Introducing SteemMakers - The first community for makers and DIYers on steem

in utopian-io •  7 years ago  (edited)

Mission

At SteemMakers we believe every individual has been gifted with unique talents. Talents come in many forms and one of them is the talent 'to make'. SteemMakers wants to support every maker with their efforts in a meritocratic way, unbiased by wealth or status.

With 30 000 active users and 100 000 daily posts on the Steem Blockchain, it is difficult to find good maker content and hard for makers to give their content visibility. We aim to be a guiding and helping community, supporting makers where we can. SteemMakers can provide support to makers posting on the Steem Blockchain by giving their work an audience, and providing a place to look for inspiration and information. The SteemMakers team will curate and support outstanding makers’ content, hoping to empower and grow the maker community, which in turn will benefit all.

Audience

Since SteemMakers focusses on ‘makers’, we have to define our target audience. There is no single definition of the word ‘maker’ and the meaning of it differs quite a bit within the context. Because of this we try to make our own definition to define our content. We do not intend to narrow the term too much on SteemMakers.

We think that anyone who creates should be considered a maker and deserves our respect. However, we have to create some boundaries so the project doesn’t become too difficult for us to manage. We want to focus on both the maker and do-it-yourself (DIY) movement. With DIY we mean all activity to create or modify anything when it is accomplished by an individual rather than that of a paid professional. The makers movement is a technology driven subgroup of the DIY movement. It focusses on the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ones. Open source hardware in its various forms plays an important role in this. Typical subjects are electronics, robotics and 3D printing.

What do we offer?

Readers and curators

We offer one central hub dedicated to quality makers’ content. There will be no need to search high and low for quality content and guess at possible tags of interest. No need to follow accounts that fill your feed with posts that don’t necessarily interest you, just to make sure you don’t miss that one awesome maker post they publish once in a blue moon.

Bloggers and authors

  • We support outstanding content by increasing its visibility. SteemMakers will support the content by voting, automatically increasing the visibility on steem front-ends such as steemit.com and busy.org.
  • This selected content will also be gathered and shown on the SteemMakers website, where we aim to provide the best makers’ content as discoverable as possible.
  • The most outstanding content will also be featured in regular communication for extra promotion.
  • Increasing the contents’ visibility will also increase your account visibility and will allow you to grow your network and meet many new interesting people. After all, Steem is a blockchain-based social network.
  • Votes made by the SteemMakers community account will generate a modest reward for your making efforts and the documentation to support your work.
  • SteemMakers also maintains a discord server. This is an all-in-one voice and text chat which is free, secure, and works in your browser but also has desktop and phone apps. Using this you can interact with us, the SteemMakers team, but also with like-minded people in our community. We aim to help you in whatever way possible and hope to encourage learning and co-operation within the maker community on Steem.

Investors

SteemMakers does not intend to be another short-term money-making machine lacking long term growth. Our project is an investment into the Steem blockchain and its users. We aim not only to have people rewarded, but to become engaged and collaborative thus promoting original content and growth of the blockchain itself. Our engaged users will then feel more encouraged to invest their time and energy, which in time will be of benefit to us all.

Without Steem power for the community account we can’t make this project a success. Delegation is a concept on the Steem blockchain, following Hard Fork 19, that allows you to support our community growth by delegating your Steem power to us without taking any risk. You retain full ownership of your hard-earned SP and can claim it back at any time, you keep full control.

We don’t ask you to do this for free and out of idealism. Therefore, we propose to pay you frequently pro rata your investment. We will use the curation rewards to grow our community, to pay for our facilitation and to reward you for investing in us. We are open to any discussion about this because after all, investors are important to any new project.

Roadmap

This is a brand-new project that will evolve frequently, particularly in the early stages of its life. We are a small team and our time is limited – even with all the hard work we have planned ahead, miracles are unlikely to happen overnight.

Phase 1: Get things up and running

In our first phase, we will manually select content and promote it by voting and referring to it on our website. We will work on our own visibility, try to get as much feedback as possible from the community and try to find the necessary investors. This initial phase will impact what we plan in the future as it will provide us with a better understanding of the needs and requirements of the audience, as well as our investors. We will work on our methodology and tools and evolve as the project grows.

Phase 2: Improve the user experience

Once we are up and running and the project finds traction both with the community and investors, we will scale the project up to provide continuous improvement where we see most important. For example, improved categorization and navigation will be needed to allow the users to easily navigate and search for content, and we see this aspect ever-changing in order to remain of the best quality and most useable.

Phase 3: Make the website the central point

The last step is to develop the website in such a way that the user does not need to leave to create a new blog entry. We aim to make SteemMakers.com a one-stop shop in which all options are available from a single website.


A big thanks to @techslut, @suesa and one ‘anonymous steemian’ for editing my original writings.



Let us know what you think. We're very much interested in your feedback. Please comment below or join us on Discord.

