Bits Of Good

If I had to guess, I'd say I'm at least a mild case of OCD. Since I was a kid, I needed to avoid stepping on cracks while walking in the street just like Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets. As an adult I whenever I fly and a meal is served during the flight, just after I finish eating I always feel this urge to put the cutlery, plastic wraps, plastic containers for salad, dessert, etc. inside the biggest container in the tray, so that when the flight attendant picks up the food tray, it looks as compact as possible. I could go on but I think you get the picture...

As for my blogging journey goes, I thought I was compulsion-free until I recently discovered how annoyed I got when a post of mine ended up with 9 upvotes. I am absolutely fine with getting 6, 7, 8 UVs but 9? Come on!

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I navigated through high-school just making the bare minimum. I was never a high grade student so an urge for scoring 10s can't be the reason. Maybe it has to do with having the double digits just one vote away?, who knows.

“To calm your OCD, did you share your post on Twitter to shoot for that 10th Upvote?“, You may ask.

Sure! I tweeted it out as posting your content in your social networks is a great way to make your work more visible!. Here's a screenshot of the tweet about that post:

aaaaand...the result was still...

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“OK, but you belong to these blogger groups, don't you? How about just asking for a quick upvote there?“, You may ask.

You would think that this is something these groups do but that's not the case. Although we do share each other's work, it's never on a “here, upvote me to the moon” basis because CTAs are not cool (Don't forget the best practices!!). One of the groups I hang out with has almost 30 members, so if we did this, I would've easily passed the 10 upvote mark and all of my posts would be around a similar count.

From my experience, these groups are great platforms where creators come together to learn from each other and to encourage each other, having lots of fun in-between. The ultimate reward for us as content creators is that someone else takes the time to read or watch your content and give you feedback. Having such forums are good not only for the creators as individuals but the platform as a whole as we all grow together.

“Fair enough. But then, what's the point of sharing this story?”, You may ask.

Well this is not reverse psychology to have someone give me that 10th upvote that would calm my compulsion (or is it 🤔? Nope just kidding 😁, although it would have been a good idea).

The point I am trying to make with this story is that despite I couldn't make it to the 10th upvote, I am really happy I could really see there is coherence between the quality of the content and the recognition it is getting, as this fosters organic growth in the platform. I know I didn't deserve that one upvote because I know exactly what went wrong with my post.

The post was a throwback to the 2017 bull run of XRP, where as you know, the crypto market went meteoric. After giving it some thought, I realized that the reason for not being able to score my 10th upvote had to do more with poor timing than content quality (I posted this on March 26th, just two weeks after Black Thursday. I mean who wants to read about bull runs when the crypto market has just experienced its worst crash in years? Hello!!). Lesson learned: Poor timing can be as damaging as poor content.

The title of this post suggests that I'd go a long way for that one upvote, and within what I consider is fair game, I did because I'd definitely go a longer way to contribute so that Coil continues to have this organic growth promoted by this vibrant, fantastic community that I am thrilled to be part of.

p.s. Please don't be the gal or guy that spoils the story by giving me the upvote now!

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Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

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