RE: Update: Communities/Hivemind
Here's the thing: any API tool that could be used to make something interesting can also be used by a bot. That's how we got all the bots we have. Any tool which can be used for insight and interaction can be used for automation.
If you want to remove the ability to automate, you have to remove the ability to interact. You don't want that. That is exactly the opposite of what you want.
Personally, my disappointment with this is that it is intended to only cover some of the social network side of the database and not, explicitly, the rest of the available public information on the blockchain which is specifically about wallets and transactions and money. That's going to be a real problem for people who are currently doing things like research into the interaction between the social network and fiscal/financial transactions on the blockchain.
And before you go and look at some of my recent work, yes, that means some forms of automated detection of bot-like behavior in order to make it easier for people to filter out those accounts.
I'm curious as to what the API for content-access is going to look like for building new discovery systems for content off the top of it. It looks like Hive will be a great boon for that kind of research. I'm looking forward to that part and of the fact that it should be easily accessible in Python.
I'm a little discontent that I will continue to have to go through a third party database provider to continue to have access to some of the most important data on the blockchain. That is more than a little annoying.
It is, however, good to see any kind of real development going on. Finally.
Hive has a tight focus on social and ignores financial only because they are two different use cases with quite different performance/integrity requirements. You may be interested in SBDS which is concerned with all raw operations and account histories.
Hi @roadscape I was wondering do you know why steemd is showing duplicate data entry for all actions on the blockchain?
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I'm not really opposed to bots or automation. Bots are IMHO intended for convenience. I don't want to make this political though. There's lots of software out there, and for better or worse, it comes down to people.
I just know that because bots are automated that they can only give superficial interactions with data, users, etc... Basically, it's software that's...not a high priority for a lot of people. We have a large set of data and potential to build really meaningful software from it.
1000% agree with you though. I think we all were hoping for more and we get treated like kids in a toys-r-us.
People oversimplify the issue.
The question is not "bots or not bots." The question is "what are you doing?"
In particular, because of the near criminally under-featured nature of Steemit as a social media platform, bots are almost a necessity to function within the context of its operations. I literally would not have stayed on this platform without Ginabot, which does a basic set of functions that you should expect a social network to do for itself. Mentions, keyword tracking, and notifications.
Ginabot is a bot.
But then we have automated voting trains and content harvesters and auto-reply systems and general spammers and mutual voting circles and all of the other horrible things which make living on the steem blockchain a generally miserable existence for a creator. All of the things that subvert the stated intent of Steemit as a platform (albeit exactly in line with the mechanisms of reward as designed).
We really need to start focusing on software behaviors that have negative repercussions of one sort or another, and be willing to talk about the trade-offs that come along with those activities – but that's not how discussion happens here. Either it's a crusade or everything is hunky-dory; there's no room for anything in between.
Given that Toys-R-Us has just declared bankruptcy, and a well-earned one at that, your illustration is both amusing and pointed.
We can actually have quite deep interactions with data and users in an automated way. In a real sense, that's exactly what Communities are; software constructs which provide content direction for a self-selected group of individuals. But that's a useful function, and one that is directly connected to the nature of the content in question.
A lot of the system as it stands is orthogonal to the issue of content. That's a real problem. It provides a lot of opportunity for analysis and observation of human behavior in a very synthetic environment, but as the basis for a social network which incentivizes behaviors which are prosocial, it's a real issue.
But now I'm reminded of all the Geoffrey the Giraffe fursuits out there just waiting to be repurposed by furry cosplayers and I'm kind of excited.
I really must quote you here:
a) "the near criminally under-featured nature of Steemit" and
b) "all of the other horrible things which make living on the steem blockchain a generally miserable existence for a creator"
c) All of the things that subvert the stated intent of Steemit as a platform (albeit exactly in line with the mechanisms of reward as designed)
d) Communities are; software constructs which provide content direction for a self-selected group of individuals
Very Deep, thanks.
I am excited to see the communities ready!
That'a what I'm wondering too.. on where that data lives.
It appears that it will NOT be part of the blockchain.
How can they boast that they have a superior blockchian when their solutions is to add layers where the bulk of the data will live. Databases which ARE NOT decentralized and worse, the features which separate a blockchain from a regular system WON'T be part of that layer...
I don't see this as a good thing.
Fragmentation DOES NOT make a system superior.
Hive processes only the data on the blockchain, nothing proprietary. To "talk" to hive you write to the blockchain.
What does this mean then:
and:
That's what I refer to. How does this equal decentralized.
I understand what HIVE will be. I want to know what the entire system will look like once all these layers are implemented?
If it's all fragmented how can it be considered secure and blockchain based if more and more of the data is going to exist on regular systems?
It just means hive specializes in certain types of data for specific applications, and providing convenient APIs that wouldn't make sense as part of the steemd consensus node.
There's really not all that many layers here, and it makes for a more agile environment. If there was one daemon that did everything, nobody would be able to run it. So now we can have more lightweight engines talking to each other. You could run steemd+hive yourself and it will be less painful than a full steemd node while offering more power. Or you could run hive and sync off a public steemd node.
Because more users can run more lightweight services, I see this as increasing security and anti-fragility. The blockchain remains the source of truth, I don't see the issue with storing copies of blockchain data on "regular systems" for easy access.