100 DAYS OF STEEM : Day 10 - A Steem Mentoring System
Steem can be a difficult place to get started on.
Newcomers to the platform can easily be confused by the technicalities of multiple keys, upvoting and downvoting, powering up and powering down, witnesses and proxies...
These complexities often lead to people giving up and leaving after only one or two posts.
This is clearly not ideal. Increasing Steem’s very low retention rate is a key priority.
Improving the onboarding experience from the technical side is already being worked on.
Alongside this one idea is to introduce some form of Steem Mentoring system.
A Steem Mentoring System
Some games have mentoring systems where new players are paired up with more experienced players who guide them through their first few weeks while they get to ‘know the ropes’.
These schemes usually operate on a voluntary basis but commonly the mentor, and often the mentee as well, get some sort of reward when the new player has reached a certain experience level or completed a certain number of tasks.
Could some scheme like this work on Steem?
Existing communities already play an important role in welcoming, and nurturing, newcomers to the platform. But not every newcomer finds a community in time.
In the short term at least there are unlikely to be the resources to build a system with any formal coded structures. So any scheme will need to be manually constructed, operated, and monitored.
At a very basic level, maybe something like this…
Experienced Steemians, with say over 6 months active on the platform and reputation of at least 55, volunteer to be Mentors. Their account names, languages, and timezone are logged on a weekly updated Mentors page. Each mentor also has their own regularly updated Mentor’s Welcome Page linked to from the main Mentors page.
Newcomers to Steem are given a link to the main Mentors page. If they are interested in having a Mentor to help them get established on Steem they select a mentor from the list that matches their language and timezone. They can then link through to the Mentors personal page.
Having read the Mentor’s page if the newcomer wants to pursue the mentoring then they make contact with the Mentor via their details on the page, or possibly by leaving their contact details in a comment.
At this stage the most likely contact route will be via Discord or perhaps Telegram. The initial introductory contact message to the Newcomer from Steemit will need to have included details of how to get on Discord or Telegram.
After making contact if the Newcomer and Mentor decide to go forward with the mentoring arrangement then they begin to work through a series of guided tasks that might include writing and formatting posts, using tags, making comments, joining communities, powering up, voting for witnesses etc etc.
To enable monitoring and to register for mentoring rewards then both newcomer and mentor would need to make initial ‘Mentoring Announcement Posts’. Then as they progress through the various tasks, they would, at a number of key points, make mutual ‘Mentoring Progress Posts’. Assuming appropriate progress is being made these posts would be rewarded with upvotes from a Steemit mentoring account.
Ideally the mentoring arrangement would last a minimum of 3 months. This is often said to be the ‘establishment period’. If newcomers make it through this period they are likely to stay on Steem. At the end of 3 months the newcomer and mentor would then make their final mutual ‘Mentoring Completion Post’. If it has all worked out and both are still active on Steem then both posts would be rewarded with Steemit upvotes.
Would this work?
Is this sort of system workable? Is it too complex? Is it scalable? Is it scam-proof enough? Does it have any personal safety risks?
Would it help retention?
Has anyone got any better ideas?
Or should we just rely on Discord based communities as before?
This sort of mentoring system is certainly not the perfect answer to the retention issue.
It may not be very scalable - but we are not, in the near future at least, dealing with very large numbers.
It may be too scamable - but with careful monitoring it should have sufficient resilience to prevent fraudulent usage.
Some sort of coded, automated system would certainly be bigger and better but that would have to wait its turn for development resources to become available.
This system could be implemented now.
Is it worth giving it a try?
Would anyone be interested in being a volunteer mentor?
We welcome your thoughts, feedback and suggestions.
Thank you,
The Steemit Team
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
On Monday at 7pm PST / 11am KST / 2am UTC Green House Radio Online is hosting a Steem Witness Forum on their Discord server.
This is a community organised forum but we hope as many witnesses as possible, and as many of the community as possible, will be able to attend…
Thank you @greenhouseradio for putting on this forum.
