Steemit - Stop the Madness

Hello all,

I am relatively new to the steemit community having only been on steemit for the past 11 days. Since that time I have gone through the gambit of learning how it all works and the value it provides. My conclusion is:

But I have a concern. As I started to research how to attract followers I found all kinds of tips and tricks. Most of which gave only a polite nod to creating great content. Most of the tips were related to how to gain thousands of followers or attract the big "whales." I think the idea is that if you have thousands of followers who upvote your content, it will all add up and possible attract "whales" who will inject your post with SBD. I understand the necessity of making money on this platform and I too fell prey to getting seen first over producing content readers want. I am sure that many on steemit did the same when they first joined but how do we as a community make sure that great content does not take a back seat to just getting in front of "whales."

I do believe in the steemit community. I have met many kind people that want to make steemit a thriving community where content is king. But how do we deal with all the tricks to get seen and are resulting in the flood of mediocrity that seems to be the result?

I see a lot of click bait, lots of spam, plagiarism, outright theft of intellectual property that is getting rewarded. I have also seen awesome content written by users that barely get noticed.

Yes, we are here to make money off our content. Yes, we have to get seen. Yes, the big "whales" are the ones with the most power that can move our content out in front, but at what cost?

The minnows and even dolphins can curate the best content but how do we get the "whales" to make sure poor content does not rise to the surface. I have watched "Whale Sonar" and seen when "whales" are upvoting specific pieces of content and how quickly they are jumping from one article to the next. I wonder if there is thoughtful consideration taking place. If so, that is wonderful, if not and they hope their upvote will simply result in larger rewards they will share, does that do the community any good. It is amazing to watch after a "whales" upvotes a post how quickly others join suit, all hoping to share in the curation reward. I could be completely wrong here and if I am I do apologize. These are just my general observations based on my 2 weeks on steemit.

All the tips and tricks in the world will not help maintain a thriving community. It will only bring about a "flash in the pan." It will die out quickly. I don't think anyone wants that to happen. I know I don't.

I would love to get everyone thoughts on how best to protect the ecosystem we are trying to build. Please leave your comments below.

Thanks So Much - Liquidtravel