I think what you propose is a really good initiative, since like you pointed out, those days when people made dozens of bucks (or sometimes, even over a hundred) with their introduction posts are gone.
Last time I took a look at it, it looked like a wasteland of posts making less than one dollar, flooded by comments from bots and/or users just going there to plug their own gigs ("Welcome and check out my photography/cooking /travel page!").
In my case I can say that I stopped checking the #introduceyourself tag mainly for two reasons:
There seemed to be a tidal wave of minimal effort posts made by people who obviously came here just for the "free money" but had zero interest in actually contributing anything valuable to the community.
When I found a rare gem of a new user, I would comment on their post, upvote them, followed them, etc... only for them never showing up again or making just a couple of posts before quitting, ending up just as some dead number in my following.
So while I agree with your points about supporting those who stand out, I whish there was a way to also increase the quality of new users... is that even possible? Or is this just the way it is?
My friend I as a minnow often check introduction posts, and upvote all of the very well made ones, and always give a tip or two that helped me a lot when I started a week ago, but when I see people with 2 sentences and no pics of their own, I just ignore it... As for bots, if we real people keep commenting with real opinions and discussion, bots will be minority in comments, and feel less spammy, just my opinion...
It is really hard to find those decent users who are actually going to stick with the platform. I have started a new daily bounty for Intros that meet certain requirements, where I reward users for finding me Introduceyourself posts that meet my criteria, then I upvote and resteem the intro, as well as reward the user who found it. I started my project to help boost the introduce yourself posts a couple months ago, but really started to see some support and success when I started the daily bounty/contest about a week ago. Please feel free to check out my blog and my posts. My blog @gogogadgetupvote is full of mostly resteemed intro posts, and every once in a while, you can find a post by me. You can find my most recent daily bounty post LINKED HERE There is still one more prize left to be claimed, even!
LOL - Just now reading this answer after posting this today: Welcome @welcoming, an account for manual #introduceyourself curation!
So guess we had the same idea :) Well, I guess two accounts are stronger than one!
Two is definitely stronger than one in this case! I have a reply of my own somewhere towards the bottom of this post! My feed is basically the same thing, intro's that I have resteemed and my contest posts that helped me find them. do you have a discord? I would love to chat with you a little about how we could maybe work together?
Yes, you can find me under the same name I use here ;) Definitely would love to talk to you!
I just don't upvote those :)
That risk is always included - That's why I only try to vote well made introduction posts - Sure it's not granted they stay - But chance's are higher. And there always will be some who quit. That's just the way it is.
Support good users and flag spammers + report them to @steemcleaners!
fair points @irime ... But it's almost like drying up a whole pond just because you don't like a few fishes... :) Hope you'll change your mind soon because it's not easy for new steemians to rise up here :)
I would invite you to check my most recent post about that topic: Welcome @welcoming, an account for manual #introduceyourself curation!
followed & upvoted. Noble project :)
I would invite you to check my most recent post about that topic: Welcome @welcoming, an account for manual #introduceyourself curation! - Maybe it will help you to find the promising users and not the spam!
Thanks for the heads up! I will check it out for sure :-)