Music On Leo: Decentralized Polling
One of the concepts that is crucial to both the Music on Leo and the movie project with LeoGlossary is decentralized polling. This is something that has long held my fascination since I believe it is a gap in the marketplace.
They often say "find a hole and fill it".
To me, when it comes to review sites, this is something we do not see out there. Most of them are controlled by entities that have an agenda, i.e. a vested interest in the results. This means that IMDB, which is owned by Amazon, might be more favorable to Amazon Prime Video productions.
Here is where LEO can help out. With decentralized polling, we have the opportunity to bring transparency to the voting process. This means that people can trust the results as they are evident on the blockchain.
For the movies, technical difficulties were encountered. It is something that I want to push forward but need to get a test case going.
Enter Music on Leo.
Here is a potential solution to show the capabilities. Unfortunately, there are some issues there also.
That said, lets delve into this.
Voting On Songs
By now, most saw the Music on Leo initiative taking place. The feed were flooded with video posts, leaving many to wonder what was taking place. Of course, this appears to have dried up the last few days.
One of the challenges is we are seeing major node issues along with some UI challenges. This is making for an environment where most videos are not posted to the latest feed. We are also seeing many videos not appearing in the Music on Leo community even though the tag is used. Finally, there is a good chance these are not showing up in the profile feed.
In other words, something wonky is going on. We see that Hiveblocks is down a fair bit of the time. When the block explorer is not working, that is a sign something is awry.
Nevertheless, in spite of the setbacks, we have to keep forging ahead. Today, the polls reappeared for a brief moment to provide a test case.
Here is what we come up with:
Notice how we turned a simple thread into an interactive item.
Here we have the artist, name of song, and embedded feed. This means the individual can listen to this song right from Leo, without having to visit YouTube.
In addition, I added a link back to the Fleetwood Mac single page where all the other songs are located.
Finally, we have the poll which allows anyone with a Hive account to vote on the song. As you can see, this is a simple 1-4 system.
Here is where decentralized polling allows for trust in the results. The results are placed on the blockchain meaning they can be scraped for reliability if needed.
10,000 Polls Going
Imagine placing a poll on every song that we post from now on. These would be ongoing meaning the number would simply keep increasing. These polls are without end. Also, unlike most polls on social media, these are not getting buried. They are tied to the song which is being linked in a few different ways.
Therefore, each time someone visits this song page, the poll is there (if the system is running properly).
The key is to generate activity and points of interest. People like to vote on things as evidenced by all the activity on other websites. In addition, as the number of pages grows, we are simply offering more to the users. Here we can see how activity can multiply.
Unfortunately, there are still technical challenges. Polls have received Hive's equivalent of the blue spinning disc of death (for those who used Windows years ago).
Here is what came up on one of the pages created:
We have the "fetching results from cache" before timing out.
This is what we get:
It would be an understatement to claim that is not the desired result. Hopefully we are dealing with a temporary situation that gets resolved shortly.
Taking A Bit More Time
Moving beyond the present technical issues, this approach does take a little bit more time. However, while quantity is crucial, adding more utility to each thread is also important. If we could add a poll to these songs, that would enhance the utility of the entire project.
Here is where we see one of the keys to LeoGlossary. People wonder how it can compete with the major entities that are out there. The answer to that is we are not. Instead of trying to replicate one concept, we are taking pieces from many different areas. There are a ton of glossaries out there, especially about financial terms. How many of them offer polling on music? Or on movies?
Both of these are going within LeoGlossary.
From what I can conclude from the testing is polls have to be placed at the time of creation. We cannot place them in during edit. Perhaps when testing the nodes were messing up but each time I edited it failed.
Another option that I am unsure of at this moment is using the comments. Perhaps, if we get polls working, one can be placed within the comment section, giving the same utility albeit outside the original thread.
The only challenge there is if people already commented on that song but, I presume, that is not the majority so much of what we already did would still be in tact.
My suggestion is to experiment with this. See what you can come up with. Do a song and then try to place a poll in it. Put one in the thread itself (if Leo Premium) and/or drop one in a comment section.
This is an important component going forward. We know there are a series of technical challenges affecting a lot of things. In the meantime, we can try new things and come up with ways to enhance the value of the song Threads we are creating.
What are your thoughts?
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
I think this is going to encourage more people engaging with the content this is a really good idea and I have not seen this concept on any other social media really.
Yes. It is a shame. I'm used to its layout the most, so I'd prefer to continue using it, but recently it is either horribly slow or does not respond at all. It is far from the only block explorer for Hive though. Here are some that I know:
There is also one more that is in the works by Blocktrades' team, but it is far from ready IMHO. I have high hopes for it though, since I can somewhat influence its development and there are features that I need for bug hunting that none of the above mentioned block explorers have.