I'm glad to see that the developers are working hard and are always willing to listen and try the suggestions of users. Since we all know that the recent post of @steemitblog requested the inputs of users about the roadmap 2018 and its priorities. A lot of people posted their suggestions in the comment box and I must say that I really love some of those suggested priorities.

But there were some suggestions with whom I strongly disagree because of some genuine reasons. In this post, I want to share my opinions and we will discuss the suggestions given by people such as referral system, high curation rewards for curators, promoted content and stuff.

![enter image description here](https://steemit.com/images/steemit.png)

The last hardfork was amazing and that changed Steemit in good ways but that HF was a curse for some people, especially the minnows who burn their liquid funds on promotion cost, just to push their content on the Promoted tab which is rarely seen by anyone. Another type of people that got affected by the HF19 was the vote buyers. They can no longer hit the positive ROI and almost always suffer the loss. 

But if we see overall success of the HF19, then it's the most successful hardfork in Steem history that valued the minnows and solved some problems. Enough of that! As for Steem Roadmap 2018 that what should be their priority, let me share my opinions now.

<h2><b>Account Creation Process:</b></h2>

I believe that account creation process should be as much easier as possible because we want to attract new users and don't want to irritate them with some complex process. In the early days of Steemit, an account could be created by linking the social media sites like Facebook and Reddit. And well, that's how I made my account on Steem blockchain.

But that feature is no longer available for some reasons, and the only way to create an account on Steem blockchain is to go through Phone verification process and well, some of my friends reported that they didn't get any verification SMS or call and kept waiting to receive that message but no luck.

I honestly believe that the feature of account creation through Facebook and other social media sites should be restored. If you want to protect the system from abuse, then you might have to do manual verification for each account submission. One of the ideas is to implement the "social media account age system"  which could detect how old the social media account is and give permissions accordingly. I believe that 3-4 years aged social media accounts should be fine. 

<h2><b>Precautions against Vote-buying:</b></h2>

Honestly speaking, I wouldn't like to see someone become a president who purchased upvotes in the election because it's a pure corruption. But I wonder why Steem as a community is unable to see this major disadvantage. Don't you think that it will give the wrong impression to the new comers and they'll start to believe that vote-buying is the only way to survive? There are hundreds of users purchasing upvotes and most of those buyers lose their liquid money just to get something which doesn't even reach Breakeven level?

Yeah yeah, don't tell me how much money you made using those bought upvotes. Vote-buying was profitable before HF19 because users could wait for someone to vote first, then they could buy the whale vote to triple or quadruple the payout due to n^2. You can see for yourself, only a launch of such services are profitable nowadays and then it becomes useless because too many users start to buy them and the voting power gets lower (which result in less profit).

And well, let me agree with you for a moment that "Vote buying is profitable". Even then, my main argument is that votes should be earned, they should not be bought because it is a pure corruption when someone buys votes for whatever purpose (even for visibility).

<h2><b>Promoted Tab and Promotion Cost:</b></h2>

Another great thing to lose "potential members" just because it creates "demand". Yes, it does. I just browsed the Promoted tab and found that people have spent over $80+ on promotion but their reward is shit VS their invested sum. And if I can see correctly, most of such users are minnows who want to gain visibility.

Well, I believe that Promoted tab was created with some great and worthy intentions. But people are not using it in the desired way. At least those who burn their promoted content should get views (if not upvote) because upvote depends on the quality. But no one even likes to read their content, why?

The current system is too disturbing for minnows. Their frustration can be harmful to the reputation of Steem INC. I am just saying that there should be a way to give visibility to the promoted content. I know that promotion cost doesn't guarantee the votes but at-least it should increase the possibility of reaching more users. The suggestion of @noisy regarding promotion system worth a shot.


<h2><b>Referral System:</b></h2>

If you ask my opinion about referral system, then I will say that I am strongly against such a system because it increases the chances of abuse. If the climax/ending of other projects that used referral system could prove anything, then go back to Authorship and WCX and find out how much spam people started to create on their names which led the spam-score of their sites to climb higher.

If you don't know what's that then, Spam score is one of the metrics introduced by MOZ several years ago which measures how many times the website link was used on certain sites. Repeatedly sharing same links, again and again, sharing links in Facebook groups and such strategies can increase the spam score of the site whose links are being shared. In simple words, the higher the spam score, the greater are the chances of penalization from search engines.

But what's the problem? Well, if a lot of users will start to spread links of steemit randomly then Steemit will lose most of its ranking because Google doesn't like to rank such sites in their Top 10 results (unless if that's a huge site like HuffingtonPost whose spam-score doesn't matter)

Another problem with referral system is the possibilities of multiple accounts by the same user and claiming rewards fraudulently. It happened with sites like Authorship and WCX. You can see how they lost their reputation just because of a so-called "referral system".

I believe that those who shared this suggestion had great intentions because they want to see Steem community to grow faster. So thumbs up for them.


<h2><b>High Rewards For Curators:</b></h2>

Yes, yes and yes! That should give investors the reason to buy Steem because they'll be able to gain more from their voting influence. This is one of the best ways to increase demand for Steem instead of promoted tab or vote-buying. Even if the rewards get increased by 5% (30% for curators) then it should become more attractive for curators to curate the right content.

<h2><b>Payout Method Options:</b></h2>

Right now, there are two options.  100% SP and 50% SP + 50% SBD. I'd love to see an option for 75% SBD + 25% SP or something like that. It should give more trust to users but that's not something necessary. Even the current system is doing fine. But if you decide to give it a shot, then it worth the shot.

<h2><b>4 Posts/Day Maximum:</b></h2>

I'd say that even 2 posts with high quality will take your whole day and 4 posts limit should be fine with quality content writers. So why not give it a go since there are people demanding for this limit to be re-implemented?

<h2><b>Trending page needs change:</b></h2>

In my honest opinion, the trending page lacks diversity. I am not saying that the posts lack the quality but rather lack the diversity. Almost same topics on daily basis and some development stuff at the top of trending page. There is no need to delete the trending page etc. A new category as a homepage of Steemit will do probably fine. I'd love to experiment this change because it won't affect the current state of trending section but should improve the first look of Steemit.

<h2><b>Notification System:</b></h2>

Well, you guys are already implementing that system. I am excited!

<h2><b>Reward Curve:</b></h2>

I believe that current linear system is doing pretty good and we should continue with that. I've read that some users are in favor of n^2 but personally, I don't see much benefit in n^2.  

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So, those are my suggestions for the top priorities in 2018. I didn't mention anything about SMTs because I know that Steem team is already working hard on it and telling them that SMTs should be one of their priorities doesn't make much sense to me. I am very excited for the SMTs and I truly believe that it will drive the Steem value to the moon!