Why "Communities" Will Be A Gold Mine For Steemians: Bringing Whales And Minnows Together: Look At Reddit
There are a number of people who are very excited for the Communities featured to be added. There is good reason for that. It will make Steemit a bit more like Reddit with some advanced features.
For those who are unaware, Communities is an idea similar to sub-reddits. This is a way of people grouping together around a particular subject and posting in that area. What this does is enables people with like interest to flock to the same area. In turn, you have a "grouping" around a similar topic.
At present, Steemit is like one big streaming site of articles. It is rather easy to miss posts due to the sheer number. The tools to cut through the clutter are basic at best. The feed is a good way to do this but gets overwhelmed when people do a lot of re-steeming. At the same time, the tagline is not truly effective since most people put tags that are popular as opposed to what is applicable.
Another issue is that the Whales appear separated from the newer people. Whales take a beating on here, often without reason. They suffer from the same problem I just described. Their ability to stay up on the sheer volume of material posted each day is hindered.
The other aspect that people often overlook is that we are social beings flocking to those we know and like. This is the reason why authors have regular readers. It also explains why most people on this site upvote the same people repeatedly. Many cry out about circle voting but I believe it is a natural part of our makeup. We support those we know. Whales, as an example, spent more than a year forging the relationships they have. Why would anyone think they would simply turn on them with the addition of tens of thousands of people? The truth is they would not do that any more than you would do it to someone you are interacting with.
That said, it does create a problem for newer people. While I am not one to cast attacks on the reward system since I believe it is working, it is difficult to catch the attention of those with a lot of SP. It does required consistent dedicated posting. I noticed a few 100K-300K people upvoting my posts from time-to-time. That comes as a result of being on here with posts twice a day and being as active as I can. That is why I suggest commenting as a way for newer people to get noticed. One advantage to this is many whales upvote comments, something the average user on here seems not to do.
Communities is a feature that can go a long way to solving this problem. Under this scenario, we will see people of like-mind (or interest) gravitate towards each other. If you are writing on a topic that interests a whale or orca, the chance of his/her seeing it are increased when categorized in such a way. Now we add another layer to the relationships we have: one of interest. Suddenly, the newer person who puts up a post isn't floating out there alone.
Personally, I think this will only increase the retention rate here and make people more money. Most of the whales I came across are very helpful. They also desire success for all individuals on here. However, like the rest of us, they are limited by the set up of the platform. For example, they only have 10 full upvotes per day also. Whatever the S.T.U. associated with that upvote, it still carries the same voting weight requirements as ours. That does not change.
Circle voting has repeatedly been attacked on here. What is ironic is that communities inspires that activity. Here we are looking at a system that is centered around specific topics which encourages people who are attracted to that subject to upvote each other. Circle voting is a natural result of a "community" atmosphere. Humans have always established their tribes and this is not different. It is a virtual tribe built around particular areas of interest.
The addition of this one feature instantly transforms this site to Reddit on steroids. I read that there are roughly 250M users on that site. If you haven't been there, Reddit is basically a linking site. People post links to their favorite articles. There is a "blogging" feature although it is rather barebones and rarely used (called self.reddit I believe). Perhaps blogging is something that people are not conditioned to doing on that site.
Compare that to Steemit. We have 30K people on here who are accustomed to blogging. There is also a readership base that is drawn to reading content of this nature. So while Reddit will continue to be a "linking" site, Steemit will maintain its roots by people posting their thoughts in great detail. To me, this is a significant advantage since, it appears, more money is paid for better content (for the most part).
In my view, the Communities feature is going to have an enormous impact on the price of STEEM. This is what can take it from a niche site to one that can compete with some of the traditional sites. While I believe Facebook is not the goal, it is evident Reddit is. With 250M people actively posting there for free, is it that difficult to switch tens of millions of them over to here? I repeatedly talk about D.Tube and Zappl being apps that can attract people since it has a low learning curve. Communities will do the same for Reddit. Suddenly you have a site which 250M people are familiar with the concept. How the layout is remains to be seen but at least there will be some familiarity.
Some might be down since the price of STEEM got hammered the last few days. This is a prime example of why it best to ignore price action unless you are an active trader. Most of the people on here should simply be acquiring STEEM and power up as much as possible. That is what will pay dividends 6-9 months down the road. I still stand firm in my $100 end of year projection for the price of STEEM.
Communities is a feature that is going to really help get us to that level.
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Yes, @taskmaster4450 communities will be a huge added benefit to Steemit once its implemented. This is similar to the 'Groups' feature on Facebook, in which Facebook relied on to build more connections thus collecting more data.
In your opinion, how will the concept of communities be implemented on Steemit? Is it going to be similar to Facebook with a separate tab? Or is it something else?
Since you encourage commenting, I feel comfortable enough coming in here as a complete stranger.
I have heard of this new community feature which is supposed to come here in the near future, but finally someone describes in a way that makes sense, thank you for that.
