We can still communicate better about additions to Hardforks. We want discussions of new additions to be more open and public so that users understand what is being proposed, who is proposing it, and the costs (in terms of risk and delays) of those proposed changes.

While I think it's good to involve a community when it comes to discussing protocol changes, I also think that maybe the community at-large doesn't always understand the rationale for changes and maybe doesn't even care for the most part.

I think it would be more appropriate to at least consider that many of the protocol changes and discussions about them ought to be focused more towards investors and developers. These are the people who would likely care most about economic adjustments and underlying tech improvements - and also know the most about code changes and how they could influence behavior.

The average end user - on the other hand - who comes here to post their content and/or to read and comment on the work from other users is not likely to be technically inclined or heavily invested financially. (And I think our observations of behavior and the public discourse that has happened over the last three years pretty much confirms this.) So it makes little sense to try to convince these users that all of these economic and technical changes are needed or to go into great detail (especially using technical terminology) in order to make them feel involved. Because the reality is, most of them likely still don't. It makes even less sense to solicit their input on such technical matters just for the sake of "discussing."

Instead, the end user needs to know more about how proposed changes may affect their social experience. Yes, rewards distribution is important to understand, but it's the social impact that many people continually feel...such as fewer views, votes, engagement, etc.

So we have two different "classes" of users in that regard. It's important to understand the needs of both and it's equally important to understand how to communicate to them in a way that each group can understand and offer feedback.

As an example:

HF21 has protocols that will considerably impact both the economic and social behaviors on the platform. The official communications from Steemitblog and many of our witnesses about the hard fork don't adequately detail how things will potentially or even likely improve for the average social media end user. There have been details and some rationale for the EIP, but it still seems that the average end user is confused.

The 50/50 protocol, the non-linear curve, the reverse auction time...these are the "inside baseball" details that really have no impact on attracting curious bloggers looking to join Steem or the common "quality" content creator that wants to continue sharing their content and engaging with the community. Throwing out all of the technical terms and talking about "40% reductions" in content creator payouts just scares a lot of these people unnecessarily when the fact of the matter is, if the EIP works as expected, most of these "quality" content creators will probably see insignificant changes to their overall rewards...some will probably even see their payouts improve.

So sure, we can inform the community about the proposals, their impact, and discussions taking place, but I don't think that these always need to be the focus for the social media users. They mostly just want to share and view content. And as long as the platform is easy to use and has common social media functionality (which most of our interfaces are not and do not have), people will use it.

End users shouldn't focus so much on the technical details. They should be working on improving their craft and networking, just like they would be doing on any other social media site. It's our job as "leaders" on Steem to remind them of that and make the platform more suitable for achieving those ends...which requires a lot of improvement from interface owners and the Steemit, Inc. communication team.