So I have been having some trouble with Steemit - does this sound familiar?
I've been hearing this from all sides - especially and including some new people that I recommended!
'What do you mean this is the best site ever - it doesn't even work!'
Well, yes is does actually. But you have to finesse it sometimes. Treat it gently, rub its back and tell it everything is alright. The devs are working on it, that's for sure; Let's not make it any harder than it needs to be by repeatedly forcing 3x the number of transactions - then trying to delete the duplicates!
So this site is special, if you are reading this I am going to assume you have at least an inkling of the reasons. But what is 'this site'? We live in a world of so much technological advancement that things can get a little confusing. When people tell me that 'that steem website isn't working' - I have to remind them:
Steem is a blockchain
Whats a blockchain? Good question, one that I probably shouldn't embarrass myself by answering, but will anyway. Let it be known that a blockchain and a website are two different things!
A blockchain is a store of information over time, usually involving digital ownership, often called 'tokens' or 'coins'; its first implementation was bitcoin. The time vector is represented in 'blocks', and each block keeps track of changes - be they new entries, transactions, etc - since the previous block. These blocks are 'chained' together, so that if you take the whole chain of blocks, or blockchain, from the beginning, you will know where every token is held and, in the case of steem, everything that has been stored in the blocks.
Websites show information - in the case of steemit.com, it shows information that is publically available on the steem blockchain! And, although steemit.com is scaling up, it has had some rough patches over the last few weeks, which have had multiple reasons, some nefarious - maybe a DDOS attack!; some wonderful - more people signing up on the site!; and some just human nature - mashing the buttons until transactions go through type of viscious cycle.
Here's what's important to know:
There are other websites to access the Steem blockchain
Two that I have used and like are busy.org and steemitstage.com.
Protip: Only use your private posting key on third party sites, not your master password.
Busy.org is different than steemit.com, it has a different editor, layout and organizational flow! I like to use it to find older articles of mine or others, since resteems don't list in the same feed, but are separated. I've also used it to browse tags, which are way more organized on busy, and other general surfing.
Unfortunately, busy.org seems to use a different markup language, and doesn't have an image uploader, so I haven't actually posted an article with it yet.
But steemitstage.com is an exact clone of steemit! I have used steemitstage.com to upload photos and post articles, as well as all the other general browsing I normally would do on steemit.com
Here's a trick!
Here are three links to my friend
's article that inspired me to write this post:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@sanmi/what-has-happenned-to-steemit
https://busy.org/steemit/@sanmi/what-has-happenned-to-steemit
https://steemitstage.com/steemit/@sanmi/what-has-happenned-to-steemit
Notice that they all lead to the exact same article, and the url's all have the exact same extensions! That means that if you are trying to do something, say posting a comment, and it doesn't seem to be working, you can just replace the root domain steemit.com with either busy.org or steemitstage.com, and you will be led to the same place - and can now try again to post your comment.
That is - if you don't already see it.
I have noticed that since the devs have implemented their changes, I haven't gotten less error messages, but very frequently I have noticed that even with the error messages - my posts are going through!
In the above article by Sanmi, he kept trying to submit a transfer because of a Transaction Broadcast Error, and ended up sending it three times!
I am recommending to each one of us - take the time to check to see if your post, comment or transaction went through, refresh the page and check (Always save your posts and well-written comments apart; I use notepad for quick comments and openoffice writer to save my posts). Only if it really hasn't posted should you try again.
Unless we all start putting a bit more trust in the framework again, we are often putting 3x or more load than necessary on the system.
Edit/Update: While posting this very article, I got a Transaction Broadcast Error - following my own advice I opened a new tab and saw that it really had posted ;p
Love and Light - Steem on!