What is Steemit, Inc Doing???
Check their Github repos to find out.
STEEM
STEEM is the actual core blockchain code for the STEEM token. This is what matters most for this ecosystem and where all the value is really created. To understand why STEEM is more valuable than Steemit, please see: STEEM Is NOT Steemit. STEEM Is More Valuable Than Steemit.
Steemit (Condenser)
Steemit, the website, is called Condenser on Github. It's the code that creates the interface most people use when interacting with the STEEM blockchain. In many ways, it's just a reference implementation for what's possible. At the same time, Steemit, inc has committed resources to improving it and is actively developing it as you can see here.
Jussi
Jussi is a JSON-RPC 2.0 Reverse Proxy Frontend for Steemit. In non-techno speak, that means Jussi makes Steemit scale. When someone pulls up a page on Steemit, a reverse proxy allows a cache to serve up that page without having to go all the way to the blockchain data which would be orders of magnitude slower.
Steem-js
Steem.js is the official JavaScript library for the Steem blockchain. Many third-party applications (i.e. not developed by Steemit, inc) that integrate with Steem (examples of third-party applications include DTube, DLive, Busy.org, Utopian, etc) use steem-js.
Steem-python
Steem-python is the official Python library for the Steem blockchain. Similar to Steem-js, this library is used by Python developers for building applications built in Python which use the STEEM blockchain.
Hivemind
Hivemind is an off-chain consensus layer for Steem communities and API server for social features like feeds and follows. This keeps track of all the stuff that is not part of the core blockchain, but needed for the overall social media experience. When people talk about "Communities" needing to be implemented, this is what they mean. You can see the Communities Draft Spec here.
Steemconnect and SteemConnect2 (sc2-sdk)
Steemconnect and SteemConnect2 are JavaScript SDKs which most 3rd party applications use to get your permission to interact with the STEEM blockchain on your behalf. This is an important part of the STEEM ecosystem as it creates a trusted website where people can confidently enter their password without having concerns about giving out their keys to various applications. Through this approach, you can grant permissions and later revoke them without the application you're using ever knowing your actual password.
There are more projects we could talk about and view on the official Steemit, Inc Github such as devportal, imagehoster, dsteem (RPC client), conveyor (APIs), redeemer (SP Delegation Tools), overseer (User Analytics Telemetry Receiver/Multiplexer), yo (Modular event-driven notification service), and others.
Why should you care?
The reason I'm highliting this activity can be summarized in one sentance:
Put up or shut up.
It's so easy to criticize. It's much more difficult to build and create. Some (myself included) have criticized Steemit, inc, the team, or the leadership without always doing the work to better understanding what's actually going on. If your answer is, "But I'm not a developer. I can't read code to know what any of this means." Okay, fair enough, but that gets back to the "put up" part. If we have a valid criticism of anything, we should fully understand it first in order for our input to be valid. It's easy to say "They should do this" or "They should do that," but ultimately we're making assumptions unless we have enough information. Lots of information is out there on Github for those who are willing to look at it and understand it.
AND I think it's valid to expect more "official" communication from Steemit, inc via the accounts @steemitblog and @steemitdev. That said, maybe we shouldn't expect them to do everything around here. We have a lot of developers here, and they, if they choose to, can be rewarded for writing posts about the Github activity they see and adding to the #steemdev tag. That could help Steemit, inc.
Beyond just the code, there's also business development going on:
I could go into more, but I think you get the idea. I had a discussion with @andrarchy recently where I vented a little bit about some of my concerns, and he did a great job of giving me more perspective. As the community liaison, I'm hopeful he'll be further empowered by Steemit, inc to be a more active spokesperson for what they are doing and how it will benefit us all.
In summary, let's find out how we can help Steemit, inc instead of just pointing out the issues we see. This post highlighting their Github activity over the last month is my attempt to help. What can you contribute?
This is an amazing blockchain with a solid development team, and I'm very excited about the future.
I hope you are too.
Witnesses: you can help here also. Regular communication is important for building a valuable reputation for yourself and the STEEM blockchain. Your voice matters.
Thank you Luke!!
100% right sir
People despite their knowledge will always question.
It's the discussion that brings consensus and enlightenment. :)
Steemit is the best social media for discussion, disagreement, and arguing to generate consensus, learning, innovation, involvement, motivation, and above all participation in some direct democracy.
If we want motivated community, put people in constructive conflict to approach the Truth.
