Ever since I heard about Dmania, I knew this platform has a great future. I saw many areas of potential improvement and I kept discussing them in their discord server. I have gone through a long period without posting memes or delegating because I didn't see the incentive.
Now If you have been using Dmania in the last two weeks then you probably noticed many users mentioning my account under their memes and that's because I have decided to become a Dmania supporter/delegator/curator. It was a 10 day experiment and I can see myself doing this longer if I have enough time.

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The platform has gone through many improvements and Dmania's voting algorithm changes more than I change my style of writing. At the moment all delegators who follow the criteria are authorised to influence the bot. The bot works by randomly upvoting one meme from Trending per hour but your meme has to have above average supporter votes/supporters' power. Keep in mind that Trending in Dmania is actually Hot in Steemit and everything else is similarly confusing but people get the hang of it after a while. [Dmania's FAQ]

My Meme Curation Journey

My little delegation to Dmania put me at the 19th top supporter at the time. My decision to become a supporter is actually a long term investment in this platform and in STEEM. Instead of joining a circle "abusers" group, I decided to start a fire! After I became an authorised curator I announced that I'd be supporting original quality memes and I'd be flagging plagiarised or low quality memes. [My Curation Criteria]

I spent one week only upvoting/downvoting and posting nothing at all. So far I haven't received a single upvote from Dmania because as soon as I started making memes, which took some thoughts and effort, @zombee decided to change the algorithm and now I have to reach that 50 reputation.

The tradeoff was worth it however, I saw some good changes in the quality of memes and the mentality of Dmanics. My favourite part was that everyone was suddenly posting original memes to get supported. I have helped many users get the upvote from Dmania for free and I have flagged many as well for free.
For the record my votes were only from an undelegated 30 SP with minimum voting power. It didn't affect exisiting reward but it did influence the bot's decision.

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My curation was not perfect but I tried to adhere to my criteria and be as fair as possible. I have been really nice to the ones I flagged and gave constructive criticism in many memes I upvoted as well. In return, I have received a lot of flags from numerous users on my comments. You can have a quick scroll through the comments in this post to have a glimpse of the the amount of hate I received.

But I have also received even more support for my initiative, I gained more than 90 followers in that period alone (most of them I'm sure are high quality Dmanics 😉). Also, most of the people I flagged understood why I did what I did and took it well afterwards and I appreciate that.

What's My Agenda?

I have become the in the top 50 downvoters for 5 days in a row according to @lalala daily report. I received about 50 submissions a day and curated them with little to no reward.

It is not a completely selfless deed, and it's not only a long term investment in the platform and STEEM.

I also wanted the community to appreciate quality memes that are original and interesting, so the next time I put some good effort into my memes I expect appreciation, similarly if I post poor quality memes I expect flags and no support.

I made every meme that followed my criteria have a higher chance of getting rewarded than plagiarised memes. Therefore, people had an incentive to work and be creative. The standard was a lot higher in that period I hope it continues to go higher.

In my opinion, which many Dmanics disagree with, people need to put some effort into their memes. I flagged top rewarded dmanics when I believed their memes were not good enough. If you repeatedly get rewarded from lazy ass/low quality work or plagiarised memes while others put time and effort and get nothing, then flagging is fair and necessary.

Dmania has actually removed the vote from many plagiarised memes like this one and I believe @berniesanders should consider unflagging the comments of Dmania if that could restore Dmania's reputation. In the end, it's not the fault of the bot but the curators who are influencing the bot. My experiment showed that with honest curation, the platform could go in a better direction.

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My next post will give some really interesting insights into the platform's dynamic compared to 9gag and how Dmania is bringing so much value to Steem. In the mean time, let's hope for a quick rep (50) level up to get my curation back on again.

Resteem if you like this post
Follow to Support my Initiative
Mention me when I'm an authorised curator.