Once again it is a confirmation of the popularity of Steem, when shortly after your posting the number of comments shooting up and it is clearly visible who is waiting for every single post, both constructive comments and just spamming but this is a live there will be always pro and contra. Important thing we should not let the people who want to rebuild Steem and Steemit to be distracted by negativity and just ignore them.
As to mentoring it is a great idea and reading through the comments bellow we can see that many people already doing that. When newcomers post their first post should receive a “welcome” comment that would offer to visit mentoring post or page. The mentoring page should contain basic info and offering different types or fields such as game, travel, photography, writing, art, homesteading…
Each section then should include those volunteers who would like to be mentors and who the people can reach in discord, there should be discord page too.
Issuing posts throughout the process of establishment with appropriate rewards for both parties is great idea too, will help newbees to be visible and reward mentors for their work and time.
In general it is time consuming if someone want to do a good job that is why the selection of mentors should be really strict if you want it to work properly.
Very well said.
Thank you for your support for the idea, and the extra ideas.
We are going to keep refining and develop the project.
The Steemit Team
I see the wannabe banker @menerva is pissed. She missed the air drop because of her poor decisions, she moved to coronaland aka new york, and the value of her steem holdings keep dropping daily. She downvotes those who speak the truth, and truth be told I really wouldn't want someone like her as a banker making financial decisions and getting hostile at anyone who has better insight as her client's investment portfolio continuously go to zero.
She might want to hope a flight back to south Korea, else she might have to dress up as Elmo on Times Square. An Elmo suit might be the best financial decision of her career.
I thought you said all real users went to Hive, what are you doing here? Unless you consider yourself as a NPC. Move on, because if you can't handle what's coming? You will be left behind, but not as a hero believe me.
Don't worry, Justin Sun will freeze your funds and shut you up the moment you step out of line. Just as quickly as he replaced the 22.5 witnesses that didn't update to 22.8888. Keep believing in a future under the ccp with witnesses with negative reputations, and none of them can tell the truth. The idea that many of them are actual users is doubtful. Neither will Justin Sun tell the truth, your funds are not super SAFU and he will freeze them at will.
It is people such as yourself who have trusted Justin Sun who will destroy the chain. As far as being left behind? Yeah, that was you.
You could have tried to save steem, but you ultimately destroyed it. Maybe you are hoping Justin Sun can open it up to the Chinese market. As you can observe from the github; censorship is their first priority, and freezing tokens was their second. Don't worry, Justin Sun will freeze your funds and shut you up the moment you step out of line. That is exactly the future you wanted.
Again, I thought you said all real users went to Hive,
what are you doing here?
I do not remember asking you to write an essay, did I? Be part of the revolution, use your wite and enlightenment, go to Hive and fight for a better system of governance there. You can not do this for years while people who destroyed everything are chilling on Hive and using the stolen stake as a cash grab.
Let us agree to disagree and move on without having to deal with the whole situation like savages.
Hey doc, i learned a new english word last week when dealing with certain types of people: Futile. Let the guy take the w and move on with your life - our lives are too precious to be wasting time on folks like him.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
It is just sad that the people who orchestrated the fork and stole the stake of hundreds of people are chilling on Hive, while other people down the line are still coming here preaching and doing the dirty work. I just do not get it, it is like voluntary slavery.
Honestly, i've given up trying to argue. We are not changing anyone's minds and i think its just best for everyone to move on including ourselves.
The shitheads that are using racist slurs, making threats, and offensively trolling the steem members, however, I will retaliate with the best of my abilities. That's where Im at.
You still have all your steem tokens, no one stole anything from you. You held the steem community captive, you refused to let the steem community go, the archangel Azrael came and reaped the pagan spawn of Justin Sun and liberated his chosen people who are heading towards Canaan, and you feel slighted because God didn't give you, the cracker, free mana.
I understand, it is Saul Alynski rules for radicals going on in your case. You helped Justin Sun steal the block chain-so you call everyone else a thief. If you want to see the real thief, just look in the mirror.
You didn't lose anything, you just are never happy with what you have or what you manage to steal. Please present us any evidence that anything was stolen from you, otherwise may the block chain record that you are a liar for the rest of its days-however short it may be.
