This is originally a comment for @thecryptofiend's contest. I've decided to post it here, too. I wanted to avoid duplicates but it may have value to you. You judge.
Thanks to @good-karma, who's encouraged me to make it a post and gave me a tip for future long comments to avoid duplication and unnoticed comments with value. Here's my entry for the contest, unchanged.
About The State of Steem(it)
I don't like TL;DR posts but you have so many questions. :) I'm trying to filter, compress and combine my thoughts and avoid long reasoning (shrank to 78 percent).
It's All Right
Steemit is better than its 'blog to earn' competitors because the transparency and integrity. It (c)eased the problem of voting farms, and this is a huge achievement.
Houston, We Have a Problem
I list some issue here that I meet regularly.
Lack of Supporting Languages
As a Hungarian user, one of my problem is that it doesn't support multiple languages.
Using English UI is not a big problem for many nations, but sadly, it is a huge one for Hungarians. To ease that hardship for them, I've translated the eSteem mobile app for them recently.
Even when it will support i18n & l10n, only English writers would be on the top lists (rule of big numbers).
However, it isn't Steemit's fault, just a thing to consider when we want growth.
Just Scroll Towards
I don't really like the rules of the curation rewards. It makes the posts' life 30 minutes.
A lot of vests is in the hand of users using bots with well timed votes. Who curates manually, doesn't waste votes on a post that is older than 30 mins. Money talks.
If somebody says that it is the investors' interest to upvote good posts, also after the time frame of the curation rewards, and the incentive is that their shares will be worth more, that is true, but then why we have curation rewards at the first place?
Curators could say that someone will upvote that posts, but not them. It's the tragedy of commons. The platform as a whole would become better if everyone would vote on good posts as they would do naturally.
Downvote War
The downvote system can cause wars. No comment.
It Wasn't You?
Resteems mixes with original posts. That is confusing.
Lack of Multiblog
You cannot write about more topics without compromise.
New User's Issue
The fact that I'm writing a long article as a comment just because your added value is bother me.
I have more chance here to win the contest than get a dollar on my blog, and when I weigh my opportunities, e.g my expected author rewards for blog vs. do other important things, I think the latter will win most of the times.
When you are not a professional curator, you will tend to vote for your friends and expect it back, without taking into account the quality of the posts. New users don't have (many) friends here.
Forcing Long Posts by Rewards
When you have enough voters on bots, you don't have to provide quality. Just write a long-long something and you will win. You can repeat yourself or write about nothing, nobody (very few) will read them, its too long. Quick check, is it still long, yes, OK, worth my votes, lol.
E = mc2. Oh, it's short, worth nothing. :D
Demanding Content with Long Term Value
We are selling our thoughts in a two-rounded auction. Someone may don't earn a cent for long hours of work, and after a month, lost the opportunity forever.
Steemit, the community (especially the ones with the biggest voting stakes) are demanding for quality posts, original works, art, etc. Many of them will be worth much after 30 days, too. However, if you don't hit, you miss. Forever.
Their content is on the blockchain forever, and if somebody wants to monetize it, they could do.
The demand for long-term contents while offering short-term payouts is in contrary.
There Is Always a Fix
I'm just a user who think more about himself than he is. I, like many of us, find the problems easier than fix them. I just suggest some potential fix for evaluation.
Languages
It's matter of time, IMO. The way it should work is that has to have full support of languages, tags included. I used to use hu-xyz tags as language identified tags, but they just won't work. That is assume that users speak English or want to learn and use it beside their own language. This is not true.
I like @busy.org planned solution that is automatically identify languages. With that, and some filters, we could set an UI language and multiple content languages per user.
Curation Rewards
Either delete it (I know it is not an option really) or give it for a day. It is also short, but it would add curators a little incentive to don't consider death a post after 30 mins.
