Prelude of Thanks and Acknowledgement
Yesterday I wrote my first blog on steemit.com and was very surprised by the kind and generous reception I received for lambasting the management of the platform.
I even won a prize, thanks to the generosity of the good folk of Discord. A special acknowledgement to a guy called @instructor2121. I know he has a real name because he was a very human and ‘Social Media’ kind of guy. I am yet to ascertain the value of this prize. It does not really matter – I felt warmly welcomed. @krnel, @paradise-found and @bitcoinparadise were equally generous in their welcomes, as were several others. Four times my offering was reposted – resteemed I think you call it.
My sincere thanks to those people (and the ones I have not mentioned) for being very humane and warm!
To the bees and the ants
Steemit.com is, in name, a social media platform. It promises that you “will come for the rewards and stay for the community”.
Social Media implies some semblance of Social Behaviour. There is, from the observer’s perspective, a great deal of social ‘activity’. There are thousands of blogs posted and votes for these posts being cast and comments being written beneath the posts and it is a busy, busy hive of activity!
What appears to be unappreciated to the casual observer is the structure which supports and directs the workflow generated by this great hive of activity and how and where the fruits of the labour being carried out by the collective are stored and consumed.
The data available to all shows quite clearly that 95-98% of the revenue available in the ‘Rewards Pool’ as it is termed, is distributed to less than 5% of the community.
One of the reasons for the ghastly performance of the platform which I outlined yesterday is the management structure. There is none. No matter how much of an anarchist you might be (I have much admiration for the Anarchic ideology), order is still required in at least some measure.
In steemit.com there is order, though it is not as one might expect.
There are two society structures to which one can draw an immediate parallel: these are found in the natural world: ants and bees.
A colony of ants exists solely for the service of the Queen Ant; likewise, drones and worker bees only have function directed towards the feeding and care for the Queen Bee and her reproduction of more bees. This is the order of life without going into the complexities of either ant colonies, or bee hives.
Within steemit there are mechanical ants and bees patrolling the corridors of the nest or hive, ensuring that the nectar is directed back up for the benefit of the Queen.
The truly committed human worker will self-justify that by working away and doing the basics well there will be a day in the future which beckons and promises life as a ‘whale’.
This is a wholesome and worthy attitude. The downfall in the argument being self-imposed in blind seduction is that, with equal or greater measure to their progressive steps forward, so are those positions of power moving further away and up the scale.
For every morsel earned by the worthy worker, there is a Queen Bee earning several thousand times the amount of morsels. There are quite a few Queen Bees in this particular hive; all of them are hungry, some may say avaricious.
So, the ocean is there to be seen. It all echoes of The Myth of Tantalus, who was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any.
Equally, the predicament of steemians brings to mind Albert Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, the allegorical tale of a man forced to roll a bolder up a hill, only to see it roll back down upon reaching the summit.
I am not suggesting that one’s morsels will follow the rock down the hill, just highlighting the futility.
There is a lesson in all the futility for the ‘whales’ who are probably too busy oiling the cogs on their algorithmic, robotic machines. When there is criticism about, one can always judge the calibre of the person or people being criticised by their preparedness to stand and engage.
The story of ostriches sticking their heads in the sand is, of course, untrue, though there seem to be a few whale snout prints in the sand.
The lesson to the ‘whales’ is that ‘Social Media' is not an activity typical of bees or ants. The principal participants ….
... are human!
One immediate suggestion is to produce a weekly summary of all the revenue generated and show its application: Author Rewards by Account, Curation Rewards by Account, Allocation to Administration, R&D, Investor Rewards (Dividend/Interest Payments), Allocation to Head Office – the whole lot - it is supposed to be transparent, is it not?
Right on! You get it! Resteemed again. LOL. That was my point int he post yesterday, community of people to decide what is right, not static "code = law" mentality that so many are confused about. Discerning right from wrong is something of a lost art and science nowadays.
When I had more support before I put a target on my back for dealing with the flagging rewards issue, I was a top earner for the stuff I put out and it was representative of the concentration of power in 20-50 voting hands and not the majority of users. But the voting power curve is being changed so this should be fixed where I'm not a top earner anymore. I always supported the curve change. But my point is that even at that level, it would have taken me 5.5 years to reach 1 million SP. LOL. And that's posting 3-4 times a day, with 1-2 major whales on 1-2 out of the 4 posts or something. Now it's more like 10-15 years to reach 1 million SP.
You can find some data here: https://steemdb.com/@krnel
Put in any name in the URL, and fish around ;)
Also, http://steemwhales.com/?p=1&s=power
But yeah a report like that would be handy.
