Improve Tags - Improve User Ex - Let's Start A Bug Bounty! - 100 Steem Start

I'm sure if you got a chance to look at the list of coding priorities for the Steemit devs, the tags would be fairly low down the pecking order of that list. In fact, it might not even be there in the first place, it might be viewed like there is nothing wrong with the tags, so why should they be fiddled with?

Well I would beg to differ, and whilst I don't want to be seen as whining, I really would love to see an improvement to the tags as it will not only benefit me, it will add to the whole user experience.

A Case For Tags

I, like I'd imagine most people, use the Steemit categories, or tags, to find content. I particularly find them useful when I hold my competitions and challenges. In those circumstances I tell all the people who enter, to use the appropriate tag, for instance #cryptogee-photomash.

However the tags only stay live for seven days, or at least the content within the tag only stays for 7 days. After a week it disappears, never to be seen again.

Clearly this isn't ideal if you're holding a competition that lasts more than a week. However much more importantly, it means that new users of Steemit have content hidden from them, for no other reason than the post has paid out.

I mean, are we saying that any post, regardless of the content, is only valuable for 7 days? I'm pretty sure that we're not in fact saying that.

Sticky Interest

The reason tags were brought into the social media lexicon in the first place, was to make it easier for users to find and group content they're interested in, right?

So imagine a new user comes to Steemit and see's a short-stories tag, they then read the story they come across and like it, so they wonder if there are any other stories they might like, however that week, only 2 people have posted to that tag, so they go away thinking that there are only 2 short stories on the whole of Steemit.

This quick example is crude, however I think perfectly displays how tags are great for sticky traffic.

Ghost In The Shell

As a content series producer, it really saddens me that when somebody clicks on #incredibleyou they see nothing, even though I've created more than 25 articles for the Incredible You! series, at a cost of around 200-250 hours. That's a lot of work to just disappear into the ether.

The only way that work can be found, is by me posting up a Table Of Contents every now and again, and linking to it everytime I make a new post, however this is far from ideal.

Spare One More Thought For The Reader

I am not only a content provider, I am also a consumer and as such the way the Steemit tags work is very frustrating, as it should be a quick way for me to find content I like, or as a way to reference past posts that might be relevant to me.

So I propose a Categories Archive, I understand these things need to be coded and integrated with the blockchain, and I'm sympathetic that that is rarely easy. I myself am learning to code, but do not have the expertise for this, or would happily contribute my services.

I have a feeling the tags are linked to payout time, as I remember we used to have a 7 and 30 day categories archive, however, this seemed to go after the hardfork that changed our payout times.

Bug Bounty

I'm interested to know if we have, or can start some kind of bug bounty, or maybe it would be called an improvement fund; perhaps delivered through Utopian?

The way I see it working, is there are a bunch of bugs and changes/improvements that are suggested, and then we Steemians vote on the ones we feel are the most important to sort out.

After that we can contribute to a reward pool, so the person or persons who sort out the change, get rewarded with Steem/SBD for their hard work and time.

I personally would be prepared to put up 100 Steem towards the tag problem, and would invite others, especially those of you who have a large stake in the platform, to join me and help sort out this glaring oversight.

Lastly, but by no means least, I would like to thank @ned and the whole Steemit dev team for what they have done so far. From the design to the implementation of the blockchain code, you've done an amazing job, for which I shall forever be grateful, without you, I would not be here, so a huge, massive, gargantuan, Cryptogee thank you!

OK GUYS, OVER TO YOU, I'M HOPING THIS DOESN'T GET COMPLETELY IGNORED BY PEOPLE WHO CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN OR WHOM HAVE VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAKE TOWARDS THIS DEBATE. APART FROM THE TAGS/CATEGORIES WHAT OTHER IMPROVEMENTS DO YOU FEEL WE HAVE TO MAKE AS WE MOVE FORWARDS? ALSO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT A BUG BOUNTY/IMPROVEMENT FUND? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee