“It wasn’t love at first sight. It took a full five minutes.” Lucille Ball
All Steem/SBD earnings from this post will be donated to @outreach to support outreach and marketing efforts.
Today’s Steemit Roadmap is an ambitious document that takes time to digest. Initially, it did not excite me, perhaps because of its list-style format where the good stuff is buried with the technical tweaks. It is clear that a lot of development work still remains for the site. But the more I have read through this Roadmap and discussed it with others today, the more excited I am becoming about where we are going.
Remember that Steemit.com is the flagship (though just one part) of the overall Steem ecosystem. I am glad to see that the development team’s emphasis remains on growing that whole system, scaling it as an industrial-strength blockchain, and making it friendly for third-party developers and others who want to use STEEM. We could be impatient and demand faster changes to Steemit.com itself, but building the infrastructure for long term exponential growth will serve us well later.
Let the Roadmap sit awhile and ferment. Then enjoy it like a fine wine. If you’re patient, there are some truly exceptional ideas in here.
These are the plans that excite me the most:
1.) The Communities
Tags and feeds have not been enough to delineate content. We need to let communities develop and help them grow. Also, we need to enable a greater variety of content types (including shorter length posts) and give people more control over moderation and curation.
The Roadmap ideas for building Communities blew my mind. I knew they were discussing some changes to the content areas, but had no idea it would be this comprehensive and address so many of the site’s needs at once. I REALLY like this idea.
People will be able to create and help oversee their own Communities. Can one person start and run a Community? Sure, though it is still a social site and market forces are at work, so these will evolve and users will migrate over time to the best ones.
The term “moderators” might bring some bad things to mind. When I think of how not to moderate, Reddit’s /r/Bitcoin comes to mind, since one moderator there has exercised some extreme censorship. With Steemit’s Communities, people can adjust their feeds, so if a moderator is being a fascist, then users would just vote with their feet and move on.
That is exactly what we need to create an open, censorship-resistant content model. We must empower community members to take on more responsibility and have more of a stake in moderation. Enabling this has been a challenge because most people do not have large voting stakes and the only remaining tools besides votes have been comments or flags.
Those who have recognized that this is a social site and have built bridges are gaining the trust of the broader community. You will have great opportunities going forward to organize and operate your own communities. Once you do, please look me up, because I can’t wait to support you and follow your feeds!
2.) The Tutorial Walkthroughs for New Users
New users need a lot of help. There are so many moving parts here, even if the basic idea is fairly simple. Back in June, I helped write the Steemit 101 e-book on Amazon because there was so little help for new users. Since then, others have created clearer guides and FAQs, but the hurdles in signing up and getting started have screened out a lot of people who lack the patience to persevere.
Building a walk-through tutorial will help “onboard’ newbies and show them how to complete some of the first few actions. I love the idea of awarding them for these achievements, which leads right in to the next part.
3.) Gamification: Insignias, Achievement Goals, and Fun Stuff
Did you know that Steemit is one large game? When the tax man cometh, you can try mentioning that, too! So far, the fun factor on the site has been lacking (unless you like writing long articles or voting on them), but that is about to change for the better.
Research has shown that people like to have fun and be challenged to achieve new heights. We have seen this already with the limited number of achievement features we have, such as reputation scores. Many users have told me the rewards matter less to them than the reputation score does.
Having badges, different levels of achievements, and whatever else they dream up will be awesome additions.
Gamification features should be considered as a whole, in combination with other changes like the Communities (also in the roadmap) and the increased Comment Rewards (see the previous Steemitblog proposal).
Note to team: Can we please have some gamification features for trolls and passive-aggressives to get their kicks? Instead of flagging, maybe blasting some space invaders that come in to take their STEEM? STEEM Invaders! We need STEEM Invaders! Or something with donkeys.
4.) The Blockchain Fabric
For most of us, this is background stuff, because we are focused on visible features. But I’m guessing that some members of the development team are proudest of this achievement. As I understand it, using the multiple parallel chains will allow much greater scalability as we prepare for more widespread uses of STEEM in the future.
Somewhere, Satoshi just blinked. Or maybe he rolled over in his hammock. This is a huge leap forward in blockchain technology, the kind of innovation that spurs a whole new generation of development. And a generation in crypto is what, like three months?
Naw, they’ll be talking about this one for years. If we want Steem to have space for all of this development, then they needed to address scalability concerns. This solution is a big achievement.
5.) Using the Steemit Account to Fuel Development and Growth
Prior to Steemit, I was a member of the BitShares community for more than two years. One of the biggest problems there was that there was very little money to support development and marketing. We constantly argued over how to allocate the few resources that were available. Steem’s hyper-inflationary environment seemed better suited for this initially, but since it was not something that the market understood well, they scrapped that and got the inflation under control here. Also, witnesses earn money that can be used to fund initiatives in the community, but it hasn’t been that much money with the low Steem price, and a lot of it needs to go towards critical development work.
So I held out some hope that there was an early account allocated to support additional development and initiatives.
