Not long after I joined The Unmentionables, I was invited to join another Discord community by Steemit user @ShadowsPub. That server was and is called The Steemit Ramble, a place where members nominate posts that might appear in a periodic digest published by @ShadowsPub. I liked the idea, so I would pop in to say hello every now and again.

As I joined more and more groups, I visited the Ramble less, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the group had grown quite a bit when I checked back in one day. I also discovered what has quickly become one of my favorite Discord events each week, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm here today to tell you about @ShadowsPub and her efforts across Steemit to promote quality content. She's been a very helpful and kind Steemit user during my interactions with her, so I wanted to give you some insight into her life and thoughts on Steemit.

First up, of course, is how ShadowsPub got started on Steemit. She recounted:

I was searching around the web for something and was reading a discussion on a blog post which mentioned the blockchain and the future being on sites like steemit.com. I'd recently heard of the blockchain and read about some projected future uses but hadn't heard of any current applications so the comment caught my attention and I went down the rabbit hole so to speak.

A rabbit hole, indeed. 18 months later, ShadowsPub has arrived at reputation 66, which may be largely attributed to the publication of The Steemit Ramble. Her post payout averages $7.80, which is nothing to scoff at. (Stats via Steemtracked.com)

When I asked ShadowsPub what she enjoys blogging about the most, she said:

I tend to be a person who is wide ranging on my interests. My blog posts usually tend to be just about any subject that catches my eye. I think that is why the Steemit Ramble has held my attention, it allows me to explore a range of subjects and share the posts I like the most.

It's fairly evident to see this by simply perusing her blog, where in between the Steemit Ramble posts, you may find other gems such as encouragement and motivation posts, a review of Mozilla Firefox, and tributes to veterans.

However, as foreshadowed above, ShadowsPub's true skill lies in curation. She's become excellent at finding some of Steemit's greatest posts from a variety of tags and users. I chose to interview ShadowsPub for this reason, so one of the things I was most interested in learning was about what qualities she looks for in posts. Here's what she had to say:

Well-written posts are a delight to read of course. The subjects can be pretty wide ranging but need to be written in a style which draws me through the post. If I find my mind is wandering part way through, I will move on without finishing the post.

For artistic posts, like drawings or photography, I want to see the process and understand what motivates the creativity behind the post. Just seeing a picture may challenge my sense of art but it doesn't tell me what the creator saw.

She also had this to say about style and grammar:

I'm old school enough that some typos are okay but consistent poor spelling and sentence constructs will draw me away from a post.

For those of you taking notes, there are several great things to glean from these statements. First, be sure your posts are engaging. You can accomplish this by using good formatting, breaking up your thoughts into small, easy-to-digest paragraphs, and using images.

It's also interesting to see what she looks for with creative posts. I think it's always great to know what the author, artist, or photographer was thinking when he/she came up with the idea for the piece, and it seems ShadowsPub values this as well.

Finally, ShadowsPub also said she tries to take it into account if a user is not a native English speaker, but only to a certain point. So for those of you attempting to navigate the written English language, keep chugging along and do your best!

Life, Offline

One thing I particularly have enjoyed learning about ShadowsPub is her interesting life away from Steemit. When I asked her about it, she responded:

There's life outside Steemit?

It ranges from insanely busy to a few treasured days of quiet time that I can just be at home. But, those days these days end up being me spending time on Steemit.

I have been an Associate member of the Royal Canadian Legion for over 40 years. An Associate when I joined was the son or daughter of a veteran, now it is anyone who has a close relative who is a veteran. I was awarded Life Membership in 1999 for service to the Legion, the church I attended at the time and the community.

I'm rather proud of our little local branch of about 160 members. It has a lot of activity going on which makes it one of the community centres in this community of about 2500 people. I've been actively involved in making that happen and am still involved in doing so. I represent the branch on several community committees which allows the branch to know about and take part in the life of the community.

A few weeks ago, ShadowsPub was absent from The Steemit Ramble channel during a popular segment that I'll talk about later. We later discovered that it was due to her receiving the Canadian Constituency Award for her community service!

I always think it's great when Steemians work as hard to help others offline as they do online. There are plenty of needs in communities during the holiday season, and ShadowsPub told me about one particular initiative she's been involved in for quite a while:

At this time of year I'm involved in our local Christmas hamper program which provides low income members of the community with a hamper of food and toys for Christmas and days surrounding it. The program starts in November, during which we take signups, organize the toy program and food. Next Wednesday we start the actual assembly and distribution.

For me, Christmas is done when the last hamper goes out the door. The spirit of Christmas is giving.

I think it's fantastic that programs like this exist all over the world. My church participates in a program similar to this each year. The toys and supplies collected go to the foster care program in a local county. Ours are called "Bags of Joy," but whether it's a bag or a hamper, there are plenty of people that will have a fantastic holiday season due to the generosity of others.

ShadowsPub is a Windows PC user who, when asked about her favorite movies or TV shows, responded:

I have several TV shows I enjoy. Outlander, NCIS, The Blacklist, Wisdom of the Crowd, Criminal Minds, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Madam Secretary, Designated Survivor. As for movies, it's not often I watch a movie, too much of a time investment. I'd rather read a book during that time.

There's always something to be said for reading a good book. Of course, several of the shows she mentioned are great, so check them out if you get the chance.

Thoughts on Steemit

When asked to describe Steemit in one word or phrase, @ShadowsPub responded:

Community you can get paid to be part of.

