What Is Being Done To Help Stop The Crash Of Steem?
Steem Has Crashed Over 50% Since I Joined. What Did I Do Wrong?
I invested real money into buying Steem to help the platform. Not a lot as I don't have alot. I have been driving new member signup for a while now from https://SteemThat.com not alot but some as I can see from our stats we send quite a bit of traffic but Steemit still doesn't have an affiliate tracking system which seems odd as this would help all of those promoting Steem and Steemit know what metrics were working and what wasn't. We launched a simple affiliate system to allow SteemThat.com members to refer people from anywhere and receive some Free Steem That Tokens. Steemit could do something similar. Adding a ton of new members still will not stop a crash though.
One thing I really would like to see and I know there are others that would like to see it is an affiliate or at least a track system. This would allow all of us the ability to track which types of content was performing the best.
We all know videos by @jerrybanfield should do really well or do they? I would assume that they do but they might not convert new people as much as they help members learn things. People like @craig-grant that has made alot of videos and mentioned Steem in them might do well more so than me making a video about Steem Specific topics. I would love to think that @jeffberwick drove alot of traffic with his walk and talk dog videos . All three of these guys videos really culminated into enough curiosity to join. Plus, I seen a few videos by @exploretraveler like this one
Why are all of these regular folks investing their time and energy into Steemit?
I think we all get the larger picture of what this Steem community can become if everyone works together to grow it. Everyone of these people have their niche and we all need more members to join and become great authors or vloggers themselves and also support our works. It isn't all about the money with anyone of the independent promoters of Steem and Steemit and the various other portals we talk about and write about and promote. But we all want to protect our investments.
What Is Being Done To Help Stop The Crash Of Steem?
When will the developers of the platform put as much energy and investment into Steem as the members do? @ned as one of the original founders and genius minds that created it all can you help relax the minds of so many? Would you be willing to post more updates of where things are going and what progress is being made so that people can relax? I think communication from the top would help resolve major market dips as people fear uncertainty. I also understand that sometimes what you say could be construed as market manipulation and so you may often hold back from releasing too much awesome information. But as chatter on social media grows and fears of an unstable coin spreads some action is probably needed at this point.
It is definitely a buyers market if you feel that Steem is doing enough to prevent a crash!
One thing that has been good is that the market volumes are much better than they have been in recent times. One thing that would help in all of this is having real data on the real number or real accounts on Steemit. I'm betting those numbers are closer to 200,000 than the 400,000 plus you see when looking at the blockchain day for user accounts. How would we determine active users that could be defined with a metric and a bot could easily determine the valditiy of an active user.
- What would we look at to determine this?
- What is the criteria for an active user?
- Who decides this? The community is best to decide these things. There are plenty of people that can code up this bot and I would be willing to host the code to display the data at https://SteemThat.com for whoever wants to build it if they do not have a space for it.
The Current Abuse Of The Flagging System:
There is such an abuse of the flagging system that I'm up for altering how this impacts posts. A small tweak in the code could help resolve this by returning things back to a community approach verses a tyrannical approach. When one member becomes tyrannical they can cause serious destruction to the community and many I think are doing this maliciously like a virus or cancer to destroy the platform and Steem community.
Here is how they are doing it and then I'll discuss how we should prevent it and Stop the crash of Steem.
Some people have a good heart and think they are doing a noble cause by flagging. Sometimes they are doing things the right way. They see a post with a pixabay image upvoted to hundreds of dollars on fake accounts and they flag it! Hey good job you protected the rewards pool. A post is an obvious plagiarized post that you can verify is 100% just copy and paste. You flag it! Yes good job you helped protect the rewards pool. You see a crap post with affiliate links and no real content of value and you flag it! Great job! You protected the rewards pool. You see a post by someone you do not like and you flag it! BAD JOB! You flag a post because you disagree with the writers opinion...BAD JOB!
The white paper was fairly clear about the use of flags and how that the worst thing that could happen to the platform was someone thinking they were doing a good thing but are really abusing the flagging system. Why is this so important because a lot of hard work is being done to bring new people into the platform. If you are running them off before they even really get started that is not cool! The better approach would be to start a conversation about a violation that you believe warrants a flag. Discuss why and get others opinions about it. Don't be a flagrant flagger as you are Crashing the Price of Steem with every False Flag. For your own investment you would be better to educate someone on the correct way to do things verses flagging any day.
