Well as the whole world knows hardfork 20, a.k.a HF20 has happened, the dust is settling the hills are rumbling and Steemit goes on.
I thought I'd do a quick good, bad, and ugly post about HF20. There's a lot of negativity floating round our little corner of the interweb. Lots of new users are pretty confused, and some older ones are pretty angry.
So let's take a lighthearted look at HF20 and what it means for you.
HF 20: The Good
If you have read the comment section of any of the official @steemitblog HF20 posts then you'd be forgiven for thinking that no good has come from the most recent fork of the Steem blockchain.
I have seen lots of confusion and anger, plenty of insults traded along with comments that have taken longer to read than the average Kafka novel.
It seems that the default positions for most people are either; I'm not sure if I can vote or comment. Or Why wasn't this tested?! Grrrr!
Both things that I myself have said. However there is some good out there. So seeing as it's Friday and the world hasn't blown up yet, let's take a moment to focus on some of that good.
Unlimited Editing:
This for me is a real whoop-whoop! moment. Not being able to edit my old posts has always been a bit of a bugbear for me. It has meant that when I've written a series, or a novel spread out over many posts. I haven't been able to go back into the older posts and add next chapter links.
The only way to link together these series are by doing back chapter links. Or by doing the odd contents page posts. If I did want to link Chapter 10 to Chapter 11, I'd have to do so by way of the comment section.
Plus of course I may spot a typo or some other kind of mistake in there. Or a picture becomes unavailable, or some other reason I might want to edit a post after seven days.
This situation is apparently no more! With the new RC system you will be able to edit your old posts to your heart's content. Of course the original will still be on the blockchain for anyone with the know-how and willing to do so. However the front-end which everyone sees, can be changed to suit your needs.
Communities:
We have been talking about fixing the tags for a long time on Steemit, and it would seem that communities are the answer.
The way Steemit tags work now, is that they are mainly populated by content produced within the last seven days. On some occasions, clicking the 'new' button will ironically show you older posts in that section. However by and large, you will only see 7 day old content within a tag.
If you are a series-type content producer, whereby you are releasing chapters of a book. Or simply posts bonded together under a common theme, then a 7-day-old tag system is very frustrating for you.
Without having your work permanently tagged under whatever subject you choose. The harder it becomes to find the further back in time the post recedes to. Now at least the platform is there to stop this happening.
HF20: The Bad
Transaction Restrictions:
Clearly the worst thing about HF20 is the restrictions on posting, voting, commenting and transfers for the first 18 hours or so. However now we can do all of those things, so no drama.
Lack of Voting:
Because @steemauto is down, plenty of accounts (including my own)are not getting the autovotes they were getting before HF20. This is a bit of a downer as it signifies everything isn't quite back to normal yet.
I've been in the @steemauto Discord channel, and it seems that it has been suspended because the global voting power was reduced to 20% or something. So once it replenishes in the next few days, hopefully by the end of the weekend, things will get back to normal.
Just remember to log in to @steemauto or whatever auto voter you use, just to make sure your settings have been saved and you're still voting for who you want to vote for.
Exchange Wallets Down:
This was the worst for me. I am pretty much a full time Steemit blogger, so I rely quite heavily on the income I generate from Steemit. The exchange wallets on Bittrex and Binance have been down for the past couple of weeks as they waited for the HF20 changes to take place.
I haven't checked this morning, however they were all still disabled as of yesterday. I usually avoid @blocktrades because of their higher fees. I was told yesterday that the fees aren't so bad as long as you avoid the Steem to BTC conversions.
Therefore I played around with their tool and various crypto converters, and figured out that their Litecoin conversion had the lowest fees. So I, and others were able to sell our Steem.
HF20: The Ugly
A lot of people (myself included) got angry after HF20. Not being able to do anything with your account, whilst seeing that some others could, was frustrating to say the least.
Also reading the @steemitblog's HF20 Success! post was a little bit jarring. Especially as you couldn't even reply to the post telling them that it wasn't a success at all.
Many people vented in the various chats and Discords, then if you're like me, you left it at that.
However some Steemians have started various spats and arguments with others. This has created an ugly atmosphere of back-biting, name-calling, muting and ignoring.
At the end of the day I have learned that regardless of how angry you are about a particular situation on Steemit. It's never really worth losing the plot over. Sure, you can be angry and vent your feelings, and explain exactly why you're angry.
However there is literally no reason to take it any further than that. Falling out with someone, or antagonising a member of the Steemit team will not do any good and won't make you feel any better. Especially once the dust has settled and we are floating along nicely again.
It is far better to just take a breath, walk away from the computer and do something completely unrelated to Steemit, and indeed the internet as a whole.
All that will happen if you get drawn into endless arguments about how messed up HF20 has been. Is you will end up with a couple of extra enemies, and what's the point of that? Steemit should be about making new positive connections.
So my advice is; we've initially been given some lemons, that are in fact quite easy to make lemonade from.
Use the various HF20 posts to hook up with people in the comment sections, and make new positive connections.
It isn't perfect, but as I told my 7 year old daughter on the way to school just now. The day will turn out however you envisage it, if you say everything's doom and gloom, then that's what you'll get. If however you choose to focus on the positives, you'll have a right, ripping, fantastic day!
Keep calm, and Steem on!
Extra Info:
HF20 Update: Restoring Continuity
It is OK to vote! Voting power isn't broken, it just got reset.
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR GOOD, BAD, AND UGLY EXPERIENCES WITH HF20? DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN? OR PERHAPS YOU BARELY NOTICED ANY DIFFERENCE? DID I MISS OUT ANY PARTICULAR ASPECT OF HF20?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Title image: Blend of, taha ajmi and Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash