Losing Steem
Ya know – I had high hopes for this platform. I really did. Now, just a month and a half in, I've gotta admit – I'm feelin' more than a bit discouraged.
By most standards, I've done pretty well for a newbie. I've played by the rules, drafting my posts with care, engaging with other Steemians, making sincere connections and attempting to beautify Steemit with interesting imagery, whenever and wherever possible. I mean not to inflate the significance of my offerings, but I've posted only high quality, original content and have (mostly) been rewarded for doing so.
All the while, I've been aware of the darker sides of Steemit, yet imagined I could simply find my niche and exist in my own little corner, without ever bumping up against its more unsavory aspects. How very naive of me.
I see so much potential here. Yet the truly good is summarily surpassed by the torrent of absolute shit posts, flagrant reward pool abuse and early-adopting whales who've decided they're the ones to decide the rules of engagement. Step outta line and they'll punish you. Speak up in defense and they can easily destroy you with no more than a passing thought and petty flag, or twelve, or precisely as many yet-to-payout posts as you have on your blog.
Holding Nothing Back
Six days ago I boldly shared a post that had taken me 3 days to draft. It is the most raw, intimate piece of writing I have ever made public – a vulnerable recounting of my life-long struggle with depression and recent, unsettling brush with suicide.
I proofread many times over, checking for typos, ensuring my markdown styling was correct and working, revising wordy parts, making sure the finished piece was clean and easy to read. I used my own illustrations as visual support. I offered resources for anyone presently battling their own depressive demons. As I do with everything – I gave all of myself to it, and published – despite considerable trepidation – choosing to trust that it was safe to do so.
Of course – as I'm certain every single one of us here is guilty of – I hoped it would do well. Not just in terms of my own potential earnings, but also because I know that only those that earn well show up in the trending feeds and I wanted this piece to land in front of as many eyes as possible – to reach all those who might benefit from its message.
I published, then gave it a little time to make its own waves – it barely made a ripple. So I began doing all I could to help it be seen, as organically as I was able. I posted in promotion channels, shared it with folks on the Steemit Ramble discord (huge thanks to @shadowspub for including it in one of her rambles) and I reached out to my new friend @aussieninja to invite him to read it, hoping he'd find it worthy of a @curie vote. He tried to submit it, and learned that someone else already had. Yet, I've received the curie before, and too recently – apparently, it's really only meant to be received once.
Still, he hoped I'd get it, as the guidelines seem somewhat malleable and he felt this post warranted consideration. So...I waited – just in case – hoping someone with a valuable vote might notice.
7 days? Try 3.5 – that's all you get.
By the time I accepted that I wasn't going to get that highly sought after support, my post was already 2 days old and sitting with an unimpressive $1.80 in potential rewards. Lemme tell ya – to have worked so hard on a thing – that hurt. Especially when one considers how much genuine garbage regularly draws in well upwards of $100. What can I say? I'm human – it's pretty much impossible not to feel deflated by that glaring discrepancy.
While I'm generally fine with earning mere pennies, I really cared about this post. So I added the #ocd-resteem tag. I tried to register for @qurator, only to have my coins refunded. I repeatedly transferred funds to @minnowbooster, yet each and every time they were returned, despite having carefully matched my values to the graph on their homepage. I'm pretty sure it's broken, yet no one in their discord is responding to my queries.
Not ready to give up, I begrudgingly started watching a few bid-bots when the post was 4 days old – already too aged to qualify for most. I was reluctant, as every single one was showing negative ROIs, so...again, I waited. I hoped @minnowbooster would miraculously work out in the end.
Yesterday afternoon, seeing that MB was still only available for bids .19 and under – amounts that would make no discernible difference, really – I finally caved, and sent $5 SBD to @sneaky-ninja.
Congratulations. You're a Winner.
While I've found @grumpycat's antics mildly amusing before this, having won his unfortunate attention, I'm seeing things from a whole new angle. It takes a lot to piss me off. This – this didn't just upset me – it made my blood boil.
Shame on me for not resorting to bid bots sooner – for doing absolutely everything else to promote my post and actually imagining that high quality content was still high quality content, even 5 days later. What a horrendous reward-pool abuser I must be with my whopping $5 SBD bid. I clearly deserved swift scolding to whip my ass into docile compliance.
No – I'm not about to sheepishly recoil with my tail between my legs like a reprimanded puppy whose face has just been shoved in her own shit. I genuinely don't believe I deserved to be flagged. I'll not keep my mouth shut just because speaking up risks a kind of childish backlash that could quite possibly ruin me.
Turns out I'm not such a quiet little bird, after all.
@grumpycat – I'm callin' you out.
I agree – the ugliness of bots being used in the eleventh hour to boost bullshit posts is a thing that desperately needs regulating. How to go about that is understandably tricky in a decentralized environment. At least you're doing more than most to try to squash that particular issue – I'll give you that.
What I cannot wrap my head around nor even remotely get behind, is you behaving like an untouchable bully – as though your word is the golden standard to which all Steemians must adhere. Just because you've declared yourself the not-to-be-crossed-nor-questioned Steemit police doesn't grant you the authority, nor preclude you from treating others with respect.
However valid the original issue, your chosen response assumes that everything is black and white – that every instance reflects one and the same indiscretion. It allows no room for the droves of people joining every day – the ones just trying to find their footing who know nothing of your strict protocols. Punishing newbies who unknowingly 'step out of bounds' sends the wrong message and is quite likely to scare them off. How can that possibly be good for Steemit?
Your unfortunate chauvinism aside, the thing that truly discredits you is your hypocritical habit of self-voting. Flippantly downvoting without so much as a glance at the post's content – then upvoting your own self-aggrandizing comment – reveals a marked lack of integrity.
Not only are you a self-proclaimed enforcer of laws you wrote yourself, you're no better than a crooked cop – the kind who pull you over, proudly hand you a citation, then take your wallet and empty it into their own, whistling as they walk off with a smirk, knowing you can't do a damn thing about it.
So – I'm asking you to clarify – how are you protecting the reward pool by flagging a post that was worth just a few SBD, only to reward yourself with >$80 for doing so?? Do you honestly believe you earned that? You're draining more from the reward pool than you're saving. Period.
If you're sincerely trying to protect Steemit, as you apparently claim, then I challenge you to behave accordingly – stop rewarding yourself so handsomely. Otherwise, you're no better than the pillagers you seek to dissuade.
Lastly – I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the upside to 'winning' your downvote. Turns out, speaking up yesterday about your lack of discernment garnered a fair bit of unexpected support and earned me some awesome new followers. For that – I thank you.
Turns out I am a winner, after all...
To those of you who so kindly showed up to mitigate the damage – You're the reason I'm stickin' around. Reading your words reminded me why I felt compelled to share in the first place. Your heartfelt comments doused the flames beneath me, quieting the painful whistle of rapidly escaping 'steem'.
Perhaps we've got a long way to go before we figure out how to collectively govern this space with diplomacy and fairness, but...I do believe its possible.
Full steem ahead,
xo Zippy
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Look at the ~95% garbage that @sneaky-ninja sell votes on.
https://steemit.com/@sneaky-ninja/transfers
I consider it more fair to let people who invested into Steem claim their respective share of the reward pool than to let vote selling bots, most of them just renting their Steem power, make money while attracting nothing at stake, opportunist spammers by selling them profitable votes that are harder to flag and currently provides near zero promotional benefits.
Sample chats from "The Resistance" Discord:
Michael David = @neaky-ninja
Did it ever crossed your mind that we can instead, at any time, send tips directly to the authors?
You two can't be trusted to think straight anymore.
Until I have any SP you will remain in my cross-hair.
Reward-pool doesn't suddenly empty out. Maybe a more knowledgeable person like witness @drakos can explain that to you.
Look at that spineless @MichelDavid, flagging this post but too moron to respond anything.
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So in the name of "surprise payouts" this guy is unwilling to comply with the 3.5 day rule? Seems fishy.
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ETA: Last minute upvotes (from everyone, not just bots) from the last 3 days total 298.33. Comment self-votes from grumpy during the same period total more than 1106.86. In the next 7 days, he's scheduled to make 3,697.65 SBD mainly from self-voted comments.
