The Way the Hardfork was Handled was Embarrassing - Time for a Reality Check
If Steemit is to ever grow and go mainstream, and hopes to both attract and keep users in the long run, it has to do something about its communication.
This is not just about my pending post losing its rewards, though I can admit to being pissed off. Unlike a lot of people here, I can openly say that it irks me that I had a payout pending, and now it's reduced to cents. A lot of people do say that they don't care about the money, but I call BS on that.
Of course, during times like these it's a good idea to make up a positive persona who goes around saying that everything is awesome, because people tend to upvote and support that stuff that makes them feel better about their investment. That's why the circle jerk thing is still, well, a thing.
My biggest concern raised by this hardfork was simply the lack of communication to the community. I went through the steemitblog posts - and no, I refuse to search for a third party blog, announcements like these need to come from a specified source - and at no point was it said that, in clear English, that if a post has a pending payout pre-hardfork, it will lose its payout.
I did run into comments here and there explaining that rewards may get, or will get, or perhaps will get smaller for the 7 or 30 days after the hardfork, but the fact that if a post has a pending payout pre-hardfork, it will lose its payout was not stated, in so many words, in clear English, by an official source.
It feels really strange that something like this can go down like this on a platform, whose success and future relies solely on people not cashing out and dumping their STEEM. Big announcements like this should be pinned at the top of everyone's home feed for at least a week prior. I know, I know decentralization, man, and blah, blah, blah. But I'll take a well functioning site over a decentralized one, and if a simply thing like that can't be achieved on a decentralized platform, then maybe decentralization doesn't work.
Someone more in tune with how the code behind the site woks can chime and let me know.
Also, when the hardfork went down, and not only were the rewards lowered, there was a good hour or two when payouts were zero, and everybody had a rep of 25.
When something like that happens, is an immediate response in the form of a quick blog stating "There is currently a glitch in the system which causes X, Y and Z, it is being worked on, no need to panic" too much to ask? It takes less than a minute. On Steemit, this took hours.
When users have questions, other users actually point to other users' posts and comments to clear stuff up. They don't point to posts and comments made by INC, it's up to the users to work stuff out on their own and share knowledge - so that the rest of the community can then attempt to piece together a puzzle.
And I hate it when people go "Well, you can just check out the commit on Github for such and such". Luckily, I happen to know what Github is since I've worked with it while creating a disassembly for Pokémon Red back in the day, but I would venture to guess that I have maybe four, five, six friends on Facebook who have ever heard of Github. Let alone used it. And I have nerdy friends list on Facebook.
The rest? The actual normal people that the site should attract? No chance.
You point them to Github, they will take their ball and go home.
In short, I wish stuff like this is communicated better to the community in the future. And I really hope there's a way to do pinned posts by steemitblog or a similar source that are pinned well in advance before a big change, as well as immediately after a problem that occurs.
A quick few line post can be all that's needed to prevent massive FUD. It is not hard.
Every day on Steemit should be approached as someone's first. There's always the chance that someone new is checking the site out. This is why stuff like this really needs to be communicated a lot better. I know nerds suck at communicating, but if it's that difficult, you just hire someone to do it.
Oh, and the 7 day payout thing is a bad change in today's homo energy drinkus toomuchus society where everybody has ADD. Just saying.
I agree with some of what you said here, but I also feel this is a different system then any other social media platform. It's not all about Steemit, INC. It's decentralized, meaning responsibility falls on all the witnesses who voted for this hard fork to also justify their vote and explain the details involved. If we just have programmers and no communicators, it won't go well (and I think that's what you're saying here). Maybe it's time to vote for more witnesses who are paying others to maintain a server, but are also good at community communication.
