🚀 🔬 💻 SteemSTEM.io: Getting To Know The DApp For The Dissemination Of STEM Knowledge By Relying On The Blockchain. Part 1: Conceptualization

Hello again, dear friends from #SteemSTEM and all over the world.

I've been eager to create a series of articles oriented toward Steemstem.io and this is the first of them in English. Essentially, the purpose of this essay is to conceptualize the official DApp of SteemSTEM through the technique of conceptual cartography and the breakdown of related theoretical aspects; all in order to contribute, make known and promote the use of this application around the world.

In this way, we're going to build a complex concept of steemstem.io, taking into account notions, categories, characteristics, linkages, differentiations, subdivisions and examples, as well as providing information that can broaden our culture about some aspects of the social media sphere called #steemit, the Steem blockchain, the DApps, the computer issues involved and a little bit of everything. The scheme shown below represents the analysis of the main concept.

^{⬆️ Image 1: My conceptual cartography for Steemstem.io. By: @Eniolw License: CC BY 2.0}

From a notional viewpoint, the term steemstem.io probably doesn't hold much secrecy for many of the readers, and its etymology may sound familiar. The first part (steemstem) is the domain name of the URL and is exactly the same name of the community that the application represents. This name is composed of Steem, which is the name of the blockchain whose main token is also called Steem. On the other hand, STEM is the well-known acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Matemathics.

The second part of the term steemstem.io (.io) is the top-level domain name of the URL and is geographical, that is, reserved for a country (code-country) in the same way as .ve (Venezuela), .fr (France), .eu (European Union), etc. Even .su stands for Soviet Union and is a country code top-level domain name that curiously still exists 😄, although the nation it represents no longer. Well, ".io" is assigned to British Indian Ocean Territory, although currently some consider it rather a generic top-level domain name (not code-country), and is gaining international adoption.

So, https://www.steemstem.io is the URL of the @SteemSTEM app. The fact that it has a public URL suggests that it is a website, and if we take a look at it, it will look like other web page, and indeed that's it: it's a website, although to be more specific, it's a web application (web app), since its functions are more elaborate, dynamic and interactive.

That said, by making these distinctions we are entering the category of the concept, in its classification. In that sense, the specific type of web application for steemstem.io is DApp, which means Decentralized Application. These refer to all those applications that necessarily work on distributed computing systems such as blockchains, in addition to meeting other requirements.

Steemstem.io is a DApp in the sense that it works on the Steem blockchain, although nowdays it does not certainly have its own tokens. If we take a look at this URL https://dapp.com, we will notice that it is a platform that acts as a directory for DApps and, in fact, you can see that there are infinite DApps for infinite uses, whether blogging, games, social media, different tools, etc. Well, right there we can see that our main application is listed and we can even see some indicators of its recent activity.

^{⬆️ Image 2: Steemstem.io on the DApps list.By: @Eniolw (website screenshot) License: public domain}

It is a new and growing project. If you are able to visit the previously mentioned page, don't forget to register to leave your review and qualification about your experience of use with steemstem.io. Now let's talk about the characteristics of steemstem.io:

Is a client of the Steem blockchain. 'Client' is another technicality in software development and refers to those applications that make requests to a system or series of servers. Steemstem.io is a client program of that blockchain, and through its interface allows users to perform most of the basic and conventional options that can be done with Steem, such as creating and curing content (blogging), managing their tokens (wallet) and other functionalities of the social media. Of course, some of these features are currently under development, but the current status is sufficient to technically consider this DApp a client.

Now, since steemstem.io is not the official client and front-end application, you must authenticate (login) through SteemConnect, which is the system that officially provides an identity layer to be able to use our Steem account in third party applications securely. In this way, the things that can be done with steemstem.io from our account will be limited to the methods that SteemConnect supports and enables depending on the type of authentication we did. Currently, the developers are working on also using an alternative login method called SteemLogin.

The application is made as FLOSS (Free Libre and Open Source Software), which is also a requirement for it to be a DApp. Hence, all its source code (sort of blueprint) is publicly available on its repository in GitHub., being visible to everyone and freely downloadable, reusable and modifiable by any person with sufficient programming skills who proposes to do so.

^{⬆️ Image 3:Steemstem.io GitHub repository. By: @Eniolw (website screenshot) License: public domain.}

The application was first developed by programmers of Fundition.io, an organization which still maintains contact and collaboration with @SteemSTEM. The app is currently developed and maintained by Dr. Benjamin Fuks (@lemouth), who is a manager and founder of @SteemSTEM.

Currently, the DApp is technically an beta , another software engineering technicality that describes those applications that are still under development and precede a much more stable and complete final version. In fact, Dr. @lemouth also receives help from some collaborators and users who frequently post ideas and report errors through the question channel on the community's Discord server.

Therefore, if you are a developer and want to contribute with programming, you can do it through GitHub. Otherwise, if you are an end-user of the application, you can join this server and make your contributions (such as suggestions, bug reports, etc.) or raise them in the questions and complaints channel of the @SteemSTEM Discord server, which will surely be appreciated and answered.

