Update on the steempress theme bounty

jesta (71) in steempress • 8 years ago (edited)

At the beginning of August, I posted a bounty for a custom theme for a project I'm working on called steempress - an open source self hosted blogging platform based on the steem blockchain.

The bounty reached $775.693 SBD, 500 from the funds I've contributed and 275.693 SBD from the announcement post's earnings.

The bounty period has now ended and this is a follow up on it's progress.

The entries

Up until the last moment, there was only one entry created by @dudutaulois. We worked back and forth through steemit.chat and comments - which @dudutaulois took into consideration while continuing to refine the theme. We have continued that process through steemit.chat and comments to this date.

Then, the day things were set to end (the 22nd), @pkattera joined the competition and created the 2nd entry at the very last moment. We conversed over the course of a few days on the theme, and have slowly iterated and added some minor improvements.

The Award(s?)

After thinking over the last week, instead of choosing one, I've decided to award the full amount ($775.693 SBD) to each of them for their contributions, bringing the total awarded up to $1551.386 SBD. I figure having two themes for users to choose from while using steempress is better than one - and those who contribute deserve to be rewarded.

Progress Report

This post is primarily an effort in transparency of the process. In my original post, I stated I would conclude the bounty program this week. We aren't completely done yet. Here's the current status of things:

I am currently waiting on the theme files from @dudutaulois. The entry posts (#1 and #2) contained images and a preview through invision, but no actual HTML/CSS. From the conversations we've had on steemit.chat, the code is on the way!
- Update the theme has been received and implemented. Bounty awarded, see below!
I have received the files from @pkattera, as they were included in his entry post. They are actually already implemented and on github, and I have a few examples of the theme running live (see below). We are both still collaborating on improvements via steemit.chat.

Bounty Transactions

@dudutaulois - awarded - view the transaction on steemd.com
@pkattera - awarded - view the transaction on steemd.com

Themes in action

With @pkattera's theme up and running, I can actually now show you how the alpha is shaping up. There are still bugs and the content really isn't optimized, but it's already showing it's potential.

I setup jesta.us as my witness updates blog. It's running on a standard PHP server with steempress configured to show my posts, but only if they are using the witness-category tag.
Since both themes created really show off imagery well, I've been paying a lot more attention to the photography category. Check out what it would look like for @anyx, @jamtaylor or @daxon if they setup a blog using the system. You can actually do this with any username in the URL, feel free to try it out with yours.

Thoughts on the bounty

I'm pleased with how this bounty turned out, and I hope it encourages others to do similar things in the future. Those of us that have been fortunate enough to do well with our posts should devote some of our resources to initiatives like this.

Bounties could be a huge initiative for growth within the steem community, and a great way to get people involved.

I hope to continue working with @pkattera and @dudutaulois to further refine these themes, and possibly on other projects in the future. I also hope to be running a few other bounties as time progresses and new needs for my projects are identified.

I'm also still refining the process and really analyzing what it took to run a bounty like this. If there's additional information you (as someone not participating) would have wanted to see/know, I'd be interested in hearing it. This bounty was a great experiment to test how the system can and should work. Your thoughts would be appreciated :)

Update #2

I've received @dudutaulois's them files and have them implemented, and have updated the post above with information regarding the new status. I will no longer be able to update this post soon, so any additions will be in a new post or comments.

(Screenshot at the top is from Diablo 3 by Blizzard Entertainment)

steempress steempress-bounty

8 years ago by jesta (71)

$190.10

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dudutaulois (60) · 8 years ago

Hey @jesta !
Thank you very much for the opportunity. It was a challenge and an honor for me to design this theme for your project.
You can check it out the live mockup here: http://xk2.com.br/xk2/steem/
Of course, there is still room for improvements.
Let's keep our conversations on Steemit chat.
;)

$0.09

1 vote

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jesta (71) · 8 years ago

Post is updated, and your bounty has been sent to you! I've said it a million times already, but thank you, it looks great.

$0.00

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bmann (40) · 8 years ago (edited)

I'm in the midst of fiddling with a couple of different themes. Mainly, my plan is to port some Jekyll and other open source themes, which many more people have already created, and document the process.

It would be great if we could document themes either in a THEMES.md in the Github repo, or by enabling the Wiki.

Also need a place for theme variables, I guess I should finally get on steemit chat and talk to you about that live at some point ;)

Those are my plans -- to enable many more people to create or port #steempress themes. #Bounties are interesting, and have an interesting history in open source. In cash for content systems like steemit, it can become even more complicated.

What is the difference between content and code? Should I post ahead of time for people to "vote" for which themes I should port? If I port themes and no one pays, what does that mean? Should people "pay" to get support / help / updates?

There are no easy answers, and this is a new system. We should look at earlier experiences as well as understand what needs to be tweaked for steemit.

I'll post a link to my previous writing on this topic later tonight.

Thanks @jesta for running this experiment.

$0.09

1 vote

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jesta (71) · 8 years ago

Thanks for helping with it, I really appreciate it. And you're always welcome to hit me up on steemit.chat!

I'm still working out how these two themes best exist in the codebase, but documentation I agree is a must. I'll probably also come up with some sort of data view so you can see all the live data as it exists on the page, which would make it very easy to theme.

Some great plans for the themes, I honestly don't know what the best way to pick which themes to port would even be. We'll have to experiment with that as well :)

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bmann (40) · 8 years ago

I really wouldn't worry about a live data view. I'm still learning twig and how you've integrated it, so that's the main hold up for me. Liquid templating is super simple, including the part where you can make up your own theme variables, so mainly I need to know what variables there are and how you've used them and/or how they can be extended. I can stumble through figuring out twig from there :)

You do want to ship with a couple of "bundled" themes, but honestly, you mainly want to teach people how to customize / grab themes from elsewhere. e.g. take existing theme, copy folder, rename folder, etc.

I'll make my themes (when I get that far) in their own repo -- or see if you want to include some of them in the base repo.

Re: voting. Maybe something like, do a post explaining that I'll port some number of themes. Then, in the comments, I'll post one comment per theme, and people can vote for that comment? Can comments make a ton of money/votes? Or do I need to do one top-level post per suggested theme to port?

Those are mechanics, but that's also the interesting part. Can you run mini Kickstarter / bounty like systems with just what's already available in the steemit.com interface? For instance, I might say that I'll port any theme that "makes" at least $100 -- or something like that.