Okay, I'm interupting my "If I was a minnow" series to speculate on what I believe will be the "big surprise" that @steemitblog talked about in their previous blogpost.
I'm ready to bet that this is it. It's coming. This very week.
What is the community feature?
For those of you that haven't been here very long. At the beginning of 2017, Steemit Inc. released a roadmap: https://steem.io/2017roadmap.pdf
One feature that almost made me peed my pants was the "community feature". Just like sub-reddit, it would allow you and me to create communities of interest where people can hangout, be a mod, curate, write, etc.
Now today while "spying" on the steemit github, I discovered this : https://github.com/steemit/condenser/wiki/Community-Spec-%5BDRAFT%5D
What caught my eyes is that it is currently being implemented.
Hivemind - Community consensus layer for the Steem blockchain?
For more see the repo of "hivemind" repo: https://github.com/steemit/hivemind
Any user can create a new community, and each becomes a tuned 'lens' into the blockchain. Currently, there is one large window into the Steem blockchain and that is the global namespace as shown on Steemit.com. This is not ideal because everyone effectively has to share a single sandbox while having different goals as to what they want to see and what they want to build.
Many members want to see long-form, original content while many others just want to share links and snippets. We have a diverse set of sub-communities though they share a global tag namespace with no ownership and little ability to formally organize.
The goal of the community feature is to empower users to create tighter groups and focus on what's important to them.
Member Types
Owner: holder of the community account's private keys. Assigns admins.
Admin: can edit admins and mods. Has mod powers.
Mod: can remove posts, block users, add/remove contributors
Contributor: in closed communities, an approved poster.
Guest: a poster in a public community and a commenter in a restricted community
Community Types
Public: anyone can post a topic
Restricted: only mods and approved members can post topics
Either type of community can be "followed" by any user.
Community parameters (editable by mods)
Admin settings
- type
- public
- open-comment: guests can comment but not post
- restricted: only approved members can post/comment
- payment_split: % of rewards which go to the community account. implement in 1.0, don't enforce until 1.1
- admins
Mod settings
- name: the name of this community (32 chars)
- about: short blurb about this community (512 chars)
- description: a blob of markdown to describe purpose, enumerate rules, etc. (5000 chars)
- language: primary language. en, es, ru, etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-3 ?)
- nsfw: if this community is 18+, UI automatically tags all posts nsfw
- bg_color: hex-encoded RGB value (e.g. EEDDCC)
- bg_color2: hex-encoded RGB value, if provided, creates a gradient
- comment_sort: RESERVED - default sort/display method for comments (e.g. votes, trending, age, forum)
- display: RESERVED - graphical layout in communities (version >1.0)
- flag_text: custom text for reporting content
Monetization of a community
What I believe will be the game changer is that there might be an incentive to monetize a community. For example, if you are able to create a thriving community of webdev, the owner of it could be able to make a % of the rewards on it.
Conclusion
If this is it, we can expect parabolic growth in the userbase of steemit. To me it has been the thing that truly keeps us from growing fast. There was way too many people competing for a single new/hot/trending sandbox.
Who's with me? Who think that it is the big surprise this week?
Steem will have a new app to allow for Bitcoin miners to migrate. It will essentially auto-post and auto-selfvote to simulate the mining they're used to lol. Just joking. Yeah I think it's about the communities feature as well. I also have a hunch there might be other blockchains involved in the process.
Hey @kevinwong !
I came here to check out this very interesting post and see you here! BONUES!
I haven't seen much of you lately either =( though I just noticed you dropped a vote on one of my posts, that is of course appreciated.
Great to see you around. Ur comments are always worth reading. Very refreshing in this copy pasta spam promotion world of Steemit!
Spending a lot of time reading and writing these days, facing a different kind of screen xD
btw I've been thinking for a bit, is it possible to spend a month or two in GoE and learn just about the essentials from A to Z?
Yes its possible. Let me know what it is you want and or what your proposal is. There is a LOT to learn and conscious evolution is of the utmost importance~*~
Hey @kevinwong it's been a while! We have to reconnect. I wish we had a private messaging feature already so that I don't have to go over on steemit.chat. What are you up to?
I'm still around, even on steemitchat! Been out of the loop with stuff on Steem though with so many things happening in the blockchain space.
If you send him any amount of steem or SBD, and start the memo with a hashtag, it's encrypted.
Really Matt?
Yup. In your wallet it's visible, but go to his wallet and its blank.
He can see the memo in his wallet but not in yours.
Not sure if its advertised as a feature, but it works.
Yes i tried it matt. It worked!
Good information
That would be exciting. I have been thinking about something lately and haven't been able to really come up with an answer on my own, so I will throw it out there for anyone that might want to answer it.
Why is it that the community here is much kinder, receptive, and overall nicer than on Reddit?
I honestly wasn't sure what to expect but my experience here has been almost entirely positive whereas on Reddit it was the complete opposite.
Does one cater to a different demographic? I just hope whatever changes are made on steemit do not affect this wonderful sense of mutual respect and appreciation that I have found here.
You've definitely contributed to that positive experience that I have had here so far, thank you for all that you do @crytoctopus :-)
I was thinking exactly the same thing - people here are positive, not negative - even if disagreeing and debating, it is done with a friendly , open attitude
Absolutely.. I love it. It makes me want to share more of my work here. Knowing that it's appreciated is really motivational.
I even found the motivation to start writing about my 'memoirs' yesterday!- A led a very colorful past...
I read it lol looking forward to the rest 😊. I would have to write under an alias if I ventured in that direction 🙈😅
Thank you ! - I'm not bothered about it, in the slightest. It's all true, honestly - I might have to say 'fiction' a few times - big people, big money, big angry !
Ill try to post every day -which one did you read, the first one ?-I just posted another - preference of color - that's a tease...
Yeah, I read the first one.. and just read the second one. Looking forward to the rest :-)
I believe another reason people are kinder is that everything being publicly visible on the blockchain means that integrity & authenticity really matter. Questionable behavior gets scrutinized publicly & people seem to be held accountable. People's word matters here.
I dig having a platform where I can be supportive & be a nice person without getting bullied, trolled & condescending lectures for my naive optimism. It's refreshing.
I hope you continue to have great experiences here & thrive. :)
That actually makes sense and I agree with you it's really nice to have people who can conduct themselves in a mature way even if they disagree.
Thank you for your well wishes, I wish you the very same :-)
There are many reasons, one being that trolling behavior is not economically rewarded. if you troll, be prepared to be sent to the reputation dungeon. Also be prepared for your money to be removed, as users here don't reward abusive behavior. The third answer has to do with the main architect of Steem, @dantheman who is an adherent to creating non-violent solutions to the world's problems. So, people who are also into creating non-violent solutions are here, and they are active.....that is the cultural foundation. Of course there are all types on here, but when you stop rewarding abuse, it tends to go away..
Hello Stellabelle, thank you for your response! All three of your points certainly make a lot of sense.
Rewards and retributions are definetly effective tools to keeping a large group of very diverse people on track. I think point three is the missing link, and now that you mention it I completely understand why this site is such a good fit for me.
By having more of a "peace is patriotic" cultural foundation, my articles will certainly be valued and appreciated rather than simply dismissed because they do not follow mainstream media's scripted narrative.
Foreign intervention which is masked as "humanitarian intervention", spreading "democracy" by dropping bombs and facilitating illegal and unwarranted "regime change" are all things I am very much against and write about frequently.
Thank you so much for clarifying all of this for me. I have a good friend of mine that has written half a dozen books and over a thousand articles and I was telling him today that he should join steemit, the more quality work we have here the more we can become informed citizens of this world and facilitate some much-needed change.
Thank you again and I am glad that I arrived as well! Stay well dear @stellabelle :-)
when you have 'skin in the game' - money and reputations - people behave differently, than when there is no consequences.
The first time I went to'the states', I was amazed at the politeness of people - compared to the UK.
I think a lot of that is down to potential gun ownership!
Skin in the game, mean you automatically starts from a respect perspective.
