Digital Curation Groups: Consider Who Represents You

in curie •  8 years ago  (edited)

Deleted.... Apparently the money part cannot be seen past. It was not my intention to create doubt about these groups that I feel are needed at the platforms current stage of development.

I wanted it KNOWN how I was handled by a member of one of these groups. NOT to undermine the group or these groups in general, but to call into account how they handle, or should handle, themselves when representing their group.

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Project Curie was formed by a team of successful Steemit writers. You can check our accounts and see that we have been making MUCH less since we started with Curie than we made posting on our own before. That was part of the problem; rewards were imbalanced. We knew we needed to help spread out rewards to others. And Curie does that, rewarding undiscovered and deserving writers, artists, chefs, scientists, musicians, and anyone else creating great, original work here on Steemit that has not yet been noticed. Several others have published various analyses of the platform and how Curie has helped in broaden the base of rewards.

Adil @the-alien is one of our core team members. Project Curie would not be here without his hard work. I do not condone his use of language and any negative comments he made in that discussion thread, but he must have been upset. Adil has a big heart and he has the best interests of Steemit in mind in the work that he does with Project Curie. I personally apologize if anything that any of us has said was offensive.

The @curie account is used mainly for paying finders fees to members of the community who bring us posts. We have another account we use to pay our own curation team. One way we finance this is by donating many SBDs from our own posts. Everyone working on this project has put in far more time and sweat than we have seen in monetary returns.

We are trying to help Steemit. Go through our accounts if you want; I don't care. You will find that the core team members have been making very little so far from our involvement in this project. It's not about money.

I personally feel the-alien 's statements, including the ones he later removed to hide threats and attacks made on behalf of the group, tell people everything they need to know about project curies motives and intentions.

Your tepid disavowal of those threats, as well as your straw man defense of the very significant amount of reward share the curie account and associated accounts are getting, is manifestly unconvincing.

You say you need 10K a week in author rewards to pay out "finders fees" ... to me this seems exorbitant.

@sigamjin - Please see my above comment as reference to what all of the funding is going towards. Our budget does not only include finders fees. We have many other expenses as you can read in my previous comment. To expand on that, I would like to also repost a reply I made a few days ago regarding the Project Curie budget:

"Thanks for checking in and clarifying, we want to be as transparent as possible. Some other big accounts have hired curators and pay them per post that they curate. We are actually getting paid less than other situations that we know of - we are not taking a big chunk out for ourselves, rather we are just barely meeting our time costs. The core team members are actually doing a lot of work for free as well, just trying to make this project as beneficial to the community as possible. When we contract someone else from outside of the core team we try and compensate them for their time best as possible (curie monitors, bot developers, ect). I hope that helped answer your question!"

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

well, 2 points

  1. first off, 10K a week seems excessive to me. Again especially when that's like 10% of the reward pool. But whatever, if that's your budget then so be it.

  2. You have to realize that taking your budget out of the reward pool by constantly posting about your curation activities and getting upvoted to the tune of a grand or so a day, acts at cross-purposes to your stated goal.

Once again, i will reiterate, because I seem to exist in some alternate parallel universe where I keep saying this and no one wants to hear it

I AM NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF MISAPPROPRIATING CURIE FUNDS

I AM NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF PERSONALLY ENRICHING THEMSELVES

I NEVER HAVE MADE THESE ACCUSATIONS, OR SAID ANYTHING THAT COULD EVEN BE BROADLY INTERPRETED AS MAKING THEM.

What​ I am saying is that there are two effects here:

1.The upvotes that you give authors who would otherwise be unknown and unrewarded for their work

2.The thousands of you take out of the author reward pool every week with back patting and publishing your curation lists (3 different ones yesterday)

1 and 2 have opposing effects. Certainly you would agree that if you took 100K out of the reward pool every week publishing your curation lists, and gave the same amount of upvotes given to unknown authors, that would be a net negative effect.

