Quality Maximalists are driving regular users away from Steem - Quality is overrated - Stop demanding it! -
Facebook, Instagram, Medium, Reddit
Or any other, what we would currently consider to be a popular "social media" website didn't reach their success solely on good quality articles/pictures/links/thoughts. There was no governing body yelling quality and demanding it from each and every one of its users. People were left free to do, and post whatever the f*** the want. That's how it should be and its a big factor in their success. Sadly, the same can't be said for the Steem blockchain.
Here, we have a Boogeyman, or even worse, a whole community of them. Demanding extreme quality of content, is a cancer that needs to be cut off at its roots.
This is what we are seeing more of lately on Steem and Steem-based dapps. It has been instilled into Steemians minds, by these self-righteous Boogeyman, that our posts should always be of exceptional quality. This, broken state of mind is plaguing Steem, and driving many regular users away.
It should be obvious that
Not everyone can create "good quality", grammatically A+, well thought out and written, witty, insightful, and thought provoking articles. It's just not possible for many. Firstly, because not all users on here are native English speakers, myself included. That is a big hurdle for many. Seeing a native English speaker butthurt and complaining about shitposts, who are obviously written by the non-native is appalling. Straight up stupid. Secondly, not everyone has the needed intellect to come up with what Quality Maximalists consider to be a "high quality" post. It's just not in the range for some. I'm not saying they are stupid or whatnot, just that some people don't have that writing talend.
Most regular users can't, or don't have the time/motivation to meet the Maximalist, The Boogy Man standards so they troll and complain about them. In some cases they will even flag the "shitposters".
By setting the bar so high
The Boogeyman, are driving away many regular Steemians who just want to use this platform in a similar fashion to Fb, Insta, or Reddit. Posting the kind of content which, in most cases doesn't have the needed quality to fall into the category that would satisfy the Boogeyman. So they lash out, troll and flag the regular users for using this blockchain how they see fit.
Do you get how wrong this is?
How big is your ego? Having such an over exaggerated sense of importance and excercising it through imposing such extreme ideas on rest of the community is a toxic practice.
Thousands of users have already left Steem because of the Boogyeman demanding unprecedented quality and shitting on their posts because it's lacking it. If continued, this toxicity towards regular users will, drive most of them away from utilizing the potential of the Steem blockchain and in the same time growing its value.
Minnows ( users with less than 500 SP) provide a big part of the value and and make up the majority of Steem users. They are, although not exclusively, in most cases accused and prosecuted by Boogeyman, for shitposting.
Even though quality is a somewhat important factor in the success of the platform we are using, it is definitely not the only one required for reaching massive success. While I do agree that quality is important for the consumers of content. We shouldn't excercisse our incompetence of discovering it through punishing those who obviously have no intentions of ever producing it.
They are regular users, don't you get it? They are no journalists, bloggers or proffesional vloggers. BUT THEY WANT TO PARTICIPATE ANYWAY. Why do you think it is your right not to allow it? Or to criticize them for it?
Where is that sense of self importance coming from? Your already big enough ego needs food to grow? What is it?
A much more important factor IMO, is the userbase. They are the strongest driving force behind the value of a social media or any other platform. No one can't deny it.
Realistically
Only about 10% of users, probably even less, can produce that top level content the Boogeyman demands. None of the befor-mentioned centralized platforms have built their value solely on that, top level content. Instead, they built it by capitalizing on their huge userbase. Most of the stuff posted there falls into the range of what we would consider to be shitposts. That's just what people are doomed to post sooner or later and it is the same stuff they will later consume from others. Not so much from others in the recent years though, because the platforms changed the content we are presented from the one posted by our friends to that of websites, projects, companies spending money on advertisment. And the "top level" content some of them produce.
The: "Went to the mall with Loreen." single image post. The: "Lone picture of your cat" The: "Update on your childs teeth growth". The regular, everyday shit. This is what most of the regular users post on such platforms. Although, content of "better qualit" will persumably always raise up over the shitposts, that is what most of the content on the mentioned platforms is.
Regular, everyday stuff. Sharing your life, interests, hobbies or ideas with your friends, online.
Even though the Greedy Corps behind such platforms don't make money on the shitposts, they make it on the people using their site in the firsplace. The userbase is, and always will be, the main source of value on such platforms. The larger it is, the more money they are worth.
Yet, many don't realize this and instead of searching for alternatives, they waste their time online earning a buck for Zuckerberg and such.
If we could tap into 1% of the number of users any of these "services" have, we would have a much more valuable coin on our hands. But the Quality Maximalists will never allow that to happen because, the newbies will shitpost so they will drive them away. Back to being locked up and griding profits for the master of the centralized platoform they are on.
I would like to digress here
For a second, just to mention that this is where the revolution and power of decentralization lies. It is the exact opposite of centralized platforms. Instead of keeping all of the profits like the Greedy Corps behind mentioned centralized platforms do, the decentralized ones will share a big portion, if not most of the profits they make with the ones who provide most of its value. The userbase.
