Content Crusaders: The Fight to Save Steemit Will Fail

There have been a few vocal opponents of certain types of content lately and I don’t believe it’s the best path to “save” the platform.

We all have our preferences when it comes to “quality” content. Some of us acknowledge that these preferences are personal and often do not align with those of others. Some of us refuse to acknowledge this and believe that “quality” isn’t really subjective. And still, some of us may understand how such preferences work, but believe that our own preferences ought to be the preferred preferences.

There have been arguments that posts involving sports and games don’t really add any value to the platform; that the quality is poor; that they require little to no effort or time; that they are manipulative campaigns to drain the rewards pool; that they are dishonest and dishonorable.

Let me tell you a little story, then we’ll revisit these criticisms and accusations.

The motivations of @ats-david – in case you were wondering.

I’ve always been a fan of sports. I grew up in a sports town with several big-league major sports franchises. I played sports growing up – spending nearly all of my free time outdoors, participating in various activities, even throughout the winter. During the winter months, we moved some of our sports indoors and continued playing. It was a year-long effort, every year.

With such a sports-rich childhood, I grew into an adult who enjoys watching sports. It doesn’t matter if those sports are live or on television, whether I’m watching football or Olympic slalom, or whether I’m watching the local favorite or two teams from the other side of the world. I enjoy competing and I enjoy competition, particularly in the form of sports, but any competition will do. It often serves as my entertainment. It’s one of my entertainment preferences.

When I joined Steemit back in August, sports posts were virtually non-existent. My plan when I arrived here was not to write about sports – but to try to grab attention from readers and to raise money for my business project. During that process, I noticed what a few others had: that the content was becoming somewhat bland and that there was a particular lack of sports, sports posts, games, and interactive posting. There certainly was interaction, but mostly it was just the typical blog comment.

At the time I joined, the anarchist community was arriving in droves and anarchism was trending regularly. I knew from my previous experience that a large portion of anarchists despised sports altogether, so I decided to take the opportunity to write a post about it titled, To My Anarchist Friends: Why Do You Hate Sports? I published that post on August 30th. Needless to say, it didn’t earn much. However, it pretty much confirmed my suspicion: As long as anarchism was dominating the trending cycle, sports and sports-related content didn’t have a chance of being successful.

I talked to a couple of people about their thoughts on sports and they said that they also noticed what I was seeing. One of them stated that he wanted to post sports-related content, but that he was afraid he would be wasting his time. Another user even stated outright that there was a specific lack of sports and some other “manly” content – and that he would probably find another place to socially interact where such content existed.

So, I decided to take it upon myself to try to create a way for people to interact with each other in the community with content that I thought could fill some of the sports void. I had planned to publish my initial Winner-Takes-All post for the first week of the NFL season, but I was pulled away for a few days and wasn’t able to get it together with enough time to allow other users to make their selections. So, I started with the second week of the season and my first Picks post was published on September 15th.

(I would like to note here that @steemsports didn’t publish their introduction until six days later, on September 21st. I am the original sports game in town, as far as I know. I just didn’t have the initial whale support.)

My first post had six participants. Thanks to a donation from another user, every weekly post for the entire regular season had a guaranteed 5 STEEM Dollar payout. On top of that, I offered to split the liquid rewards with the winner. At the time, I had not earned much through my posting efforts. I was certainly no whale or even a glimmer in a dolphin’s eye. I happened to get a few good payouts just within the two weeks prior, but I didn’t have much to promise any participants, so the rewards would be based on how well the community supported me.

I pledged some of my rewards, another user donated some STEEM Dollars, the game was up and running, and the football Picks was receiving interactions.

So, there it is – the birth of my sports-related content. Now, back to the previously mentioned criticisms about such content.

Is my content dishonest or shameful?

I’ll let the community be the judge. I have never attempted to misrepresent anything that I do. I create my contests, lay out the rules, and ask people to participate. That’s it. If nobody wants to play the game and nobody wants to upvote the posts, then my posts fail and I likely stop creating them. Such is the blogging market.

When it comes to upholding my end of the bargain, I think my track record speaks for itself. I have had zero disputes and all of the post payouts have gone to the winners as promised – in some cases, more rewards were paid out than were promised. There is no integrity issue here.

Have I manipulated anyone in order to drain the rewards pool?

As stated above, I have done nothing to manipulate users. Now if we’re going to talk about rewards and an intent to actually earn something from my posts, then yes – I am guilty as charged. I create posts so that I can earn rewards. That’s pretty much the entire point of this platform. It’s why these very people who are criticizing others are here as well. They want a chance to earn – and as far as I can tell, they can do so without anyone calling for their posts to be flagged/downvoted or otherwise relegated to some sort of second-tier status.

