The platform uniting Steemians is now live! It's time to announce the name and the tags for our new community:

S-H-E-P is now live and accepting blogs!!!

It was just two weeks ago that @coyoteom and I met in the #front-porch on the HomesteadersOnline Discord Server. After just a few paragraphs, a friendship and an initiative to unite Steemians face-to-face was born.

I have always had a bit of a "Macguyver" mindset, being able to quickly adapt resources that are immediately available to solve problems, which arise in our everyday lives. So naturally, that is how a simple and accessible process was stitched together into this new Steemit community platform you see before you.

So what is the name of this platform? Who contributed to the creation of this name and what are the community tags we will be using?

Thanks to the creative mind of @friendly-fenix, we have chosen his acronymic idea:

S-H-E-P

Steemit's Hospitality & Engagement Platform.

This wonderful idea was also incorporated into both tags. After days of brainstorming between myself and @coyoteom we decided on #kin-shep for the host tag and #shep-heard for the helper tag.

These tags have been created to be used on your posts that are specifically purposed as calls for volunteer help or requests for places to stay/engage as you travel. They are meant to keep it easy for steemit users to navigate the community posts and to ease curation, so please don't fall into habit of using them as an everyday tag--keep it specific!

This is an unofficial banner.

#kin-shep helps us recognize the deep foundational idea of family support within our steemit community. Hosts looking for helping hands or offering a space to stay should use this tag on your post so you can be seen.

This is an unofficial banner.

#shep-heard shows us that when we need help, the world listens! Whether you are a traveler looking for some kin to host you or a volunteer responding to your kins' requests for need, use this tag on your post so you can be seen!

Hopefully you love these as much as we do and understand how they connect with the platform. Our hosts put out a call for help, bringing together the masses and our helpers hear that call and respond. We think these three labels each speak to the heart of this platform.

So, a big congratulations to @friendly-fenix!
You have earned 8 SBD for naming the platform and 2 SBD per each half of the tags, which are including your creative acronym for a total of 12 SBD!

With a promised prize pool totalling 16 SBD, this leaves 4 remaining. With this bloom of engagement and community support in mind, we are splitting the remaining SBD with four users whose contributions were pivotal in inspiring our creative brainstorm.

Thank you so much @portobello8me, @yasminep, @stortebeker and
@biglipsmama! You each will be receiving 1 SBD for your comments and support!

A huge thank you goes out to Everyone who contributed suggestions! We played with every single one in an attempt to make the final decision and each helped us to get our brains on the right track during the brainstorming process. You were all an important part of this community creation.

_{All winners will receive their SBD through transfers shortly after this announcement is posted.}

We are extremely proud of the fact that all points of participation with this platform are voluntary and nonbinding.

Of course, because of the nature of the Steemit Protocol, this is only for the first seven days. After that everything is etched into the blockchain permanently. This is why we highly recommend adding the active dates for your posting, maybe even including a way for users to get in contact with you via discord.

For your post to be visible to the @s-h-e-p community and curation initiatives, simply post under the appropriate tag to become searchable, pin your post to the steemitworldmap for further visibility (if you so choose) and then share your post with the appropriate room on Discord and/or any other post-promotion area of choice.

HomesteadersOnline Discord will provide two rooms respective to the community tags. If you want to use these rooms you must join the server here. If any other Discord Server decides that they would like to host rooms dedicated to the platform as well, they have our blessings.

The original announcement post here gives some general guidelines for what information to include to create a great post, as well as how to add your host posts to the map.

Travelers should only link their blogs to the map if you believe it is necessary to provide specific information about your location. If not, simply forgo this step.

To help curate articles and blogs using the #kin-shep and #shep-heard tags aligned with this new program, we have created three new Steemit accounts. Please make sure to follow each of these to keep up to date with your Steemit kin:

@s-h-e-p; the main support account for the platform.
@kin-shep: the account for hosts or kin in need of help
@shep-heard: the account for travelers seeking shelter, as well as volunteers listening to the needs of the world.

Each will be posting updates and informational announcements for the platform, volunteering upvotes as well as functioning to curate quality posts of community engagement.

The first post for each account will include in-depth instructions on how to complete every step for the best visibility of your blogs, including GIFs for our more visual learners.

We are so excited to get this platform started and very appreciative for all of you that responded to our call. Thank you everyone who contributed their time and enthusiasm, helping make this platform possible on Steemit. We had a great time interacting with you all in the comment section; this platform announcement sparked a lot of great conversation.

It steems to be that the community here is unmatched in terms of worldwide talent, ideals, positivity and engagement-- both physically + digitally. We are so glad to do our part in helping bring these incredible traits together to instigate real-world change!

I cannot wait to see everyone's posts, whether it be as a host or helper. I @notconvinced will be personally offering my help to at least two 'kin' this summer and @coyoteom plans to use the platform during her travels and homesteading adventures as well. Look for my post under #shep-heard.

The SteemItWorldMap is crucial to this platform and is the creation of @martibis. Please make sure to support him and this platform.

_{All graphics are original content created by @notconvinced except;
Lovely page dividers by @kristyglas, used with open permissions
Final graphic property of @coyoteom}