[LL&AA 005] The Real Value of Steem
What is the value of Steem to the Internet? While a I think many of us were drawn to the financial prospects of earning cryptocurrency, that is just a payment method. What is value-add we get from Steem that makes the crypto worth it?
Having had some good interactions this week. I have a few micro-minnow thoughts on the idea. :)
Make Unlikely New Friends
How did I find Steem? How did you find Steem?
For me it was following @dollarvigilante here from a YouTube post. I was just getting into cryptocurrency looking to do a bit more than just faucets but not sure I wanted to invest. So I'd also found @jerrybanfield here. These led to the @keiserreport.
Being a libertarian, it was an easy hop-skip-jump into looking around at various anarchists here. So I'm also learning a bit more in that direction. So people on that list I like are @antonydavies from FEE.org, @sethlinson a great new connection, @lukestokes a good connection as well. For intense anarchists who have really challenged my thought, I'd say @larkenrose new to me, @freebornangel, followed by @adamkokesh.
Finally, other communities I'm familiar with are Prepping, Homesteading and Gardening. I'm sure eventually, I'll find new folks here that weren't part of YouTube or are part of the YT Exodus.
I'd like to pose the great Sesame Street question "Who are the people in your neighborhood?" I'd like to get to at least look at the feeds of folks who follow me are interested in most.
Encourage Discussion
One thing I've found in several online communities is the encouragement of discussion. There seems to often be two polar types that are of little value. "You're a god," and "You suck" comments. Everything else is often a good starting point to refine the original ideas of a post. To that end, Steemit allows us to value by way of upvote, those replies and their replies, too.
The idea is to really engage not just upvote replies you like but upvote the challenging replies and interact with them at least a bit. It seems that many times authors who take time to interact with their audience often develop bigger and more loyal audiences. The guide I just found, linked below has very similar advice.
What are the most challenging or interesting ideas that have come from comments to your root posts? What ideas did you reply to other posts that received comments and upvotes from authors?
Minimize Trolls & Spam
It seems as one gets to near dolphin status in Steemit, people start to flag the generic bot or bot-like "Great post. Upvote my posts too." However, as minnow or micro-minnow that seems to be overly costly and either humanly ignoring or clicking Mute seems to be a more cost effective way.
I know there are sometimes occasional steam power battles. However, it seems that quick-buck artists are unlikely to be willing to invest that much to keep going. From @geke, I just found @commentwealth, and their A Minnow's Guide to Comment Curation. I like the plan they set forth for upvoting and encouraging interaction.
What other tools have you found for minimizing troll/spam activity? Also, at what scale/size user are the tools best for?
Encourage Community Building
If one has developed an interactive following on their posts, it seems like the next most logical step to follow and interact with those who've done the same, but only in a genuine or authentic way. Not "Follow for Follow" silliness that some people try to encourage.
The one extension here is that encouraging friendly discourse, even if it isn't in agreement, is probably worth the upvote.
How far out of alignment to your idea have you still given an upvote for?
Acknowledge the Value of Others
So the other part of Steem that is of value is even if you don't have much Steem Power, upvote the posts you like and don't "hoard" your upvotes. Find people who post enough that you value to keep your upvote value well under 100% most of the time.
Who are the most valuable and new finds in Steemit for you? Even if they aren't a regular blogger but just good consistent commenters?
You and I are on the same page... not only with the shift from libertarian to ancap, but also the focus on building community here and how important comment-thread discussions are. I believe comments are where community happens on Steemit, especially since there's no way to direct message. Many Steemit sub-groups have joined various Discord channels and that's also a good way to get to know people personally, but I particularly like your idea of engaging debate in comment threads. I need to do more of that!
The interesting part of a real, physical community is that you're not nearly as likely to all get along as people looking for a similar topic. I've even found a bit of purity testing on my being partially mystical and not all rational in one libertarian|ancap discussion. I pretty much just stopped on that thread.
Part of the adjectives in my self-labeling is that as a daoist(was taoist)-like person, I'm not fully any one label. It is funny reading how Rand and Rothbard had issues. To me the old Reagan chestnut "able to disagree without being disagreeable" is important. That seems to be key to growing a sizable community.
BTW, I have a home schooled 14yo daughter working on mostly sophomore classes. So I have notided your course. What level is it geared toward?
It also looks like I was able to help you find @antonydavies, as I too enjoy encouraging him to contribute here.
Hopefully, you'll take a chance and continue to engage on my posts.
Yes, I followed your rabbit trail over to Prof Davies! Then I got to worrying maybe it was an imposter, but I messaged him on Facebook, and it's him! So that's really cool. I wish more of my econ friends would come over here. Cost Benefit Jr was written for my 8 yo son, but I actually didn't teach it to him until his senior year of high school. It's written for a very young audience, but honestly, some of the economic concepts in there need to be explained in that way, even for adults.
I was able to confirm it from his school email address. :) Yes it is nice that it really is him and am hoping he'll both post more and interact here at least a skosh. I'm sure he could develop a good following and discussion there too.
One of the problems I see is the spammy and copied content on steemit. Long term, I believe the problem will solve itself, but noobs are unaware of determining spam and stolen content. That causes up votes when they shouldn't be given.
Anyways, @dollarvigilante is the same person who turned me on to Steemit!
Small world huh?
In noobs & spammy content, there is also the 7-day payout and/or resteem. While I'm still new myself. It seems like one cannot resteem after 7-days. That seems to limit shelf-life of good content. I'm not sure how the model could change to support good HowTo type articles. They could be perennial, especially coaching SteemIt noobs, but also for many areas.
What I do like is that this place gives credit at least in the moment (7-days) for timely bloggish content at the very least. It would be interesting to see how one might value longer-term content like a wiki or guides.
Yes, the world is small and nice to have it more connected for the thinking minds. :) I feel like crypto will be come one of the best tools for the more direct transfer & acknowledgement of value.
This is a whole new way of social media for me. It seems awhile lot more friendly then Facebook. At times Facebook can be really mean. But so far this seems so much better. Bonus you can get paid. :)
Thanks for the reply. Yes, Steemit seems to have some natural prevention for meanness. Our at least had a reasonable way to encourage kindness.
Would you please consider joining Minnow Accelerator Project? I am one of the members. I think you would enjoy the attitudes in the group.
I super appreciate your post!
I'm glad you appreciated the post. What part was most interesting or helpful?
in a word: attitude
from there I could launch into a post length comment but I'm so short on time.
Oh and @weetreebonsai