Minds And Steemit Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Many people have been posing the idea that you should go with one or the other. I say hey why not both?

Now I'm a Steem witness and I think Steem has some issues to be worked out which is exactly why I'm a witness. I think it can be improved and that it isn't going away so there's no point in trying to avoid it. I do also think that Steemit is pretty amazing and has a lot of potential! Now I do think that Minds actually has a stronger community and platform in terms of how they've managed to already have everything Steemit lacks like messaging, groups, small posts and long format blog distinction.

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However, like bid bots and things of the nature where people are using their status to profit. The exact same thing is happening on Minds, just to a smaller degree because we all have the same value vote. People offer rewards for how much you donate to them that may help you in some small capacity, but largely helps them more. Look there is no way to completely rid of any type of greed, all we can do is try to make is as fair and community driven as possible and work towards a brighter tomorrow.

I think they can both learn from each other. I've been on Minds for some time waiting for them to enable their tokens to be withdrawn and used. Once this happens I'm sure there will be a massive shift, but it has still yet to happen. Another major flaw with Minds is that because you don't really get penalized, people are out there spamming like 30 posts just to try to get the most engagement possible, not to provide any value to the community. When I see posts with no text and just a picture, it disappointing me that such a low quality post does so well and trends here just because that persons spams out like 40 posts a day and can afford to use their spam earned tokens to promote their better stuff. Now they do have the functionality where you only earn off one comment, vote, and remind per day from each unique user which solves that problem, but when you're spamming and people are liking your spam and reminding it, it is still getting out to other people and spreading so it doesn't really deter the user from sharing, but slightly deters the poster from bothering to post too much.

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Something that Steemit has handled better than minds is deterring poor quality posts and spam with their flag option. We have the downvote, however I'm not sure it really does anything. Steemit whales can and do abuse their flagging influence, but here we more or less solve that issue with equal influence. However, for this to work we would have to limit the amount of downvoting you can do. Maybe your amount of upvotes should be limited too? I do think having a finite amount of usage per day is a great way to minimize spam and abuse of such a system. I really think these things should be considered and reflected upon by the developers of @Minds and discussed by the community. 

I really appreciate how active and involved the admins here are so I made this post to generate discussion and find improvements and solutions, not to blame or praise.

I do think Minds is much easier to use and is an easier transition for people not familiar with blockchain technologies. One major issue that lies dormant in Minds is the fact that is isn't fully decentralized, or at least not as much as Steemit. I know this because the admins do have the access and control to remove your posts or ban you should they need to. They pride on having the most lax censorship, but it isn't NO censorship. This was most prominent when I started out and wrote a blog and they deleted accidentally and couldn't even retrieve it while they were cleaning out spam and it got caught in their filter. They apologized and I was okay with the situation as it never happened again, but it showed me that it really isn't decentralized. It kind of sucked that I wasted my time writing it and then it was lost. 

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So in short, both platforms have their ups and downs. I still like to use both and have high hopes with them moving forward. I'm extremely candid while criticizing not because I want to vilify, but rather I want to improve these things and make blockchain platforms better and push for the shift from traditional social medias.

Let me know what you think of both platforms and any changes you agree or disagree with. Also let me know what you like to see from either!

Credit for header: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/06/can-rational-arguments-actually-change-peoples-minds/