Open discussions is the basic foundation of Free speech, information, education, and communication, building the pillars of our freedom of choice.
I agree! I definitely didn't want my post to be a form of silencing any one. On the contrary, I think we should all be talking more (including Steemit, inc) about this stuff. When we do so, we should be informed. If we aren't, our suggestions about prioritization may actually be hurtful instead of helpful. If we promoted Steemit, as an example, before the STEEM blockchain could handle millions and millions of new users, we may create worse problems.
I know you are always moved by good intentions and you open good discussions to bring light on Steemit.
On Steemfest2 there was a promise of the developing team to create an open direct dialog with the Steemian citizens.
I didn't have time to check if this dialogue has been started or getting better but this is the best way to develop steemit, by talking to the people that are supplying the real essence of steemit growth...quality content and bloggers making citizen journalism.
And keep all the good vibe you always try to put on Steemit.
Keep opening good reflections and constructive discussions.
Thanks to all your human valued work without the Money God guidelines that sometimes blinfold peoples reasoning.
On the long term human values allways create more value then short term money values.
What is your understanding of why Dan Larimer has moved on? AFAIK, he is no longer a part of the development team. Is that right?
I'm looking forward to seeing how EOS works out for him.
Hopefully it's not all-out war and EOS builds out a steemit-destroying social media website of its own with a more balanced distribution model. Because that would be bad for steem and steemit.
That could happen, but if Steemit Inc. actually put more into Steemit then Dan wouldn't be able to make a better user experience. Steemit Inc. would have only themselves to blame for anyone building a better social media website.
It's a long story of which I think only Ned and Dan know all the details. Dan has moved on and it doesn't seem like Ned and Dan are getting along well at all now, which is a pity. I remember recently when the BitShares blockchain had some serious issues and Dan came in with a pull request to fix it. If he were still on good terms with the STEEM ecosystem, we might benefit from similar involvement in the future. As things stand now, I see that as very unlikely.
Any thoughts as to why @berniesanders and his bots would flag this comment? I'm somehow on his radar, the majority of my curation and author rewards being flagged into oblivion. I have been a member of the Steemit community for less than 2 weeks. If there is some way to abuse this system, I don't know what it is or how to do it. I see this happening to other minnows as well.
My votes for witness hinge on their capacity to organize against tyrants. There is no good reason I should be flagged like this every single day.
I'm guilty of commenting on the post of one of his political opponents on my 2nd day here and then speaking up once I started receiving this treatment. That's it.
The advice I get is to stay out of @berniesanders radar, but I don't have that option. He continues with indiscriminate flagging. What can I do?
He flagged me for over three months straight, often in the last 12 hours before payout which meant no other upvotes could counter his. Unfortunately, we don't have solutions for "tyrants" like him, short of someone with millions of dollars slowly buying Steem Power and then directly countering his actions. It's something the co-founder of STEEM (Dan Larimer) brought up before leaving. It's something future STEEM competitors may take more seriously based on the frustration many people are seeing here on Steemit.
I'm quite open to any suggestions you have for witnesses about how issues like this can be dealt with. Smart Media Tokens have a concept of an Oracle which is a human being empowered to maintain the preferences of that community and exclude some people from the rewards pool for that token (at least, that's my understanding of it). If we experiment there and find common things which work in all communities, maybe that can be ported back to STEEM.
I'm sorry you're being flagged, and I personally know how frustrating that can be. Stick with it and don't let the bullies win. Post because you want to. Don't let others control your experience here.
Good advice, thank you. I wish I had a larger upvote available to me at the moment. :D
It seems like he's leaving me alone now, we'll see.
As far as suggestions for witnesses, just voicing the complaints of people who are being silenced by him and helping people to understand that there are better ways for them to earn here that supporting someone who engages in mass flagging.
Uhmm, really? Not valid because we don't understand it? You are sounding too much like the Priest Class in religion which doesn't listen to the laity because the laity just don't understand how things work. Kind of reminds me too of when Marie-Antoinette (bride of France's King Louis XVI) was told her French subjects had no bread, she sniffed, “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.” Sir, we can all have an opinion about our user experience, or lack thereof. And Steemit Inc.'s ~$300 Million stake in SteemPower gives them no excuse for not hiring a small army of developers to make the user experience second to none.
Are you familiar with the Mythical Man Month? Hiring more developers doesn't mean a project will get finished in less time. In some cases, the exact opposite is true. You can't have a baby in one month using nine women. It just doesn't work that way.
