Here I am spending the night in the darkness of my bedroom. Dog's snoring right beside me, his head resting on my chest. Feeling like I'm in some prologue of a cyberpunk story. Anyway, surfing on Steemit mobile is actually quite decent, despite the inadequacy of certain types of tables and media not showing up properly on screen.
Decided to write this after going through some dramatic commentaries on Steemit that happened for the past few days. Mostly about ideological disagreements, and especially, overcompensation of posts. While I consider myself pretty critical, I usually opt out of direct, in-your-face type of confrontations. I prefer to plan and pick my own battles, having learned out of experience.
Because personally, I've never come across any situation that immediately improves itself after insults are thrown around. No one is going to admit wrong right away. Everyone's always right in their own world, and that's particularly true with the presence of an opposing voice. And it doesn't matter how zen one may be. No one's a perfect saint. Everyone has a breaking point.
Yup, I've snapped before, more than enough times to know this little fact of life. Nothing good comes out of throwing a fit (well not as much as can be). Sure, our message, our version of truth should be upheld. But there are better ways of fighting the good fight.. maybe like what I'm trying to do with this post right now. So what am I trying to address here?
Plan your battles - don't join someone else's!
There was a post on Steemit a while ago that labelled me an anarchist. Am I? Maybe I am. Sure, I'm against big, centralised governments. I may even detest the inherent thieving practices of big brother. But I'm still running a music event company - there are legal matters that I still need to run by government offices, purely out of safety and security reasons.
You may argue that it's perverted that I'm using an intrinsically violent agent (namely, The Government and The Police State) to secure the well-being of my business customers. Next I'll ask - can we have a decentralised free market doing music events with all the right securities? That's what my company, Hybrid Entertainment partly aims to do. It's a learning process.
For now, we still need to use the existing structures of Old, Big Government.. while we find ways to transition out of such dependence. Fight too hard and you'll get clamped down, thrown out of the game. You can't do much when you're out of the game, so stay in it! Take the time to plan your battles, dear hot-blooded confrontationists (if that's even a word).
Sure, the world needs you to say things as they are. But hearing the painful truth is almost like violence itself. No one likes that, no matter which side of a dispute. Peace also involves peace of mind. It's a much longer game - it comes with the territory. You're already in someone else's fight once you get into war. Only get into war if you're the big guy. The small guy is always the loser - the unwilling pawn. Think about this in scope of what's happening all around the world, even on Steemit.
Don't be a zealot. There are dangers of being too far left, or too far right. Find the middle way. All you need is another perspective. Some people may be asswipes, but goodness is omnipresent if the conditions are right.
And that's how you plan your battles - take the time to do it right.
In perspective of my generally apolitical position on Steemit, I tend to find better ways to contribute instead of lashing out on another user. Sure, I have my dissatisfaction about some author rewards and posting models from time to time. However, I tried putting effort into building better models and figuring out ways to add substantial value into the ecosystem. Eventually, some of us gravitated towards a loose goal of rewarding diversity by combing contents on Steemit on a daily basis.
There are now epic giant hidden-gem megaposts on Steemit - like this one from Project Curie and Robinhood Whale. Better coverage, better quality, better value - in so many ways. This is the free-market reaction to solo authored hidden-gem posts of early Steemit. No doubt that everything evolves over time.
Knowing that value is subjective, I have always refrained from losing my cool. Even here on Steemit.
I'm the small fish and I have to plan my battles!
Don't freaking milk it!
There are big reasons why most of us don't really like governments. Greed and corruption. Needless to say, the crowd easily picks up on this when insubstantial effort is rewarded handsomely. By all means, that's as subjective as can be. What's not (very) subjective, however, is if one continues to milk it, even despite public disapproval.
This happens all around the world. Don't oversell. You'll lose reputation if you are obviously milking it!
Sure, you may gain new followers.. newly inspired and freshly impressed. But old eyes grow weary. People are watching, and your social value fluctuates all the time. You can't please everyone, but you can try the art of not milking the shit out of the system.
It's a good business practice. It's a good personal conduct. And it works on Steemit.
That's a reason why I'm also posting lesser (other than plainly having a huge writer's block, reserving myself from random shitposting). Now I'm only writing when I really think I have something good to add as a post. As I'm partly dependent on Steemit, I've strategized a lil, refraining from appearing to be milking it, seeking modes of substantial contribution behind the scenes to compensate for the awesome support that has been given to me on this platform.
If you are suddenly rewarded thousands for a post - ask yourself. Is that post worth that much? Heck, I don't know if my top philosophical post is worth 4,000 bucks, but I know I've put long hours in it, enough to avoid milking and recycling the same content. Instead, I try to put more effort in other areas of the ecosystem to balance out the lopsided reward.
The blockchain is transparent. It's easy to find out if you're milking it. To avoid seeming like you're milking it - just be honest and ask yourself the right questions! Then, do the right thing!
Like life, like Steemit - try to give more than you can take. Don't. Freaking. Milk It.
Take time to build, or take time to exploit?
Naturally, I'd say take time to build. Once you're caught exploiting the system, in life or on Steemit, you're lose reputation whether or not if its digitally measurable. You can create as many accounts as you want and find a million ways to exploit everything, but ask yourself - what are you building?
Here are some tips for maintaining reputation on Steemit:-
- Steemit's a mutual aid society. While posts can be about anything, note there's a limited amount of funds going around each day. It's obvious that your reputation is at stake if you have somehow managed to acquire good support, but not giving back substantially.
- Tags are like real estate. Choose appropriately. An example is if you're writing your opinions on something rather meta, I think it's prudent to respect the scientific community. For example in my article about consciousness, I've deliberately used the pseudoscience tag, no matter how right I think I could be. I clearly think about such topics often, but I never put myself in research labs knowing about consciousness well enough to indicate that I am the master of that domain.
- Follow up on your promises. Communicate transparently.
- Put in more effort, visibly and even behind the scenes when you manage to acquire good payouts.
- Try to follow others. Curate and also support other members.
- Plan your battles and don't milk it! And also, celebrity attitudes won't last long here if you're not giving back to the community. @dollarvigilante is doing this right - he's aiding others and even curating frequently on his free time!
- Again, in general, give more than you can take.
Reputation is everything - for survival, for change in a social landscape.
Note: There is some form of censorship of the mind when it comes to chance of interruption from higher powers. It's the same everywhere. You just have to play your cards right, opting for different methods, different approaches. It's not really a systems-problem. It's a people-problem, as always. Never leave an opening for others to destroy your reputation.