I do a lot of work within companies and there is resistance whenever changes are made, whether it be a new system or program, changes to the parking lot - or a new staff room microwave. Whatever it is, change management tries to address it and smooth the transition, but soon a new status quo is reached.
However, while employees throw up their arms at how bad all the changes are and how they don't make sense, what people do not consider is that if they didn't have their routines and habits, the changes would be accepted. It is easy to visualize through the eyes of a new employee who comes in and learns the new processes without knowing that there were ever old processes, or if what they are learning changed only a week ago.
Humans adapt.
In the transition period to a "new normal", there are going to be mistakes made and experiments with what is possible. In time, new routines will form and solidify to be points of resistance the next time changes are introduced. Currently with Communities, there are a lot of new things to learn that introduce a lot of dynamics. Things like cross-posting, posting to communities and resteeming own posts, are going to cause various challenges and some people are not going to foresee exactly how they work, and community reactions to them.
This is natural and experimentation should be encouraged and hopefully, discussion around what people are trying on what works, what doesn't and what is scammy, spammy and abusive. These things have to be addressed, but in the early days, they also have to come with some kind of leeway for attempts and errors.
For the new users coming into Steem however, they are like the new employees and all of this is going to be quite easy for them to pick up. In fact, I am guessing that while there is a great deal going on, a lot of what a new user has to do is much easier than it was for example I joined 3 years ago. Essentially, everything was very, very manual back then and there were very few information gateways to get in.
The feeds were filled with questions that no longer need to be addressed, as applications and interfaces have built the answers into their experience. For instance, when delegations were introduced back in mid-2017, actually delegating was a nightmare, and I think Vessel was one of the only places it could be done. How many use Vessel now? Probably the same number that used it back then. There are likely hundreds of examples of things that have improved here over the last years.
However, there really is no pleasing everyone, which is actually part of the innovation process as some people with the skills will say, "I can do better" and, perhaps they do. This is part of the value proposition of Steem, as anyone can try to improve it without having to start from scratch.
These new changes to the Steemit and other interface UIs are going to take some time to get the head and hand around, as well as for a while likely affect engagement in some areas. Communities are content buckets that separate by topic (for the most part) and they separate and compartmentalize information. This creates a challenge in a small community in some ways, especially for those who have already established a following.
However, this is what needs to happen for content and community scaling as while there aren't many here now and the main feeds have been slow, that would change if many people arrived and there was no way to separate. Imagine going into Reddit or Facebook and having no kinds of filters at all and how fast the feeds will scroll. There are 300 million photo uploads to Facebook a day.
Sure, we have some way to go.
But, at some point, we have to assume that we are going to grow and develop the ecosystem for that growth, rather than wait to grow and then try to catch up. This also has a chicken or the egg problem in some respects, and I think that people have aligned themselves to the wrong half of the equation in the past. Many want the community to expand of course, but many do not visualize what that would look like if for example, 5 million posts streamed in a day, instead of the 20,000 we currently have.
Yet, the development has been happening in the background the last two years with scalability being a major focus through Mira and Hivemind, as well as interface and application building to handle the UI and UX needs of users. These platforms built on the Steem infrastructure may be a little empty today, but not building them means that if tomorrow attracts many users, those users would face the same problems I did in 2017, and with such an influx, there would be no way to address the issues.
I guess what I am trying to say is that for the first time in a while, I feel that the alignment of Steem development is in the right order, where the infrastructure for mass adoption is being laid, before the city fills with residents. Rather than information slums, we can have healthy and vibrant suburbs that offer opportunity and value.
There will be teething issues.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Shutting this off and being away for a few months gives me a unique perspective. This environment is always evolving. Returning now, I feel like a noob. A noob with coming on four years experience.
Take the cross posting for instance. I don't know why that exists. I don't know what it does. I don't see any value at all in a post with a sentence and a link, yet the post is rewarded, and sometimes quite a bit. What am I missing? What is giving that simple post value? What do people see in it? A few months ago, if someone were to post a sentence and link, they might decline rewards. Also, for years, posting something like that was a surefire way to alienate your following. This post of yours triggered these thoughts of mine now. Is there anything you can tell me about these posts?
