Time For A Minnow Uprising: Overwhelm The System
@timcliff posted an article yesterday asking what it will take for STEEM to reach $10 in 2018. In the post, he had this:
As stakeholders, we have a responsibility to take an active role in improving the value of the token.
He went on to write:
Ideas on what Steemit can do are OK, but I do not accept the idea that we are 100% dependent on them to get us there. I am really most interested in hearing ideas on what we as community stakeholders can to do increase the value of the token.
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/what-needs-to-happen-to-reach-usd10-steem-in-2018-discussion
While his focus is on the price of the token, I prefer to focus upon the contribution to the blockchain and the distribution of the SP.
Over the last 6 months, I followed the breakdown of the different classifications based upon SP and the shift that is occurring. My research went back to March of 2017, the point forward that I analyzed the data. Each month that I run the numbers, it tells the same story. While a flawed system, SP is indeed being spread out. More of the SP is going to the smaller accounts as a whole.
My personal belief is that we will see this accelerated as the number of users join the blockchain. With 60K dailiy active users transacting, we can formulate how this was change if that number was 600K. Since the sign up process is going to remain manual for the foreseeable future, I propose this.
It is time for a massive Minnow (and Plankton) Uprising. It is time to overwhelm the system.
Before I get to the premise, a few facts.
According to the numbers compiled by @arcange, there are 143,793 Minnows and Planktons on this site
https://steemit.com/statistics/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20180611-en
@penguinpablo has these stats.
Daily number of votes: around 700K
Daily posts: roughly 43K
Daily accounts transacting: 60K
https://steemit.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/daily-steem-stats-report-tuesday-june-12-2018
The present reward pool pays 75% to the author. This is where the system favors those who post. It is time, as @timcliff says, "to take an active role".
Here is what I propose.
We need 10K Minnows and Planktons. Basically that is anyone with less than 5K SP.
These individuals are tasked with creating a Minnow uprising. Basically, this is designed to overwhelm the system. Each individual agrees to post 3-4 times a day, every day, for the month of July.
Also, each person uses the 10 100% votes allotted on a daily basis. Use those votes to self-vote each post plus each other. One cannot use voting bots but can partner up to vote in pools with/for each other.
This might sound like a lot of posting but there are many tools to utilize. One post can be a zap by using Zappl. Another could be a Steepshot photo of something you found interesting. A link can be posted via Parley.io. You can put up a D.Tube video or a Steemit post. Lest we forget, post a find on steemhunt.com.
Use the tools that are available on here.
With 10K Minnows doing this, here is what will happen in the month of July.
There will be at least 30K posts a day just by this group (compared to roughly 43K total now).
We will see 100K 100% votes (or many more when using the voting bar).
This equates to close to 1M posts and a minimum of 3.1M 100% votes (probably more like 5M when using the voting bar). That is an incredible amount of traffic for this site based upon the present activity.
We also could see an enormous increase in the number of comments based upon the average of 2+ comments per post.
I will run the numbers through June 30th on July 1 and post them as I always do. On Aug 1, this will be repeated to compared the growth rate of the two classifications over the month. I will also pull up the numbers from previous posts to see how much this jumped compared to the norm.
It is time to take action. Instead of waiting for the larger accounts to do something, it is time for the smaller accounts to take matters into their own hands. 10K accounts putting up 30K+ posts a day plus all using their allotted voting power will overwhelm the system. 75% of the reward pool goes to the authors and that is a lot of posts to try and counteract. The 300 largest accounts simply cannot create enough content to counteract all that activity.
So there you have it. Who is in?
Try to share this idea with everyone you can. For those who are creative, please try to think up some names for this and create some gifs. Minnow Overwhelm. Minnow Uprising. The Return of the Minnow. 😀
For 31 days in the month of July, the reward pool is there for the taking. It is time for the Minnows and Planktons to take what is there.
It is their Independence Day.
