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RE: Something Useful For Blockchain

in WORLD OF XPILAR2 years ago (edited)

We have found this post, this dialogue and this exchange of ideas and opinions both informative and enjoyable.

We will look out for more high calibre post opportunities like this to join in the ensuing discussion.

Maybe we need a reqular 'Ask Me Another...' type post by someone who can authoritatively pull the thoughts and comments together into a coherent starting point for discussion?

cc @o1eh @remlaps @moecki @chriddi

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 2 years ago 

In Ukraine, they say that one head is good, and two is better. Therefore, your idea is very good and I am sure that such a dialogue will be very constructive. You just need to materialize it so that it does not turn into spam.

I agree that one of us users should occasionally (but not very often) create a post summarizing the latest important suggestions, initiatives, ideas or problems. Yes, it is not without problems.

In such a post, you need to summarize all previous discussions, and only then involve the Steemit team in the discussion. Otherwise, it will be impossible for you to reread everything.

How to organize it? I want to hear the opinion of @remlaps @moecki @chriddi.

How to organize it?

I would suggest that the first thing to do is to form a group (which may already exist... and in any case must not become too large).
I would like to brainstorm with the few people on a common worksheet and then create a common article (quasi the summary) from it in a common worksheet. Preferably Dropbox Paper or similar.

Oh, I'd even suggest using a whole new, unknown, virgin account for the publication, set up just for such purposes. The article can then be resteemt by users we know. Why? I want to avoid the risk of being accused of nepotism.
Am I too small-minded in this regard? Maybe. But believe me, I've seen, heard and experienced so many abysses here - a normal, honest person can't think so deceitfully and eaten up by envy...

 2 years ago 

In general, there are thousands of issues worth discussing. You can make a list, for example:

  • Steemit start page;
  • plagiarism;
  • fake accounts;
  • improving the economy;
  • attraction of investors...

Each of these topics deserves a separate discussion thread. And far from each of these topics will be offered something useful and real. For something, resources will be needed, for something, the consensus of witnesses. We will need to focus on what we can improve now.

Dropbox Paper is a great solution for preparing a summary post. Where to hold discussions?

P.S. I still want to wait until the weekend as I'll be interested to hear more from @remlaps who hasn't spoken yet.

Of course, there are many topics. But our first task is to extract the essence from this discussion and develop proposals for a challenge: How can we as a community make Steem more attractive to real writers and real readers (and what part can the Steemit team, with or without its top-notch curatorial accounts, play in that)?
Challenge? Yes, this single question alone is a real challenge!

Where to hold discussions?

Right there! After all, it is a WORKsheet. You can distribute concrete tasks and everyone can enter their thoughts (in key words). These can also be discarded directly. The essence is sorted and brought into form.
Apart from the fact that we don't need any debates at first, but only useful and ponderable suggestions, such a common worksheet is perfect for structure and keeping the overview in a complex topic. In "chat groups" one only gets distracted by too many side issues.

Sorry for the slow replies to a couple of threads. We have some stuff going on in the extended family. Not sure when I'll get time to read and reply, but I know I owe replies. I'll read through this and respond as soon as I'm able.

I couldn't continue taking part in this discussion and now I have lost track of all the comments. Waiting for an organized and summarized post. 😀

 2 years ago 

After imagining how much you have to fight with scammers and fake accounts, I don't think you want to read the whole discussion below this post :)

Maybe we need a reqular 'Ask Me Another...' type post by someone who can authoritatively
pull the thoughts and comments together into a coherent starting point for discussion?

Yes, I think that's a very good idea.
It's also better if someone of us writes such an article and then you join the discussion than if steemitblog does it itself, because then there will be just vuel too many comments à la "Great idea, sir!" - you can forget constructiveness then.

At the same time, I would find it good if none of us "rushes ahead" now, but we also get together in a small working group to discuss the further procedure. Haha, yes, I'm a pedagogical team worker.... ;-)
My "problem" is that I'm just not a full-time Steemian. I have a job, animals, family, responsibilities, friends and other hobbies - I can't write articles every day (although I can write, hahaha) and deal with long discussions. It's only either or - if at all.

cc @o1eh @remlaps @moecki

Very much agreed. Oh, those comments...

It's also better if someone of us writes such an article and then you join the discussion than if steemitblog does it itself, because then there will be just vuel too many comments à la "Great idea, sir!" - you can forget constructiveness then.


Looking forward to what comes next...

ok, I finally had a few minutes to read through this portion of the thread. I see two general sub-topic areas: a regular "suggestion box" type of summary post where we can draw Steemit's attention to ideas that bubble up from the Steem user base - let's call that a Steem Improvement Proposal, and a way to implement proposals for change. I also see that we all face a common struggle to find time for "Steem improvement" against the time demands from real life.

Another big challenge that I see here is how we avoid it being just another way to call for Steemit to do more stuff or give more upvotes.

I'm not familiar with Dropbox Paper, but I guess it's something like Google Docs? (Related: @skycorridors once suggested Skiff or Cryptpad).

