I have high hopes for the Steem cryptocurrency as a long-term investment. I want it to succeed and become a mainstream coin of the cyber world. But I am just a humble writer and photographer. I am not a programmer, techie, crypto-financier, whale, accountant or other entity who can fine-tune the workings of the blockchain.
I’m like most of you. I want a platform where I can post, comment, upvote and get paid and learn some things on the way. My ultimate dream scenario is to be free to write and have that writing generate enough to supply my basic needs. I don’t need great financial wealth. I simply want to be free to follow my dreams without the burden of perpetual employment doing things I know are wrong simply to make a living or to be pinned to a geographical location because that’s where my job is.
In order for that dream to come true, Steemit has to succeed in a big way. I think it can. It’s going through some growing pains and technical problems but from everything I’ve read about it, its paradigm is sound. We all know there are issues and that improvements can be made, but few of us know how to bring our concerns and recommendations to light.
When I have problems, I go to the chat rooms and sometimes I do get help there. At times I’ll stumble across a post that presents a problem and a possible solution, but it may not receive much attention in the whirlwind of posts that blow through the Steemit blogosphere every day. Let’s work to make Steemit truly great.
Steemit needs a #suggestionbox. We can’t petition the devs directly with our ideas. They don’t have time and many of our ideas are probably unattainable, unwarranted or just plain stupid.
Some of us want to stop self-voting while others want to limit the power of the whales. “Quality” is sometimes confused with “popularity.” I think there needs to be a better method of tracking our monetary transactions besides going back through our wallet and adding up our Steem, SBDs and transfers which fluctuate daily based on Steem value and conversion rates.
And the truth is that maybe these fixes already exist. There’s just no interface where we can query and make suggestions, no global way to reach out and have our questions answered. #suggestionbox might be a simple solution to this problem.
Let’s make our suggestions and concerns available to the community. Let’s devise a way to see what changes we’d like to see and give the community a chance to consider and vote upon those ideas.
If you have an idea how to improve Steemit, create a post and then use #suggestionbox in the tagline. Now Steemians have a chance to go to that feed, see what ideas are out there, comment on them and upvote them or not. The feedback on the post might quickly provide an answer to your concern. Also, the amount of activity and the popularity of the post will create waves within the community that will be noticed by curators who can help pay you for your good ideas.
Most importantly, the devs will have easy access to those ideas that they can peruse anonymously at their leisure. They will feel no pressure and the ideas that are just plain dumb (yes, there will be many), can simply be ignored or better yet, their logic can be corrected via a gentle comment.
With #suggestionbox, we can freely present our ideas without fear of feeling stupid because we are noobs, or in my case, woefully undereducated and oblivious.
What do you think? Am I reinventing the wheel? Does something like this already exist? Thank you for your consideration and input.
Changes to Steemit are manifested as code. The devs speak code, and those proposals they can deal with are generally written as code. Since the really stupid people can't speak code, limiting their suggestion box to code helps to weed out meritless proposals.
Github is where suggestions are received by Steemit devs.
Unfortunately, even some smart people, like yourself, don't write code, so your proposals are generally not seen by the devs, who look on Github for suggestions, when they look for them at all.
Further, Stinc and it's devs are a for profit business, and serve a particular market - 39 whales, who own the Steem upon which their business depends. As a result of their having a market which is well served by the very features you and I might consider drawbacks (since we aren't whales who can profit from them) it isn't only ideas which won't more broadly distribute Steem, or that make our voices more widely heard, that are disregarded.
Indeed, concentrating Steem ever more in the accounts of their market, 39 whales, and allowing those whales to silence dissent, are improvements to their business model, not problems to be solved.
I don't think Steemit is the final solution to the social media leap forward in communications technology, for the reasons I have stated here. I am hopeful that myriad competing entities will arise in the future, and that eventually a model which meets the needs of society, rather than oligarchs, will crush flawed competitors.
I love the way your mind works. I have merely seen that this avenue has already been paved, and we non-coders are simply excluded.
Thanks!
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Thank you for your detailed reply. I'm always enlightened by your knowledge.
Coders are extremely left-brain technicians. They may not be so different from us writers in that respect. They just speak a different language. But the left-brained have problems dreaming up ideas. The #suggestionbox is just a space for those of us who don't speak code to express those ideas. There may be no way to translate them, but some Steemian who does speak code may be able to expand that idea and then present it to the devs in a way they can relate to. #suggestionbox could be an interface, of sorts.
I don't begrudge the whales return on their investment, and I'm happy to support the devs and the witnesses in their efforts to make Steem a viable crypto. It would seem short-sighted of those who profit off our us contributors not to want us connected, upvoting and powering up since that is what feeds the blockchain and produces Steem, to make it difficult for our voices to be heard and to keep our rewards meager. If this platform is only for the greedy, then I probably stop participating in the development of Steem.
As of this writing, my idea for a #suggestionbox has not generated much interest. Perhaps that's because it hasn't been seen by many eyes. We'll just see how it goes. Thanks for the input.
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I don't write code either, and would love to see a #suggestionbox. Maybe if you create an account dedicated to that purpose, it'd gain notice, and traction. I am sure we aren't alone in wanting a way to examine ideas for Steemit and comment each other's thoughts.
