We're International Now Baby! ...And That Doesn't Come Without Growing Pains
People are joining Steemit in droves, and they're coming from all over the world!
These new users have different cultures and ways of thinking about how to operate on a social networking site.
If Steemit is going to maintain IT'S culture, we need to work together to adjust their behavior.
Spam Culture
When I say Nigeria, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
I'm going to guess you thought "scams".
Some cultures are known for scams and others are known for spam. I don't like to stereotype, and of course not everyone in any given culture behaves in the same way, but generally speaking, there are cultures that operate in a more spammy, superficial way, at least by Western standards.
Spam is annoying as hell, and for most of us, it doesn't seem to work, but for some, it may be all they can offer at this point, not because they can't do better, but because they may not know how to do any better (yet). And even if their spammy tactics only yield a few bucks, a few bucks can make a decent difference in some people's lives. So it's only natural to expect that these people will bring the spammy tactics they have been using on other sites over to Steemit.
It doesn't mean we should tolerate the behavior, we can't. Theses spammy culture types will ruin the Steemit experience and community if we just let them run wild to do whatever they want.
Warnings Don't Work
I don't think a verbal warning will be enough to make users from spam cultures change their behavior. In fact, I don't even think one flag will be enough, I think these guys are going to need a flag along with a polite comment, from more than one person, until they get the message.
Flag Gently...
I think it's time to start flagging right away.
If you see a follow for follow comment, or if you see someone who leaves a generic comment, and you've gone into their account's comment section and you see they are leaving silly, mindless, nearly identical comments, over and over again, please flag them. And then leave them a nice note explaining why.
My hope is that if this happens even just a few times to each of them, they will get the message and stop. We might lose some of them, but we didn't want them if they were only going to give us spam anyway.
If you're account has a slider, you can flag at a very low percentage. I think this is the best way to go. Just flag them a little bit and leave the note, and hope that does the trick.
The idea is obviously not to hurt their account before they even get started. We don't want to increase their frustration level any more than they are probably already experiencing, but we also don't want Steemit to be ruined, as only spam galore can do.
What Do You Think?
So, flagging right away is my suggestion and I think it we all do it together, it will work.
Do you agree we need to start flagging first and giving an explanation along with the flag?
Or do you think we should take some other approach?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Certainly something needs to be done. And the sooner we help guide these new users onto the right path, the better the chance they will actually start to earn some money, get excited about Steemit, and stay on.
If we just let them spam, they'll do the only thing they know how to do, get frustrated and leave. So I think it's much better for us to engage rather than do little or nothing and hope for the best.
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