My account was created in 2016-07-08 at 03:45:27. I am 3+ years old and I've been reading a bunch of different posts lately where people are talking about value in various ways.
How people add value, how many Steemians there is that contributes to a "better place", they mention different types of groups or "tribes" that does good "deeds" on a daily basis and it's common to see a handful of different people being mentioned by name too, or usernames, as "good leaders" or "amazing" Steemians for a bunch of different reasons.
I've seen people talking about manual curators and how fantastic some* users are because they are rewarding authors with manual votes instead of selling votes. I've read many, many different things related to value and how people add value or contribute to a better place.
Due to all of these statements I've read lately, I figured we could talk about this and how valuable some of these things are, in reality. This is called the STEEM Resumé, as I will also share some of the things I have done personally, and I would also appreciate to see others include what they have done too. And tell me what they think of the value.
"Quality Lies In The Eyes Of The Beholder"
Quality content. What is high quality and how do we reward users if and when we reward them based on quality? - This is basically impossible to give a straight answer for as people have different taste and values. A post with pure spam or mumbo-jumbo like "e54ygfsdfgt2knfgsasf532" is most likely considered to be low quality by the majority of people. I think we all can agree on that, but some people prefers long, in-depth articles while others loves to read short, simple and straight to the point stuff... So even if the quality is "better" in an in-depth article, in terms of pure "meat", accurate information and research etc. An in-depth article can, is and will often be rewarded less than a simple post that includes one or two sentences.
This happens for many reasons, such as self-votes (stake of the author), how many users who're actively searching for "good content" to curate, if the authors have auto-votes and who those users are... Time is another factor that can matter, as some manual curators might miss the article when an author publish it. The list goes on and on, but that's a couple of reasons for this to be rewarded like it is.
I would say that we use the same logic when we decide who and/or what value is. If you interact with someone regularly, you are likely to consider that user to bring value. That user is valuable to you, personally.
Does that necessarily mean that they bring value to others or does it mean that they are "contributing to a better place?" - No. This is far from accurate in reality, but it seems to often be exactly that people mean when they talk about other users who are "adding value to Steem".
Some people seems to think that the Steem witnesses are adding value because they are the reasons for Steem to be up & running. Others have often mentioned creators of various side-projects or other things that is used or things that are considered to be of help for others.
Most of you have probably heard of the Seven77 challenge for instance. People talk about creators of things like that, and they truly believe that the creators are adding a massive amount of value and/or are contributing massively to a better place. Steem-Engine, Steemmonsters... DTube. Palnet. We have a bunch of different dApps and the people behind these things are adding value. That's basically what most people would say... At least according to all the statements I've read so far.
Another example would be fulltimegeek's SOG (Stewards of Gondor) initiative he had in the past. A fantastic "pay it forward"-project that was hyped to the moon by literally hundreds of Steemians at the time. He was considered by many to be one of the most amazing Steemians due to his generosity and kindness back in those days. A true role model.
Thousands of the people seems to think that bid bots and the creators of those have ruined Steem because bid bots practically killed manual curation. People who have been against bid bots and everything related to vote-selling for ages, are now using ocdb. A bid bot, with a twist.
Who knows and who decides?
I co-founded the @asapers, a manual curation project. We focused on the "lesser accounts" as we could clearly see the lack of support they had when they joined Steem. We haven't been active for a year and there's still ~200 people in the Discord channel. It's not active, but it should at least mean that people liked what we did.
I ran the "push people"-initiative. Simply put a "charity"-event were users could decide if they wanted to donate Steem/SBD, SP or some regular upvotes to a few users I manually picked. The goal with the project was to push people into minnowhood and ultimately strengthen the middle class on Steem.
I ran another "version" of the same project after that and all of these things were successful according to myself and according to many, many other users. We successfully pushed dozens of people straight into minnowhood, or close to it, and we spread the rewards with hundreds of people with the asapers project.
Next was the incredible push with @paulag in charge. We got 300+ new minnows in a month, and I was there. I was part of the team.
Were All Of These Things In Vain?
I am not the creator or founder of a cool-looking dApp that are used by dozens or hundreds of people... So were my projects not valuable? - Did I not contribute to a "better place" and did I not "add value" by these things?
If not, what would have made these things valuable?
As I delegated 100% of my own stake during the @asapers project, I also lost the opportunity to earn curation rewards. So I basically sacrificed my own rewards and the growth of my own account with those delegations. I let others grow their accounts using my stake instead... I didn't get any massive support from bigger accounts for doing that. Not during that time or after the project had been cancelled. I got zero in return, in terms of Steem and/or rewards.
I admit that none of these things had any affect or impact on the price of Steem. We didn't see Steem moon by these things, and we couldn't see hundreds of thousands of users waiting to jump on board the "Steem train" either...
Honestly though, I can't really see any of that after Steemmonsters, Steem-engine, ocdb, other bid bots, curation projects or whatever. So, how are these things "adding value" and how are the creators of these things "contributing to a better place"?
Did I add "value" when I published a handful of different guides and tutorials so newcomers could learn "how to Steem"? - Did I make Steem a "better place"?
What Is This VALUE People Are Talking About?
Making Steem a "better place". - How? Why? Better than what?
Look, I don't have anything against any of the creators, authors and/or founders of these things. In fact, I like most of them and I can obviously see both potential and how many of these things benefits and/or affects users and/or the platform in various ways too.
I didn't do this to "start a fight" with someone. I did this because I truly believe that people need to take time and understand what they are saying, and what they mean by "simple phrases" like those I have mentioned above. By the look of many of the things I've read so far, it definitely looks like the majority of people on Steem doesn't add value or that they aren't contributing to a "better place", and I don't agree with that.
Content creators are valuable. A simple picture of a cat can be exactly what someone needs to see... An in-depth article of whatever subject might be the exact thing someone is looking for, or it can be a superb piece of information that starts an awesome discussion. A helpful reply or a nice comment can be exactly what a specific user needs. It can be the difference between him or her giving up or not. Giving up on life or on Steem.
Video tutorials of all kinds, VODs or gameplay. It can be the right thing for someone out there, and we should try to encourage creators. We should welcome content with open arms. Low quality, high quality. It's content, and you can't expect to see awesome and in-depth articles that someone has researched years for. Most of the Steemians are not professional writers or video creators. Most people are doing Steem on the side of another job, so you can't expect people to put in 11 hours per article or thing they do... It just doesn't work like that. Especially not when so many of them are barely being rewarded for all the efforts...
If we somehow brought back manual curation though, Steem would be a better place. And instead of just throwing around "simple phrases", I'll tell you why:
People would have to spend time on Steem. Find content, curate, interact with people etc. How they spend their time would obviously be up to them, but manual curation would take away all the "auto"-stuff. This alone would make Steem a much better place because rewards would be spread across the platform in different ways compared to how it is today.
This would also bring more people in, because people who aren't here yet, would actually have a decent chance to earn something when they contribute. That could basically bring back the hype from 2016 when literally everyone jumped in. It could also bring back many of the fantastic users we have lost, as many of them quit Steem because they never earned.
All these projects, dApps and stuff I mentioned above, is doing one awesome thing for Steem and its users. They motivate and encourage users, and that's the most vital part about Steem. The users. Without users, Steem would be nothing.
With all this being said...
You are valuable and you are contributing to a "better place" just by being here, as long as you don't act like a greedy, spoiled brat.
What Is Value To You?
... And What Is A "Better Place"?