be found?

A while ago, I suggested the act of flagging a post should cost Steem. The Steem is taken from the flagger and put into an escrow account. When the flag is reviewed by an authority (like @steemcleaners) and the flag upheld, then the whole post is deleted or greyed-out (whatever) and the Steem returned (with interest/added reward if necessary). If the flag is deemed negotiable (editing by the author of the post will make it right) then the Steem is also returned. If it's an abusive flag then the Steem is forfeit.
One flag only. Once a flag has been posted then the blog post in question is frozen (the time is paused to prevent abuse that way too).

Flag-wars will be stopped, spam-flagging (which prompted my initial idea a while ago) would stop quickly too.

Sadly I feel almost certain the Powers That Be will never go for this, but I think it's a good idea as long as the distribution could be done fairly. It's quite depressing to see a post get 100 votes but only earn pennies. Imagine if every single person on the platform had an upvote worth at least $1? Heck, even 50 cents or 25 cents... we wouldn't see any more $1000 posts, but we would see a lot more Average Joes making respectable amounts. And that's what this platform should focus on: empowering the Average Joe. The 1% rule real life... in the digital world of Steemit I want to turn that around and see the 99% on top.

That said, I do think your distribution model is a bit simplistic. Going by total post count will bias things toward those who have been here the longest. I would rather see it measured by highest activity levels over some set timeframe (say average number of posts per day over the last month or something like that). You can have really active, engaged users who have lower post totals simply because they haven't been around as long, and those people should not be disadvantaged.

ReSteem since you have did way much, for this platform.

thanks for the ReSteem.

Some sort of redistribution would be cool, but I can appreciate that some whales will be against it. I've been lucky not to get flagged too many times. One rogue did go after me a while back, but generally my experience has been good.

With the current reward distribution it can be dispiriting when you put a lot into a post and get maybe 50 votes, but make nothing. Even 1c would be nice. I realise there's a square law to the power of votes, so 100 new user votes can be worth nothing. For those new users to make anything is really hard and a lot will give up.

The curation bots are helping to reward worthy content. I'm grateful to those who put in that effort to help.

Anyway, I'm here for the long term, regardless. Steem on!

Well, redistrution to the natural curators would solve a lot of issues. Whales are not the best curators, so why not leave it to those who are really good at it? currently, there has not been any attempt at rewarding natural curating behavior....

I think the vote is a corporate vote. Why would it vote based on reputation?

I agree @stellabelle Something needs to be done. upvoted, followed and resteemed!

I think your ideas are wonderful.

Very interesting idea!
Resteemed this :D

It is ambitious to think Steemit will function like a platform for all types of content, like Medium, Reddit. At least right away. The posters with marketing and blogging experience here give advice to newbies to find a niche. Apparently niche building is effective...

Well,Steemit does have a niche too; technology, philosophy, social commentary. it is good to reward this as those people are the ones sticking around to write, who stay for the community as well. The regular user reward is a good idea too along these lines.

Steemit is finding its niche audience that could carry it through the 'hype becomes disillusionment' period. It is actually a good time to post! I see curaton efforts by whales are really active and varied (steemd.com). Steemit is less saturated with the smash-n-grab mentality than it was during that hype period.

But, there's always a but, to spread too thin is a mistake, as shows the logical next step by project curie is project guild (effective, practical user retainment on users who are likely to stay) It reminds me of the old addage of a business trying to gain new customers at the expense of regular customers; until the regular ones go then they try to 'win them back'

Thanks stellabelle, you have much influence and glad you are a spokesperson for endusers.

I think people forget, at least they used to, that I am a user and blogger more than anything else. I came here with nothing. I tend to see everything from a user's perspective. I feel the tension when it exists and I also have a tendency to read everything associated with why users are leaving. If there's anything I know how to do well is give gifts to people and recognize the most undervalued, but highly valuable people in any organization. At most of my jobs, I could always identify those who were the true workhorses but who lacked charisma and who were not given the spoils. Those are the people that create a well-functioning site......

I generally don't like posts that are just complaining that the whales/early adopters have all the power, but this one seems genuinely solution oriented, so I like it. Upvoted and Resteemed.

One suggestion that I will add, in case this actually gets implemented, is that there be some type of council to deal with exceptions to the list. If it is done based purely on numbers, then there will be a lot of cases where valuable users that are contributing quality but may not have high quantity (example @artist1989) would get left out. There are probably examples of cases on the other side too, which may have the numbers to make the list, but not really be contributing value. I realize that having subjectivity has its own set of problems, but I feel some tweaking would be better than a raw data based list.

