As many people here know, I've been a proponent of exploring a distributed alternative to reddit/voat style social networks.
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1866053/9141606/10#9141606
Researching more I've found out about the STEEM network:
https://steemit.com/steem/@demotruk/steemit-posts-can-never-be-tampered-with-and-are-censorship-resistant
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@go1dfish/not-sure-why-it-took-me-so-long-to-sign-up-this-place-is-exactly-what-a-free-speech-absolutionist-like-myself-is-looking-for
All the content on steemit is managed by a distributed blockchain with its own internal cryptocurrency (STEEM).
Steemit, and any other frontend to the network can censor content just like reddit or Voat is required to for legal (or in the case of reddit ideological) reasons.
This would be a pretty radical shift from the approach @puttitout and others are currently taking porting the existing site to run on Mono/Postgres
I know others have been thinking about ways to decentralize Voat to make it stronger as well, and this seems like a viable way to do so.
To run a steem frontend currently, the biggest resource cost appears to be RAM, you need at least 14GB of ram currently to support this. But that IS the database, no separate SQL here.
https://github.com/steemit/steem
https://github.com/steemit/condenser
It would still be possible for Voat to have a unique frontend experience closer to what we have now, and built similar to how we've been talking about improving the frontend in the future.
This is still a very fresh thought in my mind, and it is not without downsides, but I think it could be a very interesting approach and it would allow everyone here to get their ideas out to a larger audience without compromising on free speech principles.
The biggest advantage of taking this approach is that the content would live on a shared distributed uncensorable network, so that if any single web admin decided to embrace censorship; the community can take their ball elsewhere.
I've been participating on steemit the past couple of days, and the community there does have downsides. Providing a profit motive for posting has good and bad effects.
https://steemit.com/@go1dfish
There is too much emphasis currently on returns rather than spreading ideas there IMO, but this is more of a cultural concern.
Another downside is that accounts have a real cost to them since it is a shared network, and this is a way to prevent abuse.
Signups at steemit are backlogged as a result, (they require email/phone number for sign up too)
But again, as a distributed network, other people are able to fill gaps, it's possible to outright buy an account with anonymous cryptocurrency through: https://anon.steem.network
So the tl;dr here is I think we should explore the idea of using the steemit network as a replacement for the SQL backend of Voat, but this would be a radical shift in how Voat works and would require essentially archiving/reposting/abandoning the old content, accounts and scores.
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Mylon ago
Steem is designed as a pyramid scheme. Buy steem coins, get more visibility by more favorable rankings, earn more steam coins for even more ranking. Or cashing out.
There's no interest in producing quality content. Only spamming shit to get clicks, either for marketing or to earn steem coins. And buying steem coins helps to earn steem coins and perpetuate the pyramid scheme.
If it does take off then the early adopters sell their steem coins to marketers and it becomes just another Reddit with paid content all over it masquerading as content.
go1dfish ago
This is a criticism of every cryptocurrency, there is some validity to it in every case as well, a failed cryptocurrency is nearly indistinguishable from a pyramid scheme.
This is one of the biggest downsides of the network as I pointed out, too much of the content seems to be people just desperately trying to get returns. On the other hand, you can ignore this once you find some solid sources of good curation.
One of the interesting things about steem IMO is that it is free to post (exposure isn't cheap though) and that leads to that spammy sort of behavior. There are some reputation mechanisms and down voting to counter this, but not sure how effective they are.
The community like aspect of subverses would also be entirely lost in favor of a more tagging/categorization style system.
Also a valid concern, as a counterpoint all of the balances and wallet behavior are public, so it's clear who the "whales" are so to speak.
If it remains free to post, and possible to insulate yourself into a smaller network of like minded folks just as was originally intended with subreddits then that doesn't necessarily doom the network IMO.
Somebody inevitably has to pay to move the bits, if they do that with clickbait and transparent market manipulation it may have bad effects (worse than reddit is now?) but it may also bring along truly free expression for the ride.
Mylon ago
The initial design of Bitcoin (coin earning power is based on percentage of computing power owned, coin rate decreases over time) very much is a scam but if it lives beyond the scam stage it's pretty solid. This has also helped protect it from many alt coins as they have to jump that scam stage hurdle and few have tried to significantly modify the disbursement scheme. Steem on the other hand embraces the pyramid scheme with the mechanisms I've already described.
Steem is more like reddit in that visibility can be purchased. Even if you can find solid sources of curation, those too will be purchased and subverted eventually.