Steemit.com - Coding In The Community
I've been mulling over this post for a while now - since Friday in fact and how to approach it. Whether I should be posting it in the Steemit Dev Group so that it would be more visible to the Steemit team, for me to share with them some insight into a world I've just experienced. A world that Steemit openly needs community support to enter in order for Steemit to progress.
I also wasn't sure if I should create a dedicated profile for this purpose (@coding-gorilla) and before some smart arse decides to take the name, I created it anyway just in case.
I'm still unsure where to go with this, so bear with me and let me know in the comments what your thoughts are. I'll try to keep it brief and hopefully you can help me to decide what to do next.
Background
There has been plenty of discussion lately regarding the lack of progress Steemit is making compared to Hive. Since the Hard Fork and Tron's "takeover", it's often cited that the only changes that have happened here are the introduction of TRX and the ill-fated introduction of a WYSIWYG editor (which for me, didn't work). Whereas Hive is a different beast entirely, the price recently rocketing due to initiatives like Splinterlands.
I certainly don't purport to be an expert on the similarities or differences. I've spent very limited time on Hive to do a true comparison but from this side, it looks like Usain Bolt's in a foot race with Ricky Gervais.
My History
It's probably little known on Steemit that I've spent my career working in the Web industry. I started out working for a small digital agency as a front-end developer (the 7th person to join) which grew to over 70 employees with offices around the world before the company got bought out by a FTSE100 powerhouse, the culture went to shit, I got disillusioned and left. And as arrogant as this might sound, having worked in the industry for over 20 years now, I know my shit.
Before moving into more senior, management roles. front-end development was my thing. I'm the guy who writes code to make things pretty. I dabbled with back-end, writing a couple of sites for various companies but it wasn't really for me - I'll leave that to the geeks. If you've ever used online banking, then you've almost certainly used a site that I've worked on.
So What?
So I thought, I've worked with other people's code before. I can write Steemit a shiny, new front-end because let's be honest, whether it's Steemit or Hive, they've been designed by coders. I want to make Steemit look like this. Make it appeal to the masses.
Slight aside - we inherited some code once for a well known British Bank. They had a community element and due to the family orientation of it, didn't want people posting swear words so there was code to filter this out. The actual code never got written, just the placeholder function, with the name "function containsShitFuckBollocks()". It's my favourite line of code I've ever inherited.
Back on topic... that's a big change isn't it? Well actually, it shouldn't be. The elements are all there on the trending page. An image, a post title, the author, when it was posted, rewards, comments, etc. They're all visible on each community page. Anybody familiar with CSS Zen Garden would relish the challenge.
So on Friday, I set about writing Steemit a new front-end.
Or at least I tried to.
The Set Up
Now the difference between what I'm trying to do compared to other users like @etainclub and @steemchiller is that I'm not trying to work with Steemit's API. I'm not creating a dApp or new domain. I'm wanting to change steemit.com. The website that many of us visit on a daily basis.
Edit: I've just reread the above paragraph and it's not intended to come across as though what @etainclub and @steemchiller is simple, because I know for a fact that it isn't. And I'm also aware that @steemchiller's worked on the steemit.com codebase too so hopefully this sentence doesn't piss anybody off!
I won't go into detail regarding this. At some point, @coding-gorilla might write some beginners guides. I had to register and learn GitHub, then Docker and write a load of commands in the Command Line to get things running. Not something a front-end developer wants to do. This wasn't clear or obvious. It wasn't much fun and a lot of credit must go to @starlord28 for getting me this far.
The Code
steemit.com is written in react.js. This is a programming language where the contrasting specialisms of front-end and back-end are merged so that one or the other is being worked on by a non-specialist. Without going into too much detail, I found inline styles within the code - which is probably the first thing that a beginner front-end developer is told NOT to do.
My job was hard enough already. It just got harder.
After spending the day trying to jig things around, get to grips with the code, react.js and what was doing what, I decided to park this little project for the day and get back to my family. I'm yet to decide whether to return and this gets me to what I suppose, is the important point.
The Community (Probably) Can't Help You
This sounds dramatic. And it probably is. Hive took the original developers with them. They know the code, they wrote the code, so they can improve the code. They are responsible for the code. The code that will take a lot of effort for somebody like me to unravel.