You make an interesting analogy but to me it has a fundamental flaw. Anyone can learn to code. Truly, anyone can. This isn't like we're speaking in Latin and only the upper class can access Latin education. Coding is quickly becoming the universal language and anyone who cares to offer useful criticism is free to learn it as long as they have a computer and an Internet connection. Unlike a priestly class claiming divine, gnostic revelation openly only to chosen class, anyone can access and contribute to open-source projects. I've spent many decades learning to code. Others chose other paths. I would be out of place telling a surgeon how to do their job, even if I was the one using their services. The same thing applies here. For those who want to criticize, I'm simply advocating they become informed before doing so. That's understood and expected in every other advanced field of study. Why not here as well?
Not everyone is qualified to give useful feedback. Whether or not we are comfortable with that is not relevant to the fact.
As to Steemit's Steem Power holdings and their use of it, I throughly agree with you that they are open to criticism there, as is any company putting out a product with a public understanding of the resources at their disposal. If you have suggestions (other than just hire more developers because, again, that might actually make things worse), let's discuss them and do what we can to help. That's the point of my post. Steemit, inc's focus is not just Steemit.com (see my STEEM is more valuable than Steemit post for more on that). They are thinking long term and that strategy involves Smart Media Tokens and a massively scalable and modular STEEM blockchain.
I guess it depends on what the criticism is about, and perhaps I jumped to conclusions to what exactly your "put up or shut up" comment was directed . I just know I don't need to know anything about coding to have a valid opinion about how Steemit can be or should be improved from a user experience standpoint. I've designed websites, done SEO professionally, have my own blog, and spent a ton of time on Facebook and theologyonline.com which has 18K members and where I can sign up, make a few posts, get noticed by the owner, and get voted as the best new member by the community, so I guess that should be enough credibility to make suggestions about how not to lose people in Steemit.
Someone like @dan could come along having hired the right people to put together a kickass social platform, riding on a blockchain, with financial incentives, and suck the wind right out of Steemit's sails, just like Facebook did to MySpace which did the same thing to Xanga. It doesn't take a coder to see that.
BTW, you make learning the code sound easy. What's the best code to learn to understand this platform or better yet contribute to its development? Or to understand the flow of digital assets within the social media?
Exactly!
If you criticize the next hardfork without having any coding background, then maybe you're on the wrong path. Still a blogger, a content creator, a curator - a Steem user - would definitely be able to have a solid opinion about user experience. If there were no people using this currency and believing in it, then it would be of no value. So I definitely think that the average user - as we have been categorized here - has a right to voice their opinion about user experience.
Steem has always been advertized as the gateway coin to mainstream cryptocurrency. Well if you want to bring non-crypto people in touch with this currency and "tokenize the internet", then you might let these crypto newbies talk about their user experience then.
Couldn't have said it better! The killer argument of "learn to code, before you speak your mind about the platform" is a very lame way of trying to silence the "stupid masses". Steemit Inc should listen a lot more to the users and investors here and the fact alone, that we need users to highlight advancements on GitHub instead of the Dev team communicating (at least) weekly with us, speaks for itself.
I hope my post didn't come across as trying to silence anyone, but I see how "shut up" pretty clearly implies that. I was more hoping to emphasize how important it is to understand context before telling others (who may have far more context than we do) what they should be doing and how they should prioritize their resources. Unless we have experience and understanding, it makes us look silly. I prefer we not look silly and instead work to understand and be helpful.
I've been talking with @corinnestokes about the language I used in my post, and she reminded me it's not accurate to say a criticism isn't "valid" unless it really isn't valid. It would have been better for me to say something like, "valid, but possibly not helpful right now without more understanding and context."
Here's what I mean:
What if Steemit, inc is more focused on the underlying blockchain performance and scaling and needs to get that done before more people join Steemit? So many people are frustrated with the retention rate, the lack of marketing, the UX/UI issues, etc, etc. What if Steemit focused on all that first and then turned their attention to performance on the blockchain? From my perspective, that would cause a lot of problems right now, and we'd probably have even more bandwidth and blockchain bloat problems.
Based on what I see going on, it seems they are focusing on important things. If we think "They should be doing A right now!" but "B" is way better and doing "A" might actually hurt the whole ecosystem right now, then saying "A is broken, go fix it! Why aren't they fixing it yet!?!" doesn't actually benefit anyone.
That said, they (IMO) should certainly focus a lot more on communication. I've been saying this for a long time now.
