Steemit Roadmap 2018 - @timcliff's Top Picks and Recommendations
Earlier this week, @steemitblog requested input from the community for their 2018 roadmap. I can see why @ned said in his SteemFest presentation that one of the biggest reasons that Steem was going to succeed was because of "you" (speaking about us - the community). The input from everyone here on how to make the platform better has been incredible!
I decided to go through all of the posts and comments from the community and compile a list of what I thought were the best suggestions. I also added many of my own as well, which include a ton of ideas that I have collected over the past year and a half. Many of these go back to the Steemit Wish List in 2016, as well as tons of GitHub issues I have read, and conversations I've had with various Steemains.
Attributions
Many of these ideas have been floating around and being discussed for a year or more, so it was hard to attribute them to a specific individual. For any of the recent recommendations that I pulled directly from the #roadmap2018 discussions or a recent conversation, I cited whoever made the suggestion there. (Keep in mind, whoever suggested it for the roadmap isn't necessarily going to be the person who originally thought of the idea.)
If anyone feels like they see their original idea here and want to be credited for it, please just leave a comment with a link to where you originally posted it, and I will do my best to ensure it gets attributed.
Paraphrasing
Most of the ideas here are my own paraphrasing of the idea that was shared. If you don't agree with my characterization of your suggestion, let me know in the comments and I will do my best to address your concerns.
So, without further ado..
@timcliff's 2018 Roadmap Top Picks and Recommendations
Top Priorities
- Streamline Account Signups
- Communities
- Balance bandwidth between positive new user onboarding, and system limitations. Possibly introduce fixed limits on operations based on SP. (Accounts with 0 SP may only get 1 per day or per week.) SMT creators will need clear info on how much SP must be vested in order to provide the necessary bandwidth to their communities.
- SMTs - Let's tokenize the internet!
- Standardization around content and it's meta data; include ways for front-ends to filter content from different platforms ( @jesta @noly )
- Fully functional Steemit app for iOS/ Android (not just a wallet app) ( @d-pend )
- Better third-party developer support and documentation ( @zombee )
- Traditional currency gateways so non-crypto users don't have to use crypto exchange to buy Steem Power and cash out their rewards. I understand there are regulatory issues. Partner with service providers if necessary. ( @smooth @stellabelle )
Important Changes
- Allow editing of posts after 7 days with posting key only
- Remove the 20 second limit on comments (maybe one per block)
- Change the 30 minute early voting penalty to 1 to 5 minutes ( @blocktrades )
- Scalability / Optimize the steemd resource requirements ( @drakos @smooth )
- Allow users to filter out resteemed content when browsing a user's blog
- Signup a friend button ( @gold84 )
- A moderate deduction of voting amount per post/comment and per vote. This essentially implements a slightly non-linear rewards curve as a factor of the number of comments as well as the number of voters, while keeping the curve itself still linear. (Helps discourage comment and upvote spam.) ( @smooth )
- Allow platforms (or users) to set the percentage of curation vs. author split for their posts/comments instead of being hard-coded to 75/25 ( @jesta )
- Integrate promoted posts into main content areas such as trending page or feeds; designate as "advertised" posts ( @noisy )
- Machine learning solutions that pick up on the user's behaviour to make recommendations. ( @liberosist also see post from @imwatsi )
- Add website perks that can be paid for with STEEM/SBD
- "Lock In" investor rewards type / an investor class - investors can get a fixed rate of return on SP without needing to participate in curation ( @clayop)
- Referral / affiliate program ( @dana-edwards @tuck-fheman )
- Onboarding of influencers ( @liberosist )
- Allow users to save and delete post drafts
- Improved notifications ( @bitcoinparadise )
- Offer hosting for avatar and cover images in Settings page
- Marketing (more articles about Steem in mainstream media outlets)
Good Changes
- Show related posts while users are reading a post ( @smooth @anarchyhasnogods )
- Show 'dollar' amounts in currency based on the user's location ( @ellievallie )
- Other social reactions besides upvote/downvote (JSON/UI level) ( @riseofth )
- Some mechanism to support a 'lost password recovery'
- Allow users to set a minimum amount to allow receipt of STEEM/SBD transfers that include a memo
- Full wallet history that is easy to navigate, filter, and understand ( @connecteconomy )
- Provide classification and filtering of posts based on content's language
- More info in the user profile, along with "interests" area so we can find like minded people ( @masscollective )
- Better tools for searching for content ( @muphy )
- Add a conversation history between users