Tron inherited the code and if my experience is anything to go by, maintaining the code will be head ache enough for them, let alone making enhancements to it. And from the little information I have, there's only 1 or 2 of them responsible for Steemit. Which might even be part-time.
A decent front-end developer will demand in the region of £250 per day. At today's prices, that's just over 800 Steem per day. We're asking people to spend weeks working on this, for nothing. For the good of the community. Maybe they'll get a few steemcurator01 upvotes along the way, perhaps earning them 1/10th of what they'd earn elsewhere.
Is it worth it?
Will I revisit this at a later date?
I don't know. Even with my wealth of experience, I couldn't even move a component from the left side of the screen to the top. On every other site I've ever worked on, this was easy. And it took me a day to realise this - how many more days would it take to actually do it?
Please Share Your Thoughts
As I mentioned at the start, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts so please share them with me below.
The Steemit.com frontend is certainly showing its age.
This has been the case for some time now (even before the split).
This was one of the prompts I believe that led to the creation of SteemPeak as an alternative frontend to steemit.com.
SteemPeak was very popular, and innovated continuously.
At the start at least, it was all built by just two guys, and, as far as I know, without any involvement from Steemit.
I am not a tech but I believe it just ran on the Steem blockchain with the appropriate API calls to provide a different (more developed / user friendly / advanced / feature rich) user experience.
@steemchiller might be able to give more technical insight on this?
I don't believe SteemPeak had any direct financial support or delegation from Steemit, and they started before the SteemDAO came into existence.
I think they were just funded (initially at least) from upvotes from the community on their update posts.
Maybe you, @starlord28, @steemchiller etc could form a team to do something similar to Steempeak?
I am only a nearly Orca but I would happy to pledge my votes to support such an endeavour.
Maybe @xpilar, @stef1, @chriddi and others would be willing to join a 'Support Club' for this sort of new Steem frontend development?
My dev / team and I have been thinking about this for a while as making something similar to SteemPeak as an alternative front
We want a better interface and that local communities have a freer place of their own to set up, for example, advertising, competition, so that the training pages are not dominated by competition in local communities
I have previously also mentioned this when there was a competition 10 months ago
"What can be done to improve this platform in Steem Bolckchain"
Our own local community page needs to be upgraded and should be more like a separate website with more features for us moderators
I show some suggestions in the form of the picture below here
The entire post can be read here https://steemit.com/hive-139293/@xpilar/what-can-be-done-to-improve-this-platform-in-steem-bolckchain
we can have a chat with my dev in with @ the-gorilla
we have some plans that we can air with you
I like your graphics.
A wish, which I have already mentioned to the Steemit Dev Team (was noticed, but nothing happened): In a prominent place must also be seen in EVERY browser description and rules of the community (which is for me in the top right much more important than a logo). No, on mobile they are not displayed at all. On PC Google Chrome shows them, Brave and Safari don't (and I don't have more comparisons).
So if you are tinkering with the site with your developers, I would be very happy if you think of this request.... :-))
Within the code, there are rules which say some functionality does not get displayed on mobile devices or devices below a certain resolution. For example, everything which appears on the left hand side of xpilar's screenshot is removed.
It's not just mobile devices. Even on my coding monitor which I set in portrait mode, the items on the side don't show up.
That's right.
< start geek >
It's done through media queries within the CSS. By default, some components are set as "display: none" and then once a minimum width is reached, it becomes visible (via "display: block" I think) but I've deleted the code now so I'm not sure). You'll see the "snapping" point by messing about with the width of your browser to know what this minimum width is.
</ end geek >
Yes, I know that the borders are missing in the mobile browser. But also in some desktop browsers.
You could also add a "Description/Rules" button. ABOVE the "Post" button.... ;-)
We look forward to following and supporting this development.
These ideas should be straightforward in the existing codebase but unfortunately I don't think they are (I won't go into the details). Similar to you, I've thought about writing a new front-end which would be using steemchiller's APIs (as opposed to Steemit's) and freeing myself from the existing interface and layout entirely (i.e. not moving bits around in the existing interface but a totally new one). It's a mammoth undertaking although there are plenty of existing HTML / CSS templates which are responsive (i.e. adapt to desktop, tablet and mobie resolutions) which would simplify the design element (and make me redundant from this process).
