helpful post..
resteemit done

Well, this post is basically targeted at the techy brains. I learnt a thing or two though. So, the real drive and push for steemit is the token, which is steem. Invariably, I could say that at the long run, my investment here will be based on how many steem I have been able to hold on to. I don't know if I am right on this though. Thanks for this enlightenment. Mind blowing I must say.

Your posts are always educative in all respect. Thanks @lukestokes.

I read your post twice. Second time it made "click". Now I see the connection to SMTs!!! And why Steem is more valuable than Steemit. So to me it was your comment, that was mind blowing! ^^

What is your understanding of why Dan Larimer has moved on? AFAIK, he is no longer a part of the development team. Is that right?

I'm looking forward to seeing how EOS works out for him.

Hopefully it's not all-out war and EOS builds out a steemit-destroying social media website of its own with a more balanced distribution model. Because that would be bad for steem and steemit.

That could happen, but if Steemit Inc. actually put more into Steemit then Dan wouldn't be able to make a better user experience. Steemit Inc. would have only themselves to blame for anyone building a better social media website.

It's a long story of which I think only Ned and Dan know all the details. Dan has moved on and it doesn't seem like Ned and Dan are getting along well at all now, which is a pity. I remember recently when the BitShares blockchain had some serious issues and Dan came in with a pull request to fix it. If he were still on good terms with the STEEM ecosystem, we might benefit from similar involvement in the future. As things stand now, I see that as very unlikely.

Any thoughts as to why @berniesanders and his bots would flag this comment? I'm somehow on his radar, the majority of my curation and author rewards being flagged into oblivion. I have been a member of the Steemit community for less than 2 weeks. If there is some way to abuse this system, I don't know what it is or how to do it. I see this happening to other minnows as well.

My votes for witness hinge on their capacity to organize against tyrants. There is no good reason I should be flagged like this every single day.

I'm guilty of commenting on the post of one of his political opponents on my 2nd day here and then speaking up once I started receiving this treatment. That's it.

The advice I get is to stay out of @berniesanders radar, but I don't have that option. He continues with indiscriminate flagging. What can I do?

He flagged me for over three months straight, often in the last 12 hours before payout which meant no other upvotes could counter his. Unfortunately, we don't have solutions for "tyrants" like him, short of someone with millions of dollars slowly buying Steem Power and then directly countering his actions. It's something the co-founder of STEEM (Dan Larimer) brought up before leaving. It's something future STEEM competitors may take more seriously based on the frustration many people are seeing here on Steemit.

I'm quite open to any suggestions you have for witnesses about how issues like this can be dealt with. Smart Media Tokens have a concept of an Oracle which is a human being empowered to maintain the preferences of that community and exclude some people from the rewards pool for that token (at least, that's my understanding of it). If we experiment there and find common things which work in all communities, maybe that can be ported back to STEEM.

I'm sorry you're being flagged, and I personally know how frustrating that can be. Stick with it and don't let the bullies win. Post because you want to. Don't let others control your experience here.

Good advice, thank you. I wish I had a larger upvote available to me at the moment. :D

It seems like he's leaving me alone now, we'll see.

As far as suggestions for witnesses, just voicing the complaints of people who are being silenced by him and helping people to understand that there are better ways for them to earn here that supporting someone who engages in mass flagging.

Yeah... it’s still being slept on. People will see soon enough I imagine.

I must admit, I don't understand many things going on here. But you gave me a little more of an idea what's going on and how the whole thing works. That there are highly intelligent people here, who are creating something brandnew to this world: so far I understood it before. But I am glad, you showed me, that at least I got THIS thing right. It makes it easier for me to trust in it. I though understand, why many people don't understand. Steemit in first place just looks like a new social media platform. That there are many more things behind it, I am starting to realize slowly, now that I am here for two months. I hope, this comment wasn't too much like something you would say to: "better shut up!" In fact I feel a little bit cowed right now. ^^

It's not about "you better shut up" as much as "Please, think before you speak if your speech is just criticism for something you may not understand." I don't think that's a very controversial statement. I'm all about constructive criticism. I just think uninformed criticism is near useless. It might even be less than useless.

Random example: I've seen some people say, "It should be one account, one vote, with no regards to Steem Power." Statements like this are ignorant of Sybil attacks or the game theory involved that makes all of this work. Actually implementing a solution like that would eventually destroy all the value we enjoy here.

Yes I see, what you mean. I didn't mean to attack you in any way. I enjoy your posts and I enjoy learning from you. Avoiding Sybil attacks is a very valid argument.

To me Steemit has become something very political. I am also a person who likes equality and who wants wealth to be kind of fairly distributed on our planet. But fair also means, that some people earn more and have more power, because they do very valuable things for the whole community (at least it should be this way). Your posts are very valuable to me, so it's fine you have more Steem Power than me and your upvotes are more worth than mine. Giving power to you means trusting you. So use your influence well.

It's not Steemit that needs to be criticized for some things going wrong. It's the users who upvote content that has questionable value or who just want to take money out of it without doing something valuable. Same in the "real world".

Steemit is a big mirror to our society and it can be a great mirror to each one of us, that we can learn from lots about ourselves. Greetings! :-)

Good work,nic post.

On point, thanks for the words Luke. I am not a developer myself and I have a hard time finding where i fit in as far as the putting up part goes. I am investing and manually curating posts, commenting and trying to keep the community going and growing.

I understand that Steem is much larger than Steemit, no matter how much vesting power Steemit has. the community is to large, the things everyone are doing here are too good to be stopped. My most recent post I talked about this, and how 'you cannot stop an idea who's time has come' and with dmania, decentmemes, dtube, dlive, zappl, esteem, and all the SMT's that are surely being planned. No CEO miscalculations, and no creator fud will stop it. Or at least, this is my hope

Nice post, thanks for sharing. I think your delegation idea is an interesting one. I personally don't use voting bots because I prefer to be an owner, not a renter.

I really like your post is amazing. i want to follow your way.motifasi good enough. thank you for sharing information.

Yes I certainly agree some of it just goes way over my head as far as the coding is concerned. I did dabble around with coding several years ago, and being back on here is getting the creative juices flowing again. The good thing certainly as far as Apple is concerned you can make apps very easily with not to much hassle through their developer site and X-code, so long as you can get someone with some more knowledge to advise you on where to plug the specific API’s you need in the right places. Could be a good idea as a witness for you to create a think tank for some ideas on how to further the Steem platform.

Stay tuned as something like what you're describing, I think, is in development. The more we decentralize things, the better off we'll all be.

I look forward to hearing more on this!

this is something to ponder on over and over,,,
thanks man @lukestokes

Thank you very much for sharing another very valuable post! It is going to be a PHENOMENAL year for the GREAT STEEMIT COMMUNITY! All the best! Positive Energy! Great Karma! I'm upvoting and resteeming! Your Friend @extraterrestrial :)

Your positivity is infectious. :)

Thanks lukestokes, for this article.
Glad to see more and more apps and implementations on the Steem Blockchain. And hopefully more excellent projects come in the future.

this snowball is rolling. no doubt about that.

that said, would like to see more communication from the leadership. engineering is one thing, but community outreach is vital in this space.

