My Curie Story - My Steem Journey
My Curie story is same as my Steem story. I started my Steem journey last June. Shortly after I discovered Curie and joined as a curator. When I first came across Steem, I found it to be an interesting idea and decided to try it out. I started without much of expectations, but rather experimentation. I had a simple motto in mind as I was exploring the world of Steem, and this still remains to be the case for me. "I just want to put some positive stuff out there. If it works, great. If it doesn't, no problem."
My early days on Steem I was spending more time reading content and trying to understand how things work and what people were doing. I was and still am fascinated with an idea/action of changing some strangers' financial state by a simple click of an upvote button. As a minnow, my upvotes wouldn't be worth much, but still adding few pennies of value to author's content was better than nothing.
As I would browse Steemit and read interesting posts I kept seeing Daily Curie posts which featured authors that were upvoted by Curie. I would go and read posts by those featured authors to see and learn what they were doing and writing about. Seeing these posts earning hundreds of dollars was a motivating experience. I thought to myself, maybe I could create some awesome content as well. But what really caught my attention was in these Daily Curie posts I kept seeing this: "All curators are cordially invited to join our community of over a hundred curators by submitting hidden gems at http://curiesteem.com".
I was reading various posts daily and I was sure some of them would qualify as "hidden gems". So, I decided I would give submitting posts to Curie a try. Afterall, I was experimenting with Steem, why not try Curie? I signed up at streemian.com and the same week submitted 2 posts that I thought were awesome. Reading further on submitting process, I found out curators earned 10 Steem of finder's fee for each approved post. This couldn't get any better. I was already happy that by submitting posts to the Curie guild I was doing some good, helping out authors whose posts I enjoyed. Getting a generous reward on top of that was just mind-blowing. Yet, I still didn't expect much. Sunday came, and I saw 20 Steem transferred from Curie to my account for my 2 submitted and approved posts. Now I knew this was a real thing.
The same week I started submitting posts, Curie closed its public submissions due to many low-quality posts being submitted. Many curators with low scores and approval ratings were disqualified. Since I didn't get a disapproved submission, I was among the lucky ones who remained to continue as Curie curators. My first week I didn't know much about Curie. I didn't know they had guidelines for submitting posts. I was just experimenting. I wanted to learn more. I joined their channel on steem.chat, read the guidelines and started asking questions.
I continued submitting posts and learning more about Curie. The second week I was among tier 2 curators, my submission limits were higher. Although a couple of my submissions were disapproved, my overall score remained to be ok. My goal was to become a top curator.
Week 3, I managed to become a top curator. Yay! Since public submissions were closed, Curie initiated a recommendation program for new curators. Only top curators were allowed to mentor and recommend new curators. I loved the project and wanted more people to be able to join, and I started mentoring new curators and recommending them almost every week. Well, it was kinda funny to me at first, I myself being a new curator was mentoring even newer curators. That is another great aspect of Curie, meritocracy.
Week 4, I upped my game a little bit. Confidence levels were high, I thought I could do even better. I managed to submit 17 posts and all of them were approved. I ranked 3rd on the leaderboard.
The fifth week I continued curating as usual and at the end of the week, there was a pleasant surprise. I ranked 1st on the curators' leaderboard. Success! I maintained being a top curator for several weeks if not months.
As of late, I have been distracted by other projects and my curating levels dropped down. I still enjoy curating and am proud to be part of Curie. I have gained skills, learned new thing, met new friends. What I treasure the most is the people of Curie. These are some amazing folks who are doing an outstanding job for the Steem community. Everybody who is involved with Curie played important role in my Steem journey, and I am very grateful for that. Thank you all.
In my opinion, Curie is an extraordinary thing that happened to Steem. Curie tries to make Steem work for everybody and serves as a proof of concept for the innovation that Steem has brought to us. Curie serves the Steem community in many other ways. It operates a reliable community witness and rpc node. It discovers promising authors and empowers quality curators. It helps to build communities, and it supports existing communities. It encourages engagement and supports development.
My story is not as interesting as so many stories that had been written under #mycuriestory tag already. I encourage everybody to check #mycuriestory tag and read authors' stories and impact Curie has had on people, how they feel about it, and what were their experiences. Do you have a Curie story to share? Please do so and tag it #mycuriestory.
I am practicing to prove myself. Thanks for your story. I would set your story as my sample to keep trying, tho I know it's quite hard. Thank you! @geekgirl and thank @dang007 for introducing curie to me :)
Thank you for your kind words. I am sure you will figure it out and once mentorship/recommendations program is open you will be able to make it. Good luck to you. Feel free to ask if you have questions.
