SteemSTEM on a break: Decentralizing the curation efforts of SteemSTEM: SteemSTEM Decanted #1
This is a standalone continuation with further iteration of the things I have said here, outside of the SteemSTEM community.
I am writing my ideas here to keep them separate from the chatter. I urge you to really think about this and I am open to any discussion. Another point to make is that I am not a native speaker, I have just started to write and I hope I can keep my ideas together.
Why should SteemSTEM be a centralized structure in a decentralized system?
It doesn't make any sense to me. I recently started a community from scratch. Not alone, with some others that I have only met a few days before. We gathered and birthed the group, added people and hoped they would mingle. They did not at first. Some of us had the notions of prosociality ( that is the opposite of antisocial), of selflessness and help but also a deeper insight into the way the system would work. We thought that in time, when usersbase grows we will not succeed. So we have pushed the prosocial theme forward, helping one another. I am a keen analyzer, so I did a lot of research into the growing communities like the ones in the Philippines and Indonesia. They are highly successful at doing it because of the approach (their cultural background is such).
A centralized structure can't work for SteemSTEM, not anymore. Science should be fun, science should be rewarding and should be promoted to many.
Benefits of decentralization of the curation effort
To properly understand what is going on now we have to look at the following graph:
This is a faulty system since it doesn't push the community service to the authors. They get their rewards from a single source so any interaction between them is done only on a direct grow-right-now level. The curators are unheard of ( I am personally guilty of this too, I had no idea who the curators were). It is my problem and I apologize to them but it is also how the centralized system works. Sure, there are some selfless and prosocial people here as well as everywhere but let's see how we could improve this feeling by decentralizing the effort.
There are many benefits of such a system:
- The authors must know that growing in a decentralized way is much more profitable in the long run. It's just economics, it makes you be supportive of the community because in a year that 0.01$ vote you got when you taught that newbie how to format his article and promoted him from 0.05$ to 2$ reward per post will grow and you will also benefit from his growth. Think of the 20 newbies you help that will become dolphins in a few years of sustainable growth, instead of relying on a couple of people to secure delegations for you.
- The voting power would be divided between SteemSTEM and the main curators. You, management guys know if the curators are trustworthy with the extra voting power on their hands, but I think they are.
- SteemSTEM will vote for its own curators content, supporting them and growing them rapidly. They do community service, they deserve the votes (if the quality is good-which for a curator is almost always is).
- Frees up valuable time for the current centralized structure. Yay! You guys get to live!
- Curators having good results (Quality and Vests), will get more involved. They will get more attention from the authors because they are more exposed and have more power to give. Everyone will know who they are.
- Some authors will leave because of the extra workload to get paid, but some will stay, hopefully most. Hence the "SteemSTEM decanted"
- After pushing this prosocial behavior as the new normal, the newcomers will take it for granted and expand on it, they will fit into the picture. This is what Steem is, a place to fit in, follow common sense rules, but don't impose any rules by force. The ones willing to be prosocial will take off quickly, being an example for the others.
I will be here regardless of the rewards, this is a great place for me and for the future. That being said I want to expand a little on the "some authors will leave" I added before: The reality is that prosociality works best when you have the basic needs taken care of. I am sure that some of you are in great need of help and you would be even better at writing contributions. I promise you that any time you spend here will be rewarded by me and the ones that back me. I think you are being the backbone of the future for us and I know that time is something you have the least of. I know how hard is trying to balance between finding a job or working hard for your family and justifying writing articles for SteemSTEM. Stay with us and give us the little time you have and you will progress. And you will be happy in the future for sticking.
A message for SteemSTEM backers
All communities have stress tests, some planned, some not. I think this was unavoidable and I would have raised more alarms in time. I wrote extensively on what Steem can do for the communities, and I wrote about decentralization before. I was aware of this problem. Mentalities need to change and I think we are at the forefront of that huge shift. But we are scientists, we have the tools to analyze and steer this community. Continue backing us up, give us the tools to do so and we will change the world.
A message for better-established authors
Don't be afraid to buy more Steem. Power yourself up and promote that fellow author by voting him with your new power. I have bought 45 Steem a few days ago and I will buy more today! Buying will increase the value of the token and will drive the rewards up for you also. Only invest what you can afford to lose but I think that putting the money where our mouth is will prove beneficial for the community.