Now, it uses reverse auction, quick voters gives more to the author, last-minute voters get more rewards, especially if the post isn't popular yet. It is OK, IMO, this time frame is good. For the first round. I would also add a second round that'd use normal auction on the time frame of 30mins to 1 days. The distribution curve would be similar, but the 'tax' would go to the first curator group instead of the author as a reward for make it visible for more voters. The later someone would vote, the less they would get. Previous users would also count in, the more prev. voters the less reward. In this way, publishing would be less like a hit or miss. The two time frames would share the same curation reward pool obv.
Downvote System
It carries real danger. I don't want to hear downvote guilds like "Axis vs. Allies". However, I appreciate cheetah's work (thanks @anyx). And I think if you want to fight against dragons than you are better to get a dragon.
On the other hand, downvoters' intension aren't always good.
I think we must implement a system, where every downvote must commented, and these comments would be easily accessible with a filter to show only them, set for 'reveal all' default.
Tracking potential harm and starting a conversation were easier.
Resteems & Own Content
I wouldn't show resteems on blog's page at all. Resteems are good in the feed, but if we rarely go for a profile, we are interested in that profile. But maybe it's just me.
If it will stay there, separation (another tab) and stronger visual difference (in any case) is required.
Several Niche Blog, One Author
I really miss that feature. I don't want to cite myself, so I link here my post about it where I show the problem and proposals as well. Here is what (and why) I've chosen for a workaround until there will be a better option.
Starting Blog as a New Member
That is pretty hard if you are not a 'celebrity'. And it's just become harder and harder the more user come here. You will be the one millionth nobody who wants attention. After enough people (big scale) use Steemit, it will be a bit easier again, since your friends and acquaintances will use it, too.
I think the things I've written under the 'Curation Rewards' will help new users, also the 'Resteems & Own Content', since everybody could use Resteem more bravely.
I suggest we should forget the dropdown style following. We need clearly visible follow button at least on the blog posts.
We also need the fully featured (Elastic) search. I want to able to filter everything. Now, just finding a user is not easy enough (I rewrite the URL, but grandma's won't).
With live search like on Twitter, we could curate special topics or users we care easily.
A new user don't know or don't care about guilds. A guild must find the users and not inversely.
K.I.S.S. is for the users. Otherwise there will be a high bounce rate.
The Demand for Long Posts
It will kill Steemit. OK, it don't kill it, but its growth would be around negative or zero in a little time.
I'm glad there are other projects like @busy.org who don't go in the same way as it seems.
Imagine you are the next J. K. Rowling. Would you publish your work here hit and miss style with a 30 days time frame to have chance for being paid for it? And the 30 days is a joke, its 30 mins in reality, max a day. If this system would be good for that type of content, they would get more serious amount for the 2nd payment. What 2nd payment? It is just there for decoration, rarely has its use case.
I think this system is very bad for contents like that. We should either change the system, or focus on other type of contents.
The Most Important Issues
Prioritizing is a thing that I would like to be better in it myself, but I just do my best.
Stop The Bleeding
The first and most important issue (in projects like this) is always finding the one that cause the biggest harm.
The most serious problem is the user attrition rate. I know we cannot make it zero percent, but "do it or die trying."
Put the problems in chronological order. The first thing a user meet is the most important one.
The following paragraph is about the other option, just in case if you think it could be achieved easier, faster, and with more effect on stop the bleeding. Thanks to @dantheman who inspired me with his post.
There is a debate on the value of SBD for the Steem economy. Many think it gives value to the blockchain, others think the debt is bad for it.
As I see, SBD help new users to start all of the crypto things and provide a safe heaven for them who fear volatility on the Steem blockchain.
We should keep the capital as close as possible.
SBD could be used by the markets easier. Just try to tell the corner shop that they should sell a bag of apple for 0.xxxxxxxx BTC. Is it appealing and easy to remember? And that is just beside the fact you change the price on your table continuously.
Options: we could keep the SBD or kill it.
If we keep it we must agree on that it goes with some negative influence. No drama. Point.
Without SBD, we will lose some capital and opportunity.
My proposal – if we remove the SBD token from existence – is that, we must offer the 'user created token' feature. With that, more type of tokens could participate in the market competition, and market could decide which one is more usable. It would be the same or better than now.
