Revisiting stemsocial curation guidelines

in StemSocial4 years ago

As at the time of putting this post together, the stemsocial community has 984 subscribers with 95 active posters. There is no doubt the community is growing at a steady pace. However, not every user posting into the community gets support/upvote from the stemsocial account. This has led to a variety of misconceptions about the community with some going as far as calling us 'circle jerkers'.

The stemsocial community has been around as steemstem on the former blockchain. We are one of the oldest and consistent curation projects on the hive blockchain primarily dedicated to projecting hive to the outside world by supporting STEM contents anywhere they are found on the blockchain. While STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; we have extended our support to include other subjects such as Psychology, Architecture, History, etc. However, the posts that will earn our support must fulfill certain standards in order to ensure that only quality is rewarded.

Authors who have been around on the chain for a while already know what is required for their articles to get curated by stemsocial because the guidelines have been well spelled out in the past. It may then seems like only these authors consistently get curated by us because others kind of fall short of our requirements somehow. Hence, the need for this post.

Minimum requirements to get curated by stemsocial

Writing a good stem article requires hard work and dedication. Veteran authors will tell you that they sometimes spend days trying to research before eventually coming up with some of the good (and probably well rewarded) stem posts we see on the chain. However, your posts do not have to be good in order to get noticed by our curators, they only need to be decent and meet our minimum requirements. The minimum requirements include:

  • Originality: A decent, curation-worthy stem article must be original. While paraphrasing with original thoughts is allowed, rewording someone else's work without any original input is considered plagiarism, and copying/pasting another person's article is simply criminal. If you must copy any information from another person's work verbatim, the quote function should be used and the source appended accordingly.
  • Clear Language: The essence of writing is to communicate. Hence, whatever language you are using to compose your article must be clear and easily understood by your readers. Currently, the stemsocial community supports English, German, French, Spanish, and Chinese language. Always write in a language you are comfortable with.
  • Formatting: A well-formatted article would be easier to read. Hence, proper formatting remains one of the key requirements in order to get our support. An original, clearly-written article with poor formatting would be difficult to read. Aesthetically formatted articles always appeal to readers. A lesson in markdown styling would help in crafting well-formatted articles.
  • Referencing: Always include references in your article - be it in-text citation or as a list at the end of the article. If you write everything based on your ideas and thoughts, always include resource materials to consult in case your readers wish to explore further on the topic.
  • Copyrights: Curation-worthy stem articles must not infringe on any copyright law - be it in the texts or the images used in the article. A comprehensive guide on copyright standards has been published before and all you need to know can be found in the article.

Going beyond the minimum requirements

A well rewarded and engaging article would need to go beyond the minimum requirements. Fulfilling just the basic requirements will most likely get you noticed by the community curators. However, personalizing your articles and sprinkling them with as much creativity as possible would go a long way in making your articles interesting to readers, fetching you enough engagement and support.

Voting strengths

Depending on the volume, level of information, and the level of originality of articles; the amount of support given in terms of voting strength from the stemsocial account varies.

  • 10% is for low-volume articles that meet minimum curation requirements.
  • 30% is for medium to high-volume articles that are informative and meet the curation requirements.
  • 65% is for medium to high-volume articles that are well researched, informative, creative, and of course, do not fall short of the curation requirements.
  • 100% is for original research carried out following the scientific method and published on the chain.

In addition to the above, there is an extra 5% for articles posted through the stemsocial platfort and another 5% for making stemsocial a beneficiary.

Moving forward

We hope with this clarification, the misconceptions about the community can be laid to rest. Anyone is eligible to be curated by stemsocial as long as they meet the curation guideline. This is as against the notion that the community only curate some set of people and ignore others, aka, circle-jerking.

I addition to that, we have a team of Honor members that are ready to help out newbies within the community in order to ensure that they get a grip on our curation guidelines. All that the users need to do is visit our Discord server and request for mentorship or directly message any member whose username is highlighted in green color.

If you need further clarification, feel free to leave a comment on this article, ask in the general channel of our discord server or dm me on discord (gentleshaid#1143).

To the moon!

