💡 Welcome to Steemit
After my delight at getting my local version of Steemit running, I went to bed with my brain buzzing... When "the experts" recommend distancing yourself from screens at least an hour before trying to go to sleep, this is probably why.
Keeping me awake were thoughts of what I could do to improve steemit.com... where do I start with my learning and playing with code?
Initially, I thought about playing around with the layout of the "Notifications" tab - perhaps surprisingly, this is where I start my journey - either here (checking mentions) and then the "Replies" tab. Once I'm done replying, I head over to my own interface to browse around and see what's about (I see a few more posts being promoted). If I'm on my mobile, I'll look at my friends feed and see what @realrobinhood is recommending. Which leads me to my proposal...
I remember a couple of years ago, there being a lot of discussion about the "Trending" page. Still, the first page which new users will see when they visit https://www.steemit.com, the idea that users were seeing bot-delegated content appeared as a deterrent to would-be bloggers looking for a respectable platform.
The discussed solution at the time was to rewrite the Trending algorithm to more meaningful factors - post length, comments and resteems being a few examples.
I don't know what happened to these discussions, perhaps apathy became so deep-rooted that nobody bothered caring any more but whilst lying in bed last night, a simple solution occurred to me...
Redirect steemit.com to steemit.com/promoted
Ok... so the /promoted page isn't currently awash with content but that's where a number of supporting initiatives come into effect...
A new account is created which is little more than a "promo post" creator. It'll share a weekly guide, helping new users to sign up, etc. (it'll be more prominent in the prime real-estate rather than in the blind spot on the right) and the rewards earnt will be used to promote their posts via a transfer to @null.
So this will give us content to help new users - it could also be used to promote existing users... I was thinking along the lines of a weekly post celebrating new dolphins. There might only be a handful of users each week but this would be motivational to existing users and perhaps aspirational to new ones... look what can be achieved. Similar to above, rewards earnt leads to transfers to @null to promote posts.
So this might give us 2 guaranteed posts per week but what else? @realrobinhood - the top 5 posts each day are promoted on a sliding scale - 0.005 SBD, 0.004 SBD, etc. (depending upon the required "cost") on a daily basis. Posts that remain high up for consecutive days get a daily boost.
We're up to 7 guaranteed posts and to top things off, the aforementioned, dedicated "promo" account can manually promote posts at the owner's discretion - this could be run within a small team of Steemit Angels 😇👼 - without the pressure of daily curation to use up voting power.
Finally... there's the free market. If every user who visits steemit.com lands on /promoted (so logged in users go here instead of "My Communities"), there's an incentive to get noticed and promote your own posts. Yeah, every now and then some dick head will decide to promote some shit-spam-crap but it'll be less painful knowing that they've spent their SBD doing it (and could always be out-promoted by the above dedicated account).
I suspect the bid-bot users won't really care - in theory, this should attract more authors, making the platform more attractive - and I seriously doubt that it will have an impact on their daily $400+ returns.
This definitely feels more achievable than rewriting the Trending API (although it might not be 😂)
I'd love to hear your thoughts and would love it if this could be proposed to the Witness channel for discussion.
the-gorilla's Alternative Steemit Interface
In case you didn't know, I've created an interface to help you find content that you're interested in more easily.
Posts by voting bot users, abusers and spam tags are hidden and you can search by multiple tags - allowing you to find the content that you're interested in more easily.
👉 Launch Alternative Steemit Interface 👈
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I've also created a tool to help users review their club status - showing them where their power's coming from, how much they're powering up, transferring out and who they share a wallet with amongst other things.
Please use it wisely.
👉 Launch Club Status Tool 👈
I think the idea of using /promoted instead of /trending as the entry page is a good one. It would also be interesting to see how this would develop, I mean, which posts would be seen there in a few weeks.
It's a pity that /promoted is not linked anywhere. Not even here:
An update of the site is urgently needed, for example here:
TRX Integration links to an outdated article from 3 years ago!