- Add a way to lock in SP delegations (so they can't be removed) with an expiration date ( @slavix )
- Add better tools to prevent copy/paste spam
- Easier posting interface ( @connecteconomy )
- Allow users to crop and resize uploaded images
- In site private messaging (possible integration with steemit.chat)
- Introduce gamification to incentivize desired user behaviour
- Give suggestions for other accounts that users might be interested in following
- Add Verifications Page - Confirm identity via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
- Integrate a tip button into the UI
- More ways to connect than just "follow" i.e. Friends, etc. ( @georgemales )
- Allow users to change the color of their profile text to work with different backgrounds ( @glennolua )
- Embed video implementation like twich, kickstarter, facebook etc. ( @hoodaim )
- Confidential transactions ( @bitcoinparadise )
- Support font sizes and colors
- Improve the UI layout - Condenser must look good, sexy and attractive. ( @drakos )
- Generate sitemap.xml for steemit ( @jesta )
- Allow users to specify multiple beneficiaries on posts
- Allow users to create a library of bookmarked posts
- Warn before transfer to negative rep account
- Beneficiaries Payouts should be made in whatever method the author of the post/comment chooses (50/50 SBD/SP or 100% SP) ( @jesta )
- Reintroduce the
challengeoperation - Challenge a user's authority in case of potential loss of posting key. The challenger pays a fee to the challenged which is depositted as Steem Power. Until the challenged proves their active key, all posting rights are revoked. ( @gtg ) - Separate voting pools for downvotes vs. upvotes
- Some type of smart contract that allows a delegator to split the awarded curation rewards with the person they delegated to, to allow people to 'hire' curators
- Categorize posts within our blogs ( @wadepaterson )
- Be able to recharge voting power by burning STEEM or SBD ( @bitcoinparadise )
- Private transactions, possibly at a cost ( @riseofth )
- Allow users to include a "resteem reason" which would show to their followers when they resteem a post ( @enginewitty )
- Improve navigation / menu structure ( @geekpowered @boucaron )
Ideas to Consider
- How to get STEEM/SBD listed in more exchanges
- Deep revamp of reputation and curation into a better voting/reputation/curation/web-of-trust type system ( @smooth @lextenebris )
- Revenue models that can be partially shared with investors, users, and application owners ( @ats-david )
- How to 'fix' downvotes/flags
- How to measure user retention and identity retention issues ( @surfermarly )
- Ways to introduce gamification
- Market the Steem platform to the crypto business world as a platform to use for their social media efforts ( @bronevik )
- Long term content rewards (not necessarily from the "rewards pool"). Possibly related to advertisement revenue sharing, signup conversion referrals from users landing on the page, etc.
- How can we better onboard new users so that they do not get discouraged and leave?
- What problems could be fixed with a more advanced and consensus based reputation system?
- Rethinking content storage ( @jesta )
- Worker proposals / steem budget proposals ( @furion @jerrybanfield )
- How to do a better job allowing content discovery, so good/quality content gets upvoted and bubbles to the top?
- On chain 2FA ( @mughat )
Wish List / Nice to have
- Daily leaderboards display
- Improve onboarding process with interactive tutorials
- Sticky Posts for mods/admins
- Make external links distinguishable from internal links
- ‘simple view’ to show title only with no picture or preview text
- Ability to use scroll wheel to adjust vote slider
- Allow user-provided anchor links & targets
- Allow users to choose the image that shows as the post's thumbnail
- Add support for polls
- Allow users to select which image is the cover photo
- Built in emojis dropdown
- Have a CCO image library to chose images from
- Display a "Resteem" count on the post preview, possibly including the list of people who resteemed ( @connecteconomy )
- Allow users to schedule a time for a post to be created
- Pinned favorite posts in blog
- Show last edit time of post
- Create a custom 5xx page
- A dynamic key system to create a key pair and grant it permission to specific operations ( @jesta )
- Website skins ( @geekpowered )
- Bigger buttons ( @geekpowered )
- Ability to un-resteem ( @geekpowered )
Thanks Steemit!
I understand this is a really big list, and obviously only a portion of it will actually get implemented within the next year. None-the-less, I really appreciate Steemit giving us all an opportunity to provide them with input on what we think is important! I hope that this list and all of the ideas that we came up with, will help give you some good inspiration for what to include =)
i want all of this and more!
lets make this into a VIDEO on fivver! please if anyone is a graphic designer or does video, comment on my latest post or come talk to me on steemspeak.com discord chat and i will pay a small budget for making this video where we read over ll the proposed features with basic clip art style animation to go along with it!
