Pixabay is an important website for many of us Steemians. We're able to choose between 1.4 million images to use on our blog posts, all free of charge. I want to ensure that Pixabay contributors are somewhat rewarded, for all the time and effort they've put into releasing their images into the public domain.
This is why I've decided to start Pixabay Curation Magazine, where I will feature some of the best images of Pixabay. The goal is to support these artists through these posts and to introduce them to Steemit. I'll explain all the details below!
Pixabay Curation Magazine
The idea behind this is pretty simple. I will scour through Pixabay to find good quality images, which will be featured in my Pixabay Curation Magazine. Aside from just posting the images, I will add some in-depth personal commentary as well. My personal commentary will include a small review of the image and some additional information about the artist who made it.
The SBD portion of my magazine's post rewards will be split evenly among the featured artists after 7 days. Everything will be donated though Paypal and I will include screenshots of previous payments in upcoming issues.
The Steem Power that I gain through these posts will be retained. I will use my SP to upvote other posts made under #pixabaycuration. I encourage people to start up similar initiatives under that hashtag, where the goal is to reward Pixabay contributors.
Donation Message
When I send the donation through Paypal, I will always leave a link to the post where that specific artist was featured. This way, it also serves as a direct way of promoting Steemit, without being considered spam.
Use of Upvote Bots
I may make use of paid upvotes to promote some issues of Pixabay Curation Magazine, though the rewards from those upvotes will not be deducted from the donation made to the artists. I'll just consider this a personal donation, in case I do promote these posts. The ultimate goal is for these posts to get organic upvotes, so this initiative becomes self-sufficient.
Frequency
I was thinking about publishing this magazine 2 or 3 times per week, but this number can definitely change. Doing this daily would be a little bit too much in my opinion. I'm open to suggestions
Isn't This Spam?
I'm absolutely not planning to just post images without any additional content. Every featured image will also include my personal input. Whenever it's possible, I will also pay special attention to include links to the author's professional services.
Trust
My goal is to be as transparent as possible, by including screenshots of my payments to the artist. I'll also keep a public spreadsheet to log my post rewards and conversions to dollars. The Steem Power that I retain will also be used responsibly. I'm currently already using my a 5000SP delegation (that I've bought myself), to support other creators on Steemit.
Pixabaycuration Hashtag
Everybody can use the hashtag #pixabaycuration for reviewing and rewarding Pixabay contributions. I will regularly check out posts made under this hashtag and reward them manually. I do expect that you also make a donation to the artists you've featured. I reckon that it will be very difficult for me to weed out abuse, so the rule serves as a gentleman's agreement.
Future Plans
My ultimate long term goal is to either build or fund a new Steem interface, which allows authors to share original public domain images straight onto the Steem blockchain. For that I'll probably need the help of @utopian-io contributors, if there's enough interest for this sort of project.
In the meantime, I just want to reward as many artists on Pixabay as possible. Their work often goes unappreciated, as people are not required to give any sort of attribution when they use their images. I hope that, through this effort, Pixabay creators get encouraged to release more work under permissive licenses and that they see what the Steemit community is capable of.
First Donation
Since this is technically also a Pixabay Curation Magazine post, I'm rewarding the artist who created the image I've used at the beginning of this post.
This was a great find on Pixabay, since I needed an image that represented Pixabay, but also had some community element in it. The 'likes' or 'upvotes' that surround the word Pixabay serve as an almost perfect representation of the content of this particular post.
The image is made by NajiHabib and published under public domain. He's only been a member of Pixabay for one month and has released 17 beautiful illustrations since then. He also does freelance work through Fiverr, you can check out his Fivver page here.
That's why I've sent him a $3.00 donation through Paypal. I deceded to go with that amount, since that's about the average price of a cup of coffee. Which is Pixabay's recommended donation. I will also share the post rewards of this post after 7 days.
Final Notes
I really hope that this project will serve its purpose of rewarding artists who publish under permissive licenses. Aside from that, I'm excited to write about the artists behind these images. Many of the photographs and art on Pixabay is just beautiful in its own right and deserving of some explicit recognition.
If you have any criticism or reservations about this initiative, please do share it in the comment section!