Documenting The Evolution of Steem-Times
What is the Steem-Times?
We feel and believe that the steem blockchain as a whole is underreported and as a result many of the users do not know or do not have access to the issues on the platform. This is the place where we put our foot forward in bridging the gap between content creators and content consumers, between cultures, languages and ideas, between project coordinators and investors. Steem-Times will be the first steem newspaper and it intends to focus on the steem blockchain in such a way that the gaps can be bridged and the idea of community that propels the platform is achieved.
Who is behind Steem-Times?
This is a project that is initiated by Sndbox and presented as one of the projects for the Sndbox Summercamp Quest organised by 
@revisesociology – Sociology Quest, UK
@gabriellecd – Writing Quest, Venezuela
@warpedpoetic – Writing Quest, Nigeria
@superooo7 – Coding Quest, Australia
@karmachela – Art Quest, Indonesia
@livinguktaiwan - Travel Quest, Taiwan
Forming the team
Based on a list of options and given constraints (no more than 2 people from the same quest and country), we all choose to be on this project from a list of options that were presented to us. As you can see from the above list, we have a good mix of talent from around the world.
Day 1 was self introductions and pleasantries, and talking about our thoughts on the project. One thing that we did do pretty fast was to decide on a name for the project to make it 'real'. These are the options we came up with and voted.
Storming the team
We didn't pick a team leader for the project which sometimes isn't a bad thing as sometimes people just leave everything up to the team leader. We're all responsible adults and have self discipline to do what is needed, so that worked well for the team.
We then moved onto creating a to do list, and brainstorming some of the details.
THE STEEM TIMES - TO DO LIST
This is what we had by the end of Day 1.
Brainstorming bought out some interesting discussions and different views over the approach, all healthy discussions of course. We talked about the format and content of Steem-Times and by the end of Day 1 we had our first list of topics. Not bad for a day's work by a newly formed team.
List of Topics
- Art And Culture
- Fashion
- Sports
- Literary
- Crytops and Steem
- World Politics
- Gossip -This one is delicated-
- Lifestyle
- Guess Author
- Sumary
- Science and Technology
- Travel(edited)
Norming the Team
The discussions continued the next few days and team members who were involved were providing valuable input to take things forward. Despite out commitments in real live, everyone was committed to making this project a successful one. We produced a first draft of the white paper and created this @steem-times account on Steemit. Things were really moving forward.
We also continued the discussion around the format, content and frequency of publishing Steem-Times. However some of the team member still had different views of things, and it was difficult to get everyone on the same page when we weren't online at the same time. We felt it would be much more productive if everyone could get together for an online meeting to discuss and agree things.
Performing the Team
The online meeting happened last Sunday, and it was probably where we achieved the most mileage for the project. It lasted over 2 hours. We agreed on most of the finer operational details such as
1 the motto for Steem-Times The Voice of Steem
2 the different sections of the Steem-Times
3 and more importantly the content and format within each section, and the balance of each. All this gave structure and form to Steem-Times
REQUENCY OF POSTING AND CATEGORIES TO BE COVERED BY THE PAPER
There will be 3 weekly issues of the
, published Monday, Weds and Friday, and each will have three sections:
- (30% of content, 600 words) Steem Blockchain news which will appear in every issue - this will contain a brief overview of some of the most recent developments on the steem blockchain, such as releases by
on major technical developments, new SMT and DApp launches and progress, Witness and Whale movements and comments, and details of new curation and projects launched on steemit itself.
- (20% of content, 400 words (133 per sub-section)) - Links, with brief summaries, to some of the best posts produced in the the last week under the following categories of steemit Monday Weds Fri Art and culture Writing and Literature Sports Philosophy religion World Politics Science and Technology Gossip and lifestyle Travel Gaming
- (Max 1000 words, 500 words per piece) The third section will be 2 columns, our (the team’s) opinion or views on state of things Columns might be commentary on one of the news items, a deep-dive, in which case it might link to more personal post done by that team member (not too often!), or an interview. Occasionally we will invite guest contributors….details for standards are in section X.
After the online meeting, we spent the remaining days completing the Whitepaper which can be found here. We also produced the following logos
Next Stages
Ideally before we formally launch Steem-Times, we would like to produce a preview version to test out the template and how it looks on both the PC and mobile version. Some of the topics already have owners, yet some are still to be allocated. Also we need to finalise how we schedule the topics and columns in each day's edition depending on the teams' commitment. Last and not the least, the logos are hot off the press from yesterday. The team will have yet to decide on a logo, or we may even do a pre launch event and ask readers to vote on one.
Contributors
This article is deliberately nameless as it is a team effort. Individual member contributions to the project can be found in their final posts below:
