[Vlog] Views on Steem delegation, the Utopian.io 'rant', Communities and why I avoid the Trending page
Why did I go there?
So today I made the mistake of visiting the trending page on Steemit. This video is nothing personal to @elear or @utopian-io, however it was made to illustrate a wider point about creating value on the Steem platform.
Stuff, stuff and more stuff
It is tempting to think if we develop "lots of stuff" people will start flocking. So lots of attention is given to the development of "stuff", another Steemit like front-end (Busy), a twitter-like front-end (Zappl), a youtube alternative (dTube), a soundcloud alternative (dSound), a streaming Steem (dLive?), a front-end for people to create even more stuff (Utopian), a token system to incentivise the creation of stuff (SMT)... and so it goes on.
SO we build this stuff and throw money at this stuff and we talk about this stuff and this stuff makes it to the top of the trending pages and people flirt with this stuff... then ultimately they come back to Steemit. Just because people are simple like that.
Most people haven't got the bandwidth to wade through 50 different frontends and 500 different SMT tokens. And for the majority these alternative use-cases are not needed, if Steemit is structured and presented correctly.
Communities that's stuff I like!
For example, I absolutely love the idea of Communities. It gives focus and direction and ultimately the best Communities will be the gateways to good content (and by good I don't necessarily mean high brow, I mean content people actually want to consume). Then efforts can be made to grow those communities and provide them with the technological tools they actually need. And with the value of Steem driven up by business wanting a presence and prominence amongst these communities, the incentives will be there for developers to innovate without creating artificial drivers (by skewing existing, limited rewards).
I thought Communities was on the 2017 roadmap. I guess not however I'd love to see it on the 2018 roadmap. It would be great to see some strategic planning on how to garner mass user adoption in 2018 and less throwing shit on the wall and seeing what sticks!
I should have known you'd bring up Communities >:( ! Just kidding :). Development of Communities is going very well and should be ready soon. The "issue" is that we discovered that our solution to Communities, a software layer called Hivemind, is actually incredibly useful for doing all kinds of things (like un-resteeming) and so we really want to get Hivemind right. @roadscape is doing an absolutely amazing job developing this product. But it should be ready very soon. Communities are 100% not a forgotten or ignored feature, the exact opposite. You can hold me to that. It's simply due to the fact that Hivemind is a more complicated product than simply a sub-group feature that has made the timeline more difficult to assess. Key takeaway, once Hivemind launches, Steemians will be getting a lot MORE than just communities :).
Thats good to hear. I look forward to it. The Trending page is killing me at the moment! The sooner that is consigned to people that actually want it as a point of reference the better. It's far easier to build and sell a vibrate Community (where people happen to get rewarded) to newcomers than a "firehose"!
Will it also be possible to change the way tagging works? I had suggested a solution to the "tag abuse" problem causing noobs to get flagged and turned off by the platform. I was told it was too complicated for the current software layer that runs steemd.
The idea is that instead of the author choosing the tags for a post it should be the stake holders. So an author could choose their first tag (category) but the other tags are only based on their SP and it would be up to bigger curators to decide what tags are more appropriate for the post.
i like that even whe nyou are ranting you sitll have this small and positive attitude ;)
Yep... like a smiling assassin!
Hello @nanzo-scoop
You made some solid points with this Rant.
The general Idea is that More Front ends will encourage more STEEM/STEEMIT adoption but I believe that will be counter productive if there are no strong communities.
Getting people on board and not giving them a sense of connection will not bring any positive results.
There is already enough Issues like Spamming and Scams on Steemit Chat and Steemit. This is mostly done by people who are desperate to gain a slice of the Steem Pie at all costs.
Building communities however creates a sense of belonging and provides everyone with a primary source of support.
I personally believe that SMT's will not take off properly if communities are not built first.
Thats my 2 steem on the Issue.
@ogochukwu'
#blockchain-blogger
Quote: "I personally believe that SMT's will not take off properly if communities are not built first"
Agreed... lets vote for it. :)
Damn this was cold. Though I do see your point, so please don't feel I am against what you are saying. Delegation abuse is hot news right now: https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/whales-witnesses-we-have-to-talk
Regarding utopian.io I actually believe (and I would say by the amount delegate to them, ned and others do too) that it has massive potential. Both as a project alone and as a tool to attract quality individuals. If anything, coding and development is more aligned with where the blockchain and crypto are currently at. It might even attract a major player that funds it further and in turn invests more into the steem blockchain.
Personally I don't think growing steemit for mass adoption is right. It should be fine tuned, better developed and grown slowly but with quality as the primary focus. Such as in the way Behance developed. Or in a dual-comparison example. The way Ebay vs Etsy developed. Ebay now struggling to clean itself from crap in attempt to remain relevant. Whereas Etsy has a very solid reputation with quality users/sellers.
As a very new user of Steemit, @utopian-io is a big reason why I've become super excited about the entire Steem ecosystem. It's the strongest signal I've seen here yet of the kind of deep and passionate community that decentralized platforms need to grow into something special.
I haven't been this excited about open networks since the early days of Napster & (the little known) Petridish.net. While that's mostly been thanks to Ethereum until recently, Steem excites me enough to have jumped into coding new products on it less than 6 weeks after joining.
I don't know what that's going to turn into yet, but it's something.
I actually like Utopian.io too, it's just unfortunate that the top trending topic was an off-piste post by them.
Maybe you're right about mass adoption being too soon. I think there is a debate to be had. If the focus is quality, then the effort should also be focussed. Rather than scatter-gunned.
Agree, a more focussed/targeted approach could happen quite easy if they proceed with communities. Devs could get a clear picture of user engagement. Thus know who to market to. Also, steemit will retain people better even when they take some time to gain rewards. The reputation of steemit would benefit. Driving more interest.
This brings up another interesting point to be made when we talk about content in the trending page we don't personally value. Should we be more free to flag it without concerns of starting a flag war? Should we hold voters accountable for their upvotes as much as we do for their downvotes? Is the problem the content or the people who vote (or don't flag) it?
In principle... yes.
In practice...
(a) very few people want to volunteer their time to join a social media site and police behaviours. There are not enough hours in the day to counteract all the downvotable content. Also the cost/ benefit doesn't stack up even if you have a large amount of SP. In many ways the Trending page is the low hanging fruit. With delegated SP there are people gaming the rewards in a way more worthy of downvoting, so a certain degree of technical know-how is needed to effectively combat 'abuses'
(b) I'd rather reward as many people as I can that do provide value, which is why I am here afterall. One of the results of doing this is low voting power, which in turn means my downvote has limited impact, that then dilutes the votes I want to give out.
(c) often we're attempting to downvote those who have or have been delegated very large amounts of SP, again limiting downvote impact
(d) people do take downvoting personally, so you end up in petty situations that I personally have no time for.
Again, if there was a "SteemCleaning" Community (rather than just an account) or even better competing Communities that countered voting that the community deems 'abuses', then SP holders could 'outsource' the job of combating abuses (using SP delegation) in a far more efficient way.
Thats a big comments but its really good comments @teknow
It doesn't matter if Utopian is a niche project. If YOU have a great idea to make the next super website based on Steem than YOU can do that TODAY using Utopian and just bring the idea out in the open. And in a month from now (or whatever time it requires) you got your new website created from smart developers rewarded for it by Utopian. THATS's why Utopian is by far the most important project on Steem now. :)
This was basically impossible before without a fund raiser or some lonely developers with too much time and no need for money.
I like your posts and especially the Football stuff - originally i wanted to first comment that I think you are bloody ignorant to add this point "why I ignore trending" -simply - as you are on there anyway most of the time (but at least sometimes it deserves to be there) - however communities, my topic since I am here, i did drive some on other communities as owner and moderator, what is happening there, do you know any details on how they will be launched / structured? A major feature for users apart from also stuff we should discuss on other posts.
And to end - agree trending is mainly talking about stuff, stuff and stuff lol, thanks for that post @nanzo-scoop
@nanzo-scoop keeping it real lol. Steem has a lot of stuff for sure!
Here’s something I wrote in my latest post:-
In my mind, I think there needs to be a way to quickly switch between steem applications with a gateway app like steemconnect. For example now that I’m viewing your post on Steemit, what if I can just switch to Busy, chainbb, etc while remaining on the same content, but different context?
Lol... I think I can go off at times (as you saw at breakfast at Steemfest!)
The idea of being able to switch interfaces seemlessly seems cool. It may even bring some order to the chaos. However a lot of these features seem like nice to haves. Most users of social media will have/ want a very uncomplicated experience. I'm not sure enough is being done to cater for "regular users" as the platform is being driven by super users for super users.
