The problem mainly is user experience, they come, make a post - wait for upvotes and comments - generally get neither. Get bored after a few repetitions and leave. The question is how do you make it more obvious for people joining Steemit how to progress? Retaining users has to be about helping them understand from the start how to progress and grow on the platform - we have so many great initiatives for new users like @helpie, @welcomewagon and the work done by @surpassinggoogle and yet new users are treated to Trending, New, Hot and Promoted as their primary directions? They need to find communities - and making communities easily found has to be the solution to user retention.
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I agree, there is somewhat of a 'cycle' that the average seems to go through upon arrival. When I came Steemit, it was mostly robots and automated messages that greeted me. However, there were some who offered their thoughts, advice, and helpful knowledge of the platform - not to mention offering support like any great mentor would. To be perfectly honest, I came to Steemit knowing literally 1 other human on the platform and it was very difficult to locate information and identify communities that were relevant to my interests.
That handful of people gave me the most encouragement to stay and continue creating. It only takes a person or two to really make a meaningful impact. I think that any user with some understanding of the platform can become a mentor. I think we can agree that there is an abundance of information, but it is not 'right there' for the new users.
A simple feature could be built into the platform to compile these resources (already compiled) in a way that makes it more accessible for new users. Let's face it - if we make it hard to locate the basic resources and information needed to progress on Steemit - we are setting new users up for failure.
If all new users can see is that trending page or hot section - we are embedding a false sense of hope in them from the very start. Many with misunderstandings of how these 'popularity' mechanisms/algorithms work, will mistakenly set their expectations far higher than the results they will realistically receive.
I feel that the community features will hopefully make it much easier for like-minded people to help one another, share information that might be often overlooked, and really begin to show the true value of this platform. It is a great community of determined people, so I have no doubt in my mind it can get better and it will. We are all just learning on the fly @c0ff33a.
That was indirectly mentioning something I saw you doing for a fellow witness, which among other instances I have seen, really stuck out to me as a very positive sign of the strength and bond that this community shares. I really found a lot of optimism through observing the actions of several really incredible users on here and you are most certainly one of them.
Like I said, that statement in my post was written with your actions in mind. If more people functioned out of compassion and dedication, like you have shown this past week, I have no doubt in my mind that Steemit will progress and flourish. Sorry for the text wall, my friend.
Good job @enginewitty reminded me of this one, I was going to reply to your comment but then I ended up having a fight with my Witness server to get it updated to v0.19.11 - which I am happy to report I did manage and the joint Witness of myself and @derangedvisions were among the fastest to update from v0.19.10 to v0.19.11 .
I'm humbled you see me as "one of the incredible users on here", my goal has only ever to be enjoy the content on this platform - and help share it around and gain the upvotes they deserve. With the little time I have available I try and get around as many posts, people, accounts and generally appreciate content and let people know the posts they worked so hard on are appreciated by somebody.