Steemit Community Feature - Is that the big surprise?
Okay, I'm interupting my "If I was a minnow" series to speculate on what I believe will be the "big surprise" that @steemitblog talked about in their previous blogpost.
I'm ready to bet that this is it. It's coming. This very week.
What is the community feature?
For those of you that haven't been here very long. At the beginning of 2017, Steemit Inc. released a roadmap: https://steem.io/2017roadmap.pdf
One feature that almost made me peed my pants was the "community feature". Just like sub-reddit, it would allow you and me to create communities of interest where people can hangout, be a mod, curate, write, etc.
Now today while "spying" on the steemit github, I discovered this : https://github.com/steemit/condenser/wiki/Community-Spec-%5BDRAFT%5D
What caught my eyes is that it is currently being implemented.
Hivemind - Community consensus layer for the Steem blockchain?
For more see the repo of "hivemind" repo: https://github.com/steemit/hivemind
Any user can create a new community, and each becomes a tuned 'lens' into the blockchain. Currently, there is one large window into the Steem blockchain and that is the global namespace as shown on Steemit.com. This is not ideal because everyone effectively has to share a single sandbox while having different goals as to what they want to see and what they want to build.
Many members want to see long-form, original content while many others just want to share links and snippets. We have a diverse set of sub-communities though they share a global tag namespace with no ownership and little ability to formally organize.
The goal of the community feature is to empower users to create tighter groups and focus on what's important to them.
Member Types
Owner: holder of the community account's private keys. Assigns admins.
Admin: can edit admins and mods. Has mod powers.
Mod: can remove posts, block users, add/remove contributors
Contributor: in closed communities, an approved poster.
Guest: a poster in a public community and a commenter in a restricted community
Community Types
Public: anyone can post a topic
Restricted: only mods and approved members can post topics
Either type of community can be "followed" by any user.
Community parameters (editable by mods)
Admin settings
- type
- public
- open-comment: guests can comment but not post
- restricted: only approved members can post/comment
- payment_split: % of rewards which go to the community account. implement in 1.0, don't enforce until 1.1
- admins
Mod settings
- name: the name of this community (32 chars)
- about: short blurb about this community (512 chars)
- description: a blob of markdown to describe purpose, enumerate rules, etc. (5000 chars)
- language: primary language. en, es, ru, etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-3 ?)
- nsfw: if this community is 18+, UI automatically tags all posts nsfw
- bg_color: hex-encoded RGB value (e.g. EEDDCC)
- bg_color2: hex-encoded RGB value, if provided, creates a gradient
- comment_sort: RESERVED - default sort/display method for comments (e.g. votes, trending, age, forum)
- display: RESERVED - graphical layout in communities (version >1.0)
- flag_text: custom text for reporting content
Monetization of a community
What I believe will be the game changer is that there might be an incentive to monetize a community. For example, if you are able to create a thriving community of webdev, the owner of it could be able to make a % of the rewards on it.
Conclusion
If this is it, we can expect parabolic growth in the userbase of steemit. To me it has been the thing that truly keeps us from growing fast. There was way too many people competing for a single new/hot/trending sandbox.
Who's with me? Who think that it is the big surprise this week?
Steem will have a new app to allow for Bitcoin miners to migrate. It will essentially auto-post and auto-selfvote to simulate the mining they're used to lol. Just joking. Yeah I think it's about the communities feature as well. I also have a hunch there might be other blockchains involved in the process.
Hey @kevinwong !
I came here to check out this very interesting post and see you here! BONUES!
I haven't seen much of you lately either =( though I just noticed you dropped a vote on one of my posts, that is of course appreciated.
Great to see you around. Ur comments are always worth reading. Very refreshing in this copy pasta spam promotion world of Steemit!
Spending a lot of time reading and writing these days, facing a different kind of screen xD
btw I've been thinking for a bit, is it possible to spend a month or two in GoE and learn just about the essentials from A to Z?
Yes its possible. Let me know what it is you want and or what your proposal is. There is a LOT to learn and conscious evolution is of the utmost importance~*~
Hey @kevinwong it's been a while! We have to reconnect. I wish we had a private messaging feature already so that I don't have to go over on steemit.chat. What are you up to?
I'm still around, even on steemitchat! Been out of the loop with stuff on Steem though with so many things happening in the blockchain space.
If you send him any amount of steem or SBD, and start the memo with a hashtag, it's encrypted.
Really Matt?
Yup. In your wallet it's visible, but go to his wallet and its blank.
He can see the memo in his wallet but not in yours.
Not sure if its advertised as a feature, but it works.
Yes i tried it matt. It worked!
Good information
That would be exciting. I have been thinking about something lately and haven't been able to really come up with an answer on my own, so I will throw it out there for anyone that might want to answer it.
Why is it that the community here is much kinder, receptive, and overall nicer than on Reddit?
I honestly wasn't sure what to expect but my experience here has been almost entirely positive whereas on Reddit it was the complete opposite.
Does one cater to a different demographic? I just hope whatever changes are made on steemit do not affect this wonderful sense of mutual respect and appreciation that I have found here.
You've definitely contributed to that positive experience that I have had here so far, thank you for all that you do @crytoctopus :-)
I was thinking exactly the same thing - people here are positive, not negative - even if disagreeing and debating, it is done with a friendly , open attitude
Absolutely.. I love it. It makes me want to share more of my work here. Knowing that it's appreciated is really motivational.
I even found the motivation to start writing about my 'memoirs' yesterday!- A led a very colorful past...
I read it lol looking forward to the rest 😊. I would have to write under an alias if I ventured in that direction 🙈😅
Thank you ! - I'm not bothered about it, in the slightest. It's all true, honestly - I might have to say 'fiction' a few times - big people, big money, big angry !
