Chronotope’s avatarChronotope’s Twitter Archive—№ 96,502

                      1. Fun strings from the Civil Wordpress Plugin: "Authors need wallet addresses to sign articles, and editors need wallet addresses to sign and index posts to the blockchain. If you change your wallet address, you or your team may lose access to your newsroom" github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/custom-meta.php#L43
                        OpenGraph image for github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/custom-meta.php#L43
                    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                      Ahhh I remember when we had to get writers to sign up for Google Plus accounts so we could get Google Authorship working.
                  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                    Worth being extra clear here, it does looks like Civil hashes the content, so a fingerprint of the content on publication exists on the blockchain, but this doesn't archive it, back it up, or somehow make it readable outside of the original publisher. - github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/classes/class-post-hashing.php#L70
                    OpenGraph image for github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/classes/class-post-hashing.php#L70
                1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                  That only metadata about the post (including apparently the content hash) is saved was confirmed by two separate people to me last week. Unclear how this process does anything to make a site resistant to censorship or permanently archived?
              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                In case it is unclear to folks, the hash process is a one-way process, like your computer's password it is a process where content is entered into the system hashed and then future content is hashed and the values are compared. This is a non-reversible process
            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
              So it isn't like you can recover your content *from* the blockchain or somehow stop your content from being taken down if an attack kills your site, as far as I can see.
          1. …in reply to @Chronotope
            This appears to be the current list of data that gets attached to the blockchain by Civil's WordPress code - github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/classes/class-rest-api.php#L414 Some interesting non-standard stuff there: primaryTag credibilityIndicators opinion So Civil sites would have to mark what pieces are opinion?
            OpenGraph image for github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/master/classes/class-rest-api.php#L414
        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
          Primary Tag likely reflects vertical vs key terms. Opinion is a boolean, so obvious...
      1. …in reply to @Chronotope
        credibilityIndicators is interesting. As far as I've seen no one at Civil has talked about measuring credibility? How would this work? Who is in charge of verification? The code doesn't seem to be built yet.
    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
      Note here from the Civil team: nicolebode/1054379309278916609
  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
    .nicolebode - Everyone I've talked to about blockchain has indicated that storing whole article content at scale is not the way the particular blockchain is meant to handle data. I do see some hooks that indicate archive ability at github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/7548cf7ce419903011cca1261c65df8fa1f1a98d/assets/post-panel/store/selectors.ts#L156 ...
    OpenGraph image for github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/7548cf7ce419903011cca1261c65df8fa1f1a98d/assets/post-panel/store/selectors.ts#L156
    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
      But I don't see how it is deposited on to the chain in the plugin and most works addressing blockchain uses specify against that behavior. Happy to be shown I'm wrong in the code though! Please link.
      1. …in reply to @Chronotope
        (Worth noting that two folks associated with Civil stated Friday that full content is not archived, so nicolebode you may want to clear up that confusion internally as well)
        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
          Ah good call, there does appear to be the beginnings of an IPFS integration built into the plugin: petersterne/1054382772985434113
          1. …in reply to @Chronotope
            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
              So I'm guess peer-to-peer based archiving is an intended feature then, though that has its own challenges. Apologies to nicolebode
              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                Yeah, from what I know of IPFS the hash could be used like an address to find the content off-site. jarroddicker/1054383326381985792
                1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                  Note from the Civil team, though I've gotta say I don't see the on-chain archiving active inside the current plugin code. nicolebode/1054386432779919360
                  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                    I'm told this is the methodology Civil intends to leverage for archiving on-chain, though I do not see any code to do this currently in the GitHub for the plugin. - blog.joincivil.com/uncensored-content-on-ethereum-how-chinese-activists-inspired-civil-f09f095a9e91
                    OpenGraph image for blog.joincivil.com/uncensored-content-on-ethereum-how-chinese-activists-inspired-civil-f09f095a9e91
                    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                      Also worth noting that this runs counter to how folks outside Civil have approached the idea of using blockchain for journalism, I've always been told depositing whole content would be a heavy process at scale. Also worth noting that it has a cost as listed at article bottom.
                      1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                        The idea of a Dapp to track newsroom output sounds interesting though I see absolutely no difference between that and any RSS reader beyond forcing readers through an intermediary to manage subscriptions.
                        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                          Also worth noting that this archiving process would make it very difficult for your Civil newsroom to make money via ads, if that's your model.
                          1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                            Thanks to nicolebode for pointing it out -- This is the WordPress plugin call to handle archiving on the blockchain itself - github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/7548cf7ce419903011cca1261c65df8fa1f1a98d/assets/post-panel/components/PublishButton.tsx#L255
                            OpenGraph image for github.com/joincivil/civil-newsroom-plugin/blob/7548cf7ce419903011cca1261c65df8fa1f1a98d/assets/post-panel/components/PublishButton.tsx#L255
                            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                Very true, it also pretty much kills the idea of a paywall on a Civil publisher, unless you take your readers on a rather complex process. petersterne/1054392480731463682
                                1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                  Worth noting that the WordPress plugin appears pretty far from ready for prime time, so all this is interesting but may change a lot in the future as this plugin goes forward.
                                  oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their APIoh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
                                  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                    Also, as far as I can tell from the brief overview, none of the interesting anti-censorship / archive stuff requires Civil or Civil tokens?
                                    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                      There's a whole other convo here about the versatility of the peer to peer systems involved and the risk people might take with having even hashes on their machine under a despotic government, but that's a very different thread.
                                      1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                        Goal here is to establish some good points for a technical dive in and code monitoring by myself or any other interested party. I continue to have my doubts about the use of a token and how the system intends to deal with fake news, but IPFS integration is a pretty cool feature.
                                        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                          That said... so much of this is highly theoretical feature sets with little clarity about the future UX of this process. But I do think that there's a future for decentralized publishing--if it uses Civil or the blockchain, or not.
                                          1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                            Noting response from Civil team walkercheese/1054396307891253248
                                            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                              Thinking more. Has anyone really thought about what the calculations are involved in re-Gas and the ETH chain. The differing values assigned to smart contracts (especially with respect to uploading archives, which cost more?) and what this would mean for planning a business?
                                              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                I imagine the wildly fluctuating prices to interact with the blockchain have been a significant reason why mainstream journalism companies have been hesitant to participate. coindesk.com/ethereums-growing-gas-crisis-and-whats-being-done-to-stop-it/
                                                OpenGraph image for coindesk.com/ethereums-growing-gas-crisis-and-whats-being-done-to-stop-it/
                                                1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                  The theory and practice behind gas is something I've read only a little about, but the most notable piece is that you must buy cryptocurrency to 'publish' to the blockchain. And the gas is essentially transaction fees to incentivize miners, I think?
                                                  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                    What does this mean when considering the publication's values and ethics I wonder? Has this been examined? Could... for example... an environmental publication justify contributing to the growing environmental impact of crypto-mining in order to operate?


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