@msgivings, frequent trending author, has been EXPOSED for plagiarism. The question remains: Is this what Steemit wants to be?
Do any of you remember that do you remember that Vice article Corin Faife wrote?
He said " glance at the homepage shows that a lot of popular content tends towards the amateurish and introspective". I keep thinking about that phrase, is he right?
I read that article twice because that's what good writing compels you to do: read it again.
It's one of the steemit article that I really really enjoyed. I read a good chunk of good stuff, because i follow a lot of low rep /high-quality people and they never never make trending, why?
You can argue all you want that it's a lottery and that it takes time and etc etc, but let's be honest for a second, it's because their articles are hard to read, hard to digest.
It's easier to upvote a cool title and a nice photo. Of course, it is. But to what end?
But the bigger question looms: IS this what steemit wants to be?
It is the place where spending long hours o research and write a good piece gets shit but a word-vomit, with no depth or reason about... love, makes all the money?
You can see that I link @msgivings because well, that's one of the worst examples ever. Now, she has fallen, finally the scrutiny brought her plagiaristic ways to the light but....should we be happy?!
We shouldn't because she won, she just took out 10.000$ yesterday. That's a serious number of times MORE than I made, more than most of YOU made. That's just an insult to good writers, good content creators, good steemit fans! It's also very very bad news for Steemit.
And I must say, I didn't even mind her superficial and stupid subjects. I will upvote something that is well written. FUCK IT!, blow my mind with the writing. I'll upvote even if I despise your opinion, even if i think you re dead wrong. Because for me, writing is MAGIC. Words have POWER. And a good wielder of the gift gets my admiration no matter which side of the truth he fights on.
I upvoted Corin and I have no doubts in my mind why he is a PAID journalist for a TOP site[Vice]. Because he delivers at a level that few can, that's why for him, making 1000$ for a steemit article is not worth the investment unless guaranteed.
Yet when I see who's trending, I see no reason why they're there [ exceptions apply ].
Good writing? no, not even close.
Profound subject? Nah. then what? why?
I'm seriously disappointed but should I really be? Maybe that's what STEEMIT is, or wants to be.
At this moment, Steemit is more Buzzfeed than VICE.
This article by msgivings is garbage and everybody voted on it. Why? I ask again WHY??*
I understand that the controversy of it all brings attention but at what cost??
The message was: "If he cheats on you, might be your fault". That's MEDIEVAL! IS this a message we want trending for 2 days on steemit?!
And maybe, maybe! if you had some smart, interesting, challenging argument but no, not at all. What's more, even msgvings admits in one of the comments " it's just my opinion, funny thing, it changes very day!"
Is that supposed ot be funny?! hahaha.HA! Youknow what this is? This is the very definition of a feeble mind, yet her persona surely thinks it's cute. haha, the silly feeble woman writing silly stuff and being taken so serious but bad, mean, not-fun people.
And why not? he/she is a woman hater who sees woman as nothing more than that. Just look at the pictures she chose, just look at the articles...but she's always trending, always making money..while serious, well researched, good articles die in oblivion.
Isn't this sad?
Maybe it isn't. Why should it be?
But at least make it clear: this is what Steemit is! This is what's rewarded: FLUFF.
This is what we upvote: small-minded nothingness.
At least, some people will be saved the frustration of trying. And I personally know a lot of them who are, after only one month of steemit, burned out. Tired of trying. And try they did....
Are these people haters? quiters? I don't think so, most are really hard-working and believer in Steemit but they too are getting tired of a trending page that DISCOURAGES instead of ENCOURAGES good content and effort.
But if it is so, that Steemit signals that it favors superficial, weak, plagiarist writers, let's cut the bullshit with "good content".
Steemit doesn't want "good content" which means " you don't want good authors" in turn you don't want "quality people" in turn you don't give a fuck, as long as it works, or at least as long as it works.