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good guidelines, dude

I hope, someday I can post something there

 4 years ago  

You are always welcome to post in the community. Seek for help if you need any. I am always reachable on discord

 4 years ago  

Thanks for this, Shaid...it's good to be able to refresh the rules that a publication must have in order to receive support from stemsocial. We currently have several new users and this post may help you

 4 years ago  

Indeed. The post will help a lot of new members in our community. Feel free to translate it to Spanish for the benefit of Spanish speakers that do not understand English.

Thanks for this useful piece of information. I will adjust my post to beat my former records. I will be a better STEM post creator.

 4 years ago  

You are welcome. Glad you found it helpful.

Greetings friend @gentleshaid, congratulations on this delivery, no doubt has a high informative and reflective value, first because, clarifies the misperceptions that exist from outside the community, second because, seeks to encourage new and potential users to use the label, and third to encourage these users to upload content that meets the basic criteria of healing to opt for the support of @STEMsocial.

I consider that being a member of the @STEMsocial community is one thing, now being an ACTIVE member and maintaining a regular rhythm of publications is something totally different, and I think that there lies the contradiction, in my almost 3 years working hand in hand with @STEM-espanol sub-community of @STEMsocial, I have invited many colleagues university professors and researchers of recognized prestige in areas such as biology, chemistry and biotechnology, which usually publish between 1 or 2 articles per year in refereed and indexed journals of some international reputation, and yet these people after creating the account, when they arrive at the platform share an estimated 4 contributions, and then mysteriously stop publishing STEM content, in most cases they withdraw from the platform, however, the few that remain begin to upload other content as; poetry, micro stories, paranormal information, in short, they fill their blog with content that generates the least effort possible.

I have tried to analyze this scenario and strange behavior, and the only logical answer I have found is that it is very difficult for university professors and researchers to change the paradigm, and the idea of starting to upload scientific content at a higher rate, is something they are not yet prepared for, hence the reason, to take refuge in other content niches.

If this happens to researchers, I think that for the average user of #HIVE, the situation is worse, because they are people that I intuit in most cases do not have academic training at the university level, and quickly lose interest in uploading STEM content, I think it may take some time to change this sad and discouraging reality, because having users with vocation, commitment, and greater willingness to share their experimental results on the platform, is a topic that needs a lot of outreach work to attract major research centers internationally.

Again, congratulations, your post is a clear call for reflection, we continue reading.

 4 years ago  

Thank you @lupafilotaxia. I understand where you are coming and you are totally right. One thing I do tell people about posting stemsocial contents is that it doesn't have to be core science articles. You only need to bring out the science in issues. We even curate sci-fi articles. You can write about something that happens to you in real life as long as there's a science aspect to it, after all, hive is called a social blogging platform and not really an academic platform. This is not to discourage those that are used to publishing core science articles. People often engage with articles they can relate with and we should always be conscious of the fact that stemsocial is not meant for only stem people but stem enthusiasts in general.

Thank you for such an insightful comment.

Good point, correct to upload content related to STEM using the tag #STEMsocial, you do not necessarily have to have experimental reports, I think that to be aware, the simple fact of uploading content of practical use, already gives a value to the manuscript, because I think that all content that is uploaded to the platform, also contribute to the generation of characters, in case it should have some value for the rest of the users.

 4 years ago  

Indeed. The flexibility should encourage people

I agree with you, the elements stipulated in the healing criteria of @STEMsocial are in fact flexible, it would be necessary to analyze, because users who use the label ignore these points, and then reflect to create conditions, where a greater number of users feel committed to meet the minimum criteria.

Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!

Please consider supporting our funding proposal, approving our witness (@stem.witness) or delegating to the @stemsocial account (for some ROI).

Thanks for using the STEMsocial app and including @stemsocial as a beneficiary, which give you stronger support. 
 

I am happy to read this guideline because Stemsosial is a great community of professional content creators. I must lear much more about the community. Thanks my friend. Regards

 4 years ago  

That's the essence of the article. For people to know the criteria we use in curation. Flouting the copyright guideline especially can get users blacklisted from the community

Excellent explanation, I am new to the community but I hope to break records with my medical articles, we hope the community grows more and continues to increase the quality of articles to increase this virtual library

 4 years ago  

You are going to have an excellent career and pleasant experience posting in stemsocial if you stick to the curation guidelines. We are always happy to support newbies that can take their time to study and master the guidelines.