Thanks for your comment. Sorry it took me a while to reply as I've been at a conference the last few days.
Thanks for clarifying. The thing is, that there seems to be no reason to work on a blockchain, that is No 1 in Tx and has a network load of <1% - outperforming every other blockchain anyway. Yes, I´m no dev, but then again it would be the job of Steemit Inc to explain what they are doing instead of us speculating on the real reasons. It´s great if there are really lots of people working on the performance of the blockchain, but as with any other company, you have to hire some Marketing/PR person who does this job of informing everyone what´s going on - even the smallest companies do that (and for a good reason).
Thanks for your reply. You may also appreciate my reply to @surfermarly below.
I probably should not have said a criticism isn't "valid" but instead could have said it may be valid but not helpful and, from that perspective, not valid right now as far as prioritizing what Steemit, inc should be doing.
It's easy for us to focus on Steemit and the problems there (retention, UI/UX, onboarding, marketing, etc), but it's much harder to get a good perspective on the issues of the underlying blockchain which they are focusing on to bring us to millions and millions of users. If that's not ready yet, fixing the front-end issues will only make things worse if done right now.
Here's an analogy:
Let's say we're building a bus. The passengers get on and are like, "What the hell? There are only egg-crates for seats? They need to fix this right now and put in more comfortable, padded seats so people don't get off the bus right away. So few people are using this thing right now because of that."
That would be a "valid" criticism for sure. But... with a little bit of perspective, it may not be very informative or helpful or even valid in terms of setting current priorities. To stay with our analogy, what if the bus actually had a small car engine in it just to test things out. It can only pull about 5 people. From that perspective, adding amazing seats for another 100 people doesn't make much sense before upgrading the engine, right? In fact, if they did fix the seats first, and those 100 people jump on board, the bus might stop working completely.
That's obviously an extreme example, but the point being the underlying blockchain engine is the most important thing Steemit, inc is working on right now. That's what will lay the framework for many years from now. That's what has to be rock solid. Once that's done, as we improve the front-end, we'll have the capacity to handle it.
Again, thank you for your comment and for disagreeing with me respectfully. I really do appreciate that.
Edit: I forgot to answer your question. Learning code in general is easy. You can start with building games in Scratch as an example. Learning blockchain C++ may not be as easy. That's pretty advanced stuff and though I've programmed in a half a dozen languages myself since 1996, I don't have much experience with C++ which is something I plan to fix in the future as I continue to dig into this codebase. I plan to start with some C++ tutorials online.
Have you used Lynda.com before? $30/mo. and you can take as many courses as you want during that month. Here's the link to C++ https://www.lynda.com/learning-paths/Developer/become-a-c-plus-plus-developer
Thank you Luke for the explanation and analogy. I was unaware the blockchain was at risk from increased usage. So they really don't want to make steemit better until they make the blockchain more robust? OK, good to know, and had I kept silent I wouldn't have learned that from you because steemit inc. doesn't even have a corporate website to post such information.
However, I'm still not convinced steemit inc. can't or shouldn't improve steemit. Can't that be done offline so a better version will be waiting in the wings for the moment the blockchain has been improved, instead of waiting for the blockchain improvements before allocating resources toward that end?
Do you agree with my contention that the longer steemit inc. waits before upgrading to a world-class social media platform the more likely someone else - like Dan Larimer - beats them to it and ends up sucking the wind out of steemit's sails?
I agree with your last sentence. They should do that just to show us that they care about our opinions.
I'm hopeful Steemit, inc will prioritize communication in the future.
They should realize that is very important for the happy community. Thanks for your time.
Thank you for this information, Luke. It is useful for me in one certain way. Whenever I login to Utopian and wish to add a suggestion, I do not understand what repository to use. How you have helped me is by briefly explaining all the Steem(it) repositories. I now have some perspective and information on that.
I am not a developer. Coding is not my thing but I can analyze statistics and user behavior. I can read charts and understand the problems without the need to understand codes first. My first ever Utopian contribution highlighted why and how user retention must be improved by Steemit Inc. Not knowing code did not stop me from making a contribution.
Not knowing the code is a blessing for me. Counterintuitive but true. I use my analytical ability to trace things from the frontend and find out how they work. Since I am not a technical guy, my language and delivery helps the non-technical userbase; which is in vast majority I suppose. For example, my detailed guides on Reputation Score and Reward System are strictly non technical, plain-language tutorials. They helped thousands of people so far (apparent from the number of comments and views on posts). That is how I am contributing to the platform. I will never stop doing it.
