I did Steemit's first charity post yesterday aiming to get support for Syrian refugee's. Thank you to all 38 users who up voted me, that was great. Overall unfortunately, it was a disaster raising $0.54 for charity.
The problem wasn't the users, or the post, it was my Naivety!!!
Naivety
Unfortunately I didn't put myself in the shoes of the Steemit users, or @ned who I asked for help on the identity verification side. Essentially I was looking for trust, something which was reassuringly hard to come by. It made me question a certain level of arrogance I must have to think, I wouldn't trust some guy on the internet asking for support, but they would trust me...right?!
Proof of Payment
I have attached proof (as best I can give it, which is a problem in itself) that I donated £10 to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees today. We can call the extra, a payment for arrogance and naivety, but at least this time the money is going to a good cause rather than in some con-artist's pocket.
The Future...
Feel free to share you thoughts. I know Steemit isn't a charity, and believe it or not, I am a capitalist at heart. My thoughts here were that, other social media site actually benefit from atrocities (like the 2 we have seen in France in the past year). They get a more engaged audience, which essentially leads to higher advertising revenues. The users support the cause with platitudes (with good intentions) which have little to no effect on the outcome of the event, or help the people who are affected. Steemit can change this!!!
https://steemit.com/steem/@dan/steemit-s-evil-plan-for-cryptocurrency-world-domination
https://steemit.com/sip/@dan/escrow-sip-steem-improvement-proposal
I will be using their escrow service to take the trust problem out of the equation. If there is an option to put my whole account in escrow until I can prove payment under the agreed terms has been made, this could solve any trust issues the Steemit community may have. This is a great example of why an escrow service is integral to Steemit achieving the ultimate end, and an eloquent trust case for how people could feel far more comfortable supporting me, when they know I have a lot to lose if I became a bad actor...
Steemit is all about incentivising users to do the right thing. Eventually, trust can be taken completely out of the equation.