Content Discovery or Social Networking - How About Both
Steem is a Blockchain that can facilitate many types of content, voting for various reasons and there are many different views of how this can play out.
Do people want to compete to have the best article on Steem each day?
I would call this model Content Discovery.
This is one model I hear talked about often. When I imagine it, I invision people working hard to make the best post and having the expectation that curators are judging which posts are the best and voting accordingly. There would never be agreement, the concept is that via consensus a top article would appear each day. A wisdom of the masses type of content discovery. If a post was on the top of the heap it would be assumed that most people thought that was the best article of the day.
One challenge with this model on Steem related front-ends is of course stake-based voting provides a bias towards certain people or types of content as we see demonstrated on Trending. I personally don't have a problem with Steem related content and announcements being on Trending. I tend to think it happens because the only thing we all have in common is an interest in Steem.
My concern is that it is too limiting. I prefer a more casual platform, where people can do a variety of different styles of content based on their time and attention each day. Let's face it though, I do have a bias in that I've never considered myself a content creator. So, maybe a casual platform is my preference because of my own personal interests.
Social Networking:
On a social network, people can feel free to post a variety of things. End Users can post a long detailed opinion post, or a picture and a story or share an article. After all most websites focus on engagement, page refreshes and transactions. If the intent is onboarding the masses lowering the barriers for participation allows more people to feel comfortable engaging posting and interacting on the site. I am not saying that these casual posts should be at the top of trending or that people should bidbot them up. However, if you post a picture of your dog and a sentence and some of your friends enjoy seeing the picture of your dog and upvote it, I think that is beautiful. Realistically though that also has its weaknesses due to autovotes and the size of our current community.
Soon we will not have to choose. We are seeing this progress already in the Tribes and soon (who knows what soon means) we will have the ability to create all different types of Communities and various reward configurations with SMTs.
Do you prefer a moderated community or a free speech community? Why not both.
Short form or Long Form? Let's have both
Obviously once Communities and SMTs are here everything will be smooth sailing on Steem.
All conflict will end, the price will skyrocket...
:) Obviously I am over selling it, but I do catch myself arguing sometimes and then remind myself to relax most of this will sort out without my input... one way or the other.
We need better ways to accumulate knowledge from social posts. For example, it would be nice to have all reviews of the same restaurant to be aggregated in one place or better still, all ratings, including Service/Food/Ambience/Value or even tag grouped by Cuisine/Features/Good For/etc.
For example: https://www.waivio.com/object/uwl-ichiro-japanese-restaurant/menu#iuw-ichiro-menu
Steem can become a very solid foundation for businesses, where products and services can be listed publicly, updated easily, integrated into partner sites and at the same time accumulate social feedback, reviews, ratings and more.
Further details about Waivio project can be found at Steem as a platform for business.
Why did this comment feel like reading an ad for Waivio?
:) I'll check it out and I do agree with the potential being there for a ratings system.
The point I was trying to make is that Steem started as a blogging platform with the focus on the quality and substance of a single post. Later Steem apps added a lot of smaller social posts in the form of fitness updates, links to stories, game stats, etc.
And the new scenario is to allow accumulation of knowledge from multiple smaller social posts. For example, people hiking in the same area should be able to eventually build a comprehensive map of trails, viewpoints, overnight camping spots and photo galleries.
I actually love how you worded that and it's a great vision. Thanks for clarifying.
Interesting, I have supported Waivio by sponsoring it on our Busy page through SteemIt. I hope they continue development as we'd like to use an extended business platform with MintDice as we continue to grow our presence on SteemIt :)
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That's exactly what I think too. We must let people share what makes them happy and not be so fiscal with the term quality content, if not, I find it difficult for the awaiting "onboarding the masses" to become true.
Good post btw.
It's also boring!
I agree
I have never understood content shaming. Those posts about some topic from their lifes or posts with only a few lines. They aren't "shitposts" or something like that, they are just casual posts.
To enforce some kind of "quality" rules on normal users is so stupid in itself, it's baffling.
They aren't posting 10 times a day with only self-upvotes. Or just spamming letters over and over. They are just genuine users of one platform they like.
To shame that or even downvote is kinda even way more against those "investors", which those downvoters want to "protect" or "gain".
A platform with basically no users left, because nobody wants to fulfill some 500-word perfect english quality rule? Great investement I guess.
I hear you... :)
It will become what it will become. I would say a hybrid of both if done properly.
Facebook kicks so much ass because people fully populate a database on their unique person.
This unique person will have the ability to get value from that here as businesses plug in.
It will sort itself out but definitely a conversation worth having.
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Facebook allows me to do both.
I can casually engage with friends and family and also join private groups that are of interest to me.
I guess that is what I hope SMTs and Communities bring.
I can look at pictures of my friends, write a serious OP-ED or Story and if I were an artist, (and I am not) I could also post my work of art.
Meanwhile meeting and engaging with interesting people around the world.
I hope at some point that becomes what Steem is about.
Like you said, Communities are supposed to be the fix for this but it worries me that no one seems to have a clear idea of how exactly communities will work and being in the “Waiting for Steemit Inc” mode feels like returning to an old toxic relationship and hoping it will be better this time.
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I think it will take some time to see and understand communities. The nearest to me (I mean to my understanding) are the "tribes" from steem-engine. Or, the concept will be different, I don't know...but will take time to be accepted from users...
I can't argue that at all. :)
It will always be a hard one to call because content in general is just so subjective. What is valued by one person might not be as important to another person. Unfortunately for me it usually turns out that the person who values my content has much less SP than the person that doesn't :) I think we all feel that way sometimes. I do agree with you, I think it is all going to sort itself out in the end. It will just take some time.
the problem lies when money are involved. I think in a way when the prices of steem and sbd skyrocketed many people joined and we had for a while the "social network" kind of thing.
But greed apparently won! Most of people only cared about how to make money fast with minimum effort. So a photo of a tomato or a stolen picture was the easy way. If you think about it is like what many "influencers" A photo of their ass with the use of Photoshop and thousands of like from guys that think they got a chance. Now translate the exact same with the upvotes!
Also i wanna add that when we had that crazy rise in prizes many people with quite some sp told to close friends,girlfriends and stuff to make an account, post whatever shit they want and they will get a huge upvote from him/her, then they can share the money... Note that back then making a post each day i could earn at least 10-20$ sometimes i could even reach 100$+ with a single post. now image all those people i am talking about :P
So in conclusion i am not in either side i am just worried about the greed levels we humans have
If someone finds an excellent stock they tell their friends. I think this issue seems related to how small our community is...
If you look at the big picture, who cares if someone's girlfriend earns if her presence here bring more activity and creates traffic, that is a win.
I was going to reply to this, and the reply got really long, so I ended up writing a whole post. Thanks for the inspiration, for the second day in a row!
Great post.
There was a time when I encouraged users to create their own personal tags or group tags so that they can share things with friends and family. It's easy enough to do - not waiting months for "communities" that are likely tag-based anyway.
Sure, there isn't a button that tells you what to do - so what, there's the browser bookmarks. Just add the streams to your semi-private tags.
As steempeak seems one of the more energetic platforms, perhaps something for them to include - the ability to create and store personal tags eg #mydumbfriends. (oops! edited. tag not username!)
haha, do you have another feed for your smart friends.
:)