Here is actually a better post to collaborate with community members on projects:
https://steemit.com/roadmap/@timcliff/let-s-create-a-steem-community-roadmap-discussion
What is the exact meaning of "Balance bandwidth between positive new user onboarding, and system limitations. Possibly introduce fixed limits on operations based on SP. (Accounts with 0 SP may only get 1 per day or per week.) SMT creators will need clear info on how much SP must be vested in order to provide the necessary bandwidth to their communities."
?
Basically the blockchain needs to distribute bandwidth intelligently. If the it doesn't give new users enough bandwidth to participate, users are going to get frustrated with the platform because they keep running into errors. At the same time, if you give a new user too much bandwidth, someone could create a whole bunch of new accounts for relatively cheaply and do a DOS attack on the blockchain by overloading it with spam.
@timcliff I was surprised to see my idea reflected by you in the important comments section. If it was not for @starkerz that told me about you and your contributions to the steemit community, and the steem panel discussion from @aggroed on Dec 9 that you spoke of different things that made me go to your blog again and search for the 2018 Community Roadmap you wrote, I would not have found your mention about me.
I am glad my idea is something many people as well as you think it is important, by speaking about signups in general, that is something really important for the blockchain to grow. Before posting this idea I thought there were separate sites to do this, and afterwards I discovered it was steeminvite, but I thought it is important to have it in the steemit front-end because it I see it as a great way to capture the attention or the explanation process for new people to get started on steemit.
Thinking in a loud voice I would say, ok, people, you and me can speak to family, friends, colleges about it, but having an email prepared, and all the structure with all posts that are linked from the email, all videos needed linked, are a huge marketing power, to get this new people receiving the invitation from a friend, to get to think about it, and that would like to read to learn about it. With this, people will get a message with double power.
The first power is that the message/invitation comes from a friend already using it, and the second power is that the message comes with information and links to more posts and videos to know everything about steem, steemit, cryptocurrency, steemit rewards, walle, and all important things that they need to know.
This is a huge list you have researched and detected, and this is a great work and job, to help steemit and developers get to know what the community wants, so this helps them see if their efforts are well focused, and take even better decisions for the benefit of all.
Thanks for all the collaboration you are doing and you have than for steemit, and for helping making it be as it is today. Thanks to people like you is that steemit has came this so far, and I am sure the end of the year has a lot more to show us, and 2018 will be a great year for the steem blockchain and steemit.
Looking forward to continue reading and learning from your future posts.
Regards, @gold84
I agree! Thanks for the great comment :)
@timcliff I believe all this ideas you are posting will really help all the community. Something really important to give focus on is on helping as much as possible, new visitors and steemians that recentrely signup, so they can learn the important things to get working on the platform as fast as possible.
Your ideas and contributions and being the voice of the community in several situations, are definitely adding huge in the progress of the platform!
@gold84
Some of the features could be implemented by third-party coders or businesses. Steemit (or a broader community) could pledge bounties for it.
Examples: recomendation systems and various analysis.
Hopefully we will have a working budget system for this purpose.
GREAT job @ticmcliff, it would be really great to have this on a live open access list that the community can come to (like a project funnel) this will focus the community's efforts into one place, you could add % complete, resources required, and other key metrics to each initiative that helps steemians see where we need to be focussing next. can even allow others to add new line items and have the community upvote in order to decide what the priority list is.
additionally, I do not know what you know about the #promo-steem initiative. Please see our proposal and discussion with andrarchy below. It would be great to be included into this list so that our ever increasing team can get some well deserved attention. Steemon!
PROPOSAL
DISCUSSION WITH ANDREW
@starkerz I want to really thank you for puting @timcliff 's name in front of me. I wached the entire video of @terrybrock and listened to all what @timcliff believes to be success in the platform, or to put it in other words, to make your way on it. His way to do it was very creative and smart, and he is today the voice of the community within other great projects he is doing.
I told @timcliff I was amazed when I saw he credited me for one of the ideas , in the "Important Changes Needed". Glad to see many other people, and that Tim Cliff himself agrees with me on the need to get as many possible signups at this stage, to help the platform grow.
And there are definitely a huge number of ways to improve in the platform front-end interface to help gain more signups, as well as lots of things to be done with promoting steem, and what you are doing together with @stephenkendal with #promo-steem is something great, the website, the guild, everything there to make the whole thing work together to help the community grow.
Regards, @gold84
Thanks man! I really appreciate this message! loving it :) i was also really happy to see tim cliff's talk as I thought of you immediately. I like the way you present your ideas and think that you will do well bouncing ideas off Tim as he has put himself in the position to be a voice for the community on exactly these matters. I was a bit frustrated initially, as I didnt feel i could help you to be heard much, but as soon as i saw Tim's video, i knew he was your guy! I really hope your ideas are now showcased on the rights stage and we get at least a few of them implemented! :) STEEMON!
