Falling In Love With Steem All Over Again...And this time...It's Personal! AKA The Perils And Sad Cost Of Under-Engaging
Falling In Love With Steem All Over Again...And this time...It's Personal!
I love engagement and I love community!
Recently I took a blockchain sabbatical and went AWOL for a short while although in real life time measurement it was a short while in blockchain time measurement it seemed like an age...Seriously, time here is like frickin' dog years
Don't misconstrue my following comments I don't eat, smoke or ingest FUD in any way shape or form...My decisions are all based on reasoning, rational thought, facts, stats and in short, my opinions are all formed deliberately. But boy oh boy, has it been a bit miserable around these parts of late!
I read a lot of posts that suggest somehow that as a community, blockchain and decentralised entity we are dying! Upon my return I noticed that engagement on some pretty amazing posts had dropped significantly...Hmmm...Ponders if the price may have any correlation to this dismal development?
I myself started to feel a little despondent...As I said above not because I buy into it all, but because of the lack of engagement...You see the rewards are great...Writing is cathartic and often-times fun...Sometimes I feel as though a weight has been lifted when I write about some burning issue that has been bugging me and cluttering up valuable head-space, BUT...
Without comments, true engagement and a narrative/discourse about that which we have written...It can all feel a little underwhelming...Almost as though community-members are just going through the motions and clicking that up-vote button without actually consuming our posts, pondering them...I would rather be told in the comment section that I was wrong, misguided or indeed a terrible writer than feel invisible!
I am becoming a walking cliche with my overly-excessive use of the words community and toiling in obscurity of late BUT Come-on...I'm right...I know I am, I feel it with every fibre of my being...True, critical, heartfelt engagement is the way to become a far stronger community, right?
Without being a far stronger community, how can we ever even get close to mass adoption?
If I am wrong, please tell me...No really...Pleeease take a moment to comment.
What do I propose to be the solution? Simple, conduct yourself on the blockchain like Steem is at $10...If Steem was at $10 you can bet your bottom Steem backed dollar that engagement and posting would be at all time highs and the lofty days of the giddy blockchain highs would return...BUT...
If we act like it, maybe it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy!
I do not claim to have all the answers, not by a long way, but what I DO know is that if we all operated here with optimism, heart and integrity and hold ourselves to a far higher standard than many currently do we would have a stronger more resilient community and can you envisage any instance when that would be anything but a massive win???
Take note before the following paragraphs that my break from the platform was never about crypto price, or drop-off in engagement or blockchain disillusionment in any way shape or form, it was very much real life induced and involved the culmination of some family matters that came to a head.
When I returned after about 2 months, ((which felt like being lost in the desert for 7 years)) as I mentioned earlier the change here was palpable, as though there was a tangible cloud hanging over the platform...
I hopped into my favourite Discord/Steemit servers to chat with the friends I had not spoken to in a while and they confirmed my worst fears...Well established communities and niches had become extremely quiet like some of the heart had disappeared. One close friend of mine actually told me he was sitting it out until the price and the people came back and started to rock the blockchain again. We talked about it and I asked if he did not think it was our job to help that process along and keep things rolling and thankfully he agreed and a great guy is still kicking it on the platform.
What is the point of all this incessant rambling you ask dear reader?
Oh that's easy to answer...I choose optimism and love for the community...I choose engagement and rewarding the work of others, financially the reward would be pathetic...But what i can do is help others feel as though they do not toil in obscurity they will know that someone read their post and took some value from it and they will get a stevenwood-style-kickass-comment ((oops...I'm referring to myself in that cringey third person style again. 😁))
Please don't think I am missing the obvious here...Silently seething as you read my words that awaken the venom within you Of-course I know there are many who keep this flame burning brightly everyday, the custodians of the platform, without whom all really would be dust! Those that never stopped believing, those who see that blockchains will soon be to the internet, what the internet was to those who visited the library to garner information.
You are the people! Kudos to each and every one of you from the platform as a whole and from the future community that will reap the rewards from the principles that you have set out for others to aspire to.
