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I've read quite a few opinionated Steemians on this subject, some believe that short form content is OK, but only if the content makes a small payout. I don't know what to say about that honestly. I can understand effort, I can understand merit, but I'm also aware of something called talent or skill, and that makes all those definitions a bit blurry.
As a musician, I tend to think that skill and talent are much more important that bulk effort. Basically, if someone has spent most of their lives becoming a skillful player, singer or writer, it's not too relevant if their post took them five minutes to make. The post cannot effectively show the trajectory taken to achieve that level of efficiency.
I know professional musicians that take hours to record a song, as well as some (the ones I prefer) that can do it in one or two takes. The final results are arguably the same, but the recording itself does not present evidence of the time spent on the tracks. This is why this question is so interesting to me.
Mind you, I'm fully aware that Steemit as a platform is nothing but an application built on top of Steem and that other applications are sure to come and take over niches. Dtube, Dsound are some great examples of applications built on Steem, but they are still not catering to absolutely everyone.
Mass adoption, maybe we are not ready
Might not be possible with the current Dapps built on top of Steem. Maybe this realization of mine will be perceived as a negative statement, but I'm trying to be objective about it. If Steemit (not steem) is so quick to reject short form content, flag it without discrimination, regardless of payout amount (I've seen this myself). I can't help but to imagine would be Steemians give up lost in confusion.
I certainly learned early on not to even consider posting short content, as I got criticized heavily for it. However, nothing of the sort was ever explained on anything we could even consider as "rules".
I'm posing this question today, simply because I'm curious as to how everyone else feels about this big challenge, this negative stigma Steemit users seem to have towards short content.
I doubt I'm alone on this perception and experience...
Hope everyone is having a beautiful weekend
Aside from the upvote bots, Steemit is essentially a massive popularity contest. The only articles that are organically upvoted with any regularity are by people who have been around for years and networked with high SP accounts.
Not hating on them. I wish I had that. But the point is that short or long form, it doesn't matter because people will upvote each other based on whether or not that person is their friend.
In fact, I think writing long form content actually hurts your chances of getting a powerful upvote. People generally skim articles and race to the bottom so they can leave a comment. Short articles have the chance to be read fully before this happens. Longer articles do not.
I personally like writing longer articles because I see the value of Steemit not in actually getting organic upvotes from people, but from being able to boost my posts to the top of the Trending page and get guaranteed exposure for what I write. And when I refer people to my page to read my articles who aren't motivated to skim posts and leave worthless comments, they see that I have dozens of long, unique, interesting articles full of original and intelligent thoughts.
But I realize most people aren't motivated by that. They want their $0.10 upvote and don't think of anything beyond the immediate future. That's how most people in the world are though, not just the ones who use this website.
This post has received a 10.73 % upvote from @boomerang.
Thanks for the thorough comment. This itself added value to the original post.
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I would love content on steem to take a form like Medium
So long format is the one you prefer then. Nothing wrong with that, but it kind of makes my point for me. then this is not meant to go main stream, or at least not yet.
@askanything will upvote questions, one question per week, per person. If students are paid to ask questions, it will fasten mass adoption of Steemit.
Creo que este tema es relativo: Hay personas que comenzaron escribiendo muy mal y se les ha observado el avance al revisar su blog. Otros lo hicieron de una vez con el manejo correcto de la escritura. Si el contenido es de calidad, pienso que los dos están en el derecho de ser bien valorados.
Hay contenido corto que necesita una preparación previa que toma tiempo y dedicación, por ejemplo: un aforismo, un haiku, también son valiosos. Ahora una línea sin sentido no debería ser asumida como algo importante.
Saludos.
yo en lo personal disfruto de contenido corto tambien, y no soy enemigo de la poesia. Pero he visto personas llevar flags por poner poesia y promover con bots su poesia, siendo esta original.
Quizá porque se nos vendió la idea de que la red era para escribir contenido de calidad y hacerlo requiere un trabajo, mientras que escribir cualquier cosa y postearla con un meme, por ejemplo, no es nada complicado ni interesante y sin embargo esas personas obtienen altas recompensas, sin haber hecho un esfuerzo productivo en algo que aunque corto requirió de concentración. Es allí donde está el detalle. Pienso que el que aplica la bandera podría tomar en consideración eso. Dónde hubo trabajo intelectual y dónde no. Saludos.
SteemIt has the structure of a social media site.
My observation is that people are earning steem for their social media skills.
The structure seems to favor short-format content.