I am looking forward to the development of communities on steemit too! It can be a lonley place when you aren't a 'techy' person. Ive only been here since July and have made some lovely friends, but it has been hard work trying not to give up when all you have to talk to are spam bot comments lol (I even got trolled by a bot once! XD) I love the art/creative writing and photography side of steemit and it would be great to be able to mix with like minded people and be inspired by others. Im not sure what utopian is so I can't really comment there but I agree the delegation could be spread more evenly over different catagories.
100% agree that it should be easier to find and mix with like minded people. As it should be easier to filter out stuff your not interested in.
It's nice to be able to follow people however it's getting increasingly difficult to come across new people even though they are here. I often come across people month after they've been on the platform.
I think communities should help with making that connection around subjects of mutual interest.
@nanzo-scoop you missed quite a few important points:
It was not a rant. It was a much wider message pointing out the issues on Steem in terms of Steem distribution and abuses on this platform, plus some proposals on how to drive a different approach through Utopian.
Utopian targets a small niche? So thinkers, designers, developers, beta testers, content creators, video makers and all the other professions we target are a small niche?
The post got 100% upvote, declined rewards and 4K Euros sent by me to the utopian-io wallet.
I believe you should less be worried about new users seeing a rant (that is not a rant) on top of the trending page and much more worried about what is wrong in this blockchain and how to fix it. In order to get things noticed sometimes you must shout them out and on the bottom of the post is also explained the reason of the provocatory message.
Just being honest, you shouted out this video before actually getting into the thing deeply enough to actually understand it.
Thanks
There is nothing "deep" to get into. This is child's play.
The points you make may be important to you but not to me. The points I find important are in my video and blog post.
Like I told you at Steemfest, I like what you've done with Utopian.io and the impact you've made in a short period of time. It is commendable. I want Utopian to win. If Utopian wins, Steem wins, I win.
A 'rant'/ declaration of war/ whatever it was against phishing on Steemit.chat (not even a Steem blockchain app) is cool too. Everyone's entitled to vent. I vent too. If you're 'shock jocking' the subject to make a different point, more power to you.
However when the post is upvoted to the top of the trending page by one account super charged with delegated steem power that was primarily sponsoring the account for other purposes... well, that is symptomatic of why I don't visit the trending page often. This kind of thing is nothing new. It's been happening (in different guises) since I joined the platform 18 months ago. I think/ hope the development of things like Communities is a step that might help elevate this (and promote valued content) in an organic way.
For example, I'd much rather see details of a innovative Open Source Initiative top the trending page then another promo about the frontend that will promote/ bring Open Source Projects topping the feed (again and again). Until people get sick of it and there's a backlash... Then the backlash tops the trending page. Then something else pops up promising to deliver the "killer Steem app" hits the top of the trending page... and the cycle continues...
Been there, done that. Bring on Communities.
That is the extent to which I'm 'worried' about anything that goes on the Trending page. One video. One post. One reply (this).
@nanzo-scoop probably you picked the wrong example to explain your vision. I already posted about these scammers and it did not work since the post did not get enough exposure. I used this occasion to do 2-3 main things, as you read in my post.
I may understand that the contents may not be of your interest and your point was supposed to be on how to fix content discovery in Steemit and I agree that is gonna happen with the communities. At the same time you took Utopian as a strong example of that when I believe there are much better and suitable examples, giving the fact I never use Utopian manually to vote on my things and you know the project has the best intentions.
This is my thought.
Money Talks and Bullshit Walks!!! Isn't it?
I agree 100% with @nanzo-scoop period.
Worried about what is wrong in this blockchain? Please enlighten us, whats wrong?
The trending page is full of garbage that belongs in a developers forum!!!
Quote: "proposals on how to drive a different approach through Utopian"
What does that mean, focus on the user? Like me and @nanzo-scoop? Or you developers?
My developers? @nokodemion we can have a discussion when you know what you are talking about. Sorry don't mean to be rude but if you miss the basis I can't guide you through them now.
You are a clever person, but cleverness is not intelligence.
Quote @nanzo-scoop [However when the post is upvoted to the top of the trending page by one account super charged with delegated steem power that was primarily sponsoring the account for other purposes...]
Do you know me? How can you tell I miss the basis? Why you think you are the only one knowing what he is talking about?
I am really sorry for you!!!
@nokodemion the sentence "your developers" does not make sense to me and makes me think you did not get the purpose of the platform. I was just pointing out that.
I agree, there is no need to create dozens of variants when there can be only one made perfectly. and I dont read this trending posts, but there is no way to miss for example that utopian thing (I have no idea what it is) because lots of people resteem it.. and sometimes it feels weird to see only development and crypto posts in trending.. thats why I search in categories mostly..