If I Could Change One Thing About Steem

Let Them Eat Dust

• Contest sponsored by @conradt in #steembasicincome
  
  

Just a few days ago, someone made a very thoughtful and detailed comment on one of my posts. I replied in turn, and went to click the ‘upvote’ button. Then I stopped.

I had just minutes before checked the value of my vote. It was 0.00. (Low Steem/Steempower and SBD) I figured my upvote would do my commenter no good, except perhaps symbolically, and drain my voting power.

Dusted into the Bin of No Return

I had read about the phenomena of dust and ‘dusting’ on Steemit. My understanding is, that if any vote reward is less than 0.02, it is ‘dusted’, basically eliminated, at payout time. As a non-tech newbie maybe I have this all wrong? If so someone can straighten me out on this.

Image Pixabay - HG-fotografie

It seems to me that, with the thousands upon thousands of plankton and minnows on Steemit receiving virtually no views / comments / rewards, this so-called dust could mean something, at least in terms of morale and motivation.

When you look back to a post that you devoted time and effort on, and see few votes, or comments, and 0 rewards, it is disheartening.

So I was thinking that Steemit could somehow change things to make every speck of dust count. Sometimes a little means a lot.

Then I read another post by a user (sorry, I forget the name), who explained that in terms of algorithms and computing power etc. it would be very difficult for the platform to do this universally. So I saw the other side of the story then.

This morning (Asia time) I saw a contest put forward by @conradt as part of the #steembasicincome initiative. I wanted to make an entry on the theme of how unseen minnows could somehow get something for their efforts. Yes, there are contests like this one, and they are great efforts at spreading the love, but there can only be so many.

A Solution at Last?

The only thing I had on my mind was dust, so to speak. Then, as fate would have it, as I was checking through my own posts and comments etc., I came across a new service offered to minnows called @dustsweeper. It has been created to collect the dust and return it to people who would otherwise have lost it. A great initiative!

It is sponsored by @danielsaori (STEEM Witness) and @davemccoy. These are 2 people who, I know from experience, are working hard to give opportunities and rewards to plankton and minnows.

So – I’m not quite sure if this qualifies as an entry, because the problem I was contemplating has just been addressed (at least in part) by this new @dustsweeper initiative. We need more like this on Steemit!

So that’s my suggestion – help return the dust to those who need and deserve it!