I wish to welcome all of those that volunteered to beta test Excel For All – An Excel community on the steem blockchain. I didn’t give out much detail when I was looking for beta testers. All I really said was that it was on technology that had the ability to disrupt how online communities work.
For those of you that didn’t notice, the technology used is the steem blockchain. There are many benefits of using steem but for the moment, I am going to keep it simple. You see I had an Excel community on Google+, however, Google stopped this service, leaving community owners like me high and dry. In fairness, Google was kind enough to allow community owners to download the content and certain contacts. But all the work put into building and growing a community, for me and many others were taken away by one central organization.
The steem blockchain is a decentralized platform. Meaning no one can just shut down Excel for All. The blockchain offers free transactions. For you and I that means storage of content, the ability to ask questions, help others and share knowledge all while removing the middleman (aka central organizations)
There are two further abilities of this blockchain which are rather exciting. The first is the ability to give rewards by upvotes and the second is the ability to own part of the blockchain. These are very much tied into each other but to be honest, it’s all rather complex and something I would rather detail in a separate post.
The steem blockchain is still in development. One of the newest features is the ability to create communities and this is all under beta. I am an early adopter, and as a beta tester, you are too.
Right now, I am still defining the rules of this community. What I don’t want is it to be a place of link drops. I want it to be a place of value for Excel users of all levels, where people ask questions and get help. I am also still defining the rewards structure, but I hope that will help ensure valuable knowledge, questions and answers rise to the top.
So as beta testers you are here to help me test. I have some tasks for you to complete. I don’t want to give step by step instructions, however, if you do get stuck, leave a comment on this post and I will give you any help you need.
1. Login to the community and subscribe to Excel For All (you only need your posting key to log in to the community)
2. Try to comment on a post – commenting on this post will do fine.
3. Try to create a post – Maybe ask an Excel question or do an introduction post
4. Try to upvote a comment or post by someone else
5. Check your notifications. You should have one as I have included your name in this post.
6. On the left, you will see an option to Explore communities. Select this and explore another community and try navigating back to Excel for All
7. Update your profile – This one might be a little hard to find. However, from the community, you should be able to find your wallet. Your wallet contains a tab for settings. This is where you update your profile.
8. Leave me some feedback. I am also looking for ideas on the community rules. You can do this by making a post or by leaving a comment below.
pinging all the beta testers that volunteered on via Linkedin
Thank you again for helping and I look forward to reading the feedback.