What the Hell? A Fucking Rant by Michael David

michaeldavid (65) in steemit • 7 years ago

What the Hell?
A Fucking Rant
by Michael David

Ok, so as a test to see if I can get a post to stick finally, i'm sharing a rant instead of an inspiration.

WTF?!?!

Seriously!

What the hell just happened to Steemit?

One day I'm posting away, keeping up my momentum and the next I can't post or reply for shit?!

What has been happening around here the past couple weeks?

It already takes me 2 hrs to write a decent post. There is no way I'm going to spend 4+ on it, or better yet have it not post at all after all that work.

So I was turned onto steemitstage.com. I was told it worked better.

People also told me to use busy.org.

What the fuck!! I'm on steemit damn it!

Ok, so I have been holding this in for quite a while. For those of you responsible parties that I piss off with this, great! Maybe now you will get off your ass and change shit!

I get that there is an immense amount of work to build this site but at this point that is just a crutch.

There are massive, coding intense websites all over the web that work properly.

It's bad enough that no matter what you want to do here you have to read pieces and parts from people that are not associated with the site and try to fit this ridiculous puzzle together only to find out that you read the wrong post and the one you wanted was buried in feed 8 months ago then changed without anyone knowing because there is no way to know when it does.

Oh wait, i'm sure that function is a damn app or extension or new fucking website I have to log into that I can lose track of in the 1000 other websites that I have to log into to make this site function correctly.

It's no wonder we can't keep the price of steem over $1 lately.

If I want to talk to someone efficiently I have to use an entirely different solution completely dissociated with steemit.

If I want to know if I was mentioned (tagged) I need to get an extension or pay minnowbooster to let me know by email.

If I want to sort out anything at all on this site I have to....

Oh wait, you fucking can't sort shit!

There is literally no customer service.

One of the first things anyone learns in business is to use what has worked for other businesses before and add your twist onto that. You don't reinvent the wheel unless it is making it better and even then it is super risky! You fucking take components from what has worked in the past with other people in the field and fucking use them with your brilliant idea!

It's like steemit stepped off a bus in the seventies and heard the word social site for the first time and said "I can do that man, I think, once I come down I'll get right on it." Only to find out the internet had not been invented yet and they were really just having a bad trip.

Or maybe they are coding blindfolded, I suppose that is a more likely option.

I'm going to say this as simply as I can:

If you want the masses to use Steemit you have to make it user friendly!!!!!

There is nothing user friendly about this platform at all and to top it off people can rob you without blinking and it randomly just doesn't work.

Now, you can tell me the many reasons why this or that ridiculous thing happened or is happening...

We got hit by....

We are working on.....

We don't know why....

These are all just fucking excuses.

NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR EXCUSES!!

Ok, now that I have ranted thoroughly I'm going to list very plainly a few things that could bring steemit into the 21st century.

All communications should be here, on the site. Just like, yes I'm about to curse, Facebook. OMG he said Facebook! What the fuck! Ban him from the site and burn his page! Well it's fucking true so get over it.
- Mentions
- PM's
- Comments
- Replies
- Anything else that is associated with your username at all.
  They should all be at the top of the page contained in buttons or a simple drop down. Not a seperate thing like discord or steemit chat. BUILT IN LIKE ANYWHERE ELSE!!!!!
FILTERS, FILTERS FOR FUCK SAKE FILTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Every site on the internet that has lists of any kind at all and was not built by someones grandmother's cat has fucking filters built into their damn lists! All of them!
- Filters that sort by things like: Time, relevance, user, following/not following, picture/no picture, title, categories, etc...
- As many different relevant filters as possible so we can actually find the shit we are looking for.
A functioning search in lists.
- If I'm looking at any list, whether it is feed, replies, comments or anything else, I should be able to search that list to find something.
- Even with a properly functioning set of filters no one wants to comb through shit. We want to type in pappa pepper finds his dog and see the fucking post about him finding his goddamn dog!
Resteems should have it's own tab on our pages.
- Look, we all know that resteeming can help someone grow by getting their post out to more people. Personally I won't resteem things because as a writer I can't have my page all cluttered up with random shit. I want people to see and be able to navigate my stuff on my page and the resteems could be me showing things i'm either interested in or supportive of. This really sucks because there are a lot of people whose stuff I would like to support and help to get them seen.
A clear set of fucking rules.
- There are a lot of controversial topics here on steemit. Many of them center on the use of your upvote power for example. This guys opinion vs that guys opinion.
- The truth is this type of shit should not be left up to opinion. This should have been decided by the team building the site and fed to us as a clear set of rules.
- A great example of this is self upvoting. I could rant for days about this but will keep this very concise.
  a. When you give a checkbox that asks if you want to upvote your post during creation you are inviting self upvoting.
  b. If the site itself has not clearly established a categorical rule on the topic then they are freely allowing it.. Period.
  c. Since it is being allowed, by the site by not making rules against it, now we have a new form of cyber bullying. @sadkitten, @fuckyourselfkitten and @lickapussy bots are literally taking money away from people for doing something they deem abuse that the site itself does not. (If it did there would be a fucking rule and better yet they simply would not allow you to do it in the first place.)
  d. By not making a clear rule here the site has effectively produced self appointed police (vigilantes) with their own agendas. These cyber bullies are not just flagging people but stripping their rewards for something the site has not said is wrong... Isn't that wrong? Should I build a search and destroy bot that specifically targets these bots and robs them as well? Anyway, that brings me to my next point:
Downvoting.
- Look, we can all agree that plagiarized shit and spam suck.
- The way downvoting is set up anyone with more sp than you and a bone to pick can come and strip your rewards away. Better yet they can hit you hard enough to start ruining your rep and leave you with negative scores.
- This is soooooooooooooooo not right! It's fucking cyber bullying on a whole other level!
- If I had 5 million dollars right now and bought all of it in steem today at .94, I would have 5,319,148.936170213 steem. With that much steem I could start fucking with nearly any account on this platform. I could ruin nearly anyone. I could just mosey about downvoting good shit just because I was bored.
- Does this seem like an unreasonable idea to you? Look around you. There are accounts already doing this in the name of righteousness. Because they think someones posts are copy pasted but have not taken the time to scroll down to actually see if it is.
- What this is effectively creating is a hierarchy of high sp accounts that can selfishly "shape" us smaller accounts any way they please. It literally strips our cyber freedom away. We now have to walk on eggshells when around these larger accounts for fear that if we say something they don't like they will ruin our account.
- Downvoting cannot be as easily destructive as it is. So long as its power is based in SP count this system is drastically flawed.
We should not have to rely on oustide apps and websites to make this one function correctly.
- Outside apps can be really cool ok, my point is that we should not have to search them out and rely on them.
- Basic and advanced functionality of this site should all be here on the site.
- So, if someone has created a cool thing to help the platform, team up with them and use it. If you can't team up with them then fucking use it anyway. Build steemit's version of it and add it in. This is just how business is done.
Format and Structure:
- We get paid for upvotes on posts created
- Unless you are upvoted by someone with high sp and rep early you will never be seen.
- To get on hot and trending tabs you need to have high upvotes and upvotes from people with high sp and rep early into your post being listed.
- If you are not seen someone with lots of sp is not likely to vote on you.
- Without high sp voters you make no money.
- Curation rewards make it so that people that have high sp are the only ones that can really benefit from them.
- In order to benefit from curation rewards you have to vote on posts that will make more money.
- People follow money... Period.
- You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Unless you schmooze with some high sp accounts you are not likely to get votes that are worth a shit. The average high sp voter wants to make curation rewards and will bypass your post no matter how good it is. So, you either get lucky or kiss someones ass that has a lot of sp.
- I've talked to several people that claim to have gotten "organic" votes that make them decent payouts but after talking with them more what really happened is that they schmoozed with the right people and are now on those peoples voting lists, normally there was some type of compensation also. Compensations include: payment, trade, work or simply being buddies.
- Am I saying you will never get noticed? Definitely not. What i'm saying is that the site is incentivising people to overlook you until you are making enough to be looked at and since they are incentivised to do so making enough has become improbable. Leaving you swimming helplessly waiting for some charity worker to come and start the ball rolling for you. Or, for you to go try your hand at schmoozing the big fish.
- My point is simple... This is such an unfair and unnatural way of becoming noticed that it is basically pushing some people to try lower integrity forms of making it on the platform. People that normally would not be spammers or open multiple accounts or do any of these other grey area things are doing them because they feel they have no choice. This format is literally creating a defeatist mentality in many people. Many of them choose to either leave or cheat.
- Many of us on this platform don't have the time to go begging for scraps from the big fish and we also should not have to. There needs to be a much more fair way of getting noticed. The structure needs to change in a way that incentivises curators to give a shit about posts that aren't making money but are good posts. As of now there are only a handful of people that seek out these posts as it does not benefit them to do so.
Lastly, get some real customer fucking service!

