It is starting to feel like we are all on the same page here. Keep up the good work and communications, so glad Steemit realises how important it is to the community.

>what do you think we need to improve the most?

I don't really expect a response and have seen countless people ask important questions or make good points and never get answered, but... Might as well try at least once. 

I just read a thread from a friend of mine on here, who said steemit is not working for him. His reasons were primarily low interaction on his posts, and this is something I've noticed as well. Not just on my own page with over 3500 followers but on most of the pages I see, there's very few comments and human interaction that I can see. 

I think the most important thing, or at least one of the most important things that could be done is to fix the algorithms. 

I'm not sure what they are set at but they feel similar to what Facebook uses which is probably 1% or less according to the research I've seen. Even with such a low percentage of feeds that an individuals content is shown to Facebook still is providing much more human interaction because they have many more users, however... Back when Facebook had its algorithms at around 17% it was a lot of fun posting over there! 

After they started reducing the percentages, it just got worse and worse to the point where many people quit because they were basically talking to themselves and had very little interaction, even on huge pages with many thousands of followers. 

It seems clear they did this to me because they were trying to encourage people to pay for advertising to get their posts seen more, but it truly destroyed the experience for many people. 

I see similar here on steemit, most pages I look at people are basically talking to themselves and get almost zero human interaction. I think many people wouldn't be nearly as concerned about the value of steem in terms of it's crypto coin if they at the very least had people reading and commenting on their pages, yet combine the low value and the "ghost town" atmosphere and I can understand why so many people quit and go back to Facebook or where ever, at least people interact with them on other social media sites.

If the algorithms were put up to around 17% like Facebook had when it was still fun to use, then I bet that would make a massive difference here. Otherwise, I see most of the smaller less popular people getting tired of talking to themselves and eventually quitting cause almost no one interacts with their posts. 

This is social media right? Then the idea should be to get people socializing and not feeling like they are alone and talking to themselves.

Another thing you could look at is all the dead accounts, that may be another reason why peoples posts aren't being seen as much because out of the 1% or however many people a person's post gets sent to, many of them are probably dead accounts owned by people who quit, if perhaps you could make it so that new posts aren't sent to dead accounts and only active ones that might help a lot as well, not sure if that's possible or not... But to me it seems like the main problem is just that most of the people I see are basically talking to themselves, even many bigger accounts get very few comments.

I know there is another proposal about rewards and such that may or may not help in regards to more human interaction and comments, but I think the algorithms can play a major role since I saw how fun Facebook used to be before they gimped theirs and how downhill it went and how many pages and people's experiences it ruined after they reduced the percentage that people's posts get sent to other people's feeds. That one thing could make such a huge difference in my opinion. Thanks for reading if you did.

Congratulations @steemitblog!
Your post was mentioned in the [Steem Hit Parade](/hit-parade/@arcange/daily-hit-parade-20190705) in the following category:

* Comments - Ranked 9 with 56 comments

>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.

> Our knowledge involving the orchestration of testnets could have been better.

I know or think I know HF21 has been passed off to the witnesses for evaluation. That was what? 3 weeks ago. I took a look at a few discord chat rooms, and a couple were mentioning issues with the testnet. Is it resolved, are the witnesses now testing, and is there ever going to be an update on testing progress. 

It seems to me there were issues during HF20 with the testnet, yes we eventually got explanations, that does not matter and is not really the point of my comment. 

As has been mentioned in a couple of comments, there are varied users and users abilities to understand the technical side of things. Right now as far as I know there has been no testing on HF21, no word that is easily found on the status of HF21, just still a lot of talk about what is in it, what is great about it, and no talk about the progress of the testing.

Three weeks of testing is not an indication that everything is hunky dory to a non technical individual. It is an indication that something is amiss, at least to me.

This post has been super informative and elucidating in terms of how the team is doing, what issues/challenges you guys are identifying, how you assess not just your own work but the context you're operating within. Thank you for this.

One thing that is not very clear to me is why there isn't much more bugfixing and development of features done by other developers (outside of Steemit, Inc.). I see that you have identified that:

> We often get bogged down due to limited resources. Engineers are finding themselves too frequently called away from important projects to address relatively minor issues.

Are there things you think can be done to help with this? One potential strategy might be to announce (with the help of Utopian or directly through @steemitblog) that there is this opportunity for help with developing certain features or fixing certain bugs. Or improving the reliability of certain systems that often cause problems. 

Taking it further, could some of the work for Communities be announced as open to developers/designers to do it as per the provided specs?

I love what Steemit is doing at the moment and the future you will become even better. :)

Pretty solid information, thanks for being honest about the things that didn’t go well

Posted using [Partiko iOS](https://partiko.app/referral/cmplxty)

This is enlightening feedback - please continue and find that monthly rhythm to report to your community. I like the tone and content.

Posted using [Partiko iOS](https://partiko.app/referral/cryptocurator)

# Thanks for the update!! 

We are patiently awaiting SMTs for our cXc Music app, so we are thrilled with the uptick in good news on SMTs.

> By deciding to remove the hidden cap from ICO's we have reduced the possibility of 'scam' ICO's and also decreased our development time for SMTs.

We think this is great! 

Also, is there a way to reserve SMT names yet? 

Thanks, 
[Douglas James](douglas.life)
@douglasjames 


<center> 


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<center><a href="https://currentxchange.com">Website</a> | <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T2JH9J73WjgZ9-cULJAzrYvZzyPSXEA_fdgt21lHnDc/preview" title="Current X Change White Paper">Purple Paper</a> | <a href="https://currentxchange.com/one-pager" title="current X change One Pager">One Pager</a> | <a href="https://currentxchange.com/cxc-music" title="cXc Music (Full App) Demo">cXc Music (Full App) Demo</a>


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</center>
<center>
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</center>

You are doing everything backend well, but people and new users should see general changes too, also as I wrote in your older post, you should create a mobile app for steemit, it is 2019!! And everyone is using phones, and everyone use apps, Steemit deserve to have a great mobile app.