There's actually quite a bit about this place now that is confusing to me. Willing to learn of course.
I think that auto votes contribute to the overly high votes for seemingly small and insignificant posts.
After the last hard fork and the 50:50 split, users became more focused on curation so setting up auto votes for your fav Steemians around the 5 min mark became common. This has the adverse effect of over-rewarding some posts due to the automated voting.
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Automatic votes have always been around. Typically, when you've gained the trust of someone willing to vote automatically, the last thing you're to do is abuse that vote. Right now, I could post five junk posts within an hour, and probably receive a nice pay day... but then all of those years of working towards that trust is gone and they'd most likely stop voting altogether. It's like living with people. Just because someone leaves a twenty dollar bill on the table, that doesn't mean it's there for the taking. I don't mind when folks autovote. Those curation rewards are there for the taking, plus they can visit the post on their schedule. I think it's a good thing, but takes a lot of discipline.
You're probably right though. The simple post gets autovoted, and the one who cross posted has to look at those rewards and maybe feel a bit silly for taking that approach. Live and learn, right? How things were done before and how they're done now will clash until folks find that balance again. I'd prefer to see those post rewards declined but that's just my view.
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With cross posting feature you can post one single post into more than one Communities
Because of this you don't have to post same content again, any one can click on the link and get the see the original full post
Please anyone correct me if I am wrong
One should be able to select from a list of communities before publishing. Write your post, add your images, tag it, select which communities you'd prefer the post exist within, then hit post. Simple.
I think we can not post in more than one Communities at a time currently
I had a strong feeling people wouldn't want to sacrifice potential eyes on their work for the sake of being organized, so of course they'll want to be in more than one place at a time. That's why Tribes were a hit. One post in multiple places means more potential viewers. Selecting categories or communities before hitting 'post' would be the way to go. So much simpler and Tribes already proved it worked.
I agreed with you
Yes, but it will get rewarded twice. For those who constantly crosspost their own content, I am more likely to flag all of them.
Good point it's not come in my mind
Its means cross posting feature have no value or use case
Glad my name isn't four years experience
Crossposting is just getting started and likely going to get abused y some. However, for example if I find content I really want to reward as well as I can, I can crosspost it into a community and it will count as "my own" meaning it will get the benefit of my autos. However, 90% will go to the original author, 5% to me for the share, 5% to the community it is crossposted to. That incentivizes sharing beyond the curation mechanism for those who do have a following, but not a lot of SP.
For those who abuse it (I will likely say there will be a few large accounts crossposting their alt content to their own to doubledip), they will get flagged and hopefully lose their autovoters trust. That is a good thing too. I won't crosspost my own unless there is some very good reason to, but, I want people to know that if I do crosspost someone else's content, they can trust it is worthy of at least the rewards they would give me.
For those who are short of content, they can bump other people a lot and get them reward and exposure to new communities and eyes and still take a small slice for themselves as well as get some support for the communities they enjoy. The feature is evolving and there is a long way to go.
Shortly after I came here I had a look at my feed, because that's what I always do, and someone had published a post about a community, then minutes later cross posted that post into the actual community they were writing about. Of course both posts had nearly the same amount of value. Of course the second one was slightly lower because the first instance sucked out some of that precious voting power. Needless to say, that's when I shut this off and went for a walk.
I read your post about this. There are things I can add in the 'pro' department, and quite a few for the 'con' section. I want to keep much of this to myself though and in time I'll should be able to develop a rational stance. I don't want to be the guy yelling at the clouds, especially if there's something I've missed.
There are quite a few well-intentioned folk who didn't realize what was going to happen when they cross-posted, they thought it was just going to appear in the community, not create a new post. Learning curve issues.
Definitely. However, this is the first iteration and given the chance to evolve, it might be great. Or not, but we have suffered worse perhaps :)
I've come to realize a lot of folks made a few innocent mistakes. We have to learn somehow. And honestly, if there are actual, serious, problems... I think it's fair to say we all got sick of that long ago and won't wait so long to address them. This won't be another paid votes fiasco.
I m hoping that for those who do abuse it, there will be swift consequences. I am fine to let the first error ride :)
Ya man, just be cool.
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Milking the pool?