In all actuality, michaeldavid probably has more of a problem with the rule itself as it is being enforced without any discussion or input from him or anyone else for that matter. Why 3.5? Why not 3.6? Why not 3.25? Why not one? If this "rule" comes from the top of some unknown's head, what's to stop him from suddenly changing his mind? He is not bound to the people he proclaims to govern. Lastly, his solution will do very little by itself to stop the behavior he hopes to eliminate. He has not communicated or committed to any follow on actions on his part. he has not said "If you cut the votes to 3.5 days that will give me enough time to go through and downvote all of the spam." or anything like that to my knowledge. He has resisted efforts to work together with the bots for a solution. That's probably why sneaky won't simply cave to these demands.
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He has said that by cutting the votes to 3.5 days that it will give curators enough time to go through and downvote all of the spam. He has said it.
It's not that 3.6 or 3.4 days or 1 day or 1 hour or 1 second. It's that curators would like more than 12 hours to stop plagiarists. It absolutely will make a difference!
A post does not need to be upvoted via a bid-bot on the sixth day. I know some honest people do it to give their voters better curation, as well as surprising unknown quality authors with a last-minute payout.
I watch plagiarists do this all the time. Having 12 hours to get the word out is not enough time. By the time any waves are made, the abuser has already been paid.
From the second a post is made, the community has 7 days to determine if it's original and not overpaid. When someone sneaks in and upvotes last minute on an obviously stolen picture or video, it gives less than 12 hours for a post that was buried and nobody paid it any attention. The plagiarist is not happy with his false efforts, so he pays for an upvote and benefits from the rewards paying out 12 hours later.
They would be less likely to use upvote bots, and more likely to find a different way to exploit so as to not get caught, but at least the bidbots would be cleaned up a bit.
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Where is the discussion from the curators in which the 3.5 line was determined? Shouldn't the bot owners also have a say in that discussion? Also, why limit such a target to bots? Don't regular users like sweetsjj or whatever her name is do the same thing? What about solutions the bots have already implemented such as a 5 day limit? Is 12 hours enough time to get word to the bot owners themselves? I would think so. Has grumpy enlisted their help before trying to bully them into submission?
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I am a curator and did discuss it with myself.
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Self-curator discussing things with yourself?
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My point exactly. You haven't proven yourself to be a rational decision maker in a vacuum. You need help. Just ask any of your victims.
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His idea to stop the abuse is rational. His decision to take matters into his own hands, when nobody is doing anything about it is also rational.
Or are you saying that doing nothing is rational?
Once again. sticks head in sand
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Although I can see the humour in the comment, do you think its worth 76 bucks?!
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Did you know it takes 4000 100% self-upvotes to get your investment back instead of power down? Do you think @grumpycat should've invested the over 300k in SP into something else, a voting bot for example, to get more return from the scammers? Do your math, and stop complaining about self-upvoting.
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I have a friend who is fed Friskies, I have tried to get her to switch to something better like Ziwi Peak but insists Friskies is the best.
Any suggestions on getting her to switch?
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Well it's been an on-going debate/discussion for at least 2 months now. He obviously didn't give a sufficient warning as even to this day not everyone has heard of this new unofficial rule. Let's just call it a guideline with more potential as opposed to a rule. People around here seem to hate rules of any kind.
If I really spent the time I could find countless articles (as well as upvotes, indicating "hey, I agree with this" where people are saying what grumpycat is doing is both good and bad. Even I have said it. Yup, the bully approach sucks. I don't agree with it.
Seems any approach is frowned upon though....
When people are nice about it, the abuser typically laughs while he runs off with his unearned rewards.
When people are mean, wow he's so mean. How dare he act like this.
Sticks head back in sand
So if we as a community (or you) (or the bot owners) (we can exclude me if you want) can't come up with some kind of agreement, then this platform is screwed.
Don't change anything to 3.5 day. Everybody ignore the millionaire cat.
Just ignore the reasons, ignore the abuse. Ignore everything.
Just let him flag and maybe he'll go away after a year or two.
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Here’s the thing, though — @grumpycat flat out refuses to work with anyone else to collectively address these issues and find viable solutions.
The abuse is most certainly not being ignored. As far as I’ve seen, no one disagrees that the problem he’s combating is significant — most everyone takes issue with how he’s doing it, particularly his insistence on self-voting.
If the ultimate success of this platform is truly a motivating factor, then why so stubbornly insist on doing it alone? Why refuse to even consider combining forces? When has that ever worked, historically?
I said something nearly identical to your above words just yesterday, in a comment to @berniesanders : if we can’t figure out how to unify around our shared goals, than I fear Steemit’s days are numbered.
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Good point! Thanks for your response, I'm glad that I'm not the only one that sees that we need to be more unified. Great minds think alike!
I was being sarcastic when I said ignore the abuse or that it is being completely ignored.
We all have an issue with how he's doing it. I can also say I had an issue with how it was being handled before @grumpycat started his...campaign.
It's a lot of bickering back and forth. If we want steemit to be taken seriously, we need to get serious.
I wasn't fully aware that he was unwilling to work with anyone.
Work with us who are at least willing to work with you, @grumpycat.
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I'm glad I'm not the only person that thinks tipping is a more sustainable alternative to a reward pool allocated to authors and curators.
In it's current form, $65 Million USD is paid to authors and curators in a single year. I wonder how much of it ends up in the hands of abusers? I wonder how long is this sustainable?
Replacing the reward pool for authors and curators system with a tipping system could save the future of Steemit. I know it's a unpopular idea among authors and curators, but if the whole system collapses within a few years, you won't have any reward pool at all to receive a share from.
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What would be the incentive to invest?
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I see three stages of the tipping system.
Stage 1: Investors tip authors to incentivize the production of quality content.
Stage 2: General public is drawn to the quality content. Some of them buy Steem to be able to participate more than it is possible for the initial 0.50 Steem.
Stage 3: Corporations, institutions, even governments start using Steemit to influence the general public. They need to buy Steem to promote their content.
When conflicting interests start to battle on Steemit, it comes down to who spends more Steem to get to the trending tab and the homepage of Steemit. Think about the elections, candidates, and their supporters.
That interest increases the demand on Steem and higher demand results in higher Steem prices. That's how investors profit from this cycle.
I explained this in greater detail in a post called How to Solve the Reward Pool Abuse Problem Once and For All and that post ignited some discussions so far in the comment section.
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I'll head over to that thread some time today. My initial questions and concerns are:
This site currently gives money away for free. I am skeptical as to whether content quality will draw more to it. Why would they need Steem to do this model? Why not institute it with FIAT?
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Money is value. Quality content is value as well. Also, it takes significant money to make significant money here. Many newbies realize that after their first week here.
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I think you underestimate the amount of people on here now because of the free money who have became crypto enthusiasts after joining Steem/Steemit. I wonder if they would have come if they were told "They give you a little of money to tip with, then you have to buy it yourself."
The incentive for me to invest in crypto for the purposes of giving it away are slim. I'd rather they just have a paypal account and I could send it to them directly rather than having to go through an exchange (fees) for the purpose of donating it to content I like.
The speculative nature of the coin can only last for so long before it levels out, when it does, so does the site.
It depends on perspective. I know a lot of people in other countries find the money earned to be rather agreeable. I consider my earnings so far to be rather significant considering my super duper small monetary investment. Of course, I do not depend on income from Steem in any way.
I agree that content has value, but not as much as relationships. The current system encourages relationships much more than yours would.
I know it seems like I'm being rather negative...and I guess I am, but I do appreciate this out of the box thinking. I just have my doubts about its feasibility.
Have you ever tried to get data from @tipu? They basically run a similar service here on Steem already. Perhaps they will be willing to give you data on their usership.
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@grumpycat — hello again. I sent you a message on discord but you’ve gone silent there. Sooo — I’m bringin’ it here, in hopes it’ll reach you.
That thing I suggested in my last reply...about a public discussion — everyone’s on board but you. All agree that your voice is important and should be present, however, we may proceed with a panel, with or without your participation, to discuss the issues that I know you care deeply about. I realize you may be averse to anything that might reveal who you are, so likelihood is low that you’ll agree, but I really do hope you’ll consider it. You have valid motivations and reasons for acting as you do. Perhaps folks will feel less defensive and appalled if they hear your explanations — if they hear the human behind the meme.
I’ll say it again — ultimately, we all want Steemit to thrive — I’m certain we can at least agree on that. To that end, all this passive/aggressive back and forth via comments and replies is unproductive. Can’t we at least try to find the similarities behind our differences?
@drakos @michaeldavid @aggroed — thoughts?
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There is no debate to be had, ignorant customers are paying for the stubbornness of a few greedy and irresponsible bot owner.