That's awesome, you made a nice rise to the top leader board for curators. Currie really is amazing, it's a chance for good content creators to get a good shine on them - and depending where they live in the world, it could have a significant 'real world' impact on their financial situation. I havent seen many if any other curation groups on steemit that make such a big difference on minnow accounts. I'm sure Currie has inspired many good writers to stay with steemit a while longer. I enjoy the sharing of information, and it's pretty exciting for everyone in the household and people that know I'm on Steemit when a post does well, it's a great feeling when the time spent is noticed. There are many aspects of Steemit to explore - social groups, marketing posts, bots on discord, the workings of crypto and vote bots - many paths to explore. Thanks for your efforts to help bring quality posts and authors into the light with Currie, I'm sure it worked and helped make Steemit a better place to be :)
Yes, you are right there are many groups, teams, communities on Steem that are doing amazing work. Also, there are curation groups like OCD doing amazing work. I have followed your blog posts, I find your works to be very interesting. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Curie is the best! I find that their curation is really great, it does help me a lot about what and how to write better content on Steemit. Thanks for sharing this @geekgirl.
My only concern right now is that the curied post still got little engagement (in comments), too bad, since the posts were all great.
Yes, you are right engagement is important. Often I see when authors engage with other authors, that drives more engagement to their blogs. Curie is the best indeed.
Maybe not, maybe yes, but its yours.curie is really one of the best thing on steemit.
Thank you. I agree.
Thank you for this post.
I'd recently started seeing 'curie' pop up here and there, and really only come to the conclusion that they were a good thing.
Woke up this morning and nearly fainted (good thing I was still in bed), my last post has gotten about 400 more up votes and about $70 more than usual... Whaaaat?! O.O
Curie up vote!
As I recited a classic acceptance speech in my mind I decided it'd be a good idea to know a bit more about the page that had given me this gracious gift and incredible confidence boost.
I went to @curie and started looking around, and seeing what a thing it is. Mind blow, confidence soaring I was distracted by needing to clean up a mess of Top Ramen off the floor (and no, it did not come out of the bowl, gag).
Upon returning this post was one of the first things I saw on my feed. Now I understand how it works, so again thank you for the explanation, for sharing your experience, and for spiking my curiosity about curating, it seems like something I would definitely like to do.
Oh nice
I still don't see 100% :) Thank you.
U are on auto voter bot.
ok, ok. Thank you :)
Congrats on Curie vote! Authors like you make Steem an interesting place, and your warm feedbacks make all of Curie's efforts worthwhile. Thank you. Maybe consider writing your own #mycuriestory?
I very well may.
I've been rolling the idea of joining discord around in my mind as well, I think that this whole curating curiosity is pushing it toward solidarity. I have questions. Many, many questions.
Feel free to ask. I will be happy to answer or help to get answers for your questions. Also, there are many curators who wouldn't mind to help too.
Well I suppose my biggest question would probably be concerning the method of helping. I think the whole curie thing is fabulous of course but if it's just a voting trail are a lot of those people on the trail even looking at the content or automatically voting because curie did? And is it more normal or abnormal for follows to come with those votes? In the long run it seems the smaller consistent votes matter more than the one (in some cases few) larger payout.
It doesn't seem logical to continuously give the same people curie votes if there's only I think I read 25 a day if the goal is to support as much good content as possible. So really I guess I'm wondering if there's something implemented to encourage a solid backing behind a particular poster so that they revive maybe smaller but steadier rewards and if not, if there could be?
When it come to trails, obviously since they are automatic, most of the trail voters may not even see the post. I personally don't follow any trails, I like to vote myself. But some people choose to trust some curation teams or other trails with their votes. It is still a good thing for those who don't have time curating themselves.
When it comes to Curie usually it is one or few curators who discover the post, but one gets to submit it. Also, reviewers get to see it and decide to approve and disapprove. Because of the limited resources there is a rigorous process to upvote post that fit the guidelines. The idea is not to give a lifetime support for the authors, it is rather to give promising authors exposure so they can continue without Curie's support. Big upvotes help the post rank higher and give more visibility which may earn the author more upvotes and followers.
Followers. In my experience having certain amount of followers doesn't mean much. Only few percentage of those followers really would end up socially connecting and reading your posts. Usually it is the one who share same interests.
Curie has main curation operations and also sub community curation support. Main curation where bigger votes happen is not for voting for same author over and over, on the contrary it is to keep the votes as diverse as possible and giving exposure for authors with great content but not much luck as far as rewards on the posts.