Very clear way of putting it, well done.
LOL did you make this yourself?
No sadly it's the South Park World of Warcraft guy who later becomes an internet troll.
Friendships are lucrative here, and enemies are expensive.
If you're insightful and supportive you win followers, who may read and upvote your content for years.
We're all on our best behaviour :)
Well I think this all sounds wonderful :-) and is a refreshing alternative to other platforms.
btw, I saw your website after you commented on one of my posts and I'm glad you've arrived!
<3 thank you so much dear @stellabelle it's wonderful to be here.
Another Great one!......
Anticipation of this and steemit upcoming app is why I have increased my investment in STEEM
Hello @cryptoctopus, being new here it is great to read and discover so many important informations from you! I was really not aware of the roadmap, i've saved it and will go through it with a calm head later on!
I'm with you 100% and it really looks like great times are coming soon!
Thank you so much!
@creativewoman
This would be so amazing. I truly hope this is it! However, who is going to control the mod's? Is there anything on that? That's a bit too much power, completely removing posts?
I probably can't ever be taken out of the blockchain. If abuse happens, someone can fork steemit.com and create a none censored version of it.
That is true.
I hope this happens as fast as possible. I love steemit... but I would love to be able to find specific types of content much easier. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a long philosophical post. Sometimes I just want to read about sports. Sometimes I just need a silly joke to make me smile. It will be amazing when it becomes easy to "flip the channels" of steemit!
If you have a chance, I'd love to chat over in steemit.chat. I started a conversation if you ever have the time.
This is going to be a pretty cool addon for steemit looking forward to see that happening soon :) can't wait !! and big thanks for telling about it
OMG this would be a huge encouragement! My profile is all around a central theme and I would love to Found / Own a new community around it. Thanks for brightening my day--I needed a counterbalance to all the "goodbye" manifestos floating around!
How long have you been a nomad?
About half a year on this particular venture! btw @sarahabed I just followed you yesterday--legit work you're doing.
Oh how exciting! I'm on a train right now going from one side of Florida to the other. I have always wondered what it would be like to travel around long term, work odd jobs, explore, meet new people, not be tied down to anything. Must be nice. I've traveled quite a bit through Europe, the Middle East, Carribean etc. Enjoy your adventures and take us along so we can live vicariously through you 😊.
Thank you, I love exposing corruption, getting the truth out there. Its pretty exciting it's own way.
I followed you too ☺
This will a very interesting feature!! But say if people start creating restricted communities, doesn't it become more difficult for newcomers to post and wouldn't it decrease their chances of getting views further?
restricted communities would be like closed groups that wants to prevent spam. For example, if someone want to write about STEM, maybe that community would require someone to prove they have a background in STEM in order to post under it? Maybe it something like @zappl, where you don't want microblogging to fill other people's feed. There are many reasons why we would want that feature.
I see. I think i get it now!!
Cheers!!
"For example, if you are able to create a thriving community of webdev, the owner of it could be able to make a % of the rewards on it."
This is the exact thing that killed tsu.
Everything was fine and then the groups came. All of the sudden there were a million groups and the main feed of the place died. Unless you wanted to be in this or that clique - you were DOA. I do photography and all of the sudden a lot of my friends went into a flower photo group. I don't do flowers much so I was out of that group and out of those friends.
It was a night and day change as soon as the groups got there. So many people left so fast! If you did not want to join a group or 10 - you were out of luck. I'd say the change was effective in one week and 30% of the non-groupies were gone in a couple of months after that. There was just no point in staying if there is no one there to talk to.
Groups add a new level of complexity and I wish and hope and pray someone is working to make it easier for new people to enter. If instead the "entrance" to steemit is a turned into more of a low-paying, dead place you have to learn - and then - after you learn, you can join groups - no one will make it. New people will not even try.
Another factor is that now webdev and stem etc are gone for the little people. We will not even be able to look at it with interest - it will be a rarified world somewhere else. I would be the kind of person to join all groups that will have me but most people won't.