I look forward to hearing more 🙂
Good to hear you have some development ideas in the pipeline.
Hopefully a team can come together to work on a 'SteemPeak 2' idea.
I've previously spoken to steemchiller and I know that he's working on things in the background which will make this whole process much simpler in the future. The suggestion that @remlaps adds regarding the 5% default beneficiary feels like a good motivator for this to move forward.
I don't know how realistic this dream is. Perhaps if I can speak to steemchiller and get to grips with his API, I can create something fairly quick and sexy to get an idea as to how hard this will be. But I don't want to risk getting anybody excited - it's a big dream.
Good luck with the API.
It would be interesting to do some back of the envelope numbers to guestimate what sort of $$$ would come from a 5% beneficiary, but if some of the CRs and others who regularly get good votes used it then it should be good.
👍
I think the default 5% beneficiary setting helped SteamPeak with some of their costs, too. I made sure to use it any time I posted through SteamPeak, and I would be happy to do the same for an updated Steemit.com.
Ah yes, I forgot about that.
The beneficiary could definitely be a good income generator.
It would be good if community developers came forward to develop another frontend like Steempeak.
We would be happy to support developers with votes as we do with @etainclub and others.
Development is very, very important and I am always ready to support it when it comes to my attention or is brought to my attention directly. I would not enter a "club" for this.
At the same time, I think that it is exactly such contributions and plans that the Steemit Team should be interested in, at least to express. If it does not, this is just another criterion for disillusionment of my belief in the Steem and a strong community that could make the world a little better.
I totally agree. I feel like we're all passengers on a cruise ship, floating around in the ocean. Every now and again, there's an announcement on a loud speaker but it's gone as quickly as it arrived. Most of the passengers are happily talking to each other, unaware and perhaps uninterested in their plight.
But there are a few living outside of this daydream, wondering where the ship is heading. Wondering who is driving the ship, if indeed there is anybody driving it at all. There might be a mechanic making sure that the ship stays afloat... nobody's seen them. Perhaps they can't get to the mechanics that need fixing. To get the engine running again. Perhaps they're the one making the announcements.
The cruise ship's not docked anywhere for months and few have noticed. Have the crew abandoned us? Will the ship dock again? Can we break into the engine room and get things started? Do a few of us passengers need to build our own ship and continue our journey? Or will the ship slowly and peacefully sink to the bottom of the ocean?
For this now I would like to present you with the literary main prize for the most beautiful metaphor ever!
I cannot add more to these melancholy thoughts.
Well, actually the crew is responsible for the lifeboats, not the passengers...
Unfortunately, the crew have already left on the lifeboats.
I've seen plenty of people jump overboard. Another ship has rescued some of them and they're doing well... but many haven't been heard from since. Sometimes, they manage to climb back on board, but not for long. They quickly jump ship again.
Steem and Hive will always have competitions between these two. The Hive team and its developers are much more active than Steemit. Just look at their dapps and ecosystem.
They even have the NFT marketplaces. I hope that Steemit will also have an NFT marketplace including other dapps. If the team and the developers try then everything is possible.
I would be down for that. However, I would first want to get a few other things that I am working on out before I take on a task like this.
This is the situation when the upper classes cannot, and the lower classes do not want to live in the old way. According to Lenin's thoughts, this is actually a revolutionary situation :)
You have touched the very essence of Steеm's life. What is happening now can be called stagnation. According to the theory of systems development, growth is possible after stagnation, or this will be the beginning of disintegration. Now is the moment when we need an impulse for growth. If I understood correctly, @Xpilar's voice was not heard and there will be no impulse from above. In any case, a long time passed and no action followed. The rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves (c)
I do not know how the budget allocation system for code development / improvement is organized here. For me, English is not my native language, and through a translator it is sometimes difficult to understand the meaning of even simple texts. I'm not talking about technical ones. Moreover, I'm not a programmer.
