Making and Eating a Shit Sandwich- The importance of constructive criticism on Steemit.

There's a little thing on this platform called rep. It's not built on the blockchain. It seems like a bit of an after thought, but as it turns out it's one of the most important factors to keep this place chill. A friend of mine wrote a thesis for college. The title was something like "Who's taking it up the ass now Faggot; a discussion on internet gaming chatrooms." You see constant flaming in nearly every other social media platform, but not this one. In this one people are mostly respectful and those that aren't you kinda don't really see it...

Cause those fuckers got flagged.

and now their rep is negative. And now you can't see their posts. And now people don't support them. And now they're kinda fucked, because if you thought it was hard climbing with a rep of 25 imagine what it's like with a rep of -7.

So, people are nicer here. I also think it stops paid government shills because if they start causing trouble by brewing up shit they'll catch some serious flags.

Good intentions

The other thing to note is that most people on here have good intentions. There's been 1 scam I've seen here and it got shot down in a day. People are otherwise supportive, helpful, kind, and tolerant. It's a pretty amazing culture. Something about using a click of a mouse to create wealth that's easily transferable makes for an abundance mindset. People help each other here. It's pretty amazing.

That said it can be hard not to get a little heated at times when you're arguing about shit you're passionate about.

One example along these lines

@liberosist and I don't really see eye to eye on most things. I'm a hardcore truther, conspiracy theorist, and hater of just about everything our government is currently doing. I don't trust big pharma and think their medicines are poison. There's a lot that I've come to see as bad. I think he's either apolitical, agrees with the state, doesn't care for these thoughts, or maybe even thinks they're bad for the platform. I haven't spoken to him directly, so I don't know for sure, but those are some of my perceptions.

Now take HF 19. We're arguing about that. He's coming from a curation is incredibly important standpoint and is trying to do everything in his power to improve that. I'm coming from a minnow perspective and trying to improve that. We're both fighting for what we think is best on the platform and we both have different opinions on what should be done to make it better. We both have strong opinions so we've had a few arguments on my wall. This is less about right and wrong and more about equilibrium and balanced needs along with different perceptions and perspectives.

Is he wrong? Tough to say... I think HF 19 will be bad and I think he was a strong proponent of it. Maybe I'm wrong. Is he an asshole who should be flamed. Not a fucking chance. He does a shit ton of work on the platform and you've probably benefited from it at one point or another even if you don't realize it. This isn't a pissing contest where only one of us can be good for the platform, and since we both seem to be intelligent people we can both benefit from the conversation that we're having. So, if anything, I salute him, and appreciate the thoughts, and will continue to try to see things from his perspective as an incredibly active curator thinking about getting everyone else involved in curation and making that better.

It's important to remember that a lot of these people put in hours a day for at least a few years to try to make this place awesome.

That's why the morning after arguing with him I made this post.

The person is awesome. I may disagree with these particular thoughts, but the person is awesome and great for the platform.

Back to shit sandwiches

A shit sandwich is critisim dropped in the following format

1. Compliment
2. Constructive thought
3. Compliment

See the compliments form the bread. The constructive thought is the shit.

You want to help people on this platform and that sometimes means nudging them in different directions. So, you need to say something along the lines of "hey @whoever, I really liked what you just posted about X, I noticed that you miscredited the work to @ididitallalong so please fix that, but I'm really looking forward to your next post."

See how gentle that can be? that's good feedback wrapped in some compliment bread. That guy might even catch an upvote from the post author. If you just drop in and say, "hey asshat you got that thing wrong." You won't get the upvote, you won't make a friend, and you might even catch a flag.

So, while you're out there in the Steemit world trying to coach one another or argue please just keep in mind that lots of us are trying to help this place grow, it's ok to have different thoughts about how to do that best, and at the end we all benefit with a good culture so please do you part to make it one.

If you happen to catch a shit sandwich eat it with grace.

Also digital pictures as gifts in the comments section to people seem to make them come back... if that's important to you.

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One last thing. Do me a favor and go into general in steemit chat and ask @acidyo to make an aggroed channel. He's reluctant, but the minnows have started asking for one.

https://steemit.com/aggroed/@stephcurry/aggroed-the-next-best-thing-on-steemit

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