Moving Forward with SteemIt
Dear Steemians,
This is a topic I've been meaning to write about. Only now did I find time to lay down some truths.
In its current form, steemit.com is not ready for mass adoption.
This is about why, and steps forward.
(Obligatory picture for thumbnail.)
No private messaging functionality.
If I want to connect with someone on steemit.com, I need to be able to message them privately. This isn't currently possible.
This is basic functionality.
No ability to filter posts in the feed.
I'm not interested in:
- crypto,
- photography,
- fiction,
- life stories,
- art,
- video games,
- food,
- technology,
- nature,
- blogs,
- etc.
I need to be able to filter these tags out of my feed. It's lack dilutes the experience massively for me. It also makes using steemit.com a massive waste of time.
Strict, platform-wide post quality requirements.
I just had a scroll through the 'new' section.
None of those are of any merit.
But one caught my eye: https://steemit.com/steem/@pocketechange/i-give-up
@pocketechange then whines about his other post not getting more upvotes.
Well guess what. That post is worthless.
Let me explain:
- It's one massive paragraph.
- There's no benefit.
- The grammar and spelling are horrid.
- The Big Idea of the post is very unclear.
- The punctuation makes it hard to read.
- It doesn't deliver any value.
- "I'm seriously looking for upvotes on this one"... as if he had delivered anything worthy of upvoting.
Now, the idea behind it (I haven't figured it out in 3 read-throughs) might be good and valuable. On the other hand, the presentation and execution completely destroy any merit that post might have had.
So here's a site-wide appeal to everyone who's sharing here.
Before writing a post, fill out a simple form for yourself.
- Who are you writing to?
- What's the big idea that you want to share?
- What are the benefits of that big idea?
- How is the big idea going to impact your audience?
- How are the benefits of the big idea going to impact your audience?
- What about this idea, or the benefit, is interesting to your audience?
- How can they take action now and benefit from what you're saying?
- What do you want them to do aside from that?
- Can you summarize all of these points into one sentence? (If not, your post is too complex, and should be a series.)
Then, write your post. In HemingwayApp. This will make it much easier to read.
Don't abuse ellipses - commas, semicolons, and periods exist for a reason.
Break paragraphs into chunks of 1-3 sentences. This keeps your reader's eyes from getting tired from the huge blocks of text.
Anyway. Lots can be said about good writing.
Everyone has an idea they want to communicate. Few can write well enough to share their ideas clearly.
Here's a post of mine on writing.
And here's one on writer's block.
Introduce a post evaluating algorithm.
Well-written, long posts that deliver tons of value are few.
And they're immediately buried under people posting completely ridiculous things.
The quality of the platform is dipping severely below buzzfeed.com levels. On a regular basis.
The solution: an algorithm that evaluates posts by quality (I'm not a techie, but I do think it's possible?), and pushes posts above a certain score to the top of people's feeds.
Also higher community awareness, as there's just too many idiots spamming for a few cents.
That's not how you get in the big leagues.
You need to adopt a long term strategy to reliably build up your steemit.com income.
(I'll do a post on that if I get enough requests to warrant my time on it.)
In the meantime, here's what you can do:
Steemians, start interest groups.
What I mean is, since you're networking anyway, you might as well make it worthwhile for everyone.
- Find a few steemians who are interested in a topic. For me that'd be something like copywriting, sales, or persuasion.
- Each steemian picks an aspect of the topic that interests them.
- You all write a post on that aspect.
- Then everyone comments on everyone else's posts, sharing their thoughts for discussion.
- Everyone writes a summary of the topic from their perspective.
- You choose another topic, and repeat.
This process naturally leads to more and more sophisticated insights, education, and growth.
And improves the quality of content on steemit.com on a post-by-post basis.
All you have to do is find some like-minded people, and commit to a few hours of writing a week.
And the results... will surprise you!
If you found this useful, and would like to see more content like this, Upvote, Comment, Resteem, Follow.
Do not follow me with the intention of getting a follow back. I value keeping my feed as minimal as possible. Helps me maintain mental hygiene.
Sincerely,
Phil
The Copytist
PS. @dawidrams - here's the post I had promised. A bit vitriolic, but it gets the point across.