But it is obvious to me that work on improving and developing Stееmit is simply necessary. We are already significantly behind and the further, the more deplorable the situation will be.
But this is all lyrics.
I think you should come up with your proposal at https://steemit.com/trending/hive-192037 or maybe a representative of Justin Sun (he himself is unlikely to descend)
Whether they will hear you ... I don't know. Of course, this work shouldn't be free and the wox-helpfund won't be enough (just kidding, of course).
I do not hope for a miracle, but suddenly ...
If I were a Digital Agency pitching the best solution to Steemit.com in a presentation, my solution would be fairly simple -
Start again.
In my (professional) opinion, the existing site is too specialist and finding people capable of working with it competently, extremely difficult.
Not the data layer, or security layer but the front-end needs to be done properly. The HTML / CSS needs to be written from scratch. The necessary templates to reflect the design of the site, built in such a way that when the design needs upgrading again in 3 years time, it's an easy task. Then layer over your JavaScript, the interactive functionality, asynchronous loading of content, etc. And selecting a programming language that's learned the world over to plug the data in. Whether that's ASP.NET, Java, PHP or something else. But not react.js. Not something so specialist that my £250 per day becomes £500 per day.
Total ball-park cost? £150,000 (GBP). Or $200,000 (USD). Or 5,000,000 Steem. If you're paying an agency to do it
It could definitely be done cheaper.
Do you think Steemit is important enough to Justin Sun to spend this kind of money? He paid $4.6m to have lunch with Warren Buffett so you'd certainly hope so. But then the question that instantly springs to mind - surely they already know this - why haven't they already done it?
Or maybe they have and that's what steemitblog's big surprise is.
Again, I'm not a programmer. Half of the terms you used sound to me like Chinese without translation. But as a person who is close to designing, I know for sure that the patient will die without resuscitation.
The situation can go the other way. We can get the HIVE of the second version. Simply if the system does not develop, it either dies or goes its own way. I would not be surprised at any scenario. At the moment, events are developing extremely badly for the system.
Justin Sun has invested in the integration of NFT into the blockchain. Perhaps the social component of the platform does not interest him anymore. And then again I won’t be surprised at anything. I'm tired of wondering at the general madness of the world lately...
This is an interesting line of thought. We've assumed that because the Steem token was created to be an integral part of a Social Media platform, that this is what it will always be. Does the Steem token need steemit.com as a "blogging platform" in order to exist? I have no idea. I have next to no knowledge of crypto whatsoever.
NFT is also a token. I also have no idea how both tokens can interact. But NFT has become a crazy trend and everyone wants to jump on that train at full speed.
Blockchain can be bluntly used as an NFT data store, although there are other options. I'm not good at this. And I don't know what San's plans are. But for some reason I am not particularly optimistic.
🤷♀️ I won't pretend to understand NFTs.
I'm finding it hard to find reasons to be optimistic Especially now that I've experienced first hand the code that they're trying to work with.
It worries me that nobody from within Steemit/TRON has come out and said "Get excited about Steemit because we're doing this..... 🎆". Why don't they do this? "Buy the rumour, sell the news" is a well known stock market phrase.
Finding different ways to upvote authors via sc01 or booming just doesn't excite me.
This is very similar to the stone that blocked the flow of the river. An attempt to stimulate the flow with curation, ratings, any marketing ... this is just a compress on the legs for a dying from oncology.
You see the problem, those who understand programming see it. Maybe there are people who receive some money for correcting the code and it is simply profitable for them to work for a long time and receive money?
But in addition to fixing bugs, development is needed ... which is impossible without fixing bugs. The circle is closed ...
I have already ceased to be surprised and worried. There was a time when I almost completely seriously decided to grow to a killer whale. This is part of the social game. Your opinion about the code clarifies a lot, I continue to play this game, but without any excitement.
I don't think there's any profit to be made by maintaining the existing codebase. I suspect that when Justin Sun bought Steemit, he expected the existing development & developers to stay and for things to continue. Having no idea what was on the horizon. I found this profile today - notice the 4 resteems of developers resigning on the same day. Then they've suddenly got a codebase and nobody to work on it.
