Your Hopes and Expectations for COMMUNITIES? + My Thoughts
STEEMPEAK WOULD LIKE TO KNOW
The @steempeak blog is mostly for updates and sharing posts about features... so I'd like to lead a conversation getting some input about Communities. I'm interested in what you're expecting and maybe what some of your hopes and dreams are for communities interface.
I'd also like to share some of my big pictures thoughts about communities if you're interested
AKA ... My job to know what you want for https://steempeak.com/
COMMUNITIES HISTORY
Back in February we were working on a community interface for https://steempeak.com/ using a different API and we had a chat with Steemit INC and talked about the benefits of using Hivemind to power communities. Sounded like a good proposition and we also knew that if we waited we'd fill that time with plenty of other features anyway.
So here we are working on the interface again and it's really nice to also have steemit also running a beta of the interface as well @roadscape who is in charge of the hivemind protocol all interfaces will be using to power communities is very responsive and very passionate about this project.
Obviously the history of communities extends far before steempeak came along... it's been something Steem has been talking about and wanting for a while.
WHY COMMUNITIES?
Here's how i describe it:
Steem is a small town with small town drama and sometimes people leave the town when the drama gets too high or they're not loving the rules of the road/hoa. Communities will be tons of different small towns that will all have different levels of drama (maybe none) and often different rules of the road. Users will end up in lots of communities and some of these small towns may not fit them... but if they leave and go to another one the trick is that they're still IN STEEM.
... And then sometimes they'll find the perfect place for them where they never have to mingle with the old money people for example.
Putting everyone from every walk of life with every different kind of expectation and motivation into one place and telling them... "everyone get along" ... It's a noble desire... but it just isn't gonna happen.
EXAMPLE:
Some people don't think cat pictures should get any rewards and then other people create communities just for kitten pictures.
ONE BIG DIFFERENCE...
Chatting with a friend who uses Reddit a lot I thought about: How is communities filling a need?
There are gonna be 3 different types of communities and the one we're already testing deals with the concept of OWNERSHIP. Meaning as opposed to sub-reddits or FB groups you don't have to trust a company or one particular website. You still trust some code (hivemind, steem blockchain) but no need to trust one particular site or company and that's a huge deal. You are so much less dependent and you have several companies with sites all creating tools and working to make the best product for you and your community of users.
In a way you actually own your audience
What does ownership mean... what follows?
IF we hold to this idea of ownership in communities... that one person or one group or one DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) calls the shots for the community. Then i think what follows could be very interesting for Steem and https://steempeak.com/
1. Could the community decide to use a different reward pool token?
Yes of course we've seen this already with Steem-Engine Tribes and we'll see it even more with SMTs which are also in testing phase over at Steemit INC.
2. Could the community be provided with different ways to monetize?
I think this is 100% a very real possibility that I'd like to see @SteemPeak pursuse. We've recently created a promotion system on feeds inside of our Explore page. The idea is the promotion system benefits the whole community through reducing the supply of steem. But inside a community could they speak for themselves and could they tell us what kind of split would be best to serve the interests of their smaller group of users. Maybe promotions in that community less is burned and more is just collected into an account and they have other plans for that. Maybe an SE token is burned... maybe it's all just straight payment.
3. Could SteemPeak and communities work like partnerships?
Maybe even in bigger communities we provide bigger better feature sets beyond promotion payment systems. We could listen to some big communities with thousands or tens of thousands of users and maybe we develop some addition features for those larger communities (At a cost... not to the users but the community)
4. Could Communities tweak their Steem experience? ... no reward pool?
Maybe a community doesn't want downvotes... or voting pool at all. Maybe a big content creator just loves the idea of non-censored location that is owned completely by themselves. So they bring their youtube audience of 2 million (aka probably 10-20k semi-active users) to Steem Communities because no company will own their connections. Each subscription by their fans to the community is stored blockchain level and will go with them no matter the site or company. They are free from a dependency on a company.
HOWEVER... let's say they're not a believer in Steem Rewards pool. They just kinda want a place like reddit but with the perks of the blockchain. Why couldn't they just say: "here in my land (community) we don't use the reward pool". I personally have zero objections to that. I'd think they put that intention in the metadata of the owning hive-account (each community has one) and then the interfaces can choose to honor that. I'd push for SteemPeak to honor that. I feel like many content creators are looking for ways to increase engagement and also not have drama... so maybe taking the money out of it benefits them more. Or maybe a rewards pool... just not Steem rewards because it comes with drama they're not interested in.