It will be a hard blow to the centralized platforms when their userbase realizes how they have been milked for cash all this time, while they could have been earning it for themselves.
It is this empowering feeling of being rewarded for something I elsewhere do for free, what got me on Steem in the first place and what made me instantly realize the potential of such a shift of power (money) from the Greedy Corps, back where it needs to be. In the hands of the people.
Back to the subject
I hope that we agree on the point that the userbase provides most of the value of a platform and that a big percentage of them will shitpost at some point of time. Some will always do it, while others more rarely. I also hope that you understand the consequences of being a Quality Maximalist/Boogeyman and that you will soon, stop beeing one if you see yourself falling into this category.
Steem implies freedom of speach. The right to say whatever the want without the fear of being censored. Why do you want to take that right away from some users? What makes you think its in your power to do so? How would you feel if the same happened to you?
I truly hope that everyone inline with and understand where I'm going with this because it's hard to be any clearer about it.
Bottom line is
The Quality Maximalists/Boogeyman, are poisoning this place, quite frankly decreasing its value while ironically trying to increase it. If you are one of them, consider converting. Your behaviour is toxic and it serves no good. Flexing your ego at others is unnecessary and is making you look like a fool. I suggest you stop doing so because soon, more will wake up to the fact of how bad this attitude is and the tides will shift. Not in your favour obviously.
What do you think?
I'll value any oppinion you might have and would like to see it in the comment section down bellow.
Who is @runicar? I'm a struggling middle-class citizen of a broken and corrupt country, trying to achieve financial freedom through the endless possibilities of decentralization. A true believer in Steem and its potential to shape the future into something much better than our present. I believe that Steem will, through tokenizing the world play a crucial role in creating the Age of Abundance for everyone willing to tap into it.
Some of my other Steem related articles that I'm proud of and think deserve your attention.
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All of the other listed social media sites don’t reward fiscally for content, though. Steemit does. That’s the biggest disconnect between Steemit and any other social media network, and the primary reason why Steemit can’t be compared to any other free platform. If we want Steemit to be another free social media, fine. Remove the rewards and then you’re well on your way.
Steemit needs an emphasis on quality to be successful, however the methods for determining that quality and how it’s featured need to changed.
~ Mako
They are the only good examples of currently successful projects which are comparable to Steems dapps. That's why I used them for an example. How isn't that logical.
We already have an epmhasis on quality which is as mentioned part of the equation for success and I have nothing against it but, the problem mentioned in the article isn't the emphasis but rather an over exaggerated emphasis and demand for only quality content. Only that and nothing else. Excluding all other forms, except what they consider to be of good quality.
That is toxic. As mentioned, people should be to post whatever they want. Who are we to govern them?
I don’t think the emphasis is over-exaggerated at all. The reason why it appears over-exaggerated is because there are no filters on content for people to find their niches. You might like conspiracy theories, for example, where I don’t. So obviously I’m going to want to see less conspiracy theories on this site because I don’t deem them ‘quality’. The issue doesn’t lie in the demand for quality content, it lies in the fact that everyone’s definition of quality is subjective and there’s currently no way to filter out what you subjectively don’t like.
~ Mako
I wrote a little bit more about this here this morning. Feel free to take a look!
~ Mako
Nice article. I never thought 'shitposts' are the problem but it would be nice if Steemit would add some kind of filtering. Example - to filter new articles by language and to filter articles by number of words written. This would help new users who are working hard but can't get a single payout because they get lost in the sea of how you call 'shitposts'. This RC system which was implemented 2 weeks ago helped to get rid of spammers but it has also limited new users who don't have money or maybe don't know how to invest in their Steem acc. In the past you could always comment on another persons article and maybe get notice by them. Today new users are limited to 1 post per day and max. 1 comment (if they use their 10 upvotes). Btw. sry for bad English, not my first language as well :)
Yes indeed, filtering is a MOST missing feature today, as I see it. Give me proper filters, and I leave those shitpost authors alone. As long as they dont bother me
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Yes, Steemit is lacking a lot in the content discovery department. Although they will most likely never update Steemit much, @ned mentioned he is making an entirely new platform to tap into the Steem blockchain. A whole new interface. One that will hopefully solve many of the problems Steemit has.
As for the RC system. Yes, it eliminated spammers and in the same time some regular users. Real people that actually use this blockchain and post instead of spamming and clogging up the network with dust votes.
For the real users. Devs, apps, and the community will come together to make faucets or they will delegate RC which will allow them much better functionality than the one they currently have.
It's just a matter of time. A lot of positive changes happened with the implementation of HF 20 but the problems that came to existence as a consequence of such will quickly be solved by the community, imo. Just wait and see.
Max 3 months down the road what I've just mentioned should already be in place.
That's what I love about this place. THere is so much development and users chip.in all accross the world to do something for the greater benefit. Everyone is contributing to some extent and each contribution is building the network and increasing it's value.
