Cheah on GeekGab!

in steempulp •  7 years ago 

Yesterday I had the great honour and pleasure to appear on Geek Gab yesterday to discuss Steemit and the Pulp Revolution with Daddy Warpig and John McGlynn. Alas, Internet reception is spotty in my area: there was a lot of static and I got cut out halfway through the interview for a few minutes.

Regardless, here are the main takeaways from the interview, plus some thoughts I didn't have time to articulate:

The Steemit Advantage

Steemit offers three main advantages. First, with the content committed to a decentralised blockchain instead of a centralised server, a Steemit blog is inherently resistant to external attacks and disasters. Second, no external party can alter the blockchain after commits are made, allowing users to bypass censorship laws and agencies. Lastly, Steemit helps users monetise content that they would otherwise post on social media for free.

To add on to the interview, I don't think Steemit can replace a traditional blog anytime soon; it's simply not user-friendly enough to search for older posts or similar posts by the same user. Further, it offers no defense against cyber-squatting. I still maintain a traditional website here, though my first blogging platform of choice is Steemit. Nonetheless, the incentives built into the Steemit platform incentivises everyone to write more, upvote more, comment more and keep improving their writing standard. It's a virtuous cycle that rewards those who invest time and energy into mastering the craft and understanding the system.

Steemit is Self-Regulating

Posts can't be deleted after being committed to the blockchain, and they can't be edited after the payout period. This gives rise to concerns like copyright infringement and (not mentioned in the podcast) harmful content like child pornography and terrorist propaganda.

Fortunately, Steemit is self-regulating. Volunteers and bots like @steemcleaners and @cheetah work tirelessly to identify incidences of copyright infringement, spam and abuse, and flag violators into oblivion. With sufficient voting power, flagging makes posts so obscure they can't be found. Likewise, users who find harmful content on Steemit are also able to flag such posts. To counter flag abuse, other accounts like @seraph will upvote posts to cancel out the effects of unfair flagging.

It doesn't mean all is well in Steemit. Whale wars, flag abuse and disproportionate rewards remain points of contention even today. But it's in everyone's interest to see Steemit grow and prosper, and I'm confident that the Steemit community will develop organic solutions to these issues.

PulpRev is Here to Stay

Steemit offers writers the ability to monetise their stories twice. First by posting them on Steemit, and then by selling them again on Amazon and elsewhere. It's an approach I've used for Invincible, and I plan on utilising it for future stories.

To be clear, you can't predict how much money you'll earn from a post on Steemit. You might get lucky and earn hundreds, even thousands, of Steem tokens. You might make less than a dollar. But the more you work, the luckier you become. Newbies like @jimfear138, @t2tang and @notjohndaker have already enjoyed huge payoffs from their stories, and they are committed to pushing out even more content.

PulpRev is here to stay on Steemit. Everyone who uses the #steempulp tag is part of the Pulp Revolution, and is committed to regularly producing high-energy tales for your enjoyment. In #steempulp you'll find something for everyone: fantasy, horror, science fiction, noir. We'll set the gold standard for all fiction on Steemit.

And on 14 February, we will unleash our first coordinated fiction campaign: SWORDS OF SAINT VALENTINE.


Cheah Git San Calligraphy.jpg

To learn more about SWORDS OF SAINT VALENTINE, click here.

To read my latest Steemit serial, THE SHANGHAI SONGBIRD, click here.

And for more long-form fiction, check out my Dragon Award nominated novel NO GODS, ONLY DAIMONS.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Thanks for the insightful post! Now that you've been on the platform for over a year it's interesting to hear what your thoughts are on what exactly is working well and what isn't.

You've raised some really good points on things that I've started hearing already about what's not working and I hope that moving forward the Steemit team can work on remedying those issues so that we can continue to grow in a way the best supports and represents what the community of Steemians really want.

I'm going to have to look into PulpRev more as I have no idea what that is... but it sounds like a community of writers creating awesome fiction? I'll have to do some research once I click 'post' on this comment!

Steemit's greatest strength is the way it incentivises its users to keep contributing to the platform. Between easy community engagement and the potential for a high crypto payout, attracting and retaining talented users is far easier here than elsewhere. But its potential for payout is also its greatest weakness: there are plenty of users, especially early adopters, who will do everything in their power to game the system to capture a greater share of the reward pool. They buy or sell upvotes, operate sock puppet accounts, or get by on churning out a steady stream of low-effort content instead of contributing value to the platform.

At this stage I'm not sure how the latter can be satisfactorily addressed without altering how Steemit fundamentally works. But I think building up communities of users who are dedicated to producing quality content in their respective fields will go a long way towards improving the platform for everyone.

PulpRev is a community of fiction writers that draws lessons from the pulp grandmasters of the early 20th century and applies them to modern fiction. Mindset, characteriation, worldbuilding, dialogue, action, setting, genre-mashing, and most of all, PULP SPEED! You can find the official PulpRev blog at www.pulprev.com -- but it should not be considered the One True Voice of PulpRev -- and if you search the #steempulp and #pulprev tags here you can find a taste of what we do. Hope you enjoy our stories!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I can't imagine creating a platform like this and thinking out exactly how to make it function the best would be easy. There are so many layers that add different complexities to incentivizing content creation you really have to have a mind for that kind of thing!

Let's see how it all unfolds though, I think we're on a pretty good path so far!

And I'll definitely check out PulpRev.com

Awesome.

Thanks.

Nice post :)

Good job, I am proud of you @cheah
Keep on working. Be the best. If you want to upvote my post too, one upvote from you is very valuable, There is nothing wrong if we support each other.

Come my friends wait for your presence in my post:
https://steemit.com/story/@aaabangganteng/debut-di-ict-cup-politeknik-negeri-lhokseumawe-dfbc456ac6601