In regard to the way steemstem.io works, the application is characterized by being customized to meet the #SteemSTEM community use needs. In that sense, we will notice that the posts displayed are mostly those that are tagged with #steemstem or tagged for the subcommunities; #stem-espanol (Spanish), #de-stem (German), #francostem (French), #itastem (Italian) and #stem-yu (Yugoslavian, although it does not refer to the former group of countries, but their languages).

It also has a built-in function that filters the posts of blacklisted users of this community for having committed plagiarism, as well as a function to recognize the posts of the users on the white list, who are those authors with a very good reputation in the community.

The list of technical features and functionalities is more extensive and it will be expanded in future posts.

On the other hand, steemstem.io is an application linked to scientific outreach, which, as we know, is the aim of the #SteemSTEM community. But let's take a look at the review of the application on dapp.com:

The SteemSTEM project was initiated more than two years ago with the aim of building a community of people interested in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) on Steem. We believe that making Steem a better place for STEM is crucial for the long-term development of the platform as a whole, so that it could not only be friendly to quality, interesting and cutting-edge STEM content but also become a real platform for science communication while invigorating and inspiring the minds of the community and beyond.

As we can see, the aspirations of the @SteemSTEM project are high-minded, and they not only plan to support the creation and dissemination of high quality content within the Steem network, but also to build a real platform for communication among scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, researchers and other professionals and amateurs of scientific knowledge, through the DApp. It's not difficult to imagine that this could have to do with research networks of institutions around the world that use blockchain and steemstem.io as technology for their exchange.

To achieve this, Steemstem.io has to differ from the other DApps and other existing blockchain clients. There are many out there, but the best known is Steemit, whose real name is Condenser and its deployment can be accessed through the URL https://steemit.com. This is an official client and it's the one developed by the company Steemit Inc, founder of this blockchain and social media.

Actually, it's important that users learn these things and differentiate the Steem blockchain from the social media built on it by the company Steemit Inc. However, it's also important to point out that the Steem blockchain is decentralized. This implies that the company cannot have absolute control over it, and that there may be many other client and front-end applications such as Steemstem.io. That means that you can use the blockchain without having to depend entirely on Steemit Inc, nor having to use its application (I barely do, lately).

Steemstem.io is very much like steemit.com and both apps have most functions in common. It's just that steemstem.io is a third party client and is focused only on the #SteemSTEM tags, in addition to having some additional features that make it a custom project. Steemit, on the other hand, is a more generic application for the whole social media.

Let's now look at the subdivisions of steemstem.io. We will concentrate on the main functionalities of the application, starting from the graphical user interface of which we will only make a small review, aspiring to deepen it in future articles.

Home: if we go to https://www.steemstem.io, we will get directly to the main page of the application, often called home in most websites. There we can already see the history of publications available in the tag.

New post: from this view we will be able to write our post for the community. It's a functionality that will be explained in detail in the future.

My Blog: this will list the posts (articles) we already have on the blockchain.

Comments: contains the history of the comments we make as responses to others posts or comments.

Replies: similar to the previous one, but are the comments addressed to the account holder as a response to their posts or comments.

Rewards: on this page we will see the rewards we are receiving and that we can claim (transfer to our purse).

Wallet (wallet, purse): in this page we can see the tokens that we own, that is, Steems and SBDs and we can manage them.

Finally, what better way to exemplify the application than to visit it and use it? We can enter https://steemstem.com and do it right now.

^{⬆️ Image 4:Steemstem.io home page. By: @Eniolw (website screenshot) License: public domain.}

In summary

We have seen that Steemstem.io is the #SteemSTEM community official application, focused on promoting STEM content around the world by relying on the Steem blockchain. We have learned that it's categorized as a DApp (decentralized application). We also characterized it as a client and front-end of the blockchain, functional with SteemConnect, made Free, Libre and Open Source Software, currently developed by @lemouth and collaborators, and with custom functionalities for the needs of use of #SteemSTEM.

We have also linked it with the vision of this community to promote scientific outreach and the construction of a communication platform for science, as well as differentiating it from other applications such as steemit.com. We outline some of its main functions and you have been invited to adopt it.

In the next issue we'll talk about the Steemstem.io's Graphical User Interface and eventually we'll create specific tutorials about the DApp as well as a document of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). At the moment, if you have any doubt, suggestion or comment don't hesitate to let me know, and if you are not quite sure:

SOME SOURCE OF REFERENCE

• Steemstem.io profile on DApp.com.
• DApp.com Ranking and Steemstem.io.
• Steemstem.io Repository on GitHub

If you are interested in more Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) topics, check out the #SteemSTEM tags, where you can find more quality content and also make your contributions. You can join the #SteemSTEM Discord server to participate even more in our community and consult the periodically reports published by @SteemSTEM.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

• Unless otherwise indicated, the images in this publication have been produced by the author, including the image of banner, created based on images related to Steemstem.io and that are in the public domain.
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