Am I the only one around here who would like to see the interface de-sucked, follow- and blocklists implemented and tagged browsing made possible before the next huge waves of new users rush in?

A purely fictional play.

Four men in a pub.

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Man 1: Am I the only one around here who would like to see the interface de-sucked, follow- and blocklists implemented and tagged browsing made possible before the next huge waves of new users rush in?

Man 2: been wanting that one since day one!

Man 3: everyone's asking for that

man 4: Your not alone :)

man 1: then technically, since we are living in a new, democratic, free society where markets rule... that majority wish should at least be heard, no? it's kinda embarrassing to lure friends to this place of madness. it only angers me because I see great potential, from what others have coded so far (steemwatch, piston.web etc)

Man 3: oh yeah

Man 1: a few simple costumizable filters would already do the trick, and everyone could let whales be whales and set up new, independent markets

Man 3: but the problem is thta they work on so many stuff that.. but you know how it is. you need to watch both ends or else you'll get fucked

Man 1: I understand that the hack had to be fixed first. but i don'tunderstand their opening the gates so soon again, before anything has been sorted out. we had the chance to develop a culture, instead we get this... mess.

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steemit.com should not open its gates before:

A - The Interface is de-sucked. It needs urgently:

• Ignore function/banlist/block. There are some accounts that have proven to be pure noise generators, nothing more - no need to even display them.
• A working "follow" function. In its simplest form, a text field to add names to; in a more advanced form, it would be possible to group them according to topics/interests/"circles" (whales/friends/musicians/analyists/whathaveyou). steemwatch.com already has implemented the feature somewhat by reading the follow data from the blockchain - which is recorded by steemit, but not implemented yet. This would allow to have something like the Facebook feed: content of people one chooses to follow. With checkboxes to ex-/include posts/replies/votes, of course.
• tagged browsing. Would allow the user to specify the tags by which to filter the "new" and "trending" pages, maybe even in the form of (steem OR steemit) AND economy, for example.
• Bookmarks/favourites.

90% of power wasted uselessly on debates about flagging etiquette and policebots would be freed for the market of insightful debate if everyone could customize his own Feed and filter out the noise. The interface must first invite, then liberate.

less urgently, but important nonetheless:

• Profile pages. And profile pics, mayhaps.
• curation and AMA mode (and other) as proposed by xeroc.
• Custom CSS. Just like in the good old MySpace days, eh, guys?

B - the existing ocean agrees on a constitution

as proposed by His Whaleness bombad general dan of House Steem, first of His name, Lord of the blockchain, Breaker of reddit and Facebook: (Source 1, Source 2)

• There are no proper protocols. Wangbot is one thing, but there is a culture to develop, and newcomers to introduce into. How to use tags (or categories?), how to find help without screaming into the void in the hopes of being fished in /created, how to report bugs and issues, how to use flags and upvotes and for the umpteenth time why they want to power up and how to do it and why it takes a week and wtf are witnesses.

At ~35.000 users, of which ~20% are active, this is a small town and already feuds and flamewars break out. This economy is under extreme stress, caused by competition.

By all means, do your cryptomoney and whale hunting thing. But the whitepaper I read was about

steem is committed to enabling free speech and building a free society.

and stuff, that is why I am here; I also would like to see an alternative approach to society to succeed, so I implore you:

Pause and reflect.

Steemit.com can, might and according to many of you will be our next Golem, and we have no idea how to master it. With great power...

...and so on.

Aka over and out

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If you found this boring, have a Cassandra instead:

^{(Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen)}

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^{(If Man 1, 2, 3, 4 want credit, no prob, I withheld your identities to protect you from peer pressure)}