I had the thought too, as someone may reply not as often but leaving longer/quality replies, and not everyone has the time to post frequently. btw I'm enjoying your myth or fact series!

I thought about this. I realize it's not going to be perfect. I thought of this in the same way that companies sometimes give out holiday gifts, as a form of gratitude, like a once a year thing.....
I hadn't thought it out all the way, as it is only my suggestion, and I have not spoken with anyone from Steemit, Inc. about this solution.
yeah, there will be some left out for this one.......it would be nice to include all engaged users....

@kyriacos is my fave blog here. He makse his own graphics that uniquely fit his content, in a creative infographic style. Plus the polemical tone with a hint of humour and uncomfortable truth. A rare style. He does get good rewards for what is not too contra-mainstream. Frankly I was surprised to see how mainstream some of the thought here is. Perhaps some concerns about public image, which are not needed on a platform whose content is the opinions of the users....funny how the monetary reward tho can look like endorsement of viewpoints....soooo just put a disclaimer that payout reward and trending page posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Steemit Inc!

yes @kyriacos stands out becuase he is one of the few who has decided to speak his mind no matter what the consequences are. Most people are not like that. He has a way of cutting through all the bullshit, and I do admire that quality of his. I wouldn't do the personal insults the way he does, but he certainly is someone who will never be a shill. That's respectable. I won't either. I'll go back to writing for startups......I actually already accepted a writing job...... But I'm not going to throw away 4 months of labor here on Steemit. I refuse to give up on this platform and I'll be here til the bitter end or something else blows it away......

yes he is absolutely fantastic ! I supported him for a long time.

Glad to hear, it would be a crash for steemit to have an early adopter who is also a pro writer quit. I hope that your posts also continue to get good payouts so you do have that incentive to stay, and that you dont get penalized for sharing your viewpoints via losing whale votes.

the whales have pretty much dumped me months ago. It's irrevelant, I'm not their whore. I was grossly overpaid actually. I know this. Everyone was overpaid who joined Steemit early on. We all knew it was not to last. We all expected it to die off eventually, and for most it did. Some early ones are still doing well. Many have quit or slowed down. Me, well, I write for a living so I'm still here.

I'm continuing to do what I did on Steemit from day one: write and post. I am writing because writing is my disease. I will never stop. @kyriacos has made me see this place in a new light: The Big Flushout Time. Despicable, self-centered, egotistical whales will die off. It may take some time, but if they provide no substance, they will be gone. This game is not for uber-controlling boys who fancy themselves as some kind of "gods". No, this place belongs to those who provide sweat and tears. People who give a shit about human decency and providing real value to others.

That's how I see it too. We see who stays for the community aspect and to enjoy the readership of who is active here. And the committed devs who have a human vision for the project.

It is encouraging to see people who belong to that group get the rewards, regardless of the politics.

yeah, agreed. It does still have a slimy residue though..............that's what I don't like.

I suggested kyriacos do a post about Anti-Vaccinaters. I knw that would be a damn good one. It's weird how steemit has such a scientific community yet also these psuedoscientific tinfoil hatters.some of whom will some day have dead children due to smallpox.

Now m just gonna find that app that sends out notifications and focus my upvote power on my faves and the regulars. Steemit can be like Cheers. We can all make fun of ourselves for showing up everyday

I do feel like there is a certain group of free-thinking people who appreciate scientific knowledge and who understand the basics of human psychology. This group tends to be the most intelligent group actually. We should be speaking in a steemit chat about working together......

yes! I always forget to log in to that. Which channel you suggest?

ha ha! You're hilarious! I agree with everything you said here! I think I"m going to start drunk posting and see what happens. I might start a different account for that though....

I did that the other day, wrote something personal as a response to honeyscribe and it was a fun interaction. I am usualy sober, but right now I'm getting loaded off wine as I write my next post!

To write under the same name for such things. I almost started a second account. Well, I made it. Too lazy to use two! hahaha

Where-everybody-knows-your-name

Where-everybody-knows-your-gametheory is appropriate considering the crypto-devs here

I didn't even know whales where down voting posts. Well I got some great info from your post and I think I'm updated on what's happening on steemit. Good stuff...

yes, and they are trying to hide the truth. This is one image that was censored from my thread. I'm reposting it so you can see for yourself what's going on:
nextgen_kushed_chat_compc7124.jpg

Very good post!

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