chainBB forum and the 7-day revenue window: some thoughts
I have spent a couple of days reading chainBB and I’m really interested in this development. This short post is written in the spirit of helping some of the on-going discussions around features and protocols on the chainBB forum – and is posted from the forum. I’ve been looking for more #help and info so as not to ask dumb newbie questions but the Custom Search box does not appear to be fully functional. So, if any of this has been discussed before, I apologize in advance.
Now, I read on one of beginner’s guides that earnings for each post are “calculated after 24 hours and then for the first 30 days.” This is obviously from an old post but it made me wonder why earnings are only calculated for 7 days. There are many posts with evergreen content that continue to be useful yet the authors are no longer earning from them. Also, newly discovered writers, such as on #Curie, would appreciate having their previous posts re-ignited. I’ve also read the #Steemit 2017 Roadmap which doesn’t mention this issue but does talk about making the back-end more efficient and faster. So, the first question is whether this 7-day revenue period was implemented because of algorithmic issues with the 30-day period? I’ve had experience of running a website where one particular algorithm went exponential and had to be rewritten very quickly.
The reason for asking this is because chainBB operates as a forum and, as per standard practice, a new comment on an old post bumps that thread up to the top of the list. Also, a new comment has a similar status to the original post in that others can upvote that comment; so it is entirely possible that such a comment attracts some small earnings but the original poster gets nothing. Have I got that correct? It is also my understanding that every activity is added to the blockchain and that sites such as Steemit and chainBB are essentially GUIs that interpret that blockchain and make it meaningful to a human reading it. So, without having to keep every post open to endless revenue calculations, is it possible to reset the 7-day timer every time there is activity on a post? This strikes me as one way to limit calculations yet reward really good and valuable posts.
I mean, I have read many very useful help posts and just instinctively wanted to upvote them but then wondered whether that would have been a wasted vote because the article was months old and the author was no longer earning from it. Instead, I could leave a comment, then perhaps the OP would respond and then I could upvote his or her comment – but that’s a bit clumsy.
I suspect there will be issues with bumping threads, but that's what the red flags and moderators are for, I guess.
OK, this is longer than intended, so fire away - and thanks for reading.
Sorry, no pics this time!
@jesta OK thanks, been reading steem.io and the docs seem confident that the blockchain is fast enough, so I suspect it is all those calculations done in the background and updated in what appears almost real-time.
One last question, then I'll leave this issue on the backburner, this chainBB is designed to be integrated with Steemit, so you can add different features (such as posts bumped after new comments) to the GUI so long as you don't change the relationship between user and their wallet. Is that correct?
So any changes we've just discussed would need a new wallet and direct interaction with the Steem blockchain?
Yup - that's pretty accurate. chainBB itself can't modify any of the blockchain/account/rewards mechanisms for the most part and only impacts the UI and how the data is displayed. If we wanted to make more fundamental changes, we'd either have to convince steem to implement them into their blockchain or go to a different blockchain.
This was changed in Steem during one of the last hardforks. It sounds like the information you were reading is out of date at this point. They eliminated the 24 hour + 30 day reward windows and replaced them with a single 7 day reward window. This stuff happens on the steem blockchain and none of the platforms (steemit, busy, chainbb, esteem) have any control over this functionality.
Yup, that's correct.
Also true.
I've pushed for this a few times, and it's just not in the dev plan from what I've been told at this point (due to scaling concerns). I'd really like to see infinite 7-day timers on every post, which are triggered when new votes arrive. Technically it's going to be complicated but in the long term it would be an excellent addition to help reward content that lasts through the ages.
That's an excellent point, voting power does get wasted on older posts, even though it does let you vote on them.
Hope I answered some questions and maybe caused a few more ;)
Thanks very much, just the info to bring me up to speed. And thanks for taking the time.
So the idea is fundamentally sound. I suspect every blockchain will come up against scalability and then latency issues.
Do you know what exactly the technical difficulty is? and where I can read up on it? Isn't a new 7-day period the same as a fresh post, from the blockchain pow?
I'm not a programmer, but I have de-coded crap algorithms - it's the maths puzzle I enjoy.
Summer "holiday" coming soon, so can have a hard problem to play with :-)
Also, 7 days is so short it encourages news-flash posts rather than thoughtful articles. I see that Steemit has many posts about itself - it is still young - but looking out towards vast topics such as medicine and education, they need a mixture of news and updated analysis and sound advice. Sounds like you know all of this. Glad to be of help when I can.
Honestly I don't, and I was asking the same questions. Whatever stress having a 2nd payout period initiate is no worse than someone just posting a new post. It could be argued that it would be less intense.
I think it's probably just not high on their priorities, but I can't speak to that. There's really not a good place besides github or random steemit posts to catch up on these things. I'm hoping to bring a bit of order to that with these forums :)