Congratulations @gentleshaid! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Your post has been really appreciated and was the most upvoted of the day

You can view your badges on your board And compare to others on the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Do not miss the last post from @hivebuzz:

Hive Power Up Day - The countdown is ticking
Hive Power Up Day - Let's grow together!

Greetings @gentleshaid, what a great publication considering that there are currently new users in the community. Here we make clear each of the requirements needed to create an appropriate article to socialize.

I have been writing for you for some time and one of the things I appreciate is the support given to agricultural sciences, my articles have been well received.

I want you to know that you are doing a great job, I consider this publication very timely, I will share it in my blog. Greetings friend, have a great weekend !

Hello @gentleshaid,
Thanks for the reminder. I have to smile when you say an article may take days of research. In my case, it usually is weeks. That's because I take on topics I'd like to learn about. It's more interesting that way. I learn and then I explain. Old habits from teaching maybe. Of course, I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not a scientist. But then, that means I'll never get bogged down in jargon :))
I will try to keep the guidelines in mind in the future. There's a new topic I've been thinking about and reading about. Something for me to learn, and explain.
Be well.
Regards,
AG

 3 years ago  

Thanks Ag. It's been a while I read stem articles from you

Hello @gentleshaid. Yes, I see it has been about a month since my last science post. I have been thinking and reading about a new subject, but it is complex so I am trying to understand it. Perhaps your comment will give me the nudge I need.

I hope you and your young family are well in these very challenging times.

 3 years ago  

Yea, this is me nudging you on. We are fine down here. Hope you guys are doing great as well.

Hello @gentleshaid,
Thank you for your elucidation on the guidelines once again. I do remember messaging you on discord for enlightenment on how i can improve my post and i must say i have improved so much since then. Stemsocial is definitely not an esoteric community and i can attest to that. Thank you once again.

 3 years ago  

You are welcome Nat.

Reminder for old authors, and right on time information for new authors coming on board. Once you get the posting guidelines no need to worry whether your post will catch curators attention or not. @gentleshaid has done great work here to explain to everyone again.

 3 years ago  

Thank you bro

It is very pitiful to have a perception of the Stemsocial community as a closed circle, when in fact this community supports everyone who does an honest job within the Stem theme and beyond, as you say in this post the theme has become quite flexible and today a diverse content is accepted.

It is very important to educate new users to understand the importance of complying with the rules that you explain in this post to opt for healing, in particular I think it is doing a good job on the part of the directive and curators stemsocial, any improvement will surely be made at the pace of how the ecosystem will evolve.

Greetings my dear friend @gentleshaid and thank you for this valuable contribution.

 3 years ago  

Thanks carlos. Hope you have been fine.

Greetings @gentleshaid, very good your article is always good to be able to remember the healing criteria of STEMsocial and thus be able to clarify any doubts about it especially for new users, thanks for the information greetings.

 3 years ago  

You are welcome.

Greetings #StemSocial community I come from the university world, for many years, until my retirement, my writing experience was academic essays. From time to time I have made posts with social science topics that, in general, have not received much support.
We social scientists still struggle, although it is hard to believe it with the stigma that we do not meet the standards to be considered scientists in every sense of the word. In the university world, vestiges of this appreciation still persist, although the panorama in this regard is beginning to open up.

I am glad that they have incorporated psychology among the contents that they heal and, with all due respect, I allow myself to have the wish that the same thing happens for sociology, philosophy, educational sciences, history etc ... much to dream?
I will read your parameters carefully, @gentleshaid . I would love to be able to continue writing in the language of science.

A big hug and thanks for the great work.

 3 years ago  

I'm sorry this response is coming rather late. We indeed support other social science subjects such as sociology, economics, history ect. We've even extended to Architecture recently. Feel free to post your social science post into the community

Can i be among

 3 years ago  

Among what?

I mean i there a group i have to join before i am able to post in the community?