I know some people will read this and think I'm an elitist. "go read Hemingway and leave us be" one might think. "Can't I write my article in peace?". one might ask.
Yes, you can. Sure you can. Hell, I encourage you to do just that.
But it shouldn't get thousand of rewards. Because while a few will cash out some good money and laugh all the way to the bank, Steemit will be dead because money in itself will not have enough pull for good content creators. PERIOD.
It seems to me, people forget, that the internet exists. I read 10-20 AMAZING articles per day, only one max is on steemit, people out there write. Put their hearts in writing. Research to the bone. Then create a great article.
Can something like this exist on steemit?
I think not at this pace, I think never if this trend continues. Hell, just look at medium front page and those people AREN'T getting paid!
I'm ending this by asking you, the whales, is that the way you see this going? I'm calling for a bit of clarification @dantheman, @ned is that why you upvote all that, all the time. If so, how exactly do you think this Steemit-experiment will ever take off?
BUT:
IF you do have a vision of a place that can nurture, grow, help, encourage and push to the limit the best of content creators.
IF you do want this Steemit to be the homepage of great stuff on the internet.
IF you do dream that one day, "I'm a content creators on Steemit" will be the " I work for VICE" of that day.
THINGS NEED TO CHANGE.
I hope we can all start seriously working on that direction, together. Some initiatives are already on the way: RobinHoodWhale and Project Curie are amazing steps in the right direction but they alone can't do much. We, the dolphins and minnows are trying. but we alone can't do much. We need you all, the whales, on our side. On the side of good content. On the side of real effort.
We need more, we need more faster or else a new @msgivings a new @mrron will be trending again, another nail in the coffin.
I SO SO SO don't want this to be the case.
I know this might be hard to take but.. They upvote friends and what makes THEM the most money either from curation or shill accounts.
I don't know if that's a conclusion I can reach based only on that...and i'm not sure if it matters. My theory is this, there's more good[whales, dolphins,minnows] of us then bad of them!
Come on
Sorry folks. I pointed out a few more of these in my last post and they are still trending. Do better. Curation is serious and not being taken seriously.
If you think you can write a script to curate for you, you're wrong.
People take this place seriously. If you don't take their paycheck seriously they will leave. Simple as that.
you're making a good point. i think many authors after being 'hit' by a whale once they immediately expect for the next hit. This is not wrong. We rely on powerful users to vote good content. Some authors may be on preferred lists. Nothing wrong with that either, as long as all their posts are carefully curated...
Don't worry @jsteck, the new upgrade and vote slider is totally going to change that. (*sarcasm)
Her material had turned to drivel. Whales were still voting on it because they get in that habit. I know on our curation team, we had some discussions about her posts and all agreed it was overvalued. That wasn't material we could have supported.
Regarding plagiarism, we're all trying to catch it. I think we all just need to stay vigilant about any possible issues with people who are not posting original content. On Project Curie, we have proven Steemit writers conducting multiple reviews of each of these posts. We miss a few, but not many.
You are right we all need to work hard to reach those people who have not made rewards like this but deserve to do so.
I'm not going to worry about this case any more, though. It's water under the bridge. We try to learn from it and move on.
Maybe a post or something indicating how the community can help you catch these things. Some of these accounts (actually many of them) were noticed by a number of people who did research before the REST of the community seemed to catch on. That was often thousands of dollars later.
oh boy. so true!!!!
Thank you for reading and commenting! For me it's more like a cautionary tale, if we don't pay attention, someone will take advantage and we will all get hurt in the process. Vigilance, attention and rewarding good content good people good community builders even is what will take us to the Steemit we all dream of.
Curie is a huge step in that direction, as I said.
Thanks for putting this out there. I for one, don't even read the trending pages, because, with some exceptions, its unappealing and rather frustrating. Seeing a shallow article make thousands, while some are begging for pennies, is enough to demotivative anyone.