Thank you for being there, Luke. Always a pleasure to read your posts and learn from your wisdom. Wishing you and your family all the health and happiness in the world!
Excellent point. There are many ways we can contribute, not just code. The thing I was trying to point out in my post was how we need a larger perspective to understand prioritization between various things which need to get done. When we see a problem within our area of expertise, it's easy to think, "Oh man, they totally need to fix this now!" but there may be reasons fixing something else first is a much better approach.
Keep on providing great value here! I think you're doing a lot of great work.
this snowball is rolling. no doubt about that.
that said, would like to see more communication from the leadership. engineering is one thing, but community outreach is vital in this space.
I agree and have been pushing for this since last year. Until we become truly decentralized, those with the control need to be heard from to help everyone else make good decisions about the system. I think we're going to start seeing more communication.
I agree, ill be standing by to stand by, eyes peeled lol
Great write up mate. They really just need to communicate more. If Steemit were an ICO in the market today I really don't think it would succeed purely on the complete lack of communications by the team.
When you look at projects such as Powerledger, Ethos, Horizon State etc, they are always saying something.
If @andrachy is the community liason, he needs to be out there saying something by Steemit. Sure there isn't always a big announcement, even if it was just on twitter "Friday arvo beers with the Dev Team after a solid week Steeming it up"
@ned needs to pick up the game as well, he is the boss, he's the one responsible. From the outside looking in for a potential investor (ignoring the tech) the place seems to be run haphazard and iwouldn't want to put my money into it.
Agreed.
Great points, @lukestokes and thanks for sharing the Github screenshots and links. As someone who both regularly asks my followers for improvement ideas, and calls out the currently inconveniences, I really appreciate what you are trying to do here.
Sure, I can complain at times about the seemingly lack of enhancements and upgrades to the Steemit.com website, I realize that anyone can build a front-end for the Steem blockchain and I've been evaluating such an opportunity. I do realize that Steem >> Steemit.
I should mention that I've been giving quite a few presentations on Steem(it) recently and the most common pieces of feedback I get is how the user interface lacks in so many areas. Look, I know the dev team is working hard, it can be seen in Github, but it doesn't matter if ppl constantly say that the UI is one reason that they leave the platform.
As much as we want to brush over it, taking care of the user experience is the "last mile" of any app and helping users feel at home is important. I won't link to it, but one of my recent posts lists at least 15 improvements to Steemit that I think would help increase engagement and retention.
Now, if we could think of a solid revenue model that would incentivize us to build a better front-end...we could give Steemit a bit more competition and improve the community as a whole.
For now, I find myself using Steemit more than Busy because i've grown accustom to how to dance around this interface.
Thanks again for your dedication to the platform. You constantly provide value.
-Ashe
PS: Do you know if anyone has re-visited the 2017 Roadmap and compared what was planned vs implemented? Also, 3 months ago @ned asked for feedback on the 2018 Roadmap...has it been released yet? https://steemit.com/roadmap2018/@steemitblog/steemit-roadmap-2018-community-input-requested
The interesting thing for me to think about is the larger goals and how they relate to current motivations and short-term focus. Based on conversations I had with Sneak at Steemfest, people leaving the platform right now were not a huge concern for them. That bothered me a lot, but I really spent some time thinking about it. It doesn't mean they don't care about people right now. They still have their contact info and can still market to them once the many improvements they want are completed.
Steemit appears to me to be building for hundreds of millions of users. Compared to them, if 50k or even 100k join today and leave because it's not ready yet, that's comparatively (statistically) not relevant when compared to 100M+ users. That's an eye-opening way to think about things. If there are things they have to do now to prepare for those future users, then that certainly should be the priority. As you said, other people can fork the front end or make their own. Other people can't (yet) make significant improvements to the blockchain itself which would enable it to support many, many million more users. That's all on Steemit, inc right now.
I don't have any updates regarding the roadmap. I think the approach of making hard goals like they did last year won't be repeated. What they do end up communicating, is yet to be seen.
Hey @lukestokes,
I was talking about this same concept today in my blog.
"Talk is cheap" as we all know. At a point, its not long bogus words that we need. Its action.
Steem/Steemit wants people that would go-the-go so to speak.
Excellent post, thanks for sharing. I agree with you completely that actions speak louder than words and what we do defines us more than what we care to complain about.