I know that it is common practice from time to time to take stock of the experiences in this network. There are even communities that have initiated competitions or challenges, to invite everyone to share their experiences. I didn't see that as a necessity for me, but a few days ago I reached 55 Rep. and at that time I reached 555 followers, it seemed to me to be a nice number and so I thought it might be the moment to tell my experience in this chain of blocks in a post and to take stock.

Image by Elisa Riva at Pixabay.com

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Para la versión en español ¡haz clic aquí!

Für die Deutsche Version Klike hier!

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Let’s start at the beginning

I arrived here at the insistence of Hive account@vadimlasca, who is a real Steem-enthusiast and who spent several months (since he started in this) telling me to try it, it should very good, it could become an interesting income to me, etc. I, extremely skeptical, spent 6 months ignoring his suggestion.

"New year, new life", says a famous song popularized by the orchestra Billos. And so, starting in 2018 I opened my account "to try" it. January 19, 2018 appears as my start date in Steemit, the beginning of a considerable change in my life. Yes, it sounds big, but that's the way it is.

I'm a born writer. I have a very long experience researching and writing, which is why I have a lot of written or half-way material, as well as a number of ideas that are always ready to be put on paper (or in this case, digital). So without much thought I published my first post and had my first close encounter with Hive account@cheetah. Well, for that moment I didn't know that I shouldn't quote myself and had the "brilliant" idea to start with an article that I had published in another portal several years ago, but that had not had a greater projection there.

Of course, the sense of offender has not been removed yet, although the infraction was minor, because I was "plagiarizing" myself, but I must confess that the feeling was frustrating.

Languages

Russian

Although I speak several languages, I had not wanted to use, besides Spanish, any other language than Russian, because since I was in the process of re-learning that language for a project I have, I did not want to distract myself or divert my attention using other languages.

So my second post was my translation of the first article. Here I could not have problems with Hive account@cheetah, because the translation was new. Then came the search for a Russian community in Steemit, I searched and searched and searched... Finally I found a discord channel that had almost no activity and when we made contact it was very disappointing (rather unpleasant). Then I discovered that the Russian community that writes in Russian is not in Steemit, but in Golos.io. So my second "invention" did not show a positive balance either.

Spanish

I decided therefore to continue only in Spanish and after a couple of more publications, without much success, I knew the "glory" when I received the first important upvote from a community. It came Hive account@cervantes to make me see that it was true what I had been told that it was possible to generate income from this platform. My article ¿Qué es eso de "matar un tigre"?, on January 30, was the first to let me know what real rewards were.

Of course, the mood rose and more publications came. With good prospects, aspirations also rise, then came the doubt whether to try to publish something in English. Already by that time I had been able to appreciate the great difference in the amounts of the reward of any community, compared with, for example, Hive account@curie, who only vote for posts written in English. Hive account@vadimlasca, who at all times is giving advice and recommendations, agreed with the approach and encouraged me to do so. Now I only needed to be able to accept the challenge of writing formally in English, something I had never done before.

^Source

English

So I decided to consult the opinion of some curators of Hive account@curie. I was honest and told them that I supported myself with the Google translator, without even thinking about it, several of them told me that they would not give their vote. However two of them were very receptive. I remember that Hive account@bitrocker2020 said that "they were not there to judge the quality of my English, but the quality of the content". It is understood that it has to be an intelligible English, ideas must be clearly understood, but the important thing is not how "native" my English may or may not be, but that the ideas are clear and that the English speakers don't have to guess what I want to say.

But by that time in the consultation, I had ventured to do the English version of one of the articles and I suggested these people take a look and give me their opinion. The response of Hive account@dorth, who was the other person who had an open attitude towards my idea, wrote me right away, saying that he couldn't believe that this text had been originally written in another language and then translated, that it seemed to have been written in English directly. This gave me the courage to decide that I would continue publishing in English. And as if that were not enough, with that first post in English I also received the upvote of a community supported by Hive account@curie who are dedicated to making specific curating in music Hive account@illuminati-inc. Since then, they have been a very important supporting point for me in my writings about music.

German

Although German was "once" for me as a mother tongue, I had a long time without practicing it. But in those early days I found the D-A-CH community Hive account@dach-support, which has its channel on Discord and which brings together the German speakers and the countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I made contact with them for a project I had of a kind of virtual music magazine, which I thought I would do in English, Spanish and German. Although that plan was not successfully carried out, I started writing in German as well.

Almost immediately I found the support of one of its members (Hive account@uwelang), who has given me tremendous support since then and for that reason (too) I have continued writing in that language.