I agree, ill be standing by to stand by, eyes peeled lol

I agree and have been pushing for this since last year. Until we become truly decentralized, those with the control need to be heard from to help everyone else make good decisions about the system. I think we're going to start seeing more communication.

The more ya know! Seems like some interesting developments happening for sure.

Thanks a lot for sharing your valuable post....
Carry on next
Best of luck..
I will still wait for your next post....

I can appreciate that the developers are too busy to blog, but the marketing team could do more to update those who won't be checking Github. Even something once a month would be great.

You are very right!

90% users don't even distinguish between steem and steemit or steem and SBD. Github? WTF is that?

So isn't that an opportunity for us all? Can't we all start helping that 90%? If everyone who's been here longer than someone else helped them get up to speed, how much better would everything be?

I'm hoping for more communication as well. Stay tuned to the official accounts.

There's a marketing team?! WHERE?

They are very rarely seen. I think they are awaiting hardfork 20 before they kick into action

They really shouldn't be.

Are you sure about that?

Can the STEEM blockchain handle millions and millions of new users right now? If they did fire up a powerful marketing engine to really explode the growth here (including contacting everyone who has already signed up and since left), would everything come to a screeching halt or would it run just fine?

Your comment highlights a point I was trying to make in my post. Without perspective, understanding, and context of what's going on behind the scenes, our strong opinionated suggestions for what should be done right now might be completely backwards. What we think is helping might actually be hurting.

I prefer we think through the whole picture and argue from first principles. Believe it or not, some very capable developers on this blockchain have actually complained about the organic SEO growth we're getting now is too much. Surprised? When it comes to complex systems, we have to understand the entire system in order to effectively suggest priorities. I'm hoping we all do what we can to understand things and actually help instead of just thinking we're helping.

I'm not saying you're for certain wrong, I'm just asking, "Are you sure?"

For me, I'm not sure. I think the priority is and should be the STEEM blockchain itself. That's the priority, and that's what Steemit, inc is working on right now in ways no one else could easily do. They have a plan with AppBase to modularize the blockchain as explained at Steemfest2, and I think that has to be done first.

Quite sure. Though I think we may have a different definition of what a marketing department does.

A company can't just abandon its userbase the way I feel steemit inc is abandoning us as a community. We can't have context, perspective and understanding without a marketing team whose job is (among others) community relations - explaining to us what is happening on the platform we invest our time and money in. You're right, my suggestions might be totally wrong because I truly have no idea what is being done on any front aside from the technical one. And that is EXACTLY why Steemit inc needs a marketing department with someone managing PR.

From my perspective, it looks like steemit is prioritizing the technology over the product, and the product over its existing and potential user base. Which may or may not be the right business decision. I honestly don't know.

Marketing is similar to User Experience in that they both require communication, and both are important to a company's success. Marketing faces outward and gets you new users, while UX faces inward and helps the ones you have be successful, stick around, and tell their friends.

I think you are really talking about UX, not marketing.

nice to get this overview... I take a peek in github occasionally. by clicking the "insights" tab I find more information that's a bit easier for me to digest... I suppose it will take me some time to learn how to navigate github.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks man! Good to hear from you. I need to spend more time checking in on Github activity as well. It's the lifeblood of this whole system.

> We have a lot of developers here, and they, if they choose to, can be rewarded for writing posts about the Github activity they see and adding to the #steemdev tag. That could help Steemit, inc.

Also, @utopian-io . Since all of these are open source, they qualify.

I do agree that additional transparency is needed. Even a weekly blog post on the steemit blog would be enough to give us a clue on what is being done on the development front, the marketing front and the ecosystem as a whole. We're a community in the dark, except for maybe the really techie ones who can make sense of all that code.

Thank you for this post.

Thanks for commenting. Yes, I'm hopeful we'll soon see more active communication and engagement from the Steemit team. I also agree, Utopian is an excellent way for people to help, even if it's just to write documentation.

I've tried to offer my time and skills to steemit inc last year, but never heard back. I am currently working on the marketing and social media stuff for utopian as they, well, took me up on my offer.

Well, considering some of the comments you directed towards a friend of mine a while back (and the things you accused him of), maybe they had second thoughts. I don't know. I don't speak for them nor have I talked to them about their marketing or communication hires.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but this was back in late 2016. What comments? What friend?

Hi, thanks for the update, when the SMT tokens will be available? What will happen to Steem/Steemit when EOS will be ready?

No word on SMTs that I know of other than "this year."

What will happen? No way to know for sure. Steem/Steemit has a first-mover advantage as far as the social media blockchain space, but that does not guarantee success or market dominance. I think I've seen the claim that EOS, as a general purpose blockchain, won't be as effective as a blockchain specifically designed for social media interactions. Will that be true? Time will tell. Hopefully competition will be a good thing for our ecosystem.

That said, I also hold and recommend EOS. I think it could be like an AWS for blockchain systems.

AND I think it's valid to expect more "official" communication from Steemit, inc via the accounts @steemitblog and @steemitdev

This..so VERY much...This
.

along that line of thought.
some months ago there was a big To-Do about Steemit hiring a marketing guy.
after a couple of weeks...nada.
I assume , based upon the data that I have, that he was incompetent and fired shortly thereafter.
Am I wrong?
I'm am wrong why isn't there more 'official communication from Steemit'...wouldn't that be part of his job?

I don't know the details of Steemit's marketing hires, but that sounds plausible to me. Maybe @andrarchy could chime in with more thought there.

I feel like you have a lot of potential to write and post quality content and it would be a shame to make it in vain. Follow me and i will follow u back in order to get more popular and fore more people to view our posts! thanks! Anyone who sees this can do the same, i refollow anyone. We're small but we can grow together!

This post looks like spam to me. It's generic and the "follow back" perspective on any social media platform, IMO, just creates noise. To get value out of social media, follow people worth following.

Thank you for the information although i couldn't understand the crypto jargon. Perhaps in another world and era.

Hey @lukestokes,
I was talking about this same concept today in my blog.
>Steemit Is A Movie: Shutup & Act!

"Talk is cheap" as we all know. At a point, its not long bogus words that we need. Its action.

Steem/Steemit wants people that would go-the-go so to speak.
- Promote steem
- Build lovely apps on this blockchain
- Use the already made beautiful apps
- Speak life & positivity not spreading FUD

Excellent post, thanks for sharing. I agree with you completely that actions speak louder than words and what we do defines us more than what we care to complain about.

This post came just in time. I started to get frustrated again by the flaws of steemit and your post puts things in perspective.

Glad to hear it. Sites that don't work the way we expect them to are certainly frustrating, and I'm not arguing we should ignore that. I think we should channel it towards something constructive. Maybe even search Github for an issue and if there isn't one, create one. If there is, leave a comment with details of how to reproduce the issue. Let's be helpful and not just critical.

This is an amazing blockchain with a solid development team, and I'm very excited about the future..
Me too am so excited and so glad

People on the internet criticize everything way too much, it's probably down to the time we live in where everyone is has a "freedom of speech" boner.
>we should fully understand it first in order for our input to be valid.

A fantastic point. People need to realize that even though they have a right to an opinion, they need to have some knowledge about the subject for their opinion to be taken seriously.

