What's With That "Featured" Post Thing?
After being asked quite a few times about the "featured" placing of my Steem Vision post yesterday, I figured it probably should be explained a bit.
Some of you may have noticed that your feed was a bit different on the steemit.com interface...
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What is going on?
When you are in your feed you may spot some posts that seem to be "pinned" there at the top and labeled "featured," as you can see in the photo above.
This is a new feature that the Steemit team had been working on, and I was asked if they could test it out on my Steem Vision post. I have been reporting back a few glitches that I noticed in return.
This is ONLY on the steemit.com interface
What will it be used for?
Well, that depends I guess on what Steemit Inc decides to do with it... but my assumptions are:
Share @steemitblog updates or information (which you can see was done today)
Communicate important changes (i.e. the wallet change we experienced a few weeks ago)
Maybe share posts or initiatives they think are beneficial for the ecosystem?
They may even sell the space in the future, who knows.
There are many things it could be used for, the most apparent to me is a more open form of communication with the community.
What if I don't want them there anymore?
Great question! They thought of that ;) ...
Yep, just push that X and they are removed from your feed. Pretty simple, right?
Why was this done?
Well this is just me talking here, but I think it's because the community asked for it. Shocker, I know.
One of the loudest concerns I personally noticed during the last "condenser split" aka The Steemit Wallet update we saw happen was the lack of communication, as well of course how it was communicated.
Even though the team had been communicating about it for weeks on the Steemit Blog, it wasn't "pinned" anywhere that could be seen on mobile devices (Pinned messages do appear on the right hand side of the desktop version).
Because of that many users had no idea the change was coming and were left in a bit of a panic mode when the change happened. There were many asking for Steemit to move a "pinned" style message somewhere that was more visual and hard to miss... and I think we got it now!
So, what do you guys think? Will it be a helpful feature for communication?
Anyways, I hope this quick post cleared some things up. If you have any questions, please let me know!
Much Love,
Justine
It's great for Steemit, Inc communications as a more eye-catching alternative for the sidebar with pins, but they should be careful (as in: not do it :D) with community posts. For me it reminds me too much of the forced feeding of Facebook, where a central entity decides what you 'should' see even though you maybe have chosen before not to want to see/follow something.
In this case I follow and like you, but the next time I might be quite annoyed :P Centralized decisions about what content people 'should' see on a decentralized platform is a no-no. And no, clicking it away is not enough. If any frontend decides to do featured posts for 'frontend updates' that should be fine (although there will even be people not who don't like that).
Facebook and twitter don’t give you the options to not see them anymore though, but I get what you mean. I guess it doesn’t seem much different to me than pinning community posts on the side bar like they have been doing.
I personally would rather see a community project advertised to me then random google ads (if they sell the space) but I get some really dislike the ads as well and have them blocked and this feature they won’t be able to.
Centralized decisions about content are already made on front ends, but I agree they should be careful and find a balance or it will ruin what we have going here.
Yes, even on Facebook I can click it away like on Steemit.com... But after 10 times of doing that I'm so annoyed I give up and start resenting the place :')
Another thing I thought of just now is that with so much confusion going on still about Hot and Trending and the lack of a good way to ReSteem great content (like with the possibility of adding a comment that says why you're resteeming) we don't need another way to highlight posts from the community before fixing those first :-)
Exactly. I guess Steemit.com needs a real overhaul first where people can fully customize their experience and then implement features so they can reply 'it's this option in the settings you have to turn off' if people start complaining ;-)
I apologize, I didn’t realize you could x them out on Facebook. I have been annoyed by the excessive ness of them on twitter and saw no way to remove but haven’t been over on Facebook recently.
I agree, having other ways to share is much needed. I LOVE the resteem with comment idea as well as others that improve user experience.
The reason this was done now is it’s an already existing code (same as the banner but with a couple changes). I wish they would be more clear on why some stuff is being discussed or done before others that seem much more important as it makes them look like they just don’t get it. But, it’s just due to what’s “easier” being done first as it only requires existing code, not something new.
I agree with the overhaul and I know they are trying to throw in some small stuff into this HF. I’m hoping after Mira is complete they can focus a bit on that.. as with hivemind it should be easier to implement some front end changes. I know they are short handed and doing more “blockchain level” things and focusing on communities (which will be a game changer) but more focus on user experience is very much needed and I hope we see some changes happening.
I am new at steemit and this post helped me at lot knowing how steemit works .I think I just followed a right person . Please post more like that.
Thanks.
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Welcome to Steem! Make sure you check out the faq
https://steemit.com/faq.html
But feel free to ask any questions you come across. 🙂
Absolutely! The wallet situation was the perfect example. We've had a few posts get pinned to the right hand side, like a post from @theycallmedan, but for posts that are super informative or a call to action I don't think there is literally a better place than the top featured spot.
Obviously your video is up there because of your ability to survive bees, clearly a message to all not to mess with you. If things get too dramatic might I suggest we add a 20 minute video of just your background with the birds chirping and bees buzzing and feature that?
Hey! Don’t underestimate the bees!
Actually, who am I kidding.. I love bees.. and prefer them to most humans.
I agree, I’ve been a big fan of the side pinned options and this is just another method to communicate. I think these small changes add up.
thanks for the giggles
Haha, I would never... we've got lots of bumblebees around at the moment and they're amazing. I'd never seen one before moving to Oregon and now they're my favourite.
I recorded a video outside today, inspired by you, and it was glorious. It was just so unbelievably pretty...
Oh, you're not featured anymore (although you are in the latest featured post, so kinda) so, ah, what are we all still doing here?
Hahahah Steemit update I think is more important. I was just testing it.. not going to camp out in “featured” forever 😂😜
Oh the video sounds lovely!! goes to stalk you
Didn't Steem Inc said that they were not gonna focus their resources on the website steemit.com however get focused on the blockchain dev itself. with these new features it seems very contradicting on their decisions.
There are many in the community who believe that steemit.com is going to be sunset.
Anyone who attends the various programs, like the monthly Witness Chat in The Ramble, where some of the Steemit Inc team are there to talk about their activities will quickly learn that while steemit.com is not a top priority, it is being worked on and there are plans being developed for further development.
They have been working their way through the various suggestions which have been made on the Github and are looking at some of the other ideas brought forward and will implement what is feasible over time.
I believe they announced they were focusing on the site again a few months ago.
These small changes are using existing code or small things (like their update pointed out) that were submitted by the community or can be easily included in the next HF that will merge the worker proposal system.
All changes are also preparing for communities and with hivemind, more should be possible more easily.
I think their main focus is still blockchain level - hivemind, MIRA, then communities and then they are just trying to solve some of the “low hanging fruit” stuff when they can.. the easy stuff. Haha.
Great feature, are you the new CEO of Steemit?
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She has been for a long time...
lol !! i have to somehow agree with you on that @aussieninja . @justineh ... Chief Entertainment Officer
Don’t tell people that lol. I have enough conspiracy theories, thank you very much.
You can't censor meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..............
You are on the Steem blockchain. ;)
Ha, no... just a silly ole steemian who tries to help when I can. 🙂
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I had wondered, but I figured oh what the hell, I was gonna read the post anyway :D so I only got to it sooner. Then, either it will go away or someone will explain at some point, so not to worry :D Thank you for being that someone!
Hahah! I get it completely and expected some sort of announcement about it, even if it was something trivial. When it didn’t come I figured I should explain as it was my post featured.. and I was getting messages 👀
Thanks for the kind words and for just being you ❤️
Good job! I thought about trying to explain it too.
:) The community asks.... SteemIt responds... Don't be surprised if it takes a bit of time for the community to understand. :) We aren't used to this.
Thank you! I was answering in comments so I figured a quick post would just be easier and reach more.
Amen to that 😂
Descentralization is a must , steemit will be like MySpace if they keep doing these things , hope not
Steemit is not Steem.. and having a “featured” post option on steemit.com doesn’t really scream centralization to me.. but fair enough.
Maybe one of the other many interfaces that access the Steem blockchain would fit your needs better?
thanks for the information @justineh ♥♩♬♬
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You’re welcome!