All im saying is that when i see thousand dollar post after thousand dollar post, with no real content aside from who you voted for today, or insipid back patting, or talking about your logo it makes me think that 2 might be greater than 1. Especailly when 2 seems to grow every week.

Two weeks from now when your @curie posts and your posts about your logo and each of your members taking a curtain call and patting himself on the back take out $30K from the reward pool for hte week instead of $10K, are you going to be saying the same thing. its all in the budget?

Because if you are, IMO, at some point its obvious that youre doing more harm than good. Maybe that point is 10K, maybe its 50K, maybe its even higher (i personally don't believe this, but one could make the argument)

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

What claims do you want me to prove? That the @curie account and accounts associtated with it got $10K in blogging rewards for writing about curie. I can post a list if you want, but its fairly easy to find the information just in the curie tag and by looking at the @curie blog?

Do you want me to prove im skeptical?

Because those are the only statements i made about curie.

As for tabloid sensationalism, i agree with that description of the post about @mibenkito, but I personally don't think its tabloid sensationalism to express skepticism about a bunch of accounts getting $10K (or more) out of the reward pool every week to postn about who they voted for, regardless of how they use that money.

And I don't agree that most people on this platform will think it is so either.

Especially when that group is being dishonest.

Because one way or the other, your group is lying about this blacklist. Either the alien was lying about it when he threatened people on chat with it, or the rest of you are lying about it now.

I'll repeat... with a little extra specific to your comment.

Please don't pass the buck back to us.

The curie project was clandestine while it was in development. ...Since it has been unveiled it has been as transparent as possible. These post are made specifically for transparency purposes. Generalized accusations are not going to cut the cake any more.

The burden of proof resides with you... you are making the claims.

The witch-hunt genre that has emerged in the last couple of weeks trying to make bank with sensationalist unfounded accusations is not doing so well of late. I suggest anybody going to make negative accusatory statements and cast aspersions around better have their facts straight.

Otherwise its just another tabloid piece that will be treated with the contempt that it deserves.

...and NO, that's not a threat its just an observation of what I have seen happen lately. Because the witch-hunt genre has been getting out of hand and leaving a distasteful taste in many mouths.

One persons comments made in a clearly emotional state can hardly be honestly construed to represent the group. He had the rant and how he deals with it from here on is his business...

It's his reputation... hardly the projects, It is mischievous of you to try to paint an entire project with a single set of interactions with one passionate individual that was clearly upset by unjust insinuations.

Please don't pass the buck back to us. The curie project was clandestine while it was in development. ...Since it has been unveiled it has been as transparent as possible.

The burden of proof resides with you... you are making the claims.

The witch-hunt genre that has emerged in the last couple of weeks trying to make bank with sensationalist unfounded accusations is not doing so well of late. I suggest anybody going to make negative accusatory statements and cast aspersions around better have their facts straight.

Otherwise its just another tabloid piece that will be treated with the contempt that it deserves.

...and NO, that's not a threat its just an observation of what I have seen happen lately. Because the witch-hunt genre has been getting out of hand and leaving a distasteful taste in many mouths.

Once again, i never made an accusation. Saying i did is a lie.

Trying to platy the victim, or trying to say that youre the subject of a witch hunt because someone dares to question whether you deserve massive chunks of the blogging reward pool to talk about how you vote is absurd,.

Stella was asking for the mute button for a while, glad we finally have it! Thank you, I will use it on you.

As I said, You shouldn't have to want to do anything with me either. I never threatened you with anthything, I said I wished I can mute you and now I can.

Yes, I use profanity, and that's not new. You can check all my posts most of them have profanity. I asked you repeatedly to check the open source wallet before accusing and you always refused by giving childish excuses: You use profanity, I don't need to verify, your words tell me all I need to know.

Well, you were wrong. numbers don't lie.

The same with the other thing, the threatening. "As far as I can tell from the conversation" well, you're wrong again. Don't take things by "As far as I can tell" because i have never threatened you. And I certainly never threatened you in the name of curie.

I will mute you yes.