Also give more features to users, as I also mentioned some of them in past, you can add them if you ever read my requests in past.

I asked let people be able to pin their posts on their blog, on their page, but you keep pinning your posts and you dont want to give that feature to us!

Though I cant say much now, I know you guys are working hard, I understand programming is really hard, but if you want to make steemit special, you cant just go on with the same app but with changes in its security only or other details, Einstein says it is wrong if you keep doing the same thing and waiting for a different result.

Steemit already bring a new thing and it was giving value to users contents, but after that you didnt looked for anything to add, you can find many programmers on steemit which anyone of them can add some features to steemit, you can ask them, and they will do it, some are young programmers and have much passion, you should look after these brains,

Thank you so much :)

Related to my other comment on this post, I have seen many users left steemit and started posting more on Instagram, Facebook, even though they dont even make any money with their posts, just think and search about it and find out why they rather use Insta and FB ...

----

And another message to admins and devs and anyone who read my message: people like me are the ones who still believe in you and have hopes and stand near you! We are not coming here to beg for things or say some angry words to you! We also want you to be successful! Cause Steemit is able to change the world!

Happy to see these type of frequent updates coming in! Keep up the good work!

what is the date of HF21 ?

I very much appreciate the improvements that have been made and the progress being shown, great work on that. 

One thing I think that is still an obstacle for us as a community is communicating with our user base in a way that is not only understandable to them, but embraces them. I know I’ve mentioned this a few times but after recent frustration brought to me by some of the community I feel like I need to bring it up again. 

Much of the community feels ignored, talked over, frustrated and isolated due to most of the communication not really geared to the average end user. Things are confusing, scattered all over and generally are written for individuals who already understand the tech and logistics behind the discussion, which leaves out quite a large group of our user base. 

This leaves them confused, and confusion leads to misinformation, fud and an overall low morale.  The may not have any interest or desire to know the algorithms of a curve, as an example, they could just get a explanation of what these changes mean for them and how it is beneficial for the longevity of the platform and therefore them. 

We have a very diverse community with all different levels of tech knowledge. This is what we want, and we need to embrace that by offering different forms of communicating imo. 

We need end users for all these wonderful things we are developing, we need “normies” and we need to communicate to them as well as give them what they need to understand and thrive here. 

I truly believe most of the frustration and outrage from the most recent hardfork discussions is due to how it has been communicated and therefore is resulting in low morale. 

It is pretty common practice for any company to have some sort of community manager or liaison, as it’s such a simple role that prevents issues as well as ensuring voices are heard.  [Even block.one is hiring a few](https://block.one/careers/jobs/community-relations-advocate-2/) as they see the need. 

A strong community that is in love with a platform is about the best peer to peer marketing a company can ask for. Everyone becomes walking advertisements.. and I believe the lack of communication to our current user base as well as the future user base we want to attract is holding us back. 

That would be my feedback on what needs to be worked on. To me it’s such a small thing that could have a huge impact. 

Thanks and keep up with the forward momentum!

Justine

It is refreshing to see continued, effective, and regular progress updates. Please keep this up. It is helpful for users, developers and passive investors alike.

Def do love the communication.

I do believe the key issues are not addressed. The reward incentives of steem are broken and dont seem to be addressed and avoided altogether.

Doing things well is not enough we also need to do the right things.

Thanks for these communication posts.

I'd really love a graphical roadmap with some optimistic dates - can anyone direct me to a website or something with this? or can I suggest it should be on the 'to do' list.

All shows positive development and news. Go ahead SMT is waiting so long.
Love all that.

i like the communication. It's reassuring.

The advertising banner seems to make this page unscrollable in chrome on android via steemit.com. The power of advertising :(

Anyway I've had quite a lot of scrolling/loading issues lately on mobile, so frustrating, thought here might be a good place to mention it...

I'd love some sort of disincentive for bots? 

![facebook-Linked_Image___blocking-bad-bots-1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPHCzU1m2YJPCmbb6LqCAiYbubQeS9LE7MFz1DwWcMErp/facebook-Linked_Image___blocking-bad-bots-1.jpg)

mack-bot cheetah and steemcleaners will be the death of this platform

Thanks for a really good post. In the past there has been a lot of flex. This post showed more humility and introspection and a lot less flex. 

- When is the hard fork happening? That is something you haven't really communicated or for a long time haven't mentioned.
- Edit to say: "We created sponsored posts on steemit.com" ... gotta realize that a good proportion of us don't use steemit.com 
- You used too many acronyms in this post, please think about the wide audience. Don't be lazy write a couple more words. The first time you mention a feature put the acronym next to it and then use the acronym after that. Until the acronym has perhaps even years of constant distribution that it everyone knows it... however you are in place where new people are coming all the time.

All in all keep making posts like this. The consistency will be the biggest thing... anyone can have 1 month of really good improvement ... now it will be good to see two of those in a row. And by the end of the year it may even be a pattern and something you're known for.

> Rolled out new ad partner integration which is already generating more revenue than anything we've done before.

Is by chance https://33across.com/ your new financial saviors @steemitblog?

*I'm just curious. Because certainly, I could have them to good use on some new projects fluttering around my head too.*

As for the rest, keep doing the good work and above all, stay constant with your more frequent communications effort.

Cheers!! :)

We must avoid steem going in the weak hands.