There are several other things I feel could change around here. What I've mentioned here are things that should have been built in from the start.

"Dude, we are only in beta man, loosen up. It will get better."

Fuck off ok?! Beta, Alpha, I don't care what stage a site is in these are basic parameters that should have been built in from day one. You don't launch a site built on lists and then throw everything into a pile of shit and expect everyone to sort through it or build their own addons to do so.

You don't build a site that users have to tell users how to fail, excuse me, use the damn thing. That shit is not up to us. It is the responsibility of the team that created this mess.

So, @steemteam, @buildteam, @fuckyourselfteam, @ishouldnothavetodigtofindoutteam I really don't care who the fuck you are, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER OR THIS SHIP IS GOING TO SINK!!!

Ok, so for all of you that are about to leave a comment telling me all the excuses the site has.... Fuck off, I'm sick of excuses.

For those of you about to try to be helpful and tell me about the latest app or website that helps some of the above mentioned shit... Fuck off it should all be built in and you know it.

For those of you that are offended that I am cursing so much... Fuck off, why did you keep reading?

For those of you that just want to argue... Fuck off, fuck yourself, fuck a dog, fuck your mom, build a @fuckawhale bot for all I care just leave me alone because I really have no energy for your counterproductive bullshit.

For those of you that know what I'm talking about... Great! At least someone is paying attention.

For those of you with all kinds of ideas you want to share about how you feel this site could be better... Feel free but understand that this post along with your comment is about to be lost in the fucked up feed abyss forever and that nothing will be done about it. If it really makes you feel better to post it then by all means I'm happy to give you a canvas.

For those of you that are part of building this shitpile and are pissed at me or my post... Just take some of the above rant as advice and fix this shit. These are real issues that really need addressed. I do like steemit and have given so much to this site which is exactly why I am so pissed now. I really don't want to hear your arguments or excuses. Use that anger to do your fucking job with a newfound enthusiasm and I along with so many will soon be thanking you instead of ranting. Problem solved.

Anyone who happened to enjoy this must be as upset as I am at this site. Will it stop us from using it? Not likely, yet anyway.

Thanks for reading,
Michael David
@michaeldavid

steemit steem blog steemiteducation thealliance

7 years ago by michaeldavid (65)

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enginewitty (72) · 7 years ago

Glad to call you my friend, made my day seeing this man. Cracked me up with all the truths in it. I think "fuckawhale bot" & "lickapussy bot" were my favs.

goldenarms (66) · 7 years ago

Hahaha 100%

saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

Why am I not surprised 😜 hahaha

thedamus (72) · 7 years ago

This Rulz Balz!!!

You're an inspiration for us all on many levels. And that was an epic rant!!!

✨⚡️✨👊😎✨⚡️✨

enginewitty (72) · 7 years ago

Hear here!

saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

👍😎🤘

transisto (74) · 7 years ago (edited)

Nice rant!

How does it feel to make money on Steem without having to self upvote with a paid delegation or buying votes?

dj123 (60) · 7 years ago (edited)

You point (or sarcasm) has merit @transisto, there is something to be said for not allowing paid bots to self upvote. We can forbid it (or making it unprofitable/inefficient) by implementing say limiting number of votes per day per user or even changing core rules attempting to stop bot-like behavior completely (put a human test/check element to upvotes - eg. a visual check before approving a vote, and even embed it in the function call, and make the test/check upgradable as bots gets smarter - think ai).

However there is also alot to be said for nurturing talent, participation, and giving incentive, or just financial encouragement to users to start migrating to steem or even stick around to change from being a taker to a giver/sharer. The equivalent of this in the real world would be like:

Scholarship for gifted/ungifted, hardworking, under privilege, handicap, or even persistent/vocal students.
Giving a lucky break to random non-criminal individuals from 3rd world country, war torn countries, politically oppress countries to legally enter and start a new life (to work and get national benefits) in a 1st world country. Eg. US Green Card Lottery, European Union Migration Programs, Amnesty Migration to Australia, etc.
Giving away samples for months or years to introduce a new product (and as you know, steemit seriously lack promotion/marketing), or giving coupons for product or service away in sporting events, malls, concerts, or as a referral gift .
Non profit lottery where a portion of proceeds finds it way to charity. Generating and encouraging word of mouth advertising when real marketing can't be afforded.

Maybe you are right. Maybe someday as a community we need to make an automated cap on paid self upvoting bots, and have it programmed into the steem code (I find this agreeable as well), say limiting paid bots to selfvote only on account with Total (steem+sbd+steempower+delegatedsteem) < .001% of MarketCapofSteem/SteemCurentPrice (About 2500 steem currently, so when steem=$10 and assuming still 250Million Steem token, it's 250 steem). Or maybe someday, after a few more years of 'beta', we can gather enough data to filter out how rules can be changed so gaming the system will reduce in benefit and producing quality content and curation will increase in rewards.

