Reflecting on How Writing Has Changed
Writing used to be so much fun back in 2017, when I first joined this community. In those days, I practically ate and breathed this space. I can vividly remember the days of mobbs, justtryme, suesa, anarchhasnogods... I could go on and on.
We gathered on steem.chat before eventually migrating to Discord, though Discord today hardly feels like a community anymore. Only a handful of us, not more than 4 or 5, remain active in the server.
As a Nigerian, I was part of a vibrant group of Nigerian STEM writers (greenrun and others come to mind). We eventually grew so large that a sub-community, stemng, had to be created. The broader STEM community on this chain also expanded rapidly, eventually giving rise to a Spanish sub-community, while the Italian and French enthusiasts nearly formed full communities of their own.
At the time, I genuinely believed that what bound us together was more than just the incentives. How mistaken I was.
Everything took a downturn with the bear market, and things have never truly recovered since then. Realistically, they may never reach that level again - even if the Hive token skyrocketed to $10 tomorrow. So, why am I still here? Many people who know me in real life wonder the same thing.
I found this platform by pure serendipity, drawn by my natural love for reading and writing. The incentives, which I only discovered later, were simply icing on the cake.
When Writing Lost Its Spark
Today, writing is no longer as enjoyable, largely thanks to generative AI. To be honest, my initial belief was that AI could never replace human creativity. Yet again, I was mistaken.
With each passing day, the line between AI-generated and human-generated content grows increasingly blurred - and soon, it may disappear entirely. Imagine spending days researching and crafting a thoughtful piece, only for an AI to produce something similar in minutes, or even seconds. So yes, writing just doesn’t feel as rewarding as it once did.
What’s worse is the fear of sounding too polished. Writers now risk being accused of using AI simply because their work is too refined. In other words, putting in too much effort might actually backfire. The world feels a bit upside down in that sense.
Rethinking Curation and Incentives
This brings me to the question of curation and incentives for content published on this chain. Lately, I find myself wondering - is it really worthwhile to reward purely textual, research-based content that lacks originality, whether in data, images, or insights? This has made me increasingly cautious about curating content here.
I haven’t been keeping up much with what other communities are doing in terms of curation, to be honest. However, as a curator for the stemsocial community, I think it’s time we re-evaluate our criteria. Posts that are not primarily the original thoughts of the author shouldn’t pass, in my opinion.
Personally, I would rather vote for a post featuring an original photo of algae accompanied by scientifically sound descriptions than a two-thousand-word article on malaria with no original research, data, or visuals whatsoever.
I may be wrong in my assessment of things, however. It is one of the reasons I'm putting this on the chain, rather than starting a discussion on Discord, where only a handful will contribute.
So, I'm posing the question to the community: how should curation within the community proceed in the face of generative AI?
