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Hey, everyone! How was your holidays? I certainly hope everyone had a bountiful feast :D I had just come back online after a short holiday hiatus to the sight of a recent post filled to the brim with wonderful comments. I certainly hoped it would elicit that kind of reaction, and I just want to say thank you to everyone who has left, is leaving and will leave their thoughtful comments there. You guys rock!
Oh man, this is a new record for me. This is the most times I've talked about Steemit in a month. In fact, I think I've talked about Steemit this month almost as many times as I've made a post about Steemit ever. I mean, I've gone months without even a mention of the platform and just focused on my own thing. I'm a big proponent of making posts that are non-Steemit related, and I still am, but I feel like this is a topic that's too important to pass up.
Before my schedule becomes swamped, I wanted to write about something that I have been planning for several months now. Seeing as it's that time of the year to start shedding that holiday weight, I thought it would be a good time to shed some weight here on Steemit as well. I have already made several posts about what's been dragging me down on Steemit, and while it was handled mostly by adjusting my expectations, I feel like another factor has been weighing me down a bit.
In my previous post, I talked briefly about my view on SUPPORT here on Steemit. We all have our own motivations, our own purpose and our own way of going about things here. The thing we have to remember is to just respect each other. Out of all our differences, one of the main similarities that we have is how limited our time is. The way we prioritize the people we support all depends on our approach. You can either actively support whales and hope that they gift you with a massive vote here and there, or you can support people who are equal or below you in terms of reputation and SP, build up a relationship and hope that in time both of you grow to become whales yourselves. I've already said too much about it in my previous post, so if you missed it and are interested in reading about it, I invite you to take a look at it: https://busy.org/steemit/@jedau/invest-in-steemians-like-you-would-with-cryptocurrencies
For now, I wanted to talk more about a recent milestone that I've just reached, how I reached it and my explanation behind it.
OMG! A MILESTONE!!
Yes, that's right. I've finally done it. After months of strategic moves, I have finally reached a milestone I have wanted to attain for quite some time now. No, not the 1000 followers thing. I mean, I have reached it yesterday, but that's not the milestone I wanted to celebrate. As of writing, I am only following... 25 people!
I know what you're thinking. How the hell would that be a milestone? Any newbie that starts today could very well surpass that milestone in a matter of minutes. Well, with people celebrating inchstones as milestones, I feel like it's only proper to celebrate a somewhat parody of a milestone. An anti-milestone, if you will.
The WHY
My feed is being cluttered by too many posts that I don't want to read about and by people that I want very little to do with. After adjusting my expectations, I was still haunted by a lingering sense of negativity. I tried to find the source and it led directly to my feed. Sometimes it feels like a marketplace filled with a lot of stuff I don't need. Often, I miss posts that I do care about and I end up feeling bad about it. What else is there to do but to shed the excess weight.
Inspired by 
You see, I am here for the reciprocity. That's my approach. Some people follow because they're fans of other people, some follow because they want to attract followers, thinking that it's a badge of honor to collect tons of followers. But, I don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm fans of many of the people I follow. Ideally, I want to be a fan of all the people I follow.
Right now, I only average less than 30 votes (on a good day), with only a few different people commenting on my posts. As of writing I have more than 1000 followers. 1000 to 30, doesn't that ratio strike you as odd?
Don't use my very recent posts as a basis, because I have fortunately found myself in a very productive wave. While I want to ride it for as long as I can, I've been on waves like this before and I know that I have to make drastic changes to keep it going. So, yeah, I am thrilled and over the moon about the love I've gotten recently. I appreciate each and every one who has commented and voted.
Going back to the main discussion, what are followers for if they don't SUPPORT you? And by that I mean, vote, comment, resteem and/or view your post. It's like the follow is as good as, well... nothing. They're basically a statistic that doesn't translate to any sort of progress.
Sure, I get it that not everyone will have the chance to read and comment on your posts. After all, everyone is doing their own thing and you can't demand anyone's attention. I totally get that, and I'm the same way. But, that's why I'm trying to change all that. I'm lightening my load so that I could focus on the people who deserve my attention.
Again, I just want to reiterate. The way I filter out who deserves my attention is from my own perspective. I don't demand anyone's attention, and I certainly don't dictate my approach to others. It's been twisted before, that's why I feel I need to emphasize it every time, to avoid misinterpretation.
I want my feed to be filled with posts that I have either voted or commented on, or both. I'm in this for the interaction, and while I'm a fan of many people here, I prioritize supporting people who know that I even exist. With this, I hope to clear out clutter and hopefully add more people to SUPPORT. Moving forward, I would be more stingy about following people so that I wouldn't need to mass purge ever again and I would immediately unfollow people who won't return support.
Look at me talking like I unfollowed hundreds of people. I've only unfollowed a miniscule amount compared to others who are following at the high hundreds. Interested in knowing how I filtered out who to unfollow? Read along.
The HOW
Now, I'm sorry if I misled you a bit. I won't detail the exact algorithm I used because I'm mulling over whether or not to create an open source project about it. But, I used criteria like how many comments and votes on my posts, how many times I commented and voted on their posts, etc. Basically, a quantified look at our interaction. I made a list, included a few exceptions, then just went wild.
The way I see it, if the interaction score between two people are low, then it's been a long time since they last interacted or they don't even interact that much. I don't have unlimited time, and I only get to interact with only a few people on a daily basis. But, I want interactions to mean something, that's why I leave thoughtful comments every time.
During September, after I first mentioned this on my birthday post, I tried to actively engage with people who I have lost touch with. I went through my following list and I tried to figure out who of that are actively following me as well. I gave people two to three thoughtful comments on their posts and recorded whether or not they comment on my posts or even reply to the comment I left on their posts. I was quite disappointed at the turnout, so I extended my one-month experiment to four.
Now, this may seem a bit calculating and methodical, but I urge you to just respect the process. I don't judge you for how you go about things, so I hope you would spare me the same kindness. This is how I evaluate people, and while this may seem a bit cold or not genuine, I assure you that this is only done for efficiency. Every follow and every comment I leave is 100% genuine.
The WHO
No, not the band. While I won't detail everyone I unfollowed, you can clearly see the people that remained. If you are among those that were unfollowed, please don't take it personally. According to the algorithm, you won't even care at all since it's been a long time since you voted or commented on my post. For some, the same goes for me. If you wish to appeal the unfollow, feel free to do so by stating your case in the comments section. I doubt that you will, but for those who do, I would very much appreciate it and I'm looking forward to possibly actively engaging again. But, if you don't wish to appeal, feel free to unfollow me as well. Our interaction is low enough that suggest that I've given up interacting with you beyond the three-comment test I did. I thank you for your time following me, but that didn't yield to tons of interaction. I do wish the best to you moving forward.
I do hope that this provides some sort of catharsis. Seeing people I care for brings me a lot of joy, but I can't help but feel some resentment towards people who doesn't bother returning support. A part of me either feels slighted by them when they lured me to follow them, and when I continued to comment and vote on their posts, they just stopped returning the support. That's not cool. That's not cool at all. Not a view, not a 1% vote. It's best to just cut ties and spare ourselves from further negativity.
Also, I would be readjusting my witness votes based on the idea that 
The PART WHERE I TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
I wanted to do this before the end of the year so that I could welcome 2018 with somewhat a reboot. I'm keeping my friends close and letting go of other people I used to follow. With all this weight gone, I feel lighter already! I'm excited to keep supporting the people I'm already supporting, and to meet new people that deserve support :D
What has two thumbs and is a Top 10 STEEM witness? 
of course! Help keep him there! :D
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