But again, your instinct is wrong, I never threatened, that never happened. I said I wish i could mute you. Your friend has apologized already and deleted the post. Ask him?

But you won't ask him, because my profanity tells you everything you need to know. Just as when you repeatedly refuse to check the wallet before accusing.

I woke up today with oh great, more false accusations.

I never threatened you man, deal with it.

I just muted you, I hope you will mute me too. Because clearly, we are not compatible.

@sigmajin I never made any threats to you. I only mentionned blacklist once, and I meant muting in general, in steemit, not curie. And I said, I hope it existed, That's what I said.

Never threatened you with muting, though I would've done it if steemit had the option.

I said I hope it existed, so not sure how much of a threat is that.

And I told you in the face: "I don't want to have anything to do with you, and you shouldn't have to do anything with me, I hope it's fair".

That's all.

steemit does have the optionto mute... its in the upper right corner right next to "follow" in the users profile page.

As far as I can tell from the conversation you deleted with cleve, you were defintiely talking about black listing people. You were also using profanity and calling people names in chat.

Me personally, i do consider that representative of the group, the equivocations itt not withstanding.

I never questioned what is done with the funds. Read my comments in the threads please.

I was supportive to both and presenting the question that ignited this as general, and I was presented with an option to be blacklisted.

I have not once said it was a get rich scheme.....

Hi @clevecross - while I realize that you were not questioning what is done with the funds, I would just like to repost a comment @liberosist made a few days ago in regards to where the funding goes. We want to be as transparent as possible:

The funding goes towards -

  • Fees for curators and proxy voters.
  • Beyond our primary curation team, we also have people who are screening posts, checking for plagiarism, voting etc. behind the scenes in shifts round the clock. We are close to covering 24x7 - hopefully that'll happen from next week. Our team spans North America, Africa and South Asia.
  • Development of bots, scripts, etc.
  • Fees for #curie curators, #curie moderators.
  • Accounting, voting power management etc.
  • Buying and powering up proxy voting accounts so they have the weight slider.
  • Currently, we are screening 1,500-2,000 posts and curating 100-150 posts per day.

Additionally, as @donkeypong stated @the-alien is a vital member of Project Curie and pours his heart into the project for the betterment of the Steemit community. While I also do not condone his use of language and we do not blacklist anyone for questioning the project, I understand that he must have been very upset when he felt accused of trying to hurt the community when in fact he has spent hours on end selflessly working on this project.

t, I understand that he must have been very upset when he felt accused of trying to hurt the community

I don't know where this "feeling" came from. No rational person could read the 3 lines i wrote (that cleve included in this post) and view them as anything except what they were. Legitimate skepticism.

The only thing I question is the need for these groups. I would like to see it worked out to where it is not required.

That said. I do not in any way doubt the use of the money. I have no need to look into accountability, I believe it is doing what it is intended to do. I just happen to feel what it is intended to do is a band-aid fix for a problem still needing to be addressed.

Because the latter has not happened. Curie is a necessary project to try and hold on to new users and allow them to feel recognized. In trying to actively play a middleman saying he is reacting to something that wasn't said I was drug in and dealt with inappropriately.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

agreed... we all hope one day these types of projects will not be needed... unfortunately a baby needs a diaper until a certain age... and chainging diapers is not ideal... steemit is still in its infancy.

"The only thing I question is the need for these groups. I would like to see it worked out to where it is not required."

Regarding blacklists: that comment was inappropriate. Curie's only blacklist is for plagiarists. We consider everyone else. I can only guess he was upset and said that in the heat of the moment. As organizer of Project Curie, I will say unequivocally that we have no blacklists except for plagiarism.

The comment was never made. I said that I wish (not have) a mute option in steemit (not curie) so that I can blacklist people who i want nothing to do with. Just to clarify.

What a shame this has all boiled down to money.

Personally, I saw Project Curie as a wonderful opportunity for new and upcoming authors. It's not about money for a lot of the authors - you can tell that because they're still here, writing and posting without a Ferrari in the garage to show for it.
When things come down to money, people get side-tracked and start worrying about motives.
As I said... it's such a shame that it's come down to this.

