This post is not a whine, I don’t want anyone to give me anything I didn’t earn. I don’t beg, and I feel a bit sick when I watch others beg - openly or covertly.
Why did I feel the need to make this post? I have noticed that whales and even some dolphins do not understand the user experience of the minnow. Honestly, some of you are really out of touch and thus you keep giving people advice that is just adding to the frustration of the minnows.
First off, I am not the average user currently on the site. I am an average person without a lot of exposure to CryptoCurrencies. I just turned 50 which I think makes me a geezer on this platform. I don’t write professionally, nor have I ever wanted to. I recently went into semi-retirement after 25 years in Start-up, Medical Technology - SaaS world. My focus was CRM (Customer Relations Management) now I have a hobby farm, extra-time and a good income, so I have time to invest in SteemIt. I also have some experience in Customer Experience and Client Facing issues. I spent my whole career attracting new users and making sure the company retained them. I was quite good at it. This is why I think you should care about my “end-user” experience.
As a new-user (nu) I signed up for SteemIt after hearing about it via James Corbett. I read a bit about it. Saw reviews both good and bad, and I signed up. I just landed in the middle of the trending page, no obvious place to look for support, no getting started manual. So, I started reading all of the “SteemIt” tagged articles from the site, each article sounding like they spoke the truth gave totally different advice. When to post, how to post, identify yourself, don’t identify yourself. How many votes I get per day, how to use them. Next message said, you are minnow don’t even bother to vote just make comments. Summarize this section to say, I was bombarded by conflicting information.
Slowly, over the next days, I began to understand there is no right article, no set advice. We are in the wild world of Decentralized Block Chain. I spent a few days being frustrated by the User Interface, and the lack of user friendly tools used by most blogging sites, like the ability to simply upload a picture. (despite not going on the block chain this could be automated?) I began to make posts. The silence afterwards was deafening. It worse than not making money, I had no idea if anyone had seen the article at all. At this point in my journey I know about whales, dolphins and minnows, but I still have this naive little view of whales pouring over new posts, looking for interesting articles to upvote. Yet, I see the trending page day after day. Same people, even dolphins seem to get a set number of votes. (Yes, I am still reading everything I can get my hands on, on and off Steem, I am well aware many think it is a scam) So, I begin to notice the patterns. As I start watching the “new” feed, I noticed many accounts receive 50 or more votes within seconds of being posted. By this time I am well aware of bots and voting groups. Someone approached me about a Minnow group called MinnowsUnited. We would vote for each other’s work, give encouragement and help each other to grow.
On day two in the chat room a well known whale popped into our group and said in caps, “ KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE FU***** HASH TAGS” and he left. About that same time some articles trended, with a theme of “Entitled Minnows” “Whiny Minnows”. Etc. The comments in many posts had “whale comments” basically saying, “We made this site, we mined it, and we will do whatever the hell we want with it, we are FREE.” Another user did a post kind of like this one, just trying to explain the experience. A huge whale said, “Sounds like you are just pissed nobody is voting for your shit.” Imagine the impression that leaves on the nu
Fast Forward to Today: I am about 5.5 weeks into this experiment and I am interested in staying. I missed out on Bitcoin and I want to stay in this one. I posted yesterday, regarding where I am now, but I will briefly restate I have posted every day, I read every day, I vote every day, I comment every day. I have had a couple of good posts coming in over $10, but mostly my posts are worth around .25 cents. Maybe I am a terrible writer, but that is not the feedback I normally get. Maybe if I centered my pictures better or got the commas just right. Keep working on it, right? I will, but I also want you to know, I have been working on this at least 5 hours a day for about 40 days. (40 days in the desert?) My sense is this is more about Networking than writing quality content. Which is good, because it is supposed to be a social network. We just need to start talking about that!
Yet, I am a optimist. I think I am getting ready to have a break through. I have built my followers, I have put my opinions out there, not always popular and I feel like I am starting to make some good friends. I will trend soon.
This is not an “I am quitting note”, it is a “Can You Imagine The Minnow Experience” post.
In my next post I would like to address some simple solutions which might help make the new-user experience more fun. Those topic will include:
Greeters
Minnow Mentors
Minnow Best Practices
Online Web Classes on the Interface
Minnow Help Rooms with scheduled volunteers to assist
Mentoring the Whales to Be Nice to Potential Investors
In my professional life I have designed and implemented these ideas, and I would like to do it here in order to assist the Newcomers.
Look for Part 2 of this post to have suggestions and duties I personally am willing to perform if there is interest.
Follow if Interested… It’s a Decentralized Block Chain Thingy
All art in this article is "Bad Art" by @whatsup. (Have you noticed how fabulous my bad art is?)
Adding part 2 https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatsup/life-of-a-minnow-and-why-you-should-care-part-2