My first Steemit post: Introducing myself, and some initial thoughts

What Brings Me to Steemit

The surveillance economy of the tech giants and governments that has arisen out of the latest iteration of the Web has threatened privacy and freedom of expression and facilitated a dehumanizing outrage culture at the expense of the public. Such a climate has made it clearer than ever that the re-decentralization of the Web and the Internet is needed if it is to remain a force for good.

Since discovering Steemit, I've become convinced that both it and social networks like it based on blockchains and cryptocurrencies are an important part of the solution to the above problems, and I want to be a part of this movement. Many people have already written and spoken on this subject, but as someone who has spent the majority of his professional career with a front-row seat in Washington, D.C. writing about the tech giants and the political issues surrounding them, I believe I can add some additional insight to the discussion.

How I Plan to Build Value for the Network

As you'll see in the next section, I've already learned so much from many of you on this platform. By producing quality original content and generating thoughtful comments, striving to be transparent in my own workflow when it comes to content creation, and telling my friends about the platform, I hope that I can give back by bringing my own skills as a writer, researcher, analyst, and artist to the Steemit community.

As a professional writer and researcher, I am constantly looking for ways to improve upon my craft, and this post, I hope, is just one example of that. This post will be the first time I've posted my drafts online in addition to the finished product, and I doubt very many other writers and journalists have engaged in similar exercises. But by opening up my own process through linking to the draft's gist at the bottom of the page, kind of like an open notebook, I hope to encourage other journalists to do likewise.

Over the past year, my thinking has been heavily influenced by the open source and open science communities, and I think that journalism has a lot to learn from these philosophies. The blockchain already creates a level of transparency after something is committed to it, allowing readers to see if a post has been edited after it was published. Posting my draft versions takes that a step further. I am also posting the link to my Steemd profile at the bottom of each post so that readers can easily view the edit history of my posts after they've been published on Steemit. And like this post, I will also include estimated word counts, reading times, and tables of contents at the top of my posts. I will write more on these ideas in a follow-up post.

In addition to opening up my writing process, I plan to post my research data and notebooks on GitHub, and link to that data in relevant posts. I also post a lot on Twitter and other social networks, and so I hope that Steemit can serve as a place where I can bring together the ideas and content I've posted on other networks and synthesize them into new and coherent ideas. I also hope to create original content for DTube. Since I am new to decentralized apps, some of my content might be linked from other social profiles that I own. I hope to decentralize the hosting of my content as soon as possible.

While Steemit is an international community, my writings will undoubtedly come from an American perspective. One of the things that I enjoyed most about the rise of the Internet and social networks like Twitter was the international component to it all. Because I am a night owl, I often found myself in discussions with people on the other side of the world. I still do to some extent on Twitter, but more often than not these days I find myself more engaged in discussions with other users involved in U.S. politics. I hope that my interactions on Steemit will once again better expose me to non-U.S. viewpoints.

And finally, given the current dominance of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Medium, I plan to link to my work on these networks as well.

Special Thanks

• Dan Larimer (@dantheman) and Ned Scott (@ned)

  • Not enough thanks can be expressed to you two. The world is in dire need of social networking alternatives that value the users and creators, and Steemit is an answer to a prayer. I only hope that by my being on this platform, I am able to help bring value to the community and technology that you've built here.

• Jerry Banfield (@jerrybanfield)

  • Your YouTube videos were among the first that I saw when I searched for more information about Steemit, and your infectious enthusiasm for the platform, as well as your transparency, is both instructive and inspiring. Thank you.

• Heidi Travels (@heiditravels)

  • Your vlogging on cryptocurrencies has been incredibly helpful to me as I continue to learn more about the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, and your vlogs about Steemit, in particular, were influential in my decision to sign up for the platform.

• Leah Stella Stephens (@stellabelle)

  • Thank you for your comments on other people's posts, as well as your writings on Steem Stories. These have given me confidence that Steemit is a home for high-quality content.

• @furion

  • It was really your post, "This app shows you edit history for any post,", which I believe I found through a Google search, that convinced me to truly give Steemit a try. I've been looking for something like PHist for a while since I believe that kind of transparency is essential if the media is to re-establish trust with its readers.

  • I just saw that you're discontinuing SteemData, which is understandable given how resource intensive it must have been to operate (I read your 8/3/17 post).

  • Hopefully the Condenser update mentioned in @steemitblog's "The State of Steem - August Expansion" will include the ability to view edit history.

• Nick Tomaino (@ntomaino)

  • I saw your comments on a post I was reading, and you were linking people who had questions about seeing a post's edit history in the blockchain to Steemd.com. Not only is this site interesting, it will help serve my needs of allowing my readers to see my edit history, so thank you.

• @heimindanger, for creating DTube.

  • A service like what you created is needed now more than ever, and I look forward to adding my own video contributions to the network.

• @originate, for creating Steemurl.

  • I like using Bitly, and so I am looking forward to sharing my Steemit posts with the help of your app.

• @jfuenmayor96 for creating Mark Steem Down, and @unipsycho for creating Steem Writer.

  • While I use the Markdown preview in Atom for my drafting, along with Github Gists for versioning, I tried out your apps as part of my drafting for this piece.

• @lemouth and @steemstem for promoting STEM on Steemit through the SteemSTEM Project.

  • As a technology reporter and science enthusiast, I hope my writings will help contribute to the conversation.

• @ricorolla for your "Blockchain Journalism" article. As a journalist, I appreciate seeing other people thinking along the terms that you outlined in your piece, and I look forward to contributing to the conversation.

  • I checked out DNN. It looks promising, and exactly the kind of news outlet I hope can be built atop blockchain tech. Thank you.

Verification

As an added level of verification, I added my Steemit URL to my verified Facebook and Twitter profiles, both of which I have also verified through Keybase, prior to publishing this post.

| Image: 'Through the Lens (Josh Peterson - 2017)' | Source: Facebook/Josh Peterson | Rights: (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) |

After publishing this post, I will distribute it with a Steemurl link via those two accounts and post the links in this section.

[Edit: Links to Facebook and Twitter posts. Also, Facebook converted the Steemurl link back into the original URL.]

I have also linked to my Steemit profile from my Github account, also verified through Keybase.

Conclusion

And so in conclusion, thank you for the work you've all put into this community, and I'm super stoked to be a part of it.

Until next time,

Josh

View History

View Steemit blockchain activity/edit history | View draft edit history on Github

Josh Peterson is a 2016 Robert Novak Journalism Program Fellow and a writer living in Denver, CO. Follow Josh on Steemit and Twitter. Keybase for secure chat. PGP Fingerprint: 4507 3000 1A40 2691 DAB8 ED65 A3EA 3629 73FD B7FF

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.