WHAT IS STEEM.HOW?

Steem.How is centralized hub of everything Steem and is a project of @distantsignal. It is the culmination of a lot of internal deliberation on how I could personally support the platform since I can't program. What I can do is build websites and speak my mind. But why now?

So far as I see it, with the advent of online mobs chasing anyone they disagree with off of the internet, it's time for Steem to reorient itself towards promoting and enabling liberty and focus less on prices and earnings potential.

That is why I'm launching this site early. I am sick and tired of two phenomena driven by self righteous jerks who can't stand anyone on a worldwide platform thinking different than them. The first is deplatforming and outright censorship of undesirable people from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and now Patreon. The second is that when the undesirables attempt to restart their online lives on a new platform, they are hunted down, harassed and removed from those other platforms - such as Gab, Minds and Subscribe Star - as well. People have a fundamental freedom to express themselves, and while private platforms can choose to host whomever they want, this moral outrage is starting to get out of hand and target people I believe are moderate to milk toast.

There seems to be no room for middle ground or live and let live mentality any more.

Steem is uniquely poised to solve this problem. It is censorship resistant, distributed and contains its own payment processor. Except the Steem platforms, and the users on here, remain largely silent on this issue and I think that is a big reason - besides some of the technical hurdles - why Steem adoption has been so lackluster. Steem needs more of a mission and I aim to help give it one.

So I'm dipping my toes into this fight with Steem.How.

THE PRIMARY MISSION

The primary mission of Steem.How is to provide newbies with a no frills site to help them jump into Steem quickly and learn how to navigate the platform. Steem is a vast and diverse set of interfaces, communities, authors and businesses, so I've attempted to centralize as much as I can in a clean and straightforward manner so that this network, could be, in a way, "seen" as a whole. I wanted to be able to land on a single page and see prices, ways of navigating, a way to exchange and a way to find interesting things and people quickly on the Steem network.

THE SECONDARY MISSION

The secondary mission of Steem.How is to reframe Steem away from its mission as a method of rewarding creators to a freedom oriented platform that happens to reward creators, where all are welcome and free to speak their mind without fear of being deleted.

How do I achieve this?

THE INTERFACE

As you can see, it's in a Wordpress blog format, where information is prized above beauty. It's a utilitarian answer to the trend of over beautification I see happening everywhere on the internet.

FIRST ARE THE TUTORIALS

I've already created a couple of infographics, and I'll be creating a few more and collecting and producing information to go in this section as the site moves forward. Here's an example of my "Why Steem" infographic. As you can see, I'm emphasizing liberty and not money, which is a great incentive, but not the end all be all argument for Steem.

If anyone has better information, a tutorial or infographic that is better or that would like to see it featured here on Steem.How, please let me know. I'm happy to discuss reasonable compensation and you will always receive credit and a link to your Steem profile.

STEEM SKINS

To help newcomers to Steem, I put every significant skin (interface) up front with a little, parenthetical description of what the Steem interface is analogous to. Relating the Steem network interfaces to already existing social networks has been an easy way to help others understand what Steem can do and how easy it would be to #MakeTheSwitch to one of these Steem skins.

PRICES AND CONVERSIONS

Also included is a way to convert cryptocurrencies to Steem - or any other crypto - to help make it easy for those who already have some crypto they're thinking of offloading for Steem. I do earn a comission from these transactions, but it averages a few cents per transaction. I do need to pay for this site somehow. I'm hoping this widget covers the costs.

The base cryptocurrency price on this site is Steem. I want this site to be totally centered around Steem, so it makes sense that instead of Bitcoin or Litecoin tickers at the top, I'm only going to keep Steem front and center with the ability to see the price in different fiat currencies.

WE'RE DOIN' IT LIVE!

If you need more detail, I've got volume charts for both Steem, Steem Dollars and, wait for it... LIVE CRYPTO CHARTS!

SEARCH STEEMIT!

There's so much to explore on Steemit alone, that I integrated the Ask Steem search engine! For anyone new or returning, I'm trying to make it extremely easy to find what you're looking for within the Steem network. It's not perfect, but it works. I had to hack through that process and I haven't integrated a way to parse users from content like Steem Peak manages.

NETCOINS ATMs

For my Canadian cousins, I've centralized the information from Netcoin's ATM locations in Canada. I link directly to Netcoins here as well in case something has changed and I haven't noticed. This has to be updated manually, so I might not catch all the changes as they come. As we know, the cryptocurrency sphere changes rapidly, but I'll do my best to keep up.