I don't begrudge anyone profit. I'm a fan of profit.
but it is clear that the accelerating concentration of Steem in the accounts of, now 38 whales, is counterproductive of long term interests of investors,
It's shortsighted.
Cash is king.
Thanks!
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Not sure how to do that. Besides, gaining traction and notice are my two biggest problems on Steemit. Almost nobody reads my posts. 13 eyeballs on this one and I know that at least 2 are yours and probably 6 are mine.
I figured that creating the tag #suggestionbox would be enough. If you click on that it takes you right to that feed. This is the first time ever I've had one of my posts in the new, trending, and hot feeds. Of course, it's the only one there. lol.
It doesn't show up on the "explore" tab for finding tags, though. I don't know what it takes to have it appear there. Probably more than one reference, but I'm only guessing.
I suppose in this Monopoly game where only X number of Steem will ultimately be produced, the goal is to amass the lion's share of Steem. Then you're the "winner." Whales are the bank, but they are also the major players.
As a kid, when somebody suggested playing Monopoly, I'd give it a half-hearted go and then try to go broke so I could quit the game and go outside and play in the sunshine. I don't suppose I've changed much.
Thanks for your input on this. Wish I could get more. Maybe if you post a suggestion and use the #suggestionbox tag it'll get noticed. Even if the devs ignore it, it will give the community a common voice and the comments could become a forum. Democracy, though flawed, is a good thing, no?
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Democracy is a good thing, until it is a weapon used to placate folks who think they're actually doing something to control their government, when they're not.
Then, it's a bad thing.
I do believe that some accounts, like @sherlockholmes, created for a single purpose that has common interest, such as @suggestionbox would generate, are able to grab followers that aren't put off by a mix of interests.
I haven't opened a second account, but from how many have done so, I suspect it isn't all that difficult to do. If you open that account, keep your mouth shut about other matters (so they don't become sticking points for potential followers), and #introduceyourself as a way for folks to dump ideas to improve Steemit, I would bet you'll find a great deal more eyeballs on your posts there, than you do here.
I'd put an SBD on it.
Wanna make a bet?
=D
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Yes, the pseudo-democracy that we all live under is the blue pill of our culture, a powerful hallucinogenic that keeps us running on the treadmill while we believe we are dancing at the ball.
#suggetionbox wouldn't be like that since it claims no false powers to make things better and does not bind the powerful in velvet ropes.
I checked out @sherlockholmes. It's an interesting blog but he hasn't posted anything new in 3 months. Could it be Moriarty?
I haven't set up a second account yet either. I was waiting for @citizenzero to crash and burn and then open up another pseudonym to post pictures of kittens and recipes for pound cake and other topics of grave importance. Since I made 300 Steem in my first month and then have languished ever since, one new account per month might be just the ticket. (only kidding).
I'll take that bet. I really haven't been wasting enough time on Steemit and this is the perfect excuse to do so. Lol
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I shall be looking forward to my phat winning! =)
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That seems like a great idea! I hope they implement this soon. I think it could only help steemit so why not. #suggestionbox
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Worth a shot, eh?
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BTW, I have to ask, why are you picking 100% Steem Power as a reward? So long Steem Backed Dollars are worth over $1 USD, you're better off picking 50/50 and exchanging your SBD for Steem and powering up.
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You're right. But the last time I powered up 10SBD I got less than 8 Steem. I was told I should go to the market and convert that way but I keep getting ripped off every time I try to move my money around so I hesitate to do so. Not sure how to protect myself here.
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I'd recommend converting via Blocktrades.us then, no setting prices yourself, just presets, so you know ahead of time what you're getting.
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Thanks. I'll look into it.
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When you set the post 50/50 you get half in Steem(power) and that already calculates in the current prize (right now) 5.50 USD - so, if your post is voted with 100 Dollar (let me igore the 25 or 30 % that are deducted for curators and go the easy way here for the calculation, just to make you aware of the BIG thing) so let us got half and half: 50 dollars are going to be in Steem(power) at the current prize: 50 USD divided by 5.5 = 9 ... so your post will give you 9 steem(power) - but the SBD (Steem based Dollar) so far still pays out as if it was worth 1 USD... right now it is at 7,44 ... so your post will pay out 50 SBD and you can sell them into steem on the market or through Blocktrades (or bittrex etc.) but the market is fine for now.... even the lowest sell is fine... because if you have the post on 100 steempower, you only get 18 steem(power) ... if you have it on 50/50, you sell your SBD and power up... did this make anything clearer for you? Jeeee, sometimes my English is just not what my German is... hope I managed to ring a bell in your head! - and just realized that the prizes I quoted are Euro - so Dollar is even higher... you can check it out here https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/steem-dollars
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Sorry for being so tardy. Other stuff going on.
Your explanation is very clear. I hadn't realized how convoluted the allocation procedure was. It really shouldn't be that way. Why couldn't we just play for points and use them to power up or to convert them into fiat. It makes it way to hard to keep track (at least for me.) Maybe that's the whole point.
I'm a real dummy when it comes to numbers. They've never made much sense to me. Money, either. I'm glad you've clarified this for me, Natalie. Thank you.
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I'm so glad it clarified a little bit... your comment is the very first thing I'm reading on my birthday-morning :-) a hug goes out to you - and a big Cheers!
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Happy birthday. Hope someone will bake you a cake and then post it on Steemit!
image
Don't forget to make a wish. :-)
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