Remember, Steemit.com is in early beta. I'd recommend checking out the Roadmap - https://steem.io/2017roadmap.pdf. Communities are coming in a couple of months which will completely reshape the site. It'll be similar to subreddits on Reddit. That'll address most of your concerns about filtered feeds, interest groups etc.
Beyond that, Steemit.com is built on the Steem blockchain, and currently there's no way to have private messages on the blockchain. That said, Steem frontends are free to build in private messaging. Busy.org is one such solution which has private messaging. Beyond that, there's Steemit.chat where most Steemians hang out. It's linked to directly from the sidebar.
As for quality requirements, that's up to the community. People can post junk all they want, like they do on every single social platform. The ones posting junk will never make much, if any, rewards and will give up and leave. There are plenty of human curators out there, and in fact there have been bots which evaluate a post quality using algorithms. biophil and anyx have been particularly successful running quality algorithm bots. By the way, long posts don't necessarily mean creating value. A meme could be worth far more on a free market than an academic paper about a niche subject.
All in all, I think everything you have said has been addressed from the very beginning and most of it is in the works.
That hasn't been my experience.
Absolutely. Fiction being a prime example.
On the other hand, you have such things as economic analyses, technology posts that offer insights, educational material, and a lot of other stuff.
These things, applied diligently (i.e. just do it every day), result in amazing returns.
Popular appeal =/= value.
Consider the value of a dank Pepe against a study on say, the neurocognitive correlates of hypnotic phenomena.
The former brings about some amusement. The latter can be easily applied to any interaction, and improve one's life significantly by a factor of hundreds.
All in all, I think 'beta' is far too optimistic for SteemIt. I'd say early alpha at best, as the amount of basic functionality that isn't yet implemented is just staggering.
Perhaps this is not the right platform for you, then? Steem is a completely free open market. Here, popularity is absolutely value. But then so it is at Reddit, Twitter or YouTube.
Of course, subjectively we can both agree that the latter is more valuable for us personally, but it is ultimately up to the community at large to decide what is valuable.
That's why the communities functionality is crucial. Without that, it becomes a huge mess where clickbait reigns supreme.
I agree :) Fortunately, it's coming in the next couple of months.
The only way I can make sense of this argument is that you're implying what you value is what everyone should value. I think the most beautiful thing about Steem in its current state is the diversity of positive perspectives. But it's one thing to share your perspective, and another to ignore others'.
If you have programming experience, you can appreciate the amount of careful effort that goes into developing a new platform built on a new invention. This is new territory. I'm just excited to be on the cutting edge of what I believe will be the foundation of a revolution.
Or... that everyone should be free to not have to dig through stuff they value. Instead, just let me see the stuff I care about without all the cross-tagging.
90+% of those perspectives are useless. If you have time to enjoy everything that's being posted, I highly applaud you on your successful and wealthy retirement.
Not at all. I don't write for everyone. In fact, much the reverse. I write for a very specific group of people, who want to improve how they communicate.
I do. Doesn't make it any less lacking in comparison to even Diaspora, or Twitter.
The only new thing, from a user's perspective, is getting paid for posting. In a currency which is not yet in wide adoption, and exchanging it for anything else is a complex process.
Good for you. The only thing I'm excited about right now is that Steem will rise in value, and eventually I'll end up with a few thousand bucks worth of it.
I see. So you're not saying other perspectives are objectively worthless, but they're useless to you, and you're not afraid to say it. It's incredible that you have nothing to gain from 90+% of all the perspectives on Steem, and even more incredible that you have sampled so much of it in so little time. Cheers!
My point was that reading and writing are not mutually exclusive, except when you make them so. If you do, I'm sorry you don't have time to explore other perspectives. I hope you can find regular time to relax and reflect.
Yes, you are a user, but you are also a programmer. It seems like you are impatiently criticizing the lack of progress on a free platform operating on brand new technology. This prodding does not seem useful to me, from a developer's perspective, and Steemit's developers appear to be part of your intended audience.
If you care enough about the progress of the platform and are experienced enough, maybe you'd like to contribute to the code?
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Thank you for writing this. Many of these thoughts have been swimming in my head too.
I wrote some of these thoughts as an informal introduction to grammar. I hope it helps people make their writing easier for me (and others) to read.
I'm intrigued by your ideas for interest groups, and I'd love to participate in one!