Ill try to post every day -which one did you read, the first one ?-I just posted another - preference of color - that's a tease...
Yeah, I read the first one.. and just read the second one. Looking forward to the rest :-)
Cheers for the support - I'm a little taken aback by the responses, to be honest.
thanks - if you aren't wearing a perm, at present, you might find yourself acquiring one....lol
I believe another reason people are kinder is that everything being publicly visible on the blockchain means that integrity & authenticity really matter. Questionable behavior gets scrutinized publicly & people seem to be held accountable. People's word matters here.
I dig having a platform where I can be supportive & be a nice person without getting bullied, trolled & condescending lectures for my naive optimism. It's refreshing.
I hope you continue to have great experiences here & thrive. :)
That actually makes sense and I agree with you it's really nice to have people who can conduct themselves in a mature way even if they disagree.
Thank you for your well wishes, I wish you the very same :-)
Friendships are lucrative here, and enemies are expensive.
If you're insightful and supportive you win followers, who may read and upvote your content for years.
We're all on our best behaviour :)
Well I think this all sounds wonderful :-) and is a refreshing alternative to other platforms.
Another Great one!......
Anticipation of this and steemit upcoming app is why I have increased my investment in STEEM
Hello @cryptoctopus, being new here it is great to read and discover so many important informations from you! I was really not aware of the roadmap, i've saved it and will go through it with a calm head later on!
I'm with you 100% and it really looks like great times are coming soon!
Thank you so much!
@creativewoman
This would be so amazing. I truly hope this is it! However, who is going to control the mod's? Is there anything on that? That's a bit too much power, completely removing posts?
I probably can't ever be taken out of the blockchain. If abuse happens, someone can fork steemit.com and create a none censored version of it.
That is true.
I hope this happens as fast as possible. I love steemit... but I would love to be able to find specific types of content much easier. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a long philosophical post. Sometimes I just want to read about sports. Sometimes I just need a silly joke to make me smile. It will be amazing when it becomes easy to "flip the channels" of steemit!
If you have a chance, I'd love to chat over in steemit.chat. I started a conversation if you ever have the time.
This is going to be a pretty cool addon for steemit looking forward to see that happening soon :) can't wait !! and big thanks for telling about it
OMG this would be a huge encouragement! My profile is all around a central theme and I would love to Found / Own a new community around it. Thanks for brightening my day--I needed a counterbalance to all the "goodbye" manifestos floating around!
How long have you been a nomad?
About half a year on this particular venture! btw @sarahabed I just followed you yesterday--legit work you're doing.
Oh how exciting! I'm on a train right now going from one side of Florida to the other. I have always wondered what it would be like to travel around long term, work odd jobs, explore, meet new people, not be tied down to anything. Must be nice. I've traveled quite a bit through Europe, the Middle East, Carribean etc. Enjoy your adventures and take us along so we can live vicariously through you 😊.
Thank you, I love exposing corruption, getting the truth out there. Its pretty exciting it's own way.
I followed you too ☺
This will a very interesting feature!! But say if people start creating restricted communities, doesn't it become more difficult for newcomers to post and wouldn't it decrease their chances of getting views further?
restricted communities would be like closed groups that wants to prevent spam. For example, if someone want to write about STEM, maybe that community would require someone to prove they have a background in STEM in order to post under it? Maybe it something like @zappl, where you don't want microblogging to fill other people's feed. There are many reasons why we would want that feature.
I see. I think i get it now!!
Cheers!!
"For example, if you are able to create a thriving community of webdev, the owner of it could be able to make a % of the rewards on it."
This is the exact thing that killed tsu.
Everything was fine and then the groups came. All of the sudden there were a million groups and the main feed of the place died. Unless you wanted to be in this or that clique - you were DOA. I do photography and all of the sudden a lot of my friends went into a flower photo group. I don't do flowers much so I was out of that group and out of those friends.
It was a night and day change as soon as the groups got there. So many people left so fast! If you did not want to join a group or 10 - you were out of luck. I'd say the change was effective in one week and 30% of the non-groupies were gone in a couple of months after that. There was just no point in staying if there is no one there to talk to.
Groups add a new level of complexity and I wish and hope and pray someone is working to make it easier for new people to enter. If instead the "entrance" to steemit is a turned into more of a low-paying, dead place you have to learn - and then - after you learn, you can join groups - no one will make it. New people will not even try.
Another factor is that now webdev and stem etc are gone for the little people. We will not even be able to look at it with interest - it will be a rarified world somewhere else. I would be the kind of person to join all groups that will have me but most people won't.
I know you need groups here, but monetizing them makes them way too attractive for the bigs and mediums and all the niches to congregate. At tsu there was a whole complex thing about which groups you wanted to follow in a feed. I never learned it or joined a group.
Here I will stay until they pry the Alexa ranking out of my cold dead hands though. Nothing else matters to me as long as my posts rank which they have been doing.
I don't know if there are enough active people to split them up like this. Everyone should be working to grow the place outwardly not constrict it inside.
Tweet more steemit posts! Get more people before heading off. Use your hashtags to find your people in a more subtle manner. I feel negative on this group idea for now.
first of all about users
as you can see most of them are inactive
so we havent growth very much - in fact only in paper :)
Second i love idea of subs and so on, only problem is moderators (because they have power to delete posts and money from users ) so it will be mini government in each of sub community. I just hope no personal hate will destroy dreams of others.
Idea is good but it can go positive and negative , so lets hope developers know what they do .
Are you planning to create and be owner of community too?
I will for sure!
@investwarrior has a great point about moderators. 2 ideas:
-Mods don't have power to delete, only to "mute", or freeze, which would be less harsh somehow.
-Communities could require permission to join, and answering a few short questions, like with groups on MEETUP.com