Beyond that, does Facebook make a large announcement when they change their site? It seems to me every time they make a significant change, people freak out and complain for weeks. I don't expect it to be any different here. Just because financial rewards are involved, does that make it different? Do we deserve those rewards somehow? Again, I agree, communication could have been handled much better here and this issue should have been tested on a testnet or some other system so everyone involved would know exactly how rewards would change and that should have been communicated prior to the code release. Ideally, a work around could have been figured out based on post timestamps to reward existing posts under the old model even if that would have taken another hardfork to fix later. Not sure if that was possible, but I didn't even hear it being discussed.
The point about people complaining whenever Facebook changes is a fair point.
That. Right there.
I think Steemit is an awesome gig, and I'm certainly one of the people running around singing its praises.
But we do have this one "cognitive blind spot" called Decentralization along with its close cousing "yeah, but Steemit is blockchain based!" These are neat and groovy concepts but we need to be aware that they are NOT magic pills that give Steemit some kind of exemption or "get out of jail free card" from having to deal with human nature. And frankly, "decentralization" is not so clever when the functional outcome is actually fragmentation and chaos.
As it, this site works just fine for developers, techies, blockchainiacs and the like for whom code has personality and going to github is like spending the evening at "Cheers." Which is all good and fine, it we're content with Steemit being for the 0.1% of the population who fits that particular demographic.
But presuming we actually want the platform to become an authentic and viable social content site with appeal to a broader market, we have to be highly cognizant of-- and cater to-- the way most social human beings use the Internet.
Which means dealing with a bunch of extremely fickle individuals for whom "something being difficult or confusing" is plenty reason to set up shop somewhere else.
Amen! That is what I have been saying. IF we want to appeal to the broader market of people, the average user from FB or YouTube is not going to stay based on the idea that we are Steemit and we do it differently. Its like those "pardon our dust" signs, but saying "we like chaos".
Wowza @denmarkguy ¡Never better said! Big bow to you mate. :)
Thank you. That was very enlightening :) And yes, I feel addressed after your comment on my recent post.
I don´t think that staying positive has anything to do with a "circle jerk". People that can´t stand others being content are usually frustrated in their own life. But that´s another story.
You may critize the lack of communication, but you can´t critize other users for not wanting to be part of another drama.
I remember a comment from you in the general chat some months ago where somebody was upset about not earning too much on steemit. You recommended him to get a job.
Happy weekend :)
Hah, no, it had nothing to do with you. It was a general observation.
And let's clarify.
Had it been people not voting, or had it been a flag, I'd be okay with a payout. And this isn't just about me, I feel this was badly organized for everyone. I want Steemit to be successful and big, and one day, I want it to be fun even without the money. Like message boards and other forms of social media, etc.
But stuff like this is making me less optimistic.
Thus, I make a post venting my frustrations.
Nothing against you, though.
I am happy to hear that. Actually I wouldn´t have expect something like this from your side to be honest... It totally sounded like that :-(
Obviously, we all want to become steemit a fun place. Yes, the communication previous to HF was not ideal, but we know that problem from the past. Maybe it´s like you said, developers are not the best communicators. However, then they could use their speakers (marketing people) to help out.
Peace...
after having listened to the Mitchell's video about marketing, I have had the slight impression that Steemit-beta, this community, is just a lab rat to test something different. Just an impression. ;)
I don't think it was that bad, a day's earnings were thrown in the bin but it's not like the blockchain broke and the marketcap dropped 500%, get over the loss of a couple dollars haha
That's not the point.
Communication must be High Priority #1! How can that message be taken in and converted to Steem?
I agree. A community notice board within the tabs on our profiles would be a great move forward with bubbles notifying us of "unread" notices. People will respect better communication that is for sure.
Clear English?
From programmers?
awwww...com'on..
In my experience the only people less coherent in English than computer geeks are marketing geeks...although for different reasons.
Touché.
My son also got burned on the pending post payout, in the 30 day pool. I just mentioned that here. His went from $8 to almost $100 then back to $7 due to the "whale experiment," and now as a result of hf18, it looks like it's going to pay out $0.10 tomorrow. Disappointing.