There's always resistance to change, I think that's just something embedded in our DNA. The amount of changes from 2017 till date has been impressive and I'm looking forward to more of it.
Yep, there is the chance now that the foundaton is here, to build and evolve much faster.
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Humans are comical beings really haha! Change is how EVERYTHING in life grows, yet by comparison to any other living creature we are significantly more resistant to it, which is silly really because absolutely everything we are "now" familiar with was once foreign. I always think of my mom when this topic comes up. She is very set in her ways and will resist change ever so stubbornly! Take me giving her a phone upgrade for instance... she will tirelessly decline until I literally remove the existing phone from her possession and replace it with the new one. Give her a few days and she is raving about her new phone haha!!
And yes, with the topic of change in relation to the Steem communities and updates over the last few days - I agree... the ducks appear to be in better order now :)
I know a person in their early 40s (not me) who spends hours setting up apps in the same places as his previous phone.
Change is hard for us as we look into the future carrying our pasts, while animals seem to live in the moment at all times.
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yes they do and they seem a lot happier for it too lol!
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Thank you @tarazkp :)
I like how the communities were rolled out especially with the Steempeek interface.
It is more complex but much more powerful. One thing I am trying to get my head around is how will they Coexist with Tribes and if tribes are still necessary.
Why not just migrate tribes and engine tokens to communities and Smts?
This is going to be a question each tribe owner is going to have to decide soon. There are benefits to both, but I tend to lean toward the SMT solution
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Very true that it's like adopting a new behaviour if your new. We will have lot of failures of course because we're just experimenting on it. Maybe it just a bit shocking of what had happened but it's fine because we knows that it will benifit us if we will just do it well.
Great blog..
Ofcourse experiments are necessary for getting good results
Experimenting is one thing, taking advantage of the situation another. intention matters.
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You are doing great work your are creating content which is always very informative and helpful or different I really appreciate and support you hard work
Good job thanks for sharing this beautiful information
Cheers mate, and thanks for the resteems.
You are always welcome 👍❤
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@tipu curate
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This is a very helpful post for me. I woke up one morning, fired up SteemPeak, and behold - it was different! And a bit disorienting. I’m all for improvements but for big steps, it really helps me when I can have a 50,000 foot (or meter :) view of the of the changes to get a perspective of the nature and structure of the changes either before or when they are implemented. Having a good roadmap helps keep me from getting hopelessly lost! (I’m a visual learner :).
This post helped to provide some good pieces of the picture, but where should one go to get the full view of the map? I’m a system engineer and enjoy learning more of the mechanics behind the system in one serving rather than discovering it bit by bit.
The big picture is very hard to grasp as, which big picture do you want to participate in? Some will develop a broad spectrum gaming experience, others might look at narrow documentation delivery and tracking. I think the big picture contains content freedom and owned experience. The value to an individual might diverge from the economics, but still affect the economic mechanisms. It is very interesting! :)
Good points! Steem is quite a diverse platform. I have a good general understanding of the core platform. I think what I should have asked for was the 10,000 ft view of Communities, probably with a compare & contrast with Tribes and SMTs. Not being a Reddit user may put me at a disadvantage with respect to other users here.
I don't use reddit either, unless someone drops me a link to a post there. However, it is a dynamic and eclectic group of many communities and I wonder what it would become if Reddit points held a fraction of real value. Hopefully, we get to find out here.
What I like about communities is that it separates content, but also introduces users to new content creators. It can become quite a nice feature.
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You've worked in a place where people were upset about a new microwave? O_O
Yes, one of my client companies. It was a very big thing for them at the time - took a full week to sort out. :D
Oh goodness XD
They wanted instructions written on the intranet on best practices...
I would ask if you were joking, but I remembered a case where someone I knew had to provide detailed instructions to push a standard webform button which had "ok" or "submit" or something fairly standard on it.
I still can't even.
When people go to work, they become toddlers.
Congratulations @tarazkp!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
Of course, it's important to be ready for success. Otherwise, you can't keep it when it comes.
A platform should be stable before people step on it. Well...elevators have signs like "5 users/500 kg max".
We are the guinea pigs testing that the cable will hold :)
Good thing we're not that other kind of pigs then :)