You said all real users went to Hive
What are you doing here then?
Never thought that one day, someone would approach the situation from an angelology stand of point, pretty neat If I may say. I can not waste too much time with you (even though I respect discussion) unless you can answer the above question.
Go preach on Hive, you have no power here.
Hey, discussing with those people is futile.They're living in their own reality, there's really no point in a discussion.
don't you see that this user is trying to show that HE/SHE CARES about your funds? :P
Who cares in a few months still the Airdrop of because the course of HIVE under 1 US Cent is :)
Lol sweetie did my downvote hurt you? I'm sorry snowflake. I apologize that my little downvote offended you. (which i made because your meme had nothing to do with the announcement being made, but hey decentralization so we are all entitled to our first amendment right?)
My clients are doing very fine thanks to your president driving up the market at all costs. Hail Trump! (Did i do that right?)
Why do you think it hurt me? I think you suffer from delusions of grandeur. I see your clients are fine because trump is sending them a $1200 check. I am not sure how that is fine in New York city. Anyways, They aren't doing fine because of your investment abilities-you credit Trump entirely for that. We can easily observe your performance on Steem, and we observe your hostilities about being proven wrong. These are not signs of a person that anyone should entrust with their savings.
Please do consider purchasing an Elmo suit. Walking around in an Elmo suit begging for money in times square is the easiest money you'll ever make. Also please do consider your diction; With your present attitude, I think you would scare both the kids and the adults away. If you can't do that, you might have to return to South Korea and start raising and BBQing dog for the proxy.token community.
Since I am doubting you could even handle a career as a costumed Elmo. I'll talk to daddy Trump about having you deported. Look at it this way, you'll be out of Corona Central.
Trump supporter? Check
Name calling? Check
Redneck? Check
Racist? Check
By the way you don't receive the $1,200 check if you make over $99,000. Good night ;)
Nothing I said is racist. Proxy.token, or by extension South Korea, is not a race. It is well understood that the south Koreans and some Chinese include Dog in their diet. Many other Asian cultures, including a good portion of china, are vegetarians. Facts are not racist, neither is calling out evil cultural or ethnic practices. Some cultures are superior to others, and Justin Sun and proxy.token community repeatedly make the case that they are near the bottom. They seek to avoid criticism to keep themselves happy and prove to the world that they are inferior. They don't have the same sense of Honor that the Japanese do. It hurts because you know it is true, and you would rather call people racist that address the abuse that is prevalent in what I presume is your own homeland-when race isn't even a factor. There is no reason for such barbarism to take place so you seek to end logos itself rather than to speak of the barbaric practice. Dog eating must make you a proud member of the proxy token community, so you libel anyone that calls it out a racist-when race has nothing to do with it. If you want to improve your cultural rankings, stop trying to suppress both the truth and criticism of these barbaric cultural practices, and work on bringing about these changes. Ignorance does not make a superior culture.
Nothing about me is a red neck. But supposing I were, tossing around labels doesn't disprove anything I say. I don't see that I have engaged in name calling here, but name calling can have other useful characteristics when it is either true, points out hypocrisy, or flips a burden of discourse, or as we see in Sun Tsu's the art of war-irritating. Again, some cultures are superior to others. Notice you have not only engaged in name calling, but more specifically you initiated it. Like most people on the political left [or the communist spectrum in general], you think it is ok for yourself to do things, but not for others. You ignore the most fundamental rule and building block in logic and Mathematics: the rule of identity that A is A. Instead you prefer the Orwellian Animal farm idea as you communist pigs become the very farmer Jones that you claim to hate.
And I suppose if I look further at your Steem or more personal records you probably would have made statements saying white men are privileged which is typical these days of the left. The political left is a walking joke that unfortunately never dies. Also like dr-frankenstein, you have some Saul Alynski going on. Go ahead and play by the rules for radicals-a book dedicated to Lucifer.