I disagree. If it's a valid opinion it's a valid opinion, based on the merits of the opinion.

So if I never ate an apple in my life, can I say "in my opinion apples taste like crap"?

People would say yes I can because I have the right of freedom of speech, but all rights come with responsibilities, and it is my responsibility as a human being to educate myself before formulating an opinion.

How do you define "valid opinion" or the "merits" of an opinion? If someone doesn't understand much about the domain in question, how effective will their opinions be? Maybe they could repeat the opinions of others who have done the work to understand, but in that case it wouldn't really be their opinion anyway. It would be a repetition of someone else's opinion.

I read over and over again, before I got you article right.

In general, if you haven't learnt programming, you should definitely try! It's very fun and really helps you understand how things work.

Good read. I am new to Steemit, and trying to learn as much as i can . Thank your for sharing.

Nice

Right on good word. Keepin us focused.

Great post @lukestokes im excited for the future and I think the road ahead is a very long one. Glad to be here, glad to be a part of the future! Thanks for all the informative blogs you do! I'm trying to do my part!

Thanks for the invaluable insight and info. As always, thanks!

This is an amazing article. The same can be said to those who always criticize whales without knowing that there are many of them who have been working consistently for the community, not for just themselves. @stellabelle would be an ideal example to showcase. She started a project @slothicorn and without getting any huge delegation, she herself supporting that project alone without begging anyone to help her. She is rewarding creative artists on daily basis and no one appreciates her efforts.
I myself have started a small tiny projectGift Economy Revolution for minnows like me where I will be paying some of my earned SBDs to people who have been working hard here with consistency and dedication and still are unnoticed!

Put up or shut up.
Summary of my comment as well!

Good stuff. I've been blogging here for over a year and a half and I've never begged for votes or used a vote bot. I just try to provide as much value as I can and let me work speak for itself. Some appreciate it and others could care less. That's fine. We all have our thing and we do what we can.

Cool idea, by the way. I just gave your latest post an upvote. I agree, @stellabelle has been a powerful force here since day one. As a true artist, she doesn't give a crap about what others think but adds value as she sees fit. That, I think, is true value creation.

I just try to provide as much value as I can and let me work speak for itself.

Yup, I have been following you from a long time and you are incredible when it comes to helping the community. Recently, I noticed that you were there to support Ilyas Tarar for his donation project!

Cool idea, by the way. I just gave your latest post an upvote.

Thank you so much for your generosity and your words for my project :)

Communication especially meant for average joes like me are important. I am glad that you shared this update.
Especially with the situation right now that there seems to be rift going on between @ned and @dan two of my most admired leaders in this community. Even with this unfortunate events, I am glad that there are still growths and developments between the two sides.
Keep on sharing and updating us. We appreciate it. Thanks!

You're welcome! Thanks for reading.

There is always so much to take in but every user should at least know the difference between Steem and Steemit at the very least. As you said, STEEM is MUCH more valuable in the long run. Can't wait for SMTs.

> If we have a valid criticism of anything, we should fully understand it first in order for our input to be valid.

Uhmm, really? Not valid because we don't understand it? You are sounding too much like the Priest Class in religion which doesn't listen to the laity because the laity just don't understand how things work. Kind of reminds me too of when Marie-Antoinette (bride of France's King Louis XVI) was told her French subjects had no bread, she sniffed, “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.” Sir, we can all have an opinion about our user experience, or lack thereof. And Steemit Inc.'s ~$300 Million stake in SteemPower gives them no excuse for not hiring a small army of developers to make the user experience second to none.

I agree with your last sentence. They should do that just to show us that they care about our opinions.

I'm hopeful Steemit, inc will prioritize communication in the future.

They should realize that is very important for the happy community. Thanks for your time.

Are you familiar with the Mythical Man Month? Hiring more developers doesn't mean a project will get finished in less time. In some cases, the exact opposite is true. You can't have a baby in one month using nine women. It just doesn't work that way.

You make an interesting analogy but to me it has a fundamental flaw. Anyone can learn to code. Truly, anyone can. This isn't like we're speaking in Latin and only the upper class can access Latin education. Coding is quickly becoming the universal language and anyone who cares to offer useful criticism is free to learn it as long as they have a computer and an Internet connection. Unlike a priestly class claiming divine, gnostic revelation openly only to chosen class, anyone can access and contribute to open-source projects. I've spent many decades learning to code. Others chose other paths. I would be out of place telling a surgeon how to do their job, even if I was the one using their services. The same thing applies here. For those who want to criticize, I'm simply advocating they become informed before doing so. That's understood and expected in every other advanced field of study. Why not here as well?

Not everyone is qualified to give useful feedback. Whether or not we are comfortable with that is not relevant to the fact.

As to Steemit's Steem Power holdings and their use of it, I throughly agree with you that they are open to criticism there, as is any company putting out a product with a public understanding of the resources at their disposal. If you have suggestions (other than just hire more developers because, again, that might actually make things worse), let's discuss them and do what we can to help. That's the point of my post. Steemit, inc's focus is not just Steemit.com (see my STEEM is more valuable than Steemit post for more on that). They are thinking long term and that strategy involves Smart Media Tokens and a massively scalable and modular STEEM blockchain.

I guess it depends on what the criticism is about, and perhaps I jumped to conclusions to what exactly your "put up or shut up" comment was directed . I just know I don't need to know anything about coding to have a valid opinion about how Steemit can be or should be improved from a user experience standpoint. I've designed websites, done SEO professionally, have my own blog, and spent a ton of time on Facebook and theologyonline.com which has 18K members and where I can sign up, make a few posts, get noticed by the owner, and get voted as the best new member by the community, so I guess that should be enough credibility to make suggestions about how not to lose people in Steemit.

Someone like @dan could come along having hired the right people to put together a kickass social platform, riding on a blockchain, with financial incentives, and suck the wind right out of Steemit's sails, just like Facebook did to MySpace which did the same thing to Xanga. It doesn't take a coder to see that.

BTW, you make learning the code sound easy. What's the best code to learn to understand this platform or better yet contribute to its development? Or to understand the flow of digital assets within the social media?

> I guess it depends on what the criticism is about

Exactly!
If you criticize the next hardfork without having any coding background, then maybe you're on the wrong path. Still a blogger, a content creator, a curator - a Steem user - would definitely be able to have a solid opinion about user experience. If there were no people using this currency and believing in it, then it would be of no value. So I definitely think that the average user - as we have been categorized here - has a right to voice their opinion about user experience.

Steem has always been advertized as the gateway coin to mainstream cryptocurrency. Well if you want to bring non-crypto people in touch with this currency and "tokenize the internet", then you might let these crypto newbies talk about their user experience then.

Couldn't have said it better! The killer argument of "learn to code, before you speak your mind about the platform" is a very lame way of trying to silence the "stupid masses". Steemit Inc should listen a lot more to the users and investors here and the fact alone, that we need users to highlight advancements on GitHub instead of the Dev team communicating (at least) weekly with us, speaks for itself.