I know you need groups here, but monetizing them makes them way too attractive for the bigs and mediums and all the niches to congregate. At tsu there was a whole complex thing about which groups you wanted to follow in a feed. I never learned it or joined a group.
Here I will stay until they pry the Alexa ranking out of my cold dead hands though. Nothing else matters to me as long as my posts rank which they have been doing.
I don't know if there are enough active people to split them up like this. Everyone should be working to grow the place outwardly not constrict it inside.
Tweet more steemit posts! Get more people before heading off. Use your hashtags to find your people in a more subtle manner. I feel negative on this group idea for now.
first of all about users
as you can see most of them are inactive
so we havent growth very much - in fact only in paper :)
Second i love idea of subs and so on, only problem is moderators (because they have power to delete posts and money from users ) so it will be mini government in each of sub community. I just hope no personal hate will destroy dreams of others.
Idea is good but it can go positive and negative , so lets hope developers know what they do .
Are you planning to create and be owner of community too?
I will for sure!
@investwarrior has a great point about moderators. 2 ideas:
-Mods don't have power to delete, only to "mute", or freeze, which would be less harsh somehow.
-Communities could require permission to join, and answering a few short questions, like with groups on MEETUP.com
I was waiting for you to be back and i knew you would be back with a bang.. Very much - and actually more than what I had expected. I have some questions to ask regarding investments in steem. Please let me know if there is any other way i can contact you.
Regards. good to hear from you again.
I've heard faint rumors, but this is some of the best (and most exciting) proof of what's to come. I for one would be thrilled to see some fragmentation. My interests lie in niche corners and I still find myself weeding through (for lack of a better term) dumpster fires of irrelevant (subjectively speaking) content.
I'm ready with my finger on the proverbial community trigger!
Rather, you are right. In golos.io, which is a copy of Steemit, new communities have been created for several weeks already. And yes, the number of users there has increased dramatically.
This all sounds very exciting. I see some tweaks needed and don't care much for the absolute power aspect of community owners but otherwise this sounds fantastic.
That will be amazing. Only good news. It will be a great opportunity for the good artists to be seen. I also think it with be very useful for the charity projects. In my opinion it will be great for Steemit users (especially for the whales) to help the projects they believe in.
That is really exciting news if that is what it's going to be!
Nice post. I'm somewhat new to Steemit but I'm in full agreement that there are too many people fighting for a few sandboxes. If this comes about, I agree that it could see the base grow exponentially. Exciting!
Thanks for sharing really helpful information @ cryptoctopus..😊
Road map is very important for minnows like me.. Very big thanks again.. 👍
Upvoted and resteemed for you..👌👍
Cheer..🙌🍻
yes absolutely sir, this is surely strengthened the steemit blockchain even more like we have D-Tube already doing well and now we can upload our videos directly to steemit and also a new steemit mobile app also comes in to play may be next week or so and now steemit community news amazing, i am sure these developments helps steemit to gain even more heights in near future. thanks for sharing
Wow this is inspiring indeed. The concept of communities, of course is old as a hell, but like you said if owner of the community will be able somehow to monetize, that would be a real game changer.
The only problem I see here is if there will be available closed communities, the whole transparent idea of steemit will be kind of ruined.
So I totally for opened communities, but against closed ones.
I have an idea how to make it even better :) How about, if communities might be accessed by certain levels. For example communities for minnows, then community for people who reached level 50 etc. Then the whole system of levels would make more sense(which doesn't at the present moment).
There would be communities for whales, and minnows would have more passion to get there by reaching a certain level.
Perhaps this is the one thing that will keep Steemit head-and-shoulders above the competition ;) I have noticed a lot of people talking about communities and building groups.
Downloaded the road map and will read later.
The monetization of a community will increase creativity on steemit.
This will also grow the community.
Hopefully the feature rolls up this week.
Wow this feature would make content discovery a lot more straight forward. No more minnow struggling for one minute of fame on the new posts page. I cant wait
That's a great idea! Would totally make it easier to be able to focus on things your most interested in and connect with others in that sense in a more organized manner. Hope that goes through 👍
Thanks a lot @cryptoctopus, Any information you share is really valuable to me as a beginner in this section. I always follow every new post from you, and all are very helpful to me.