Sub community curation support is a different story as they are focused on either regional or category based support. Also, their votes weigh significantly less than the main curie votes.
In the end the goal is for authors to be successful on their own, engaging with general and specific communities. Curie is there to give a little boost so they can have a good start.
I hope this answers you questions. Feel free to contact on discord as well. I wasn't sure if your questions were from author's or curator's perspective.
Thank you.
Both perspectives really and a little bit from still trying to figure out how Steemit works. It is all good information to have in the back of my mind as an author, I'm seeing that Curie seems to be the standard for quality content the more I look into it, which really is making me feel even more flattered that my post got an up vote. I would also like to uphold quality standards at all times, so knowing what the general view of quality is 'round here is helpful for that.
The way that I personally am using Steemit is as a 'savings account' everything I receive will be powered up. I am going begin school next year to pursue a PhD, I'll be busting my ass as a single mom working and going to school full time for ten years. That's a lot of student loan debt, so that's what it will be used for, but if I'm not touching it for ten years and it's just sitting there growing voting power, and my network and influence are increasing, why wouldn't I want to use that to help others? With the added bonus that I think curating would be a pivotal factor in keeping my passion for Steemit revving through difficult and busy times. So mainly curating.
I defiantly see the benefit of the way that the curie program works, it was a major confidence booster for me to get that vote and feel that my work was recognized. I believe I said in a text message yesterday "I'm so happy that not-my-mom people like my stuff!". It's very encouraging and a really great motivation for struggling users to keep on trekking, and to feel like they do have a voice under the crypto dominated main pages.
I have absolutly noticed that there seems to be no solid connection between number of followers and payouts. While I may get a $10 payout from fifteen up votes from a certain few people that I interact with, I see people on my feed receive similar payouts with sixty up votes. So I guess I was wondering if there was almost a 'mentorship program' of as a method of lifetime support. To teach them how to be successful on their own in the community as well as the vote.
I see you joined Discord. There are many communities on Steem, most have their discord servers and all focused on various things. For example, there is @thewritersblock that helps writers to connect and support each other.
Focusing on what interests you most, quality of content, and engaging with others seems to be a right way to grow on the platform, instead of focusing on payouts.
Good luck to you. I wish you a lot of success.
With so many stories around about how curie as helped a lot of authors, still wondering why curie account is yet to receive more support from the steemit community, these group or community works tireless day and night to help steemians and I must say its quite a shame that it has not receive a good delegation, last year the curie account had close to a mil delegated sp or so, even though I don't know the circumstances surrounding it then but curie deserved it and we all thought it probably was a mistake when the delegation was removed.
I mean a community this big deserves far more than that and not acknowledging them is really a shame, wish I had more than one slot for a witness upvote I would vote them all day.
Keep up the good work team curie, your works are appreciated by many and even though it is yet to been seen, truly we appreciate you.
To all my fellow Nigerians out there, curie na the koko, the realest guy ever
Thank you for your kind words. My understanding Curie was never intended to last forever. It may cease to exist once Curie is no longer needed. It is impressive it has lasted for so long. To answer why Curie had more support in the past compared to now, I think the overall focus of whales and Steemit Inc has shifted from curation to development of apps, smts, etc.
An inspiring story @geekgirl and quite similar to mine... accept I only managed 1 week in the top spot 😄
In all seriousness, I have been meaning to write my curie story for a while now and this post has inspired me to get it done. Thanks for the inspiration
Thank you @raj808 for your kind words and encouragement. I planned to write this couple weeks ago. Finally managed to do it. Looking forward to reading your story.
Curie would not have made it high up in the witness rank without you and your contribution to curie has just been nothing but awesome.
The picture just cracks me up !!! What a team !
Thank you for saying that, but it has always been a team effort. Moreover, I didn't cover this in the post but Curie has always had a humble spirit and when people are reminded of Curie and its contributions voting for Curie is no-brainer. What you are doing with building Malaysian community and contributing Curie is far more impressive. The illustration was an old project which I never got to finish. Finally got a chance to use it :). Curie soccer team is going to the world cup.
I save this story for later ! :) You already told me so I want to know all the details ;-)
Thank you Roxane.
When you refer to "submitting posts," do you mean "suggesting or nominating" someone else's post, or do you refer to posts written yourself?
Someone else's post. Curie curators when find awesome posts can propose/nominate them for a review. The process is done by submitting the posts on a streemian.com website.
Curators can't submit their own posts. That wouldn't be curating, that would be self-promotion.