In my presentation at SteemFest I presented some findings that big full time content creators liked a lot of things about what we do on Steem and reward pool really wasn't even close to the highest on the list. Smaller creators probably like reward pool significantly more than big creators.
THE THINGS WE ARE WORKING ON
Over at SteemPeak.com what are we doing to get ready for Communities. Well we're working together with Steemit INC and even helping test their system and give feedback... all while thinking about what we may want.
- Obviously we're thinking about the look and design
- And we're thinking philosophically about the big picture elements (as listed in this post)
- We're also trying to understand how to even navigate and find communities
Even in private testing among just a few dozen users there are already dozens of communities... i suspect when it goes public there will quickly be perhaps even thousands of communities. So right now the question is HOW TO SORT and SEARCH? - More specifically what really quick bits of data beyond name and the short about text does a user need to see to even be interested enough to go in and check the community to see if there is enough interest to subscribe. Like number of subscribers... if the community has a lot of subscribers that's usually a decent indicator that maybe perhaps the community is good?
- Also the big question for all interfaces is how to decide URLs.
FYI there is no rush to go and grab a community name. There could be multiple communities of the same name. They each get a specific number ID instead. But there will be a big decision needed to be made about the vanity URLs for communities. What I think we don't really want is SteemPeak giving a URL to one Splinterlands community while Steemit or Busy giving the Splinterlands URL to another. So that's a big decision that should be a decision among a lot of interfaces after communities gets rolling. - Even questions like should a post in a community automatically be in the feed of people who follow you? Should you have to resteem a community post if you want it in your main blog?
BEST COMMENTS EARN = EARLY ACCESS
Communities is just getting rolling.
SteemPeak is just getting the feature sets rolled out... still playing a bit of catch up as we've been doing a lot of Guest account stuff recently.
So as we get it more complete we'll be looking for people to jump into it.Communities itself doesn't require a hardfork and is already live on the blockchain but communities is basically a way to SEE the blockchain and content and a way to moderate it. We will have it in private beta for a while (same with steemit inc)...
I'd push to get users on there that have lots to say about communities and can provide me with feedback and big ideas... it's part of my role at @steempeak so i'd push to get those types on there. So comment below...
I guess if you even made it through the whole post that may even qualify you. haha... So let me know.
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It would be cool if community owners could customize the website look of the community on steempeak. Things like colors or top image :)
There is a balance between some of the things a community may want and giving STEEMPEAK users a consistent social media experience.... but with that said. We already let users change TOP IMAGE so that's a pretty common expectation.
Adding a few features or even removing features seems like a function decision and an easy thing... however changing the whole appearance or color could be problematic decision. I think maybe if you're saying the community could have a Preferred Customization default then maybe that's cool.
But only if they realize the END USER chooses how they want to see the page anyway. So they may have a STYLE they prefer to keep their experience constant across several communities.
I'd really like to know how the existing tokens can be incorporated into the community experience.
I'd like to know whether ownership can be transferred.
I'd like to know about how to clearly and easily search for them and whether they'll be listed in a date created or alphabetical way - alpabetical would be more fair I think. And of course a good way to search for them - not just by title, but by interest. For example, could the community list their interests (thinking Natural Medicine is not just 'herbalism' but also 'vegan' 'meditation' and so on as part of the broader experience). If you were a new user, how would you know what community you'd fit into with random or not so self explanatory names? I mean, kittens is clearly aobut kittens - I hope - and not some dporn thing. So if there the communities had 'tags' within the communities to find them eg Hypothetically, I arrive on Steemit, and I'm interested in 'yoga'. I search 'yoga' in communities and it throws me three choices: 'Yogis On Steem' 'Natural Medicine' 'Yoga Mamas' - because those communities have elected 'yoga' to be ONE of the tags that helps find them.. Does that make sense?
I definitely think that whatever community is made needs to be the same across all interfaces - can't even imagine the headf78k if it isn't.
By the way, it's @riverflows.
