https://i.imgflip.com/1rwmyk.jpg Steemit Post Promotion's and self promotion in particular is becoming more and more controversial. I have seen several posts and comment threads over the last couple weeks being filled with different opinions about promotion on threads, even some really strict positions such as "if I see a randowhale vote, I will no longer vote" I am only new though in my opinion, we are kinda all new, the platform is evolving and no one really knows where it's headed or what it will look like when it gets there. I believe forming these kind of "disagree's with one of my idea's" prejudice is not good for the platform, nor has it ever been good in any situation in history ever. If you can think of a situation where prejudice was a good idea, please let me know in the comments Here are some of the reasons why i think you should continue to judge on a case by case basis

Every Poster is different

Every Poster has a different level of comprehension and language, for some posters, it takes alot of work to formulate all their ideas and put together a post, their upvote or promotion can be out of fear of not being seen in the wave of posts that are produced every minute. An expression of desperation out of Fear is no reason to shun someone, is it? granted that's a bit of a straw-man, though the point is, how much does that single action really tell you about who they are, why they're here and what they've written?

Every Style is different and has different requirements

Just as every person is unique so is every topic and posting style, some topics are dealt with in a couple lines whereas some posts are a years work for someone, maybe not the writing itself, but the idea's and concept's, Photography and art can be like this too, you might have an artist, who will only post once every 6 months because of self perception and perceived value, you know, the perfectionist who doesn't get stuff done within reasonable time-frames, etc

The Nature of Steemit Posts

I will definitely get some disagreement here but give it a chance. I believe the steemit post is in a sense designed to disappear/become redundant. Though it keeps the information online, the way the revenue works you usually get all your worth in the first couple days and then it slowly starts to drop away, if you come across an old post, the only way to reward them(if they arent affiliate marketing in some way) is to look for a recent post and add an upvote. Ofcourse that's not a big deal, plus there are also different interfaces on the horizon that will cause different behaviours too(zappl with its character count, chainbb and its forum structure, etc)

"Closing the gap" and Adding Value through choice

there are currently several different promotion platforms on steemit. I can think of Curie, the trails, Randowhale, PAL, Team australia, Whaleshares and Booster. Many users of these platforms are desperately looking for ways to get some traction but they are also avenues for potential advertisers or agencies to get involved with the steemit community and platform with much greater accessibility, ultimately adding overall value to Steem

"Creating Liquid and retaining value through opportunities

Someone with a significant stake in Steem Power may need access to their fund's, instead of needing to power-down their account, they can instead choose to create a token for their vote power and essentially create and sell upvote tokens, these are called Whaleshares and they also have an implicit value of boosting BTS and the Graphene blockchain. If a concensus starts to forms around these polarizing idea's and we start to alienate people purely for using the vote then we could start to derail the value of these tools so they essentially become a spammers only pursuit and are forcefully scrapped

How much do they make anyway?

The Voting services

Randowhale asks for 2 SBD or 2 STEEM which is roughly 3SBD to give you back a vote between 0-5%, which at the time of writing this post is between 0 and around $6. If using Whaleshares, they are about 6 bts (around 0.22USD) and each yield a 1% vote for upto $3. PAL would net you approx 50 votes and about $3~

The Shameless self promoter

Who are these promoters anyway?

in my view self promotion comes in 2 camps, camp 1: "I'm really worried nobody will see my work, maybe this is a good way to do it? since there are incentives for people to upvote purely for financial incentive, maybe I can hint at a financial incentive, plus even though all my friends already upvoted, it would be nice to see more than .20 cents for a change, am i even doing this right?" and then there is camp 2: "If I upvote my spam comment('nice post') with randowhale + Whaleshares + Pal + MinnowBuster+ TeamAustralia, I can lambo by thursday look at these prime examples conveniently curated for us by tarazkp

possible response 1

upon seeing an interesting thumbnail, title or opening sentence we can scroll down immediately and "qualify" our author and then read the post if were satisfied or read the post and then ultimately decide only if they haven't used any form of promotion

possible response 2

we can exploit every possible voting opportunity and play a numbers game by trying to add $10 to a post or completely ignore that people are doing it with the idea of "when I have more Steem power i will self vote and lambos, therefore its fine let them do whatever they want"

The Real Issue: This is Anarchy, the community defines itself

These promotion platform's are a tool, similar to a curation trail or vote bot that give a kind of "power-up" to the post or a flag, yes a flag, I havent used one yet, but its a tool like any other, and there are scenarios where it is better for the community as a whole to flag Curating the platform is just as important as posting. The value of the platform is our compounded community value, essentially, what we offer to the world. lets be a community that is accepting, loving, kind and wanting to help. We are human and have an array of motivations, but we are human and understand. so we understand when someone is struggling and can use a leg up, give a kind comment, im sure there is something good, maybe if nothing else "you seem to be very enthusiastic about success" or maybe give a 1%er, because you want to, because you will feel better for helping, because your a nice person, and it will help them, because if i get a glimpse of validation I know what to aim for And for the rest of us sometimes partaking in a little shameless self promotion, we should always consider the overall outcome and impact of our action, a reputation is hard to build but is more valuable than a quick double. Flags, this is a great place for flags, instead of flagging for topics we disagree with, we can flag people screwing us all over by trying to exploit the system I have my fair share of bad table manners but I try to make up for it in honest intention and the Value that I am hopefully providing. I think many of the biggest stars are yet to light and there is immense opportunity here for all of us. The power is truly in our hands, if we are sensible we can sustain this beautiful place and only see it flourish more https://i.imgflip.com/1rwv1u.jpg what if we asked those awesome people at Curie to create a similar anti-Curie service? http://i.imgur.com/oWNGs4E.png

I worked up a headache trying to think, hopefully it wasnt too much nonsense, thanks for reading my post please feel free to continue the dialogue in the comments