Introducing Parley - A Decentralized Discussion Engine Based on Steem
Hello Steemians!
Today I'm very excited to unveil a new platform based on the STEEM blockchain called Parley. Our goal is to provide a fast and easy to use interface for users to talk about and discuss the latest news, trends, and ideas in a decentralized manner.
Abstract
In the modern era, we use the internet for more than just sharing funny cat videos. It has enabled us to share our thoughts and criticisms of politics, companies, and news with ease on sites like Reddit, Medium, YouTube, and more. But it has also allowed the moderators of those sites to remove and silence those very same criticisms without a trace left behind.
At Hoxly (the company behind Parley), we believe that the internet's ability to raise democratic ideals to a level unseen before in history is being squandered. This is why we have built Parley.
What is it?
In short, Parley is a direct competitor to Reddit. The service allows Steem users to post links to interesting content they find on the web, and even more importantly it will allow creators to monetize their work regardless of whether it was posted directly to the Steem blockchain or not.
That said, unlike most Steem apps build thus far, we don't believe that the primary value of Parley is from top-level posts (although of course, they do still have huge value in bringing important news to hundreds of thousands of Steem users). Instead, we believe that most of the value lies in the comment section, specifically in the ability for users to discuss their thoughts about global events freely and without fear of censorship.
Who are we?
As I mentioned earlier the company behind Parley is @hoxly, the same team that brought you AskSteem (the search engine that powers search on DTube, DLive, Busy.org, etc.) and provides funding to @cryptofy's team of writers to publish high quality and trustworthy blockchain related news.
We truly believe that technologies like blockchain, IPFS, and distributed computing can change the world, and we're willing to be the force that makes that change happen.
How to Use
We've designed the user interface of Parley to be as intuitive as possible. The first step to posting your first news story to the blockchain is to visit parley.io in your browser.
Sign In with Steem
Once you're on Parley click the Account item on the top right of the menu. Then click Login, this will take you to a page that looks like the one above.
You can log in with your Steem credentials.
Username
Enter the same username you have on Steemit
Private Posting Key
Visit your wallet / permissions on Steemit and click the button that says Show Private Key next to Posting, copy that and enter it into the password box.
Alternatively here is a video tutorial demonstrating how to log in if you are having difficulties.
Your login credentials are stored locally in your web browser and are not sent to our servers at any point.
Submitting a News Story
Once you've signed into your Steem account you can post stories, leave comments, and upvote/downvote posts.
To post a new story follow these steps:
- A new item should have appeared on the menu called Submit Link (Click it).
- You will be directed to a page that looks like the screenshot above
- Enter the URL to the page you want to share
- Enter a title that describes the content on the page
- Choose a community to post in such as funny or news, currently only one is supported per post.
Embedded Content
Because we put so much emphasis on user discussion, we wanted to put as much information as possible about the link directly on the thread page. To accomplish this we support embedding content from thousands of different websites, including but not limited to:
- YouTube
- Kickstarter
- Dailymotion
- Vimeo
- Codepen
- Giphy
- Soundcloud
- Twitch
- many more
This also means that content on all of those sites can now easily be monetized by creators using Steem.
Final Thoughts
We're very excited to see what types of content the Steem community will be able to curate and we look forward to seeing thought-provoking discussions that might not have been possible elsewhere.
Join Our Discord
Additionally, for anyone who is interested, we have a public Parley Discord chat for users to ask questions and get in touch.
Missing Features & To-Do
While the current Parley is functional there are a few features that we'd like to implement as time goes on.
- Change Profile Info
- Change Voting Percent
- Multi-Account Support (Simultaneous Login)
- User Notification System
Want to support a decentralized and censorship-resistant news platform? Make sure to upvote, resteem, and most importantly start contributing content over at Parley.io
MOre and more application are using steem blockchain.
Soon the whole world will use steem blockchain to spread the news.
Early adopters are here to make a whooping later one.
I love this project! It is actually something I would have tried to implement myself, if you had not beaten me to it!
I just found this. It looks interesting. Going there now. And sending this to myself for my reference later on.
Steem base blockchain is getting more popular and more adaptive to app, i believe in no time steem base app will rock
This is good news
That means one can make money from content on other platform
I love this concept!
Amazing. When will Steem have the same valuation as Reddit? :)
this sounds just like what i'd been thinking is missing ... a twitter like interface to steem. I'm heading there immediately!
What does "assert exception" mean when I try to post?
This error is shown when multiple tags are used.
I also got the same mistake the first time I posted because I hit the space bar after my one word tag. Habit from this site.
I was only using one....or so I thought...
We can add new tags?
I get this error when I use multiple tags.
The same posting rules apply as per Steemit. Say for example, using a capital letter in a tag will get you that "Assert Exception" message.
Hey there! Assert exception is a generic error that gets thrown whenever something goes wrong when posting. If you want to hop into the discord I can see what might be going wrong in your specific case.
I can see this working if the title posts are payout-declined, particularly if they're just links. Otherwise they're monetizing spam and copy/pasta, rather than original content, which is a type of abuse. Auto-setting to payout-declined and focusing on the comments, as you said, would be a brilliant idea.