Motivational Conclusion
You do realize that the world is a faulty place, without care and without sustainability. Now you have the chance to design your own community, based on fairness, work, engagement and reciprocity. An utopian community? I think not. Get more involved, comment on that article you like,actually read that article you like and leave a true comment. Nobody will judge you, nobody will talk down to you if you don't understand the science, nobody will be bothered. You will see that being part in such a community will make you feel better as a human being, this adaptable machine that is capable of much much more than what we give ourselves credit of being.
I honestly never realized how guilty I was of not interacting with the community on steemit. I thought I was doing well until I looked at the bigger picture outside of the few authors I regularly read and interact with. I'm going to work on this more for now on.
You have an excellent idea here and I'm sure the steemstem higher ups will give it some thought and hopefully use at least part of this.
Let the first one without sin cast the first stone :)
And I already know they want it in some form or another. Nothing I have said is undocumented and everything looks like its going to work. Just have to really contribute. I am being honest, I have eSteem on my phone and I usually write over a few days at work in breaks, post it after schedule around 6-7 PM before leaving. I drive from work to take my girlfriend and while waiting for her I socialize. 15 minutes and I do curation from feed, commenting and talking on Discord with the few I mentor daily. Another 15 minutes when I get home before eating. Then an hour or more on Discord groups, promotion and community chat.
And another 15 minutes before going to bed. If this is what it takes for me to grow and be happy with myself I will happily do it.
Greetings! You've been upvoted by @romaniaball. It's here to support Romanian users on Steemit and the @steemromania community. If you want to support us, feel free to delegate SP to @romaniaball. Help us build up the Romanian community! Join the SteemRomania Discord server! https://discord.gg/Jrg8w6U Salutari! Ați fost votat de @romaniaball. Este aici pentru a sprijini utilizatorii români pe Steemit și comunitatea @ steemromania. Dacă doriți să ne sprijiniți, nu ezitați să delegeți SP la @romaniaball. Ajutați-ne să construim comunitatea românească! Alăturați-vă serverului de discuri SteemRomania! https://discord.gg/Jrg8w6U
Don't know if this idea or any idea similar to this will be implemented or not but pretty sure the management will come up with something that'll help shape the future of steemSTEEM.
Not been that active for the past two weeks due to exams and all but steemSTEM was and is still a home to me.
But again this was a much needed break to reflect upon the things that have been going wrong and to come up with plans, ideas to tackle these.
Hopefully, steemSTEM will be back up soon. :)
I did have a pleasure of talking to you a month ago, if you remember ;)
Loved the way how you guided me on the things, how you told me to man up by chipping in your experiences! Impressed then, Impressed still. :)
Strangely enough it doesn't have to come from the management. The can't make us be selfless! We can do it, you can do it, I am already doing it, and you are living proof that I made you come here and support me when I was in need of support. This is what makes you a working part of the community. We are the community and we have the responsibility and the power. I am proud of you!
This is not totally a bad idea though I really do not see the "sense of entitlement ' some folks feel diminishing with the method. In addition, how possible it is for the biggest supporter of steemstem, curies power be distributed to curators? Granted that the steemstem power can be subdelegated, I don't see this being possible with curies power. Unless you want to enlighten me.
Kudos for putting this together. I am sure we will get a headway soon
The sense of entitlement is something that we need to discourage as a community. By educating the new users with tutorials and mentorships. They don't know they know that Steemit gives money for articles, they write their article and they want their money. It's our duty to talk to them and explain the can's and can nots. And withing our duty I am referring to everyone in the community, I wouldn't add more pressure to the ones already under pressure.
As with Curie, that is indeed delicate. They can continue to delegate to SteemSTEM.
Well. This still boil down to taking responsibility. We can't ignore the fact that money motivates but when we just consider the @steemstem community as the only giver, we sure would exhaust them.
We must see here a responsibility and we need to engage more. As many suggested... Posts should have feedback sessions... Questions and suggestions footnotes.. At least, we could start engagements from there...
