Quality won't matter: Change with the Demographic [RANT and suggestions]

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

"Bullshit!" you might think, but it's not. We can't have a free social network which is built around rewarding quality content. The registration is OPEN. Do you what that means? It means everyone can join this platform and start posting. All your smart friends will join and start posting long researched posts, sure. All your "not so smart" friends will join and start posting hot chicks on bikes, memes, jokes, how much someone drank last night or just a picture of poop, because why not, right. All this shitposting will get upvoted by those people too. The difference between your friends quality content and that shitposting is that it took a day to write that quality piece of work, but at the same time a shitposter can post 100 posts during that time. Taking away the money won't matter either: if you are new and unknown you just want to advertise yourself; create a following - we already have the 'follow' button for that. The Demographic you see on other social sites eventually will get here, it's guaranteed. Those 'not so smart' people will still recognize money, you know. Let me break it down for you: MOST PEOPLE AREN'T SMART. That's why we will see a rise in upvoted shitposting soon.

What can we do to stop that?

Nothing. No, really.  Let them come. It's what the creators of STEEMIT wanted in the first place - to have the population adobt STEEMIT; popularity. No wonder advertising STEEMIT gets so much encouragement from the whales, I'd do it too.

But what we need is a WALL OF FILTERED CONTENT. Just like on facebook: you won't see the stuff some gringo in Mexico or mr. Putin does on your wall - just what your friends and people/sites you follow post. That's what we need. I'm tired of reading about food, travel, life. Those things don't interest me much. I don't want to scroll through them each time I visit Steemit. Also, a suggestion system like the one Youtube uses would make things significantly better. Give us something to counter the upcoming wave of:



#hashtag

Check out my other boring blogs, you won't be entertained: https://steemit.com/@sulev


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In a comment on another post, @dantheman mentioned that personalized feeds are on their way.

Also, rewards tend to drop if somebody posts more than 4 times / day, which will limit the level of low-quality content somewhat.

This is by far, the best post I have read on Steemit to date. And that's including my own LOL.

That's actually one of my main concerns about how Steem works, the quantity over quality, particularly when money comes into play. But I don't know if the filter would actually work. Wouldn't it be a source of complains each time someone think its post deserve more view and more $ ?

It would, yes. But at the same time not.
We will ahve too many posts coming in. You can't possibly see all. That amount will only increase. A filter would make things easier on the curator - to only rate the things he's interested in.
I would like to see a more structured Steemit. More like facebook, but with the ability to also "discover" new content.
We need a suggestion system to promote posts to each individual curator. Something like Youtube has. (I'm gonna add this in the post.)

Ok, I get it. Yeah it could be a way to limit the weight of shitposting. Basically it would be a personal feed with personal suggestion, and on the side, the tag search ?

My hope would be that the money aspect may prove to favor decent contributions even long-term. Simply because there is much to loose here. Without a good reputation there is no sustainable income perspective and as the blockchain never forgets what was once posted, reputation can easily go downhill with only a few bad posts. LinkedIn is actually a good example that a network can achieve mass adoption while maintaining a consistently high quality in content contributions. Also in case of LinkedIn it is the importance of reputation that makes most users to reflect on the quality and seriousness of their contributions. In any case, I agree that personalized feeds will soon be an important feature, but it seems that the implementation is already on the way.

Hopefully once the "follow" button actually does something we will be able to have our own (self curated) feeds. I feel you pain.

This is what the follow feature will be when it's properly implemented I imagine

meh.
I disagree. The good content will win out, you can;'t post more than 4 times/day without paying a premium and the downvote bots and flagging systems will soon "train" new shitposters that this is not the kind of shit that works around here.

meme and cheap giggles will not a steem-fortune make.

But yeah, I see why you think this, maybe learn to:

  • center your images
  • break paragraphs for readability

As for seeing only what "interest" me and what my friends do, that's exactly what I don't want. Closing myself into an echo room? Why would you want that?

Seems you don't get it.
Seeing what those post that you follow will guarantee you'll only see quality content which interests you. It's like subscribing in youtube. No one is forcing you to use that. Go discover new things at will.
And an echo chamber and filtering things that interest me, are not the same things.
Paragraphs usually mean a new thought or problem is being discussed. I can't do that. And as sidenote here: my post is so short and already has 2 paragraphs, how many do you need for readability? This isn't kindergarden.
Centering this small gif? Why? I don't have OCD. I don't care where that small gif is.

Well, the "good" content is defined by what community value.
By increasing the size of the community, you dilute the quality variable to the most common denominator : meme and cheap giggles.
Even with only 4 posts/day, if there is enough shitposters & shitlikers, the top post are gonna be shit.
For the downvote bot and flagging system, I don't know. I guess, if there's enough counter-weight from people liking shitposts, their utility is reduced. (But I could be completely wrong, I may need to lurk more before talking rubbish)