Meanwhile, community members often have wondered aloud how the Steemit account would be used. It contains more than 40% of all Steem. Today’s Roadmap clearly sets forth that this account “will be gradually divested of its holdings in an effort to increase promotion and development of the platform.”
Perfect. That is exactly what we will need. I could not have scripted this better. Redistribution is extremely important and I always will support that. But it’s the second part of that sentence that gets me really excited.
Sure, they could burn that Steem or give it away. But can you imagine what we can achieve with that huge of a war chest available to fund development and promotion? Excuse me, but holy shit.
This isn’t a moon rocket. It’s a launcher capable of hurling rocket after rocket towards the moon and well beyond.
BONUS # 6:
I can’t help myself; here’s a bonus. The mobile development stuff is badly needed and I’m glad that they are addressing this, too. More and more people connect with their phones and tablets these days. Wish it was coming sooner, but good development is worth the wait. We need apps for that.
In conclusion, this Roadmap may seem dense, but it tells us a lot about the plans for Steemit’s (and Steem’s) ongoing development. There are some amazing plans in here. If you’re impatient or looking for a quick buck, this may not be the right place for you. But if you’re a long term thinker and comfortable working to build Steem and Steemit over time, take note. These guys clearly have a long term vision and the means to put it into action.
All images are public domain from Pixabay.
Thank you for breaking this down and hitting the highlights! My favorites are the communities (come on geek community!) and the gamification (see my previous geek statement). I am looking forward to see how they use that huge war chest... but that is more abstract and unknown. I can really "sink my teeth" into the others right away.
communities is my favorite as well! Bring on more weirdos like me......
Yeah we do want more like you @stellabelle
hey, thanks for that!
can i frame this on all my $1.82 posts?
By all means! Love ur posts by the way, they're hilarious! Am just confused on the gnome..can it come to london???
yeah, you have to beg for it when it shows up on steemit...
Cool!
I would probably the first one to join the geek community, right after you create it ;)
Terrific breakdown! This road map was long awaited, but it was worth it. It's very exciting and can't wait to see it in action. :)
Steem Invaders would be pretty easy to make if your requirements are not too extravagant. You should let me know what you have in mind.
That's great thanks! I want to be able to blast something on the screen. I read posts, I comment, I vote, but it's not enough for me. I need to whack something while I'm on Steemit and get my aggression out. Moles, space invaders, donkeys, whatever. Whack 'em! No, scratch that last one. The donkey has to be the good guy. Can you make that happen?
Probably yes... It'd have to be WebGL based and someone else would want to host the game somewhere. I could host it for demo purposes, but it would be on my godaddy host, and people might want it moved somewhere else...
You looking for a simple comical galaga, space invaders type game with basic simple graphics and sound?
You're moving above my pay grade. I may need to ask the audience for help if that's what people want. Can we integrate it on Steemit.com? :)
Perhaps... integrating it with steemit.com would require authenticating participant posting keys, or something which I think they are working on. If they get that AUTH stuff they are talking about making working I don't see why not. Yet, that is not what I am proposing now. That'd take quite a bit more work and time than I have right now (the integration part).
As far as above your pay grade... the simpler the game is the faster and more likely I can make it...
Here is Galaga:
Here is Space Invaders:
Or something like Llamatron:
Nice. Is there any way we can shoot something on the Steemit screen, like another person's post or emoji?
I have to convert all the images we plan to use into sprite sheets. So whatever art we have will have to be used. Though I can code it to grab a web page and make it a background... I might be able to do some pixel reading and such to do something like that, so it might be possible.
It's probably something the community would have to agree upon.
I don't have time to make something elaborate as I have other projects, but something simple I could do pretty easily.
As far as making the web pages and such interactable. Yes, it could be done but it'd require me writing my own web browser inside of Unity which I don't currently want to do or at some point picking up a $75 asset that can convert web pages to textures.
I'd say save that for later if interest warrants it.
This is a great assessment and echoes a lot of my thoughts as well. I am definitely happy about the Communities, as I have a Facebook community that I'd like to move over to Steemit...Thanks for being a great leader and voice of reason..
Donkeys can swim. We use those ears like fins.
you have a measured reaction to everything that goes on in Steemit.....any special meaning behind your name? did you like Donkeykong?
How long have I known you, Leah, and we haven't talked about that? It's a subject for another post, I suppose. ;)
well, i guess i don't know you that well.
This may be all you need to know about my name.
https://steemit.com/funny/@lordvader/this-donkeypong-really-seems-excited-about-a-roadmap
This is great brotha thanks!
I was hoping to see someone break this down :D
here@thecryptofiend made a nice table of the changes since you mentioned a break down, you can see it
Awesome post mate! Fabric in particular has me really excited because it could bring in the big money!
Excellenter post @donkeypong.thank you.
Steem invaders! I like that better than trolls! This is a very nice post covering a lot of the major points of the roadmap!
I definitely need to read it asap. From what you wrote, I am already happy, in particular with respect to item 1. :)
What a great article and its articulation definitely easily approachable for the main crowd. Great job!