In most companies, there are 2 teams for this. One for BAU (Business As Usual) whose responsibility it is to keep the existing site ticking along. Then there's a "Change" function - responsible for enhancements and new functionality. I have no idea how Steemit / Tron handle this. The developer that I'm aware of is probably trying to do everything on his own.
A few years ago, I started a project on another website to start from scratch. It tapped into the database (so it could list the content), but when the user clicked on the links to the articles, it would either open on Steemit or Busy.
The primary goal was to create an advertising applet using Steem as the payment mechanism. An advertisement would be funded using Steem, and the person hosting the ad and people identified as Steemians viewing the page were rewarded. I was thinking in terms of an online newspaper where the readership was paid to read.
Everything was working well. I had advertisers lined up and I had the first sixty host pages working perfectly and then the wheels fell off the bus. Since Steemconnect and SteemSQL were necessary for the system to work, it was demoralizing when it meant starting from scratch. I am not sure which was worse: the thousands of dollars spent on the programmers to do the work or the months devoted to making it work.
Perhaps a consolidated proposal needs to be run by the powers that be.
Oh man, I can't begin to imagine how that felt. That's a massive risk with doing something that is entirely dependant upon something or someone that you have no control over. It's definitely an important point to bear in mind if deciding to progress. Thank you for sharing 👍
If you do get momentum on your project, cc me on your plans (if you remember). I don't have a lot of traction or sway in this environment but I can contribute my 2 cents worth and help spread the word.
I'll try to remember 🙂 I'm a sleep deprived father of 2 though so regularly struggle to remember my own name.
When my kids were grown up, I would go to Ukraine for 90 days twice per year and telecommute to Canada. That put me 7-8 hours ahead of my clients. I was a five-minute walk from the beach or the cafe I would meet up with friends. I would start work at noon and still be ahead of time.
You aren't sleep-deprived; you are living in the wrong time zone.
I don't think any time zone would work for me - Unless it was one of the ones in Interstellar where time goes at a different pace for me compared to the children - then 2 hours can be 8 or 9 😴 That would work well for me. Only when they're asleep though. When they're awake, I can rejoin standard Earth time.
Not really. The original Steemit team (with @andrarchy, @vandeberg, @roadscape, @justinw and @gerbino) is not active on HIVE anymore (some of them are involved in Koinos now).
However, programmers like @blocktrades and his team and others also know the code very well, and are developing HIVE now.
👍 They're a smart bunch, that's for sure!
Thank you for this post, reading it just makes me glad on one hand but sad on other hand. Unfortunately, I am not a programmer otherwise I definitively would spend my time with creating something on Steem blockchain. I am good in my profession, but that will not help.
It is true that many good and enthusiastic people left to Hive and I am very glad for them as well I am glad that they are getting successful. In general I am pro-innovation and pro-blockchain technology. I must say I have respect for those ones who are working hard there and putting their creativity in development and also advertisement.
Investing into the people who can write codes is very important. No matter how expensive it is at this stage Steem has great potential to be successful and if we can attract investments and bring the Steem from Rank beyond 300 to the first 100, then we all notice how the value of Steem will grow.
Currently the value is melting like early snow that we have in Scotland. We sleep over and the Steem dropped another 10% in its value. I'm even scared to look at the tanking nowadays.
Once again, @steemcurator01, the Steemit Team no idea who is behind the account and if you are reading such comments or just busy with giving Upvotes without reading much.
This is a serious topic and the Steemit Inc has enough finance, you have a proposal please read it and support it. Pay to the people who are happy to work and bring shine to Interface of the Steemit site.
I think I'm erring on the side of sadness. In writing this - the subsequent conversation I've had with bambuka and others who know the code far better than me, the conclusion that I've come to is that the existing codebase is unworkable. (I won't repeat what I said to bambuka below (or above depending upon what order the comments are 🙂))
I think that any developers who already work with or try to work on steemit.com in the future will experience the same issues that I've had and will almost certainly come to the same conclusion. The level of specialism required is hard to come by, which means it's expensive. In the long run, Steemit will be much better off starting again (not completely, but I mention that to bambuka 🙂)
Agree with that it is always easy and better to create new as to try to patch the gaps in old one. I do not know if then it will affect the blogs and will need migration of everything like it was with Hive? 8that is still @stef1, but I am curating with Art-venture, just lazy to switch between the accounts :)
Ha ha 🙂 Don't worry, I know your alter-ego.
