Before i forget: Signup problems at SteemIt and how to deal with it

Good news, I am here. Yes, good news for me.

My account was finally approved at Steemit. But before i get all excited about the great content around here, i need to share my Signup experience and how to deal with the long waiting time, with the people who are still waiting for an approval and scanning the internet for some hints why they did not get approved yet.

This post might be less intersting for already existing members, but more for the ones who are waiting for the approval.
Also what this post will be about is not what my future posts will be about. Its an exception.
I plan to post Vlogs, Travel Experiences and Cryptocurrencies. You are more than welcome to follow me @alexhodl 😊 if you want.

The signup process is actually very simple. If you follow the steps, it shouldn’t be a problem. At least theoretically.

Username:

I had to choose a user name that was still available. No biggie. Done. Next step please.

Email:

Providing a valid email address for a confirmation link, also no biggie. Worked out fine.

Phone:

After providing the email address, I received a confirmation link that led me back to the website. There I had to put a valid mobile phone number in to be able to receive a verification code. Also no problem. The SMS arrived within seconds. I typed in the code and received “confirmation” pop-up. Now I only should have received a final approval-email after my account registration has been reviewed. I was happy to read that I am almost done with the registration and started wait for the email.
3 weeks later, still no email.

Would I have waiting for a mail-pigeon the waiting time would have been probably OK. But since its year 2017, three weeks seemed to be a bit long. So I tried to do the same registration again.
Another week later I still did not have any “approval” email. So I tried to sign up again, with a different email address. And then I tried with another email address. Nothing happened. No “approvals” were received.

Done waiting:

After waiting for almost 5 weeks I was a bit annoyed by the whole issue and decided get in touch with Steemit team, somehow at least.

Touchpoint “Website”:

On the actual website I thought about 2 different ways to get some attention. First, the obvious one, contact form or email address or phone number. Unfortunately none of the 3 options are available. Basically there is no option for someone from outside to get in touch with Steemit team.
Then I saw the “submit a story” button. “Huh! That’s the way, I will write a post and somehow someone would read it and maybe forward it to the right person” - for some reason I thought that a non-member can submit a story without a problem and if you are a member, you only can be “tipped” in SteemDollar. I wrote this post:

After spending some time writing it, the disappointment came fast enough. A non-member cannot submit anything. Make sense though 😊

Touchpoint “Facebook”:

One of the options was the official Steemit page. It looked like the page hasn’t been updated for a while.

Well I still wanted to take my chances and at least write Steemit team a message. When I opened the message window my hopes got bigger as I saw “replies usually within a hour” note. “Yay!”. I wrote the message:

Annoyed:

I sure could have tried all social media channels i know. But i didn't. I was annoyed. But wait, lets google “SteemIt verification email does not arrive” again - it easier :) Maybe something new will pop up. Some of the results I already saw before, except one. A post on GitHub – a software development platform. “Huh, if you are a software engineer, you probably also have an account on GitHub” – I knew it from my Ruby On Rails lessons. There must be someone from Steemit Crew. I registered and posted this:

It was around 8pm and i was done for today :)

THE email:

2 hours later following email came in:

Not sure if it was coincidence or someone from the Steemit team saw my Github post or Facebook message, but I got approved. I am happy it all worked out.

Conclusion

Happy to be here and being able to write this post and hopefully few more in the future.

Steemit Team:

Dear Steemit Team,
waiting for the “approval” is not a biggie, most of people would understand, especially in a Beta phase. But waiting for an approval without knowing for how long to wait, is quite frustrating. It would be great if there would be somehow a countdown, or a time-note, or waiting list number, or something that would the “applicants” know for how long they have to wait.
Also an official contact channel would be a great idea 😊. Slack, Facebook, Twitter – you name it.
Thank you.
Aleksey

Anyhow, I hope this post make sense to you guys.
This post is not supossed to be a complain. Its just if i have read something similar while i was waiting, my waiting would habe been more less frustrating :)
For all those who are still waiting – don’t get upset. Steemit is still in a Beta-Phase and hicups happen. If you experience some registration problem, try to get some attention, but don’t forget to be nice.

See you on steemit.

Follow me here: @alexhodl
Get my Cryptocurrency t-shirts here: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/hodlclub