RE: The State of Steem Forums Action Plan : a skeleton to build on : #1 Technology
Excellent post and echo these thoughts.... I have some thoughts coming from a non-technical perspective:
[1] Full API public node: How much would the future proofed (4gb) size API service cost to run per month? Could the community (heavily) delegate to a new account "@communitynode" which earns rewards through posts (or self-votes(only for the purpose of having some certainty in income to run the service). It generates income simply to fund the API service. If it builds reserves of Steem- then it publicly demonstrates that it always has funds to run the service for a number of months (assuming stabilised prices) which gives confidence of continuity in service. If/when it has significant excess funds - could it burn Steem to suppress inflation. Could "@communitynode" be run by volunteers/ how onerous is this in terms of time and effort.
[2] SMT-Lite - supportive of any and all attempts to bring about a solution.
[3] In the absence of Resource Credit Delegation - is a fall back plan just good old normal delegation. Again can it can be coordinated with some form of central "@communitydelegation account" perhaps a guild can "distribute the delegation" in a fair/transparent way.
[4] To your point in avoiding duplication of effort and wasting scarce resource - if the feedback on the @oracle-d account creation service is good. Let's get behind this with more support to them however they need it (witness votes?) or raising awareness?
It looks set to be another very interesting and thought provoking forum. Thanks for taking the lead @pennsif.
Thanks for these points.
Re #1 my understanding is that dropping to 4GB would bring the monthly cost down to maybe $20 or thereabouts. But we will need more than one community node. Maybe more like a dozen as we scale up.
The bigger cost will be the tech time to run them.
Re #3 I believe the problem with using standard SP delegation is scalability. Say you need 15SP (although I have heard mention of 30SP) to get going, just a thousand new accounts a week will require some account being willing to delegate 15,000SP per week for X weeks (until released back). And we need more than 1000 new account a week to grow well....
Re #4 if @oracle-d can handle it they will be a good starting point - but again scalability will be the issue. Particularly if using SP delegation instead of RC delegation to support the new accounts.
And I would say @oracle-d currently have a very underrated witness position (#133). They really should be top 50 at least now...