A small statement, but there's lots to unpack. First, the focus is on community. While Steemit is certainly a blogging platform, the best interactions come when forming relationships with other Steemians. The second part of the statement is just an added bonus. We can get paid to be part of a fantastic community. A great description, for sure.

I normally reserve my interviewees' thoughts about Steemit for this section, but we've already heard a great deal of information from ShadowsPub about the platform. I did ask her about what she would change if she could. She responded:

That trending page. Right now it reflects the posts making the most money. I'd like to see trending across the top 5 tags and those reflected through the posts having the most engagement. The engagement to be determined through views and comments more than income. I've suggested this on some threads and have been told it is technically impossible. I am not so sure that is correct as I've seen that drive trending on other sites.

Engagement is a fantastic way by which to measure success on Steemit, so making some adjustments to the trending page algorithm could be great for posts which otherwise might not have a chance for high visibility. I suppose we'll see what comes of this as the platform continues to evolve.

ShadowsPub is involved in many groups across Steemit. Some notable ones are:

• The Writer's Block
• You Are Hope
• The Alliance
• VOTU
• Team Girl Powa
• The Duty Hut
• The Dolphin Cocoon
• Steemspeak
• The Unmentionables

I, then, of course asked ShadowsPub if she had any witnesses she would like to promote, since they are extremely important for the future and stability of Steemit. Her response was very thorough:

There are some witnesses that do some good work on the platform. I'll likely miss some but let's see: guiltyparties, SirCork, Patrice, themarkymark, followbtc/crimsonclad, anarcho-andrei to name some off the top of my head.

I would encourage you to check out all of these users' witness platform by visiting their blogs. I personally support several of these witnesses, so I can confirm that if you haven't cast all of your witness votes, these users would be excellent candidates.

Now, let's take a look at ShadowsPub's specific contributions to Steemit.

The Steemit Ramble + Pimp Your Post Thursdays (PYPT)

As I alluded to earlier, ShadowsPub has her own Discord server called The Steemit Ramble, where she allows members to submit posts for consideration and possible inclusion in a periodic curation post on her blog. It's a great way for users to share up and coming authors who may not otherwise get any attention. I've shared a few links there occasionally, and I always appreciate the work ShadowsPub does crafting the posts. She offered some more insight about her Steemit journey and the creation of the Ramble:

It's interesting watching how things evolve on the platform and I've been enjoying my own evolution here. I started out wondering if this thing was even real and would I just be wasting time and energy on writing on here. I finally decided to try it out. Once those first few dollars of votes hit, I was like "cool, even if the money isn't real, someone likes my writing'.

From there I evolved to writing the Steemit Ramble which gave me reason to spend hours reading content. Then as the amount of really crappy posts grew I realized that life could be easier if people could nominate posts for me to review. That led to the Steemit Ramble discord and from there the idea of having a voice chat where people could share their posts or posts of someone else they liked.

It's great to see such reflection from a user who spends most of her time promoting the content of others. I think we've all experienced that sense of "Is this real?" at some point, but to those of us who are still active and work towards our goals, the feeling of accomplishment helps us along.

After forming the Ramble for people to submit links for consideration, ShadowsPub introduced another great feature of The Steemit Ramble, that I have personally come to enjoy very much. It's called Pimp Your Post Thursday. Twice each Thursday, at 11:00 a.m. EST and 7:00 p.m. EST, ShadowsPub invites users to join her on a voice chat channel to "pimp their posts" by dropping the link and talking about the posts they share.

I asked ShadowsPub to share a little about how she feels about the success of PYPT, and she had this to say:

Pimp Your Post Thursday has received a fantastic response. I've tried to keep it flowing but at the same time, if a conversation on a topic breaks out, there is room for it to happen. I started the morning session to allow people in other parts of the world to participate during their day instead of the middle of the night. It has become just as busy with people from all parts of the world as the evening session is.

I enjoy doing PYPT and from the feedback I'm receiving, people enjoy taking part. It's become a bit of a party where people can take turns sharing posts in a comfortable setting.

After attending several morning and evening sessions of PYPT, I can say that it's a really comfortable atmosphere where you can present your post or someone else's post, and you'll get plenty of genuine engagement and interest in the post you share! I've met some fantastic Steemians through the voice chat sessions.

I encourage you to check out The Steemit Ramble and Pimp Your Post Thursdays if you enjoy engaging with others on voice chat, you'll definitely enjoy participating in PYPT.

Final Thoughts

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Overall, ShadowsPub has made some fantastic contributions to Steemit over the year and a half she's been on the platform. I can't wait to see what the future holds for The Steemit Ramble, PYPT, and the rest of her efforts on Steemit.

As I have with the rest of my interviewees, I asked @ShadowsPub if she had any final thoughts she wanted to share for the end of this interview. She had this to say:

I think that STEEM, and the ecosystem developing around it, has a strong future. We need to have some patience with its development. The other big social media sites didn't develop to where they are now in less than five years. I see a lot of impatience at the level of development on the site. We wont really know if that is warranted until we give it time to actually develop and mature.

Words of wisdom from a public servant, curator, and host that I will certainly take to heart.

Check out the other Volumes of The Steemian Spotlight!

• Volume 1: Inertia
• Volume 2: HopeHuggs
• Volume 3: topkpop
• Volume 4: ShadowsPub
• Volume 5: carlgnash