Learning From Others Experiences & Mistakes or Do We Do It The Hard & Costly Way?
Not quite a full 60 days of being a „blogger“ here on Steemit, but it is over 60 days since I have been on Steemit, if I count the weeks of reading and learning prior to registering.
I won’t call this an after action report as it I am still here, I would consider this post to be more of an exchange of thoughts and views.
The purpose of this post is to help understand what I see here and hopefully come back to me with comments about what you see and more importantly WHY you see it that way.
I have written a number of posts about the fact that I actually believe in the fact that Steemit offers countless opportunities to the world of social networking, I more so believe that after a few years there shall be many clones of Steemit out there, but as we all know from history of social networks out there, the first to make it happen is the driving force among the many who show up on the market later on.
So having said that, it is clear to everyone that I see Steemit as being THE PORTAL in the Crypto social network sites of the future. In fact THE PORTAL among all paying social networks.
It sure does have the potential to be just that and shall be that if WE make it that.
Lately I have been concentrating on breaking the ice in a field that has not shown to be of a great influence here on Steemit. As many of the other sites out there have been on the market for years now, just to name a few: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked-in etc etc etc they have through the diversity of their users been utilized for much more than just “blogging” (communicating).
So it is reasonable to expect that without a doubt the same shall occur here on Steemit.
As this platform is set up the way it is with the “$” aspect to it, there are countless opportunities to utilize this portal the same way or similar ways as are users of other platforms doing so for 101 trading. Not just in Crypto, but for many transactions that we can see all over social networks elsewhere.
Being a person who takes things on systematically and after discussions with other Steemians whom I have turned to for advice an many topics, I have taken on the pilot project of testing out some of the possibilities that we have here on Steemit in the field of 101 business.
Ref: https://steemit.com/steemit/@jackmiller/steemit-auctions-it-can-be-done-lets-brainstorm-thru-week-2
I truly believe that we need to break the ice here and make this into a social network where we can utilize all our opportunities that are offered to us and not baby step our way there as was done with the founders of social networking sites.
The moral of the story is:
“Smart people learn from others experiences, the others learn the hard way and pay the price”
Moving on from this, even if it is currently the A1 most important project that I am working on here, I would like to address some of the other things I see here.
Even prior to the voting power changes made recently, I was concerned about the future of Steemit. Not that the changes were bad in any way, manner or form, I am not even trying to suggest that.
What concerned me and still does is the fact that the “$” aspect here on Steemit affects the way that people approach this site. Their motivation is different to that of those who joined other social network sites. The closest example that I could find to serve as a parallel was Linked-in. A business orientated portal. Even though it isn’t the same, the driving force there is “business” and so too if we look at Steemit the driving force is business, as making money is business!
Some have already turned their experiences here into a business, nothing more and nothing else but a 100% by the book definition “business”. All the power to them, well done, they have achieved their set goal. (Smiley clapping would be appropriate here, so just imagine it’s there).
However my concerns were and still are the fact that $1 USD to some peoples on this earth doesn’t represent the same value it does to other peoples.
I saw this on Linked-in, where many people whom are unfortunately in a position where a $1 to them may equal a days wages started abusing the opportunities that portal offered. They flooded it, I won’t say destroyed it, but it did result in big changes there.
With no disrespect to all the fair dinkum (honest and sincere) users of that portal of course. The majority isn’t always right, but they do hold the majority and as such influence and sometimes determine the policies.
We have to be open and mention that many of us who are looking over the various things being posted have seen things that just do not seem right at times. Maybe not intentional misuse or abuse, maybe a lack of experience and knowledge, maybe a difference in understanding after all this is a multicultural portal being international it is inevitable that different peoples approach the same thing in different ways. However what about those who deliberately abuse the promotions such as “Introduce yourself” as one example, what about those who have already implemented their illegal “gang” tactics to abuse the system?
I in one post suggested that making Steemit multinational with it being multilingual i.e Steemit.com/EN, Steemit.com/RU, Steemit.com/DE etc etc etc could help rationalize the use of Steemit and further more open the doors to Steem and SBD becoming alternatives on country levels.
It would definitely be an interesting thing to see all the businesses in countries out there wanting to add Steem and SBD to their cash registers and maybe even tellers!
Maybe I have jumped the gun a little if we look at where we are now, but WHY NOT go that path?
After all we are a Crypto producing business. That is the core to this project, we want our STEEM and SBD to be right up there as leading Cryptocurrencies all over the internet and all over the world in all retail stores/outlets. WHY NOT?
Having said that, there is all the more reason to ensure that some peoples out there do not ruin it for everyone, as was done on the other sites where “business” was included in the core of their portal.
With this proposed organization of users by language (region) it shall reduce the potential damage that abusers can do to the overall picture, localizing the problems and issues and making it a lot easier to manage, especially if the micromanagement were to be organized in a similar manner (by countries).
Lets face facts, the world is divided up into many countries and we have to incorporate this into what we are doing if we want to ensure expansion. We do not have to be like other leading crypto currencies, who are just now after almost one decade, starting to organize themselves with teller machines and so on. Again, country by country. WHY NOT learn from their trial and error experiences?
Shall we learn from their mistakes and gaffs or shall we go ahead and make the same mistakes they made and then pay an even heftier price for it as STEEM & SBD heavily depend on Steemit.
Just some food for thought for all those among us who see a long term future here!
I won’t use this post as a “personal AAR”, that I’ll do when my first 120 days are up, then I can go at it and be self critical to the max, for now I would like to leave this post on these topics and see what others out there have to say about it.
One of my pet loves is to get people not only thinking out of the box but learning from other peoples mistakes and not learning the hard way. I sure as anything have taken the hard road many a time and learned many a lesson!