My plan moving forward is to comment like a lunatic and create discourse and dialogue everywhere I see a glimmer of life within this wonderful community. To those who do believe that the platform is dead and cannot see true engagement anywhere, seek it out, there are wonderful, vibrant sub-communities within the Steem community and if it's not vibrant in your particular niche then go out and start it, that is my challenge to you.
Rather than wait for mass engagement to come back when the price of Steem rises again, go start it and maybe play a part in raising the price through activity. Become a self fulfilling prophecy of community spirited awesomeness.
There may be some newer people here who don't know where the action is on Steemit, so I would ask you to comment and tell them about wonderful communities here that they can get involved with.
I'm gonna start the ball rolling on this one...
If you are new and have a desire to start your journey in the right way or established but looking for vibrant lively communities to engage with, then check out some of the following:
@Yougotsnekked This is manual curation project that is run by the beautiful soul that is @poeticsnake and her merry band of curators...In the interests of transparency I should mention that I am one...Manual curation is amazing and brings some exposure to those who might otherwise be overlooked. This is a community that I will forever be involved with as I love EVERYTHING that it stands for...It doesn't even have a self-promotion link-drop channel instead it has a share the love channel where you can promote another's work...To those of you familiar with Discord you will realise just how beautiful and revolutionary this is.
Check out the most recent edition here
@asapers This is a community run by @insideoutlet and @shai-hulud but they have an awesome team behind them including the oh-so-fabulous lovely writer-Lady @viking-ventures they too run a periodical curation project featuring some fabulous posts that want nothing from life than a little more love, and who doesn't? Check out the brand new edition and show a little community-love to some posts that should not be allowed to slip under the radar.
If you are not familiar with @curie...You should be!!! You will learn quickly that withing the community it is one of the most aspired to ways to be curated...An @curie vote is an esteemed curation project that rewards users with a sizable upvote but more importantly @curie curated posts you will find the interaction and engagement you need to become an active and highly engaged Steemian...Right now @curie have a comment contest running which I really think you should check out...here This could be the missing piece that will propel your journey forward at an exponential rate!
Fancy a delegation for a while, maybe a steem prize too??? Who wouldn't?...Just imagine how that could move you forward to the Steem-Hall of awesomesauce? The easiest way I know of is to enter the comment contest run by @danielsaori check out the latest one here There is a contest just ended and the post I linked is actually the winners announcement post, but take a look at the details and the prizes and follow this awesometastical community-Legend and make sure that you are in on the next one!
Have you heard of or stumbled across @simplymike? If the answer is no, I seriously gotta ask if you are living under a rock 😯 I am talking about a 100% bona fide community minded power-house...If there is a contest going on to promote a newbie, a new way for plankton, minnows and redfish to grow this is where you will find out about it anybody who is on Discord will know that this lovely Lady is involved with so, so many things all at once sheesh I have no idea where she gets the energy from and if ya really wanna take things to the next level check out https://mysteemworld.com/ Here you will find out just what you didn't know you didn't know about what is really available to help you pilot your very own Steem-Rocket to the moon!
Meet @abh12345. So I cannot possibly help you to understand just how to increase engagement and have a vibrant, energetic time on the blockchain without introducing you to The curation and engagement league What's that you ask, Dear reader...Oh yes my friend, there IS a league! This cool guy with help from a thriving community quite literally ROCK THE BLOCKCHAIN! The linked post is an old one as there was a 1 week break for Steemfest, but it contains all the details that you need to know, follow Ash and look for his posts on the league and it is super-easy to become involved, you just need to leave 1 single, solitary comment on his post to be included ((If you find the idea of writing a comment daunting, the league may not be for you 😁 ))
I am conscious that, as ever I have droned on for far too long and yes...I do see those matchsticks propping your eyes open. So I shall leave it to you in the comments to share the links for many other thriving areas of the blockchain where people really understand, engagement and community. If you are here because you have been finding it a struggle or some guy on a forum told you Steem is dead, you will see that is simply not the case. Use the links to the communities above if you genuinely want to get engaged ((no not like that...This isn't a bloody dating site! 😁 ))
There are many, many more amazing curation initiatives out there...Empowering communities, under-entered contests, contests with some surprisingly awesome prizes and a mountain of Discord servers that can help you move forward and find your area to get active in. Obviously I cannot sit here and write forever and ever sharing link after link although I have been contemplating making this post twice as long, but what is the chance of going so far that nobody could ever finish reading it? So please as I said, do share those links to the cool-peeps on the platform, those who actually care. For without those people we would all be doomed.