The Malicious Flagger. There are competitors of the Steemit platform.
Many may have already joined Steemit in times past and many might have invested to purchase a large amount of Steem to destroy the platform... Some could have even set-up groups on discord that are disguised to be helping the rewards pool but are essentially stirring up minnions to do more of their dirty work. This is only possible because of the decentralized nature of Steemit. However, much of this could be squelched with a simple common sense basic recommended rules of conduct from the top.
That way members would not be being deceive to think that a minnow that upvotes their own comment for 0.010 is destroying the platform. It will take a million minnows to equal the rewards pool drain of some witnesses and dolphins and whales that have tons of fake accounts that they upvote with pixabay images posted to them. Stop beating up the minnows!
The real issue is that many are bullying people and abusing the flagging system. They are not doing it because they love steemit and want to protect the rewards pool. They have zero good intentions. There are many that are maliciously and deliberately attacking people to drive them off of the platform simply to try and destroy the platform. They will often target newer members as they do not know any better. They will badger them with artificially created rules that sometimes are written or spoken about by no one. They will flag and try to run off as many people as possible. There sole purpose is to Crash Steem!
What Should We Do About The Crash of Steem?
We need to create an environment that is friendly and easier to understand. Steem is complicated and many new people struggle to overcome some of the basics. We should all be helpful and support new members. I'm doing my part with this at https://SteemThat.com where we have an actual social media platform specifically designed for Steemit members to share ideas and network and form their own groups. Our system allows members to post on their wall and ask questions and share ideas with out the abuse often seen on Steemit.
The Flagging System Has To Be Changed....Period
This is not up for discussion and we should make it known to Steemit.inc that it is not up for discussion. If you care about Steem and Steemit they need to know it and they need to know that the community is demanding a change to the current flagging system which is Crashing The Price Of Steem!
What all changes need to be made? How Do I Propose They Make Changes?
The community should ultimately decide this. You can leave your comments below on how you would like to see the changes made. Until the changes are made I will be powering down to make a statement and I ask all of you to do the same. I'm asking you to write your own article about your experience with a bully and use the hashtag... #powerdownforchange
One thing that could be done is allow the community to decide the impact of flagging. Not one tyrannical voter can impact a post in a negative way. It would literally take 5 or 10 members to start any type of sanctions. It isn't just a weight of STEEM POWER that determines the weight of the downvote but the amount of people that downvote. The exact formula is to be determined and fast....
Hey Binkley... You and I are pretty much on the same page brother... I have a few additional issues with Steemit as it is, and whether or not I continue to give any more of my time is still to be determined - and there's zero chance I would invest any real money after already loosing over 50%. I figure taking a couple weeks off will be the best thing (for me) to do before deciding if i'm going to "cut bait" or not.
With my faith in Steemit shaky at best, coming across shit like this is just flat out depressing. Imagine what a new user thinks - is this what we can expect from now on?
I have been seeing this alot also and that is what inspired this post. Far too often people are being targeted with bulling and flagging with no respect for the system as it was designed. Very stressful and If allowed to continue then perhaps it is to become what it will become. My hopes are that this will be addressed with the next Update.
I wouldn't necessarily say steem is crashing, it's been moving in line with a lot of other alt coins. I bought steem a year and a half ago at around .80 and watched it slowly crash down to .07 around this time last year. Everyone was saying steem was dying then and a lot of people left. We made it through that slump and I feel we can make it through this one. The cool thing about steem is that you don't have to rely on steem price increasing to still make profits. Sp collects interest and curating makes profits to. I have about 1000 steem powered up and I make around 10 steem a month in curation rewards. %1 a month is a pretty good return and goes a long way to mitigate any losses due to price decreasing.
This is the kind of reassurance people need. This is a valid testimonial from someone who has witnessed a hard downturn/crash and survived to tell about it. Not only surviving but still able to earn from it. I hope many people see your comment and are less afraid!
@binkley First thanks for using our video in your post. Second at steemfest we did address the lack of a proper affiliate program with @ned and he told us that they would be rolling one out soon. I also asked about getting analytics so we could adjust campaigns and too be able to make adjustments. I informed him that there where people on Steemit with very large following on other social media, and that we would not use our time, energy, and resources without these tools since it would be a waste of money. We know others are doing this and that is their choice. Marketing is very specific these days, and not free. Once these are in place millions of people will be reached, and we will know what works, and what doesn't.
