As I am trying to make a more concerted effort to return to active blogging — and in support of the Proof of Brain Community — I have been posting the majority of my content from a version of Ecency that is currently serving as the "official" front end of that community.
Whereas I always preferred the original Hive-Engine "outpost" format because it did a really good job of delineating community content, I'm doing my best to make my way through Ecency and how it works.
In truth, I'm still not entirely sure how Ecency actually works.
I mean, I recognize that it works as a front end portal onto the Hive blockchain but beyond that I find myself having more questions than an actual urge to adopt it as my primary Hive interface.
For example, what appears to serve as the front end for the Proof of Brain community seems to be essentially Ecency with a little bit of POB livery and a unique URL added.
In a sense, it has a bit of that feel of "trying to be too many things at once." But... I just need to get familiar with it, perhaps. So... onwards.
Making Points...?
And then there are these "Ecency points."
What do you do with them? I understand that you can gift them to others, and you can "promote" your posts with them. And then there's this thing called *"Boost" which I'm not sure whether actually exists anymore, nor does it seem very clear what it does, and how it differs from "promoting."
Seems like Boosting is still a feature if you're looking at Ecency via the Proof of Brain site, but if you're looking at Ecency via the main Ecency site then boosting does not exist anymore. Or, at least, I can't find it.
Then I read somewhere that "boosting" no longer exists in its original format (essentially gets you an upvote from Ecency that you use your points to buy), and it has been replaced by something called "Boost+" which has to do with getting a delegation which you pay for with your points.
But I see no evidence anywhere that Boost+ actually exists so maybe that was just a rumor?
Which all brings me around to one of my important soapbox issues when it comes to web communities which is usability and user friendliness.
If it is not painfully obvious to 99% of users how your system works, you're not doing it right!
At this point I am reserving judgment as I continue to poke around on the site and try to learn how to do something other than just launch my posts, but I can't say that the site seems particularly intuitive. But I'm also totally open to the possibility that I'm missing something!
In the meantime, I am relieved that I have PeakD as my fallback option... it remains — at least to me — the most user-oriented and easy-to-use of Hive's many access points.
Thanks for coming to visit, and do leave a comment if you feel so inclined — and I'd be particularly interested in hearing from you if you're an "expert" on using Ecency!
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Posted with proof of brain