Introducing Hive Sharer - Sharing links on the chain!

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(Edited)

Hive Sharer

Sharing links on the chain!

Website - GitHub

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Abstract

Sharing links on Hive is controversial topic. Some people think that profiting from reward pool by simply sharing links is not ok, others think it should be rewarded. Post that motivated me to think about this more, was https://peakd.com/hivewatchers/@demotruk/copy-and-paste-is-not-the-same-as-spam-or-plagiarism by @demotruk.

Hive Sharer is solving this problem by introducing blockhain-based link sharing platform, where users can reward each other by tipping HIVE if they like shared content.

Users can also upvote posts (upvotes don't have any monetary value), and most upvoted posts will end up on trending page.

Reward pool is not used, users can still reward their favorite sharers and people can still share links they like. Sharers can earn only by providing high quality links (solving the problem of low quality content & self-voting).


How to use the site

You must have Hive Keychain installed to vote, comment, post or tip. Get it for Firefox or Chrome.

When you visit the site for the first time, you must enter your hive username. Your username is than stored into your browser's local storage and used with Keychain when you try to vote, comment, post... If you used wrong username, click [change username] in the footer.

To visit user's profile, click on "Account" button and enter hive username or click on author's name in the post (or click the user's avatar).

To share new link, click "Share" button, enter link, description and one tag (sorting by tag is not available yet).

This is still alpha version, there might be are still bugs in the code. Report any bugs (except "known bugs") to @fbslo. (contact & known bugs at the bottom)


How does this app works? for developers & curious cats

App is streaming blockchain and listening for custom_json operations with id hive_sharer. When they are detected, they are stored into MySQL database (for faster (offline) access, you can use HiveSQL or pure blockchain instead to build frontend for HiveSharer).

I used internal database instead of using data from blockhain because public RPC nodes can be slow and unreliable. It can also make removing unwanted content (spam...) faters, since there is no need for hardcoded blacklist, but only DELETE FROM posts WHERE author='spammer';... Data is still stored in blockchain, but frontend is not showing it anymore.

There are 3 transaction types: post, comment, vote

Frontend is accessing data using API at /api/... (more API documentation bellow.)


JSON operations

New post:

var time = new Date().getTime() //unix_timestamp * 1000
var id_post = 'fbslo' + '-' + time + '-hivesharer' //author-time-hivesharer

post = `{
  "type": "post",
  "author": "fbslo",
  "link": "https://fbslo.net",
  "description": "My personal website!",
  "time": "${time}",
  "tags": "dev",
  "id": "${id_post}"
}`

New vote:

var time = new Date().getTime()
var id_vote = 'vote-fbslo' + '-' + time + '-hivesharer'

vote = `{
  "type": "vote",
  "voter": "fbslo",
  "time": "${time}",
  "id": "${id_vote}",
  "parent_id": "fbslo-1589046191432-hivesharer"
}`

New comment:

var time = new Date().getTime()
var id_comment = 'comment-fbslo' + '-' + time + '-hivesharer'

var comment = `{
  "type": "comment",
  "author": "fbslo",
  "description": "Great Website!",
  "time": "${time}",
  "parent_id": "fbslo-1589046191432-hivesharer",
  "id": "${id_comment}"
}`

Frontend CSS templates used:

3rd party libraries used:

Frontend:

  • jQuery
  • SweetAlert2
  • Moment.js

Backend:

  • @hiveio/hive-js
  • express, body-parser, ejs
  • link-preview-node
  • mysql
  • xss

How to set up your own dApp

Clone github repository and install MySQL database.

Database schema:

  • database name: sharer
  • Tables:
Table name: posts
+---------------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field         | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+---------------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| author        | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| link          | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| description   | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| time          | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| tags          | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| id            | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| votes         | int(11) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| comments      | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| image_preview | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| title_preview | text    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+---------------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+

Table name: comments
+-------------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field       | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| author      | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| description | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| time        | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| parent_id   | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| id          | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+

Table name: votes
+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field     | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| voter     | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| time      | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| parent_id | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| id        | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+

(Instructions on how to install NodeJS, NPM and MySQL: https://gist.github.com/fbslo/b63bab4c9e7cfc09e5b613fbe4715937)

Rename /database/db_config.json.demo to /database/db_config.json and edit your database details.

Run npm install

Run node server.js will start app on port 5000.


Trending Algorithm

To sort trending page, I used score calculated from number of votes and post age.

let score = votes / Math.pow(post_age_days, 0.6)

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Example for post with 1000 votes.


