On the back of my post yesterday where I flagged someone.
I’ve been replying and chatting with a few people and I think the common consensus is that we have to look after this Steemit Platform because we can’t ‘leave it to someone else’ – We are the ‘Someone Elses’ and it has to be US or it’ll be no one.
I thought about it all, deconstructed it (as I seem to do with my writing tutorials to reasonable effect) and I’ve come to the conclusion that last year’s Amsterdam SteemFest1 was the savior of this community, whether we realized it or not back then.
Looking back, 
On the run-up to SteemFest1 we spotted other meet-ups and we met 
Well, the Birmingham meet was a great get-together but in hindsight, I doubt if anything could have prepared us for the AWESOME SteemFest1.
Because we had such a lot in common with EVERYONE at SteemFest1, there was common ground wherever you looked. If you had nothing else in common, you at least had the exciting commonality of Steemit and its uniqueness.
EVERYTHING was exciting to chat about – from Dolphins, Whales and Minnows, to the voting system and how it is weighted, and even a few tales of the Flagging Wars (sometimes with the scars to prove it!)
From all of that, we forged a strong foundation – a base on which to build-up Steemit.
The updates and streaming of conferences helped to integrate the rest of the Steemit community back ‘home’ and because everyone felt included and wanted to be updated with everything that went on in Amsterdam, I believe the community became even stronger for that. It formed a fondness for the platform that will always be there. Even if someone comes up with a bigger and better Steemit in years to come, we will always have our ‘first-love’ fondness for the original Steemit.
That’s why I think SteemFest 2 is going to be an even bigger SMASH than the first (and that is one tough act to follow).
Friendships are going to be made stronger, new friendships will be forged and strategies to build businesses can be formed and perhaps even finalized.
Again… because of this solid foundation we’re building Steemit upon, I also think we have a duty of care not only to ourselves, the ones using Steemit now (even those joining today), we have a duty of care for those joining next week, next month and next year – and beyond.
It’s down to us to ensure we nurture and foster the minnows coming in now and we have to ‘bring them up’ to feel as much a part of Steemit as we do, because that’s the only way they will then feel part of this Steemit experience and want that feeling to grow.
Yesterday I (and a few others) had a bad experience with what I thought was a minnow – that was my wrong assumption, I thought he had joined in August (he had, but 2016, not THIS August).
That guy should have known better, but we should also have made sure that we were taking care of him, and others like him, rather than allowing him to find his own way and make up his own personal ‘culture’ for Steemit. What he was doing was telling Minnows ‘his’ rules – namely the ‘minnow back-scratch’ where Minnows upvote EVERYTHING their small cell of Minnows post (including replies and comments).
If Minnows come to Steemit realizing their vote is valuable and can RECEIVE as well as GIFT on an upvote, maybe they’ll be more likely to upvote the good stuff and be the curators we’ve all developed and grown to be.
Yes, I admit I’m not the best at going out and fostering Minnows, but I feel it’s something I should do.
I try to help the Minnows I’ve introduced to Steemit and I point them in the right direction when they ask – after the usual introductory ‘Don’t spam, don’t plagiarise/copy and paste, and don’t ASK for follows/upvotes’ – and we have our own group on facebook where we can share our posts and make sure everyone can ask questions (not everyone wants to use live chat, sorry) but I think maybe we should open that up a little.
If anyone is interested in joining such a group where minnows will be listened to and their questions answered, (as much as we can, of course) then please let me know and I’ll sort something out.
We can’t keep allowing people to make up their own rules for their own benefit (Minnow back-scratch indeed!) to the detriment of the rest of the Steemit community because I’ve seen it before, once a ‘rule’ gets a foothold, it quickly becomes adopted and bad as it is, it WILL soon become the norm rather than the exception.
In conclusion, (sorry to waffle on), I resolve to help when asked and guide not only Minnows to the ‘best practice’ where their upvote and their development on Steemit is concerned.
I can’t offer to upvote and make their accounts bigger because, as ever, my ethos is to treat Steemit like any other blogging and/or social media site where you write your stuff, share your stories, research and opinions, make observations and generally write good posts and IF you catch an upvote or two, that’s a BONUS – the prize is…
Having a platform on which Blog posts are:
-Listed as they are published
-Listed on a separate page for your followers
-Listed when they have a good, fast following (Hot)
-Listed when they hit the dizzying heights of Trending
-And can be promoted with the in-built currency.
The fact that there’s a possibility of getting some crypto from all your efforts should be the LAST thing we focus on when getting people to join, not the first, that way people arrive with no expectation of making a million in the first week and therefore, the pressure is not on to make money to start off.
I always tell people I introduce to this Steemit Platform – “You’ll not make any money at first so don’t worry, build your audience, build your ‘brand’ and most of all, enjoy it.
Images etc from Google and Pixabay