And by the time you reach 1 million SP those same whales that are far from you now will be the same distance and perhaps further. It does have some issues.
Absolutely.
Is there ever an actual equilibrium? Can those who work to create content ever create or reach that possible equilibrium? Or is it just an imagined possibility that will never happen? Is it forever a rate-race to the top that continues be a moving goalpost?
The goal of social equilibrium may never be attained in this type of model we have in Steemit... but I'm not sure as to that conclusion. It seems this way on first processing how my progress would go. An eventual equilibrium could be reached if those who are at the top don't keep growing more than those who try to climb. Otherwise the goal for social decentralization of power may not be what Steemit/STEEM can do in the long term...
You could jump to the head of the pack, but only if you are already wealthy outside of steemit and can afford to purchase a bunch of steem power.
It is so sad seeing people fight over nothing. The whales who vote and consume rewards from the reward pool only take out of one pocket and put it in another.
For future reference:
a8b6d890a6773718b9b6f6a299d98bac0f2e9a36e504e5a0ca4e8834cc0b3befI thank you for your comment and notice that you are one of the founders of this platform. My apologies to you if you feel affronted by the expression of the glaringly obvious - I did in fact suggest that the situation was probably driving you and Ned round the bend.
If you are supportive of the whales activity you should say so, loudly! Then all the people off whom they are immorally making money can stop and do something else.
A couple of questions: if you thought that what I wrote had merit? Why did you not vote? Is it because I am new and would be an embarrassment? I Disagree with you over the one pocket to another - the value has been lost in the transfer, the platform has grown tired of the words and the external observers shake their heads in disbelief. The story is the same in the management consultancy realm: Great idea, shame they got it wrong and don't have the balls to fix it.
What is the future reference string? I have no idea!
if it was ever that easy,
he might have done you a favor ;) 15$ in payout gets a flag lol ;D since you might get 40$ and then you have to be put down for high rewards, purely joking but that seems to happen from time to time.
But clearly something is in the muck over there, I would like to see how taking 100$ out of the reward pool then consuming it, well yes it's bound to go somewhere, that is what cash and credit is for :D so it will go to another place for sure
Upon the back of whose work was the gain made? There is more to the back-end than is openly shown. Authors are getting about 40%, put it that way.
@j3dy, it has been hectic and I have just been gassing away with my croaky voice for about an hour on the SteemTrail hotline. So I am away now but shall follow your endeavours on this leaky vessel.
oh thank you very much, its nice that you have brought up the facts, it's not the first time but still you've added to the pool of information.
If you are asking how steemit got to where it is, I'm not sure either I joined in last year. There were talks of big payouts :D and rewards for curation. I haven't gotten either as of yet.
I think the value was from the initial investors and interests, then mining, then early development and hype then the people hailing it as a new and different place.
Now we have a bit of that and memories to go by, but people tend to forget rather quick around here :D
Hadn't seen the hotline and good luck to you too :)
It seems like this issue(flagiing) will blow off and as soon as the price starts going up people will be back on the steemits is great train, :| meh it seems like as long as there are money people are happy :D
a8b6d890a6773718b9b6f6a299d98bac0f2e9a36e504e5a0ca4e8834cc0b3bef
NO RESULTS CAME FROM MY SEARCH..
perhaps he did not vote because you could be an old steemit user pretending to be a new one :)
There is an idea! I could come back as a 25 year old coding whizz kid. Maybe Walt Disney did have an idea.
You created a monster @dan. Just kidding. Steem is the coolest invention. We'll sort things out and we'll grow.
Perhaps you could explain his very inconcise answer, as I asked him to and he seems to have run off. I am unsure as to what his future reference string is for and so we are all none the wiser from the founder!
Curiouser and curiouser!
I don't have the explanation. I can only say I respect the fact Dan's not always answering. His writings open my mind to some fundamental truths I don't think I would have ever been able to come up with if I hadn't read his ideas. His ideas and inventions have changed me profoundly.
I don't agree with him on everything though. Also you can get a glimpse of what I mean if you read the book I'm publishing here on Steem. I'll clarify all of this even more in upcoming chapters.
Have fun!
Can you tell me what the alphanumerical string is for? I don't know what to do with that.
Can you also elaborate on your first sentence? Thanks!
He said
For future reference;)
encrypted something or a part of a link but i would guess the first
a8b6d890a6773718b9b6f6a299d98bac0f2e9a36e504e5a0ca4e8834cc0b3bef
When whales " take out of one pocket and put it in another." As you put it, there is also the consideration that they are leveraging the authorship of others. How does that sit.
You seem a bright guy. Why is there an impasse when it comes ti the true questions of steemit?
It is so sad to see people fight over anything. It would be joyous to see harmony and equality.
Dan, what does that string of alphanumerics mean? You're torturing us! I'm being overly dramatic, but a hint would be appreciated. I don't understand your code language.
It looks like a hash.. of which I think he intended to be ambiguous!
01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100101 01100001 01110011 01111001 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01010011 01101001 01110010i doubt if this meant much. i saw it as something to laugh about. a way to spur on a community in the comments. a way of conversation, without that much significance or real intent than for convo and laugh sake.
Bingo!
Much to respond to. In part, we have a bit of a chicken/egg thing going... on one hand, we need broad based external exposure for Steemit, preferably done by content providers with large existing support bases. But who wants to recommend a "broken" system to their friends and colleagues? I'd be hesitant about that...
In my 30 days here, I keep coming back to the central issue that communities are built by PEOPLE, not by bots, tech or algorithms. I post an assortment of blog posts and "article style" content... and see it get 150 upvotes while it has 17 actual reads. Well, I don't write for the purpose of having a piece of tech ping my content and leave a mark that means no more than "this content exists." So what? Who cares? Where are the HUMANS who interact with, get inspired by, get angry over, get an insight, etc.? That's what "social" is. Discussions of content in comments... that's also what social is.
So when I back off to the 50,000-foot view, I keep "hearing" a story that goes something like "So a group of developers and blockchain enthusiasts got together over some beers and said 'let's build a social network on a blockchain structure!' and everyone went YEAH and so Steemit was built." Except nobody paused long enough to realize that community doesn't build itself. And that you precisely need to invite in a bunch of people who "don't speak tech" in and let them bring their friends. And they might do "horrible things" like create deep meaningful content that can't just be processed with a script.
Nice post. I must have missed the one yesterday. In between my jaunts into standing beside @krnel in trying to get people to change their minds about how they flag, I've also posted that I think we need a lot more user generated advertisement outside of steemit to get people here.
If it could be simple bite sized morsels that get people's attention rather than trying to sum up everything I think that would be best, as there is a lot of NEW ideas on steemit, and learning them is something people that come here inevitably have to do.
Yet we need to do that, and we do have the talent.
However, bring more people into a flag war doesn't seem like good timing either. A number of us know people that have seen such things and said "no thanks".
This is truly too bad because despite the negative aspect of flagging steemit is truly a very cool community. Those of us speaking up about the flagging do so because that is the only tool we have our disposal. We can ignore it and let Nero fiddle, or we can speak up and hope we change some minds.
We have changed some minds. Some we have not.
Yeah, that's what we can do, speak truth to create change:
https://steemit.com/truth/@krnel/speak-truth-to-create-change
Somebody was doing this (and ironically getting heavily rewarded for it).
The primary problem isn't the rewards pool, it's that there are fewer and fewer people joining and staying on the platform. This, as you rightly point out, is due to the management.
Unfortunately, they want to have their cake and eat it so to speak. They want the benefits of being in charge. However when it comes to strategy, they'd rather the "ants" take up the baton.
To give you an idea; we have had users advertising Steemit on highway billboards; and being rewarded many thousands of dollars by the Whales. Even though that is possibly the worst way to advertise any website, let alone an obscure "social media" one.
Then we have had various events, the biggest one being Steemfest. Again, this was user generated, with minimum support from HQ. Unfortunately these events seem to have been attended by people who already knew about Steemit.
The reason you haven't been lambasted, is because these rumblings have been going on for a while. So when a new comer, sees what we see, and says what we've been saying, it's a kind of grim justification.
I like the principles you put forward in your first article, however Ned & Dan can't be sacked, as they own it; and they have hand-picked their generals to oversee the fall of the citadel.
Cg
While many of your concerns are valid @cryptogee, I would just like to add that Steemit has not launched any massive advertising campaigns YET. It doesn't mean that they won't. In fact we have heard several clues over the past couple months that might lead us to believe they intend to do just that.
For starters, multiple people in the Steemit.inc team have mentioned that the site is not ready to handle "the masses" and the plan for the next several months is to get Steemit and Steem "scalable". If the site is not ready, why on earth would they spend money on advertising now? That is throwing away resources.
Lets reserve full judgement until we see some of the site features that are meant to make it scalable. At that point lets see if and what kind of marketing there is...