In addition to the people here, I'd also add that @pennsif is really good at keeping his ear to the ground and assimilating the thoughts of the Steem user community, and his Steem News posts already do some of this.

One other thing that I've been really thinking about a lot is the idea of a "virtual assistant", which I learned about from @answerswithjoe, here and wrote about here. It occurs to me that if a task can be clearly described, Steem is a really good platform for making use of the "virtual assistant" model. So, I'll incorporate that concept into my answer:

I'd like to see a heavily moderated Steem community established for this purpose and a single "pinned post" as an index to track strategic areas of focus and the related "Steem improvement proposals" (with no other "pinned posts"). Here's a possible flow from idea into "Steem improvement proposal":

  1. Team members gather ideas from the community and synthesize them into Steem Improvement Proposals (SIP) in Dropbox Paper or something similar.
  2. Once an SIP is drafted, it gets posted in the community and added to the "pinned post" that's indexing them all, and one or two or three team members are designated to be its advocate(s).
  3. The designated advocate(s) breaks the proposal down into a clearly described bite-sized tasks that can be fulfilled by a "Steem virtual assistant" and posts articles that ask people to fulfill the task.
  4. The "Steem virtual assistant" completes the task and posts supporting documentation.

Steps 2-4 are rewarded with upvotes (presumably from Steemit, but witnesses and other stakeholders could also participate).

Open questions: (i) What to do about tasks that are too large/complex to be described in a post and supported by upvotes; (ii) How/When/if ever to link up to the SPS?

Out of time, so I'm not proofreading as well as I'd like - sorry for any errors. Obviously not a complete idea, but it's all I have time for. Hopefully it will stimulate some thought.

 2 years ago 

Thanks for the mention @remlaps.

Just catching up with all the comments here. Some very interesting ideas and suggestions. Hopefully a route can be found to take these through to fruition.

I have begun recently trying to crystallise some thoughts of my own into a series of (Steem Up) posts.

Getting a clear and thorough understanding of what the current issues on the platform are is more challenging than I first thought. Moving from identifying and documenting what the issues are to developing and implementing appropriate solutions is an even bigger task.

But most problems can be solved if enough people with enough ideas and enough willpower come together with a common goal.

It's very nice that you took the time. And I think the waiting time was well invested, because your suggestions are very good.

a heavily moderated Steem community

Using a new community to collect and "manage" the proposals is perfect from my point of view. However, "heavily moderated" will probably be very important, as I fear that there are some users who will seek attention there. I don't currently know if it's possible to restrict user rights so that root posts can only be created by certain users. Otherwise, it has to be muted.

"pinned post" that's indexing

Setting up a central (pinned) post is equally brilliant!

The "Steem virtual assistant" completes the task and posts supporting documentation.

However, the role of the virtual assistant is not yet clear to me. But maybe I will realise that later in the process...

I also think we should just start.

I could offer to create a cloud folder for joint editing with OneDrive. We can create Word documents there and edit them together.
However, cryptpad's description also sounds good and could also be helpful for our purposes (joint editing of documents). If this is more desired, I would take over this set-up.

For the community creation we should arrange together (name, admin, mods etc.). We could make the arrangements via Steemit, Discord (or possibly OneDrive/Cryptpad itself).

@o1eh @chriddi @pennsif

However, the role of the virtual assistant is not yet clear to me.

I don't really have a clear picture, yet, either. It occurs to me now that Steemit already beat me to this idea with SC03-SC09, steem greeters, cryptoacademy professors, and country representatives, though. They've been making use of virtual assistants for a couple of years, already. I just didn't have a name for it. ;-) An example of what I had in mind is like this:

Say that the team agrees on a project to update the documentation for the Steemit API. That's too big of a job for anyone to undertake with hopes of relying on upvotes (we saw how that went with @the-gorilla and his front end effort). On the other hand, though, we could try to break things down into small self-contained, manageable tasks. i.e. ask "virtual assistants" to submit pull requests and post their progress, one API call at a time, and support that with upvotes. If someone abandons the effort, the upvote is not wasted, because the task was identified as a strategic need and it stood, independently, on its own.

Two other discussion points, for longer term consideration:

  • Could we scale up participation and effectiveness by organizing into teams (circles) under a decentralized model like holacracy or sociocracy?
  • Is it possible to create a community moderation account and (provably) permanently disable all keys except the posting key? If so, this could be a tool for building a community "war-chest" for distributing upvotes without worrying about someone powering down and disappearing.
 2 years ago 

Some sort of community account could be good.

Then either the posting key could be shared for contributors, or contributors could set 100% beneficiaries to it.

Then anyone who wants to vote on the contributions (including the sc0 accounts) would be adding to the community war-chest fund.

 2 years ago 

Now we need someone to take the initiative and create a new community, discord server or dropbox paper. I could create a community, but I've been on the platform for a little over a year. I think I am not the one who should be an administrator in such a community. There are many much more respectable users.