And who the hell is the administrator of steem.com? If you scroll down a little, you will see this:
One of the advertised top3 Steem apps is esteem.app, which is how people get to Hive and possibly become new users there. Great advertising for Steem, really weird.
But I'm getting off topic, yes, I think your suggestions are good, effective and not so complicated to implement.
Thanks... and implementation doesn't look too difficult - deleting a few characters and changing the redirect.
The TRX integration must surely be an easy removal too... although it doesn't seem to be in the source code so I wonder if that's been added directly onto the server!
No idea about steem.com, it looks like the site was built 6 years ago and ignored!
I should've said... Having "Promoted" in the drop down is in the code but edited out so would be easy to add again (this also works in all communities). "Hot" is another option which works if you replace "trending" or "created" in the URL with "hot".
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Along with your examples, I would also love to see communities start using post promotion to showcase their best content - like I used to do with STEM Saturday until I ran into time constraints and our community's posting volume slowed down. When I was running that initiative, I never fully understood why some of the bigger communities never challenged me for the top of the page, but I'm sure that part of it was because no one lands on /promoted without seeking it out. Making it the landing page would definitely make it more valuable as a piece of screen real estate.
Ah, great minds 😉
The communities idea is interesting too - the URL works within communities already (replacing "trending" with "promoted" - although most communities are empty in this regard).
I think the answer's as simple as that. It would definitely get more traffic if one of the sc accounts (could be one of sc04-sc08 (@o1eh 😉)) started visiting more frequently although the risk then is that it becomes a vote-buying scheme which is no better than a bid-bot. Although it would be better than a bid-bot. Hopefully you understand what I'm getting at!
Yep, and it also works with "my" to see all promoted posts in the communities that you're subscribed to, i.e. https://steemit.com/promoted/my (except that it seemingly doesn't work from Upvu because they rewrite the URL, and don't seem to have a promoted page).
Agreed. sc01 used to watch it, but I think they were focusing on just the top-2 on the page, and they seemed to lose interest when the typical promo amounts dropped below 1 SBD.
I think I do. At least the payments are being distributed to all investors that way...
I didn't realise that although I did see something in the code which made me try this:
https://steemit.com/@remlaps/payout
Where you can see each author's posts / comments ordered by rewards. I've tried it with a few other "orders" but they don't see to work for me.
Here's a quirk. I replied to another comment of yours this morning, and it shows up in my comments and your replies, but I can't see it in the actual thread. Strange...
Has it appeared now?
Some things are definitely taking longer than others to appear. It's not a great experience at the moment and I think we're all just hoping that somebody's trying to fix it behind the scenes... which they might not be.
It's there on the blockchain, but I still don't see it if I click on the top-level post and scroll down through the comments. Seems like the comment depth might be cut off at 4...(?)
I have also noticed the lag you mention between posting/voting and having the action reflected in the web site, but I think that's something different.
I really hope that somebody's working to fix these issues!
Maybe I don't have the right imagination, but it seems to me like paid adverts in Google search... I would actually be quite happy if you landed on the "New" filter via steemit.com. I also find the distinction at upvu.org between "Trending" and "Hot" quite interesting...
I understand the comparison with Google Search - I suppose the difference is that if users don’t like the promoted posts, they have the ability to change it (by promoting their own post).
One bonus is that every promoted post helps STEEM due to the additional burn.
I believe that “Hot” is in the core codebase, just turned off on Steemit.com for whatever reason.
If I recognise the difference correctly, "Hot" sorts by the number of votes and not by the total amount. Votebot earnings may also be omitted.
I’ve just remembered that I tested the URL after I saw it in the code -
https://steemit.com/hot
It still works, it just doesn’t display in the drop down. You can do this with any community too, just replace “trending” or “created” in the URL with “hot” 🥳
Cool ;-)) Thanks!
Ah...Promotion page. I almost forgot about it. We pondered a lot over it 2 years ago and I just came to know that nothing has been done in this regard.
I like your proposals - they seem doable and effective. Particularly the "weekly guide" one.
I'm not sure how "realrobinhood" posts are sorted. Promoting top 5 is a good idea but I don't think some top posts should be in promoted. It will be like trending page all over again. We need high-quality, creative and useful posts there.
