February ‘19 Updates
Centians -
Hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day last week. It’s been a bit since I’ve officially announced our recent updates. We’ve been hard at work continuing to evolve Cent into something that we all want to use everyday.
Following
A few weeks ago, we launched Following, which has proven to be a crucial component for more pleasant browsing throughout Cent. If you haven’t already figured it out, you can click the check mark next to any username to begin following that user. The posts by users you follow will appear on your custom feed, which is now Cent’s default view for logged-in users. Your custom feed is labeled with your user color in the main filter bar.
What you may not also be aware of is that you can also follow channels as well as people. Simply click on the channel you wish to join, and click the + on the channel page. Any post made to a channel you’ve joined will also appear in your custom feed.
Composing
Beyond following users and channels, we’ve made the experience of composing on Cent much more enjoyable. Our editor has been updated to have a cleaner, more Medium-inspired UX. Over time, we want to be a place where you feel truly comfortable creating whatever it is you create.
Drafts
You can also now save drafts of your post to return to later. Simply click “Save” instead of “Post” at the bottom of the screen.
Blocking
We’ve also begun work tackling our most pressing problems. The biggest issue currently is that our incentive structure seems to not penalize users for posting one-word, meaningless answers like “Great” on bounty posts. As an immediate fix, we’ve just launched Blocking, which allows you to no longer see that user’s content, and makes it so that they do not see / interact with yours. We’re hesitant to go to too far down the path of censoring people, and allowing users to curate their own experiences seems like a nice middle ground.
There are a few ways to block users. Simply click the ellipsis (…) next to the Follow button on their profile, or the ellipsis on any post or reply.
What’s Next: Reputation, Channel Browsing, and DMs
We recognize that Blocking is somewhat of a masking of the symptom, rather than a cure for the problem. For a deeper solution, we’ve begun the process of implementing a sophisticated reputation system, which allow users to slowly grow their influence on the platform in a way that is fair, and rewards those attempting to honestly and effectively share their perspective. We’ll share more on this as it evolves.
We’re also continuing to do more work on making it easier to browse Cent by topic. Internally, we love the subreddit experience on reddit, and the hashtag experience on Twitter. We want these Cent’s channels to grow into places where you feel comfortable and excited to hang out, share your stuff, and make some money. We’re working on a “channel browser” that will make it easier to navigate through all the different things people are talking about, and find your tribe.
Lastly, we’re also working on a DM system, allowing you all to have conversations with each other directly on Cent. It’s got some subtly-awesome features tucked into it. More to come.
Max