Take the sum of my comments and line them up again't these bots argument if you think there is interest. Would upvote that.
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As I also said above:
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Fuck you GrumpyCat. Hope your power down is going well. Someone is talking about you, and I overheard that you dug your own grave by posting that real GrumpyCat lawsuit article. Now they have been turned onto the idea of pressing similar charges on you....and look at all that profit you have for them to scoop up. Hmm....I wonder if the court could freeze your account until it's all settled in a couple years?
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Something blockchain something something.
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Something bittrex something something.
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And what are you going to do?
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That may hide his identity, but it doesn't stop steemit from being forced to freeze his assets. Guess he would have to show himself if he wanted the assets to be claimed as his/her own.
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Grumpy,
I know you probably want to protect your position in the witness ranks, but at some point you have to stand up for what you believe in. You can't do that cowering behind a fake personna. At some point, you will have to take the honorable route. If you believe in your cause, don't be afraid to stand up, put your name on it, and engage in the debate. State your piece. Stop running away and hiding behind your money.
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Smart...
https://steemit.com/serious-security/@fyrstikken/the-joy-of-flashing-the-steem-account-value
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So you ARE a pussy, I got that one right.
ChumpyFAT
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lmao
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No cat, spineless is plagiarizing somebody's famous cat pic, and being an anonymous fucking coward like YOU bitch!
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@grumpycat
This is from the Steem Whitepaper:
Maybe a more knowledgeable person like witness @drakos, or me, or just about anybody who took the time to RTFM before appointing themselves chief of steem police could explain that to you. If you had been more proactive in your investigation, you would realize that most investors lose on their investment but like @zipporah chose as a last resort to buy anyway in hopes of some exposure. See, though equal, in order for us to "claim our respective share of the reward pool" we need collaboration from other users. Since you whales are too busy claiming your shares to worry about us, we must resort to such tools in order to gain exposure for the equity we've put in.
When you use bystanders as pawns in your ill-planned scheme to change behavior, you can expect that they take that as an insult. So you should trust that they will be inclined to insult you in return.
ETA: upvoted for visibility. I will reverse my upvote in a few days. Feel free to remind me.
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Posts get near zero extra exposure by buying votes after 2 days, imagine at the 3.5 to 6th...
Will for sure remind you.
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It depends on how you're looking at it. If I were checking out @zipporah's blog 8 days ago, I would probably notice that "Choosing Life" was considerably higher than her other posts at that time. Seeing that, I might be inclined to look at it more deeply. I'm not saying it's always right, it's probably wrong more than right, but I'm against such sweeping reforms which sweep up the insignificant innocent along with the weeds. Anyway, my point was that you could get rid of the bots altogether if it wasn't so difficult for good content to get noticed. You're fighting for a bandaid to use on a small cut instead of searching for a pressure point to stop the bleeding.
No need. It's done. It would be nice if you did the same. I personally feel the sweat equity for my comment far outweighs any value added by yours. You lose a lot of credibility talking about abuse when you are steadily upvoting such small comments for 80 bucks. Frankly, I'd rather reward the scammers, at least they're likely to increase usership.
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Upvoted for more visibility
FD.
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We "can't be trusted to think straight anymore"? Funny cat, your hypocrisy amuses me. Why don't you become a witness and share you magnificent wisdom with the rest of us. We'll see who will vote for you.
P.S. I'd like to see you flex your muscles against someone bigger than you who is using the same bid bots like the rest, and upvoting shit posts every day. You know who I'm talking about. But you are spineless and prefer to bully the weak.
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no
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Show your face, coward pussy fucktard, come on, pussy, you can even bring your mom to hide behind, tho she too should be fucking called out for not aborting you.
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Yeah cowardly little child, as repeatedly demonstrated.
NO BALLS is why we call you a PUSSY!
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See – I knew you were a reasonable human beneath your gruff exterior. Thank you for showing up – for answering me – for demonstrating your ability to avoid being petty. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to clarify.
This whole thing has taught / is teaching me so much. I've got a lot to learn about how this all works and how best to conduct myself on this platform. Still, I do think it's dangerous to take bits of a private chat and share them, out-of-context – regardless who's 'right' or 'wrong.' That is true no matter the platform or circumstance. It's far too easy to extract only the bits that support your argument, while conveniently leaving out the parts that don't.
I was actually present during the above dialogue and the breadth of it did not read as negatively as these screenshots seem to insinuate. Of course, I'm not nearly as invested as you are here, so my perception is perhaps not as fueled by a need to protect my stake, as yours must understandably be.
To be honest – as someone just entering into this game, one who retains something of a broader perspective – I think my lack of stake may afford me a decidedly less emotional view.
No – I don't really know either of you (GC nor SN), but...I sincerely believe you're battling over a misunderstanding of one another's motives. I think you're actually on the same team. Perhaps you approach things from different angles, but – to a humble redfish such as myself – you appear to be far more alike than you are different.
All this peripheral bickering isn't really productive. Perhaps it's time for some kind of public gathering of apparently opposing sides – to directly address and confront the issues together? Maybe a debate style panel on @msp-waves? I know I'd be the first to show up and listen to that. Think of how far that could go to even the playing field – to openly discuss options and hash out differing ideas about best practices.
I just can't shake this feeling that, differences aside – we all want the same thing – for Steemit to continue growing and become a tremendous success. Whatever we can do to unite around that truth...let's do that.
Maybe I have too much faith in our collective humanity. What can I say – I didn't earn the nickname 'the ziplomat' for nothin'.
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There is no debate to be had, ignorant customers are paying for the stubbornness of a few greedy and irresponsible bot owner.
Take the sum of my comments and line them up again't these bots argument if you think there is interest. Would upvote that.
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To clarify — it’s not the issues themselves that require debate, but how best to combat/handle them. As no one is technically in charge, shouldn’t we collectively be proposing/agreeing upon solutions? If our underlying goals are the same, which I sincerely believe they are — wouldn’t we be wise to combine our efforts rather than fight over who’s approach is best?
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Not interested.
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Not interested because...? You believe you’ve found the only and best way to deal with ’the bad guys’? Or...you disagree that we all want Steemit to succeed?
ps — there’s a marked difference between argument and debate — the former is petty and unwilling to consider alternatives — the latter is (ideally) much more grounded, open to hearing perspectives that may not reflect those of a given side.
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The sum of your comments still produces a divide by zero error, you fucking ZERO.
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The sum of your reward pool robbing ignorance is STILL ZERO brain cells and a stolen name because you are nothing but a shitfaced thief and scumbag piece of rat fecal matter.
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In your last 10 comments you sound like that dumb old cat.
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Qapla'
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LOL
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Hey cat add another witness to the list out to ensure your early demise. Fuck off maybe "pussy" ?
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Your point? Are you also too clueless to know that the reward pool doesn't just empty out because @Grumpycat makes so many valuable comments?
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Hey, I'm not the anonymous pussy scaredy cat, assfacecat, My name and face are here for you, so show your face or get the fuck out fucktwat. You are a pedantic, petulant little fuck with what, some money? Like I give a flying FUCK about your money?
Show your face, pussy. Show it.
OR SHUT THE FUCK UP.
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LOL
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@grumpycat, this is a real constructive idea! Since you have such ideas and people that are ready to listen to you, why all these destruction?
Why the terror methods and robbed minnows?
With all these ongoing, how can you expect people to respect you to consider your ideas?
Unless you stop hurting innocents you only will find The Resistance.
FD.
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Do I earn a Nobel prize for thinking of transferring money from one account to another?
Sometime I wonder how you manage to tie your shoes in the morning.
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I just thought I sensed some kind of reasoning in a cat but I was wrong.
Just fallacy...
I really wonder now how I tie my shoes lol...
FD.
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hi @grumpycat
I new played steemit.
I do not understand the rules that apply in the world of steemit.
I have much to learn.
If you want to reply to my comments, I'm very happy.
is there anything we can trust to buy votes?
and who should we choose?
thank you very much @grumpycat
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By the way, we're not flagging your "posts", but your self-upvoted "comments". You do know the difference between those two words, don't you?
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Contexts, just your point of view.
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He doesn't know how to fucking tell the difference between his ass and his face. But then again, frankly, I cannot tell the difference between his ass and his face either. Both of them just have shit coming out of them.
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Thank you for upvoting her! You have brought back her faith in steemit.