The SteemMakers team.

www.steemmakers.com



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Seems like a good idea, but I would like to see content not citing Google and other websites
as "the source". This is copyright infringement and also does not give attribution to the photographers. The source is always a photographer and/or a stock agency, but could be some copyright free site like Pixabay. . Legitimate websites pay a licensing fee to use stock imagery, so if you want to avoid having to deal with DMCA notices on your website and avoid liability, you will need to state openly that copyright infringement will not be tolerated, and you will have to educate users about copyright in order for your website to become a Safe Harbor. If you don't , your website will also be held liable for copyright infringement! Unfortunately, the worst copyright infringement I have ever seen is here on Steemit, and I would love to see that change!

That's plain obvious. Every post will be manually curated to try to avoid this and other issues as well. Did we make a mistake here? Or why are you bringing this up?

The idea is making it yourself, doing it yourself. Copying is the last thing we want.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Oh, no mistake. Sorry if it sounded that way. It was not plain obvous to me I'm afraid. :-( Was just commenting because I wasn't sure if the whole "make it yourself" extended to the images in the blog as well. I guess I'm bringing it up because it's a sticky point with me, as some of my my own stock images have been abused on Steemit - no licensing fee paid and wrong image source given. What you are doing sounds awesome, then. You have my vote! :-)

That SHOULD be obvious to anyone. You can't just take whatever you find in google and add a link to it. That doesn't make it right. There are laws that need to be respected and there are photographers, writers, digital artists, ... that need to be respected. I am very aware of this and very critical as well.

I'm not making this up to please you. Check my old blog post that has a section about this: https://steemit.com/steem/@jefpatat/can-steem-it-survive-its-problems

That being said it will be a challenge to make sure we respect these rights. There is one big advantage our community has. We tend to make pictures of what we made, which is unique by definition.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

We are talking at cross purposes. LOL! I have blogged quite a bit about copyright infringement, but those posts are not terribly popular. I am currently working on a post about Image SOURCE. LOL! I didn't mean that it wasn't obvious it is wrong to use Googled images. LOL! I meant that it wasn't obvious to me at first that you are protecting the rights of photographers too! So sorry to have misunderstood! Sadly, I am so used to being shouted at for defending photographers' LEGAL rights. I loved the post you linked to. We are on the same side of this issue, so I am even more excited about your project! :-)

Cool idea. I am a maker, check my profile if there is something you find interesting.

creative dud.

Indeed, some nice creations.

I like this idea

I certainly hope you stay around. I've stumbled on your blog a couple of times and you have some nice articles!

Thanks :)

And yeah I'll stay around. I may take a week or two hiatus because of school but im here to stay.

this has my full support! Glad to see this coming together.

Thanks a lot Stella! It means a lot to us to get your appreciation.

This is an interesting community you try to create. As you, I believe in the sub-community aspects of things, concentrate on a particular topic and run a service and account(s) only around this selected topic. DYI is a good one; You mentioned you want to concentrate on the makers. But without users, the makers are making for nothing. I suggest you will include the user of the DYI in your proposition. Since the user can be anybody and on Steemit we have quite a few non-technical people, the way the DYI projects and products needs to be explained, shall be super simple. As @techtek does with his SteemPi, I suggest to promote the idea to the makers to provide clear links to parts that needs to be ordered, to websites and all. Also, the maker can offer the product ready-for-use, for a fee of course, so that the user only has to collect a package from the postal service. I know, the later is a bit beyond your definition of DYI, but that will give a large potential user base for the makers and with that it'll drive the adoption of the makers product. I call it creating bridges, and these bridges are absolutly necesary to get traction. There are quite a few large DYI webservices out there, but most of them have a similar setup like you plan to, without the possibility for the maker to ship a ready-made product and charge for it, hence those websites stays in a very small (more or less closed) community of makers and DYI.

I want to stress we don't focus on makers alone but on the makers AND DIY community. The thing is there is no terminology to cover both so we chose SteemMakers. This is a starting point set by a couple of enthusiasts. We will grow in the direction the community wants us to grow. Once we get a bit further on the technical level more features will be introduced. We aim to go beyond being just a blockchain interface, but first things first.

Thanks for the feedback!

So wouldn't that be the steem version of instructables.com? Or would you also accept posts without clear guidance how to make 'it'?

instructable, hackster, ...

There are many, but that would be a fair comparison to start with. We will grow it and attract new users to steem. We don't want to be a site, we want to build a community as well.

@steemmakers - I love the concept of steemmakers and I was wondering if you were considering a community driven and profit sharing platform like quirky.com (where users contribute to the name, design, build, marketing, pricing and all aspects of the product lifecycle) but based on cryptocurrency.

In terms of UX/UI design, I am more than happy to contribute in any way and I have already proposed a few ideas on utopian.io so it would be great to lend a hand here too :)

Sorry for the delayed reply. The website is nothing more than a proof of concept at the moment. We will be starting a contest soon for a logo/banner design. You're welcome to help out and give your feedback. Feel free to contact me on discord.

