In this opinion piece, I will discuss what might seem a bit controversial in nature, as I will talk about what Steemit stands for. That is whether it is a blogging platform for writing lengthy articles or is it not.
In general, I have come to understand Steemit to be a decentralized blogging site for posting and curating, where we get rewarded both in Steem and or Steem Dollars.
So, I have been thinking about what “quality” really means on Steemit, as I have recently participated in a flagged post by 
This brings me back to the general narrative, as I can also see why this post was flagged on the contrary. So, before I go any further with this, I would like to make it clear, that I am all for encouraging “quality” posts. But what truly comes to mind is understanding what functionality Steemit really plays and why we the Steemit community should define what is truly quality and what is not.
Steemit is a platform, whereby its content is generated by, we the users, and therefore allows us the flexibility to post what we desire. This also means we poses the ability to downvote or flag posts as we see fit. Which is perfectly fine by me personally, as I see this as a balance that embodies a key concept that puts the power right back to the community to decide which posts deserves a fair share of the reward pool.
Since, Steemit operates on a Proof-of-Stake model, it also underlines certain members’ higher privileges to curate, what they deem as quality for the general growth of the site. This members are those that have a good amount of steem power, and are generally regarded as dolphins and whales.
The controversy or drawback, is regarding what we as community define as being a quality post. I only see this as a limitation, if we consider that, not only can we post directly on Steemit itself, but we can also create a Steemit based site that pretty much posts on our behalf on the Steemit platform. This to me brings the issue of quality on the Steemit platform to light and worth a discussion.
Take for example, sites such as @DTube, @DMania, @DLive and more recently introduced twitter-like Steemit based site called Zappl. Firstly, these sites, I have mentioned above, have all the ingredients to make Steemit more exciting and suitable for people from all walks of life, as it directly competes with mainstream sites like Youtube, twitter and the list goes on.
I can argue that, it is extremely crucial, that we as a community be more receptive and open to Steemit’s ability to scale and cater for further development of DApps in this manner by any member of the community. As it is actually way bigger than just what we define as a post to be of quality material on the Steemit platform itself. Because functionality wise, Steemit’s scalability allow for DApps to be created, that simply may not conform to this general narrative of being true to blogging quality posts on the Steemit platform. Quality in this context, than becomes a subjective matter.
DTube site for example is already attracting prominent Youtuber’s with a good size of followers over, which is great for the growth of the Steemit platform. The reason for the move, generally falls within the realm of avoiding “censorship”, which I believe is what the idea of decentralization is addressing anyway. So it is fitting and somewhat an expected move as seen from this point of view.
The particular site, that I like to stress more on is Zappl, which is basically a decentralized version of twitter. This again is another brilliant idea waiting to blossom in its own right. This needs no further explanation as we know what twitter is capable of and what purpose it serves as a medium for communication in this day and age. As it is, it only takes one tweet or more precisely “few lines of text” to get things trending these days on twitter.
How can than one zap from Zappl receive more steem dollars than say a lengthier post from Steemit which pays less or similar in steem dollars. What value of quality applies in such a scenario?
I personally think Zappl, like twitter is a brilliant idea, so that begs to question should we the Steemit community reconsider what we say is quality than on the Steemit platform?
The use of tags by these Steemit base DApps is a great concept that can help us make a distinction between Steemit essay type posts versus twitter like posts which may fall under the radar for flagging or downvotes, especially by dolphins and whales. This wouldn’t be beneficial for the growth of the platform in the general scheme of things.
Who knows what other Steemit based DApps are currently in development phase at this point in time, that perhaps, is based on a “game of upvotes” or far more controversial in its design and post types contrary to the generally perceived idea of quality post on Steemit. Now that too, may just come under the radar, going by the current narrative of what quality posts should be.
Let’s face it, not everyone can post well written lengthy posts in English. Say if we consider, mass adoption as a driving force for the growth of this great platform called Steemit, than it seems logical to be more receptive in allowing for Steemit to be utilized in the many ways it can be as in the case of existing DApps mentioned in this post. This only leads to encouraging people from all walks of life to be able to participate, one way or the other to make this platform grow.
I am from Papua New Guinea (PNG), a country of 8+ million inhabitants and am the only active user in this part of the world right now on Steemit. PNG has over 800 plus different languages, I speak at least 3 other languages apart from English, so I consider myself privileged to have attained college education, to allow me to write out my thoughts in this manner.
I am however, truly passionate about total decentralization, and only wish that great platforms such as this be made more conducive for people from all walks of life by the community itself.
I am also a software programmer by profession, and have been considering the idea of creating a Steemit DApp specific to our (Melanesian) way of life and what things we consider as valuable to this part of the world in an attempt to bring in more people to Steemit. This will be a simple User Interfaced DApp that can allow regular people to easily interact freely. This will be a project I will be doing in the very near future.
Until then, this has been my very first “lengthy” post, and I hope that I have brought to your attention some quality standards that perhaps we should reconsider as a community. Please let me know, if anything wasn’t clear enough, as it can become a daunting task having to speak 4 different languages on a day to day basis. :) So one can imagine trying to communicate conceptual ideas in a language you only learnt in school. It only takes the life out me to attempt a post this size of 1400+ words. While in the back of my mind, I am hoping, I get equally rewarded piecing this together regardless of language barriers and still managed to post at least something of value to the Steemit community to look into.
Nevertheless, I am loving my experience so far on Steemit, and thought I’d share this with you all, as we become more of a global community with this new technology. Simply because it pays and this itself, will only attract more and more people to Steemit. So let’s greet with upvotes more, and not discourage with downvotes in the general scheme of things.
Would appreciate your support in resteeming this for a wider community discussion.