I thank everyone involved with the project for their time and efforts. <3

I don't understand your comment at all. Nothing has boiled down to money. This post is about one person's rant, not the project. It continues to be very successful and is rewarding the people who need it most; no one who works on the project is getting rich from it. This is essentially a non-profit project.

@donkeypong I'm sorry you don't understand my comment.
As a new user (less than a month), I'm not completely au fait with the world of Steemit and though I've seen many arguments and disagreements online, this is the first I've seen on Steemit.
As a newbie, I read the argument and that is exactly what it looks like from the 'outside' looking in.
I understand that this platform is all about transparency and that's great, but this is damaging to your project. Whether you and your team know it's not about money - where it goes, who gets what etc - it looks like it is to new people.
With that in mind, I'd beg you to take this post down before the Curie project is damaged. It's an excellent project and would I were more influential, I'd help more.

I sincerely hope this can be patched up and Curie goes from strength to strength <3

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

this is about one persons rant where he threatened reprisals from PC to anyone who had anything remotely critical to say about PC. And where he equated honest and respecful criticism with an accusation of theft.

As to your argument about no one getting rich, youre arguing against a straw man. The same made-up one that @the-alien was. The issue is not people getting rich. THe issue is curie and associated accounts have taken around 10K in author rewards out of the reward pool this week. Thats a fact, and its a non trivial amount of blogger rewards. ANd you should stop and think for a moment about the fact that this works at cross purposes to your stated goal of achieving better distribution.

You say youre using them for the good of the platform, and I have no reason to believe youre not sincere in that belief. But the fact is thats 10K (about 10% of the available weekly author rewards) not available to authors becaue @curie is posting about who they voted for. Or what their logo is going to be.

Is 10% the end of the world? Of course not. But when you add in the additional 10% to talk about steem fest and an additional 10% to talk about other internal steem things, that adds up to a big chunk of author rewards that simply arent there for author content.

Maybe its a good trade off, maybe it isnt. But, IMO, when you threaten people that even voice an opinion on the matter, it raises serious doubts about your legitimacy and your inentions.

AND, just FTR. My summer associates are all back in school, so i have to at least pretend to do some of my own work. Which means i don't really blog that much recently. So no, its not me looking out for my own interests. Its me observing what seems to be a legitimately bad use of the reward pool.

"Maybe its a good trade off, maybe it isnt. But, IMO, when you threaten people that even voice an opinion on the matter, it raises serious doubts about your legitimacy and your inentions."---this I can find merit in...

but

"But the fact is thats 10K (about 10% of the available weekly author rewards) not available to authors becaue @curie is posting about who they voted for. Or what their logo is going to be." ---needs a lot more work

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

"But the fact is thats 10K (about 10% of the available weekly author rewards) not available to authors becaue @curie is posting about who they voted for. Or what their logo is going to be." ---needs a lot more work

Im not sure what you mean, needs a lot more work.. The money came out of the blogging reward pool. FOr curie posting lists of what it voted for. And for curie posting about its logo. Thats less money that can go to actual authors writing about non-steemit-related topics.

Now maybe you think that 10K was 10K well spent -- that is to say that the benefits outweigh the costs. I don't even necessarily disagree with you. But as I see thousand after thousand awarded not to content, but to people talking about what content they voted for. Yes, I am absolutely skeptical. Which, btw, was the entire text of my comment.

Whats going to happen when the whole lot of you are posting every day about what youre doing in curie, maybe even 3 times a day like the curie account did most recently. Surely you agree that there is some line where posts about curie and what its doing and what its logo ought to be are just making too much money.

Or maybe you don't.

This wasn't about the money. I sincerely do believe that it is used entirely as intended. I had a problem with a core member of the team reacting strongly in a chat to a general statement about the need for these problems.

I am not attacking the project.... I would like a system where such a project isn't a required necessity though.

"What a shame this has all boiled down to money."

