Hey again, steemitizens!
I have a secret I need to get off my chest and share with someone. You look trustworthy enough to me, so pull up a chair, this might take a minute to explain.
Okay, all comfortable? Need a cup of coffee or a bottle of water? Joanne from customer service made some excellent brownies too, help yourself, they're in the break room down the hall.
No thanks? Well, your loss. They're kick ass brownies! Anyway, let me get straight to the point.
I've asked you to drop by today because we've got a problem to solve here on steemit and I think you might be just the right person to help. The steemitizens are a fine bunch of hard working folks. All trying to find a way to get along and survive together out here on this sweaty, dusty, backbreaking blog farm.
And some folks are just not pulling their weight.
Let's face it. Some people are just shitposting. There. I said it. Some are putting more manure than plants in this great big garden.
I'm not gonna lie. I really expected more from what I was told before coming on board. Since joining the community here, I've seen such a wide disparity in individual output, that I'm sometimes just shocked by the widespread lack of originality. And these people still get a paycheck?
Look, I've only been here for about a week myself, and I don't claim to know everything about how this place runs.
Maybe you know more about it than I do. Maybe we can figure it out together. All I know is that something needs to change.
I have been asking around, and listening in the halls and overhearing chats. There seems to be a group of people dedicated to doing quality, original work here and that's the core and heart of the entire thing. It's just that there is a second group. The group that just dredges up stuff already posted somewhere else, and rehashes news that is already published for free on dozens of sites. These are the people that are effectively littering on our playground. They add no value to posts, and they just blast noise into the flow of otherwise beautiful work going on around here.
On one hand, I'm all ABOUT decentralized, chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, freedom and liberty from tyranny of any kind for all. But I also expect some dignity, self-respect and added-value from community participants and speaking even more generally, I expect nothing less from civilized humanity at large.
However:
I am the boss of no one and no one is the boss of me.
I just want to put this idea out there in my show of solidarity with the other steemitizen's voices I read saying similar things.
If you want to post and discuss a news article, add your commentary to the post. Voice your opinion. Don't just publish someone else's research, or work via a link and run off, and think you have added any value with no additional thoughts or opinions of your own added to the post.
Maximize value in what this community has time to consume from your personal contributions here.
Personalize your posts. This is just straight up my personal opinion of course, but if you don't put your personal mark on your posts, you'll just be forgettable anyway. Yes I used the word personal a lot in the last two sentences. Own it. Personally.
Find your voice. Find your niche. Produce the best content you can every time. Or save the post till it can be better. Be original, creative, inspiring and freely speak your mind here. We can take it. These are smart people around you. Just like you and me.
Spend some time welcoming newcomers. It helps them and it helps you. In 47 hours, I got my first 100 followers, by simply reading introduction posts, and making new friends with the comments section. We conversed. We laughed. We shared support for lost pets. In 47 hours, I found a warm waiting family here, starting from zero as a totally uniformed, just walked in the door, clueless and confused minnow point of view and so can you! Maybe it will happen faster for you, maybe slower. But without followers here, you will soon become forgotten.
Yes, I've already mentioned two ways you can quickly become forgettable on steemit. Perhaps that is enough for now, to get you thinking about how to be memorable. What sorts of things you see here that stick with you. What sorts of things you might do with the power of your steemit podium and platform, to get YOU out to the world around you.
And if you need any help figuring it out. Ask me, or any of many other helpful, wonderful people here on steemit. We all want this place to succeed and grow beyond our wildest imaginations, right? So we better plant the seeds and water them now and along the way, help each from turning into weeds that choke the place to death.
Love me or hate me, I can comfortably stand by this rant. We've got people of all ages here, from all over the world. Respecting the time they spend here and creating a wonderful library of content is the best gift we can give each other.
I don't care about your offsite link dropped without comment. I also don't care if you can spell or use grammar perfectly. I don't care if your language is not my language. I care about who you are, and what you can share with this community that we can all learn from, relate to, laugh at, cry with, or experience together. That's what will keep steemit's steem engine running, and keep you from becoming forgettable in the mist.
Come out of the fog, and back into the steem!
I can read crypto news on a thousand sites, and see the latest politics everywhere else. Tell me your feelings about them in your post. Add some value. Tell us about yourself. Show us your art. Expose your brains. Don't just post some rehashed old meme. Create a new one! Write a story, or tell us how you did something and how we can too! It's so easy, that even young children here manage it just fine.
Nothing is stopping any of us from being real here, except ourselves.
Hit me with your reactions below!
And with that, this post is finished. Full steem ahead, steemitizens!