Today, I doubt a fair reward for quality, original, and competitive content exist. But do we want to only attract and reward the "creatives" at this early stage?....Or maybe we need to attract the masses first or at least a crazy mix, maybe we need to get the "lurkers" who just browse as well as a few clueless "benefactor" who might someday bring in and sponsor future steemit rock-stars and maybe we need to blindly reward a few unknown or even pioneers with zero-creative bone, or capitalistic small-time promoter so they start purchasing 100 steem here, a 1000 steem there, just to get visibility and get demand going. Who knows what will work, but we do know numbers and momentum helps with adoption.

Today I believe (and sadly) self upvote helps adoption, I agree with you that it probably/eventually needs to be reign in (when a better reward system exist) or we will start having steem cartels like bitcoin mining cartels, but until then, we will need skeptics and erudite critics like @transisto .....and positive criticism (ahem I mean rant masters like @michaeldavid), at least until we stabilize to a working system that can attract 50million, 100million, 500million then someday exceed the a billion accounts (including organization, avatars, and ai)....just to get a few million quality contributors as well as hundred of millions of content viewers who are perfectly happy not to curate with care....but just watch advertiser so the content creators (and investors) can be richly and deserving compensated, just imagine steem at $1000....todo this we need adoption.

Check this case study out (I was randomly snooping, but I assure you the facts are fairly accurate +- 5% in error):

Yesterday I found this Indonesian guy who has loan about 2200+ steem power just to upvote his own comment and only his own curation (seems with almost no exception)....he borrowed the steem at a cost of 59 steem for 4 weeks. After 4 weeks is up he should get back around 67steem from comments only (my best estimate, he got 47 steem back already at 26days in)....but guess what, he actually raised like 1000+ new comers reputation and encourage hundreds with his self voted welcome message....he's so damn persistent, like a bot, but only he's real. Also he bought that original 59steem from bitrex, in some macro way he has invested and raise the value of steem and has tremendously promoted steem internally to new comers.

Unfortunately his initial strategy is limited and it's a good thing that in the last 1 week he realize he could earn 10x more for his time by posting content (instead of cutting&pasting a thousand times over probably 100+hours welcome messages), still all efforts was not wasted.

After after possibly 1500-2000 welcome post done in 2+ months, and borrowing 2200+ steem for 4 weeks, he found 400 followers, has 50 reputation, and he just submitted his first 3 value post (all in the last week) he already got a total of $46 from the 3 post which will be paid out soon (next few days) on top his ~$67 self voted curation/welcome message.

Honestly I believe he will continue adding quality content (he's obviously creative enough to game the system for a nice monthly profit). Also think about how many of his own friends and family he will promote this to, who knows maybe 2 a week (or maybe 15), maybe 10 a month (maybe 100), if this goes viral in Indonesia along with 260 Million people, in 2-3 years steemit will easily be >100 million strong (Just imagine advertising department of multinational companies drooling. Dang...marketing companies with foresight should start buying steem now while it's cheap, cause that's the way we will be accepting their advertising money very soon)

So any thoughts on this?

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dj123 (60) · 7 years ago

no thoughts from @transisto...... @dj123 feels sad

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transisto (74) · 7 years ago

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dj123 (60) · 7 years ago (edited)

lol...yeah, you served a function there, nevertheless, it doesn't negate the ton of indirect good that come out of his actions.

Here's the guy (lopezdacruz)....looks like he stopped renting Steem and is now upvoting a little here and there, reach rep 52, 785 followers, and most important, he even found a patron whale supporting him with 500K SP.

Steemit Whales: Where Not Even The Elderly Are Exempt From Flagging

img:9gag.com

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goldenarms (66) · 7 years ago (edited)

God lord this is the best post I've read today by far! Yes I agree with everything single point you just made. Sure the sites broken and has millions of issues but can I interest u in a token? lol Perhaps I could tease you with the new logo we're about to slap on our piece of crap website? Dude we're still in beta 😝 been hearing that for the last 6 months. Thanks for having the balls to vent and yes you risk having this post flagged by some asshole who thinks they're better than everyone because they've been whale jerking other numbskulls and kissing ass with other greasy bastards for a year now. Mike keep hitting us with inspirational posts and even your rant was inspirational so lets have more of these too my friend! #pleasefixsteemit. We're all frustrated brother

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Wow, thanks man! I really didnt expect such response from this but it goes to show how many people are actually feeling similar.

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saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

I love how brutally honest you are and no holding back 👍👀👍 made me laugh with your choice of words but you nailed it!
Thank you for sharing this and for having the
⚽⚽ to speak out!

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks hun! Great to hear you say that. I'm a little tired of walking on eggshells wondering what this platform is going to become. It should really already be these things.

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saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

I totally feel you there, and yes by now this platform should be all these things.
It's been to long and excuses never solves anything, action does! Well spoken!
🤗

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

That's it! Action

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saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

👉Action👈 not that hard actually 😉

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Exactly :) Well, we have a new look now lol.

My dad taught me once when buying a car that the mechanics of it needed to function properly far before the body needed to look good.

A new coat of paint on a shitty car just leaves you on the side of the road next to a neat looking car lol

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saffisara (70) · 7 years ago (edited)

That was really a cool way to explain it, and so nailed it.
A new coat of paint on a shitty car just leaves you on the side of the road next to a neat looking car.
Love that. You can't tell a book by its cover.
Well said my friend just like your chosen words in this post. Still blows me away 😉
The change has to come from the inside, not the way it looks.
Yes I saw the new steemit look. Lol

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msp-canada (44) · 7 years ago

This post received a 20% vote by @msp-canada courtesy of @goldenarms from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ). Join us in Discord.

Upvoting this comment will help support @minnowsupport.

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Rock on @msp-canada! Thanks a ton @goldenarms!

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awarenessraiser (59) · 7 years ago

You fucking said it! Thank you!!!! @michaeldavid <3

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Think I was channeling a large group of people frustrations in one moment here. :)
Let's wake some folks up!

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gniksivart (67) · 7 years ago

Its nice to see a poat thats not the usual circle jerk around here. Thought about running as a witness? Because this is the kind of passion I wish half those fuckheads had.

If I was them I would have been beating down neds door to get an answer about wtf was going on. I also compmetely agree there should be a @steemitcustomerservice to give us updates when things fuck up.

As you said theres not a business out there that people wouldnt be burning shit down of something goes down for more than an hour. As far as beta goes this is a public fucking beta. Most other public betas are used for things like final tweaking, stress testing, etc.

Public beta doesnt mean missing core components that are what make a social network function such as much of what you mentioned.

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I'm going to use another curse word.... Centralization.

Having a centralized focal point is necessary to run something like this. that way we all know where to go for all the issues that are prevalent. It doesn't mean that the block chain is centralized. Just the social site on top of it.

