One of the things I hate the most is the myth perpetuated that
the only way to get noticed for a newbie is to use these bots
What a load of tosh. It is used because it sounds like a reasoned defense. In reality people are chasing the vote booster services because it makes them money and they hope to gain more money by their posts being more visible.
If they were on another platform would they pay to boost their post? I seriously doubt it. But here they hope to fatten the worm to attract a bigger fish.
At least that's my take.
The basic principles still hold and I have seen it happen with many an account.
If you engage regularly, post reasonable content and do so regularly you will get noticed and build a following.
Lol, that comment was a little longer than I thought it would be. Needless to say I agree with your post :0)
You hit the nail!
The only way to solve these issues is to provide a better onboarding: more tutorials, support and information in the beginning. That would definitely lead to less frustration = less demand for such services.
I bet 90% of the users that sign up to steemit have no idea how this platform really works.
Thanks for your support - I love long comments written by humans, hehe :-)
I love it when I read a post that inspires a long comment from me. On my phone too!
I would love to see a return to the messages from months ago before the voting bots. The ones that inspired people to think less of the rewards and more on interaction and quality content. Since the rise of the booster services is more of a how can I get as much money as possible mentality with some.
Indeed. Going back and looking at comments under older posts, from this time last year, say, is really quite a comparison! People really were connecting. The rise of the bots broke me, lol. I was in the top 25 of commenters. But when I could see all the bots zooming to the top, it broke my spirit for Steemit for awhile. But winter is a good time to dig in, so I'll be back at it once our Thanskgiving holidays are over. Good comments and engagement keep people on Steemit, not upvote bots.
It was quite different this time last year wasnt it! There were comments left right and centre from everyone and it was all quite cosy.
I hope you do dig right back in! Nothing beats comments and engagement!
It was a lot of fun, that's for sure. I'm digging, lol! ; )
Glad to hear it!
Read my content.. please
Please have a look at my comment below this as well. I'll just reiterate that the incentives in Steemit are the real problem and not the minnows trying to get ahead in a very primitive and often fully ineffective Steemit incentivation model. If you can explain to me how I can get much more headway for the excellent content that I write, I am all ears. Please let me know. I am more than happy to take good advice.
OK, I'll bite since you seem to think the problem are the minnows in the pond. Please have a look at the excellent and very intelligent content I have and then explain to me why I can't get any decent headway without using MinnowBooster or the like. This is my challenge to you and your comment. If you can answer this for me, or find a way to get more people to my excellent content, then I'll happily stop using any bot support.
Honestly, I think whales are not searching out and upvoting excellent content enough. Instead I see things like "I'm new to Steemit" posts with a couple of selfies and a few words about excitement to join Steemit at $200. This is in my view a problem with proper selectivity as well as inherent Steemit incentivation issues and the inability to filter out and properly upvote real content rather than just fluff.
My my my! What an seemingly aggressive response!
Please tell me where I said that the problem is minnows in the pond? If that is what you took from what I said then I cannot help you.
However I am always up for a challenge because I am a positive soul.
Let me look at your account.
Voting power - 98.12%
Goodness me, have you ever considered voting for people? People on this platform do like votes. I dare say you do too. I know that when I was a minnow i looked favourably on those who voted for me.
Let's look deeper though. The past 28 days.
Hmm, it looks like in the last 28 days you have cast 26 votes. Not even one a day for others. In fact a fifth of those 26 have been on yourself.
My advice from this cursory look at your account would be.
Interact with others, comment and vote. Build your brand and following.
Your welcome.
Aggressive? Clearly you have misinterpreted my challenge. I suggest you take the time to read some of my content instead as I suggested.
Also, considering that my votes give about 1 cent apiece and sometimes not even that, I wouldn't worry to much about whether I've upvoted enough people lately or not. I don't have a slider bar to adjust my voting power and give out more to the right people. Trust me I would do it if I had it already.
Actually, not having a slider bar or having to worry about your voting power because of it should mean you vote more, not less. It's a luxury you have at the beginning to give you a good start by commenting and voting like crazy on other people's content. And that is how you can and will be noticed by others and get rewarded. That is how I did it, and meesterboom did it. You're basically taking the lazy way out on all fronts and here you are giving a man who has worked his arse off from the beginning a hard time instead of listening to what he has to say. @meesterboom is awesome, anyone who has gotten to know him will say the same, and unfortunately with your attitude you're not likely to have it said about you. Unless you make some changes.