I hope my post didn't come across as trying to silence anyone, but I see how "shut up" pretty clearly implies that. I was more hoping to emphasize how important it is to understand context before telling others (who may have far more context than we do) what they should be doing and how they should prioritize their resources. Unless we have experience and understanding, it makes us look silly. I prefer we not look silly and instead work to understand and be helpful.

I've been talking with @corinnestokes about the language I used in my post, and she reminded me it's not accurate to say a criticism isn't "valid" unless it really isn't valid. It would have been better for me to say something like, "valid, but possibly not helpful right now without more understanding and context."

Here's what I mean:

What if Steemit, inc is more focused on the underlying blockchain performance and scaling and needs to get that done before more people join Steemit? So many people are frustrated with the retention rate, the lack of marketing, the UX/UI issues, etc, etc. What if Steemit focused on all that first and then turned their attention to performance on the blockchain? From my perspective, that would cause a lot of problems right now, and we'd probably have even more bandwidth and blockchain bloat problems.

Based on what I see going on, it seems they are focusing on important things. If we think "They should be doing A right now!" but "B" is way better and doing "A" might actually hurt the whole ecosystem right now, then saying "A is broken, go fix it! Why aren't they fixing it yet!?!" doesn't actually benefit anyone.

That said, they (IMO) should certainly focus a lot more on communication. I've been saying this for a long time now.

Thanks for your comment. Sorry it took me a while to reply as I've been at a conference the last few days.

Thanks for clarifying. The thing is, that there seems to be no reason to work on a blockchain, that is No 1 in Tx and has a network load of <1% - outperforming every other blockchain anyway. Yes, I´m no dev, but then again it would be the job of Steemit Inc to explain what they are doing instead of us speculating on the real reasons. It´s great if there are really lots of people working on the performance of the blockchain, but as with any other company, you have to hire some Marketing/PR person who does this job of informing everyone what´s going on - even the smallest companies do that (and for a good reason).

Thanks for your reply. You may also appreciate my reply to @surfermarly below.

I probably should not have said a criticism isn't "valid" but instead could have said it may be valid but not helpful and, from that perspective, not valid right now as far as prioritizing what Steemit, inc should be doing.

It's easy for us to focus on Steemit and the problems there (retention, UI/UX, onboarding, marketing, etc), but it's much harder to get a good perspective on the issues of the underlying blockchain which they are focusing on to bring us to millions and millions of users. If that's not ready yet, fixing the front-end issues will only make things worse if done right now.

Here's an analogy:

Let's say we're building a bus. The passengers get on and are like, "What the hell? There are only egg-crates for seats? They need to fix this right now and put in more comfortable, padded seats so people don't get off the bus right away. So few people are using this thing right now because of that."

That would be a "valid" criticism for sure. But... with a little bit of perspective, it may not be very informative or helpful or even valid in terms of setting current priorities. To stay with our analogy, what if the bus actually had a small car engine in it just to test things out. It can only pull about 5 people. From that perspective, adding amazing seats for another 100 people doesn't make much sense before upgrading the engine, right? In fact, if they did fix the seats first, and those 100 people jump on board, the bus might stop working completely.

That's obviously an extreme example, but the point being the underlying blockchain engine is the most important thing Steemit, inc is working on right now. That's what will lay the framework for many years from now. That's what has to be rock solid. Once that's done, as we improve the front-end, we'll have the capacity to handle it.

Again, thank you for your comment and for disagreeing with me respectfully. I really do appreciate that.

Edit: I forgot to answer your question. Learning code in general is easy. You can start with building games in Scratch as an example. Learning blockchain C++ may not be as easy. That's pretty advanced stuff and though I've programmed in a half a dozen languages myself since 1996, I don't have much experience with C++ which is something I plan to fix in the future as I continue to dig into this codebase. I plan to start with some C++ tutorials online.

Have you used Lynda.com before? $30/mo. and you can take as many courses as you want during that month. Here's the link to C++ https://www.lynda.com/learning-paths/Developer/become-a-c-plus-plus-developer

Thank you Luke for the explanation and analogy. I was unaware the blockchain was at risk from increased usage. So they really don't want to make steemit better until they make the blockchain more robust? OK, good to know, and had I kept silent I wouldn't have learned that from you because steemit inc. doesn't even have a corporate website to post such information.

However, I'm still not convinced steemit inc. can't or shouldn't improve steemit. Can't that be done offline so a better version will be waiting in the wings for the moment the blockchain has been improved, instead of waiting for the blockchain improvements before allocating resources toward that end?

Do you agree with my contention that the longer steemit inc. waits before upgrading to a world-class social media platform the more likely someone else - like Dan Larimer - beats them to it and ends up sucking the wind out of steemit's sails?

I feel the need to congratulate you for exposing the Steem development team activity, but I felt that I don't have to comment this time, because excepting this thing, my comment will not bring anything else helpful here.

I will try to bring this information to as much people as I can, but my efforts are almost nothing compared to what a single post from the accounts you mentioned would do. I guess I will follow their activity at least on STEEM repository more often.

Thanks Andrew. I think all of us can help. Another way to think about it is if we've been here a week and someone else signs up today, we have 7 days of education to help them with. Everyone can contribute something.

Indeed, this is a very interesting point of view. For now I have 4 months of education, I start to become happy about it, thinking this way :D

Great article. People are quick to shoot their mouths off without being fully informed. Take time to understand the situation and your constructive criticism will carry more weight...

People, including myself. It's a good reminder for us all to be informed and helpful instead of just blindly pointing at things we don't like.

I have a lingering doubt, can a website be decentralized? As in not in one single server. Also, this post solved many of my doubts about developing for steem, I'm not a developer but I might dip my toes in the future

Well, a single website under the current DNS system the Internet uses can't be completely decentralized, but I think the future will involve thousands of front ends to the STEEM blockchain. Even today, someone can download the code for Condenser and run it locally on their own computer. The concept of what makes a "website" may change in the future.

Interesting... You're suggesting in the future we may no longer require DNS and "addresses" to access websites and the underlying servers their run on, rather, we might just download codes and run them locally on our machines, maybe for our villages/townships, and have a more localized version of the internet? Something more censorship resistant and accessable in an increasingly partitioned "apartheid" internet (superhighways for the megacorps and crapwidth for the rest?)

That's a little tid-bit of futurism I hadn't thought of yet but please explain further in future posts! x

Maybe a blockchain based web browser could be achieved

The attention of this point is so true to see, like others said, the marketing so busy until cannot update about this one. Thank you @lukestokes

Hey Luke, This is a cool post. I didn't even know what Jussi was.

This is off subject but have you started getting rewards from your SmartNode? Mine has been up for over 4 days and I haven't received any payouts. Looks like there are 8306 SmartNodes up so far.

Yes, I've received rewards but they slowed down a lot the last few days. As more nodes come online, it will take longer and longer to get rewards. I think it's still too early to tell what the real ROI will be.

Yeah I agree. I think there will easily be over 20,000 SmartNodes in a few weeks. One SmartNode has been paid out 14 times so far. https://smartnode.aneis.ch/smartnode_winners.html

Mine is positioned in the 3000s right now and there was a comment on Reddit saying that everything seems to be working now with the rotation. https://smartcash.bitcoiner.me/smartnodes/list/ That address that got paid out 14 times has been up 8 days. He either hit the lottery for figured something out !