@starkerz you are welcome, the thanks is much for you who were able to listen to @timcliff and afterwards remember me and the ideas I am presenting, and that he was exactly communicating the important ideas for the community. I really appreciate all the support you are giving to me, and to all the steemit community, as well as the people who are promoting steem.
It really amazed me when I saw my idea reflected on the important changes needed that @timcliff explains in his post "Steemit Roadmap 2018": https://steemit.com/roadmap2018/@timcliff/steemit-roadmap-2018-timcliff-s-top-picks-and-recommendations#@gold84/re-timcliff-re-gold84-re-timcliff-steemit-roadmap-2018-timcliff-s-top-picks-and-recommendations-20171210t224343820z
Regards, @gold84
;))
@starkerz and speaking about @timcliff 2018 Roadmap for Steemit, here is the last idea I posted today. It is very important if we could have a link to "Community Ideas and Suggestions", and that post of Tim Cliff can be the one to be included, and people can comment there with their needs, suggestions, ideas. And that link being in the front-end can help a lot to be discovered and notice by everyone. https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@gold84/we-need-a-steemit-community-needs-and-suggestions-link-for-steemit-front-end-to-make-it-easier-to-post-needs-and-suggestions-to
Your thoughts on this?
This is a useful list. I’ve seen a lot of articles with complaints about steemit and this post very well puts together all the ideas for an improved steemit experience. I found myself saying “That’s exactly what I wish they (we) would do.” Some of it is beyond my level of steemit knowledge. I’m more interested in making steemit more user friendly to users like me who love the platform but don’t have much interest in investing time in figuring out all the ins and outs. I just like posting and talking to people and I’d like it to be easier so that more people join and actively engage. I’d very much like to be able to categorize posts on my page. I stick to travel posts because that’s what people come to my page for, but if I had categories, I’d write about other topics as well. Thanks for this article, and btw I found you because you voted on one of my posts recently. I hope you enjoyed it.
I did :)
As I went through that list I got dizzy. The sheer magnitude of those demands is impressive. Steemit developers will have a lot on their plate to keep them busy for a century! Joke aside, since many of the requests are recurring ideas, this is the perfect time to show the community that Steemit cares about them. Furthermore, I think it's time Steemit hired more people to implement those suggestions. For instance, I've been taking interest in Condenser's development, I realize how big of a project it is. Everyday there are new issues, pull requests, more issues, more pulls. Nothing wrong with that, that's what development is. Plus, let's not forget the other projects like steemd itself, upcoming hardforks and SMTs. More staff is definitely needed to meet those daunting tasks. In my view, SMTs should wait. Focus instead on the immediate problems and demands. Once those are dealt with, then we can move on to more icing on the cake, i.e. SMTs 🍰
I'm glad Steemit Inc. has finally opened their ears to users. Now that the listening doors are open, let's hope the action will follow 🙂
We are definitely interested in bringing on more developers and if anyone knows of any good developers interested in getting involved in the project they should feel free to put them in touch with me either on steemit.chat or at [email protected].
Community Liaison, Steemit
I'll spread the word :)
Hehe, yes. This list would for sure keep them busy :)
My understanding is that they have been doing a lot of hiring recently and they are still looking for more talented developers.
I agree, I am really happy that they are bringing the gap with the community. About a year ago, that was actually one of the biggest issues that a lot of people had. It seems to have gotten a ton better, and I can see them continuing to improve.
I’m curious as to how Steemit inc is financed and pays for their staff. Do they pay people in steem?
They haven’t publicized much info along those lines.
There are some seriously great ideas in the list for moving Steemit forward and as a newbie I'm really interested in what you think are going to be the main drivers to help to improve the quality of the content? Better search functions I think will help me to discover quality content more easily and I also think community's are a great step forward however, I do worry about censorship and subjectiveness. I'm genuinely here to write and share and learn and connect with like-minded people, but I'm finding it seriously time consuming and difficult finding the gems so maybe communities will address that for me. I know the great content is there and they're the posts that make Steemit great but they're so often hidden amongst the sheer volume of low quality content. Personally I love original content how can we best differentiate the quality from the quantity without it coming down to moderators personal preference? Do you think it will help better reward people really bringing something to the community? The communities idea sounds just like Facebook groups where Admins and I guess with one billion active users, they must be doing something right! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Yes, I do think that communities will go a long way towards helping with this. Better search tools would be a big improvement too.
Awesome change will be in our family :)
"Resteemed" filter is a must, Twitter has it and it saves you from unfollowing a LOT of people who can't help themselves.