Trump supporter? I became a registered libertarian in 2016 to support Austin Petersen. The libertarian party screwed up that year by choosing Gary Johnson. Although Trump isn't perfect, he may have naturally evolved through reason to be the most libertarian president in recent times even nominating a rare natural law jurist to the scotus and avoiding the wars that others regardless off party would have been so eager jumping into. And where he does initially make a mistake in ideas, he listens to others first. He doesn't suppress opposition, he listens to it and if need adjust his position before making policies. Trump is the exact opposite of you.
Justin Sun refused to listen, and he lost the community itself. Similarly the Chinese suppressed and lied to the world about Corona, and look where we are now. Only God can truly govern and his laws are universal and absolute, and there is no divine right of the kings despite its many incarnations in the world. Man being given free will cannot avoid making mistakes, mistakes in life or in government may lead to death of the individual or the nation-or the block chain. Your worship of centralized leftist figures is quite damning and contradictory to God's natural laws of the Universe, and you won't be happy until everyone is as equally shabby as your clients-the standard of social justice warriors everywhere.
The democrats are unable to produce a single candidate with a fully functional brain, one of their favorites leaders is Gabby Giffords who was literally shot through the brain and remains their top intellectuals. Joe Biden might be in middle to late stage dementia. Hillary Clinton was undergoing brain seizures or something on the campaign trail. No wonder you feel at home with the political left...or with Justin Sun's steem whose witnesses are still sockpuppets.
Gave me a good laugh this morning. B+ for the effort.
All proceeds from this comment will be used to sell Steem and buy more Hive.
Haahahahahaha!
Good one!!!
I am 100 percent on board with this. A mentorship program could very easily be used along side Discord. Our discord communities are quite established with users that have been on the Steem Blockchain for more than 1 year so it would continue to benefit us.
There are many unwritten rules along with the markdown language for posts and many keys available to users. Mentorship would help new users navigate the many facets of Steem and write beautiful and meaningful content.
Great Idea!
Sign me up as a mentor!
We would love your support as witness. Vote for Hashkings as witness here
Discord is chaotic, messy to many and you need a good internet connection to join. All things I struggle with and I am not the only one plus Discord has nothing to do with Steem.
Seen it should have an easy to understand manual and users should be more helpful.
Most do not care and do not answer. After one year I could still not figure out how to buy and sell Steem in an easy way. No one explained it and what is possible in one country is not possible in an other country.
Thank you for your support on this.
More news coming soon.
The Steemit Team
Hello @SteemitBlog and Steemit Team!! The issue in this article is extremely important, mostly for people that is new not only to the platform but to blockchain technology in general. Definitely the operation in this platform is much different from traditional ones.
Recently when you launched the Community Curators initiative I presented a project which is in tune with the subject in this post.
PROYECT KNITRIAS started two weeks ago, and now I've launched the official announcement for candidates. I want to support 10 little and new accounts with a delegation of 200 SP from my funds. The goal is work in group to reach the minnow level while posting, commenting and creating upvote and power up strategies.
I want to present you the post with the announcement for the project so it can be considered by your Team for any input, difusion or posible support.
Thanks for you attention and best wishes for every project!!
KNITRIAS PROJECT: ANNOUNCEMENT | PROYECTO KNITRIAS: CONVOCATORIA [ENG-ESP]
Very interesting project. Thank you for organizing this.
For a long time now I have been looking after members who I recruited from Facebook in my groups there, for example. For this purpose, I have always led 10 people to a Facebook group and created a new account for them there and also delegated SP from our curator account. Then I explained step by step how to make the first steps out of Steem. From creating the blog to writing the first article. This is of course very time consuming but I like to do it.
If you then find your way a little bit, I invite you to our Discord. There they are looked after by the community.
I have also written special articles to help newbies find their way around Steem and I will continue to do so. Here for example how to set up your blog or how to format your posts correctly, you can request this help by command in our Discord at any time and from any member:
Example how to set up your account:
https://hackmd.io/@ljwYHdJZSNOdqmQgVoZTeA/S1HFvBUxB
Example how to format posts:
https://steemit.com/deutsch/@greece-lover/formatierungen-von-beitraegen-leicht-gemacht-hier-meine-kleine-gedankenstuetze
In the last 2 weeks I have brought 10 new members to Steem, 4 of them are very active in the german speaking community !