Yes, I have been mulling over for some time now becoming a witness.

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gniksivart (67) · 7 years ago

If that's the definition of steemit being centralized then it's already centralized as there is a centralized group of people working on SMTs and improving steemit. They need a focal point just like any other community whose sole job is community interaction and updates. Otherwise rumors run wild in the void of information.

Would love to have a witness who is able to voice complaints as well and thought out as yourself is all. Every site needs it cheerleaders in the beginning, but it also needs those that keep reality in check as well. We have plenty of cheerleaders for steemit witness's. Need a few more reality checkers up their.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

That is just what is needed actually.

I will consider this much more seriously. :)

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phelimint (68) · 7 years ago

You made a lot of great points man and I agree on many levels! Thanks for having the balls to put this rant out there, I hope it gets noticed.

enginewitty (72) · 7 years ago

Me too dude.

goldenarms (66) · 7 years ago

Resteem it bud 😎

saffisara (70) · 7 years ago

👍

binkyprod (67) · 7 years ago

Love the humour. Yes agree 100%.
Filters that can be changed and modified like when looking up credit cards (sorry was doing that yesterday, only example I have in mind. Select this and that, then deselect one of them, select something else...
3)Not sure I get it, but the current Search function isn't that great, so this ought to be better.
Someone's feed and then that person's resteem feed. Good call.
I learnt that the etiquette eas you can self vote your post, not comments unless it's long and/or others are upvoting it.
6)I think that downvoting should be allowed but it should NOT lower the person's reputation of curation. I think downvoting should be its own thing. There should be moderators who will flag those who abuse the site, but the big fish should not affect the little guy by downvoting. Something needs to be done. It is a fear that someone will decide to downvote me for accidentally posting 10 times the other day, or because they don't agree with something I said. But I have fears like that all the time. Reputation should not be affected AT ALL.
I don't use outside apps and don't want to. Too much hassle for me.
2 of my posts got lucky and made it to the trending page. Otherwise, I make my 2 cents worth and sometimes around $1 per post, but typically I makes less than that. Occasionally, I'll make $20 or something.

Here's an idea: Each whale has a list of minnows in their pool of minnows, not the same list for each whale, and that whale has to upvote one post from those minnows at a certain interval. So suppose Ned has a pool of 30 minnows he has to upvote. All he has to do is follow his list and every day he upvotes 1. so then we minnows get an amazing upvote every month guaranteed, which helps us get more noticed to gain more curation organically on the long term. Also, whales don't have to spend too much time reading posts and looking for minnows. They upvote the post they want from that minnow and each day is dedicated to said minnow. Minnows are therefore "taken under the flipper" of a whale. It isn't that much, but it's more than we have now and it's fairer. Dolphins can do the same, but have fewer minnows int heir pool and upvote them perhaps a bit more or not. But something like this can help minnows, not use up too much whale time. If a minnow doesn't post on the day their whale guardian decides to upvote them, their latest post is. Maybe a bot can do this. But it can be done manually too. So if someone like Ned looked at my feed, he might decide that "Gaming & Depression" should be upvoted, while a Tarot analysis might be less crucial to upvote, since the first one could help more people in more ways and technically (even according to me who wrote these posts) has more value than the other.

I know it doesn't seem like much to some, but this guarantees one awesome vote a month and that helps us gain followers and traction, which, the rest of the month, will keep on growing because we get awesome noticed once a month. On the long term, this can be quite beneficial.

If I were a whale, I'd take some minnows under my flipper and upvote them in turn, and that's why each whale would have THEIR minnows, because they can't upvote everyone and we'll all get buried. A system like this would allow some breathing room and leeway for both minnows and whales and dolphins and give everyone a chance.

There could also be a trial period before you qualify for gaining a whale guardian. I like that term by the way, Whale Guardian (#Whale-Guardian, let's get this trend going lol). So, for example, in order to weed out spammers and scammers and whatnots, you need to have been on the site a said amount of weeks or months, have posted a minimum amount of posts (not too high, some people post every few days, others post several times a day, so it needs to take all that into account in order to be fair), need to have interacted with people and have a reputation above 25, which is the starting reputation. I got lvl 26 in my first few weeks here, so it's quick for that. Abuse may disqualify you but once you qualify, you are encouraged to post more often, or as much as you're able to, you are encouraged to get your rep as high as you can, some minnows post one a week, have a rep of 70 and deserve more traction than they get. This would help them, would help me, would help the newbies.

Perhaps you first qualify for a #Dolphin-Guardian, and then have a time period with them before graduating to having a #Whale-Guardian. Then, at some point, you become a Dolphin, and can qualify to be a Dolphin Guardian. I'd totally do it! It would be a way to pay it forward. I'd want it to be done with me, have a Dolphin and/or Whale Guardian and then do it in turn.

What do YOU think?

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Not a bad idea for something people could opt into. You could get whales and minnows to do this like a group thing and could grow it large I feel. I've seen some things like this start and have not really seen them continue mostly cause the creators were not motivated. Maybe it is something you could start. Making it mandatory would not be fun for most though as many just have fun swimming.

What you said about self upvoting is exactly what my example was meaning to show. You lay out the "etiquette". This etiquette is not agreed upon site wide and is controversial. Many agree, and many do not. This is exactly the type of issue that should simply be a rule one way or another by the site creators. This way there is no fighting back and forth. This fighting is resulting in cyber bullying, self policing and a whole range of undesirable things. Whether people agreed with the sites decision or not it would then be a rule instead of an acceptable etiquette and could be respectfully enforced without cyber bullying people for expressing what is now only opinion and not stated to be wrong by the site itself. By not having a rule in place they are actually saying it is not wrong at all and therefore making it wrong for people to judge and attack those doing it. If self upvoting your own comment is wrong then where is the line? One word can be so meaningful and impacting that how do you say that one comment is worth more than another or that the voting power that I have built on my own was used incorrectly because of your belief of etiquette?

What about the guy who spent a lot of money buying delegated sp from minnowbooster only to realize after that it takes 8 of 10 of your votes coming back to you to pay off (this is actually what it takes). Is this guy just supposed to sacrifice his money? He is now in a very tough position and if his posts have not attracted enough (with how the format is they likely have not) upvotes to cover that 8 of 10 he really does not have many options for recovering his investment into himself.

Or the comment that he really wants to be on the top of his post. Does etiquette state that we cannot vote one of our most meaningful comments to the top for it to always be seen first?

This "etiquette" has been created and promoted by people thinking that it is somehow cheating without looking at many example of it not being at all. You also find out after a little digging that many people promoting this etiquette are actually guilty of doing it themselves and in fact really just pointing the finger away from themselves.

Of course there are many examples of how it is cheating as well. Does a bot know the difference? Of course not. Most people don't unless they take the time. Which begs question... If it is your upvote power then how you use it is your decision so then what is cheating?

The biggest reason I hear for why it is cheating is that it "takes from the reward pool". Well, so does literally everything on the platform from bots to stupid posts to minnowbooster. Then what is take? They get steem and go sell it on exchanges to people who bring it back here. Did it really go anywhere?

I can tell you this... The only person to really get much from self upvoting comments would be someone that already had a lot of genuine (not delegated) sp. Steemit is really just a fancy way to mine coin. A way we can all have fun doing. If people don't self upvote to get it they will find other potentially more scandalous ways like phishing.

My point is not to argue... It is to show that there is no winner here. You could go back and forth on this and many other issues here forever. This is why it needs to be a clear rule plain and simple.

Anyway, loved your comment. Thanks :)

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binkyprod (67) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your elaborate reply. I get it. I'd not exactly seen it that way, I was simply following the etiquette, but yeah, it's true that sometimes a short phrase will be more meaningful than a super long comment. It really depends.

Have you seen Meep? Meep is some random person who only write Meep, and have the image of that muppet, the meemeemee guy. Comments and posts are Meep and people upvote him (or her, or it) and as far as I can tell, not many people have complained or flagged Meep. His profule deos say "all I say is meep" so does that consist of a warning and therefore makes his meeps legit, or should he be flagged? Like, I'm sure there are people getting in trouble with the self-policing steemians for much less than Meep. Seriously!

I'm not sure how I would start this trend or who to tag or contact to get it started. My posts don't gain enough traction.

As for your set of rules that could be implemented, I think it would have to be Ned who's implement them, he and his team could figure it all out and he does have the final say basically.

I think the reason there is no set rules is that the whole thing here is about freedom of expression, but then there needs to be a set rule that this freedom of expression extends to self upvoting and that it would then be our right to self upvote. The etiquette would be a courtesy of politeness and logic, because if all you do is upvote yourself, then your voting power goes down and others won't vote for you, so you win by upvoting others AND yourself and they do the same. But then if that is set in place, people need to stop downvoting those who upvote themselves and stop policing them. Then again, we have the freedom to upvote however we want, people have the right to downvote however they want. It becomes a debate of freedom of expression in full 100% freedom, which means there will be abuse and bullying, vs censorship and rules. Since I'm a Libertarian, I believe a set a clear rules, only a few, should suffice. Too many and you start dictating to people, too little and chaos can ensue. Clear rules, just a few to establish a few things and that's it.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I have seen meep. I've even responded to him with meep a couple of times. To me he is just having fun on the platform being silly. I can appreciate him more than cornholio. I think he has been flagged a couple times though cause I believe his rep has been going down.

Is it annoying at times, kinda, but it all looks like fun for him or her. Could even be a kid. I see no issue as it is not malicious like much of the downvoting I see.

Even in so called utopic society there are guidelines and rules. Normally only a few but still a few. If this is just a free for all then those that agree with things others are downvoting need a way to protect themselves from the downvoting somehow as it would be their right to do so. Currently that is not possible unless they are loaded.

I've lived in psuedo utopian society at Rainbow Gatherings many years ago and as much as it seemed like a free for all there were many rules. In fact they even began to print them. What made it work was people coming together at large circles and deciding issues together. Not finalizing any issue until it was 100% consensus.

With this model it was very important to show up to these circles if you had an opinion to offer up for discussion. There would often be hundreds of folks deciding something and with 100% consensus many things took very long to decide but once decided that was it and people respected the decisions.

Personally, whether we decide similar to this as a group or the site decides is not important as long as it is fair I believe people will respect it.

They have already copyrighted the new logo so we may be about to see changes none of us like coming lol. Hard to say.

Maybe I should aproach Ned directly however I have already seen at least one account that was just destroyed with vengeance couple days after she spoke out directly against him so I may need to tread lightly lol. We'll see

Some of us only invest time here and some invest money as well so either way these things do need sorted out.

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binkyprod (67) · 7 years ago

Yeah, they do need sorting out. I think the best approach would be to make some suggestions to him without overstepping one's bounds. If people attacked him, maybe he saw it as cyber bullying or something. I wouldn'T know since I didn't see these messages or posts, but we also have to trust that he keeps an eye out for such things and that he has a team of people taking stock of some of the things they see people talking about on the site.

There are only a few months left to the year, and we will see a new roadmap for Steemit in 2018. Ned regularly posts an update as I've seen, so he's working on this. Obviously he can't know everything, but these things will come to his attention and I think something he COULD do is in one of his update videos, ask us certain things to get our opinion and perhaps create a specific post for us to write them in. It would be like a community feedback post and he would take that into consideration and see what can be implemented and what he feels is more urgent or not.

I'm fine with the Steemit logo being copyrighted. The Steem logo is not. Perhaps the changes we will see are some basic rules that will help the community. I'm sure Ned has all our best interest at heart, but since the community is so diverse, not everyone can be pleased or right away. You and I both know that things take time and even the best changes might please one of us and not the other. I think others need to remember that as well.

We shall see. If you do reach out to Ned and manage to actually speak to him, see if you can mention the Guardian idea. That being said, even if you don'T manage to speak with him, I trust that he'll implement the changes that will be best for us all. As you say, we'll have to wait and see.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

You are right about things taking time. Advancements are worth waiting for. Usability issues should have already been addressed. It's really about priorities.

I really don't care about the logo either. It does kinda lead into what I'm getting at here. This site is centralized.... It is steemit. The logo shows that they feel that way also. So that means their team is responsible for making the site usable to the masses without all the extra crap.

You may have given me an idea though for how to induce quicker resolve peacefully. I've got some things to think about now.

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binkyprod (67) · 7 years ago

Hey, I'm glad my thoughts can inspire, if it helps. I look forward in hearing about what you come up with.

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armshippie (60) · 7 years ago

Just taking it like it is. Someone has to do it.

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Wishing I was a coder. I could zuckerberg this site so fast... lol

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msp-creativebot (64) · 7 years ago

Welcome back to @msp-creativebot, stay creative Sir. <3

reggaemuffin (66) · 7 years ago

Wow, that rant was epic!

I first want to say that @buildteam is not affiliated with steemit inc and is not responsible for the mess ;)

To the topic at hand: steemit has a problem. They have build this site as a way to access steem and they made it the de facto site for steem. Sure there is busy and there are other sites but they don't have the million dollar funding of steemit inc. And they don't have 30 people hired who can work on that stuff. And they don't have some of these people work on the core blockchain code. So steemit inc has a responsibility for maintaining a working site, regardless of them telling otherwise. They put themselves in that position by giving themselves that amount of power. And they have to own up to that.

The steem blockchain is really bad at fighting abuse. It has almost no limits and the creators explicitly said: The system is self-governing. So sadkitten, steemcleaners and other groups of people are like your imune system. Steem hopes that there are more benevolent actors than bad actors in the chain in terms of how much stake there is.

