My last article got downvoted.
I am not going to link to it, as if trying to subvert the downvote. You can find it if you look directly at article list in my blog, but it probably won't show up in an article list in its category.
It was probably categorized incorrectly, though. I marked it as 'religion', whereas it should have been 'introduceyourself'.
Why could it have been downvoted
Putting an article in an incorrect category is already a form of abuse according to FAQ:
Using tags that are unrelated to the post.
Still, that article was relevant to religion, it was just not its first purpose.
Still, this apparent mistake was not pointed out to me.
I wrote a negative comment under somebody's article. They wanted to know in what ways their readers spent their holidays, but at the same time in the article they did not say anything about their own holidays.
I thought it was dishonest, or incomplete, and I pointed it out to the author.
Turned out the author was a part of a clique of three Steemit profiles run by but two people. They started downvoting my comment and my introductory article. This by itself was a form of abuse on their part, as people are not supposed to write comment that are irrelevant to the discussion. (They could have just spilled their negativity under my comment that started the discussion, which would have been appropriate.
Were they right?
Apparently I went against Steemit's consensus that one does not write a negative comment under somebody's article without reading their other articles.
I wanted the articles to be self-contained, or clarify what the author means, without me having to dig up their other articles.
Still, I could have just done my research and investigate whether the answers to my questions were contained elsewhere, in their other articles.
I am glad it was pointed out to me. The people, although did give me plenty of bad names, did research on my other publications (the article and my other comments) to get a full view of me, which I failed to do previously. I should have done it.
Comparison with WordPress' interactions
On WordPress I was never receiving relevant comments.
The discussion with my opponents, however painful it was for me, taught me much. Apparently I broke Steemit's netiquette by not researching on people before writing negative stuff on them. On WordPress I would just look up someone's 'About' to get a view on them. On Steemit it is not possible, as there is no 'About' page in Steemit's profile.
Still, I could have look up some of the other articles the authors write. (In this particular case the author did describe, with pictures, the way they spent holidays, I just did not notice it.
I am glad people hold me accountable for what I write. On WordPress people woldn't even acknowledge that they read my articles, whether they were good or bad.
I think that this particular Steemian overreacted, but I am glad we had any interaction at all, and that I was able to grow from it.
Having my WordPress articles completely ignored was just too depressing, and I eventually deleted all of them.
On constructive criticism
I do not agree that constructive criticism is a thing. Wikipedia says:
Constructive criticism aims to show that an intent or purpose of something is better served by an alternative approach. In this case, making the criticism is not necessarily deemed wrong, and its purpose is respected; rather, it is claimed that the same goal could be better achieved via a different route.
When I call somebody an idiot, then obviously I mean that whatever they are doing may be achieved via a different route.
I may be wrong in calling somebody an idiot; yet my purpose is not - then - to establish that they are inherently an idiot, but to point it out to them that at this very moment I think that some of the goals they might want to achieve may be accomplished in a different way. I assumed it was understood.
I do not particularly understand why Wikipedia says this:
In this case, making the criticism is not necessarily deemed wrong, and its purpose is respected;
Why would criticism not be requested?
Even if my opponent bothers to read this article, they might want to answer in the comment section.
In what circumstances criticism is deemed wrong?
Obviously I did accept the criticism I received, even thought it was not constructive at all. Why would somebody not accept criticism thrown at them?
Steemit's monetization
My previous article was upvoted, and I would have received one cent for it, but it was later downvoted two times.
Still, it would have been the very first time I received any money for blogging.
In my previous blog I was running a PayPal button, later replaced with a bitcoin address, and it was just not being used.
Why it might be so
When I do send somebody a donation, I usually select just one, or some small number of content creators, and donate to them some 0.5 - 1 mBTC monthly.
They are then not able to tell what particular content I reward, or even who I am.
Still, since I joined Steemit, I deliberately put enough STEEM Power so that people I vote for get at least one cent per vote.
Normally I would have to understand somebody's work very well, and follow them for months, before deciding to donate.
Thanks to Steemit's bizarre upvoting mechanism I can reward people more instantly.
(Why still paying monthly donations to the people I chose previously).
The obvious disadvantage is, though, that as I am quick to write a negative comment under an article, I am also quick to send the one cent (one vote) to an article that might not deserve it.
I still value being able to send a monthly donation in bitcoin to the people whose content I care about.
I received a positive feedback
I wrote a negative comment under this article.
I am not very proud of it now. I did the same mistake. Write a comment about an article without studying other works of the content creator first.
Still, surprisingly, I got a positive reply:
I can see you are indeed right as the words are slightly misleading. We are born with the ability to be who we are but then we pick up habits which can steer us away from harmony with our true nature.
Thank you for your contribution & welcome to Steemit!
Some people, apparently, can accept criticism, constructive or otherwise.
I later apologized them for having criticized their article without a good reason.
Still, I feel encouraged after receiving this, even thought I might have put the author down previously.
Either way, both reactions are welcome.
The criticism, though, allowed me to grow faster than the fluffy feedback. (Even though the author of the negative comments was indeed stupid, as their other comments show).
Will I still criticize
I shall obviously continue to criticize other people's articles if I think that they are harmful or pointless.
Today I criticized this article, which was posted in introduceyourself category, so I won't bother to try to find the articles of the same author, but I've seen their website.
You can click at the above link to see the whole article, or my whole comment. These are a few paragraphs of it:
What do you mean by connecting buyers and sellers? You don't want to pay for web space and expect all data to be stored on blockchain directly? You don't mind that blockchains only operate at the rate of a couple of hundreds of megabytes per hour? Or have you found a scaling solution?
In the last year you have interacted with your GitHub account only three times. (Three commits).
I suspect this project is a scam. Doesn't show evidence that the author knows the meaning of the word 'blockchain' or has any plan for it. There are only three commits on GitHub. I believe the author has no idea what they are talking about!
The comment was downvoted again by the same idiot who downvotes all of my negative comments now, although they are not able to prove that I am wrong in them.
I believe that the author of the article is a scammer. They are looking for workers for some unspecified project without clarifying in what way blockchain would be useful for it.
You can watch this presentation by Andreas Antonopoulos in which the speaker explains why blockchain should not be used everywhere without a good reason.
Criticism, please
If you want to allow me to grow, please provide your criticism under this article, but please keep it within the guidelines of the FAQ.
If my content is not violating any of these, don't try to fight it!
Reporting abuse
I believe I am being followed now by a stalker who keeps downvoting my articles even though they are unable to prove that they violate the FAQ or otherwise disprove it.
I might report them to Steemcleaners or to a proper abuse channel.