So I guess this is where I say “GO FOR IT, START TELLING ME WHAT YOU THINK, WHAT YOU SEE”
& MOST IMPORTANTLY
WHY.
I landed here in May and even since then there seems to have been a change. The amount of spammers and bots are off the charts. And the amount of people whining about the success of others has increased also. The $ aspect has definately started to attract users who will never produce quality content and are here to gather as much cash as possible with little effort. I do feel however that they will wither on the vine as the community won't reward them and they'll give up assuming they are posting from the more affluent countries. You're right regarding the value of $ globally, a few cents means so much to some and so little to others so those users spamming from the less fortunate countries won't go easy as it has more value for them and lets face it could mean the difference between eating tonight or not.
In the near future this behaviour will no doubt continue however as the platform evolves I hope it will become a place where most of the users are here to contribute.
It's a wonderful place and I for one would be very sad if it ends up like the mainstream social network sites. We're all different so you are going to see content you like or agree with, but as long as it's reasoned and respectful that's ok.
I've never used any social media prior to coming to Steemit and cherish it greatly, I sincerely hope the majority of the others users now and in the future feel the same way. If so it will continue to be the only place I share my thoughts, hopes and fears.
Good on ya Jack.
Many people have adapted and use "gangs" (organized crime) in their every day lives, those types of abusers are all over the internet.
That is why I suggested a reorganization in which people who know how to deal with their local criminals micromanage them on Steemit too.
Rarely any westerner can understand the ways of the east and the cultural differences (i give this as an example). Same vice versa.
The world is diverse and Steemit is dependent on people, people who are all over the world and who live and think very differently from country/region to country/region.
@jackmiller Yaa from the mistakes we learned it!! Mistakes is the power of success!!
Hi. I think more than anything, priority number one should be getting this platform functioning at a level where things are smooth, and ready to be adopted globally. Plan for the global adoption. Make that the end goal. How? Beyond me... but it seems like you've got some ideas, and I'm sure some other brilliant people are talking too. I thank you for presenting a thread for them to talk. It's hard to call this next one the second priority because it's equally important , but I believe then, we must make cryptos and their use cases a more understood topic. The world is in a state of bedlam, and there is a lot of beautiful potential to solve some issues using cryptos. Light must be shed on this TO THE MASSES. The appeal must be presented unconditionally. I don't even remember how I got here on steemit, but it was purely by chance. Something I have been doing though, to help, is sharing my posts here on other platforms, so they can see one of their peers building themselves a little something here on steemit (: no matter the future of this platform, we all need to express ourselves with honesty and integrity.
Those are good points that you are making. Splitting up Steemit in regions might end up to be a good idea, although I think the time is not right for it at the moment. For every change the platform implements, there will always be a certain number of people in favor and a certain percentage against it. Reaching concensus acros the entire chain is a very hard thing to do, just ask the Bitcoin community :)
If I could add my 2 cents here I would prioritize the necessary changes as follows:
1. Direct messaging within the Steemit platform, including group chat functionality. The community now must always resort to other areas like Steemit.chat, Discord, Telegram, or other channels, which leads the attention away from the central Steemit hub activity
2. Curation tab I think, next to the ' home' , 'new', 'hot', 'trending' and promoted' tag we should see a 'curation' tab where users can follow the activities of the different curating groups - maybe set some minimal quality standards to become an official curating group - also maybe make it is easier to delegate SP to one or more of those groups directly within the platform - because really, I think it's great curation that will really be key to becoming the ultimate quality content platform
3. Re-thinking the ways that Steempower can be acquired Right now, Steem Power can be bought, if an organisation with a lot of funds comes barging in to our community, they would immediately have massive voting and curation power. And that could pose a potential risk in the coming future, especially as Steemit is gaining traction and therefore will automatically attract more attention in the world
Great, no... RUDDY FANTASTIC THOUGHTS (ideas).
Will have to sleep those over and re read them a few more times to have them sink in and be able to grasp all the potential they offer.
However I would state that doing the multilingual/national organization of Steemit is something that is better done earlier than later. The lingual translations are inevitable and the opportunity to use that to reorganize the micromanagement would by far help manage the entire project.
It took facebook years to get it done, no matter how much they resisted it, they had to do it (the multilingual thing) and then they had to reorganize the inner micromanagement based on the languages used.
Lesson is there to be learned from!
So too did Wordpress have to give in to multilingual options on their platform, I can keep going on with the list but you get my point.
However because there is $ involved here, there is also the management and micromanagement factor, this is no "tea and biscuit get together"!
Thus the argument to get this done ASAP stands.
We want STEEM and SBD to be up there in value and usage all over the world and that then entails managing the implementations of this country by country because of local legislature/laws. Once again another argument for the above reorg.
Inevitable and all the others have had to do it, so the sooner we get this done the better, that is just my opinion based on these arguments.
Don't lose sleep over my ramblings. I don't even have the programming knowledge to back up those ideas. And I concur with your views on the importance of regionalizing things. It IS very important. But my reaction and the points I mention are simply there to give you some ideas to weigh the urgency. For developing features of Steemit, priorities must always be chosen, so which aspect first and how, depends on the urgency and the calculated feasibility and effort required. For regionalizing things, we'd need local teams in every continent, don't you think?
Translations first, once that is done the micromanagement becomes a logical process.
The logistics (human resources) are then known up front and are based on languages and countries.
The damage control becomes effective and the scammers out there are at a disadvantage.
So the answer is YES, not just continent but by language and country.
PS. The crew at Wordpress had groups of users make translating teams who did a mighty fine job of taking care of business.
Same approach could be taken here too. I don't see why not.
My mistakes are my best teachers ... good post 😎👍 upvoted and resteemed