By the way, by doing this, the chances that a bigger fish comes by and sees your post is greatly increased. With that many posts, there is no way the Dolphins and Orcas cannot see what is being posted. A few of those posts will suddenly find some decent upvotes each day.
If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.
I smell a minnow spring like event happening...
Zappl is a great tool to get crazy and be active on this platform.
Update: Good timing as our iOS app is out now!
If people on my steemauto join this and churn out 4 shit posts a day (which is most likely what they will be if you're going for quantity), I will be removing them for the duration of the challenge and not upvoting anything. I doubt I'm the only one who would do this.
If the challenge was to write 10 insightful, uplifting, supportive comments on minnow posts each day for July, that would do wonders.
Can’t we turn this into a challenge for extra motivation??
That would be better Matt. And a lot easier to do compared to spamming the block with low quality content. Plus it wouldn't interfere with steemauto.
I too love the idea of genuine comments as well!
I do like the idea of a #minnowuprising, but equally, I share the concerns expressed by @lynncoyle1, @simplymike, @choogirl, @whatsup, @mattclarke. I know that creating a quality post takes time and as much as I'd like to post once a day, that's a tall order, unless it's photographs I've taken and then, I'm not sure about the appeal (they are often of my cooking/food if it's on Steepshot. I accept that one can use tools to dictate, but when I write, I write and it often takes a while for something to brew. I have a list of things I want, no need, to write about, but I have to be in the right space for that. Anyhow, in principle, I support the broad concept. Let's see how it goes.
Well it's starting with or without us @fionasfavourtes :) Let's see how it all pans out!
I like the idea of being more active but 3 to 4 posts a day is boarder-line spam. One decent post takes at least a few hours. Maybe we should be promoting quality as oppose to quantity. If I want junk or quick posts I'll go to Reddit or Twitter. There is definitely a tradeoff between quality and quantity and seeing low quality posts in my feed makes me want to stop following people.
The vast majority of people do not want to join or be a part of a social media site that insists on people spending hours to create a post! This thinking is a huge part of what hurts our retention.
Let people post casually and the votes go where they go.
I agree whatsup,
I will speak here down below just a bit in general about the concept of letting votes go where they go.
Something that YouTube has learned me is how much of your earnings comes from the videos that doesn't seem to be making much. But they all add up very fast since nobody counts the little income streams. 0.01c may seem like a little but it's huge and adds up very fast over time. This is a shiny gold coloured 10 cent euro coin.
Look how beautiful it is. Sometimes whatsup clicks a button and creates this but on the Internet! If you can visualize the real money in your hand the physical then you will see the wild value the small sums adds up to.
This is a 1c euro coin.
Can you see how it also has a charm to it. With not a gold colour but a lovely bronze colour. Almost a bit noble. Took energy to produce this. Remember this Minnows. Those tiny votes add up and have massive value!
Not telling people how they should vote. Just saying lower quality content which isn't promoted is likely to get less votes. It's discouraging to post and have no one engage or upvote you except bots. Maybe suggesting minnows comment or curate more of each other's posts as oppose to chasing whales is a better solution. Tiny votes do add up but you are more likely to attract votes and friends if you are producing quality. Some quality can be produced in 20 minutes or so if you take some photos and already know about your topic.
Yes promotion is very important.
You're right many people are too busy or lazy but that's why they aren't rewarded as much as people who put effort into quality. I don't suggest flagging anyone or banning them but I am definitely not alone when I tend to unfriend low quality posters because I don't want to see junk clogging my feed like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or most of the internet for that matter. The beauty of Steemit is it is customizable and you can choose to be annonomous yet still be heard by like-minded individuals.
I agree with what you have stated. Let the votes go where they may, I am not saying they should earn the same as those making creative, interesting posts that create engagement!
It's not an hourly job.
That is not true, you can write 350 good words in 10 minutes. Yes good. You can create 1500 words in 10 minutes if you speak them and a program translates it into text in real time. A very long article takes 50 minutes. The market wants more value and speed. It's up to us humans to find smarter ways to produce more value to the marketplace. Clearly you should do a combo of both quality and quantity.