It can all be done without affecting the data (i.e. the blog) - it'd be more like plastic surgery, made to look pretty 😉 Then we can start adding the bionic limbs.
I am glad that you have other skills besides football and detective. In fact, this was obvious from the very beginning.
I can bet you that Ricky Gervais can beat Usain Bolt.
In the Steem blockchain, there is an organization that supports the project owners. But I don't know if it is possible to take advantage of this fund these days.
https://steemitwallet.com/@steem.dao/transfers
Steem continues to lose power day by day.
As with the football and detective... I talk a good game 😉
2.2m SBD!! That's a lot of funds. I'd get it done for that 😉
Do you want it all, it would be very selfish :)
Yes. Every last cent 🙂
So, this sounds like exactly the job that the Steem Proposal System (SPS) was created for. In theory, the effort could be funded entirely by the blockchain, with no out of pocket cost for Justin Sun or Steemit.
The problem is that (i) the SPS has been abused in the past, because accountability is difficult; and (ii) As the largest stakeholder, I have no idea whether Steemit intends to ever open the SPS up again, and it probably can't be leveraged without their support. Steemit can answer the second point fairly easily.
If Steemit is willing to give clarity on the second point, it might attract creative ideas on how to solve the first. My thought is that an interested developer could break their proposal into many short-term standalone deliverables. Maybe it could even be done by using the SPS in conjunction with a formal (on paper) statement of work between Steemit and the developer(s).
The counterargument might be that when the SPS is blocked, 100% of rewards are going to content creators and curators, but when we see that projects are being funded by upvotes, it really just means that an engineered SPS has been replaced by an informal one.
That sounds like the ideal incentive to get Steemit moving again. Maybe if we're lucky, Steemit will read this and respond on the subject - on this point in particular.
There's little advantage in 100% of the rewards going to content creators and curators when the value of that 100% continues to decrease ☹️
Agreed. I think I misremembered how things work when making that point, anyway. Thinking about it some more, I am pretty sure that rewards are still going into the proposal system regardless of whether any proposals are funded or not.
So, I'm not sure what the counterarguments would be. Concerns about selling pressure on SBDs and/or accountability are the only things I can think of.
I wonder if there's any chance of tapping into this proposal system or if Tron even know it exists! If it was run by old Steemit, it wouldn't surprise me if the keys left with them!
It all works by votes. I'm pretty confident that it's technically possible. Basically, during the Witness Wars, Steemit/Tron voted the return proposal to the top of the list, which means that none of the other proposals are being funded. Funds are disbursed (every hour, I think) to a proposal that just returns them to the SPS.
I'm fairly sure that they still have keys to the accounts that control those votes, so from a technical perspective, I think someone would just have to submit a proposal and receive enough votes to get it past the return proposal. I haven't looked at the numbers, but as a practical matter I assume that a vote from Steemit would be needed to get up that far. Here is the 2019 announcement/explanation. And there's a little more here.
To me, the big question-mark is whether Steemit might be willing to start using it again. I suspect that this mechanism is how much of the hive development gets funded.
Thanks for explaining this to me. Suddenly, so much has become clear now that I understand with the DAO is. I've heard it mentioned with the suggestion that it might be opened up again. No surprise nothing has happened then. Developers are (rightly) waiting for the DAO to open up before working again. Steemit are hoping that they'll get it done for free. It's clear what needs to happen and I suspect it's only a matter of time then before it happens.
Wow... I guess a lot of us are having similar thoughts @the-gorilla; I was just poking at this issue in yesterday's post, talking about giving people from outside Steemit a more valuable user experience... including an updated front end that doesn't come across as a slightly shinier 2003 web message board.
I had issues with this interface being antiquated from the moment I joined here. Five years later, it remains virtually unchanged.
SteemPeak offered a solution for many of us because it had the usability figured out, and it was under constant development. Without it, we are seriously stagnating here.