I also think that if there were to be a team of Steem Angels, it should be kept anonymous. Especially if sc01/02 decides to support the promoted section again.😛
Speaking of which, I also think steemitblog should consider burning their rewards for post promotions (posts nominated by Steem Angels or Community Curators perhaps).
I hope they don't mind since most authors are burning their hard-earned rewards, the team ought to show some solidarity because they are significant members of the community and mostly because they are the ones who promoted the idea of burning. 😛
Good thinking. I automatically just started promoting the top 5 but I agree with you and a better strategy would be not to include bid-bot users (checking them in my interface before promoting them).
Or they're people like me who are immune to the beggars 😉
I think @tronbeary was going to mention this at some point... I wonder what happened to him 🤔
That would be ideal because I know how immune-pro-max you are. 😆
We want that jolly beary back. 😛
I think he's a bit tied up right now!
BTW this looks great!!
https://raptor.in.ua/steemit.php
sign me up
Thanks, It’s all yours… let me know some thoughts once you’ve used it for a little while 👍🏼
yep will do
Interesting suggestion. I think you reduced the chances of its implementation by mentioning a separate curatorial account and the team of Steemit Angels. Maybe it should be simplified. It's enough to redirect steemit.com to steemit.com/promoted, and then let the free market do its thing. I think there will be enough people to fill it.
In general, it is a pity that the idea with the promoter page is so ignored. And all because it is impossible to find a link to it from the Steemit interface. Unfortunately, I think your proposal will be ignored, like all others so far. Perhaps it will be possible to at least add a link to the Promoted page to the Steemit interface, somewhere between All posts and My friends.
Ah, perhaps the Steemit Angels wasn’t explained very well - it’s simply a group of community members who share an account that’s been created by us for this purpose.
The idea of additional accounts would require no input from the Steemit team but run by people like us - who like the idea 😊 The occasional vote to whatever account is created would be a bonus to keep it funded and effective but not required.
@michelangelo3 (I’ll reply to your comment later when I’m on my PC) mentions:
Which is a good suggestion and something that we can test now (at a little expense but not a lot).
In this case, I like the idea 🙂.
It would be cool to replace the Steemit main page with your interface 😆
I could redirect all traffic to the root of Steemit.com to my interface, that’d work 😀
I’ve started boosting posts from realrobinhood’s top 5. Let’s see how the page looks after a few more days 😊
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🤣
I think it reflects what you do most of the time on the platform😁.
All it needs is a 💪 at the end to finish the look 💪
You follow me and support me..ok
You follow me, I follow you
ok boss
I think this is an interesting idea in terms of the way the Steem ecosystem works, but most new users would come in with expectations from other social media and being confronted with something labelled "promoted" content would probably leave a bad taste in their mouths. (Also this type of user would likely have the "is it a scam?" doubt in their minds and seeing lots of spending on "promoted" content might give them a "that's how they get you" reaction.)
I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that the posts are being promoted, other than the bit which is hidden until you click on the reward amount. I’m only on my mobile so desktop may be different. Ah, the URL too of course.
What do you think the current “thought reaction” is? (Open question - no malice intended.)
I saw a video recently of some crypto “expert” pumping STEEM and he highlighted some of the posts on the home page - specifically veronicalee and whilst he tried to describe it as “good content”, his heart wasn’t in it and I wondered “do we want people thinking that $400+ rewards are realistic”? (I know that wasn’t my thinking when I registered.)
Similar thinking to the recent Chinese video with the title “earn over $100 per day” which will either leave people disappointed at the reality or disappointed that I catch their plagiarism.
I think most people either intuit or eventually discover that the big payouts are mostly artificial manipulations, and that the average genuine user is unlikely to get any rewards much less big rewards on their posts. So then the reactions probably bifurcate into "Awesome, this is a scam I can get in on" or "This is a place for scammy garbage, I don't want to be here", with a few quixotic people hoping that something good can be salvaged.
That sounds worse than your previous comment 😆
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