API Documentation

GET /api/profile

API parameters: account (default is fbslo)

Example: /api/profile?account=fbslo

Return type: json

On error: success: false

On success:

success: true,
username: username,
name: name,
about: about,
location: location,
profile_image: profile_image,
post_count: number_of_posts_on_hive,
following: number_of_following_on_hive, //or N/A
followers: number_of_followers_on_hive //or N/A

GET /api/posts

API parameters: page (default is 1)

Limit: 10 per page

Example: /api/posts?page=2

Return type: json

On error: success: false

On Success:

[0] background_image: image_from_website,
    profile_image: author's_profile_image,
    link: webpage_link,
    author: author_username,
    id: post_id,
    title: title_from_web_page,
    description: description_by_author,
    votes: number_of_votes, //int
    comments: number_of_comments //string
...

GET /api/comments

API parameters: id

Example: /api/comments?id=fbslo-1589046191432-hivesharer

Return type: json

On error: success: false

On Success:

[0] parent_id: parent_post_id,
    author: author's_username,
    id: comment_id,
    description: comment_body,
    time: time_in_(unix_timestamp * 1000)
...

GET /api/accountposts

API parameters: account (default is fbslo)

Example: /api/accountposts?account=fbslo

Return type: json

On error: success: false

On Success:

[0] time: time_in_(unix_timestamp * 1000),
    link: website_link,
    author: author_username,
    id: post_id,
    title: title_from_web_page,
    description: description_by_author,
    votes: number_of_votes, //int
    comments: number_of_comments //string
...

GET /api/trending

API parameters: none

Example: /api/trending

Return type: json

On error: success: false

On Success:

[0] background_image: image_from_website,
    profile_image: profile_image_from_hive,
    time: time_in_(unix_timestamp * 1000),
    link: website_link,
    author: author_username,
    id: post_id,
    title: title_from_web_page,
    description: description_by_author,
    votes: number_of_votes, //int
    comments: number_of_comments //string
    trending_score: trending_score //see above explanation of trending score calculation
...


@fbslo
Discord: fbslo#8470


Known bugs:

  • Connection to RPC server fails sometimes and don't reconnect on next attempt to connect. I'm not sure if this is RPC problem, my internet connection or the code. If you submited comment, post or vote but front-end don't show it, it's probably this.
  • Poor UI responsiveness on smaller screens

This SOFTWARE PRODUCT is provided by THE PROVIDER "as is" and "with all faults." THE PROVIDER makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the safety, suitability, lack of viruses, inaccuracies, typographical errors, or other harmful components of this SOFTWARE PRODUCT. There are inherent dangers in the use of any software, and you are solely responsible for determining whether this SOFTWARE PRODUCT is compatible with your equipment and other software installed on your equipment. You are also solely responsible for the protection of your equipment and backup of your data, and THE PROVIDER will not be liable for any damages you may suffer in connection with using, modifying, or distributing this SOFTWARE PRODUCT.



19 comments
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It was about time somebody would try to figure this out.
Will have to check it out.

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Way to go my friend. I will try it up. I actually had my downs on cross posting, but then with much more understanding of the system it's important to crosspost sometimes. I believe Hive sharer also has its purpose

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Posting using JSON. Nice, I like the idea. Reddit basically :)

Now we need to up max custom_json per block per account and this should allow for a lot more flexibility for users.

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One suggestion though, maybe not show the confirmed message until the user allows action on keychain?

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I will add check if keychain is installed once user vote/post/comment/tip, but if keychain is installed, it's only possible to detect when keychain window is opened and when tx is broadcasted/canceled.

Currently "sending vote" is shown when keychain is opened and "vote sent" when transaction is broadcasted.

I will try to add better messages, e.g. "confirm vote"...

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Is there a minimum tip amount? Can't seem to tip, just shows an !.

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If you are tipping from profile page, minimum about is 1 HIVE (since I'm using 'number' input in Sweetalert2).

On new/trending page, make sure amount format is 0.100 (3 decimals).

I will add some fixes, but I will be busy for next few days and I published it early so I can enter the STEMgeeks hackaton.

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Hello, and thanks for your nice work in making Hive more fun. We found this post useful and we will feature it in our Gitplait-elite publication today. Well done!

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I have picked your post for my daily hive voting initiative, Keep it up and Hive On!!

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Awesome project and makes us have the ability tor be closer to Reddit.. I like it.

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Cool, very cool. Bravo. I'll check it out.

!invest_vote

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Did it go out of production before I could try it, @fbslo? 😵 What a pity!

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It was written for the hackathon and I shut it down after some time to save on server resources. But it's running again, try it ;) https://sharer.fbslo.net/

I can't promise how long it will be online.

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Thank you: very kind! 🙏

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