I've noticed the same thing. I think there a several factors at play.
First, it IS hard to learn the ropes around here. Lots of moving parts.
Second, have y'all looked at the 'new' page lately? Lots and lots of drek.
Third, spammy-scammy comments show up seconds after a post goes live. Lots and lots and lots of bots to boot.
What to do to counter-act the outflow?
@pennsif has made some great suggestions here. Many, if not all, are doable, but it's going to take a committed, concerted effort to make it happen, imo. That's partly my motivation in suggesting launching a General Store as a kickoff for the Co-Op concept. General Stores are a gathering place for the whole community to do exactly the things you're highlighting. I'm tempted to knock something together, but it would be better to have someone who knows what they're doing.
My .02 sbd's worth...
I'm keen to learn more about the General Store idea. Hopefully we can catch up in Discord chat soon to discuss further.
Sounds great! I've popped in on Discord a few times over the last week, when their servers would allow. Will try again shortly...
I agree @aunt-deb commitment of active users
Mmm, the General Store? Interesting. I think I understand what you are referring to int he sense of online, computers and groups.
Basically, the idea is to have a central place to congregate where we can shape the purpose to fit the community. It's hard to build anything without some sort of a gameplan. Once we have that, the actual functions (library, seed exchange, etc.) could have their own niche within the whole project.
Agreed. I spoke briefly with @pennsif this morning on Discord chat about it. I wish that steemit would add more options on steemit to go along with what you described. Steemit and communities have such a positive advancement, but some days it feels like we are struggling and steemit needs to step up some and make it more community-user-friendly
That's the major drawback of Steemit - no way to interact person-to-person directly. That's been a long asked for feature. I don't know why they're not adding it, but it's a major stumbling block to the platform's functionality. Agree w you 100% on this!