You didn't seal your own coffin afterall. Just continue being you and keep up the good work. Smiles
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thanks @frankabelle. ;)
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You are welcome
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I am struggling to understand how you say you are trying to reduce abuse yet voting your comments up with huge amounts? I genuinely don't understand. Not making accusations.
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Facts are not accusations, yer good. It's just that this pussy is a hypocritical piece of shit and a stain on our planet that needs a nice short stay in a Kill-Shelter.
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I am a member since June 2016!
Guess how much I made for my last post.
I tell you
A little over 15!
Do you know how many articles I wrote where I made only a few cents?
Do you want to know how many hours I spent socializing on this platform?
I suggest to continue your path, enjoy writing and be patient!
I made 15 more than I would have ever made on Facebook. That’s a success by itself! Right?
I upvote this comment for visibility!
I use 2 bots occasionally in recent times ( @upme & @appreciator (made even a mistake and send over 180SBD by mistake) also for visibility.
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Agreed. The OP started in February and makes nice content. It was a little hard for those of us who earned pennies for a year.
Excellent comment.
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A little hard?? Hahhaa! Very hard but heyyyyy We are still here and Now I allow myself to even just post one quote or pay a bot or just enjoy a few autovotes....you know that we deserve i! Right @whatsup I do remember your first comments on my articles. Hope all is good with you.
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Congrats on being in a handful of us who stuck with it! :) I am always happy when I bump into you on SteemIt.
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Meeee toooo hahhaaa !!! Not many know what we went through. People think it’s easy
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lol... well we going thru this now, and as hard as it is, it's best to just enjoy the process.
@pangoli... with a friend's account
How're ya?
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Damn true!
😁😋😉
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wow 180 SBD. That's up there with my oops moments in the crypto space. Live and learn right?
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Upppsss 10x for sure but now My last post shows over 330 USD in rewards 🙀🙈 Looks super nice! Haven’t seen this kind of amount since months.
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Which you deserve, since you’re constantly around putting your all in!
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But I had to pay for agrrrrr
You are very charming and it feels good I have to admit 💛💛💛
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Rock on sista-lady. That is a blessing. Makes me feel motivated to get mine back over the $1 level. Haven't seen those much myself without promotions.
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Hang in there!! All will be just fine 🍒😭
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Great reminder @mammasitta! Honestly, since joining Steemit, I hardly visit any of the other social platforms. It all feels like a waste of time compared to investing myself here.
180SBD!?! That's a rather painful mistake! Although, I imagine the return on that would've been pretty decent, yes?
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It turned into a very interesting experiment so far 🙈 I haven’t been anywhere near to trending page, since many months.
I still switch around various platforms because on steemit I always feel bad if I don’t put enough value into an article, hesitated to post short articles. I don’t always feel to write a lot. Recently, I just started doing it also on steemit. So what, I thought :) why not?
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Exactly – why not?? ;) I'll be sure to check out your blog to see what you're up to.
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I don't have time to spend on other sites, spending all I can here surfing and reading. But I do advertise steemit.com by re-posting Very Good posts to those of my acquaintance who might be interested in the content, such as @kawaiipower 's Introducing My Sailor Moon Cushion DIY Nerd Girl's Blog!, the which I sent to three sewers that I know would be very interested. So far, one Thank-you reply. So fb still useful if only to stay in touch occasionally with locals who I can communicate with also by txt.
Keep on keeping on. 😇
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I think I'm only going to do 1 blog post a day. I think it's more fun doing comments anyways. Comments are WAY easier. Although this site is better than Facebook it is similar in that a lot of posts are not going to be seen by many people. The page views per user are not that high so people are not looking at that many posts on here.
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I agree – commenting is definitely much more gratifying here than on FB or elsewhere.
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Thank you for your words.
Of course, one of the ideas was, to gain some cents here for good content.
And day by day I vote up, comment and do some posts about my trading or other stuff.
And I think that´s what everybody should do: Just create good content.
The rest will follow.
Keep it up and have a nice day.
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True, true. And...I've been doing just that. This was a special case that, in the end, has become quite the unexpected gift. • Thanks for stopping by. ;)
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patience has always been the key
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It happens sometimes we just have to exercise patience
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I see you are New around here Just like me...
But there is one thing i quickly realized: Steemit is a game. Not Very different from other social platforms, but with some "hidden" rules that to be effective we need to learn.
We all are in a total New enviroment, and people like me and you arrived a bit late on the game.
A game where some players already established some dominance on the board.
But make no mistake. Other social platforms also have the big players, but the difference here is that anyone can reach the big player status, be It by putting money on the game of grinding it.
For the small to thrive, we need to underst these "hidden" rules.
For good or bad, those who have the bigger Stack on the game establishes the rules, and until we reach the big player status, we have to play under or around these rules.
@grumpycat actions do have some fundaments, but unfortunately some colateral damage always happens.
But dont be discouraged by this. What i have seen around here is usually when people that have post good content usually get a lot of attention when flagged, and end up recovering the loss.
But yeah, the big comment self upvote sucks to see when our vote is worth less than 0,05 steems. But i have already seen worst.
But its like It is written on the whitepaper: bad players can be reduced by the community, but they Will never be erradicated.
And It Will only kill the platform If there is only bad players around. While there is still quality content around here steemit Will survive.
Dont give up! Learn and adapt.
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Thank you @phgnomo – Indeed, this has turned out to be an incredible gift. Writing and posting this was cathartic, more than anything. I just had to get it off my chest. I certainly wasn't expecting such an outpouring of support.
Not giving up, not by a long shot. Adapting....yep!
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Debates like this are great! It's a shame that it took your terrible experience to bring this up but now we have different points of view and let's hope that whoever steers this ship takes notice and makes the correct course adjustments!
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Alas....it is all of us who collectively steer the ship. Therein' lays both the gift and the problem – how do we come to a consensus about how best to do that?
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I've been here a long time, and this is a fantastic summary. Please repurpose this as a full blown post about the game.
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Thank you for the suggestion. I will do it soon. I am working at this moment on an article about the Steem Economy, wich is the hidden side of how things work around here, and many people don't take time to understand.
But i will write around this idea of Steem as a game.
Thank you.
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Witness follower earned. I'll watch for these posts.
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I havent written about the game aspect of Steem, but the economy post is already up!
https://steemit.com/guide/@phgnomo/steem-economy-guide-part-1
Would be nice to know what you think.
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I feel your pain. I've definitely been disheartened with the dark side of Steemit over the last few months. However I keep posting hoping to be proved wrong, but I'm afraid you're right; you don't get rewarded for quality content anymore.
It never used to be this way and sadly unless things change I only see it getting worse...
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It's disappointing, for sure.
To be fair, I do get rewarded for some of the things I post. There are folks on here who've been absolutely amazing and consistently supportive. As I said – they're the reason I'm here.
I'm not ready to give up just yet. I suppose we'll see what kind of retribution I just invited. I could very well have just sealed my own coffin...
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I hope not, but the fact that people are very aware that there are repercussions for saying things that they can clearly see speaks volumes about where we are at right now as a platform.
This platform is still a great place to be, it's just slightly lost it's way like we all do sometimes. There is a great community that keeps the place afloat, and I definitely don't want to abandon ship just yet, but it's extremely difficult to ignore the obvious faults that are happening and carry on with a fake smile pretending that everything is perfect...
I love the fact that you care though, like we all do. If we didn't care we would have disappeared a long time ago. Keep doing what you are doing and be honest to yourself, just remember that everyone on this platform may not have the same integrity as you...
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You go girl !
@thekittygirl brought all this to my attention, I read both related posts of yours and upvoted [too late for this one unfortunately], joined Diplomacy and let's see where this goes.
I'm a total newbie with bots - I never used them, besides randowhale at my very beginning and that's it. I am against abuse 100% so I support your vision and will try to follow as much as I can!
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Thank you @meanmommy33. 🙏🏼 It’s been quite the unexpected adventure. I’m just as curious as anyone else about where this all will lead, but I’m in it for the long haul. Grateful to have you in my corner.
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This is my favorite written post of the week. Showing his 1 (self-generated) up vote that took 80 plus dollars from the reward pool to reward his policing says everything.
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It's certainly alarming, that's for sure. He/She has since given me her justifications for doing so. Can't say I agree with them, but...at least he/she showed up and actually talked to me about all this. Didn't see that comin'...
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Yeah that was pretty cool that they showed up, but I think their justification was definitely lacking. Again I think the $80 says everything. 😎
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Zippy, can you find me on Discord? I have something for you!
