RE: Introducing Project Positivity
On the surface I'm all for this idea! And honestly it's great to see you three in particular spearheading this after recent controversy that I'm happy to steer clear of. Regardless of the past (what may or may not have occurred, idk) this is a great way to change the tide and give something back to the community.
How someone earns money is interesting. How that money is used is character defining. We don't often hear complaints about the 'rich' who delve their time and resources into honest community oriented/charity work.
One thing that isn't so much a problem, but that may pull this project off message, is that I fear this easily can become just another curation group (which isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself.) In the sense of building community, trust, positivity and ideally generating conversation it's easy for authors to get stuck in the 'me' mentality and write for the curation, instead of the intention. I do commend the focus on positive posts and comments (which in particular are lacking love atm) and don't want to have any of this sounding like I'm against your project.
What comes to mind is mixing the concept of a curation group with a author/artist challenge. For example still spend some time curating general positive posts and comments (similar to curation groups, just with a focus) but also put out calls for people to post on a specific topic, like how to generate trust, or to find and create an impactful method to help (where an external charity/person in need, or how to help other users internally.) Priming people to think along these lines can help keep some authors on point, and bring voices out you may not have heard. Things like this shouldn't necessarily be judged on a post being formatted well or pretty, but rather the generated view and ideas themselves.
Further, I'd love to see an actual discussion generate and ideally have rewards available for good participation. This can either be done in the chatroom or even on a stand alone post. Often users here get stuck in inside their group of authors/friends they see/read...so I see having some centralized place for such discussions to be very helpful while having the ability to keep messages positive and constructive.
I trust your intentions on this project and would love to see it stand out in enhancing positivity and trust amongst community members in general. I just feel that it needs to have something unique beyond purely a curation group for this to happen.
Anyway, just my thoughts. Let me know if I can be helpful to you all in this project, happy to do what I can.
true that which you say here !! upvoted !! Curation foundation groups can become a ghetto i feel. So yes we really need to keep our eyes open and aware of the new things coming in and not get too locked into whatever other people decide is good and has value !!
Thank you!
Personally I see the goal of curie/rhw to be finding and rewarding those with good content, without a reward yet, with the hopes of 'spreading the wealth' around a bit as well as new user retention.
This project imo seems more geared towards maintaining a dialogue, positive outlook and ideally trust with all members regardless of the rewards (many of whom $20ish dollars is but a drop in the bucket.) Long term positivity, in my eyes, needs a little something more than just votes and payouts can generate, such as building a some shared understanding and trust that we have some common community goal. It's more a focus on the group as a whole versus the individuals.
Oh I so need you in #project-positivity on steemit chat when you have the chance. My actual goal for this project is to spearhead change and diversity. I mean currently it's great that we're recognising people that are already capable of writing a well informed piece, but what we're sadly lacking is innovation of any kind right now. Your post highlighted this. I WANT to generate discussion, to take people into different avenues, and largely by their own doing. My life experience is limited, and there are a truck load of users on here with different skillsets - let's use that.
Project positivity is in no way just a curations project - you can see our first post for example, we're calling for thought based articles, and that will only grow each week. We also have #writing-exchange ran by the lovely @honeyscribe who is more than experienced to begin a persons journey into writing, or, take an experienced writer further into their skillset.
But that's just us. That's our skillsets managed. What about you? What can you, and everyone else do? We have the clout backing to take a leap into the unknown. We call for ideas, we want more!!
Sound inspiring? Join us in #project-positivity and #writing-exchange
yes i saw this another good venture coming online like Curie which is cool for the smaller newr good posters !! Or actually why not even me ?? ; - )
I'm definitely on board with you and will have to think on it some more. I saw your first post after I had initially made my comment, so that definitely helped to frame what you had in mind a little better.
I think your first challenge is a great one! Not only does it allow users to bear their soul (which is pretty necessary for an 'overcome' story) but also ideally helps others to get a better idea of who that writer is as a person. It's frequently forgotten that we all have our current imprints/reactions built from personal history and experience.
Some similar things I've seen around here that may be useful include Random Acts of Kindness which focused on the 'here and now' of paying something forward (commonly SD's) and Hearing about previous kind acts that focused more on past experiences of niceness.
I do think that stepping outside of the post/writing experience itself is necessary here. Every single person here checks their post payout form the previous night, with the hopes of seeing it 'pop.' And I'm not saying this is wrong, but it's an impediment in my mind when the focus isn't just on individual positivity but for the whole community itself. Especially considering how anything over a week or two old here tends to get buried and forgotten about.
So, my outside the box thoughts....
Generate a discussion on a community mission statement. I understand the want to get away from 'facebookers talking about facebook,' however this place is rather distinct from other social networks in that, simply by having the economic backbone that Steemit sits on, longterm and impactful solutions become readily available. No one on FB has input on what FB does, how it generates money, or where that profit is spent. Users are completely disconnected from those who run the site and commonly vice versa. That's not the case here.
With this in mind, a discussion between smaller/newer users with those at the top (whales/witnesses) is a HUGE must in my mind. Just having @picokernal (and recently @ned for a Q and A session) come into steemspeak to give those in there a better idea of what's going on, intentions, things in the pipeline, etc.. was insanely helpful to me personally, so that I could convey that to users both in and outside of Steemprentice. I'm by no means saying that general users need to know and understand everything, but things like this go a LOOONG way to being able to give those founders/whales/witnesses the benefit of the doubt on their intentions. Even though it's rarely discussed, often success is both a combination of writing (or other) skills AND how much somebody likes/trusts you as a person. On steemit what we are really doing is branding ourselves with our posts and behavior and ideally fostering people to come together with enlightened self-interest.
While this can be done in a post, using other methods like a chatroom and/or voip can do a lot. Since having a large number of people try to discuss things at once can be a problem. What I propose if generating about 5-10 issues that are inhibiting trust (on or off this site), allow people to join these 'sub-groups' to come up with a proposal, which then at all brought together in a larger discussion or post. Much like politicians (i hate to even use that word here) do with work in a sub-committee before taken to the whole community for discussion. The big difference in this case is that people can freely join whatever topics they are passionate about. It's the discussions that are really needed.
Long story short, i think both sides are needed...focus on personal positivity AND community trust and positivity. Otherwise we just end up with a bunch of happy people (which is great) that don't also have the community, of which we are a part of, in mind too.
Anyhoo, i've already got a wall of text so i'll end this here. But i'm sure I can think on this some more.