You may have noticed

@c-squared upvoting, commenting on and resteeming posts.

A proper mission statement and whitepaper is still forthcoming, but this blog post will address the "what we are / what we do" questions in brief.

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What is @c-squared / the Curation Collective?

The Curation Collective, AKA C²/@c-squared, is a community intended for curators on the Steem blockchain.

Any individual curator or curation group is welcome to join us on Discord:

https://discord.gg/B8JFmJ4

Permission is required to post in the curation channels, so just identify that you are a curator in the #general chat to receive the Curator role. The Curator role will give you permission to post curated links (please, no self promotion) in #the-hive general curation channel or one of our language- or interest-specific channels (at the time of this writing, currently Spanish, Filipino and Dutch language-specific channels & Art, Music, Writing and Photography interest-specific channels).

If you are a member of an existing curation organization, you are explicitly encouraged to bring forward posting that you are already featuring yourself in your own curation effort.

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What kind of posting will @c-squared upvote and resteem?

There are very few guidelines for curated posts.

• BRING FORWARD GOOD POSTS FROM UNDERVALUED AUTHORS this is intentionally not defined, but the focus is on non-spammy posting by authors who are not receiving major reward already. We are looking to upvote real posts, by real humans.

We will not intentionally upvote spam or plagiarism. All posting is reviewed for spam/plagiarism by a human member of C² before upvote. When vote power is low, the quality bar may be raised for upvotes and posts with lower current payout will also be given priority.

• OFFENSIVE/STRONGLY SLANTED RELIGIOUS OR POLITICAL POSTING will likely not be upvoted. This is again not explicitly defined, but basically, rants (of the non-comedic variety) and attack pieces will likely not be upvoted/resteemed.

• NON-ENGLISH POSTING C² will rely on established outside curation teams to assist in determining what non-English posting should be upvoted/resteemed through the @c-squared account. A simple system requiring approval from more than one foreign language curator is currently required before the community account upvotes/resteems non-English posting.

Currently Spanish, Filipino and Dutch language posting have their own dedicated channels. If there is enough of a community posting in a non-English language and enough interest in curation of that posting, a channel dedicated to curation in that language will be added. Just talk to us about it in #general chat, we will try it out and as long as the channel is being used it will stay up.

Likewise if there is enough interest in any interest specific curation, new channels will be created there. All English language posting can be brought forward to #the-hive general curation channel in any event.

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What do I get out of it as a curator?

There is no payment of any kind associated with bringing forward posts to the public curation channels in our Discord community. The primary goal is to support and give more exposure to authors.

While the @c-squared account itself does not currently give out a large reward on upvote, the best posting upvoted/resteemed by @c-squared will be supported by Curie Direct Follow Curator @carlgnash. To be clear, @c-squared / The Curation Collective is an independent effort from @curie. However, @carlgnash has pledged to review and upvote the best posting resteemed from the @c-squared account. These will typically be upvotes in the $3 - $10 range, so it can be a significant boost to the posts featured by any curation effort.

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Fostering Engagement

C² is working toward promoting engagement on the Steem blockchain. All server members are eligible to enter in two weekly contests focused on engagement through commenting on the Steem blockchain. Currently the prize is 5 STEEM to the weekly winner of each contest. Learn more about the contests by reading the pinned notes in the #announcements channel in our Discord community.

C² also supports engagement by encouraging upvotes on resteemed posting. @carlgnash will delay upvoting with his Curie direct follow for at least 24 hours (and longer if post payout period permits) after a post is upvoted/resteemed by @c-squared. This gives everyone a chance to upvote the post in advance of a decent-sized upvote, which is a proven way to maximize curation returns.

Follow the @c-squared curation trail at SteemAuto

Delegate

If you would like to delegate to C² you can do so by clicking on the following links:

50 SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.

Last but not least - shoutout to @zaxan for the logo / graphics!

Please give some love to @zaxan who volunteered to whip up a logo and blog cover image for C²! @zaxan you did a great job! You rock!