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I've looked, but need your 4 digit tag #! How do I find you?
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I guess I brain farted a bit... hahahah im inside Pal.. MSP
https://discord.gg/vA9knk9
click here... im actually monitoring the radio right now, so you will see me in the audience... click on my face!!!
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Glad you are sticking with us, the longer you do the stronger we will be. Unfortunately this happens to some degree on every platform, youtube has been messing people up a lot lately too. Ironically driving people toward places like steem.
I fully agree there are a lot of meh posts out there getting rewards that don't make sense to me or many other users. It's really up to us and everyone to call them out and I thank you for doing just that.
See you for your next post, SteemOn!
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Thanks @macmaniac77! Does seem to just be the way it goes.
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Unfortunately a decentralized social platform is very much as real life. He who has the money makes the rules. I really dont get why the structure of Steemit only rewards you well when you get discovered by a whale. WTF.... I didn't come here to seek approval. I still think that new comers should have a better voting algorithm. because that way the masses can reward you for a well thought out article. Ive seen post with 30 upvotes that only made like 15 cents. That dont make sense. keep doing what you're doing, so at least this way if a better platform comes along you can just switch your content to that one and keep making money. This is the beauty of original and good content. Good luck.
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I agree. All those votes were because it was good. Maybe after 10 votes automatic amount. Idk
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Thanks @stocksniper. For now, this is the best we've got – not perfect, by a long-shot, but much better than our worn-out alternatives.
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Got my vote. As the platform develops it is interesting to see how the priesthood of Steemit develop their own power structure and apply it as they see fit. It could be for good or ill.
One note, I would avoid bots like the plague. Devalues the whole thing into some sort of disingenuous cash grab.
Also be wary of those who write things like "hi, great post"
So I will leave you with this statement.
Great post!
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You're hilarious. ;) And...I do generally avoid bots. However, if you start looking into the wallets of Steemians you respect, you'll find that almost everyone uses a bot every now and then. Being a purist, it seems, doesn't really benefit anyone, and few will notice besides you. I share your instinct about them being unsavory – alas, they're a big part of this place.
Thanks for your support.
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I understand what you are saying but let's face it Facebook does not pay anything. Youtube unless you have a massive following does not either. In Steemit, its kinda like winning the lotto, similar to Bitcoin mining. Many times post don't earn what they probably should but sometimes they get upvoted like crazy and have big payouts - Jackpot! I am not a huge blogger myself (I am Steem Investor) but I posted on here enough times to know what's its like to put in a lot of time and work into a post and no one notices. I'd say break your post into a series, like 1 of 5 or 10. Use great graphics, simple words. Don't worry about spelling errors, no one really cares that much here. Focus on big ideas. Post often and have a very longterm outlook. I think the key is building a big follow. Preferably with at least some Whales. A lot people on here really like Liberty and very open minded. Much more than other Social Media places. Pretty much everyone on here loves Crypto. However, I have seen many post getting serious payouts that have nothing to do with Crypto. The Steem Demographics are changing and the development is bright. SMT's will be another way very soon to try other eco-systems built on Steem.
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Great points. I've definitely invested more into developing my connections with other Steemians than anything else. I meant what I said – they're the reason I'm here.
As for other platforms – quite frankly, since joining Steemit, I very rarely log onto any of them. I don't see much point. Perhaps I should be thinking more about protecting my modest followings, but...I kind of can't be bothered.
Thanks for reading.
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Yes, I only use FB to promote Steemit. heheh.
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Smart.
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Wow I can totally see myself doing something like you did without a clue. Steemit is extremely complicated. Sounds like this scenario might turn out in your favor!
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Thank you @brightstar! What a wonderful story, and so totally appropriate. And, I can say with my whole heart that this has, indeed, been an incredible, unexpected gift. Gotta love it when the crap turns out to be gold. ;) I greatly appreciate you reading and sharing this anecdote with me.
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I'm very new to Steem, I'm still trying to figure many things out myself, but it seems to me that just like in real life, there is always a bad that comes with the good.
That being said, I'm happy I found this post, because it puts things in perspective and its a good reminder that if I was ever to feel at times that I was being treated unfairly by a "bad player" there is a community of people who are strong enough to come together and basically nullify its effect.
This to me, is a happy ending...
thank you for sharing
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I agree @chbartist – what began as a frustration has evolved into an incredible gift. This comment thread alone blows me away. Thanks for bein' part of it. ;)
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On one hand I can't hardly sympathize with you for being aware of Grumpy Cat and opting to use those services. I just seen a article where Grumpy gave a guy back his money after the guy said he wasn't aware of
the violations by those bots. Maybe you also don't understand the ones selling those bots are actually doing and that is at the last minute they spam the system with bots paid for by the same user hundreds of time. Maybe Grumpy Cat doesn't know you may not have understood the severity of what he was trying to get across.
On the other hand I can have all the sympathy in the world for you spending hours writing something that doesn't get any acknowledgement. That's why so far I just can't seem to get serious about his platform because from what I see it hasn't done a whole lot of people much good except those in some third world country where having a dollar is like having a hundred. Pennies just don't add up fast enough in the US like that. I've been a blogger for about three years now so the shock value was real for me when no one replies to stuff you post. My talent for this lies more in staying informed, researching facts and sharing what I learn and debating what I learned with others and pretty much for now that will have to be my strong point on here. As much as someone would like to get paid for their hobby it usually doesn't end up that way unfortunately, at least not in any fast rate of return.
One other thing I'd like to point out is that Steemit is not decentralized. Look at wiki about who owns steemit, it's privately owned. When all the weight started belonging to the top tier it stopped being decentralized. In a decentralized environment all power is equally distributed, that's not true here and if it was there wouldn't be a need for witnesses. Look up what centralized and decentralized means in a business environment and you will see what I mean. Read the whole wiki article and you will see where it state's Steemit is no longer listed as a decentralized platform by a magazine that tracks these types of structures.
I go back to my old blog space all the time, because it is a hobby so I can understand more people's frustrations if this isn't something they'd normally do. You have to have a knack for it. I will follow you, maybe you can link me to your article on depression, I love to read it.
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Thank you @sunlit7. I appreciate your informative thoughts on how not decentralized this place is. And I do think the pennies are worth working for. They add up.
Here's the article that started this whole thing, as per your request: https://steemit.com/life/@zipporah/choosing-life
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that was one that you should totally upvote, go back through all your comments and up vote them all until your reputation score gets above 40
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You're hilarious. ;)
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I am so proud of you! I think you found your calling. Warrior princess. (feels good standing up for whats right and being supported huh? Keep doing it)
Joy
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You totally made me laugh. Thanks for that. And, YES – I'm totally humbled and kind of blown away by how this has turned out. Wow.
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wow. As a newbie I cant compete with the so called rule makers. But what I can do is support you and people like us. I will not, and do not use any BOT for any reason. I feel its a control method. (the rich get richer)
I will follow, resteem and up vote this
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Thank you @wolfhart. I was pretty reluctant to use bots at first, too. But, once you spend some time looking through the wallets of folks you respect and continuously see the use of bots – you begin to relax a bit about it. Being a purist, it turns out, is only really noticed by you. • If bots can help us gain even the tiniest bit of visibility as well as affording us even a few crumbs from the reward pool – I don't believe they're a bad thing. Especially if used conscientiously...
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also try booster and boomerang and appreciator they're good bots
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@appreciator is good – @boomerang, not so much. They don't actually close bidding until as much as half an hour after the clock says they will, so they sit there with increasingly negative ROIs, while more clueless Steemians keep making bids and making it worse. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
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One thing I find sort of strange on here is how people will get upset that they spent a lot of time on a post and didn't make any money from. That's what blogging has been up until this point for most people who didn't figure out ways to monetize their blogs. People pour their hearts out online without expecting payment for it. I understand... that was part of the promise of Steemit, but it's not the only reason to be here.
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I've seen simplier posts get a lot of attention and making money. The site is not fair. We shouldn't be required to bribe people monetarily for upvotes.
And blogging has been about making money since the movie "Julie & Julia". Money is the real reason most people blog.
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I haven't posted a comment in a while. I'm fed up with bandwidth error and I realised I didn't like to give meaningless, ass kissing comments anyway.
Tough luck with the cat :( nice writing tho'
you have my upvote, for what it counts
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Much appreciated @vonaurolacu. Thanks for coming out of the shadows for me. ;)
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Ugh. I so don't get all the crazy Steem politics going on around here. It is also my hope to just quietly stay in my own little corner. Your amazing post deserved to get a ton of attention. I hope something good comes of all this :)
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Right?! Really though, in the end, it has done more good for me than bad. So I was sincere when I thanked grumpycat. Thanks for your support, dear. ;)
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So okay, I have been here less than 1 year and my posts suck at rewards mostly but I can’t imagine how steemit would ever be able to payout fairly. It’s not in their design or desire as nothing of the sort is mentioned in the white papers.
No matter how many great posts we write, this will always be the case. People will make a business out of it because money is such by nature. The future is probably even worse as things like grumpy cat cannot be stopped. Who chose 3.5 days as a number. What’s wrong with 3.8? The design of the platform lacks control so those with more money will control it. Posts like these are great to read but don’t expect reform.
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I agree. That number is totally arbitrary and makes no sense. Perhaps we can't expect reform, but we can certainly try for it. If we simply throw up our hands in resigned defeat, we may as well use them to wave a long, slow goodbye to this platform and any hope of it not becoming another MySpace, buckling under whatever pops up in the wake of its demise. This is the shit that erodes foundations from the inside out...
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I so agree with you. I love the platform. If it did not exist, I probably will never write a post again. Do I care t9 fight for a platform where the management does not seem as involved in stopping this crap. I am willing to meet half way.
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well said ...
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I'm hopping that you'll stick around, you add a lot of quality content to steemit. When I read your post after hearing that grumpycat flagged it, I didn't really have any words to write a comment, your post could have been about me, I have felt that way.
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That...right there...is precisely why I shared the post in the first place – to reach people like you. And, as I find myself saying over and over in these replies – this has turned out to be an incredible gift. Thanks for being part of that.
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Ironically, being flagged by grumpycat could turn out to be the best thing that will happen to you on Steem, at least as far as future earnings go! More than a few people who also were "winners" of his (or her?) flag went on to write posts about it very similar to yours which ended up getting a lot of attention and bringing in significant rewards.
I, for one, hope that the same thing happens in your case. You're clearly a great writer, which is unfortunately quite rare around here, and as a community we should do everything we can to encourage great writing. And not only the writing, but actually taking the time to proofread your posts is really important in my opinion.
Maybe it's just me but I cringe probably 10 times per post on average with all of the basic grammatical and spelling errors! Anyway, I hope this incident ends up working to your advantage - you have my vote for what it's worth!
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It's true – I'm floored and deeply humbled by this incredible flood of support. Expressing my frustration was cathartic and felt necessary, but I certainly didn't expect this response.
It truly has turned out to be a sincerely good thing. This comment thread alone is enough to convince me that there is more good here than bad – that speaking up was warranted and wise – that my contributions here are valued and worth offering. I'm not goin' anywhere.
And I can't tell you how glad I am to know that I'm not the only one who cringes on the regular. What the hell, people – will it kill you to proofread?! Then again – like a barb, permanently embedded in my brain, my older sister's words will forever haunt me. She told me once that I have an overactive internal editor. I still haven't decided if she was being sisterly mean or just a bit tactless. At any rate, she might've been right.
Super grateful for your support. If you happen to see future posts – I promise they'll be at least 99.99% free of typos. ;)
Cheers! (ps – you've also got my vote. Thanks for bein' such an awesome witness.)
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Hello again @yabapmatt. I’m attempting to ping you here as my DM in Discord likely got buried beneath dozens of others. • I’d love to chat with you about the new Diplomacy initiative I’ve launched, as both an entity here on Steemit (@theziplomat) and its related Discord. • I’ve already got the support of several other witnesses (@aggroed, @ausbitbank, @teamsteem & @crimsonclad) and suspect it’s something you’d also appreciate. 🙏🏼 Hope to hear from you or see you over there!
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The whales are going to war with each other and of course only the minnows are hurt. Hopefully this doesn’t happen to you again.
Cheers! For what it’s worth I upvoted.
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Thanks, friend. I didn't expect it, but this really has turned out to be a gift. Thanks for your support!
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Sometimes its okay to spill your guts out, some of us have learnt something new.
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I'm glad I did, and also that you learned something from it. ;)
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I've been on steemit longer than you and yet I'm still struggling. I know that feeling very well, where you are so sure of yourself that you have done your very best and made an awesome piece of work and yet no one gives a damn about it. Its heartbreaking really.
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Mostly, I'm alright with it. This was a special case. In the end, though, this whole flag thing has turned out to be a really good thing.
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It was nice to meet you at the PYPT @zipporah. I admire your bravery for speaking up. And I'm glad that there were those who supported you that mitigated the damage.
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Thanks @wanderlass! Was a bit scary to press 'post', but I'm glad I did. Thanks for reading!
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You remind me of a post I worked really hard on when I first came here. I talked about how we could really benefit by taking away power from steem investors and giving it to more trustworthy people. Fitting that I was flagged by a tool with the name of @rewardpoolrape
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I mean, really?! What the hell? Did you speak up about it?
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amazing your notes in steemit @zipporah, I like it..
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You are a badass and it's people like you that make this place awesome. It can be rough in the beginning but just like in real life, when you have the courage to show up and be vulnerable like you did, that's where real connection happens and it's those connections that end up being more valuable than anything else.
Glad you're sticking around.
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Thank you so much @raised2b – it really has blown me away, this wave of unexpected support. This comment thread is flippin' amazing. Thanks for bein' part of it. ;)
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Absolutely, we must do!
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Nicely written, and with great self control, I'm sure! I signed up about the same time and have been contributing what I think is pretty good material, only to find much of the time, NO ONE even views them. My only friends are bots!!! Friends that I have to pay for :) i know everyone says you have to be patient and so, I won't give up and I am exhorting you to not give up, either. I'm following you and I will read your posts!
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Thank you @cavesson. Congrats for keepin' at it. I see you just got the curie, so you've got more than just bots taking notice. ;) I'll spend some time on your blog and make sure to leave evidence of my visits. Cheers!
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well, i loved this post... i think more people need to see exactly what the minnows are up against. I upvoted because of the content, and to lend support, we smaller accounts need to stick together. i think if everyone would only reward quality content the trash posts would decline in volume. Sadly, with the way the payouts are set i feel it actually rewards people for posting shitposts... i mean if you author 100 shitposts you still get author payouts the same as you do for quality posts. I would like to see author payouts be reduced and upvote stregnth increased so you earn more for cruation, but sadly i feel this would just have the fools upvoting their own shitposts and still get rewarded.....
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Thanks for your support @misterd21! It's true...there's a lot that appears to need work. I'll say that, from what I'm seeing on Discord, there are a lot of people doing their best to tackle the issues. I'm feelin' optimistic...
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I feel your pain, I wrote a story in three parts about my partner. How he has had a very bad childhood with no love of his parents, about the way he was treated by a girl and the way he find his 'first unconditional love', his dog. The way he had to say goodbye to this dog and how he found another dog that lives till then in a shelter. I wrote them and posted ... ofcourse I hoped for the best ... and here they are, seven days later just only upvoted for a few cents. And yes every cent is a cent, I know ... but it hurts. To write such personal things and to see them only upvoted for a few cents, and my photography the same thing. I've seen photo's here that are not technical perfect, in fact I would call them just a little snapshot, and they get rewards of $300 or more. And my photo's are getting no higher rewards then a few cents. It really hurts, and I' trying not to get discouraged ... but it's very hard! On the other side, if I post my story's and photo's on facebook, I wouldn't make that few cents either. So I keep on posting, hoping for the best to come my way. And keep reacting on other people who I think deserve it! Maybe I won't get rich, but after all it is a much better way to motivate myself to work on it, and at least here on steemit I have a chance of being rewarded ... so it's giving me also a drive to create the best what I can do ...
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Exactly! That point has been brought up a lot lately – this same content would earn us exactly zero on every other platform. A penny is still a penny...and they do add up. slowly, perhaps, but they do. Just keep doin' you – it'll pay off, I'm sure.
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I think @zipporah you mustn't give up!
I wish you good luck!
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Thanks @travoved! :)
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maybe QunQun or YoYow will be better. Also there's some ok things about the platform.Mehhh
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I've not heard of either of those – are they up and coming blockchain platforms?
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We a have that kind of problems but I always tell myself not to give up. I know with time I will earn what I expected.
