If you're not someone who has joined very recently, you should have seen our post about taking a break and, shortly after, rebooting steemSTEM. About a month has passed since then, and we're ready to give you an update on one of the most important changes: The Honor Members.
Honor Members are members of steemSTEM who, after being assigned the role by the management team, voluntarily help improve the community. For this, there are three different categories:
The Mentors
You might have encountered them by now. The mentor team is scouting posts in the steemSTEM tag and offering advice on copyright, structure and generally improving STEM posts. They also take on individual mentees if the need arises.
The mentors are not curators, so while they can explain how a post can be improved and lend a helping hand, they are not able to guarantee anyone upvotes. Their advice, however, should not be ignored, as they help us keep track of users that cause trouble for the community.
Over the past month, mentors have becomean integral part of steemSTEM and continue to go beyond all expectations on a daily basis.
The Engagement Officers
A community isn't a community if everyone is just sitting their with their own posts, waiting for upvotes. That was the original problem which made us take a break: People not caring about the community.
While you can sometimes see engagement officers give feedback on posts too, their main job is to faciliate interactions between community members. Comments on other's posts and upvotes inside the community are desired, someone who doesn't participate at all isn't helping the community move forward.
One of the most important tasks the engagement officers do on a weekly basis is checking up on those, who receive the highest votes from 
Engagement over several weeks is tracked. In case one high voted member barely interacts outside their own posts (or not even on their own!), the highest maximal vote they can possibly receive is reduced. This does not mean they are blacklisted! Good content will still be rewarded, just not as much as it would be if said steemSTEM members engaged more. If engagement with the community increases, the highest maximal vote goes up again too.
Complaints Room Moderators
The steemSTEM discord server has a channel called "complaints-room". If you feel like you're being unfairly treated or that steemSTEM is doing something wrong, please head over to that room and state your complaints. One of the moderators will help you.
Please do not message individual management members or curators with your complaints! Really use that room!
If you have an issue that is not directly related to steemSTEM (account is not being confirmed, your account has been stolen, ...), please join the #help room on steem.chat and seek assistance there.
Our Honor Members so far
Here's a full list of our current honor members (names as they appear on discord) and their respective tasks (M = Mentor, E = Engagement Officer, C = Complaints Room Moderator):
- alexdory (M, E, C)
- anevolvedmonkey (M, C)
- bachuslib (M, C)
- chloroform (M, C)
- christinaa (E )
- dexterdev (M)
- Egotheist (M)
- gra (M)
- JPederson96 (M)
- katerinaramm (C, M)
- kingabesh (M, E)
- lesshorrible (M)
- MathOwl (M)
- Mountainwashere (M, C)
- noble-noah (E, C)
- pangoli (E )
- Pearlumie (M)
- physics.benjamin (E )
- Rharphelle (E )
- sakura1012 (E )
- samminator (M)
- scienceangel (M)
- simplifylife (M)
- terrylovejoy (M, E, C)
- robotics101 (M, C)
If you need a mentor, feel free to message one of those marked with an "M". If they don't have time for you, they'll ask a different mentor. Please avoid messaging several mentors at once, to avoid confusion.
Want to become a Honor Member?
If you want to become an honor member, there are some things you should be aware of:
- There's no preferential treatment when it comes to upvotes. Honor members, just like everyone else (including management!) need to write good STEM posts if they want a
- While we don't expect honor members to work 24/7, constant absence without reason (announced "normal life" reasons like exams, child birth, vacations and sick time are totally fine) will lead to the exclusion from the honor member program
- Honor members are the backbone of our community and thus serve as role models. You will have to act like it
If you're aware of these things and still want to apply, send a DM on discord to 
The Beginning
Aside from the creation of the honor system, we are excited for the growth and health of our whole team and community, and even more so for our near-future projects. We are slowly building something that will create a unique experience on the Steem blockchain, so follow us and join our Discord for more information!