This causes all kinds of problems. Obviously. But no one seems to care as the current system works. Until it doesn't. And then the cry to flag this reward-pool-rape is big. That mean person somewhere did this thing I don't like and my stake is not high enough to ruin their day. Well get over it, this whole blockchain is a social experiment.

On a more serious note: I think you have good ideas. Please start writing them down and steering discussion. We need discussion to change things. And we need things to change for steem to improve. And many people will be offended by this rant ind will ignore it. So I will try to give you as much visibility as my stake in this experiment allows to change something. And keep swearing, I will now register @lickapussy and @fuckawhale, be right back…

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

So after I stopped laughing... I really love your comment. Informative, to the point and ending on a comical note. Well articulated to say the least.

Sorry for bringing @buildteam into the mix here. I think I knew they weren't involved. My point there was to show that the regular user has no idea who is really at the wheel here. (I did have steemteam right didnt I?)

@reggaemuffin, bro, your efforts on steemit are nothing short of impressive.

You hit exactly what I was trying to get at here with your comment. Regardless of time, people or financial constraints they have put themselves at the wheel of this ship and like it or not now have a responsibility to the community.

Your bit about sadkitten and cleaners I fully get. Much of what they do is really helping the community. However it is their own agenda and their own set of rules. Maybe we as a community need to be more involved in their process somehow.

Abuse is such a broad issue. There are so many ways it can happen and so many ways a person can define it. All of these many ways are also open to perception. Making it a touchy, controversial, unfortunate and necessary issue.

I believe I will continue to experiment with this newfound path to see where it leads as it did open up some new territory. I believe swearing simply conveys intensity and I'm not afraid to use it when necessary.

I'm not concerned in the least by those offended by my rant. I believe I made many solid points that would be tough to challenge with any validity anyway.

So, someone did register @lickapussy and @fuckawhale. Not sure if that was you or someone else but I will fully accept a 1% royalty on the names :)

Thanks for the support.

reggaemuffin (66) · 7 years ago (edited)

I did immediately register them ;) Not sure what to do with these names but I will know when duty calls :) Fuck a whale and he will come – best statement ever…

From working with steemcleaners and spaminator I learned that no one really wants to do that work. It is hard and unrewarding. And it requires a lot of skill. Everyone can help by calling out abuse, educating users and researching these big bot-nets and report them at the appropriate locations.

For example minnowbooster is currently unvoting abuse rings to really hurt these bot net owners financially. Is sucks, it costs money, produces tons of work and tons of talks about what is abuse and what is not.

In my opinion, the best thing to start helping is discussion. As with all things, if you don't like it, change it. And in steem if you want to change something, you start a discussion. You make a post and ask prominent people for their opinion. If you arguments are good, changes are good someone implements your change.

Same with abuse. If you start asking the question: What is abuse? Then you will have many people talking and hopefully reaching some form of consensus or at least a general agreement on what definitely constitutes abuse and what is definitely okay.

And then you slowly work from there. Find a case in the grey area and ask for opinions. Motivate people to speak up about their opinion. Discuss the pro and cons of that being abuse or not. And then as a community find some form of agreement.

The more we do this, the more we get the opinion of the community. And that is what matters. My own opinion means shit unless I own 50% of all steam. And those that own a lot of steem should be pretty clear in their opinion. Either participate in discussion or saying: I don't care, decide without me. And since steem does have a voting system, the hardest task as getting whales to actually care.

PS: royalties payed 10000% :)

Edit: no idea about steemteam as it is unused ^^

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I think you have the right idea. Starting discussion. The reason I hadn't started earlier was because I had seen many old posts regarding some of these issues. I guess I was assuming that in the background somewhere they were being handled. Naive of me I suppose.

So it seems the platform needs focalizers then.

It seems in the abuse sector there is a lot of grey area. Finding topics should not be to hard.

I'll think of some ways I can present some of them knowing that posts just get lost poses an issue but I'll think of something.

Thanks for all the input man!

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sircork (64) · 7 years ago

Yep 100%.

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks :)

tattoodjay (73) · 7 years ago

All needed to be said, Well Done !!!!!!!!!!!!!

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks man!

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dandesign86 (68) · 7 years ago

I think this post speaks for a lot of people here ! You hit the head on the nail. What I like the most about this rant is that you mention solutions for all problems you bring up to the surface.

I see many people simply complaining and I don't think this will do anything for Steemit. I think a big blast of a rant like this which is filled with constructive cristicism is the way to go !

The hole idea of Steemit is that everyone is a part of it. When nothing is communicated clearly about what is going on, and we have to rely on the guesses of people's post, it sure doesn't feel that we are getting the respect we deserve

michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

That's exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't want to just complain. I wanted to show what could or even should be done. Offer examples even if they are not the right one to get this ball rolling.

Simply complaining is only useful to know what you dont want or like but focusing on that only harms. learning what we don't like is supposed to steer us toward solution so there can be a clear path somewhere instead of a dead end.

dandesign86 (68) · 7 years ago

Exactly ! Lets hope this post get the attention of Steemit Leaders so that changes are made or atleast a discussion is started :)

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Discussion at minimum. Much of this doesn't require discussion, some does of course.

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minnowbooster (73) · 7 years ago

Calling @originalworks :)
_{img credz: pixabay.com}
Nice, you got a 4.0% @minnowbooster upgoat, thanks to @reggaemuffin
Want a boost? Minnowbooster's got your back!

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originalworks (69) · 7 years ago

The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @michaeldavid to be original material and upvoted(2%) it!

ezgif.com-resize.gif

To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!

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bmj (63) · 7 years ago

Wow!! That rage musy have been building up for a while. Why don't you tell us how you really feel!!

You've made some excellent points mate, hopefully some of the suggestions you've made will be developed into the platform.

I do prefer the community chats to be in Discord in a seperate tab or app, on different servers. I dont think Steemit would do nearly as good a job if it were to be integrated.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I think you are right that steemit would not do as good of a job with communications being integrated and that discord is far better. Personally I only use discord.

My point is that it should not have gotten this way. This communication should really be inclusive. If they cannot do that good of a job with it then hire people that can make it better. If they cannot hire people that can then it was not monetized well enough.

There are many ways they could monetize their platform and still keep it free.

Look at minnowbooster for example.. They are growing so fast here that they may soon engulf this place. They are certainly attempting a monopoly on the voting bot and sp delegation scenario. That growth is due to them monetizing there motive, thus being able to pay help.

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bmj (63) · 7 years ago

Absolutely agree with you there. There really is no excuse.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Nope :)

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mdo (0) · 7 years ago

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks

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faust (40) · 7 years ago

This is open source project, you can create what you want for self or for other, what problem
Show us how you do it, if you do not like something

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

If I was a coder I already would have and that's exactly the point. If you build something like this there are key elements that need to be included from the beginning that have been left out entirely from this platform.