Value and speed are great when it comes to computer programming but not to art. In Steemit and life there is a trade off between efficiency and creativity. We should collectively help people get better. Getting better involves increasing you quality and efficiency. Most people and robots aren't capable of stringing together 350 good words in 10 minutes.
Yes most humans can do 350 good words in 10 minutes. It's called focus. We are super intelligent and can easily do that. We can probably do 1000 words if we push ourselves. Value and speed also works in the art section.
The National Center For Education Statistics claims only 3% of Americans in grade 12 write
at an advanced level and about a quarter are proficient. The majority are basic or below basic. source
This is after 50 years of wrong schooling. That will say you can fix it again to create perfection. Humans aren't using their true intelligence 🐈
I agree that the writing isn’t the part that takes time. Personally, I think it’s important for a quality post to have a decent layout, enough things to break through the ‘I don’t know how many second’-rule.
I can write loads of articles in the time span you mention, but it will be simple blocks of text, which -for me personally is a turndown.
My last article took me 20 minutes to write, and then I spent 3 hours preparing the photos. I realize that’s a little over the top, but hey, I do think layout is playing an Important role if you want to get a message through. And unless you guys are all wizards, and I’m a retard, creating a post that is pleasant to read rakes time.
Of course I could do 5 Parsley posts a say. Same goes for Zapple and Dmania posts - even Steemhunt posts don’t take up a lot of time.
But I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want to see that stuff flooding SteemIt.
So back to me original thought: how about a cooperation with small and bigger accounts that will reward quality content. No matter how hard they try - even if they manage to get 20 quality posts out every day - the minnows won’t simply make it on their own, not without a couple of ‘suggerdaddies’...
But hey, what do I know...?
You need a solid content strategy to succeed. A bigger vision where you have a plan to give 100x value in return. That is what will make a person "blow up" so to say.
Agreed.
It takes time just to find interesting topics to write about.
The point is to overwhelm with numbers for the month to attain the goals of little fish gaining traction. We can all deal with more Snapchat type posts for a month to upend the pecking order a bit, hey?
If I want snapchat posts, I'll go to snapchat. Curation groups and communities are the way to go. Suggesting people upvote more minnows is another way to go. I prefer quality and curation over post quantity. In May I made an effort to post everyday, it wasn't easy, sometimes there was only time to snap a few photos of the cat and write a few paragraphs. Not one of these posts received a decent sized upvote or was recognized as being special. Because they weren't. I just wanted the @steemitboard monthly poster award for posting everyday in a month
This is just awesome but I already post 4-5 times sometimes less. If were going to take over Facebook you better quit pissing and moaning about content, if you don't like ones content, keep on moving and shut up. IMO
The graph that shows the minnow's and whales if mind boggling and could be exactly why Steemit doesn't make it. This is such a great post. Thank you @taskmaster4450 for putting this together. All I got to say is, that it's definitely not the Minnnow's holding Steemit back...When Bitcoin and all the other coins are in the Red Sea we should be in the green, gaining the followers and gaining the power in our Coin,Steem. Have a blessed day....
Actually, I'm not a minnow, but I totally hope you find people who want to do this and that it works!
Usage is good, the focus on Quality Content is bad. Activity is good! I love it. Go forth and make it happen!
I guess no one would mind if you would help to make it happen... Like I said above: no matter how much good content they produce, they have zero voting power.
Imo, “massive uprise of plankton and red fish, overwhelming this place with quality content, will have as a result that they will have to spread their 0.001 upvote even more. Loads of those quality posts will never earn a dime because all voters have no valuable vote.
There is no use in starting a revolution when no one has anything.
Maybe the über top guys don’t care, but there’s gotta be some ‘almost top-guys’ willing to offer their support. If not, it’s a lost case even before it started...