I just put up a post referencing your post on the multi node scripts and trying to clearify a few things for people still trying to get their nodes up. I haven't implemented those yet because my friend was going to go on the same VPS but he is wanting to set up his own now which makes more sense for now.

will SMTs run on the Steem blockchain? or will it be its own separate cryptocurrency and how will it effect the value/ price of Steem and Steem Dollar?

Thank you for this awesome article and for appreciating the massive effort the Steemit team had undertaken in revolutionizing publishing and essentially the world.

SMTs will be similar to Ethereum's ERC20 tokens. They will be secured by the STEEM blockchain, but they will also be completely separate cryptocurrencies. You can learn more about them in the white paper here: https://smt.steem.io/smt-whitepaper.pdf

As for what impact they will have on price? Hard to say. As to value? I think they will provide great value and create many interesting experiments.

Thank you very much for the informative and well researched response.
I will look into them, do you by any chance know if and when an ICO will take place then?

"community liaison" :
Last post:
> last month

:(

Yeah, I know he's been busy. I'd love to see him posting more often also, even if it's just to tell us all what types of things are keeping him busy.

cc @andrarchy

Thank you for helping us see what goes on “behind the scenes” because the pictures you shared give us clear data to feed our rational minds with proof Steemit Inc is doing a lot to improve and evolve above what is being communicated. I enjoyed meeting you at Steemfest and appreciate your service to our blockchain!

How do you make time to run your company and participate in so many conversations here, write posts, and raise three children that are homeschooled? I am about to get a shed office in the backyard so I can at least get out of the house because I am basically in the same position!

Congratulations also on rising in the top 20 since making it in October to number 10 or so now. I will vote for you again if you need it to stay in at some point!

Hurray @banfield!
Thank you for the resteem which brought me to this post x

Hey Jerry. I enjoyed meeting you as well. Thanks for stopping by.

We all get 24 hours a day. Lately I've been focusing a bit more on STEEM than my business, but ultimately it's all about prioritization. I don't spend as much time in chat as that can often drain a lot of time. If a separate office will help for you, that sounds like a great plan. @corinnestokes does the home schooling, for which I am supremely grateful.

Thanks for the congratulations. It's quite humbling, and I will be working hard to continue earning that position, starting with helpful community delegations and hopefully also learning C++ and the core blockchain code so I can further contribute at that level. I was happy to give a brief code review of the recent DDOS protection updates that went out, but I'd like to do more and hopefully some day contribute code directly.

Great write up mate. They really just need to communicate more. If Steemit were an ICO in the market today I really don't think it would succeed purely on the complete lack of communications by the team.
When you look at projects such as Powerledger, Ethos, Horizon State etc, they are always saying something.
If @andrachy is the community liason, he needs to be out there saying something by Steemit. Sure there isn't always a big announcement, even if it was just on twitter "Friday arvo beers with the Dev Team after a solid week Steeming it up"
@ned needs to pick up the game as well, he is the boss, he's the one responsible. From the outside looking in for a potential investor (ignoring the tech) the place seems to be run haphazard and iwouldn't want to put my money into it.

Agreed.

Flowing+vote! @bitcoin510 please please please

very interesting post, nice from you for steady user

Thank you for posting. Have been interested in contributing to this platform dev-wise and ui-wise. Wonder if we can tag utopian-io when we make contributions on their github repo.

Yes. Except a tag is not enough and you need to post through the utopian.io frontend to be rewarded.

I see. Thank you

Wow, u just taught me things I never knew...thanks for d post!

I'm new to programming and still have to get my head around Github, but I do know enough to get the gist. Personally, I wouldn't want Steemit to become as slick and user friendly as the big social media sites any time soon. The complexity and learning curve for novices make for a good filter.

We have enough spam and people looking to make an effortless quick buck on here already. Imagine Steemit with a slick, idiot-proof UX comparable to Facebook or Twitter... the whole world would descend on here. This won't be good at this stage of the game, in my humble opinion.

I'm a fresh minnow, but already love this thing, warts and all.

A very informative post! Thanks very much for breaking down many of the parts that make up this wonderful project.

Hey @lukestokes!

An interesting read to say the least! I have to admit without you I would have been lost after steem js and I've been here for over 5 months now! Thank you for outlining this information in the post as this is actually really helping for some user feedback I've been working on... I just made a contribution via utopian which got accepted, but I wasn't exactly sure about the next steps to pushing this idea out there... You've actually brought me a good deal of insight...

Maybe, however, you might bring me some more? I recently made a post trying to highlight a new UI and user experience that would involve some combination of BlogSpot style pages, (much like @howo's recent attempts at integrating Steem with WordPress) and fully customizable "Steem Pages" on a new open-source open-code front-end that would resemble the "Wix" style of web-page creation...

I also highlight how we could use proprietary Widgets that integrate the entire experience and create a real, concrete demand for Steem and Steem-related products, by integrating Widgets that could be added to customize our "blogs" (which would resemble the fully customizable aspects of the old MySpace pages) using blockchain-enabled Steem "Shops" or pay-walls (via some kind of uploading/encryption-decrypting algorithms and servers, whether off-chain, or on a side-chain, IDK)

Because of my coding illiteracy, I would be eternally grateful to you if you had any insight into the actual technical aspect of actually constructing or at least laying out the blueprints of such an idea?

If you have any time and would like to take a look at a novel approach of conceiving Steem and future front-ends, it would truly make my day if you gave this article a quick gander... Maybe the idea is crap but on the off-shoot that you see potential in it I would love to ask you for some basic pointers with regards to the coding and how to even navigate something like git-hub to start doing research on how it could be achieved!

My discord is @ imp.unity#3467

Thank you for a great post and in advance for your time if you have any (of course a busy father and witness may not!); but I think the ideas would at least peak your interest! And I don't claim to own them, I genuinely just want Steem to fulfill its potential and promise and take down all these other centralized internet giants who are polluting our minds

Peace!
Hae-Joo

Wow, that's a long article. I didn't get through it all, but I did give you an upvote. That's too big of a project for me to give much useful feedback on right now, but I think the focus of Steemit, inc at the moment is the blockchain itself and not so much the front end improvements we can make to Condenser.

That works too 😍
No problem, totally understand... I'll keep chugging along and try to refine the idea... My next plan is to finish some sketches and make a mock-up on illustrator... Hopefully with some visual props it would make the communicating of the idea a lot easier and more compelling...

"A picture paints a thousand words" - thanks at least for taking a look! And good luck with the future and making the blockchain better! Thank you for your work! xx

cool. Thanks for this. I am new to the space and like learning about stuff. Even if I don't fully understand it. I mean, I will never understand it if I just don't read about it.

Steemit is doomed to fail as long as each vote is weighed differently according to how much (steem) power and money you have. Kind of like Washington DC, but online, with only whales benefitting.

I agree there could be some changes with benefits on rewards. But why should someone that joins today, that invested nothing, have the same voting power as someone who has been here. It is like stock shares, how much you hold is your voting power.

Plus your from Canada, if a war broke out in your country who do you think would be the first to help you? The United States. So I guess Canada has failed.

Your last paragraph is out in left field, but whatever.