Yes communities can easily be incorporated into the community experience. SE or SMTs
The thing about SE token communities is that you'll still need the Scot Bot in order for it to distribute the tokens for you based on the tag trigger.
Communities provided by hivemind act more like a way to organize and moderate content and use hivemind to it's fullest extent.
I wonder if the scot bot could even be programmed to use the hive-0001 tag to trigger the scot bot to deliver tokens which means only those posts added to the community are really capable of getting tokens. (mostly)
So the big benefits in your case I would assume are that you can control who is abusing your communities posting stuff there that don't really belong. Meaning mute users or even just posts. Also the ability to make other users admins or moderators. Or in the future have communities where only those you've given access can post.
But for example if you don't want a certain bot to spam your users you now have control... or can LABEL the bot as "A friendly bot"
I was thinking.. how rude, you didn't reply.. but forgot that I commented under NM. Oops.
I imagine the scotbot could fo that easily enough. Been inside to play with the communities feature and there is definitely alot to be improved upon. I definitely see it as more of a forum - for example, a group discussion about a particular herb, for example, withouut the need to write an authoritative good post (I feel obligation to write decent content.. in a community this isnt necessary as there are no outside eyes I presume). Whilst people might belong to many communities most will only spend most time in small handful.
I would also like to see a search conversations function. In this case more like reddit i suppose. Say we have a long conversation in community about.. idk.. benefits of bananas, and 3 weeks later someone says 'hey, whats with bananas' .. do we have to scroll endlessly to find it or is it possible to have an archiving system easy searchable?
I can see huge benefits... quora like questions rewarded within community, contests etc... but I would like to vet members too, or have rules for entry.
Also would like a customisable header or side bars for images customisable by admin.. say an advertisement widget. Lots of ideas.
Would love early access to test. Been running NM Discord so long that it would be great to keep some of the things we have there on chain.
Oh god yeah.. the option to admit or kick bloody comment bots.
Oh, pictures of kittens. I've been sharing recipes. No wonder I'm getting downvoted.
i can say that i have no idea what to expect of it. it could be interesting, it should be interesting but...
i like that posts will not be automatically on the "main blog" but i feel that there should be a check box "do you want to post it outside the community".
Yeah thats a function in the steem communities... either to blog or to community. And thats great.. replaces Discord in some ways in my book.
As one who came here for the communities and a community ( been waiting for 3 years!) I have to say your description of it is well put.
Communities will allow choice and with choice comes content discovery which is badly needed. As you stated , rules will be a nice way to control the flow of relevant information and stakeholders to a community.
Great question to try to tackle. You are right the biggest selling point of communities vs. reddit subs is there is no need to trust one particular site or company to maintain your audience. You own your audience which is pretty powerful once you think about it.
As you mentioned in the following hypothetical situations you could have a separate reward pool dedicated to that particular niche topic. SMTs will help bring that out.
Burning the particular SMT for a promotional purposes makes sense.
One question I was wondering can rewards a particular topic creates be distributed back to moderators and admin. A kind of group beneficiary for their communities.
Btw, love your diagram of what communities will look like in Steempeak. :)
I feel like those boxes are way too big specially when you consider there will be thousands of communities and each person may be a part of 10 or 20 or more communities. But thanks I'm glad you at least like this view.
Yeah i feel SMTs and communities will be linked quite closely on both the blockchain and hivemind level.
And yes a community owner could possibly require a beneficiary. To do this I feel like the community should state that in the governing community meta data and the interfaces should be willing to comply with that desire of the community owner. It'd be up to the community moderators to give repercussions to users who don't comply... though an interface could give them the tools to help. For example filter by interfaces that don't help the user comply with the request.
Right, I suppose they can be smaller but the concept remains I do like it.
Yes, I'm excited about this. It unleashes a whole new element to things.
Yes, this would incentived everyone in charge to keep the community clean and up to speed. It is one of the things I'm most interested in seeing implemented. Maybe, SteemPeak can do it. Looking forward to what you have coming up and if you need anyone to help test it I have time! Thanks.
I personally think a decent option for community discovery would be a section for 'communities people I follow are subscribed to but I am not.' I believe that leveraging a user's shared social graph to find a community would provide users a better way to find communities they may already belong to and have connections within.
