After another week at the sc03 headquarters, we must face the truth hinted at in the title: there's very little content from European users that meets even the basic selection criteria of Team Europe (regardless of quality), and even fewer users actually producing it. It's simply not enough to keep a voting sc-account busy.

Despite initially trying to avoid it for efficiency reasons, we’re of course searching globally. What happened next was almost inevitable: since the same (European) faces keep appearing, they tend to receive more and more votes. This accumulation is not the result of nepotism - many of these users only recently came to our attention. Still, it’s a sign of how limited the pool has become.
If even we - with high standards and long experience handling sizable stakes - fall into this repetitive pattern, something's clearly off.
For example: using Michelangelo3’s Search Tool with modest filters (200+ words, <25% delegation (except to "real" community accounts), SCI ≥5), we typically get only 1 (!!!) result out of 500 scanned posts. And that one is often plagiarized or cross-posted to Hive - something we have to detect ourselves.

It’s disheartening. Many European users and other communities still rely on having received unchecked Booming support for far too long. Lots of Hive-copycats, heavy delegation-service users - some even still manage to get votes from "generous curators" who don’t (want to) recognize the signs. Shame.

Back to the first point: yes, we end up voting the same users repeatedly. Are they truly the best? Or just a stubborn few hanging on? Either way, it’s a clear sign things are deteriorating - and that letting the same curators control sc-accounts for months is deeply irresponsible. True objectivity becomes impossible.

Notice we’ve talked about 'voting', not 'curating'? As long as the linguistically beautiful word “curating” is misused at this platform to simply mean “financial support", we refuse to use it. We try to go beyond blind voting - and reading a post is the bare minimum for us.

Certain users will never receive our support: known scammers suddenly lurking in European communities. No mods care, and other sc-accounts seem fine burning VP on those “articles".

Come on, people - the future of Steem is in our hands. Yours, too!

Looking at the bright side:

• We (privately, don’t worry - sc03 has nothing to do with it) and @kiwiscanfly managed to push the AI spammer punicwax into deeply negative reputation this week. We hope this red mark will help keep unsuspecting users from falling for him in the future.

• Our code, which prevents excessive reward payouts to individual users and allows sc03 to follow some of our private votes, is running like clockwork - like a Zeiss precision instrument. That such machines sometimes halt when lacking the oil of usable data is no fault of our brilliant developers.

• @michelangelo3’s SteemSearch is super helpful. Thanks to the smart filters, searching for the needle in the haystack is sometimes even fun.

• Each of us added two or three previously unknown users to our follow lists and cleaned up our feeds with just five to ten clicks.

• We know that a report like this won’t win us many friends - and we honestly don’t care: each of us now has at least two true friends. We’re having loads of fun in our team channel.

• We can confidently recommend a few users at this point.

Well then, once again we have braved both migraines and immense time demands - and we’ve managed to bring a few noteworthy posts and excellent authors into the spotlight this week as well:

El diario de mamá by @solperez, Venezuela

Once again, it is a short story of literary merit that we would like to emphasise. A wonderfully written story that we liked very much and that touched us deeply. The protagonist discovers old diaries written during the First World War. She also finds a hidden flat in her house, which is a metaphor for a woman hiding from the world with a soul destroyed by war. The author makes an excellent transition to the protagonist's actions in the here and now. The fact that the events take place in Germany is of course irrelevant to our selection... 😉

Exploring Bulgaria, as it joins EURO by @lightcaptured, Bulgaria

For a long time now, @lightcaptured has attracted attention by regularly publishing professional photographs that are hard to beat in their diversity. He often shows landscape shots from his travels across Europe. What we particularly like about this post is that he uses a current economic and political occasion - Bulgaria's accession to the European Monetary Union - as an opportunity to present images from his home country. You can now discuss politics with him (he mentions the advantages of the introduction of the EURO, but also mentions that there are not only those in favour of it) or simply enjoy the great photos.

Jenseits von Gut und Böse? Teil 2 by @ty-ty, Germany

Arguably the most precious “gem” of the German-speaking community is a great thinker of our time: the talented and eloquent @ty-ty. His texts are of a literary quality that most can only dream of and often delve into profound philosophical questions. Recurring like a series, characters such as Vivienne, Wolf, and a fictional first-person narrator appear again and again, engaging in dialogue from different perspectives on universal themes.
In the featured post, the three imagine themselves as gods. In a pub named Walhalla, they "create" - on a purely conceptual level - the "perfect" human being, examining the idea from all sides, especially through the lenses of good and evil.
Warning: You need to read @ty-ty’s works two to four times to understand them - and even then, certainty is never guaranteed!
A true pearl tossed before the swine of today’s fast-fire content producers and consumers.

Piranesi and Alternate Reality by @event-horizon, Pakistan

@event-horizon regularly stands out with well-structured, elegantly written book reviews that make readers want to head straight to their local library. This time, she was captivated by the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
But this piece is far more than a traditional review. @event-horizon goes a step further by diving into scientific realms, researching topics like string theory to illuminate the conceptual background of the book. Her exploration doesn't stop there - the novel also prompted her to reflect more attentively on the everyday things she had previously taken for granted.
We love when users are internally inspired to dive deep into research and turn it into a well-crafted, publication-worthy article. A highly recommended read!

Brocken 20/ 2025 by @mflegerbein, Germany

@mflegerbein posts reliably and regularly and - supposedly - always writes about the same thing 😉 Haha, no, of course it's not that simple. Every weekend, the author hops on his mountain bike and rides up the Brocken, the highest peak in Germany’s Harz mountain range, regardless of the weather. There are multiple routes to the summit, and @mflegerbein always chooses a different one.
He describes his sporty rides and any special events along the way, and he also takes the opportunity to share stunning photographs, for which he always takes his time to capture them professionally.
If you follow @mflegerbein over a longer period, it’s fascinating to witness the changing nature of the Harz region throughout the seasons.

Sunday Morning With the Kids - Reading an Insightful Story by @ukpono, Nigeria

If you want to meet a very versatile blogger, we recommend @ukpono. She caught our attention through her casually mentioned Scrabble training. We might have a new Steem Scrabble player in her, as she is currently even trying her hand at the German version. Her latest diary entry is about a children's story that makes you think and question. What is important to us in life? Are we brave enough to make uncomfortable decisions? And if that's not enough: she can also sing and make music! We think you should definitely take a look at her blog.

The dilemma with the website. An example of a script for IndexedDB by @maxart, Ukraine

The Ukrainian community is very active and we think it's absolutely worth a visit. @maxart has only been active on Steem since December 2024. He is a blogger who reports on his daily life and exciting everyday observations. Web design is his passion. This was already evident in his youth. In his current post, he has provided the code for a website that allows you to save personal links across browser boundaries and with images. Not only the developers in Team Europe were enthusiastic.

5 Città, ovvero la classifica dei luoghi visitati in vacanza (Parte II) by @frafiomatale, Italy

@frafiomatale has long been a favourite of mine (@the-gorilla), usually for his unbiased (😉) analysis of events surrounding his beloved Juve. This time though, the selection is for his over month long journey through Eastern Europe covering Armenia, Georgia and Poland culminating in this final piece, ranking each venue. Whilst one post required selection, this choice is very much for the journey in its entirety, which merits a read.

See ya next week!

@chriddi, @moecki & @the-gorilla

2025-07-15