Hello, Solarians!
A majority of the work I do goes relatively unseen by those outside the Solar development team. While I can't always give details on non-public development, rest assured that ₴Ⱡ33₱ is not asleep at the wheel. These monthly reports will cover various activities that aim to give the community confidence that votes for ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate are being put to good use.
For October, nearly 100% of my Solar-related development activity was done behind closed doors and included countless hours of discussion, reading documentation, and collaboration with external parties.
In all, I made 432 code additions and 36 code deletions in October. You won't be able to see these contributions immediately, but I have no doubt that — once public — the community will be very happy.
₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate voters now have a dedicated channel on the Solar Community Discord where they can:
ask questions,
share ideas,
provide feedback,
find important news and updates, or
just say, "Hello!"
Stop by the #sleep channel to join the conversation.
Visit discord.solar.org if you haven't already joined the Solar Community Discord!
"What is 'Scripted Voting'?"
Also known as "rewards optimization scripts," scripted voting is a means of automating switch-vote transactions to do things like position one's own Delegate to a lower rank — resulting in a higher per-block reward — or switching votes multiple times throughout each round to extract rewards from many Delegates.
"Is 'Scripted Voting' harmful?"
While some aspects are debatable, it is — in my opinion — very much harmful.
1) Large holders benefit at the average voter's expense.
Yes. Using large bags (e.g., whales) to game the system to extract even more rewards means regular voters — whose holdings aren't capable of impacting Delegate rankings — receive less rewards.
2) Destabilized Delegate Rankings.
A lively Delegate pool is a good thing.
What's not good is contributing Delegates constantly being under threat of dropping from a forging position.
Stand-by means no block rewards which means a lessened ability for those Delegates to justify the time spent building and maintaining the network — it’s also not at all uncommon for total server costs to exceed hundreds of dollars per month.
Your Delegate being on Stand-by also means you receive no rewards during that time.
3) Bloat
The chain bloat from scripted voting can be — and is — massively impactful.
Many voters switch their vote as they try finding a Delegate that meets their individual needs. Some switch intermittently to try new Delegates. Others prefer to park their vote long-term. Whatever the reasoning, whether for one or many Delegates at once, this is all perfectly acceptable. It's the kind of healthy activity Solar was designed to support.
Excessive voting activity, as seen in these "rewards optimization scripts," inevitably leads to DB indexing issues that are undeniably detrimental to the Solar Network.
1) 'Freedom', maybe... or something?
Yeah. Idk. Ethics are subjective, but there are no explicit rules against using scripted voting or any mechanisms to negate the perceived benefits — yet.
Beyond participating in internal protocol discussions surrounding more robust mechanisms to prevent the listed effects, ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate now blocks wallets associated with scripted voting activity.
What this means is that they can still vote for ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate, but they will receive no forging rewards shares for doing so. Those rewards are now distributed directly to ₴Ⱡ33₱ voters in their daily payouts.
So a vote for ₴Ⱡ33₱ means you receive optimal rewards for your honest vote, all while protecting the network from malicious activity.
The Solar Mobile Wallet has entered the public testing phase, and let me just say that it is a much-welcomed addition to the Solar Network product lineup.
While I've not contributed directly to its development, I have personally spent a bit of time bug-hunting, sending transactions, and trying out the various features.
There's still a little ways to go before it's ready for a production release, but its current state is nonetheless impressive.
Hats off to Delegate leitesv for the outstanding work!
Visit 'Solar Mobile Wallet -- Open Testing on Android' to learn more.
₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate is currently testing an all-new TBW script on Solar's Testnet.
Created by Delegate cactus1549 , 'cactus-tbw' is an all-new Core plugin-based true block weight script offering new features that allow me to improve your voter experience.
I don't have a concrete date for rolling out 'cactus-tbw' on Mainnet ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate, but my voters should expect it sometime this month (November 2022).
Want to participate on Solar's Testnet but don't have tSXP? Stop by the #sl33p Discord channel and let me know!
Have you ever needed to estimate the Solar Network's blockheight at a specific date and time?!
I'm willing to bet your answer is, "Wait. Do what now?"
Yeah... So most people will have no use for a tool like this. Developers and Delegates, however, will likely prefer using Sundial over: approximate height ~= (current height + ((then - now) / 8)). A fairly straightforward calculation, but a tool to deal with Unix timestamps and such makes things a lot easier.
Sundial is still a work in progress. There are a lot of planned features but no timeline for completion as Solar dev is my primary focus atm.
It's also not an official Solar Network tool and is just something I've been working on as a side project while learning ReactJs.
Check out some of the current progress on Sundial https://replit.com/@sleepdefic1t/Sundial
You can also see my previous contribution Sunburn here: https://sunburn-sxp.vercel.app
I've learned a lot, made significant progress on important development tasks, actively participated in critical discussions, tested exciting new Solar products, and kept ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate's Mainnet and Testnet nodes and relays updated and running securely and effectively.
It was a productive October and there are lots of amazing things going on in and around the Solar Network that I can't wait to share with you all.
Thank you for supporting ₴Ⱡ33₱ Delegate and I'll see you around!
| Proposal: https://delegates.solar.org/delegates/sl33p
| Code: https://github.com/sleepdefic1t
| Discord: sleepdeficit#3333
| Twitter: @sleepdefic1t
| Email: sl33p.sxp@pm.me