The idea of teaching newbies about proper formating is very important because I, like many other newbies, faced formating issues when I was writing my first post. For people who have very busy schedules, having access to a comprehensive learning material that can explain the formating requirements and methods will go a long way in making the platform easier to use.

I also especially like the idea of motivating old members via some kind of incentives.

Totally agree!

Give the initial Steem to the referrer, or at least reduce the amount for new users and give a specific amount, plus "commissions" to whomever recruited them.

I understand that there is a mechanism available to make this possible, but it has not been implemented. Not being very technical, I can't say much more about it.

Other features are being developed that can help with editing, but some of it is still a bit difficult. The Ladder project and Streemian's post scheduler both are helpful.

The idea of having a Disqus type plugin, as has been discussed, providing cross posting of articles, comments and votes, would be a huge benefit, IMO. This would provide a major means of pushing the use of Steemit far beyond Steemit.com.

For now, the simple task of importing articles and converting the format is problematic. Even getting that sorted would be a nice step.

Merry Christmas

Give 5$ and Get5$, A Real Referral Program to earn free BTC. Join Coinswitch.co/referral.

I've seen referal bonus attempts succeed and I've seen them fail. When they fail is usually when the draw is so great that a few sharks flooded the system with  unqualified people who only hung on until the payout. It tends to build it's own pyramid scheme within the established marketing plan, because some few of the shark's recruits will be sharks themselves. 

As long as that is prevented, referral programs that I have seen worked very well. Personally, I already have that incentive because as a newbie trying to earn with content rather than curation, every little vote counts. People I draw in will vote for me, and they also will improve the value of STEEM over time.

Good points.   I chat with you more about some of the relateds here and I make no bones about it publicly --- I struggle on here with coding formations and formatting and all this stuff.  I don't like it, I don't enjoy it, I am not from this world and when you get involved here - you have SO much to learn about writing AND crypto stuff.  It is overwhelming,  you are right -- I know exactly why people give up.  

The struggle is real and there is only so much time in a day we all have.

I  made this comment in the thread comments, I will post it here as a standalone for you to make it easier to find. perhaps:

----

Have some of the payouts to blogger and mentor pegged to and auto-paid after 7th post.  

And again maybe at further legacy points on the chain or milemarker -- maybe even simple to remember ones like 5th / 10th/ 20th/50th -- the more I think about it the more that makes sense to me where I am at with things.  

-- encourages both parties to develop their habits and also reach an attainable goal / goals.

This idea was proposed by  many others in the past but I didn't see any result. I support the idea with referral bonus

Incentives always help. Though I suspect that most referrals will come as link throughs rather than personal introductions.

The Steemit social network does have a relatively steep learning curve. But not one nearly as steep as getting to grips with a word processing program for the first time, or trying to edit a picture for the first time.

For me the main issue is getting a greater awareness of Steemit amongst the general public. I found out about Steemit purely as a result of a casual comment made by a fellow member of [CryptoCoinTalk](https://CryptoCoinTalk.com). Once I visited the Steemit site I was quite willing to put the time and effort needed to get to grips with understanding the underlying concept and complexities of the Steemit approach to improving social networking.

great idea, I made a video about this same idea back in October

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcEVPZWY1QM

I like your thinking, @son-of-satire is on the same quest! https://steemit.com/steemit/@son-of-satire/how-dan-and-ned-could-use-trust-to-make-steemit-the-global-network-and-economy-of-the-future
I just put my two bobs worth into his concept but a meeting of minds may be apt!
Thank you for your constructive thinking!

Since we have such a large social media base it would be great if we new when people come over. We know about the bigger accounts but have know idea when smaller people from twitter or elsewhere come over. Being able to have analytics would be huge.

Tweeted @RandyHilarski

https://twitter.com/RandyHilarski/status/812709473395634176

It would benefit people, :)

I think younare right. Usability is an issue. However i think we cant expect anperfect solution from the start. 

I hope the team is working on it.

Im not sure about referals. I think in general its better to  create a product that is as good as possible. I would probably rather have these funds put into development.

I also think there are more structural issues that need adressing: usability is one. Reward concentration is another.

I support the idea too. I am a great fan of affiliate marketing espacially where it comes to passive income and why not share a small anmount with your sponsor.

I don't like the idea of a referral program here. I always give Steem free promo. Because I like it.

So does Steemit pay me to refer others to Steemit? I have 45,000 people in my social media that i can reach.....michaelpinson6@gmail.com

Totally agree. It will greatly improve the active user base, I am quite sure of that. It's also very fair. There are people out there like my self who are responsible for literally 10,000 posts from users using Steemit because of me. What compensation or reward did I get from that great contribution to this platform? Nada
It's fine because I did it to support the community I love and believe in, yet I deserve compensation and it would greatly increase the community as ivity as a whole.

As I have mentioned before, my biggest stumbling block when it comes to encouraging my family, friends and acquaintances to join the Steemit platform is being able to explain how the founders or anyone here is making the currency, we are all dabbling in.
At this point, I can't easily explain in under 2 seconds, who's pocket the currency is coming from.
It's one of the first questions that is asked as soon as I tell them that they don't have to "pay to play" on this platform. If it's coming from the bytes of information that are used to construct blocks on the blockchain, who is buying and paying for this?
The next questions are:
" What happens to the original content that I create? Do I still own it?"
I cannot answer these questions with confidence and certainty. 
Perhaps I have missed this basic information. If anyone can share how they respond when these questions are asked of them, I would really appreciate any guidance that might be offered from anyone reading my comment. 
I believe in Steemit and am happy to fill a role as a Steemit guerrilla marketer, but I require the ability to easily explain how it works accurately.