Thanks for some good talking points @fidelity, welcome! :)
if everyone complaining about steemit could read and accept your comments about scalability and steemit marketing, then they would realize all these complaints is a waste of time
Bingo! Perhaps a post needs to be done saying as much, or maybe a video post ;)
I prepare myself to stand corrected, I'll be surprised if I see any ad campaign. However, like I said; I'm prepared, (and rather hope) to be wrong.
Cg
I hope you are wrong too ;)
as for recent signs that there is underlying or behind-the-scene campaign to gradually create awareness to steemit is happening, is the recent small meetup that happened in philippines just days back. steem inc sponsored @hulkbuster to make it happen. it was a small event but it was fulfilling to see that it was sponsored. @cryptogee and @fidelity
I am very new to the platform, though I have been following for a while and opened an account last month. Is there somewhere you can point me to in order to find the marketing, events, etc? It would be good to see.
In terms of the top two, Ned and Dan, I suspect that they have a war with their whales. Decentralisation is almost synonymous with blockchain. Without it, the rest cannot happen. With decentralisation will come fluidity and new subscribers and retention and value ... as it is steem is an elephant that is white!
There is no one place where the marketing events are held; which rather reflects the half-arsed, no-plan way everything has been done. If you go into the chat room, accesible via your dropdown menu, top left. You will see a Steemfest room.
However to get an overview, you will simply have to use the search bar and trawl through it manually.
Prepare to be underwhelmed.
Cg
Ok, thank you, your help is very appreciated. It seems to be a common theme - terribly nice people and they wish they could help answer the important questions but it seems to lead to a rabbit warren of .... 'Wait for the Hardfork' or some such vacuous promise.
:D well yes, so many dropped out, it would have been nice to see a real new paradigm so far there is none and I'm starting to slowly lose hope that what i saw could happen here probably won't and the world will keep on rotating with its hypocrisies.
Anyways you seem to be getting quite to the point of most things, enjoy :)
Cheers have fun, if you need help say so :)
for 2 things accounts that aren't used are like a empty room, everything stays inside at least for now, whoever has the keys can use the "Power" after some time powering down, or they can keep upvoting for bigger rewards :| in theory
and check out @creatr and
https://steemit.com/@dragosroua
for those writing tips and ideas, some of the good authors share too, those are known to me :)
Hi and welcome 🙂 Though I would be surprise if you truly are completely new here 😜
What should be happening here is that almost as large whales, and groups of large dolphins should be voting down those at the very top, to really correct the rewards distribution as the whitepaper outlines. Perhaps that's why we see such little posting by the tippy top accounts.
Disagree. What we're seeing is people taking advantage of a position of power, which is itself a kind of "management". We need less, not more.
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the second half of Feb 28. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $4.63 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Feb 28 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Thank you Madam or Sir @screenname, I seem to keep being awarded honours! Two posts, two mentions! I do believe that being undervalued can have its plusses but I think that I would prefer to be where those stupid whales abide, in the over-valued section! Thanks all the same.
Heh, I'm still waiting for the "long tail" to start kicking in.
you might find this amusing because your posts have inspired my latest Steemicide Hotline video, and I speak part of your post at the end of the video...
https://steemit.com/steemicide/@stellabelle/steemicide-hotline-fidelity-vs-reality
Thanks for the great post. Upvoted, resteemed and followed!
Thank you @clayop, I do not know where every one stands on the current situation but I hope you can see the inability of this system to go anywhere but to the morgue. What I have seen of the proposed changes is like putting a Band-Aid over a ruptured aorta.
Time for couching realities into niceties has long gone.
Apologies if you are in the 'whale' camp!
Nothing personal. It is just in front of one's face like a strobe light.
I delved into the fundamental reason of the bot issue. https://steemit.com/steem/@clayop/revisiting-curation-reward-hot-coffee-cold-coffee-and-lukewarm-coffee
I think one of the main issue is misaligned incentives, which disincentivizes humans. I personally strongly believe satisfaction or psychic income, and humans can be motivated by them. In this sense, I am not a huge fan of curation reward.
I can be a whale, but I am planning to delegate majority of my SP to active Korean community members. I think it's the most valuable role as a whale; empowering others with my stake. Who knows? Giving up small money will give much more money? (Steem To da Alpha Centauri!)
Many thanks for your message @clayop. I still don't really know who is who and so am probably treading on toes. I can see that the voting side of steemit has the value at its heart. What I cannot see is how you know what a vote carries. I saw @krnel yesterday say that his vote is worth 3 cents. Your idea of leasing value to others, as I put it yesterday on Discord is a good one. There needs to be a whole management proposal to the Steemit Inc. crowd very soon as the structure has mortal wounds.
Decentralisation of the vital organs is a necessary step. My heart is not adjacent to my liver!