Steemit.com Development Updates (GitHub Report)
The Steemit dev team has been busy as usual! There has been a lot of activity in GitHub :)
This report provides a summary of what the Steemit dev team has been up to in the GitHub code repository. The changes that are in this report are things that are being discussed and considered, as well as being worked on. There is no guarantee that any of these will actually be implemented and put up on to the site. It does give you a good idea of what they are up to though :)
Updates to Flagging Text
The text that pops up when users click to flag a post is shown below. The text has caused some issues with the user experience, since it implies there is an exclusive list of acceptable reasons for which flagging is allowed. While it is important for the community to discuss and decide on proper etiquette for the use of flagging/downvotes, users are technically allowed to flag for whatever reason they want.
Two changes have been submitted as pull requests for GitHub issue 215, in order for the website to take a more 'neutral' stance on the use of flagging.
- Changing "The flag should be used for the following" to "Some common reasons to flag"
- Adding "Inappropriate rewards distribution" to the list of reasons
[Edit] Note @dantheman indicated in the comments, that this wording is subject to change.
Welcome Page Updates
Several updates were made to the "Welcome to Steemit" page for GitHub issue 723. The list of updates is described in this post. This is an exciting update for me, since it is the first pull request that I personally submitted to the GitHub repository :)
Security Improvements
While security improvements don't add anything 'fun and new' to the UI, they are extremely important. Everyone on the site expects that their private key information is handled in a secure way! Updates are being made in GitHub issue 770 to make the Steemit website more secure.
Sorting of Tags List
The tags list page currently lists all of the tags in alphabetical order. In GitHub issue 806, they are making changes to allow users to sort the tags in different ways.
Wallet In Progress Conversions Fix
There have been cases where the list of in progress conversions shown in the wallet is not correct. It was not showing all in progress conversions for some users, and in some cases it was including conversions that had already completed. GitHub issue 896 is updating it to show the correct list of conversions.
Reduce tag limit to 4 until back-end fix is made
Since there is currently a glitch where using 5 tags reduces the visibility of a post (see post), GitHub issue 918 is going to update the Steemit UI to only allow 4 tags until the back-end fix is made.
Clarify Referenced Text In Comments
Often in online discussion, a person will first quote some text from another person to disagree with it. Many times this means that they would definitely not want the text attributed to them. However, in the user comments pages, the first sentence or so is previewed and no distinction is made for quoted text. GitHub issue 928 will make changes to clarify this.
Prepend Nested Comments with Dots
This is a small UI improvement to make it easier to tell what nesting level comments are at. There will be small dots added next to comments based on their nesting level. Root level comments will have no dots. Level 1 nested comments will have 1 dot. Level 2 nested comments will have 2 dots. (etc.) This is being done in GitHub issue 941. The dots are barely noticeable, but they are enough to help you quickly identify the nesting level of a comment.
Show Author Info for Hidden NSFW Posts
Currently, when a post is hidden for the NSFW tag, everything about the post is hidden unless/until the user decides to reveal it.
In GitHub issue 950, they will be updating it to show the "meta data" such as the author name and upvotes, even though the post title/image/text are still hidden.
Add web push notifications
GitHub issue 958 is a new GitHub issue that was just opened by the Steemit dev team to add web push notifications. I'm not 100% sure what this will do yet, but it sounds interesting!
Miscellaneous Bugfixes
A lot of the issues that are being worked on right now are bugfixes. I did decide to exclude them unless they were ones that were majorly affecting the user experience on Steemit, since I think most users are just interested in seeing the enhancements. If there is interest in seeing them all here, let me know. The dev team has indicated that they are giving bugfixes high priority at the moment.
This concludes the list of relevant issues that I found to report on. There is a lot of design work going on behind the scenes related to new features, but they haven't been added to GitHub yet. Once I see them create issues for things that are being discussed/planned, I will add them to the report.
Also, since apparently there has been some confusion based on the nature of my posts, I wanted to clarify - I do not actually work for Steemit. I am just a member of the community who is reviewing the activity and posting what I see.
If you are interested, you can view all of the open issues here:
https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/issues
Reminder to vote for witnesses:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you aren't sure who to vote for, check out this Witness Voting Guide!
Thanks Tim!!
Is "Inappropriate rewards distribution" a good idea? Obviously the flag is subjective anyway (just like upvoting is). But this seems to add a degree, IMO. I don't use it anyway (except once, for libel in a comment). But that struck me.
Do you know what's involved in RSS feeds? I know Streemian provides them as a service, but am not sure if there's a way to get them directly from Steemit. Or maybe the ability could be added?
Thanks for all your hard work.
It's a good discussion to have. It is listed in the whitepaper as one of the reasons to flag, and users are flagging for that reason - so it made sense to add it as a reason that people flag.
There is a request for RSS via Steemit, but it is not a high priority.
The language isn't fully vetted, I think inappropriate is an inappropriate word because it implies objectivity when it is voters opinion that other posts deserve more.
Good to know. Thanks for the info!
FYI, I updated the post to include: [Edit] Note @dantheman indicated in the comments, that this wording is subject to change.
Thanks. I read the Whitepaper a long time ago, but haven't kept up with any changes to it in the last couple months... if it's been adapted. Since downvoting isn't really on my radar, I didn't recall anything from the wp on it. :)
Maybe we can get RSS bumped up. Whadaya think? What would I/we need to do to get more attention for it (me and github aren't familiar with each other ;o) ).
If you have feature requests, you should email [email protected]. He is the project manager. I can tell you though, that anything like this is going to take a back-seat to larger (more important) features that they are working on.
Is it a possibility to have a down vote option separate from flagging that doesn't remove visibility from a post?
Something that would redistribute a small amount of the rewards back into the reward pool?
Or is that to a moral fallacy?
It is something they are looking into as a long-term change.
For the five tag stuff, I also noticed that old posts from more than a month ago turn to be hidden. I am looking forward to the fix! :)
The nested comments improvements sound great as well!
Thanks for the update.
nice :))
Thanks for the update. Keen to see how far the comments can be nested and how the various screen on the different devices work out.
True. They are planning to remove the 6 nesting level, but it sounds like that requires a HF. I think once they do that, they might revamp the GUI's nesting formatting again.
Thank you!!! :)
I'm going to have to check out your posts from the last few days just to get caught up on things! I love that the NSFW posts are going to include meta data.
I think the pop up (or light box) for flags is also very important - while I would go a step further with it I have to admit it's progress.
The nesting levels is pretty cool too. I wonder if they will expand it to deeper than six on the thread? That would be nice especially since we don't have an in-house chat or messaging system.
Agreed :) Yes, they are working on a change to remove the nesting level beyond 6. It is a larger change though, that I believe will require a HF.
some solid accomplishments. good job
I like your post and I upvoted you as a witness! Thanks for the info!
Cool, thanks!! :)
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