One thing I think would help is a NON trending tab. We have a way to see all the articles that are taking off, but no real way to see the ones that haven't. I would prefer to read prefer to leaf through potentially quality posts that missed the rocket ship, rather then scroll past the same old un provoking articles on the trending page that have already made more on one article then 50 quality posts that never got a good chance to be viewed will make combined.
that's your "home". for me most of my followers never take off but I love to encourage good content from them :)
What does Steemit want to be? It's the crucial question isn't it. Does it want to be a magazine or social media platform? Because they have very different priorities in how to incentivise for the outcome. Maybe it's time to fork into 2 different beasts? One which rewards quality articles and another which rewards engagement? Steemit and Steemus. Is the problem that Steemit it trying to be too many things? Personally I'd love to something that replaces facebook rather than Medium/Reddit.
Steemit and Steemus :)) I laughed. thanks.
I am not yet for segregation but for smarter curation towards a better overall experience.
time will tell!
Firstly, great post, Upvoted.
Secondly, thanks for the heads up on Project Curie. Definitely something I can support.
Also, I've been doing quite a bit of work for @steemcleaners recently and can tell you, the articles that never come up as plagiarised are the ones with a lot of personal touch. I think the personal touch is something the community as a whole should reward and encourage; selfies, videos, unique writing styles, and authors who focus on a narrow range of subjects that interest them.
The other point of course, is the presence of vote-betting, which a lot of people are criticising, and I wrote about here.
Most of us are guilty of voting on "sure shots" that we are confident will become popular. The incentive to do this should ideally be fixed, somehow.
It is, by competition. Not everyone can vote for a sure shot, and there can't be that many sure shots, so the more people are looking for them the harder they are to find (and profitably upvote). As long as they are easy to find that means the "mining difficulty" is low and mining is profitable. Do more of it.
Gret point right here: as the trending page turns more varied and unexpected so will the "sure shots' probability go down.
i completely agree with your sure-shots observation, we have too many sureshots as it is right now. And thank you for voting on my article and the comment. It means a lot to me.
Hear, hear! I completely agree.
I had this experience with my own posts where a silly cat post that took me 10 minutes and was done on a lark, immediately starting trending and ended up being one of my best earners. Yet there were far more interesting posts about my adventures in China. I'm not claiming to be a great writer, I'm just saying that there was better stuff in my catalog to upvote than that.
Meanwhile one of my ghost stories that brings to light an important social issue in China and a way to help solve it goes mostly ignored.
What it does is make me want to write another cat piece cuz the cute kitten pics will earn more. So far, I've resisted.
I have seen your name in my vote roster, @razvanelulmarin, and I thank you for the votes on some of the better pieces.
Thank you for having the integrity to not write another cat piece, even though I would upvote it. I'll check out your blog. :)
haha
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!
You're my hero, @razvanelulmarin.
Can we give this post the earnings from the plagiarized posts, because I would be totally behind that.
hehe. not possible. but thanks!!
As soon as I saw her articles I thought they were made by a clickfarm because all their articles sound exactly the same! It's not hard to tell when a real woman is writing because we sound like actual human beings!
I've already mentioned steemit to several of my girl-friends who also write this sort of content so as long as people are actually looking for it, I think there will definitely be better stuff than that msgivings garbage. Hopefully the voting reflects it too!
:) bring your friend over, comment here when she's on please!
Is it odd that I feel like Steemit has a strong community of creators that eventually expose these questionable accounts? I agree the process needs to happen faster, but thankfully it does happen. I park in Steemitabuse-classic chat often to see what's being investigated, and have brought issues there.
I have high hopes for Project Curie, and I see the bumps in the road right now. I'm all in on whatever keeps this place generating great creators and collaborators, and whatever dips or shakeouts that have to happen just mean a more eventful ride.
This article speaks to a lot of what's up here, and I'm glad you're on it for us
thank you and YES, the community is great and comments like yours are a sign of it :)
thanks for giving your time and upvotes. Hopefully, as more and more do that, we'll see improvements.