THE CROWN JEWEL (NOTABLE STEEMIANS "DIRECTORY")

My favorite, and hopefully most useful feature for anyone curious about who's on Steem, is my real time searchable directory list of Notable Steemians and businesses that have integrated Steem into their online payment platforms. At the moment, I've preemptively chosen some Steemians that I've found while building this site or that I follow. The people I've utilized for examples are: @ashtv, @brian-rhodes, @distantsignal, @muratkbesiroglu, @intrepidphotos, @homeartpictures, @styxhexenhammer, @the.foodini, @onetechtraveller, @steemstem, @techblogger, @techtek, @opheliafu, @booksandbeauty, @vachemorte, @homestead-guru, @newsagg, @benswann, @kingscrown, @uykusuz, @homesteadhippy, @gringalicious, @alphasteem and @steemsports. This list is not meant to be totally comprehensive or necessarily an endorsement at this point. I thought they each produced content consistent with my rules and would make a good example. If you want to be removed, please let me know and I will.

The best part is that users can directly submit new links via Steem.How or you can shoot me 0.001 Steem and with a memo, describe the user you'd like to be contained on this list. There are rules of course. Not everyone will be allowed on the list. This directory will hopefully serve as a collection of the best and most interesting on the network.

STEEM NEWS

If there's one thing I dislike about Steem, it's that my news about the network and technical stuff tends to be a little hard to find sometimes. I follow a lot of accounts, so when I need or want to see some stats for the network, they often get buried below a lot of other posts.

To solve this I created a news section where I can go and see a few select accounts that focus on network statistics, community and interface news (Busy, Steam Peak, etc.), and a fun news ticker with market news.

I want to be able to see more creative works on my Steem feed and relegate my technical or Steem platform news to Steem.How to clean my feed up a bit. I thought that everyone might find that perspective a little useful as well so I created a section reflecting that on Steem.How.

THE BOTTOM HALF

The bottom half of Steem.How's main page focuses on keeping new information about the network and what's trending up front and center. Come for the help and stay for the updates. I'm using RSS feeds to centralize Steem network twitter feeds, what's trending on Steemit.com, Steemit on Reddit and finally Steem.How's tweets as well.

LEADER BOARDS

My Author and Curator leader boards are manually created, so I won't update them as frequently as if they were real time, but I'll be able to update them once a week or so. If ANYONE has any idea how I can automate this and would be willing to help me, please, please, please let me know. A real time-ish feed would be most excellent.

I've also got two separate Twitter feeds: One is the Steem Network and the other is Steem.How's Twitter feed, which will be focusing on promoting the site and defending the freedom of speech and expression.

Just for fun, on the far left side of the page, I feed the Trending tab from Steemit.com. Since this is a way into the Steem platform, I wanted potential users to see what's trending. Being up front about a service is always a good idea. I for one like to visit the trending tab to enjoy not only the content, but to remind myself that it is in fact possible to earn some good change now and again.

TELEGRAM

As a way to be able to interact with newbies and other Steemians in real time, I've created a Telegram channel that is linked directly to Steem.How. If you look on the bottom right corner of the site you'll see this little icon.

If you click on it, a little chat window will pop up with some basic rules. They need to be updated. I've changed my mind about sharing posts too much or at all. I've noticed that the other channels have become inundated with spam and posts and offers of drug dealings. I will immediately ban anyone for engaging in illegal commerce like drugs. I cannot be held liable for that. I will also ban anyone who engages in threats of violence or coordinating violence. I will also ban anyone who engages in plagiarism or copyright infringement like sharing illegal movies or software.

If anyone is interested in helping me moderate this chat room, please let me know. I could use the help. I want the chat to be focused on the platform itself, along with news and helping those that need it, but I won't put restrictions beyond what I've already mentioned, unless something dramatic happens that requires me to change direction.

THAT'S IT FOR NOW

I'll be adding more updates here on Steem and on the site. Please consider following Steem.How here and on Twitter. I know there are still some bugs to be squished and kinks to be ironed out, so please bare with me as the site develops.

Big thank you to the whole community. It's been an inspiration watching the platform develop and the users take charge of their own destinies, rather than handing their power over to someone at the top.

I still believe Steem holds a lot of promise and hope you'll help me spread the word about the site help me grow Steem and help show how Steem can keep speech and expression free from the censors.

Feedback on the site is welcome. There's always room for improvement.

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Double big thank you to the following who have led by example: @sndbox, @steempeak, @steepshot, @steemstem, @fundition, @minnowsupport, @buildawhale, @creativecrypto, @arcange, @steemcleaners, @partiko, @dragosroua, @penguinpablo, @dtube, @steemitblog, @ned, @dsound, @utopian-io, @esteemapp, @memestagram, @steemgigs, @steemhunt, @vimm, @steempix, @what-app, @curie, @steemmonsters, @jesta, and @themarkymark.

If I've left anyone off this list, I'm sorry.

Phil