That's why Steem is destened to succeed.
With thousands of dapps and countless businesses, there is no chance if failure. Only one dapp going cryptokitty on us could launch the price of Steem up, considerably.
I always like to say, stack now or cry later to motivate people so, that's how I'll end this comment that turned into a post. This is all on @musing!!! My average amount of words count has gone up by 10x since I first started using it.
It is definitely a mental shift from what we get drilled with when starting on steemit, I think though with the rise of DApps this will change since we now have things like Dlink etc and even steem2share (I am on the fence about that one) will bring more "shitpost" content into the platform but does it really matter? Steem is just a tool at the end of the day, and if I can use a butter knife to remove a few screws then why not.
Once we get to the point where the interfaces can more effectively separate content then the smt or interface will determine what gets posted. You will have medium, quora and that piece of shit instagram thing , they can then further eliminate content posted on their DApps which do not line up or find a way to hide said content , this will be needed regardless of how subjective content can be.
If I could build an interface I would definitely implement a method to hide over paid content from serial abusers and eventually their account. out of sight out of mind. and if it is an smt then hell yeah build in a method to completely kick them . That will be each DApps prerogative to protect the perceived value of said DApp or SMT , and sure if it is steemit then no rules go ahead post what you want steem and the everything buckets are merely the foundation for others to build on top of and with that they should not be implementing a lot of rules, which is something that the "community" needs to also keep in mind. Heck, even plagiarism is not a concern of mine since it just takes too much effort to go around being bothered with those people in a broad scope ecosystem, this is why the DApps and SMT will be good they can and should be a lot more forceful in removing bad actors and subjective or not this applies to overpaid content in general (slippery slope I know).
That's what the future holds for Steem and if some users can't deal with it it's their problem. As I said in the post
Thats of crucial importance. We need to find much better ways of filtering through and finding great content. THe problem with that is obvious. If judged on metrics such as upvotes, users can game it. If a team of moderators does it than it's not decentralized and all point is lost.
I'm unsure how we will deal with this issue in the future because when money is in the core of the calculation and humans are involved, wrong posts are doomed to come up eventually. We've seen it happen here and it continuously happens.
Nice post. I like it
..........
Honestly I do but I gave to say more or you'll probably think I'm spamming.
You've got valid points in your piece, points I can relate to
The entire quality post thing reeks of hypocrisy. I know people who write sub-par pieces and get more payouts than my 2k words original stories will ever get.
I believe it's some kind of elitism. Some folks wanna feel like they contribute more than others. That's probably true but that's another story
Hell, I'm just rambling on because I have to stretch this comment as long as possible so you'll be like 'great comment' and gimme a 100% upvote
Hehe
Alright, I have to go now. Thanks to @penderis (Penis) for resteeming this. I will too
Blessings
Love it my friend! Great points all around! The most important aspect of the community should be “interactivity” and not “quality” of a post. We only grow from supporting one another, and as long as we are doing that steemit will grow!
Exactly, you are correct.
Exactly! You got it all right. That's an awesome attitude to have. If only we had more like-minded individuals here.
Some of them, they demand for quality and yet the votes they want to give you for that quality is nothing to write home about, I mean their votes will not make you an instant millionaire.
For me, I just forget about those who keep demanding quality and do what I feel like doing.
-Resteemed.
Yes! And that's exactly how it should be. We should be free to do and post about we want, however we want!
Thanks for the resteem.
Not everyone here has the same goal anyway.. some dont really care about creating quality and just want to have fun and meet people. Creating 'quality' is difficult anyway and takes alot of time.
I like the mix of long and short posts here along with Dtube, Dmania etc
Yep. The whole Steem ecosystem in general is shifting from long articles to short blog posts or dapp posts. Some users just have a hard time adapting.
Y, dtube is a great source of content. Especially if you are into real news and crypto.
That said, I do like short to medium length posts but if the article is good I would read through it no matter how long it is.
I havent explored Dtube too much yet, but now I have time I might explore it a bit more!
I find some people think quality is all about the length, but sometimes less is better!
Dtube has great potential. I can't wait to finally start producing content for it. It's been a long time now since I first wanted to join and I think I finally will, soon enouh.
Quality is, at least imo, something completely unrelated with length. It's something much more than that.
There really are too many self entitled "quality-content" Nazis on here.
Totally agree all the "law bots" fail to understand that they are harming the platform, user retention is the key to success. @cheetah @badcontent are two that spring to mind. They need to wake up.
This post has nothing to do with mentioned bots. They are actually a good thing and serve to point out obvious abusers of the platform. How is that bad?
They may point out abusers of the platform, but I have seen both chase away legitimate users, both of these bots harm user retention as well as "doing good!" You cannot say user retention is a problem and then not see this, surely?
I would just like to add, your title says this ..."Quality is overrated - Stop demanding it!".
This is what these two law bots demand so why do you think they are not part of the problem?
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