Well, we have been talking about it for years. Literally and it seems as if it is going to happen. I am getting pretty excited about it! Communities are here on in a Beta form for testing, but I am still excited.
*pixabay
People can see the new UI and create communities while helping to test at https://beta.steemit.com/
*it's a screenshot
There is not a lot of help yet, which is great for checking on how intuitive the UI is.
Practice and play, but remember the site will post to the live site and rewards and auto-voters will react!
Personally I am really excited about Communities. For nearly four years we have been trying to figure out how to handle what is and isn't a quality post, if there should or shouldn't be any behavioral standards and what should get rewarded. With communities these things can be handled by selected and possibly like-minded moderators within each community! That is amazing. Imagine being able to define for your own community what is and isn't a Quality Post.
Since posts will still drop to SteemIt it will not stop the rewards disagreement battles, but when combined with SMTs it does allow for alternative rewards that can not be striped away by outside forces. (unless they wish to buy the SMT)
It is my opinion that at some point Steem will be viewed more as a utility or developers token) But no one knows for sure if that will happen and what it would look like. It sure will be nice though to have other ways to reward content. Mostly though allowing each community to create their own standards and enforce them is the biggest advantage.
By the way, I am going to post this via the #NewSteem community and how appropriate is that? Many used the #newsteem tag to justify downvoting, but NewSteem was always supposed to be about getting outside of our own community politics and promoting Steem. So, if you have or are already promoting Steem or would like to brainstorm about it, I invite you to join. https://beta.steemit.com/trending/hive-141498
Like you I have no idea what I am doing yet, so let's learn it together!
PS, I am not exit scamming with the Dudeior funds, I am waiting to hear from the judges! :)
@whatsup