So, not being a coder, I did show you how I would have done it. If you are a coder...

Please for the love of god take my examples and go make yourself billions of dollars by correcting this shit. You could literally take this entire platforms members with you without even trying at this point.

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jagged (59) · 7 years ago

...and that's how the Hobbits shoulda spoken to Gandalf...

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Haha! Get the fuck outa here you grey bearded goat! We got crops to plant! lol

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holbein81 (58) · 7 years ago

Very nicely articulated...

Just the right amount of swearing to a) signify dissatisfaction and b) signify the severity of the situation, without c) losing the message entirely in swear words...

Cheers

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks! I didn't want it to be one big swear word. I wanted it to be clear what was being ranted about while still using them to convey severity as you have stated here.

roykie17 (58) · 7 years ago

Yeah.. people follow money !!!... feel down about that .. coz im just a small !!.. small SP !!!

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Don't let it get you down. Just realize that it is true. Once you do you can reformulate your strategy here and grow faster. :)

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roykie17 (58) · 7 years ago

Thanks !

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asbonclz (63) · 7 years ago

Nailed it @michaeldavid!

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks @asbonclz!

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fknmayhem (70) · 7 years ago

I once had a boss who told me that I would be great in a higher level role if I learned to master one specific line.

Enough with the excuses. Just make it happen, alright.

Once I knew that rule and had mastered how to incorporate it within our culture, performance increased multiple fold.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I'm sure it did man. It is a great lesson to learn. Making excuses wastes so much energy and not only of our own but also of those that have to hear it. I did a post about it though I cannot remember which one now.

If you are going to be late for example. Say you are late, when you expect to finish and nothing else. One word more becomes an excuse and wastes so much energy not to mention can really upset people that are relying on what you have said.

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gimh (13) · 7 years ago

really, i'm unable to post or comment here on steemit.com. something has happened here and i felt DDos attack on this website but upsteem. no one can stop this freedom... no way for evil deeds

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

It's been tough for a lot of us. Thanks for the comment.

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gimh (13) · 7 years ago

yes, you are right. there has been some haters around this community lately but i believe things are not moving fine with them even if they throw all the DDOS attacks, it is not working because we are still here steeming and moving forward... up STEEM!!

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churchboy (60) · 7 years ago

Epic. We really need an urgent fix!

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Yes we do!

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donatello (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you so much for sharing this great post!
I wrote a post via https://gosteem.com. It seems it works faster.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

It looks like I can finally use it again. I kept trying the other sites and wasnt working well either

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doesntmatter (38) · 7 years ago

Look into how @dantheman stole the platform from his AngelShares investors and you will start to see what is going on... profiteering, plain and simple!

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Have any links to this that I could read?

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doesntmatter (38) · 7 years ago (edited)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1631.0 start there...
then https://steemit.com/eos/@pal/bitshares-angelshares-allocation-what-to-expect-from-eos-ico

HA then the BEST PART!!! http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2014/12/26/Stop-the-Crowd-Sales-Long-Live-Crowd-Funding/

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thank you. This will take me some time to read through :)

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plushzilla (55) · 7 years ago

I know that there are some younger audience out there and that this post will no doubt get a bit of exposure, so it would be good to reduce the expletives where possible. But other than that I think there has already been enough voice raised about the performance of the platform and we do need to give them some time to fix it as well.

But it gives opportunities for other people to develop better applications to access the Steem blockchain and this should also lead to some good projects like utopian.io that @elear has been promoting and @busy.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Older guys curse also man it's not just the younger generations. We all get pissed off. Personally I've been holding that in for some time. I really felt that plenty of people have conveyed this plainly and without the expletives as you say.

I felt by expressing these issues using them I'm conveying the real frustration everyone is actually feeling without a sugar coat which is too often what I am seeing.

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plushzilla (55) · 7 years ago

Hi @michaeldavid, sorry but I probably didn't explain my comment properly. What I meant to say was that I think there might also be young children reading stories or learning from channels like steemeducation and since I don't know if we have some type of parental control or censoring of material inappropriate for young children we might need to tone it down a little or express things in a different way but with the same effect. I have been doing this with my #infographics and hoping to turn some frustrations into creative energy instead. I am not a developer, but as a UX designer I am also trying to contribute to the improvement of the user interface design by providing suggestions to projects like utopian.io.

But I am glad to see people comfortable with speaking their mind on Steemit and most of the discussions and debate (and rants) I see are actually constructive and come from good intentions. I hope we can all continue to make this the community that we all know it can be :)

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sirstacksalot (63) · 7 years ago

Well said!! Love it. I'm tired of hearing all the whining from Whales about self-upvoting, all the while they are auto-upvoting the SH#@ out of each others. It's just one big circle-jerk at the top while they condescendingly sneer at the minnows below.

Rant on!!!

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

It's really true. I've tracked down some pretty elaborate circle jerks that somehow think they arent doing it lol.

If someone votes for you it kinda makes you want to vote back, human nature lol

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quattrophoto (49) · 7 years ago (edited)

This is the brutal honesty steemit needs right now, Thank you for compiling all of my similarly held grievances about the platform in one concentrated rant. Its seems @ned is to busy dreaming about out SMTs to focus efforts on making this site functional...

If Steemit really wants to be the next Reddit and an uncensored haven of the crypto future someone will have to come up with a way so that like reddit, the best content that rises to the top reguardless of how much SP that post has behind it. It could be most resteems, most likes, views, what ever but most payout is obviously not working.
Having good content is the only way the posts on the front pages of Steemit can compete with the many other avenues of the internet and the new payment based systems in the future.

Right now the only thing Steemit has have going for is the money aspect which is basically a trickle-down economy. And that is not something I can easily recommend to people who should be making money for their work, the brillant creative people who would add value to Steemit.
Untill this place is reimagined they will spend their time elsewhere on more lucrative ventures.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks I believe it is necessary now also.

It's true that going for subcoins was not the next logical step with all the issues. Beta usually means they are ironing things out not adding more crap that may not work.

You are right, highest payout is not the way to sort the pages at all. This really should have been obvious in the get go. Funny thing is that it was never really stated that it was being sorted that way. Those of us that know that had to figure it out on our own or be told that by someone who did figure it out on their own. Honestly that seems a little shady to me. Myself, along with many others have actually done tests to see just how you get into hot and trending tabs because it is all cloak and dagger lol.

I can say with utter certainty that if I was told that 5 months ago (how it was sorted) I probably would not have signed up. That would have been a real red flag for me. Now I'm sort of stuck here lol. I'm invested in the platform in many ways so it is hard to leave. Plus the curiosity of seeing where it is going keeps me here.

As far as the money aspect goes it is really getting watered down. High posts when I joined were $1500+ now it is like $180+. That is not much time to have fallen so drastically and much of that seemed to be overnight.