Haha! You are talking to someone who made 95 posts that didn't earn a payout when I was a minnow. I also made a hundred more that made a dime or less. That is what unknown Authors make. I am willing to support an effort, you should go easy on the violins we were minnows too. I've been doing this for 2 years.
We grew each other and we did self-vote when we had tiny accounts.
To be brutally clear, it is not my job to make sure you earn. However, if I see people actually trying, I support that.
Exactly. People don't see how stuff gets easier all the time. I uploaded 500+ videos on YouTube before I earned a single thing. You used to had to apply to become a partner.. People raise their standards haha
I’m very happy to hear you haven’t forgotten where you came from. Lots of people have.
I Can also only applaud that you’re supporting people who are really trying.
I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ve just come across a lot of people who did forget they were a small fish Too once.
And I accept your opinion that it is not your job to help anyone earn.
But that’s how we are different.
I arrived here 6 months ago and felt completely lost. Fortunately I ran into some people with a plan. And then the big rush started. So many people signing up, so many people that got frustrated because they were promised the world, and they got nothing.
It ended up with us putting most of our energy in trying to keep the ones that could actually do good here from leaving. 90% of our time goes to supporting the smaller fish, the ones that still need to find their way.
Sometimes I get really frustrated, because we have spent all our time and money trying to help others, while we could have been spending our time mingling with the big boys. That’s a choice we made, I made. As a result my posts get tens of votes and earn a buck.
But I guess it’s just in my nature.
I wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for the support of fellow minnows. I think it’s only fair that I pay it forward, as a sign of gratitude and respect.
It took me 6 months to figure out this attitude is slowing me down. Only last week I realized that as long as i’m a small fish myself, the support I can give to others is very limited. To be able to support more people I need to grow my account as fast as possible. I feel ashamed that I can see no other way to do this than to play the same corrupt game everyone else is playing...
Organic growth is not going to be enough. So I closed my eyes and stepped into the world of self-voting and using bidbots again. I hate myself for doing it, but I truly hope the end will justify the means.
Because from where I’m standing, SteemIt is killing itself. If nothing changes, we will all be fcked. We’re probably fckef anyway, but At least I want to feel that I’ve tried to make things better for everyone. Especially for those thousands of newcomers who were lured here with big promises, only to find out that were all lies.
I’m probably fooling myself with these visions of change, a more fair and balanced platform for everyone. A platform on which the community is more important than greed. Fel free to think I’m being stupid and naive, but please don’t take that away from me. A girl’s gotta have hope, right?! Without hope, everything is lost...
I’m not blaming anyone for the choices he or she makes (naah, not entirely true, lol), it’s a free world.
I hope you don’t blame me for trying ;0)
You are a well fed fish hahaha
it seems like a nice idea but it begs one question. if there are fewer posts today and they still don't get noticed, will it not worsen as more posts are made? with the current interfaces, more content will be treated as more junk and hence impossible to wade through and find what we want
You can count me in! I normally post 3 times per week but can make an effort to post some photos or short thoughts during July to support the initiative! We should use a tag to identify the posts so we can upvote each other accordingly.
#minnowuprising
I just feel that those with large account who care about this platform should be more generous with their votes to minnowers and encourage this minnowers to power up and support other minnowers. I think this will help a lot in the value of steem down the line.
Saying that minnowers should post three times a day might be too tasking because some barely are able to post one day because of other engagement outSide steemit.
Agreed. I get tired of the same circle jerks. I do not belong to a group or curation and have been here 6 months now. I see all sorts of crap posts and newbies surpassing me in rep scores with posted junk, while I work hard to create decent posts that get little response. Tons of bs floats to the top while hard work goes unnoticed! It's infuriating at times!
Yeah, things need to change.
Is there a difference between posting using the steemshot/ zapll app and posting with the zappl/ steepshot tagged as the first tag in the post. The reason I ask is I am a beginner developer who has been doing a lot of practicing with steem-python. I am thinking of making a piece of software that schedules the posts to zaapl/steemshot. Any thoughts/ advice would be gratefully received!!!! : )