In order to recruit new members, to care for them and above all to provide new accounts with an appropriate delegation, country communities should get a fixed delegation. So you can claim new accounts, provide them with SP and above all get them for their contributions in the beginning. Even if the first comments are not that great, they have to be motivated by receiving rewards.
I will gladly take over the area for the admission and promotion of German speaking members. Together with our team of curators we are up to the task. As I have 180.000 members in my Facebook groups I can also promote Steem from time to time.
We also bind our members and organize virtual meeting places from time to time. On sunday I always organize "The Inn" on Steem. Here you can talk about everything and publish your favourite music.
Here the link to yesterday's event. Also here it would be nice if we could use an account from Steemit inc. to reward the "guests" for good comments and contributions during the event. How to bind members ! Also such a contribution should get a high vote before the event that it appears in Trending. But we do not have the means.
https://steemit.com/deutsch/@das-wirtshaus/2-oster-stammtisch-im-wirtshaus-sonntag-der-19-04-ab-19-uhr-hier-unter-diesen-beitrag
Some very good ideas there, thank you. We are looking how these sorts of ideas can be utilized and expanded.
Not sure if you have already done it, but it could be interesting if you put out every week or so a post introducing the new members who have just joined your community.
The Steemit Team
Mentoring new users can be good, but should not be seen as a long-term solution, because the more users there are, the more mentors you will need to cover the masses, which is obviously impossible, as you whether or not you were using a paid model. Additionally, you can be sure that many people would not appreciate spending months just learning to use a platform or understand the mechanics of the Steem Blockchain.
Regarding "Steemit.com", I think the focus should be more on improving the user experience and user-friendliness of the UI, in addition to working on appropriate documentation for as many languages as possible. Of course, everything mentioned above should be associated with other missing areas such as the ease of registration. Basically, even a 6-year-old kid should be able to use Steemit without having to dig deeper to understand everything.
To end with, there is also a key point that needs more care. Since you are mentioning Steem as a whole, having an appealing ecosystem for entrepreneurs, investors, game designers ... will definitely play a major role in attracting more users to the chain. Different projects will have different approaches. If one project puts a high value on human interactions, another project might not need people to even register and use the chain as a database for articles for example. There are plenty of ways of how people can use the chain to build their projects. Thus, putting too much effort into onboarding while completely ignoring the usability of the chain (Steem as a utility token) as a factor for attraction will definitely slow the growth of the ecosystem as a whole.
Thank you for having such discussions with the community. There are a lot of good ideas and the community is full of talented people that are ready to help. They just need a way to voice their ideas.
Thank you for this - some very useful and valid points.
We are currently working on a number of the items you mention.
Making the Steem blockchain attractive to all types of user and developer will be very important.
The Steemit Team
The KR community has had multiple initiatives that incorporate a lot of the topics covered here. The details need to be ironed out but i think its heading in the right direction. Please talk to triple-A witnesses.
Thank you. What is the best way to contact the Triple-A witnesses?
These are the important points that I consider to take into account:
- Mentors Page : Classified by language, time zone, area of expertise and contact form.
- Task plan : it is a plan implemented by each mentor to verify the progress of the new user during their first three months; this point is very important to avoid wasting the mentor's time
- Incentive system : A mechanism must be created through which the mentor authorizes a certain number of votes for the publications of the student as a reward for their progress and comply with the assigned recommendations
Consider that these points are the most important to be taken into account, the same Discord allows users to be classified according to their progress through roles, hold online meetings for each role separately, has its own security systems to filter the who do not meet the requirements to enter the tutoring plan, etc.DISCORD
Siempre has sido nuestro guía @acostaeladio y me encanta la idea de tu postulacion
Some very good points and ideas.
Thank you
The Steemit Team
Things can be quite confusing when you start, historically new users have unintentionally upset existing users who used to flag them off the platform :(
Giving new users an opportunity to ask " some dumb questions " of experienced users would benefit the block-chain going forward :)
We are going to keep developing the idea.
Thank you