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Yep. Just keep on keepin' on. ;)
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also grumpy cat is the worst
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The very worst grumpy cat – that's for sure.
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I feel you @zipporah !
I wrote and released a whole album dedicated to depression and suicide prevention with 30% going to Suicide Prevention Australia as they got behind it.
It’s not a depressing album whatsoever, it’s a poignant yet uplifting album which has literally already saved lives and worthy of as many ears as possible to hear it so more lives get uplifted and saved.
I did a crowd funding campaign for it that didn’t do so well. Well, not remotely as well as friends and peers crowdfunding did. Heck! I even had a couple of friends earn more from their crowdfunding for a Holliday (because they couldn’t be bothered getting a job and saving money for it).
Why do I say this?
It was massively dispiriting.
The truth is that people still don’t want to actually talk about this issue. They still want to sweep it under the rug and watch the next cat or talent show video.
A couple of days ago I posted a music video of an uplifting song giving advice to those with depression or who just feel stuck in a moment.
It’s also limping along not really getting the views, bored, resteems and general attention that it deserves.
I take comfort in the resolve that we must still make our art and as long as even 1 person is touched by what we’ve created, then we’re winning. We’re all winning.
It’s hard not to observe and make harsh comparisons, especially when we see fatuous or low quality posts earning plenty of upvotes and resteems, but it’s important to avoid digging in the comparison pit.
It’ll only bring you down and leave with a bitter aftertaste.
You’re an important creator.
Just keep creating content that helps others, that serves others in some way.
Eventually, you’ll pass through the threshold of a critical mass point where you’ll see more significant results.
Just make sure your monitoring your inner results more than external results and your kind heart and mind will always find balance.
Nice to connect with you here.
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Thank you @nathankaye – excellent reminders. We are all winning. And touching even one person makes every effort worthwhile. I'll follow you and lend my vote – small though it may be. :)
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wow!
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Good POst :)
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Well, I could now post a long reply, telling you how sorry I am that your original content isn't seen as often, and how right you are ... but these two lines will have to suffice.
Please don't give up. I found your post so very truthful, and a 'this is needed to be said'-post, that it is the first one I have ever resteemed. And I probably won't do that often.
Thank you for being such an awesome person. Keep your head up. And have my heartfelt admiration (as well as an upvote, and me following you).
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I appreciate that @lunanightshade. I'm honored to have been your first resteem. ;)
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was happy to add my few cents to help mitigate, and more so lend my reputation support. Steem is not a platform for avoiding drama, it would seem, which is tragic because of the premise that top quality content will rise to the top.
Either way, best of luck to you in the future and will continue to watch, support and do what I can to help quality content (@zipporah's page!) grow.
Thank you for all that you do - love your photos even though I know so little about the art form that I can't properly comment on them. All the best!
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I'm grateful @carmalain7 – it honestly made a huge difference to see that wave of support come through. Thank you for being part of it. :) following you, and will do my best to return the favor.
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I feel your pain @zipporah
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Thankfully, the pain pretty quickly turned into gratitude. Turns out GC did me a huge favor.
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I feel you
Find it a bit discouraging
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More than a bit. Alas – this whole thing truly has turned out to be quite the blessing for me. I honestly could never have predicted that plot twist!
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I see whales posting shitposts just to make a post and they get hundreds in hours.
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It's a problem. At least we can take comfort, knowing the likes of @patrice and @steemcleaners are working hard to mitigate abuse.
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Sadly this can be said about all aspects in life. Keep being true to yourself and post decent content, I know it's frustrating but I'd much prefer to post good material and get hardly any recognition for it than plagiarise or post a generic throwaway blogpost and make loads of money off of it. Sure, it would be nice to sit on top of the mountain knowing I don't have to worry about money for the next couple of years, but see it as practice for your blog or a way to make friends and/or connections for the future. I write books and it's a great way to keep my writing sharp in between books. It's been over a year since my last one so I know I'm rusty, but I'd be a lot worse if I didn't do this.
Point being, the reality is most of us won't make any (decent money) on here. you can't swim against the river forever. Try and see what benefits you can find on here besides money, because if you focus on the money side of things you'll be like thousands of quality writers on here that are banging their heads against the wall in frustration...
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Yeah, I really have no motivation anymore to put out 1500-2000+ words posts, because the rewards are not worth for what you put in. And all the reward pool rape that's going on is definitely not improving the platform. I really don't like how grumpy cat operates. He looks more like thug to me that tries to justify his self-upvoting by downvoting "reward pool rapers", but in fact, a lot of his downvotes are bullshit.
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Precisely. I'm glad I spoke up about it. Honestly, he actually did me an incredible favor. Who knew?!
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This was a great post Lewis and I'm glad you spoke your truth and brought up some good points about how the "system" is currently run. The more people we have seeking to make Steemit a better and more "fair" platform for everyone, the better off we will all be in the long run. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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It's a good story to stick to. ;)
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very good post. my thoughts exactly. we can just support each other to give this platform the quality it deserves.
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And yet...it is not a utopia, by any stretch.
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I'm glad you raised this issue and didn't just complied. That account is probably automated and looks for some patterns instead of manually checking the content of every post.
Unfortunately, reward pool abuse is a $65 Million USD / year issue on Steemit and something has to be done.
Accounts like the one you mention might be well-intended, but they are just playing whack-a-mole with poor results at best and sometimes stepping onto legitimate posts as it is in your case.
There are better ways of governing this place to prevent abuse, as I explain in my post How to Solve the Reward Pool Abuse Problem Once and For All.
If the reward pool abuse problem can't be solved soon, Steemit won't survive for long.
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Oh...it's not at all automated. On the contrary, GCat is very much a person who knows exactly what he/she's doing. Futile game of whack-a-mole or not, he/she is stubbornly insistent on continuing.
I've made some of these very same points, to GC, and also to BernieS on a recent post of his. This shit is totally unproductive...
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Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by zipporah from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
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Yaaay! @minnowsupport! Grateful for your initiative. ;)
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This was truly inspiring. Kudos to you. You should feel very very proud of yourself. This call out was very diplomatics and well worded. I am honored to have read it.
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THanks @theinvisibleman! Glad you found it a worthwhile read.
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I did indeed :)
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I applaud you for expressing your frustrations in such an epic way! Only by reading your posts and the comments below, I learnt a great deal of things.
I joined the platform a month and a half ago and posted quality content posts, followed the rules, socialized on Discord, made comments, pimped my posts on the promotion channels, only to see that it does not pay off writing longer posts. Most of my posts are under $2.
What really keeps me here are the people that I found and connected with within such a short period of time. I up voted your post, because I do believe you deserve it.
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Precisely. Getting to a place where we earn well takes time. Being flagged by grumpy whales doesn't help. Actually – to be fair – it's been an incredible blessing in my case. Didn't see that comin'!
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Regarding the minnowbooster issue - the chart isn't always up to date (can lag at up to 20 minutes). We try to be responsive on the chat, but if you don't get a reply - talk to me on one of the discords I hang out on and I'll try to help.
I too got caught in a nasty crossfire between some whales a while back. It sucked. Hang on in there.
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Thanks for clarifying @techslut. Now I know who to ping. I did try pinging @techtrends, to no avail. I've been having the issue for a while now.
Also, thank you for dropping a couple upvotes on a couple of my photos. You're just lovely. And, really – this has turned out to be quite a gift. Maybe grumpy was actually trying to help. ;)
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Happy to help! I know how unpleasant it can be to get whale-flagged. Thing is? Falling victim to bernie's ego was one of the best things to happen to me on the platform. It's how I made a lot of good friends. Grumpy has his own agenda, but at the end of the day it looks like he can do good without meaning to by simply uniting people in criticism against the grump. :)
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It really has floored me – the gift I never could've known would come of this. As you and @yabapmatt and sooo many others predicted – this has played out very much in my favor. Having GC upvote and resteem this post was perhaps the most surprising jaw-dropper of all. Can't say it didn't anything to dispel my strange suspicion that he/she is actually a benevolent kitten, using the most round-about means of lifting up the little guys. ...Too far-fetched?
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As someone who is fairly new to Steemit it I find this quite worrying.
I am investing A LOT of time into this as I believe it is the best thing to come along on the internet for, well, EVER!
When I first joined I tried out some of the voting bots as they are presented as something official, almost as if they are part of the site.
Also the way that I learn about things is to try them out. I am now mining for example. Not because I want to make a lot of money doing it but because I wanted to understand what it was and how it worked.