What a wonderful post to read and as always there is no end to your words! BUT... Fear not, I love the fact that you wont stop talking/writing!
Thank you also, for the amazing warn shout out to You Got Snekked!
Much love
Snekky
Thankyou my friend! I fear if I do not stop soon, there may be no more words left!
Snekked is one of the greatest highlights of my discovering the blockchain to date...It led to some wonderful friendships and a community that stands for everything that this post is about. It is a community that promotes others ceaselessly and never stops to take time for self promotion and no-one there blows their own trumpet...As we all know, in the Snekked community...
Trumpets are banned!!! 😁
I should scold you for missing out on the fabulous @pifc community as well! Our contest to find undervalued bloggers every week is now in it's 32nd week and I've been there for every one of them! I now help judge for it even. Lots of fun.
Thanks for mentioning @asapers. Snekky is wonderful, of course. So is the folks at Curie who have been massive supporters of my writing - so exciting!
There are also several minnowboosting programs out there and ongoing as well. Lots of wonderful supporting movements.
We may have lost a lot of people both due to the drop of Steem value and because of HF20, but those of us who tough it out will be rewarded when the value goes up.
I mean... the first time I hit a 0.02 upvote was at 80 SP - I was so excited. 0.03 was at 120 SP or so. Of course, that goalpost kept getting moved and now at over 700 SP at my disposal, I am still at 0.03 (occasionally 0.04.) I can just imagine what it will be like when Steem goes up again. THIS is why I don't get discouraged!
Uh-Oh! Scolded by a viking...That is not an enticing prospect!
I should've known you would be here to drop a link to help others in no time at all. Thankyou so much. Yup the pay-it forward community is amazing and the name alone just tells you how empowering it is for others. I believe that when we place the focus on promotion of the community rather than promoting ourselves our future is a rock solid, unshakable certainty!
Thankyou so much for taking the time to join the narrative, you are exactly the sort of person that new or disillusioned people should be taking their cue from.
I know you don't always have an easy life my friend so you earn triple legend points for always being here for the community 💓
If life were easy, I'd get too lazy. ;-p
Reading further down the comments, I think you need a part 2 of this post. ;-)
Wow @stevenwood, this is a very motivational post. Welcome back. And thanks for the mention and the kind words :0)
I try to keep the faith and assume that most people who have a rep score of 45/50 or higher already know that this place is about everything but the money. I like to believe that the fact that they engage less than 2 months ago has little to do with the price of Steem. I, for example, barely have time to create a post, let alone engage, simply because I spend a lot of my time playing Steemmonsters and setting up a strategy with my team mates to make it profitable.
But like I said, it's something I wánt to believe. I don't get why someone would drop out and wait to come back until the price is higher. That makes no sense at all...
It has been weeks since I typed a comment this long, lol.
But to be honest, I kind of miss it. The conversations in the comments section that go on and on, the fun of engagement,... I really need to shift my focus again. Thanks for the wake up call ;0)
Posted using Partiko Android
Thankyou so much for the wonderful comment...Thus proving that when that 45/50 rep score you mentioned, passes 60 supreme wisdom is also bestowed from the Steem-Gods 😁
I wholeheartedly agree, if one is mashing that refresh button 20,000 times a day, they are missing the whole point of the platform and the community...Financial reward although nice if it arrives is a terrible and non-time-effective incentive to create here. do these same people during a major economic recession cease to go to work until the FTSE and Dow Jones begin to look far more encouraging?
No my friend...You never needed a wake up call... Just a gentle shout from the comments section to grab your awesome commenting cloak...The commenting section is a place where you have always acquitted yourself beautifully.
Yes you are right a solid, meaningful comment/dialogue always feels very satisfying once you hit that post button.
Thankyou so much for taking the time to share a few thoughts, it is always amazing to see you 😁
You really made le laugh with your comparison:
That's the difference between people being here for the money, and people being here for the fun.