Of course I'm not against upvoting people, however, I actually read content before I upvote and look for good content that should be upvoted. This is a hell of a lot of time at a a penny a vote. I don't just randomly throw out votes like some people seem to do. At least with a slider bar, you can decide how much you want to give people and truly reward the ones that deserve it rather than spewing votes just to use up your vote supply.
And by the way, every comment he made was about voting and ended with a self righteous attitude that he had found my problem and I should be thankful to him for it, however, he never addressed my core points. Not once. These are the types of BS responses that I think are totally worthless and never solve the real problems of the platform that I joined the conversation to discuss to begin with.
I will say it once it again, Steem's incentive system and content filtering capabilities needs some real work in order to get really good content promoted properly. Currently, the system is still very immature and is unable to filter out all the crap posts that are being loaded on the platform at an exponential rate. The BS rants in this comment section blaming non-whales for trying to find ways to work creatively to solve this does nothing except polarize a worthless discussion between whales and minnows. And at the end of the day the question that should be answered is one of how Steem evolves to ensure real content gets developed and upvoted properly. This is why I kept pointing out to read the content. For me this is what the point is and always will be - the content.
I read your last article. And I would have voted on it, had you not bought your votes. Especially considering the content of the article-I don't understand how someone with your ideals would sell out like that. You're pointing out the flaws in the system while doing exactly the thing that ultimately brought about those flaws to begin with. In fact your entire argument here makes absolutely no sense based on who you are presenting yourself to be on your blog. If you want to get a message out to the people, if you actually feel passionate about that message, then you would be spending time with the people. Saying that you 'read an article before voting on it' well if the average article takes five to ten minutes of your time I fail to see how you are unable to read, vote, and comment on more then one a day. Perhaps you started out here with the intention of enlightening people, but if you take a hard look at yourself right now you will have to admit that your primary goal is monetary. You wouldn't buy upvotes if that was not the case, if you cared about people actually reading what you wrote then you would spend time connecting with people so that they would.
This is what I've told numerous people recently:
The fundamental problem with this platform is that it consists of probably 99% content creators. Which means that we don't have the luxury of attracting an audience who is here simply to be the audience. That is why-in its current state-in order to attract a viewership your only option is to broaden your own viewing of others material- to be their audience.
Both of you guys crack me up. You think that I'm in here for the money? Let me tell you that my wallet value is exactly $67.97 after 7 months of investing weeks of my time on Steemit. This is with a few MinnowBoosts included, otherwise, I'd be at around $50. Yes, I'm in the big time now. Woo hoo! You sure caught me. The game is up.
As for me "selling out", you are so ensconced in your existing Steemit worldview that you still don't get what the problem here really is, nor have you understood what it is that I have been writing about in my blog. My last blog post is about our screwed up legal system with perverse incentives that lead to wrong behaviors and system failure. Is the problem the attorneys? No. Is the problem the judges? No. Is the problem the politicians? No. The problem is a system that has been designed wrongly at it's very fundamentals and the result is that it will eventually fail from this because it won't adapt. (It reminds me of some whales too.)
What you can't seem to wrap your head around is that this is exactly the problem in Steemit. The Steemit system has not been designed properly to incentivize and enable mass amounts of people and content. It may have worked fine with 10,000 people, but it won't work fine with 100,000 or 1,000,000 people, especially with 90% producing BS.
Lastly, I really appreciate your assessment of my character because you sure have read me like a book. I feel so ashamed now for having used MinnowBooster a few times.. Actually, let me rather point out that you have no right whatsoever to judge me, my motivations, and my character. I find it pathetic that you would even think to do so in a public environment and solely based upon the fact that I used MinnowBooster a few times. This is the height of arrogance and ridiculousness.
It's an excuse I hear all too often.
My vote isn't worth anything, so why give it?
Think about it. That's all.
Therefore I am pleased to report I rose to your challenge! The fact that you are ever so keen to avoid what I told you is quite simply not my problem.
So you don't read content.. OK
Well it looks as if there is no reasoning with you. Why should I waste my time reading your stuff when the first thing that I look at paints quite the picture. Look at my answer. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean I have to find another
So you think you know me and my value to the platform from the fact that I haven't voted sufficiently for your taste recently? If that doesn't say everything about your assessments, I'm not sure what does.
theyre vote is less than a 0.01 what difference would it make how many votes they make will never be seen
for comparison lets review your voting
http://www.steemreports.com/votes-graph/?accounts=meesterboom
is nice vote exchange you have and majority is to users with thousands of sp so for you to say the right way to gets votes when you participate in voting group is comical
Well thank you! I do try my best to be thoroughly comical!