Steem Has Crashed Over 50% Since I Joined. What Did I Do Wrong?

I invested real money into buying Steem to help the platform. Not a lot as I don't have alot. I have been driving new member signup for a while now from https://SteemThat.com not alot but some as I can see from our stats we send quite a bit of traffic but Steemit still doesn't have an affiliate tracking system which seems odd as this would help all of those promoting Steem and Steemit know what metrics were working and what wasn't. We launched a simple affiliate system to allow SteemThat.com members to refer people from anywhere and receive some Free Steem That Tokens. Steemit could do something similar. Adding a ton of new members still will not stop a crash though.

One thing I really would like to see and I know there are others that would like to see it is an affiliate or at least a track system. This would allow all of us the ability to track which types of content was performing the best.

We all know videos by @jerrybanfield should do really well or do they? I would assume that they do but they might not convert new people as much as they help members learn things. People like @craig-grant that has made alot of videos and mentioned Steem in them might do well more so than me making a video about Steem Specific topics. I would love to think that @jeffberwick drove alot of traffic with his walk and talk dog videos . All three of these guys videos really culminated into enough curiosity to join. Plus, I seen a few videos by @exploretraveler like this one

that was really cool!

Why are all of these regular folks investing their time and energy into Steemit?

I think we all get the larger picture of what this Steem community can become if everyone works together to grow it. Everyone of these people have their niche and we all need more members to join and become great authors or vloggers themselves and also support our works. It isn't all about the money with anyone of the independent promoters of Steem and Steemit and the various other portals we talk about and write about and promote. But we all want to protect our investments.

What Is Being Done To Help Stop The Crash Of Steem?

When will the developers of the platform put as much energy and investment into Steem as the members do? @ned as one of the original founders and genius minds that created it all can you help relax the minds of so many? Would you be willing to post more updates of where things are going and what progress is being made so that people can relax? I think communication from the top would help resolve major market dips as people fear uncertainty. I also understand that sometimes what you say could be construed as market manipulation and so you may often hold back from releasing too much awesome information. But as chatter on social media grows and fears of an unstable coin spreads some action is probably needed at this point.

It is definitely a buyers market if you feel that Steem is doing enough to prevent a crash!

One thing that has been good is that the market volumes are much better than they have been in recent times. One thing that would help in all of this is having real data on the real number or real accounts on Steemit. I'm betting those numbers are closer to 200,000 than the 400,000 plus you see when looking at the blockchain day for user accounts. How would we determine active users that could be defined with a metric and a bot could easily determine the valditiy of an active user.

• What would we look at to determine this?
• What is the criteria for an active user?
• Who decides this? The community is best to decide these things. There are plenty of people that can code up this bot and I would be willing to host the code to display the data at https://SteemThat.com for whoever wants to build it if they do not have a space for it.

The Current Abuse Of The Flagging System:

There is such an abuse of the flagging system that I'm up for altering how this impacts posts. A small tweak in the code could help resolve this by returning things back to a community approach verses a tyrannical approach. When one member becomes tyrannical they can cause serious destruction to the community and many I think are doing this maliciously like a virus or cancer to destroy the platform and Steem community.

Here is how they are doing it and then I'll discuss how we should prevent it and Stop the crash of Steem.
Some people have a good heart and think they are doing a noble cause by flagging. Sometimes they are doing things the right way. They see a post with a pixabay image upvoted to hundreds of dollars on fake accounts and they flag it! Hey good job you protected the rewards pool. A post is an obvious plagiarized post that you can verify is 100% just copy and paste. You flag it! Yes good job you helped protect the rewards pool. You see a crap post with affiliate links and no real content of value and you flag it! Great job! You protected the rewards pool. You see a post by someone you do not like and you flag it! BAD JOB! You flag a post because you disagree with the writers opinion...BAD JOB!

The white paper was fairly clear about the use of flags and how that the worst thing that could happen to the platform was someone thinking they were doing a good thing but are really abusing the flagging system. Why is this so important because a lot of hard work is being done to bring new people into the platform. If you are running them off before they even really get started that is not cool! The better approach would be to start a conversation about a violation that you believe warrants a flag. Discuss why and get others opinions about it. Don't be a flagrant flagger as you are Crashing the Price of Steem with every False Flag. For your own investment you would be better to educate someone on the correct way to do things verses flagging any day.

The Malicious Flagger. There are competitors of the Steemit platform.

Many may have already joined Steemit in times past and many might have invested to purchase a large amount of Steem to destroy the platform... Some could have even set-up groups on discord that are disguised to be helping the rewards pool but are essentially stirring up minnions to do more of their dirty work. This is only possible because of the decentralized nature of Steemit. However, much of this could be squelched with a simple common sense basic recommended rules of conduct from the top.

That way members would not be being deceive to think that a minnow that upvotes their own comment for 0.010 is destroying the platform. It will take a million minnows to equal the rewards pool drain of some witnesses and dolphins and whales that have tons of fake accounts that they upvote with pixabay images posted to them. Stop beating up the minnows!

The real issue is that many are bullying people and abusing the flagging system. They are not doing it because they love steemit and want to protect the rewards pool. They have zero good intentions. There are many that are maliciously and deliberately attacking people to drive them off of the platform simply to try and destroy the platform. They will often target newer members as they do not know any better. They will badger them with artificially created rules that sometimes are written or spoken about by no one. They will flag and try to run off as many people as possible. There sole purpose is to Crash Steem!

What Should We Do About The Crash of Steem?

We need to create an environment that is friendly and easier to understand. Steem is complicated and many new people struggle to overcome some of the basics. We should all be helpful and support new members. I'm doing my part with this at https://SteemThat.com where we have an actual social media platform specifically designed for Steemit members to share ideas and network and form their own groups. Our system allows members to post on their wall and ask questions and share ideas with out the abuse often seen on Steemit.

The Flagging System Has To Be Changed....Period

This is not up for discussion and we should make it known to Steemit.inc that it is not up for discussion. If you care about Steem and Steemit they need to know it and they need to know that the community is demanding a change to the current flagging system which is Crashing The Price Of Steem!

What all changes need to be made? How Do I Propose They Make Changes?

The community should ultimately decide this. You can leave your comments below on how you would like to see the changes made. Until the changes are made I will be powering down to make a statement and I ask all of you to do the same. I'm asking you to write your own article about your experience with a bully and use the hashtag... #powerdownforchange

One thing that could be done is allow the community to decide the impact of flagging. Not one tyrannical voter can impact a post in a negative way. It would literally take 5 or 10 members to start any type of sanctions. It isn't just a weight of STEEM POWER that determines the weight of the downvote but the amount of people that downvote. The exact formula is to be determined and fast....

Keeping Existing Members And Adding New Members Along With Budget Proposals And Smart Media Tokens Will Propel Steem From The Bottom It Is Going. So When Do You Buy Steem? Later...