For there to be no warning that the bots are frowned upon and that one can fall fowl of some unwritten rules is quite disturbing and seems to go against the whole ethos of freedom of speech and removal of censorship that the blockchain is supposed to help facilitate.
It's not a suitable defence to say that it is up to us to find out about bots either. I wasn't aware of any rules and this site is complicated enough without introducing another set of things to do when you first sign up. We need to encourage people to join not dissuade them!
Surely the "bad bots" should just be taken down?
Also using memes and flippant language to reprimand someone is just plain wrong! When there is any kind of policing of content there will always be innocent victims. It happens in all walks of life. When someone is (rightly or wrongly) seen to be breaking the "rules" then a private warning is the right way to go about it not a childish comment with a meme.
Let's hope there is a solution to this problem as it seems like this is a serious flaw in the workings of the site.
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Thank you @atomcollector. You make excellent points. Although, I'm not sure how one would define a bot as either good or bad. It's all subjective, really. At least, I'm comforted knowing there are a lot of people working to find solutions. Just spend a bit of time in a few Discord channels and you'll see that pretty clearly.
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Being new all wide eyed about the possibilities here it is very insightful to see some of the pains of the platform. Thank you for sharing your frustrations, as it does help others get a feel for the platform both good and not so good.
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Yep! Turns out posting this was the best thing I could've done. I hope I didn't discourage you – as this comment thread clearly shows, there's so much good on here.
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Certainly not. To see people outlay their thoughts about a platform whether good or bad, it signals its a platform worth caring enough about that people speak up about it.
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Agreed. Thanks for lending your voice to this thread...
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Well said, I applaud. U don't know the protagonists but bullying, is the first step on the path to terrorism. Terrorists need swatting as you would a cockroach in the kitchen. I had some difficulty, mainly with my own re-action, when a bot arbitrarily, Not Showing due to low rating BS. The post had votes and I had followers comments. A bot not overseen is relying on owners parameters having been correctly set, but then Not answering the comments and replies sent is just plain rude. Told, My reputation suffered and I had to laugh, as no-one can hurt who I am. Attacking someone is showing the community how very small, you are, and arbitrary and ignorant bullying will recurse.
Keep on keeping on. 😇
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I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a hard time. It’s kind of like the Wild West out here.
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Well, I've just won an incitement, and gave also spent vet dirty years beating the corruptness out of gov't. The underbelly of society is not a nice place to get dragged to, but you can keep your head up and your integrity intact, and all the negativity just rolls on by, without, hopefully, leaving any detritus to trip over. Keep on keeping on. May the blessings be.
Check, if you want, #0273. 😉
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I feel your pain. I go through bouts of complete serenity and borderline depression creating content on multiple platforms.
Also, I create additional vlogs to go with the post to help generate traffic, which is another ball ache to edit, to add music too, create thumbnails and so on and so forth.
Sometimes you just feel like saying
"Am I contributing to something good and positive or am I just a busy fool".
#steem #dtube #youtube #twitter #facebook #instagram #tumblr #content #vlogs
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In the end, all we can do is assess our efforts based on how authentically we’ve represented ourselves. Though it’s so easy to get tripped up on who’s watching (as I did in this case) — it’s not really what matters. • You just keep doin’ you. 😉 I’ll check out your blog.
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So you can see that these attacks by grumpy cat actually sort out the wheat from the chaff and often end up with you getting more votes and support. Maybe thats why he does it as a test. You will end up learning much more form his actions than you would have. Here's another tip that may or may not have occurred to you. I would like to read the article on your depression but I cant be bothered to scroll down your blog to find it (one of the probs with this platform) BUt nobody says you cant keep reposting it every week. If you really want to, you can tweak it - add something about this whole drama etc and then repost it. I think you'll probably get much more from it if you do now!
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Thank you @dannyshine! That’s an interesting suggestion. I’ll certainly consider it. I did link to it directly in the post above, yet I realize not everyone catches hyperlinks. • And, you’re right — as so many people were — this has turned out quite well for me. Here’s an update, if you’re interested: https://steemit.com/steemit/@zipporah/a-touch-of-diplomacy
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It's very much like real life. Steem power translates to Money and Power. Those who have lots of it, becomes the dictator. Much like real life.
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And what might happen if those with power choose to use it for lifting others up? There are whales here that do. They're the reason I'm stickin' around.
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First of all, I sympathize with you, regarding your near suicide. Thank God that you weren't successful.
I haven't worked as hard as you have on a post, but I've done all the things on a list of do's and don'ts for this site. I was drawn to this site because it claimed to have freedom of speech. I'm realizing now, that whales may hold me back if they are not of the same mindset as me. I'm a conservative and was trying to make the move from Facebook because of their crackdown on free speech and conservative views. I've upvoted, followed people with good scores, engaged in conversation in comments and discord, but my value just dwindles constantly.
It shouldn't be this hard. On Facebook, I get a noticeable response with every post I make. Sometimes one of my posts will receive hundreds of comments or "Likes". I've been encouraging my Facebook friends to sign up with Steemit. Maybe that was a mistake. They'll most likely be met with the same discouragement and realize what a waste of time this site can be.
I'm hoping the site will be cloned and improved. Until then, I'm backing off from this site. I have better things to do.
Is anyone listening?
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It turns out Steemit is not the place I thought it was... what now?
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Please read this update: https://steemit.com/steemit/@zipporah/a-touch-of-diplomacy
There's a lot of good on here worth sticking around for. ;)
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Hi Zippy, while I totally agree with your frustrations, I think there's 2 sides to every story. Your argument is clear, you worked really hard to craft your post, and made use of promotions to get more visibility with no intent to abuse anything. Yet, you were reprimanded for it anyway.
On the other hand, I don't think Grumpy Cat's intentions are bad either. In fact, I think what he's doing is actually going to benefit you by holding the owners of abusive upvote bots to account for their actions. I have seen upvote bots being used for garbage posts that are nothing more than pure spam.
Grumpy is actually defending people like you!
Likewise, I too am very new here, just getting started a little over a month ago, and I too work to death for the articles I write and videos I produce on DTube.
While I'm upset some of the articles I spent 10+ hours or better writing didn't earn anything, I've learned something from the last 6+ years I spent building brands on social media.
You see, you have to crawl before you can walk! I started out with zero followers on Google+ back in 2012, and today I have over 750,000 community members and followers across all my brands.
This is why you shouldn't be upset you aren't making money on every post, as building an audience takes a lot of time and effort. It took me 6 years and tens of thousands of hours to build that audience on Google+, and from that experience I've learned success never comes easy.
What really matters is building the audience that will help your purpose to grow. Just jumping on a new social platform and expecting to make money overnight is never realistic.
For instance, I made nothing for the entire first year after I started blogging and growing communities on Google+,despite working 90+ hour work weeks. Then in 2014 I earned about $1,200 a month for the following year. And, now I'm back to square one as all my revenue resources have dried with the ailing economy.
The bottom line, finding results from our work on the web takes time. Anyway, I hope the best for you and honor your great writing, take care :)
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Found you through PYPT
As a fellow Photographer, I am SO sympathetic to the battle with the Cranky bigger Whales!!!
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Yes, hello @bluefinstudios – pretty sure I've seen you and commented on your work before. Perhaps via @photocontests?
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Probably...
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Yet the truly good is summarily surpassed by the torrent of absolute shit posts, flagrant reward pool abuse and early-adopting whales who've decided they're the ones to decide the rules of engagement. Step outta line and they'll punish you. Speak up in defense and they can easily destroy you with no more than a passing thought and petty flag, or twelve, or precisely as many yet-to-payout posts as you have on your blog.
I Totally agree with you , and also I am using bots or else I would be making .020 a every post , and being dependent of a whale to notice you is just nonesens , I mean giving them power like that is just crap , they never answer and they have their own circle , thye do not notice you . I would like minnows to be aware of that , steemit sometimes feels like another place where if your not popular and do not get in line you will be on the bench , its a high school musical . Its as if you have to praise the whales or you will never make it , and loads of people are there giving you advice so whales can notice you ... La gerbe as we say in french , la gerbe .
I have made good connections here though and I read wonderful stuff , I discover people , like you today :) I want to be here on the long term and see but sometimes I just feel like giving up !
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I'm grateful to have been found by you @crypto4iso. Indeed, it has become so much more about the personal connections than anything else. Please don't give up! Steemit needs you. ;)
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