The responsibility of Steem's team in this scenario would be only provide as much features as possible (and also make the impossible ones possible). ;)
Mass Adoption
After we have stopped the bleeding, we could focus on growing. It will be a lot easier to do so.
The main issue that is holding up Steemit adoption is people have never heard of it. It's that simple.
Advice to the Bosses
I don't really know what @dantheman and @ned doing behind the scenes so they maybe doing everything I suggest already. I read @steemitblog regularly but I'm just a rarely seen guest at Github (lack of time and coding ability.) :( Therefore I try to give an advice that is not fit the Github issue queue.
Get and keep the best people around you.
Be they legal team, developers, advisors, fans, everyone.
Marketing
This is a field where Steemit do something, but not enough (depends on how quick they want to grow.) Advertisement is not enough, and I've already written what is required to even start advertising (user attrition rate).
Recommend to Friends
Why I don't recommend Steemit to my friend and people I know? Because I don't spam them. I know they wouldn't interested in it, I know them well. Why still is this the case?
Steemit is not available in Hungarian. OK, eSteem is. Next step.
Steemit don't have Hungarian contents. OK, I'm writing in it at least, but pretty much that's all. Why?
It is the egg and the chicken. I've translated eSteem and writing contents in Hungarian just because I believe in Steem, nothing else. No one will reward me, because no one can read what I write. I write for nobody and nothing to be exact. Remember what I've written about the 30 minutes life of posts?
What could I say for them? Hey, come to Steemit, your language is not supported, your friends aren't there except me, nobody will like or comment your work, and you can earn nothing like on Facebook, would you mind coming? /s
Recommend to Content Creators
Established content creators have their places already, treat their works as running a business; they won't change it easily to an unproven platform (no offense, it takes years in their eyes). Did the celebrities make a Facebook profile before it was inevitable? That required millions of active users.
Amateur content providers do the hard work to prepare the field for the pros. That's life. However, they have the chance to become celebrities on their own right meanwhile. It will be next to impossible to be successful for a guy like me without being involved from the first years, when big names will come here. With big names I have smaller chance to be successful. It is a conflict of interests. One need to be established or just a consumer, not a creator.
I would like that if I could follow the people/brand that I follow on Twitter. That means short updates the community don't like but I do. Yes, I would like to be pinged by e.g. my favorite band when they have released a new album.
Preconditions of User Made Promotion
I won't lie to you. I want Steemit, and Steem especially, to be a successful project that change the world, but I don't want to be a utilized idiot after all like I used to. It's just bad timings, I would have help Steemit with all my resources for free if me and Steemit could meet a year before... but changes happens as life flows. If I don't want to be a screwed up beggar, I must start to be selfish. I'm writing this because others may think the same (or may not, but now you are least know why I do.)
I seek the opportunities where both of us get value. The translation was like that. I've done a work that is not 100% selfless. I don't need translation, I use every site in English, and just helping other Hungarians would be selfless. However, if Hungarians have less barrier to entry, I may have more subscribers. So give the community predictable opportunity to earn something for their effort.
Another conflict of interest is how one see the growing of the token's price. Who in the world, who have clear mind and want wellbeing, want that an asset has a high price until he has enough of it to prosper? The more tokens one has the more effort he does to see its price going up. Steem needs time to distribute value to the users who could help make Steem(it) a success.
Christmas of 2017
There will be several UI and apps connecting to the Steem blockchain.
For now (2017), Steemit is either has a clear vision and moving forward day to day, or accept that it were a pilot project to start market competition.
I want to see a platform that is confident about what it wants to achieve, how it wants to do its daily operations, how it wants to present itself... And it has an updated white paper (joke, I don't to wait a year, I want it immediately). :)
Steemit in One Sentence
Type, click, earn, then get paid, it's guaranteed by Steem.
Image Credits
Christmas Tree image by @tibonova is hereby released under CC0 1.0 Universal License and Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License.
Click on my name to follow, on ⮹ to like, on ↱ to share on Steemit.