This HardFork Is For You
I want to encourage everyone who considers themselves a curator, or potential curator, developer and engager to make the best of the opportunity after the hardfork next Tuesday.
Curators
Indeed, curators, much of the success of the Economic Improvement Proposal (EIP) rests upon you. Yes, authors still need to post, but they're already feeling disheartened by the change to a 50/50 split along with the convergent linear curve and the downvotes. Not too mention a smaller reward pool thanks to the 10% that will soon go to the STEEM Proposal System (SPS).
So, authors are going to need all the help they can get.
Now, I'm not saying just any content curators. The point here is, the best posts will rise, while the lesser will fall. This isn't meant to be a means by which to continue to spread upvotes as far and as wide as possible. Not the way I understand it, anyway. It's meant to increase returns for curation, while finding the posts that add the greatest value.
And since not one particular person can say, This is what quality looks like without someone else taken umbrage with the narrow definition, the best part of this should be that a wide variety of content will be rewarded.
Those among us with higher SP, feel free to let loose a few 25% to 100% upvotes as you connect with a post. If the upvotes you give are all fractions of one percent because you're trying to help as many people as possible, I don't really think the end result will be helping, because it is possible to still spread a vote out so thin that it really loses its effectiveness. Especially when it comes to morale.
I think in any of this, aside from whatever rewards value might make it to payout, morale is the key. Most of us authors aren't keen on what's to come. I'm inviting you all to step up.
Which means I'm basically asking all of us to step up. Because really, even if we are other things—authors, developers, investors and engagers—we need as many hands on deck as we can muster.
Developers
I know that it's discouraging and unfair to be asked or expected to put out your best work when there's little chance of compensation for it. You give it away for free, people will keep taking it for free, and to compound things, they'll demand you do more for them. So, I get it. For there to be more development on the blockchain, there needs to be pay involved.
It also means the magnitude of this steps up a little.
For that fair compensation, which you will have a chance to set and the community to then vote on, I'm hoping to see a lot more than just carbon copies of existing social media, or watered down versions of computer and gambling games. If STEEM has taught us anything, it should be, people take their investments seriously. So, while I expect you know that, and that you're ready to meet the challenge, and that in the next six months to a year, there will be all kinds of amazing things developing on the blockchain, I'm stating it anyhow.
Take advantage of the opportunity. Bring your best ideas. Make your best case. If chosen, then please bring your 'A' game. It might be the only opportunity you get if results disappoint. On the other hand, it might turn into a lucrative and satisfying lifelong endeavor if you get it right.
I know. Like, now pressure. Personally, I think there's plenty in the community who can pull off some great work. There are more who might come to STEEM knowing there's a greater chance of making something from it. Greater competition will create better projects and better results.
STEEM community, next Tuesday.
Engagers
I probably don't need to tell you guys much of anything. You already know what the feelings are of folks on the chain going into this hardfork. A mixture of hope, trepidation, disheartenment, distrust, resignation, and a true desire that STEEM flourish, even if it does mean some kind of sacrifice now.
Just like curators, we all need to step up the engaging. In doing so, I'm not asking anyone to sugarcoat what comes next, or even call it necessary pain. I'm just asking for all of us to be there for each other. If last hardfork is any indication, we're going to need a lot of virtual ears to bend after this one.
Engagers put the social in social media. Without engagement, it's something else. Screaming into the void is how I like to put it, but you can come up with your own analogy or description.
Personally, I think the engagers will have the easiest time of all, barring another inability to transact or something. The reason for that is, most of us will be feeling pretty much the same as everyone else. I expect empathy to abound in some way or another.
Let's just help each other through this, okay,in whatever form that takes, from kindness to sarcasm if needs be. You all know the people you engage with. Have their backs, they'll watch yours, and we'll all be better for it, regardless how the hardfork turns out.
Image source—Pixabay