I don't think enough of the Steemit C-suite spends enough time on their own site to really know if there's actually quality content or not.
The next thing is, quality is so subjective, it's not even much of a measure for value. Most people mean "things I like" rather than "that's well written" or "that's accurate, well-researched information."
For all I know, all the technical analysis that gets thrown around here is top notch. I don't understand it, I don't see the value in it, so I don't upvote it. And there's plenty of other topics I don't wander into regularly for much the same reasons. Does that mean the posts are low quality?
No. It just means low-interest to me. And maybe that's a better way of putting it. Again, though, it's subjective. It's obvious that anything that is about crypto gets plenty of eyeballs. I'm not here for just crypto news. I like variety, which means more than just what a few subjects that some people, mainly with higher SP, might like.
So, yeah, I agree, Ned could of defended us a little better. And yeah, there's plenty of lower quality posts, along with low-interest, but I don't know if that's your focus when your only answer to it is the trending page, the same page you need to buy your way up to get noticed on.
I've been wondering for a long while now, with so many cutting edge social sites out there, why Steemit looks the way it does, and functions the way it does. Why didn't we have Community from the outset? Why not Hivemind? Why aren't we even on our way to 2.0 of those things.
I'm kind of getting tired about hearing that Steemit is still in beta. Yes it is, but it's a beta circa early 2000s. I guess the creators and early adopters thought it should look like Reddit, when it really should have looked and functioned more like Facebook groups or something similar.
Which leads me to believe that Steemit in and of itself isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. Something else is. I'm not sure what that is, but as a premiere social site, it's lacking.
And if you think quality posts are lacking here, then give us tools to improve our quality. What self-respecting blog software doesn't even allow you to save multiple drafts, let alone schedule a post?
I don't know. I've been trying to keep my head down and just post, comment and curate. However, in doing so, I run between those who seem a little happier about the place because they're trying to make Steemit a good place, and then I run into others that only want to get their own piece of the pie.
I don't know. This is a great subject and post. It's really passed time to have this discussion not only in the highest offices of Steemit, but actually see it result in something. Instead of incrementally taking away small things, hiding others, how about we get something majorly useful instead?
Wow, that's what I call a comment! :-)
Thanks for taking the time and putting everything together, @glenalbrethsen. I'll answer step by step...
Well that was exactly what I asked Ned in a comment a couple of days back and this was his reply:
It's actually sad that he sees everything on here and it's still the way it is.
If this was my project I wouldn't want it to look like that - not only one day. I wouldn't want to be asked about the poor quality of my network in a TV interview...
Hivemind! Oh yeah! The last update was posted one month ago, but only God knows if this will ever be implemented. I doubt it will be in 2018. While the days go passing by, more and more people leave the network, so in the end there'd even be very few to test it then...
Then you touched the user interface. Well I'm doing my blog posts in HTML since the steemit editor is so poorly equipped. They were promising to improve it at Steemfest no. 1 in Amsterdam. That was in November 2016 :-) I better not comment this..
Well thanks for stopping by and keeping the ball rolling.
You're right, if we don't talk about it, nothing will ever be improved.
Yet, I've gradually lost hope. Maybe that's it - and the current stage of steemit is all we'll ever have. Then we should be simply content - or move on.
Enjoy your weekend!
Thank you for finding time to reply to my rather lengthy comment. :)
First off, that's awesome you even got an answer back from Ned.
Second, he may very well use it everyday but it is literally impossible to see everything on here, so anyway. Saying something like "I'm aware of what's going on" would have been good enough.
It is sad. I suppose, though, if this is meant to be a social experiment, with a hands off approach, to see where it might lead, that it all makes more sense. If it's not, then creating an environment where value can thrive would seem to be the order of the day.
Promises to fix the UI since 11-2016. Hmmmm. Okay. Well, so much for that, then. In hindsight, it probably served as a good indication where the UI wasn't going to go if it started out basically like this in the first place, rather than actually being more modern. I've not seen much interest being paid to it, but I've only been here actively since January.
I guess we're all that we've got. We're our only hope. I'm not ready to give up on me yet. :) Of course, I haven't been here so long that the amount of broken promises given reach the proverbial moon STEEM's supposed to reach, either.