I really dont know too much - still - about this.
One thing on the affiliate program - if people are getting paid to get people to open new accounts - it will make the bot problem we have now, seem like the proverbial heaven.
This place will be filled up with bots and dead accounts
Just sayin'
I would be happy with tracking analytics so that we have some feedback on our promotions. Real hard data not just guestaments. An Affiliate Type System Would Help Facilitate That For Sure. I don't really care about getting a monetary benefit from the direct promotion. My main goal is to see that the things that I am doing are actually creating signups. If they are not then I need to stop wasting my time and focus on some new ground. Why do I do it? I love Steemit and I want to protect my investments.
This alone should give users a Ton of Confidence I'll be looking forward to the addition of some type of analytics. I'm glad that you were able to bring this up at Steemfest. I launched a feed of posts but must of missed it https://steemthat.com/steemit-steem-fest/. Sometimes it is just so much data to see it all. We can help grab new users all day long but if there is an equal force running them away our efforts and funds are wasted. I dream of the day where Steem has 1 million plus real users creating high quality content.
I have to agree with @binkley , "We need to create an environment that is friendly and easier to understand. Steem is complicated and many new people struggle to overcome some of the basics. We should all be helpful and support new members. " I have been a member for a little while and have yet to publish my intro or my first post. Some of it is because I don't fully understand how things work. The other part is I am not really a content creator I am more of a content reviewer and sharer. The only thing being below a minnow my upvotes and comments don't really matter. It doesn't pay and we can't all be great content creators and #Binkley named 3 in his post that create great content regularly that I know of. I expect those great content creators to make more for their posts. I just see Steemit losing regular people because they don't feel their posts or their comments really matter. Kind of like the voting system what is the point of voting when you have people trying to work the system and Super PACs buy votes. It just seems the field is tilted in favor of the Whales which some whales seem to be more like Sharks. Since I haven't really posted anything I haven't really been affected or noticed some of the things #Binkley mentioned. For the most part I have seen communities and people helping each other and most people that have done well in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies seem to share some of their gains some more than others and that is cool and I know they don't have to share anything and don't expect a welfare system. I am surprised to learn that certain people have that much power that their one Flag can ruin a post and I like the idea of a post needing a number of downvotes and or flags before it can lose revenue. I have mixed feelings about the bots and I will close this comment on that. Thanks @binkley for this post and I am member of the SteemThat.com community.
Hey @binkley I learned how to post a photo from one of your posts. Now if I can get my profile picture set-up I will be Steemin' It!
Thank you for the long reply sir. I don't believe I have read such a thought out well worded comment from someone who claims to not be a content creator. You have an awesome way with words and I'm looking forward to seeing some of your writing on Steemit. Your support of SteemThat.com does not go without notice. Steemit is a wonderful platform and there are so many around the world that are being blessed by it that it just makes me sad to see the price fall and fall and fall. I know so many are doing great things to make it grow and it is sad when several are doing things to tear all of that work down!
I recently did my part by increasing my Steem holdings in my crypto portfolio, (and powered up of course).
As for the flagging problem. Yes this appears to be funded by outsiders with big pockets that are using it as an attack vector against the steemit platform. i. e. big pharma, big corporate backed AstroTurf etc.
One possible solution is to decrease the effect that a flag has on reputation greatly and to balance it with upvotes. For example, at present it appears that a single "flag" can carry more weight than several upvotes, even when steem power is considered. I would more balance them.
Of course, I believe all of this would require another hardfork.
This is an excellent solution. Thank you for you input. I'm not going to lie and say that I did not buy any steem while it was down because I purchased some too. I would love to always see it rising than crashing down I guess but it makes for a nice present when you can buy low.
I believe quality of posts and real contribution of participants is what matters...
Agreed If we all focused on that more we will have a powerful STEEM DOLLAR for years to come!
I believe retention of users on steemit is a key factors.
I have recently done an analysis of all steemit users in Wales and found less than 25% are still active.
I would prefer to see a much higher retention rate. As in business it is always a lot more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.
For every one long term steemit user we have to recruit four new users. That does seem very wasteful of resources.
Thank you very much for sharing this activity information. This type of information is useful to know which markets could use a little extra TLC...Or ad revenue dollars!
banana is my favourite fruit...
😍😍😍
This post has received a 22.22 % upvote from @upgoater thanks to: @binkley.