Thank you very much for that.
Regards
Wow that would be good news, I hope you're right.
We hope to be a pleasant surprise for everyone!
great post im newbie so read as much as i possibly can to learn much as i can from other steemit users, newbies like me really appreciate the time and effort you take to explain new concepts to the newbies :)
Well I'm definitely excited to see what comes up next.
Oh wow so many important information my friend and I was really not aware of all these! Thanks that you are here to help us get these infos.
It really seems like before end of year Steemit will explode with an amazing number of people joining! That's just awesome, really excited to see this happen!
Btw thanks for sharing the road map, first time i'm seeing it!
I'm going to go through all the links you shared shortly!
Cheers
@progressivechef
I hope so! Steemit does need something which improves the organisation of posts, the ability to find the things that really interest you, and the interaction between communities of likeminded people. Could be a big step forwards!
With new technology as apps and many other things , we have potential growth within the community and block chain itself
This would be so great. If I am correct this would allow a long lasting discussion on one topic - which now is often fluctating and beeing stopped after a while due to the discussed post moving out of the hot/trending section!
Implementing this would definetly be a huge boost of value then - and it would value the start of a great topic/discussion - Which of course would be awesome as well.
Heading for soccer practice now - when I am back I will definetly check the roadmap! Thank you for sharing this important information :)
Echoing @miniature-tiger here. More organisation is definitely needed and this is a great thing, and yes quite a surprise! Looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.
Separate communities sound like a great idea. Another way to find your tribe, your people, your lobsters! That last one is a friend's reference. Thanks for the post!
I think sub-communities are a great idea and a great way to create more community pods, thematic areas, cultural enclaves or a whole host of possibilities. My only issue, one I've been grinding on recently, is the real growth of steemit vs. inactive users and those with multiple accounts. I still think retention is a big issue, but there are definitely positive trends in curation/outreach. Peace
@cryptoctopus,
Yes, powerful community features should be added here. My personal viewpoint is STEEMIT is the upcoming most powerful social media platform! So, community moderation should be there! Thank you very much for sharing such great news with us! Really appreciate your effort!
I wish one day I can see STEEM at the top of the coinmarketcap list! I hope my wish will come true!
(My voting power is still regenerating, therefore please allow me four more days to provide 100% upvotes for your posts)
Cheers~
Thanks @cryptoctopus of a truth @steemitblog has been providing enough enlighten information on there blog which i personal benefit from. However, am glade you are talking this direction because there are so many things I've be observed on steemit platform that makes me to wonder if vested interest will not out run the community interest in the near future. Thanks for speaking out.
Monetization of communities would create a lot more pies that would add in to an enormous main pie. I love the sound of that!
I hope this is true , steemit will gain popularity again with this and would be easier to create and maintain a network. This way minnows could work togheter instead of needing the whales for everything
It would be amazing if this were the surprise. We are trying to build an educational community. Would you have any interest in renting sp to help encourage and reward communities members who post edcuation related content? We just posted a piece asking (ok begging) for people to lease to us or donate sp.
The development has been very slow. Last time that page has been updated was April 5.
I suspect that we are not going to see the community feature implemented anytime soon.
see hivemind github
Thanks for this promising information. I have long thought that communities would really help Steemit. Also, thank you for your continuing contributions to the platform.
Really surprising news after dTube ! This feature will give strength to steemit. Thanks for sharing the info
Lovin it, I created large communities on FB through several niches... this be awesome!
First time am seeing the roadmap
Thanks for sharing these info about the community
Will be good and will encourage development for the authors
Nice one steemit
Nice post @cryptoctopus
Hope my vote helps push the great info. Thanks a lot.
This leaked update is completely unexpected. It's good that we are developing into something new.
The question will be tags still actual - how we use them now, or there will be communities in browse feature, and we just choose communities.
For me, these communities are something like tags, but with a fee for owners and people with authority. Thus, it is no longer decentralized, and someone can control others , Im not sure its correct way for the crypto currency