You should always respect your reader's time as if it was your own. Time and attention is a very limited resource, not to be taken for granted. Always do your best to offer something of value for your reader, and not just for yourself.
Wise words for writers. We're free to write for ourselves--to write what we would like to read and not what the market is currently supporting--but if nobody is reading us, or upvoting, resteeming, and praising us, is the system at fault?
source: If the social s#@t hit’s the fan, don’t be an ostrich!
The trouble is that all too often, we see mediocre content upvoted or whale-slapped, and it's disheartening for writers who really are producing good content. It's all subjective, of course, but sometimes the system does look rigged.
Steemit has in place a strange system of downvoting content that has been decreed worthless. I'm not going to comment on Hard Fork, downvoting, or policing the quality of posts and punishing people who apparently write bad stuff. From what I can see, commenters who go around promoting their agendas in response to someone else's post which is totally unrelated to the random commenter's agenda are the main target of downvoters such as @themarkymark. But I'm not going to keep reading about downvotes and witnesses. I'd rather be writing fiction or book reviews or some fluff about staying positive in a world full of petty, mean people.
You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it!
That post is two years old now but still worth reading today. The comment section is also worth reading.
Writing, art, music, food, environmental issues--whatever your message, your passion, your cause--you need to earn an audience, not expect one just because "social media" so "I'm entitled." That's what I'm hearing from Marky. The downvoting is a separate issue, too political for me to contemplate on a Friday morning that's also Valentine's Day.
But I do want to highlight a comment from a Steemian who "gets it" and commented at Marky's post,
@vandigital · 2 years ago
Given the diversity here on Steemit I'd say it's more important to "build" your audience. For instance, I'm into Hip Hop, so I search the hashtag and interact and get to know the community, then I share and hashtag. Creat initiatives for your Steemit Community and help build each other up. I'm sure everyone thinks they produce great content, and who are we to judge them? Just my thoughts :) Check #recordpool for an initiative we're working on for the music community here!
In a recent post, Did you get the memo, @themarkymark addresses a disgruntled "downvoted" Steemian who showed up with threats and blackmail in so many wallets, even I got the memo.
@shadowspub knew just what to do when she got the memo, and I've resteemed her post.
....So let’s see.
Do I give up my right to vote for the Witness of my choice because some two-bit account holder with a God complex makes a really lame extortion demand or do I vote for someone I think adds to the platform?
Hell will need to freeze over before I surrender my right to choose who I vote for.
As a writer,
I have winced and cringed at some of the stuff I've written. And shared. In public, not just in private with beta readers.
I am not alone there.
We don't need to be #punished with downvotes for mistakenly believing we have written something worth sharing.
Just being #ignored--no upvotes, no reader feedback--is punishment enough for #writers.
Downvoting has its place,
and I'm confident that no freewriter has been downvoted for "wasting the reader's time" with boring or badly written content. @Freewritehouse has been punished by a random individual downvoting our SBI intitiative, but that's about SBI, not the quality of #freewrite content.
Vote for a Witness
who has our best interests in mind, if you can discern who that is, and who it isn't.
Search Steemit and you can find a number of posts explaining what this witness business is about:
Seriously, what is a STEEM witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer)
Why should I care?
A witness is paid proportionally to how high they are in the witness ranks, excluding the top 19 witnesses (who get 1 block every ~63 seconds).
But how do they get to those ranks? They get voted in, by people like YOU. It's just like an election, if you don't vote, other people may vote in witnesses who are malicious or simply unreliable.
My morning mission ends here. You can vote for whomever you choose.
And if you decide to write about it, don't be demoralized if nobody sees your post.
Back to reading, writing, and book reviewing!
Keangaroo
because Kean sounds like Kane (not keen, hint, hint)
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Let's Fry Chicken Little nominated for 2015 Pushcart Award