I wonder how it will really change things compared to the use of tags. You say, a lot of people use a tag for being more popular instead of being relevant... people could just as well choose to be in certain communities for the same reason. I am a professional artist, blogging mostly about my work under the art tag, which in my opinion is the most relevant in this case. But particularly there I see a lot of stuff, that doesn't belong there. My humble opinion only of course and today art can be anything I guess.
My question remains, of how communities will address that issue. I have read somewhere, that there will be some kind of moderation. Although it might be good for a certain quality, it goes against my idea of a decentralized system. Very curious, how the community thing will turn out. I do agree with you, that it should help steemit grow.
I am not sure if there is going to be moderation or not...you are correct, that brings a certain quality that is against what blockchain and decentralization is all about.
That said, with smaller communities it might be easier to downvote the people who misplace posts there out. If the "sub-community" is strong, there would be enough VP to oust the ones who are misposting.
It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
I like your suggestion that the community will take care of things as a whole by means of downvoting.. or say a warning at first.
One other reason why I am against moderation is the question of who would do it. Coming back to my job and taking a look at who "runs" the unions and groups, its usually those who spend a lot of time and effort on "moderating" and (self)promoting instead of creating a better (art)work.
Your words are encouraging though, and I hope the communities as a whole will respond to all that. Yes, it will be very interesting!
@taskmaster4450 Surprisingly, I never got into reddit, but the 'communities' feature seems like a good way to get your content in front of a specific audience. My posts aren't getting much traction, but it makes sense. I'm blogging about a very niche subject in a platform that is relatively new with a global audience.
I just posted about the pullback in STEEM and consider this a pretty good opportunity to buy. I know you're in STEEM and BTS, curious to see if you're more excited about one over the other and your portfolio split.
Like any self respecting geek I was part of a Reddit community of Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, Ready Player One and Storm Light Archives fans who amassed tons of dialoguesm theories, conspiracy and of course own fan fiction.
So hearing that Steemit will eventually adopt such a system both excites and scares me because it is a double edged sword where it would limit the circle to those who are familiar to you and your interests and also make it harder for others outside that circle to see unless you actively look for that person.
It does create the possibility that planktons would show up the radar of specific whales because they share the same interest.
In any case we just have to wait, adapt to the changes and evolve to better version of Stemians.
The communities feature can't come too soon. I see new people trying to create new tags and curate new areas/groups but they can't get traction because things are too chaotic and disconnected. It is totally necessary to change the architecture to make things more collaborative between new and old Steemians. Otherwise we just stay in our same circles and start to form multiple silos on Steemit.
You just put words on my thought!
I can't wait for communities! I have nothing against circle voting, because it's natural like you've said. We always tend to help out our friends or the people we know. While it might be harder for new users because of that, it's just the way we operate since the beginning.
I think that communities will skyrocket not only the popularity but also the price. I've been waiting for this update to happen for a long time now!
I think it's the only piece that steemit is currently missing.
I belong to about 10 DIscord groups but call the homesteaders one my home base. It's where I am at chatting mostly. Plus I am a moderator there.
When I joined steemit about 6 months ago, I was blind. I was clueless. I was lost.
But as soon as I joined the homestead community I knew I was good. The support of these communities is so appreciated. The members go above and beyond any means of helping one another.
And yes, it does bring red fish, plankton, minnows, dolphins and whales together. We are a solid unity of equals.
Your right. At the moment, I am still lost, clueless how to get started and being more involve with the community. I believe there is more to it than just writing post, using the right tag and "hoping" for the random upvote.
Also, the current tag system is lacking in functionality as we can't save it or put it in the feed to browse for content that has our preferences to it. Or am I missing out something such as following a group such as the kind of facebook group thingy, so that content that are most relevant only appears?
As of my current experience the current tag = group(community)?
Just felt that, you are able to answer to my question and help guide through this. Cheers.
in some areas, communities are already a reality. For example, we scientists group around @steemstem. Me and other new science lovers have profited extremely from this curation community, and also the quality of posts is often exceptionally high, thus raising the value of steem in general - a win-win situation for everyone involved AND not involved.
So I completely agree with you that the platform will at some point have to accept that reality and create additional features that makes it easier to grow together.
Communities are going to tremendously impact and help Steem further flourish. Not only attracting more users but making it easier for all users they are more likely to enjoy. The tag system is not necessarily broken but flawed in its design. Far too often do people abuse the tag system but with communities, this will change. We are trailblazers paving the way for the future, we must set good precedents and have strong communities formed for those who are just joining. Steem and cryptocurrency are going to revolutionize the world it is only a matter of time. Dedication and effort are necessary on this platform for success, that's a dogma for a lot in life. Keep up the interesting and inspirational content.
Wow! We have the same mindset and perception towards the price of steem at the end of this year.i have been telling people to acquire much steem and steem power as much as you can .not only that it will give them more upvote but also i strongly perceiving the price of steem going to $100 at the end of this year because the rate as steemit community grows is worthy to be embraced.thanks for this wonderful post.