As for your first paragraph, it just points out how flawed Steemit is. If Oprah owned half of Steemit, would you want all the Hot and Trending posts to be about Women's issues, and make-overs? What Steemit should of done is made investment determine a share of overall revenue from ads or whatever. What will draw more people to Steemit and make it more valuable is CONTENT. On YouTube it is quite possible for some noob to make a video that gets a million hits and the revenue that comes with it, but I doubt that could happen on Steemit, at least not without sucking up to some whales (most of which are just voting from themselves).

Sounds like you just need to stick to YouTube. You don't need to suck up to anyone there & you could make a penny for a video.

Are you familiar with Sybil attacks and the game theory involved in this system?

Thank you jerrybanfieldroi for making a transfer to me for an upvote of 13.63% on this post!

Half of your bid goes to @budgets which funds growth projects for Steem like our top 25 posts on Steem!

The other half helps holders of Steem power earn about 60% APR on a delegation to me!

For help, will you please visit https://jerrybanfield.com/contact/ because I check my discord server daily?

To learn more about Steem, will you please use http://steem.guide/ because this URL forwards to my most recently updated complete Steem tutorial?

Nice post

Mr.lukestokes

Great post, gives people like me who are new here the confidence to carry on.

Hello @lukestokes.

I want to know who created steem? I know steemit was created by Ned.

You did give us an update.
The best update sits in github.
this is another story for me to dig and understand.
I did open an account there.
I will follow steem in there.
Thanks.
Keep on steemin'

Your blog verry good
Dont forget voteme

Ummm yeh, here I am thinking that there is nothing going on in the Steem development. I mean I don't see anyone talking about any development if any. Unless there aren't really going on. Why is Steemit still in BETA? What are the devs still testing?

BETA is a way of setting expectations and clarifying how far along the development is compared to where it will be. They are just getting started.

I love the way you discuss information so well. i've seen many videos of your tutorials and explaining things in a detailed manner. Thank you for helping we minnows grow. I'd love if people here stop by and give some of their precious time reading about me - A fellow steemian. Thanks !

https://steemit.com/self/@ritikabindal/i-m-shy-please-come-and-say-hi

Thank you for the update about steem and software development in its ecosystem. Voted for you as witness.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome!

This is great, I really learn much from this post, because most of all this things you explained, most people feel is for developers but I believe it really helps alot to know much about how things works in the platform.
Thanks for sharing @lukestokes

Great post tnx for sharing steemit all the way check out my new post upvote resteem comment @gclipse

thanks for this information .

See, this is why I firmly believe that you belong in the Top 10 STEEM witnesses. Other than I personally know you to be a genuinely awesome person, you have the ability to objectively put things in perspective so that everyone can have a calm forum to discuss. That is a gift, Luke.

Admittedly, I have voiced some criticism in the past as well, not as intense or vocal as others, but I have raised concerns. But, upon further evaluation, I had come to realize the error in that. Steemit, Inc does do great work and whatever they have planned for the platform would surely be something innovative. People talk about how anyone could do what the people at Steemit has achieved, but when you look around, no one else has even come close. The UI might look simple, but the technology behind it is mind-blowingly awesome. I'm totally behind what these guys are doing, and I could only wish to be able to contribute something meaningful to the platform someday.

Great work distinguishing every term here for the benefit of the people who might still be confused. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Steemconnect a project of the guys that develop Busy?

Thanks Jed.

Yes, Busy started Steemconnect, but I think Steemit, inc took it over to ensure people could trust it going forward as it will be the "official" recommended way for third party applications to deal with user permissions.

Ooohhh that's interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification, Luke!

Interesting point of view, Luke.
I think this time I can't agree with you :-)

Since you mention Andrew, I'd like to direct your attention to the interview he gave a couple of days ago. Maybe you even watched it. Being asked by David Pakman about the future of Steem and ongoing projects, Andrew said that you can follow the whole process of all these projects on github but a normal person would never understand what's written there:
Timestamp 04:47 min: https://d.tube/#!/v/davidpakman/ll21nwdt

Now if a member of Steemit Inc says that a regular user wouldn't ever understand that type of information, why should that source of information be even relevant for the average user?

I go with @kirbyhopper's comment here:

> I just know I don't need to know anything about coding to have a valid opinion about how Steemit can be or should be improved from a user experience standpoint.

We have a lot of users here on this platform who have considerably contributed to build up this community without having any deeper knowledge in coding. It seems that from a developer's perspective it's hard to accept that there are other professional guilds out there who are also able to contribute value to a social network.

If the aim was building a two-tiered community here where people are categorized in a) developers and b) non-developers, then this would never work in the long term. Those people who use this platform on a daily basis are the ones that provide it with value. Without all these transactions, the increasing number of accounts, the increasing number of active users and the generated traffic towards the applications built on this blockchain, Steem wouldn't even exist.

Now I fully agree with you that a blogger with zero coding knowledge should not try to contribute to a conversation about the next hardfork. Still a blogger is definitely able to voice his opinion about user experience - and user experience is key to user retention. Without user retention you don't even need to think about a hardfork. Everything interdepends. We interdepend.

Talking about interaction: 3 months ago Steemit Inc asked us to provide them with input for the Roadmap 2018. Many users contributed their thoughts and suggestions blog posting under the tag #roadmap2018. Until today we have zero information about what happened to our ideas or if there will even be a Roadmap 2018: https://steemit.com/roadmap2018/@steemitblog/steemit-roadmap-2018-community-input-requested

The other day I mentioned the lack of information regarding the Roadmap and as a reply Steemit's CTO sent me the link to github. Must have been a joke! Lucky me, I can laugh about so much arrogance - still that doesn't help to improve our community spirit at all.

I admire your motivation to help Steemit Inc in improving their communication. The question that might arise then is: What does their marketing team do in the meantime?

No matter how different our opinions might be about the situation, I'm grateful that you brought it into focus again! :-)

EDIT: Since you included on of Ned's tweeds -here's the one that is pegged on the top of his twitter account since last december
[IMAGE: https://steemitimages.com/DQmce9mvcYsAaS4XDrzXuQURdFwSzy1FUGZW6WXuaZyAES6/certain.png]
User experience definitely matters.

Hey surfer girl! I absolutely love that you disagree with me! It's super boring if people just agree. :)

Sorry for the delay in replying as I've been working a conference the last few days. I replied to one of your comments already, but will reply here as well.

Well, we can offer our opinions, but we should also be willing to consider our opinions are wrong if they don't have more details. For example, focusing on user retention sounds like an obvious goal at all times, but if the blockchain isn't ready for more users, then adding more users now could make things more challenging. I'm not saying that's where we are, but it's an example of the complexities involved and how a large view is needed in order to prioritize what should be focused on right now.

I haven't watched that interview yet, but I do agree every day users shouldn't have to rely on Github to know what's going on, but every day users aren't the ones I'm really talking about. I'm talking about those who feel informed enough to confidently tell Steemit, inc what they should be doing right now. Those, I think, should be well-informed before doing so. That means understanding whatever data we have available and right now that's only on Github.