I am glad to see you. I hated not seeing you last couple

oh lord, you again. the same guy who accusses people for handling alt accounts under fake names. and then run away when they have verification photo right in front of their eyes LOL

I accused nothing. I disagreed with your shouting down people asking for verification by saying you had done it secretly, a couple times.

I don't care about the verification photo that was sent by the account that logged on 2-3 minutes before you did and vanished when you were active in chat either no.

Honestly. I didn't care about the account either way. It is YOUR actions that are shouting down anyone asking for verification several times I cared about.

As they say around my zone: you throw the stone, and then hide the hand.
You just like to throw mud over people and instead of writing good content (which i assure you if you write one , I will be the first promoting your post), you simply lose time trying to damage other people rep. Posting private conversation, you crossed the line. (i knew you could do this, that's why I NEVER accepted to discuss with you the issue with you in private chat)
You got something personal with me? I didnt shout down anyone. Hanai talked personally with steemcleaners team and cleared the situation herself. I wish I was that influential but I am nobody to make the rest of people believe me or take my word for granted.
You are doing the same with the people that are part of Curie project. Jealous much? Yes, I think so.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

As they say around my zone: you throw the stone, and then hide the hand.

Thats a pretty interesting turn of phrase, especially given that we're talking about alt accounts.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

I'm not sure why you think he is my friend. Are you claiming to have some sort of insight into my personal life?

R4fken and I happened to agree on one post (which was about the creation of money by the federal reserve). As I recall, even the guy i was initially arguing with came around to seeing it my way at least to a certain extent.

Now, if r4fken and I had both used the same obscure turn of phrase that you had never heard anyone else use ever, then that might be a good reason to believe that there was some sort of concealed relationship between us. Or that we might be the same person.

oh look who is back, how is your friend r4fken doing, by the way?

Hold on. I never brought it to Chat... I never do. You drug me through several rooms on chat.

What I saw was people asking for verification and you saying it's been done. I left a comment to the effect that "secret" verification is not cool. After that I spent a day with you in chat in various rooms for something I went to bed having let go of.

In truth... I don't much care if a person is identified or not. The issue has come up quite a fair bit. I was exposed to the post through a comment in a post of mine, and saw two different screenshots showing two TOTALLY different sides of this verification.

One was from the account to another user saying "actually I am her brother, this is a surprise" and then your posts saying they have been verified. That's it.

It was extremely poor form on my part to allude that the account was an alt of yours as I did in one comment. I figured that was probably the case based on you shouting to everyone questioning that this account was verified over and over when another user had shown me a screenshot where this same account had said they were in fact not the user, but doing this to benefit their sister. I had no proof of either and should not have made that comment.

What I also said and stand by was that I forwarded MY information to people who look into these things, and I left it at that. You have not.

As for Project Curie..... if you had read the post before I deleted it. I was NOT attacking the group remotely, I went after the same type of shouting down others I felt YOU had done when the topic and subject of blacklisting came up.... which I will also leave saying I may have misinterpreted intent.

I put EVERYTHING on the blockchain. Not on some other site where it can be openly manipulated and not tied back to a source. YOU did in fact contact me on chat in several rooms and handled it in much the same way I felt I was handled yesterday. Casual veiled threats towards my reputation here on steemit.

Come on, Cleve you said you reported me.

here let the photo verification be in blockchain too. Bye Cleve and peace.

@clevercross I think I we finished on a an honest note. In fact my last words to you were:

"Done, deleted everything. As far as you and me are concerned. I cleared the air.. Good luck with everything!"

I thought we agree to live and let live, because I am not the one accusing people. That being said, don't twist my words.

I never said WE HAVE blacklists. I said, I HOPE wehave the mute option in steemit. To mute people and I stand by that.

I even told the individual in his face, that I don't want to do anything with him, and he shouldn't have to want to do anything with me.

I never said that WE HAVE blacklists, I meant the mute option on steemit, not curie. So that I can mute people I don't wanna see.

I also deleted my post. My intent was not about the group.