And then

It's funny that a lot, but really many people here in Steemit, when we begin to have difficulty to make the work of writing, we end up writing a post about "¿Qué debo escribir en Steemit?" (What should I write in Steemit), or something similar. You can check it by your own and you will see that almost all of the posts on that subject are written by people who have not much time in the network. Well, I was also one of those... However, when I say it is funny I do not say it is bad, because it helps us all to clarify ideas, establish parameters for our texts, locate and specify our objectives. In fact, that publication had its upvote of Hive account@cervantes and a lot of very positive comments.

Fortunately, as I said before, I am used to writing and although I had lost a bit of practice, I quickly recovered it.

From then on everything has been a practically normal cycle, some posts that pass under the table, some with upvotes from different communities.

Quality and upvotes of the communities

The "quality" of the writings is a kind of paradigm that exists in this platform, but which is very difficult to understand. Of course, terms like "originality" vs. "Plagiarism" are clear and that is a parameter that has a lot of value when it comes to upvoting. But beyond that, there is a complication, even for the voting guilds.

Because, as these groups or communities tend to clarify, they are "humans" who evaluate and, in general, it is the same people who evaluate a music post, or poetry, painting, science, programming, psychology or whatever. Which leads to, in many cases, a literary background research work get a smaller vote than a "Step by step process of how to paint Superman for beginners." Or that a medium-quality rock song gets three time the value of an upvote than a masterful performance on a cello of some medieval piece.

But sometimes the critique goes to an extreme and we want to compare the writing to be evaluated with the prose of Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare or Johann Wolfgang Goethe, while in other opportunities and "In order to stimulate" the new writers, they are rewarded and are allowed to pass terrible informative errors, spelling, syntax and other elements that make up a good writing.

Therefore, the quality of the content is not directly related to the votes obtained and the votes obtained by a publication do not necessarily indicate good quality. Even more, if we add that you can buy votes through the bots. Well, as there are good writers who use these bots, there are also the bad writers who use them in the same way and it is impossible to teach a bot to discriminate good content, because not even humans have managed to do it well.

What is the motivation?

As I said at the beginning of this article, I am a born writer, I like to write and I share the phrase that the Venezuelan journalist Kotepa Delgado coined: "Write, because something will stay", but this upper question in Steemit takes to another question, for whom do I write? Because many times it gives the impression that people who write on the platform do it to earn money, only and exclusively, so they are not interested in reading what others write and "their own content" is not something that has greater significance. I understand that as a source of income, which can be this site, one takes advantage and makes "adjustments" to the writings so that they fit more easily into the parameters required to be upvoted. But I perceive in many cases that the content of what is written is not important, even for those who write it. This is, of course, a generalization that has extraordinary exceptions, but it is still a "broad truth".

I understood that here I must write the things in which I believe and that I think they should remain in time, knowledge that I want to share, experiences that I think it is important to reach out to others. And even more so when we know that after a week that content can no longer be edited or deleted.

And it is important that it is so for each one of us, because we must be clear that, with the growth of the platform, there is more competition and more posts are waiting for upvotes, which is why it is sometimes more difficult to obtain them. And if what you are looking for is "that", the frustration will come immediately.

But one fact that is very encouraging is to see new communities emerge with high SP and new guilds that can offer new alternatives at the moment that we expect the votes for our articles.

In consecuense

Taking into account that for more than five months I do not get an upvote of Hive account@cervantes, or that there have been few occasions when the award of Hive account@dach-support arrived or the limitations that Hive account@curie has, I think that it is, however, worthwhile to continue writing here, because it is a window for ideas, because it is an excellent daily exercise (yes, daily = every day), because this platform linked to Discord servers is an interesting opportunity to interact with people anywhere on the planet.

In addition, despite the explanation I gave about the rewards, it does generate an important income if one learns to channel it and, above all, learns to play with the complex meanings of "quality in Steemit". I set myself a routine every day, just like any job and I dedicate the time and seriousness of any job and, at least for me, it has been productive, helpful and fun.

Finally, the end of the world?

That if Hive account@ned is doing power-down, that the price of Steem, that if it came the end of Steemit...

^Source

This platform has allowed me to do something that I had never done before, it allows me to generate income by writing, by uploading songs, by showing my videos, my photos. It also allows me to "invest without spending", that is, of the same profits that it generates, I can allocate a part to increase my power of influence, which is also an economic support for my future.

Therefore, doing power down, to change my money and fleeing is one of the most absurd alternatives that may exist at the moment in which Steem (like all cryptocurrencies, cause this phenomenon is not exclusive to this currency) low in price.

I am sure that trust and self-confidence, coupled with a serious and professional dedication to improving this platform is the "only" way we should and could take.

I take this moment to thank those more than 555 people who follow me and who support me one way or another day by day. Thank you very much!