Hey, in relation to the #1: "if a moderator is being a fascist, then users would just vote with their feet and move on", I thought there could be a "tracker.bot" keeping track of such moderators poking their zeal everywhere and getting the boot everywhere. Let's say that at a certain % of a circle of nodes consistantly moving away from his or her node, like a predator leaving empty space away from themselves as they are on the hunt, this specific moderator would have to respond to a chosen neutral representative group representing either our whole community or a specific group of Steemit users, under the tutelage of that neutral arbitration, this user could be offered to moderate themselves using a specific set of rules and duty they'd have to conform to, otherwise get the actual boot out of the community? This way, as a community, we empower ourselves with what the first nations of this world have used sustainably for thousands of years, reparative justice, because, playing game of destructions make many pretty high these days...
The parallel with the launchpad at the very end of your article was juicy and still makes me salivate. ;) Thanks for the scrumptious image. All for one and one for all!!! Namaste :)
There's a lot to be excited about here! The mention in Forbes magazine today isn't too shabby either. The future is very bright! : )
I am really glad to see that Communities are coming to Steemit. It will be so much easier for everyone to read only the stuff they want to read. IMO, it will also make the community more active just by creating that feeling of belonging to a group of like-minded people. It makes people open up.
Apart from that, thanks for the breakdown. I was a little scared that I did not understand a thing about the roadmap after reading all that tech stuff, but now I am sure that I am up to date lol.
Also, I would love to see Steemit account upvoting some random posts time to time. Might not be the best idea, but would definitely be fun.
With being only newbe myself, I need to take some time to digest it all but it is clear that Steemit is without doubt the most exciting innovation in crypto and blockchain technology to date and personally I am in it for the long haul.
I am just a humble artist/creator and the nuts and bolts of how it all works are difficult for me to get to grips with but I have faith in the system because it has magic and a mystery to it.
But I will say this, if the Steemit platform can keep the "human" feeling in its future development, as it does now, or make that even better, then it can not fail to take off like that rocket of yours.
Facebook exploded because it understood this point. Ease of usability and human interactivity is the key to any the platform´s success in my view.
I hardly ever write on FB ever since I joined Steemit and I use much time in enticing others to join. Roll on 2017!Fantastic review @donkeypong !
So exciting to wake up this morning, check my feed, and see so many great posts about the roadmap! I'm looking forward to communities and gamification the most. With communities maybe I can finally bring my wife onboard (she's been hesitant to try Steemit because she's hooked on the Facebook community that all her Malaysian friends are in). Regarding gamification, it sure would be cool to see something like the excellent achievement badges that @elyaque created, which I've started using as a footer for each of my blog posts.
Lol, donkey invaders will get my vote...
A group of ass's come to steal your steem and you must... throw bear bottles at em?
Maybe the boss could be a jeff berwick head on an ass? Or really any user on steemit everyone knows could be a boss... maybe get dans head on an ass
This is starting to sound like a good redneck game. Id play it!
Redneck Whack 'em!
+1
Lets get @dwinblood on it.
Much more fun to read this than the original PDF! Thanks!
steem invaders or something with donkeys, that made me grin. Great article! I love your enthusiasm, it's infectious. I will check out outreach and this is definitely being resteemed :)
A great breakdown, thanks for making it a bit easier to digest :)
Now that is a good post, Tom. Fully agree on the roadmap. Buckle in and keep building. Good times ahead.
Isn't that how reddit works too? Last time I checked, reddit allows you to subscribe/unsubscribe freely.
Yes, I think the Communities would be similar to how Reddit works. I wasn't suggesting they will be better necessarily (though the rewards create a somewhat different dynamic). For those who didn't understand the Communities idea fully, I was trying to explain that users are free to move about.
You can read what I wrote about your post here.
It's an honor. Thank you.
Oh yes, this looks promising. Looking forward to these being rolled out. Communities and Gamification in particular.
I wasn't online yesterday so I've still got to read the roadmap. Everything you mentioned here is very exciting indeed! Thanks for breaking it down a bit. :)
Actually not "Perfect" - the same way BM wanted to create "the beautiful new world" while being paid like he worked at Google in his BTS days, now DanTheMan wants to create the "new social media "by diversifying/spreading but most importantly SELLING (as in for money) his ninja-mined stake to the masses.
I know, I know "the devs have bills too" narrative... It is just that you either has to be hopelessly believing (like Jesus/Satoshi did) and expect nothing in return, or be well fed like Google developer. Being both is just not possible no matter ho much "reverseflash" desperately tries to prove otherwise.
Exciting times!
I can't contain myself now. At first I was a little confused after reading the roadmap but that was my mind getting overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of information in that document.
But, after reading the breakdowns of @andrarchy , @cryptofiend and yours, I was finally able to digest a lot of that information and I am jumping with joy with excitement and anticipation of what and where Steem & Steemit will be by the end of 2017.
I would say "To the moon", but that seems too near now ;)
thanks for the optimistic commentary and most poignant and clear digest of the road map to fall across my blinkers thus far ;)
For me Gamification is All! I would just love to see steemit more smooth and awesome!