I don't agree with many ways the CEO interacts with people (including me), but it is what it is. I do think he's working hard to build a team of amazing developers and I think, so far, they are following his leadership to build great things. I also would love to see more communication both about the 2017 roadmap and how they plan to do things in the future.

As to user experience, I think we have to be careful to, again, be clear about the difference between STEEM and Steemit. One is not the other. The user experience of STEEM compared to other cryptocurrencies is amazing (3 second transactions, zero fees, account recovery, named addresses, etc, etc).

Thank you for this information, Luke. It is useful for me in one certain way. Whenever I login to Utopian and wish to add a suggestion, I do not understand what repository to use. How you have helped me is by briefly explaining all the Steem(it) repositories. I now have some perspective and information on that.

I am not a developer. Coding is not my thing but I can analyze statistics and user behavior. I can read charts and understand the problems without the need to understand codes first. My first ever Utopian contribution highlighted why and how user retention must be improved by Steemit Inc. Not knowing code did not stop me from making a contribution.

Not knowing the code is a blessing for me. Counterintuitive but true. I use my analytical ability to trace things from the frontend and find out how they work. Since I am not a technical guy, my language and delivery helps the non-technical userbase; which is in vast majority I suppose. For example, my detailed guides on Reputation Score and Reward System are strictly non technical, plain-language tutorials. They helped thousands of people so far (apparent from the number of comments and views on posts). That is how I am contributing to the platform. I will never stop doing it.

Thank you for being there, Luke. Always a pleasure to read your posts and learn from your wisdom. Wishing you and your family all the health and happiness in the world!

Excellent point. There are many ways we can contribute, not just code. The thing I was trying to point out in my post was how we need a larger perspective to understand prioritization between various things which need to get done. When we see a problem within our area of expertise, it's easy to think, "Oh man, they totally need to fix this now!" but there may be reasons fixing something else first is a much better approach.

Keep on providing great value here! I think you're doing a lot of great work.

Thanks for the post @lukestokes. What I struggle with is connecting the value from the SMTs to Steem and I feel others may not see the connection either. How do SMTs strengthen the value of Steem - not the platform, but what people currently use (Steem, Steem Power)? It just feels that SMTs are another fund raising gimmick rather than using existing Steem for extending use.

That's a much larger question that is hard to answer in a comment. For reference, see how many projects have launched as Ethereum ERC20 tokens. Now imagine all of those ran on the STEEM blockchain. Imagine all those ICOs involved people buying STEEM (and what that would do for our STEEM holdings in terms of value). Imagine major brands around the world needing a way to monetize their communities, increase engagement, and have alternative models beyond advertising. For more, read the SMT white paper.

very nice question and answer.

Very nice and informative post... thanks for such an amazing information. Thanks

Hello @lukestokes, I love your contribution today, it answered many questions in peoples mind;

> "But I'm not a developer. I can't read code to know what any of this means." Okay, fair enough, but that gets back to the "put up" part.

This answered it all and many people now have a reason to go and have full understating of codes so as to know what steemit int is doing.

I need a teaching on this sir,how do you get this much votes

Hi I appreciate all this background.

I have questions about this stuff, are these just aws backends? Or is this custom code that operate aws scaling?

As part of my privacy workship I looked into some of steemits backgrounds and some of the things I found disturbed me.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@mindhawk/privacy-workshop-7-down-the-steemit-inc-rabbithole

Let me know what you think plz thx.

Oh my god! You are total genius to be able to digest, write about, and understand all this stuff. No can't read any computer languages and if it wasn't for cut and past the few html comands my posts would be a lot uglier. So I'll neither put up or shut up, and haven't even put an ounce of thought into any of this stuff! After reading it over I felt like I was back in chemistry class in 11th grade. Where I just sat there and stared out the window! lol

Like I've said in the past thank goodness we have people like you on here that are looking out for guys like me. That being said I spent the last two weeks hanging out with sea lions in the Galapagos! They are much more on my level lol. Internet was so bad I could only post through steem auto, and couldn't check others post. But now I'm back in Guayaquil Ecuador for a week. So I'm stopping by to say hello. I'll be around. Keep up the great work Luke! Wishing you and your family the very best! -Dan

thanks for your steem information

please help me to follow

I agree with you. They should do that just to show us that they care about our opinions.

@lukestokes I totally agree with you. If many of us start doing quality work to add more value to the steem blockchain and steemit, instead of just making critics, the blockchain would be growing much faster!

By the way, I am trying to add more value and continue with the 11 chapter full Steemit guide, and make Chapter 9 were you are mentioned in the part of the Early Adopters.

Did you have the chance to check it out? A simple comment or feedback from you is all I need or expect everytime I tell you about a new Chapter!

Chapter 9 of 11: The Art of Giving Value - Learning from Experts of Specific Topics on Steemit - This is part 9 of 11 Chapters (Full Guide) to help new people make their way on the Platform
https://steemit.com/steemit/@gold84/chapter-9-of-11-the-art-of-giving-value-learning-from-experts-of-specific-topics-on-steemit-this-is-part-9-of-11-chapters-full

Regards, @gold84

People despite their knowledge will always question.
It's the discussion that brings consensus and enlightenment. :)
Steemit is the best social media for discussion, disagreement, and arguing to generate consensus, learning, innovation, involvement, motivation, and above all participation in some direct democracy.
If we want motivated community, put people in constructive conflict to approach the Truth.
Open discussions is the basic foundation of Free speech, information, education, and communication, building the pillars of our freedom of choice.

I agree! I definitely didn't want my post to be a form of silencing any one. On the contrary, I think we should all be talking more (including Steemit, inc) about this stuff. When we do so, we should be informed. If we aren't, our suggestions about prioritization may actually be hurtful instead of helpful. If we promoted Steemit, as an example, before the STEEM blockchain could handle millions and millions of new users, we may create worse problems.

I know you are always moved by good intentions and you open good discussions to bring light on Steemit.
On Steemfest2 there was a promise of the developing team to create an open direct dialog with the Steemian citizens.
I didn't have time to check if this dialogue has been started or getting better but this is the best way to develop steemit, by talking to the people that are supplying the real essence of steemit growth...quality content and bloggers making citizen journalism.
And keep all the good vibe you always try to put on Steemit.
Keep opening good reflections and constructive discussions.
Thanks to all your human valued work without the Money God guidelines that sometimes blinfold peoples reasoning.
On the long term human values allways create more value then short term money values.

I actually feel incentive to 'help out' now, after reading your post. Although my deeds on this platform are yet to be of any significance, i think the core concepts of Steem & Steemit are one the most rigid in the entire blockchain landscape.
I'm going to find out what i can do from within the margins of Steem, but if we all put in some work together the future will be prosperous.

Thank you for the activation, let's get it on!

Brother you don't cease to amaze me! Steem tech is your art! And I say it all da time- keep on creating or shut up haha, but "Put up or shut up" rhymes better :) See ya in a week bro!

Thank you Luke!!

100% right sir

I was wondering how steemit was set up and of its components. Thank you. I found this helpful.

Very interesting... thank you for sharing!
Check out my first chapter The Mythical Curse!!

https://steemit.com/steem/@cryptochato/the-mythical-curse-chapter-one

Great points, @lukestokes and thanks for sharing the Github screenshots and links. As someone who both regularly asks my followers for improvement ideas, and calls out the currently inconveniences, I really appreciate what you are trying to do here.

