The Steem blockchain is intended to be a decentralized project with tons of different applications using the blockchain in various ways.
There are some amazing third party applications that our community developers have created. Busy.org, Vessel, SteemDice, SteemDB, SteemWhales, and ChainBB - just to name a few. There are obviously tons more, including a large list on SteemTools.com.
Community development is great, and I would love to see even more great community applications thriving here! I would also like to see the platform go mainstream though. We need some platform to take us there.
I am fairly neutral on what that platform that is - If Steemit.com takes us mainstream, great. If it is Busy.org, that is great too. If it is some other platform/tool that isn't even developed yet, that's great too. Regardless of which site/platform gets us there, we do need something to bring in millions of users.
Right now, Steemit.com gets the most traffic, and is the main website bringing new users to the platform. Therefore, I am currently focusing much of my efforts there.
I worry that most people in the community have decided that because this is a decentralized project, and Steemit.com is run by Steemit, Inc. - that it is entirely up to Steemit, Inc. to make changes to the website. I am not trying to say that Steemit doesn't have the lion share of responsibility over making sure Steemit.com is successful, but it is my view that we all have a vested interest in making the website better.
Condenser (the code for Steemit.com) is an open source project. Any developer can make changes and submit them to the project via a GitHub pull request. I would like to encourage more developers to start working on condenser issues!
I have talked to @sneak (the development manager for Steemit) and have five issues that have a 'green light' from the Steemit dev team for people in the community to work on. This is not a guarantee that the pull request will be accepted, but it is something that they will be likely to accept if it is coded / implemented well.
If you are interested in getting involved with Condenser development, one of these issues would be a great place to start:
- GitHub Issue 1569 - Having STEEM->SBD conversions that are in progress show up in the wallet.
- GitHub Issue 1647 - Auto convert the tags that a user enters to lower case, rather than giving a validation error.
- GitHub Issue 1258 - Add option to toggle vote sliders in the Settings page.
- GitHub Issue 402 - More visible follow button, with the same style as the promote button.
- GitHub Issue 1311 - Disable claim reward button during broadcast.
If you are planning to work on one of the issues, I suggest:
- First get a local instance of condenser up and running, by following the instructions in GitHub.
- Make a comment in the issue that you are planning to work on it, so that multiple developers do not work on the same thing.
- Use the issue to document what you are planning to do, so you can get feedback before you code.
- If you are unsure what the proper way to handle something is - ask a question in the GitHub issue.
There is a 'bonus' issue, if anyone wants to tackle a more difficult problem - auto-suggest tags based on the characters typed so far. If you are interested in working on this, please open an issue in GitHub to discuss with the dev team. It will need to be coordinated with the condenser team to ensure you are using the the right kind of react libraries.
If you have other issues that you are interested in working on, let me or @sneak know and we can help provide feedback as to whether or not it is something that the dev team wants the community to work on.
With more people helping out on the project, we can start to get more of the enhancements made that people in the community have been asking for :)