If the design of the site is strictly for information dissemination with rewards for curation only, I agree with you and see how this can work. Otherwise, I have thes same concern about posting someone else's original content... which is illegal ("copyrite infringment") and can get one involved in litigation.
I don't think posting a link or embedding a video constitutes copyright infringement. If you are talking about copying and pasting an entire article then I agree but I don't think that is the intent here.
It very well can! You might want to become more familiar with intelectual property laws which include "using" other peoples works without certain permissions, and that includes re-posting of content. It is very well covered in this article.
That article doesn't say anything about linking. Without linking, the internet doesn't work. As far as embedding youtube videos, that is an advertised feature of youtube. Content creators can choose whether embedding is enabled or not. Reddit (to which this service is supposed to be a competitor) has thrived on this sort of thing (linking to and discussing content on the internet) for the last 12 years. This is a non issue. I don't need anyone's permission to link to an article and discuss it nor do I need additional permission to embed a youtube video which has permissions to embed since permission has already been granted. The embed link is right on the youtube video page in most cases. Nothing in that article contradicts this.
The article does infact mention linking, and you're right - generally you don't need permission to share a link or embed a video because that content is already copyrited and marked with a Creative Commons (CC) license ( or one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work), but it may be marked with use restrictions. "Some authors, for example, restrict commercial use; others may not wish you to embed videos or have specific permission requirements when it comes to linking to content" (per end of referenced article). Do you in fact check out the CC of each work you link or share to? Nobody does really.
Remember that the real issue here is using someone else's work for monetary gain, which exists in an entirely different realm of legalities. We must all remember that Steemit is a horse of a different color (unlike Reditt) where there is money involved.
Authors may "wish" a lot of things but there are no legal requirements for simply linking to something. Even quoting content is ok (to a degree) and is considered fair use if used in the context of a review or other editorial purposes. Authors cannot take away fair use. I can legally publish a book of movie reviews if I wish, without permission from the movie creators. I can then sell that book. Unless you are significantly reproducing actual content, there is not an issue here.
See https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/website-permissions/linking/
And do you really thing money is not involved with Reddit? Have you seen the advertisements? Reddit makes plenty of money otherwise they would not exist, it's just that the actual participants don't get any of it.
Reditt just supplies the vehicle, not the gas that runs it- just like you cannot sue a magazine for a product advertisement. If you read their terms of service, you will understand how they remain at arm's length from copyrite legalities (as does any platform owner). When you reference someone else's work, that is generally not a problem. But when you use it to drive people to your monetized website or blog, you are dancing with bears. I've been in the blogging arena now for over 13 years and know several people who have been either sued or threatened with lawsuits over this very thing, so don't tell me it is all legal! I myself once have been warned of pending legal action if I did not take a cartoon down... one that I obtained in the "Public Domain!" It's all a slippery slope my friend.
Linking (to the original content) is not "re-posting content" - there are many sites that index other links and they are (some are somewhat) legal. I don't see a problem here and think Parley has a bright future. I've spent hours browsing and researching and finally found useful content - why not take the reward for your time? Sharing should be rewarded - you learn that as a parent first thing. It applies to many other areas in life, too. Thanks @thekyle
I've just studied up on hyperlinking, framing and copyright laws... again. And, after reading more about it, issues about linking and framing have become so intertwined under copyright law that it is impractical to attempt to address them separately. While hyper-linking might constitute an infringement, U.S. and EU approaches have manifested themselves differently. As it stands, on account of the presumption, it is conceivable that posting a link may give rise to an infringement claim in the EU where it would not in the U.S. Once again... a slippery slope. I guess everyone is happy until someone files a claim!
The EU is banning memes, etc. The EU is dying. The laws are very bad. America has to run from that. We need an Internet Bill of Rights as soon as we can.
Thank you @kaliju! And you're right some of the internet's largest websites are based on the concept of sharing and ranking links to other sites (Google, Bing, Reddit, etc) and hopefully, Parley can capture some of that market and direct it towards a decentralized platform.
It's a great idea, no doubt. More innovation for the steem blockchain! Awesome work @thekyle
Totally disagree
Why? What happens when the one link message is viewed through the Steemit front end and community members start flagging it because they see it as monetized spam? We're just going to end up with a lot of confused minnows.
Do you think that if people can get paid for sharing just links that people will always upvote those types of posts? Do you have no faith in the free market? Are you promoting crony capitalism within the walls of Steemit with parameters of what spam may or may not be based on subjective, as in relative perspective, which can differ from person to person, from country to country, and religions, cultures, times, age bracket, gender, etc. I believe in letting the markets decide what makes money and what makes even more money. What is spam? What is not spam? When Disney makes another princess movie with the same basic plot but then make millions of dollars, how is that fair and how is that not spam? I could say that was spam. You could say it was not spam. What is original and what is not original? How valuable is raising awareness of older links and videos and tweets, etc?
maybe you should think about joining forces with @strimi? (https://strimi.pl/)
Thanks, I'll look into it.