I was hoping to launch a writing presence from this platform and like you state it fell instead of growing. My time would have been better spent holed up writing then scraping together a publisher.

For some reason I still hold faith that it will either become something or that someone else will build something much better soon.

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hardikv (65) · 7 years ago

Finally, someone saying like it is. I always fear to bring anyone onboard this platform. I dread having to do a damn day long workshop to induct people onto the platform! I fear that once they realize how pointless posting good content is unless you are kissing a whale's ass, they will leave and curse me for wasting their time.
Steemit is a great concept, but the platform needs work. All the basic things you mentioned had to be in place right from the start.
I hope someone is listening here.
Cheers for this post @michaeldavid ✨

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

I know it did attract a little attention but I'm not sure if it was from the right people or not yet.

My fear is the very same. It took me so much time and effort to not really understand this place that I just cannot bring someone I like on board.

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dj123 (60) · 7 years ago (edited)

@michaeldavid I've upvoted you because you're funny and not because so many of your points has already been expressed by hundreds of different post done with less courage (or maybe less reputation to protect them from downvotes).

The reality is that to pull off all these functionality, it will cost tens of milions if not then a 100Million and about 2 years to develop and work out all the bugs on a centralized platform and so expect much-much more work to do this on a decentralized one (think facebook taking 2004 to 2006 to open signup to the world), and if the steem team also has to share their bank of $100Milion worth of steem with new registering users, if every user get 0.5 steem that's only 200million more accounts today not including steem cost to create an account (I'm guessing steemit must give less as more users join and more steem must also be generated), so spending all that money will also deeply cut into the cost of recruitment and just put that money/steem into the hands of insiders, coders, and project managers (not that there is anything wrong with that), instead of mass adoption (its almost a chicken or egg first paradox)

Understand that if there was a Series A 50Million for development (not sure where it will come from since there is no more mining for the creators or is there?) OR a tax for development from the community (which will make everyone poorer in the short term - need about 20% tax at Oct2017 price will give about 50Million), then things will improve faster. But do you want your steem to be half in value or your money taxed so you will have your functionality ready in 1-2 year time, or are you willing to wait 3-4 more years and have more time to earn and buy more steem?

Just food for thoughts. I respect the spirit of this post...also it was really amusing to read, your should really post angry more often ;)

Bet you didn't know this was going to be your top earning post.

I predict easily >>$150. How much higher does everyone thing this can go up to in next 7days? Who wanna guess/wager?

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

It's true, I logged on this morning and was very surprised to see what it had grown to in fact.

Love the meme, funny stuff.

I didn't want to be all anger as that is just not me. Even pissed I try to have at least a little comic relief.

Much of what I've mentioned above doesn't really alter the overall format of the site and would not take the amounts you have stated here.

On that note I do understand your point. It takes time and money. My point is that with or without the money the more important point is direction and focus.

Fixing existing issues and ironing them out to a working model is far more important that adding new facets to the platform for example. It's about foundation. Without it the structure crumbles. If it is very solid the structure can grow well.

The most important thing about foundation is that it is not built on top of anything... ever. Foundation is the supporting factor of any build so it is necessary for it to be in the beginning or at the bottom.

If @ned and his team were focused on foundational issues, putting aside the extra stuff (that I'm sure will be awesome) long enough to get the foundation strong, we would really have something. It would also allow for many things to be added later that could easily be supported. A smart man given 6 hours to chop a tree will spend 1 hour sharpening his axe.

You are right about how much facebook spends to have a well oiled machine. However one thing that helped it take off so fast was having a solid foundation to grow from. In the early days that kind of money was simply not there for them yet they still built a solid foundation to grow from. So many things now get added to fb each day. if these things were being added before the foundational structure was in place it would have crumbled.

I really appreciate your respectful challenge to some of what I've said. Thank you very much for sharing your opinion. I really appreciate it.

Steem On!

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bearone (68) · 7 years ago

Whoa!!! 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

I've been shitty too. That's part reason I backed off the platform a bit.

Just when they started fucking with the site I was in the middle of recruiting people from fb.

Can't ask people to come to this!!?!!!

And 100% shits me too about how we gotta go everywhere to find shit out that really should be there on the site easily accessible and visible.

So yeh. Have not been a happy camper.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

It is a theme I guess. I knew others felt this way just didn't know it was so many.

I know what you mean about recruiting I wont ask people to join here how it is either.

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flexifriday (55) · 7 years ago

dude looks like you've taken a break from shit too. i feel off the steemit bandwagon. i just lost my drive. i skimmed this... too drunk to read all of it. seems like shit here on steemit isn't going all peachy.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Nah, i've delt with a lot here. Many others have also. been backing off a lot actually. This post did well somehow lol

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poias (46) · 7 years ago

You are my new Steemit hero.... stay stubborn and keep laying into these moe moe's with truth bombs....

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

haha, thanks man!

will do!

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missgee (47) · 7 years ago

what an epic rant lol

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago

Thanks :)

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terraset (25) · 7 years ago

If the little fish want to become medium fish they can just band together with all the other little fish and stop giving all their votes to to the big fish. There, 90% of that problem is solved. Just go purposefully seek out the shit that gets buried, yes, I'm sure there's an app for that and no I don't care if it's on Steemit or not right now. The big fish owe no one anything, if people are schmoozing that's their own choice. Sure I found your rant because it was in teh feed but honestly I admit I don't really know how all of this system works yet but my plan is to go around and find all the little people that I like and network with them instead of complaining that other people aren't handing me shit because I want it. Sure maybe getting those high sp votes early helps a lot, but it really doesn't sound like a systemic problem to me. I thought that was actually the entire point of the steem network in the first place, the whole Proof of Brain thing. Anyways, mini rant thing over. Enjoy your votes.

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michaeldavid (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

haha, ok first of all this is a 2 month old post. It could not have been in feed still.

I appreciate your comment. :)

All I can say is this...

All the little fish will never band together the way you speak, that is just impossible and highly unrealistic.

Also, there are already large groups of little/medium fish that in their entirety cannot have any impact on these issues even as a massive group. The true whales here have so much more power that it is nearly immeasurable. No one dares threaten them because they have seen what happens to those who do.

No one owes anyone anything and i've made no such insinuation that whales may, they certainly owe me nothing. You are quite right that schmoozing is personal choice but I feel you missed the point of why I brought up schmoozing. Schmoozing is basically the only way that you will make money here, you will learn that eventually. The way the system is set up basically ensures it. While it is personal choice if you want to schmooze or not, not doing so basically ensures that you will not make much here.

When I wrote this I was pissed. After 6 months of being here I had finally started to understand what was actually going on here.

Trust me, it is nothing like it appears when you are new. It is quite different indeed.

I'm not pissed any more, i'm poised. Now I'm working toward introducing the change that steemit desperately needs.

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