In case you don't know, Steem 0.12.0 is going to be released this Tuesday and it brings some significant and majors changes for the Steemit platform. These are discussed in some detail below.
One of the few major changes that I would love to talk about is the change in the way of payout. They are introducing new method of payout which has two cycles.
In the first cycle, you get a payout after 12 hours. So if you are of the lucky ones, produce quality content and your post goes viral, then you get your money a lot faster than before. It'll change how to front-page looks too I assume. Hopefully, new content will be on the front-page more frequently as compared to right now. Right now, you can find posts on the front page from 2-3 days ago. This new change will hopefully give the people who's amazing content often goes noticed their chance in the spotlight.
I've discussed that how Steemit should implement a system to celebrate original content and I think that this is their way of doing that. I'm so incredibly happy that they've seen the growing need for a system like that, paid attention to it and have introduced a system that does not just exactly that but much more. It rewards viral content while at the same time rewarding effortly-written and amazingly original content.
In the second cycle of the new payout system, the voting period is set to 30 days after the first payout. This will help those non-viral posts that I am talking about. These posts will keep accumulating votes during those 30 days that will be rewarded after those 30 days. So, like, a ton of votes. When posts don't get popularity and go viral immediately, they feel abandoned. They have the kind of feeling that now their just left in the darkness with no one to look after them. I think of the most needed and helpful additions to this website will be a Notifications box. It will tell the user if anyone has replied to their post or not. A lot like the ones Facebook or Reddit have.
Let me explain it's importance. Imagine if you posted a tutorial or a guide here on Steemit. You get your payout and promptly forget about, plotting and drafting your next post. Let's say a person in need of help posts a comment on your thread. But the thing is, you don't care about that thread now; you have forgotten about it. What this Notifications box will do that it will provide the first few lines of that post right where the message appears if you disconnect from the internet on Steemit. It's the bottom-left corner of the screen. It can also show the number of notifications you have received with a small red number.
After 30 days and second payout, the post becomes locked. It cannot be replied to and edited. However, it can still be voted upon without affecting the voters posting power. These votes serve as appreciation to the author for the amount of work they've put in and whether the post helped the voter or not.
My favorite change that their bringing in the next release is that now they are penalizing spamming.
Penalizing spamming was one of the biggest things that Steem needed to do. A lot of the users were upset by the amount of spam posts and complained about. Steemit paid attention to that also and now they are all about de-rooting the spam circus.
Steemit has taken out it's big guns: The spam-shutdown begins now!
It uh begins next Tuesday..
The first 4 posts in 24 hours will not be penalized however that is not the case for more than 4 posts. They will be heavily penalized. This is a change that I've been looking forward to and hoping for some time now.
So happy that Steem gods have heard my prayers. #FeelingBlessed.
This change depends on your posting frequency. The higher it is, the more penalized you are.
No. of posts in 24 hours ∝ The amount of penalty
They have aimed this change to:
[...] increase the quality of content at the cost of quantity.
It is the most important change in my opinion that will eventually make Steemit the home of originality. I whole-heartedly agree to their aim because as I've discussed before, there is an abundance of low-quality, low-effort copy-pasta (yup) that has started to drown out the original content and their creators. Hopefully this will play it's role as a crowd-controller that appreciates original content and helps it emerge.
I'm very happy that the Steem gods are paying attention towards this community. This is a huge plus that will certainly be great for them in the long run.
There are a few other changes that they are introducing in this new release. You can read all about it here on GitHub.