Lately, Steem communities have made a real push for unity, coming together for the best interest of the platform. Even Steemit, Inc. has gotten on board with this push, with the naming of Elizabeth (Eli) Powell as Managing Director and Ned Scott as Executive Chairman. Out of this movement has come the SOS Discord, the Steem Business Alliance, and a new Alliance group founded by Steemit, Inc. The movers and shakers in our blockchain universe have understood that the survival of our ecosystem will require teamwork. This is a bad time for maverick action by any solo user or splinter group, especially those who might be selling snake oil.
Several people in The Writers' Block, the Discord community I admin alongside @GMuxx, have received wallet spam from a user named @crypto.piotr. He's on about delegations for his "non-profit" project that has no name, no community, questionable transparency, and no system of accountability. I've been bothered from the outset by his lack of association with any established community or group. But I wasn't overly concerned--what's one more wallet spammer among the bidbots, right?
Well, now I'm concerned. Apparently he's becoming more aggressive, comment-spamming posts with long blocks of text that are completely unrelated to the post and bring no value to the blockchain. Same message, same lack of clear direction. I engaged with him on one such post. And ooooh, boy. He did not respond well.
His first comment was addressed to the owner of the blog, who will remain nameless here. Crypto.piotr managed to drag dstors into his pitch, which @kaliju, @derangedvisions, and @c0ff33a might find interesting. So I asked for more information, and tried to make him aware that he's reinventing the wheel here, that other communities are blazing strong leadership trails in a similar direction.
Well, he gave me more information, all right. He immediately went into hard-sell mode and hit me with meaningless rhetoric like: "I don't want to build another community around monetary/financial rewards." Well, that's commendable, but the fact that he has no knowledge of what other communities (like @welcomewagon) are doing along those lines to help new users on the platform tells me that he's not paid much attention to the resources currently available to Steem users. Therefore working alongside them for the good of all isn't likely to happen.
So I called him out regarding this. As you can see, he didn't like it one bit.
I don't have tangible proof that crypto.piotr is up to no good. He may not be. He may just be lacking direction. Having watched a delegation scammer at work in 2017 from a very close point of view, I'm instantly suspicious of anyone schilling for delegations outside an established community. Either way, is this the best use of anyone's SP--delegating to an initiative with no apparent accountability measures in place?
What I'd like to see happen is closer scrutiny of this user by community watchdogs like @themarkymark and @steemcleaners, who have the resources to vet this guy and either declare him legit or shut him down. Whatever the case, crypto.piotr, I think you're taking a bad direction by becoming defensive and surly when people point out flaws in your strategy. It doesn't make anyone "judgmental" to be cautious about the best use of their SP. I personally don't think your boat is seaworthy. Therefore I wouldn't dream of delegating to your project. Get in line with some successful initiatives here on Steem, network within established communities, and then let's see where you are a few months down the road.
As for other users who may consider delegating to this project...buyer beware. I think there are reasons to be concerned.