I am hoping @steemchiller will join in; I know he was working on some kind of post editor/front end at some point... and given the reliability and utility of Steemworld.org, I find myself wondering whether there is some existing work there that could be expanded to form the basis for a new Steemit front end... I know @steemchiller works awfully hard, and he has always delivered a top quality product with virtually 100% uptime.
Alas, I am not a coder, but I am certainly in support of any initiatives to pull Steemit out of the doldrums.
As a matter of "comparables," I know LeoFinance's front end was coded from scratch; there are also the more or less "turnkey" front ends offered in connection with Hive-Engine's "outposts" program...
I know the old steem-engine.net still runs, because the Splinterlands dApp still maintains at least a tenuous connection to Steem/Steemit, and if nothing else the devs might be willing to at least sell the skeleton of an alternative working codebase that could be built onto.
Just thinking out loud here...
I have just caught up with your post 🙂At some point within the next few days (or maybe even week, things are getting busy in the run-up to Christmas), I'll write an update post. As with many of my posts, the gold can be found within the comments and I've learnt a lot, understand some things that I didn't previously and have plenty of reason to be optimistic. So as the discussion within the comments and on Discord continue, many will have moved on.
I still keep in touch with the aforementioned steemchiller and although I'm pessimistic about what can be done using existing code from steemit.com, I'm optimistic about being able to use work that steemchiller's doing, assuming that he's got the time (and patience) to help me!
Honestly, I'm shocked by your decision. You said recently that you have two children and you don't have enough time. And here is a decision that will take even more time.
I fully support your initiative, and I am very sorry that there is nothing I can do to help.
But is there a guarantee that the changes you make will be accepted, that your work will not be in vain?
Maybe a discussion is needed so that everyone can suggest quality improvements for steemit.com?
I was hoping that in writing this post, it would clarify some thinking for me. I enjoy coding and more so, problem solving. I have no doubt that if I'd achieved what I aimed to, then I'd be able to talk to the right people to get it deployed into live. The problem is, that the codebase, more specifically the front-end and back-end are so intrinsically interlinked that separating them is impossible. And therefore the wish to change it in the way that I need to extremely difficult, if not also impossible.
So I'm essentially highlighting that expecting community members to unravel it all and help improve steemit.com in some way is unlikely to ever happen. Especially without anybody getting paid a decent salary for doing it. Which reaches the conclusion, that for Steemit.com to improve, to progress then Tron needs to employ somebody. More than somebody A team.
In my opinion, without a significant and active developer community, this effort would be in vain.
Oh, and it's also something that there's no time pressure or demands on me to do. I can do it on my own terms so if I'm too busy, I won't do anything 🙂
The driving force behind any job is finances. I really liked the @remlaps offer of a 5% beneficiary setting. I would increase it to 10%. It is necessary to create a separate post where those wishing to finance this initiative would be registered. Then on the basis of their profits it will be possible to determine the approximate budget of the project. If it is significant, it will be possible to involve even third-party developers.
SC01 constantly supports developer posts. I think this case will be no exception. So this is an additional source of funding.
Having determined the approximate budget, we can move on to determine who will be involved in the development, and only then to the very concept of the project.
🤷♀️ Appropriate finances won't be possible from within the community no matter how many people support it. Even with sc01 support... unless it happens within a country that demands lower wages than we'd expect here in the UK.
A few other replies have mentioned a great big bundle of cash sitting around that was designated for this very purpose. I wonder if it still exists because if it does, suddenly we'll find a big appetite to do something!
Well, I'm no tech expert, but if you compare it with steemit.com, hive.blog has a slightly better editor but that's it, in my opinion.
What Hive has is Games, Nfts, Tokens, always new Dapps, different front-ends and projects like Leo.finance, there are so many new projects it's even difficult to keep up.
I think Steem is the same in years with no new projects, adding Trx rewards was an excellent move that increased the price for a bit.
But now we are at rank #340 of the market cap.......
Very good point - they do appear to be almost identical. The "New Post" interface has a few extra features (like the image selection) too. I see that Hive also has a bar around the avatar which shows how much of your resource credits you have left. And their search bar works. Which makes me wonder - Is the codebase so difficult to work with that even the developers at Hive won't work on it?