IMHO, the best path for a person interested in creating long format content (a book, a movie, detailed art work, podcast, etc) is to build a web site to contain the finished work. The author would drop multiple posts about the project while creating the long format project.
Good thinking!
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Very good discussion point.
I think that the articles should be able to show two types of content: comprehensive and detail one. For those who are on-the-go, the comprehensive one is better.
Thanks for sharing. Great insight and perspective on a topic I've been curious about. I'm still new to the platform and trying to learn the best approach for growing a healthy community. I've seen some users who post 5-10 photos a day with nealry no text, and others who post much less frequently but in much more depth (paragraphs, formating, images etc). Both parties seem to be finding success.
I'm still trying to figure out the method that best suits my efforts. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, I look forward to following more of your content.
I doubt there is a set formula, but one thing that does make a difference is to engage with your readers. I see many whales and dolphins who don't they post and make themselves unavailable ... i think that works heavily against them building an audience.
Thanks for the reply. I agree, I don't think there's a 'one size fits all' system that works for everyone. I'll keep experimenting to find the best 'bang for my buck' in terms of how much time and effort to put into Steemit. One thing I don't want to get into is bots and buying upvotes (although I have seen lots of posts suggesting how important it is), I'd prefer to grow organically. I think posting consistently with good quality content as well as (as you mentioned) engaging what the community and responding to comments, organic success can be achieved. All the best!
Great post @chbartist. Can you explain what happened when you posted short content and were 'criticized heavily for it'? Did the criticism come in the comments or via flagging of the post? Really interested to hear as I'm a visual artist used to the Instragram model of small amounts of content regularly.
The thing is, if the payouts are small, probably nothing will happen, but if say you post a picture and a short poem or something of the sort, and 1 whale decides to upvote it heavily. You might have people flag it because they believe the rewards don't merit it..
I got not only flags, also people being disrespectful, but all that is in the past. I think by now I've shown my intentions long enough.
Good points, hopefully steemit will evolve to balance these issues.
It seems that the general opinion around here seems to be that "Quality" equals "Quantity", which isn't true. I have seen a couple long post without any substance, short posts with a lot of value and long posts that were actually short but looked long because of a remarkable long trail of credits and self-advertisement.
Good points, I've seen a lot of those all fluff and puff no good stuff on trending as well.
I do like some form of "Credits" after a post. Gives off a feeling of seeing something familiar after a while.
But some just overdo it.
Good article...steemit is best place for sharing good quality content.
long or short but should be good quality. thx for sharing ur experience.
Your a talentless hack, . You have to use bots. Doesn't matter if it's short or long. No one cares about what you have to say period.
To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:
Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.
You have recieved a free upvote from minnowpond, Send 0.1 -> 2 SBD with your post url as the memo to recieve an upvote from up to 100 accounts!
You got a 15.91% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @chbartist!
Want to promote your posts too? Check out the Steem Bot Tracker website for more info. If you would like to support the development of @postpromoter and the bot tracker please vote for @yabapmatt for witness!
Your opinion must be quite popular or else you wouldn't be all over the trending page.
Without short form content we ommit stuff like IG, twitter and more. It's important to have a diversity IMO
Musics is also my hobby, but i really enjoy the pop music then rock one.
Interesting point of view, thanks for sharing
All this can be solved with some criteria, there must be ways that the system promotes the meritocracy without being too strict or closed with different forms of expression. Some should have gains even if they only make images of memes as long as the content is original and is well received or enjoyed by the community.
I think the length of this post was about perfect, if it took you any longer to make your point I may not have read it, and why should ? You’ve proven your point without losing my interest and I think that’s the point.
Most of the users will not read a very long posts unless they are of interest to them but will look at pictures and videos all day long.
Hello sir. I know you are good at heart and will definitely support my work. A little support from you will encourage us to do more here. Thanks
I noticed that too.. posting short content is more like posting out of compliance to just merely post something. And admittedly, i have been doing that from day 1. Nobody informed us the minnows and you were right there were no stated rules about it. So now that explains the small payouts or no payouts at all.
Maybe if the information was properly disseminated we would have posted lengthy ones. I'll do try to post ONE now and check how it goes. To be honest, minnows are blind to this things. Im glad i stumbled into your article. Good for me, it got me interested to read. Thank you good sir.
Hope next time you share few secrets to standout or to become successful here in steemit without even paying bots to the services for you..
Well, at least short posts get read. What is the value of a 1000 word post if nobody bothers to read it until the end? Or is that what gives it extra value? That those who actually read it possesses information very few possesses?