Today’s @steemitblog post is brought to you by Steemit’s Applications Team. In this post we will highlight some recent changes we have made to two of our front-end applications: condenser (steemit.com) and the faucet (sign-up system). We will also talk briefly about some of the other changes we have been working on.
The Applications Team
The Applications Team is currently focusing on three areas:
- Front-end products, such as the faucet and condenser
- Backend services, such as Hivemind (Communities) and SBDS
- Development and Operations (DevOps) / systems engineers
Paid Sign-Up Options
We’re doing a lot to improve the sign-up process and mitigate bots on the platform. In addition to that work we now present users with alternative third-party paid sign-up options when they go to create an account. This allows users who aren’t comfortable providing their personal information an easy way to create an account, and provides users who want to get started right away an option to skip the line.
https://steemitimages.com/DQmQjRf8fcfZvGckALHyVpSf3F8Pna2WGe9Jee83t1hsRZ4/image.png
https://steemitimages.com/DQmUAg7yhQMWEa5M7yLtzMnxKPmA8a9PnBxqZcT6vFZBmaM/image.png
We know it’s wordy, but we wanted to be very clear about why the two options exist and the fact that we are not profiting from the paid sign-up options.
Transfer Confirmation Step
Because token transfers are irreversible, we wanted to help users avoid making erroneous transfers. We've now added a step which displays all the details of the transfer before the user signs the transaction. This additional step should help prevent people from making payment errors. We plan to make the user interface more appealing in the future, but for now it does the job.
https://i.imgur.com/ZD9LuOY.png
Upload Image Buttons
Thanks to a community contribution from GitHub user @voorash, you can now finally change your cover photo or profile images by uploading an image file directly from your hard drive! Simply click “Upload an image” in your Settings page:
https://steemitimages.com/DQmQs2DBRSfbxEMCXeBbGZztFpCeNyuYocH4KvUhcMJjv8x/image.png
Payout Options in Settings
We moved the dropdown for selecting payout options (Decline Payout, 50% SBD / 50% SP, and Power Up 100%) away from the posting interface and into the settings page. This was an “advanced user” option that only created confusion for the majority of users. We also added the ability to select a payout option for comments.
https://steemitimages.com/DQmcEU7K33XV3SFGnSnjUWVS5ACFMcnrpg72pzA26tRiJG9/image.png
Any users interested in toggling their payout options simply need to select the new setting from their Preferences, and it will immediately take effect for new posts/comments going forward.
New Bandwidth Option
Whenever anyone transacts on the Steem blockchain (posting content, commenting, upvoting, etc.), computational resources are used. “Bandwidth” is the resource that regulates this usage to ensure that we are not making unsustainable demands of the network. During times of heavy usage, or if the user performs too many actions, they can use up all their bandwidth allocation and become unable to transact until their bandwidth recharges. We wanted to give these users an “actionable” that would explain why they are running into the error and help them resolve the issue in order to continue interacting through steemit.com.
Now, when a user is unable to perform a transaction due to a lack of bandwidth, a modal will appear that clearly explains the issue and displays a “Buy Steem Power” option. The Buy Steem Power link takes them to BlockTrades, the only interface through which users can purchase Steem Power directly. This is necessary because a user cannot power up purchased STEEM if they have run out of bandwidth. We are currently researching more ways to improve the user experience relating to bandwidth.
https://steemitimages.com/DQmSoWtkNNUPMv1nkSrHcyutz6281KLM2H9rHe25ggTxE91/image.png
Miscellaneous
Other changes we have been working on include boring (but important) bug fixes, and highly technical changes. Users interested in learning more about these can track our development in the steemit GitHub repositories.
We’ve spent a lot of time strategizing about how to combat bots+spam on the platform, how to continue improving the sign-up process, how to better protect the ecosystem against attacks, and how to improve overall performance. We expect to make a lot of progress on those fronts and look forward to telling you more about our work moving forward.
Thanks for reading.
Steemit Applications Team
@ackza | May 10, 2018, 10:09 p.m. | Votes: 5 | [
VOTE ]
I agree 100% and give you a 100% Upvote in leu of the upvote of this post since its decline payout :D and your comment was like 60 cents so my now 40 cent upvote was perfect for pushing your comment over $1 :D
Oh and LOOk what I made! A THIRD option for the Free Signup and Instant Signup Paid option, I made a THIRD possible Free Instant option with APPLICATION, if you already have an existing social media with good content, followers or a demo reel or a resume,
[IMAGE: https://steemitimages.com/DQmc5qw2vrfG2LqTeitzZsnS41qeczcYwBjF3d1mJFPAVPy/image.png]
In my possible third option, I personally do what I already do, which is use around 500 SP to create a few new signups a day, and if a few others joined in a few hundred SP, you could probobly take care of all the 0.1 steem and 14.5 SWP delegation for 1 week needed to help instantly create an sccount using https://steeminvite.com by @pharesim so I volunteer my SP, I have been creating accounts for people and I had to start making people apply to get them for free because too many users just createdn an accouynt posted once or never and it was a waste... So if you just make people apply and ask for a simple proof of value, either proof of existing social media account with valuable content followers, or a demo reel if your an artist or a resume or just an essay or even a video youtube link of you explaining why you feel you deserve an instant steem accoiunt at a time when the blockchain cannot handle giving everyone free acounts, when they are limited, basically what you can offer to make paying the 30 cents plus 14.5 Styeempower delegated for one week which is around $50 worth fo steem, so although that is just for one week, it still costs money to rent that amount of steempoiwer even for a week, and even if its just a few dollars worth , it still costs money, and we do have a paid option, BUT if you are willing to come on board and really work to promote steem I'm willing to use my own steempower to create yoru account and I have been doing this and I only stopped getting requests because I havent put out any fresh offers to do it but I still will help people from time to time with steeminvite I just havent been adevrtising it as a service on instagram and steem posts but I swear there is a demand, and I feel a group for helping people get instant accounts already exist, many of them do, we could poolthat p[ower intoone fuynnel right here at the signup page, I propose we do this to help curate the shiny gems of humanity that we may miss if they don't have money or just don't have any crypto, I believe you can only pay with crypto and many people don't have a way to buy bitcoin very easily so we may miss some nice users who may have money but can't get the btc to pay the steemit account creation fee on blocktrades. Anyway I think an application system, just until HF20, would be nice but don't get me wrong, I am very very happy with current changes
the new system is amazing and I am very very grateful thank you so much steemit application team!
Steemit Apps Team, thank-you for this update.
To date the issue of solving the sign-up problem for our app keeps us up at night. We were hoping HF20 would solve these problems, but until it's released user signups remain our primary concern.
We are already aware of the ability to create new accounts manually for our community and would be willing to do so given enough resources. As yet we have been unable to find the delegations we need to start generating enough SP to fund ongoing manual account sign-up.
And given the bulk of our users will come from existing communities withing our market segment, it is unlikely they will have the crypto currency on hand to create their own accounts.
Our vision is to bring Steem to the masses, who have largely ignored or rebuffed the crypto space so far. Proving to them that an application worthy of their attention can also be a soft entry point into the crypto world as we know it.
More importantly, we chose Steem to be that first entry point, and as people always remember their 'first' experience we believe this could have considerable upside in distribution of the Steem token.
Yes, we believe in the Steem blockchain and can see incredible potential, but until the account sign-up process is streamlined it remains a blocking point for our application.
I guess the question that comes to mind is why is everything seemingly wrapped into one Hard Fork. Was there not an opportunity to separate some features into an earlier HF?
Regardless keep pushing forward and we will continue to follow.