I think this would also become crowded as more and more communities grow. To solve that I would just let users have an option to close the suggestion from appearing again similar to how announcement messages are often handled in feeds.
Something like what we do with follower suggestions?
https://steempeak.com/@user/following/suggestions
Also i like the suggestion about closing the suggestion so it doesn't appear again... that's what we do on follower suggestion... so i assume it's doable but not sure how we do it or if we have some sort of database for who they've closed the suggestion for. @asgarth knows.
Exactly like that! I think that will go a long way.
Would love to have an access to tinker around communities :)
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i can think nothing more i'd want than a steempeak powered communties rather than hitting a login/password .htaccess file of steemit, i absolutely dislike this culture of the 'in the know' access to things that steemit and co have -- i'm sure what @roadscape has built is brilliant but it seems to be protected by the '300' right now so us minions don't get access to play.
i'd love to get into a video chat debate/conversation with others about communities if you are up for it? maybe get like a handful of us together 4/8 people and record it? let me know!
I can understand the desire to keep the impact of the API low to be honest ... and also because sooo much can change regarding communities i think it additionally makes sense to keep the access limited to those who can help give feedback.
Also i wouldn't mind a video chat that others can see. Maybe I'd like to wait until we have added a few more features to our own communities system. We have focused mostly on viewing content but a lot of the admin/moderation features haven't been added yet. Give us a little bit.
that feedback is always from the targeted few on purpose. it's why steem/steemit will never grow outside of it's middle class closed loop insecurities, all i see is introverts focusing on the power of control of those communities and a complete lack of vision for the general public usage of communities.
i hear you about api usage, that i can respect however
I'd rather spend my time and energy empowering other blockchain projects outside of steem that listen to the whole of the community instead of distilling down what they want to hear and just passing it through a few people and watering it down for the cult like adoption.
I can't wait to see what you bring out for communities. i'll mostly certainly be using it solely on steempeak and i have high hopes that we can make some incredible frontends in 2020 based around python. I've already been pulling my thoughts together on it.
I watched your stream from steemfest4, you get it, you were right to make your own frontend for steem because you understand the outside 'volume' that will make it grow for your idea of the way you see steem working while yet still supporting the parts that make sense.
i respect that a lot.
The purpose of communities is to grow far beyond what we have today. The purpose of a closed beta is scalable testing.
Hey @jarvie. Could you hook me up? We could start discussions in the Hivemind Dev community.
Glad to read about what you're playing with in regards to Communities. I would be really happy to join the testing and feedback giving if you would have me. :)
Couple things. Some are things that others have already mentioned.
Would love to get some early access and throw around ideas with you guys!
I'd love to beta test communities...add me to the list
Great read @jarvie. One quick question
Can one post be part of few different communities? Or just one and only one?
And also if I subscribe then to some community and new publication will be posted, then how VISIBLE is this post on my feed? I mean - will I be at least notified?
Just wondering how real visibility will increase.
Yours
Piotr
PRESENTLY
So it would be just like most other communities online like reddit or fb where the content is made for one place... but some people get away with posting it to a few others and walk the line around potentially being seen as a spammer.
But yeah there's an ongoing discussion i feel about how this will work. I know that if I post in some communities it's really meant JUST for that community and I don't want it being notified or in the feeds of my followers I wanna feel like I have a place i can talk to just the people who understand me in that theme. But there are likely gonna be posts like SteemPeak large topic posts (like some of my recent posts) that I would put into the community BUT would like my general audience to see.
Dear @jarvie
That kind of sucks. New communities will struggle to get on board anyone to post on their communities since most people will probably chose to participate mostly in those that are popular.
Thank you for your comment and I'm sorry for such a late reply.
ps.
May I ask you for little favour? I'm not sure if I did ask you about it already or not (hope I'm not repeating myself).
Could you please check out also my recent post if you have few min and share your thoughts on questions related to concept of "introducing steem blockchain to businesses":
https://steemit.com/steemleo/@crypto.piotr/my-very-first-trip-to-switzerland-one-of-the-most-crypto-and-blockchain-friendly-place-on-the-planet-earth
Your feedback is always appreciated ;) And I will upvote most valuable comment with 100-200k SP coming from project.hope account.
Yours, Piotr