Making Communities Count

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I am glad to be part of this community that helps promote Steem. I work on this platform and my pocket money comes from this platform. So, it makes a lot of difference to me if this platform works or not. However there are a few things which in my opinion may make this ecosystem a better platform for all.

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One thing that many community such as @ocd, @adscactly, @curie and @promo-steem got right is the effort to build communities. We all concede that in this platform we have limited resources and the way to make the entire ecosystem work for small minnows or plankton work is by building communities.

First, the community that would be easy in making its presence known are the creative talents, be it music, art or writing. In the past there was a slow transition from technology and programming based blogs that was earning really awesome rewards it slowly trickled into the creative community.

There are some forerunners that sacrificed their time and energy to bring up communities and these individuals should be rewarded for their effort. It is not so much about making them rich but in moving communities, what we know for sure is they would have expanded their own resources. I will be very surprised if someone say moving communities comes at no cost at all.

The Wannabes

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While I understand that the steem blockchain allows for anything and everything to be posted, we do have a real choice in choosing where we throw our support and these support could have been better utilised with people who really make a difference through their effort. Lately there is a surge in people using pictures and showing that a gathering took place and perhaps a piece of paper declaring their love for steemit. I really have my doubts how that actually promotes steem. All that is immediately evident is that these people do have a social event and probably they are talking about their late night escapades or which beer taste better.

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It really make no difference whether these people do have their meetups in a small wooden hut in the middle of a paddy plantation or in a 7 star hotel. Instead of blinding voting for people who claim to have beneficial meetups, perhaps speaking about what the meetup is about would make better sense. But of course if their intention is to tell the world that they are meeting their friends and they are happy about it, all is fine. But the real intention was to make it seem like they are a community that are planning and thinking of how to better the ecosystem is really robbing people who really deserve the support and attention.

The Con

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It pains me to bring this up and there are a large number of self professed experts that loves hopping into the bandwagon. They go around speaking of the blockchain and how it has improved the community and how it is decentralised, it is all a recantation of the same old mantra. But nothing deeper. It can also be extremely embarrassing when they get the most basic terms wrong despite claiming to have earned many thousands if not millions through this new age technology. These are the weeds within the system that ought to be eliminated. They are there for a few reasons that I could only think of:

• To stroke their ego. The unknowing would be setting up a place of worship for these cons and the unending flatters would boost their ego.
• To make a quick kill but convincing people who has this FOMO (fear of missing out) mentality

I was unlucky to have come across a few in this short stint that I have been involved with the blockchain and with the little understanding that I have, one including myself could have been taken for a ride.

Real conversation that took place :

Did you know about the Industrial Revolution 4.0?

What is that?

You mean to say you do not know about Industrial Revolution 4.0? Where have you been dude?

Well, for starters there is no Industrial Revolution 4.0. There is Digital Revolution and there is Industry 4.0. Unless of course the person is talking about Industrial Revolution which is the invention of the steem engine which is ancient technology and by no stretch of imagination is a reference to Steem (cryptocurrency).

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(The closest resemblance I can get from a conman/robber)

We are going to register our tokens and I am sure you are aware that in the world there is only Singapore and Switzerland that can convert a token into a coin, it is almost like general knowledge.

Well, I really didn't know. Is that the reason why China was clamping down on ICOs?

Well, they exist in all shapes and forms. There are people who bring sully to the platform and blockchain. I can't say how much I detest such action but it is extremely disheartening. There are many people who actually go around educating people and there are the cons that speaks of blockchain like piecing legos together from the little that they hear from various sources.

Let Us be Discerning Blockchain Citizens

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I say, the way forward is to ensure that the movers in each community is given the support that they deserves. Let's weed out the phlegm that would eventually choke the throat of the ecosystem. It is tough but it has to be be done. Perhaps then, we can start planning to see Steem and Steem Dollar on the moon.

Another way of making sure that the ecosystem is healthy is by supporting proper content producers, people who invest their time and effort in making sure that the blogs churn out good and well researched contents. So far the steem ecosystem merely concentrate on a few areas but did expand as much into other areas of interest such as hobbies, pets, fashion and other areas of interest. Therefore, it is important to have some passion for that particular field of interest and create a healthy community for a sustainable and profitable stint in the Steem Blockchain.

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