@dlike has its Own front-end for writing original content! Time to take it seriously?

@dlike has been much derided since its inception two years ago and for the most part, for very good reason. Farming, spam and a never ending list of failed plans and missed deadlines have reduced their credibility to zero amongst the vast majority of the Steem community, but could they possibly be about to turn that around?

Firstly, let's have a recap of what @dlike actually is....

@dlike was created to allow people to share stuff they found online that they found interesting with the rest of the community. A kind of Pinterest cum Pocket kind of thing. There were going to be community boards and sections which sadly never materialised. There was a mobile App which was actually quite good but didn't last too long. The idea was, you shared a link and then wrote your opinion and / or reason why you thought it was interesting and of benefit to share with the community. The premise is good in my opinion but it was so open to abuse. Farms were set up to simply post links with copied header text from the original article and get upvotes, @dlike has always given each article a nice upvote and people just took the piss. @dlike didn't help themselves. Their moderation is non-existent and in my opinion, this has been their downfall. @steemhunt also seems to accept abuse in return for use and this is a terrible policy.

Anyway, it's use case is definitely strong. Imagine if you read something online and have a strong opinion and wish to write a reaction piece? Post the link into @dlike and write away. Add more photos from other sources and construct a nice article based around an original. Some people did use it this way and produced some great content but most didn't. The farming and spam took over and now there is barely anything posted with any effort,

So what's changed? 

Well another criticism of @dlike is that they themselves have never seemed to be confident of where to pitch themselves! Now though, they have made a huge positive step with a new front-end editor that whilst still allowing to simply link to a photo or article, allows you to produce an original piece with full editing and typesetting tools.

I hope that @dlike take their responsibilities of abuse management more seriously as I still think there is a place for this DApp on our blockchain and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see its success. Despite my many criticisms, I absolutely admire the team behind it for their unfaltering self-belief and tenacity to keep ploughing on (albeit in a never ending succession of directions!) in the face adversity, lack of funding and severe hostility from certain quarters of the community.

@dlike uses its own independent site and so is another tool at our disposal to get us all off Steemit and become less dependent on Steem Inc. and subsequently more decentralised. Unlike the many, many great DApps that have come and sadly gone over the last few years. @dlike are still here. Please. Use it. Let's improve the standard of post and draw them back into the community.

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