What I find troubling about the complaints here is that the criticizers seem to believe that certain types of content ought to be prevented from having a chance to earn like all of the other content. They seem to believe that rewards should only go to posts that “create value” – but their definition of “value” falls within their narrow preferences for content. What exactly is the value that they believe they are creating with their own posts? Who judges that value? Them? Do they judge their own value as well as the value of others? Or do others get to have a say about the value that these criticizers are creating with their own posts? Why do they feel that their opinion of value ought to supersede anyone else’s opinion of value?

So, I reject outright this notion that a post about sports-related games or sports “betting” is somehow less valuable to the platform than a science, philosophy, art, or news post – and that creating such content is nothing more than “manipulation” of other users and the rewards pool. Do some people actually manipulate or abuse the trust of the community? Sure. But that doesn’t mean all users posting this type of content are manipulative and abusive.

Do my posts require time, effort, and creativity?

Regarding time and effort – I can tell you that I spend a fair amount of time putting my sports posts together and I make sure that they are formatted, edited, and presented in a manner that is consistent with any other type of post that I create, whether it’s a series on my coffee knowledge and experiences, a post about government and politics, or just a batch of photos that I upload and share. Sorting through the entries from the participants and making sure that the contest results and payouts are accurate takes time as well. With my format, I can’t just post it and forget it.

When it comes to creativity, I think I’ve done a fairly good job as well. I have been complimented many times over about the uniqueness and/or fun of the contests. When critiquing or judging the creativity or quality of a post, it would be helpful to make comparisons to other posts of its kind. You’re obviously not going to critique a sports opinion column based on the same standards you would apply to a post of a scientific study. Critiquing an essay on metaphysics based on standards or comparisons to a photojournalist’s blog would be equally absurd.

Do my posts add value to the platform?

This isn’t an easy question to answer because value is subjective. However, we can look at what my posts do accomplish.

First – my posts have engaged other users on the platform who enjoy participating in the contests. Whether their motivation is to win money or to simply enjoy the experience is irrelevant. If they derive pleasure from the experience and they feel that it was a good use of their time and effort, then it doesn’t matter what others think about it. As a user/investor of the platform, they can likewise do what they want with their vote. If voting on my post and submitting an entry into my contest is how they want to be entertained, so be it.

This is the key to entertainment. We seek entertainment mostly for the simple pleasure of it. Some people seek ways to be entertained with minimal exertion. They want entertainment efficiency. If one user creates a game or a post that can maximize one’s entertainment with minimal time and effort, couldn’t that be of great value to others who are seeking such efficiency?

Furthermore, one of my most recent sports-gaming posts engaged 28 unique users. Compared to one of the more vocal criticizers of “low quality” content, this was better engagement than all but one of his posts over the past two weeks – a total of 49 posts. So, if we are using engagement as a metric for our critiques, then it would appear that sports-gaming is on par (or better) than what he perceives as “quality content.”

Second – I am offering the community a way to earn rewards that they may otherwise not earn. They also have an opportunity to earn these rewards without having to create their own blog posts. For all of the users out there who do not wish to write blog posts, this is a great opportunity for them to increase their stake on the platform.

Not everyone wants to be a blogger – and the bloggers here need to wake up and realize this. Without a large amount of people reading, voting, and engaging, you won’t have much of a platform. Giving people incentive to engage – even if it’s minimal and not your preferred method of engagement – will help draw them in and keep them here. Earning money is the big draw for Steemit. My posts offer that to readers without requiring much effort from them and without needing to be a professional blogger and subject-matter expert, like some people apparently believe all Steemit users ought to be. (I actually find most of these posts from the wide-ranging subject-matter experts to be unbearable – but that is just my opinion.)

Third – the posts that I create redistribute rewards from larger stakeholders. Those rewards go to me and to the winning participants. Due to the popularity and support that I have received recently, I have been able to donate full liquid rewards to winners and have received additional STEEM from certain users to be paid out as well. Every time a vote is made and these coins are donated, distribution (or re-distribution) occurs. If the popularity continues and I decide to branch out into other sports, I may even start powering down some of the SP rewards to use as payouts as well. But if I decide to do that, it will be my decision and on my terms.

Fourth – my system is creating additional network transactions that add value to the STEEM blockchain and also add to my personal trustworthiness within the community. If anyone wants to know if I can be trusted, there is a growing network of users who can vouch for me and this can be confirmed by the data on the blockchain. This adds value to me personally, and as a member of the community who can be trusted, I add value to it in return.