Look at this article and my last article in the comments and tell me that for a 60 day noob with just a little common sense and a positive attitude this is not a feedback session. I will always respond to my comments, and until today ( when I was busy with SteemSTEM) my reply was within hours. I think its feasible and we can be the community we need to be for organic growth. We don't have to be whales to help, and this is what I want others to understand! We are a community money or no money. Sure some will not be able to write because that money was sustaining them. But the others will stay here. I will buy more steem for one. I have too little now and until I can buy 10000 Steem there will be a long time, but I am ready to grow with everyone in the community.
Well... We'll figure it out. Everyone is trying, we all are.
Just more consciousness. Well-done.
Absolutely. As I said on discord, sustainability is an extremely important variable we need to keep in mind. SteemSTEM alone can not maintain sustainability. We as a community need to chip in. Good article.
Thanks a lot. I will work with everyone who wants to participate in this discussion and try to push these ideas further. We can do most of them even without any further management input. But I am sure that they will support us, they grew the community nicely but now it's time for us to take charge of the responsibilities.
Well said. We are the community so the onu is actually laid on us to build it.
Sustainability is actually the bedrock of any successful community. And in this context, there are many things to do to enhance this; one of them is engagement; which is actually indispensable for the growth of any community.
Together we can make SteemSTEM greater.
This is what I am building up. A sustainable community. Curators should get more power and their own trails. Maybe in their own field but not necesarily.
Additional information is found here, the more i dig the more I find out that it was already talked about: https://singularityhub.com/2016/11/08/the-motivating-power-of-a-massive-transformative-purpose/
Well ofcourse it is left to the members of the community to do what is expected of them to ensure "sustainability"
Yes but are we sure that everybody knows that? Because this is where I think the message is being lost!
You are right.
If we the "few" members that are aware spread the word, it would go a long way.
A lot of us have been keeping quiet. It is time to take responsibility.
Very true! I have already started!
Keep up the work!
SteemSTEM is for me the best place to be, but it is the 4th backer for my last 31 days. And this is normal because I split the weight of my projects between backers and bring further value to the network:
http://www.steemreports.com/incoming-votes-info/?account=alexdory&days=31
Well said @alexdory and i agree with all your recomendations except your information flow. Don't forget curators also have their own jobs and families, asking them to be monitoring or mingle with authors at this exponential growth of authors and their posts will definitely not work or cast out some less familiarized authors out, either directly or indirectly and this definitely against the primary objective of steemit platform.
I am not asking them to do more work. I am actually talking about them doing less work and more work to be done by us. I told you I am not the best with conveying my ideas but WE need to do some of their work and mingle with our community, in order to grow organically. We can't rely on a single node for all our income, it's not possible.
Oh, well said man. Sorry for the misinterpretation. I was a little busy then.
Agree completely @alexdory. A top-down system on a bottom-up platform doesn't make much sense. Although I'm very new here, so maybe my opinion isn't worth too much, but I like the idea of more engagement.
Oh you are one of the best people I have ever had the honor of talking. You grabbed everything I said and I see you growing with or without my help. My friend @calumam has worked upon my ideas on TheSteemEngine post promotion channel ( I still call dibs, @calumam :) ). When post promoting I would say a few words about the article I voted and liked instead of "voted and commented". He took it to the next level, instead of voting to 1-2 other articles he votes on everything he likes from the day and writes a summary of everything. It takes a lot of time and you would think its counter productive but it's not. Real friends last a lifetime. My guess is that on the blockchain friendships last forever :D
You can keep the dibs ;)
I think together we are creating a domino effect and I love it. Over the past week, I have stepped into the minds of others a lot more than I was by just commenting on Steemit. I still stand by my principle to seize every opportunity to encourage and engage.
That, and truth and transparency.
Also to add, friendships last as long as you reciprocate. I'm all for having a lot of friendships but I will only try to engage with some people a few times. Even now, there are people who I gravitate more to on The STEEM Engine. This is because they value my input, they share their thoughts with me and we connect.
You also felt that also about TheSteemEngine!
So it'a not only me. But we can do it on SteemSTEM also, there are a lot of good guys and girls here.
You are way too generous. I'm just someone who enjoys the great content you produce. Personally I came here from reddit, where the discussion would often dissolve into name-calling and tribalism and the attitude generally ranged between neutral to negative. What I like about steemit is that you can simply follow the people that interest you and you have a real opportunity to engage with them. I don't know if it's a result of the steemit platform itself or just the wonderful community that has formed here, but yeah, I intent to stay here :)