If you're here for the money, I can imagine you get discouraged if your posts suddenly earn only 1/3th of what they did before. But they are missing the big picture. Every sp or Steem earned now, will be worth more when the prices are going up again.
But I'm with you when you say that money is a terrible incentive. On the other hand, I , and with me many others, wouldn't have signed up in the first place if this would have just been a free platform...
Yes you raise an important point that is undeniable!
Without the rewarding aspect for creating content here, I, and as you rightly say, many, many others would never have arrived on the blockchain. It seems as though the second I realised I would never really be worth a meaningful amount of cryptocurrency here, I realised just how much I love to share my thoughts and at times try and educate a little on self improvement tips and tricks and strategies.
Meeting truly amazing people, with stories I could never have even guessed at, is a benefit I never truly imagined would be a reality...I was, happily ((and not for the first or last time)) completely wrong! 😃
The universe is definitely trying to tell me something! I am super pleased to be stumbling onto this today after being in a very similar predicament over the past few months. Dog years and then some, trying to process all the information is a task in itself haha!
But anyway.. man... I hear your passion in this, ten-fold. I really liked when you said;
It's all about exactly that, holding ourselves to a better standard and realizing that it's about engaging with one another so that moral skyrockets.
I'm familiar with some of the communities you mentioned too, it's fantastic to hear that they're still going strong. Great movements with engagement and support of the members at the front of mind.
Great to see you back and showing how it's done, north east 4 lyf.
OH that made me LOL to the max 😃
Right place, right time, right people and most important of all the right mindset Ready to go man! We will take the time to control the pace and there will be no burnout!
We will be speaking soon 😎
See now here was your first mistake.
Trying to be a reasonable, approachable and sensible human being just isn't going to get you very far in this world. Bu on the plus side you have managed to stumble across one of the truths of the universe in your post. If you make it a good place to be then people will come. If it's popular then other people will follow them.
The best thing to do if you see that the blockchain is getting a bit quiet, ( and it is) would be to pump it full of life again. We need more activity, more posting and certainly more commenting to get it going again. I browse my feed everyday and the struggle to find good posts is real. I want to read and vote but the site is letting me down. So now to find good content takes 4 times longer as i have to wade through a river of shit to get to the grass on the other side.
From my point I've tried to step up my posting even more as now is a better time to earn STEEM and get noticed by active accounts as so many others have faded away. It can get disheartening though when you post and post without reply nor vote to show for it. It's not about the earning it's more about just people showing that they are out there and want to see what you are putting out into the world.
Don't get me wrong I'm here until we manage to kill off facebook, twitter and reddit but to do so it's going to take a lot more. So lets see it from everybody that we make that extra post every week and that extra comment every day until people feel appreciated and uplifted again. People want to log in and see whats happening or what their favorite blogger has written. The apps will still do there thing but to keep and grow the communities behind them we will need to make people want to be here.
Oh I fear you are right about the limited effectiveness of using ones think-organ nowadays!
You are more than right about the wading to find great posts recently...I don't doubt for an instant that they are there, the blockchain is inhabited by some cool, creative and insightful people but ugghhh, tis true that even ones magnum Opus is surrounded by literally metric tonne after metric tonne of slurry, pond-scum and sewer bilge to a greater degree than ever before, these days.
Be careful too my friend, what often appears to be grass on the other side is just an extra layer of mould on some truly festering posts!!!
You are right of-course about the true reward of occupying a little corner of this frontier town...I cannot ever imagine a post of mine climbing above $5 or getting curied...But when time and work allows I return to share the thoughts that fall from my head-space...As I am sure you realise from this very feed, the juice for me really is commenting to make people feel;
You raise a truly inalienable truth too...Prehistoric, Intrusive, Oligarch controlled, freedom inhibiting banal social media must quite categorically die! We are the people, right? Right place right time 😁
Thank-you so much for taking the time to stop-by and comment, it is so much more than appreciated 😃
A solid read, full of truths and places to go to encourage engagement :)
It really is key for this place to survive and hold the community together, and so thank you for promoting this @stevenwood :D
I would also throw @c-squared into the mix as they reward top engagement in a similar way to the Engagement League (and dish out prices too!) Cheers!