Couldn't find you on Discord. What is the channel or your username on Discord?

You can find an invite link at the contact page: www.steemmakers.com

Good initiative !

Especially since I'm already featured on the site ;)

I've got to put more effort into getting the designs approved on Shapeways, as @edje says it helps if the community can get their hands on the designs without too much effort, and paying Shapeways to print the object in their wide selection of materials and ship it right to their door is super easy.

Love the Donkey on the website ;)

We will probably be working on that later. 3D printing is just one of the subjects we want to focus on.

Thanks for the feedback!

I can't help yet (Today's "Oh-god-I'm-late-at-finishing-the-article-analysis-project-for-tomorrow-WHATDOIDOWHATDOIDO" Panick day. A national holiday by students, for students, everywhere !)

But I'd be happy to help with the site in the future :)

Just let me know on Discord what you would like to help with and we'll see from there. Thanks for the interest!

Also, when do we get access to the Discord ?
Then we can talk more about what's in store for @steemmakers :)

Love this idea, please keep me posted for how I can help :)

Join us on Discord 😉 Send me a small and we'll see what's your thing and how we can fit it in.

Sky is the limit!
2017 & 2018 will go in history as special years of ideas - an explosion on innovation... Just plainly amazing! Good luck for the project and Happy Hacking! :)

  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment

Thank you for the contribution. It has been approved.
This is great work done here this will bring more value to the makers community and will help a lot of steemians.
You can contact us on Discord.
[utopian-moderator]

We need to grow the maker community here on steem!

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nice post thanks:)

So that mean the website would operate on the steem blockchain and posting there would directly appear on steemit?

That is the end goal. To keep the related content together. For now we are not that far. We will be manually selecting blog entries that get posted via steemit.com, busy.org, ... The selected content will be shown on the site, we don't store it, we just fetch it from the steem blockchain and show it. For the moment we link back to both steemit and busy. Have a look at the preliminary site ;-)

Nice sounds great then

Thanks for sharing your post on 'Pimp Your Post Thursday'.
https://discord.gg/KP2tNq4

Thanks for having me. It was interesting to hear some voices behind familiar nicknames. They say so much about the person. Some were even a different gender than I expected 🤔

@steemmakers EXCELENTE!!! ya estoy ancioso por colaborar ya que en mi cerebro hay muchas cosas que necesitan ser publicada y cuanto mas donde una comunidad esté apoyando y dando sugerencias al respecto. Gracias por esta iniciativa.

I absolutely love the slogan tag line "Your reward for making it" - that is frigging brilliant! Well done! Congratulations!

Thank the lovely pink lady for it. The first editor 😉 She doesn't deserve the treatment she is getting. Mine was less catchy.

Congratulations @steemmakers, this post is the forth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Dust account holder (accounts that hold between 0 and 0.01 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Dust account holders during this period was 4407 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $732.57. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.

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wow. good, if it's like a bot. not useful, but if this is manual, amazing.

Pure manual. We don't believe a bot can select content.

awesome. this would be great. because it is better manually. though busy.

very very good, great concept and action here

It's only the start... There are a lot of ideas but it's one step at a time. Getting user feedback is one of the top priorities ATM.

Interesting project ..are poets considered makers?I am new to steemit and I publish from time to time my poetry..I find it hard to get feedback good or bad..probably it is my fault since I am not that involved on a daily basis..

I'm afraid not. There are some writer communities on steem but I have no experience with them.

Thank you for answering though..I will find my way in the end..:)

I, as many, eagerly await @flawy doing a visual on this idea. It sounds great; but, seeing a working example will help alleviate any burdensome questions.

Best regards.

Peace.

This is a starting point. The site, www.steemmakers.com , is nothing more than a proof of concept. We need a logo as well. Then 'contest' is coming soon.

As someone who has done a goid bit of FIY writing, I think this sounds like a very interesting project. I'm too new to Steemit to really comment on any of the semantics, but i look forward to seeing how this progresses.

This sounds interesting...I am a maker of quite a few things and post on it frequently. I will have to check it out :)

This sounds inspired and inspiring and your article succinctly explains your mission. I am new here and as an artist/writer/lightworker have an awful lot to say and hope that I can add value to the Steemit community. My posts, words and images, are original and 100% my own work. Would my digital illustration be of interest to you guys I wonder? - Exciting times ahead all ways around me thinks! I wish you well in all that you do xox

Digital illustration is not really what we are into. I know someone quite important on the steem blockchain is working on it but it is too soon to tell.

following

Congratulations and thank you very much for sharing! Links to your site, post and profile were included in the Steem.center wiki page Steem Ecosystem: S-Steemis. Thanks and good luck again!

We certainly need more makers on Steem! Check out my page for maker related posts. Now following!

I m an italian artist creator of Sketches!

  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment

thx slutty