Sure, I can complain at times about the seemingly lack of enhancements and upgrades to the Steemit.com website, I realize that anyone can build a front-end for the Steem blockchain and I've been evaluating such an opportunity. I do realize that Steem >> Steemit.

I should mention that I've been giving quite a few presentations on Steem(it) recently and the most common pieces of feedback I get is how the user interface lacks in so many areas. Look, I know the dev team is working hard, it can be seen in Github, but it doesn't matter if ppl constantly say that the UI is one reason that they leave the platform.

As much as we want to brush over it, taking care of the user experience is the "last mile" of any app and helping users feel at home is important. I won't link to it, but one of my recent posts lists at least 15 improvements to Steemit that I think would help increase engagement and retention.

Now, if we could think of a solid revenue model that would incentivize us to build a better front-end...we could give Steemit a bit more competition and improve the community as a whole.

For now, I find myself using Steemit more than Busy because i've grown accustom to how to dance around this interface.

Thanks again for your dedication to the platform. You constantly provide value.

-Ashe

PS: Do you know if anyone has re-visited the 2017 Roadmap and compared what was planned vs implemented? Also, 3 months ago @ned asked for feedback on the 2018 Roadmap...has it been released yet? https://steemit.com/roadmap2018/@steemitblog/steemit-roadmap-2018-community-input-requested

The interesting thing for me to think about is the larger goals and how they relate to current motivations and short-term focus. Based on conversations I had with Sneak at Steemfest, people leaving the platform right now were not a huge concern for them. That bothered me a lot, but I really spent some time thinking about it. It doesn't mean they don't care about people right now. They still have their contact info and can still market to them once the many improvements they want are completed.

Steemit appears to me to be building for hundreds of millions of users. Compared to them, if 50k or even 100k join today and leave because it's not ready yet, that's comparatively (statistically) not relevant when compared to 100M+ users. That's an eye-opening way to think about things. If there are things they have to do now to prepare for those future users, then that certainly should be the priority. As you said, other people can fork the front end or make their own. Other people can't (yet) make significant improvements to the blockchain itself which would enable it to support many, many million more users. That's all on Steemit, inc right now.

I don't have any updates regarding the roadmap. I think the approach of making hard goals like they did last year won't be repeated. What they do end up communicating, is yet to be seen.

Nice having this lovely topic. I just got to know alot. Thanks alot

Hi dear steemer plz vote and pray
https://steemit.com/pray/@hamzasb/my-old-grandmorher-is-died

Hi dear steemer plz vote and pray
https://steemit.com/pray/@hamzasb/my-old-grandmorher-is-died

My understanding is little more clear about "these" after reading this post. I am a non-tech guy and most of the basics of tech "things" are beyond my understanding. I am trying though :)
http://i63.tinypic.com/vi0ker.png

many many thanks for this information.

In my point of view and with my short experience now of a bit over a half year.. Steemit is one of a kind for real blockchain application.

I don't know so many examples like Fiat-Gatekeeper-Bitcoin, ICO-Ethereum or the Charity-Doge.. maybe i'm just uneducated or biased but if i see the registered users of over 700k, the fluidly running blockchain without any congestion, STEEM Power connected to STEEM and the upcoming catalyst SMT.. that's on one hand a useful application and on the other a long-term investment opportunity. Months ago i wrote about the well thoughtout system and today nothing has changed.. it is running and running.. the founder left his baby alone and now it's already grown up to a small child. Fascinating to get a bit more insight of all the building blocks, thank you!

For the perspective.. there are always different ones.. there is the user, the marketeer, the developer, the entrepeneur and maybe others. I was in different shoes. Everybody looks with different eyes at a product or development and that's absolutely IMPORTANT! because all these different views bring life to the system.. criticism, discussion, new ideas, different perspectives.. there is the value if you generate questions for your development.

If i look back to my company as we started with much less knowledge i could say how stupid i was.. but in reflection of the past and what we'd achieved with all the conflicts, disputes sometimes it was just natural and necessary.. the pure user perspective and also the hardcore developer perspective.. both need each other.. because both are sometimes blind to see important things to go one step further.. to challenge themselves with the input of the other.. in pain, anger, rage sometimes.. but in the end we saw always a light and that it was worth to fight for the own standpoint.. even to the extent to feeling wrong and unsure alone with your opinion.. but i know sometimes it needs such hero who is hated and sees the light long before all the others.. it was sometimes crazy if you must wait several years until your gameplan works out and your team members realize then you were right 😅

Core developers must have another perspective than a normal user.. but they build always for their future customers and serve them. It's often about perception of things i think after many years. If you'd stopped to take things personally and dissect an argument by a user you can often learn to improve your product but it's very important never think that a user is too stupid to understand something.. he has the valuable user view from hours, days and months of using your product.. he is an expert, he feels your product like no one other and knows exactly where it lacks of usability, functionality and sexiness.. even he is just complaining about something it could help to get a sense where your product is.. and what's the next important question to improve it. It needs no censorship.

Honestly there are also cases where someone has a wrong perception and don't wanna know what's really behind.. but then it's always good to be polite and friendly and go on.. work on solutions.. i think that's what also Steemit Inc. does.. never blame other people, as user or developer.. it would be a waste of time.

Hi! I'm new and I'm looking forward to a better Steemitsphere [Steem blockchain]. Thanks, @lukestokes, for promoting the value of Steem. This is a very informative post indeed.

steemit is a very imprecise it is such a steemit where little just wait if you such be posible

👍👍

@lukestokes Good explained, Thanks man!
You just got vote up and new follower :)
Welcome to follow me @ddeveloperr

Can you give a little more detail on overseer and yo?
We have to expect that corporations that buy data will still want it when it is free.
What, if anything, has stinc built to mine our data?

I don't know much more than what is on the github. I don't know what data could be mined, but if it can in a useful fashion (it would require some natural language processing, I'd imagine), anyone can do it, not just Steemit, Inc. The blockchain is public.

Yo is the notification system and from what I remember hearing while at Steemfest 2, the idea for it seemed pretty cool as far as many different methods of notification. I think it hasn't been touched in a while though, so it must be lower priority.

I've been meaning to do a post on the whole "quit facebook" movement going on where people think the answer is to join Steemit and put all their data publicly on a blockchain. I still have to organize my thoughts, and I'm sure I'll expand a bit on what I said here, but if people really concerned about privacy the answer is encryption, not a public, immutable blockchain.

Yep, i agree, this is not the place to expect privacy.
Minds.com is the same.
Anything posted is public.

I was just put off by the idea that stinc had worked on ways to mine the data they collect.
Im sure they have custom interfaces that help manage the flow of data and filter it for monitoring reasons.
They have to know quickly if somebody is posting illegal content.
I have no doubt that when less than 93% of newbs tell us to get bent corporations will want tools to mine us for a multitude of reasons, but with that failure rate i doubt there is much interest in doing it now.

What is your understanding of why Dan Larimer has moved on? AFAIK, he is no longer a part of the development team. Is that right?

I'm looking forward to seeing how EOS works out for him.