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Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

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Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#6

Post by singularjon »

simmanian wrote: post #4

I'd be interested to see exactly how they use their blockchain as the backend. They have a link to github but nothing is public. The performance seems great right now but will it stay that way?

Hey, founder/dev here! We will be fully open-source very soon. Our blockchain is forked from another which is open-source. The blockchain is a model in which there are nodes that are elected/voted in by the community. They are responsible for the validation/consensus of blocks getting produced. Whenever you post a question, an answer, or an upvote, the request goes straight from the browser to the blockchain, and your content gets stored there. That data now belongs to you, and you can earn tokens on it indefinitely.

Write performance should stay about the same even at scale because our network is capable of much higher transactions per second due to having elected nodes. Read performance will continue to be good because we have a caching layer where we store posts from the blockchain in a database and just serve from there. This technically adds a bit of centralization, but ultimately, everyone's content still belongs to themselves and not a centralized org.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#7

Post by simmanian »

singularjon wrote: post #6
simmanian wrote: post #4

I'd be interested to see exactly how they use their blockchain as the backend. They have a link to github but nothing is public. The performance seems great right now but will it stay that way?

Hey, founder/dev here! We will be fully open-source very soon. Our blockchain is forked from another which is open-source. The blockchain is a model in which there are nodes that are elected/voted in by the community. They are responsible for the validation/consensus of blocks getting produced. Whenever you post a question, an answer, or an upvote, the request goes straight from the browser to the blockchain, and you…

That's cool! Could you share which blockchain you forked from? I'm no blockchain expert, just looking to learn more.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#8

Post by olah_1 »

franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Would you rather earn upvotes that are worthless outside of a single app? That's a genuine question.

It's not about valuable vs worthless. Both are valuable. "Cryptocurrency" just allows you to transfer or exchange that value.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#9

Post by singularjon »

simmanian wrote: post #7
singularjon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, founder/dev here! We will be fully open-source very soon. Our blockchain is forked from another which is open-source. The blockchain is a model in which there are nodes that are elected/voted in by the community. They are responsible for the validation/consensus of blocks getting produced. Whenever you post a question, an answer, or an upvote, the request goes straight from the browser to the blockchain, and you…

That's cool! Could you share which blockchain you forked from? I'm no blockchain expert, just looking to learn more.

Sure, https://github.com/dtube/avalon - It's quite possibly the easiest blockchain to understand. The node is written in Javascript and uses a local Mongodb to handle storage of blocks and content data.

Re: Show HN: A Decentralized Q&A Platform

#10

Post by dhosek »

olah_1 wrote: post #8
franky47 wrote: post #5

> Earn cryptocurrency *close tab More seriously, can we stop slapping blockchains on any problem? For decentralisation, federation is a good low-energy alternative. https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous

Would you rather earn upvotes that are worthless outside of a single app? That's a genuine question. It's not about valuable vs worthless. Both are valuable. "Cryptocurrency" just allows you to transfer or exchange that value.

I don't see upvotes on StackExchange et al as being a value to the person getting upvoted, but rather as a signal to others that the person asking a question or offering an answer has provided something useful to the community. It's not a drawback-free signal—there's going to be a reinforcing effect of the "in" crowd on the community, but it's a valuable signal nevertheless.
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