Fifth – the content that I create allows me to earn rewards and increase my stake on the platform. As one of the more active users here who is consistently posting and curating on the platform, the rewards that I receive can be used for furthering my own goals for STEEM/Steemit, which involve bringing in new users who will be working with me on my business projects, crowdfunding supplies for it, and setting up a storefront that will accept STEEM and STEEM Dollars as payment. So voting on my posts and participating in the games – even if you don’t necessarily like my style of engagement – will contribute to my continued efforts to build up the Steemit community and to give users another way to spend their STEEM and STEEM Dollars.

Returning to my initial argument.

One of the most outspoken users who criticizes the gaming initiatives on this platform seems to think that Steemit must be used only for creating “meaningful higher quality content” for the purposes of raising the “quality of consciousness” of people around the world. He has even suggested that if you can’t create content that is up to (presumably) the standards of his own posts, then you simply should not post on your blog.

This leads me to wonder what is meant by “meaningful” quality content. We already have a hard enough time expressing which content is considered “quality,” let alone anything higher quality or something meaningful. If those things cannot be explained in an objective context, then those words themselves are essentially meaningless and arguing for them in order to allegedly improve the community is also meaningless.

What about using Steemit – or any other internet site, for that matter – as a way to raise the “quality of consciousness” of the world? Of stating that certain posts shouldn’t even be published unless they conform to such an ideal standard of excellence, according to one particular user? I’m not quite sure how to address this, other than to say that I hope this person never acquires a whale’s share of influence. Can you imagine the general pretentiousness of a website that has such influential users like this as an example of what is best for society – let alone a project that is supposed to be decentralized, or at least encourage decentralization and related moral/philosophical values?

If our goal is to criticize any content that is not up to our personal standards, or to argue that such content ought to be moved somewhere else or that users ought to simply refrain from posting altogether, then the results will be the exact opposite of our stated intentions.

If we want to expand the user base and grow this social media platform, scrutinizing content for what we subjectively consider “quality” or “meaningful” won’t get us there. Publicly criticizing such content as worthless and harmful to the platform won’t get us there. Flagging/Downvoting such content won’t get us there.

As a matter of fact, doing those things will likely push users out and keep new users from joining.

Additionally, it’s a losing battle in the first place. If Steemit were to become a popular social media site, the “low quality” content will inevitably exist and probably thrive. A crusade to prevent it by complaining about its popularity will have virtually no impact – because most people just don’t care about your personal preferences. The only way to prevent certain content from being popular right now on this platform is for the most influential users to either refuse to upvote it or to flag it – to discourage other users from voting on the content, lest their vote be repeatedly wasted altogether. But this isn’t a solution to the content problem. It only offers a way – for now – to push one’s own preferences on the rest of the relatively small community. If the active user base doubles, triples, quadruples, etc., and more investment comes pouring in, those efforts can be quickly defeated.

Do we want a thriving, welcoming community? Or do we want a closed, stagnant one?

This is the question that we should consider when we try to push our agenda about quality and the types of content that we think ought to be allowed, removed, or redirected. Claiming decentralization and censorship-free shouldn’t come with qualifiers based on a few preferences by a few people.

Criticizing the quality or value of content probably shouldn’t come from users who have had the privilege of receiving plenty of automated voting that has raised them into the highest ranks on the platform in both rewards and reputation. Such efforts will not only push people away from these particular complaining users, but they will also push people away from the platform as a whole, thus reducing the adoption and retention rates and the value of the platform for which these people are hoping.

There are arguments to be made about how certain things work and how certain users behave, but these are functionality and trust issues and are not necessarily related to content. If you have a legitimate complaint about a user or a function on the website, address it accordingly. Personal preferences about quality and value really have no place in that conversation.

A friend of mine always says, “You do you – and I’ll do me.” It’s great advice, especially for Steemit. If you don’t like someone’s content, just ignore it and vote, comment, and share what you like. If Steemit becomes something that you loathe, then you can always move on. That’s something that we all need to accept and be prepared for, because there are certainly no guarantees here.

Tell us your opinions about quality, but spare us the useless value judgments and the endless campaign to push certain content into dark corners. Lobby for better filtering features for users, not the outright exclusion of content. That is in direct opposition to what this platform is supposed to represent.

So, good luck to the content crusaders out there. You’ll need it – because most people don’t care. And that’s not a problem with them.

(I hope this post meets the standards of quality that are expected.)

---

*The images in this post are from Pixabay.com.

Follow me: @ats-david