Community Celebration: StemSocial Community

It is the month of February, a season of love, and a perfect time to write in celebration of one's favourite community on the Hive blockchain. Special shoutout to @guiltyparties for organizing a challenge that fits in with the season. If anyone is wondering what this challenge is all about and perhaps, how to participate, you can have a look at this post for more details.

So, which community is my favourite?

Without having to say it or write about it, many people who know me on this blockchain can answer the question of which is my favourite community of all the awesome communities that are here. But just for the sake of those that do not know, my favourite community is StemSocial. It is one of the oldest (over 6 years now) communities as far as community/curation projects are concerned on Hive.

The StemSocial community is one that is dedicated to simplifying science communication. Apart from those whose field of specialization has to do with STEM subjects, only a handful of people are able to make meanings out of scientific journals. Thus, writing scientific posts in a way that ordinary laymen can relate to is what gave birth to the community. Thanks to the vision of the founders in the person of @lemouth along with @mobbs. If you find any StemSocial post abstruse, believe me, it can be much more difficult if the social aspect is entirely removed.

Being a trained scientist with a passion for writing, it did not take me very long before finding my niche here on Hive. Many would argue that it was serendipitous or just a chance of luck, but your passion would always position you for opportunities. I did not just find my place here but also become an integral part of the community by serving as a curator and community mod.

^{Designed by @menoski}

Creating contents in StemSocial

I am used to getting privately messaged about what it takes to create content in the community. Of course, anyone can create content in the community as long as they are original and the topic is one that is covered by the community. Specifically, the subjects covered, for now, by StemSocial community are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, history, psychology, and architecture. These can be extended or reduced in the future as the management of the community deems fit.

Even though I said anyone can create content in the community, not all the content created will be upvoted by the community account if they do not meet the community's support criteria. In order to stand a chance of being selected for an upvote, a post must fulfill the following conditions:

be original. Plagiarized posts do not have a place in the community.
be scientifically factual or debunking of pseudoscientific claims.
images must be sourced and copyright-free.
scientific claims must be referenced.

More about general information and being a content creator in the community can be found in these posts (Note: steemstem metamorphosed to stemsocial, hence, same rule applies):

A Note

Getting supported by StemSocial community account is not limited to posts published in the community only. However, publishing in the community will increase the chances of posts being found by curators. Generic tags such as science, technology, etc, as well as other communities on the blockchain are also scouted frequently in case there are gems waiting to be uncovered.

Voting pattern of StemSocial

Once a curator discovers a post that ticks all the necessary boxes as far as the community's upvoting criteria is concerned, such a post is submitted to the secret curation channel in StemSocial Discord Server with a suggested voting strength based on what the curator thinks is commensurate. The various categories of voting that exist are:

10% for regular, short posts.
30% for informative, medium word posts.
65% for well-researched, very informative, and creative posts.
100% for original research. Something that cannot be found anywhere else on the internet apart from Hive.

In addition to the above, setting StemSocial account as a beneficiary attracts extra support - a maximum of 5%.

Interesting authors in the community

This is purely based on my own assessment of what an interesting author is. It is about authors whose posts I usually find very interesting, educative, and entertaining at the same time. These are authors I think stand out among the hundreds that we have got in the community:

@oscurity for his original microscopy/astrophoto contents
@lemouth for his original research on particle physics
@agmoore and @alexanderalexis for their interesting, well-researched, well-sourced, and educative contents
@mobbs for his once in a while, discussion-provoking, educative, and well-researched posts
@cyrpianj also for his well-researched, sometimes original research, and educative posts
@bhoa, @storm-zy, and @ebingo for their medical-themed, real-life post filled with a lot of lessons.