Another big challenge that I see here is how we avoid it being just another way to call for Steemit to do more stuff or give more upvotes.

I think that if we work out - preferably together with the Steemit team - a few criteria that are quasi indisputable, this problem can be avoided. There are actually some (few) users on the Steem who are willing to think about a positive future of the Steem even without a guaranteed sc01 vote.
This is not pure altruism: if the Steem goes a little more in an attractive direction, I personally have something from it too, because in the long run I would feel much more comfortable here. Will be a long process, of course...

I'm not familiar with Dropbox Paper, but I guess it's something like Google Docs?

Yes, that's about the same.

In addition to the people here, I'd also add that @pennsif is really good at keeping his ear to the ground and assimilating the thoughts of the Steem user community

Great. I would welcome his input. In teamwork... ;-)
And I think this teamwork is something we should just start, then we might see more clearly. It simply brings nothing, if now every "understanding thinker" knocks out a post and you have to pick up the important aspects again laboriously. A "central place" (as you address it later), to which one can refer " straying" users, is important.

I'd like to see a heavily moderated Steem community established for this purpose and a single "pinned post" as an index to track strategic areas of focus and the related "Steem improvement proposals" (with no other "pinned posts").

Fantastic! And probably the only way to clearly structure our work with the possibilities of the Steemit frontend!

(i) What to do about tasks that are too large/complex to be described in a post and supported by upvotes; (ii) How/When/if ever to link up to the SPS?

Hm. Shouldn't we just get started on the work before worrying about "compensation"? If the teamwork is effective, the ideas will come naturally. If it is without the desired effect, we will have to think about something else under the aspect of "trial and error" anyway.
Haha, that's how the Steem works.... ;-)

Hm. Shouldn't we just get started on the work before worrying about "compensation"?

Agreed, I think we need to have a vision of how things might develop, but we definitely don't need to know all the answers in order to get started.

 2 years ago 

Great point about starting a new community. I thought about it too.

In my opinion, we should work without any sc01 voting at all. Unless sc01 support will be needed at the stage of implementation of a certain proposal (probably this is what you meant).

Yeah, I agree. For the immediate topic of setting up a "suggestion box", we don't need to depend on SC01 votes. It's mainly about establishing communication pathways. The voting becomes more relevant when we attempt to implement proposals.

In principle, I think it's a good thing. However, I would definitely want to avoid the format or even the user becoming a kind of "mouthpiece" for the SC. Rather, the summary of the discussion on specific topics and also the different points of view should come to the fore. As can be seen from comments already made, it is difficult to keep track of the discussion and filter out results. Especially when readers join in rather late.

It would also not have to remain with the topics already addressed here, but later current topics could also be taken up and discussed with the SC and other users.

If the SC is willing, I could also imagine a kind of short question round in which the witnesses could also be involved (if they want to be)... I'd better stop now, otherwise there will be more ideas...


I would like to comment briefly on the comments of the other users mentioned, so that this is not picked apart too much.

I think the organisation in a small team is already feasible. Each member can refer to a specific part of the discussion or a specific (future) topic and work that up accordingly as a draft for the others. Chriddi's dropbox suggestion is a good way to do this.
The references to important topics could come from the user team or the Steemit team. However, such posts should not appear too frequently.... maybe not more than once or twice a month, rather as needed.

From my point of view, it would also be important to ensure that the topics reach the users. In this respect, a new account would actually be rather detrimental, although independence from existing accounts would be very advantageous. As chriddi wrote, in this case resteems (also by the Steemit team) would be necessary.
Possible rewards should go directly to @null and/or completely serve the self-promotion of the new account and the posts.

cc @o1eh @remlaps @chriddi

 2 years ago 

There is a problem with witnesses. They cannot find a common language even among themselves. For example they excluded xpilar from their communication channel. Imagine they have to negotiate a hard fork. Mission impossible.

If this is really the case, we can forget some thoughts and suggestions from the beginning. Perhaps even the Steem, or at least its further development - including technical development.
For the implementation of some innovations a hardfork is necessary from time to time. And this is the responsibility of the witnesses. If those can't even agree with each other... Oh My... Attractive future prospects...

round in which the witnesses could also be involved

This is a very, very important point!
In the end, after all, it's the Witnesses who would have to implement something deeper ideas (e.g. hardfork, which the sc01 has already rejected as not wanted, but which is essential for some things (e.g. changing the start page from the Upvu-infested /trending to /promoted)).

Well, I'm curious to see if this will be anything at all with "us". Someone would have to get started - and not as a lone wolf... ;-)

Don't think this needs a hard fork...

e.g. changing the start page from the Upvu-infested /trending to /promoted

Ah, okay. A "soft fork". Anyway, a developer who tinkers a bit with the homepage. This should indeed be only a small code. Do you have people like that on the team? Go ahead, try it out... ;-) Every visible change is a good sign! If necessary, you can undo the change.

It is on the list.