Oh and I love this :)
Ash you've been doing this stuff forever...I just realised that it is time to take a leaf right?
We can whine and bitch on FUD forums or be a part of the solution rather than the problem. There is zero choice in that for me...I never doubted this awesome platform for an instant there is so much potential here, we just need a critical mass of people to plug-in and-switch-on...Engagement will push us over the top.
Thanks for sharing @c-squared they too have shown me love in the past and they do a lot for the undervalued and under-exposed so I gotta say, yup...They quite categorically ROCK!
Now I must go after the league 😁
Perfect advice! I don't see any lack of engagement here, but it can certainly always be even better! To receive engagement you must be engaged!
Oh you put it perfectly!
I imagine there are many people who are fully engaged with the community who do not notice any lack of engagement because they are doing it the right way and if anything, these people often do not have enough hours in the day to respond to all of the comments they receive.
We need to pick up the new peeps and those who are wandering aimlessly and disillusioned and find them a place ((or several)) to belong
Thankyou ever so much for taking the time to share your thoughts, it is more than appreciated 😃
I've found that the best way for me to be engaged is by making comments. I work hard at giving new users a boost by resteeming, upvoting and in a few cases buying Steem for them to boost their RC so they can be engaged. My best advice is Comment Comment Comment!
Yay I love you @melinda010100 such a positive presence here :)
As are you, @carlgnash! ❤️ Working together we can all keep this world spinning!
Oh my goodness! What a lot of great people you have mentioned on here! I will have to come back to this tomorrow and find these people! Ihave heard of and engage with a few of them, but others are completely new to me!
Great post! I agree, the interaction is what makes Steemit great, and we all need to keep it up. I just love my steemit friends! :D
My preference are toothpicks... but a great post all the same.
My feeling is that the steem blockchain is not dead. Just like every bear market wipes the shit coins off the exchanges, so too does it remove those from this community who are only here for monetary rewards. Good riddance to them is my opinion.
Yup! I do like your style...
Truth be told, they were only ever gonna tip the bank upside down till every last crypto-crumb had fallen out anyway...I like to think that after the great purge we will be left with all the flavour and concentrated goodness and none of the pith...Speaking of crumbs and morsels...Toothpicks...I never thought of that...
Thanks for the top-tip 😎
The free accounts being offered to RC rich accounts seems a wonderful idea. My guess is that we shall see an infusion of enthusiastic and well supported new users.
Welcome back Steven; I'm just recently back after a short break too. I saw that you returned, but disappeared again a short time ago.
A lot had happened while you were gone; it isn't just the price of steem that sent people scurrying away. There was HF20 which dismayed a lot of people as well, especially it seems, those with little VP. It negatively effects their ability to be able to create, comment and vote as before. I think people with less than 50VP have the most problems.
Seems their RC value drops rather quickly causing their bandwidth to drop and shutting them out...
Anyway; welcome back buddy. I recently cleaned up my 'follow' list, but kept you as one of the few remaining.
Great to see you back too @averageoutsider! I'm finding the new changes pretty difficult myself but there is always a solution and a way to move forward and still do a little bit, even with a little. Nevertheless, Steem still has the passion out there, this post and people here are a strong reminder :D
Thanks for your comment @calumam , there are different reasons for people coming to steemit and deciding to stay, or leave. The choice is theirs to make. I make no judgement on anyone except the con and scam artists that flood here sometimes, pretending to be honorable.
Hello my friend I am always incredibly happy to see you...
I noticed you took a break too, hope you are good! Yes the RC system has caused me a couple of problems too...Especially with regard to the interaction on this post...I am heartened to see so many people stop-by to join the narrative though, it's been amazing. You know I love my comments, inbound and outbound, that is what has always got me buzzing on the blockchain 😁
Take good care of yourself Brother, hope we cross paths many, many times in the future!
Oh yes Steven...how I 'do' know what you stated above about 'what' fuels your participation...lol...a lot of us here on steemit do and enjoyed your 'lengthy...' reads in the past.
You have a wonderful day too my friend. Cheers